“No! No please!” Luna beat her fists on the dainty desk in the Princess-Regent’s study, eyes stinging and throat hurting from all the crying she had done since last night. “She’s my friend, you can’t just send her away!” 

Serena raised a perfect eyebrow, “It’s already done, she’s been sent to the scullery. She was a poor influence on you and as your stepmother I’ve a duty to see you’re not exposed to such things.”

“That’s a lie! You know I was the one who wanted to go into the library! Amelia was just following my plan. You can’t punish her for what I’ve done.”

“I can punish you both and intend to. You snuck into the library after being forbidden from it. You’ll spend this next week confined to your chambers with only minimal visitors allowed. I will be selecting new maids for you. Responsible young women who won’t lead you astray.

Back in her room Luna flung herself on the bed and wrapped around a pillow. Amelia’s things were gone from the alcove where she had slept and the room had been tidied. She’d checked her sewing basket and at least her mother’s journal had still been there. Her maid, her friend, had been loyal and not betrayed the secret.

For two days she curled in her curtained bed, reading her mother's journal until her eyes blurred and her head hurt. Her mother described a few visions, never anything meaningful to her distant daughter. A fall storm that would cause damage in the tiny nearby village. She had a word with the village grannies and the stout cottages became even stouter, easily holding back the storm.

She recognized the hen hanging, dead from a fox's mouth as it leapt across her path and she coaxed her studious brother to help her make sure their coop was secure. When the fox appeared, real this time and not a phantom, he had a wild goose and not one of her beloved hens. 

These were the sorts of things her mother saw. Nothing that would change the world, nothing about Luna or her father or even Serena. Her world was small and bright. Luna ached to share in it. 

Instead on the third day she got a new chief maid. Auntie had retired to watch over her own children's children in the castle town and her new head maid was named Sonette.

Sonette was everything Amelia had not been, dark haired, softly rounded in a terribly feminine way, and with the accent of the distant City by the Sea. Her warm gray eyes watched everything and the other maids' dresses and aprons seemed shabby and a bit worn compared to hers. But only for the first day or two, then it was clear whatever wizardry kept Sonette looking perfectly elegant had been extended to the others who set about tidying Luna and her rooms up as well.

Luna was not at all prepared to be tidied up. So when on the sixth day of being confined to her room her bed curtains were flung open and she was all but bodily tossed into a hot bath while all of her maids trooped around her rooms cleaning and freshening, Luna sat dumbly as Sonette washed her hair and took charge.

"Wait! Wait!" She yelped as the maid changing out the bed linens held up her mother's journal. She looked up at Sonette, "It's my mother's."

"Set it aside, we have greater concerns than a mere book. Look," here she gestured to Luna, "Look at what we are dealing with. A keepsake is of no concern." 

And with that she resumed picking the knots from Luna's pale long hair. "Tsch, are you a young lady or a long haired hound, your highness."

Luna was saved from having to answer by a procession of her maids with every stitch of clothing she owned marching in. Sonette directed them into piles.

"Oh, absolutely not." She said to the gown Luna had worn to her midwinter birthday. Luna's stomach twisted and she winced as she turned towards Sonette as best she could, her hair being yanked by the metal teeth of the comb.

"But! It's a gift from the tailor's guild! I like it!" 

"It's a perfectly serviceable gown." Sonette said, turning Luna's head back towards the bed and the piles of dresses. "And is fine for the daughter of a fine family. It is not fit for royalty, nor your coloring. You'd look like a wraith in such a thing. You need lighter colors and neutrals. Dark colors will wash you out even with cosmetics."

"Cosmetics?!" Luna yelped, turning her head again to stare at Sonette who raised a brow again, this time pulling the comb from Luna's hair.

"Your highness, really. I am trying to work here. You will be a diamond among pebbles if you will only let me. We will begin working with cosmetics in due time. I suppose the gown may stay in your wardrobe, but it will not be one you wear. Now let me tend to your hair and we will see how many suitable gowns you have." 

Luna didn't think she had anymore energy to fight what was clearly an upheaval of her entire life. So she merely watched as her wardrobe was ruthlessly culled to a handful of pastel and pale gowns and a third of everything else. Her long hair was perfectly smoothed with a spring herb scented oil and braided into a crown around her head that let her easily be dressed in one outfit after another while Sonette clicked her tongue and sighed. Luna's spirits fell lower and lower until she was bundled finally into a shift and a wrapper dress and directed to the settle with a pot of hot cider and a plate of pastries. 

She nibbled on them under Sonette's critical eye. A few moments later her new head maid spoke to one of the other girls. Luna wasn't really listening and blinked up in surprise as a second tray of food was added to the table and several slim volumes followed from Sonette's own hands.

