32

BALLANTINE RETURNED TO READY THE GYRFALCON WITH PROVISIONS and comb her over with a final check for repairs, Theodor called on Merhaven to explain the sudden change in plans, and I folded and wrapped Corvin’s kerchief in plain paper from the desk in my room, ready to send it on to the university first thing in the morning. I had accomplished at least one thing while I was here, and though the victory over my casting felt small compared to matters of state and the volatile powder keg that was Galitha, it was mine. I knew, now, that I could heal the rift between the light and dark within myself and cast again.

We dressed for dinner, thankful at least that we wouldn’t have to spend much time discussing the politics at home or the issues at the summit, as Siovan had informed the delegates that entertainment had been planned for the evening.

Lady Merhaven sailed toward me as I waited for Theodor in the hallway outside our rooms, diaphanous pink silk thick like a haze around her. “I understand we’re to go our separate ways sooner rather than later,” she said, tautly cordial.

“It seems so,” I hedged, falling silent as an East Serafan couple passed us.

“And with several prospects still in hand for Lady Annette’s marriage. I suppose she shall stay with us?” Lady Merhaven raised a knowing eyebrow with a self-assuredness I didn’t quite trust.

“That’s up to her,” I replied, acknowledging the tacit negotiation.

“You’re not going to the dinner tonight, are you?” Lady Merhaven abruptly changed the subject.

“I had intended to.” I almost laughed.

“I really don’t think it’s appropriate,” Lady Merhaven said, sighing. “This evening—I’ve been given to understand that the entertainment is a demonstration of sorcery, and, well.” The pained expression on her face was not sympathy for me. “It may be unwise for a purported witch to attend, no matter how… unfounded the rumors. I know it’s impolite of the Serafans to not show complete courtesy to a member of a delegation, but you must understand how uncomfortable you’ve made so many of the other guests.”

I clamped my jaw shut and exhaled hot anger, two thin, barely controlled streams. That feeling of control steadied me. “I can and do understand discomfort, Lady Merhaven.” I understood the discomfort of being Pellian among Galatines, of being working class among nobles. I understood the fear of the other and the comfort of the familiar, and the myriad ways my very presence violated that comfort here.

“Besides, it’s silly pageantry. We all know that.” She smiled a terse smile as her knuckles turned white, silk bunched between them. She turned, her face brightening as she noticed the woman approaching us—Siovan, the Serafan official hostess. “Ainira Rhuina,” Lady Merhaven called. I kept my expression neutral, but noted this with surprise. It was clear the two knew one another better than I would have assumed.

“Lady Merhaven,” Siovan returned with a smile that was, I thought instantly, silly pageantry of its own right. “And Prince Theodor’s companion.”

I couldn’t manage even a forced smile.

“I was just discussing with Miss Balstrade the evening’s social functions.” She placed additional and unnecessary emphasis on the miss, highlighting my lack of title with dexterous venom. “We had quite nearly determined that it would not be in the best interests of the Galatine delegation, or of the summit as a whole, really, for her to attend.”

Ainira Rhuina pretended she hadn’t considered this before, wrinkling her brow delicately. “Yes, I can see the trouble. I hate to admit I agree—you really should stay back for this particular performance. It might upset the other guests, knowing that a real magician-artificer was in the audience.”

“Of course,” I demurred. As the two swept down the hall, cold suspicion overcame any instinct to avoid causing a stir. As I had speculated with Corvin, was there something to Serafan sorcery that they didn’t want me to see? Was it possible that it was linked to the musical casting in some way?

After I gave a swift account of the interaction to Theodor, he paused. “You do realize that Lady Merhaven is either playing right into their hands, or she’s in on it, too?”

“What a perfect beast,” I spat in reply. I hadn’t considered it, but did the informal alliance between the Galatine and Serafan nobility extend to sharing state secrets?

“Do you think I’ll be able to tell again?” he wondered. “If there’s casting?”

“I should hope so,” I said. “I’ve been told in no uncertain terms I’m not expected.”

“Yes, but—if you could, perhaps you could slip in unnoticed?”

I took a breath—a risk, perhaps, but of embarrassment to myself more than anything. “All right.” I took a private dinner in my room, sharing a bit of cold roasted chicken with Onyx before slipping back out into the deserted hallways.

Dinner had been served in the ballroom itself, so the rest of the audience merely needed to displace their napkins and adjust their chairs to watch the sorcerer. I found an alcove in the back, sliding between servants clearing the tables. The sorcerer had already taken the stage, so all attention was on him, not the movements of the waitstaff. The perpetual blindness of the nobility to the labor bustling about them worked, tonight, to my advantage.

