"Well, don't you have lovely friends? I wish I could say the same about the men you choose to keep in your circle..."

  Catherine dipped into a polite curtsey in response to his godmother's comment, a genuine smile crossing her lips as she smoothed her hands over the front of her skirts and straightened up. Kali, for her part, at least managed a nod. At her sister's insistence, she'd removed her armor for their meeting with Madame Beaumont. It made Kali uncomfortable, incapable of standing still or not picking at the already fraying sleeve of her shirt, like she was some sort of turtle that'd been pried out of its shell against its will. All that considered, Mirk considered Kali deigning to give Madame Beaumont a nod to be something of a triumph.

  And Madame Beaumont also was prudent enough not to say anything about Kali's decision to wear the odd trousers that were as wide and loose as a skirt to their suppertime meeting with Mirk's godmother. Really, people were making concessions all around. It made Mirk feel much better than he rightly should have about the odds of their plan succeeding.

  Mirk rushed to get to the table first, pulling out Kali's chair for her, since he knew Catherine would be polite enough to wait long enough to accept that small, ritual act of respect without Mirk needing to beat her to the chase. Though she rolled her eyes, Kali grudgingly sat down without commenting on it. "How are you related to Mirk, again?" she asked Madame Beaumont, as Catherine sat down beside her.

  "His godmother, dear," she said, sipping at a brimming cup of...something. It didn't smell at all like her usual coffee. Nor did it smell like the kinds of tea Mirk knew she favored, chamomile and rose and orange. It almost smelled like a high-grade pain blocker. The scent was so familiar to Mirk by then that it made his senses perk up in anticipation of relief. "I was close with his grandparents, once, God bless them."

  "It's very nice to meet you, Madame Beaumont," Catherine said, smiling to herself as Mirk hustled around the table to take his own seat across the table from her and Kali. "Mirk always has such lovely things to say about you."

  Madame Beaumont snorted. "He's always been a flatterer. Hopefully it won't end up with him getting married to someone awful."

  A tense silence fell over the table, covered by the excuse of the maid coming in with her companions to set the table for dinner. If Madame Beaumont felt it, it didn't show in her face as she frowned critically down at the dish the head maid presented her with. Some sort of wild game roasted to what Mirk assumed was golden perfection, vegetables swimming in butter, another gratin. Mirk suspected it was the gratin that had provoked his godmother's displeasure.

  He was pleasantly surprised that the cook had come up with something for him besides the same dinner that was passed out to everyone else, minus the main dish. A wider range of roasted vegetables, accompanied by a selection of fresh ones that glistened with a vinaigrette. It had to be due to Samael still being locked away upstairs. And Mirk was grateful for the heavy hand Madame Beaumont's chef had with the spices. More and more he found the smell of roasted flesh unbearable, especially in spring and summer. It reminded him too much of the infirmary. If Genesis didn't prefer his food all but raw, Mirk didn't know what he would have done with himself.

  "Now, tell me, girls, what's your part in all this nonsense?" Madame Beaumont asked once the maids had left and the door into the servants' hall had clicked shut. "I thought this was all the doing of my godson's more disreputable friends, not the decent ones."

  "I'd like to know that myself," Kali said, stabbing viciously at the tangle of wild game on her plate. Catherine frowned over her sister's table manners, but had enough manners herself not to bother her about it in front of Madame Beaumont. "I thought I was done with you and the rest of the nobles."

  "Comrade Kali and her ladies were the ones who went with Uncle Henri and the children back to Bordeaux," Mirk explained to Madame Beaumont.

  "Oh! Is that so? I knew Mirk had shoved some mercenary or other after his uncle, but I didn't know it was a woman." Madame Beaumont gave Kali a harder look, but kept her comments to herself. For once.

  Mirk elected to change the topic before his godmother's urge to needle overcame her momentary restraint. "You'll be helping Comrade Fatima's ladies keep an eye on Samael and Sharael," he said to Kali.

  "Why do I keep getting stuck babysitting? Can't marry me off, but you'll all stick me with brats anyway?" Kali huffed, continuing to hack at her dinner. A bone somewhere in the tangle of meat and cream cracked, and Mirk had to concentrate to swallow down the bit of carrot he'd only halfway chewed. "Whatever. It's better than getting stuck going to another debut ball. I'd rather be stabbed."

