Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Auston Habershaw

Quote by Auston Habershaw

“The proclamation had been very clear: All eligible maidens were to attend. All. High or low estate, fat or thin, short or tall, one leg or two. In one week's time, the prince was going to pick a pretty girl from the crowd and make a princess of her. To most women in the kingdom, it was as though God had extended His hand to them. But not to the seamstresses. To old Clara Le Dure, it seemed the king had decided this was the week she ought to die. He was personally seeing to it that she should stitch herself into oblivion.”

Quote by Auston Habershaw

Work

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2020

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Auston Habershaw

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Auston Habershaw. more

You May Also Like

“. Designed to look like a breastplate, the corset was trimmed in silver with sections that looked like overlapping plate armor. It fell to a frothy skirt and the lace at the top of the corset draped around the neckline in a way that hinted more than revealed. Dark and mysterious, the entire expanse of the full skirt was sewn in what looked like a battle scene, complete with charging horses, flying arrows, and dying corpses. I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or horrified. I felt a little of both.”

“Much of the clothing is moth-eaten, but I can see what they once were. A skirt with a beaded pattern of pomegranates, another that pulls up, like a curtain, to show a stage with jewelled mechanical puppets underneath. There is even one stitched with the silhouette of dancing fauns as tall as the skirt itself. I've admired Oriana's dresses for their elegance and opulence, but these awaken in me a hunger for a dress that's riotous. They make me wish I'd seen Locke's mother in one of her gowns. They make me think she must have liked to laugh.”

“Taryn is beautiful in her heavily embroidered dress, and Vivi radiant in soft violet grey with artfully sewn moths seeming to fly from her shoulder across her chest to gather in another group on one side of her waist. I realise how rarely I've seen her in truly splendid clothes. Her hair is up, and my earrings glitter in her lightly furred ears. Her cat eyes gleam in the half light, twin to Madoc's. For once, that makes me smile.”

“Because these aren't just dresses. They're portals: ways of time-travelling without moving. A little bit of me went into each of them, and it's as if I can see myself in each of them, standing there like a ghost. As if every emotion, every thought, every hope, every memory I had is still drifting visibly through them like smoke. These are all part of who I am and who I was, and they're also part of who I will be. My very own historical timeline.”