"I've secured the necessary invitation for myself," Noole said. "Should I bring along a guest, that won't be questioned—provided you seem the right sort. Are you ready for this?"
She glared at the mirror. "Why would I not be?"
"Forgive me for saying so, but you don't seem the sort for soirees."
"I never have been, but I'll do what I must."
With a pensive hand, Noole mussed up his hair. "Even if the one you must become is, ah, plush and winsome?"
"It's a pose. Why would I care?"
"Very well then. Let's start with the ..." At a loss for words, he held out his hands before him, as if holding a pair of rock melons.
"Right," said Luma. She willed her upper torso to swell. The unaccustomed heaviness pulled down on her, altering her center of gravity.
"Perhaps not so much," said Noole. "We'll get a fine dress for you, and that will do much of the work."
She deflated herself accordingly.
Noole mopped his brow. "This is less enjoyable than one might predict."
"Keep going, Tlanibar," said Luma, alluding to the myth of the sorcerer who gave life to a girl made of straw, and lost his heart to her.
"You will also need, ah, more drama in the hips and undercarriage."
Luma willed her hips to widen, and her posterior to rise.
"But keep the waist as it was."
Her midsection contracted.
"You'll want smaller hands," Noole said.
"What if I have to fight?"
"Then you'll revert entirely to the form you know."
"Good point," said Luma. She shrank her hands, already thin but long of finger, into pretty uselessness. "And the feet?" She kicked off a boot, peeled off its sock, and waved her bare foot in the air.
Noole squinted. "They seem fine. We'll put them in an exaggerated shoe, which will be challenge enough to walk in without changing your balance any more than we already have. A merchant's favorite daughter will have been tutored from childhood to glide about gracefully."
"Perhaps he earned his wealth only recently, giving her little time to practice."
"Yes, adopt that story. But still, leave the feet."
Leaning on the gnome's shoulder, she put her sock and boot back on. "And now the face?"
"You will be a blond, it goes without saying."
Luma's red locks turned bright yellow.
"That would fetch you a fine sum in Lowcleft. For Alabaster, we must moderate."
Her hair lost intensity, but gained an electrum sheen.
"Perfect," said Noole. "Now the face. Can you make it rounder?"
She did.
"Round but not plump."
Her cheeks fell; the bones above them returned to their usual shape.
"Remake the chin, so the face is more of a heart shape."
The chin shrunk to a freakish size, then expanded again until it was right.
"This Melune," Noole said, "she is not in her true shape, either."
Luma regarded her transformation in profile. "Anything else?"
"Almond eyes would complete the effect."
Luma's irises changed from green to brown.
"No, I meant the shape of the eyes."
"I see," said Luma. Her naturally narrow, half-moon eyes widened, attaining a horizontal symmetry. "And the color?"
"When embracing a cliche, embrace the cliche."
"What does that mean?"
"Blue."
The hue of the irises rippled again, acquiring a cerulean paleness.
"Congratulate yourself, my comrade, on becoming the dream of every pedigreed young bravo on the good side of the Seacleft."
"The ones who like girls, that is."
"Those who don't will still want to marry you. More so, perhaps. Speaking of disguises, who is Melune really?"
The unfamiliar face flushed. "You'd best leave her out of your poem, too."
"There's a history between you."
"She's the one who found me and nursed me back to health."
"You wouldn't react so if that was all there was to it."
Luma shifted back into her true form, scarred and looming. "You're inquisitive, Noole."
Noole stood his ground. "The others want to know, too. Even Thaubnis, who so zealously guards her own past. I'm the only one of us bold enough to ask."
Sunlight threaded through gaps in the wall. The hup-hups of drilling soldiers echoed from the base of the Arvensoar, as the predawn shift change commenced. A bumping sound came at the window as its covering was pulled loose. Melune crawled through the window, her body unfolding with the grace of a predatory insect.
"I have the coach arranged," she said.
"In the middle of the night?" asked Noole.
The elf's tone gave nothing away. She nodded at the mirror. "Often the best time to find what you seek."
"Noole wants the characters in his poem to explain themselves," said Luma.
