Lady Hagen was said to be the most powerful Air-mage in Aydori.
If she hadn’t shifted the scent, she’d approved it being done.
Why would…?
Because she hadn’t wanted the Pack distracted.
That couldn’t be good.
“Mother.” Pulling her hand from Bertryn’s elbow, she touched her mother’s shoulder. “We should…”
The gong for the end of intermission rang out on the upper level, amplified by a low level Air-mage in the employ of the Opera House.
“We should take our seats, yes, Mirian.”
“No, Mother, Lady Hagen…”
But the rest was lost in the chaos created by just under a thousand people returning to their seats. Back in the box, Mirian tried again.
“You’re being ridiculous,” her mother hissed under the sound of the orchestra, nodding toward Lord Berin’s box. “Would Lord Hagen be at the opera if there were any danger?”
“If he didn’t want people to panic.”
“There is nothing for anyone to panic about. Now be quiet!”
Teeth clenched, Mirian watched the curtain rise for the second act and wondered if she were the only person in the Opera House putting two and two together and actually arriving at four.
When Onnesmina finally ended, with the lovers reunited and a final aria sung, Mirian found herself with her hand firmly tucked into the angle of her father’s elbow and her mother close up on her other side as they made their way down the stairs to the reception in the lower lobby. Their clear concern that she might make a run for it was almost funny, and Mirian amused herself during the descent by imagining the dash through dark streets, her hair spilling down, her satin slippers worn through, one glove lost and abandoned in the gutter. She’d reach the house, push past Barrow, who’d be so astonished to see her an emotion might spill past his perfect butler facade, then she’d lock herself in her room and…
And what?
Might as well stay here.
Her stomach growled.
At least there’d be food.
During the last act, the wrought-iron barriers that had previously separated the café from the lobby had been moved to create a corridor those not attending the reception could use to exit the building. At the entrance for the favored, an employee of the Opera House checked their invitations, then stepped back and bowed.
Mirian thought her mother might have enjoyed the bow just a little too much.
In a room filled to capacity, with everyone wearing the same loose, easy to remove clothing dictated by Pack fashion, it still wasn’t hard to identify the visiting members of the Pack. Like those of the Pack who lived in Bercarit, the visitors were so much more present. Those not in the Pack outnumbered the Pack about ten to one, but the latter dominated the room with a vitality and an assurance no one else could match.
Although the four women and three men who were Mage-pack came close. Mirian suspected she could actually see the power surrounding them if she squinted a little.
They had the power—mage and otherwise—to actually accomplish things, to not waste their lives on clothes and card parties and social positioning. She objected to the way her parents felt they could use her to solve all their problems and she objected to time wasted on futility—as she was clearly not suitable—but she had no actual objection to being a part of the Mage-pack. Who would?
“Miri. Stop squinting!” The accompanying pinch was more to ensure her attention than to cause pain, but it hurt nevertheless. “And keep your head down, so they can’t see the lack of color in your eyes. Kollin, isn’t that Regin Fortryn, from the Council? He knows Lord Berin, and he’s certainly borrowed money enough from the bank. We shall have him introduce us.”
Fortryn seemed pleased to see her father—not always a given when someone had “certainly borrowed enough from the bank”—and the two were soon happily deconstructing the city’s finances.
Her mother waited, more or less patiently, until it became obvious no introduction to the Pack would be immediately forthcoming, then she tugged Mirian aside and murmured, “You must be hungry.”
Most of both Pack and Mage-pack had gathered around Emilohi Okafor—as beautiful and charismatic offstage as on—but there were four young men—three members of the Pack and a lieutenant from the 2nd—standing at one end of the buffet table. As it was nearly midnight and she was hungry, Mirian didn’t bother pointing out that, given how close they were standing to each other, it was unlikely two of the young men would be interested in her.
And besides, there was always the chance she’d meet the lieutenant’s gaze and they’d fall desperately in love. The thought of her mother’s reaction to a match with a junior officer who was neither Pack nor mage kept her amused all the way across the room and she was still smiling when she accepted a white china plate and a linen napkin from the server stationed at one end of the tables.
Given the number of Pack at the reception, the dishes were heavily skewed toward small pieces of meat on sticks, nearly all of it cooked. There were also tiny meat pies, a plate of cold tongue, several varieties of cracker, and three platters of tiny cakes made to look like sleeping lambs, chicks, and piglets. Mirian picked up three sticks of chicken and two of beef, added a puddle of sauce to dip them in and moved out of the way, her back against one of the lobby’s marble pillars.
Ignoring the young men her mother had sent her to attract as well the trio of giggling girls suddenly surrounding them, Mirian searched the crowd for Lord Hagen. He couldn’t have gone to the border; there were still far too many officers of the 2nd around, but where…?
“Lord Hagen, is it true? Is it true that the Imperials are at the border?”
Mirian stiffened. The young woman’s worried voice came from the other side of the pillar. She swallowed a mouthful of chicken and began to inch sideways.
“I think that’s a given.” Lord Hagen’s reply lifted the hair on the back of Mirian’s neck. “Or we wouldn’t have been able to hear their artillery.”
Not thunder, then, as they’d arrived at the opera. Cannon.
“But that,” the Pack leader continued firmly, “is all we know.”
Another step brought her far enough around the pillar to see Lady Hagen link arms with a mage no older than Mirian and draw her away, speaking quietly. She thought it might be the youngest Lord Berin’s new wife, but as she’d only ever seen her pass in a moving carriage, she couldn’t tell for certain. Lord Hagen watched them go, eyes locked on his wife as though he were memorizing her in this place and time.
Dark eyes under a mass of thick, dark hair—in spite of the scar that twisted the corner of his mouth, he was handsome enough, Mirian allowed, but it was the sense of barely contained energy that drew her attention. He was like a thunderstorm just before it broke, the potential for danger barely harnessed.
“And who do we have here?”
Mirian spun on one heel and looked up. Pack member, definitely. Amused, fortunately. The same dark eyes as Lord Hagen, his hair the pale gray his fur would be and short enough the points of both ears rose through it.
One pale gray brow rose. “Your eyes have no color, but your scent…” He leaned toward her, nostrils flared. “What makes you smell so good?”
His proximity made her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster. He was close enough she could see the puckered edges of the scar that ran down his cheek over his jaw to disappear under his collar, and he wasn’t young, thirty at least, with a fan of lines bracketing his eyes.