"Suppose you call Miss Primula, then."

  "She said don't bother her," the nine-year-old said. "She's busy."

  Sergeant Heath strolled up behind the other sergeants, also resplendent in dress blue. "What's going on here? Why are you fellows blocking the door?"

  "They don't have invitations!" clashed with "This child won't let us in, and we're sergeants."

  "Decided not to invite you lot this year, eh?" Sergeant Heath smiled unctuously at the child, and reached past Sergeant Gorse to hand over his card. "Remember your antics last year, do they? That bit with the tropical fruit surprise not quite so funny on second thought?" He strolled through, exuding virtue. The others glared after him, then at Sergeant Gorse.

  "It wasn't my fault," Sergeant Gorse said. "It was really Corporal Nitley, and I know he got an invitation." He looked around and spotted a familiar figure hurrying along the street.

  "She'll take care of this," he said confidently. She was, after all, in his unit.

  * * *

  Mirabel Stonefist discovered that no one had time to make her a gown, or even repair the old one. She tried the plastic wizard the Ladies' Aid & Armor Society had on retainer, but he was overbooked, without even a spare six-hour reweaving or banish-stain spell.

  She couldn't possibly mend it herself. She was even clumsier with needle and thread than with a pen. That left only one possibility, her sister Monica. The Monica who was still angry with her for not rescuing Cavernous Dire from a dragon. Hoping for the best, Mirabel knocked on her sister's door and explained her problem.

  "You have a lot of nerve," Monica said. "You didn't even invite us this year."

  "I put your name on the list," Mirabel said. "I always do."

  "I'm sure," Monica said, in the tone that meant she didn't believe it. "But when you need something—at the last minute I notice, never mind my convenience—here you are. I'll fix it for you all right!" Monica grabbed the dress, and ripped the bodice all the way to the waist. "There!" Then she slammed the door in Mirabel's face.

  Mirabel turned away from the door. That was it, then. She would just have to go in uniform, and be laughed at. As she trudged down Sweet Street, someone hailed her.

  "Why so gloomy?" Dorcas Doublejoints asked. Dorcas, an exotic dancer, had maintained her friendship with the LA&AS ever since they'd solved the mystery of her missing belly.

  Mirabel explained, and displayed the torn bodice.

  "Oh, that's not a problem." Dorcas eyed her. "You won't fit my clothes, but we have lots of clothes in my house. Come along with me."

  * * *

  Mirabel stood in Dorcas's suite, with a flutter of lovely girls around her, all offering their best gowns. She noticed that they all called Dorcas "Miss Dorcas, dear" and drew her own conclusions. Somewhat to her surprise, she found that the strumpets' best gowns were fine silk of the first quality.

  Her fashion advisors settled on an apricot-shot silk with shimmering highlights. It hugged her body to the hips, then flared into a wide rippling skirt. Three-puff sleeves ended in a drape of ivory lace. A small scrap of the same lace peeked from the depths of the decolletage in front. Mirabel had always liked low-cut gowns, but this one—she peered at herself in the mirror, wondering if she dared.

  "Of course you do," Dorcas said, and the girls murmured agreement and admiration. "You have a beautiful back, and quite sufficient cleavage. Enjoy it while you can." Mirabel grinned at her image, thinking what her sister would say. No one had mentioned "corset," either.

  The girls put up her hair, sprinkled it with something glittery, then painted her face. Ordinarily Mirabel didn't use cosmetics, but she liked what she saw in the mirror. A shy redhead offered her dangling emerald earrings, and a luscious brunette contributed an emerald necklace so spectacular that Mirabel knew it must be a fake. At last Dorcas handed her a fluffy shawl, refused her offer of payment for the loan of all this finery ("Don't be silly, dear; we're friends") and ushered her out the back door.

  * * *

  So, in the gathering gloom, Mirabel Stonefist found herself going to the ball in the most gorgeous outfit she'd ever worn. Although it was a cold evening, and so much exposed flesh should have chilled her, she felt warm through with excitement. She would be careful with her borrowed glamour, she told herself. No jogging elbows, no tripping, no catching the lace on someone's belt buckle. She'd take everything back the next day, safe and sound.

  "Hey—Stonefist!"

  She looked up, and there were the sergeants—six of them anyway—in their dress blues.

