Page 42 of Legacy Found

Chapter seventeen

Jessica

The invitation says formal attire, and the six of us stare at it like it's written in a foreign language, because in a very real sense it is.

"I own hiking boots and this uniform," Renzo says flatly. "That's my formalwear. The boots are the fancy ones."

"I have one nice dress," I offer, "and it's in England, in a drawer, possibly. I haven't seen it in two years."

That's the problem, and it's the same problem for all of us. Half this academy grew up in Great Houses that have owned exactly-correct formalwear for a thousand years. We grew up serving coffee and volunteering for mountain rescue. We are going to walk into our first formal Great House Dinner looking like exactly what we are, and everyone will know it before we've said a word.

Except when we get to the room Jon told us to meet in, it's not a classroom.

It's a fitting room. And it is full.

Racks of clothing line every wall — gowns and suits in deep jewel tones, shoes, boxes of accessories, a jeweler's case glinting under the lights, a professional stylist already steaming something on a rack. Sophia makes a sound I have genuinely never heard a human make before and grabs my arm hard enough to leave a mark.

Jon's standing off to the side, hands in his pockets, looking faintly pleased with himself.

"You did this?" I ask.

"You're learning an entire civilization in a single year," he says simply. "You'll be judged tonight on a hundred rules no one has bothered to teach you. I'm not going to let the clothes be one more disadvantage before you've even walked through the door." He nods to the stylist. "She's the best. Whatever you choose is yours to keep. Have fun with it." And he leaves us to it, which is its own kind of kindness — no hovering, no making it a lesson.

Sophia is already gone, vanished into the racks with the focus of a woman on a sacred mission. "I am trying on things I have absolutely no business wearing," she announces from somewhere inside the gowns, "purely because I can."

And I let myself have it. That's the thing — I decide, right there, that I'm not going to be shy about tonight. I've spent this entire year in leggings, uniforms, and combat gear that smells like the arena. For once, I'm going to enjoy this.

I find the dress near the back.

It's a color I don't have a name for at first — burnt orange, deep and warm, the exact shade of the last hour of an autumn sunset, the color of banked embers. It's not fussy. It's not trying to make me look like Great House royalty pretending at elegance I don't have. It's just striking — clean lines, a long v-neckline, a skirt that moves — and the second I hold it up against myself in the mirror, something in my chest goes yes.

The stylist pauses when she sees it in my hands.

"Oh," she says, surprised. "That one. I almost didn't bring it — nobody's requested that shade in… honestly, I can't remember. It's an old color. Very old. You don't see it anymore." She tilts her head, studying me. "But with your coloring — the amber in your eyes, the chestnut — it might be made for you."

It is. When I put it on and finally look in the mirror, I actually stop.

Whoa.

Because the woman looking back at me is — okay. She looks amazing. The burnt orange lights up the amber in my eyes and the warmth in my skin, my hair's been swept up with a few pieces loose, and I look strong and soft and a little dangerous all at once, and I don't feel like I'm pretending to be someone. I feel like the best possible version of exactly who I already am.

"Damn, Jessica," Sophia says behind me.

I turn. She's in a deep sapphire gown that makes her look like a goddess, and for a second we just stand there grinning at each other in the mirror, appreciating the transformation, appreciating us. We see Freya found a dark charcoal silk dress that flows.

"The men of Luftis," Sophia declares solemnly, "are not prepared for this. Emotionally. Physically. In any way."

She's not wrong, and it goes both ways, because when the guys emerge from their side of the fitting they clean up spectacularly. Declan in a fitted dark suit looks like he could be on the cover of something. Torres in black looks — I have to consciously stop looking. Renzo looks like he was born in a tuxedo and is deeply smug about it.

I take one look at all of them and reach a scientific conclusion. "Okay. Apparently wolves look extremely yummy in formalwear. Nobody warned me about this."

"Nobody warns you about anything here," Sophia agrees fervently, and then, watching Renzo adjust his cuffs, drops her voice. "I'm just saying. If he looks like that all night, I may have to climb him like one of those trees at orientation."

I choke on absolutely nothing.

"What are you two laughing about?" Renzo calls over.

"Nothing," I manage.