I was dull in an all-black suit, black gloves, and I would wear a black knitted sock over my head, with two holes cut for the eyes. Invisible.
As we rode, I berated myself, trying to clamp down my unruly nerves. All I could think of was that somehow my mother would see me and would recognize me and drag me back to Sicion. She would find a way to explain away the scandal and try to have me engaged or married off by summer’s end.
We pulled up to the apartments on a rich street of the Gilt Quarter of Imachara – Amber Dragon. I had spent much of my life on streets as sparkling clean as this one. Statues graced every corner, the streets lit by the sodium yellow of gaslight, and the turrets of the buildings topped with oxidized copper.
We exited the carriage. The cold wind nipped at our fingers and ears, its teeth finding its way beneath our coat collars. I pulled my coat up higher against the stinging snow. The doorman gazed at us disdainfully as he gestured us inside.
The lobby was a mirror image of my old apartment building in Sicion. Both of them had been built during the Astrid era, two hundred years ago. Our shoes clacked along the granite floor. When we knocked on the door to the Elmbarks’ suites on the top floor, the butler welcomed Cyan, Drystan, and Maske to the foyer and, with a knowing wink, ushered me to the hidden entrance behind the wall. Maske and the butler shook hands, and I knew Maske would have slipped a coin into his palm. A token payment for continuing our ruse.
Part of me wanted to sneak back to the Kymri Theatre and not have to spend a long evening staring at the woman who used to be my mother. The woman who had convinced my father that surgery was my only hope for a normal future. She had raised me to be ashamed of what I was, banning me from telling my closest friends to avoid even the hint of scandal.
But I could not let the others down, and so I crept along the dusty corridors behind the walls. Magicians, spies, or jealous lovers had already been here, for there were little peepholes in the walls. The room was bedecked in Night of the Dead memorabilia, the walls draped in black velvet, white wax candles illuminating the carved fauns and fairies of the wooden columns to either side of the stage.
Guests trickled in over the course of the next half hour, ignoring Cyan and Drystan at their posts on the stage but greeting Maske. My breath caught when I saw my mother and Cyril. My mother smiled, a cat with the cream at being included at such a prominent evening. But her face was thinner, the lines about her mouth and eyes deeper. Her nose and cheeks were flushed with the rosacea of drinking, even through the powder. She always enjoyed her wine a bit too much, but I could tell her penchant had grown. Her hair was a different shade of brown; she dyed it to cover the gray. I could not believe how much she had changed in so few months.
My brother, in contrast, was the picture of good health. He was taller, his face somehow more mature, as if he had settled into his features. His fair hair curled over his ears. I smiled to see him. I had a note in my pocket I’d have to find a way to give to him, so that we could meet tomorrow.
The Lord and Lady Elmbark were both dressed in somber gray with matching necklaces of bird bones and feathers. Lady Elmbark wore preserved bats’ wings in her hair. The Elmbarks loved anything to do with the macabre and always dressed and behaved as if one foot were already in the grave. A tall man with a trimmed mustache and beard and a finely tailored brown suit stood next to them, a bright feather boutonniere on his suit coat as if to deliberately clash with their solemn apparel. He wore a small, derisive smile that reminded me of Drystan’s – as if he knew the punch line to some amusing jest that none of the rest of us could hear. He must be the Royal Physician, whose true name very few knew. It was safer that those trusted to be so close to the crown – the Royal Physician, the Royal Taste Tester – went by their title, to protect their identity and families. A few faces registered: Lord Wesley Cinnabari, Lady Rowan, Lady Ashvale, and several others.
I was not sure why my mother and brother were here. My father often came to Imachara in winter for the partners’ meeting and seasonal party, but most years we stayed home. The Lauruses held a good standing among the nobility, but these were all families closest to the Snakewood throne.
Soon, the Elmbarks led their guests to the dining room. Drystan would entertain with close-up magic. Cyan remained in the parlor, preparing the séance. I wondered how many of the Elmbarks’ guests were cynics or believers.