  Kali did seem a little relieved not be assigned to the ball, despite her grumbling. But the mention of it made Catherine wilt beside her. Though Mirk suspected that was more due to marriage being dragged into things yet again rather than the prospects of a night spent dancing and being pleasant to people. "Catherine is...hmm. Methinks it's a little hard to explain, madame. But the man who has control of the djinn we're trying to help is very interested in her. Since Comrade Catherine is coming, then it's more likely he'll come. Has Seigneur d'Aumount said anything to you about anyone else important who might be coming? I've heard from Seigneurs Rouzet and Feulaine..."

  "Aside from those three, the Marquise is a maybe. It depends on whether her ships come in on time. The Comte prefers not to leave the continent these days, owing to his age. A poor excuse for bad manners, if you ask me," Madame Beaumont confided to all of them, taking a smug sip of her drink rather than continuing to pick at her dinner.

  "Is there anyone else?"

  "The Massons old and young, but I'm sure you must have heard from at least one of them by now. From what I gather, the rest are mostly younger folk, people Rory's age. Old rivalries die hard, you know. Coming to England to visit a friend is one thing, but attending a ball with people you used to only meet on the other side of a crossbow or a sword is a different thing entirely."

  Mirk shrugged as he tried a different vegetable. Some type of root, hearty yet crisp. He'd be missing Madame Beaumont's chef once she returned to Lyon, no matter what she thought of him. "That makes sense, I suppose. I only ask because the more people come, the easier this will all be. Though I doubt anyone who comes to this ball will ever come to one I host again."

  Other than the sort of people who delighted in chaos and mayhem, as long as they weren't personally involved and things didn't get too gruesome. People like Yvette Feulaine. If Yvette ever decided to leave polite society and France behind, she'd make an excellent K'maneda. But Mirk knew she wouldn't leave the dances and luncheons and garden parties for all the gold in the world.

  "That awful?" Madame Beaumont asked, with a skeptical arch of her eyebrows. "Monsieur Am-Hazek assured me that no one would be getting killed in the ballroom, at least. Not that this would be the first time someone put a knife between someone else's ribs at a party. You should have seen what things were like two centuries ago. Complete barbarity."

  "Rather go to one of those balls than the debuts," Kali muttered into her half-empty glass of wine.

  "It depends," Mirk said, smiling at the way Catherine hid a snicker with her napkin and rolled her eyes. "If everything goes well, the man who has control of the djinn will decide to leave without doing anything too awful. He doesn't have enough magic to fight most of the nobles without a djinn nearby to draw on. But none of us can make any promises about how he'll react. Or any of his friends who might come with him." None of the other commanders and officers Mirk had invited had replied to him, but he hadn't been expecting them to. A K'maneda followed their own whims, frowned on things like polite correspondence.

  Madame Beaumont exuded skepticism, both in the press of her emotions against his mental shielding and the high arch of her thinning brows. "You expect these barbarians to be embarrassed at making a scene in front of us?"

  "Pas du tout, madame. That's why I needed to come speak to you tonight."

  "Not because you just wanted to give a bored old woman some entertainment?"

  They shared a laugh, Catherine joining once she felt it was polite to. Kali continued to stab at her dinner without lifting her head. Mirk hadn't seen her actually eat a single bite of it. "Of course, I'm always happy to see you, madame. But I needed to ask you for a favor, and it wouldn't be right not to do it in person. Can you send your servants off ahead back to Lyon? I'm not sure how many you have, but methinks it'll be enough..."

  "Send my servants away? Why? Monsieur Am-Hazek too?"

  "Not Monsieur Am-Hazek, no." Mirk hardly even thought of him as a servant anymore. More like his godmother's friend, who also happened to help her with the more taxing aspects of running a household, the things she was too old to be bothered with herself anymore. The fact that he was the first person Madame Beaumont thought of when he brought the subject up made Mirk uneasy in a way he couldn't put into words. "But the rest. How many are there?"

  "Nine, if you count René in the stables. And that's without Monsieur Am-Hazek."

  "How many women are there?"

  "Five women, four men."

  "Methinks that should be good enough...if we pick the right people..."

  "Mirk Alec Jean-Marie, stop mumbling into your wine glass and explain yourself."

