“Hm,” said the Magister. Then she said, “I’ve already selected all of the women that I want to hire for the position.”
“Oh,” Delly said.
“I had been hoping to find a fire witch, though,” said the Magister. Then she said, “I will be holding a meeting for all of my formal candidates for the group at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning at 332 Barrow Street. If you attend promptly, clean and sober, I might consider your application for employment.”
“Fucking truly, then?” Delly asked, astonished.
The magister pickled up her face at her. “I’d also ask that you refrain from that sort of language when in the presence of my employer. You will be working for a woman of quality, not for the proprietor of a public house.”
“Yes, Magister,” Delly said. “Understood, Magister. But begging your honorable self’s pardon, Magister, I’ll have to be released from jail before I’ll be able to attend a meeting, Magister.”
Magister Fentan was already departing. “I will speak to the warden,” she said, and within very short order an exceedingly irritated-looking warden reinflicted Dellaria Wells upon the populace.
Delly returned to her flat in a moderately discombobulated state and set at once to eating a bowl of porridge and laundering her least-tattered dress in a large tub in the pub’s kitchen. Then she deposited her tired carcass into bed and slept like a sack of potatoes.
The next morning, Delly cleaned her teeth, combed her hair, and arrived at 332 Barrow Street at exactly the time the Magister had said, according to her goddamn dad’s old pocket watch.
A servant let her in with a suspicious cast of his eye, which wasn’t too much of a surprise; in her experience weasel-faced fellows in the butling profession had a sort of instinctive sense for her not belonging places. This gentleman looked like a terrier with a noseful of rat.
Another servant led her to a nice little sitting room, where there were already a few other people.
Magister Fentan directed her nose ceilingward and her eyes Dellyward. “Miss Wells. You’re late.”
Delly made her own eyes into perfect circles, by way of expressing her extreme astonishment, and pulled the pocket watch out. “Politely begging the pardon of your honorable personage, Magister, but it’s two to eleven by my pocket watch.”
“It is, in fact, twelve after,” the magister said. “Please, sit.” She said it politely enough, but Delly thought she could see the crinkles of irritation starting to array themselves around the corners of her mouth. Delly arrayed herself in the nearest chair and had a look around the room.
There were all sorts of knickers on this washing line, all right. There was Delly herself: like a potato with freckles and brown hair in a bad plait. Nearby was an old lady with soft dark eyes, a broad nose, and a few white curls peeking out from under her bonnet. The old biddy was sitting next to a sea of blue-and-white frills into which someone had dropped a little whey-faced blonde girl. Delly figured if you directed a question to the girl, she might have to consult the frills before she answered. If she’d fought at all to prevent herself from being overcome by them, she’d lost the battle.
Next to the frills was a young lady who made Delly think of her auntie’s cat. Not how she looked—she looked like a rare pretty girl, not like a cat—but the air about her. It was a fine cat Delly’s auntie had: black and white and sleek and fat. It wasn’t the mousing kind. It was the kind that sat and purred while an old lady brushed its fur and told it what a fine pretty puss it was.
This woman had an emerald on her finger the size of a grape, and thick black hair that gleamed in the sun against her powder-pale cheeks, and a silk dress that gleamed right back at it. She was plump and pretty and her nails were clean. Delly could almost hear the purring.
The lady beside her was something else altogether. Maybe not rich like the house cat, but beautiful, and quality. She had that look about her. The way she sat, maybe. How well her dress fit. She had a dark, cool brown complexion, long thin braids, and a contained, thoughtful sort of way of looking around her. She was so beautiful and so quality that it made Delly want to avoid looking at her too long or too directly, like someone might pop out of the floor and smack her for peeping at her betters, though the plain cotton of the woman’s dress said that she was quality without the money to pay for folks to do her slapping for her.
The next up was an entirely different sort of creature again. Tall as anything, broad as a back gate, enormous hands, and a craggy, handsome, mirthful sort of face, all packed into a neatly cut and pressed black dress that she wore like she felt good in it. No slouch to her like you saw in some big women, no trying to look smaller: shoulders back, eyes interested in the room. Her face was young, but the long hair she wore piled up on her head was a bright silver, and her pale complexion had a distinctly gray-blue tint. Part troll if she was anything, which was interesting: Delly had a friend who’d slept with a troll, and she’d said that modern human-troll matches were all barren. Seemed like she didn’t know the first thing she was talking about, which for one of Delly’s friends wasn’t too unusual. At least Delly wouldn’t have to guess at whether this particular troll was a lady or a gentleman, as she’d heard was usually the way it went with trolls: if this one had answered that advertisement, then Delly could be safe in calling her miss.
“Now that we are all finally in attendance,” the magister said, with a meaningful sort of glance toward Delly, “I would like to present you each to the group, so that you might start with learning each other’s names. First, let us dispense with our latecomer. Please stand, Miss Wells.”
Delly stood, suddenly struck with the horrible realization that she had no idea where she ordinarily held her hands and how her lips generally felt when she wasn’t sneering hideously. “Miss Wells,” the magister said, “is an accomplished fire witch. She may be of some interest to you, Miss Dok.” The pretty black-haired cat arched an eyebrow. Delly bobbed an uncomfortable curtsy and then plummeted back into her chair.
The magister made a sound that sounded to Delly like a muffled sigh. “Thank you, Miss Wells. Now, allow me to present Miss Abstentia Dok and Miss Bawa Usad.” The house cat and the high-quality woman both stood. “Miss Dok and Miss Usad are both senior students at Weltsir University.” Delly tried not to wince at the mention of the Weltsir University of fucking Magic: she thought she did all right. No one seemed to notice her flinching, at least. “Miss Usad will act as my proxy for the duration of the seclusion, and Miss Dok will act as her second.” The two ladies both curtsied at that—Miss Dok with a small smile that made her look more of a pleased pussycat than ever, and Miss Usad with a modest inclination of her excessively beautiful head—and then sat.
“Thank you, girls,” the magister said. “Next, allow me to present Mrs. Corma Totham and her householded daughter, Miss Ermintrude Totham.”