Kaida
The dressmaker arrived at my room five nights after we reached Ashenveil.
She was a vampire — older than most of the court by the look of her, which meant nothing in terms of appearance but everything in terms of the patience and stillness and grace with which she carried herself. She came with two human assistants and a trunk that took both of them to carry.
Her name was Valeria, and she looked at me the way I imagined a sculptor looked at a flawed, unpromising block of stone.
“Turn around,” she said, by way of introduction.
I turned around.
Valeria, I learned from her assistants, had been dressing Caelum’s court for over two centuries, which explained her competence and the complete absence of any interest in my feelings about the process. She moved around me with a measuring
