“It’s beautiful,” Ellie breathed. “It looks like fey work.”
“And here.” Work-gnarled fingers undid the string around another parcel. “Delicate hooves, yes.”
Low-heeled slippers, a net of silver suspended in their sheer crystal sides, with the same charmlight glow caught in the heels. They quivered, ready to dance, and Ellie saw how the charming had been applied, fluid beautiful work that held no hint of Sigil, or even a breath of the charmer’s personality.
Definitely fey work. “Wow.” She touched them with one trembling, raisin-wrinkled fingertip. “Oh, Auntie. They’re incredible. How did you—”
One finger wagging and a broad white smile. “No asking, no telling.” The third package was tiny, and it opened up, flower-like, to show a silver-beaded headband with a pale feather uncrumpling itself, growing like a fern under a plumping-charm. There was also a tiny silver key, hanging from a thread-fine chain. “Conveyance, for my scorched dove. Full moon, so very difficult. From moonrise to midnight, Columba has a fine silver carriage. Afterward, Auntie cannot promise.”
“That’s more than enough.” I just need to dance with Avery, that’s all. The thought that she didn’t precisely need to was shouted down by a hot flush staining her cheeks and making her palms sweat. And stay away from Laurissa if she’s there, she reminded herself sternly. Although that bit was likely to be the most difficult. “I can’t . . .” She doesn’t like those words. “Auntie, you’re amazing. You’re really, truly, incredibly amazing.”
“Little apprentice.” Auntie beamed. “Flattering poor old Auntie.”
“You aren’t so old. Sheesh.” Ellie held her breath as she picked up the dress, delicately, afraid that even breathing on the bead strings would break them. “Actual fey work. Wow.”
Maybe if Laurissa thought Ellie had connections with the Children of Danu, she’d leave her alone? Those sorts of connections never really worked out well for charmers; it was all over the old stories. Flighty, fickle, some fey were really nasty tempered, too. Maybe Auntie knew how to visit the goblin market—you couldn’t find it unless someone took you there the first time, but after that it was pretty easy. Or at least, that was the story. Maybe that was why she’d been gone so long?
Tomorrow night. Her heartbeat settled into a thin high gallop, and the scarecrow rustled. Ellie glanced up in time to see Auntie dart a venomed look into the corner, and her breath caught again.
For a flashing second, the old woman’s familiar dark eyes were black, from lid to lid. Just like the Vultusino house fey’s. Only Marya never looked this . . . dangerous, lips skinned back and that black gaze hot with rage.
Then Auntie’s face smoothed, her eyes were normal, and she blinked at Ellie. Strands of her fine thin hair were coming loose, and they floated into springy curls. Yes, there it was again. She did look younger, Ellie wasn’t imagining it.
Well, good. Maybe it helps having me here. The thought made Ellie’s heart blow up another size or two, and she actually hopped with delight, her hair bouncing and her skirt swinging. The beads made delightful silvery music as they slid against each other, and when she walked in this dress, it would be easy to throw soundcharms to impress an onlooker.
“Take them upstairs, little dove.” Auntie shook her housedress, pulling down the sleeves as if they had become ruffled. The blots of blue flowers on the fuchsia widened as she turned, trundling into the kitchen determinedly. “Auntie will make dinner, and butter to be churned, yes. Yes, yes.” She mumbled as usual, and snapped a drying-charm at the butter dish.
Even if she was fey, or part-fey, she wasn’t harmful. Maybe she was like Marya, housebound unless she had a stone in her pocket to anchor her. Or maybe she’d been fey-touched, or who knew? She’d been better to Ellie than anyone else, really.
Her conscience pinched. Better than Ruby? Or Cami?
Well, they’d probably found someone else to be their third wheel. Plenty of Juno girls would have been glad to fill that vacancy. Whoever they picked wouldn’t have gigantic black problems looming over them. It was for the best, really. She had no business talking to Avery, even. She was just going to contaminate him the way she did everything else.
You’re poison, Ell. Except maybe to Auntie.
That particular bit of knowledge burned inside her chest, but she said nothing. Maybe the Strep hadn’t been that bad, but something inside Ellie had turned her rotten; maybe she hadn’t really given the woman a chance. Laurissa was probably relieved she was gone, and Rita too. They could have each other, they didn’t need her.
