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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A College of Magics
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Faris was thoroughly measured and thoroughly ignored. As assistants brought in bolts of fabric for Jane and the
modiste
to consider against Faris's hair and skin, she tried vainly to make her wishes known. “I don't need very much,” she said plaintively. “A traveling suit and something for afternoons. An evening gown, if you insist, Jane. That black silk was nice.”
“Not with your complexion. Lift your chin a little. That's
good. No, hold still. Show us that violet charmeuse again, Madame, if you please.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Faris saw the violet charmeuse drawing near. “That's much too bright. I don't need it. One traveling suit. Perhaps that will do for afternoons, too. One evening gown. Oh, yes. And I'll need a riding habit. But that's
all
.”
Jane nodded absently. “Of course, your grace. I think the marocain may do for the dinner gown. That shade gives your eyes some color.”
“The dark blue is all right, but that purple silk is too bright. I'll look like a clown. And I don't want any of that transparent stuff.” Faris brushed aside the assistant hovering near her with a bolt of sheer shrimp-pink fabric.
“It's called tulle, your grace. What do you think of this one? You may turn your head now.”
Faris turned her head and regarded the latest mannequin with horror. “No. Never. No feathers.” She stepped down off the pedestal and waved away the last tape measure. “I want my cloak. I'm leaving.”
Jane exchanged a tolerant glance with Madame Claude, who signaled for Faris's cloak. The feather-clad mannequin left, pouting. Jane turned to Faris, eyebrows raised. “There's no need to be rude about it. You merely had to tell me you were tired.”
Faris accepted her cloak from the assistant and put it on with a practiced furl and snap of fabric. “No tulle. No pink. No feathers. All you've talked about all afternoon is dinner gowns. What am I to wear to the rue du Sommerard?”
“That's all settled. A walking dress. It's going to be a
midnight blue serge, nice and drab. You'll like it. It will be ready next Friday.”
Faris threw up her hands in despair. “I can't wait until next Friday. I am to call on Hilarion at the earliest opportunity. This is the earliest opportunity. Are you coming with me? Or are you going to order gowns?”
“There are still one or two details to be seen to, and after that I have an errand of my own. Leave Reed here and he can see me back to the hotel.”
“Very well. I'll take Tyrian with me.”
“Excellent. I don't think this is precisely his milieu.” Jane glanced toward the reception room at the front of the shop.
“Your escort has been occupied with refreshments,” Madame Claude said, “but since they have exhausted our supply of coffee, perhaps it would be as well if they were given something useful to do. And perhaps you and I, milady, may settle a few trifling details.” She smiled at Jane, who smiled sweetly back.
Faris regarded their concord with sudden misgiving. “If we're so nearly finished, perhaps I should stay.”
“If you wish, of course,” said Jane. Her eyes narrowed. “I wonder, now that I think of it, if that violet marocain is not a little too drab, after all. May we see it again?”
“Certainly,” Madame Claude replied promptly. “One moment and I shall send someone to fetch more coffee.”
Faris held up her hand, startling herself with the elegance of her new gloves. “That won't be necessary. I'll leave you to it, Jane. Only remember—just a few gowns.”
“And a riding habit.”
“Well, yes. I do need a new riding habit. But nothing fussy. And
no feathers
.”
“I understand perfectly.”
 
N
umber 24, rue du Sommerard, behind its courtyard walls, was a great turreted house with a watchtower looming over its widespread wings. While Tyrian paid their driver, Faris stared. There was nothing of Parisian symmetry about the jumble of architecture that contributed to the house—pointed windows, deep gables, slate roof—yet there was nothing of disorder either. Nestled in its courtyard, a place of quiet within a few hundred yards of the noise of the boulevard Saint-Michel, the house achieved grace. Faris remembered the chapel at Greenlaw. There was something of that silence in the harmony of this house.
“This is an old place,” said Faris softly.
“I believe Roman ruins have been found nearby,” Tyrian said. “This was the heart of Paris, back in the days when they called this place Lutetia.”
“No,” murmured Faris, more softly still, “I mean
old.
”
Inside, Faris presented the Dean's card and her own to a servant who led them into a sparsely furnished room paneled with linen-fold oak. The servant withdrew to tender the cards to Monsieur Hilarion. Faris paced while Tyrian stood at the doorway.
“What's taking so long?” she asked, when she was tired of the pattern of the parquet floor.
Tyrian consulted his pocket watch. “We have only been here twenty minutes. That's not very long to find our host
in a house of this size. Then there is the time it takes for the servant to return to us.”
“Perhaps he's forgotten where he put us.” Faris started to pace again. “Or perhaps Monsieur Hilarion doesn't receive callers from the Dean of Greenlaw after all.”
“Or perhaps you are nervous.” Tyrian closed the watch and put it away. “No need to be.”
Faris halted and gave him a haughty glance. “I'll be nervous if I please.”
“Certainly, your grace.”
Faris regarded his gravity with deep suspicion. “If you're mocking me, stop it at once.”
Tyrian looked extremely mournful. “Very good, your grace.”
Faris began to laugh. Tyrian looked reproachfully at her. “If you are mocking me, your grace—” he began.
The servant returned to lead Faris to Monsieur Hilarion. As if his presence were merely a matter of course, Tyrian accompanied them.
Even more than its facade, the interior of the house told of the splendor of the centuries that had visited it. Faris followed the servant along corridors with vaulted ceilings painted royal blue and powdered with golden stars, through halls hung with tapestries like clearings in an enchanted wood, and down a staircase of white stone, its spiral as tightly furled as a unicorn's horn.
