Sabine watched more closely than the others did.
Ease can be genuine. It can also be rehearsed so often it hardens into reflex. Yselle’s was too polished to trust.
When the inventories ended, each bride was given three things in turn: a room key, a printed rules sheet edged in temple gold, and an assigned attendant’s name. The rules were read aloud by Halvine in the same tone one might use for dinner courses.
“No movement beyond the bride wing without escort. No unscheduled visits between chambers after second bell. No retained blades, pins, or seal tools. No private correspondence unreviewed. Candles extinguished by house staff only. Summons answered at once. Tokens worn at all times.”
Sabine took her key.
“Second floor east gallery,” said the attendant beside Halvine. “Chamber twelve. Your assigned support is Linet.”
Tavi was placed two doors down. Brinna on the same level, farther along the inner hall. Yselle, unsurprisingly, at the center suite nearest the withdrawing room.
The placements had been considered before the names were spoken. Sabine could feel that much.
An attendant named Linet led her upstairs through another corridor of mirrors and muted carpets to Chamber Twelve.
The room was lovely in the worst possible way.
A narrow sitting area before the fire. A bed with white hangings. Silver-backed brushes laid in exact order on the dressing table. A washstand already prepared. Thick curtainsover high windows that looked not onto any view of freedom, but into an inner court too deep for anyone below to read much above. A writing desk with no lock. A wardrobe with enough space for someone else’s choices. Fresh flowers again, white and scentless.
Every object belonged to the palace first and the woman occupying it not at all.
Linet crossed to the wardrobe and opened it. “Your travel things will be brushed and arranged. Supper dress will be required within the hour. You may ring if you need assistance.”
Sabine set her case on the desk. “May I leave the room before supper.”
“Not without direction.”
“May I receive private notes.”
“They will be reviewed.”
“May I bolt the door.”
Linet hesitated, then answered with the care of someone who had been trained to keep honesty decorous. “Bride chambers are secure.”
Which was not yes.
Sabine let the matter drop. For now.
Once Linet had gone, she opened the document case and slid her fingers beneath the inner lining until they found the notebook’s edge still hidden there.
Good.
She left it in place.
The wash water had gone from warm to merely tolerable by the time she removed the road from her face and hands. She changed into one of her darker evening gowns, plain beside what some of the others would choose, but cut with enough severity to read as intention rather than lack. She repinned her hair. The token remained visible. No amount of dressing altered what it marked.
A gong sounded softly through the wing.
Not hospitality. Assembly.
The communal supper room stood on the first floor beyond a mirrored withdrawing chamber where brides gathered in small constellations before the attendants opened the doors. Sabine entered to find the first alignments already forming.
House Vale beside House Deren. Two river daughters together. Brinna alone near a side table, fingers pressed around a handkerchief she pretended not to need. Tavi by the windows with a goblet in hand and the posture of a woman trying not to look as though she would prefer a horse line to a salon. Yselle near the center, of course, receiving introductions as if the room had been built to improve her.
Attendants announced no formal precedence, but the table inside had one anyway.