  Clearing his throat, Mirk set down his glass. Across the table, both Catherine and Kali were grinning at him that time. The family resemblance, when both sisters were of the same mind about something, really was striking. "In case things get out of hand, it might be better to have some men and women around who are suited to fighting. I'm sure all the guests have the magic to defend themselves, of course, but methinks they aren't used to the same kind of fighting that the K'maneda do. There aren't so many rules."

  "You're replacing my servants with a bunch of brutes?" With a tired sigh, Madame Beaumont took up a frustrated forkful of vegetables. From the look and the feel of things, it took all her willpower to force it down rather than spitting it up into her napkin. "I hope that at the very least you manage to find a replacement for Chef who actually knows his way around the kitchen."

  "That's a very clever idea, madame. I know a brute who happens to be a very good cook," Mirk said, nodding. They'd all been wracking their brains for a way to have K'aekniv on hand, but he was so distinctive that if he ever ventured out of whatever backroom they stuffed him in, all the guests would know something was wrong in an instant, K'maneda or not. Putting him in the kitchen would keep him in communication with what was going on in the ballroom and give him something to preoccupy his mind so that he didn't either fall asleep or start trouble.

  "And five women?" Madame Beaumont cast a cool glance in Kali's direction. "Her friends?"

  "Euh...no, we have some other women who might be more suited." His godmother was fairly open-minded, considering her age, but he didn't think it wise to tell her that they planned on replacing all her maids with Fatima's ladies. Mirk was certain she'd sort it out soon enough, but the reason why half of his new friends were, as Madame Beaumont put it, particularly enterprising ladies was something he preferred to explain only when immediately necessary. "But I promise, I'll look for people who'll be able to suit both our needs. I wouldn't leave you alone."

  "I am capable of managing my own affairs, my dear," Madame Beaumont said stiffly, taking a prim sip from her drink. "I just prefer to avoid things that are tedious. After nearly three hundred years, I've earned that much."

  "Three hundred years?" Kali asked, looking Madame Beaumont over. Though she was thinner still than the last time Mirk had visited, her cheeks still had a healthy redness to them. And her hair underneath her bonnet, though streaked with gray, was still mostly black. "Are you...?"

  "Entirely human. Simply burdened with more potential than most. As I said, I've earned the right to spend my time as I see fit."

  "And how do you see fit?" Catherine asked, with none of her sister's brusqueness. She had cut all of her food before beginning to eat, but still kept her knife in hand, to be polite. Though Mirk noticed that she preferred to eat all the parts of her meal one by one, starting with the vegetables. "After so many years, you must be a great mage."

  Madame Beaumont laughed, bitterly. "A great mage? When I was your age, women weren't allowed in the same room as a grimoire. And I believe many men still wish that was the case."

  An uncomfortable silence fell over the table once more. Before Mirk could break it, Madame Beaumont spoke again. Holding her cup improperly, in both hands rather than by the handle, to warm her hands with it. "It gets better every year. Did I think I'd live to have two women to dinner, in my own dining room, no husband in sight? One with a wand that could tear the house in two in her pocket, and the other free to bash anyone she hates in the face? I know things remain difficult for all of us. But...there is progress. Always progress. As long as we don't stay satisfied with catching the scraps the men drop from their table."

  Both Catherine and Kali nodded, Kali still stabbing now and then at the mess she'd made of her dinner, while Catherine arranged her gratin into a precise square with the tines of her fork.

  "Present company excused, of course," Madame Beaumont added after a moment, shooting Mirk a sideways glance. "A good thing Jean-Luc let your mother raise you instead of sending you off to an academy, God bless them. I still think she should have found some sterner men to train you up in the manly qualities, but Annette's work turned out better than some guild mage's. If you'd gone to an academy, I'm certain you'd have turned out like Marc.

  "I think Jean-Luc always regretted that," she mused, turning the cup in her hands. "Only the best for little Marc. Annette was always the bright one. All of Jean-Luc's scheming, and all of Enora's willfulness. Isabelle was the strong one, Christine the gentle. And Marc. The boy. Very friendly with my nephew the rake, until Marc had that accident with his horse. God bless him."

  There wasn't an ounce of joy in his godmother's blessing.

  "Is everything all right, madame?" Mirk asked, lowering his voice and leaning in closer to her.

  Madame Beamount didn't respond to him directly. Instead she set down her cup, just long enough to push aside her untouched plate. "My apologies, comrades, Mirk. As I said, I've lived quite a long time by now. I think that entitles me to a bit of babbling now and then, non? I really am looking forward to seeing if this cooking brute of yours is as good as you think he is, my boy. You do, after all, find Chef's gratin bearable. But shall we see if he did any better with tonight's tartines?"

