"Your Highness?"A voice from down the corridor shattered the moment."The wardrobe team is ready for you."
I stepped back, my pulse unsteady."Right.Wardrobe.Yes.Important."
Archie's eyes held mine for a beat longer than necessary."I'll see you tonight?"
"Unless someone sabotages the reception."
"Don't jinx it."
I walked away toward my fitting with the distinct feeling that every nerve in my body was standing at attention.
Worth it.
The wardrobe fitting took place in a sun-drenched room overlooking a courtyard of lemon trees.The scent of citrus drifted through the cracked windows, mixing with the smell of new fabric and the expensive perfumes of the designers who had assembled to dress me.
I stood on a small platform in my underwear while approximately seventeen thousand evening gowns were paraded before me, each one debated like a matter of national security.
"The emerald brings out her eyes," one designer argued, holding up a confection of green silk.
"But the sapphire says 'approachable ally,'" another countered.
"The burgundy suggests passion and commitment to the alliance."
"That's too aggressive for a trade reception."
I stood there, being discussed like a particularly complicated piece of furniture, and tried to find the humor in it.A month ago I'd been picking out my own clothes from a closet the size of a bathroom.Now I had a committee.
"What about that one?"I pointed to a midnight blue silk that had been pushed to the back of the rack, half-hidden behind a voluminous ball gown."I like the color."
"Excellent choice, Your Highness."Carmela pulled it out.The fabric caught the light, shifting between navy and something darker, like the Mediterranean at twilight."Simple, elegant, photographs beautifully.Perfect for tonight."
"Sold.Can I put on clothes now?"
The dress fit like it had been made for me, which it probably had been, at some point during the past week's flurry of emergency tailoring.The silk skimmed my curves, and the color made my skin glow in ways I hadn't known skin could glow.
"You look beautiful," Carmela said, and she sounded like she meant it.
"I look like a princess."
"You are a princess, Your Highness."
I stared at my reflection in the full-length mirror.The woman looking back at me was a stranger, polished, elegant, like she belonged in a palace instead of behind a coffee counter.It was disorienting in a way I couldn't fully name.Like wearing someone else's skin.
"Still getting used to that," I admitted.
I was watching the way the dress moved when Carmela went to check something in the next room.The sound I heard wasn't quite a gasp, more like all the air leaving someone's lungs at once.
"Carmela?"I gathered my skirts and hurried toward the doorway."What happened?"
She was standing frozen at the entrance to a small storage area where my other new formal pieces had been hanging.Her face had gone the color of old paper.
I looked past her and saw the destruction.
Every dress in the room had been slashed.Silk, satin, velvet, reduced to ribbons.Someone had taken scissors or a knife to my entire replacement wardrobe, cutting through each garment with deliberate, methodical strokes.The destruction wasn't random or frenzied.Each piece had been ruined beyond repair but left hanging in place, a message as much as an act of sabotage.
For a moment I just stood there, taking it in.The violated fabric.The precision of the cuts.The sheer malice required to do this.
Then the anger hit.
