Hespero waited until the last minute to leave.

  Mother had been quiet all night so far and that meant Casja would have been able to sleep a little. Cook had woken up the kitchen fires so the most dangerous part of the night was past and that meant it was safe to go.

  She’d been sitting up in a simple morning gown on the off chance that she’d be needed. The first thing she reached for was the round, wire-rimmed spectacles she kept hidden in the top drawer of her dresser. Then she retrieved her rust red scholar’s robe from the back of her clothes press and pulled it on over her dress. She fidgeted with the shoulder seams just to be sure that the wide unblinking black eye painted on the back was situated between her shoulders. Lastly, she released her braid from its coiled bun and arranged it in front of her left shoulder where it hung sleek and dark down her front; her single remaining vanity.

  The house was quiet as she left her room in stocking feet with her shoes tucked under one arm. No light shone from underneath the other doors in the hall.

  No sound escaped the stairs as Hespero hurried down to the kitchens through the cold and sheet-shrouded house. Entering the warm and bright kitchen was, by comparison, like emerging from a black wood.

  Cook, a solid and broad-shouldered woman of the North who wore her thick blonde hair in long plaits down her front, slipped Hespero a pouch as she went out the back door. A brief check revealed a breakfast of boiled eggs, cheese, pickles, and bread. It would likely serve as her luncheon too if she forgot to eat it again. Hespero nodded a ‘thanks’ to her and hurried out. The bells would ring soon and she needed to be in her carrel when that happened.

  It had been some years since the royal wedding, but people still recognized her sometimes when she was out. Her robes gave her some protection, but if she stayed out too long then –then things happened. Less so in recent months, which gave her hope of better days to come.

  The house was in a good district; convenient to the University gardens and perforce the University. If it hadn’t been so well situated then Hespero might have been tempted to try and find another, more manageable home. Mother’s incidents might not be so bad if they changed her surroundings, but it was a risky proposition. Changing houses might make them worse. There was also the risk inherent in trusting someone to buy the old house. They couldn’t afford the taxes on two homes if the first failed to sell. In honesty, it was even less likely that anyone would sell to them.

  Maybe once Hespero had her mastership. She’d understand things better then and maybe she’d be able to take her family away from the Capitol. The effects were the worst when they were closest to the Castle and waned in the summer when the royal family left for the coast.

  It had rained in the night so the early morning air was heavy with mist. Her sturdy boots rang out against the paved street outside her home in a rhythm of sharp taps interjected with the occasional splash as she stepped in a shallow puddle. Her commute was short; down the drive, across the road, into the gardens, and from there to the university tower.

  An unquantifiable ache eased inside her as she crossed out of the damp cobblestone streets and into the cool shade of the tree park that surrounded the university tower. She could see other figures among the trees, but did not wave.

  The sun had warmed the sky to shades of pink and pale yellow by the time Hespero reached her quiet closet of an office. To her dismay, there was a sleepy-eyed royal page waiting outside it. It looked to be a girl child and therefore in the employ of the Arch Duchess. The Queen was served by adult women. She snapped to attention as Hespero approached.

  “Her Grace, Arch Duchess Ellamine of Graylands, requests the presence of Magistra Hespero, also of Graylands, at her morning salon,” the girl said it all in a rush, while eying the clock at the end of the corridor with misgiving. As well she should. The Arch Duchess held her salon at eight and if Hespero chose to go then she’d have less than an hour to present herself at the palace.

  How fortunate that she had no intention of going.

  “I see,” she said. “Please give my sincere regrets to her Grace and inform her that I am unavoidably detained.” Hespero added a curt, “Good day” when the child failed to move and pushed past her through the door.

  At once, she knew she’d made a mistake. The tiny office -just big enough for a chair, a desk, half a bookshelf, and a pneumatic tube- was already occupied.

  Ellamine was no less beautiful after three years of marriage. She’d gained some much-needed weight in her cheeks and was dressed elegantly in rose-colored wool trimmed in white rabbit fur. Her hair had been curled into a deceptively simple tuck at the base of her neck. Those green eyes still enthralled anyone who met them for more than a heartbeat. Seeing her brought all those old mixed feelings of guilt and stubborn, sullen resentment back to the forefront of her mind. It was all she could do not to say her old lines.

  Witch eyes down, Cinders.

