Passion (20 page)

Bil might have been invisible to the pret y girl with corn-colored curls who was standing in the doorway in a long cranberry-colored gown

—but Luce wasn’t. At the sight of someone in the tub, the girl reared back.

“Oh, Princess Lys! Forgive me!” she said in French. “I was told this chamber was empty. I—I’d run a bath for Princess Elizabeth”—she pointed to the tub where Luce was soaking—“and was just about to send her up along with her ladies.”

“Wel —” Luce racked her brain, desperate to come o as more regal than she felt. “You may not s-send her up. Nor her ladies. This is my chamber, where I intended to bathe in peace.”

“I beg your pardon,” the girl said, bowing, “a thousand times.”

“It’s al right,” Luce said quickly when she saw the girl’s honest despair. “There must just have been a misunderstanding.” The girl curtseyed and began to close the door. Bil peeked his horned head up above the surface of the water and whispered, “Clothes!” Luce used her bare foot to push him down.

“Wait!” Luce cal ed after the girl, who slowly pushed the door open again. “I need your help. Dressing for the bal .”

“What about your ladies-in-waiting, Princess Lys? There’s Agatha or Eloise—”

“No, no. The girls and I had a spat,” Luce hurried on, trying not to talk too much for fear of giving herself away completely. “They picked out the most, um, horrid gown for me to wear. So I sent them away. This is an important bal , you know.”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Could you find something for me?” Luce asked the girl, gesturing with her head at the armoire.

“Me? H-help you dress?”

“You’re the only one here, aren’t you?” Luce said, hoping that something in that armoire would fit her—and look halfway decent for a bal .

“What’s your name?”

“Anne-Marie, Princess.”

“Great,” Luce said, trying to channel Lucinda from Helston by simply acting self-important. And she threw in a bit of Shelby’s know-it-al at itude for good measure. “Hop to it, Anne-Marie. I won’t be late because of your sluggishness. Be a dear and fetch me a gown.”

Ten minutes later, Luce stood before an expansive three-way mirror, admiring the stitching on the bust of the rst gown Anne-Marie had tugged from the armoire. The gown was made of tiered black ta eta, tightly gathered at the waist, then swirling into a gloriously wide bel shape near the ground. Luce’s hair had been swept up into a twist, then tucked under a dark, heavy wig of elaborate curls. Her face shimmered with a dusting of powder and rouge. She was wearing so many undergarments that it felt as though someone had draped a fty-pound weight over her body. How did girls move in these things? Let alone dance?

As Anne-Marie drew the corset tighter around her torso, Luce gaped at her re ection. The wig made her look ve years older. And she was sure she’d never had this much cleavage before. In any of her lives.

For the briefest moment, she al owed herself to forget her nerves about meeting her past princess self, and whether she’d nd Daniel again before she made a huge mess out of their love—and simply felt what every other girl going to that bal that night must have felt: Breathing was overrated in a dress as amazing as this.

“You’re ready, Princess,” Anne-Marie whispered reverently. “I wil leave you, if you’l al ow me.” As soon as Anne-Marie shut the door behind her, Bil propel ed himself out of the water, sending a cold spray of soapsuds across the room.

He sailed over the armoire and came to rest on a smal turquoise silk footstool. He pointed at Luce’s gown, at her wig, then at her gown again. “Ooh la la. Hot stuf .”

“You haven’t even seen my shoes.” She lifted the hem of her skirt to show o a pair of pointy-toed emerald-green heels inlaid with jade owers. They matched the emerald-green lace that trimmed the bust of her dress and were easily the most amazing shoes she had ever seen, let alone slipped onto her feet.

“Oooh!” Bil squealed. “Very rococo.”

“So, I’m real y doing this? I’m just going to go down there and pretend—”

“No pretending.” Bil shook his head. “Own it. Own that cleavage, girl, you know you want to.”