This was no commonplace street magic, I gathered very quickly. Billowing sheer curtains shrouded the stage, and their twilight purples and blues washed dusk over the platform with every whisper of breeze from the open doors. Only low, dim candles illuminated the audience, with a few well-placed, mirrored sconces lending light to the stage. In the corner, a pair of musicians played a double-tuned harp and a stringed instrument not unlike a mandolin. The careful theatricality of it was street performers’ illusion elevated to an art form.

After a brief musical prelude, Ainira Rhuina introduced the performer as a master sorcerer, and I buried my doubts under polite applause along with the rest of the audience. He was tall for a Serafan, robed in almost comically voluminous copper taffeta. All the more space to hide spare rings and balls and even doves, I thought to myself with a cynic’s eye. After all, this was illusion, not real magic. Real magic didn’t require the bells and whistles of stage setting and musicians. Still, I watched silently, and had to admit that, as an entertainer, he was quite good. He ran through elaborate versions of several tricks I was familiar with—the disappearing egg, the rent handkerchief reassembling itself. Unlike the streets of Galitha City, where these tricks were done with little fanfare and to the tune of a few copper coins thrown in the hat, this entertainer slowed his pace and incorporated the music into his timing. I glanced around the room; he had the audience eating out of his black-gloved hand.

He was in the midst of making a bird disappear when I noticed it—an odd cheerfulness tempered with focus on the tiny white southern dove in the sorcerer’s hand. I started, and then I saw it. Emanating from the musicians’ corner, a cloud of pale gold charm, cast over the performance.

I gaped, but recalled quickly enough where I was and kept my expression as neutral as possible. This was how the sorcerers could perform such stirring and elaborate stunts, I realized; they combined their illusions with charms that affected how the audience felt and what they focused on. The optimistic, light music from the instruments provoked a pleasant, whimsical joy—just the thing to make an audience not only ignore the tells of sleight of hand, but also to remember the feelings of amazement and delight.

That was all entertainment was, I conceded; it was manipulation of the emotions and responses of an audience. A play, a song, a dance, even sport—it was successful when it produced the desired emotion in the viewer. Joy, sorrow, triumph, defeat, even mild cheerfulness. I felt almost giddy at the discovery of the use of charm casting, surely a long-held secret of the Serafan court magicians, though I was quick to remind myself that the light-headed happiness was likely induced at least in part by the musical charm itself.

The music shifted, and he welcomed a young woman onto the stage with him. Dressed in an affectation mimicking Serafan court costume, she was a swath of pleated and draped silk. At his direction, she lay on the table in the middle of the platform. A levitation act, I realized, as he brandished silver rings and showed that there were no strings or pulleys attached to the petite Serafan woman.

Suddenly, I felt strange, anxiety mixing with distrust deep in the pit of my stomach. The charm had changed along with the music, and as I searched the room for it, I saw the dark sparkle I knew was a curse. I swallowed—could a musical curse produce more than just the emotional manipulation I was already experiencing? Could it harm or even kill? I shook the fears off—I knew that wasn’t how casting worked. I knew, and yet the thought wormed its way into my mind and lodged there. Despite my rational refusals of it, it held fast, anchored by the effects of the casting in the music.

I turned my attention back to the performance itself. Through some visual manipulation, the woman appeared to levitate several inches off the platform. What surrounded her, however, brought all the artificial anxiety produced by the casting into immediate, jarring fear based in stark reality. The Serafan woman was accosted by silhouettes of peasants with scythes and pitchforks, shadows produced by ingenious puppetry in front of the largest of the sconces. The phantoms danced around her in an imitation of nightmare.

Then the pantomime took a strange twist. I had expected the levitation to continue for some time, and then for the woman to return to the platform. Instead, her billowing silk constricted and shrank. She appeared to be withering to nothing until the silk twisted a final time and she had disappeared.

The audience applauded in surprise, but the dread and suspense of the curse lingered. Worse, the woman didn’t reappear. Servants bustled about the hall, lighting more lamps and repositioning sconces to cast a brighter glow. The sorcerer bowed, and the musicians packed their instruments in tidy boxes and left the stage. Still the aura of fear and mistrust hung over the room, not held back by the illumination or the forced, pleasant chatter as the audience rose and began to file out.

The pantomime’s meaning was clear—at least, it was clear to me, having discerned the presence of the curse. Galitha’s peasants would starve Serafe—and others as well. The influence of magically enhanced fear ensured that the anxiety over this would last, memorable and treacherously persuasive, into the next day’s talks, perhaps beyond. Perhaps the audience had been inculcated into a lifelong prejudice against agrarian workers—who knew?

