Magic Under Glass Read online

  I didn’t dare consider what I’d do if Mr. Parry had changed his mind.

  A fearsome statue of a lady bearing a sword guarded the square, where the market sellers were putting up umbrellas and stacking apples and other fruits, some I still had yet to try since arriving on these shores. They smelled sweet and fresh now; as the sun peaked, the aroma would turn cloying. Already, the women came, some chattering rapidly, gossiping in clusters, hands waving for emphasis, others scolding the children who played at their feet. Many wore dark shawls around their heads, no matter the weather. They carried their babies on their backs. A barefoot little girl offered me a flower, just two cents, and I had to shake my head no.

  As the towers of the Royale rose into view, so did my doubts. Would they even let me in, looking as I did? I crossed a bridge, an elegant span of arches and white stone. Gentlemen in tall hats and striped waistcoats flicked their eyes to me and away, as if to say, “What foul wind carried over this piece of trash?”

  From a distance, I watched the doorman in his sharp uniform standing outside of the Royale, opening the door now for a pair of ladies in fine hats decorated with giant false roses. They spread their parasols as they came down the steps and circled around the fountain. I didn’t usually envy the frippery of Lorinar’s wealthy, but for a moment, how I yearned for a fine hat and parasol.

  “She said it would be no trouble, but that was before she saw the place!” one exclaimed, laughing. They passed me by without notice.

  I began the long march to the hotel steps, stopping to peer at my wavering reflection in the fountain pool. My old black feathered hat perched on my head like a dead crow. I heard mockery even in the genteel sound of steadily falling water.

  Really, I needed only a big smudge of dirt on my cheek to complete the image.

  The doorman regarded my approach with slightly pursed lips. “May I help you?” He almost shouted, enunciating each word.

  “Yes, sir. I’m here to see Mr. Parry.” I held up the card.

  He looked surprised I could even speak the language but quickly recovered. “We do have a dress code at the Royale.” He hesitated. “Wait here a moment, girl. I hope you’re telling the truth or I’m sure Mr. Parry will not be pleased.”

  I waited as he ducked inside. The hour chimed nine, the bells of Lorinar’s cathedrals ringing through the air. I wondered if Mr. Parry was even awake. Gentlemen kept late schedules sometimes, so I heard.

  The doorman stepped out again, followed closely by another man, dark and severe from his mustache to his shining shoes. He gave me only the briefest glance. “I don’t know what you think you’re up to, girlie, but I must laugh to think of you setting foot in the Royale.” He said this, of course, without anything resembling a laugh.

  I hardly knew how to respond, with my worst fears unfolding before my eyes. I knew I hadn’t dreamed my encounter with Mr. Parry, but how could I convince them? “Please, sir, Mr. Parry asked me to come here. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Look, I’m not sure what went on with you and Mr. Parry; it’s not my business. But I am quite sure”—he spoke so precisely that his white teeth flashed at me—“that he would not ask a girl of your sort to come here. If you don’t leave these steps right this moment, I will summon the police.”

  Shame filled my cheeks with heat, but I couldn’t give up yet. “If you’d only let Mr. Parry know I’m here, he’ll tell you!” I cried. “I’m no liar!”

  My words bounced off unsympathetic faces. I couldn’t bear my own reflection in their eyes: a girl dirty and disheveled, shouting nonsense. They thought I was a fallen woman.

  The doorman tried to grab me then, but I ducked from his grasp. If I had to go, I’d let my own feet carry me, not be hauled off like an unruly drunk outside the pub. I had not taken two steps when I heard my savior speak.

  “I’m told someone’s asking for me?” Hollin Parry appeared through the hotel doors. He was hatless today, in an ordinary short sack coat, and he looked expectant. My knees fairly buckled with relief.

  “No, sir,” the severe man said. “It’s no one. We’re taking care of it.”

  “Miss Nimira,” Mr. Parry said, eyes roving to my torn sleeve. “What on earth happened?”

  When he said my name, the doorman and the severe gentleman took their notice of me so fast it was almost comical.

  I forced a bright smile. “Good morning, Mr. Parry, I’m fine. It’s only that these gentleman didn’t believe the legitimacy of your card.” I flashed it through the air.

  “Oh, no, no,” the severe man said. “It isn’t that, not at all; I didn’t see the card—”

  Mr. Parry held up a hand, his demeanor icy. “I understand all too well. It’s lucky for you that some young lad on your staff saw fit to inform me; I shall certainly tip him accordingly.” He nodded at me. “Well, come on up to my suite and we’ll discuss terms.”

  Mr. Parry strolled through the lobby without a hint of shame at my company, although I knew very well that my torn plaid dress and horrid hat didn’t belong between the lush carpets and the ornate gasolier. In the corner, a man played a slow, gentle tune on a grand piano. Stubby palms surrounded overstuffed furniture trimmed in fringe that hid the feet. Bouquets of pink and white flowers perfumed the air.

  We stepped into an elevator—I knew of them but had never ridden inside one. It reminded me of a gilded birdcage. A uniformed attendant stood within. To his credit, he didn’t blink at my appearance as he shut the doors on us. “Top floor, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  The attendant operated a handle, sending us climbing. I counted the floors as we passed. It helped distract me from the unsettling sensation that the elevator pulleys could snap loose and plunge us to the ground. We came to a stop at the seventh floor, and the attendant opened the doors. “Watch your step, sir. Miss.”

  Mr. Parry opened the door to his penthouse suite and gestured to a chair upholstered in ivory damask. My dress rustled against it. A fire crackled gently in the hearth. The room smelled of breakfast, and I tried to ignore my own hunger and look at ease. Mr. Parry sat down across from me and draped one leg over the other.

  “Miss Nimira.” His gaze was even. He didn’t blink much. “Now tell me. What happened outside? I’ll lodge a complaint.”

  “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 watc
h 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?”