“Okay, I am pretending you didn’t say that.” Luce laugh-winced. “So I go downstairs and ‘own it’ or whatever. But what do I do when I find my past self? I don’t know anything about her. Do I just—”

“Take her hand,” Bil said cryptical y. “She’l be very touched by the gesture, I’m sure.” Bil was hinting at something, clearly, but Luce didn’t understand. Then she remembered his words right before they dove through the last Announcer.

“Tel me about going three-D.”

“Aha.” Bil mimed leaning against an invisible wal in the air. His wings blurred as he ut ered in front of her. “You know how some things are just too out-of-this-world to be pinned down by dul old words? Like, for example, the way you swoon when Daniel comes in for a long kiss, or the feeling of heat that spreads through your body when his wings unfurl on a dark night—”

“Don’t.” Luce’s hand went to her heart involuntarily. There were no words that could ever do justice to what Daniel made her feel. Bil was making fun of her, but that didn’t mean she ached any less at being away from Daniel for so long.

“Same deal with three-D. You’l just have to live it to understand it.”

As soon as Bil opened the door for Luce, the sounds of distant orchestra music and the polite murmuring of a large crowd ooded into the room. She felt something pul ing her down there. Maybe it was Daniel. Maybe it was Lys.

Bil bowed in the air. “After you, Princess.”

She fol owed the noise down two broad, winding ights of golden stairs, the music get ing louder with each step. As she swept through empty gal ery after empty gal ery, she began to smel the mouthwatering aromas of roasted quail and stewed apples and potatoes au gratin.

And perfume—so much she could hardly inhale without coughing.

“Now aren’t you glad I made you take a bath?” Bil asked. “One less bot le of eau de reeket e punching holes in l’ozone.” Luce didn’t answer. She had entered a long hal of mirrors, and in front of her, a pair of women and a man were crossing toward the entrance of a main room. The women didn’t walk, they glided. Their yel ow and blue gowns practical y swished across the oor. The man walked between them, his ru ed white shirt dapper under his long silver jacket and his heels nearly as high as the ones on Luce’s shoes. Al three of them wore wigs a ful foot tal er than the one on Luce’s own head, which felt enormous and weighed a ton. Watching them, Luce felt clumsy, the way her skirts swung from side to side as she walked.

They turned to look at her and al three pairs of eyes narrowed, as if they could tel instantly that she had not been bred to at end high-society bal s.

“Ignore them,” Bil said. “There are snobs in every lifetime. In the end, they’ve got nothing on you.” Luce nodded, fal ing behind the trio, who passed through a set of mirrored doorways into the bal room. The ultimate bal room. The bal room to end al bal rooms.

Luce couldn’t help herself. She stopped in her tracks and whispered, “Wow.” It was majestic: A dozen chandeliers hung low from the faraway ceiling, glit ering with bright white candles. Where the wal s weren’t made of mirrors, they were covered with gold. The parquet dance oor seemed to stretch on into the next city, and ringing the dance oor were long tables covered in white linen, laid with ne china place set ings, plat ers of cakes and cookies, and great crystal goblets l ed with ruby-colored wine. Thousands of white daf odils peeked out of hundreds of dark-red vases set upon the dozens of dining tables.

On the far side of the room, a line of exquisitely dressed young women was forming. There were about ten of them, standing together, whispering and laughing outside a great golden door.

Another crowd had gathered around an enormous crystal punch bowl near the orchestra. Luce helped herself to a glass.

“Excuse me?” she asked a pair of women next to her. Their artful gray curls formed twin towers on their heads. “What are those girls in line for?”

“Why, to please the king, of course.” One woman chuckled. “Those demoisel es are here to see if they might please him into marriage.” Marriage? But they looked so young. Al of a sudden Luce’s skin began to feel hot and itchy. Then it hit her: Lys is in that line.

Luce gulped and studied each of the young women. There she was, third in line, magni cently wrapped in a long black gown only slightly di erent from the one that Luce herself was wearing. Her shoulders were covered with a black velvet capelet, and her eyes never rose from the floor. She wasn’t laughing with the other girls. She looked as frustrated as Luce felt.

“Bil ,” Luce whispered.

