Ingrid Strab’s blue-black hair is styled into a feathered pixie cut that brings out doe eyes rimmed with dark liner. She has a perfect, upturned nose, rounded cheekbones, and full lips that she’s painted a natural pink. Her one-shouldered dress skims a slightly muscled figure that still retains feminine curves.
“Wow,” I say.
Berta waves her hand. “She didn’t look that good at breakfast.”
I hadn’t paid her much attention except to notice her rivalry with Rafaela van Eyck.
The music obscures what she’s saying, but she leans across the table, chatting animatedly to Prince Kevon. When the camera cuts to the prince, the digital altering on his face fails to hide his boredom.
Berta barks out a laugh. “He can’t stand her.”
“Oh dear.” I feel bad for the girl as she’s blowing her chance to impress Prince Kevon.
“It goes to show that no matter what the king and queen do, he’ll always be loyal to Rafaela.” Berta nods to herself, as though she’s just solved the mysteries of the universe.
I take a swig of water and watch the highlights of an unromantic dinner date. Over time, Ingrid’s smile fades, and she keeps taking sips of a sparkling drink. Prince Kevon’s body is rigid. He maintains a conversation, but there’s no spark between them. Ingrid slumps back in her seat, and Prince Kevon leans forward, his brows creased with concern.
“Ha!” Berta slaps her thigh. “She’s going to drunk-cry.”
The door opens, and a pair of production assistants step inside, holding a bowl containing three apples. “Breakfast!”
On the journey back, one of the assistants doses Gemini with pills that keep her alert and hand her a cream to soothe her rashes. We arrive in time to join the other girls as they finish breakfast, and the production assistants lead us in single file to an even larger room separated into dozens of cubicles.
A shudder runs down my spine as I remember the marquee where medics performed those awful internal exams.
“What the hell is this?” Berta mutters from behind.
I shake my head, not wanting to speculate in case I’m wrong. She was never shortlisted into the marquee round and snuck her way onstage.
Ingrid steps forward, her eyes red-rimmed. “I’m not doing this again. You’ve already gathered data on our purity and ability to conceive.”
A pair of camerawomen stand before her, filming every moment of her protest, while another four record our outraged expressions. I’m beginning to resent the lack of privacy.
“Calm yourselves, ladies.” Prunella Broadleaf makes her grand entrance into the room. “We merely wish to perform beautification procedures. Epilation, exfoliation, and suchlike.”
“Exsanguination, more like,” mutters Berta.
I turn around and meet her pale eyes. “What?”
“Never mind.”
The assistants lead us to the booths, where women in white coats await. Mine is a middle-aged woman with pink hair, who holds up a towel to block a camera and tells me to strip. When I’m naked, she covers me with the towel and passes a red light over every limb. By the time she finishes, my skin feels like I’ve exposed it to the sun all day.
She smoothes on a white lotion that cools and sets on my skin, and then she rips it off my calf. Pinpricks of burning pain detonate beneath my skin, and a sharp breath hisses through my teeth. I jerk up and stare into the lens of a camera.
“Is this your first laser-epil, Miss Calico?” asks the camerawoman.
“What?”
She explains the hair-removal procedure in excruciating detail, but I’m no longer listening. As if the camera encourages a sadistic streak, the beautician moves to my other side and tears off the solid substance now stuck to my leg-hairs.
My face contorts with pain, and nausea swirls around in my empty belly. The camerawoman records my reaction, and I pray to anyone who will listen that this humiliating footage never reaches Ryce.
After removing hair from my eyebrows and upper lip, the beautician uses a whirring device to sand down the hard skin on my feet. It has a multitude of attachments, which she explains to the camera are for removing dead skin. By now, I’m staring at the ceiling with my teeth clenched, not responding to any of the camerawoman’s questions or taunts.
At the end of the session, the beautician covers me with a robe, and I follow another assistant to a room where Gemini and Berta stand on raised platforms wearing flesh-colored bands around their bodies.
“What took you so long?” says Berta.
“Now, now, Miss Ridgeback,” says a voice from the door. Prunella Broadleaf strides into the room. She wears a black suit, presumably to contrast with the beauticians’ white. “You mustn’t make fun of your fellow beast. Our technicians worked hard to remove Miss Calico’s weathered skin and significant body hair.”
I shot her a filthy glare and step on a podium. One of the beauticians steps in front of me and unfastens my rob to slip a large band of latex around my middle. It stretches from beneath my breasts to the top of my pubic bone.
Prunella’s eyes sparkle with challenge, and she places a hand on her hip. “Miss Calico, we’re transforming you from a feral beast into something vaguely resembling a girl. Is ingratitude a common Harvester trait?”
A surge of fury heats my veins. What have the people at the Oasis ever done for Harvesters? I take a deep breath to unleash a barrage of truths, but triumph flashes across her eyes, and I clamp my mouth shut. She wants me to rant at the camera.
My lips tighten, and annoyance fizzles across my skin. Prince Kevon told me I had appeared rebellious during my audition, I won’t give this manipulative social climber the chance to get me thrown out of the Trials.
“I’m proud to support the agriculture of Phangloria. If that means my skin isn’t perfect, it’s a small price to keep everyone fed.” I beam at the camera, hoping that the viewers will see Prunella Broadleaf as the villain.
Prunella’s face morphs into a grimace. She addresses one of
