CHAPTER 12: JEWELS IN THE MUD
PART I: THE SILKEN PUPPETS
Morning at the Quartz Palace did not rise; it dragged itself painfully from the clutches of the arctic night in a halo of grayness and frost. But in the Barsky sisters’ apartments, the bustle could have rivaled a beehive in high summer. Mia and Bea, usually more comfortable in leather breeches and tracking boots, were at the center of a whirlwind of fabrics, perfumes, and improvised diplomatic scripts.
Anastasia, true to her role as a ruthless governess, circled the twins with a severity that would have made a palace guard regiment tremble. She wasn’t merely dressing them; she was sculpting them for a play where the stakes were Elowen’s very survival.
— “Stand up straight!” Anastasia commanded, tightening the laces of Bea’s corse
