“I will wait for you upstairs in the library. I have a book I need to consult.” Santino closed the door behind him.
I nodded and turned back to my reflection. “Go ahead,” I said to the mastermage, “but please let me choose how I am going to look.”
“Tonight you can be whomever you want to be,” said the mastermage kindly. I explained to him what I wanted.
“But what about the servants? They saw what I looked like.” I remembered the maids who had helped me get ready.
“The servants are all loyal to Santino. They will not bat an eyelid when another girl turns up in your room instead of you. They will think Santino simply got bored and replaced you.”
“Does he do that a lot?” I eyed the mastermage in the mirror.
The mastermage smiled. “Do what?”
“Get bored with a girl and replace her so soon.”
“Frequently.” The mastermage grinned and rolled up his sleeves to perform the transformation. “Santino is not the type to be tied down to one girl for more than a few days. Every girl in Brandor has tried, but he will not marry. Says he hasn’t found the right one.”
“Poor fellow.” I felt sorry for the pirate prince. “He must be very lonely.”
The mastermage chuckled. “I don’t think he sees it that way.”
I stood in front of the mirror as the mastermage worked his magic on me. It was like watching myself in a Disney movie, and the mastermage was the fairy godmother. Without the swirling stars and sparkling wand, of course.
He waved a hand in the air inches from my face, and my eyes changed color from green to a deep azure. My lips became fuller, changing to a luscious shade of red, and my skin darkened to a golden bronze. He smiled and waved his hand around my head, and my dark locks lightened to a shining sea of spun gold that fell about my shoulders and sparkled in the candlelight. I was too spellbound to do anything else but stand there and watch myself being transformed. He made it look so simple, and I knew how difficult it was for a mage to transform a person’s features and have it hold for a length of time.
“Done,” said the mastermage, going back to the chair behind his desk. “Go! Have a good time at the banquet; no one will recognize you now. I have some work to complete—I will see you there later.”
Santino was waiting for me. His dark amber eyes smoldered as I walked toward him, and he grinned. “I still prefer the real you, but I guess this will do for the night.”
I swatted him on his arm. “Don’t tease, I hate it when I have to change my appearance.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Santino asked as we walked to the banquet hall.
I nodded. I didn’t want to say too much; I had to be careful what I revealed and to whom. I made a mental note to ask the mastermage if I could trust Santino with this information. He had a huge network of spies and could be an asset when it came to finding out what Lucian and Morgana were up to.
The banquet hall was a grand domed room, elaborately decorated with carved walls and an enameled ceiling. Rows of low rectangular tables lay around the room, forming a square with the center of the hall empty for entertainers to display their arts.
I looked around for Brandon and found him reclining on a luxurious pile of cushions, a gold goblet in his hand, eyeing the scantily clad dancers wearing gauzy veils as they whirled and gyrated their hips to the music.
Santino stopped to say hello to a few of the guests, and I went to speak to Brandon.
I sat down on the edge of a cushion next to him. “Where have you been?”
He sat up straight. “Excuse me, my lady, do I know you?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I had to change my appearance,” I whispered.
He looked at me more closely. “Aurora?”
“Shhh, not so loud. The emir wanted me to be in disguise, and he wants me to leave tomorrow.”
Brandon’s eyes darted to the door. “So soon?”
I nodded. “Yes, he thinks it’s too dangerous having me in Sanria. Do you think Morgana or Lucian can find me here? That is, if Lucian is still alive.”
Brandon took a deep gulp, draining the contents of his goblet. “Oh, he’s alive.”
“How do you know?”
“Just a guess.” Brandon shrugged, signaling the attendant with the wine jug to refill his cup. “He’s the Archmage of Avalonia, I don’t think a little water is going to stop him.”
Could Lucian still be alive? Was he that powerful?
“There you are, Delacourt,” said Santino, sitting down beside me. “I was afraid you might have been robbed by thieves in a back alley somewhere. I was about to send guards looking for you. The streets of Sanria are not safe after dark.”
Brandon scowled at Santino. “I can take care of myself.”
Santino laughed and brushed off Brandon’s surliness.
I turned to the food that had been laid out. Meats and poultry stuffed with or dressed in figs, almonds, and dates were placed in the center of the long tables, along with seafood and rice cooked in saffron; spiced, candied fruit concoctions with cinnamon; and honey-infused rice pudding. There were more exotic-looking dishes I couldn’t name but couldn’t resist trying. We would have to leave tomorrow, and the journey would be a long and tedious one. I was not looking forward to it.
Brandon wasn’t eating; he kept refilling his cup with wine and gulping it down like water. Why was he in such a bad mood?
At least Santino was so funny and easy to talk to that the hours passed quickly. Brandon left at some point during the night, presumably to sleep off
