Every time Krystal heard the words, she wondered who would come to her cremation. And when she passed across the bridge to Necrodracona, who would she find waiting for her on the other side? If you had no idea who your ancestors were, did they still greet you as the priests said? Of the children at the orphanage, Krystal had been one of only four who had no family heritage at all. Most had lost their parents to disease or accident, so they had roots, just roots which had been cut off too soon. Krystal and the three others like her had no heritage at all, but the others had dreamed of someday uncovering rich relatives or noble families; Krystal had entertained such notions before her dracoform came, but after that she had known what she was, and she knew that no royal family, or any other, would come to take her into their hearts. Her ancestors, she felt sure, had no interest in their cast-off relative.
‘And so,’ the priest said, coming to the final stage of the casting, ‘let us lift our hearts in the knowledge that Glinda Starshimmer, so bright in life, will soon shine like a star among all those who love her. Ancestors, bless her.’
‘Ancestors, bless her,’ Krystal repeated, along with the rest of the congregation. There was the slight sensation of tearing somewhere in her chest which she recognised as the release of energy into the spell. Everyone else would be feeling it too, though she doubted they all realised what it was. Gloria Starshimmer, likely already weakened by loss of sleep, almost fainted, but Andrea Cloudborn seemed to have been expecting that and held her up in her seat.
‘Ancestors, bless her,’ the priest said again, completing the ritual and the spell. And that left only one thing to do: the priest pressed a button under the podium and Glinda’s body, wrapped in a sky-blue cloth, began to slide through a hatch at the back of the room and into the darkness of the incinerator. In the old days, the body would have been taken to a pyre at that point, but modern gas burners did a far better job and it was easier for the ashes to be collected afterward.
‘Now we just have to get through the wake,’ Charlotte said.
‘It shouldn’t be too bad,’ Krystal replied. Just as she had been to a few funeral rites, she had been to a few wakes, though they had been at a nunnery and she could imagine a private one might be different.
‘For you, probably not. For me… Just stick close, would you? I’m going to need someone to talk to beside old weather dragons.’
~~~
The wake was different from the ones Krystal had been to before. At the orphanage, there had been a weird combination of formality and intimacy about the death of one of the people there. Everyone knew everyone else, and everyone knew the deceased. There were certain formalities to the proceedings which had to be observed, but everyone was there to celebrate the life and mourn the death of someone they had known well and maybe loved.
Just from listening to the conversations at Glinda’s wake, it was clear that a lot of the people there had known the ‘girl with such potential’ they had talked about earlier, but not Glinda Starshimmer, the teenage student who had been Charlotte’s friend and then Krystal’s.
There was a lot more food and drink on offer too. The nuns had cooked snacks and put out light beer for a wake. Here there were tables laden with food ranging from whole chickens down to finger food. There was wine here, red and white, but nothing lighter. Krystal took a glass of white wine to be sociable. Charlotte, not at all one to drink to excess since she considered alcohol to be very bad for the athletic body, picked up a glass of red wine, sank it in short order and picked up a second before Krystal had taken a second sip from her own glass.
Krystal initially thought that Charlotte was drinking to get over Glinda’s death, but it soon became apparent that, while grief might have had something to do with it, the drinking was to get her past the stream of people from the Weather Bureau who all wanted to know how Charlotte’s studies were going. The term had started two weeks earlier and they all seemed to expect to hear that Charlotte was already casting weather spells. Krystal lasted through two conversations which seemed to end in people appearing slightly disappointed before she jumped in.
‘Of course, the curriculum doesn’t cover anything as complex as a weather spell at such an early stage,’ she said to someone who had been introduced as Sandoval Snowglider, a senior magus at the Weather Bureau. ‘Perhaps your own education was different, but the Celestina School of Magic ensures that all its students have a firm basis to specialise from. Charlotte has been studying the basic principles of magic, as do all first-year students.’
