Chapter 9: Dress Maker
The blue flame still burned low and steady in the hearth when Charlotte woke. She was curled on her side, Lucian’s shirt twisted around her, the scent of him a comforting blanket. Grey morning light seeped around the heavy drapes, turning the room the color of tarnished silver.
Footsteps, unmistakably Sebastian’s—a purposeful, energetic stride—echoed from Lucian’s chamber a moment before the connecting door flew open.“Good, you’re awake.I’ve had a thought. A brilliant one.”
He was already dressed, looking irritatingly vibrant, his auburn hair a burst of color against the muted room.He leaned against the doorframe, grinning.
“It’s too early for your thoughts,” she mumbled into the pillow, her voice thick with sleep.
“Nonsense.It’s the perfect time. The light’s good.” He crossed the room in a few strides and yanked back the heavy velvet curtains.Solid daylight flooded in, making her wince. “Up, up. We have an appointment.”
She pushed herself upright, the silk of Lucian’s shirt slipping off one shoulder.“An appointment with what? A migraine?”
“With Signora Valence. The royal tailor.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, his emerald eyes sparkling with delight at his own scheme.
The fog of sleep cleared instantly, replaced by a familiar, defensive alertness.“Sebastian, no. I have dresses.”
“You have three dresses that look like they’ve been used to scrub stables. And my shirts.Which, don’t get me wrong, I love seeing you in them. But you need things. Your things.” He perched on the edge of the bed, his expression softening from manic enthusiasm to something more earnest.“Lucian said it last night.They’re just offerings. This one’s just an offering with pins and a measuring tape.”
She looked down at her hands, clenched in the silk of the shirt. The memory of the dagger’s perfect weight in her palm, the feel of something chosen for her that was also useful, flitted through her mind. A bridge between her old world and this bewildering new one.Clothes were just… clothes. Weren’t they?
“Fine,” she said, the word exhaled on a sigh of surrender.“But nothing ridiculous. Nothing that requires a team of people to get me into it.”
He beamed, leaning forward to press a quick, victorious kiss to her forehead. “Deal.Now, get dressed.Well, put on one of your awful dresses. She’ll need to see what she’s replacing.”
Signora Valence was a vampire of indeterminate age, with a severe gray bun and hands that moved with a startling, spider-like precision. She had set up in Lucian’s solar, where the north light was clearest. Bolts of fabric were arrayed over chairs like fallen rainbows: deep emerald velvet, silver-grey silk that shimmered like fish skin, a black lace so fine it looked like captured smoke.
“Stand here, please,” Valence instructed, a length of pale ribbon dangling from her fingers.
Charlotte obeyed, feeling exposed under the calm, assessing gaze. Sebastian lounged in a high-backed chair nearby, watching the proceedings with the focused pleasure of a patron at the theatre.
The tailor’s hands were cool and impersonal as she looped the ribbon around Charlotte’s bust, her fingers noting the number against a small, worn brass ruler.She made a soft, noncommittal hum. She measured the waist, the hips, the length from shoulder to floor. With each notation, her mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.“The foundation is good,” Valence said finally, her voice clipped. “The lines are straight.But the frame is… slight. Smaller than I anticipated from the general request.” Her eyes flicked to Sebastian.“There is a lack of development here, Your Grace. A leanness from prolonged scarcity.Maids, of course, often eat between tasks when they can. And for a dhampir, proper blood isn’t always accessible. It leaves its mark.”
The clinical words painted a picture more vivid than any complaint Charlotte had ever voiced. The skipped meals, the hollow ache in her stomach that had been as regular as sunrise, the careful rationing of the bottled animal blood they’d occasionally doled out to the half-human staff—it was all there, summarized in her measurements.The room went very quiet.Sebastian’s playful energy evaporated. He slowly sat upright, the chair creaking beneath him. All the easy charm drained from his face, replaced by a stark, unsettling intensity. He was looking at her, but he was seeing something else—the reality behind the stubbornness, the pragmatic endurance she wore like armor.
“Is that so,” he said.His voice was low, devoid of its usual melodic flair.
A flicker of shame, hot and unwelcome, twisted in Charlotte’s gut.“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine,” Sebastian stated, the words leaving no room for argument. He stood up, his movement fluid and predatory. He walked over to her, but his attention was on Valence.“Continue.Make her whatever she’ll allow.The softest things you have. And cloaks.She’s always cold.”
He then turned his full gaze on Charlotte. The green of his eyes was dark, almost turbulent. “The fitting is over for today.”
“But we’ve only just—”
“It’s over.” He took her hand, his grip firm but not painful. “Come with me.”
He led her from the solar, past a perplexed-looking Valence and her silks, back into the dimmer, quieter hallways of their private wing. He didn’t speak, his jaw tight. He brought her to the small, book-lined study adjacent to the bedroom, a room that always smelled of Lucian’s ink and Sebastian’s discarded apple cores.He guided her to the large leather sofa. “Sit.”
She sat, watching him.He paced once, a short, tense circuit, then went to a carved cabinet. He pulled out a crystal decanter filled with a deep, ruby liquid.Not wine. He poured a generous measure into a short glass and brought it to her.“Drink this.”
She stared at the offering. It was good blood, she could smell it.Clean, potent, rich with life. The kind reserved for the high tables.The kind she’d never been given. “Sebastian, I don’t need—”
“You do.” He knelt before her, placing the glass in her hands and closing his own around them.His touch was warm. “This isn’t a gift, Charlotte.This isn’t an offering you can stack in a corner. This is non-negotiable.You will drink this.You will drink another like it tonight.And tomorrow. Until your body forgets what it feels like to be hollow.” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Do you understand?We didn’t know. I didn’t see it.”
The raw regret in his tone disarmed her more than any command. She looked from his pained, earnest face down to the glass. The scent was tantalizing, awakening a deep, instinctual thirst she’d spent years suppressing.The polite sips, the barely-sufficient rations—they were a lifetime ago.
She brought the glass to her lips and drank. It was sweet and dark and powerful, a warmth spreading through her core almost immediately, a sensation so profoundly nourishing it felt like a kind of healing. She didn’t stop until the glass was empty, a faint, rosy residue clinging to the crystal.
A low, approving sound came from Sebastian.He took the empty glass, his fingers brushing hers. Some of the storm had cleared from his eyes. “Better?”
A flush of real warmth was spreading up her neck, a comfortable fullness settling in her limbs.“Better,” she admitted quietly.
“Good.” He rose, pulling her up with him. He kept her close, his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side.“We have to tell Lucian about this. He’ll want to know. He’ll… he’ll have things to say.” A ghost of his old smile returned, touched now with grim determination. “Mostly to me, for being an oblivious idiot.But mostly, he’ll just want to make sure. And he will.”
He led her towards the door, his arm a solid, unwavering weight across her back.“Come on. Let’s go find him.He needs to see this. He needs to see you.” He paused, his voice dropping to a murmur meant only for her. “Fucking finally.”
His words weren't just about the blood, she knew. They were about the breaking down of the last secret, the final wall she’d built from nothing but survival.It was terrifying. And, with the new strength humming in her veins and his steadfast presence at her side, it felt, for the first time, like something other than a risk. It felt like a beginning.