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"Did you have this made for me?" Jacob asks, incredulous.
"It's not like one of mine would fit you," Evie answers as she weaves the lace up the corset's back. It fits Jacob perfectly.
"How much did this cost you?" A lattice for Jacob, she decides, crossing the laces over each other again and again as they rise up his spine and pull the corset against his undershirt. He shifts around as it tightens, and she can see him frown in the mirror.
"The pounds are worth less to me than you holding up your end of the bet." Jacob scoffs.
"Is it supposed to be that tight?" Evie pauses.
"Can you breathe?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then you're fine." She continues lacing, trapping her brother within the corset he'd agreed to wear. If he thinks this is unbearable, she can't wait until they get to the crinoline. "I'm securing it, not trying to suffocate you. You'll have to adjust to a little more immobility than you're used to."
"Aren't yours more- Flexible?" Jacob asks, voice catching as she pulls on the laces. He's such a baby; she was just taking out the slack, not even tightening it.
"Yes, but yours is more fashionable."
"I agreed to dress like you, not-"
"No, you agreed to wear a woman's clothes, and you didn't specify whose." Evie ties the laces at the top of Jacob's back. "Besides, it's too late now. I'm not untying you, and you don't know how to get yourself free without help." Jacob makes a noise of protestation, scrabbling at his back, but all he can do is barely hook his fingers in the lower rungs of the lacing. If anything, he accidentally pulls it tighter.
They rarely take up residence in the Assassins' Bureau that lies above Henry's shop, but doing this on a moving train had seemed like an unwise decision for practicality or privacy. Besides, Evie lacked a mirror onboard, and she wanted Jacob to see himself.
"I'm going to get you back for this," Jacob mutters. Evie hooks her chin over his shoulder and grins wickedly at him. Jacob covers her face with his palm. She debates licking his hand and decides not to. He probably hasn't washed it in ages.
"Now," Evie says, turning away from him, "just a few more items."
"How many is a few?" Jacob asks, seemingly catching on to just how much she's going to wring out of this lost bet. Evie waves her hand.
"One or two," she lies. "You'll need to step into this." She brings him the crinoline and watches Jacob's expression distort in horror.
"Absolutely not."
"If you were a woman, you wouldn't be caught dead without one."
"You've never worn one of those in your life!" She shakes it at him threateningly.
"Yes, I have, and I hate them, and now you get to try!" She's been nice to him. The crinolines Evie has worn before have all been far too stiff and weighty for her to stand for very long. She would mind this one less, if still not wear it anywhere willingly, for being so much lighter. Jacob takes a step back. "You lost, Jacob. Put it on."
"Can't I wear the dress without it?"
"No." With a sigh of defeat, Jacob hangs his head and lets her help him into the crinoline. Evie ties the drawstrings for him, making sure it sits correctly on his waist. The shape of his new figure is started to take form. This was all worth it.
"What's next?" he asks.
"Petticoats," Evie answers, mercilessly. Jacob groans.
Petticoats are a handful at the best of times. Another reason Evie can't bother with all of it. It's not even so much a disagreement with the outfits themselves as the way they make her feel—limited, trapped, vulnerable. Her freedom is in her ability to move. Add another layer of skirts, and she'll have trouble walking down stairs, let alone climbing. She's not sure if Jacob has ever grasped her reasons quite so vividly as he is now, as he turns and bumps into things with the stiff boning of the crinoline no matter how he tries to keep track of it. Evie throws the first collected petticoat over him. It hides the crinoline. She smooths it out and draws it tight.
He doesn't need the second layer. She adds it anyway to annoy him. The skirt rustles as he moves.
"Here." She hands him his camisole. Jacob stares at it.
"I'm going to suffocate under all of these clothes."
"Then you're less hardy than the average London housewife." She gathers up the dress in her arms. The finishing touch. "We're almost done, anyway," she tells him as he slips the camisole on. Jacob looks at himself in the mirror, and she catches him pause, his eyes widening a little as they trace down the silhouette she's created. She waits for him to say something glib about it.
It doesn't come. Jacob just stares, and then, shamefully, drops his gaze.
Evie clutches the dress a little closer to her chest. She's not sure what she just watched change, but…
She steps forward. The dress is an emerald green, and that is what had drawn Evie's eyes to it. The choice was made for its size—She'd have trouble fitting any of the others she'd perused on him.—but she'd thought first of Jacob's pride for getting the colors of their Rooks to spread over the streets of London. That's something Jacob seems to think of too when he sees it, as whatever disquiet had settled in him for a few moments disappears under a smirk.
"Well," he says, "at least it's fitting."
"Soft, too," she says, offering him a sleeve to examine. Jacob runs his hands over the fabric. Evie watches his face closely. It's not like him to keep so quiet when there's something welling in him, something she can't quite name but can see the outline of in the way he clutches at the dress for a second too long and how when he steps back, he does so purposefully in a way that makes his skirts sway around his waist. "Raise your arms?"
