“You did it,” he said. “You went to smoke.”

I touched a hand to his cheek, awed. “Crikey. I did.”

...

Smoke, of course, is not quite a dragon. I reminded myself of that as I lay in my bed that morning, waiting for Gladys’s knock. The sun was rising and the sky flushed a vigorous pink, but I knew there’d be no sleep for me for some while.

I had lost my human body, even if it had been for only a few short minutes. I had Become something less than corporeal. I had defied all logic and all proper sanity, and I’d had a witness.

I wasn’t mad. But I wasn’t quite a dragon yet, either. I felt itchy and odd. Like the twilight, I was now a thing between worlds, and I felt … incomplete.

Before we’d left the grotto, Jesse said that maybe the pain of my transformation wasn’t supposed to be with smoke. That maybe it was going to be when I shifted into a more monstrous shape.

He hadn’t actually said monstrous. I thought it fairly implied.

I squirmed against my sheets, imagining wing bones digging into my back. I held up my hands and spread my fingers before my face. I squinted at them, turning them this way and that in the rosy light, then bent my fingers into claws.

For a second—no more than that—I could have sworn there was an impression of scales along my wrists, ridged and perfect. Then I looked closer, and all I saw were wrists.

A shadow zipped by the window, too swift to follow. Then another, and another. I got up, stuck my head beyond the sill.

The flock of gannets shot like bullets past my tower, flying hard and fast away from me toward the sea, into the rising pink sun.

I heard the hiss of the air sluiced from their wings. I smelled the fish-feather muck of their scent.

The itching inside me crept nearer to the surface of my skin.

...

To the tenth- and eleventh-year girls’ open dismay, the duke’s party was considered a scholastic function. Therefore, we would all wear our formal Iverson uniforms, which looked nearly exactly like our everyday uniforms but for a frothing of lace along the shirtwaists and skirts of satin damask instead of broadcloth.

I wanted to inquire what scholastic function, precisely, attending a birthday party fulfilled but knew better than that. Mrs. Westcliffe had made it clear that I was expected to attend, so whatever punishment she might devise, it wouldn’t include getting to stay behind.

I shall not ask intelligent questions.

x 1,000.

We all waited in the parlor for the duke’s automobiles—how many did he have, anyway?—to show up and ferry us in excellent style to the celebration. Mrs. Westcliffe and Miss Swanston were to be our dutiful shepherds, and they waited with us, standing in the middle of the room with crossed arms and jewelry spangling their persons. Even Miss Swanston, it seemed, had the means for a pearl choker. A gaggle of younger girls clustered about the doorway, shoving at one another for the best spot from which to eye us with envy.

I sat in my horsehair chair, gazing at my knees, thinking about smoke and sacrifices and how Mrs. Westcliffe’s garnet earbobs thrummed to a beat that resembled a Sousa march, which seemed exquisitely appropriate.

I’d never before worn anything made of satin. I was fairly certain I’d never even touched it.

The skirt was aubergine and textured with poppies. The poppies felt nubby against my palms; the rest of the material was smooth smooth smooth. Beneath my outward elegance, my plain cotton chemise and corset chafed at my skin, and it seemed like something of a cheat.

I’d heard of nobs with satin sheets on their beds. I’d heard of street girls who saved up for months for satin petticoats. And now one entire half of me was wrapped in this thick, slippery cloth, and all I could think was, How could anyone sleep in this?

“Good gad, it’s absolutely sweltering in here,” groused Malinda, but softly, because we weren’t allowed to say gad. I’d noticed that when she was particularly peevish, her voice took on a singsong edge. “Must we have all the lamps burning?”

“The better to see ourselves by, my dear,” murmured Sophia, scrutinizing her face in one of the mirrors. Her earbobs were of diamonds. She looked stunning, and she knew it.

Lillian was fanning herself with one hand. “I feel as if I might melt. How is my hair? Is it positively limp? It is, isn’t it? It is. I can tell.”

Caroline shouldered up next to Sophia in the mirror, pouting. “At least your complexion holds up. I’m red as a beet.”

“I’m going to look positively wilted for the party. I am.”

“I do wish they’d bother to get here already. Do you think the duke knows how tardy his servants are? They are in his employ. Should someone inform him?”

“They’re here,” I said, and stood.