"Is that so," said Melune, without a question mark.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nirodin House
They left in pairs from the hideout, heading north to a park on Vista's eastern edge, where it abutted the Seacleft. There waited a hired coach and its twin black steeds. Luma paid the driver to while his day in a tavern and say no more of it. Thaubnis and Melune, in servants' livery, clambered onto the driver's bench. Their uniforms matched no actual house, old or parvenu, but this would not arouse any great suspicion. Upstart trading families rose to prominence all the time, giving themselves crests and dressing their household workers in outfits trumpeting their newfound status. No one could keep track of them all.
Trouble would come if a private patrol stopped the coach. There, they would find Hendregan and Priza, and the game would be done. As no change of clothing could render innocuous a Shoanti warrior or a man covered in mystic sigils, they wore their usual war garb.
Priza sat rigidly on the bench opposite Luma, surveying with clear distaste the coach's pillows and curtains. Hendregan gazed dreamily out the window. Luma took his expression for one of childlike innocence, until it occurred to her that he was probably picturing her city in flames.
Noole, beside her, tugged at a freshly bleached pair of cuff-ruffles. For the occasion, he'd taken his best doublet out of hock, the transaction funded by Melune's coins.
She'd also paid for the peacockish gown currently binding Luma. Slashed and brocaded sleeves impeded the movement of her arms, while a pearled corset constricted her ribs. A pleated skirt, puffed out by voluminous bloomers, kept her legs uncomfortably angled in her seat. Wings of stiffened lace rose from her collar, forming a V to point at her magically boosted decolletage. Atop her head of side-swept hair perched a steeply raked feathered bonnet. Luma had further altered her form, an inch here, a tuck there, to fit inside the already completed gown. For a bespoke outfit, they would have waited weeks. Still, she could not find a position where it did not dig into her somewhere.
Cued by a sharp crack of Melune's whip, the carriage rolled through Lowcleft to the eastern spur of the Avenue of Sails. The dray-horses strained their way up the steep incline to the top of the Seacleft. Melune stuck to the great avenues, taking the Way of Arches up to the Boulevard of Messengers.
To the east, the vast hippodrome structure called Serpent's Run towered over the villas and manors of the Alabaster District. Afternoon sun highlighted the scaled segments of the stadium's namesake, the stone snake encircling its rim.
In time they reached the gates separating the Stylobate, the most exclusive neighborhood in the already exclusive Alabaster District, from the rest of the city. Derexhi sentinels manned the gate. She recognized them all, and could name both the stout squadman, Huseith, and his hawk-faced adjutant, Maraskol.
Nearby gathered a group of Hellknights. From their armor, Luma could identify them, as well: Maralictor Perest Sere Maximete and subordinates. It was not the habit of Hellknights to reinforce Derexhi guardsmen, or anyone else. Nor was it their business to chec
kpoint traffic in or out of any neighborhood, not even this one.
Luma told the others.
"There's something your family doesn't want you seeing," said Noole.
"Or they've baited a trap," Luma responded.
They heard the voices of Melune and the squadman. Footsteps came their way.
Hendregan murmured in anticipation.
In answer to a knock at the carriage door, Noole parted its window blind. Priza pressed himself against his seat, to remove himself from the eyeline of the sentinels. With a stiff arm, he moved Hendregan back, too. Luma tensed, half-expecting the fire magician to erupt. Instead he took it in apparent good stride.
"How can I help you, my good fellows?" Noole's vowels oozed hereditary condescension.
"What business brings you to the Stylobate today?"
Noole puffed out his collar. "Why, I am sufficiently fortunate as to be attending the soiree of Madame Cheiskaia Nirodin."
"Have you an invitation?"
Luma readied herself for a transformation back into her true body. Her armor and weapons were stashed in a compartment under the seat.
Noole handed the squadman a sheet of vellum, which a scribe's hand had teased into a display of calligraphic excess. He glanced at it—Luma doubted that Huseith could read—and handed it back.
"There isn't some nastiness afoot, is there?" Noole asked.
Huseith's forehead wrinkled. "Why do you ask that, sir?"
"Those Hellknights over there, looking over your shoulders."
Huseith frowned in exasperation. "Swaggering whoresons, each and every one."