  Without waiting for any of them to reply, she picked up the servants' bell at her elbow and gave it two sharp rings, to summon in the maids to clear away dinner and bring out dessert. Across the table, both Kali and Catherine were watching Mirk warily, waiting to follow his lead.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He decided to, as Madame Beamount had insisted, indulge her. If she considered the matter resolved, then it was resolved. Instead of persisting, instead of reaching out with his senses to try to root out the source of his godmother's disquiet, he turned the conversation to trivial things as the maids filed in. Which quartet his godmother had hired for her ball last autumn, how much it would cost to put the same mirrored illusions on the walls of her townhouse that had made it look so grand and golden.

  But he knew that after dinner, at the first opportunity, he needed to speak with Am-Hazek.

  - - -

  As he'd been hoping, when he left the upstairs bedroom Samael and Sharael had been locked up in, Monsieur Am-Hazek was out in the hall waiting for him beside Catherine and Kali rather than Pascal, who had brought them up after dessert.

  "Are our guests doing as well as can be expected, seigneur?" Am-Hazek asked him, bowing slightly in greeting. The sisters seemed lost on what to do with him; they'd both resorted to their own ways of passing the time rather than engaging him directly, Catherine producing a small book from her skirts while Kali paced restlessly from one end of the hall to the other, like a caged animal. Mirk couldn't blame them. Even if Kali eschewed manners for the most part, they'd both been trained in them. And it was difficult to tell whether Am-Hazek expected to be treated in line with the servants' clothes he wore, or like the great mage he was, without asking him outright.

  Mirk nodded, rattling the doorknob to the young angels' room to be certain all the spells on it had fully engaged. "Thank you again for taking them in on short notice, monsieur. Do you have a moment?"

  He and Am-Hazek went to the end of the hall, the djinn matching Mirk's pace. He didn't have to announce that he was concerned to Am-Hazek, or tell him the subject of it. Either they shared the same worry, or Mirk was so transparent in his distress that it didn't take any empathy to spot it. "What's happened to Madame Beaumont?" Mirk asked. "Did something happen when Seigneur d'Aumont came to visit?"

  Am-Hazek sighed, staring off down the hallway toward the servants' stairs as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Of course, Seigneur d'Aumont did nothing untoward. But I'm of the opinion that it took all of madame's restraint to continue the ruse she elected to put on. It...troubled me. To see her in such a state again. I believe it taxed her, and she has not yet recovered her strength."

  "Again?"

  "I'm certain madame has made her opinions on her late husband known to you, to some extent." Once Am-Hazek was sure none of the household's other servants were moving on the stairs, or in the hallway below, he turned his attention back to Mirk. Though there'd been only a hint of a question in Am-Hazek's words, Mirk felt he was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to elaborate further. There was a heaviness in his posture Mirk hadn't seen since Am-Hazek had visited Ravensdale's djinn in the City. Like he'd been forced to bear witness to something unspeakable, but felt compelled to try to explain anyway, to lift just a sliver of the weight of that knowledge off his shoulders.

  "I got the impression they weren't a good match. But I'm sure there must be more to it than that."

  Am-Hazek nodded. "If no children had come from it, I'm sure madame would have found it unbearable. And if her late husband hadn't died along with them during the fever, I'm of the private belief that madame would not be with us still."

  Mirk steeled himself, debating whether to feed more potential to his mental shields once more or not. He decided not to. It wouldn't be right, not sharing the full weight of Am-Hazek's burden. "Was he...?"

  "No. I think the seigneur knew full well what he was getting into when he married madame. If he'd ever raised a hand to her, she would have murdered him. I believe she was attempting to provoke that opportunity, near the end," Am-Hazek added, after another heavy sigh.

  "In any case. It wore on madame to bring herself so low before that, for the sake of the children. Madame is a woman of strong opinions. And she does not tolerate men who underestimate her intelligence, even if she was never given the opportunity to learn magic in a formal way. Seigneur d'Aumont has a very low opinion of mages with high potential who do not educate themselves, no matter the reason. And though he was on his best behavior when he came to visit, madame is very sensitive to that sort of insult. It took a great strength of will for her to remain pleasant with him."

