"Look up. Over. No, the other way."

There was a knock at the door. Yule turned back toward it, where an aide was waiting for him, scowling. He returned her glare, waving her off with the hand he had Mirk's powder brush clenched in. The way he grasped it made the delicate, ivory and gilt thing look like a serious weapon. Like how a great mage wielded his wand. "I told you, I'll be there in a minute. Find someone else to take the curse off your pet dimwit for you..." he muttered to himself, turning his frown back toward Mirk.

Getting dressed at the infirmary had been a bad idea.

It was one Mirk had turned to out of practicality, after several tries at doing himself up and always feeling shabby when he arrived at his destination. If he'd been headed to another English ball, where most of the men disdained any effort at cultivating a graceful air, Mirk wouldn't have worried himself over it. But he was returning to France for another meeting of the Circle, that time at Mademoiselle Polignac's southernmost enclave near Nice, on the shore of the Mediterranean. A welcome reprieve from the lingering grayness of winter in the north, and one that Yvette Feulaine had been raving at him about for her last two letters. Seigneur Feulaine was bringing her and Laurent along with him to Nice to make up for all the strife and heartache their family had endured over the last year.

Mirk was meeting her for dinner at a distant cousin's estate after he was done with the Circle. Which was why it was absolutely essential that he not look like a wreck when he arrived. And why he'd turned to Yule for help.

"This is a hell of a lot easier with decent powder, I'll admit," Yule said as he set back to work, stabbing at a fresh pan of it. Mirk had no idea which of the mage quarter's countless shops had the supplies he needed. But Yule did, despite not being willing to waste his own drink money on goods he was capable of making himself, provided he could borrow the right supplies from the infirmary. Mirk had sent him off to the mage quarter with a purse after yesterday's shift, encouraging him to get a little something for himself while he was out for his trouble. Thankfully, Yule hadn't shown up drunk that morning. Though his hair did have a richer luster to it.

"I hope I'm not causing you too much trouble, Yule," Mirk said. He was watching the doorway as well, whenever he could get away with it. There had been two ladies in the waiting room when he'd come in that morning, their somber but finely appointed dresses and oversized bonnets that kept their faces out of view starkly out of place in comparison to the filthy uniforms of all the other prospective patients. Mirk knew well enough by then that they were most likely there to present him with another problem. So he'd snatched up the least surly-looking infantryman from the bench nearest the door and had used him as a shield to get through the waiting room unaccosted, transferring him to the care of a weary nurse he'd apologized profusely to before bolting for the safety of the infirmary's upper floors.

But there was no hiding from an upper-class woman on a mission. It was only a matter of time before the pair bullied their way to the back. He needed to escape before he could get wrapped up in their troubles.

"You're not. I've taken that curse off Marta's beloved three times this month already," Yule grumbled, as he swiped another measure of powder down the length of Mirk's nose. Mirk had to tense all his muscles to fight off a sneeze. "He needs to stop gambling and do some actual work."

"Are the curlers done?" Mirk asked. They were high-quality, made of some foreign clay that Yule claimed was capable of holding heat exceptionally well. But they were also three times heavier than the set his valet had used on him at home. He could feel the beginnings of a headache brewing at his temples.

Yule unclipped one of them, sending a loose curl bouncing down over Mirk's forehead. "Good enough. It won't go flat, but your hair will never hold those curls you're after. Too fine. Soft. Besides, those kind of curls are hideous. You'd look like one of those ugly little dogs the Bavarians keep."

"They're the fashion now," Mirk mumbled, some of the tension flowing out of him as Yule put down the powder brush and started taking out the rest of the curlers. He'd only ever been able to match the hairstyles popular among the men of the Royal Court, extravagant masses of curls that towered high over their foreheads and ran down the full length of their backs, by having extensions put in. And he wasn't about to burden Yule with such an arduous task.

"Just because something's fashionable doesn't mean it's not ugly," Yule said. "Save yourself the hassle and stick with what suits you. Fashion changes every year. But your features won't. Not unless you've got the potential for perpetual glamors, anyway."

The bitterness in Yule's tone was strong enough to make Mirk wince, but he decided not to comment on it. At least not directly. "Your hair would be perfect for it. And it looks very nice today."

