Letter XVIII (C.D. to F.M.)

My Dear Foofri,

I hope you are enjoying your Munches. I had to go to three bakeries before I found one that would special order a batch using entirely non-magical procedures. Hopefully, the bakery was honest and they have not exploded on their way through the Pass (and the muse jolly well better not have smashed them either). You will need all of them to fortify you for this exceedingly long (as you could no doubt tell from the weight of the envelope) tale.

Although I suppose fashion is least of my news, I’ll start there anyway. I fulfilled my intention of visiting Madame Schacter the morning after I last wrote. Jamin offered to drive me, and even though I insisted I could take one of the carpets, he refused to be put off.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking myself,” I told him. “As a member of the Imperial Council, I do not need an escort.”

“You’re staying with us because it’s not safe at your estate,” he said stubbornly. “And you were almost killed by a chandelier yesterday. Besides,” here he looked shy and I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, “I like being with you.”

Jamin and I have been flirting with each other since we met, of course, but on my part, it’s been completely lighthearted, more in a spirit of camaraderie than anything. I had thought he felt the same (certainly I am not the only girl in the City on whom he has turned his golden charm), but there was an unsettling note of sincerity in that simple statement.

“I like being with you too, of course. I always wondered what it would be like to have a brother,” I said, perhaps a trifle disingenuously.

Thankfully, he didn’t look cast down by this statement, and we drove to the dressmaker’s without any awkwardness.

Jamin let me off at the door and drove down the street to leave the curricle while I went inside. There were two other ladies waiting and sipping tea. Neither of them were magii, for their escorts were also apparent, expressions of longsuffering written across their features. (Before Damorin started locking me up and Jamin attached himself to my heels, I am afraid I took the liberty granted by the status of magi for granted. No more!)

No sooner had I taken my seat than the door opened and Damorin entered the waiting room. Ordinary gentlemen are amusing enough in this situation, but one in Master’s robes looks so utterly out of place, that I couldn’t help smiling as I greeted him.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing at the chair next to me.

“Of course.”

“How is your head?” he asked, sitting down.

“Healed, thank you.”

“We examined the chandelier. One edge of the support spell had given way. It looks like an unfortunate maintenance accident.”

“I could have told you that yesterday,” I said pertly. “And I don’t know why you made me go home. I missed the second half of the buffet! Clearly, your new duties do not keep you very busy, since you have plenty of time to examine chandeliers and arrest innocent citizens.”

“Not arrest,” he said mildly. “Protective custody.”

“Oh yes, and now I’ve more custodians than I know what to do with.”

On cue, Jamin pushed open the door and came to sit down on my other side.

“Behold, my faithful watchdog,” I announced.

Jamin smiled sweetly. “At least I don’t slobber on your robes. Hello, Master.”

“Mr. Winterfast,” Damorin said, sounding bored.

Just then, Lady Ardaya came out of the fitting rooms, with Madame right behind her. “They are wrapping my gown now, Damorin,” she said, nodding coolly at me. I nodded coolly back. I once thought she might like me better after I graduated and she wasn’t obliged to invite me to tea anymore, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference in our relationship. “Hurry, please,” she said to the shop assistant who staggered out a moment later beneath the weight of an enormous pasteboard box. “I must finish my appointments before our luncheon appointment at the Residency. I should hate to keep dear Ameliorene waiting.”

Fortunately, I was distracted from rolling my eyes by Madame Schacter. “Cordeleemaera, you naughtee girl. Zee ball ees tomorrow!”

I looked my most repentant. “I’m sorry, Madame, it’s just …” I gestured helplessly. “So many awful things … Can you help me?”

She relented almost immediately. “Did I not know you would come? Of course I have zee gown for you. Come. Celestine,” she snapped her fingers at the poor assistant who had just come back in from placing Lady A’s box in her carriage. “Bring out Magi Demestheln’s dress at once.”

“Not black,” I pleaded.