  Rubbing at his temples, Mirk looked down the hall ahead of them, toward the formal staircase that led down to the foyer, where his godmother would undoubtedly be waiting for them. "I didn't want her to do this. But methinks she would have taken it as an insult if I'd told her not to. And that would have been much worse."

  "Agreed. I am of the opinion that madame has been waiting for many years for an opportunity such as this. Even if it pains her, this is the best possible resolution that she can see for herself."

  "What do you mean?"

  Am-Hazek rocked back on his heels, thinking. "I have not seen madame make use of her magic for many decades. Not in any serious way. I believe she has been avoiding drawing on it so as to prolong her life. To obtain the possibility that she sees in this whole ordeal. Even then, it has taken almost all of it for her to last this long. I believe that she is preparing to use it, and it is making her ill. And one she does make use of it..."

  He didn't need to say any more for Mirk to understand. He'd already seen the beginning signs of it, decades before it was due to come, in both the mages and the fighters he tended to every day at the infirmary. Purely human bodies weren't made for channeling and holding large amounts of magic forever, not like those of angels and demons and djinn. An angel's body was made for magic, would die without it. Magic running though human flesh worked like a disease, albeit a slow one that careful management with healing magic and long periods of rest could keep in check. A wholly human mage burned out bright and fast, or lingered slow into a painful oblivion. The more potential a mage had, the greater the imbalance of their element and orientation, the worse the process was.

  Madame Beaumont, as she liked to remind those who underestimated her, who took her unwillingness to use and train up her magic as a lack of it, had been given a great deal of potential.

  "Is that what that tea she's started drinking is?" Mirk asked. "Something to make it all bearable?"

  Am-Hazek nodded. "Poppy tea, with something else in it to strengthen the potential she's saved until she sees fit to use it. I understand it's not my place to ask it of you, seigneur, but I would be grateful if you could look to see how severe the illness is when you depart. There's nothing you or I could do about it, but I'd feel better knowing. Human illness and healing is very different from that of djinn."

  "Of course, monsieur. Anything to set your mind at ease. And I'd very much like to know myself, besides."

  It was subtle. If Mirk hadn't spent so much time watching djinn by then, if he hadn't seen how they chose to bear up under things, he wouldn't have caught it. But the way that Am-Hazek lowered his head as he thought, the way he brought his legs together, as if asking to be knocked off balance, spoke to the djinn's guilt all the same. "Perhaps it is a blessing that she decided to use her potential now. I will be leaving soon. It would be a weight on my conscience I could never remove if I knew I was leaving her to pass her final years alone."

  Before Mirk could comment, Am-Hazek had moved on, his head lifting and eyes growing sharp once more. "Ah. They're here early. I suspected there may be some overlap. Another small blessing."

  "Who's here?" Mirk asked, shaking his head to throw off the lingering, vague impression of Am-Hazek's guilt.

  "I anticipated this as well, but I didn't have the opportunity to inform you before supper, seigneur. Monsieur Henri and the children have come to attend your debut. But, as I'm sure you know, Monsieur Henri is very forgetful when it comes to his letters."

  Am-Hazek was right. Mirk couldn't hear what he could, but he could still feel his family out in the street, now that he knew what he was looking for. A cluster of tiny pinpricks of magic and excitement, none of them shielded in the slightest. "Traveling so far again? And right before summer, when his shop is the most busy? I'd told him about the party in my last letter, but I never thought Uncle Henri would..."

  "I believe he serves at the will of his children, seigneur." Am-Hazek said, with a tight-lipped smile. "And I also acted on my own to inform him that if he wished to thank madame for her help in person, he would be best served by attending your debut. I hope I haven't offended you by acting without consulting you first on the matter. But you have been occupied by your own affairs."

  "Oh, it's no bother at all, monsieur. I never would have remembered. We'd best be on our way down, then." Mirk switched back into English — it was always a bother, but it felt less like switching from bare toes in the grass to tight court shoes now and more like having to put on a cloak before going out in the cold — calling off down the hall to Catherine and Kali, who were presently arguing over something in Catherine's book. "Comrades! Will you come downstairs with us? Methinks there's someone here who'd like to see you, Kali."

  Kali's head snapped to attention, her shoulders going tense. "What? Me?"

