“Are you sure you got that from the closet?” Erin asked, staring at the dress Kirchel had laid out on the bed for her. “I know I didn’t see it when I looked in there earlier.”

“Who says it looked like this when I got it from the closet?” Kirchel said with a mischievous smile. “I improved it a little bit.”

Erin had just finished having a bath, which had felt wonderful after being hot and sweaty from spending most of the afternoon outside in the summer sun.

Kirchel had found her just after the Nylad finished, and they had gone into the main part of the city to watch the parades, music, and dancing celebrating the start of the council meeting. Then they had returned to the palace to rest and change clothes before they went to the ball that was being held that evening.

Erin had emerged from the bathroom a few minutes ago to find Kirchel waiting for her with an absolutely gorgeous dress made from a soft, velvet-like cloth. It was forest green with pale gold embroidery around the bottom of the full skirt, over the bodice, and down the sides of the long sleeves. The long cape attached to the back was made of a light, shimmering gold material. There was also a layer of this same material that attached to the top of the sleeves on each shoulder and draped down almost to the floor.

“You made it like that?” Erin said, impressed. “I’ll have to remember to call you when I need a prom dress.”

Kirchel laughed. “I’m glad you like it. Let me know when you’re finished getting dressed, and I’ll help you with your hair.”

When Kirchel had gone into the next room, Erin put on the dress and the matching green and gold shoes and then stood in front of the mirror in the closet for a moment to examine her reflection. She felt like she was dressing up for a ballet recital, except that the skirt was much too long and heavy to be doing pirouettes in.

Not that she was in good enough shape to be doing pirouettes regardless of what she was wearing, she thought sadly, swishing the skirt back and forth and admiring the way the light reflected off the gold embroidery.

She entered Kirchel’s room a few minutes later to find Kirchel already dressed and adding the finishing touches to her hair. She was wearing a dress similar to Erin’s except that it was pale violet with pearlescent white accents. It was also longer than Erin’s so that the skirt and cape trailed on the ground. Kirchel had her hair curled into ringlets and piled on top of her head with tiny white flowers sprinkled through it. She looked stunning.

Kirchel smiled slightly when she saw Erin watching her. “What do you think?”

“It's really nice. You look like a fairy princess or something."

She would have liked to add that she could understand why Arturyn might have fallen in love with Kirchel, but she didn’t want to ruin the festive atmosphere by bringing up that sad topic.

Kirchel laughed. “And you look like a little mermaid who just came from the ocean. Come here and let me do something with that wet hair.”

As Arturyn had predicted, Kirchel’s hairstyling was quick and effective. In just a few short minutes, she had Erin’s hair up in an elegant twist with several tightly spiraled curls hanging down over her ears. As a final touch, Kirchel added in a gold comb with green gemstone flowers on it.

“There, that should do it,” Kirchel said, taking a step back to examine her work. “Now, are you ready to face the world of Silmarith royalty?”

They left the room and headed downstairs, Kirchel leading the way. This time they went, not to the front hall, but to a large ballroom located at the back of the palace that Erin had only briefly glimpsed on her tour with Kirchel the day before. Then it had been swarming with servants cleaning and decorating. Now it was filled with Silmarith aristocracy dressed in their finest.

A number of small, circular tables had been set up at one end of the room, and most of the people who had already arrived were either seated at them or were milling around between the tables talking to one another. Kirchel and Erin sat down at an empty table near the wall. Not long after, they were joined by an elderly couple and a girl who looked like she was in her late teens.

After a few minutes of conversation with these three in Silmarith, Kirchel explained to Erin that the man was an advisor to the King of Semir, the woman was his wife, and the girl was their granddaughter, who had come with them to visit Zeiryn, where she would be starting later that year. The girl seemed very interested in Kirchel, and they kept talking for quite a while, leaving Erin to look around the room and wish that she understood Silmarith better.

