“I don’t know if she will. I felt like she just didn’t want to pay what we’d agreed to pay.”
“What would make you think that?”
“Because she didn’t pay what had been agreed,” came a stern, older voice from the other side of the room. Mother Helen. “Did she?”
I swallowed my nerves and shook my head. “No.”
“And you left without making her keep her end of the deal… didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what else to do, I—”
Mother Helen waved her hand, a gesture that usually meant keep the hell quiet. “Come with me. Now.” With that, she disappeared into an adjoining room.
“I’m in trouble,” I said.
Mother Evie squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “Go,” she whispered, “It’ll be alright. It’s not like she’s going to turn you into a frog, or anything… not after the last time.”
“Don’t remind me. I get nightmares every time I think about it.”
I took a deep breath and rose to my feet, then I followed Mother Helen into my little workroom feeling only a little more optimistic after what Mother Evie had said. She was right. I wasn’t going to get turned into a toad again, but there were plenty more animal shapes I could be made into as punishment.
CHAPTER THREE
Of my mothers, Mother Helen was the disciplinarian. She was like every single school headmistress I’d ever crossed paths with, only about ten times scarier and gifted with magic. Mother Helen was tall, probably as tall as Madame Whitmore, and possessed of the same kind of grace, although hers was more refined and less entitled, like an aged wine, and suited to her incredible intelligence and poise. She was also one hell of a dresser, looking as she did with her choice of black dresses and corsets, like she belonged in the Victorian age.
I didn’t speak as I walked through my workroom and found my stool to sit on. It was tiny, and a little cramped in here, but thanks to Mother Helen’s insistence that I treat my place of work like a temple, the place was also immaculately kept. My rolls of fabric all had homes, the dress forms I used sat quietly in the corner, and my basic sewing supplies were properly organized, and never out of reach.
Not the magic stuff, though; that was kept out of my reach, and with good reason.
“Care to explain to me exactly how this happened?” Mother Helen asked, breaking through the silence like she had a sledgehammer.
“How do you know what happened?” I asked, trying my best not to sound too argumentative.
“I could sense your thoughts the moment you walked through the doors. You truly do wear your worries on your sleeve.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to screw it up, Madame Whitmore just—”
“—the Whitmores are a notoriously pompous, vainglorious lot who would sooner die than be seen in a sub-par outfit.”
Anger flushed into my chest. “My dress wasn’t sub-par.”
“I know it wasn’t. I also happen to know that family is cheap and will do anything they can to squander their wealth.”
“Why did we do business with them?”
“Because we need it, child. I thought, perhaps, she would fall in love with the dress and not cause any trouble. Evidently, I was wrong, and I apologize.”
“Wait… you’re apologizing to me?”
“I should not have sent you to deliver the dress. I should’ve gone myself. Perhaps, then…”
“Why didn’t you?”
Mother Helen’s face hardened, her jade eyes bearing down on mine. “Because you are a Crowe, just like the rest of us. This family isn’t a family without you, Dahlia, but I grow weary of having to put up with the disrespect our family gets.”
I lowered my head. “Because of me, right? Because I’m human.”
“No, child… because you have a gift they do not have. Because you are better than them.”
I looked up at her again. “Better than them?” I scoffed. “Hardly. I can’t do magic.”
“Perhaps not, but your skill with a needle and thread are unmatched. You can work with the kind of silks not even your mothers can, not without either grave peril or great exhaustion.”
I stared at her, trying not to frown. She was lying to me. Sure, what she was saying about my ability to fashion a dress out of strange, magical materials was true. I was good at that. But the other part, about me being human and that leading other mages to look down on our family? That was also true, and we both knew it.
It was also the reason why we were going out of business.
Six months ago, the Magic Box was flourishing. Our clothes were red hot, fresh orders coming in every single day. Mages wore our dresses to all sorts of events—none of which I’d ever been invited to, but I’d heard about them. The Solstice Ball, the Midsummer Ball, the New Year’s Ball.
All the Balls.
Mages threw a lot of Balls.
Then Mother Helen had the idea of revealing to the world that, not only had their trio become a quartet—the magical community as a whole didn’t know I even existed—but that I, a human, was the one responsible for crafting the special-order clothes mages came to buy from us.
That had been a mistake.
Maybe if she had talked to me about it, I may have been able to persuade her otherwise. I liked my life before. I still liked my life. But I hated the idea that anyone out there thought any less of the three wonderful women who had chosen to raise me as one of their own, even though they didn’t have to.
I loved them, and they loved me; the instinct to protect each other was mutual, and I felt powerless—like the weak link in the chain.
“Let me go back to her,” I said, “I mean, let me clean up first, and then let me go back. Maybe I can talk to her, and—”
“Absolutely not,” Mother Helen said, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. “We aren’t doing business with that family anymore, not if they are going to go back on their word. We may be simple seamstresses to them, but we should be proud enough to know our worth.”
“I hear what you’re saying, I really do… but I feel like I can get through to her. I know she loved the dress.”
“I know. Pepper, Evie and I will be leaving immediately for the Whitmore Academy to collect the rest of our payment. For now, you are to stay here.”
“Because I’ve done enough damage?”
Mother Helen approached and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Sweet girl, no. Heavens, no. I am sure you were as polite and as courteous as I have taught you to be. You have done no damage, here. I would simply feel a lot more comfortable knowing you’re here, safe at home… and bathed.”
I remembered how ratty I probably looked. “Oh, yeah… long story.”
A playful smirk. “Yes… I know.”
My cheeks flushed bright red. Awkwardly, I shot to my feet, knocking over the stool I’d been sitting on. “Okay, well… I should go bathe,” I said, and I slid past Mother Helen and made my way up to my bedroom.
Like my workroom, my bedroom was tiny, but roomy enough for me. A single bed sat pressed up against a corner, just beneath a window looking over the Magic Box’s front door and the street beyond it. Against one of the far walls was my desk, mostly empty save for my laptop and a small desk organizer in which I kept the pens and pencils I used to design new clothes.