me…
“Are you all right?”
Alix twinkled like the mischievous girl Kyra had known. “As soon as I get over my palpitations of concern for his grace's health.”
In spite of herself, Kyra giggled. It seemed impossible that they hadn't parted just last week.
“Here, turn around,” Alix went on. “Have you been trapped in that thing since you left the table? You poor darling—not that it isn't absolutely beautiful. I always loved the way you dressed… You could have got Lily to get you out of it; all she's done all evening is flirt with that flute player… although he is the most gorgeous thing in nature. Did you get the stain out of your hem? Soda and salt in cold water should soak it out, or lemon juice… Oh, but you're a wizard, aren't you? You can just make it disappear.”
“According to the other wizards in the Citadel, the best spells involve soda and salt.”
Alix laughed again. Her small, deft hands flew along the lacings. “I shouldn't joke. I'm truly sorry his grace was hurt, but really, he's been so odious about giving Papa the dispensation for the ceremony. You'd think he had a personal patent on the strict form or something.”
She looked as if she were going to say something else, some other bit of trivial persiflage, but looking up, she met Kyra's eyes in the mirror, watching her with narrowed concern. Quiet fell, and in the mirror the two sisters stood for a moment, Kyra in her white chemise with her chestnut hair about her shoulders, Alix white-robed and cloaked with amber glory, the angular face and the delicate oval in some way curiously alike.
Then Alix put her arm around Kyra's waist and said, “It's so good to see you. I've missed you.”
Kyra sighed and turned, scratching her sides beneath the linen with relief to be free of the whalebone sheath of the bodice. “I didn't realize how much,” she said.
“I know you probably didn't think of me much…” Alix hesitated, toying with the lace of her robe, then smiled ruefully. “I mean, I was twelve—just a little girl, really. So I must seem like somebody else entirely to you now. But you were—well, my older sister.” She shook back the corn-silk mantle of her hair, which was crinkled and curled from its coiffure. The dressing table was heaped with combs, pins, forget-me-nots aromatically wilting in the candles' heat; the air was soft with beeswax and lily of the valley. In the yard on the other side of the house a groom crooned endearments; a horse snuffled in reply, and there was the clink of harness buckles.
“Are you happy in the Citadel of Wizards? Is it all you wanted it to be?”
Kyra said after long thought, “It's all I would have wanted it to be if I'd had the courage and selfishness to want that much.”
She remembered her first sight of the Citadel. Very small it had seemed against the endless, cold sky of the Sykerst, the black pelt of the spruce forest. A green hill rising above a river like brown glass, shaggy with trees through which jumbled towers and roofs could be discerned: strange mirages, things of air and mist rather than stone.
She and Rosamund had been walking for more than a month through the vast, deserted steppes of the Sykerst. The previous night had been spent in the muddy, plank-built trading town of Lastower. At first exhausted by the unaccustomed effort of travel afoot, Kyra had felt her spirits gradually rising in the days of quiet, of unhurried companionship, and the sight of the magic hill with its glimmering towers had been like the fulfillment of some heart-shaking dream of peace. Larks had risen, singing, from the knee-deep grasses of the roadsides. From far off, the wind had borne her the random notes of chimes.
“Courage and selfishness.” Something in Alix's voice made Kyra look sharply at the lovely oval face in the honeyed glow. But Alix moved away—rather quickly, Kyra thought—and fetched her a dressing gown from the armoire, soft and clinging and pink, as unlike as
“Are you all right?”
Alix twinkled like the mischievous girl Kyra had known. “As soon as I get over my palpitations of concern for his grace's health.”
In spite of herself, Kyra giggled. It seemed impossible that they hadn't parted just last week.
“Here, turn around,” Alix went on. “Have you been trapped in that thing since you left the table? You poor darling—not that it isn't absolutely beautiful. I always loved the way you dressed… You could have got Lily to get you out of it; all she's done all evening is flirt with that flute player… although he is the most gorgeous thing in nature. Did you get the stain out of your hem? Soda and salt in cold water should soak it out, or lemon juice… Oh, but you're a wizard, aren't you? You can just make it disappear.”
“According to the other wizards in the Citadel, the best spells involve soda and salt.”
Alix laughed again. Her small, deft hands flew along the lacings. “I shouldn't joke. I'm truly sorry his grace was hurt, but really, he's been so odious about giving Papa the dispensation for the ceremony. You'd think he had a personal patent on the strict form or something.”
She looked as if she were going to say something else, some other bit of trivial persiflage, but looking up, she met Kyra's eyes in the mirror, watching her with narrowed concern. Quiet fell, and in the mirror the two sisters stood for a moment, Kyra in her white chemise with her chestnut hair about her shoulders, Alix white-robed and cloaked with amber glory, the angular face and the delicate oval in some way curiously alike.
Then Alix put her arm around Kyra's waist and said, “It's so good to see you. I've missed you.”
Kyra sighed and turned, scratching her sides beneath the linen with relief to be free of the whalebone sheath of the bodice. “I didn't realize how much,” she said.
“I know you probably didn't think of me much…” Alix hesitated, toying with the lace of her robe, then smiled ruefully. “I mean, I was twelve—just a little girl, really. So I must seem like somebody else entirely to you now. But you were—well, my older sister.” She shook back the corn-silk mantle of her hair, which was crinkled and curled from its coiffure. The dressing table was heaped with combs, pins, forget-me-nots aromatically wilting in the candles' heat; the air was soft with beeswax and lily of the valley. In the yard on the other side of the house a groom crooned endearments; a horse snuffled in reply, and there was the clink of harness buckles.
“Are you happy in the Citadel of Wizards? Is it all you wanted it to be?”
Kyra said after long thought, “It's all I would have wanted it to be if I'd had the courage and selfishness to want that much.”
She remembered her first sight of the Citadel. Very small it had seemed against the endless, cold sky of the Sykerst, the black pelt of the spruce forest. A green hill rising above a river like brown glass, shaggy with trees through which jumbled towers and roofs could be discerned: strange mirages, things of air and mist rather than stone.
She and Rosamund had been walking for more than a month through the vast, deserted steppes of the Sykerst. The previous night had been spent in the muddy, plank-built trading town of Lastower. At first exhausted by the unaccustomed effort of travel afoot, Kyra had felt her spirits gradually rising in the days of quiet, of unhurried companionship, and the sight of the magic hill with its glimmering towers had been like the fulfillment of some heart-shaking dream of peace. Larks had risen, singing, from the knee-deep grasses of the roadsides. From far off, the wind had borne her the random notes of chimes.
“Courage and selfishness.” Something in Alix's voice made Kyra look sharply at the lovely oval face in the honeyed glow. But Alix moved away—rather quickly, Kyra thought—and fetched her a dressing gown from the armoire, soft and clinging and pink, as unlike as
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