Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1)(32)
As added torture, we were expected to participate in four socials each year. I wondered if I should fake some sort of epiphany involving the Mother Book to keep myself to my room. A Translator could have several epiphanies in a year, yes?
Callista appeared at my elbow, sniffing in a bored fashion. “Is that from Madame DuPont’s?” she asked.
Behind Callista’s blond head, I saw Ivy’s own face perk up with interest. Something about the heretofore unknown slyness in those dark brown eyes had me playing up my connection with the luxurious dressmaker, in a completely bored tone. “Yes, I suppose it’s my dresses for the socials. Auntie Aneira arranged for me to have my wardrobe made there. Madame DuPont’s staff is wonderfully talented, and so very accommodating.”
I may have taken more pleasure in saying that than was proper. I saw Ivy’s mouth twitch at the sweet poison in my tone and it took all my powers of concentration to keep my own lips still.
Callista tugged at the neckline of her own tailored green muslin day dress, clearing her throat. “Of course, I recognize the style. All of my school gowns were made there as well.”
Behind her, Ivy shook her head and mouthed the word, “No.”
I managed to smile without irony and said, “Well, of course they were, darling. Anyone can see that.”
Ivy smirked at me, and flounced away, her dark curls bouncing. Miss Morton’s advice about letting girls like Callista take me “under their wings” made sense, but I felt better offering this small victory to Ivy.
Slowly, but surely, I learned the routines of the school. The bells rang at dawn, but I was already up and dressed, ready to start my day with the help of Hannah, the housemaid assigned to help me with my toilette. My gowns were my armor, helping me contain the enormous secret I carried around with me.
Every moment of every day, I was on guard, trying to avoid saying something that revealed my formative years in the Warren. I was tensed against my instinct to rise after meals and clear the table, against assuming the submissive Snipe posture and walking behind the other students as we walked to class.
Spending time with Callista, and her two lapdogs, Millicent DeCater and Rosemarie Drummond, was a daily torture. Callista had indeed made me her pet project, eager to keep the Translator at her side for reflected glory. She picked me up at my door every morning like she might pick up the little teacup poodle, Phoebe, she carried under her arm as a familiar. And then, at night, she dropped me off, having learned nothing about me or my opinions. Like Phoebe, a little tyrant made of canine fluff and hatred, I was an accessory.
Cavill House Sigil
I had a better chance of developing a friendship with that silly blue-green bird that insisted on pecking at my window every night.
No matter her target, magic allowed Callista to take social manipulation to a level I’d never experienced at the Warren school, where the worst that could happen was a black eye or finding a frog in your lunch pail. Callista would cast a spell that made it sound like two people were whispering just behind a girl’s back, no matter where she went, even in the bathing chamber. And while the victim could never quite make out what was being said, she could hear her name in the muddled conversation. Her victims woke up in the middle of the night, sure that they could feel snakes slithering in their sheets. And there was the none-too-insignificant matter of her somehow weakening the waistline seams of Ivy’s day dress, so that it disintegrated while she was walking up the stairs to the classroom wing, exposing her bloomers for all the world to see. While Callista didn’t take credit for that one directly, she did take to mooing every time she passed Ivy, making the curvier girl flush red and angry.
The fact that she pulled these nasty little tricks while all of her victims carried sharp ceremonial knives on their person was proof of her vice-like grip on the school’s social order.
And all the while, I stood by and did nothing. I sat with Callista at meals, picking at my food and saying little. I sat with her in classes and joined her in the library for study hour. I smiled when it was necessary, laughed when her silly jokes were harmless and stayed quiet and ashamed when they weren’t.
I wondered if wearing my new dresses right away was a good idea. Because if Callista was intimidated by the box from Madame Dupont’s, perhaps my wearing what she knew to be DuPont gowns every day would provoke her into a vengeful frenzy. Ultimately, I decided I should discuss it with Mrs. Winter while I was home for a weekend. This sort of Machiavellian social maneuvering was her specialty.
I managed to get through my first week of classes without making a spectacle of myself. The other girls eventually forgave the slight of my claiming the Mother Book on first day, particularly after I failed to produce any world-changing magical revelations over the next few days. I became part of Callista’s clique, faceless and feared.
The teachers were not impressed with me, despite my connection to the Mother Book, because even with Mrs. Winter’s best efforts to give me a crash course in beginner’s magic, I was not a very promising student. My crystals charged for a moment, only to crack and crumble to powder on my desk. The spells I wrote burned through the page and left embarrassing scorch marks on my desk. I had raw power, marked by fluctuations as a lifetime of suppressors worked their way out of my blood. But I had very little control.
As Miss Dancy, my remedial potions instructor put it, I had “all of the finesse of a painter trying to produce a masterpiece with a pitchfork.”