Casterbourne bloomed below them, a chaotic bouquet of rain-washed lights. The city was a smaller one, or so everyone always said. But to Bea, it seemed a metropolis, teeming with culture and progress. The violet glass of the window fogged with her breath as she pressed her face to its panes. Her stomach somersaulted again…anticipation, terror and sorrow all churning together inside her.

Then they swooped low, and finally their destination was in sight. A sprawling creation of pale, blue-gray stone like a layered cake, all grand balconies and climbing ivy and frothy fountains. Brightsdown Hall, the city’s heart. Having been there twice before, Beatrice knew it well.

The landing was crowded and bustling, and the fathers barely managed to bring the carriage down without half-crushing another one underneath it. But in the end they made it down without damage to person or property. Thank the spirits. As Beatrice tumbled out after her family, she took a deep, heady breath of Casterbourne air. It was just as she remembered it. Flowery—like honeysuckle and roses—edged with the fatty tartness of lantern oil and woven in with that innate smell of society that developed wherever enough different types of people all mingled together in one place. It was an exciting scent.

A new-and-wonderful-life scent.

Drinking it in, she imagined herself transforming from the inside out at the taste of it. Not yet into her secondary form, but into a person who was ready for the new life that came with it.

Streaming along with the other latecomers, the Baracloughs crossed the bridge connecting the landinghouse to the hall proper, exchanging greetings with acquaintances where they saw them. Once past the doorman and Director Secretary they progressed to the grand foyer. There, the lanterns cast furnishings and revelers alike in a dreamlike, rosy flush…everything too shining and lovely to seem quite real. Garlands of greenery and fresh blossoms draped from the ceilings and spiraled up every pillar. Music, laughter, and the soft rush of flowing water threaded through the air, pulling at Beatrice like siren song.

“Oh, dear. What a shame, what a shame,” babbled Mrs. Baraclough, who always emphasized the importance of the pre-debut hours for setting a girl up for success. The fan was deployed, her nervous batting of it setting her tower of curls to swaying.

It’s for the better, really. Beatrice supposed. Less time to make a fool of myself in front of the bachelor packs. Of course, there was only one bachelor pack whose good opinion she truly cared for, and she scanned the crowd hungrily for their faces. By the time the family reached the ballroom, she supposed they had a little under an hour left before the ceremony’s commencement.

And still she hadn’t seen them.

“Oh, Mrs. Glensby! Dearest!” Called mother Baraclough, spotting a particular friend of hers, the matriarch of a neighboring coyote pack. “And Misters Glensby! Good evening! I say, you all look a dream! And where is young Isabetta?”

As the two families collided and flowed together, Beatrice was freed in all the distraction and chatter to turn her full attention to the matter of the Blackstones.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she inhaled deeply—focusing her awareness entirely on the scents that drenched the air around her. For the most part, the attendants’ aromas all blended together into a complex new entity, that society smell again. But there were still those that rose to the forefront, the strength and sheer weight of their individuality great enough to distinguish them.

These were the scents of the Silvers. She took another breath, tasting the air for an aroma like spiced vanilla and pine. A little gasp escaped her as she caught a thread of it, turning towards its source before opening her eyes.

She couldn’t see him, of course. The scent was faint, her stature slight, and the crowd quite dense. So she began, as politely as she could, to navigate her way through the masses with her nose as her guide. Her lips were blooming into a smile already as she drew close, but then she stopped short. Only a few people separated herself and the Silver of the wonderful scent, and from between their moving figures she’d caught a glimpse of his face.

It was not one she knew, though there was a familiarity to it. The sharpness of his nose and jaw echoed Theodor Blackstone’s. His eyes were the same cold gray-green and his skin the same cool shade of brown. But there was a predatory angle to his features that Theodor’s lacked. His beard was a touch overgrown, his hair shoulder-length and carelessly tousled. He leaned against a pillar as if bored, a glass of golden liquor in his hand.

She was taking a step back, suddenly terrified the man might notice her, when the evergreen-and-vanilla aroma intensified. Then Theodor himself moved into view, two of his packmates—George and Percy—at his side. Beatrice came to a halt, narrowly avoiding collision with a drink-laden server.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I’ve spotted her at last,” said Theodor. “Come, Charles. Meet your future sister-in-law!”

“That’s quite a claim, and her not even debuted yet,” drawled the feral-looking Charles, taking a lazy drink from his glass.

“She’s the only reason we’re here,” said Theodor.

Beatrice’s stomach lurched.

“She has the smell of our kind on her, and she loves us,” said George.

“Surely this Lorelei isn’t the only young lady in all the county worth courting,” replied the stranger, a mocking edge to his tone. “Why, just the other day you swore up and down your closest neighbors had a whole army of daughters to their name.”

“Oh, the Baracloughs?” Theodor’s laugh was a bark, harsh and ringing. “They’re practically peasants. The estate brings in hardly twenty-five hundred claw a year, last I heard.”