Nobody did except one batty old charmer. What did it matter? She scooped up her prizes carefully, holding them away from her dishwater-sodden shirt, and left the embroidered towel crumpled on the table, retreating so, so cautiously, stepping gently and almost holding her breath so she didn’t inadvertently damage the beautiful, beautiful things. The oddest thought filled her up with sparkling charmlight, and managed to make her feel a little less toxic.
Wait until Avery sees this.
One dance, because she’d promised. Then she could come back, and work so hard Auntie would be proud to give her an apprenticeship.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE NEXT DAY PASSED IN A FEVERISH BLUR. STILL OVERcast, with thunder rumbling in the distance and breathless heat, and Auntie’s fussing all day. There was butter and beeswax and rosewater, various potions and charms to make Ellie’s skin glow and her pale hair behave. There was clove-water for her feet and shaving-charms during a lukewarm shower to make her legs and underarms smooth. Non-charmers had to buy them wedded to razors, with all the attendant risks of nicks and rusting. Having Potential to burn was good for some things.
There was lemon juice to bleach some of her freckles, and crumbly kohl worked with beeswax to line her eyes. A berry-red tincture to blush her lips, deodorant charms, a pack of moss and hot clay for her much-longer hair now—it brushed her shoulders, and she would be glad of the headband, she supposed.
There were long shivering silver drops for her ears, and the thread-thin chain for the tiny key was pretty long. Auntie had thought of everything, including underthings fine as a sylphire whisper.
Getting ready for a Ball, Charmer’s or Midsummer, was always an all-day event. When her mother was alive, it had been full of giggling and warmth, and her father had despaired of ever arriving on time. You’re beautiful, he would tell them both, two beautiful girls, now let’s go! Later, Ruby and Cami had all crowded into Gran de Varre’s tiny cottage or Cami’s white bedroom in the Vultusino fortress, taking turns in the bathroom and elbowing each other in front of mirrors, sharing lip balm and powder and scented creams, fixing each other’s dresses and . . .
Ellie shook herself out of the memory. That was in the Past, and she was concerned with the right-fucking-now. She would have to be on her toes tonight. One dance, and she’d hurry out the door. It might be rude, but at least she could pay Avery back for being kind. Then they would be even, and she wouldn’t have to worry about him ever again.
Right? But nothing in her answered. She was too busy trying not to panic.
Auntie stepped back, sharp white teeth catching her upper lip gently as she surveyed her apprentice from top to toe.
Finally, Auntie nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, Columba.”
She let out a long breath she hadn’t even been aware of holding. “I look okay?”
“More beautiful than the Moon, my dove.” Auntie’s smile held all the softness in the world. “See?”
She stepped aside, and the mirror in the corner of the small gray room shimmered. Waterlilies carved into its dark wooden frame bent toward a slim, long-legged shape sheathed in fluid silver, pale hair curling over her ears and the feather tickling one side of her soft flawless cheek. Wide catlike gray eyes ringed with kohl sparkled, and the girl’s berry-red lips stretched into a disbelieving smile.
The dress clung like solid water, and the charmed shoes twinkled as she took a step forward. Her knees peeped
through the beaded fringe, shy satiny glances, and her smoothly muscled calves needed no stockings. Her bare arms almost crossed defensively, but then dropped and hung gracefully at her sides, her chewed-short fingernails blushing palest pink and smoothed to perfection.
That’s not me. The girl in the mirror moved as Ellie did. She even frowned as Ellie did, with a vertical line between her eyebrows, their thin curves much darker than her hair. There was the same line to her jaw, and Ellie’s high, wide-spaced cheekbones.
“Oh, Auntie. Wow.” The girl’s lips shaped Ellie’s words, and it was still her voice. “Wow.”
“Sun’s downing, soon,” Auntie replied, pushing back strands of fine, sweat-soaked iron-gray hair. There was almost no white left on her head, and her cheeks were even smoother, if that was possible. “Until midnight, yes, when the Moon is at Her highest.”
