Dora saw the terrible thoughts already whirling in his head. She knew suddenly that she needed to say something, before the mad faerie decided to torture her for her own good. “A party!” she said quickly. “The last time I felt a very strong emotion was at a party, dancing with a handsome man. And it is the season for balls in London right now, so you really must have one.”
Lord Hollowvale nodded sagely at this, as though he had been about to suggest the very same thing—though Dora was quite certain that his mind had been trending in a much darker direction. “A fantastic ball!” he said. “Yes, that is the only reasonable answer. I shall throw such a party as would make the ton unbearably jealous!”
He turned for the laundry room’s exit, clearly expecting that the two of them should follow. Dora did not feel optimistic that disobeying him again so soon would do her any good, and so she went after him, and gestured for Theodora to do the same.
Neither of them dared to look at Abigail as they headed out of the mess hall. But Dora reached out to squeeze the little girl’s shoulder as they passed.
All of us will find a way out of here, Dora thought with determination.
As Dora had hoped, the marquess wasted little time haring off to plan his perfect English ball. Unfortunately, he did not make the mistake of leaving Dora to her own devices for a second time. Instead, she found herself dragged away from Theodora and put into the care of a faerie tutor in etiquette—“to perfect your skill for the ball, of course!” Lord Hollowvale told her cheerfully.
To Dora’s great surprise, the tutor—an unnaturally tall elfin woman with eyes of purest coal—was introduced to her as the Baroness of Mourningwood. Dora recognised the title, though it took her a few minutes to remember from where; it eventually occurred to her that she had seen Lady Mourningwood listed in the peerage of faeries which she had perused at the magic shop. “Surely, a baroness must be too busy to teach me how to behave at a ball,” Dora protested to the faerie woman. “And I have been to many so far, so my manners must be tolerable, at least.”
“Tolerable will not do for Lord Hollowvale’s daughter,” Lady Mourningwood informed her, in a voice like a deep, dark well. Her black eyes bore into Dora discomfortingly. “You are only human, of course, and so we must make do with you.”
Lady Mourningwood first instructed Dora on the importance of supper. She was to eat the dishes in precisely the correct order. Furthermore, said Lady Mourningwood, Dora must always keep one eye on Lord Hollowvale himself, and drink a sip of her wine whenever he raised his own glass to his lips, or else she might be forced to leave the ball in shame.
“And if you look at one of the servants,” said Lady Mourningwood, “you must be sure to scowl at them, just so.” Her features took on an expression of faint disgust, as though she had eaten something which disagreed with her.
Dora tried to mimic the baroness, but she was very bad at showing any emotion at all, and she knew that she probably looked faintly puzzled instead.
Dora was not certain just how long her lessons went on. Time seemed to be of no particular consequence in the Hollow House. It occurred to her belatedly that she could not possibly have been there for more than a few hours before scrying upon her sleeping body—and yet, Elias had said that a full day and a half had passed.
That is no good, Dora thought warily. For all I know, my funeral might be any moment. But there was no way for her to know what day it was in England, and no way for her to escape Lady Mourningwood’s doom-filled gaze, and so she resigned herself to trying to seem obedient for the moment.
Eventually, the baroness brought Dora into another room of the Hollow House and told her to stand very still and close her eyes. “Since you cannot seem to use the proper expression with servants,” Lady Mourningwood said, “you must not look at them at all.”
A soft skittering noise surrounded Dora, and she frowned to herself, unnerved. “Am I allowed to inquire as to what they are, and what we are doing here?” she asked the baroness.
“They are brownies,” Lady Mourningwood informed her. “And they shall be dressing you for the ball.” She clucked her tongue at something which Dora could not see, and turned to address the faeries that surrounded them. “We will not be making her a gown from moonlight, you cretins!” the baroness said sternly. “That has not been popular since last week at least! Do you want Lord Hollowvale’s daughter to be laughed from his own ballroom? Today’s style is to be clad in forgotten memories!”
Dora really did want to open her eyes at that, but she stopped herself just in time. She did not want to learn what sort of punishments a faerie called Mourningwood might perpetrate upon her for ignoring instructions.
Dora was expecting the brownies to take her measure, as the woman at the dress shop in London had done. But instead, as they continued to skitter about, she felt a light whisper against her skin, as the gown was woven around her. Each touch of the strange material seemed to come with a distant, absent memory, so that Dora was quickly overwhelmed by the whole of it.
There was the scent of fresh-baked bread, wafting over a summer breeze; the taste of bland, boring gruel, served over and over again; the sigh of a gentleman asking a lady to dance. The rain drizzled outside yet again, and a priest droned on about which biblical figure begat which other biblical figure for what seemed like
