Our Matriarch had never been one for formality, and she didn’t seem to be holding Bright’s disgrace against us. Probably couldn’t remember it, even. As she did every year, she raised Eff from her obeisance, hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks. They were, after all, sisters, and had grown up together until the accident of magical inheritance had raised Splendance to the nobility and left Eff behind as mere gentry.
Auntie Splen looked the same as last year: thin, ever so slightly unsteady on her feet, eyes vague, long hands fluttering.
“Darling Eff,” she cooed. “How lovely to see you. You’re looking so well and the place looks divine. All these sweet villagers. So charming. And Shine. Sweetheart, a little kiss for your Matriarch. Are you eating properly? You always look so pale. Impi, darling, we should get this girl to a doctor, don’t you think?”
“My dear, have you forgotten she’s a half-breed ghost?” murmured Lord Impavidus. He dwelt on the last three words. “No point in wasting money on doctors. She’ll always look like that.” (Every year, every single year, the same conversation, almost word for word. I tried to see the funny side, but never could.) I kept my eyes lowered in case my hatred for the man who had had Bright beaten and exiled leapt out of my eyes and kicked him.
Auntie Splendance blinked, tried to focus her eyes, gave up and went back to being benignly floaty.
“Oh, well, that’s all right then, isn’t it? But she is very pale.” She patted my belly. I kept my eyes downcast, trying not to pull a face. (Lady of Light, this too. Was I to be spared nothing?) “No babies yet, darling? How sad. More meat, darling. More loving. But more meat, definitely. Might help your colour, too.” She patted my cheek and drifted away up the stairs.
“Yes, do something useful with yourself,” muttered Lord Impavidus at me as he stalked past.
Him and his snide slights. One of these day I’d...
“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord,” I said as blandly as I could, looking at the ground. My tone sounded impertinent to me and it must have to Impi too, because he stopped. I tensed myself for a confrontation, knowing I had to keep my tongue between my teeth, but he merely hesitated a moment before bounding up the stairs behind Splen, catching her elbow as he went so that her dithering pace sped up.
“Careful,” said Eff in my ear. “Remember he’s the power in the household. I don’t want to see both of you disowned.”
I shut my mouth on the seething cauldron of anger inside. I could have sulked and smoked like lots of the gentry did after they failed the crystal test. Instead, I’d pulled myself together, learned how to use a mundane weapon—the crossbow—and went back to running my mother’s estate. Thanks to my hard work, the place was paying its own way for the first time in years. What was that if not useful? In three days’ time, I’d have to face Impi across a desk while he went through our accounts, carping all the way. How was I going to do that without shouting at him over the way he had treated Bright?
Lord Igniate (known to those of us who have the dubious privilege of being related to him as Great Uncle Nate) wafted past us on his floating chair, rumoured to contain a chamber pot so that My Lord didn’t have to leave his chair while gaming. Lady Splendance’s daughters, Ladies Blazeann (who always wore red) and Lumina (who always wore purple), sailed past us in a swish of silk with their noses in the air and a murmured a perfunctory “Blessings” each. Lord Illuminus passed by with a grunt. But my dear Lucient came at me with open arms and a cry of “Blessings, darling Shine.”
I was about to throw myself into those arms, when I was seized from behind and wrapped in a huge bear hug.
“Shine, my dear little cousin,” cried Scintillant, pulling me off balance (how apt) and giving me a big kiss. “You get more gorgeous every year. Blessings, Blessings, my pretty one.”
How had such a dour pointy woman as Auntie Flara produced such a cheerfully raunchy son as Scintillant? Judging from his body shaper, tight black breeches and bulging codpiece, Scintillant was still a ride rat. Why, oh, why did he have to be so pretty? And so lovely in bed? Why, oh, why did my heart always flutter so when he was around? I had to face up to the fact that I was no one special to him and that was it. Finished. Over. Never again.
But if I was too unfriendly, it would have encouraged him. He loved a challenge, did Scintillant. So I hugged him back. He was extremely athletic, broad shoulders, slim hips, all the trimmings, and his arms felt lovely and strong. He always smelt delicious too.
“Oh, you luscious thing!” he cried. “How are you?”
“Scintillant!” called a stern voice from above. “Could you please come up here?”
Cousin Lumina was standing at the top of the stairs, frowning.
“And Lucient,” she continued, “Mother wants a pipe packed.”
“Oops,” muttered Scintillant, frowning comically. “Noble cousin calls, darling.” He patted my cheek and leapt away up the stairs. “Yes, yes, cousin dear!” He smiled into Lumina’s glare and gave her a firm kiss on the cheek. “I remember perfectly what you said, but I don’t care what people say. She is luscious.”
He gave me a quick wink as he slid his arm through hers and pulled her behind him into the house. Lumina shot me a scowl over her shoulder as she went. I turned away quickly to hide the stupid grin on my face. Ladybless, I was pathetic. Lucient was gone and I hadn’t even hugged him.
A man standing at the bottom of the stairs smiled at me warmly, the light of admiration in his eyes. The smile, coming on top of my meeting with Scintillant, confused me, and I looked away. When I glanced back, the man was walking away towards the servant’s door. He was a mundane dressed in the dark, sleek clothes of a secretary, which showed off his lean figure. I wondered if I might have a chance for some fun there, and remembered the ghost in my room.
Auntie Eff was hard at work greeting the retainer mages, nobles of new or impoverished lineages who made up Auntie Splendance’s retinue. It was my tedious duty to help her. The new ones gazed at me curiously while they mouthed the ritual politenesses.
“That’s the one they call Ghostie. You know, Aurora’s mistake,” I heard one tell another as she nodded at me. “Otherwise, just another mundane.”
Heard that before too.
After that came a handful of gentry, mundane members of the Imperial Family like us. They lead happy lives, drifting round the Family House in Elayison, helping out in the archives or the wardrobes, or as secretary companions or nursery stewards—a life I was as entitled to as they were, but had never been lucky enough to have. And never would, probably. Instead I would be spending my life out here being a country bumpkin.
“That’s the third of Lord Impi’s kin I’ve seen today,” muttered Eff in my ear as the last one filed past. “Sod is filling our house with his sister’s children.”
I was only half listening. Melancholy was tugging at my edges. Aurora’s Mistake. Why wasn’t I a mage? Why was I motherless? If only I could leave Willow-in-the-Mist. If only I didn’t have to see the family twice a year.
The sleek shape of Katti appeared at the top of the stairs. She sat down and curled her tail elegantly around her hind legs.
Too many stupid people making annoying noise, she thought at me.