"You look," Emma Anemone says sternly, "Like a giraffe."
Beatrix, standing nearby, puts her head in her hands.
Agatha stares back at this crazed canary-yellow lady, uncertain whether to laugh or not. Anemone, Seamstress by Appointment to the Royal Family, has apparently been sent to help with wedding dresses, and Agatha is somewhat apprehensive. She's very hard on the eyes. Agatha has never seen so much yellow before- even her eyeliner is yellow. Sending someone so colourful to design her a dress feels like something of a misstep.
"Um, I'm… sorry?" she hazards, wondering how one should respond to being compared to a giraffe. At least Anemone had said nothing about her face- she'd shot her a cursory glance and nothing more.
The seamstress sighs and whips a tape measure from her pocket.
"Suppose it can't be helped. Genetics. Stand up straight for me, dear- no, straight-"
Agatha pushes her shoulders back, grimacing as Anemone snags the tape measure around her waist.
"So, what are you thinking?" she asks. "Tulle? Silk? Cashmere? Chiffon? Are you wearing white or something a little more avant garde? Slits for another colour to peek through? Crinoline? Train? Sash? How about jewellery?"
Agatha stares helplessly at her.
"Well…er, I just thought I'd…"
She hasn't thought about it at all, to be honest. She doesn't know the first thing about fashion, she just wears whatever she's given, so to suddenly be given free rein over a dress literally everyone is going to see is… highly alarming.
Anemone can clearly tell she has absolutely no plans.
"What kind of a bride are you?" she demands, measuring between her shoulders. "Not even thought about it? I'd have thought any girl would have been absolutely dying to marry Tedros. Hasn't the marriage been settled for years?"
"Um, yeah, it's not like I object to the wedding bit- well, I mean, It's an arranged marriage, but…I mean..."
Agatha pauses, staring at her feet.
"I don't know what I mean."
"He's finally got to you." says Beatrix, examining sample dresses in the corner. "Knew it'd happen eventually. It's the earnestness, isn't it-"
"He hasn't." snaps Agatha. "It's just not him I object to."
"It's fashion in general, apparently." murmurs Anemone, staring at Agatha's battered work boots. Agatha sighs.
"Listen, can I just wear something normal? Like, nice. But normal-"
A new voice cuts in.
"Our courts have agreed that your dress is to encompass the fashions of both kingdoms, to symbolise the union of Camelot and Gavaldon."
Agatha closes her eyes briefly.
"And Tedros and I were both included in that decision, I presume?" she asks icily, turning to watch Vanessa enter the room. Dot and Beatrix exchange apprehensive glances.
Vanessa shoots her the disdainful glance she always gives her when she's unveiled and turns to Anemone, holding out a sheaf of drawings.
"The King's ladies have provided some sketches. Myself and my maids have altered them to better fit our fashions."
"I see." says Anemone, shifting through the sketches. "And these were approved by…?"
"Weatherford and the King himself both said they liked them." says Vanessa smoothly. "The King seemed very… enthusiastic about being involved in proceedings."
She shoots Agatha another glance, which Agatha ignores. Shouldn't have killed off her own handsome husband, now should she?
Anemone finishes flicking through them.
"Well, I certainly could make them. What do you think, Princess?"
She hands them up to Agatha.
Agatha, surprised to be given input, sees Vanessa's face sour and knows it wasn't her intention. Frowning, she takes them-
Immediately, she knows this was made with the intention of embarrassing her, not flattering her.
Low-cut, figure-hugging white silk with a heavy, wide skirt and excessive train, gold sash cinched in to exaggerate the waistline, dripping with diamonds… it was something Sophie or Vanessa herself would wear, not Agatha. The only real homage it had to Gavaldon was the swan crest stitched into the embroidery and the wide sleeves. The rest screamed Camelot.
"It's very… elaborate." she says.
Vanessa smiles.
"It is, isn't it? Well, we've got a prototype, if you want to try it on, see what alterations are needed-"
Agatha tenses, but it's too late- Vanessa is already snapping her fingers at Beatrix and Dot and pointing them over to a bag she'd brought in with her.
"Why don't we try now?" she suggests.
Ten minutes later Agatha wrings her hands, hating how surrounded by mirrors she is. She can see her own ruined face from three or so angles, even though she's very deliberately looking at her feet.
"There!" says Vanessa. "Isn't that nice?"
