It was clear neither girl had ever worn a chemise as anything other than a basic undergarment. In fact, I was pretty sure Mira hadn’t had one on at all. These new dresses were the same style of many I’d worn before—albeit mine had been more expensive materials—where the chemise was meant to be displayed as part of the dress. I knew how it was supposed to look but wasn’t entirely sure of how to implement it. I did my best to explain it, and after a fair amount of tugging and straightening, we all finally managed to look fashionable. The delicate white fabric of my chemise was pulled and puffed out through slashes in the overdress’s arms, creating a color contrast. Lace from the chemise’s neckline peeped out around my bodice.

All of our extra maneuvering had taken time, and we were the last ones to arrive downstairs. We weren’t exactly late, but Mistress Masterson’s sharp eyes told us we shouldn’t have cut it so close. Then, taking in our appearance, her expression turned approving. “You three have styled those chemises very nicely. I’ve been trying to teach the others all week, but they just keep bunching up the fabric.”

I gave Mistress Masterson my sweetest smile. “Thank you, ma’am. We’re happy to help the other girls if they keep having trouble. I see Clara’s is really bunched up in the back. I can help her out after today’s lessons.” Clara shot me a murderous look, and I noticed much of her makeup had been scrubbed.

“That’s very kind of you,” said Mistress Masterson. “And such a refreshing attitude. Most girls come here being so . . . cutthroat. Mira, is there something wrong?”

Mira had a hand to her mouth, trying to cover her laugh. “No, ma’am. Just a cough.”

Mistress Masterson gave her a wary glance and then beckoned for us all to follow her to the conservatory. Mira and Tamsin fell into step with me, one on either side.

“That was excessive,” said Tamsin. But she too was smiling—and this time, there was no show or calculation.

I smiled back. “Best. Bet.”

And so my life as a commoner began, the days flying by faster than I expected.

Cedric didn’t need to worry about my hair giving me away. I’d never styled it on my own in my life, and after its first washing at Blue Spring, there was no way I could have ever replicated what I’d come in with that first day. No one demanded that level of detail on a regular basis, and mostly we were expected to pull our hair back neatly into buns or braids. I wasn’t very good at that either. Disheveled became part of my daily life.

And Cedric was right about the other things. Although we were being trained to fit into the upper classes, freeing the girls from many of the labors they’d grown up with, there were still a lot of skills taken for granted that I couldn’t perform. I did what he’d advised, watching the other girls avidly and imitating them as best as I could. I succeeded with varying degrees of luck.

“Don’t mix it!” Tamsin exclaimed. She darted across the kitchen, jerking a spoon from my hand.

It was a month into our stay at Blue Spring, and we’d fallen into a regular routine of classes and activities. I pointed at the open cookbook on the counter. “It says to break the butter into the flour.”

“That’s not the same as mixing. This thing’ll be as dense as some tosser’s skull.”

I shrugged, not understanding, and she nudged me aside to take over. Culinary skills weren’t something I’d expected to learn here. The hope was that most of us would have servants or at least a house cook to prepare meals in Adoria. But the mistress of a large household was still expected to oversee what was being cooked, and that meant instructing us in the preparation of finer food. The dishes we made here were beyond what most of the girls had ever dined on, but a lot of the basic principles were still familiar to my housemates. Me? I’d never cooked a thing, nor had I had to supervise anything. I’d had servants to supervise my other servants.

I watched as Tamsin deftly chopped up the butter and put it into the flour in pieces. “Let me try,” I offered.

“No, you’ll just mess it up. We all still remember what happened when you ‘blanched’ the asparagus.”

“Look, ‘bleached’ and ‘blanched’ sound very similar,” I said through gritted teeth.

Tamsin shook her head. “I just don’t want to screw up our first cooking test, especially after Clara’s group got such good marks yesterday. Go measure the currants. Mira, can you warm the cream instead?”

Mira slid the bowl of currants over, exchanging an amused glance with me. My roommates and I had also fallen into comfortable roles, not to mention a growing closeness. Despite Tamsin’s initial proclamations, I ended up being looked to as the unofficial leader—though we still usually let her dictate our actions. It was easier than going against her. We all wanted to succeed here, but her undisguised ambition and razor-sharp focus kept Mira and me working at a pace we might otherwise have missed. It was useful having her on my side, but her scrutiny made me nervous sometimes. She rarely missed anything.

“How did you ever survive in your lady’s home?” she asked, regarding her butter and flour with satisfaction. It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question. Along with being the unofficial leader, I suspected I also served as regular entertainment for them, thanks to both my wit and my mishaps.

I shrugged. “I never had to cook. There were others to do that.” That wasn’t a lie. Ada might have had to cook growing up in her mother’s household, but she’d never had to in mine. “I sewed and mended. Dressed my lady. Styled her hair.”

Both Mira and Tamsin raised an eyebrow at that. They’d seen my hair efforts.

I successfully deflected from that when I saw Tamsin take out a ceramic platter for plating our pastry. “No, use glass,” I told her.

“Why the hell—I mean, why would we do that?” Tamsin had made a lot of progress in her word choice this last month but still often slipped.

“It’s how they’re serving it now. On glass, decorated with sugar and extra currants.”

I might struggle with commonplace activities, but I knew these small, luxurious details—things our instructors often hadn’t gotten around to yet in our education. It was like the chemises. I saw Tamsin’s eyes narrow, immediately filing this away. It was why she often looked past my other inadequacies—both real and contrived. These small things gave us an edge, and it was proven later when the cooking instructor came by to survey our work.

“This is lovely,” she said, studying the artful swirls of sugar on the glass platter that I’d made. “None of the other girls have focused much on aesthetics, but they’re just as important as the quality of the food. Visual appeal is part of taste appeal, you know.”

We didn’t see what she wrote down on her paper, but her pleased look spoke volumes. Tamsin could barely contain her smugness.

“There’ll be no living with her now,” Mira told me when we walked to our dance lesson afterward. She nodded to where Tamsin was animatedly telling another girl about our excellent marks. “She’s doing that for spite. She knows it’ll get back to Clara.”

“You’re saying Clara doesn’t deserve a little spite?” Clara had continued to make life difficult for Mira, though she’d backed off a bit when she realized taking on Mira meant also taking on Tamsin and me.