“Of course not, poor child, Stephanus, he hated zee black. You,” she jabbed a finger at Jamin who was trying to follow us. “Seet down. Marguerite will bring you tea.”And she whisked me away to the back rooms.

I am lucky that Madame has made dresses for me all my life, and my mother and grandmother before me. The dress she had designed was deep violet, and in the very latest fashion. It needed only a few minor alterations, so I arranged to pick it up the next morning.

Jamin and I returned to Winterfast just as a footman carried over a handful of mail from my house next door. I flipped through the letters as I walked to my room, and was more than a little surprised to see your handwriting! The short note read:

Cordy, I have been trying to contact you for days. Meet me near the Unicorn Rock by the edge of the fire circle at eleven tonight. Do not fail me, dearest.

Obviously, I knew the letter was a fake. For one thing, you had not been trying to contact me for days, and for another, you would have sent any message through the Muse. I briefly considered contacting Damorin, but I was fairly certain any action he would take would involve me staying at Winterfast or perhaps being locked up in the Justicum again. But if someone was trying to hurt me, I wanted to look that person in the face and besides, I was perfectly capable of defending myself.

So, at 10:30 that evening, I tucked the small carpet I had borrowed from the garage under my arm and climbed out my bedroom window. I landed about a five minute walk from the statue and hid the carpet in a bush before continuing on. I put up a shield, of course, but I didn’t bother with invisibility, since that is generally only useful when no one is expecting you.

Deciding it would be best to act as though I expected to see you, I tiptoed over to the statue and whispered, “Foofri?”

There was no answer, so I began walking around the base, looking for company. When I was beneath the upraised forelegs I stumbled and placed a hand against the rock to steady myself. The stone cracked and flashed, and even as I thought “Fire!” I was sailing through the air, driven by the thrust of raw power against my shield. I landed face first in the ceremonial fire pit and came up choking, just in time to see the last flicker of flame fade from the unicorn.

I sat there coughing for a while, trying to look helpless and lure my would-be assassin out of hiding, but I suppose whoever it was, was far away, creating an air-tight alibi. That is part of the point of a booby trap, and I certainly played the part of the booby. I realize now that it was rather stupid of me to go alone when I suspected trouble, but on the other hand, I did take care of myself, so I think that evens things out on the stupidity scale.

I’m not sure how long I gazed at the unicorn before I realized that one of the forelegs was too short. The lowest hoof had apparently been blasted into powder by the heat. I abruptly decided that I had had enough of the fire pit and all but ran for my carpet. I made it home without incident and went for a quick swim to get rid of the ash. I put the carpet back in the garage and walked through the front door, not in the mood to climb in through the window.

Winterfast and Jamin were in the hall putting their evening cloaks on, and they both regarded me with surprise. “Sorry for the drips!” I said, and breezed past before they could ask any awkward questions, like why I’d been swimming in my petticoats.

I can’t deny it anymore, Foofri. Somebody wants me dead.

Once I’d accepted that fact, I began to think about the chandelier accident of the day before. I remembered that something had snapped under my foot, that I’d been thrown against the wall, and that Damorin had said one side of the support spell had given way.

I took the shoes I had worn to the funeral down to Winterfast’s workroom and looked at them under the magiscope. Just as I suspected, I found a thread of a loose stabilizing spell. When I’d stepped beneath the chandelier, the two severed spells had been attracted to each other. The crack was their binding, the force that threw me to the wall and set the chandelier swinging was the reaction of that binding.

I think what unsettles me most is that someone actually cursed my shoes. They would have had to touch them to put that spell on. It probably happened at the funeral, in the crowd. But now that I know to be watchful, it won’t happen again.

I slept surprisingly well, considering, and was up early the next morning to begin my Anniversary-Day errands before the parades started at noon. I was not early enough to elude Jamin, so he had the pleasure of sitting in Madame’s waiting room again while she double checked the alterations. Then, the box safely in the curricle, we were off to the Justicum, to collect my jewelry from the vault. Jamin had to wait outside again, since he doesn’t have clearance, and after I collected the cameo set (more about this later), I took my time recording it in the inventory book, making certain to scan all recent entries as I did so.

