Anastasil: переводы

→Meredith was looking around the room as if she had stumbled into
a private discussion and didn’t know how to get out. Then she looked
from the dress to the jewels to Lady Ulma again. Meredith was not one
to lose her composure easily.

→Elena realized that sometime in the last minutes Lucen must have entered
the room. She smiled at him, and then her eyes dropped to the three-tiered tray he held.
On the top tray, against an ivory background, were two black onyx and diamond bracelets, as
well as a ring with a diamond in it that almost made her swoon.

→“And with it, you will wear these very large black onyx and gold
earrings, these black onyx and gold combs to hold your hair up, and
some lovely matching bracelets and rings Lucen has made just for this
outfit,” Lady Ulma continued.

→It kept close to the body all the way to the knees where it suddenly flared out again, dramatically wide.
“A ‘mermaid’ dress,” Lady Ulma explained, satisfied with her sketch at
last. “And here it is,” she added as several sewing women entered,
reverently holding the miraculous gown between them. Now the girls
could see that the material was of plush black velvet dotted with tiny
rectangular metallic golden flecks. It looked like midnight back home,
Elena thought, with a thousand falling stars in the sky.

→The girl in the sketch was definitely Meredith, with her hair half up
and half down, but wearing a dress—such a dress! Black as ebony,
strapless, it clung to the long slim figure perfectly sketched in the
picture, emphasizing the curves, enhancing them on top by what Elena
learned was called a “sweetheart” neckline: one that made Meredith’s
front look like a Valentine’s Day heart.

→Lady Ulma thumbed through it until she came to a page that
seemed to please her. She took up pens and coloring pencils like a child
eager to play with beloved toys again. “Here it is,” she said, using the
colored pencils to add a line here and a curve there, but holding the book
so that the three girls could see the design.

→“Oh, my God!” cried Bonnie in genuine astonishment, and even
Elena felt her eyes widening.

→“I wonder if you can,” murmured Lady Ulma, and then she added
hastily, “While we wait shall I show you what I have created for your
tall friend who doubts me?”

→“I get it. I can see how having that sun hanging there every day
would really get you down after a while.”

→“It’s because of the sun,” Lady Ulma said soberly. “That hateful
crimson light, changing every blue to purple, every yellow to brown.
You see, no one would wear aqua or green to an outdoor soiree—no, not
even you, with that strawberry hair that cries out for it.”

→“I wondered why it said ‘indoors’ on the invitations,” Bonnie said.
“I thought maybe it was because of rain.”

→Lady Ulma laughed. “I see. Well, there will be enough fantastical
styles worn tonight that he may change his mind for the future. Now
let’s draw the curtains on the windows all around. This gala is to be
indoors, with gaslight only, so colors will show true.”

→“Oh, Sage is not going. And I’m sure Damon wouldn’t have
minded—as long as you designed him a black leather jacket, a black
shirt, black jeans, and black boots all exactly like the ones he wears
every day. He’d have been happy to wear it then.”

→“I only wish Master Damon and Lord Sage had agreed to let me
create something for them to wear,” Lady Ulma said mournfully to
Elena.

→“Oh, we’d love to!” Bonnie cried, at the same time making a dive
for the sketchbook, while Meredith rung a bell pull that brought a
servant hurrying in and hurrying away again to the sewing room.

→“Oh, nothing at all,” Lady Ulma said hastily. “I mean, would you
like to see your dresses now? This last fitting is really just to make sure
every stitch is perfect.”

→“What is it?” Elena asked gently.

→“Oh, but—” Lady Ulma began, and then she stopped herself
almost before the words were out.

→“Anyway,” she said quickly, “we know one thing. It’s in the Silver
Nightingale’s instrument. So whatever is inside Lady Fazina’s harp, that
has to be it.”

→Lady Ulma fell silent, and Elena felt badly. She hated to use harsh
language or even appear distressed in front of the woman who had lived
a life of such subjection and horror since her early teens. Elena wanted
Lady Ulma to feel safe, to be happy.