“Should you choose not to agree to these rules,” she concludes, “you are welcome to join the season as usual.”
The queen gestures lazily with her ring-encrusted left hand, and a footman steps forward with a scroll the size of his torso under his arm. Another footman comes from the right and sets up a delicate little table on which to unfurl it. A third places a quill, a silver dagger, and an empty crystal inkwell on the corner of the table.
“Any girl who wishes to be considered may sign the contract now. You have ten minutes to make up your minds, then we’ll get back to the business at hand. You will all still get your bargains.”
The queen sits down and casts a sidelong glance at Bram, whose face is unreadable, but his eyes—I swear they keep landing on me.
The room fills with voices, mothers and daughters discussing strategy. In this war we’ve been raised for, this is the ultimate battle.
I turn to my mother. She looks younger than her forty-nine years, clear blue eyes and blond hair barely run through with streaks of white. I want to give her a hug, tell her everything is going to be well. In so many ways, I feel like I’m the parent in our relationship, always reassuring her, playacting that everything is going to be all right. She opens her mouth to speak, but my mind is already made up.
I had a plan for today. I’ve played it out a million times over in my head. I wasn’t prepared for this, but still, I know what I must do.
I take a step forward.
“Ivy!” my mother calls after me. “Darling, consider this, please!”
But I have. By presenting myself as a suitor, I will have to be invited to this season’s events. I could get my family back in society’s good graces, my mother could rejoin her friends, my father could meet again with business associates, save the house, and maybe Lydia would stop being so sad.
I think back to my six-year-old self, leaving her necklace at the base of the gnarled ironwood tree. I remember my face pressed to the glass and the shadow I swore I saw walking through the woods. I dreamed about that figure for years. In my head he was a prince, come to rescue me from the monotony of my life. That voice in the back of my head is the quietest as it whispers the wish I made that night—a child’s wish:Maybe if you’re special enough, one of Them will love you.
“It’s going to be all right,” I whisper to my mother. Maybe I’m lying. Maybe it won’t be. But this is the first opportunity I’ve had to piece even the tiniest shards of our lives back together, and I’m not going to waste it.
A hush falls as I break from the crowd and approach the table.
The queen peers down at me from her throne. “You wish to be considered?”
I see myself as if through a spyglass, peering through time, struck with the knowledge that my future self will look back on this moment and see my life split intobeforeandafter.
I square my shoulders. “I present myself as a suitor for the prince.”
“Very well.” She gestures to a footman, who picks up the silver dagger in his white-gloved hand and passes it to me.
The handle is cold between my fingers.
“You’ll sign the contract now.” She pauses, sizing me up.
I look down at the empty inkwell and—oh.
Maybe it would be better to feign horror, to look weak and girlish in front of the prince. But I just want to get it over with.
I pull the crystal inkwell toward me.
Then I raise the dagger and slash through the center of my palm. I squeeze my eyes shut and wince as the blade pierces skin.
My heartbeat rushes into my ears. My nerves are so ragged I don’t feel anything at first.
Beads of blood swell, but I haven’t gone quite deep enough. I cut again, slower, with more pressure this time.
The sink of the knife into flesh is sickening, but I don’t look down. I only stop when I feel the warm rush of liquid. I pull the inkwell to the base of my wrist and let the blood flow into it.
Once it’s full enough to dip the pen into, I set it down. I should raise my hand to slow the blood flow, but I don’t want to stain my dress, so I place my bleeding hand palm down on the shiny mahogany table instead.
Then I dip the quill into my own blood and lower it to the parchment. The room is silent. All I hear is the sound of the scratching of the quill and my own ragged breathing. In crimson red, I scrawl:
Ivy Elizabeth Benton
I look up at the queen.
