This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(90)

The long day was far from over, but even in the face of its many difficulties, Alizeh was hopeful. After a thorough scrub at the hamam she felt quite new, and was buoyed by the realization that her body would not be battered again so quickly by interminable hours of hard labor. Still, it was hard to be truly enthusiastic about the reprieve, for Alizeh knew that if things went poorly this evening, she’d be hard-pressed to find such a position again.

She shifted her weight; tried to calm her nerves.

Just last evening Follad Place had seemed to her terribly imposing, but in the dying light of day it was even more striking. Alizeh hadn’t noticed before just how robust the surrounding gardens were, nor how beautifully tended, and she wished she hadn’t cause at all to notice such details now.

Alizeh did not want to be here.

She’d been avoiding as long as possible this last, inevitable task for the day, having arrived at Follad Place only to return Miss Huda’s unfinished gown, and to accept with grace the lambasting and condemnation she’d no doubt receive in exchange. It was perhaps a minimization of the truth to say that she was not looking forward to the experience.

Already Alizeh had knocked at the door, after which she’d been greeted by Mrs. Sana, who, miraculously, had not dismissed outright the brazen snoda requesting an audience with a young lady of the house. She had, however, demanded to know the nature of the visit, to which Alizeh demurred, saying only that she needed to speak with Miss Huda directly. The housekeeper stared a beat too long at the beautiful garment box in Alizeh’s arms and doubtless drew her own more satisfactory explanation for the girl’s visit, one that Alizeh made no effort to deny.

Now Alizeh waited anxiously for Miss Huda, who was due to receive her at any possible moment. Despite the blistering cold, Alizeh had been prepared to wait for some time in the case that the young miss had been out for the day, but here, too, Alizeh had encountered a stroke of unexpected luck. In fact, despite the recent challenges she’d lately faced—nearly being murdered, losing her position, and becoming suddenly homeless among them—she felt herself to be the unlikely recipient of a great deal of good fortune, too. Alizeh had uncovered in the process a fairly solid case for optimism, her two most compelling reasons thus:

First, her neck and hands were healed, which was in and of itself a cause for celebration, for not only was it a relief to be rid of the collar around her throat and to have full use of her fingers once more, but the linen bandages had grown itchy and were made easily dirty, which had bothered her more than was reasonable. Second, Hazan had left her a breathtaking gown to wear to the ball tonight, which would not only spare her the time and possible cost of fashioning such a complicated article in a short time, but it spared her the need to find a safe space to work. This was not even mentioning the fact that the gown was somehow imbued with magic—magic that claimed it would conceal her identity from any who wished her ill.

This was perhaps the greatest good fortune of all.

Alizeh, who knew she could not wear her snoda to the royal ball, had decided simply to keep her eyes lowered for the length of the evening, looking up only when essential. This alternate solution was eminently preferable.

Still, she was wary, for Alizeh knew the gown to be of a shockingly rare stock. Even the royals of Ardunia did not wear magical garments, not unless they were on the battlefield—and even then there were limits to the protections such clothing might provide, for there existed no magic strong enough to repel Death. What’s more, only an exceedingly complicated technique could provide such personalized protection to a wearer of a garment, and this complexity could be conducted only by an experienced Diviner—of which there were few.

Magic, Alizeh had long known, was mined much like any mineral: directly from the earth. She was not entirely certain wherefrom the empire excavated their precious commodities, for not only was it done in relative secrecy, but theirs was different from the magic Alizeh required from the Arya mountains. That which belonged to her ancestors was of a rarer strain, and though many Clay efforts had been made over millennia, the arcane material had proven impossible to quarry.

Still, all genus of Ardunian magic existed only in small, exhaustible quantities, and were not meant to be manipulated by the uninitiated, for they killed easily any who mishandled the volatile substances. The Diviner population was as a result quite small; Ardunian children were taught little about magic unless they showed a sincere interest in divining, and only a select few were chosen each year to study the subject.

Alizeh could not, as a result, imagine how Hazan was able to procure such rare items on her behalf. First the nosta, and now the dress?

She took another deep breath, exhaling into the cold. The sun was shattering across the horizon, fragmenting color across the hills, taking with it what little warmth was left in the sky.

Alizeh had been waiting at least thirty minutes now, standing outside in a thin jacket and damp hair. With no hat or scarf to cover her frozen curls, she stamped her feet, frowning at the fracturing sun, worrying over the minutes that remained of daylight.

The ground underfoot was thick with decaying purple leaves, all of which had fallen—recently, it seemed—from the small forest of trees surrounding the magnificent home. The newly bare, ghostly branches arced tremulously toward one another, curling inward not unlike the crooked legs of a many-legged spider, intent on devouring its prey.

It was just then, as Alizeh had conjured this disturbing image in her mind, that the heavy wooden door was wrenched open with a groan, revealing the harried face and hassled form of Miss Huda herself.