I've never gone surfing or ran with a crowd or danced on a table or laughed much too loud...

Ariadne had never owned a dress so fine. Of course, she owned precious few dresses, none of them ballgowns, so that wasn't saying much. But at the moment, she was just a little too distracted by her reflection in the mirror to think rationally. The silk was pale blue, lighter than the wool dresses she wore around the palace. It gathered over her right shoulder, falling down into a window sleeve to her thighs. The left shoulder was bare and Aunt Lysia had allowed her to borrow a copper arm cuff that snaked up her bicep like a vine growing around a tree. Her bodice was a deeper shade of blue, with gold laces. When she spun around the fabric of her full skirt flared out like a daffodil blooming.

Now that she was fifteen, her figure could finally fill out a gown. A fact that probably hadn't escaped her aunt's attention. After years and years of begging to be allowed to attend a ball, Lysia had finally relented, even stuck around long enough to plait her hair before she had to go upstairs to attend her duties. Ariadne wanted to rush right up after her, but Aunt Lysia had made her promise to wait for an escort.

Which just left her restlessly twirling in front of their cracked, foggy mirror. The night was happening without her. She couldn't stand it.

( But finally, the knock came... )