"Please hold your chin up just a bit higher...yes, that's it." Gaylord Calvert's charcoal stick moved smoothly over the page, sketching out Maria Bacardi's face. The singer wore her costume as Coralia, which the wardrobe mistress was still frantically trying to adjust.
"Will this take much longer?" she asked pettishly.
"Not much," Calvert said. "I only wish you didn't have to cancel your sitting."
"I had assumed that I would have plenty of free time today, but I was wrong."
The wardrobe mistress nudged La Bacardi's arm up so she could make an adjustment.
"No, no, put your arm back down!" Calvert said at once. The singer yanked her arm out of the older woman's grip.
"Ah! By all that's holy, go away, you stupid cow!" she snapped. "Must you insist on doing everything at once? Go bother someone else."
"I'm sorry, Miss Bacardi, but I have to--"
"Didn't you hear me? Go!"
The wardrobe mistress scuttled away as if driven by the lash of the singer's voice.
"That should make things easier," Calvert said.
La Bacardi tossed her head, letting the jet black curls tumble down like a lion's mane around her head.
"She should learn to have some consideration for others instead of always putting herself first. Doesn't she realize that I have better things to do besides rearrange my life for her convenience?" Though that particular ode to selfishness was genuinely meant, she at least possessed the wit to recognize the irony of saying it to Calvert under the circumstances. "Oh! Don't think that I do not appreciate that you are changing your own schedule for me."
"No, no, I'm doing your work on commission," Calvert said. "When art comes from the soul, that's one thing, but I'm painting this portrait for you, so naturally I shall do my best to adjust."
"Ah, then you understand completely. When I am given a small part, I must fulfill it to the best of my ability, but no more. It is work--I am a professional. But tonight, as Coralia, I shall be given a chance to shine, to truly create a work of beauty in my song."
"I'd noticed that you weren't dressed for Wren. I'd thought the handbills had announced Miss Virgine as Coralia."
La Bacardi laughed harshly.
"The Virgin, it seems, has acquired a case of maidenly shyness. She will not perform, she says! The little coward."
Calvert added a few touches to the sketch.
"Coward? What is she afraid of?"
The diva gave an airy little gesture.
"Who can say? Mr. Saint said only that she will not perform. Maestro Terne was fit to burst. The little vixen has him completely under her spell, but Mr. Saint knows better. He has a hard head for business, and won't be tricked by a put-on of innocence. La, I daresay it's the only decent piece of acting she's ever done. I admit, her voice is fine, but opera is more than mere singing. One must perform, must capture the audience in the world of the story. Only then can one be a true artist."
The beautiful soprano smiled, and there was a world of wickedness in it.
"I do not believe Mr. Saint has asked you to do any posters of her yet for advertisement?"
Calvert shook his head.
"No; I'm a bit surprised. I'd have thought that he'd want to talk her up as much as possible since she didn't have your reputation to bring in the crowds."
"Perhaps he suspected even then what the outcome would be, hm? Why waste time and money on someone who comes and goes in an eyeblink? For after tonight, Mr. Calvert, we shall never hear another word of that little ingenue."
"Why did you want to come here, Lillet?" Amoretta asked as they walked through the arched double doors.
"I need to do some research, and the Royal House of Magic has the second-best magic library I know."
"Who has the best, Professor Gammel?"
Lillet nodded.
"The Silver Star Tower has every grimoire and occult reference that the Archmage collected, plus everything Professor Gammel and Lujei owned when they moved in, and then whatever the Professor added since he founded the Magic Academy. Unfortunately, it's also halfway across the kingdom."
She looked around the library, which occupied three levels of an octagonal turret. It wasn't a large room in terms of floor space, so the Royal Magicians had removed floors and built upwards instead. There were a series of wrought-iron catwalks and gantries linked by thin spiral staircases, so that the tower looked like it was filled with steel lacework. Narrow stained-glass windows interrupted the rows of shelves at irregular intervals, done up in brilliant yellows and golds. From the outside of the tower, though, there were no windows; each had been built up against the stonework of the wall rather than piercing it. The light behind them came day and night courtesy of magic and kept the library well-illuminated at all hours without the need for lamps that could spark a fire.
"So why did you bring me along?"
"Well, you can help with the research--"
Amoretta shook her head.
"I don't have the background knowledge you have, so I'd be little use for anything but fetching the books."
"I know, but...the real reason is that I don't...I don't want you out of my sight while there's a murderer out there with an eye on your performance."
"Did it bother you to admit it?"
"Well, I don't..." Lillet began uncomfortably, then concluded, "I just don't want to be unreasonable, dragging you around at my whim and interfering with your life just because I'm scared."
Amoretta giggled into her hand.
"Oh, Lillet, you know how much I want to be with you. I'm glad of any excuse for it--and here you are worrying!"