Evie puts the dress over his head. Jacob wriggles into it, arms poking free before she guides them to the sleeves for him to slip into. They seem a little too tight for him, stretching across the muscles in his arms. She often faced a similar problem, and it was why she would always take a dress without longer sleeves over any with one. His shoulders strain the fabric, too, but other than that, it fits remarkably well. Evie shakes out the skirt to sit evenly over the petticoats, no lumps or bunches of fabric in sight.
She looks Jacob over. She readies herself to laugh.
Jacob is staring at himself in the mirror again. He looks dumbfounded, like he can't recognize himself. She keeps expecting a flippant remark or a demand that she get him back out of this outfit. Neither follow.
"I still need to tie your dress up," she says. Jacob blinks and averts his gaze.
"Right," he says, "right. Almost done, then?"
"Almost," Evie means it this time. She half-wishes she didn't, if only to buy herself more time to puzzle Jacob out. She should be able to do so easily; he's Jacob. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about him.
"So," Jacob starts as she tightens up the back of his dress, "how do I sit in this?"
"With a good deal of practice." The dress is built for a bust that isn't there and shoulders that aren't as wide, but she fiddles with it until it fits as well as it can. Jacob keeps staring at himself, eyes occasionally flicking to where she's half-hidden behind his back. She squats down to smooth his skirt out one last time. She tugs on the petticoats underneath to straighten them, then guides the top layer out until it covers them completely. It's a good thing Jacob's her height, or she might not have found a dress long enough. That may have been funny for the Evie who'd started this. Now, it means something that she's gotten him the best she could find, a dress that suits him, just strains to fit in a few places.
Nothing that couldn't be adjusted for next time, she thinks, holding her brother's skirts.
She looks up at him suddenly. Jacob meets her gaze.
He looks… Well, he doesn't look pretty. He looks like Jacob. He hasn't had a shave in a week, and his right eye is underscored by a fading yellow-purple bruise. He looks awkward in his dress, both in how he stands while wearing it and in how it tries to hang on his frame.
And there's fear in his eyes. A panic she knows he'd run from if he could and never think about again, but she's got him bound down in layers of fabric.
Evie rises back to her feet.
She had intended to poke fun at Jacob and for him to return each of the barbs. It was only a lost bet. He should look hilariously out of sorts all dressed up.
Evie nudges the skirt with her boot and steps closer to Jacob. She leans in to rest her chin on his shoulder again and puts her cheek against his. She cups the other side of his face to hold him there beside her, looping her other arm around his shoulder. They gaze into the mirror together.
"We're sisters," Evie says, softly, an invitation.
"Don't mock me," Jacob mutters, and he tries to wriggle away. She holds him fast.
"I'm not." He squirms again, but it's for show. Soon, his gaze rises back to mirror. The worst part is, she doesn't think he believes her. Maybe she's earned that.
She means it. She loves whoever this is. Evie wishes she'd met her sooner.
"There's something wrong with me," Jacob confesses with a grimace. He clutches at the bottom of the dress, but he can't seem to keep his eyes away for long, always returning to the mirror, always wanting to see who he could be a little longer.
"Lots," Evie agrees, "but nothing to do with this." He exhales something close to a laugh, and she lets him go to wrap her arms around his chest.
"The corset's making it hard enough to breathe, Evie." She squeezes harder.
"Quiet, dear sister," she tries the word out, and it feels perfect. Watching Jacob's eyes widen, feeling his breath catch, the way he reaches for her wrist like he needs to steady himself—that all makes it even better.
"Don't tell anyone."
"I wouldn't."
"Promise," her sister pleads. "Evie, please."
"I promise." Jacob relaxes. "I promise." No one in the world gets to know this but her. Maybe for a long time. Maybe ever. The thought makes her chest ache, but she and Jacob are too well-known now that they've taken London for either of them to disappear and come back as someone new. Evie sets her mind to the dilemma, and she won't be satisfied until she's found some solution. She takes her sister's hand in her own.
Twined together like that, the only things that mark them different are Jacob's busted knuckles and the ink stains under Evie's nails.
"I don't think I could dress like this every day," Jacob says. Evie snickers.
"It's exhausting, isn't it?" she agrees. "Good thing you don't have to. I don't." She's here now, and Evie doesn't need all the skirts to see her. She steps back, though Jacob squeezes her hand and doesn't let it go. Evie doesn't mind. She has a responsibility to the sister she's found, and she won't abandon her.
"We can keep it, though?" Jacob asks.
"I'll get it tailored. It'll fit better next time." Jacob grins, and there's the sister she knows, unhesitating the moment she senses Evie's behind her. Evie wants the world for her. She'll settle for a proper wardrobe. For now.