The chamberlain reached the end of the list, and the crowd palpably shifted—like someone waking from a light sleep. Ashes, watching the Ivories’ faces, saw the light dim a little. The music started up, and just like that the spell over the room was broken.
“Well,” Jack said, as if nothing strange had happened. “I hope you’re all quite ready for the next bit. We’ll be moving in no time at all.”
“Wait a moment,” Ashes said. “You’re not going to tell me what just happened?”
“Roger, you’re family,” Jack said jovially, “but you really must learn to control your questions.”
“What just happened to you?” Ashes said in a low voice. “What happened to everyone?”
Jack looked at him, puzzled. “You’ve not seen an Ivory in person before?”
“I’ve seen them,” Ashes said. “I just haven’t seen folk drooling all over themselves at the sight of one, not that I can remember.”
Jack laughed, low in his throat. “Interesting. But I’ll tell you this, lad: there’s a very good reason people say it’s impossible not to love an Ivory. While you’re looking at one, at least.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’ve better things to be worrying on, lad,” Jack said with a broad smile. “Jewel, I have a sense that we ought to dance while there’s dancing to be done, don’t you? You two, be ready for my signal.” With that, he took his wife’s hand and whirled onto the floor. It was already teeming with Denizens, engaged in a slow, deliberate waltz.
Ashes looked at Synder. “Was he telling the truth? Ivories and people loving them and that?”
Synder’s mouth quirked. “There’s a law in the Teranis charter,” she mused, “about how anyone who refuses to bow for a passing Ivory was to be seized, tried before the Queens, and then hanged publicly.”
“That’s a buggery law,” Ashes said acidly.
“It’s very silly, for certain,” Synder said, still reflective. “I remember when I read it, I thought it was like someone writing a law that any rock that didn’t fall to the ground was to be sentenced to death. Why make a law like that, when it happens anyway?” She shrugged eloquently. “I mean, people can’t help themselves. When a Lord walks into the room, they’re sort of the only thing there, aren’t they? Everything else gets kind of . . . gray.”
Ashes shrugged. “You read that?”
“When I was eight,” Synder said. “I wanted to be a solicitor. I was very precocious.”
Ashes blinked at her, but the girl didn’t blush. She was staring at the dancers with something bordering on longing.
“It’s not magic, though. Not Artifice,” he said, mostly for something to say.
Synder shrugged and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Silly assumption. Artifice is all about changing the way people see things. What the Ivories do could be an application we haven’t really studied.”
Ashes scoffed, though not loudly; something in the atmosphere, in the ballroom and the music and the dancing, made him want to be quiet. “How much is there left to study? It’s shaping light.”
Synder smiled mysteriously at him. “You sound terribly confident.”
“Why not? That’s what it is.”
“Then why are Stitchers different from Weavers?”
“Eh?”
“Stitching and Weaving shouldn’t be particularly separated,” Synder said. “If they’re both just moving light around, that is. But they’re different breeds entirely. Stitching looks different to a seeing-stone. Stitching can manipulate solid aether, but Weaving can only affect it when it’s liquid. They seem to affect the same substance, but they don’t, not really.” She flexed her fingers, as if preparing to snatch light out of thin air, and then thought better of it. “Weaving puts a mask on the world. Stitching convinces the world to change.”
“That’s almost how Jack said it. Stitchers treat the world as a canvas.”
“He’s full of little quips,” Synder said. “Artifice is about more than manipulating light. It deals with perception. And Ivories do that.” She shrugged. “Or maybe it’s witch-magic and I’m talking stuff and nonsense. Who’s to say, really?”
Ashes nodded. Silence stretched out between them, filled with stringy music and the rhythmic shush-shush-shush of footfalls. “Do you want to dance?”
Synder turned to him, horrified. “What?”
“Dancing,” Ashes said, gesturing toward the swirling mass of Denizens on the ballroom floor.
“I—” Synder closed her mouth and then turned away. “No. Sorry. I keep forgetting what you don’t know.”
“What’re you on about?”
“Me dancing,” Synder said. “It’d be . . . inappropriate.”
