Page 47 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

By the end of the first hour, any modesty I might have had remaining is long gone, at least with this group.

Especially after Madame Evangeny stripped my robe off my shoulders, leaving it hanging down around my thighs. Then she hefted my breasts in both hands and gazed at them appraisingly for a long moment before nodding and dropping them in order to make some notes in her notebook.

I knew there had to be something about Cinderella’s transformation that sucked.

“Can I at least sit down?” I finally mutter to the team member who is measuring the length from my collarbone to my waist.

The minion—a lovely blonde girl—cringes away from me when I speak. I wish I could say she’s shocked that I’ve spoken to her. But her reaction is fear, not surprise.

In the end, I remember, it’s not much safer to be a servant-class Icecaix in the Ice Court than it is to be a Starcaix or a human.

In all the Cinderella stories, the heroine’s transformation is effected in an instant. The fairy godmother waves her magic wand, a trail of twinkling lights swirls around, and Cinderella finds herself in a brand-new dress. Rinse and repeat until she’s ready to go to the ball.

Our fittings take hours.

And even when the minions whisk away the dresses, we’re not allowed to rest. A second group of minions swarm our suite, led by another queen bee.

Miss Melliosi.

She and Madame Evangeny confer, and then Miss Melliosi deploys her troops to complete our hair and makeup.

Lucilline inserts herself into this process, joining one of the minions in styling my hair and another in doing my makeup. In the meantime, yet another assistant begins shoving various shoes onto our feet, again taking measurements and writing down details.

By the time our shoes are chosen—with the promise that the next ones will be custom-made—and our makeup is complete, Madame Evangeny’s minions have returned with two dresses, one for me and one for Izzy, both relatively simple and modest for the Caix realms. The sewing minions begin stitching us into the dresses.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get out of these later?” Izzy asks.

Twisting around to try to see what the seamstress-in-training is doing, I say, “No clue. Hey—once you’ve got me sewn into this rig, how do I take it off?”

The girl snickers and speaks quietly. “These are the final alterations. It should be as removable as any other dress.”

Why does that seem less than encouraging?

Under any other circumstances, I might have enjoyed the process. As it was, however, I’m exhausted.

Finally, Madame Evangeny steps back and tilts her head, examining us again. She purses her lips, crosses her arms, and taps her lips with one forefinger.

“I believe we’re done. This should do nicely.” With a single nod, she takes a step back and twirls her finger in the air, an instruction for us to turn around and look in the mirror.

Izzy tugs at the bodice of her dress, trying to move the lace up to better hide her cleavage.

I glance at myself in the mirror, almost unrecognizable compared to how I looked when I arrived last night. Softer, somehow. And pretty again.

But there’s something…

I glance down at the pale blue ribbons around my wrists. For my dress, Madame Evangeny has chosen a blue silk in the same shade with a matching pale blue chiffon overskirt split down the front and embroidered in delicate silver flowers along the edges, connected by silver vines.

My blue silk heeled shoes—Madame Evangeny called them my dancing slippers—are visible where the toes peek out from beneath my skirts. The overskirt flows behind me in a train that Madame Evangeny has pinned up into a small flower of a bustle behind me.

Similarly, Izzy's dress has silver flowers and vines embroidered on the bodice, along the sweetheart neckline, and on the little cap sleeves of her navy-blue dress.

“You are lucky His Lordship allowed us to remake some of his lady mother’s old dresses,” the lead seamstress says. “We could not have completed so much detailed work otherwise.”

So Ivrael is the one who arranged for a dress that matches the ribbons around my wrist. That’s creepy—especially since he chose those ribbons on the spur of the moment.

Or so I thought.

“We will have more temporary dresses to deliver tomorrow,” Madame Evangeny continues. “His Lordship has ordered full wardrobes for both of you, but those will be delivered directly to the court.”

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