Snowglider frowned a little and Krystal reassessed the man. He was a high-ranking officer in the bureau, yes, but he was not from the higher social ranks and had, quite possibly, recognised a very subtle reprimand which someone of more breeding might have decided they were simply not hearing. He developed a quirky grin. ‘My schooling in magic was over a century ago, Krystal Ward, and I’m betting you know full well that it was no different. Not in the essentials anyway. You can’t work a corpus well without understanding the principles behind it.’
‘That’s what Krys said,’ Charlotte said with a sigh. ‘I really would like to be making more headway in the corpuses I need for weather magic, but that’s for next term.’
‘You need to stick with it.’ Snowglider’s face fell a little. ‘Have you got someone to keep you on track now that Glinda Starshimmer’s not going to be there?’
‘I’ve got–’ Charlotte glanced at Krystal, smiled briefly, and then went on. ‘I have friends who’ll keep me going. Krys is really amazing at magical theory…’
‘Oh, I’m not–’ Krystal began.
‘Krystal is really amazing at magical theory and I’ve met some other girls who are in the same boat as me. We’ll get through it all together.’
‘Good,’ Snowglider said. ‘We could use some more women in the bureau.’
‘Is the Weather Bureau really mostly men?’ Krystal asked when Snowglider had moved on.
‘Oh, it’s a bigger sausage fest than the menu at that inn in Hillgate,’ Charlotte replied. ‘They’ve got some plan to get more women in, but so far that’s just resulted in the secretarial staff changing from fifty-fifty to about seventy-five percent female. I mean, Spinyard used to have no female magi in the bureau and now there are four, I think, but it’s far from equal.’ Charlotte shrugged. ‘It’s not like the bureau is unusual. Try getting a job in the military if you’re a woman, or something in the professional aerobatics circuit.’
‘I thought there was a women’s league for aerobatics?’
‘There is, but the prize money for competitions is barely a quarter of what the men get. It’s crazy, if you ask me. We live in a society which traces lineage down the female line, but we won’t acknowledge the capabilities of women.’
It was Krystal’s turn to shrug. ‘You’re preaching to the similarly confused. I don’t get it either.’
‘Well, I– Oh, here comes another one. Please be ready with those comments about basic magical theory again.’
‘You know me, Charley. I’m always ready to talk about magical theory.’
Concord City, Concordance.
Jesse opened her door a crack and peered out. ‘Oh, hey, Trudy. Did you want something?’
Trudy cracked a brittle smile. ‘Just someone to talk to.’
Opening the door, Jesse retreated into her room. ‘Okay. Come in. Just be careful where you’re stepping.’
Stepping through the door, Trudy found herself surrounded by plants on trays and bags of what looked like soil. There were empty plant pots, and a couple of full ones with leaves pegged out in them as though they were being tortured. ‘What on Draconia are you doing? I thought you liked plants.’
Jesse giggled. ‘I do. I’m taking cuttings. In a few weeks I’ll be able to give everyone some plants for their rooms. Normally I’d leave it until spring, but since these will be indoors anyway, they should be fine.’
Finding a corner of Jesse’s bed which was unencumbered by plant life, Trudy sat down. ‘U
h, I’m not very good with plants. We don’t really have them in Greystone. Well, there are a couple of parks, but those are overgrown, and there’s the grass that grows between the cobbles.’
‘I’ve taken only the easiest plants to take care of. All you’ll have to do is follow the watering rules I give you and make sure they get enough sunlight. I’ll come and repot them when they need it, and we’ll discuss food when that becomes a problem, which won’t be for months. Everyone should have a plant or two. They give a room energy, and the ancestors know you and Krystal need that.’
‘Yeah… It’s kind of that I wanted to talk about.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, Krystal’s a royal…’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t like royals.’
‘Yes.’ Jesse was busy with her plants and seemed not to be really paying attention. Or maybe she just could not understand what the problem was.
‘Well, what do you think I should do?’
Jesse looked up. ‘You’re asking the girl who can’t get the nerve up to talk to anyone she hasn’t known for weeks for relationship advice?’