Ashes stared at her. “You wear trousers.”
“More inappropriate than usual,” Synder said. “Girls my age aren’t allowed to dance. It would be a step past wearing trousers or wanting to study law. Several steps. Juliana would rip all the light out of the room herself.”
“If you say so,” Ashes said.
The dance continued, transitioning to a slow and elegant waltz. Jack and Juliana were lost among the crowd. Everywhere Ashes looked he saw illusory faces—strange and wonderful and gorgeous. When the song ended, he shook himself, embarrassed at how hypnotized he’d been.
“How’s Nathaniel?” Synder asked.
“You know that’s not his real name,” Ashes said. “He got that out of a book somewhere.” Probably.
“It’s what he likes being called,” Synder said. “There’s no harm in it.”
Ashes shook his head. There was harm in it, though not for any reason Ashes could properly articulate. He had his doubts about Blimey being rasa; always had. The boy knew too many things. It followed, then, that Blimey was only pretending, either because he did not want to be found or because he wanted to forget what lay behind him. Calling him Nathaniel could only dredge up memories best left buried.
“Dead silence from you, Roger? I think I must have said something really brilliant.”
“You don’t understand,” Ashes said.
“I understand just fine,” Synder snapped. “I understand you’ve got him imprisoned because you think it’s for his own good. And I understand—”
“You don’t understand at all.” Ashes’s voice had gone low and dangerous. “You don’t know him, all right? You don’t know hardly a thing about him. Stay out of my business.”
“Why is it only your business?” Synder said.
Ashes opened his mouth to reply, and paused. “Say that again.”
“I said, why is it only your business?”
The tone was right, he thought. And the words were nearly the same.
“You’ve been visiting him,” he realized aloud, feeling his chest constrict. “You have been visiting him, haven’t you?”
Synder flushed. “What? No! Of course not.” But her eyes shifted, just enough.
“You—” Ashes’s jaw snapped shut. “No. You know? Never mind. That’s spectacular. You’ve been visiting him. You’ve probably been telling him things, too, haven’t you? Like that he could come and stay with Jack and the company and that it’s not right he’s stuck in someplace so small. Haven’t you?”
“Well—he shouldn’t!” Synder said, eyes flashing. “He shouldn’t be trapped there just because you think it’s the only safe place!”
“I’m the one that’s responsible for him—”
“He’s the one that’s responsible for him—”
“Ugh!” Ashes leapt to his feet. He rounded on Synder, feeling the anger in his chest burst out to flood his veins, to thrum in his bones. “That wasn’t yours to do, Syn. Furies! All you Denizens, you think you can swoop in and fix everything, don’t you? Gods, but you meddle. I’m sick to death of it.” He turned and stalked away, snapping over his shoulder, “You’ll stay away from him, understand?”
“Roger—”
Ashes did not respond. It was a tiny bit of fortune, he though
t, that he was not a powerful Weaver like Synder and Juliana. Lord Edgecombe wouldn’t look too kindly on someone mucking with the light in his ballroom.
The music had stopped. The dancers were vacating the center of the room. Lord Edgecombe strode into the emptied space, and Ashes felt a hush fall over the crowd again. It was magical, he was almost certain: anyone who laid eyes on the Lord went abnormally still. Their eyes dulled. They were aware of nothing and no one but Edgecombe, and the center of the room may as well have been the core of the world.
But it couldn’t be Artifice, could it? The illusion over the Lord’s face was obviously Woven. But making everyone in the room go slack . . . that was nothing like the light-magic Jack had shown him. Was it witch-magic? Jack had told him the Ivories received all their glass rings from the Queens; when one was lost or destroyed, the Lords petitioned the Ladies for a new one. It kept the Kindly Ones firmly in control. No Ivory had ever re-created the rings on their own; it seemed unlikely that it was for lack of trying. Why did the proud, power-hungry Ivory Lords bow to the Queens? Because without the Queens, no one would bow to the Lords.
