Beatrice tried not to grimace at the mention of the cheating, stealing Lavans. “I hope it is successful.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Father said. “Sir Gregory is a clever man. This is a singular opportunity. If only I could bring the news of this expedition home. It will be sure profits.”
Not like the last time. Beatrice fought to keep smiling. “I’m so happy to hear it.”
The Westborne Trading Company’s orchid expedition had also been a singular opportunity. Father had contributed heavily to the voyage, believing in the international craze for exotic orchid species—a craze that had been abandoned for miniature dogs while the expedition returned home with once fabulously expensive specimens. Plenty of people lost considerable sums, and very few of the investors had bought insurance on their shares, including Father, and all the neighbors in Mayhurst who had listened to his dream-stirring predictions of the fortune investors would make. They had thrown cabbages at him for a week. No one was at home for Mother’s calls. They had snuck out of Mayhurst in the dead of night and didn’t stop the carriage until they were miles away, and someone in the roadside inn had still heard the story of how Father had ruined the fortunes of his neighbors.
Bad luck plagued Father’s investments. He had taken a generous dowry and learned that the way to have a small fortune from speculation and investment was to start with a large one. If Father hadn’t risked so much, they could have put off the trip to Bendleton until next year. Beatrice could have had more time to learn what she had to before it was too late. But Father wouldn’t tell his family just how badly off they were, and he was sparing no expense to send Beatrice out to Bendleton’s social life.
How much money did Father have left? Was it really enough to pay for all the hats and gowns and an address on Triumph Street? Or had he put all his money into one sure thing—Beatrice’s appeal as a bride?
It wasn’t wise. Beatrice’s mother was one of the respected Woodcrofts, but they tended to bear girls rather than boys, often only producing one heir to carry on a legacy. Mother had married for love rather than status, and so the Clayborns were unremarkable members of the middle class. There were ingenues more elevated than her, certainly wealthier—she couldn’t reasonably expect to net a duke or a cabinet minister’s son, could she? And she didn’t have the wealth or connections a foreign mage hunted for, at that.
But she didn’t want a duke or a minister’s son. She didn’t want to marry a man from another land. She wanted to be a magician, and marriage stood squarely in her way. She had to retrieve the grimoire Ysbeta had stolen from her. It was her only chance!
“And starting tonight, you will be pursuing opportunity as well,” Father said. “I know I don’t need to explain to you how important your social debut is to us. I have every trust in your ability to evaluate the people you meet tonight. But enjoy yourself and make friends. Don’t forget to take pleasure in it.”
Tonight marked the official beginning of the calendar of parties, outings, performances, and events that would allow Beatrice to rise as far as her charm and skill would allow—or sink, if she embarrassed herself. How was she to manage both social success for her family and romantic failure for herself? “I will do my best, Father.”
She didn’t need to say more. Father helped her from the carriage. “Good luck will smile on you, I am sure of it.”
He was more correct than he knew. “I have to get a tray from Cook and then rest before the dance. I will probably miss dinner with getting ready.”
Father let her leave with an indulgent smile. “You will make me proud, my dear.”
Once inside, Beatrice went upstairs to allow Clara to undress her and tuck her in bed. When the tray arrived, Beatrice kept it, saying that she would nibble at it while she read.
After Clara had freed her of the fashionably tight corset and left Beatrice to rest in rag curls prepared for tonight’s Assembly Dance, she silently counted to one hundred, then sprang out of bed. Tonight’s gown was laid out where she could gaze upon it until she dozed off, but she scuttled past it without another glance, leaping for the pull-cord dangling from the ceiling.
Moving the lunch tray to the attic was clumsy work. She had to balance the tray on a step scarcely wide enough to hold it, climb a stair, and rest the tray on a higher rung. She’d nearly dropped it twice as she climbed the narrow trap-ladder up to her bedroom’s attic one-handed. The darkness above smelled like dust and old paper. Beatrice hoisted herself into the space clad only in her shift. After closing the hatch so she wouldn’t stumble through it and break her neck, she groped for her striker-box. She whispered a charm to make the spark light a candle stub, and then as she touched the flame to all the others, she whispered, “Give light, and bring no harm to anyone.”
The wicks caught and glowed, throwing flickering shadows on the sloped attic roof. Beatrice pulled out a book from her tiny hoard—Tales of Ijanel and Other Heroes, by E. James Curtfield, and found the spell encoded among the verses:
To Call a Lesser Spirit of Chance
She set it on a lap table with one uneven leg.
Beatrice reread the instructions. She wondered, once more, if the summoning words would really work without being written in Mizunh—but Chasland had master magicians before adopting the chapterhouse tradition. It had to work. She practiced the signs she needed for the summoning. She checked and double-checked the sequence of sigils, then chalked down the marks in the order described without uttering a word.
Now she wavered, just for a moment. This was more complex magic than she had ever dared—but she had to master it if she was ever going to have the skill to summon a greater spirit of her own. She must perform the ritual, and she could not fail.
She held her palm over each chalked symbol, breathing in the accepted pattern to infuse each mark with her will. She drew in the correct breath, held and vibrated exactly the right way to activate her circle and put her between the realms of flesh and spirit. Every mark had to be charged with the correct breath, the exact vibration, shaped by the positions of her fingers held just so—and as she worked the air shifted, pressing against her skin as the summoning built itself, mark by mark, breath by breath, sign by sign.
The energy flickered and built just at the corner of her eye, bluer than candlelight, shot through with iridescent flashes of gold, rose, green. It made the air fuzzy and alive as her actions unmoored her from the world of the flesh, rubbing against the realm of spirit.
She held down the urge to stare at it, to gasp in wonder like a child. But magic tingled all through her. She touched the aether and held power in her hands, her breath, her body—it was better than the sweetest music, the finest meal. Knowing power, drawing nearer to the mysteries, nothing was its match. Nothing was its equal.
She breathed in magic, shaped it with her need, and charged the circle closed. She was between. Her body felt bigger than it was. Her awareness had expanded to the skin of her aetheric form, the body that spirits and magicians could see, glowing softly within the circle spun of her mortal life. But she trembled, her hands shaking as she gathered more power within herself, more and more until she was full as a waterskin, preparing herself for the ritual.
“Nadi, spirit of chance, I name you,” she whispered. “I have brought sweet nectar and flesh for you. They are yours if you help me. Nadi, spirit of chance, I know you are near.”