I supposed that the Masters wouldn’t have written “Suldan Stones, Row Three, Shelf Four,” in the inventory book, but since there haven’t been very many entries lately, it wasn’t hard to pick out the suspicious ones. There were only two of them, actually, both for antique chamber pots, both deposited a week before Grandfather’s death. Since neither Grandfather nor I have ever had an interest in collecting potterie, I thought I detected the fine hand of Lastra. I memorized the locations while pretending I was having trouble with the pen, and then hurried out to order Jamin back home. Ostensibly this was so I could prepare for that evening’s festivities, and that was true. The difference was that I was scheming with the Muse instead of trying out hairstyles.

I have to admit, he is rather good at, well, brilliant really, and so clever at all sorts of enchantments and complex plans that I would never have been able to accomplish on my own. (Sorry, he was looking over my shoulder when I wrote that bit. He’s floated back to work now, stroking his beard and looking unbearably smug.) What I was going to say is that he’s good at being sneaky, a quality I admire in any being, no matter how insufferable they are in other ways. It was his idea to stowaway as a piece of my jewelry, for example. He went as a comb, and gave himself a cameo face right next to my ear so that he could whisper into it if necessary. And I warned that it had only better be when necessary.

At any rate, I didn’t know whether I’d actually be able to take the Stones into my own custody that night, since I didn’t even know how big they were, but Muse and I finalized a plan for getting into the vault without arousing suspicions, and then for making it look like we spent a good deal less time in there than we actually planned to.

That night, I arranged my hair in a fancy pile that looked well with the cameo combs, or at least, as well as anything can look with what are undoubtedly the ugliest pieces of jewelry I’ve inherited. They are, however, very historical with their profiles of famous heroes, and I hoped that would explain my wearing them to the Anniversary Ball. The one of Jalwa, which is on the choker, is particularly bad since it renders his nose in all its enormous glory. However, every one of the outsized cameos hides a secret compartment. Traditionally, they hold messages or poison. I believe Grandmother used them to smuggle chocolate into tedious Council meetings. Of course, there isn’t much I can sneak into the Residency without triggering the alarms, but I put a few forgetme pellets in the choker and various other handy odds in ends in the earrings and one true comb.

And then we were off to the Ball. I admit that ugly jewelry or not, I felt very splendid as Jamin and Winterfast escorted me into the Imperial ballroom. Although I’ve seen it before, it still takes my breath away, with the crystal pillars refracting a blaze of light, and dark green moonflower vines spilling out of troughs set in the floor and climbing up the columns. The sweet scent of moonflowers filled the air, and the crystal floor was already filled with dancers. We were, naturally, fashionably late.

I danced the first one with Jamin and only stepped on his foot once. I will confess to vanity and admit that I knew we made a dashing couple. As soon as we finished, young (and not so young) ladies besieged him, and I drifted off to talk to old friends from the Academy.

I saw your father, who looked very dapper in a new suit with a cranberry waistcoat, as well as a number of our other mutual acquaintances. But nothing really interesting happened until I spotted Madam Dorthwany standing by a champagne fountain, looking prim and discreetly taking notes for the next day’s gossip columns.

I filled a glass and approached my target with a smile. “Happy Anniversary Eve, Madam Dorthwany.”

She nodded with her habitually solemn expression. “Good evening.” Madame makes me laugh. One would never guess by looking at her conservative demeanor that she is the publisher of the most sensational serials in the Realm.

“I apologize for bringing up business on such an evening, but I wondered if I could ask you a question.”

“Yes?” She wasn’t helping to break the ice, but I plunged ahead anyway.

“I have a friend who wishes to publish a dramatized version of her memoirs. She has selected your publications as being the most appropriate opportunity. I wished to inquire about the process of submitting a serial for publication.”

