Excerpt
She had not meant for her concoction to explode.
Charlotte Barrington buried her nose in her sleeve and took a step back from the smoking vial on the laboratory table. A spark flew from the vial and singed a hole in her poplin skirt. Despite her goggles, her eyes burned. Damnation.
She was missing some essential component. None of the normal stabilizers were effective—and she certainly could not have her perfume exploding.
Perhaps it was the pinch of golden dust she had added, advertised as Genuine Powdered Unicorn Horn. The small cobalt jar had cost more than she could afford—but she was desperate to find the unique ingredient that would secure her commission as Parfumier to the Queen.
Several perfume makers were vying for that title, to be bestowed during Victoria II's upcoming Silver Jubilee celebration. It was Charlotte's last chance to preserve her parents' legacy, to prove that, despite all assertions to the contrary, she could carry on the name of Mlle Violetta, Parfumier Extraordinaire.
To do so she must take reckless chances.
Three days. That was all the time remaining until her appointment with the queen. Before then, Charlotte must discover the unique ingredient that would make her perfume not just a scent, but an event.
She had observed in the laboratory how some substances took on curious properties when viewed through restricted spectrums of light. Her goal was to formulate an elegantly refreshing perfume that, when combined with a dark glass filter, created a spectacular effect about the wearer. A silver glow, in honor of the queen's twenty-fifth year of reign.
It was an ambitious, some might say impossible, endeavor.
At first, Charlotte had tried incorporating traces of precious metals into her perfumes: silver, platinum, white gold. While some of them created a faint opalescence, none of them reacted under lights, no matter the spectrum applied.
Saffron and exotic spices likewise proved invisible, as did all botanicals. She soon moved into experimenting with odd and rare ingredients: powdered peacock egg, ground malachite, distilled virgin's tears, soot from burnt silk, persimmon seeds. Powdered unicorn horn.
None of those had been effective. But at least she had achieved a lovely explosion.
