101

Chapter 1

My mathmagics book closes, almost by itself. It’s nearly midnight; my brain feels like mashed potatoes. I’m not going to get ready for bed just yet, though, because he is at the dinner party.

Not that I would be invited. Not this time, anyway.

But I can see the lights.

The women will be wearing colored dresses according to their rank. He is from a Red House, so there will be reds, oranges, yellows, and maybe a few greens at the party. He will be wearing a tuxedo, of course, the black jacket playing up the black curls of his hair, the red tie lying against his dusky throat.

Now I really can’t study. Everyone in the house should be asleep by now. It’s time for a little practical magic.

Quickly, I look out my bedroom door. It’s quiet and dark. Everyone should have gone to bed over an hour ago, but I never can tell for sure about my sister. Of course, what I plan to do shouldn’t make any noise, but you can’t always predict what magic will do--especially when you’re experimenting with illegal magic. If you get the power source too strong and the flow too fast, you could make quite a bit of noise, and potentially set the house on fire--which is why it’s illegal.
At least, it’s illegal for two or three more weeks until I have (in theory) passed the Exam and applied for my Class C license. But I’m not waiting; I pull out my box of crystals.  It’s a beautiful set, but it’s been giving me trouble. Of course they’re good crystals, and so they hold quite a bit of magic, but I can’t figure out how to direct the energy. If you’re going to set up a magical reaction when someone picks it up, there’s a big difference between scorching his hand and...well, for lack of a better phrase, a love potion.

It’s not a potion at all, of course, and my teachers at school would say that it can’t be done. But I can’t imagine my teachers trying to use magic to make a guy fall in love with them. So maybe they just haven’t tried.

You would think that you could set up an expected behavior, and then align the energy to it so that when he touches it, it triggers the flow of energy through the behavior filter. The problem is that the filter is unstable. Whenever I put it into a crystal, it decays very quickly. So who knows what it would do to Boron.

I bet he’s drinking something out of a beautiful glass and laughing at a girl’s joke. What if I were there, in a daring yellow dress with my hair held up by pearl hair pins instead of pencils? I’d say something witty, and then he’d laugh, and then his hand would brush against mine as he reaches for his glass...

Filters. I need to focus on filters.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a new star appear low to the horizon. They’ve switched rooms.

Dinner is over, and they have gone to sit together, to chat or read or to play cards. I have heard that there are even magical pictures they cast on the wall, pictures that move, though it might be just a rumor.

Every time I have been to the Domini House, I see the back kitchen, the hallways, and the library. So I can say that I have been there many times, but I have never been a guest, not really. I tutor the Domini Son to speak Gallium.

I have never been to Gallium's Lap either, but I speak the language because my mother taught it to me, taught it to all of us. She says that it is part of our heritage. I have never seen much of anything except my father’s farm. The brown farm filled with brown animals and weathered gray wood. Brown and gray are not really colors at all.

But my mother, before she married my father, used to go to balls and dress as a Yellow. She was Canary Yellow, one of the higher ones, and she would have never married a man without a color except that her father died, and her family needed the money. I exist because of my father’s money. I love my father, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t one day wear Yellow too, or even Red. I could wear red if I marry the right person.

I gently set my mathmagics book back on the shelf; it's an expensive book, and I need it. For one more week I need it. But then of course I will hand my copy to Wren, who will eventually pass it to Feldspar, and someday Mallee will probably get the same book, because you can't pass the Exam without it.

Maybe my plans with the Domini Son, with Boron, will come to pass, and maybe it won’t matter about the Exam. But I have never believed in leaving my fate to chance or even to the Benevolent Force, though my mother would not like to hear me come so close to blasphemy.

And besides, even if I were to one day become Lady Kestrel, I would be doubly glad to have passed my Exam. It will be much easier for me to hold my head high as I mingle with Colors and with philosophers at evening parties if I am a daughter of a Yellow House who took first standing in the Exam--instead of a farmer’s girl who showed up in a red dress and who is just a little bit embarrassing to her husband.

[102] 
I walk to the window, look out for a long minute, and then I walk dutifully back to my desk. I need to work on my experiment. Not only will it help me prepare for the exam, but I don't have time left to let Boron ask me on his own. If I'm going to be the Lady Domini one day, he might need a little nudge.

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[103] 
Tonight, I feel like I can afford to quit early. I have a lot of this book memorized. I have a lot books mostly memorized. I need to get out of here, just for a minute, just to see the light in his room go on when the party is over.




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