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“But why can’t I see her, Mummy?” Noelle held her hands perfectly against her sides, palms flat, loose and ladylike. “I saw her last night.”
“And you never should have,” her mother said, lips pinched. “Georgette is no daughter of mine or your father. She’s not your sister. She’s nothing to us, and you don’t know her. Do you understand?” It wasn’t a question. It never was. Do you understand? was a simply more polite way of telling her to sit down, be quiet, don’t make any trouble.
Noelle had never really been in the habit of making trouble. Not unless it was justified. And never against her parents or grandmother. She could hardly dare. She was a Devereaux, and that was the way of the world. And ever since Gigi had— ever since Georgette had left, she had been the heir to a house that threatened to shrink just a little bit more each day.
“Yes, Mummy,” she said, nodding her head. Her fingers pinched the material of her dress but her mother was too distracted to scold her over it or tell her she would wrinkle the material.
“Now go, I will see you at dinner tonight, and not a minute before. You are to present yourself in a way that honours our house and doesn’t—” Her eye twitched almost imperceptibly, face turning to look in the direction of Gigi’s bedroom. “Suggest anything may or may not be amiss.”
Noelle slunk back upstairs, back to where their decorations and paintings were beginning to disappear, eroded every time she looked at it, every time her parents had to pay a bill or bribe a mine inspector.
A bang echoed down the hall but they were decreasing in frequency now. A passing maid flinched, straightening her cap, but she didn’t look at it or at Noelle, her gaze trained deliberately to the ground, never looking up, never asking questions.
She held her breath, stepping into her own bedroom, hands fidgeting in an effort to be warm. Her next clothes were laid out as they normally were and she slipped behind the wooden folding screen with its carved dahlias and roses gleaming out from the polished wood to change into them.
She never had to adjust a strap or ask for a different fit. That was for the staff. That was for other people. She wouldn’t even know the first thing about how to do that. Even when she had been small, everything had always been just so.
There were so many things she wouldn’t know the first thing to do about them. Once, she might have thought the same about her sister, but Gigi had seemed to be fine, she supposed, out there in some shoddy, rat-infested place in Bohemia. She hadn’t needed help at all, not to cook her own food or clean her own bedroom. She’d heard, from keeping her ear trained to the door while her parents talked about things they’d never tell her, that Gigi hadn’t even had her own room, that she’d been sharing with others. Her father had done a great deal of wailing over immorality, and her mother had declared Noelle to be her only child and that was that. Or had been that.
But now Gigi was down the hall, and her parents weren’t letting her out. And if Noelle was cold, cold enough to pick up a shawl that was soft and lovely but far too out of fashion to be worn anywhere outside the room, then she was too, surely?
It took a bit of effort, and she couldn’t get the door opened but she folded the shawl so many times that it was flat and thin enough to be squeezed between the gap and the floor. “Gigi?”
A thud, and a shadow appeared, blocking out what light had been coming from there. The hall was empty now, the servants all occupied preparing for dinner and cleaning up the public rooms, and Noelle didn’t need to fear her mother or father appearing suddenly any time soon. They never had, in her experience. “No-no.” The shawl disappeared and she heard the soft sound of it being unwrapped and likely covering up Gigi’s shoulders. “Thank you.”
“How are you?”
A sniffle, “What answer do you want?”
“I want to know.” She put her face to the floor, an indignity she would normally never suffer, but she found with her sister all her scruples fell away. That was why Mummy had never liked Gigi. She had always had that effect on others. “Please?”
“I want to get out of here,” Gigi said, her voice harsh. The hours of crying had worn their way through into her words. “I want to— I need to see Modestine, and I need to—” She made a noise that sent a tremor through Noelle. “See Dario. I need to know. I can’t believe it. I won’t.”
Her teeth tugged at her lip, almost bursting it, but she would have had to explain that at dinner so she let off. “We were at his wake today, Gigi. I’m sorry, but he was— it was him.”
It had all been very dignified. Well, as far as a wake for a twenty-three year old rising star could be. The Rinaldis had all lost their dignity, but Mummy had said that it would be more shocking if they hadn’t had any such reaction. His face had been covered over by a veil so no one could really see but the impression of his features, and Modestine had been barely there. No Morrigan Crow either, to Noelle’s own relief but Lottie, and by extension, Louis couldn’t stop yammering on about her, and she feared she had not seen the tail end of her enemy.
Whatever. The Silver District was Noelle’s territory. She had lost the Trials and her chances in Unit 919 but she wouldn’t lose this. She would make sure of it.
She lost her train of thought there though, because Gigi’s wailing started up again, and no matter how much Noelle tried, she couldn’t get through the door and she couldn’t get to her sister.
She stayed crouched there for however many minutes or hours, until the dinner gong went and she had to go and get changed and pretend she hadn’t had her face pressed to the floor in the hall, and she had listened to her sister cry and not even been able to touch her. Not even a small finger could bridge the gap the door had made for them, and as far as Noelle knew there was no other way around.
Gigi was stuck in there, and Noelle was stuck outside, and no matter what either one of them did they weren’t going to get through it. And now she would go to dinner, and smile like a lady and make conversation, and be the perfect daughter of Devereaux house. There was nothing else for it, and as far as Noelle could tell, there never would be.