My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

In the next room, Hermione was being dressed at the same time, though the result took on a very different character from Esther’s.

Where Esther had been wrapped in softness and light, Hermione was given depth. Her gown was a richer, deeper red, the kind of shade that darkened into wine in the folds and brightened where the silk caught the light. It was every bit as beautiful as Esther’s, just made in a different spirit. Esther’s dress suited sweetness. Hermione’s suited pride.

She noticed that immediately.

Trying not to look too pleased with herself, Hermione watched through the mirror as the maids finished the last of the underlayers and drew the gown properly into place around her. She already knew the rhythm of it by now, lift this, hold still, turn slightly, chin up, so the whole process went more smoothly on her than it had on Esther. Even when she acted impatient, there was less resistance in her than before. She had grown used to being dressed like this, and a part of her enjoyed the final effect too much to pretend otherwise.

The bodice was more defined than Esther’s, fitted close through the waist and shaped to make her look taller and more composed. The neckline framed her collarbones cleanly, elegant without looking severe, and the silver embroidery worked along the edges gave the red silk a finished sharpness rather than softness. The sleeves, too, were different, closer through the upper arm before opening into layered falls of fabric at the forearm, giving her movements a graceful sweep whenever she lifted a hand or turned slightly.

The skirt carried the same richness. Its layers were full without looking airy, arranged to show darker tones beneath the outer silk and give the gown more weight and presence. When the maids spread the folds and settled the back properly, the dress stopped looking like clothing laid on a body and started looking made for Hermione herself.

That was what pleased her most.

The red suited her too well to deny it. It set off her pale skin, sharpened her expression, and brought a stronger edge to her beauty. Esther looked delicate in blue. Hermione, standing in that deep red, looked like someone who expected attention and would punish anyone foolish enough to offer it badly.

When one of the maids told her so, Hermione lifted her chin and only said, "Of course."

That earned a few quiet smiles.

Her braided hair was finished to match the gown, pinned back with more structure than Esther’s, leaving her face open and proud while still keeping enough softness to flatter her age. Small silver ornaments were set into it with care, subtle enough not to crowd the richer color of the dress.

Then the jewelry was brought.

Unlike Esther’s choker, Hermione’s necklace was a pendant. A fine silver chain held a pear-shaped ruby, deep red and clear, encased in an elegant silver setting that framed the gem without weighing it down. Once fastened around her neck, it rested just below the hollow of her throat, dark and vivid against her pale skin. Matching earrings followed, smaller rubies in silver settings that caught the light when she turned her head.

When the last clasp was secured, Hermione looked at herself in the mirror and went quiet for a moment.

Then she stood, the red skirts falling neatly around her, and turned just enough to watch the silk move with her.

After another minute spent admiring herself in the mirror, Hermione finally stepped out of her room, lifting the skirts of her gown carefully in both hands so she would not catch the hem beneath her shoes and tear it in the corridor. The thought alone made her grimace. Ruining a dress like this before the evening had even begun would have been unbearable.

More than anything, though, she wanted to see her sisters.

The moment she stepped into the corridor, she caught sight of Esther emerging from her own room at almost the exact same time, clearly driven by the same curiosity. Hermione stopped at once.

For a brief moment, she could only stare.

Esther looked different enough to leave her speechless. The pale blue gown softened her in all the right ways and yet somehow made her look older too, not by much, but enough to pull her a little out of childhood. She still had Esther’s sweetness, Esther’s shy brightness, Esther’s almost painfully gentle face, but the dress framed it so beautifully that it became impossible to look away. She was truly adorable.

"You look so pretty, big sister!" Esther burst out, hurrying straight toward her with the kind of honest delight only she could say so openly.

Hermione laughed under her breath, warmth rising to her face despite herself. "You stole my words."

Her eyes moved over Esther again, slower this time, taking in the layered silk, the careful work at the neckline, the blue stone at her throat. "Rosaline did an amazing job," she said. "No wonder Ulrich keeps ordering clothes from her."

Esther beamed at that praise, then her expression brightened even more with fresh excitement. "Let’s go see eldest sister now!"

Hermione nodded at once, and the two of them moved down the corridor together, lifting their skirts as they walked.

Airam’s door was already open.

When they reached it and stepped inside, they found her already finished, standing near the center of the room as though she had been waiting for them without particularly caring whether they came or not. The maids had withdrawn to a respectful distance, but none of them looked calm. Several still watched her with the stunned, almost disbelieving look of people caught off guard by the success of their own work.

Airam heard her sisters’ footsteps and turned toward them.

That single movement was enough.

Hermione forgot to breathe for a second.

Esther stopped beside her just as abruptly.

Neither of them had ever seen their eldest sister look like that.

Airam had wanted black. Hermione knew it instantly. She did not need to ask, because the gown she wore was so close to black in spirit that Ulrich’s refusal felt almost visible inside the compromise. Instead of true black, she had been given a deep, shadowed purple, dark enough to pass for black at a glance and only revealing its real color when the silk caught the light and let a muted violet sheen move across its surface.

