Tegan raised an eyebrow at me. “And since you started noticing that he exists, he’s probably eating ten thousand calories a day. Good thing he works out.”

“He doesn’t have to be nervous around me. I’m not going to hurt him or anything.” Actually, I was starting to feel really protective of him. If the Mazikin got him, I’d never forgive myself.

She turned her back on me to root through another rack of sequins and satin. “Yeah? We all saw the way you reacted to Malachi’s stabbing this morning.”

I hid myself in the changing stall. “Malachi was hurt, Teg. I had to help him. If Ian was hurt, I’d want to help him, too.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice dripping with skepticism. “I’m going to hand you a few more possibilities, all right? We’re going to go short. Your legs are totally ripped, and you seem to harbor some kind of grudge against the longer dresses.”

The long dresses seemed destined to trip me up and get tangled at the wrong moment. They made me feel clumsy and slow. I looked down at my legs. I never wore short skirts, or any type of skirt. I wasn’t keen on the idea of people looking at me, and so my clothes tended to be an afterthought. Which made this whole prom dress thing feel really weird. It felt like I was trying to wear some kind of disguise.

Tegan flopped a wine-red dress over the top of the door. “This is the one. Get that on, and get out here.”

I tugged the dress down and examined it. Unlike so many of the others, this one didn’t have a plunging neckline. It was a halter-style neck, with thin silvery straps that circled around and crisscrossed in the back. Feeling hopeful for the first time this afternoon, I pulled it on, carefully untangling my crazy hair as it got caught on the zipper. The front of the dress mostly covered the starburst scar from Henry’s crossbow bolt. Once I had myself decent, I walked into the mirrored vestibule where Tegan was waiting, wearing a cap-sleeved, skintight black dress that made her hip bones look scary sharp. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “I knew it!” She clapped a few times.

I stared into the mirror. The waistline was high and tight, just below my breasts, and the skirt was flowing and loose over my hips and legs, ending at midthigh. I turned in place. It was actually comfortable. The color looked good against my light-brown skin and eyes, too. I … kind of looked pretty. And I could run in it. “This is the one.”