Magic Under Glass (3 page)

“Nothing happened.”

“They tore your dress.” He tweaked the injured fabric with thumb and finger.

“No, sir. It’s nothing.” It pained me to dwell on the subject. Even though Mr. Parry had defended me, the memory still jabbed at my pride. “I’m fine, I assure you. Please, I’d like to hear about the job.”

He smiled as if something I’d said had satisfied him. “I came into possession of this automaton some months ago, and I knew immediately that I wished to display it. It’s said to be fairy-made, the finest piece of clockwork you’ll ever see. It plays a number of popular tunes, older ones, the sort that could draw a broad crowd. But I thought it really should have a singer. I’ve gone through a few girls already, lovely girls with lovely voices, but none lasted past the second practice session.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “You see, they claim it’s haunted.”

My brows lifted. “Haunted?”

He smirked. “They’ve said that it moans, or turns its eyes to look at them. I’ve never seen it do anything out of the ordinary. I think they’re only imagining things. Even so, I’m looking for a girl who isn’t afraid of a ghost.”

I couldn’t decide how I felt about ghosts. Every summer back home, when the court traveled to Shala, all of us children had played around the cave mouth where people said ghosts lived, scaring ourselves silly. I’d usually been the one shouting, “There isn’t any such thing!” when the other girls shrieked that they’d seen a
face.
But the cave ghosts of old stories were one thing, haunted automatons another.

“It’s fairy-made?” I asked. Tiansher had no fairies, and I didn’t understand the repulsion and fascination they held for the people of Lorinar. Fairies occupied almost half the continent, from the Western Wall to the western sea. In stories they were often lovely tricksters, casting spells and glamours to lure humans or steal from them, but in the few photographs I’d seen, they looked no different from humans to me, disappointingly so.

“Supposedly, but I wouldn’t be concerned. I’m a sorcerer myself, and if I suspected it was dangerous, I’d certainly do something about it. There’s just something uncanny about the thing, and that’s what frightens the girls off, I believe.” He shrugged a little.

“Well . . . I don’t think I’m afraid of ghosts.”

“I have my hopes for you, Miss Nimira. I’ve been investigating all the singers in the city, looking for just the right girl.”

“And you think I’m the right girl?” Even though he had given me his card and invited me to his rooms, I still couldn’t believe a man of Lorinar had seen my potential despite the trousers and the cheap sets.

“Yes, you had such a look of defiance there on the stage. Like you thought the whole thing beneath you. I somehow don’t think you’d come to me screaming and carrying on about ghosts.”

Now genuine embarrassment swept my face. Goodness, he knew just what I was thinking when I performed.

“Besides that, your voice has range and passion.”

Passion.
Mother had repeated to me, time and time again, that while dancing was the highest expression of a woman’s physical beauty and grace, singing was the highest expression of her passion and depth of feeling. Sometimes I forgot I was an artist when my grace and passion went forever unappreciated, but Mr. Parry had seen it. Perhaps my efforts had not been in vain.

“I hope you’ll accept,” Mr. Parry said.

“I accept most humbly and gratefully, sir. I only hope I won’t disappoint you.”

“You won’t,” he said, and in those simple words, he gave me the one thing I wanted more than money: the acknowledgment that when he looked at me, he saw more than a trouser girl worth two cents’ admission.

3

Over the rattling of the coach wheels, I still heard the shouts of merchants, the pleas of beggars, the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, and the horn of a river barge. I hoped my new home would bring the peace of gardens, starry skies, and shady forests. I might never have come to Lorinar if someone had told me the city had hardly a tree or flower, and that columns spouting smoke would be the view from my window.

Mr. Parry sat across from me, hands folded. He had a knack for not exactly looking at me, yet not exactly looking away from me. The subtle, masculine scent of his cologne drifted my way.

I clutched my gloves in my lap.
Please let this be the right decision.
I tried to tell myself I trusted Mr. Parry, but I wondered if his good looks hadn’t dulled my judgment. Now that I had committed myself, Granden’s warnings spiraled out of control. A ghost might wander the halls, white skin drawn across her bones. At night she would hover around my bed, clawing at my covers in a cold room, crying for revenge. A clockwork man with mechanical movements and glittering human eyes would play the piano on and on without ever tiring.

Mr. Parry glanced at me with eyebrows gently raised. I hoped sorcerers couldn’t read minds.

“I wonder what you’re thinking of,” he said. “Something not quite pleasant, if the wrinkle of your brow is any indication.”

“Oh . . .” I waved my hand. “Nothing.”

“How long have you lived in Lorinar?” he asked. “You speak almost like a native.”

“Three years. I came when I was near fourteen. I already knew some of the language. My teacher used to say I was good with languages.” It seemed so long ago that I had ever had a teacher, that I had ever been concerned only with education and not survival.

