Making clothes is both art and science, for with but a needle and some thread one can create wonders or horrors. Clothes making requires skill, passion and more knowledge than one would think at first glance.

I lack all of those, but thankfully, they’re unnecessary in order to fix the prince’s wardrobe, or better said ‘fix’ it.

The prince’s clothes are perfectly wearable if one was a commoner, in fact they are perfectly normal for a noble to wear too, in their own home that is, and except for some tears and small imperfections on the edges on the sleeves of both the shirts and pants they look brand new. They’re not something so bad that you could not wear them at home if you were a noble, and for most commoners they would probably be among the best clothes they could afford or have.

For royalty however, they might as well have been dirty rags. This is not conductive to a good reputation most of the time, but during the birthday party of the princess? They might have well been a political suicide note written in the blood of the soon to be deceased.

“Why won’t it break?” The prince nearly shouted as he continued to try and failed at breaking one of the hairs I’ve been using to fix his wardrobe.

My tools were truly pitiful and I doubt any clothes makers would hesitate to kill me for heresy if they saw me using my ice needle and scissors, as well as my own hair to fix royal clothes. I wouldn’t blame them if they tried.

“Satisfied now?” I ask dispassionately as I continue sewing.

The prince stopped his futile attempts at breaking the hair I’ve given him after he doubted its strength and my sanity.

“How is it so strong?” He pouted at me.

His attempt at a glare would have been hilarious, but right now, thanks to all this needling and threading I need to do, all I could feel was annoyance.

“Magic, I need something strong and thin in order to choke people to death. It’s surprisingly useful for stitching clothes as well, who would have thought?” I replied in a deadpan.

He froze at it and stared at the small thread as if it was about to kill him.

What did he expect? I am the Conclave’s best, well last, agent versed in stealth and infiltration, of course, I have some surprises for anyone that thinks I’m just a harmless maid.

‘Poor Venus, even if he was an obnoxious manchild with personality issues, he didn’t deserve having his head crushed during the food riots. At least we got his body before it was fully eaten.’

The prince took some time to recover from that and from the corner of my left eye, I saw him ponder on his next question.

Maybe there is still hope for him…

“But won’t the magic run out eventually?”

“No, it’s not enchanted.”

“Then how? Can you tell me?”

…Or not.

Now, I probably shouldn’t be so harsh on the 12 years old but he should have known better and not to ask this kind of questions. Magic that can do permanent effects is rare and is, outside of special enchantments, a closely guarded family secret at best.

“Sure, once we’re married and have a few kids.” I replied my deadpan just as strong as before.

He took the clue and shut up thankfully. I took the respite in conversation to think on just how am I supposed to swing this situation around. Sure, I got a prince for the others to show up for the month of time I’ve been here, but now I’m forced to make him look presentable and I’m quite literally pulling my hairs out to make sure he looks the part.

“Tha-that’s no, I won’t really need to do that right?” He asked, so horrified he started stuttering again.

‘We’ll have to do something about the stuttering too it seems.’ A thought came unbidden.

I’ve been trying to keep him off center ever since we started speaking, but making him so scared he starts trying to fight back is not ideal. Even a rat can kill a man if it stops caring whether it lives or dies. This means I need some way to assuage his fears and probably act as if I actually cared.

Oh wait, I have no idea how to do so, and the last time I tried to pretend to, he freaked out.

Well, that’s troubling.

‘Hmm, deadpan worked before, so why not try it again?’

Well, it seemed a good idea as any.

I gave him a side look and considered my words carefully.

“You’ll have to make me a very good offer to make me even consider it.” I finished with a half-honest smirk.

It took some seconds for my words to hit home, but instead of relief, the prince looked scandalized.

It took me a bit to find out why, but it seems I forgot boys going through puberty have fragile ego, well and even more fragile ego than grown men.

“What? Why, am I not good enough?”

His tone was a mix of sadness, hurt and half the abandonment issues Iris had while sleeping.

I couldn’t help but sigh. It seems I have more problems to tackle than his clothing. Better to nip this one in the bud.

‘Oh I’m done with these at last.’ I noticed groggily as my hand tried to reach for clothes that were not there.

My task done, I gave the prince my full attention as I debated once again how I should approach this.

“You misunderstand what sort of arrangement we’re going for.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has quite a lot. We’re not going to dictate your day to day schedule and treat as if you’re a servant to be ordered around with no freedom or free will.”

“Then wha…” He tried to interrupt me before I lifted my right hand and made my eyes glow again.

That seemed to shut him up for good now.

‘Father was really right, making your eyes glow as if you’re possessed does help in a conversation.’

“Let me finish.”

He shut up at that and nodded.

“Like I said, we’re not going to treat you as a slave; we want a prince, not a puppet. We will be your support base, like any nobles, and expect favors and help in exchange for our assistance to getting you in a position of power. That’s why if you want to marry me or other women from our organizations you would have to consider among other things, both what we would gain from it and what you could gain from it that you don’t already have.” I finished annoyed.