I snuck further down the walls, hoping to spy on the dinner. In my mind, Cyan asked me to send her anything that might be useful for her séance.
Through another peephole, I saw the guests sitting about the black draped table. A gramophone played eerie, appropriate music. Candles flickered, the only source of light. Unfortunately, I was right by the gramophone, so it was difficult to hear what anyone said to each other. As they ate their lavish meal, Drystan entertained them with prestidigitation. I found myself unable to concentrate on his patter as he amused the audience, distracted by his long fingers and the tilt of his smile as he performed the tricks.
I blinked, forcing myself to concentrate and deduce who was most impressed by his magic. Though I could barely hear it, Drystan told a story about a young jack who fell in love with a queen despite the jealous king, cutting the deck and drawing up the relevant card at just the right moment in the story. I found myself smiling as I watched him. The jack disguised himself as the queen’s joker and they ran away together. Drystan had invented the trick.
He made coins appear from behind ears and produced endless falling blossoms for the Lady Rowan, who blushed like a maid. He had people choose cards and made them appear in different places about the room, or he levitated and threw them onto the ceiling, where they stayed for the rest of the meal. By the end of his entertainment, people had stopped eating and were watching him in awe. The man in the brown suit clapped just as hard as the rest of them, though his eyes narrowed as though he were trying to figure out the method behind the tricks. I noticed he still wore his white gloves. When Drystan gave a last flourish and left, talk resumed and people finally remembered the food in front of them.
Lord Wesley was especially impressed. I heard him exclaiming to Lady Rowan – who wore one of Drystan’s paper blossoms in her hair – that he had never seen such a display. I tried to eavesdrop some more, but the music was too loud. I snuck back to the parlor, sticking my head out of the concealed door.
Cyan and Drystan were murmuring to each other. Cyan saw me first. “Stars and sky! You startled me.”
I grinned. “You did an amazing job, Drystan.”
He gave me a little bow. “Why thank you, thank you.”
“Need any help setting up for the séance?” I asked.
“Nay,” Cyan said. “Not yet. After the Vestige demonstration, though.”
Her eyes grew unfocused. “Oi! They’re coming!”
I closed the door behind me, setting my eye back to the peephole. All too soon, my lower back cramped and my stomach rumbled. As the guests went back into the room, I rummaged in my pack and ate some cheese, nuts, and dried fruit. I smiled – I was a little mouse behind the walls, eavesdropping on the big cats of Imachara.
Cyril conversed with Tomas Elmbark about starting their studies at the Royal Snakewood University next summer, their conversation the stilted words of childhood friends who realized they no longer have anything in common.
The Royal Physician spoke with Lady Ashvale about hunting in the Emerald Bowl. The physician said he was looking forward to going back to his estates, but that he did not think the hunting could compare to the great cats of the Lindean jungle. I remembered my dream and shivered.
My mother’s earlier jovial mood vanished. She kept looking at the door as though she wished she could leave. She had no great love for magic tricks or the supernatural.
Her profile was turned toward the only window not covered by dark velvet. I remembered when we were young, during a summer at the Emerald Bowl, she told us to count the stars outside our window until we fell asleep, since we could not do it in Sicion with all its city lights. I closed my eyes against the sudden pang of homesickness. Had I taken a different fork in the road, I’d be a guest of this party, possibly, murmuring with my brother and Tomas, waiting for the séance to begin. My legs would be crossed demurely, with less between them, the scars from the surgery healed. The physical ones, anyway.
Lord and Lady Elmbark began with a brief Vestige demonstration. Almost all nobles had a collection to rival the Mechanical Museum of Antiquities, except for my family. My mother had tried to convince my father to let her collect, but he always felt the money would be better put to use elsewhere. Like saving for that surgery, perhaps. To me, it always seemed a bit foolhardy to blithely show guests one’s most valuable possessions. But I was curious all the same.
The butler unfurled a tapestry, though perhaps tapestry was the wrong word, for it was not woven, but made of Vestige fabric that did not decay like wool or cotton. It had been painted or stained with Chimaera – centaurs, angels, and other beings. I even spied a damselfly woman. As the butler rolled the tapestry away, I thought I caught sight of another figure hiding behind her – a creature with green skin and horns. Before I could blink, the tapestry was back in its canister, and I was left with more questions that I could not answer.