  They all headed down the front stairs, Kali plunging on ahead with her sister fast on her heels, Mirk lagging along behind with Am-Hazek. By the time they reached the front door, Pascal was already pulling it open from the outside. Kali ignored both him and Madame Beaumont coming out of her front parlor, storming down the front steps, the feel of her surprise a welcome change from her usual grudging annoyance.

  Mirk heard Claire's voice from outside before he reached the door. "Comrade Kali! Comrade Kali, you came after all!"

  He stepped out onto his godmother's front steps just in time to see Claire stop a few paces short of wrapping a befuddled Kali into a crushing hug. Instead, Claire composed herself, squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up to her full height, sticking out her hand in a business-like way that looked more trained than natural.

  "Well met, Comrade Kali," Claire said in certain, but heavily accented English.

  With a heavy sigh, Kali gave in and stooped a little to take Claire's hand, giving it two firm shakes. Despite the scowl on Kali's face, Mirk could feel something bubbling underneath it at being greeted in such a backward fashion. Something almost like pride. "Well met, Comrade Claire."

  Behind her, Henri was laughing to himself as he headed up the walk, Inès at his side. She had her two younger cousins in tow, one on either side, both their hands held tight so that they didn't wander off. As far as Mirk could sense over the emotions of the rest, Armel was still back by the carriage that'd brought them to Madame Beaumont's townhouse, pestering the coachman about how he got the horses not to balk at being teleported.

  "You're starting your army young, Kali," Catherine said with a chuckle, as she came up beside her sister and looked down at Claire. "I'm happy you've finally found someone willing to play soldier with you."

  Claire ignored Catherine entirely, beaming up at Kali. "I've been practicing every day, just like you told me to," she said, in quick French that it looked like Kali still understood well enough. "But do we have time for a lesson tonight? You said you were going to teach me how to fight in the dark."

  Inès, on the other hand, was more daunted by the well-dressed stranger beside Kali. She instinctively slipped behind Henri, dragging her cousins along with her. Henri greeted both Kali and Catherine with an afterthought of a bow, as pleased to see Kali again in his own, more absent way. Though if Mirk had to guess, there was something on Henri's mind, something that seeing Kali in the flesh had reminded him of. "Hello, Comrade Kali. It's a pleasure to see you again. I hadn't planned on running into you so soon..."

  "Papa! You promised that we'd go see Kali as soon as we got here!" Claire protested, glaring over her shoulder at her father. All he could do was shrug, as Mirk headed down the front steps to greet him as well.

  "I hadn't planned on seeing you again so soon either, uncle," Mirk said to him. He debated for a moment, then decided to bow to him instead of embracing him like he wanted to. Not out of coolness, but because Mirk suspected Henri had had enough of people clinging to him for one night, even if they were people he cherished. "But I am very happy you've come."

  "Oh! That's right!" Henri didn't even think to bow, a look of sudden realization coming onto his face. "I had meant to send a letter..."

  Mirk waved him off. "I'm not good at remembering either."

  Henri looked as if he was about to say something more, but Madame Beaumont had started her way down the steps by then, wrapped in a heavy winter cloak that Am-Hazek had fetched for her. Instead, he focused back on Kali, the feeling of confusion about him suddenly tinged with discomfort. "I honestly hadn't expected you to be so eager, Comrade Kali...the letter hadn't made it sound so urgent..."

  "This is a coincidence. We were here on other business," Kali said, with an offhand gesture at Catherine, though she didn't bother to make any introductions. "What letter?"

  "Now that I think of it, it didn't look like your penmanship. And it wasn't signed by you. I was told that my nephew's ball was meant to be part of the English debut season. His, but also..."

  Kali's expression darkened. "But also?"

  Catherine still had her wits about her, even if Kali was blind to what was happening. She swooped in to intercept Claire, engaging her in warm but uncertain French, drawing both her and Inès farther back down the front walk along with Mirk's younger cousins, asking about how they'd all found the trip to London and if the carriage still parked outside Madame Beaumont's front gates was their own and what the names of the horses were. Mirk felt like it'd be more polite for him to withdraw too, but his knowledge of Kali kept him rooted to the spot. When Kali was crossed, all the sparse shreds of her manners were thrown to the wind. And he didn't feel like healing Henri's jaw if things went poorly.

  "I was very confused by it, comrade," Henri said, awkwardly clasping his hands behind his back. "It was from your mother. It said that the past five seasons had gone poorly for you, but she was glad that you'd finally found a man as tolerant of your whims as I am. And since she'd be at the ball to see to your sister's affairs..."