"I couldn't agree more," said Noole. "Dreadful creatures."
The squadman handed the invitation back. "If there's a reason for them being here, they don't tell the likes of me."
Noole slipped him a silver coin, which he palmed in expert fashion. He waved Melune on and the carriage trundled through the gate.
"So," Noole asked Luma, "if you win Derexhi House, do you fire him for graft and incompetence, or wreathe him in laurels?"
She did not reply.
∗ ∗ ∗
The main gate of Nirodin House asserted lordly rank over its manorial neighbors. A marble archway, carved with heroic figures, dwarfed the coaches trundling through it. Only on a close glance did she note that the strong-jawed warriors and purposeful wizard queens depicted on the archway were attended by small, discreet imps and other stylized angels. The subtle flourish marked the family—at the time of the piece's commissioning, at any rate—as upholders of imperial tradition.
"You didn't tell me she was old guard," Luma said to Noole.
"The architecture predates her," Noole shrugged.
"Still," said Luma, "it runs in families."
Coaches, some gilded, others tasteful, overflowed the greensward. A chauffeur appeared to tell Melune to drop off her passengers and wait along the roadside near its vast garden wall. Luma reached for the door, provoking a teasing finger-wag from Noole. He waited for Thaubnis to climb down and open the door. She held out an awkward arm to steady Luma onto the step. Noole followed her onto the grass, then crooked his arm around hers. His short stature rendered the gesture stiff, adding to Luma's challenge as she tried to seem adept in her ridiculous footwear. By the time she reached the grand front steps, she had nearly mastered the required rhythm. They discreetly disengaged arms for the trying stairway ascent, then resumed the connection to proceed through the manor's two-story doorway.
Guests bottlenecked in the foyer, waiting to be introduced so they could then go into the ballroom, which had been filled with stuffed chairs and low tables.
Luma whispered at Noole: "Introductions? At an afternoon soiree?"
"At Nirodin House, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth overdoing." The poet spoke two degrees above sotto voce, eliciting scandalized titters from the brocade-wrapped matrons ahead of him.
The ladies turned his way. "Will you be gracing us with a recitation today?" said the larger of the two, whose white, high-piled coiffure was stained a delicate violet.
Noole bowed, flourishing his collar-ruffle. "I am not on the program, but I might declaim impromptu, should demand mount."
The slimmer matron locked Luma in a frankly appraising, all-over gaze. "And whom do you bring with you, today, good laureate?"
"I have the pleasure to escort Laryss Isulede Zaillo," said Noole.
Luma succeeded in curtsying, in accordance with Noole's coaching. As a Derexhi city-warrior, the gesture had never been expected of her. Were she here as herself, she would extend her hand for a curt shake, in the way of any other armswoman.
"Laryss," said Noole, indicating first the heavy and then the lean, "allow me to introduce the Ladies Sutia Tortala Turos and Sonthia Fosveni Ceilitha."
"Your family won success in trade?" Sutia asked.
"My father is in furs," Luma said.
Sonthia chortled. "Yet you come elegantly dressed today!" She clapped her hands at her own witticism.
Feeling an anger on behalf of this imaginary person, Laryss Isulede Zaillo, Luma reminded herself that the character she played today desired nothing more than to be one of these people, and would not only tolerate whatever indignities they chose to dish out, but paint them over in a rosy sheen. She heard Laryss' words come out of her mouth: "Such a delightful jest!"
The weighty lady hooked her arm around Luma's. "Oh, you are a rare peach!"
"How refreshing," said her companion. "So often the girls who come up here from below appear lovely enough, yet prove balky know-nothings after the simplest exchange of repartee."
"I've never seen a grander place," Luma gawked.
Taking her other arm, Sutia dropped into an exaggerated whisper. "Oh, we'll show you much grander, dear. There is a pleasure in ostentation, to be sure, but where true taste reigns one finds an extraordinary simplicity."
This provoked a pronounced huff from a matron standing behind Noole. Sutia and Sonthia puffed themselves up in response. Luma realized that they'd seized on Laryss as a prop, and that the two staged this scene as a sally at the women in back of them.
