Evangeline steps up next. When the targets fly, she throws out a fan of sharp, silver metal darts to take down each one in turn. No wonder she laughed at me for Protocol. While I’m in here learning how to eat properly, she’s training to kill.
“Enjoying the show, Lady Mareena?” a voice crows behind me. I turn around, my nerves tingling a bit. What I see doesn’t do anything to calm me.
Lady Blonos is a horrifying sight and it takes all of my manners to keep my jaw from dropping. Blood healer, able to heal herself. I understand now what that means.
She must be over fifty, older than my mother, but her skin is smooth and shockingly tight over her bones. Her hair is perfectly white, slicked back, and her eyebrows seem fixed in a constant state of shock, arched on her unwrinkled forehead. Everything about her is wrong, from her too-full lips to the sharp, unnatural slope of her nose. Only her deep gray eyes look alive. The rest, I realize, is fake. Somehow she was able to heal or change herself into this monstrous thing in an attempt to look younger, prettier, better.
“Sorry,” I finally manage, “I came in and you weren’t—”
“I observed,” she clips, already hating me. “You stand like a tree in a storm.”
She seizes my shoulders and pulls them back, forcing me to stand up straight. “My name is Bess Blonos and I’m going to attempt to make you a lady. You’re going to be a princess one day and we can’t have you acting like a savage, can we?”
Savage. For a brief, shining moment, I think about spitting in silly Lady Blonos’s face. But what would that cost me? What would that accomplish? And it would only prove her right. Worst of all, I realize I need her. Her training will keep me from slipping and, most importantly, keep me alive.
“No,” a hollow shell of my voice answers. “We can’t have that.”
Exactly three and a half hours later, Blonos releases me from her clutches and back into Lucas’s care. My back aches from the posture lessons about how to sit, stand, walk, and even sleep (on your back, arms at your sides, always still), but it’s nothing compared to the mental exercise she put me through. She drilled the rules of court into my head, filling me with names, protocols, and etiquette. In the last few hours I received a crash course in anything and everything I’m supposed to know. The hierarchy among the High Houses is slowly coming into focus, but I’m sure I’ll mess up something anyways. We only scratched the surface of Protocol, but now I can go to the queen’s stupid function with at least some idea of how to act.
The Glass Terrace is relatively close by, only a floor down and a hallway over, so I don’t get much time to collect myself before facing Elara and Evangeline again. This time, when I step through the doorway, I’m greeted by invigorating fresh air. I’m outside for the first time since I became Mareena, but now, with the wind in my lungs and the sun on my face, I feel more like Mare again. If I close my eyes, I can pretend none of this ever happened. But it did.
The Glass Terrace is as ornate as Blonos’s classroom was bare, and lives up to its name. A glass canopy, supported by clear, artfully cut columns, stretches over us, refracting the sun into a million dancing colors to match the women milling about. It’s beautiful in an artificial way, like everything else in this Silver world.
Before I have a chance to take a breath, a pair of girls steps in front of me. Their smiles are fake and cold, just like their eyes. Judging by the colors of their gowns (dark blue and red on one, solid black on the other), they belong to House Iral and House Haven. Silks and shadows, I remember, thinking back to Blonos’s lessons on abilities.
“Lady Mareena,” they say in unison, bowing stiffly. I do the same, inclining my head the way Lady Blonos showed me.
“I’m Sonya of House Iral,” the first says, tossing her head proudly. Her movements are lithe and catlike. Silks are quick and quiet, perfectly balanced and agile.
“And I’m Elane of House Haven,” the other adds, her voice barely a whisper. While the Iral girl is dark, with deeply tanned skin and black hair, Elane is pale, with glossy red locks. The dancing sunlight speckles her skin in a perfect halo, making her look flawless. Shadow, bender of light. “We wanted to welcome you.”
But their pointed smiles and narrowed eyes don’t look welcoming at all.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.” I clear my throat, trying to sound normal, and the girls don’t miss the action, exchanging glances. “You also participated in Queenstrial?” I say quickly, hoping to distract them from my terrible social graces.
This only seems to incense them. Sonya crosses her arms, showing sharp nails the color of iron. “We did. Obviously we were not so lucky as you or Evangeline.”