“Oh, really,” snarled Malinda. “Now you have the hearing of a dog, is that it, Eleanore?”

“How fitting,” chimed in Chloe from nearby, I suppose because she couldn’t resist.

The duke, as it happened, had at least five automobiles, because that was how many showed up to carry us off the isle. I rode to Tranquility with Mrs. Westcliffe again, Miss Swanston on my other side, and took comfort in the thought of all the other girls crammed into the other autos, sincerely hoping that the wind blew them to rags.

In defiance of the war and the airships and any sort of two-candles-a-month rule, Tranquility was lit to blazes when we pulled up. It appeared that every window in every room shone with light, and it turned out that the party wasn’t even to be held indoors.

We followed the butler through a ballroom to the formal gardens in back, and even the headmistress couldn’t contain her gasp of wonder.

Beneath the rising moon, the grounds opened up in a spread of rolling grasses and marble stairways and gazebos and trees, finely garbed people swirling through it all like flower petals loosed to the wind. Torches burned along the farther paths, bright dots of orange against the blackening sky; Chinese lanterns glowing red and green and turquoise swayed more placidly from the trees. A string orchestra played a waltz from a corner of the courtyard just below us. No one danced to it; the rest of the courtyard was taken up by elaborately dressed tables of food and champagne.

This was a far more momentous event than a tea party, clearly.

“Well,” said Mrs. Westcliffe at last, remembering to close her mouth.

“Quite so,” agreed Miss Swanston, with a sideways, smiling look at me. “Miss Jones. Would you care to lead the way?”

I descended the steps from the ballroom to the courtyard with satin clenched in both hands, making my way to the duke’s receiving line, stationed right by the first champagne table. Armand stood beside him, both of them in black tails and pomade so sleekly perfect they looked cut from a fashion journal.

Without making eye contact, I curtsied, mumbled my greeting, then moved quickly aside to allow Mrs. Westcliffe room to fawn.

“Your Grace.”

“Irene. Welcome. Miss Swanston. And, er—you, as well, Miss Eleanore. I trust the journey here wasn’t too taxing?”

“Not in the least. You are, as always, the most gracious host… .”

Because I’d moved, Armand was now directly in front of me. Our eyes locked. He did not speak. I did not speak.

“… you have certainly outdone yourself this year! What a truly handsome transformation to the gardens, truly inspired …”

I sighed, giving in first. “Happy birthday. I don’t have a gift.”

His brows drew together. “Excuse me?”

“I said, I didn’t bring a gift. Sorry.”

He stared down at me. “Why would you—wait. Did you think … all this was for me?”

“Isn’t it?”

And he started to laugh. Really laugh, genuinely laugh; it snared his father’s attention and that of Mrs. Westcliffe. Miss Swanston, angling behind me, placed a gloved hand on my elbow.

“How heartwarming to see young people getting along so well! Miss Jones, we mustn’t keep His Grace and Lord Armand. There are far too many guests eager to speak with them.”

“Have a grand time,” Armand managed, still chortling, as we moved off.

Mrs. Westcliffe found a lost flock of her little lambs milling about; apparently the other motorcars from Iverson had arrived. With a word to Miss Swanston, she left to tend to them.

Miss Swanston remained with me. By unspoken accord, we headed to the nearest table of food.

A maid bobbed at us and handed us plates. As the waltz shifted into a polonaise, we only stood there, taking it all in. Oysters on platters of chipped ice, haunches of beef waiting to be carved, fat lobster tails, strawberries, glazed duck, roasted artichokes, sturgeon in lemon sauce, salads, brandied fruits. Breads and breads and breads, a thousand kinds of cheeses and grapes—it was without question the most food I’d ever seen assembled in one place.

As if the war did not exist. As if rationing did not exist; as if hungry children stuck in foundling homes did not exist.

I might have remained as I was for hours, stunned and starving, but Miss Swanston took the tongs for the strawberries, which were nearest, and placed a few on my plate.

“How are things, Eleanore?”

I woke up fast. In my experience, when adults asked this question, it never led anywhere pleasant.

“Very fine, ma’am.”

“Good. I’m pleased to hear it.” She moved on to the roast beef, nodding to the footman behind the table for a slice. “I imagine it’s been something of a transition for you. Coming all the way out here from the city, I mean.”