“Jessamin, there’s—” Jacky Boy stops midsentence, staring at me from the open doorway. I am instantly aflame with embarrassment.
“Yes?”
“Your friend. Kelen? He’s downstairs in the kitchen with a delivery. Wanted to see you.”
I take a step toward the door and then pause. I look ridiculous. How will I explain any of this to Kelen? Oh, yes, a strange and infuriating person I barely know sent me the dress so I can go to a grand gala! Isn’t it nice? Kelen has even more reason to hate Albens than I do. I couldn’t bear the derision I know I’d see on his face.
Why did he have to show up now? Any other time I would have been thrilled to see him. Now I feel like a traitor. Maybe I am a traitor. I ought to take off all this nonsense and go see him.
But tonight, for once, I don’t feel like remembering the island we can’t have. I want to have a night here, now, rather than wallowing in what I left behind.
“Will you—will you tell him I’m not here?”
Jacky Boy nods. I expect him to look disappointed in me, but he seems almost relieved at the deception. He leaves and I follow Ma’ati out into the hall. We nearly bump into Simon, the tiny and perpetually terrified bellhop.
“Miss Jessamin! Outside, for you, there’s—” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “There’s a motor. Outside. For you.”
“No,” Ma’ati whispers, her eyes wide with wonder.
“But I—he said nothing about—I was going to hail a cabbie.” It’s no difficult task to find a horse carriage circling the city for hire, though tonight would have been my first ride. “Is there a man in the car?” My chest should not be so tight at the thought of seeing Finn again. I blame the corset.
“No, no one but the driver, who said he was to pick you up at eight o’clock on the dot. And the motor—oh, it’s a wicked sharp-looking thing, no mistake, and the way it rumbles like a miniature train! Can I stand long enough to see you drive away? Please?”
I laugh, unsure how to feel. A motor! “I insist on you seeing me off. You, too, Ma’ati. You must both do it to reassure me I haven’t gone mad.”
We hurry down the servant stairs, past two maids, who give me looks of wonder mixed with scorn, then go out the side exit around to the front of the hotel. I’m afraid we’ll run into Kelen and my lie will be revealed, but to my relief he’s nowhere to be seen.
Simon spoke the truth: there is a motor in front of the hotel. I beam at Ma’ati. I have no idea what to expect from this night, but if it starts out like this it cannot be all bad. “Wish me luck.”
“How can I wish you any more than you already have!”
I walk with as much grace as I can manage, hoping to mask the fact that I want nothing more than to jump up and down and run my gloved fingers down the length of the motor.
“Milady.” A man in a black suit and bowler hat bows and opens a door for me.
“Thank you.” I climb in, careful of my stockings, and sit on the leather seat. Turning to the pane of glass closing off the tiny cabin, I wave at Ma’ati and Simon, and then, feeling foolish for all my borrowed finery, I stick my tongue out at both of them.
A bird hops up onto the runner. I laugh, noticing the missing claw. It’s my bird. “Well,” I say as it fixes a beady yellow eye on me, “you came to see me off, too?”
The motor starts and my bird flaps away, its noisy calls drowned out by the engine. I settle back to watch the city pass by. Something about viewing it through glass makes everything shine more—the lights reflected and glimmering in the droplets of water clinging to the panes.
I feel a sickening mix of fear and excitement. Any time I think I know what I want from this evening it all slips away from me. Do I want Finn to court me? Am I agreeing to such by accepting his gifts and attending? Should I have returned them immediately? But I cannot deny the thrill that runs through me when I anticipate seeing him again.
It’s aggravating. And I will be certain to demand answers from him about his behavior. I reassure myself that this is the biggest reason I am going.
And through it all is an undercurrent of guilt. I worry that leaving Kelen behind while dressed in Alben finery is symbolic. He would certainly see it that way. Several times I open my mouth to ask the driver to take me back, but it’s too late to see Kelen anyway.
Before long—far too soon, in fact—the motor pulls to a stop in front of a building lit up like high noon on the warmest summer day. Light spills from the entire glass-encased structure, a palatial testament to engineering and science. I hadn’t understood what the conservatory was, but the glimpse of shrouded green I can see from here has me even more excited than I was before.
It’s a greenhouse! A tropical island in the midst of the great gray city.
My door opens and the driver stands to the side. I realize with a knife twist of embarrassment that I have no concept of whether or not I am to pay him. I have only a few coins on me, just enough tucked into the satin purse around my wrist for a cabbie. No doubt this was a far more expensive ride.
“I—”
“Everything is taken care of, milady.”
I nod, grateful that he anticipated my question. “That was the most I have ever enjoyed the streets of this city. In fact, I shall never again love them so much as I did this night.”
He finally looks up, the brim of his hat high enough to let him meet my eyes. “I’ll not be escorting you home, I’m afraid. But it’s all been arranged.” He sounds regretful and I smile, putting my hand on his arm. He seems surprised—both at the eye contact and at the touch. I know what it is to be ignored while providing service, and I refuse to do it to others.
“Well, nothing can compare to your exceptional motoring skills. Thank you.”
He nods, lips tight in a smile, and I release his arm. Pulling out the invitation, I walk down a path lit with hundreds of crystal-encased candles and try not to look like a wide-eyed girl incredibly out of her depth.
I am failing miserably, and I can’t find it in me to care.
At the doors, twelve feet tall with a blue-green patina of old copper, two liveried servants stand, their backs as straight as the spine of a book. One holds out a white-gloved hand and I place my invitation there. Without so much as looking at it, he bows and opens the door to me.
I’m hit by a rush of air. These doors are a portal to another world, one of green, growing things and warm, living air in the midst of this cold city. I have not been truly warm since I moved here. Blessed heat! Beaming, I step through and am greeted on one side by a woman in scarlet.
She is beautiful, I think with a pang of jealousy, before realizing that I am greeting my reflection. But it is a vision of myself I have never before seen. The dress makes me look more a woman than a girl, and I suddenly feel far too revealed. Not only my skin—though there is more of that on display than normal—but myself.
I am a girl playing at womanhood, bright lips and brighter dress. With the heady scent of plants so close to those I grew up with, I feel young, painfully young, and remember a time my mother walked in on me, wrapped up in her finest dress. She had laughed.
I dearly hope no one laughs at me tonight.
I hear the door opening behind me and hurry forward so as not to be caught holding court with my own reflection. The gravel path is lined with palms carefully coaxed to arch overhead, the space between filled with the fuzzy, soft fronds of smaller ferns. And then, just when I begin to wonder if the path ever ends, it opens into a massive room filled with riotous flowers and oddly shaped trees, the humidity-fogged glass ceilings at least twenty feet tall. There are islands of plants everywhere.