  "She what?" Kali bellowed, her body going stiff, fists clenching at her sides. "That...that..."

  "You didn't know?" Henri asked, before Kali could find the right curse. His uncle slumped, his hands falling limp at his sides and a smile returning to his face, despite Kali's unconcealed ire. "Oh, good, I'd been hoping this was all a misunderstanding. Maybe your mother posted it to the wrong Henri. My new English customers always tell me that French names all blend together for them."

  "I'm not getting married to anyone!" Kali sputtered. "Least of all you."

  Henri, thankfully, wasn't put out by this, though Mirk heard Madame Beaumont gasp from somewhere behind him. "Of course not, comrade. You've always been very clear that you have no interest in these things. Neither do I. I'll be wearing the black for the rest of my life, the same as you. Though for different reasons," he added, with a wave at his own traveling clothes, black and simple. "That's why I was so confused."

  Mirk thought he could feel a hint of relief from Kali, though it was hard to sense it beyond her still-simmering frustration. "At least someone around here listens when people talk," Kali grumbled. "I'll have her head for this...I can't believe her nerve..."

  "Perhaps we could sort it out another time, comrade? Claire is very excited to see you again, of course, but it is rather late...oh, but my appointment book is back in the carriage...if you'd be willing to come set a time, I'll be sure to remember..."

  Despite all the chaos, Mirk found himself smiling as Henri wandered back toward the carriage, still muttering to himself. With a roll of her eyes, Kali stomped off after him. But the smile died on Mirk’s lips when Madame Beaumont shuffled up beside him, joining him in watching the shadowy figures of his family and the two sisters all talking over one another beside the carriage, poorly illuminated by the sole light above the townhouse gate.

  "Manners appear to be a lost art, both among the English and the French," she said, drawing her cloak tight around her dwindling frame. "I detest how much of a mess it makes of everything. But I suppose if no one has any manners, there's no one left to miss it."

  "I apologize for leaving you with such a full house, madame," Mirk said, bowing to her slightly as he turned to face her. "I promise I'll have Sharael and Samael moved when we change out the servants. And I'll make sure that their expenses are taken care of if Henri forgets."

  Madame Beaumont smiled up at him. But it was brittle. Tired. "Of course you will, my dear. I mentioned manners to you because you're the only one left who understands them."

  "Are you sure it's not too much, madame? If you'd rather I found somewhere in the City for them again..."

  She shook her head. "I much prefer Henri's children to those angels. I'll never know what your mother saw in angels. Very cold. Human children make more pleasant company. And with Monsieur Am-Hazek running around seeing to your terrible friends, the house is a little too quiet for my liking."

  Am-Hazek was back by the front door, informing Pascal and a second valet on what all needed to be done to account for Henri and the children's arrival. But Mirk thought the djinn was still keeping more than half an eye on what was going on out on the front walk. Mirk sighed, bowing again before holding out his arms. "Will you allow me to be rude too for a moment, madame?"

  Madame Beaumont laughed, then held out her arms in return and stepped into his embrace. "Since everyone's doing it, I suppose. Although the front garden is not the place."

  Mirk knew from sight that she'd gotten thinner. But he hadn't been prepared for how strongly the weakness he felt in her arms would affect him, like she'd had a dagger wrapped up in one of her shaking hands and plunged it into his back. He didn't want to look. But he'd promised Am-Hazek. As he clung to her for a few moments longer than was proper, Mirk lowered his shields and studied her narrow form with his mind's eye rather than his physical senses.

  It was exactly what he'd been dreading. The light inside Madame Beaumont, the spark of her potential, was tangled up inside a creeping darkness that was cutting off the flow of her magic through her body. That darkness was killing her. And it was far too advanced for any healing magic to cure. Even if he cut out all the tumors he could sense within her too-small form, nothing would restore all the parts of her they'd strangled and killed. Nothing short of intervention from Jean-Luc's staff. And even then, Mirk couldn't be certain.

  Reluctantly, Mirk let go of her, bowing one more time as he returned Madame Beaumont's tight-lipped smile. "Thank you for indulging me, madame. I'll see you again soon to discuss more of the preparations."

  She nodded, inclining her head, just a fraction. "I expect you will, my dear. But in the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you cleared your relations out of the street before one of the neighbors sends someone to complain about the racket."