Nora glanced into the great gilded mirror. Her dark curls framed a face that had gone still with concentration. Beside her, Cecily gleamed in silk and jewels, smiling as if she were offering a kindness. But the blue muslin did not lie flat. There was a small rent just below Nora's collarbone, and within it a thread that had been drawn far too tightly. Nora's mother had taught her to recognize the difference between a seam failing from wear and one deliberately cut. This was not an old tear. It was a new one, opened along the grain by something narrow and sharp.
"Who handled my gown before I put it on?" Nora asked. Cecily's smile held, but something colder entered her eyes. "Must everything be an accusation?" she replied. Nora did not answer. She lifted the cloth carefully and felt a hard object beneath the lining. It resisted when she tugged. The tip was angled inward, ready to pierce her skin when the dress pulled tightly across her chest. The pale thread was not holding the seam together; it was securing that object in place. A dancer turning quickly or raising an arm might have driven the point into her.
A door opened behind them. Nathaniel stood in the entrance, having followed a footman who said Lady Honoria wished him to speak to Miss Fenwick before the first dance. He stopped at the sight of Nora holding the torn bodice. Cecily began talking at once, explaining that the poor girl's old gown had come undone and that she had tried to help. Nora, however, had bent her head and was working the thread free with slow, exact movements. She gave one final pull. A long needle slid from the fabric and lay glittering in her palm.
"Who put that there?" Nathaniel asked. Nora raised the needle so everyone could see it. "Someone who wanted me to discover it too late," she said. Cecily laughed, too quickly and too loudly. "A sewing needle in a sewing repair? How extraordinary. Shall we summon a magistrate whenever a maid drops a pin?" Nora looked at her reflection, then at the maid's white face. "A dropped needle falls out," she said. "This one was stitched into the lining with the point turned against my skin. It was not an accident."
The room seemed suddenly very small. Nathaniel stepped closer but did not touch Nora. "Are you injured?" he asked. "No," she replied. "Not yet." The simple words changed his expression more surely than any dramatic accusation could have done. Cecily tried to move between them. "Nathaniel, you cannot mean to take her side over mine. She has been making trouble for the school for months. She is exactly the sort of person who would invent an outrage to be noticed." At that, Elspeth made a tiny sound behind the dressing table. Nora turned toward her.