danger. Isn’t it good that he’s concerned?”
“Well,” said Jane.
“Besides, you saw how well I handled him. Everything is
“You did, and I’m impressed,” said Jane. “You always were good at smoothing ruffled feathers. But about Alistair—”
Helen whirled back. “Tell me whom you need to meet,” she cut in, because she could see Jane was gearing up for another of her dreary arguments about feminine inequality, and when stubborn Jane met stubborn Helen, the battle could last all night. Jane did not understand about necessary compromises. “Do you have a list of The Hundred or something?”
“I do,” said Jane. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”
She pointed over Helen’s shoulder, and Helen turned and looked into the large room. Heartache throbbed, remembering it as she had last seen it, the ballroom, the music, dancing so light on her toes in time, in time, in time.…
Focus, Helen. It is a bare sober room now, with dark dresses and long hard benches. No rumbas, no foxtrots, and if the occasional sharp laugh escapes into the close air it is because these women will not be completely contained by fear. Focus, Helen—until she saw what Jane meant.
At least half of the seated women were wearing iron masks.
“All right then,” said Helen.
“That’s a third of them right there,” breathed Jane. The two sisters stood, looking at the cold iron masks dotting the room.
Over the last several years, a hundred of the richest women—and a few men—had secretly had their faces worked on by one Edward Rochart, an enigmatic artist who was now Jane’s fiance. Every woman had come back a dazzling version of herself—and in most cases the changes were even deniable, put down to a “restorative holiday” in the countryside.
But the idyll had turned sour—Jane had discovered six months ago that the “fey beauty” of The Hundred was exactly that. They had each had their old face replaced by a mask—a mask made of the dangerous fey themselves.
And anyone who had fey attached to their bodies was at risk of being taken over by the fey. That was the secret to how the fey had animated dead bodies during the war—they had killed humans with bombs that coated the victim with their own fey substance—little bits of themselves. Then they could move in. But dead bodies only lasted so long. The Fey Queen had figured out how to use Rochart to get these women to coat themselves in fey voluntarily—an unwitting accomplice to a plan to take over the city from the inside, fey slipping into highly placed women and erasing their personalities completely.
It had even happened to Helen. Only Jane’s quick application of an iron spike into her arm had killed the fey and saved her. Helen shuddered, remembering the moment. The whole fey slipping into Helen through the bit of fey on her face, crackling through her thoughts, erasing. Telling Helen things would be so much better if she simply didn’t exist, and Helen, feeling that that might be true …
“I just don’t understand why I’m getting so much resistance,” said Jane. Jane was on a mission to make each of The Hundred safer by returning their original human faces to them. But she was not making as much headway as she had hoped.
“Because once you have been the most beautiful woman in the room, it’s impossible to give up,” Helen said.
“It’s pathetic to be so focused on appearance,” said Jane sharply. Jane’s face had been scarred for so long due to fey shrapnel from the Great War that she came at this from a different angle, Helen thought. Jane had just wanted to be normal. But everyone else had always been normal. And now they had a chance to be extraordinary.
“It’s not pathetic at all,” Helen said softly. “Just think about the power you hold. You have always been just another face. And now everyone turns to you, asks your opinion. Those men who run your lives—suddenly they will do anything for you, if you favor them with a look. There is a touch of fey glamour at your command, yes, but more, there is just the fact that suddenly everyone thinks you are somebody. You are
“And that’s enough to set against cold hard facts?” said Jane. “The cold hard fact that if you go outside without your iron mask, a fey could take you over and you’d be gone like that?” She snapped her fingers.
“What cold hard facts?” returned Helen. “How many people were in that ballroom when it happened to me? Only a handful of people saw it actually happen—and look, here I am, right as rain and twice as sparkling. It’s much easier to pretend that the danger isn’t as real as you say it is. Especially when their option is their old face back.” She took a breath before the slightly pointed jab, but she needed Jane to see how much she was in need of Helen’s help. “Besides, you probably wave their old face around in front of them when you try to convince them. Hard to be thrilled by the idea when you’re looking at your nasty old face, stretched and hideous from drying on the wall.”
“Give me some credit,” said Jane.
Helen raised her eyebrows.
“Well. Maybe once,” said Jane. “But I’ve learned since then. And I’ve learned how to reverse the sags and stretch marks during the facelift procedure.”
“But they’ll never be beautiful again,” said Helen.
“No,” Jane admitted. “There is that.”
It was almost time to tell Jane her plan. The first part of her plan. But how would Jane take it? Jane was so self-sufficient, and she was not used to thinking of her younger sister as helpful.
“So tell me which one is Millicent Grimsby,” Jane said. “I can’t tell one masked woman from the next.”
Despite the worry in the air, Helen laughed, and pulled her sister out into the crowd of dark suits and gowns. You still saw women around town in the popular sherbet hues, but tonight they were in darker colors: navy, black. Yet the women had not sacrificed any more than color. Gowns were still bias-cut and clingy. Sheer stockings, still dear due to the factory problems since the Great War, clung sleekly to every calf. Heels were high, adorned with jeweled pins and rounded toes. Hair was curled or waved—earlier in the year it had been longer, but you were seeing bobs more and more, perhaps as a minor rebellion against the tension in the city, the curfews, the iron masks. Helen herself was in deep plum silk charmeuse—she looked washed-out in black—the jacket ornamented with large pearl buttons.
Men were less interesting, sartorially speaking, but tended to be quite conservative still. Suits had become spare and close-fitting at the start of the Great War, and they still looked the same. Women would find ways to rebel against conservative dress, Helen thought, but men seemed fine to continue on indefinitely. Really, the only item of fashion for men that had changed in the last six months was the introduction of those copper lapel pins in the shape of a writhing hydra.
Copperhead.
Helen studied the dresses, the figures, and the hair before saying, “She’s over there, by the fireplace.” She did not know Millicent terribly well—Helen’s marriage seven months ago had been followed a month later by the advent of the fey to the city, and the men of Alistair’s set had grown more and more cautious in letting their women leave their houses. But Helen would recognize those mousy shoulders anywhere, that tilt and droop of the small figure. With her perfect face hidden behind iron, there was no fey glamour to offset her timidly curved form. Millicent always seemed to be making herself smaller.
“So, this Millicent,” said Jane, as Helen pointed her out. “What did you want to tell me about her? You seem bursting with some news. I brought her face as you asked, but you just told me
“Not yet,” said Helen, and she lit up inside, for now was the moment. “Because I need every ounce of fey charisma I can get. I have a plan, a great grand plan.” A breath. “I’m going to help you.”
Jane looked dubious. “Even with the bit of fey in your face, you wouldn’t be able to do the facelifts right away. I barely have the ability to wield the fey power to do it, and that’s after months of practice.”
“No no no,” said Helen. “I’m going to help you talk The Hundred into it.”
Jane looked nonplussed. “Thank you for your offer, but I don’t see how your presence will help. I’m the one