Lillet blushed, feeling silly.
"You're right, of course...I just don't like making demands of you, even if it's for your safety. I hate the idea of forcing my will on you, like you were a servant or a...a familiar."
"You're silly, but very sweet." Amoretta hooked her arm through Lillet's so they could stand side-by-side, shoulders and hips touching. "But I do feel safe being with you."
The assurance made Lillet feel warm inside, though with a creeping serpent of fear at the back of her mind as she recalled the danger.
One of the good things about the Royal Magic Library was that it had been catalogued and indexed, unlike so many private collections. Books were referenced in a large card file so that new cards could be introduced when needed. A series of five cabinets contained the index, ornamented with emerald, sapphire, ruby, topaz, and diamond stones to indicate their subject: glamour, necromancy, sorcery, alchemy, and non-field-specific topics respectively. Lillet opened the ruby-marked cabinet and started looking through the Rs.
It was quite possible that Lillet herself was the greatest living human authority on the use of Rune-based sorcery. Certainly this was true within the kingdom; her tutor on the subject at the Silver Star Tower had been the devil Advocat. She'd held the legendary grimoire of Solomon, the Lemegeton, in her own hands and had used one of its runes to call the devil Grimlet. She'd learned the hard way that merely summoning an entity of such overwhelming power did not necessarily bind it to service; as one of the greatest of Hell's lords Grimlet had rejected utterly her attempts to master him. Luckily, trickery had succeeded where force had failed and she'd left him bound in Hell for millennia to come.
That was all Rune magic, though. In sorcery especially, the clean elegance of Runes had replaced acts that were sometimes disgusting and often genuinely vile.
"What is it you're looking for?"
"Well, if this was done by old-fashioned ritual magic, then the magician would need equipment, reagents, and assorted paraphernalia. I thought if I could figure out what kind of ritual was done, then the Inspector might be able to trace the killer through the objects. I'm sure that the Watch has plenty of experience in tracing smugglers and black-market goods. Vessels of human bone and candles rendered from baby fat and that kind of thing just can't be had at stores."
Amoretta shuddered.
"Candles rendered...Lillet, that's horrible."
Lillet nodded.
"I know. Mr. Advocat told me about that one when he was teaching me some of the advanced work in the Hell Gate grimoire. They were used in the ritual of demon-summoning that was replaced by the Rune."
"Why would he tell you that?"
"I was nervous about dealing with devils and he was showing me how the bad reputation of sorcery was based on how, in the past, sorcerers had to do evil things just to summon familiars, but we don't have to do that any more."
"That's sophistry, Lillet. Dealing with devils isn't any less wrong just because you don't have to commit other, separate sins just to start the process."
"I know; we are talking about Mr. Advocat, after all. But it makes a difference if a magician can summon imps and dragons and so on and keep them under control, as opposed to offering them what they want in some kind of bargain." She glanced thoughtfully at Amoretta. "You know, you do have a point. With Rune magic, it's easy to get in deep any only realize that you've crossed a line when it's too late. With ritual sorcery, you'd have to be either evil or crazy to even start."
"That's what we're dealing with now, though. Someone who is both evil and insane."
Maria Bacardi's voice rang out, lustrous and brilliant. She was, undeniably, a superb talent, but her voice lacked the angelic purity of Amoretta's. Moreover, Saint and Terne had selected Goldenlake not only for its musical qualities but because Coralia was an ingenue's role, one where the singer had to portray youth and innocence. It fit Amoretta perfectly, helping to cover her acting deficiencies by allowing her to essentially play herself, while allowing her voice to shine. Despite La Bacardi's dreams of a return to glory in the eyes of the audience--and in the reviews in the morning broadsheets--the comparison was not a favorable one for her.
In the view of one critic, though, it was so much more than "unfavorable."
Hatred.
"How dare she?" the Closing-Night Crow muttered aloud as he stormed from the theater. A single act had been all he could stand, and even that only because he wished to avoid a spectacle so he'd waited until the first intermission to leave.
Need.
It was impossible for him to see the slightest merit in the performance. His soul cried out for Amoretta, had anticipated her, craved even the little bit of her he could possess in a few hours on the stage. Now his skin crawled with the lack of her, hyper-sensitized flesh twitching as if tiny insects were swarming across his body beneath his clothing.
Why was it? The Watch? They'd been asking questions--an Inspector Ballatore had been going around, waking people up the night before. Did the Crow finally have an understanding audience? Someone who saw his own performances for what they were?
Interference.
They could try. Let them! They would not stand between him and what he wanted.
"We will have her," he murmured.
We must...
"...show them..."
...the cost of opposing us!
He wrung his hands together as he walked, tearing at his theater program like a predatory bird rending a piece of meat.
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