Read Online Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies by Mercedes Lackey, Rosemary Edghill - Free Book Online Page A

see why Addie and I had ours sent. What size are you? Hopefully things haven’t been picked over too much yet.”
    Addie snorted disbelievingly, which only made Spirit more depressed.
    “Um … Four? Six?” She tried not to fidget. And here she’d thought the Christmas Dinner was bad. The New Year’s Dance was going to be hideous.
    Muirin and Addie dove into the mass of tulle, glitter, and satin at the far end of the racks. “Seafoam: Eighties. Fuchsia: Eighties. Nineties’ Hippie revival, oh noes, not unless we want you to look like a flower child.” Muirin rejected one dress after another until Spirit wondered if staying in her room was an option.
    “But hark! Is that a plain white something I spy?”
    Addie finally hauled a candidate out where Spirit could see it. The dress was white, yes, but it had some sort of bizarre rainbow-colored tulle ribbon poof stuck to one hip, some sort of weird scarf-like thing in the same material wreathing the neckline, and matching poofs at the shoulders. And shoulder pads. Big ones.
    “I think these are supposed to be flowers,” Muirin said critically. She started poking and prying at them. “The basic dress is all right…”
    Spirit could not imagine how anyone could describe that horror as “all right.”
    “It’s the only one with classic lines in her size,” Addie agreed.
    Muirin and Addie exchanged an enigmatic look. “Three hours, tops,” said Muirin, in answer to an unspoken question.
    “Have they told us anything about not cutting things up from here?” Addie asked.
    Muirin shook her head smugly, then dived back into the racks to grab a black-and-silver thing that was even worse than the rainbow poof dress—and not even in her size. She couldn’t imagine anyone her age—anywhere, ever —wearing that horror.
    “I’ll get this stuff deconstructed before they have a chance to tell us not to get creative, then it’ll be too late for them to do anything about it.” Muirin glanced down the row of dresses at Spirit, who was wearing a look of utter horror. “Trust me,” she said, knowingly, waving the silver-and-black dress like a flag of triumph. “I might have to cover up where I take Rainbow Brite’s corsages off. You’ll love it.”
    For one moment Spirit contemplated telling her not to bother, that she’d pick something out by herself. Then she looked at the other choices. And realized there were no other choices. “Um … thanks,” she said, faintly. She only hoped she wasn’t going to end up wearing something held together with safety pins.
    Then, as she followed the other two out, she could have hit herself. What was wrong with her? They were all still in deadly danger—and she was worrying about a dress ? She’d started her conversation with Addie and Muirin wanting to talk about Elizabeth, who behaved as if she knew she was in danger. She’d wanted to talk to them about the danger she knew they were all still in. And she’d ended up down here picking out a prom dress as if she didn’t have anything to worry about besides who’d dance with her at the ball!
    This was the last thing that should have been on her mind. Maybe it wasn’t just shock and denial. Something was going on here. Maybe they were all being manipulated into forgetting what had happened at Midwinter, and even she was falling into the trap.
    She started to say something to Addie and Muirin—and then stopped herself just in time. Because telling them—again—wouldn’t help. She couldn’t prove there was some sort of Jedi mind-trick stuff going on, and saying there was would only make her look more paranoid.
    No, somehow she had to get them to see it for themselves.
    Maybe investigating the oak in the Entry Hall would help. She had to start somewhere.
    *   *   *
    Muirin showed up to dinner a little late—not so much that she got in trouble, but enough so that a couple of the proctors gave her a glare. There were bits of white and black thread on her skirt, so