The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

watched her writhe and pant beneath him.

Lying among tangled sheets in the morning light, she felt drained, frail, happy, with a pleasant trembly feeling in her legs and arms. Only when she rolled over and saw that Raclin was not lying next to her did she feel a stab of disappointment.

“Darling, he had to go on patrol!” Ilissa said, after Nora, venturing out to look for Raclin, found her new mother-in-law instead. “I know, how awful of him to leave you alone on your honeymoon. But he does this every day, and of course, now that we’re on a special alert, it’s even more important.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Nora said, deflated. “Is it really that dangerous? I only saw a few soldiers yesterday.”

“We don’t want to take any chances, my dear!” Ilissa said. “Raclin will be back by evening, and in the meantime, we’ll have a wonderful day. What do you think, a ramble in the park? A musicale in the garden?”

That was the pattern every day, Nora found. Raclin was always gone when she awoke, even though she tried waking earlier and earlier to catch him before he left. Then there was the long day to get through, hours and hours, before she could see him again. Ilissa always thoughtfully organized some entertainment, but the revelries ran together after a while, an endless round of picnics and hunts and rides. Moscelle was generally brimming over with the latest gossip—who had fallen in or out of love, who had quarreled, who had cheated on whom—yet even those salacious bulletins seemed less diverting than they once had.

There was a brief frisson of excitement when Vulpin reappeared, his height restored, the tusks and snout gone. Nora was hoping to find out more about what had happened to him, but he seemed embarrassed to talk about the experience. “It wore off soon enough,” he said.

“Nora dear, you look a little blue,” Ilissa said one afternoon. They were picnicking at the edge of the forest, she and Nora and a few others, in a grove of saplings that had somehow been teased into a suite of spindly, delicate chairs and tables.

Nora was startled by the comment. Perched on one of the tree-chairs—more comfortable than it looked, fortunately—she had been nibbling a small, pink-frosted cake and contemplating the gold ring on her left hand. “I’m just wondering what Raclin is doing,” she said.

“Darling, that’s the sweetest thing I ever heard!” Ilissa said, although she did not offer any thoughts about Raclin’s whereabouts. “But you know you’ll see him tonight.”

“I wish he were here now.”

“Yes, it would have been marvelous to have him come along today,” Ilissa said regretfully. “He’s so busy, poor sweet.”

Her reply set off a faint echo in Nora’s mind, a flicker of deja vu. It was the Black Wizard’s voice she remembered, harsh, urgent. The memory flitted just out of reach.

She said to Ilissa: “Perhaps Raclin would come on a picnic if his wife and his mother asked him.” Ilissa only smiled. Nora pursued: “Tonight, will you ask him with me?”

The silver thread of laughter that always seemed to run through Ilissa’s voice turned suddenly steely: “No, it’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Nora asked.

“Darling, you don’t want to pester him, do you? You don’t want to be a nagging wife!”

“No,” said Nora, the very idea striking fear into her heart.

“Then don’t be,” said Ilissa, smiling. She rose, gathering her skirts in her hand, and walked over to speak to Amatol, who straightened noticeably when she saw Ilissa coming.

After a moment, Nora stood up, too, her face warm. She wasn’t sure exactly what had just transpired, but she felt as though she had been slapped. What was the harm in asking Raclin—just asking him—to come out with them one day? She paced slowly under the trees, trying to sort it out. Ilissa had not even deigned to answer the simple question: Why was it impossible to ask Raclin to join them in the daytime?

They can’t lie to you. That’s what that man said, the one who was supposed to be a wizard. The thought fluttered through her mind like a falling leaf.

I never said Ilissa lied, Nora thought impatiently. She just didn’t answer my question.

Exactly.

Nora looked up and saw that she had moved a little farther into the forest than she’d intended. She had a sudden dread of doing anything that might provoke Ilissa’s annoyance again. As she turned back toward the picnic grove, a flash of yellow caught her eye.

“Oh!” she said aloud.

There was the iron fence, the slanting gravestones, the abandoned cemetery plot that she had come across in the forest on that day—how long ago now?—when she had first come to Ilissa’s. With some curiosity, she walked closer. It looked different. The ground around the tombstones was muddy and uneven, raw orange clay scarred with boot prints and the tracks of some large animal, probably a dog. The startling yellow she had seen was a ribbon of shiny plastic with black letters: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.

A crime scene? Nora came up to the fence and craned her neck for a better view. As she brushed against the iron railings, a stab of pain went through her abdomen. Not that she felt any real hurt, exactly, but she felt the proximity of pain, like an electric shock, inside her body. She staggered backward a couple of steps, then sat down heavily.

“Get her away from there!” someone cried out, behind her. It was Ilissa.

The pain was gone, but it had left a sense of inner agitation in Nora’s belly. Food poisoning, she thought. When I can throw up, I’ll feel better.

Someone was helping her up—Vulpin, coming to her rescue again. Where was Raclin? “I’ll be fine in a minute,” Nora said. She hoped that she would not vomit in front of everyone, but then it was too late.

Ilissa, white-faced and furious, swiped at Nora’s mouth and chin with a tiny lace handkerchief. “Poor darling,” she said. “We’ll have to take very good care of you from now on.”

That was Nora’s first indication that she was pregnant.

Chapter 7

Nora stared blankly at the night sky, where her own face and Raclin’s exchanged immense and brilliant smiles, framed by a tangle of golden vines and flowers. There was a ragged cheer from the watchers outside the palace. Slowly the images faded to dim lines of smoke. Another rocket boomed and sizzled, and the sky lit up with a fountain of pink fire.

“Is he still talking to her?” Nora asked.

“No, darling, he’s moved on,” Moscelle said. She leaned on the balcony railing for a better look at the crowd on the lawn. “He just stopped to say hello to her, that’s all.”

“What’s he doing now?” Nora tried to keep her eyes anywhere but on her husband, afraid she had not imagined the way Raclin looked at the woman with the auburn curls.

“I can’t see. Oh, wait, there he is again. He’s standing next to Gaibon. He just said something to Gaibon, and Gaibon is laughing. Idiot.”

“Raclin’s probably complaining about his fat wife.” Nora tried to make a joke of it, and almost succeeded.

“Darling, you look perfectly sweet, absolutely adorable.”

Nora sighed and put her hand on her stomach. The baby was not due for a long time yet, as far as she knew, but her waist had already thickened out of recognition. She was wearing something loose and shapeless in purple velvet but she still had the uncomfortable sensation that she was about to burst out of her clothes.

Meanwhile, the other women at the party were in long, clinging gowns with trailing sleeves, yoked tight at the bust and waist. Nora turned away from the fireworks to glance into the ballroom behind her, where dancers galloped across the floor in glittering lines. Long as a mast, lively as a colt. The phrase was a fragment from her previous life, Nora knew, but she couldn’t say exactly how she knew it or where it came from. She was used to the blanks in her memory now; they did not seem to matter much, not compared with a baby on the way and a husband who paid her less and less attention every day.