Despite its age, the house seemed fresh, as though its atmosphere had but lately come from a real forest. As she descended the white stair, Faris caught the vivid scent of
pine needles and damp earth and felt her eyes prickle with homesickness. At the foot of the staircase, the servant held open a door so low that Faris had to bow her head to enter. Tyrian followed. When they were through, the servant closed the door and left them.
The room was dark. Faris put her back to the arch of the door and took comfort from Tyrian's presence, so close his sleeve brushed hers. The scent of pine had gone as suddenly as the door had closed. Instead she smelled moist stone, her new gloves, and an unfamiliar aroma, a compound of coffee, smoke, and a spice she didn't recognize. With a small jolt of surprise, she realized it was Tyrian's scent. She took a step away. Underfoot the floor was smooth but not quite flat, like the well-worn steps of Greenlaw. The gloom shifted as her eyes grew used to the dimness. Now she could make out an arch across the room. Beyond, a light was burning.
“Faris Nallaneen,” said a voice like the wind, as she crossed the dark room, “I have been waiting for you.”
Tyrian was close beside her as she reached the arch. She paused at the top of another flight of stairs, this one slanting down the wall of a great vaulted chamber. Below them on a dais of carved stone stood two chairs and a lacquered table with a branch of lighted candles. One chair was simple and straight-backed. The other was a deep wing chair upholstered in brocade as rich as a tapestry forest. Both chairs were empty.
From the dais, the voice came again. “Don't stop there. Come down.”
The sense of silence was still with her, the peace of the
house reigned unchanged, but Faris found the voice unsettling. The shadows the candlelight cast might hold any terror, any wonder. She obeyed the voice, grateful for Tyrian at her back.
When she stood beside the table, the airy voice spoke again, from the depths of the wing chair. “You've been long in coming.”
Faris looked at the empty chair. For a moment, in the candlelight, she thought she saw brocade leaves stirring in a tapestry forest. Then, indistinctly at first, but with greater clarity the longer she looked, she saw the man seated in the chair.
He was old, that was plain in the knotted delicacy of the hands that lay along the arms of the chair and in the hunched curve of his posture, but his eyes were young and full of merriment. Faris spent a long moment looking into those eyes, as light as her own, then said, “Hilarion.”
Hilarion lifted a hand to gesture her to the other chair. It was hard to see his fingers. “Sit. I'm afraid Tyrian must stand.”
Faris glanced at Tyrian. He had taken his place near her chair, one pace to the right and one pace back, and stood at ease. Though he seemed relaxed, Faris noticed that he pointedly kept his eyes away from the wing chair. “Thank you, but I think I prefer to stand, too.” Belatedly, the meaning behind Hilarion's words came to her. She turned sharply back to him. “That is a name you were not given.”
“Tyrian and I have met before.” Hilarion's eyes glinted with amusement at the intensity of Faris's stare. “I sent him to your uncle.”
Faris thought hard, so hard that she took the chair Hilarion had offered without realizing she did so, sinking into it with preoccupied grace that would have impressed even Dame Brachet. “Does my uncle know that?”
Hilarion folded his hands. “Who can say? I doubt it. Tyrian was the best qualified candidate for the task of guarding you through Greenlaw. I wished you guarded, too. It seemed simple enough to arrange. Your uncle loves complexity but he is not immune to the charm of simplicity. Neither am I.”
Faris leaned forward slightly. “I think I know why my uncle wished to guard me. Tell my why you wished to guard me. Tell me who you are and why the Dean sent me to you. Tell me why I am of the slightest interest to anyone.”
“Very well.” Hilarion cupped one hand around the topmost candle flame. The light was scarcely dimmed, the flower of the flame plainly visible behind his fingers. “It has not escaped your notice that I am not entirely substantial.”
Unwillingly, Faris smiled. “I had noticed.”
“Nor am I entirely insubstantial. Had you observed that?”
Faris nodded.
Hilarion looked pleased. “That is one reason why you are of interest to me. I do not conceal myself willingly but to others I am not visible. Tyrian, for example, has never seen me, although we have spoken many times.”
Faris glanced back at Tyrian. He was still standing at ease, gazing calmly into the shadows. “Is that true?”
Tyrian met her eyes. His look was as steady as it had
been in the infirmary. Faris tried to remember exactly how long it had been since that awkward conversation and caught her breath in surprise. The day before. That entire dreadful interview had taken place only the day before. She felt as though she had known Tyrian longer than Reed, longer than Gavren, even.
“Indeed it is.” Into the shadows, Tyrian added, “I must inform you that I have left your employment, Master Hilarion. Yesterday I promised to serve Faris Nallaneen. I owe her a great debt.”
“Then of course you must pay your debt. If you work for her as you have worked for me, she will be well served, indeed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Hilarion continued, “You have skills you have not guessed, Faris. Take up the light.”
Faris lifted the branch of candles. The shadows in the room shifted. The candle flames burned flawlessly. Faris realized that they gave off no heat, no melted wax, no hint of smoke, only clear golden light. Her grip on the candlestick tightened but she held it steady.
“You may put it back.”
Willingly, Faris obeyed.
“You perceive the nature of that light?”
“I perceive it is not natural candlelight.”
“Put out that light.”
Faris looked sharply at him. “Why?”
Hilarion smiled gently. “To see if you can.”
Faris shook her head.
“Why not? Are you afraid to fail?”
“Certainly not. But what if I can't light them again?”
“A sensible question. There are four people in the world who could move that light. You are one. I am another. I could not put it out. Perhaps you could. I am glad you had the wit not to try. I know of no one and nothing that can restore that light once it has been extinguished.” Hilarion's hands were very still on the arms of his chair. “To answer your first question, I wished to guard you because I hope you are the warden of the north, come again after many years.”

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