"Don't humor me," Yule snapped, cuffing him in the shoulder. Though Mirk thought there was a sudden self-satisfied edge to his scowl. "Right. You're as curly and pale as you're going to get. It's not your look, but it's what you asked for."

Mirk groped at the sheets of the patient bed he was perched on the edge of for his hand mirror, bracing himself for disappointment. As Yule moved on to the curlers at the back of his head, Mirk found the mirror and lifted it to his face. Yule was right. The older healer had done exactly what he'd asked him to, with the skill of someone who'd been preening themself for years instead of leaning on others to do it for him. The usual rosiness was banished from his complexion, save for a few strategic spots, where it was further accented by rouge. And his hair had a pleasing curl to it, better than anything he'd ever been able to manage on his own. But it didn't suit him at all. Instead of highlighting what natural grace he'd been blessed with, all the potions and powders and primping only made him look like a ghost of himself. Too orderly, too prim. Lifeless.

"Thank you for trying," Mirk said with a sigh, letting both his hands and the mirror fall limply in his lap. "Methinks you're right, Yule. What's fashionable now just doesn't suit me."

"The suit does, at least." After undoing the last of the curlers, Yule stepped back to take a harder look at one of the new suits he'd picked up for Mirk at the Teleporters' guild hall. Three lighter ones for spring and summer, an extravagance Mirk wouldn't have indulged himself in if all his other summer suits hadn't been incinerated along with the rest of his life. It was too cold in England for them yet, but the trip to Nice provided him with the perfect excuse to test one out. He'd decided to wear the cream-colored one down to Nice. More on the conservative side, but the golden sunburst motif stitched into it and the crystal buttons the Nasiri twins had suggested added a certain joyful flair to it that made Mirk feel less like a boy pretending to be a lord and more like himself. "Going to be a pain in the ass keeping that thing clean, though."

"Oh, bien sûr. I'll have stained it by noon, I'm sure. But...well. Methinks I'll find a way to manage."

"What you mean is that you're going to get your murdering skeleton of a sweetheart to clean up your mess for you, the same as always," Yule said as he went about stashing the curlers back in their velvet case.

"I never ask!" Mirk protested, hopping off the edge of the bed. At least with all the powder caked to his face, his constant flushing wouldn't give him away. If only he had some sort of charm to keep the nervousness out of his voice. "He just...does it. I couldn't stop him if I tried."

"That doesn't make it any better."

"At least he's started letting me handle his letters for him. I told him that people would be less likely to bother him if he at least let me respond to the more important ones with a promise that he'd see to things soon. And there's dinner too. Though that's not very hard when he only ever eats the same thing every day," Mirk said, checking the buckles on his shoes. A lighter leather than usual to compliment the suit and the metallic stockings that were so popular.

"How's that working out for you?"

"It's fine," Mirk reassured him, as he straightened back up. Yule looked thoroughly unconvinced, however. His eyes were narrowed and his arms crossed, his lips pressed into a thin, skeptical line. "What? It is, Yule. I...methinks we still have some things we disagree on, but it's nothing that bad."

"So, what? You're just going to keep going on forever being each other's maids and pretending nothing else is going on? You need to plan ahead. One or two years of that, fine. I could see someone being able to put up with it. But neither of you are human. You're just going to put up with it for, what? Fifty years? A hundred?"

"You know, I never do remember to ask him what exactly he is. Demonic, yes, but methinks there must be something else...if only it wasn't such a hard thing for him to talk about..."

"Don't go changing the subject. That's not my point, and you know it," Yule said, uncrossing his arms, only to jab an accusing finger at him. "This is all going to blow up in your face sooner or later if you don't do something. And if it happens at the wrong time, we'll all suffer for it, not just you two idiots."

Mirk shook his head, adamantly. "It's only my problem. And I won't ever let it keep me from helping everyone. I promise, Yule."

"You know my opinion on the matter. I don't think it's only your problem. Well, whatever. But mark my words, if this nonsense ends up killing all of the rest of us normal people, I'll haunt you until the sun goes out. And you know earth mages make the strongest ghosts." The older healer paused, midway toward making his escape back out into the hall. "Maybe that'll finally be what does it. I'm rubbish at all that plants and babies bullshit, and it even hits me like a rock upside the head. It's going to be hell for you."

"Euh...pardon?"

