“Oh,” said Demelza. “So I was last?”
Ursula nodded. “I went second, so I got to watch everyone else’s performance.”
“What did… you do for the trial?” asked Demelza.
“Well, at first I tried to cook the darkness, but I couldn’t figure out how so then I just wrestled it down until I got it to about the size of a biscuit,” said Ursula.
“I put stars upon it!” said Edmea. “I made it a beautiful night sky sprinkled with constellations.”
“It was very pretty,” said Talvi.
“Pretty useless,” muttered Ursula. “When she was finished, it hadn’t changed. It just sparkled.”
“And the others?” asked Demelza.
“I think Cordelia managed to lure it into a pool of water and then from there she forced it into a bottle,” said Talvi. “Zoraya managed to comb it, somehow, which was successful until the dark decided that it liked the experience so much that it became big enough to wrap around the entirety of the arena, so that was, well, a failure.”
“And you?” asked Demelza.
“Oh!” said Talvi, smiling a little. “I tried to use it as ink,which might have been more impressive if I could’ve figured out what to write with it, but you know me… the blank page is my enemy.”
“The dark got impatient and exploded,” said Ursula. “But it was a very clever plan while it lasted, Talvi.”
“Thanks,” said Talvi.
Demelza thought she would have been more upset, but if anything Talvi looked relieved. At that moment, Plum zoomed back carrying a goblet.
“There you are!” said Plum. “Wouldn’t want you to be thirsty before your own engagement ball!”
Demelza was certain she had misheard the sprite. “My what?”
“The ball is in your honor, my lady! I mean, Your Highness? Your almost highness?” Plum wondered aloud before humming and zipping off in search of dress silks.
“Oh dear, she looks very confused…” said Talvi. “Do you need to sit, Demelza?”
In the distance, Demelza could hear Edmea gloating: “It is true, I taught the future queen everything about decorum! In fact, I have been asked to make her wedding gown!”
Ursula waved her hand in front of Demelza’s face.
“Friend, if it wasn’t clear enough already… you won.”
Demelza hardly registered the whirl of activity surrounding her. At every second, she was being poked or prodded, trussed up and fawned over by attendants she had never met who went on and on about how they had known fromthe very beginning how “special” she was and “wouldn’t she remember their names?” Any other day and Demelza would have lapped up the spotlight, reveling in how it felt to be the victor…
Instead, she felt like a piece of cake being both fought over and decorated in the same breath. She was liable to be eaten alive and swallowed whole. It was not a feeling to relish.
“There,” said Edmea, spinning Demelza to face the mirror.
Edmea batted away several attendants who had flown past with bits of ribbons and strings of pearls, shimmering silks and satins so lustrous it nearly seared the eyes. It was Edmea who had dressed her for the occasion, and once Demelza had caught her breath from being spun around for the hundredth time, she nearly gasped.
Edmea had draped her in a luxurious purple gown with billowing violet sleeves that brushed the ground. The neckline was both daring and delicate, swooping below her collarbone, though her skin was covered in a bejeweled netting that climbed up her throat. Her hair had been brushed out and strung with amethysts. She looked like royalty…
And she almost felt like it too.
“You know, I think I’ve found my calling in life, which is to bring out the queen in everyone,” said Edmea as she happily fluffed the train of Demelza’s dress. “I mean, look at you! You are my greatest piece of work. And I think I might actually miss your company when I return to the Vale…but you’ll call on me, won’t you? You can’t trust anyone else with your wardrobe.”
Edmea’s gaze was haughty and flinty as always, but Demelza caught a softness there. A wide-eyed trepidation that Demelza understood exquisitely well. She didn’t know what her tomorrows held… whether this whole business about becoming a queen was real or a bizarre wrinkle of the surreal intruding upon her life. But she knew that Edmea, somehow, had become her friend.
“Of course,” said Demelza.
