Cassandra was crossing the plaza leading up to the Palace when the knife was held up to her throat from behind.
Twenty-four hours ago, she would likely have panicked and started offering whoever it was whatever money she had.
Today, she took one look at the palace guards staring with barely veiled amusement from a dozen paces away in broad daylight and rolled her eyes.
"You're too tall to be Hira or Vilim," she announced calmly. "I can't believe Luna would do other than challenge me to my face, and as for Mona–"
She didn't finish her thought, but slammed her head backwards at where she thought her attacker's face would be.
She didn't expect to make contact, but intended it as a distraction during which she could – well, she wasn't sure what she would do once she had grabbed the hand holding the knife, but she was sure she could come up with something.
And if not, at least she knew the safe word.
But to her surprise she not only made contact, she made good, solid contact that made her attacker yelp in pain, drop the knife, and fall backwards. Cassandra spun, falling into her best imitation of a combat pose, only to see…
"Your Majesty?"
The figure standing there, hunched over, was dressed in a sturdy wool dress and apron better suited to a commoner, yet her face was still recognizable through the blood leaking between the hands held over her face as Queen Tera.
"Oh moonless night," Cassandra breathed. She was suddenly acutely aware of the guards over at the gate – were they coming toward her?
She wanted to run and hide; she wanted to lay down, hands on her head and wait to be arrested; she wanted to do anything except be seen as a further threat by approaching and grabbing the queen she had just assaulted.
So of course her traitorous feet stepped forward, and her idiot hands reached out to embrace the bleeding woman. She could feel the queen shaking as she instinctively wrapped her arms around her, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean–"
"But you did mean," the queen said, a quaver in her voice. "Y-you realized that I w-wasn't r-really going to h-hurt you, and still you–" she abruptly pushed Cassandra's hands off of her and fell down on her backside right there in the middle of the street.
"Pow!" she exclaimed. "Right in the kisser!"
And just like that, Cassandra realized that she had misread the shaking woman. She wasn't crying; she was laughing. As Cassandra's tension drained away, she took a look around her and realized that the approaching guards were bringing clean cloths and water, not weapons and chains, and seemed to be joking with each other with smiles on their faces.
Cassandra plopped herself down next to the bleeding woman. "I guess this is where your daughters get it?" she asked tentatively as the queen took a cloth from the guards and started cleaning herself off.
Queen Tera's laughter had been dying down, but Cassandra's comment made it pick up again. Cassandra found herself drawn into a grin of her own.
"I might have had a hand in their love of mischief," Tera said. "Don't let Mona and Aadhira's sisters fool you. All of them have a wicked streak somewhere in there. It's just a few of them have gotten better at hiding it."
Cassandra considered this. Indeed, neither Luna nor Selena had expressed any reservations with the little test she had been subjected to yesterday.
The queen tried to get one hand underneath her and grunted. "Unfortunately," she said, "I am slightly farther removed from my own girlhood as they are. Can you lend me a hand?"
One of the guards offered her his hand, and she slapped it. "I asked for Miss Demarin's help, not yours, Karinn."
Cassandra did a double take at Tera's words. A female guard wasn't exactly uncommon, but the assumption that guards would be men was apparently so deeply ingrained that evidence to the contrary was slightly jarring when not overlooked.
"Would it be all right if Karinn were to help me up so that I can help you up?" Cassandra asked, holding up her hand.
"I'll allow it," the queen said primly.
Karinn helped Cassandra to her feet with a smile.
"Is she always like this?" Cassandra asked in a stage whisper that the queen pretended to ignore.
"She can be worse than Aadhira when she gets a mind to," Karinn replied.
Cassandra held out her hand to the queen, who took it and rose to her feet.
"Thank you, my dear," Queen Tera said.
"Is this the last of my little tests?" Cassandra asked. "Or is the king going to jump me when I get to the palace?"
"My dear Miss Demarin," the queen replied. "You are a wonderful, insightful, beautiful, intelligent young woman. I'm sure you can appreciate it when I say that were my husband to even think about laying a hand on you, it wouldn't be your retribution he would need to fear, but mine."
Cassandra laughed. "I can definitely understand that sentiment," she said. She looked down at the arm the queen was wrapping with her own. "Um, what's going on here?"
"Well, you don't look like you're needed anywhere anytime soon," Tera said. "So you're coming shopping with me."
"I… am?" Cassandra asked dimly. She looked at Karinn for help, only to find that the guard was apparently studiously paying attention to something else entirely. "But what about lessons? And combat training?"
"Morning lessons?" the queen replied. "After a full moon? Have you met my daughters?"
Cassandra thought back to the dimly remembered debacle from the night before. "I guess you have a point there."
"And I'm sure my other daughter will forgive you for being late for your own training when you make your entrance in the right company."
"I don't have any say in the matter, do I?"
"I knew I liked you!" the queen said gaily, all but dancing Cassandra back toward the city.
Cassandra glanced back at Karinn one last time, and discovered a plainly dressed commoner with Karinn's face where the guard had been standing a moment before. She tossed a friendly salute toward the halfcat before disappearing into the crowds bustling around them.
"Do we have any particular destination in mind?" Cassandra asked as the queen all but dragged her through the streets.
"We do," the queen replied. "I received an unexpected request this morning, and there is simply no way to accommodate it in time."
"Oh?" Cassandra prompted.
"Fortunately I have planned ahead for even such unlikely eventualities. Ah, here we are."
The queen led Cassandra through a secluded door set in an inconspicuous storefront.
Once inside, Cassandra found herself surrounded by cloth of every type and color imaginable. Silks, cottons, linens, laces, sheers, ranging from the bright and gaudy to the dark and grim and back to the delicate and pale. At intervals around the walls were set examples of fine tailoring: here a dress, there a man's suit, there a luxurious robe.
A man, thin, white haired, and dressed in a loosened suit in keeping with the samples on display, appeared from the depths of the shop.
"My lady!" he exclaimed on seeing who had entered his domain. "It is so good to see you again!" He reached the queen and made air kisses to either side of her face.
"To what do I owe the honor of your visit?" he asked. "Surely your daughter hasn't ripped her way through an entire new wardrobe this fast. Again."
"Not yet, Master Simmons. But that's not why I'm here. I actually come on a much more unexpected errand. Do you remember that little just in case project I had you work on several months ago?"
"I do," Master Simmons replied. His eyes widened. "Really? You have need of that now?"
The queen nodded. "Out of nowhere, I have been approached. And Master Simmons." She extended her hand.
Master Simmons took the paper from her hand and unfolded it.
"Measurements?" he gasped. "Actual measurements? Ooh, this is serious!"
He was almost dancing as he hurried out of sight behind an almost invisible nook, returning suspiciously quickly with a bulky package that he extended toward the pair of women.
Cassandra's eyebrow rose when she saw the name on the package, but when he lifted the lid to reveal its contents, she downright gasped.