ONE
I’VE FINALLY BROKEN HER. TODAY REALLY IS MY SPECIAL DAY.
My nursemaid brought it on herself, of course. If she’d had any sense, she’d have gotten rid of me when I was a helpless infant who couldn’t fight back. Instead, the poor sap tended to me, letting me grow and flourish and outmatch her. That’s why she’s standing in the middle of my bedroom, clutching at her face, realizing that she’s never going to bludgeon me into the shape of a docile young lady and that she’s wasted her life trying.
“It’s hideous, Paola,” I inform her as I tear the silk rose in my hands to pieces. “I’m doing us all a favor.”
“Emanuela Ragno.” She barely breathes my name, like the words are cursed. “This gown has been in your mamma’s family for over a hundred years.”
“Yes, and it looks it,” I say. “Smells it, too. Did you really think I was going to walk down the aisle in some musty pile of lace?”
“Musty pile of lace?” she echoes in disbelief. “Musty pile of—So help me, Emanuela, if there’s one day you should wear a musty pile of lace, it’s your wedding day!”
There’s no time I should ever wear this monstrosity. The black skirts are so heavy I can barely move. The sleeves are enormous and puffy. The train stretches out of my bedroom and into the hall. The first time I laid eyes on the gown, I told my mamma it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. She sighed and opined about how it’s been passed down on her side, the House of Rosa, for generations—hence the red silk roses tastelessly stuck to every surface. She rhapsodized about my spiritual connection to the women of our family and how wonderful it would be to see me in traditional clothing, for once. Occhian people love tradition. They love doing the exact same things every other person has done since the city began.
I tried the gown on. I didn’t feel a spiritual connection to the women of my family. I felt like a little girl buried in hideous fabric. I also felt itchy, due to the gigantic silk rose smack in the middle of my chest. But I agreed to wear the gown, and my mamma shed a few tears, and we carried on as usual.
Then I bided my time until this very moment. Just as my nursemaid was putting the finishing touches on my outfit, I grabbed the offending rose and ripped it off. Now the fragile silk of my bodice is a ragged mess.
And just down the street, the cathedral bells are ringing. Everyone in the city is already inside, waiting for me, but I’m here, and Paola is in front of me, spiraling into hysterics.
“Your mamma got married in this!” she says. “And her mamma, and her mamma’s mamma—you’re her only daughter, and she’s spent her whole life praying that she would live to see you married, and you just—”
“Calm down, old woman,” I say, tearing another petal off the rose and dropping it onto the very satisfying pile at my feet. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Calm down?” she screeches. “We’re—”
“Late to the wedding? Then why are we just standing around?”
“Because there’s a—”
“A massive hole in my bodice?” I say. “This is an improvement. Look how flattering my corset is.”
Paola leaps to block the doorway, fists clenched. “Emanuela, don’t you dare—I suppose you think you can talk me into this, just like you talked me into the gown with the slit. Not this time, young lady. Weddings are sacred, and you are not parading in front of the whole city with your fruits on display like—”
“Oh?” I drop the last of the rose onto the carpet. “How are you going to stop me?”
We stare each other down. Paola’s nostrils are flaring and her dark eyes are burning. On paper, she’s a servant, and I’m the first and only daughter of the House of Ragno. I could be rid of her with a few choice words to my papá. But I have my reasons for keeping her around, and she knows it, and every so often, we have moments like this—moments where I briefly, genuinely wonder which one of us will crack first.
She unclenches her fists. “All right, you little devil. Just tell me what your scheme is.”
Paola is always the one who cracks. Just like everyone else.
I pick up my skirts and cross the room to my wardrobe.
“I should’ve known,” Paola says to my back. “You haven’t given me a moment’s peace in seventeen years, so why start today? Why have mercy on an old woman for once in her miserable life? Do you know, I still remember when they first put you in my arms.…”
This is the hundredth time I’ve heard this story.
“You were so small,” she rambles on. “And so quiet. And for half a second, I thought you were a peaceful angel. But then you looked at me with those black eyes, and I swear, I heard a voice in my head say, Hello. I’m going to ruin you. And you opened your mouth and spewed all over my—”
“I remember it fondly, too,” I say, reaching into the back of the wardrobe. “But enough about how I’m the only good thing that’s ever happened to you—look what I just found. Another black gown just happens to be sitting around in here, begging to be worn. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Of course it’s beautiful. I designed it, and I spent months secretly stitching it to perfection. My creation is made of flowing black silk, with a tasteful rose pattern winding its way up the skirt. It has lace sleeves that look like spiderwebs and a scandalously low neckline, and when I walk down the aisle in it, the people of my city aren’t going to see every other Rosa woman who came before. They’re going to see me.
Outside, the peal of the cathedral bells dies off. I’m officially late. When I turn around, Paola is still across the room. She’s folded her hands over her plain gray apron, and her eyes are searching me in a way I don’t particularly like.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she says.
“Paola, I have the best fashion sense in the city,” I say. “Everything I wear is a good idea.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she says, quieter.
I know it’s not what she means.
Paola glances at the bedroom door, even though we both know the rest of the house has already emptied out.
“You don’t have to have a ceremony in front of God and—and everyone,” she says. “The marriage will still be real if it’s done in private—if you just asked Alessandro, he would be more than happy to—”
“No,” I say, sharply.
I’m not going to let her talk me out of this now. Not when I spent all of last night talking myself into it.
Paola presses her mouth into a thin line. She knows the discussion is over, but she waits, like she’s hoping otherwise. I hold my ground until she gives in and unfolds her hands. No one can withstand my forbidding stare for long.
“Well, then,” Paola says, all familiar exasperation again. “Let’s find out just how unholy this creation of yours is.”
She wrestles me out of the old and into the new. Even with the unwieldy lace skirts and my excessive layers of underthings, it’s a quick transformation. I know exactly how to shift and wiggle, and she knows my body better than her own. When we’re willing to cooperate, my nursemaid and I are the most efficient team in Occhia.