Chapter thirty two: Dagger and dance i
The manor hadn't been quiet since Lady Seraphine's visit.
There was movement now—measured, precise. Elira noticed it in the tightening of the staff's routines, the hushed way the maids flitted through the halls, the sudden appearance of fresh flowers at the landings. Not that their scent helped. The air still felt weighed down—like the hush before a storm.
No one told her anything.
Not Lucien. Not even Alaric, who had resumed his usual smirking distance, his answers now bordering on evasive. If she asked a question, he gave a half-truth. If she pressed, he changed the subject.
It wasn't until a soft knock came on her chamber door that she learned anything at all.
"Elira?" a voice called gently. It belonged to Mara—the quiet maid with the long braid and the downcast eyes. "Lord Alaric requests you in the fitting room."
Elira blinked. "The… what?"
"The tailor's arrived."
Tailor.
Her stomach dipped. "Why?"
Mara hesitated. "You're to be fitted for formal attire. For the gathering."
Gathering.
The word dropped like a stone in her gut.
Lucien hadn't said a word.
Yet somehow, the staff knew. They had known the moment Lady Seraphine stepped through the front doors in her blood-colored velvet. They had likely begun preparing the moment her carriage vanished down the tree-lined path.
And Elira, as ever, was the last to know.
She nodded without answering and followed Mara silently down the winding halls, her thoughts loud with questions she couldn't voice.
The fitting room was tucked beside the east wing—a chamber of polished floors, gilded mirrors, and racks of darkly jeweled gowns she'd never seen before. A tall man in a waistcoat stood beside Alaric, hands fluttering dramatically as he gestured to bolts of fabric draped across a lounge.
"There she is," the tailor said smoothly when she entered. "The manor's reluctant jewel."
Elira narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
The tailor swept into a bow. "Mademoiselle, we must begin quickly. The silhouette must complement Lord Vaelric's ensemble. The ball is mere days away."
The words slid around her like a cold draft.
She didn't argue. Not here. Not with Alaric watching like a cat before a mousehole.
Instead, she stood still as the tailor's hands measured her waist, murmuring about silks and cuts and court fashion trends. She listened to none of it. Her thoughts were on Lucien—on the fact that he had ordered this without a word. That he had known she would go, and chosen silence.
The gown they chose was a pale, iridescent shade. Not white. Not silver. Something in between, like the surface of a frozen lake under moonlight. Soft enough to appear delicate. Cold enough to feel distant.
Fitting.
When it was done, she returned to her chambers.
She didn't cry.
She sat by the fire with Calen's locket pressed to her chest, watching the flames move like dancers in mourning. The warmth no longer reached her.
Two days passed in hushed, watchful quiet.
The manor itself remained largely unchanged. No banners were hung, no silver polished beyond the ordinary. There was no flurry of festivities or scents of sweet wines drifting from the kitchens. After all, the ball was not to be held here.
But something else filled the air now—a kind of invisible current.
Like the stillness before a snowfall.Like the silence before a name is called aloud in a room full of strangers.
On the night of the ball, her chamber door opened once more—this time to reveal Mirelle.
The woman entered without a word, her arms full of items wrapped in silk and gauze. She moved with the graceful efficiency of someone who'd done this for decades, who had seen generations of noble girls dressed for slaughter under the glittering guise of social duty.
"It's time," Mirelle said simply, setting the bundles upon the dressing divan.
Elira stood from the edge of her bed, the floor cold beneath her bare feet.
They began with her hair.
Mirelle's fingers worked in silence, pulling through each strand with a fine-toothed comb of polished bone. Elira stared at her reflection as it slowly changed before her. A portion of her hair was coiled upward into a crown of soft twists—delicate, precise. The rest was left to fall in pale waves down her back, a quiet contrast to the severity of the updo. Silver thread was braided through the twists like moonlight caught in lace, and a thin line of mother-of-pearl pins shimmered like frost at her temple.
When it was done, Mirelle stepped back and nodded.
Then came the gown.
The tailor's creation was laid out like a spell across the bed.
It was not white.
It was a soft, iridescent grey-blue—like the last color of the sky before night claims it, or the sheen of morning frost clinging to stone. The bodice hugged her lightly, boned with whisper-thin whalebone and covered in sheer silk netting embroidered with thousands of silvered seed pearls. The sleeves were off-the-shoulder, the translucent fabric gathered at the upper arms in quiet folds, leaving her collarbones bare.
A cluster of pale lilies—stitched in silver thread—rested just beneath her heart, as though blooming from beneath the fabric.
The skirt flared out subtly, not wide like a debutante's, but graceful—floating around her like mist as she moved. The hem shimmered with an almost spectral sheen, and when she walked, it whispered softly over the floor.
It was haunting. Beautiful.
Elira stared at herself in the mirror and barely recognized the girl in the glass. Her eyes seemed too wide. Her lips too still. The collar around her throat—elegantly disguised beneath a faint chain of diamonds—felt heavier than ever.
There was a knock.
Mirelle turned first.
It was Alaric.
He stepped inside but kept to the threshold, offering Elira a small nod. "He's waiting."
Just that. No smile. No mockery.
Elira stood.
Mirelle adjusted one last pin at her shoulder. "Hold your head high," she said softly. "You are not prey."
She nodded, unable to speak past the tightness in her chest.
The halls were quiet as she descended the staircase, the hem of her gown trailing like mist behind her.
At the bottom stood Lucien.
He was dressed in deep black, simple but finely cut. The edges of his coat were embroidered in the faintest silver thread, forming quiet runes that vanished when one tried to look directly at them. His dark hair had been brushed back, exposing the pale cut of his jaw and the shadowed sharpness of his eyes.
He looked at her.
And said nothing.
But he offered his hand.
She hesitated—just a moment—then took it.
His fingers were cool against hers. Steady.
And without a word, he led her out into the night.