Chapter 12 Forsooth’s Magic #2
I was still reluctant to take it off, given what happened the previous year, when my aunt ransacked Jolie’s and my room to get to it.
But my protection skills had gotten considerably better, including my illusion chimaeras.
I’d already built false trails in my room, and several hidden compartments with other trinkets to confuse anyone looking.
In the end, I decided to leave the necklace behind.
I morphed it into a collar for Wraith, then spent considerably longer on a subtle chimaera to make the crystal look like a dangling, silver name tag with Wraith’s name on it.
“If anyone comes in here, you take off,” I told her seriously, showing her an image in my head and hoping she understood. “Don’t stick around, okay?”
Wraith meowed.
By the time I finished, Miranda and Jolie were both dressed, and yelling through my door that they were going to leave me behind if I didn’t let them do my make-up.
Miranda looked stunning in a moonstone-blue minidress, also by Michel.
She’d already changed her hair and eyes a pale blue to match, after consulting with him.
To complement the dress, Michel added moonstone-colored shoes with teeteringly high heels, pale-blue stockings, silver earrings with more matching stones, and an elegant moonstone necklace that showed off her décolletage, along with a silvery-blue bracelet in a fish design that wrapped from her wrist to her elbow.
Jolie went with a different designer, a woman named Willow, who dressed her in burgundy and black.
The dress itself was fairly simply, a form-fitting mermaid style, but the spellwork was difficult to look away from.
Iridescent, gauze-like clouds moved around the asymmetrical folds like liquid metal.
Her feather fascinator glinted gold where it was held together above her ear, and moved like it was underwater.
She looked ethereal, like a water faery, or a mermaid.
I worried we were going a little overboard, but Jolie and Miranda both assured me it was tradition to go all-out for this thing.
Despite that, in the end I wore my hair down and a little wild around my shoulders. The dress left nothing but skin from the low-backed corset to the lace around my throat. My hair at least covered part of my back.
I thought Miranda would complain, but she squinted critically, then nodded in approval.
And yes, I let Jolie and Miranda do my make-up, mostly because they insisted.
When I came downstairs, I admit I felt a small ripple of satisfaction when I saw Graham and Draken’s eyes pop a little when they saw me.
It’d been a long time since I’d made an effort before going out with anyone other than Alaric, and the look Alaric generally aimed for was some flavor of “club slutty,” (his words), so not exactly the same.
My feeling of satisfaction ebbed when Graham continued to stare at me, and offered me an arm before we walked into the party, which was being held in the gardens on the south side of Malcroix Mansion.
I really didn’t want to be there with a date.
From the look I saw on Draken’s face as he stared at my arm looped through Graham’s, he didn’t want me there with a date, either.
Honestly, though, that was maybe the only upside. The sooner Draken gave up on me as dating material, the better.
Not that the Draken thing wasn’t complicated. It was. Sort of. But, wise or not, I was a lot less sure why I kept saying no to Draken than I was about not wanting to be at a formal event on Graham Strangemore’s arm.
I slipped free of him as soon as we got inside.
Past the magical entrance, a golden gate which stood maybe twenty feet down the path from The Promenade, every part of the landscape had been completely transformed.
Someone, possibly Forsooth himself, had conjured a stone floor, also magicked and not normally there, beginning with the stone arch that held the gate.
The arch itself was fascinating to look at, if a little disturbing, carved all over with moving, lifelike faces that changed expressions and even spoke to me, introducing themselves or laughing maniacally or complimenting my dress when I stared at a particular face for more than a few seconds.
The conjured floor covered at least forty feet to the right and left, but stretched much, much deeper, well past the Fountain of Furies, well past the rose gardens and the low hedge maze, until it disappeared into the southern part of the garden, possibly all the way down to the Great Lawn.
Faery lights, floating lanterns, fireflies, statues, rugs, furniture, and trees that weren’t normally in that part of the garden, decorated the floored area.
Little kiosks had popped up everywhere, offering party favors, food, and drink.
I noticed a dance floor surrounded by torches, and a band playing discordant classical-style music from the side furthest from the gates.
The area closest to The Promenade and the main gate was tented with violet, green, and gold silk, marked on the outer edges by guttering torches.