It suited her perfectly.

The gown did not soften her the way Esther’s blue softened Esther, nor did it frame her with the proud brightness of Hermione’s red. It made Airam cold look in the most beautiful way possible. The bodice was close and clean through the waist, shaped without frills, without sweetness, without anything childish. It followed the line of her body with restraint, turning that restraint into elegance. The neckline opened her throat and collarbones just enough to keep the dress from looking heavy, and against her pale skin, the dark purple looked almost unreal, like twilight pressed into silk.

The sleeves were long and fitted through the arms before loosening slightly near the wrists, where the fabric fell in darker layered folds with only the smallest edge of black embroidery to finish them. There was no excess to the design, no fluttering softness, no decorative lightness like Esther’s, no richer flourish like Hermione’s. Everything about Airam’s gown was cleaner, quieter, and far more dangerous for it. Even the skirt, though full enough for nobility, had been cut with more control. It fell in deep, heavy lines, with its layered underskirts showing only when she moved, flashes of shadowed purple beneath the outer silk. The back trailed just enough to lend grandeur to her figure, but the whole dress still looked as though it belonged to someone who disliked being adorned and had somehow made adornment submit to her instead.

Hermione stared.

Esther stared harder.

Airam looked back at them with her usual unreadable face.

"What?" she asked.

Even her voice sounded the same as always. That made it stranger. Nothing about her expression had changed enough, yet the gown had pulled something unique out into the open, something that had always been there but had never been framed properly before. Airam had always been beautiful. Hermione knew that. Esther knew that. Anyone with eyes knew that. But beauty in worn village dresses and beauty in a properly tailored noble gown were not the same thing. Now there was nothing left to hide behind. No roughness. No neglect. No plainness. Only Airam herself, sharpened and made almost too visible.

"Eldest sister..." Esther started, then stopped because she looked too overwhelmed to finish.

Hermione found her voice first. "You look absurd."

Airam narrowed her eyes slightly. "That sounds like an insult."

"I—It is not," Hermione said at once, still staring. "You look too good."

That, at least, made Airam pause.

The maids standing at a careful distance looked as stunned as the sisters did, and Hermione could see why. They had likely expected Airam to look elegant. Beautiful, yes. But not this much. There was something really shocking in the result, perhaps because Airam herself preferred sober things, disliked fuss, avoided bright ornament, and usually dressed in plain dark colors whenever given the chance. Even now, with noble silk fitted over every line of her body and her hair dressed properly, she did not look flashy. She looked refined and ntouchable.

And that made her all the more breathtaking.

Her hair had been finished to match the gown, drawn back more cleanly than either Esther’s or Hermione’s, allowing the shape of her face to stand almost bare in its beauty. The arrangement left no softness to hide behind except what was natural to her features, and there was less of that than in her sisters to begin with. She looked older like this,

Then Hermione’s gaze dropped to the jewelry.

That was what completed it.

Around Airam’s neck rested a three-tiered necklace of black pearl beads, each strand falling a little lower than the one above it. The pearls were dark, but not dead in color. They held an iridescent sheen beneath the black, subtle flashes of oil-slick violet and green and blue whenever the light touched them from the right angle. Against Airam’s pale collarbones, they looked almost startling. The highest strand sat close enough to frame the base of her throat, while the lower ones descended softly across the upper line of her chest, elegant without crowding the gown.

For Airam, who preferred black and sober shades and never showed the slightest interest in jewelry for its own sake, it should have looked too much.

It did not.

It looked exactly right.

The darkness of the beads echoed what she liked, while the sheen hidden inside them drew out the purple of the gown and the cold brightness of her skin.

Esther took two quick steps closer, her blue skirts swaying around her ankles. "Eldest sister..."

Airam glanced down at her. "What?"

"You are so beautiful," Esther said with admiring, shining eyes.

Airam looked away from Esther’s eyes.

That tiny movement made Hermione smirk. "Oh, she is embarrassed."

"I am not."

"You are," Hermione said, giggling now. "You are, sister."

Airam’s gaze shifted toward the mirror instead of either of them. For the first time since they entered, she seemed to properly look at herself rather than merely tolerate being looked at. Her expression did not soften much, but there was the smallest pause in it, a faint stillness that meant she had expected something else and had not found it.

Perhaps she had expected to look ridiculous.

Perhaps she had expected the gown to feel too rich, too noble, too adorned to belong on her.

Instead, it fit her so well that even Airam could not quite dismiss it.

Hermione noticed that and grinned. "You like it."

"It is acceptable."

Hermione laughed immediately. "You sound like me."

Esther giggled, the tension in the room finally giving way.

Meanwhile, the maids in the background could only stare in utter shock as they witnessed the three sisters before them. They truly looked unreal.

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