"Come back to me in a couple of weeks," Yule said, waving a dismissive hand at him and offering no further explanation as he swept out of the room. A moment later, Mirk heard him calling out down the hall for the aide who needed the curse lifted off her beau.

Confused and unsettled, Mirk packed up his things and headed off to face his own troubles. With any luck, they wouldn't be nearly as bad as he was dreading. Or as bad as those of the noble ladies whose path he'd inevitably cross on his way out.

- - -

"You didn't have to come all the way up here to meet us, Comrade Kali. You got my letter last week, non? The one that had the trick to getting to Mademoiselle Polignac's estate in it?"

"I'll take any excuse I can get to escape your relatives for an extra couple of hours," she replied crossly, swiping with her sleeve at some smudge on the front of her breastplate. "At least there's only one of you here instead of half a dozen."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Mirk knew that Kali had to be exaggerating things, despite the sour look on her face. For one thing, she seemed much more at ease now than she had in the City, less on edge. If his younger cousins were constantly harassing her like she claimed, she found their constant needling much less troublesome than her mother's. And her complexion spoke to much more time out of doors as of late, even if the weather in Bordeaux that time of year was nowhere near as pleasant as Nice. It was difficult to find a more inhospitable place than the City, barring traveling to the great desert across the Mediterranean or the untouched forest the Festival of Shades was held in. "Are you doing well, Kali? You and Henri aren't very good letter writers, since you're so busy. Have you managed the problem with the demons?"

Her expression softened as the topic shifted from herself to her work. "We had it handled more than a month ago. Me and the others were beating a dozen every day back when we first arrived, but there hasn't been a sign of them for weeks. Either they're waiting for us to leave, or they've given up. I told your uncle the only way to be sure would be for us to leave and see what happens, but he doesn't want to risk it."

"What have you been doing instead?"

"Nothing worth the gold Henri keeps shoving at us," Kali said. Though there wasn't any resentment in her tone, Mirk thought. Only confusion. "Going to guild halls and asking around for things Henri wants. Cutting off spies before they can get in. Recruiting other artificers. Everyone is taken off-guard by women coming to them. I don't think Henri intended for that. He's just too lost in his work to pay attention."

Mirk laughed to himself. "That very much sounds like Henri. Are the children well?"

"They're always paying attention. And they never leave any of us alone. But they don't expect us to take care of them either, so I suppose it's all right. I didn't train for twenty years to be a nursemaid."

"Of course not, Comrade Kali. But it does sound as if things are going well."

The fighter gave a noncommittal shrug. A sensitive topic, Mirk suspected, since she changed it immediately. "Where's Catherine? She's never late. She hates being late."

Mirk looked up at the clock set above the front door of the Teleporters' guild hall. Ten minutes to eleven, and the carriage the Circle was sending for them was supposed to arrive on the hour. He'd written to Seigneur Feulaine that it'd be better if the carriage met them further from the City than the last time he'd been summoned to speak with France's most storied mages. There had been many more prying eyes on him as he went about the City as of late, ever since he'd accompanied Catherine to the first ball of the debutante season. Apparently even in plain healer's robes streaked with a full day’s worth of mess, he was distinctive enough that the higher-born members of the K'maneda could spot him in the crowd. Mirk didn't like it one bit. "She does have ten minutes left. But it is a little odd that she didn't arrange to meet me at the East Gate, methinks."

"Right. She's a proper lady. And proper ladies don't wander across the mage quarter without an escort. That's fine in the City, but not out here." Despite the scowl on her face and the disdain in her voice, Mirk could tell Kali was concerned for her sister. It was the small things — how tense she was, how she restlessly shifted from foot to foot and glared at passers-by, as if she thought any one of them might be the person responsible for delaying her sister.

"If she's not here by eleven, we'll tell the coach to wait for us and head toward the City to find her," Mirk reassured Kali. Though he couldn't resist teasing her a little too, in an attempt to keep her from reaching such a critical state of annoyance that she seized the next journeyman who skirted past them by the collar and started spitting questions at him. "You'll be properly escorted, even. Like a lady of your standing."

"Who's escorting who?" she shot back. But her worry didn't lift, not even a fraction.

A tense five minutes passed. Then the common-use portal in the alleyway beside the guild hall spun to life and spat out a gale of excited laughter and a ruckus of stamping hooves.