I slipped quietly into the corridor, now knowing why I had been intentionally discouraged from attending the performance by the Serafan hostess, who was likely in on the long-held secret of the court sorcerers. A polite member of the delegation would have acquiesced to the hostess’s suggestion that she stay away; they had expected the typical social daintiness of the Galatine nobility and had gotten, instead, the shrewd discernment of a Galatine businesswoman. Now new worries blossomed—if anyone discovered that I had seen the performance, what would happen?

I was walking purposefully but, I hoped, not suspiciously back toward my quarters when I saw Lady Merhaven and Siovan. Lady Merhaven deliberately avoided looking at me, but the Serafan woman met my eyes, and I hurried away.

Just outside our rooms, I almost ran into Theodor. He was pale and I knew immediately that he, too, had seen the gold and black tendrils woven by the musicians.

“You saw—” he began, but I cut him off with a brusque wave.

“Inside,” I said, following him into his room. “The sorcerer’s tricks are ordinary illusions, as common as street hawkers’, but he incorporates a casting to increase the impact on the audience.”

Theodor sank onto an ottoman, unbuttoning his waistcoat with trembling fingers. “And clearly intended to influence the audience about whatever is in the interests of West Serafe. Do you think it can even be undone? Does it fade, or is it permanent?”

I had inspected and assessed that very problem as if it were a new gown to be draped—picking at a thread here, tucking away loose material there. I knew how tangible casting was done, and that it could be undone. I knew that a charm or a curse could be lifted from the stitches I had imbued with my casting, and I knew that the true work of casting wasn’t in the physical presence of stitches or carvings but that these acts helped the caster bind the magic to an item.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I know that the effects of your casting aren’t permanent. But whether that’s your inexperience, or that there’s something additional these casters might be doing…” I sighed. We had been so surprised at Theodor’s ability that I hadn’t begun to question the range and strength of his ability. I knew that casters like me had differing aptitudes. Testing our questions against inexperienced Theodor wasn’t likely to yield substantive answers. “It’s only that you’re rather untrained, and I know so little about it that I’m not a very good teacher.”

“You’ve been an excellent teacher, and you needn’t spare my feelings. Compared to these Serafans, I’m a mere novice.” He stood and began to brush his coat, a pale gray wool with matching silk thread buttons. It was beautifully tailored, but understated and subdued compared to the sunset-hued silks and embroidered pieces he often wore.

“I don’t hate Galatine peasants,” I said suddenly.

“What?”

“The effects of the casting. I don’t hate Galatine peasants. Do you?”

Theodor considered this. “No. So it’s either very temporary, or knowing about the casting ruins the effect.”

“Or it merely intensifies feelings you already had,” I mused. “I suppose the future king of Galitha oughtn’t to admit if he hates Galatine peasants. But you didn’t before, I imagine.”

Theodor raised an eyebrow. “I have not now, nor have I ever, harbored ill feelings toward the agrarian workers of Galitha.”

I rewarded his politic speech with a terse smile. “I certainly didn’t, either. Well, more questions than answers, I’m afraid, in either case. For one,” I said, ticking the count on my finger as though I could keep track of all of the unknowns by mere numbers, “how long has this been going on? I imagine that the inclusion of real magic started innocently enough, just something to enhance their sorcerers’ tricks.”

“Maybe,” Theodor said. “Or not so innocently—people used to believe and fear the sorcerers’ magic far more than now, and the Ainirs relied on that in matters of governance. Don’t cross the Ainir, don’t rebel, he’s got a sorcerer on his side.” He unbuttoned the last delicate death’s-head button and shucked his waistcoat. “The question is, what do we do now?”

“Do?” I almost laughed. “It doesn’t seem we can do much of anything—the damage is done from tonight. I don’t think you want to out yourself as a charm-casting prince here, or now. And I oughtn’t to even admit to being there. Even if I did, it’s my word against the entire Serafan court, and who will be believed?”

Theodor sighed. “I suppose you’re correct, but—it’s not right. They’ve used this to influence how many decisions over the years?”

“And now they’re trying to turn the entirety of the summit against the reforms, against Galatine law.” I began to unpin my gown, the heat of the day combining with overwhelming exhaustion.

He flopped back, his shirt sticking to his skin. “Damned Serafans.” He picked up his waistcoat again, rebuttoning it. “Well, we know in no uncertain terms whose side they’re on in this civil war. And whose side they hope everyone else takes, as well.”