  The irony of that statement brought her back to reality. Of the two of them, Hespero was the witch now. She knew the artificial nature of those feelings now and would not be ruled by them. Hespero lurched back and clutched her talisman. A warm pulse of magic spread through her. The ugly feelings eased into a more honest irritation at being trapped into this confrontation and she could breathe again.

  The relief was almost as intense as the day Arch Mage Tragus settled it around her neck. She’d fainted that time and woke up crying, unable to recognize herself. This time she managed not to, but it was a closer thing than she’d ever care to admit.

  Ellamine had backed away by the time Hespero could open her eyes and had pressed herself against the opposite wall.

  “I’m fine,” she wheezed and groped for the chair. Ellamine started like she might try to help, but pulled herself back. Hespero dropped into her chair and groped in her pockets for a handkerchief. She found one; plain, black, and possibly dirty. It was hard to tell. She couldn’t remember if she’d remembered to give it to the laundresses.

  How funny.

  Of the futures Hespero had imagined for herself as a vain child, becoming an absentminded and rumpled sorceress had not figured largely among them.

  “This was a bad idea.” Ellamine’s melodious voice was hushed and uncharacteristically harsh. She was hugging herself, Hespero realized. “I’m sorry.”

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  “The harm’s been done.” Hespero shrugged one shoulder as she dabbed at her temples with the plain cotton cloth. It was hard to resent her stepsister when Ellamine had probably endured far worse and for longer when the curse had been at its zenith. In a way, the experience had been instructive. She’d wondered how much it had faded and now she knew. She could repay that knowledge with civility, at least. “What can I do for you, your Grace?”

  Ellamine shook her head. “No, it’s…” She hugged herself closer. “It was stupid and selfish. I can see that now.”

  Oh, Ella. Hespero thought. She was still under its pall too. What was worse? To be forced into the hateful mold of an abuser or to have all your ability to feel anger pruned away? Was humility or forgiveness still a virtue when it was forced upon you? “Ask anyway,” she said instead. “I think you’ve earned some selfishness.”

  That got her a quick, mirthless smile. “No one earns selfishness,” she said, “…but I thank you all the same. I came to ask why you never accept my invitations.” She looked away. “I think I have my answer. Are Mother and Casja worse?”

  “Casja is doing better, but it's still hard on her. The talismans help.” Hespero thought of Cas’ pale pinched features whenever she returned from the temple and the way she insisted on going out the next time anyway. “Mother is having fewer fits. We still can’t have hired women in the house aside from Cook. The Headmaster thinks she’ll pull through, but progress is slow.”

  She couldn’t tell if she wanted the recovery to go slower or faster. Once her mother had recovered, she’d be well enough to stand trial and they’d all learn at last whether she was the one who’d cast the prosperity curse on their family. As it was, she was barely lucid and would be protected by law until she was in her right mind again. So long as she was mad, she would live, but, so long as she was mad, her daughters would never have the answers they needed.

  Hespero had some dim memories of their life before her mother had married Ella’s father. Their life hadn’t been bad, but she’d been a child and wouldn’t have known everything going on in her mother’s household. Maybe mother had had a pressing reason or at least one pressing enough to resort to curse magic even though she’d had to have known it couldn’t end well.

  For herself, Hespero thought it was possible. Her mother had never been the type to mind the long term consequences if she got what she wanted in the short term. There were rumors, still, about how she’d even managed to marry Hespero’s father, who was a Marquis, despite being the fifth child of a grain merchant without any dowry.

  “That is –well, not good, but...” Ellamine searched for a word, but trailed off instead looking harrowed. She too knew what sword was hanging over her stepmother’s head. The law was very clear, curse-smiths went to the pyre and they were alive when the fire started. If the cursesmith had earned any leniency in their trial, a gunman would be standing by to end their suffering once the fire had burned off the residual miasma left on their bodies so it wouldn’t leech into the soil once their cremains were buried, but that almost never happened. Knowing their ultimate fate, a cursesmith would make sure to get their money’s worth from their dark art.

  “Mother did it to herself,” Hespero snapped and then bit her tongue. “She did it to all of us.”

  “I know!” Ellamine repeated herself more softly. “I know that. The Arch Magus explained it to me. I just want to move past it. I want the chance to know my sisters and not the horrible caricatures the curse made us all into, but it’s too soon. I thought –well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. It was stupid and I hurt you.”

