Part 1 (2/2)

”Is it good?” Rose said.

Ivy smiled. ”It's lovely. Thank you.”

Rose smiled too, then sat at the pianoforte. She never pressed the keys, but she liked to run her fingers up and down the keyboard, touching first only the black keys, then only the white.

”Here, Rose, I'll play for us,” Lily said, rising from the sofa and parading to the pianoforte. She alighted on the bench, scooting Rose to one side, and opened a book of music. ”You can turn for me.”

Rose shook her head. ”I won't know when to turn.”

”I'll make a signal when I'm ready. Like this.” Lily gave a grand nod, as a queen might when greeting a courtier, then placed her hands on the keys. A brooding music filled the parlor. Their mother complained that Lily only ever played gloomy songs, and Ivy would not argue that her youngest sister had a proclivity for rumbling and dissonant pieces. However, even Mrs. Lockwell had to admit that Lily's skill was great.

Rose tilted her head, staring at the keys, fascinated by the music-so much so that, when Lily reached the end of a page and her flamboyant nod resulted in no noticeable effect, she was forced to give her sister a nudge. Rose hastily turned the page, and the music continued.

To that portentous accompaniment, Ivy picked up her book and resumed her reading. And soon her pacing. In Ivy's experience, books about magicians always went into great detail about what the magicians did but never how they did it. This book was different. After recounting the events of the battle of Selburn Howe, the author went on to describe the means Slade Vordigan used to conjure the shadow army, which the narrator claimed to have witnessed firsthand. Her pace quickening, Ivy read the account again.

”Oh!” she said, and the music stopped.

Ivy bent down, rubbing her smarting s.h.i.+n. She had struck one of the drawers of the secretary, which someone-Ca.s.sity, likely-had left pulled out. She shut the drawer and sat at the table in the center of the parlor.

”What are you up to?” Lily said, turning around on the bench.

”Nothing,” Ivy said. ”Keep playing.” She opened the book before her, making certain she had the sequence correct and sounding out the strange words in her mind.

”You are up to something,” Lily said, moving to the table.

”I need a candle,” Ivy murmured, not realizing she had spoken the words aloud until Rose set a silver candlestick on the table. The candle was burned halfway, which was exactly what the spell called for.

She was supposed to use the dust from a crushed carbuncle to draw runes of binding around the candle, but she had no idea where to acquire such a substance. However, Ca.s.sity had neglected to clean the parlor, and Ivy settled for drawing the symbols with a finger in the dust on the table. She supposed that wouldn't be as good, but she didn't want to conjure an entire army anyway, just a small bit of shadow.

Lily sat at the table. ”What do you think you're doing?”

”Magick,” Ivy said.

”But you can't do magick!” Lily's eyes grew large. ”Can you?”

”Yes, I can,” Ivy said, checking to make sure she had copied the runes precisely. ”At least I think so. I've been reading about it for some time now, and I'm ready to try something myself.”

”The candle isn't lit,” Rose said.

Ivy smiled at her. ”It's not supposed to be. It's extinguished as a sympathetic representation of darkness. I'm going to summon a bit of shadow to me.”

”But you can't do magick,” Lily said again. ”Not if you hope to marry a gentleman. Everyone knows it's dreadful wicked for a woman to work spells.” She lowered her voice ominously. ”They burn witches, you know.”

Ivy gave her a stern look. ”Lily! You shouldn't say awful things.”

”Why shouldn't I say them when they're true? They do burn witches, in Greenly Circle.”

”Nonsense,” Ivy chided her, conscious of Rose's worried expression. ”There hasn't been a witch in Greenly Circle in two hundred years. And even if there was, a magician is not the same thing as a witch.” Ivy laid a hand on the open book. ”The magicians fought the witches long ago, during the time of the Risings.”

When Ivy was a girl, Mr. Lockwell had told her stories about the Risings. Long ago, the island of Altania had been covered by the Wyrdwood: a primeval forest tangled with green shadows. For eons its rule was complete-until the day s.h.i.+ps landed on the sh.o.r.e of Altania, bringing men who wielded iron and fire. They cut down the Wyrdwood and burned it to make room for their settlements.

Some accounts told that the Wyrdwood fought back against the invaders and that many men were lost within its dim groves. One of Ivy's favorite tales as a child recounted how a great chieftain rode into a valley only to find a forest where his army had been encamped the day before. According to those stories, it was the witches who had awakened the power of the wood and compelled it to rise up. However, in time more and more trees fell, and at last the Wyrdwood's fury was quelled by Altania's first great magician, Gauldren. From that day on, the music of axes rang out freely.

At least, that was what the histories told. In these modern times, only a few ragged patches of the Wyrdwood remained. Ivy had never seen any of them herself, as most were far out in the country.

”Besides,” Ivy went on, ”our own father is a magician, and he's not wicked, is he? And it can't be wicked for me to do what he did.”

”Yes, it can,” Lily said. ”There are lots of things that men are free to do that women get in all sorts of trouble if they so much as try. Like act onstage in a play.”

Ivy hesitated. It was true that all of the magicians she had read about were men, and most of them lords at that, descended from one of the seven Old Houses (though a few gentlemen practiced the arcane arts, as her father once had). However, magick wasn't like acting in a play. By its nature it was occult, a thing done in secret, away from prying eyes. Ivy would never do anything that might bring discredit upon her family. But how could there be even the appearance of impropriety if no one but her sisters saw her?

Resolved, she fixed her eyes on the book. ”Don't speak,” she said. ”The incantation must not be interrupted once it's begun.”

Before there could be any more protest, she began to recite the unfamiliar words on the page before her. Rose's mouth hung agape in silent amazement, and though Lily squirmed in her seat, Ivy's warning must have sounded suitably dire, for she made no more protests.

The words were harder to speak than Ivy had supposed. Her tongue seemed thick and heavy, as if she had just eaten a mouthful of honey. The language of magick was older than humankind itself, or at least that was what a book she had read once claimed.

She spoke the final words. A silence descended over the parlor, and it seemed to Ivy that a gloom seeped through the windows and pressed from all around. In the gray light, something dark and sleek darted across the room.

”I see a shadow!” Rose gasped.

Ivy s.h.i.+vered. Had the spell worked?

”It's only Miss Mew,” Lily said, reaching under the table and picking up the little tortoisesh.e.l.l cat. True to her name, the cat let out a noise of protest. Her fur was a mixture of cream and caramel and deep brown, but in the gloom it seemed darker.

”Was Mew chasing the shadow?” Rose said.

Lily rolled her eyes. ”No, silly, she is the shadow.”

Rose smiled at Ivy. ”Then the spell worked, for Miss Mew ran straight to you, Ivy.”

The cat squirmed from Lily's arms and walked across the table, touching its nose to the runes drawn in the dust and smearing them with its paws.

Ivy did her best to disguise her disappointment and gave her youngest sister an arch look. ”Well, it appears you're right. It seems I can't do magick after all. There is no need to suppress your gloating.”

Lily rose from her chair, then moved around to press her cheek against Ivy's. ”I'll go down to the kitchen to see if Mother needs any help distracting Mrs. Murch. Come, Rose, you can help.”

”I'm sure she can do that quite well enough on her own,” Ivy said, but Lily was already bounding from the parlor, Rose in tow.

Ivy shut the book and wiped away the remainder of the runes with her hand. Perhaps Lily was right. Perhaps magick was something only for men. Just as so many things in the world were.

Miss Mew let out a plaintive sound and nudged her nose against Ivy's dusty hands.

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