But the gargoyle ew right in front of her face and shushed her with a nger to his fat stone lips. “Only crazies talk to their invisible But the gargoyle ew right in front of her face and shushed her with a nger to his fat stone lips. “Only crazies talk to their invisible gargoyles,” he hissed, “and crazies don’t get invited to many bal s. Now, hush.”

“But what about—”

“Hush.”

What about going 3-D?

Luce took a deep breath. The last instruction he had given her was to take Lys by the hand.…

She strode over, crossing the dance oor and bypassing the servants with their trays of foie gras and Chambord. She nearly plowed right into the girl behind Lys, who was trying to cut ahead of Lys in line by pretending to whisper something to a friend.

“Excuse me,” Luce said to Lys, whose eyes widened and whose lips parted and let a tiny confused sound escape her mouth.

But Luce couldn’t wait for Lys to react. She reached down and grabbed her by the hand. It t into her own like a puzzle piece. She squeezed.

Luce’s stomach dropped as if she’d gone down the rst hil of a rol er coaster. Her skin began to vibrate, and a drowsy, gently rocking sensation came over her. She felt her eyelids flut er, but some instinct told her to keep holding fast to Lys’s hand.

She blinked, and Lys blinked, and then they both blinked at the same time—and on the other side of the blink, Luce could see herself in Lys’s eyes … and then could see Lys from her own eyes … and then—

She could see no one in front of her at al .

“Oh!” she cried out, and her voice sounded just as it always had. She looked down at her hands, which looked just as they always had. She reached up and felt her face, her hair, her wig, al of which felt the same as they had before. But something … something had shifted.

She lifted the hem of her dress and peeked down at her shoes.

They were magenta. With diamond-shaped high heels, and tied at the ankle with an elegant silver bow.

What had she done?

Then she realized what Bil had meant by “going three-D.”

She had literal y stepped into Lys’s body.

Luce glanced around her, terri ed. To her horror, al the other girls in line were motionless. In fact, everyone Luce looked at was frozen stif . It was if the entire party had been put on Pause.

“See?” Bil ’s voice came hotly in her ear. “No words for this, right?”

“What’s happening, Bil ?” Her voice was rising.

“Right now, not a whole lot. I had to put the brakes on the party, lest you freak out. Once we’re straight on the three-D business, I’l start it back up again.”

“So … no one can see this right now?” Luce asked, waving her hand slowly in front of the face of the pret y brunet e girl who’d been standing in front of Lys. The girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t blink. Her face was frozen in an unending openmouthed grin.

“Nope.” Bil demonstrated by wiggling his tongue near the ear of an older man, who stood frozen with an escargot poised between his fingers, inches from his mouth. “Not until I snap me fingers.”

Luce exhaled, once more strangely relieved at having Bil ’s help. She needed a few minutes to get used to the idea that she was—was she real y—

“I’m inside my past self,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then where did I go? Where’s my body?”

“You’re in there somewhere.” He tapped at her col arbone. “You’l pop out again when—Wel , when the time is right. But for now, you’ve slipped entirely inside your past. Like a cute lit le turtle in a borrowed shel . Except it’s more than that. When you’re in Lys’s body, your very beings are entwined, so al sorts of good stu comes with the package. Her memories, her passions, her manners—lucky for you. Of course, you also have to grapple with her shortcomings. This one, if I recal , puts her foot in her mouth with some regularity. So watch out.”

“Amazing,” Luce whispered. “So if I could just find Daniel, I’d be able to feel exactly what she feels toward him.”

“Sure, I guess, but you do realize that once I snap my ngers, Lys has obligations at this bal that don’t include Daniel. This isn’t real y his scene, and by that I mean, no way the guards would let a poor stable boy in here.” Luce didn’t care about any of that. Poor stable boy or not, she would nd him. She couldn’t wait. Inside Lys’s body she could even hold him, maybe even kiss him. The anticipation of it was almost overwhelming.

“Hel o?” Bil icked a hard nger against her temple. “You ready yet? Get in there, see what you can see—then get out while the get ing’s good, if you know what I mean.”