The private atelier of Madame Celeste—the most exclusive modiste in the High Noble District—was lit by pale enchanted crystals that cast no shadows.
Seraphina stood on a velvet-covered pedestal, her arms extended outward as three seamstresses knelt at her feet, pinning layers of stiffened cloth around her waist.
In the floor-to-ceiling gilded mirrors, her reflection looked less like a noble debutante preparing for a royal festival and more like an empress donning battle plate.
“A daring choice, Lady Seraphina,” Madame Celeste said, circling the pedestal with a silver measuring tape draped across her shoulders.
“Crimson is the traditional shade for House Ashbourne at the Solstice Banquet. It conveys… fire. Passion.”
“Crimson is what Prince Adrian expects,” Seraphina replied, her voice cool and unhurried.
“He expects fire so he can play the noble sun that puts it out. We will not indulge him.”
“Then midnight obsidian it shall be,” Celeste said, signaling the head seamstress.
The fabric hanging from Seraphina’s shoulders was woven from moon-silk and raw black velvet, drinking in the ambient light like a bottomless well.
But beneath the exterior drape, sewn between the layers of stiffened horsehair canvas, lay a dense, microscopic lattice of tempered dwarf-silver wire.
It was flexible enough to move like water, yet thick enough to blunt a concealed stiletto or deflect jagged shards of flying glass.
If Rule 3 turns the banquet hall into a slaughterhouse, Seraphina thought, watching the needle flash in the mirror, I will not be caught in fragile silk.
The chime above the atelier’s double doors rang softly.
Julie, her personal maid, slipped into the dressing room, bowing low before holding out a silver salver.
On the tray rested a fresh trade report sealed with the private wax stamp of Master Balthazar.
“From the lower warehouses, My Lady,” Julie murmured, her voice trembling slightly as she kept her gaze fixed strictly on the floor.
Seraphina took the letter, breaking the wax with one hand while the tailors continued their work.
To Lady Seraphina,
Every crate of burn salve and refined moon-lily essence is now secured in our subterranean vaults beneath District Four.
However, our informants at the Grand Imperial Foundry report that House Ravenshade has signed emergency supply contracts for ninety tons of tempered iron plate and sixty crates of siege-grade fire crystals.
The shipments are clearing the northern gates under military escort tonight.
— B.
Seraphina folded the parchment into a tight square, slipping it into the pocket of her dressing coat.
Ninety tons of iron plate and siege crystals.
A dark, dry chuckle nearly escaped her lips.
While she was building an underground hospital network to treat the victims of Fate’s recoil, Lucien was fortifying a fortress to withstand an artillery barrage.
Neither of them was trying to play the delicate aristocrat anymore.
They were two condemned prisoners quietly hoarding weapons and bandages on opposite sides of the cell block.
“Madame Celeste,” Seraphina said, looking down at the modiste.
“Yes, My Lady?”
“Ensure the silver mesh lines the collar and ribs,” Seraphina instructed, tapping her left collarbone.
“And have the cloak lined with northern wolf fur. Dyed black.”
Madame Celeste blinked, surprised.
“Wolf fur? For a southern ducal house? The court might view that as an alignment with the northern lords—”
“Let them view it however they please,” Seraphina said, stepping down from the pedestal as the seamstresses finished their last pins.
“House Ashbourne answers to no one’s fashion.”
She changed back into her carriage gown and walked out into the private courtyard where Captain Vane stood waiting beside the Ashbourne coach. Find the original chapter at g.com.
The autumn sky was turning the color of bruised iron.
A cold wind blew through the capital, carrying the sharp scent of smoke from the royal pyrotechnic grounds near the Solstice Plaza.
“Vane,” Seraphina said as the captain opened the carriage door.
“My Lady?”
“The Solstice Banquet begins tomorrow at the seventh bell,” she said, pausing on the carriage step to look back at the distant imperial spires.
“Have twenty of our household guards stationed in plainclothes around the palace perimeter plazas. Keep them within five minutes’ sprint of the main hall.”
Vane frowned slightly, his hand resting on his sword belt.
“Do you anticipate an armed uprising, Lady Seraphina?”
“I anticipate an accident, Captain,” she answered, her violet eyes glinting with cold certainty in the fading daylight.
“And when the ceiling falls, I want our men holding the doors.”
She stepped into the carriage, the heavy door closing with a definitive thud.
The preparatory moves were finished.
The medicine was locked in the vaults.
The iron was marching north.
The silver armor was sewn into the black velvet.
Tomorrow, the script of The Crown’s Absolute Grace would demand her blood once more.
And tomorrow, Lady Seraphina Ashbourne would hand the world an empty glass.