Chapter 7: The Fitting

The fitting was in the front parlor, and I was the only guest in a bathrobe.

Eight court ladies sat around the room on the Pruetts' old horsehair sofas.

Odile stood on a footstool in the middle of them in a white gown.

It was beautiful.

It had a long train and a veil of black lace, which was the Abyss style, and the lace was stitched with silver thread.

"Linnet!" Odile said, and her whole face lit up. "You came. Come here, please, I want you near."

"I'm not dressed for this."

"Nobody is, I promise." She patted the empty chair beside the footstool. "The seamstress is late, and I don't have a single friend in this room."

That was the first thing she'd said all day that I believed.

I sat.

The ladies went on talking over my head.

"Four hundred years," one said, "and the Prince will be married at a lake in the mortal lands."

"By the light of a farm porch," said another.

"With the traitor in the front row."

"Do you think she'll cry?"

"She doesn't have the water for it. Look at her."

I looked at my knees.

Odile's hand found mine and squeezed it, and she gave the ladies a small, reproachful look.

"Please," she said. "Be nice. She's a guest."

It worked, for about a minute.

Then the door opened, and the seamstress came in with the last of the lace and a basket of pins.

"The veil needs two to hold it while I fit the train," she said. "Who'll stand at the back?"

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