  "Yessir?" Even on Ball Night, she couldn't avoid calling them "sir," at least once.

  "Did you write the invitations this year?"

  "Some of them," Mirabel said cautiously. "Why?"

  "We didn't get ours," Sergeant Gorse said. "Didn't you notice we weren't on the list?"

  "I didn't do all of them," Mirabel said. "Everybody helps. Are you sure they didn't just get lost? What did Primula say?"

  "We can't ask Primula," Sergeant Gorse said, "because that child at the door won't let us in without an invitation, and she won't call Primula to the door. Get this straightened out."

  "Of course," Mirabel said. She paused. "Are you sure it didn't have anything to do with the tropical fruit surprise?"

  "Yes!" they all said. Mirabel shrugged, and turned away to the door.

  "Good evening, Miss Mirabel," said the child. The flaps of her red felt cap liner almost reached her shoulders; the little bronze cap with its tiny spike glittered in the torchlight. "I'm being really careful about the cards."

  "Good for you," Mirabel said absently, looking around for Primula. Stalls offering the orphans' handiwork filled every alcove; guests were expected to buy patchwork pigs, lopsided clay bowls, and other useless items to swell the Orphans' Fund. Primula—wearing the same stiff black bombazine trimmed in purple bobbles that she'd worn for the past millennium—leaned over the piecework table. Mirabel threaded her way through the crowd, nodding to acquaintances, and heard the last of the lecture.

  "—Now remember—you curtsey and say `Thank you, kind sir' or `kind missus' as the case may be, and hand them the purchase first, then the change. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Miss Primula." The freckled girl in charge of this stall was older than the doorkeeper—old enough to be allowed to handle money. Primula turned away, and caught sight of Mirabel.

  "My dear! A new dress after all?"

  "In a manner of speaking." Mirabel let the shawl drop, and Primula blinked.

  "Is it that low in back?"

  Mirabel twirled, to a chorus of wolf whistles.

  "Well," Primula said. "I must say I'm surprised. I thought you'd be wearing that old green gown forever."

  Mirabel ignored this. "Did you leave the sergeants off the list on purpose?"

  "The list?"

  "Invitations. Sergeant Gorse didn't get one. Or Sergeants Covet, Biersley, Dogwood, Ellis, and Slays. They're all outside—they were sure you'd meant to invite them—but little Sarajane at the door wouldn't let them in, or call you."

  "But of course they're invited," Primula said. "Though I did think that tropical fruit surprise trick wasn't funny. Now who was it, who should have had their names . . . ?" She closed her eyes, evidently trying to remember. Mirabel touched her arm.

  "Thing is, they're out there in the cold now. Don't you want to let them in?"

  "Oh. Of course." She bustled away. Mirabel let the shawl drop again and looked around for people she knew. An eye-patched pirate with a red beard and moustache appeared in front of her, his visible eye twinkling.

  "My dear, I am tempted to live up to my costume and carry you away into tropical captivity—you are delectable."

  She didn't recognize his accent, or his face, but what did that matter? "Sirrah, I fear you admire only my jewels, and not my face—"

  "T'would be useless to deny the beauty of your jewels, but you—" His eye raked her up and down, and his hand stroked his moustache. "You are the pearl beyond price, compared to which your emeralds are mere baubles of colored glass."

  Mirabel blinked. With that glib tongue, he ought to be a horse trader, but she knew all the horse traders in town. "I fear, sir, I know you not."

  "I'm Harald Redbeard," he said.

  "I wrote your invitation," Mirabel said. "I've been wondering who you are. Shall we dance?"

  "With a will," he said, and offered his arm.

  In the course of the first two dances, Mirabel discovered that Harald suited her perfectly as a dance partner. Tireless, nimble, quick-witted, familiar with all the standard dance patterns and variations . . . and with unflagging appreciation of her charms, which he described in terms that made her fantasize about the latter half of the ball.

  She would happily have danced more with Harald Redbeard, but Nuttin Broadaxe tapped her firmly on the shoulder at the end of the second, and she remembered that she'd promised him a dance last week.

  "Excuse me," she said, giving Harald a last squeeze of the hand and significant glance from under her lashes. He bowed.

