Jayce had sewn a tight but delicate line of gold-edged white feathers up the dress, coiling along the bottom hem, over one hip, between her breasts, and up the low neckline to her shoulder. The dress straps were as slender as he could make them and still cover the healing wound on her shoulder, and her arms were bare.
She turned and looked over her shoulder. The line of feathers wound down to her waist to complete the circle around her body. Every time she moved, feathers rustled against each other and the feathers over her shoulders brushed her bare arm. The sensation was strange but pleasant.
Jayce had insisted she wear long white gloves to cover the healing cuts on her knuckles and to make her bare upper arms more striking. He'd found long, soft crosslaced white boots for her legs that hinted at an icarus's much more utilitarian footwear, and he'd run a line of white feathers down their sides. "Unusual. A little defiant," Jayce had said with approval, looking at her. "They'll be easy to dance in, and the fabric hides your calves."
"What's wrong—"
"'Muscles aren't ladylike.'" Cassi rolled her eyes at Taya. "Don't pay any attention to him. Jay-jay likes his women plump and cuddly."
"A man who prefers women with hard bodies might as well sleep with another man," Jayce retorted. Cassilta swatted her nephew across the head.
"Watch it, brat. Chicks might be cuter than eagles, but it's the eagles who bring home the dinner and defend the nest."
"Barbarian." Jayce placed a delicate gold net over Taya's hair and began weaving white and gold feathers into it, pulling them behind her ears. Taya stood motionless, watching as he created narrow, swooping wings from brow to nape. Cassi had already done her face for her, pulling a surprising number of tiny jars from her purse.
"You carry all this with you?" Taya had asked, amazed, holding up a small jar of lip paint.
"You don't?" Cassi had countered.
Now they both looked at her reflection as Jayce stepped back.
"That is a completely outrageous dress," Cassi said with delight. "I've never seen anything like it. Jaws are going to drop."
"I don't know about this," Taya fretted. She hardly recognized herself. She looked like she'd just stepped off the stage of some fairy-tale opera. Alister's joke about exalteds and their layers of embroidered robes returned to her, and she wondered how much of a scandal she'd cause, showing off her figure so brazenly at an exalted party. "Maybe I should wear something that… covers more."
"Covers more? You're an icarus!" Jayce reached forward to tease curls of her hair down around her face. "Freedom defines the icarus caste. You don't want to wear the same dowdy fashions the cardinal or plebeian castes would wear. And if there's one thing exalteds aren't, it's free. Besides, you're too small to carry off their heavy robes." He regarded her with satisfaction. "This sets a new standard for icarus fashion. I'm a genius."
"You're a genius, kid," Cassi agreed, hugging her nephew and ruffling his hair. "Now come on; let's see if Taya's coach is here."
Estate Octavus stood on the highest street in Primus sector, surrounded by other exalteds’ mansions. The street's cobbles were flat and smooth, laid together like pieces of a puzzle, and the gas lamps were small masterpieces of ironwork that stood every twenty feet to keep the neighborhood bright. Taya had visited the street before, but only to deliver messages. The mansions’ peaked, slate-tiled roofs and forbidding iron gates looked more much imposing when she approached them at ground level.
Carriages blocked the road, and everywhere she looked, masked and robed exalts were flowing into the estate, followed by liveried servants.
Peering out the window of Gregor's coach, Taya touched her lips, worried. Was she going to be mistaken for a servant, showing up at the party without a mask? Then she pulled her fingers away before she could disturb all the work Cassi had done. To give her hands something to do, she stroked the soft velvet cloak Jayce had let her borrow for the night.
Lady, what am I doing here?
She twitched the window curtain back even farther, impressed by the sight of ivory and gold masks glittering in the lamplight, of silk and silver hems sliding over spotless streets. Long embroidered sleeves hung well over the exalteds’ fingertips, and only their long glossy hair, caught up around their heads in complicated braids and loops, revealed that the creatures beneath the masks might be human.
"Ostentatious incapacitation," Pyke had called exalteds’ garments. Baroque, mouthless masks to prove they didn't need to give orders. Heavy, movement-inhibiting garments to prove they didn't need to run or carry. Everything an exalted might need to say or do in public was anticipated by their perfectly trained lower-caste servants. And if it wasn't, there was nothing the exalted could do about it without outraging tradition.
The way Viera Octavus had briefly outraged it, when she'd abandoned her mask and robe to lift her child to safety.
Despite Pyke's scorn for the exalteds, Taya thought the sight of so many masked and robed aristocrats was eerie and majestic. Very few people were privileged to see behind the masks, which gave exalteds an air of mystique that the nobility of other countries lacked. Maybe that's why other countries had so many revolutions. People there took their rulers for granted. Exalteds, by contrast, stood apart from the rest of humanity by virtue of their birth and their rules of conduct.
A footman approached her coach and spoke to Gregor, then tapped on the door.
"Taya Icarus?"
She drew in a deep breath.
"I'm here," she replied, as he opened the door. The cold autumn air made her pull her cloak close around her.
The footman blinked once, startled by her uninked face, and then bowed.
"May I escort you to the door? Lady Octavus told us to bring you in as soon as you arrived."
"Thank you." She took his hand and let him help her out of the coach, grateful for his assistance. Sitting and standing in a tight dress wasn't a maneuver she'd ever needed to practice before.
"Good luck, icarus," Gregor called out. "The man there says your transportation home's been taken care of already."
She turned and waved.
"Thank you, Gregor."
He gave her a cheery salute.
Heads turned as they walked through the street and entered the estate gates. Taya shivered under her cloak, feeling naked compared to all the covered guests around her.
Well, there's no turning back now
, she thought, squaring her shoulders.
If nothing else, this dress will confirm the fast-and-loose reputation of icarii everywhere
.
The doors were wide open and the foyer was lit by a thousand wax candles placed on high shelves and chandeliers, well above the long sleeves and dragging hems of the exalteds’ heavy robes. Gold-framed mirrors reflected the light and the guests in an endless regression that made Taya dizzy. She swallowed as jeweled, featureless masks turned to watch her.
The footman led her through the foyer to the inner doors.
"May I take your cloak?" he asked. She glanced around and saw that here, safely away from the street, exalteds were shedding their public robes and pulling off their ivory masks, laughing and greeting each other like normal people.
"Of course." She pulled off the velvet cloak that had seemed so luxurious in Jayce's shop but now struck her as thin and tawdry compared to the exalteds’ garments.