And the only way to do that was to make sure he did not, in fact, get a mediocre commission for me.

Chapter 9

Cedric left the morning after Midwinter, and the exam results were in a few days later. They arrived with Jasper and Miss Garrison, one of the Glittering Court’s dressmakers. She immediately wanted to start designing our themed wardrobes. Mistress Masterson strode in sedately to the library, where we all waited anxiously in neat, orderly rows. She propped up the framed list on the mantel and then stepped back. There was a moment of hesitation, and then we broke rank to crowd forward and look.

The list showed the scores for all girls across the four manors. I immediately found my name, exactly in the middle, as I’d once hoped. It was a fine score, and scores only helped in the Glittering Court’s promotion in Adoria. A prosperous man entranced by a girl’s looks might not care how she ranked in the exams—but those with the highest scores would have more opportunities to meet said gentlemen.

Mira, standing beside me, let out a small exclamation of delight. I found her name several above mine, in a very respectable seventh across all manors—and one spot higher than Clara. “Can you believe it?” Mira asked. “Maybe I won’t have to clean floors after all.” Around us, the room was buzzing with other girls’ chatter.

I hugged her. “Of course I can believe it. You’ve been so worried about the accent, but you’ve worked so hard in all the other—”

The wail of a familiar voice drew me up short. I immediately spied Tamsin standing on the opposite side of the group, her eyes wide. She turned to Mistress Masterson incredulously. “How am I ranked third? The girls above me have the same score as me!” A quick study of the list showed two girls from other manors in the first and second spots.

“Yes,” Mistress Masterson agreed. “You all tied—it was very impressive. Really, what it came down to is aesthetics.” She nodded toward Miss Garrison. “Winnifred, the first girl, would look so lovely in the diamond coloring. Ruby’s the next most precious stone, and that obviously wouldn’t suit you with your hair. So third, as a sapphire, seemed like—”

“Sapphire?” interrupted Tamsin. “Sapphire? Everyone knows green is my best color. Isn’t an emerald rarer than a sapphire?”

“My green fabric hasn’t arrived yet,” said Miss Garrison. “Isn’t likely to show until about a week before you sail.”

Mistress Masterson nodded. “And the categories are flexible—it’s more of a gemstone range we’re going for. We thought it best just to go forward with sapphire so that she could start on your wardrobe. Otherwise, she’d be working at the last minute.”

Tamsin fixed the seamstress with a sharp eye. “Well, maybe she could just sew a little damned faster.”

“Tamsin!” snapped Mistress Masterson, shifting back to the stern instructor we knew. “You are out of line. You will take sapphire and be grateful that you’re among the top three. And you will watch your language.”

I could tell Tamsin was still upset, but she took a deep breath and visibly calmed before speaking again. “Yes, Mistress Masterson. I apologize. But I can retake the exams I did poorly on, right?”

“Yes, of course. Every girl can. Though, I’ll be honest, with a ninety-nine percent rating, there’s isn’t much else to achieve.”

“Perfection,” replied Tamsin.

Most of the girls were content with their scores. Even the lowest ranked would still be dazzlingly displayed in Adoria, and enduring exams again wasn’t so appealing.

Miss Garrison and her assistants set about measuring everyone and holding fabric swatches to them as other gemstone themes were decided. I approached Mistress Masterson and asked if I could retake the exams.

“Certainly,” she said, looking surprised. As mediocre as I’d always been, this initiative had to be unexpected. She rifled through some papers and produced one that broke down my scores, detailing each area. “Which would you like to retake?”

I barely glanced at the sheet. “All of them.”

“All?” she repeated. “That almost never happens.”

I shrugged by way of answer.

She pointed to a couple of scores. “You performed very well in these areas. I doubt there’s any need.”

“I’d still like to do it.”

She hesitated and gave a curt nod. “It’ll take a bit of scheduling for you to meet with all the instructors, but it’s every girl’s right. Between you and me, in all the time I’ve done this, most girls who retake an exam only go up a few points. Miss Garrison and I currently have you placed as an amethyst, and her purple fabrics are gorgeous. It’s unlikely your score would shift enough to warrant a new theme, and would you really want one?”

“I want to retake them,” I reiterated.

“Very well. But in the meantime, we’ll still have you fitted so Miss Garrison can start on the amethyst wardrobe.”

She was right about the fabrics. Of all the ones Miss Garrison had brought, the amethyst ones were among the most beautiful. She held up swathes of lavender silk and purple velvet, clucking in approval each time.

But an amethyst girl wouldn’t give Cedric the commission he needed.

“You’ve got the coloring to pull off anything,” she remarked. “For some of the other girls, the originally planned palettes aren’t going to work.”

Mira was one such case. They’d decided her theme would be topaz, but after having her try some of the fabrics, it was clear the yellow-brown fabrics just didn’t suit her. “Deep reds are the way to go,” Miss Garrison told Mistress Masterson. The dressmaker’s gaze fell on Clara. “We could switch them—give Mira garnet.”

Jasper, observing the conversation, nodded in agreement. “It’s a little more of a common stone, so it might be fitting.”

I didn’t have a chance to be affronted by the insult to my friend because Clara’s scowl told me how much the change upset her. That made up for a lot. Afterward, I heard her mutter to Caroline, “I hate yellow. It always makes me look sickly.”

Tamsin was one of the last to complete her fittings, largely because she kept pointing out how unacceptable the blue fabric was. When she finally finished and walked up to our room with us, she muttered, “I can’t wait until the retakes put me at the top. Then they’ll see what a bad choice they made. I’d look just as good in white as green.”

I stumbled on the stairs and had to catch the railing for support. In my plan to retake the exams, I somehow hadn’t considered Tamsin. If I managed to vault myself to the top of the list, where would that put her? Her words rang in my ears: You don’t know what I have on the line.

No, I didn’t. But I knew what Cedric had on the line. His life. No matter how dire, could Tamsin really have anything comparable to that? And was it really dire? Her feelings had seemed genuine the day of the family visit, but I’d seen a lot of theatrics from her in our time together. Was her fixation to be the best just a matter of pride? A yearning for riches?

I had to choose between them. My best friend or . . . who? The man who’d helped save me? No matter where Tamsin placed, she’d have a prosperous future in Adoria. My placement could affect Cedric’s life. There was only one choice I could make.