portrait of Miranda had been painted when she was three.
“Your mother is taking her breakfast in the corner parlor,” the maid continued, shutting the door behind Miranda the moment she was through. “This way, please.”
Miranda followed the girl with a growing sense of dread. The mansion’s interior was as opulent as its exterior, all lofty white ceilings and dark wooden floors covered with thick scrollwork carpets that muffled her boots to nothing. By the time they reached the corner parlor, which turned out to be on the second floor, Miranda was feeling decidedly small and shabby. Even so, she kept her head up and her fingers spread to show off her rings. She had only three—Durn’s large emerald, Alliana’s moss agate, and the heavy gold band of the Spirit Court itself—but she thrust them out like her hands were covered. Much as she would have loved to show off Eril’s pendant as well, she kept him hidden below her shirt. Even bound, wind spirits could be tricky, and nervous as she was right now, it was best if Eril stayed close to her core where she could keep a good feel on him.
The maid opened a white-painted door and stepped aside with a curtsy, letting Miranda walk into the small, sunny room painted a girlish shade of pale pink. Her mother was sitting on a white silk chair by the large glass window, sipping her tea and staring down at the street below. The pale pink color of the room set off her cheeks and the light blonde of her hair, creating the perfect picture of a lady taking her ease, which was undoubtedly the exact image she wanted to project. Almasetta Lyonette left nothing to chance.
“Miranda,” she said, turning to smile at her daughter, but the smile dropped the second she actually looked at her. “Powers, child, what did they do to you?”
Miranda sighed deeply. “Hello to you, too, Mother.”
Alma didn’t bother answering. She shot up from her chair and marched over, setting down her teacup on the carved mantel so she could grab Miranda’s chin and turn her face side to side. “Gracious, girl,” she muttered. “Did you take no care of your beauty at all? Your skin’s brown as the floor. What have you been doing, squatting in the sun?”
That was exactly what Miranda had been doing, actually, but it made no difference. No eyes except Alma’s could have picked out more than a shade of difference between mother and daughter, but Alma would never let a little thing like that keep her from finding fault.
“And your hair,” she continued, shoving her fingers past Miranda’s head to grab large, curly handfuls of her shoulder-length hair. “What did you do, chop it off with an ax?”
“It got caught when Master Banage and I were dealing with an Enslaver,” Miranda said, ducking out of her mother’s grasp. “Would you rather I’d lost my head instead?”
Her mother pressed a delicately manicured hand to her forehead and sank onto the divan in the corner. “You will be the death of me,” she sighed dramatically. “Why was I cursed with such a child? None of your sisters gave me these sorts of problems.”
“Well, maybe Father should have called one of them home, then, rather than dragging me,” Miranda snapped. It was petty, but she couldn’t help it. Being around her mother always made her feel like she was thirteen again.
“Mind your tone, dear,” Alma said, but the reprimand was more reflex than anger. “A lady’s voice is gentle. No one likes a shrew.”
“Why am I here?” Miranda demanded before she could give in to her old fallback of stomping off in a huff. “And don’t say you missed me.”
“Of course I missed you, dear,” her mother said. “The house has felt so empty since Tima got married last year. And when I saw Martin’s invitation, I just knew here was my chance to have all my girls together again.”
“Invitation?” Miranda said. “What invitation?”
Alma blinked in surprise. “Martin Hapter’s, darling. We’re going to his country home for a few days. Leaving this afternoon, actually. You mean your father didn’t tell you? Where are you going?”
Miranda was already at the door. “Back to where I belong,” she snapped, grabbing the knob. “I’m not going to a house party, and I’m not playing docile daughter for you or Father.”
The knob rattled under Miranda’s hand, and she realized with a flash of rage that the maid had locked it. She turned around slowly to see her mother was standing now, her pretty face, still girlish after almost fifty years and three children, was set in a scowl that still made Miranda cringe.
“Miranda Regina Felecia Lyonette,” she said sharply. “I understand that Banage has allowed you to run quite wild, but this isn’t your Court. This is my house, you are my daughter, and you will do as you are told. It is your duty to this family to at least pretend at a semblance of decorum. Now, you will go upstairs and change into something presentable, and then you will drive out to Mr. Hapter’s with us, and you will behave like a lady. Do I make myself clear?”
When she’d been a little girl, that speech would have sent her scurrying. But Miranda wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she wasn’t going to be pushed around. “I’m not going to a house party,” she said firmly.
“Is that so?” Alma said, crossing her arms. “And here I heard Spiritualists were supposed to be dutiful. I see that’s a lie, considering how quick you are to throw aside the duty you owe your family. The family who raised you, who supported your wish to go to the Spirit Court when no other family of breeding would dream of sending a daughter to such a place. “
“You sent me there to get rid of me!” Miranda shouted.
“How can you say that?” Alma replied, clutching her hands against her chest. “I’m your mother! I nearly died giving birth to you. You are my darling, my own beautiful jewel. Dress it up however you like, but the fact remains that you owe me your life, and your father as well. We have asked nothing of you, and spoiled creature that you are, you take that as your right. But it is a child’s duty to mind her parents, and you will abide by me on this.”
It was the duty comment that undid her, and Miranda clenched her fists. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “But as soon as this party is over, I’m going back to Court.”
“After this party, you won’t be my problem,” Alma said, ringing the little bell on the table beside her. “Now go upstairs and put on something that doesn’t look like you stole it off a farmhand. We leave after lunch.”
Miranda gaped at her mother, but before she could get a word in, the door clicked open and the maid entered.
“Take Lady Miranda to her room,” Alma said. “And watch to make sure she puts on the dress I bought her. Also, see if anything can be done to her hair.”
The maid curtsied and looked at Miranda. With a deep breath, Miranda got a firm handle on her anger and motioned for the maid to lead the way.
Six hours later, Miranda was dressed in the most uncomfortable, frilly contraption she’d ever worn in her life; her hair was pinned back so tightly her face felt stretched; and her feet had been squeezed into tiny shoes half an inch too small to fit her toes. But all of that would have been bearable had she not been in a carriage with her mother, father, and sixteen-year-old sister.
“Really, Miranda,” Alyssa said, twirling her own strawberry blond curls. “Your dress is yellow and still you’re wearing that ugly green rock on your thumb?”
“That is Durn,” Miranda said, staring pointedly out the window at the rolling farmland that surrounded Zarin. “And he’s a stone spirit large enough to crush this carriage without noticing, so mind your tongue.”
“Are all Spiritualist rings so mannish?” Alyssa continued, leaning across the carriage. “I heard you showed up at the door wearing trousers. What kind of nonsense is going on at your Court anyway? Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that you’re a Lyonette, they wouldn’t even let you in to a party like this.”
“Were you always this much of a snob?” Miranda snapped.
“Girls,” Alma said with a sweet, warning voice that hid murder. “That’s enough.”
Alyssa flopped back with a dramatic huff, but she kept her mouth shut. Miranda was glad. All this family time was wearing her thinner than any Enslaver. The only reason she was still in this carriage at all was because her mother had said she could leave after this party. It was her shining hope, and she clung to that promised escape with everything she had until the carriage finally turned through a pair of stone pillars onto a long drive that ended at the largest house Miranda had ever seen.
It was like someone had decided to build a city in the middle of nowhere. The main house was in the Zarin style, an enormous, soaring structure of white stone and tile roofs with white-painted timber supports, but unlike Zarin, which was ancient, this building was entirely new. Every inch of it shone like a snowflake against the green,