It was a very beautiful room, with a patterned marble floor and elegant stone carvings all over the walls and ceiling. It was lit by chandeliers that held the same kind of magical candles as the one in Erin’s room, but these chandeliers were much larger and were decorated with hundreds of clear crystals that sparkled in the candlelight and cast tiny rainbows over the ceiling. Along one wall were four large, arched doorways leading out onto a balcony overlooking the gardens.

Erin glanced at some of the people around them, feeling nervous about being in such a stately group, although it helped that most of the royal children she'd seen at the Nylad this morning were also there, which lightened the atmosphere a little. She saw Arturyn sitting a few tables away, and he gave her a reassuring smile when she caught his eye. After she had returned the smile, she saw his gaze move to Kirchel and linger on her for a long moment before he finally turned back to the man sitting next to him.

When all the tables were full and people had stopped entering the room, Arturyn stood up and everyone fell silent. He spoke briefly in Silmarith and then sat back down.

All the tables suddenly glowed pale yellow, and plates full of food appeared on them. Erin stared at her plate for a moment, slightly taken aback. But glancing around, she saw that none of the others seemed to think that food and tableware appearing from thin air was at all unusual. With some effort, she swallowed her astonishment and started eating, wondering nervously if her American table manners would be considered acceptable by high-class Silmarith society.

Fortunately, Kirchel finished her conversation with the girl from Semir and turned back to Erin to tell her the names of the different foods and explain how to eat some of the more exotic ones. Erin didn’t receive any scandalized looks from their companions across the table, so she assumed that either she wasn’t doing anything too wrong or else Kirchel had explained that she was new to Silmar and they were being kind enough to overlook her foreign manners.

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There was a large alcove built into the wall opposite where Erin and Kirchel were sitting. A group of musicians were assembled there, and they began playing after the food was served. The instruments and music here in Silmar weren’t quite like any Erin was acquainted with back at home. They seemed to use a slightly different musical scale than she was used to. But even if the sounds were a little unfamiliar, they were still lovely.

As people finished eating, many of them stood and went over to the large clear area on the other side of the room. When there was a group of them, they got into formation and started an intricate-looking dance.

“How do all the ladies keep from tripping over their skirts?” Erin asked Kirchel, watching the dancers and noticing that most of the women wore dresses with trailing full skirts like Kirchel’s.

“Well, that’s the nice thing about magic,” Kirchel replied with a smile. “It lets you get around a few laws of physics.”

After a little while, the threesome from Semir stood and went to join in the dancing. Kirchel and Erin stayed at their table, talking about the music and the dancing and watching the others. Erin didn’t know how to do any of the Silmarith dances, and she wasn’t sure her left leg would cooperate anyway. Kirchel didn’t seem very interested in dancing either. Arturyn was still seated at his table, and Erin saw Kirchel glance furtively in his direction from time to time, as though she wanted to go over and talk to him but didn’t quite feel up to it.

They had been sitting there for perhaps twenty minutes when Erin, who was watching a group of teenagers who had gathered together in a corner of the room, heard a voice speaking Silmarith behind her. Turning, she was surprised to see a dark-haired man that she recognized as Teral, the King of Aner, standing next to their table and addressing Kirchel.

“He’s asking me to dance,” Kirchel said, looking as though she didn’t quite believe what she was saying. “Do you mind?”

“I…. No, of course not.”

In truth, Erin didn’t really want Kirchel to leave her there by herself, but she felt it would be selfish of her to say so.

Kirchel stood up and walked out to the dance floor with Teral. Erin watched her go, feeling slightly abandoned. She looked around the tables, now mostly empty, in the hopes that Tabitha might be sitting nearby. But when Erin finally spotted her, Tabitha was already in the middle of a dance, partnering a tall man that Erin remembered seeing sitting near them during the Nylad. Disappointed, she glanced back at Arturyn, wondering if she felt brave enough to go over and talk to him in front of the important-looking people sitting at his table. She decided she didn’t, especially since two of the people were the impressive pair with the dark patterns on their faces.

