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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A College of Magics
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Jane smiled serenely. “That should be simple. Surely you
may indulge a whim to look at them—from a safe distance.”
Faris pretended to examine the map. She was far from cheerful about the plan. She had suggested it the day her invitation had arrived. Nothing better had occurred to any of them since. And however faulty a plan it was, it had the merit of speed. The sixth of January was only four days away. If they were not able to carry out the plan, they would simply have to think of another.
If Jane could control the lions, she still had to pose as Faris. If Jane succeeded, and Faris was free to find her way to the throne room—or to what was left of the throne room—then Faris could worry about what to do with the rift. Jane believed that Faris, as a warden, would know intuitively how to mend the rift. Faris had no confidence in that theory. The fact remained: it was her duty to find the rift, and her duty to close it. If she failed—Faris reminded herself there was a great deal to do, as well as to worry about, before she even had to make the attempt.
When Faris looked up from her reverie over the map, Tyrian met her eyes. He had been watching her closely and he seemed concerned by what he had seen. “It would be better to find the warden's stair. That would allow us to come at the rift as Hilarion suggests. The stair may well be on the map, unlabeled.”
Jane looked haughty. “Search the map for it, by all means. But I think I can manage a few lions.”
“Vanity?” Faris inquired.
“Dame Brachet told us we couldn't reject vanity until we
understood it fully. I've always understood it fully but I've never been able to begin to reject it.”
“Dame Brachet would shake her head and say,
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun
?”
Jane's serene smile returned. “Now, just because I am extremely vain, I'll cap that quotation for you: ‘
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever
.' And so, I dare say, vanity abideth too.”
 
A
t the dinner party that evening, Jane's words came back to Faris. On the heels of the memory came a sudden image of Hilarion, waiting patiently through the generations in the silence that lay beneath the city of Paris. She stopped eating her caviar. If she failed in her duty, how much longer would he have to wait? Yet if she succeeded, what then?
With an effort Faris collected herself and returned to the dinner table conversation. The image of Hilarion remained with her all evening.
 
F
aris dreamed that night, but not of the castle. She was back in the labyrinth at Sevenfold, moving on horseback through a silence as palpable as the mist all around the garden. The privet walls turned and doubled in a pattern that she could never quite recognize. In the dream she knew that the pattern was taking her into the heart of the labyrinth and that she was afraid of what she would find there.
The last turn came. The pattern ended. Faris found herself in the center of the maze. Menary was not there. Instead,
prone in the grass, naked, as he had lain in the Dean's garden at Greenlaw, lay Tyrian.
Faris woke.
As she lay in the silent darkness, panting and sweating, waiting for her heart to stop banging against her ribs, Faris tried to explain the dream to herself. She had dreamed of the labyrinth. That was natural, for she had been there that very morning. She had, all unexpectedly, met Menary there. What was more natural, then, to dream of the last time she'd met Menary in a garden. And so, logically enough, she had dreamed of Tyrian as he looked in that garden.
Considered rationally, it was only to be expected that she would dream of Tyrian. Faris wiped her forehead with a corner of the sheet. She had not spoken to Tyrian alone since the day of her sleigh ride with Brinker. Since her arrival in Aravis, she had hardly even seen him. The conversation over Jane's map was the most Faris had of his company since her quarrel with Brinker made her realize how inappropriate her feeling for Tyrian was. Of course she had dreamed of him that night. It was only natural.
 
T
he next day, Faris invited Brinker to breakfast. Across the table, he eyed her with interest and asked, “What fell deed are you planning? This unexpected hospitality must have some dark origin.”
“Why? You invited me to breakfast.”
“Not without some trepidation.”
Faris finished her coffee and braced herself. “The truth is, I wish to offer you an apology.”
Brinker's jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon. I cannot have heard you correctly. It sounded almost as if you said—”
“I thought you'd hired someone to kill me. I was wrong. I'm sorry I suspected you.”
“Ah, yes. I remember. You mentioned this before. I told you that you were mistaken. I take it you finally believe me. What sort of corroborative evidence have you found?”
“I'm not at liberty to tell you.”
“No? What a pity. It must have been impressive. Well, I accept your apology, my dear. I hope you won't be so quick to question my motives in the future. Though I expect you will.”
“I expect so, too. It isn't easy to change the habits of a lifetime.”
“No. Perhaps not. By the way, I trust that the corroborative evidence means that your life is no longer in danger?”
“Not at the moment. So far as I know.”
“Good. It would be a pity if anything happened to you now, you know. That day in the armory gave me quite a start.”
“You saved my life. I'm grateful.”
Brinker dismissed her words with an airy wave. “Think nothing of it. In fact, I am thankful to you. It gave me an idea for the Twelfth Night fancy dress ball. I hate masquerades, but I shall be ready for this one. As soon as Agnes reminded me that we would be here for Twelfth Night, I knew just what to have packed.”
Brinker would not elaborate on his choice of costume, but he made the topic last for the remainder of the meal.
 
 
J
ane studied Menary's horsehair cantrip carefully but was unable to learn any more from it. For safety's sake, she insisted on destroying it.
Tyrian found not one unmarked staircase in the map of the castle but fourteen. Further inquiries showed that all were still in use for the mundane tasks of household maintenance. Reed discovered that even before the advent of the lions, few people had ventured willingly into the area between the rift and the habitable part of the castle.
The lions, fed regularly, were as much decoration as deterrent. The desolation of broken masonry and shattered brick would have been forbidding even without their presence, but a careful climber could have passed unhindered.
 
