of course, is not quite a dragon. I reminded myself of that as I lay in my bed that morning, waiting for Gladys’s knock. The sun was rising and the sky flushed a vigorous pink, but I knew there’d be no sleep for me for some while.
I had lost my human body, even if it had been for only a few short minutes. I had Become something less than corporeal. I had defied all logic and all proper sanity, and I’d had a witness.
I wasn’t mad. But I wasn’t quite a dragon yet, either. I felt itchy and odd. Like the twilight, I was now a thing between worlds, and I felt … incomplete.
Before we’d left the grotto, Jesse said that maybe the pain of my transformation wasn’t supposed to be with smoke. That maybe it was going to be when I shifted into a more monstrous shape.
He hadn’t actually said monstrous. I thought it fairly implied.
I squirmed against my sheets, imagining wing bones digging into my back. I held up my hands and spread my fingers before my face. I squinted at them, turning them this way and that in the rosy light, then bent my fingers into claws.
For a second—no more than that—I could have sworn there was an impression of scales along my wrists, ridged and perfect. Then I looked closer, and all I saw were wrists.
A shadow zipped by the window, too swift to follow. Then another, and another. I got up, stuck my head beyond the sill.
The flock of gannets shot like bullets past my tower, flying hard and fast away from me toward the sea, into the rising pink sun.
I heard the hiss of the air sluiced from their wings. I smelled the fish-feather muck of their scent.
The itching inside me crept nearer to the surface of my skin.
• • •
To the tenth- and eleventh-year girls’ open dismay, the duke’s party was considered a scholastic function. Therefore, we would all wear our formal Iverson uniforms, which looked nearly exactly like our everyday uniforms but for a frothing of lace along the shirtwaists and skirts of satin damask instead of broadcloth.
I wanted to inquire what scholastic function, precisely, attending a birthday party fulfilled but knew better than that. Mrs. Westcliffe had made it clear that I was expected to attend, so whatever punishment she might devise, it wouldn’t include getting to stay behind.
I shall not ask intelligent questions.
x 1,000.
We all waited in the parlor for the duke’s automobiles—how many did he have, anyway?—to show up and ferry us in excellent style to the celebration. Mrs. Westcliffe and Miss Swanston were to be our dutiful shepherds, and they waited with us, standing in the middle of the room with crossed arms and jewelry spangling their persons. Even Miss Swanston, it seemed, had the means for a pearl choker. A gaggle of younger girls clustered about the doorway, shoving at one another for the best spot from which to eye us with envy.
I sat in my horsehair chair, gazing at my knees, thinking about smoke and sacrifices and how Mrs. Westcliffe’s garnet earbobs thrummed to a beat that resembled a Sousa march, which seemed exquisitely appropriate.
I’d never before worn anything made of satin. I was fairly certain I’d never even touched it.
The skirt was aubergine and textured with poppies. The poppies felt nubby against my palms; the rest of the material was smooth smooth smooth. Beneath my outward elegance, my plain cotton chemise and corset chafed at my skin, and it seemed like something of a cheat.
I’d heard of nobs with satin sheets on their beds. I’d heard of street girls who saved up for months for satin petticoats. And now one entire half of me was wrapped in this thick, slippery cloth, and all I could think was, How could anyone sleep in this?
“Good gad, it’s absolutely sweltering in here,” groused Malinda, but softly, because we weren’t allowed to say gad. I’d noticed that when she was particularly peevish, her voice took on a singsong edge. “Must we have all the lamps burning?”
“The better to see ourselves by, my dear,” murmured Sophia, scrutinizing her face in one of the mirrors. Her earbobs were of diamonds. She looked stunning, and she knew it.
Lillian was fanning herself with one hand. “I feel as if I might melt. How is my hair? Is it positively limp? It is, isn’t it? It is. I can tell.”
Caroline shouldered up next to Sophia in the mirror, pouting. “At least your complexion holds