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Jude had virtually stopped coming to school after the apple incident. She appeared once or twice after (he assumed) her sister had begged, but she no longer seemed interested in the lessons or being the top student.
It confused Cardan. She seemed so… different, but she also seemed more confident in a way. Less concerned with proving some long held grudge over her fellow classmates. More nonchalant and bored, almost like…
Well, him.
Jude Duarte continued to plague his mind as she flummoxed Cardan, and while Balekin had seemingly laid off of his ‘lessons’, it didn’t make Hollow Hall more exciting to hang out in.
Which led to his current situation - lounging in a window of his older sister Rhyia’s chamber, watching lazily as she talked to the dressmaker.
“Why are you bothering with an outside seamstress?” He drawled. “I’m sure Father would be willing to provide his personal tailors for his own stepping down ceremony,”
“Why are you here?” Rhyia shot back, examining a shimmering blue material that looked like a noon-day sky. “Did I invite you and forget to take it back?”
Rhyia was probably Cardan’s favorite sister. They didn’t spend too much time together with Balekin, Cardan’s personal banishment, and Rhyia’s own adventures, but at least he felt safer with her than at his own home.
“Brambleweft is a master of her craft,” Rhyia explained anyway. “Plus she came well recommended from Vivi’s step-mother,”
“You talk to Vivienne’s step-mother?”
“No.”
Cardan rolled his eyes and lounged back again, grabbing some loose papers that the faerie worker had placed down, ignoring her angered eyes and outraged scowl. He flipped through the notes, recognizing the sigil for Madoc’s House at the top.
“These for Madoc’s children?” He asked.
“Yes, your grace,” Brambleweft muttered.
Cardan scanned the sketches and measurements, brushing aside the plans for Madoc, Oriana and Oak. Vivi’s gown looked interesting, fitting in much with her apparent style. He also tucked away the fact she would actually be attending this ball after years of somehow escaping them.
He slowed on the last two. One showed a glimmering silvery-gray dress that would fit elegantly at the wearer's curves. The scrap of fabric clipped to the edge showed delicate embroidery, truly a work of labor on the maker's part. He was interested when he noted the measurements, but tossed it aside when he saw ‘elder twin’ scrawled alongside them.
The other was a simple blue dress, with embroidery over the bust that made it look like armor and Madoc’s crest clearly in the middle. Cardan stifled a groan.
Of course Jude would wear her adoptive father’s sigil. It was all she ever seemed to wear, and her revel attire barely differed. He supposed it had to do with being raised under Oriana, who’d used to be one of his own fathers consorts before her marriage to the Grand General. She toned the human twins' clothing down to simple and unadorned dresses, most likely to keep them in fashion but unappealing to the gentry.
Like most of the gentry would have a problem distinguishing suitable conquests.
Cardan ignored the ‘most’ in his last thought.
“This is Jude’s dress?” He asked the tailor’s assistant, who quickly glanced at the sketch and then back at the prince.
“Jude?” She asked nervously.
“The youngest daughter, human, outrageously sharp eyes that could pierce a knight's armor,”
Her eyes lit up in semi-recognition.
“Oh she was a flighty one,” She gossiped. “Distracted and all lookin’ at the fabrics, but her sister took the one she seemed most taken with - the other twin,”
“Her sister took the fabric she wanted?”
“Lost some of her excitement after given’ up that fight,”
Cardan waved her away and continued looking at the sketch. It wasn’t bad , per say, just boring, especially for the occasion and just… Jude herself. She deserved so much more than a dress that was little more than a banner-flag for Madoc.
Stuffing the sketch in his pockets and tossing the others back on the table, Cardan waved off the fluttering assistant and eyed Brambleweft.
“Come around to Hollow Hall in a few days, I’ll have a new design drawn for her,”
“Sir?” Brambleweft hissed, shock clear as the young prince shrugged.
“If your skills are as told, you’ll have no problem bringing any vision I can scribble out to fruition,”
That seemed to calm her.
Later that night, Cardan sat at his writing desk, staring annoyedly at the seamstress’s sketch.
It wasn’t enough that he’d recently just realized he might harbor feelings for the mortal, but something else in him just wanted her to feel good at this ball. Maybe it was his own way of rebelling against authority…
Or that he also knew what was to come at the upcoming festivities with Locke.
Locke.
Cardan didn’t really understand what Locke got out of leading on a Duarte twin while professing his intent to marry the other one. It had to be humiliating to either girl, and he wasn’t sure why Taryn would even agree to marry him if it meant setting fire to all of her familial bridges.
Maybe he couldn’t actually tell them apart.
Either way, Locke had some one thing right in this whole mess. He’s invited Jude to a house party, and let her get out from under Oriana’s motherly and conservative designer thumb.
Lirope’s dress hadn’t fit the mortal girl perfectly, nor was it considered in style, but anyone looking at her would have seen the confidence and pride in her eyes when Jude wore it.
“Well, down to business,” He thought, twirling a quill between his fingers with expert speed. “Now, where to begin?”
Jude liked blue, he decided. Most of her revel dresses were a shade of blue, and it worked well with her skin and hair colors. Then he’d need to accentuate her more… human assets in a way that would work for her how faerie styles didn’t.
He settled on a lower and off the shoulder styled neckline and flared waistline before running into his next issue - fabrics.
When he thought of Jude, his first few thoughts were scary images of her appearing in his rooms, following him into hedge mazes, out of the night to thoroughly ruin him…
Between the way she appeared out of the woods to attend classes and her walnut eyes that almost glowed in the torchlight by disappearing in the dark, Cardan almost wondered how she’d escaped being a changeling baby.
By the time the Balekin’s latest party was due to begin, Cardan’s fingers were inkstained but he had a fairly decent sketch to hand off to the dressmaker. Flicks of ink to represent spiraling trees and glittering stars looked much better in his head, but the tailor was due any minute now and he didn’t want to seek out a better artist and share what he was doing with anyone else.
His door opened without a knock - Balekin - and his brother stepped inside, nose in the air.
“Cardan, I had assumed you would be at my revel,” The eldest prince sneered before catching sight of the sketch. “I thought you had ordered a suit for the coronation, not a gown,”
“Why must I limit myself,” Cardan snarked back. “Soon I’ll be brother to the king, and I must certainly look it,”
For a moment, he thought he was due for a beating, but Balekin only bristled slightly before stalking out. Cardan was a little shocked, but wiped his hands and headed downstairs to meet Brambleweft at the door.
“See to it that it arrives anonymously,” He ordered. “And here is some extra for your time and best materials,”
The faerie maker nodded. Cardan turned back to head inside and change for the party, then doubled back.
“Make the older twin absolutely green with jealousy over how good her sister looks,” He grinned mischievously. “After all, she’s the one who took her fabric in the first place,”
