“Do you ever get tired of trying to get yourself arrested?” Erin asks. “Talking like that is going to get you locked up.”

“Okay,” says Liv, stepping between us and shaking her head. “Here.” She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a handful of coins. “They’re not silver, but they’ll have to do. Let’s make wishes in the fountain like we used to.” She takes my arm and leads me to the fountain.

Erin comes up beside me, her shoulder brushing against mine. I think I hear her sigh, and she gives a little shake of her head. Behind us, music continues to play, and people laugh and chatter away. Palace guards roam the square, their royal blue uniforms neatly pressed, their swords glinting in the lamplight. Liv hands Erin and me a coin each.

“Make a wish,” says Liv. She closes her eyes and tosses in her coin.

I look at Erin. “I wish you’d leave Lille with me. Right now. Leave Mersailles, leave all this behind, and run away with me.” I toss my coin into the water.

Liv gasps. Erin’s eyes flutter open, her brow furrowed, her mouth turned down. “And I wish you’d just accept the way things are.” She tosses her coin into the fountain. “I wish I could decide that nothing else matters, but I’m not like you, Sophia.”

“I’m not asking you to be like me,” I say.

Erin’s eyes mist over, and her bottom lip trembles. “Yes, you are. Not everyone can be so brave.”

My chest feels like it’s going to cave in. I step away, and Erin rushes off, disappearing into the crowd. I don’t feel brave. I feel angry, worried, and doubtful that anything will ever change. I prepare to run after her, but Liv catches me by the arm and pulls me back.

“You have to let it go, Sophia,” Liv says. “It cannot be.”

She leads me away from the fountain, and I push away the urge to cry, to scream out. We move around a large circle of blackened grass. Liv looks down at it.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Something happened here a few nights ago. Rumor is that someone created an explosion, tried to destroy the fountain. They failed.” Liv turns to me, worry plastered on her face. “Don’t you see? There is no resisting. We can’t go against the book or the king.”

I shake my head. I don’t want to accept that this is all there is for me.

Liv glances around and then leans close. “A group of children found a body in the woods by Gray Lake.”

“Another one?” I ask. “How many is that?”

“Six since the leaves have started to turn. A girl, just like the others.”

I try to tally up how many young women have turned up dead in Lille in the years since I’ve been old enough to understand such things. The dead number in the dozens, but the missing are more than I can count.

“Go to your fitting, Sophia,” Liv says, squeezing my hand. “Maybe someone at the ball will take you away from all this.”

There is a ring in her voice. Maybe Liv wants to be taken away. I can’t blame her, but that’s not for me. I don’t want to be saved by some knight in shining armor. I’d like to be the one in the armor, and I’d like to be the one doing the saving.

I make my way to the seamstress’s shop in a daze and arrive a full two hours late. Peering through the window, I see my mother chatting away with the other women in the shop. They laugh and smile, but her mouth is drawn tight as she rests her chin on tented fingers. I hate that I’ve made her worry. I take a deep breath and open the door.

My mother stands and exhales, letting the air hiss out between her teeth, a look of relief on her face. “Where have you been?” Her gaze wanders over me. “And what have you been doing?”

“I was—”

She puts her hand up. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” She glances past me, out to the street. “Did you walk here alone?”

“No,” I lie. “Liv and Erin walked with me to the end of the street.”

“Oh, good. I’m sure you’ve heard about the incident at Gray Lake.”

I nod. She shakes her head and then forces a quick smile and instructs the seamstress and her helpers to get to work.

The pieces of my dress are sewn into place to ensure a perfect fit. My mother fusses over the color of the piping along the hem of the gown. Apparently, it’s supposed to be rose gold, not regular gold, so it has to be taken off and reattached. I think the entire ensemble would look very nice at the bottom of a wastebasket, maybe doused with lamp oil and set on fire. No one asked me what color I’d like it to be or how I’d like it to fit.

My mother wrings her hands together and paces the floor in front of me. She is worried sick about every little detail, as if my life depends on these things. I try to silence the voice inside me that tells me it very well might.

“It’s gorgeous, Sophia,” my mother says as she looks me over.

I nod. I can’t think of anything to say. I still can’t believe this day has actually arrived. I’d hoped to be far from Lille at this point, maybe far from Mersailles altogether, with Erin by my side, leaving the king and his rules behind us. Instead I am here, preparing to give in to this terrible inevitability.

The seamstress helps me out of the dress so she can pack it up and send it home with us. A plum-purple bruise colors the side of her neck; it has started to turn green around the edges.

“What happened to your neck?” I whisper, though I know the likely source of her pain. So many women in Lille carry around similar burdens.

The seamstress looks at me quizzically and quickly adjusts her collar. “Don’t you worry about that. It’ll be gone in a week. Like it never even happened.”

“Sophia,” my mother interrupts. “Why don’t you go out and get some air? But stay on the path where I can see you.” I stare down at the seamstress, whose smile does little to mask her pain.

I gather up my skirts and walk out to the footpath leading up to the shop. The sun fades as the lamplighters begin their nightly rounds. Even in the encroaching darkness, the watchtowers loom in the shadows. Stone sentries, their lookout windows facing inward.

A mural of the king mars the side of a building across the street. He’s pictured on a horse at the head of an army of soldiers, his arm outstretched, holding a sword. I bet he’s never led an army anywhere except across the squares of a chessboard.

Hard as I try, I cannot set aside thoughts of what it will be like to be chosen. In two days’ time, I could be given to a man I know nothing about, who knows nothing about me. My own wants and needs will be silenced in favor of what he thinks is best. What if he thinks nothing of putting a bruise on my neck? And if I’m not chosen, what then? And Erin. My dear Erin. What will become of us? I shiver as a knot grows in my throat. My mother comes out into the street and throws a shawl around my bare shoulders.

“You don’t want to catch a chill so close to the ball, Sophia.” She looks around cautiously, lowering her voice. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but—”

“Yes, I know. This is just how it is.” I grit my teeth, stifling the urge to scream for the thousandth time. I look at her, and for a split second she lets the mask slip, and I see the pain in her face. She seems older in the pale light of the evening sky. Her gaze moves over my face and down to my dress for an instant before she looks away.