Magic Under Glass (10 page)

16

If I seemed preoccupied when I spoke to Hollin, if I shied back when he gave me a compliment, he never called attention to it. I suspected that Smollings’s visit had ruffled him as much as me, although I might not understand all his reasons.

It was wrong for Hollin to lie about his wife, no doubt of that. But I wondered if Hollin might be as much a prisoner as she was. Linza said he had used illegal magic to save her life, the action of a desperate man, not a villain. If Hollin could stand up to Smollings . . . Surely it wasn’t too late to set things right.

I dreaded the performance at Aldren Hall. Hollin told me that the guests would be Lorinar’s elite, and I must let him take the lead. I imagined a vast house full of people who would laugh at me behind gloved hands, and somewhere in the midst of it all I had to find Karstor, a man I had never met, and warn him of Smollings’s plan. The day arrived all too soon. Hollin appeared in the doorway with Linza at his heels.

“Mr. Smollings requested you wear your trousers to Aldren Hall,” he said.

“I thought you had the gown made for my performances!” I didn’t want to appear as Smollings wished, encouraging those rich ladies and gentlemen to gawk.

He frowned. “Well, what am I to tell him?”

“Tell him I have a gown.”

“But you also have trousers.” He nodded for Linza to proceed, while he turned from the door.

Linza gave me a weak smile. Perhaps she feared what I might say with temper rising on my face. “You will look lovely in your mother’s clothes,” she said.

I sighed and flung open my trunk.

She helped me tie the embroidered sash behind my back, over the dancing tunic with the shawl collar that barely touched my shoulders, and “trousers” that buttoned just below my knees like knickers. I let my braids down, and atop my head she placed the only jewelry I had taken from home, a gold-plate circlet of little value. A fan of stiff wire draped with beads rose from the back of it.

“I pin it like this?”

“That’s right. A few pins in back and it will stay.”

I lifted my dark eyes to my mother’s reflection. Oh, I had Aunt Vinya’s nose, of course, but so many vague memories of my mother now sharpened, seeing myself as she had been. I recalled how she would sit in front of the mirror and run color across her lips with a fingertip, how she would let me paw through her jewelry and drape extra bangles on my skinny little-girl arms.

“Are you all right, Miss Nimira? You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I haven’t.”

We exchanged sympathetic expressions in the mirror, but I couldn’t think what more to say.

I wished I could confide in her. I wished I could say that I didn’t want to stand up in front of a crowd in my strange trousers, that I hardly knew who I was anymore, that my mother would be sorely disappointed in me, that Hollin wanted things from me that I wasn’t sure I could give, that I feared I had feelings for Erris I should never have felt, that I would fail to save him. I craved understanding, a gentle touch to my shoulder, a kind word.

Yet, some terrible pride seized my tongue. I had always been the strong one. I had always been “above” things. If I cried, I cried alone.

“I think I just have a touch of stage fright.”

A heavy tread came to a stop in the doorway. Linza and I both glanced over to see Hollin there.

“How do I look?” I stood up and pulled my tunic straight, frowning at a wrinkle near the hem.

“Nimira, you’re right. Change into the evening gown.”

His abrupt decision left me startled. “The gown?”

“Smollings won’t be able to do a damn thing about it once we’re all there. I want them to see you as the well-spoken traveler you are, not an imported curiosity.” He slapped the doorframe before he turned away.

Linza raised her eyebrows. “The gown it is, then.”

She brought forth the splendid gown, with its rustling silk and air of grandeur. It dipped low in back and front, with cream and black velvet flowers crawling around the neckline, exposing what seemed like far too much of my brown skin. I tried not to care how pale Linza’s hands were against mine. The bodice hugged my form and the skirts swept around my legs, so different from the clothes of Tiansher, meant for moving and stretching and leaping.

Linza dressed my hair in a pompadour and pinned velvet flowers that matched the flowers on my gown just above my ears. She spritzed my hair and neck with some scented water until I smelled like a spring garden. Finally, she handed me my long ivory gloves, waited as I tugged each finger straight, and draped my cape around my shoulders.

Hollin watched me descend the stairs. He looked quite serious. I tried to smile.

“You are a queen of Shai,” he said, referring to the long-gone country Tiansher had once been a state of, a land I had noticed stories of Lorinar tended to romanticize.

“I would have been a queen of Shai if I’d worn the trousers. But I’m glad you changed your mind.”

He offered me his hand as I took the bottom step. “One more touch, I think.” He took something from his pocket—diamonds gleamed in the light. His hands slipped around my neck. It wasn’t just the corset that restrained my breath as he fastened it. His hands lingered on my shoulders an extra moment before he removed them.

“I meant to give Annalie this necklace on her birthday,” he said. “But I never got the chance.”

I touched the gems. The platinum settings felt cold and weighty on my skin. I could imagine him giving them to his smiling bride, and the thought stabbed at me.