Suddenly, her frosty attitude melted and she slipped a chummy arm through mine. “Mmmm, yes I see. Memoirs often benefit from a touch of drama. Precisely what sort of story does your friend have?”

“Exotic adventure combined with passionate romance,” I improvised, since I really didn’t know what you were planning.

“And where does this exotic adventure take place?”

“The Outskirts.”

“We haven’t published any stories taking place in a barren and magicless wasteland recently. And who is this friend?” she asked, watching me intently.

“She wishes to remain anonymous,” I said smoothly, “and also she is not living in the Imperial City at this time. Preliminary contact may be made through me, and after that she has a muse who can make deliveries directly to and from your offices.”

She tapped her lips knowingly. “Anonymous, yes I see. Very well, Magi. Inform your friend that she may send the first chapter of her serial to the Daily offices. If we like it, we’ll send her messenger back with a contract of terms.”

I was surprised and pleased. “Thank you very much, Madam Dorthwany.”

She gave me one of those pointed glances people seem to be getting so fond of. “It is always my pleasure to give an aspiring young woman of talent a boost up the literary ladder.”

It took me a moment to realize that she thought I was the one who wished to remain anonymous, and that my “friend” was entirely fictitious. “That is very good of you,” I said, trying not to laugh.

She pressed my arm closer. “While we’re on the topic of business, may I gather a few quotes from you for tomorrow’s reports?”

“Certainly,” I agreed, wanting to help your chances as much as possible.

“What, exactly, is the status of your relationship with Master Ardaya?”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you betrothed? And will his sudden promotion push back the wedding?”

“No!” I exclaimed.

“The wedding will proceed on schedule, how lovely.”

“No!” I said more desperately. “I mean, we’re not betrothed, so there is no wedding to push back. We’re not even … even …” The word to describe what Damorin and I were not eluded me, so I concluded, “I don’t know where you could possibly have picked up such a ridiculous idea.”

“Magi! There’s no need to be so discreet with me. I am your friend. I always champion the underdog. You must know everyone is talking about how you’ve defied the princess in daring to love the man she has all but claimed for herself.”

Instinctively, my eyes scanned the ballroom for the people we were talking about. I’d spotted Ameliorene earlier, waltzing with a duke. Now I found her rose colored gown again, and this time she was (unsurprisingly) attached to the arm of a shimmering blue robe. She wasn’t looking our way, but Damorin was, and his expression was furious.

“Madam, you must see how ridiculous it is all is,” I said, and then the ridiculousness of it hit me, and I threw back my head and laughed. “It’s really too funny,” I gasped. “To think that Ameliorene and I would fight over …” I trailed off, trying not to spill my champagne.

Madam Dorthwany looked smug. “Methinks thou dost protest too much, my dear.”

And then I was seized with an inspiration worthy of you, dearest. “Madam, can I trust you? I mean, really?”

“Of course,” she promised patting my hand.

“The truth is,” I paused, gulped, and tried to appear distraught instead of hysterical, “I am terribly in love, but not with Damorin. The man I love is … he’s so worthy. So good and kind, and oh, so handsome. But, you see, he’s poor and none of his family are magii. And worse than that, they think magic is evil. They’ve sworn never to use it, and they hate me and everything my family stands for!”

I fumbled in my tiny reticule for a handkerchief, as Madam Dorthwany patted my arm again. “It’s a touching story, Cordelimaera, but I don’t believe a word.”

I stared at her in dismay. “You don’t?”

“Not a word,” she repeated. “But it’s most interesting, nonetheless.” And she finally pulled her arm out of mine and sailed away.

I really thought I was a better liar, but I suppose we all have these little misconceptions about ourselves.

“Well, that was interesting,” Muse whispered. I flicked him, hard. That was not a necessary remark.

Fortunately, it was nearly midnight. I had only to make certain I was near none of my close acquaintances when the lights went out as the clock began to toll. As soon as the ballroom went dark, I pulled my mask and cloak out of my magically stretched reticule and put them on, drawing the hood over my head. With my dark colored gown and a bit of luck, I hoped to escape the ballroom without being recognized.