It's not. Agatha risks a tiny look at herself and immediately winces. It's exactly as she thought it'd be- too low, too tight. It exaggerates how skinny she is, how pale. It makes her elbows stick out and exaggerates her complete lack of chest. The white is too white, and makes her skin look sickly pale.
She turns to look at Vanessa, who smiles innocently at her.
"I'll try a few others before I make any decisions." Agatha says coldly, not missing how Vanessa crushes a scowl.
"Of course." her mother says blandly. "Well, call me if you find something else you like! But, personally, I love that one."
"Do you." says Agatha blankly. Vanessa ignores her, already swishing over to the door and disappearing.
"I don't know what she's playing at, but Tedros didn't agree." says Dot, the instant Vanessa is gone. "He said it was nice, but he didn't think you'd want to wear it. They more or less ignored him."
"He was right." says Agatha flatly, glancing back at her reflection again. Three tired, pinched Agathas in an unflattering dress look glumly back at her. They all cross their spindly arms across their too-exposed chests. They all scowl and look away.
"She's going to push for that one." says Anemone, her first contribution for a good half-hour. "The other samples aren't even half as ready as that."
Agatha clenches her teeth, dismayed to find tears threatening at the back of her throat, pricking at her nose.
"I may not care much about fashion." she mumbles. "But I'd rather have something pretty at the wedding."
There's a pause. Agatha can see Anemone looking at her in the mirror.
"Go and get the other samples, please, ladies." says Anemone. "I can fix this."
Dot frowns.
"You said they weren't-"
"Now, if you please!"
Agatha's maids exchange glances, shrug, and go to do as they're told.
Anemone steps up to the stool and busily starts making new measurements. Agatha sags, tired and defeated. She's spent the last few days doing nothing but trying not to think about the wedding, and now she's so violently confronted with it, she just wants to crawl into bed and hide for the rest of her life.
"You know, dear, I personally find myself rather fond of giraffes." says Anemone gently, tucking the tape measure away and starting to unlace the sides. "Gentle creatures."
"It's fine, it's true..." sighs Agatha, slipping her arms out of the sleeves. But Anemone is still going;
"I'm sure you'll grow into your height. Princess Eva of Maidenvale was just as tall as you, maybe even taller, and by the time she was 25, everyone envied her husband so badly he was poisoned twice in quick succession."
"...right." says Agatha. "But I'm 18, not 25. And the wedding is in three weeks."
"Bah!" Anemone dismisses. "I can work wonders. Take the Marchioness of Drupathi! A tiny little thing, skinny and short, and her husband fell at her feet at the altar, ugh, it was such a moment."
"Um, I don't think-"
"The Duchess of Kingdom Kyrigos!" booms Anemone. "She designed her own dress, and it was a travesty until I got my hands on it and re-worked the entire thing so subtly she barely noticed it wasn't the dress she originally designed, and her husband was all over her supposed talent. It's all about the subtleties. The Queen of Ginnymill! Plainest girl I ever clapped eyes on, wore such a stunning dress that three people fainted and her wife had to be held up by her father."
"Listen, I really don't think this is going to apply to-
"And all of their betrothed didn't already have a desperate one-sided crush on them." mutters Anemone.
Agatha turns around to glare at her. Anemone smiles sweetly.
"I make clothes for Tedros all the time. I've heard ever so much about you."
Agatha whips back around, aware Anemone will still be able to see her going red in the mirrors.
"This is ridiculous. You're deliberately missing the point."
"No, you are." says Anemone, sweeping the dress away as Agatha steps out of it and immediately ripping a panel right out. "Is stitching a cheeky flame motif into the underskirts too obvious?" she asks thoughtfully.
Agatha sighs. Clearly Beatrix and Dot aren't the only staff who've been briefed about her.
"...no."
"Oh, good," says Anemone, "Because I already embroidered a sneaky snowflake onto Tedros's doublet. Spot it and I'll give you three gold pieces. I bet you won't, though, his face is so much more interesting..."
Agatha can't help but grin.
"How was Anemone?" asked Callis immediately. Agatha looks suspiciously at her, stripping her veil off.
"Fine. Why?"
"No tall orders?" asks Callis innocently. Agatha looks at her for a second-
"Oh, ha ha." she flops onto the sofa next to her. "You already spoke to her, huh?"
Callis is clearly fighting laughter.
