SIX

In the Twilight Quarter, the magician’s beautiful daughter threaded her needle with a filament the color of blood. She knotted it, picked up a length of silk so light it fluttered at a breath, and began to turn a hem in a dangling edge. Illumined by fire and enchantment when Tyramin amused the crowds with his tricks, her bones were long and delicate, her body without a graceless movement. Her hair, a cloud of rippling black, glittered with the star fire of jewels and its own sheen; her eyes hinted of visions, wonders trapped within the warm amber. Such beauty transformed easily into doves, colored fires, into air itself and never changed, not even in the curve of her smile, when she became herself again.

In less deceptive light, such as the oil lamps she had lit for sewing, she became transformed again. Short and slight, with reddened knuckles and calloused feet, her hair ruthlessly tied back and braided, shadows and faint lines under her eyes from nights turned into days, she could, and often did, go about her business unrecognized. Only the great, golden eyes, the lovely, oval face, hinted to the bleary-eyed patrons of her father’s Illusions and Enchantments where they might have seen her before. But no, their wondering eyes would tell her, we are deceived: you are not she. And they would pass on.

She sat in a room in the back of an old warehouse near the river. She could hear sounds of hammering, heavy things being shoved along the worn, splintery floors, brooms plied vigorously against cobwebs and dust. Voices boomed in formless echoes in the cavern, sweepers sneezed, musicians tuned their strings. All around her on nails hung costumes of rich and airy fabric, colors rarely seen in the working day. Glass jewels, bright feathers, beads of onyx and mother-of-pearl gleamed on the sleeves, skirts, hems. Some costumes were very old; others she had made for herself and for Tyramin’s dancers and the assistants who brought him scarves, swords, shoes, boxes, and great chests in which he found or made his magic. Tyramin’s head lay beside her, staring at other masks across the room. He wore his massive, powerful, paper globe of a mask to make himself look larger than life: the broad face with its heavy brows and beard, the long dark hair that crackled fire during his magic, its painted cheeks and unchanging expression became the face of the sorcerer. Tyramin’s voice boomed and weltered from inside it. Padding on his shoulders and in his great boots supported the illusion of the giant from an enchanted realm, revealing its secrets as he played with magic.

The door opened; a scent and a dancer wafted into the room. Mistral put her silk aside, shifted to a more comfortable lump on the heap of ancient quilts and rugs that protected the magician’s gear when he traveled. The dancer, one of half a dozen who collected crowds for Tyramin to lure away with his tricks, knelt beside Mistral and handed her hot, spiced meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry from a stall.

“Thank you, Elide,” Mistral said in her deep, cool voice.

“It’s very hot.”

“I’m very hungry.” She blew, nibbled on a corner. The dancer, who worked her own magic in spinning skirts and a mask as mysterious as the moon, smiled, revealing tiny lines forming at the corners of her eyes.

“The streets are full tonight,” she said. “So is the moon. Everyone is restless. Is that my skirt?”

Mistral nodded. “One of them. You tore the hem. I’m almost finished.”

Elide pulled a few others off their hooks, began layering them on herself as Mistral ate. She said, her smile fading, “Sumic said there is a quarter warden looking for Tyramin. Be careful.”

“A quarter warden.” Mistral’s eyes glinted toward her, amused. “We’ve only been here for a few days. Maybe he wants to see the magic.”

“I’m sure he does. He wasn’t dressed like a warden of any kind. But Sumic saw his eyes, watching for trouble. Someone told her he used to be a street warden here, and now he is quarter warden. His father is High Warden of Kelior. And you know how fiercely the king guards his magic.”

“Like an old beggar woman guards her rags,” Mistral said with her mouth full. She swallowed. “Let the quarter wardens come; we’ve got nothing to hide. Is that a rip in your shoe?” she asked, as Elide pulled a red satin slipper onto one root. What did you do to yourself last night?”

“I danced.”

“Give it to me.”

Elide tossed it near the froth of red silk. Mistral put the pastry aside, wiped her fingers, picked up the skirt again. They both looked up as the door opened abruptly. A wiry young assistant stuck his curly red head in.

“Ney,” Mistral said emphatically. “Knock.”

“Sorry. There is a brace of peacocks out here. They want to see Tyramin.”

“Tell them to come back later.”