They both whirled to look, Mirk wincing and putting the staff between himself and the portal as a defensive measure, while Kali's hand flew to the hilt of her sword. But the exhausted delight that struck Mirk's shielded mind a moment after all the noise put him at ease right away. On the other hand, Kali's hand rested firm on the hilt of her sword.

Catherine had arrived on time. It was just that she hadn't come from the direction they'd been expecting her from.

She hadn't arrived unaccompanied either. Catherine was perched side-saddle atop a massive black stallion with a white blaze in the middle of its forehead. Beside her was Orest, on the same bay stallion from the night of the ball, laughing at the annoyed way the black horse sneezed and whickered at being teleported. Mirk was no expert in horses, but he could tell that the horse Catherine was riding was exceptionally well trained, despite its distaste for teleportation magic. There was an unflappable feel to its mental presence, coupled with a certain keen brightness that the bay stallion lacked. The bay stallion would reach that level eventually, Mirk was certain. It already felt more alert than before, more confident. Stronger, just like Orest had said his goal was the last time they'd met.

"Catherine!" Kali barked. "What are you doing?"

It took a moment for Catherine to respond to her sister, to remember her manners and regain her composure. She did her best to turn her giddy grin down to a proper prim smile as she brushed the grass and dust from her long black cloak and pulled back its hood. But she didn't try to dismount until Orest had slid off the bay's back and reached her side, offering out a hand to her with a theatrical bow.

Kali snapped her next barrage of questions at Mirk, since her sister wasn't being forthcoming. And her hand didn't stir from her sword. "What's going on? Do you know him?"

"One of the Easterners in Comrade Commander Dauid's division," Mirk replied, though he had the sense to keep his voice low. Not that Orest would have cared about what he had to say about him. Or Catherine, for that matter. She was doing her best to be restrained, to reassemble the mask that all ladies who wished to advance in polite society put on every morning along with their dresses and powder, but she was struggling. It wasn't just the London chill that was turning her cheeks rosy as she took Orest's hand and dismounted. "He's been put in charge of the Comrade Commander's horses, methinks."

"My apologies for arriving late, seigneur, Kali," Catherine said as she walked over to them. Only after first giving her stallion a reassuring pat on the nose and sneaking a sideways glance at Orest, who was hastily trying to make himself presentable for both Kali and Mirk. "Mister Orest inquired about the best pasturing lands within portal range of the guild hall. As he's working on Comrade Commander Dauid's orders and father didn't see fit to respond to his letters, I thought it would be the comradely thing to do to assist him."

"It's no trouble at all," Mirk cut in, before Kali could lay into her sister. He strongly suspected that Orest hadn't been the one to write to Casyn, if there was any letter at all. The explanation for her going with a strange man unaccompanied spoke strongly of the usual half-baked schemes the Easterners were always cooking up over their bottles. Plausible enough on the surface to avoid questions from a casual observer, but not firm enough to hold up against serious scrutiny.

Which was what Kali subjected both the ruse and Orest to as she turned her scowl on him. She had the whole of the carriage ride to the coast to interrogate her sister. Orest, on the other hand, was already looking to make good his escape. Though he was torn between lingering to pay his proper respects to Catherine and avoiding the obvious threat Kali posed. "Let's see your orders from Dauid."

Orest tried the first tactic in the foreign-born infantryman's rulebook. He raised both hands, innocently, sweeping a finger over the vocal translation charm pinned to the underside of his collar in the process. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't very practiced at sleight of hand. "No writing. Only talk. I not read—"

"Don't try it with me, comrade," Kali snapped, taking a single step toward him. She knew how to leverage her position. With boots and breastplate on, she cut an intimidating figure, nearly the same height as Orest. Who was completely unarmed. "Turn your translator back on and explain yourself."

Sighing, Orest flicked the charm back on. "I have to pasture the horses somewhere. The pen in the City won't work. You can't raise a strong horse in a cage. Dauid said I could take them anywhere as long as I get them in shape, but I don't know any places around here. And we need our teleporting mage's potential for the contracts."

"They do only have one," Mirk said. "Two, if you count Comrade Genesis. But methinks the horses wouldn't appreciate his magic."

"Hate it," Orest confirmed, with a nod of his head and a grateful smile.