Truly, was it so hard to understand or am I overestimating the mental capacity of a 12 years old?

“Then why did you act like… that?”

“Because you would not take the hint we wanted to make a deal and help you out, and instead tried to have me killed after a long and painful torture and interrogation session for some dubious gains at the expense of my allies.” I replied, not bothering to hide my incredulousness.

‘Right, treat him as if he’s mentally retarded until proven otherwise.’ I thought in annoyance.

I have little experience with children, so it’s better I just treat him as a curious, but mentally retarded adult with attitude and power, if only to stop being so surprised at his attitude. It would be better for my temper at least.

“Sorry.” He whispered back

“Sorry fixes nothing, actions do.”

“Then how do I fix it?” He asked, slightly desperate.

“That’s up to you to find out, but you can start by wearing these and telling me if they feel weird and showing me if there’s either something I missed or did wrong.”

He took them and ran to the bathroom to try them.

The next few hours were just mindless work, with him coming in and out of the bathroom, to show me how the things fit him, if they fit him and if the clothes were salvageable after I fucked them up with my fumbling in the art of sewing. Rinse and repeat until the clothes were separated into two piles.

It’s highly likely that the pile of useless clothes would have been smaller if a real seamstress were to have worked on them, but I don’t have one on call in royal palace. I’ll have to fix that, somehow, but that’s a problem for another time.

Now I need to take care of something else a bit more pressing. Namely my continued employment status.

The Head Maid has left some not so subtle clues that I’m not likely to continue having a job by the time I leave the Prince’s quarters so I need to have some way of remaining in the palace.

“I never knew wearing clothes can be so tiring!”

The Prince’s whining pulled me out of my reverie, his childish voice bringing some very mixed feelings.

“We’ll have to wear on your stamina as well it seems.”

His reaction to my statement was merely falling head first into his bed and some muffled shouts from the sheets.

‘I’m going to have to clean that too aren’t I?’ I thought with annoyance.

I had to blink at that thought. It wasn’t my job to clean the prince’s rooms, but that of…His private maids…

Well, that’s an idea I didn’t see coming. It would neatly solve all my problems, but leave my employment situation fully into his hands, effectively ceding him control I didn’t trust him with over my life.

After some thinking, and weighting the pros and cons of such a deal, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice regardless. According to the prince and the reaction of the Head Maid, I was horrible at acting as a maid and thus unlikely to be able to continue my work here without a patron that would be able to override her decisions. Unfortunately, the only such patron was the prince and I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but needs must and all that.

I turned to the prince to try to approach him but what met me was snoring.

‘This little shit.’

It did not take me long to wake him up, a cold splash of water being enough to rouse him up. I also made sure to take the water out of the sheets before it could seep in the fabric.

“It’s not nap time yet your highness.” I said in a faux chipper voice.

His annoyed face was almost enough to change the faux smile I wore into a real one, almost but not quite. I’m not quite that petty.

“What’s next? I’ll have to do that for my socks too?”

I quirked an eyebrow at that… You know what, no, not going there today or ever. Well, no use wasting an opening like that

“Do I need to make you do it?”

He shook his head vigorously in denial.

“No you don’t need to do, the socks are fine I swear!”

“Fine, now socks aside there’s something else we need to talk about so could you please stand up? Discussing while you’re on your back is quite irritating.”

“Right sorry.” He acquiesced and repositioned himself.

“So what’s next?”

“I need a good enough reason to officially sit near you and act like a liaison, and for that I need to become one of your personal maids.”

He stood to think for a bit until his face light up. The prince ran from the bed and started searching into the many drawers for something while muttering.

“Where is it? I know it was here!”

He continued looking in the drawers, sighing in frustration whenever one of them didn’t hold what he sought.

While the prince continued his search for whatever he was looking for, I remained silent and just observed. I was used to weird things happening and so I’ve found that the best way to deal with them was to not react and simply observe what was happening and only act if it was in your best interest to do so.

Minutes of frantic searches later, the prince finally found what he was looking for, under his own bed.

“Here it is!” He exclaimed happily after blowing the dust away.

What he found was a glass case. Its base was made of black wood and the glass itself had a red tinge. Inside of the glass, there were ten red ribbons.

I gave the prince a curious look, as I had no idea what was happening and why was he so excited about a piece of cloth

“Here, these ribbons are used by the royal family to show that one is a trusted servant.” He said excitedly, his eyes almost shinning.

Well that is quite useful, but there has to be a catch to this and I said as such.

“What’s the catch?”

“They’re magic and will give you a tattoo, and even allow us to talk over large distances; all royals get them for their most trusted servant!”

“Well that does sound useful but…”

“Look, here I’ll put it on.”

The prince excitedly opened the box, took one of the ribbons and immediately put it on my chest before I could react.

‘Merciful moons it hurts!’ Were my last thoughts as I stifled my screams and a burning sensation spread all across my torso.