“They want to see him now. They will pay to see him now.”

“What do they want?” Mistral asked, running the needle in and out of the silk.

“They want a private showing for a handful of their friends. And real magic, if you please; none of the tricks he foists upon the slag-brained masses. What shall I tell them?”

“How sober are they?”

“Not very.”

Mistral set a knot in the silk, snapped the thread with her teeth. “Tell them that the magician’s daughter will speak to them after his performance tonight. Tell them that even she wouldn’t dare disturb him when he is in seclusion beforehand.”

“Don’t we want money?” Ney asked wistfully. “Can’t we pretend?” Mistral’s eyes focused once more on his face, caught a sudden, cold reflection of fire. Ney rocked a step, his hand tightening audibly on the rickety door latch. “That would be no, I see.”

“Not like that. Not here in Kelior, under the king’s nose. Use your head.”

He scratched it. “How do you do that? That thing with your eyes.”

She tossed the skirt to Elide and picked up the slipper. “It’s a trick my father taught me.”

Ney’s head disappeared. Elide pulled the flaming silk over frilly layers of voluminous skirts, which would spin a perfect circle around her as she danced. Over that, she settled a nearly invisible layer of what might have been cobweb strung with minute particles of something Tyramin had dreamed up. When ignited surreptitiously by someone in a crowd—Ney most often—the particles would dazzle briefly with their colored fires, then catch the air like cinders and swarm away, fading almost as soon as they were seen.

Such things Tyramin conjured in his solitary hours before a performance, when ideas shirred from his busy mind like sparks, and he turned them into magic. Mistral felt her own mind turning over such strange, brilliant evanescence as she pulled the rip in the satin slipper tight with her thread. How this might seem to change to that, and then change back so that nothing really became transformed except the expressions on the watching faces. There the magic lies, Tyramin said again and again. Not in me, but in the smiling eyes and enchanted hearts. It’s they who do the work, not I.

She cast a glance at the great head, with the little holes concealed in the corners of the eyes where human eyes could see out. Lamplight washed over the dark, painted pupils; they seemed to flicker at her in recognition. Mistral felt her own heart smile at the illusion.

Finished with the slipper, she gave it to Elide, who was tying ribbons in her fair, rippling hair. Elide put the slipper on, picked up her mask, and went away to paint her face, and to find the other circle-dancer, who was late.

lime seemed a live thing in the Twilight Quarter. It was not measured in strict and predictable proportions. It could be told by the color of the sky, by smells in the air, by swirls and deepening pools of excitement in the gathering crowds, by their fading noise as they dispersed, by sunlit silence in the streets. Now Mistral felt the charged gatherings around her as all through the quarter people tracked rumors of a name to its source. The pounding and massive shiftings as the makeshift stage was set in the warehouse had ceased; now she heard doors open and close, rushings through the back halls, boots turning into slippers, hammers into swords and goblets for juggling. Outside the dancers and tricksters would be bringing their followings to the open doors of the warehouse, which would be festooned with transparent veils that glittered, in the dancing weave of fire and shadow, with the suggestion of treasure. Excited by random magic in the streets, drunk on music, love, wine, or just the mysteries of the night, they would toss coins at the doorkeepers, jostle inside to see how Tyramin’s magic might change their lives.

Mistral rose. Time, the noise and laughter said, for her to dress and for Tyramin to appear.

There was a knock at the door as she picked her own filmy skirt off a peg. She put it back again.

“Who?”

“A visitor.” She recognized the smooth rumble of the dark-haired dancer Gamon. The little edge of amusement in his voice warned her to expect the unexpected. The peacocks probably, who would not take no for an answer. She sank back on the mound of coverings, cast about for her needle, pulled the nearest costume down, and drew the thread through cloth without knotting it.

“Come in.”

The door opened and she blinked. This was no gaudy drunken peacock demanding a glimpse of Tyramin. The man was far too sober and dressed to elude sight and memory: he could disguise himself as a shadow if he chose. Tall and fair-haired, in black silks and leather, he could easily be taken for a fop with taste, out for an evening’s entertainment. But his eyes betrayed him. Mistral remembered Elide’s warning: street warden’s eyes, chilly and watchful above the affable smile on his lips. Behind him, Gamon raised his painted brows, which ascended giddily halfway to his hair, and opened an upturned palm. No stopping him, the palm said.