“I know. After that I’m on my own for travel.” You keep saying it, I’ve got it. Really. I’ll be back long before then. Back . . . home?
Did Auntie really, truly want her to stay? She seemed to.
“Look into the mirror, little apprentice. Promise Auntie.”
“I’ll come back, I promise.” Ellie stared at her own familiar-strange face in the mirror. The reflection rippled like clear water, Potential from Ellie’s skin filling the dress, the shoes, and the painstakingly applied layers of charm that would dazzle onlookers. “I prom—”
• • •
The girl in silver stood mannequin-still, her head tipped back. The mirror blurred, refusing to hold the shape crouched before her, the beads of the dress filling with indigo shadows as its head nuzzled at her chest.
A puncture, a glass needle driven into the heart, and the feather against her hair trembled, trembled. A draining, swimming sensation, not enough breath to fill slack lungs, a sapphire cracking violent lightning-sparks again and again as it struggled ineffectually. The thing’s ancient bony hand was around her wrist, holding the ring and its deadly light away; it suckled greedily, its iron-gray head moving. Its other spindly, too-strong arm nipped around her slim waist, holding her up, and the choking sound as the girl struggled to breathe was muffled by dead gray feathers, fallen plumage packed tight around a tiny ticking thing.
• • •
Ellie shook her head. There had been a curious skip, as if a phonograph needle had jumped from one groove to the next, and she swayed. Auntie held her wrist, solicitously, and the gray bedroom was full of a low rubescent glow.
Sunset already? She’d lost time. “What . . .” Slurred as if she was drunk, or just now sobering up. “Auntie?”
“Must hurry now, little one. Come.” Auntie stepped back, and her eyes were black from lid to lid. She blinked, gray eyelashes sweeping down, and they were human again, the whites as pearly as her teeth.
Ellie’s left hand ached, her throat was dry, and her chest throbbed. Her legs refused to hold her for a moment, knees buckling, but she righted herself with an effort. “I feel weird.” Why was her tongue suddenly so huge? Her throat was full of a metallic taste.
“She will recover, yes. Come, hurry. Sundown, little dove.”
The stairs unreeled underneath her, and Ellie floated into a dream. The front door opened like a flower, the good smells of Auntie’s house falling away and the heady spice of the garden a cool draft, taking away the metal tang choking her.
Under the rose-weighted trellis it was dark, but when she stepped outside Auntie’s garden for the first time in forever, there was a familiar elm-shaded street full of dusk’s whispering shadows. At the curb was a moonlight-colored limousine, its driver in a gray velvet suit, his pinched ratlike face sending a stab of fear through her before she thought, Well, Auntie must trust him. The car door slammed, enclosing her in a soft burnt-orange interior that smelled of spices.
I’m dreaming. This is a dream.
She settled back against the buttery leather upholstery and half-closed her eyes.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SHE’D ONLY BEEN TO THE FLETCHER CHARM-CLAN’S main house twice, and both times she’d avoided Avery like the plague. She had a hazy memory of him throwing dirt clods at her in one of the ornamental gardens, and of her throwing one in return, splatting against his tailored party garb. It had felt good to get a little revenge.
Now, though, the limousine halted and a valet stepped forward. He was in the Fletcher clan’s blue and gold, but he was party staff hired for the week—if it took a day for a girl to get ready for the Ball, it took a house a couple weeks, and the clan had to work on the whole thing for at least a month. Plus there were the bids, which meant the clan had to get a certain amount of support from all its subsidiaries and its allied clans, as well as outmaneuver rivals. No wonder they’d needed a whole bank of phones to keep up with arrangements.
The rat-faced driver said nothing the entire way, but his dark gaze had drifted over her more than once in the rearview mirror, the smoked-glass partition between the front and back of the limo lowered all the way. She didn’t even think of raising it, just stared back, willing the trembling all through her to die down.
By the time she stepped out, her numb fingers against the Fletcher valet’s crisp white glove, she was a little better. Her head still swam, and she had to take deep breaths. The valet, a weedy-looking kid with ghostly acne on his cheeks and slicked-down dark hair, gave her an encouraging smile, and Ellie smiled back. A blush rose up the boy’s throat, but she was already past him, climbing the granite stairs to the white colonnaded front of the Fletcher clan’s beating heart.