  Nutty was, after Harald, a letdown. A competent enough dancer, he felt no obligation to flatter someone he already knew beyond, "Gosh, Mirabel, this dress doesn't have any back at all!" and "Good thing that necklace isn't real; some thief would have it off you in no time." Instead, he regaled her with a description of the Queen's emerald necklace: "a lot like that paste thing you're wearing, actually, but of course hers is real." The last thing Mirabel wanted to hear about was the Queen; the Queen didn't like women soldiers in general, and Mirabel in particular.

  Mirabel parted from Nutty at the end of that dance, pleading a need for something to drink, and went in search of Harald. Before she was halfway to the drinks table, Primula had caught her by the arm. "Mirabel, didn't you have Sergeant Gorse in your list of names?"

  It took a moment to think what Primula was talking about, and then she shook her head. "No—I'd have remembered. At least half mine were people I'd never heard of."

  "Oh." Primula let go and wandered off. Mirabel made her way to the drinks table, handed in her chit for a free drink, and spotted the chancellor, Sophora Segundiflora, chatting with two ministers of state, and a banker. Mirabel edged that way, keeping an eye out for Harald.

  "Mirabel . . . what a lovely gown," Sophora said. "And necklace, too. So like the Queen's, did you know that?" Her voice had the slightest edge.

  "No . . . it's borrowed."

  "Ah. I'm glad you didn't wear it just to annoy her. It's amazingly good—it hardly looks like paste at all."

  No one ignored Sophora's hints. "Do you think I should take it off?"

  "Perhaps—oh, dear." Sophora looked past Mirabel and then murmured, very fast. "It's too late, be sure you tell her it's a cheap imitation and that you borrowed it." Then, in her usual ringing tone, "Good evening, Your Majesties. What an honor to have you at the ball."

  Mirabel turned. The Queen's face squinched up as she recognized Mirabel—then paled in fury as she recognized the necklace.

  "Where did you get that!?" the Queen demanded. "What are you playing at?"

  Mirabel looked at the Queen's necklace—as like her borrowed one as if it were spell-doubled, except that the emeralds seemed somehow diluted of their rich green color. Perhaps that was because of the taupe gown the Queen wore, perhaps the colors cancelled out or something. "I'm—I'm sorry, Your Majesty," she said, attempting a curtsey. "I just borrowed this—I didn't know—"

  "Borrowed! From whom, may I ask?"

  "A—a friend." Instinct, racing ahead of thought, warned her not to give a name. "A—a dancer. It's only paste, Your Majesty, and I didn't know it was a copy of yours—"

  "A likely story," the Queen sniffed. She turned to the King. "You promised me mine was unique. No other like it, you said, an exclusive design. And now I see it around the neck of a muscle-bound swordswoman who got it from some bawd. What do you say to that, eh? I demand that you take this up with the Royal Jeweler; if he's selling copies on the sly—"

  Mirabel glanced at the King, who looked paler than the Queen. He patted the Queen's arm. "It's not like that—" he began.

  "Not like what?" the Queen asked. Her brow furrowed. "Did you know about this? Did you intend for me to be humiliated in front of everyone?"

  Mirabel edged away from what promised to be a royal spat of epic proportions, and bumped into a large well-muscled man in barbarian costume of fur and leather, who leered straight down her cleavage. She vaguely recalled seeing him with Krystal, but couldn't think of his name.

  "You're . . . stunning," he said, dragging his gaze back up to her face, but only momentarily.

  "Who are you?" Mirabel asked.

  "Skyver Twoswords," he said.

  Another one whose invitation she'd addressed, and wondered about. "You're a friend of Krystal's, aren't you?" she asked.

  He gulped, blushed, and said, "Well, sort of. More than, actually."

  Mirabel eyed him with more interest. "Sort of?"

  "Well, she's . . . you know . . . she's different."

  Different was not the adjective Mirabel would have chosen. Just then the band struck up "Granny Morely's Wedding," one of her favorite pattern dances, and she smiled at Skyver. "Want to dance?"

  "Er . . . I'm sorry . . . Krystal told me to stay here."

  "Do you always do what Krystal says?" It was on a bright May morning . . . when Granny Morely came . . . Her foot tapped the rhythm.

  "Well . . . er . . . yes. I'm supposed to . . . "

  . . . With all her friends and relatives . . . to change her maiden name . . . Skyver looked glum and embarrassed all at once, and Mirabel didn't want to miss the dance. She looked around for another partner.

