Chapter 15: Dress for the Council

Rosalind's POV

I bought the dress myself, at four in the afternoon, in the only clothing shop on Harbor Street.

Four days were left until the full moon.

I would not walk into that hall wearing a thing Darian had paid for.

The woman at the counter knew my face.

Everyone in Port Harrow knew my face by then, from the phone videos.

"We're closing early," she said.

"The sign says six."

"The sign is wrong." She wouldn't look at me. "I had a call this morning from a Crowhurst steward. He said it would be kind not to serve you."

I put my museum paycheck card on the glass.

"Kind to whom?"

She didn't answer.

A bell rang over the door behind me.

The old woman who had clutched her throat at my birthday came in out of the late sun.

She wore her pale suit and her wide hat, and she leaned on a cane.

"Take her money," she said to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper went red.

"Ma'am, the steward said..."

"The steward works for a family that is about to lose its seat." The old woman tapped her cane on the floor.

"I have been alive two hundred years, and I never saw a bride do what that girl did with a cake."

"Take her money and find her something black."

The shopkeeper took the card.

I looked at the old woman, and she looked back at me, and she did not smile.

"Your father owes my grandson a boat," she said. "I don't mind. I only wanted to see your face when I said it."

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't thank me." She turned to go. "I would like to watch you win. It will be the best thing I see this century."

The dress was plain black wool, long in the sleeve, with a high neck and a plain waist.

It cost three weeks of my pay.

I paid it, and it felt wonderful.

Darian was waiting in the car at the curb with the blinds down, because the sun was still above the roofs.

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