“They teach their girls in Tassim?”

“Some do.” I hoped he didn’t frown upon my education, as many men would. My father’s father had insisted on education for high-born girls. He’d died before I was born, but I’d attended the same school as my aunt Vinya before me, learning reading, writing, history, and languages, along with my mother’s instruction in traditional song and dance.

“It’s wise, I think. No one wants a silly wife.”

“No, you certainly wouldn’t call my mother a silly wife.” Indeed, my mother would have had the perfect retort to such a remark.

As the carriage broke free of the city crowds, its pace quickened. The jerking and rocking knocked my teeth together. Fences of stone and wood reined in sheep, cows, and rows of fruit trees and vegetables growing in the late springtime sun. Vines crawled up the chimneys of old stone farmhouses, while the newer wooden homes had broad, inviting porches. Sometimes I saw children playing in yards or women marching on the roadside, carrying pails of berries, baskets of eggs. I had not seen such things in years. My heart wanted to fly from the carriage—to feel the grass tickle my legs as the fresh scent of it tickled my nose.

Mr. Parry’s voice startled me from my reverie. “Your eyes are wide. I suppose you have not been to the country in some time?”

“No . . .”

He smiled. “I hope you will enjoy the gardens at Vestenveld.”

“Vestenveld?”

“My estate.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will. I love gardens; I miss them. The court palaces of Tiansher have beautiful gardens.” I hoped I sounded worldly. I wanted him to know I had once dwelt in my country’s finest hall, that my mind and manners bore no resemblance to my shabby clothes.

“You have seen the court palace? Tell me of it,” he said. “It shall make the trip go faster.”

“I lived in the court palace,” I said. “When I was a little girl. Lots of people live there. It’s like a city in itself.”

“So, you are a maiden of the court? That explains your regal air.”

I was very pleased—I had kept my regal air, then. “Yes, sir.”

“Are your parents of royal blood, then?”

“My father was . . . I’m not sure what the term would be here. A . . . lord?”

“How about your mother?”

“My mother danced and sang in the royal troupe. The artists in the troupe are very highly regarded.” I knew he’d be unlikely to think well of her, no matter how I explained her role. People in Lorinar didn’t seem to treat performers, even the best of them, with the same reverence I had known back home. I had been shocked to hear that some people refused to attend the theater on religious grounds.

But if he had a disparaging thought toward her, he left it unvoiced. “And how, may I ask, did the daughter of such esteemed individuals end up in a cheap show in New Sweeling?”

I should have seen the conversation taking this unfortunate direction and steered it elsewhere. “My mother died and my father—well, he fell out of favor. Favor is very fickle at court, of course.” Not that Father hadn’t deserved it—his affair with Lady Ajira, begun before Mother was even cold in her grave, had been the scandal of the year, and money had flowed from the family coffers to the pot in the center of a card table until he couldn’t go anywhere for fear of running into someone he owed money. “We left to live with my uncle. I came here to seek my fortune.”

“And I take it you’re still seeking?”

I turned to the window, shamed by my failure. Everything had unraveled since Mother died.

“Perhaps you’ll find what you seek at Vestenveld,” Mr. Parry said, before he, too, turned to the window.

Delayed by spring showers, we reached the town of Pelswater in the twilight. The rains had slowed to a mist, and through this I saw the dim, wavering light of streetlamps. Shops had shut their doors for the night, and lights shone from the upper-story apartments. The taverns remained open. I heard the faint tune of a fiddle drift on the night air. A few rather haggard-looking men stood on corners or roamed the rain-slick streets.

Mr. Parry’s estate lay just outside of town. The carriage pulled down a winding road, leading toward a great manor, made doubly impressive by the reflection pool before it. Statues kept silent watch over the water.

“Vestenveld,” he said. “The Parry estate. How do you like it?” He watched me.

“Lovely,” I said, although my first thought was what a cold and lonely face the house wore in the cloudy night. Lights glowed from just a scattered handful of windows, while the building itself looked endless, with arches and stone towers and dozens of separate roofs. The architect seemed to have tacked on majesty wherever he could find a spot.

“I hope you will be happy here.” Mr. Parry gave me another reserved smile as the coach circled around the driveway to the front steps.

The rattling of the wheels and the clopping of horses’ hooves halted. Mr. Parry helped me down from the coach. Insects chirped in the cool, rain-scented night. Two golden statues of tigers frozen midpounce guarded the front door.

“They’re beautiful,” I said as we passed them, running my hand along a perfectly formed paw, still slick from the rain. The sculptor had not missed a detail. From the pads of the paws to the little rounded ears, they looked just like the tigers in the menagerie at court. “So lifelike!”