  "There you are!" Sergeant Gorse said. He beamed at her, not his usual expression. "May I have the honor?"

  They set off into the pattern: She had pink ribbons in her hair . . . she had them on her shoe . . . and Sergeant Gorse inserted his words where he could. "I wanted to thank you . . . for getting us in. Some mistake . . . just as we thought . . . "

  "My pleasure," Mirabel said, ducking under his upraised arm twice for She turned herself about again, as shy maids often do, and caught sight of Krystal in the middle of the next row. She was dancing with Harald, and Mirabel almost tripped to see the same look given to Krystal that he had given to her. Then she shrugged—what did she expect from a smooth-tongued stranger at the ball? She continued the figure with her usual enthusiasm, all the way to And so you see, dear children, was never such a sight, as Gramps and Granny Morely, upon their wedding night, which ended with a whirling embrace.

  "You dance as well as you . . . er . . . look," Sergeant Gorse said.

  "My turn, Quill," said Sergeant Dogwood. He bowed to Mirabel. "If I might have the honor."

  Mirabel spent the next five dances with the sergeants, one after the other; by then she wanted a rest. Though the sales booths hid the alcoves, she managed to squeeze in behind the patchwork animals, where she lounged sideways on the bench with her feet up. The freckled girl looked at her.

  "I don't know if you're supposed to be here. Miss Primula said—"

  "Miss Primula hasn't been dancing with six sergeants, child; my feet hurt."

  From her vantage point, she could peek over the pile of patchwork animals and see the dancers. At one side of the ballroom, the King and Queen sat on a dais, pointedly not looking at each other. Sophora had collected another two ministers and the Duke of Mandergash. Then she spotted Harald by his red beard, and next to him Krystal.

  Krystal leaned gracefully against a pillar, her followers around her . . . two barbarians, a man dressed in leather straps and chains, half a dozen pirates, and someone wearing a long plaid skirt with his face painted green and a green target painted on his naked chest. Krystal herself wore a gown like nothing Mirabel had ever seen—it might have been painted on, glittering silver mesh slit up the side to reveal her tall dress boots. She was, Mirabel had to admit, incredibly beautiful.

  "Mirabel Stonefist, what are you doing back there lounging at your ease while the rest of us—" Primula glared over the stack of stuffed animals.

  "I tried to tell her, Miss Primula," bleated the freckled girl. "She wouldn't listen."

  "She never does," Primula said to the girl. Then to Mirabel, "Come right out of there; I need to talk to you."

  "My feet hurt," Mirabel muttered, but she knew it would do no good. She got up and squeezed back past the corner post of the booth.

  "I had to go to the office for my master lists," Primula said, "I have them here." She waved a sheaf of papers.

  "And now, majesties, lords and ladies, gentlemen and women of quality, it's time to vote for the Queen of the Ball—" That was Lord Mander Thunderblatt. "We honor the Ladies' Aid and Armor Society, by choosing one among them to reign as queen for a night—meaning no disrespect to Your Majesty, of course . . . "

  "Will you pay attention, Mirabel! Quickly now—you say you didn't have Sergeant Gorse on your list?"

  "No, I told you."

  "Do you remember who you did have?"

  Mirabel thought about it. "Corporal Venturi, Corporal Dobbs, Granish the greengrocer, Stebbins the headgroom of the royal stables . . ." She noticed Primula ticking these off on the master list. "Er . . . Harald Redbeard, Skyver Twoswords, Gordamish Ringwearer, Piktush somebody . . . I can't remember anymore. Someone named Overbite or something like that."

  "Just as I thought!" Primula looked simultaneously triumphant and furious. "Those are not on my list at all."

  "All of them?"

  "No, the last four. Who gave you your list?"

  Mirabel blinked. "Krystal, of course."

  "Now you remember the rules," Lord Mander said. "Nominators contribute a gold piece to the Fund; voters contribute ten silvers. Ladies of the Society may not nominate themselves—not that any of our hostesses would—but may nominate another Member, as well as vote . . . "

  "That scheming little tramp!" Primula said. "I see it all now—"

  "I nominate Krystal Winterborn!" someone called.

  "She's wanted to be Queen for years," Primula said. "And now she's cheated—"