  “Ellamine, I don’t think we even know ourselves yet.” Hespero bit down on any number of uncomfortable truths. She’d been eight when they’d all come under the influence of the curse. Cas had been six. Ellamine had been five. None of them had any real memories of being anyone else. Three years was a drop in the bucket, barely enough time to even start the agonizing process of building a whole new self. “What brought this on?”

  “Oh…” Ellamine blushed a brilliant pink. “I thought I saw a sign. That’s all.”

  “What sign?”

  Ellamine pursed her lips and turned her face. She pushed the glossy white-gold curls framing her face aside to reveal an angry red spot along her jaw. Alarmed, Hespero got up to examine it but it was just a pimple; an ugly one, but still an ordinary spot. Still, she couldn’t ever remember Ellamine dealing with the normal blemishes and bruises of girlhood. The curse had kept her immaculate and inhuman in her beauty, even under the layer of dirt she’d lived in.

  “Your first spot. Congratulations.” It was the same thing Hespero had told Cas when her sister had woken her up in the dead of night when she was fourteen and Cas was just twelve. This time though, she could speak a Word and remove the underlying infection with a touch of her fingertip. “There. It won’t even leave a scar.”

  “Oh,” Ellamine dropped her gaze, sounding disappointed.

  Hell. She’d acted without thinking. Hespero re-examined her own line of thought and realized why Ellamine wouldn’t have had it treated. She’d have had better cosmetic witches at her command in the palace, but she hadn’t employed one. “Did you want to keep it?” Hespero asked.

  “A bit. I’ve never had one before or a wound that left a mark.” That was a good thing. Ellamine did not mention the times that their mother had used a belt on her, although Hespero thought of it without help. “It did hurt, though, so thank you.” She cocked her head, considering. “I don’t think I was entirely wrong, you know. You look different now too; like a normal woman. Maybe I was just hasty.”

  Hespero huffed a mirthless laugh. She was familiar with the contents of her mirror. A great deal of her girlhood had been wasted in front of it; staring at herself and willing the raw planes of her face to soften into something, anything close to her unwanted stepsister’s effortless beauty. “I am unchanged.”

  “No, your nose is straighter and the…” Ellamine gestured at her cheeks where Hespero’s were littered with patchy freckles and an unbecoming collection of moles. “…they’re smaller.”

  “I thank you for the thought.” Hespero felt strength trickle back to her limbs and presently was able to stand again. She stood and bowed. Technically, she was permitted the more informal curtsey due to her late father’s rank and her own status as an in-law of the heir apparent, but it brought back too many memories that stood out in her mind, made artificially sharp and vivid by the curse so they’d be harder to forgive or forget. “Please forgive me, your Grace, for my absence. It is unavoidably necessary.”

  Ellamine’s mouth thinned into an unhappy line. “Of course,” she replied, retreating into the safety of formal manners. Then her mouth firmed up. “One day,” she said softly, but in a harder voice than Hespero had ever heard from her. She sounded like a queen.

  “One day,” Hespero promised.

  “I hope so.” Ellamine settled her hands in front of her stomach and straightened her spine, putting on the mask of an Arch Duchess –a Queen, eventually. The transformation was startling. Hespero felt smaller, somehow, in Ella’s presence than she had before. It wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling; like looking on a state portrait or maybe a distant mountain. “There will always be a place open for you at the salon when you are ready. Please give our most sincere affection to Casja.”

  “Of course, your Grace. Goodbye.” Hespero dropped her gaze and stepped aside so Ella could pass by, leaving just a lingering scent of roses in her wake.

  The door closed before Hespero felt up to raising her eyes. She stood in her cramped carrel for a handful of minutes thinking about not much at all before the weight of routine tugged her back towards the desk and, perforce, her readings.

  However, her gaze was not pulled towards the top book in the stack on her desk. Instead she found herself looking towards a small stand mirror that lived on the top of her bookshelf. It had been wrapped in a torn scrap of satin for the past three years. The scrap had come from a dress pieced together by a determined teenager from the ragged remnants of her dead mother’s dowry chest and Hespero had been the one to tear it off her.

  As ever, the sight of that pink satin stilled her urge to unwrap the mirror and lose herself in it.

  Hespero closed her eyes, turned back to face her desk, and reached for a book.