“Give it a walk,” Lina said. “See how it feels.”
She held open the door to the dressing room so that Adah could move into the main studio where there was more space to walk around. Adah’s first steps were slow and awkward as she got used to the new outfit Lina had dressed her up in.
The primary reason for Adah’s shaky steps was Lina’s choice of footwear—a pair of over-the-knee boots built of uninterrupted black leather. They had a short block heel, which would make them easier to get used to than Heartbreak’s more aggressive stiletto, but their size and constrictive material posed a different challenge. Walking in these felt like a fundamental alteration to how her legs functioned and reshaped her gait into an involuntary strut. The only way to move in these boots was to walk as though she was walking down a long corridor, on her way to the command center of a top secret combat operation.
Given Lina’s obsession with fantasies and attention to detail, she very well could have designed these boots with such an effect in mind. Perhaps that had been why she’d asked Adah to walk before she’d even put on the entire outfit. She couldn’t wait any longer to see if her plan had succeeded.
Adah had come to Lina’s studio alone today, being that she was the only member of the coalition who had yet to get their final fitting for their uniforms. Even after scaling back her usage of her scythe over the past few weeks, Adah’s word wasn’t enough to convince Elise to give the A-Rank mission the green light. The Secretary wanted harder proof that Adah had her visions under control, which had meant another round of doctor visits as well as a live demonstration. Elise and Kodriel had watched Adah call upon the scythe’s power—both internally and externally—in a mock battle. Once she’d seen Adah maintain control of herself with her own eyes, Elise finally allowed the plan to proceed.
While Adah had been busy proving her fitness beyond any doubt, the rest of the coalition members had visited Lina for their finishing touches without her. This had been fate, according to Lina herself. Apparently she couldn’t truly understand how the leader of this squad needed to appear until she had finalized everyone else’s outfit. Adah had rolled her eyes at that. She knew the truth—Lina was just happy to work with Adah alone. Being the designer’s favorite doll was a blessing and a curse.
Once she’d adjusted to the strange strut that her boots forced her into, Adah made her way back to the dressing room to get a better look at her uniform in full.
What she saw in the dressing room mirror might have passed for an official military uniform had it not been for some of the more extreme elements of its fashion. The boots were hard to ignore, of course, but Adah was certain that the shorts she wore also defied military regulation. They were of a generous length—by Lina’s standards—their black color accented at the bottom by a strip of dark red velvet that swirled upward like painted waves on a canvas. From the front, this combination of boots and shorts exposed the section of Adah’s thigh that Lina was oh so fond of, but from behind her body was covered by flowing layers of black and red skirts that attached to Adah’s hips.
These semi-concealed shorts were unique to Adah’s design, but the rest of her uniform matched closely to what she had seen in photos of the other coalition members’. There wouldn’t be much point to uniforms that didn’t look unified, after all. Each outfit had a base layer of a white collared shirt affixed with a red tie, over which each member wore a slight variation of a black jacket. Every jacket was black with white pinstripes, but they varied in their exact cut, their number of buttons, and other details like that. Adah’s, for example, featured a column of three silver buttons which bound the jacket with an extreme asymmetry on the left side.
As the unit’s leader, her pseudo-rank was designated by silver tassels that fell from her jacket’s shoulders. These epaulets, as Lina called them, sparkled with the same intensity as the gems and lace of the Last Light’s concert outfits. Of course, the designer had to leave her mark somewhere.
“How does it feel?” Lina asked as she looked over Adah’s shoulder at her reflection in the mirror. “Worthy of both the princess and the commander?”
Adah tugged at her tie until it loosened off her neck. The slight dishevelment might have taken away from the outfit’s impact, but she was willing to pay that small price for her comfort.
“I feel like I’m back in school,” she said. “They made us wear ties there, too.”
“Sounds like private school to me,” Lina said with a smile. “You’re so committed to your character.”
“What are you implying?”
“Only that you have impeccable manners is all,” Lina said. “Always so polite.”
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Adah rolled her eyes and said, “If you want a serious answer, I think you outdid yourself with this. I remember you talked about wanting to transform me with your concert outfit. I’m not sure I understood you at the time, but now I get it. When I’m wearing this, there’s no way my brain won’t flip a switch and start thinking like Heartbreak.”
Lina giggled. The woman loved to show off her catlike grin and seemed to have an involuntary reflex for dramatic sighs, but it was rare that Adah ever heard her laugh. Hers was cute, if a little strange, a bit like an uncontrollable hiccup that bounced around deep in her chest.