"I didn't expect her to be quite so upfront. She cornered me in the servant's corridors after dinner last night and asked how tall you were, how much you weighed, that sort of thing… she was definitely annoyed about your height." She looks sideways at her. "You weren't upset, were you?"
Agatha looks at her, unimpressed.
"I was not. However, since you now seem to find it so funny-"
Callis finally gives up on trying not to look amused.
"Beatrix said you looked so confused."
"I was! There was this strange yellow woman I've never met before suddenly in my face, calling me a giraffe!"
Callis bursts out laughing and grabs her wrists.
"Aww, a giraffe, aww- you've got spindly little limbs just like one, I like giraffes-"
Keeping a straight face becomes painful, so Agatha gives up and, laughing, tries to bat Callis away-
"No, Mom! No- ow-"
Agatha leans back and they both fall off the sofa into a heap on the rug. Spitting out her hair, Agatha sits up, still grinning-
Callis is looking at her oddly.
"What?" says Agatha.
Callis blinks a few times.
"Hm? Oh. Nothing." she pauses. "I spoke to Tedros before the ball."
Agatha's eyes narrow immediately.
"So he said."
She can't find it in her to be annoyed at Callis, but she dislikes how close she'd skimmed to telling him everything.
Callis holds up her hands, as if she's reading her mind.
"I know you think I came too close. You're probably right. But we both know he didn't guess, and I think it's well and truly scared him away from Vanessa."
"He's never liked her."
"I know. But I get the impression…" she pauses for a minute. "I think Vanessa is trying to stop you getting too close."
Agatha frowns.
"Today, she said Tedros approved of that vile dress, but Beatrix and Dot told me otherwise. you think she was lying to try and make me angry at him?"
"Wouldn't be surprised." says Callis grimly. "She definitely suspects that you know each other's powers. She probably knows, to be honest. The idea of you two being a team, rather than being opposed... " she shrugs. "Well, she doesn't want to look like the bad guy to two teenagers with magic."
"She already does." snorts Agatha.
"And she hates it." says Callis, standing. "Look out for some trouble in the next few days, I think. Shall we go for dinner? I was in the kitchens earlier and it looked to be some kind of fancy pasta."
Agatha springs to her feet so fast she accidentally kicks her veil across the room.
Callis is right, and not only about the pasta.
Agatha wakes up to Sophie shaking her.
"Sophie?" she sits up immediately. "What's wrong-"
Sophie looks wild, panicked, and she's clearly not even been to bed.
"Mother… I just came back from tea with her…"
"What'd she say?" demands Agatha, grabbing Sophie's sleeve. Whatever it is, it's not good.
Sophie is almost crying.
"Aggie, there's a painting… she's had a painting commissioned…"
She stops, looking desperately around.
"What? Of her?" scoffs Agatha. "What's this got to do with me-"
"A painting of you."
Agatha goes completely still.
"...what?"
Sophie bursts into tears, properly this time.
"She secretly commissioned a portrait of you, unveiled, she's…" she gulps. "She's going to anonymously send it to Tedros. Tomorrow morning. She wants to scare him into backing out- oh, Aggie, I'm so sorry, she's such a bitch-"
For a second, Agatha has a wild impulse to let Vanessa do it. She knows Tedros won't react the way Vanessa wants. How he'll react is impossible to know, but it certainly won't endear Vanessa to him any better. He'll know it was from her. He'd overheard her being cruel, he knows only very few people know what she looks like…
But the idea of Tedros knowing at Vanessa's hands- via what is probably a heavily exaggerated portrait- makes her feel violently ill.
She puts her hand over her mouth for a minute, trying to calm the sudden impulse to throw up. Sophie is staring desperately at her.
"I thought… if we stole it and destroyed it… tonight… Agatha, are you okay?"
Agatha puts her head on her knees for a few seconds, biting her tongue.
Then she looks up.
"Where is it?"
Agatha had been expecting a miniature.
"How are we going to get this out quietly?" she hisses, leaning against the windowsill and looking out of the open windows at the clear night outside. She tries to look casual, but she's sure Sophie knows she's trying to avoid looking at the subject of the portrait. "It's a full painting."
Sophie frowns.
"I thought we'd just… take it back to our rooms? And then we could break it."
Agatha grimaces.
"But if someone sees us carrying it…"
Sophie purses her lips, following Agatha's gaze out of the window as she tries to think.