"Then you should have asked someone in the Fourth for help. They're the teleporters. And the cavalry, for that matter."

"As I'm sure you're aware, Kali, the Fourth doesn't have the most welcoming reputation," Catherine said, stepping up beside her sister. A study in opposites — whereas Kali's intimidation was all brawn and blade, Catherine's was in her composure and wits. She was directing it at her sister rather than at Orest. "Especially towards foreign-born fighters."

"It's not your job to make up for it," Kali retorted, though she didn't take her eyes off Orest.

"No, but it is the comradely thing to do, as I said. In any case, I'd have thought you'd have more faith in your training, Kali. Or do you think it so insufficient that I still require a chaperone at all times to protect myself?"

Years of experience had taught Catherine exactly how to press her sister. Kali finally looked away from Orest, balking at Catherine's words. "You're the one who was always scolding me for not taking one!"

"That's because you're always picking fights. Regardless, our carriage to Nice will be arriving shortly, and I'd like to take a moment to refresh myself. And I believe Mister Orest has his own engagements? It would be rude of us to detain him further."

Orest nodded again, more vigorously, already backtracking to the safety of his horses. "Yes, yes. Need to get them back and groomed before dinner."

Kali couldn't keep herself from getting in a parting blow. "Now that you know where your damn pasture is, I expect you to mind your own business."

He saluted Kali in return instead of just nodding that time, doing a better job of sharpening it up and adding a bit of a serious cast to it. But just as Kali couldn't restrain herself, neither could Orest, not with Catherine's attentive gaze still ghosting after him. Rather than leading the horses off on foot, he scrambled up onto the black stallion's back, clucking at it as he went. "Zirochka, Mitya, let's do a trick. See how you're getting along, eh? Hop!"

Orest didn't settle himself in the saddle. He only stayed there for a second, just long enough to get the bay's attention and convey something to it by some combination of magic and a tug on its reins. Mirk got the impression that the black stallion was managing the bay's reactions more than Orest was, as he stood first in the saddle, then atop the black stallion's back, before shifting one foot over so that he had a foot on each of them. The bay snorted and flicked its head, but settled at a noise from the black. For a second, Mirk perceived a flash of sweetness, a flicker of remembered warmth and relaxation — the black stallion knew from long practice that they'd be amply rewarded for tolerating Orest's theatrics, even if they were a bother in the present.

At a twitch of the reins and a yip from Orest, the horses trotted off, headed back toward the City down the mage quarter's main street. Both serious guild mages and casual laborers alike turned to marvel at the rider and his horses as they passed, Orest striking up a jaunty tune as he bounced along on their backs to keep their rhythm steady and calm their nerves. Kali was the only person who didn't turn to look, instead glaring down at her sister and the way she was gawking along with the rest of the pedestrians, a delighted smile on her lips and a spark of admiration in her eyes.

"Is that all it takes to get your attention? Some stupid pony tricks?" Kali asked, nudging her sister in the arm.

"You don't understand, Kali! He's only been working with Mitya for a month! To already have him trained so well..."

"The carriage will be here any minute," Mirk butted in, intervening before the sisters could fully set in on each other. "I'd be glad to have a word with whoever they send with the coach to wait for you if you'd like to visit the guild hall before we leave, Mademoiselle Catherine."

"That's very considerate of you, seigneur," Catherine replied, coming back to herself as Orest and the horses disappeared around a bend in the street. "I'll be back momentarily."

As her sister gathered her skirts and retreated into the guild hall, Kali folded her arms over her chest and stewed. "Whose side are you on, anyway?" she asked, glowering down at Mirk for lack of another target for her ire. "I thought mother decided to let you tag along after Catherine so that you'd look out for her, not so that you could pawn her off on one of your shady friends."

"You're right to be concerned, Comrade Kali," Mirk said, with a differential bob of his head. "But look at it this way. How many of the suitors your mother sent to you were kind enough that their animals would have listened to them without any whipping or kicking? Or kind enough that any animal wanted to come near them at all? Methinks you should know that it's easy enough to lie to people with a smile. A horse is much harder to keep convinced."

"That's rich, coming from an empath. And an earth mage," Kali said. But she didn't press the issue any further. Instead she settled in to wait, scanning the crowd. Still bristling.

It was going to be a long ride down to Nice.