“This is why you’re my favorite, Adah,” Lina said. “You’re changing all the time—it takes all my effort just to keep up with you. My outfits transforming you? Perhaps this uniform is a step ahead of you today, perhaps you’ll feel something shift inside you when you wear it next. But in a week or a month, you’ll have outgrown it. You’ll have become more than what this outfit can capture, and I’ll have to rush to catch up. The next outfit will be different, as will the one after that. They will each become a record of a girl who no longer exists.”
“People change,” Adah said with a shrug. “Doesn’t mean I can’t keep wearing the old outfits. What you made for the concert is too cute not to use again, anyway.”
“But it won’t be the same outfit you wore that night,” Lina said. “You were a crystal on that stage. Pristine and perfect. Fabric has never fit a girl so well, and I don’t mean its size. If you were to wear those same clothes tonight, that crystal I saw would now be chipped and cracked. Your brilliant edges would now be jagged. If I reached out to touch you, I’d cut my finger on what you’ve been through.”
“Isn’t that more fitting for Heartbreak?” Adah asked. “I’m supposed to have some sharp edges.”
“I would never suggest what you should or should not be,” Lina said. “I only capture what you are.”
“And what’s that?”
Lina smiled and gestured toward the dressing room mirror.
“I spent many late nights on my answer,” she said.
In the mirror, an unrecognizable girl stared back at Adah. Yet, this person in the mirror was one Adah felt she could place her faith in. If her reflection had asked her to charge headfirst into an army of Cruelties, Adah would have done so. That was good. That was the power whoever wore this uniform needed to embody.
Adah had done her work to prepare for the A-Rank mission. Beyond the medical exams and the training, she’d memorized every variant of Cruelty from the targeted list Elise had provided. She had devised a plan against each variant, and knew what she would need from each member of the coalition in order for those plans to succeed. All that was left to do was execute those plans.
It was no secret among the coalition teams that none of them were ready to take on an A-Rank by themselves. DreamRise and the Last Light had been in a spot like that in the past, when Iris and her team were pressured to fight a B-Rank. Both of their teams had made a terrible mistake then, and neither of them had forgotten what that battle against the hydra had cost them.
Now, they were going to learn from that mistake. They would show each other what was possible when they worked together. They would prove that they could exceed their individual limits. They would become a region unified around a singular purpose, motivated by a goal beyond climbing the ladder of success.
Adah had done all she could to bring the eleven of them together. She would do all she could to lead them in the battle to come. Looking in the mirror, she believed beyond a doubt it would be enough.
Their teams would set the standard for the world.
And sooner rather than later, the world would have to pay attention.
While Adah contemplated the girl in the mirror, Lina placed the officer’s cap atop Adah’s head again, then paced around her to inspect the hat from all angles. The designer had made a few adjustments to the cap since the first fitting, including layering that same pinstripe fabric from Adah’s jacket over the crown of the cap. She’d altered the brim as well, so that it was covered by the same blood red velvet that accented the rest of the uniform.
Satisfied with what she saw, Lina clapped her hands.
“You are perfect as always,” she said. “I’ll pretty up some stitching here and there, but that’s nothing you need to return for. The next time you wear this, the whole world will see you.”
Lina began to help undress Adah, beginning with taking the hat off her head, but Adah held up a hand to stop her.
“Wait,” she said. “I have an adjustment of my own I’d like to make, if you can do it.”
“There is no need for that ‘if,’” Lina said with a devilish grin.
Adah dug through her casual clothes, which she had piled on the dressing room’s bench, until she found a rectangular box stashed away in her coat pocket. She opened the box to take a quick look at the amethyst-encrusted necklace within. She hadn’t taken much notice of it when she first received the gift, but Locke’s pendant was of a full heart and not a broken one. Well, that probably wasn’t him being careless. Not many shops would sell jewelry that alluded to heartbreak—surely that was bad for business.
“Are you able to attach this to the hat?” she asked Lina, handing her the box. “Like the chain ornaments on the concert outfits?”
Lina opened the box to see what she had to work with, then said, “Without a doubt. But necklaces tend to look better around one’s neck.”
“He’ll be happy to see me wearing it at all,” Adah said. “Besides, I’m not much for jewelry.”
“A rare breed of princess, indeed,” Lina mused. “You’re not cheating on your lover, though, are you? You’d break my heart as well.”
“With this guy?” Adah said with a laugh. “He’s a good guy, all things considered, but it’d never be worth dealing with his fans. This is just my way of supporting a friend.”
“Then I’ll make sure not even a Cruelty can tear it off,” Lina said. “So long as you promise to keep this cap atop your head.”
There was no problem with that deal.
The only way Adah would take off this new crown was if a Cruelty tore it off.