T
welfth Night finally arrived. Brinker and Agnes left for the ball early, cloaked from head to heel to conceal their costumes.
When Faris emerged from her room, she found the others ready and waiting for her in the suite's outer chamber. Jane, in a red cloak over an expensively simple red gown, made a Little Red Riding Hood of a certain age, extremely soi-gnée, despite (or perhaps because of) the bonfire-in-winter hat, which she had insisted upon wearing. Her escort, Tyrian, in impeccable evening clothes, wore a full wolf's head mask which rendered him completely unrecognizable. Reed appeared happiest of all with his costume: satin coat and knee breeches, powdered wig, black tricorne, half mask, and hooded cloak, a perfect replica of an eighteenth-century
gentleman incognito, down to the slender rapier that hung at his hip.
Faris was wearing her Parisian evening gown. It was slenderly cut in the latest mode, of satin that was either black or midnight blue or both at once. Embroidery of gray and white and silver thread meandered up from the hem in a design that might have been peonies and tree branches, or might have been puffs and whorls of smoke. The bodice was simple. The sleeves were full and made of some diaphanous black material which fluttered in an extremely pleasing way.
With her great height, Faris could not dare any sort of headdress. Instead, her hair was braided and pinned into a coronet beneath a fine black veil that shrouded her from the crown of her head to the heels of her slippers. Despite her finery (or perhaps because of it) Faris was cross.
“I look as though I've wandered in from a touring production of
The Magic Flute
,” she observed gloomily, scowling into the mirror.
“You don't.” Jane's voice was crisp. She was trying to see past Faris's shoulder. Her bonfire-in-winter hat was perhaps a trifle crooked. She adjusted hatpins deftly. “You look just as you should.”
“There will be at least a dozen ladies who will come as Night,” predicted Faris. “Everyone will think I'm one of them. I should wear your hat and go as Sunset instead.”
“If every lady present came as Night,” said Jane patiently, “you would still be wearing the best gown by far. You are going as Smoke. If your gown doesn't make that
clear enough to satisfy the other guests, you have my permission to light a cigar.”
“The Queen of Swords.” Reed drew his rapier and offered her the hilt. “Would you care to borrow mine for the evening?”
Faris smiled at him.
“Don't tempt her.” Jane put her basket over her arm. “She'd only find a use for it.”
“I know. Oh, I know.” Reed smiled back and put the rapier away.
Tyrian said nothing.
 
A
t the castle, footmen were hard at work managing carriage steps, opening the doors into the forecourt, and handing guests in to the attentions of the masters of ceremonies. Faris and her companions presented their invitations, one genuine and the others forged, and entered. After the perilous climb to the top of the white icing staircase, they were relayed to the grand master of ceremonies, who announced their assumed identities with such calm dignity that his bored indifference was nearly audible. “Smoke.
Le Marquis de Carabas. Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
. The Wolf.”
The ballroom, with its chessboard floor of black and white marble, was vast and nearly half full. On the far side of the room, against the hangings of sky blue velvet, an orchestra played. On the right, a few of the gilt chairs were taken already, by guests who obviously believed they needed to husband their strength to last out the ball. On the left, champagne was being dispensed. In the center of the
room, fifty couples were waltzing, and still the room was not yet overly warm. At the edges, waiters roamed, offering inexhaustible trays of crab puffs and lobster patties, refreshment to the weary.
Glad of Reed's satin sleeve to rest her fingertips upon, Faris took her first steps into the ballroom. Jane and Tyrian came after her. Behind them, the grand master of ceremonies continued. “Mary, Queen of Scots. Father Time. Columbine. Harlequin. Night. Lohengrin.”
Despite the great number of guests, and the extravagance and variety of costumes, Faris and her companions attracted considerable attention. Faris's costume in particular seemed to occasion remark.
“The king must be here somewhere,” Jane murmured. “He'll have to greet his guests.”
“Charlemagne,” the grand master of ceremonies called.
“There,” said Faris softly. “St. Francis of Assisi in a velvet cassock. Who's that talking to him? Alexander the Great?”
“Julius Caesar, surely,” Jane replied. “I refuse to believe Alexander the Great had such spindly arms.”
During the round of introductions, in which Reed and Tyrian were passed off as fictitious members of the British consular staff, Faris learned that Jane was right, as usual; it was indeed Julius Caesar.
The king showed no interest in Faris's companions, but his reaction to Faris's costume was markedly hostile until it was explained that she represented Smoke.
The king's voice was cold. “Oh, indeed? We thought at
first you had chosen to represent a figure from history. Smoke. How original.”
Faris looked puzzled. “What figure from history?”
“Joan of Arc,” Jane guessed. “She is supposed to have had red hair. Though I never heard she was particularly tall.”
“The error was ours.” The king thawed slightly. “We did not think for an instant that Faris portrayed Joan of Arc. However, there was a red-haired woman intimately associated with the history of this very building. She was exceedingly tall. We fear we reached a faulty conclusion.”
Faris drew herself up to her full height. “If you think that I consider my grandmother Prosperian suitable matter for a masquerade with the likes of Columbine and Harlequin, you are mistaken.”
“Our apologies. We confess we are relieved that you did not wish to remind us of the woman who nearly burned this entire castle to the ground. Yet we think it was an understandable mistake. Your uncle sees nothing amiss in masquerading as a more remote relation. He was announced as Ludovic Nallaneen, Duke of Galazon. Our daughter, of course, is St. Agnes.”

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