High, white, stone walls stood behind the torches, which was strange; I’d seen nothing of those walls while we’d been walking along The Promenade down the hill from Valarian College.
The statues, benches, and fountain itself were all lit from below in gold, violet, and green, another approximation of the school colors.
Despite all of those physical changes, however, it soon grew obvious that the main “decorations” took the form of Forsooth’s skill as a chimaerist and theurgist. As soon as I walked past those golden gates covered in faces and roses, I felt the magic inside the party’s boundaries as a tangible vibration all over my skin.
Chimaeras filled the air with colorful strands of light.
Occasionally those strands morphed and twisted into more complicated apparitions: birds, trees, rosebushes, ghostly people, dragons, butterflies, hares that ran by through the mowed lawn, a sphinx the size of a full-grown lion striding casually amongst the party guests.
A number of vortex-like openings also appeared as I walked in the direction of the rose bushes, and those felt like doorways to somewhere else entirely.
Whatever they contained, I felt my magic tugged in that direction, as if the chimaera itself urged me to walk through and visit.
So far, I hadn’t seen anyone disappear through one, but my desire to try grew each time I saw one appear. When a watery blue and green opening popped into existence directly in front of us, the craving to walk through grew almost unbearable.
I was about to ask Miranda if she’d be willing to go with me, but I’d stared for too long; the vortex folded in upon itself and vanished before I could get the words out.
The sheer amount of magic on display was more than I’d ever seen before, certainly more than I’d ever seen in one place. My disbelief grew as I ventured deeper into the party grounds. I couldn’t stop looking around, yet I was positive I was missing more than half of it.
If I’d been in even a slightly better mood, or significantly less worried to the point of sickness and insomnia about Alaric, I probably would have been running around, looking at all of the magical wonders like a kid at an amusement park.
Some of the magic was dramatic, like the vortices and the sphinx, but far more of it was subtle, and easy to miss.
One chimaera held the party grounds inside in a pocket of warm, honey and flower-scented air.
The flavor changed so gradually and subtly, I scarcely noticed until I suddenly realized it smelled like hot chocolate and cookies one minute, then cinnamon and tea, then new rain and pine needles, then brine and sunshine from the ocean.
Drink and hors-d’oeuvre trays floated around us without anyone holding them, moving so smoothly and unobtrusively I barely noticed them until one hovered in front of me long enough for Miranda to pluck off a flute of champagne.
Tables appeared and disappeared as we walked.
Some were empty and surrounded by comfortable chairs, probably offers to sit and talk with friends.
Others were filled to overflowing with multi-level plates covered in small dishes of savory and sweet, hot and cold snacks and drinks.
They all vanished or moved within a minute or so, unless someone sat at one of the chairs, or stood over them to peer down at the offered treats.
It was astounding, really.
Had Forsooth done all of this? Or was this something he’d lightly designed, then set all of his postgraduate students and apprentices to work manifesting into existence?
Somehow, I doubted the latter to be true.
He seemed the type to want to do it himself.
Another vortex appeared to our left, this one filled with gold bubbles, each one containing a tiny, multi-colored flame. Excited, I turned to Miranda, who still walked beside me. Jolie had wandered to one of the tables to talk to a group of friends from her magiphysician courses.
“Hey, do you want to––” I began.
“You’re not drinking, Leda?” a different voice broke in.
I shut my mouth and glanced to my right, where Graham Strangemore stood, holding out a silver goblet filled with a smoking liquid that looked like a blue cauldron, one of Alaric’s favorites.
They were strong, but I didn’t mind them.
They had a bizarre initial taste, but a much better aftertaste that reminded me of blueberries.
I hadn’t really planned to drink that night.
Strangemore offered it again. “Go on. Forsooth’s drinks aren’t to be missed.”
I took it from his fingers and smiled.
What the hell.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. I immediately grimaced at the bitter taste, then felt my throat relax into the aftertaste, which flowed over my tongue like a bouquet of subtle-tasting fruit.
It was both markedly better and markedly worse than what they served at the Kink-Tailed Cat, a popular pub in Bonescastle.
“Wow,” I admitted. “Yeah, that’s really good. Unusual.”