“So they are,” he said. “My father hunted tigers in Hangal. Some men prefer to make rugs of them, but my father was an alchemist, and he turned them to gold.”

I jerked my hand back with sudden horror. “
Real
tigers?”

“It’s no worse than a rug, is it?”

Slowly, I closed my mouth. True, we had fur rugs in Tiansher, too, but not with such expressions on their faces—suddenly, the tigers looked as much frightened as fierce.

The door creaked heavily on its hinges, opening to a vestibule. Gaslights dangled from the ceiling, softly illuminating two matched paintings, one of a man fighting a dragon and the other of him dying in a woman’s arms, bleeding from his side. A busy pair of footsteps echoed from the hall, and a meaty-armed old woman in a dark gray dress emerged. “Good evening, sir.”

“Miss Rashten?” He sounded less than pleased. “Where is the rest of my staff?”

“You know I like to see what sort of guests you bring around,” she said as Mr. Parry reluctantly allowed her to take his hat and gloves.

“Well, this is Miss Nimira. She is a singer from New Sweeling.”

“Ah. Miss Nimira.” Miss Rashten gave me a curt smile from a wrinkled face framed by curls and a ruffled cap, the sort I saw in older books. Her eyes flicked to my sleeve. “We should get you off to bed. You look spent.”

I didn’t wish to be gotten off to anywhere by Miss Rashten. She wore a servant’s uniform, but an ordinary servant would surely have received a reprimand for the impertinent comment about seeing what kind of guests Mr. Parry brought around.

We were coming forward into the main hall, a vast room where furniture jockeyed to fill space. The high ceiling, painted with dancing nymphs, drained the intimacy from our voices, leaving every word hollow. In the grand dwellings of Tiansher, empty space was meant to encourage serenity, but this vastness seemed cold and forbidding.

“Are you hungry, Miss Nimira?” Mr. Parry asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Miss Rashten, would you mind telling the kitchen to send some supper to her room? We’ll be along in a moment.” He dismissed her with a nod, to my relief.

We stood alone in the midst of thronelike chairs of dark wood and tables topped with vases. I had the sense that the chairs were never sat in and the tables never used.

“My father had the house expanded when I was a boy,” Mr. Parry said. “We’re in the oldest part now. It’s not the height of style these days.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I surely don’t know what the height of style looks like.”

Mr. Parry waved me on toward the stair. “The servants live in the east wing. Your quarters will be in the west wing, on the second floor. The upper stories are closed off, since my father died, but you’re free to explore the rest of the house. Can you read, Miss Nimira?”

“Oh, yes. I love to read.”

“I have an extensive library, and you’re welcome to it.”

Upstairs, Mr. Parry led me down a carpeted corridor. I wondered if it was exactly proper, him showing me to my bedroom without a chaperone. Of course, we’d already been alone in his suite at the Royale, so I supposed this was no different.

He opened a door. “This is your room.”

As if by magic, a bowl of stew already rested on the table in the center of the room, letting off curls of steam, with bread and milk beside, and lit candles. This part of the house didn’t seem to have gaslights. A gentle fire crackled in the hearth. Fresh flowers spread from a vase set before a large mirror, and by the window sat a pillow-heaped chair, its frame woven like a basket. A perfect spot to read.

“My wife started refurnishing this room before she died,” Mr. Parry said. “Her friends would stay here. The bedroom is through that door.” He backed out of the doorway. “I’ll leave you to your supper. Ring when you’re ready to dress for bed.” He pointed to the bell pull, a slender stick of metal with a handle, mounted to the wall.

“Thank you, sir. Very much.”

He left the room, and I parted the curtains. My room overlooked a garden, but I could make out only vague shapes in the darkness. In the distance, a ridge of tall and narrow trees shook in the wind that followed the storm. The waning round moon cast enough cold light to see their dancing silhouettes. Nothing in the city ever looked like that. I clutched my hand to my breast. I could hardly believe I’d wake every morning to look upon trees once again.

The aroma of slow-cooked meat finally lured me from the window. I had almost forgotten how good food could be. We had cheap meat at Granden’s if we had it at all, still tough after hours of boiling. I had learned to gnaw with determination at the gristle, for we were always hungry. Here, I even had butter for the bread. I hadn’t had butter on my bread since the winter holidays.

Miss Rashten came and unbuttoned my dress. She said nothing as she looked me over. When our eyes met, she smiled in a way more amused than kind. Perhaps the long day had already jarred my nerves, but I had the sense that she was testing me, perhaps waiting for me to make some faux pas.

Still, as she whisked away the dress, I felt burdens sliding off me. It had been so long since anyone had brought me a meal or mended my clothes. I could put up with a few scrutinizing glances for the privilege of being taken care of. As a child, I had taken it for granted, but never again.