‘Uh, well…’
‘Though I don’t really see what the problem is.’ Jesse turned back to her cuttings. ‘Krys hasn’t changed since you first met her. She’s always been a royal, hasn’t she? She simply didn’t want anyone to know, and she still doesn’t, so I’d imagine doing it in front of us was quite hard for her. She won’t be changing into rainbow scales all the time because you know. I’d really like to know why she’s keeping it a secret. She looked beautiful.’ Jesse’s hands paused and she peered timidly up at Trudy. ‘I-if you d-don’t want her any more, c-could you put in a w-word for m-me?’
‘Jesse!’ Trudy squeaked.
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I sh-shouldn’t have said–’
‘I just didn’t know you did that kind of thing.’
Jesse shrugged. ‘No one ever asks. I don’t think anyone’s interested in me, really. I’m sure Krys wouldn’t be interested.’
Trudy frowned at her. ‘I think we should deal with your self-esteem issues another day. So, you’re saying that I’m overreacting, and Krys had her reasons, and she’s still the same girl so why am I so angry about it?’
‘Um, pretty much. I talked to Xan about it and neither of us can understand the problem. Plants and animals are a lot easier to figure out. Dragons are just plain contrary at times.’
‘Huh, yeah, that’s true. Thanks, Jesse. That helped.’
‘I’m glad. When you find out what’s going on with Krys, make sure we all get told, will you? I hate mysteries.’
Trudy nodded. ‘When Krys and Charley get back from Spinyard, I’ll get right on that.’
Spinyard, Concordance.
Spinyard was a vertical sort of city. It was built around a mountain, starting about halfway up the slopes with fortifications and then climbing upward to the observatory at the top. Spinyard Observatory had one of the largest astronomical telescopes in Draconia and Krystal would have liked to have seen that, but a visit would have to wait for another time. The observatory was run jointly by the Weather Bureau and the Guild of Diviners, and Krystal had considered joining that guild before she had really developed a taste for magic, largely because the diviners studied astronomy.
Your position in the society of Spinyard could, to a good first approximation, be determined by how high up the mountain you were. The city rose in tiers, and the higher tiers had fewer houses on them, all larger than the ones below. Glinda’s family home was fairly high up, a sprawling place where it had been easy to host a wake for perhaps a hundred people. Glinda had certainly had a good send off. To get to Charlotte’s house, they took one of the funicular carriages down several hundred feet to just below the midway point, and then walked around to the small, stone building built into the side of the mountain.
‘I’m afraid we don’t have a spare room for you,’ Andrea Cloudborn said as she ushered Krystal into the house. Krystal had already figured that out: she had changed into her school uniform for the ceremony, as had Charlotte, in Charlotte’s bedroom. ‘You will be all right sharing with Charlotte, won’t you?’ Andrea always used her daughter’s ‘proper’ name, which seemed to be something Charlotte put up with as children often put up with their parents’ idiosyncrasies.
‘I’ll be fine, Andrea Cloudborn,’ Krystal replied with a smile. ‘We shared a bed in the inn in Hillgate. Charley doesn’t snore.’
‘Call me Andrea, please.’
‘Then I’m Krys.’
Behind them, Alexander was nudging his sister and smirking for some reason. Krystal heard Charlotte say something like ‘sixty-three you may be, but you’re still thirteen.’
‘Don’t fight, children,’ Andrea admonished. ‘I’ll get some dinner cooking. Charlotte, take Krys up to your room and get her settled.’
‘Sure, Mom,’ Charlotte said, heading for the stairs.
The house was not large. There was a family room, kitchen, and bathroom on the ground floor, and three bedrooms on the top floor. Charlotte’s room was at the back and only got light in through a window in the roof. Krystal suspected that the window had been used as a door on more than one occasion.
‘I’m not sure I have anything to settle,’ Krystal said, sitting down at the small dressing table.
Charlotte flopped onto the bed. ‘No, but it gets me out of helping with the food, so I’m not going to complain.’
‘What was your brother ribbing you about?’
‘Alex? Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Except that Charlotte’s cheeks had gone an unsubtle shade of red.
‘Nothing?’
‘Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. No thing. Nothing. What. So. Ever.’