Percy shook his head as if it was a fine joke indeed, curls bouncing around his merry face.

“The elder girls are fine,” he said. ”But we can do better.”

“Which one was it debuting this year?” Wondered George, frowning. “Aribella?”

“No, no,” answered Theodor. “It’ll be the quiet one. Can’t recall her name. But come, brother. I wish you to meet Lorelei. Quickly now, before we lose her again!”

Beatrice remained frozen to the spot, a hand clenched to her chest as the Blackstone men cajoled the stranger to action and led him away. When she moved at last, it was with a queasy sort of absence. Her eyes were misted as she accepted a glass of sparkling wine from a passing server. She drank deeply of it, then turned to search out her pack. Heartbeats later, Brightsdown’s many tower clocks rang out the turning of the hour. The time for the ceremony had come.

Ascending the right wing of the grand half-moon staircase leading to the central foyer’s upper level, the family streamed through one of the many arched openings there and out to the raised courtyard beyond.

Stopping at the pillars edging the space’s covered perimeter, Beatrice turned to hug each family member in turn.

“Good luck, sweetest girl,” murmured her mother into her hair, already crying again.

“Best of Blessings, lass,” boomed her blood-father, smiling from ear-to-ear even as he wiped away a single tear of his own with the back of one hairy fist.

Feeling more than a little drunk on nerves, Beatrice wended her way through the broken rings of stone. Reaching the fifth ring from the center, she took her assigned seat in the southwestern quarter.

The storm raged on overhead, but an attending squadron of coyote and tiger mages in gray uniforms kept the winds and waters at bay. The large stone gazebo in the central space was aglow in golden candle light, the soft illumination dancing among the garlands’ leaves and flower petals.

The din and chatter continued on for a long time as the seats began to fill, until at last a loud, clear bell rang out and a hush fell over the gathering. The day’s Master of Ceremonies stepped up to the gazebo—Madame Marrionberry, a woman with glossy, upswept hair that matched the steel gray of her gown.

“By the will of the Crown we gather here today, and in the name of the Crown I welcome you all,” she declared. Her voice was loud and resonant as thunder, helped along by coyote mages, their hands twisting at the air to amplify her words. “May the Six Free Spirits look with favor upon their chosen, and may they choose well. Arise and come forward, Baron Christopher Willoughsby of Casterbourne.”

And so, the first seated of the first circle arose—the highest ranking of all the new debuts—to accept his stone. The top three buttons of his vest already undone, he pulled his cravat and collars away to reveal the bare skin of his clavicle. Madame Marrionberry’s hand disappeared briefly into a silk pouch hanging from her belt, then reappeared with the spirit stone glinting between her fingers. She pressed it to his flesh, and the young baron winced.

For half a heartbeat, it seemed as though nothing would happen. There was a collective holding of breath, and nervous anticipation sparked at the air like heat lightning. Then a billowing darkness bloomed around Baron Willoughsby, swallowing him up. When the shadows cleared, a golden-furred hyena gazed out at them all.

Everyone erupted into applause, which Beatrice belatedly joined.

The Master of Ceremonies bent at the waist, speaking quietly to the newly-transformed shifter. Moments later, shadows twisted once more about his freshly revealed self, veiling and unveiling anew. Returned to human form, the baron trailed his way through the rings to join the ranks of attendant families. The smile on his face looked forced, a bit too wide. A bit too rigid. Or at least, it seemed so to Beatrice. Expressions were like masks, and she was always trying to guess what lay behind them.

Nearly an hour passed as the Master of Ceremonies worked her way through the upper crust of debuts. So far, the year’s batch had produced five new Silvers, and a majority of the debut shifters were wolves and coyotes—ever the most common in this province. But there was a smattering of lions and jaguars, and one other hyena as well. As of yet, not one of them had failed to shift.

And of course, Lorelei Bellavue, the apple of the Blackstone’s eye, had debuted a Wolf. Only time would tell if she’d the powers of a mage, but something about her sparkled with the promise of magic nonetheless.

By the time Madame Marrionberry finally called her name, Beatrice’s nerves had her practically levitating off her seat. She’d never felt more like her mother than she did then, and she worried at the thought as she stood to make her trembling way to the central gazebo.

The elder woman, hough imposing at a distance, had a comforting air to her up close. Like a poised but gracious grandmother, thought Beatrice as the Master of Ceremonies smiled down at her. She took another deep, steadying breath and was surprised when it actually worked. Her mind eased and her hands stopped shaking as her focus turned instead to the madame’s scent of blueberry-and-sage pie.

Oh. Realization came to her as the elder reached into her belt pouch. She’s a wolf mage. It had been a long time since she’d met one, and never had she been directly subjected to the power they could wield in the realm of emotions.

Drawing up a spirit stone, Madame Marrionberry pressed the clear, colorless gem to the spot just beneath her collarbone. Beatrice held her breath and gritted her teeth as the cold, resisting stone ground against her skin—counting her heartbeats as she prayed for something to happen.