Ashes stopped moving as well, trying to imitate the stiff posture of Edgecombe’s admirers. He was angry with Synder, but not so much that he would ignore her counsel. He had no desire to be hanged, publicly or otherwise.
“It is my great pleasure,” Edgecombe said—and he only had to raise his voice a little for it to carry through the whole room; no one else was even whispering—“to provide you with tonight’s entertainment. My friends, the Lords Tyr and Sivern, have arranged for a truly prodigious display this evening. Both have been blessed by the Faces with true Artificers for sons. Today, for your enjoyment, they will present a Conjurer’s Duel!” He lifted his hands. The people sensed an unspoken signal, and began to applaud as two young men strode into the middle of the room.
The duelists were pure-blooded Ivory by their clothing, which was velvety soft and reeking of money. The crowd surrounded them, forming an empty circle nearly fifty feet in diameter. The boy in Lord Sivern’s green-and-black was built like a general, dark eyed, dark haired, with the cultivated paleness of someone who rarely worked beneath the sun. His opponent, wearing a stylish cape in Lord Tyr’s colors, reminded Ashes powerfully of Saintly. He had the same effortless good looks—though who knew how much of that was Artifice—and the same confident, deceptive smile. He moved like a dancer, all lithe grace and precise steps.
An older gentleman stepped into the middle and held out small gold badges to the two Ivories. They pinned the badges to their chests, and the young Tyr passed one hand over his. A moment later it was bloodred and glittering, a bit of spontaneous Stitching that would have impressed even William.
Sivern scoffed as he Stitched his badge to match, then moved to the edge of the circle.
The space went dim as Sivern drew in a breath, gathering light to his fists. In a moment he was swathed in a bubble of shade, his hands shining like streetlamps in the fog. Across from him, Tyr smiled good-naturedly and turned so that his shoulder faced his opponent.
“Come on, then,” he said, laughing.
Sivern drew still more light to himself, and in moments it looked as if he’d been eclipsed by a storm cloud. Ashes could see him laboring for breath, sweat beading on his forehead.
“You’re going to pull a muscle,” Tyr taunted.
Sivern threw the light. It changed as he threw it, shifting in color from pure gold to a raw, hungry red. It was fire, Ashes realized, just as it engulfed Tyr.
Soft cries came from the crowd. But the fire was an illusion, and dissipated to reveal a seemingly solid wall of ice surrounding Tyr. He was smiling broadly.
“You’ll need to try harder, I think,” he said loudly. Several people in the crowd laughed.
He must’ve conjured that in a breath, Ashes realized. He hadn’t even seen him gather the light.
Sivern chuckled, too, but did not seem amused. He snatched a bit of light from the air, and threw a tiny burst of fire. Tyr stepped to the side. He plucked the meteor from the air, and in his hands it became a bolt of white-hot lightning. It surged back at Sivern, who crushed it in one massive fist.
“It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” someone said at Ashes’s shoulder. He whirled, startled, but the speaker caught him by the shoulder. “Relax, young Mr. Dawkins. I’m more friend than I’m foe.”
“Who the ruddy hell—?”
“Oh, Juliana mentioned you had a bit of mouth to you,” the man said. “Best that we keep a mind to propriety, young master.”
Ashes turned around, slowly. The man behind him was not very small, but he seemed like it. His shoulders were turned inward, as if to add another layer of protection should someone try to attack him. He was clean-shaven from the bottom of his neck to the top of his head, and his eyes were bright.
“Who’re you?” Ashes asked.
“A friend of your uncle’s,” the man said, winking so quickly Ashes almost missed it. “Desiderius Tullenedaram. You may call me Tuln, if it’s easier. I was Jack’s teacher when he was younger.”
“Jack sent you to keep an eye on me?” Ashes asked.
“I think he must have suspected you’d get yourself in trouble if you separated from Ms. Wellingham. I’m sure I couldn’t imagine why.”
Ashes turned back to the Conjurer’s Duel. Sivern was in a rhythm now, not bothering to see if one shot landed before gathering light for another one. He’d left long, shadowy trails in his wake as he moved about the edge of the circle, trying to land a hit on Tyr.