Sonthia rattled her fan for emphasis. "When you come to my salon next week, my dear, you'll see a manor appointed in the subtler New Varisian fashion."
From their preference in decor, Luma could deduce their sympathies. They thought of themselves as Magnimarian, of the Chelish Empire as a justly faded relic, and of Korvosa as a bitter rival. This likely placed them at odds with the lady of the house, who would regard herself as a Chelishwoman settled in Varisia, of the empire as a glorious past in need of revival, and of Korvosa as a needed ally to this end. In only a few moments, then, Luma had fallen into the clutches of the wrong crowd. Not because their views were more tedious than any other's, but because she'd come here to sniff around the rival side. It would be hard enough without these two anchored to her. She had to ditch them, posthaste.
The women came to the head of the line, disengaging from Luma to present their invitations to the herald. He called their names, and they glided in, as if basking in nonexistent applause.
Noole passed his invitation to the servant, who accepted it with a pronounced sniff. He squinted at the bottom, where the gnome had carefully inscribed Luma's false name. "The poet Noole and Laryss Isulede Zillo," he declared. Luma assumed that he'd purposefully mispronounced her: again she reminded herself not to take offense.
"You wish this was a problem you could solve with a sickle, or a rain of gravel," said Noole.
"I am aware that it is not," Luma answered. Sonthia and Sutia, she saw, had been intercepted by a gaunt man sporting a sequined doublet. Daring a quick move in her encumbering heels, she darted into an anteroom, where several dozen grandees grazed from a mountain of cheese and grapes. Those few who glanced at her at all assessed her, dismissed her, and returned to their conversations. As long as she seemed interested in the food, Luma found that they paid her no mind when she sidled close enough to eavesdrop. Here, an unranked so
cial position granted an invisibility as reliable as any magic ring.
A gravel-voiced matron wore a high steepled hood, adding precious inches to a diminutive frame. "He'll never be dislodged," she barked.
Her debating partner, a balding, middle-aged fellow, bore the permanent, woebegone look of a hunting hound. "Surely the wretch is not unassailable."
"Haldemeer Grobaras," the matron intoned, "will remain the lord-mayor for decades. He's run rings round the lot of you."
"You say this as if he's a king," said the hound-like man. "His initiatives are often checked."
"That this is all we aspire to—to now and then block him—proves that he has mastered us. To him, ancient prerogative means nothing. Families of lineage are but one faction, to play off against the others."
"There are too many councilors," said a third man, a bland-featured dandy whose off-gray hose precisely matched the hue of his doublet.
"There are too many of the wrong sort of councilor," said the woman.
"What remedy do you propose, then, Histia?" asked the hound-faced man, exasperation showing.
"There is none," said Histia. "With that man in office, our aspirations will forever go unmet. We may not call ourselves true nobles. Without that distinction, we are merely rich. And that is nothing. What separates us from people like that mooncalf there?" Her stabbing finger pointed at Luma.
Coloring slightly, the two men bowed to her.
"Pardon us, young lady," said the hound-faced man.
"Yes, indeed," mumbled his gray-clad friend.
"Pff," said Histia.
"Politics is an awful bother," said Luma, letting all comprehension drain from her face. She grabbed up a morsel of applecheese. "Or so my father tells me."
"Pfft," said Histia, with greater emphasis.
"Grobaras knows too many secrets." Hound-Face continued as if the social waters remained unrippled. "If it weren't for that, there are factions we could band with to drive him out."
"If trout had feet they could walk on land," Histia scoffed.
A new arrival joined the debate: a tall, smooth-chinned man who tossed ash-brown locks from side to side. He pushed toward the cheese table, sticking out the hip with a rapier dangling from it. This one, Luma had met before. He was Bonto Geirbelyn Feste, a friend of Ontor's. Once, when he had polished off most of a brandy bottle, she had seen him attempt to paw Ulisa, of all people. He'd skidded thirty feet across the ballroom floor before coming to a halt. "What rot!" he laughed. "You loathe the lord-mayor, but not so much that you'll skip his grand rededication ceremony this afternoon, hah? We either are or are not genuine aristocrats, but nonetheless must see and be seen."
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