He swallowed, looking strangely forlorn as he studied the way the diamonds rested. “You—you look very beautiful tonight, Nimira.”

Despite it all, I thought of touching his cheeks—of warming the skin there. “Thank you, sir.”

“Shall I escort you to your carriage?” He held up his arm.

I slipped my gloved hand into the crook of his elbow.

As we approached the doors, Hollin took my arm again. I suppressed a grin of pride. I would enter in a gown, on a man’s arm, like a lady.

We were received in a grand hall, under a glittering chandelier. The servants taking our wraps and hats wore curled white wigs, black uniforms trimmed in gold, and white stockings. All around us, gentlemen removed their top hats; ladies shed their shawls and capes to reveal creamy shoulders. Jewels of every color and staggering size hung around their necks, and I was glad I had the diamonds. Annalie’s diamonds. I never forgot their presence. Cheerful chatter echoed across the wooden floors, mingled with the whispering of delicate slippers, the rustling of dresses, the firm clattering of male dress shoes.

The crowds spilled forward into the hall, where marble statues perched at the foot of the floating staircase. They had little wings and carried spears, so I supposed them some manner of mythical creature. Portraits lined the walls, rosy-cheeked girls in massive gilt frames that were works of art in themselves. On the second floor, a girl chased a fellow up the stairs; their laughter floated over the crowd. A strange smell hovered in the air, an alluring smoke I almost thought I recognized from childhood.

An older woman spotted us across the room and hurried our way.

“Mr. Parry! Oh, this must be the girl I’ve heard of, the lovely maiden of Tassim.”

“Lady Moseky.” Hollin regarded her with a slight bow.

Lady Moseky had a lively, lined face with deep-set brown eyes. Her eyebrows were nearly nonexistent, enhanced with pencil. “I’ve placed your automaton in the drawing room—what an amazing piece! If you ever wish to sell, do let me know.”

“That I will.”

“Brilliant.” She moved along, searching the crowd, the beading on her black dress shimmering.

“She is the hostess?” I asked.

“Yes. Very eccentric woman, but also very rich.” Hollin wore a look of distaste as he spoke. “Her father was the ambassador of magic for a time when I was a boy. Sorcerers and politicians have always gathered here, but since her father died ten years ago, she has let in more and more of an . . . unsuitable crowd. The radicals and reformists.” His voice dropped. “And speak of the devil.”

“Good evening, Mr. Parry.” A man stepped into our conversation, dressed all in black with a blue cravat, a sardonic smile already on his lips. “I heard you’ll be providing some entertainment for us this evening.” He had a foreign accent—a slight heaviness to certain syllables, a sharpness to his
r
’s.

“Yes. This is Nimira.” Hollin was looking ahead, as if he hoped to spot a friend in the crowd who might pull him away.

“She is the singer, yes? To accompany . . . an automaton?”

Hollin nodded vaguely. His arm was stiff under my fingers. “Oh, I beg your pardon, there’s Melsing, I’d better say hello.” He began to move on, bringing me with him through the press of crowds.

I glanced back at the man as Hollin led away, and was startled to see him watching us depart. I quickly faced forward. “Who was that?”

“Karstor Greinfern.”

Karstor! My God, that was
Karstor
? I feigned nonchalance. “What’s wrong? I’d think you’d want to talk to him after that plan you and Smollings—”

“Shh!” he snapped, although with so many people talking all at once, I doubted anyone could hear. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Karstor is dangerous. He and Garvin were full of disastrous ideas . . .” Hollin shook his head. “Let Smollings talk to him.”

“Disastrous ideas? Like the fairy alliance?”

“Precisely.”

“Smollings thinks an alliance will lead to war, then?”

“He thinks they’ll betray us.”

“What will happen if there is no alliance? Peace?”

“You need not concern yourself.”

I put my hand to his arm. “Stop saying that, Hollin, please. This is my country now, and I want to know if there will be war. War isn’t just a business for men, you know. It affects everyone.”

He paused. “I don’t know if war is inevitable, but Smollings wants to assure us the upper hand, whatever the outcome.”

Was the war inevitable? If Erris was the lost prince, and if Garvin, as the ambassador of magic, had meant to save his life and restore his throne, then I could hardly imagine our two countries going to war. But if Erris couldn’t be saved . . . then what had Garvin’s plan been?

I needed to talk to Karstor.

All around us, people laughed and talked. Ladies’ bare arms and gentlemen’s sleeves brushed us in the thick crowd. Hollin found us breathing room in the airy ballroom, a space twice as long as it was wide, and full of waltzing couples. Chairs lined the paneled walls, many of them occupied by ladies fanning themselves or chatting while their eyes followed the dancers. I saw more of the eccentric company Hollin had mentioned; dandies wearing velvet knickers and their hair long, and a girl with a small monkey clinging to her shoulder.