Piles of sapphire silk rustled around her body as Hannah fastened the gown in place. It was beautiful, but it had a great deal of extra fabric; Elisabeth felt as though she were swimming in her own miniature sea. Then Hannah began to lace the corset up the back, and Elisabeth’s breath hitched.

“I cannot breathe,” she said, scrabbling at her chest.

Hannah firmly took her hands and set them aside. “It’s the fashion, miss.”

Elisabeth was deeply alarmed by the idea that not breathing was fashionable. “What if I have to run,” she said, “or fight something?”

“In the master’s house?” Hannah sounded shocked. “I know you’ve had some dreadful experiences lately, dear, but it’s best if you keep such thoughts to yourself. That kind of talk is quite irregular for a young lady. Why, just look at you.”

She wheeled Elisabeth around to face the mirror. Elisabeth stared at the girl reflected there, barely recognizing herself. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in smooth, glossy chestnut waves, and she was cleaner than she had ever been before in her life. Her blue eyes contrasted vividly against her pink, scrubbed cheeks. While she had never possessed much in the way of curves, the sapphire gown made her figure look proud and statuesque. Just like the Director, she thought, with a tightness in her throat. Even the gown’s color reminded her of a warden’s uniform. She didn’t understand why it was irregular to talk about fighting—not when she looked the way she did.

“How lovely,” Hannah sighed. “The blue brings out your eyes, doesn’t it?”

Elisabeth smoothed her hands wonderingly over the dress’s silky fabric.

“I daresay it’s time to bring you down for dinner. Don’t worry, I’ll take you there. It’s awfully easy to get lost in this house—oh, dear, don’t trip! Just lift the gown up a bit if you have to. . . .”

Twilight now painted the grounds in shades of indigo and violet, but inside the manor remained as bright as day. Perfume wafted through the halls, mingling with the fragrance of lilies arranged in vases on every table. When Hannah ushered Elisabeth into the dining room, its dazzle made spots bloom across her vision. Light shone from everything: the silver utensils, the jewels shivering like giant raindrops on the ladies’ ears, the rims of champagne glasses as guests turned to see who had just entered.

Ashcroft was deep in conversation on the other side of the room, but a beautiful, frail-looking woman rushed over to Elisabeth and introduced herself as Ashcroft’s wife, Victoria. Her auburn curls were piled atop her head in an intricate sweep, and she had a habit of self-consciously touching the string of pearls around her neck, as if to reassure herself that it was still there. With her light, nervous movements and glistening silver gown, she reminded Elisabeth of the dove that had nested in the stonework outside her and Katrien’s room one spring, warbling anxiously whenever one of them stuck their head outside.

“I’m afraid Oberon can’t get away from Lord and Lady Ingram,” she said, smiling warmly. “Why don’t I take you around and introduce you to some people before we take a seat? Everyone’s so excited to have a look at you. They’ve read all about you in the papers.”

Elisabeth spent the next several minutes being paraded around the room, learning the names of various important-looking people and attempting to curtsy at them, with mixed results. Eventually she gave up and explained that curtsying had not been included in her lectures at the Great Library, a statement that was, for some reason, met with peals of laughter. She smiled along, realizing they thought she’d made a joke.

Soon Ashcroft rang a fork against his glass. Silence fell as he stepped to the head of the table, and a servant pressed a champagne flute into Elisabeth’s hand. She listened raptly as the Chancellor proceeded to give a speech on progress, comparing the new advances in coal, steam power, and natural gas to sorcery. “Like magic,” he said, “technology frightens those to whom its inner workings remain a mystery, but for the sake of advancement, humanity must embrace change with open arms. I have always believed that sorcerers only hinder ourselves by living apart from commoners and conducting our affairs in secrecy. I consider it my goal as Chancellor to bring sorcery out of darkness, and into the light.”

Gasps rang out as a golden radiance filled the room, far brighter than the candles. The sprays of lilies arranged across the tables had begun to glow, each delicate stamen blazing incandescently, bathing the guests’ faces in a twinkling, ethereal light.

Ashcroft spoke over the applause. “To progress,” he said, raising his glass.

Elisabeth copied the other guests and took a tentative sip of the champagne. It tasted sourer than she expected, but its bubbles fizzed down her throat and fanned embers in her stomach. She smiled and clapped, swept along on a bright tide of happiness that lasted through the dinner. Servants came in with trays of a fragrant green soup and white fish floating in an herb sauce, followed by platters of glazed pheasant and venison on beds of asparagus. She had never eaten anything so sublime. She polished off her seconds and was working her way through thirds—“I suppose you are very tall, dear,” said Lady Ingram charitably—when someone mentioned Nathaniel’s name near the head of the table. Elisabeth stopped chewing to listen.

“He must consider marriage promptly, of course, for the sake of Austermeer,” one of the politicians was booming emphatically, slurred with drink. “Yes, yes, he is only eighteen—but Her Majesty the Queen is growing apprehensive. What if we were to have another war, and no Thorn to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies?” He banged his fist on the table, making the silverware rattle.

“Lord Kicklighter, we are hardly in danger of a war,” someone else put in.

Lord Kicklighter’s mustache quivered indignantly. “A nation is always in danger of a war! If not now, then in fifty years! And if Magister Thorn fails to produce an heir, what then? We haven’t the population to defend ourselves against Founderland.”

Elisabeth frowned and turned to Lady Ingram. “That man is speaking of Nathaniel as though he’s livestock.”

Lady Ingram sniffed. “Men like Magister Thorn have a responsibility to marry, especially now that he has no surviving relatives,” she replied. “Baltasar Thorn’s grimoire of necromancy will only open for those of his line, which means that Nathaniel is presently the only sorcerer who can read it. His complete disinterest in courtship has put everyone in government on edge.”

“Unsavory, in my opinion,” another man was muttering. “To resort to undead hordes in place of good Austermeerish men—”

“—yet it is a last resort, you understand, and it has kept the peace since the War of Bones—”

“But what about what happened to poor Alistair? Surely his fate is a sign that necromancy is a relic of the middle ages, not a weapon for the modern era.” A flurry of scandalized murmuring followed this pronouncement.

“Such a tragedy, the loss of the younger brother,” a woman sighed from the other end of the table. “We do not even know if Magister Thorn possesses an interest in ladies. He has never danced with a girl at the Royal Ball. If only Maximilian were still alive, there would be less of a fuss about carrying on the family name.”