“What do you think of the Conjurer’s Duel?” Tuln asked.
“I don’t understand it,” Ashes said honestly. “I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be—well, it’s like the Artisans, right? Our ancestors.”
“Quite correct.”
“What’re the badges for?”
“A necessary concession,” Tuln said, tugging a handkerchief from his jacket and coughing into it. “The Stitching is neither Anchored nor solidified with aether—it can be affected by other Artifice. An illusion striking the Stitching may damage or destroy it, at which point the duel is over.”
“You sound sort of annoyed, sir.”
Tuln nodded, looking absent. “Not annoyed, young man. Disappointed. To see a proud race aped like this . . . it almost wounds the soul, to think how far we have fallen from our ancestors.”
“Is it true they could make things?” Ashes asked. “Real things?”
“Not all of them, no. The Conjurers could, as easily as our Weavers make illusions now. The Shapers, like the Stitchers, could change the world, but they changed it truly, not superficially. The Vanishers—well, but of course they are less relevant today.”
“The Glamourists?” Ashes asked. “What did they do?”
“Strange things,” Tuln said. “Very strange. Glamourist is a very modern term for them—in the histories they were called the Unmakers.”
“They destroyed things?” That seemed to fit well enough. Weavers made, Stitchers changed; there was a certain symmetry to the Glamourists having the power to undo it all.
“It is difficult to say for sure,” Tuln said. “The Conjurers and the Shapers had very straightforward magic: creation, manipulation. The Glamourists were . . . different. Their magic changes from story to story. In some they render themselves invisible. In others they turn away whole armies with a wave of their hands, leaving no deaths, spilling no blood.” Tuln paled. “They could be . . . fiercely proud. They once wiped out a city for daring to ask them for help in a war. Truly wiped them out, mind. They were very thorough.”
Ashes blanched. He looked back to the duel, though its details didn’t register in his mind. A whole city gone?
“They had a great deal of political power, when they wanted it,” Tuln said. “Religious, as well. At least one of the churches in Yson began as a shrine to them.” Tuln shrugged. “One of the mysteries of our art, I’m afraid, and unlikely ever to be solved. The Glamourists are long d
estroyed.”
“Shouldn’t they have dissidents?” Ashes asked. “Like the other ones did?”
Tuln looked at him oddly. “Descendants?”
“Eh, that.”
“They might have,” Tuln allowed, “but the Glamourists were wiped out. None have been seen since the Chiming War.”
Ashes met this statement with a blank look.
Tuln sighed heavily. “Someday Jack will appreciate the importance of passing on history. The Chiming War was the event that destroyed the Artisans, when the Kindly Ones took power. . . .”
Ashes’s eyes wandered, and then abruptly stopped. Tuln kept speaking, but the boy could hardly hear him.
A cluster of Ivorish folk had formed at the edge of the room. They each had the haughty, reserved look of someone terrifically important. One of them was—
Ashes’s thoughts jerked, at once very fast and unbearably slow. What was he doing here? He did not belong here. He ought to be in Burroughside, cowering in his bedroom, not at a party with a drink in his hand . . .
But it was certainly Ragged. His face was subtly different from the one Ashes remembered; he must have needed a new Artificer to render it from daguerrotype after killing Mr. Tremaine. The nose was longer. The eyes were darker.
How dare he? How could Ragged have the nerve to set foot outside his kingdom? He did not deserve to be careless. He didn’t deserve to be calm.
No matter. Ashes would remedy it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ashes said to Tuln. He wasn’t certain if he’d interrupted the man. “I’ve just realized there’s something I ought to do.”
He gave a half-embarrassed smile and shook Tuln’s hand. “It’s been a real pleasure talking with you, sir,” Ashes said as his free hand found Tuln’s handkerchief and teased it out of the man’s pocket. “I learned an awful lot.”
“You’re quite welcome—”
Ashes’s head was pounding as he orbited closer to Ragged. He felt his magic rise to him, burning like a fire in his chest. He clenched the handkerchief in his fist and willed words onto it, words as red as blood—
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