She hesitated. “It was not . . . a very big fortune,” she said after a moment, and laughed ruefully. “I am too fond of pretty gowns, jewelry, champagne, and caviar, and I am not so very famous that merchants will give these things to me in hopes that I will tell others where I got such-and-so. It is bad of me, I know but . . .”
“But there will always be another particular friend, who will buy you these things, hmm?” The illusionist raised an eyebrow and she flushed, but raised her chin defiantly. It was Nina and Ninette together who answered him.
“And who does that harm?” she asked rhetorically, speaking of her imagined old man in a fur coat. “I make my friends happy, they make me happy. I deceive no one and no one is deceived by me. I do not pretend to love, monsieur. Love is not for my kind, and I make sure my friends understand this.”
The illusionist unexpectedly softened his voice, and a hint of understanding, faintly shadowed with cynicism, colored his words. “Then you are wise beyond your years, mademoiselle, and I am glad to hear your honesty. I believe you. So. Have you any notion just who or what your father sought to protect you from by giving you this guardian?” He nodded at the cat.
With true bewilderment she could only shake her head. “Thomas has advised me and guided me, and seldom has his advice miscarried. It was he who urged the move to England upon me.”
There was another prima ballerina at the company, the cat said, “speaking up” unexpectedly. Nina attracted attention from the wrong quarters. Shall we say, Imperial attention? Rather than end up with more than just an artistic rivalry, I advised her to remove herself to somewhere far enough away that the lady’s hand could not scratch her.
All three men chuckled, and even Wolf snorted.
“Our own prince has generated trouble of that sort himself,” Nigel said, with a shake of his head. “But that wasn’t why your Master created you.”
No, it isn’t. There was no specific threat at the time. Only the need to provide his daughter with guidance he would not be there to give.
“So whoever did this to him—”
Did not survive the spellcasting, the cat said, abruptly, so there is no immediate threat. This is not to say that there may not be one in the future, but there is not one now.
Ninette looked from Nigel to the illusionist and back again, and bit her lip to keep from saying anything. The cat, it seemed, had surprised them both. That was interesting to say the least.
“Well, in that case,” Nigel said carefully, with a glance at both the other men, “I think we are in a position to speak with you—and your advisor—about a prolonged theatrical engagement.”
Ninette closed the door to the guest room quietly, but once alone, could hardly restrain her joy. “Thomas!” she whispered, taking a few dancing steps, then whirling around in a pirouette, “I am an etoile! I am a prima! Prima ballerina assoluta! Think of it! The production to be built around me! My own apartment and a maid! And fifty pounds a week!”
You should have gotten double that, Thomas grumbled.
“That is more than La Augustine—”
But not more than Nina Tchereslavsky. Ah well. When the receipts start coming in, we will re-negotiate. And you knew all of this before. I told you. Well, not the apartment, but that was only to be expected.
“You told me, but I did not believe it, not really.” She sat down on the bed, and examined the hem of her gown with deep satisfaction. Lace three inches deep, and there would be more, many more, gowns like this to come. “I did not believe it until Nigel himself said it, and there were contract papers to sign.”
This will be hard work, the cat warned.
“And what I have done up until now has not been?” She sniffed. “The difference between then and now will be that I will not have to rehearse on an empty stomach, nor go home to a garret with no heat.”
Well, take care that no one else ever hears you say that. Thomas the cat paced up and down her rug, restlessly. That Fire Master is altogether too sharp. Normally Fire Mages are the impulsive sort, ruled by their emotions. I suppose he must be the exception that proves the rule.
“He is very sharp,” she replied, sobering. “I will be careful around him. He frightens me.”
He should. Fire is the most powerful of the four Elements in the material world. It is also the most emotional. It takes tremendous control to become a Fire Master, and more still to regularly command the Elementals. They react poorly to coercion. I know of this man; he is very clever. Cleverer still to have come up with a way to make a living that enables him to work in plain sight and leave every ordinary person who sees him assuming he is working some sort of trickery.
“Will he use any of his real magic on stage?” she asked, watching the cat pace up and down the rug.
I expect so. Nothing powerful or important, just—fire-works, amusement for the audience. Pay attention, and you might figure out which thing he does is illusion, and which real magic.
Well, she would do that. It would be fun.
You should sleep now, the cat commanded.
She shivered with delicious anticipation, then rang for the maid to help her undress. The cat was right. Tomorrow she would be moving into her new apartment, all her own. She was going to need sleep.
8
ELEMENTAL Masters needed a very particular kind of servant. To be precise, they must either be Elemental magicians themselves, or have been aware that magic, real magic, was in the world, for most of their lives. Often enough, their servants came from a close-knit group of people who had been serving Elemental mages for centuries.
Or, as now, the servant came with a recommendation.
“So,” Nigel said, looking up from the letter the girl had presented to him. “Sean McLeod says here that you are a Sensitive.” She was a pretty little thing, was Ailse McKenzie: carrot-red hair, green eyes, and clearly as tough as she was tiny. She had good credentials though; she’d served as the ladies’ maid in the shooting season at Sean’s hunting lodge; his guests were all Elemental Masters and magicians and their offspring. She had wide ambitions though, and according to Sean was not content with doing general servants’ work when there were no ladies present. Neither he nor Nigel could blame her; the privileges and pay of a lady’s maid were considerably more elevated than that of a parlor maid.
“If that means I see the wee cratures you gents can call up when ye’ve a mind to, then aye.” The girl’s Scottish accent was not so heavy he couldn’t understand her. Though it might prove difficult for the other party in this equation. Nina might find it difficult to understand her and that could prove a great hindrance. Sadly that was a mark against hiring her.
On the other hand there were many more points in her favor. Nina needed a reliable maidservant, and maids who had experience with magic were not all that thick on the ground. While it was true that Nina herself did no magic, Nina had a talking cat. Eventually a maidservant would notice something odd about the mistress’s pet. If she actually overheard what the cat had to say and believed her “ears,” she would probably run screaming from the house. If she did not actually hear it speaking herself, sooner or later she would notice her mistress having one-sided conversations with her pet.