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.
Paola does up the last button and peers over my shoulder at the two of us in the mirror. She makes a small noise of disbelief. “God help your husband. That boy isn’t ready.”
I tug down my neckline. “He never will be. One final touch.”
“Oh no,” she says.
I open the drawer of my dressing table and fetch a tub of scarlet rouge from the back. Paola turns white as I brush it onto my cheeks.
“You are the daughter of a duke, you know,” she says. “Surely some part of you understands that this wedding is about the joining of two families and not how good you—God and all his saints—”
I’ve moved on to dusting the rouge between my breasts. Paola grabs the brush out of my hands.
“Are you quite done?” she says.
I’m never done.
It’s a short walk to the cathedral. The cobblestone road has been lined with rose petals, but the windows of the black manors are dark and silent. After the ceremony, we’ll parade back this way to my husband’s house, where there’ll be a ten-course meal and an outrageous number of toasts, but right now, the people are waiting in the pews, praying. In Occhia, nothing is more momentous than a wedding. Everyone will be here, dressed in their finest and bearing handcrafted gifts. People I’ve never met are going to cry. The fact that my husband and I both made it to our wedding day is a blessing for us, and our families, and the city.
To that end, I’m supposed to spend this walk solemnly and reflect with gratitude. But I don’t have the time. I pick up my skirts and march, and Paola makes a harassed noise, trotting to catch up. The towering black cathedral is waiting for us at the heart of Occhia. I crane my neck to look up at one of its enormous spires and past that to the veil overhead. And for a moment, I hesitate.
The veil is glowing a deep, rich red, like it does every day when evening is gathering. When I was a child, I asked a lot of questions about the veil. I wanted to know what it’s made of. I wanted to know why