As soon as they released the colored fireflies and lit the lanterns, I sidled my way through the crowd and out the door. Luck, or something, was with me, for the Muse and I traveled all the way to the lowest level of the Residency, where the tunnel connects to the Justicum, without being stopped. We did have to duck out of the way of several amorous couples already swarmed by music motes (they reprogrammed them this year with bleeding heart renditions of recent love songs, which were all dreadful. I’ve never understood the thinking behind music motes, anyway, since the whole point of the masking and the sneaking around to romantic assignations is secrecy).

The tunnel was as heavily guarded as always, but as soon I pulled off my mask and showed them the damage on my earring (which I’d paused around the corner to inflict) and explained I only wanted to put it back in the jewelry box, they let me pass. On the other side, I passed through more guards and then, of course, I had to sign in at the entrance to the vault.

And then we were in. Muse popped out of my hair and back into his own shape, and I counted down the rows to the first one noted in the book as the location of the new chamber pot. The first pot was shaped like a war elephant (I suppose to inspire one to mighty efforts), and I could just reach it when I stood on tiptoe. I grasped the heavy base, and the next moment, fell forward against the shelf, as it evaporated in my hands.

I hastily righted the bottles of crystals that I had knocked over. “It disappeared,” I told Muse, rather obviously. “What do we do now?”

“There were two locations mentioned?” he asked pointedly.

“Of course.” I nearly slapped myself for being so dimwitted, and then we hastened to the other location specified in the catalogue.

The elephant was there, on a higher shelf this time. “You try and pick it up,” I told Muse, and he gave me a condescending look before floating up to the level of the shelf.

“Human magic is simply no good in a crisis,” he said snidely, and I couldn’t help a momentary feeling of smugness when the chamber pot disappeared beneath his pudgy hands with a faint pop.

“It must be back on the other shelf.”

“Obviously,” he sniffed.

“When we touch it, we push it into the other location,” I said slowly, thinking it through. “But if someone were already there, waiting to catch it …” It seemed too simple, but the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced I was right. “It takes two people to get the Stones out. But there aren’t many people allowed into this vault, and of those that are, Foofri is the only one who would conceivably help me steal the Stones, and they’ve taken care of her. They were counting on my being alone.”

“But you are hardly alone,” Muse said, puffing out his chest a little.

“Muse, I could kiss you!” I said, almost meaning it.

He pulled at his beard with both hands. “There’s enough of that going on in this place already. Go and push the snigger thing back at me.”

I hurried back down to the right shelf and found the elephant perched in its old spot. “Ready?” I called.

“I am always ready!” he bellowed back.

I took a deep breath, stood on tiptoe, and grabbed the base of the pot. The moment I did, it quivered under my hands, and then I felt Muse’s hands on top of mine. The elephant recoiled, caught between two places, and exploded into a thousand shards.

I staggered back from the shelf, my hands flying up to protect my face. Happily, most of the pieces flew into the Muse’s space, and of course they couldn’t hurt him. When I’d caught my breath, I looked down at the mess. At my feet lay a velvet bag, about the size and shape of my little finger. “That’s it?” I asked out loud, astonished that the Suldan Stones could possibly be so small. But I didn’t have time to investigate. We’d already spent several minutes in the vault, and now we had a mess to clean up.

“Muse, can you fix it?” I called hopefully.

He floated around the corner, brushing bits of pottery out of his beard. “Nobody could fix that,” he said sourly. “Do you have any idea of the kinds of germs that are probably lingering—”

“Let’s not think about that,” I interrupted. “Can you make it look like it’s fixed?”

Muse humphed and picked up the largest piece of pottery. “Of course I can.” He created an illusion anchored on the shard, while I stirred up a draft to blow the rest of the wreckage beneath the tall shelf.