"We could cover it with something?" she offers. "One of those blankets on the sofa?"
"She'd notice anything missing." murmurs Agatha. "Where is she, anyway?"
"She was playing cards with her maids, but I don't think we've got-"
Footsteps echo down the hall, and suddenly both of them can hear an overly familiar voice.
"...long." Sophie finishes softly.
Agatha swears and seizes the painting, hoisting it into her arms and casting desperately around for anything that can help them, but she can't see anything. If Vanessa catches them, Agatha knows whatever she tries next will be worse, and won't allow time for them to thwart her.
Backing nervously against the window, she turns to Sophie, whose face has suddenly gone grim-
Sophie's hands catch her in the chest just as the door's handle twists.
Too startled to even scream, Agatha is knocked back over the windowsill and falls six feet, landing hard on her front in a snowdrift. The painting's frame cracks her hard on the back as it lands next to her.
Gasping, she struggles to lift her head-
"Oh, Mother, I was looking for you-!"
She hears something slam from above her and realises Sophie has shut the window. She'll probably draw the curtains, too…
Swearing as quietly as she can, she peels herself out of the snowdrift and tumbles to the bottom of the pile, twisting her ankle and jarring her hip as the snow she lands on crumbles beneath her. Both her nightdress and the cloak she'd thrown over it are soaked, as is her veil, and there's snow in her boots.
Teeth clenched, Agatha limps to her feet and drags the portrait out of the snowdrift, certain it will be ruined by now-
But it's not. Her own face, sullen and scarred, stares back at her, the canvas only somewhat scraped and a little damp. It's not even an exaggerated portrayal. It's almost perfect. Clearly Vanessa hadn't seen the need to make her look any worse.
Agatha stares blankly at it for a minute, feeling her wet veil sticking to her nose and the back of her neck...
Then she's running, sprinting into the dark palace grounds, staggering on her twisted ankle and dragging the painting behind her. She plunges into a copse of trees near the river, bashing the painting into rocks and shrubs and heaving it through mud. She runs until she's sure she's obscured from anyone looking from the palace, and then she stops, heaving for breath-
With a stifled scream, Agatha throws the painting face-down into the snow and stamps a hole through the canvas. Then another, and another, until the entire thing is a mangled mess and she's no longer able to make out her own face. Shaking, she extracts her foot from the canvas and tears her gloves off. It's night, there's no sun to help her, no brazier to steal flames from, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Agatha slashes her hand through the air and her magic bows to her will. Light shoots through her veins and, without her even needing to touch it, the painting erupts into flames.
Agatha watches it burn, teeth bared and blood hot.
She will not bow to Vanessa any longer. Agatha has set her own term- not until the wedding- and she will not deviate from it. Once the veil is off at the wedding, she will never put it back on, never, never, never-
Unless...
Agatha stills, considering.
It could be useful.
As a negotiator, as a politician. With the veil, she is inscrutable, unreadable, unsettling. There will be no reason for her to continue wearing the veil, since the press sketches from the wedding will be flung to every corner of the Woods, and yet she wears it still… people will realise she's weaponizing it, very quickly.
And when asked about it, she can give them a lovely reminder of her mother's insistence on it.
Poor Princess Agatha.
Agatha's snarl slowly turns to a grin. Tedros had been hopeful that she'd be able to help him politically. At the time, she'd been doubtful… but now, she thinks she might be more useful than she'd thought.
But...Tedros.
With the thought, all of her fury and spite starts to fade. She sags.
Can't be a political asset to your husband if your husband wants nothing to do with you, once he's seen your face.
The roaring in her head quietens, and Agatha sinks down to sit in the snow, ignoring how it soaks her dress. Her ankle hurts, now. And her hip. She wants to go back in, but she'll wait until the painting is completely unrecognisable-
"Agatha, what are you doing?"
Agatha whirls to find Callis standing by one of the trees, staring at her makeshift bonfire with bewilderment.
With the sight of her nursemaid standing there, Agatha is well and truly snapped back to the present- the present of hateful mothers and weddings and-
Agatha buries her head in her arms and bursts into tears.