“Who are you?” Mistral asked curtly.

“I am curious,” the visitor said, and stared a moment at the gigantic head on the floor.

“I found him wandering around back here,” Gamon explained. “Peering into things. Doors and trunks and curtains.”

“Is that Tyramin?” the man asked with awe.

“The magician spends his hours before his performances in absolute seclusion. Not even his daughter dares disturb him. Ever. For any reason. Is there something you want?”

“Just to see what magic looks like.”

“Back here, it looks like nothing at all. An empty trunk, a boot, a gilded paper sword. All the magic begins with Tyramin’s entrance. As you will see if you go out front and wait like everyone else.”

“If I go out front, I will see only what everyone else sees.”

Mistral took a stitch or two, weighing patience and anger. Both hung equally on her scale of possibilities. Summoning assistants to toss him out seemed imprudent if he were truly a street warden; on the other hand, he was taking up her time, and by the sound of it, the warehouse was filling.

She temporized. “If you wait where Gamon shows you, I’ll ask the magician’s daughter to take you herself to the front of the hall, where, even if you see what everyone sees you will at least see better than everyone else.”

His smile broadened to touch his eyes. “That sounds fair,” he said, and permitted Gamon to lead him out. When the door closed, she flung the costume down and hurried herself into her own, a confection of froth, and flame, and fool’s gold, and feathers that could have fallen only from birds flying through a dream. In the crowded room where Tyramin’s assistants disguised themselves, she painted her face the color of porcelain, her lips the color of blood. She unbound her hair, brushed it into a great dark cloud and filled it with glittering flecks of gold, jewels, paper rosebuds. In the mirror, the mask seemed flawless: the magician’s daughter gazed back at her, amber eyes luminous, lips and fingertips glowing, her hair scented and filled with treasures.

Thus disguised, she found their visitor again, sitting atop an empty chest, looking innocent and expectant, like someone waiting for Tyramin to touch him with magic, turn him into a rabbit, or make him disappear entirely. The magician’s daughter, trailing silk and gleaming, smiled her changeless, charming smile.

“My name is Mistral,” she said in her deep, sultry voice, and he slid promptly to his feet. “I am Tyramin’s daughter. You cannot speak to him now, but I will answer any questions as I take you to the hall. What is your name?”

“My name is Arneth.”

“Come with me, Arneth.”

He followed willingly as she led him through the maze of little rooms and hallways, magic scattered everywhere through them, but nothing recognizable as such. Like puppets of string, cloth, buttons, and paint, such things waited for Tyramin’s hands, his voice, to reveal the magic in them. She watched Arneth’s eyes collect them, put their words to memory: glove, cloak, mirror, jeweled staff, paper snakes, cages of cooing doves. His glance would return to her after he had stored away a word; she felt the little, brief touches of his eyes. She was used to that. Everyone fell in love, if only for a moment, with the magician’s daughter.

He asked her, while his busy mind worked, “Will Tyramin let me see him after the performance?”

“He cannot see anyone tonight.”

“When can I see him?”

“I will ask him that in a few days. It’s never easy for him to come to a new place, especially a great city like Kelior, where so much is expected, and so much has already been seen. He will be in seclusion until he is satisfied that his illusions will enchant the hearts even of those who think they have seen through every illusion.”

“Not an easy task,” he conceded, then was silent for a turn or two, while the noises within the warehouse grew more restless and chaotic.

“Is there nothing else you would like to ask me?” she said, her own attention flicking ahead to an inconspicuous door that led into the streets. He must have come in that way, she realized. The door had been unlocked, and no one was there to stop him.

He laughed a little, softly, at the question. “Something foolish. I don’t think you’ll answer even that.”

“Ask me.”

“Why were you mending a black sleeve with red thread?” She gazed at him a moment, feeling suddenly wary, for no stranger had ever seen beneath her mask before. Then she laughed, too, giving him no other answer, and reached out to lock the door as they passed it.

She escorted him through the curtains, left him at the very front of the crowded hall; the rowdy watchers shook the rafters with their cries and applause as they caught sight of her. And then, for it was time, by the position of the stars, the smell of pitch from torches, the music weaving its own enchantment through the expectant gathering, she summoned Tyramin.