Magic's Memories

Chapter Thirteen

Feyla loved parties but that didn't make them any less of a beast. She hung back from the door and watched women of various ranks of wealth and nobility filter in. Gems sparkled off hair clasps and diadems, reflecting light back onto embroidered silk dresses and the thick shimmering bracelets that were popular this season. Feyla smoothed her own white overdress. It was clasped closed just below her chest and opened at the bottom to let her dusty pink underdress show. She straightened the flower-shaped clasp using the mirror hanging from the wall. Sedgewick preferred her hair down but that was too informal for the occasion. Feyla had compromised by pinning half her hair up and letting the rest fall over her shoulder. A carefully arranged circle of flowers stood in for a circle of diamonds.

She didn't look like a lady, but at least the dress flattered her figure. Feyla plucked at an invisible piece of lint as she lingered in the hall just before the ballroom. Sedgewick should have been here twenty minutes ago.

What was keeping him? Feyla bit her lip and twisted the chain of her new necklace to the time of her twisting stomach. Could he still be upset with her? Five more minutes ticked by, each second dragging across her skin. Sedgewick said he'd be here. He'd even given her that awkward smile of resignation. Feyla stepped further away from the doors and shoved her hand into the pouch carefully hidden below her overdress. Warmed glass slid across her fingertips as she pulled out the scrying orb Sedgewick had made her.

The orb lit up pink as Feyla pushed a bit of magic into it. "Sedgewick? Sedgewick! Where are you? I've been waiting at the door for twenty minutes."

Feyla waited for the orb to light up orange, meaning that he'd picked it up. A lavender glow coated it instead. "Sandrina speaking. Who is this?" said the echoing voice.

Oh, Creator give her patience. Sandrina was a mage; she knew scrying orbs could only contact the orb they were linked to. She also knew that Feyla and Sedgewick had a set because they used them all the time. "Feyla," she said through clenched teeth.

"Why are you bothering him, Everbloom?" Sandrina cut in before Feyla finished saying her name. The woman knew who she was talking to. "I know this might be hard for someone with your 'occupation' to understand, but Master Alverdyne has more important thing to concern himself with than escorting a woman too scared to go to a party by herself."

"I'm not scared." The few summers she'd spent with her father had consisted of him flinging his young daughter at every ball, gala, and garden party where a wealthy merchant's son might be. She'd learned how to fend for herself at events, but that wasn't how she wanted to spend her evening. Going in together meant something. Sedgewick was with her. She was with Sedgewick. They went together. Just an ordinary, normal couple that wasn't worth the words to gossip over.

She'd told him that she wanted to go in together! "Where's Sedgewick?" Feyla asked. Sandrina wasn't worth snipping at.

A second, muffled voice drifted through the orb. "...And I want this done immediately, do you understand? Follow every possible lead until—"

Sedgewick. Feyla knew that tone of voice. He slipped into it whenever he'd sunk deep into his work. His work. She'd been waiting for over twenty minutes and he. Was. Working.

"Sandrina! I need you to— Is that my scrying orb?" Feyla growled under her breath. The orb in her hand fell silent for a moment. "Gates."

Feyla made out Sandrina's muffled cry of outrage and a slammed door before the orb went dark. Orange light burst back a second later. "Feyla? Gates, I'm late, aren't I?"

"Yes," Feyla spat out.

"I'm so sorry, Dearest. A situation came up at the council that I had to handle. Just give me a few minutes to go change—"