The Fletchers had been charmers since the beginning of the Reeve, and it showed. The house was a gracious, spacious white chateau, its lines beautifully restrained but the white dingy compared to the glow of Auntie’s fence. Everything about the outside world looked worn down and a little shabby now, and she supposed it was because she’d spent so long swimming in a sea of bright, active charming.
Shouldn’t it look the same here? She pushed the thought away and it went quietly. She was occupied in getting up the stairs anyway.
The doors were open, and she was fashionably late, perhaps, because the sky had darkened and there was no crowd waiting for entrance. She stepped into the front hall, and followed a pointing hand—was he a butler, this black-masked man in a black suit with strings of hair combed over his bald dome? Maybe. The Fletchers could certainly afford one.
The doors to the ballroom were flung open as well, and she floated toward them on a tide of silvery tinkling music. Her heels chimed, and the strings of silver beads on her dress each held a thread of indigo at their hearts. An active blanket of charming followed her, fluttering and swirling—she couldn’t remember half the ones Auntie had applied, and the rest were standard Ball fare. Light refraction, sweet smells, a subtle glow around her; the remaining radiance was the dress itself, perking up and singing louder, feeling the vibrant Potential rippling in the air.
She stepped through the doors and into a warm bath of Potential thrown off by a bunch of active charmers all in one place and in a heightened emotional state. The wall of dreamlike calm around her threatened to crack as a hush fell under the tinkling crystal chandeliers.
So bright. Laurissa would hate it. The smile on her face was a mask again, familiar and hateful. Is she here? Is she?
The crowd parted. They were staring. Charmers in fantastical dresses, like Amy Bolletta in a flaming-red handkerchief-hem skirt and a sweetheart bodice, Tintoretto shoes and a look of absolute thunderstruck awe on her nasty blonde face. The head of the Valseth charm-clan—they did protection work, mostly, and buffering for Babbage components—with her hennaed hair piled atop her head and a glittering-blue Auberme sheath that Laurissa would have killed to wear, stared as she clung to her husband’s arm. The men were all in black and white tails, since it was formal, so they had to charm more intensively to stand out amid bright female plumage.
The high-ceilinged ballroom, its wooden floor a mellow glow, was the throat of a whale. It was too brigh
t, and the chandeliers tinkled madly. There would be no suppressors for this party—if you couldn’t handle charm being thrown, you shouldn’t be here, and the staff had all signed waivers and would be paid quadruple for the risk. You couldn’t stint when you threw a Midsummer Ball, that’s why it took a whole clan to do it.
Is he here? Is Laurissa? Ellie couldn’t look everywhere at once, and they were staring. All of them.
The terrible feeling that she might look ridiculous unhinged her stomach, and she suppressed a sour flood of bile at the back of her throat. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to—
“Ellie.” Very soft, at her elbow.
She turned, her entire body leaden with terror.
• • •
Avery’s smile was a warm bath dispelling the fear, sunshine through fog. His hair burned with golden highlights, and he seemed impossibly tall. He looked just as vivid as everything in Auntie’s house, and her sigh of relief made one of the sweet-smell charms fill everything around her with cinnamon.
“Hi,” she managed, weakly.
“You look . . .” His pause was the stuff of nightmares, but he was smiling. He wouldn’t look at her that way if she was hideous, right? His tux was impeccable, and he held out a hand—his skin was warm, and the instant his fingers closed around hers she felt like she could breathe again. “You look incredible, Sinder.”
What a relief. “Thanks. I was beginning to be afraid.”
“You? Never.”
Not now that you’re here, no. Just one dance and she would leave. But it was nice to feel . . . what? “They’re staring.”
“Because you’re beautiful.” His free hand flicked, and charmflitters sparked into being, like the fireflies that filled Auntie’s garden. “I mean, you’re always beautiful, but you’re . . . oh, hell.”
A laugh jolted out of her sideways, and the charmflitters flashed blue, blinking in almost random semaphore. Her skin was alive again, every inch of her sparking. “Are you kidding? Every time you show up I’m en déshabillée.”