With a sigh, Erin resigned herself to going without company for a while and turned back to watch the dancing again, waiting for Kirchel to come back.

But half an hour later, she was still sitting there by herself. Kirchel was still dancing with Teral and seemed to be having a good time. Erin toyed moodily with the small bronze badge attached to the collar of her dress, watching both Kirchel, who was laughing and looking radiant, and Arturyn, who kept glancing at her every few minutes, wearing a barely perceptible look of annoyance.

All in all, Erin thought, the evening really wasn’t turning out to be much fun. She considered just going upstairs to bed, but she didn’t want to leave without telling Kirchel where she was going. She also wasn't sure she could find her bedroom again without help.

She pushed her chair back and stood up, deciding that she might as well walk around the room for a few minutes. She felt nervous about being on her own in this group of strangers who mostly didn't speak her language, but the people here were used to humans coming over from the other world, right? So they shouldn’t hold it against her that she was a foreigner and didn’t understand their language and customs.

She turned hesitantly toward the group of teenagers she'd been watching earlier, wondering if by any chance any of them spoke English. Deciding it was worth a try, she made her way around the edge of the room and paused a short distance away from the group, looking around for someone who seemed like they might speak a language from another world or who would at least be kind to her if she tried to talk to them.

Most of the older teenagers were dancing in a formation similar to the adults, though it was smaller and a bit less refined-looking. Others were standing in pairs or small groups, talking. Through a nearby door to the balcony, Erin could see a group of smaller children seated in a circle on the ground and playing some kind of game. A small huddle of girls about Erin’s age were chatting and giggling nearby, and several boys hung together in a loose group next to the wall, watching the others and looking awkward. They were eyeing the group of girls, but none of them seemed brave enough to approach them. Erin could sympathize with them. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to approach any of them....

But just as she was wondering whether she ought to give up and retreat to her table, she realized that she was already attracting their attention just by standing there. The dancing couples shot her curious looks as they moved past, and the group of girls all turned to look at her with interest. One of them moved away from the group and came over to Erin. She had a long mane of curly blonde hair and was wearing a light pink dress. She beamed at Erin and fired off a rapid string of Silmarith.

“Glerá,” Erin said uncertainly, trying hard to remember everything Kirchel had taught her the previous day. “Lo seh iveh nur Silmarith. Lo iveh nur English.”

“Eng…glish?” the girl repeated slowly, looking baffled, as though she had never heard of such a language before. Which, Erin realized, she probably hadn’t.

The girl looked around at her friends, but neither they nor any of the others seemed to be able to offer any help. She turned back to Erin, her smile faltering slightly.

“Lo seh tawen is nior sar let iveh nur English,” she said, sounding apologetic. “Glerá.” She added a few more words of Silmarith, smiled kindly but uncertainly at Erin again, and turned to go back to her group of friends.

Erin looked around the group again. None of the others tried to talk to her, although many of them gave her timid smiles when she met their eyes. It was clear that they weren’t trying to shun her, but they didn’t know how to include her in their group when she couldn’t even talk to them.

Feeling a little abashed, Erin turned away from them. She walked slowly toward the nearest doorway leading out to the balcony, watching the group of dancers for Kirchel, but she was nowhere in sight.

The light was dimmer on the balcony. Lanterns hung at intervals along the railing, but much of their light seemed to escape into the darkness of the night. It was also quieter and less crowded out there. The children were still playing nearby, supervised by several of their mothers. A number of other people were standing around the balcony or sitting on benches, talking in pairs or small groups.

Looking left and right, Erin saw that the balcony extended along most of that side of the palace. There seemed to be fewer people at the far ends than there were here next to the doors. She turned to the right and went further out, a pleasant summer breeze playing across her face and hair while she walked.

She found an empty bench toward the far end of the balcony and sat down. The bench was next to the railing and there were stone planters on either side of it which held flowering shrubs, making the spot feel more secluded. Erin was grateful for that. She felt like being alone for a while.