‘Okay, sore subject. I’ll let it drop.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘Good.’
‘So, Charley, why are you blushing?’
Charlotte just growled.
~~~
Alexander still seemed to be getting at Charlotte about something through the evening. Krystal never heard him actually say anything, but she heard her name mentioned a couple of times and Alexander was grinning a lot whenever it happened. Krystal was at least vaguely sure what the joking was all about, but Charlotte just seemed to be annoyed.
Charlotte’s parents were more interested in how their daughter’s studies were going. They seemed rather pleased that Charlotte had made friends who were helping her get through the courses.
‘She’s talented and quite diligent,’ Andrea said, ‘but she does tend to get carried away with her flying.’
‘We’d noticed,’ Krystal said, grinning at Charlotte, ‘but we’ll keep her working. She hasn’t even tried out for the aerobatics team yet.’
‘There, um, haven’t actually been any try-outs yet,’ Charlotte said. ‘But I’m not going to let my flying get in the way of studying. I mean, so far we’ve been able to figure out all the problems they’ve given us on Yellowday night. We all get together and work through what we have to do. That leaves plenty of time for flying over the weekend.’
‘What do you do to relax, Krys?’ Jacob asked.
‘Oh, I’m lucky. I like reading. I can study while relaxing. Though I have to admit that the book I’m trying to work through is a little hard to relax with.’
‘It’s some ancient tome of magical theory,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’m glad she’s reading it because she gets all sorts of useful stuff out of it. I’m hoping she’ll give us a summary when she finishes it.’
‘That should be when I’m a hundred and three. Thoughts on Magical Theory is one of those books you come back to when you get an epiphany or something. Mallory Nightsky was a genius, but his writing style is… difficult.’
‘Right over our heads,’ Alexander said. ‘I still don’t get how Charley came out with as much talent as she has. The rest of us are pretty pedestrian as far as magic goes.’
‘That’s funny, coming from a blue dragon.’
‘I have my moments.
Charley’s our fastest flyer too.’
‘But you’re a pilot. That sounds exciting.’
Both Alexander and his father laughed. ‘Nothing too exciting about piloting airships,’ Alexander said, ‘but it’s good work, indoors, with a bit of prestige.’
‘And speaking of airships,’ Charlotte said, ‘we should probably get some sleep. We’re leaving in the morning and we’ll want a good breakfast in us before we head off.’
Krystal nodded. ‘Okay. Goodnight, everyone. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Goodnight, Krys,’ Alexander said. ‘And goodnight, Charley.’ He grinned when he spoke to his sister and there was humour in his tone. Charlotte just flashed him a look and headed for the bathroom.
~~~
Krystal had vaguely wondered why Charlotte had made a bit of a rush for the bathroom. It would have been more polite to let the guest in the house go first, but Charlotte had never had Krystal’s education in good manners. The ulterior motive became apparent when Krystal slipped into Charlotte’s room, however: Charlotte was lying on the bed, posing, in some sort of black bedwear.
‘What do you think?’ Charlotte asked.
Krystal paused, pursing her lips. The outfit was a one-piece suit, sort of V-shaped and very lacy. It had string straps and a deeply cut cleavage, barely covering Charlotte’s nipples, and there was a tiny, essentially transparent skirt around her hips over the top of a fairly slim, lacy triangle over her crotch. ‘That’s… lovely. Why are you wearing it?’
Charlotte sagged a little. ‘Because… Because Glinda bought it for me as a midwinter present. She said every girl needed something to wear to seduce a man in. A-and because Alex has been muttering things about what we’d be doing in bed. He was joking, but I guess he got to me.’
Krystal began unbuttoning her blouse, grinning. ‘We can cuddle, but that’s all you’re getting. If I’m going to make up with Trudy, I don’t think having sex with another girl is going to help.’
‘Yeah, you’re right…’
‘But pack that when we go. If I can’t make up with Trudy, I might need consoling, and if I do make up with Trudy, I’m sure someone else would appreciate it.’
Misfit Magic (Misfits Book 1) Page 12