Next, the butler pulled out a small hand harp. He ran his fingertips along the strings. They made the high, pure sounds of a finger dancing along a wine glass’s edge. The haunting melody lingered in the air before fading.
After setting aside the harp to muted applause, he brought forth a cloth-wrapped globe. I thought it would be a glass globe of a rare color – deep purple, for instance – but when he pulled away the silk, I muffled a gasp with my hand. Inside the glass was a flower similar to a rose, though its blossom was more bell-shaped. Its petals were a brilliant turquoise that darkened to blue-black at the tips. The now-extinct flower was preserved at the height of its beauty for all eternity.
The next item was an oval mirror framed with shimmering Vestige metal. But when someone looked into it, they did not see their reflection, but the vision of a beach, waves lapping across white sand. It reminded me of the Mirror of Moirai we stole from Shadow Elwood.
Lastly, the butler showcased the automaton collection. All noble families had them. Even mother had convinced father to let her buy just one – a little sleeping baby poking out from the spiral shell on its back, like a hermit crab. My breath caught once again. The Elmbarks possessed an impressive collection, but I recognized the mermaid with the emerald green fin and close-cropped hair that Maske had sold. Maske’s smile remained fixed upon his face, but his eyes did not leave the mermaid.
His show ended and our show for some of the noblest faces in Imachara would soon begin. The Collective of Magic had a hand in our invitation, but that did not mean I was not nervous at how the séance would be received.
The guests drank aperitifs and ate little desserts of cream-filled pastries. I nibbled more fruits and nuts, but my stomach rumbled and I thought longingly of the mooncakes we had back at the Kymri Theatre.
I was distracted from my hunger as the guests left the room so it could be prepared for the séance. I ducked out from my hiding place and helped fold the chairs and put them back in the storage cupboard behind a fold of black velvet. We set up the round table for the séance and draped it with more black velvet before topping it with the Vestige crystal ball. Cyan went to the washroom and returned with the black veil over her head. The guests came back to a transformed room. The winter wind shrieked against the windows, rattling the glass.
The guests took their places about the table, and then Cyan stepped forward, a sadness that could not be contained emanating from her. A servant turned on the gramophone in the corner and it filled the room with soft, mournful horns.
Cyan sat at the head of the table, gathering her skirts about her.
“Good evening, fair sirs and ladies,” she said with a Temri accent. “I welcome you to our humble séance.”
She lifted the dark veil from her face, revealing silver swirls painted across her forehead, a crescent moon and stars in the center. With a start, I realized that the glyphs echoed Anisa’s facial tattoos. The Royal Physician narrowed his eyes at her, as though he recognized the symbols. I wish she had told me what she planned, as I would have dissuaded her. However, the result was undeniably haunting. She looked like a Chimaera ghost. She looked like Anisa.
“Please join hands so we may find you the answers you seek from beyond the grave. I have lost all of my family, all of my childhood friends, and my one true love. All were taken from me too soon by death. In return, death saw fit to let me peek beyond the veil and share what I know. To let others have the solace I cannot find.” Her voice thickened, and tears slid down her face.
The Royal Physician joined hands, but he still wore his gloves.
“Please remove your gloves, esteemed sir,” Cyan said. “The skin-to-skin contact of the living strengthens the bond to the other side.”
“Alright,” the doctor said, amused, taking off his gloves. His wore a small gold ring on his left pinkie finger that glinted in the candlelight.
But his right hand...
I had seen a clockwork woman’s head at the Museum of Antiquities last year with Aenea. The hand looked as though it could have matched, though the hand was masculine and the head had been feminine. Clockwork gears and pistons shone a dull brass, the hand covered with a substance that could be mistaken for skin but for the fact it was transparent. He flexed the hand, a sardonic smile on his face as everyone about the table gaped, open-mouthed. It moved as smoothly as any human hand.