The brush stilled on Elliot’s lips. Persis turned away to the table, to find a blotter. “You think I’m stupid?”
“No. I don’t.” She’d seen Persis, her flashes of seriousness, her eagerness to help Elliot and Kai when they worried their friends had gone missing. She’d seen her go head-to-head with the black-clad revolutionary when Andromeda and Ro returned. Persis had acted like she hadn’t a care in the world, but every word was carefully crafted for maximum impact. “But I see you pretend to be, and I don’t know why. If you’re the heir to this estate, wouldn’t it be best to try to gain the respect of the people here?”
Persis shrugged. “Not really. I won’t have any power once I’m married, so it’s better not to spend my life regretting what was once mine.”
What an odd way of doing things they had on this island. Who cared if the heir was a boy or a girl? Still, Elliot knew something about managing without official power. “I ran my estate for years without any power at all. My father was supposed to be the one in charge, though you wouldn’t know it from the inside.”
“How nice for you, Chancellor. And yet, you gave it all up for a man, too, didn’t you?” There was a sharp edge to Persis’s pleasantness this time, and Elliot was taken aback. But she was no longer the frightened child living under her father’s thumb. She was a Luddite lord and a Cloud Fleet explorer, and she knew that the paint and the clothes and the hair were more than fashion for Persis Blake. They were armor.
“See what I mean?” Elliot said. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be cross.”
“I’m cross,” Persis drawled, as if it was a word from a foreign language, “because you’re calling my life choices into question. In my house. While I dress you in clothes I bought for you. Now, hold still while I do your eyes.”
Elliot sighed and closed her eyes while Persis began to paint them with gold. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not being a very good guest. It’s just—where I’m from, a mind is a precious commodity. Our most precious commodity. One would never have one but pretend otherwise.”
“You are saying I’m acting Reduced?”
“I’m saying when human intelligence is all that’s keeping the world alive, we should use every bit we’ve got.” Elliot blinked her eyes open. Persis was staring at her very seriously.
“Where I’m from,” the beautiful aristo said, “a mind is precious but temporary. In Galatea, they destroy them as a means of punishment. And everywhere, there are those who will lose theirs in time, and there is no way to prevent it. I may be one of those, Elliot. I just may.”
JUSTEN ENDED UP BEING almost physically dragged from his desk by two Scintillans servants who cared a tad too much about how the estate presented itself at a party they weren’t even attending. He was bathed in perfumed water, shaved, styled, and arrayed in a pair of silk slacks and a dark blue long silk jacket with a mandarin collar. After it was all over, Justen stood before the mirror in his bedroom and admitted that Persis may actually have the marked talent for clothes she always claimed. The material was not quite as dark as his usual revolutionary black, but the richness of the blue didn’t look alien on him, either. The lines of the suit were simple and snug, and the design lacked all the nonsensical embellishments favored by the men of the Albian court. The material was subtly shot through with a shimmery golden thread, and the jacket buttoned up the front with a row of round star sapphires.
He probably could have done without the star sapphires.
That being said, the party was the perfect opportunity. He’d see Isla again and be able to communicate to her the importance of being put in touch with the Wild Poppy as soon as possible. With the kind of information Justen had to give him about the prisoners, the spy would have to agree to put Justen’s sister at the top of his priority list. For the first time since Uncle Damos had started using his drug, Justen felt a ray of hope.
As he exited onto the terrace, he saw the other guests waiting to depart for the royal court. His eyes went first to Tomorrow—pretty, carefree Tomorrow, who couldn’t possibly comprehend what she meant to the human race. She was dressed in a swirly, sleeveless confection of emerald green with a high neck and a massive, bubbly skirt that floated about her feet as she bounced on her toes with excitement. Her hair had been arranged in a series of braided crowns that twisted around her head, studded with both rosy and yellow frangipani blossoms, which Justen found a nice touch on Persis’s part.
Both captains were present—Andromeda in a gown of diaphanous deep red draped about her body like she was some ancient goddess. The voluminous folds were gathered at each hip, and girded with thick cords of twisted bronze material that Justen couldn’t tell were metal or fabric. Her hair was swept back into a long tail banded intermittently with the same material—pulled back from her face like that, the foreign captain’s most prominent feature was her unusual blue eyes, large and glittering with her ancient, radical gengineering. Persis was aiming to cause a sensation. He hoped Andromeda was prepared.
Captain Wentforth’s outfit was similar to Justen’s own, though the full, pleated lines of his basalt-gray frock coat were more like the foreign style he’d been wearing when Justen first met him. His shirt was a pale, silvery plum, open at the throat, with wide cuffs that extended past his wrists to cover a good chunk of his workman’s hands, though, rather than concealing them, they drew the eye like a well-placed frame.
Of the lot, Elliot North looked most uncomfortable in Persis’s choice. Her form-fitting violet creation was sleeveless, plunged deeply at the halter neck, then fell in straight, simple lines to her feet. At first, Justen thought that was all there was to the dress, and he was surprised by Persis’s restraint. But then, the chancellor moved, and he saw that behind her, fanning out at either side of her hips like a vast set of wings, was a wide, structured train in a pleated, lavender-tinted rainbow of fabric. The wings varied in shade from cream to purple to the charcoal and plum tones that Kai wore, giving the pair a subtle visual tie that made explicit the connection Justen and everyone else had been noticing since the visitors arrived. Elliot’s dark hair spilled down her back in curls and sported jewels Justen couldn’t believe he actually recognized as belonging to Persis’s own collection. That she’d lent them to the visitor took him by surprise, though he just as quickly realized it shouldn’t have. As rich as she was, she seemed to prefer her pretty things be used rather than hoarded for herself, whether that meant letting refugee children manhandle Slipstream or lending jewelry to near strangers.
Justen nodded at the visitors. “Are we ready for our first Albian luau and all that entails?” He gestured to his own outfit with a rueful grin. Three of them chuckled, while Tomorrow bounced again.
“I think you all look wonderful,” came a clear, soft voice at his side, and he turned to see Lady Heloise Blake standing with her husband. She wore a soft, draped dress of shimmering rose gold, which set off the color of her copper-bronze hair. Her husband, standing at her side, echoed his wife in a creamy yellow shirt and maroon brocade slacks. His only ornament was a lei of frangipani, which Justen had already been told was a tradition of the aristo houses. Each lord wore his official flower in a lei.
“Lord and Lady Blake,” Justen said, with a deeper nod. “I wasn’t aware you’d be attending.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” said Heloise, giving him a discreet squeeze of the hand. Justen understood. Like her daughter, Heloise must love a party, and given the progression of her illness, he doubted she’d be well enough to ever see another.
“You all look marvelous, if I do say so myself,” came Persis’s voice from somewhere behind him. Everyone’s eyes turned to her.