"A creamy vegetable soup, the same meal the Princess Regent is having. And some roast beef and cucumber sandwiches. You're pale so it's good for you to have such foods to increase your color. And the books are a popular series in my city chronicling the long reign of our Silent Queen, her fashions and her policies. I was told you enjoy such things. Let me know if there is anything else you need, Princess."

When Luna slowly shook her head, Sonette gave a little shrug and hum, settling herself by the fire and beginning to tat a complex and beautiful lace. Luna watched her for long moments before starting to eat in earnest and opening the first book.

Sonette kept Luna in a whirl of dress fittings, deportment sessions, and new complex lessons. She barely had a moment to think from the time she was roused in the morning to the moment she collapsed into her bed to sleep. There certainly wasn't time to sit in court with her stepmother, nor seek out Jaeger or even venture to the kitchens to try and find Amelia. Sonette was by her side every moment for nearly a month.

Finally came a morning where she wasn't briskly roused from bed, gowned and primped before she'd even really opened her eyes. Instead she woke on her own with one of her more junior maids half asleep in the chair by the fire. She pulled on her own wrapper and poured her own tea. Luna was contemplating the summer world out her window when the girl did wake. She waved off the stammered apologies, "Where is Sonette?"

"This is her day free. I can attend you though, your highness. I'm honored too. Sonette says I've an eye for braiding hair."

"A braid would work well. I wish for a picnic lunch and a day to myself as well. I'll tell the cook myself and you can fetch my tutors to the inner garden as well." She stood, straightening her spine. "Please help me get dressed."

The maid fumbled her into one of her simpler summer dresses and did an admirable job of braiding up her hair. Luna studied it in the mirror and added a little touch of the berry tasting tinted salve that was all the cosmetic Sonette would allow her to wear, even against Serena's complaints that she should look more like a young lady.

“You bring my books to the gardens and I’ll go to get the picnic basket from Cook. I want to pick my meal myself.

She hurried down to the kitchens, she and the Cook brightening to see eachother. The Cook gave serviceable little curtsey. “Well if it isn’t our own Princess Luna. It’s been too long, my lady. You’re too skinny.”

“I thought I might have you pack me a picnic and study in the garden? If you would please. You know what I like best.” Cook waved her to the bench by the tables where the kitchen girls were preparing vegetables.

“I’ll be happy to. A nice picnic will do you such good.” Cook began to bustle around, calling one of the girls from the table to help her. Luna turned to the other who was peeling vegetables and smiled, getting a shy smile in return.

“Could you tell me, is Amelia in the scullery now? I want to see her.” The girl’s eyes widened and she shook her head.

“Oh no, P-princess. There’s rumors, but she never came down here. One said she was a fine ladies maid, much too fine for the scullery and she packed off to the City by the Sea. Others say she went to her family in the mountains. But she’s never been here in the kitchens at all.”

Luna blinked, repeating slowly. “Never in the kitchens? But…”

Cook came back at that moment, insistent on calling a garden boy to carry the basket. Luna left for her studies, glad to be in the garden but puzzling over what she’d learned. Amelia’s family was the castle staff. Like Jaeger she was a foundling, and she’d never been too fine for anything she was asked to do. 

Luna had been listening to the murmured conversation between the maid and the Queen as she pretended to learn heraldic code, and the noble lineages of their land. As if she hadn't learned that at her father's knee and right under Serena's nose. Instead she let her eyes unfocus on the page and strained her ears to eavesdrop.

"Your highness, we must consider the Princess' skin. It is delicate at her age, and proper nutrition will do more for her than powders and lotions."

"If she is ever to make any kind of match at all she must look like less of a country chit. That is what I brought you here to do!" Serena snapped, her voice rising.

"Of course, your highness." Sonette said, her tone soothing, "And she is progressing in her dance and deportment lessons as well as her heraldic code and lineage lessons. I am fostering her interest in fashion as well…"

Luna knew well enough, Sonette had provided still more books and even some periodicals featuring the fashions or imagined fashions of distant locales. Luna's favorite had been what the article claimed was worn in the court of the Dark fae deep in the wild mountains. The supposed queen of the dark fae, the writer swore, had worn a gown made entirely out of butterfly wings. 

And the next morning her dressing table contained a few new pots and bottles. Sonette talked her through the process as she applied the lightest amounts of cosmetics to Luna’s face. Luna listened and then frowned into the mirror.

“I look just the same.”

“That’s the point,” Sonnet said with boundless patience, “You look more like yourself than you did before. A more perfect version if you like, since the point of cosmetics is to enhance how you look. Not to change it. The point of all the things we are doing is to enhance you and attract a suitable husband for you."

Luna frowned more, torn between saying she didn't need a husband, she was going to be Queen, and thinking of how Jaeger's eyes warmed when he smiled at her. She sighed, "I understand, Sonette, you make a good point."