"He couldn't see." babbles Agatha desperately, stumping along on her twisted ankle as Callis hauls her back along the corridor to her rooms. "He couldn't find out like that, I didn't want…"
"I know, I know." Says Callis urgently, ushering her past the royal suites. "Shush now, sweetheart-"
Agatha clamps her mouth shut, praying they've not altered anyone to their presence, but the palace is silent. Most of the east wing is unoccupied, besides Tedros's floor that they've just passed and their accommodation on the other side, so they're probably fine.
"Sophie got away fine," Callis says, ushering her back into her sitting room, shutting the door tightly, and guiding Agatha back onto the sofa. "She told me to go and look for you, follow your tracks and help you dispose of the godforsaken thing if necessary. She spun Vanessa some yarn about looking for her about a dress and Vanessa believed her, as far as I can tell. Then she ran off to do something else, I don't know what… Vanessa knows the painting is missing, though, so it won't be long before she realises you got rid of it."
Agatha grimaces as Callis pulls the boot off her bad foot and probes the ankle.
"Just sprained." she says after a brief examination. "You'll limp a bit, but it'll be alright in a few days. I'll go and get you a cold compress, put your foot up there. And take your veil off, it's soaked-"
She disappears and Agatha does as she's told, too exhausted to even bother arguing about Callis making a fuss over nothing in particular. The sudden burst of magic had taken more out of her than she'd thought.
Callis soon returns, though, and sits by Agatha's feet, holding the compress despite Agatha's insistence that she could do it herself ("no, if you hold it it'll only heat up"). They don't talk. Agatha supposes there's not much to discuss. The painting is destroyed.
The clock strikes four. Agatha wrings out her wet veil.
"Earlier," says Callis suddenly, "Do you remember…"
She trails off. Agatha looks blankly at her.
"Remember what?"
Callis hesitates.
"...never mind." she shakes her head and turns back to Agatha's ankle. "It doesn't matter."
Agatha frowns.
"Are you sure?"
"I'll tell you later." dismisses Callis.
Agatha shrugs tiredly and sits back, listening to the clock tick and watching the flames in the fireplace sink lower and lower in the grate.
She must fall asleep at some point, because she wakes up in bed.
Grimacing at the idea of Callis carrying her- Callis is still a little taller than her, and much stronger, but Agatha is still heavy- she lies awake for a while as the light from the sunrise slowly creeps across the room, contemplating the night, working back through the conversation with Callis. She's yet to see Sophie, but if she'd sent Callis to follow her tracks…
Her tracks!
Horrified, Agatha bolts upright. They would lead Vanessa- and anyone else- right to the burnt painting. And if they followed them back, they'd find the intent in the snowdrift. At worst, they'd assume a conspiracy.
At best, Vanessa would put two and two together.
Heart in her mouth, Agatha tumbles out of bed and lunges to the window, looking for the telltale drag marks, or her footprints, or Callis's, because they'd be perfectly visible from this window, and-
But they're not there.
Agatha blinks. It hasn't snowed in the night, because the thin layer on her windowsill hasn't grown, and patches of grass are visible, but…
She flings open her bedroom door and rushes to look out of the sitting room windows. Same thing. No tracks.
Befuddled, she leans back against the table, trying to work out if she'd dreamed the entire thing-
Something crumples under her hand. A note.
She snatches it up.
Fixed it.
It's not signed, but it doesn't have to be. The dragon crest in the corner tells her whose desk it's from.
Because it hasn't snowed, but her tracks are gone.
She ran off to do something else, I don't know what…
Callis might not have known what Sophie was doing, but Agatha knows. Chaddick was on duty last night. He'd have let her in.
Heartbeat slowing, Agatha crushes the note in her hand and sets light to it. Once it's ash, she returns to her bedroom and wipes it across a sheet of her own paper, smearing grey across the paper. She'll slip it to him tomorrow, at breakfast, to let him know she got his message. She would wager that, if she went down to the site of the fire, there'd be no trace, not even a charred piece of frame.
He's getting better.
Heart swelling, Agatha returns to bed, trying not to smile. She'd wager he didn't even ask any questions. Sophie will have been evasive enough to keep him from knowing the exact problem with it, and he'll have run off anyway.
He'd been right. They do make a good team. There's no evidence left for Vanessa to confront Agatha with, even if she's certain it was her. Besides, even if she did confront Agatha, she'd have to admit to secretly commissioning a painting…
Agatha grins, tucking her note into her pocket.
Yes, there's still the issue of Tedros.
But for now, at least, he's hers.