At the last moment, I remembered my excuse for being here in the first place, so I threw the earrings in the jewel chest and ran for the door. A forgetme pellet for the vault book guard, a moment of fiddling with the recording quill to alter my exit time, a few sweet words to the new set of guards at the tunnel, and Muse and I were back in the Residency, he disguised as a turquoise firefly, and I with the Suldan Stones in the cameo that hung around my neck.

I paused in front of the mirror to make certain I’d put the necklace on straight, and I was about to replace my mask, when a man appeared behind me.

“Maera!” he exclaimed, so I knew it was Jamin. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said as he came closer. “I hope you haven’t exchanged masks yet.”

Mine was very clearly dangling from my hand. “But you’ve exchanged by this time, surely,” I said, hastily tying the satin mask back over my eyes.

“No, this is the original,” he said, tapping his gold glitter mask. “There’s only one lady here tonight that I have any interest in kissing.” He spoke lightly, so I’m not certain how serious he really was.

“Well, you’d better go and find her,” I said brightly, and darted off down the passageway.

I know it was cowardly of me. I ought to have stayed and had the whole matter out with him, but I had the Suldan Stones around my neck, and I panicked.

I ran through a salon and exited into the gardens, rounded a shrub manicured to resemble the emperor, and darted into the hedge maze. I had stopped just before the first intersection, trying to find the secret sign that points the way to the center, when a very angry voice around the corner demanded, “What do you mean you’ve lost her?”

“She slipped away during the masking. I’ve been looking ever since.”

“You were supposed to be guarding her,” the first voice hissed.

“I’m sorry,” voice number two said humbly. “Should we alert the Residency guards?”

At this point, I found the sign and it pointed toward the voices, so I started tiptoeing back to the entrance. It was entirely possible that those voices were looking for me, and I didn’t want to be found, no matter who they were. But when I got to the end of the hedge, I spotted a man in a gold glitter mask standing on the lawn.

Ready to scream with nerves, I started back down the hedgeway, determined to take my chances with the other path, but when I got to the intersection, the voices were gone. Exhaling in relief, I hurried around the corner of the right path and ran solidly into a tall figure, dressed in very recognizable, shimmering robes.

Damorin had me by both shoulders and his shadowed gaze was very cold. “Why were you sneaking behind that hedge?” he demanded.

My only chance was to brazen it out. In a somewhat forlorn hope I would escape recognition, I answered in a coquettish whisper, “What is any girl doing tonight? I’ve still got my own mask, and I’m running out of time. Excuse me,” and I tried to twist away.

His hands tightened. “Perhaps I can be of service,” he said, and then he pulled me close and kissed me.

I don’t think it was what the experts term a triple crown, but it must have been at least an eagle.* Whatever its official rating, my knees had all the firmness of custard, and I could have sworn we were surrounded by a cloud of music motes. Which, when he finally stopped kissing me, we were.

Oh Jalwa, was all I could think at first, I was so flummoxed. Then I realized that my arms had somehow wound their way around his neck, so I dropped them quickly and stepped back.

“Thank you, Happy Anniversary,” I stammered and tried to dart away through the cloud of music motes (playing a really awful violin version of “My Helpless Heart Has Been Magicked Away by You,” which, for the record, is the worst love song ever written), but he caught my arm. “A moment, Magi. I believe this belongs to me.”

I stepped aside as he reached for my mask. “But you haven’t got one to exchange,” I protested. “You’ve already given it away, so I don’t owe you anything.”

“I did not,” he said unexpectedly. “I didn’t wear one. I didn’t see the point.”

“You do stand out in a crowd,” I conceded, observing the way his robes glimmered in the darkness of the maze, “but you can’t expect to get something for nothing.”

He pulled a glittering strand from his sleeve. In a moment, it wove itself into a delicate eye mask. “Will this do?”

“I suppose.” I pulled off my own mask, feeling oddly vulnerable without it, and exchanged it for the shining one. “Goodbye,” I said, and he finally let me go.

I had to stop in the center of the maze, to catch my breath and gather my composure. “You were getting pretty hot back there, Magi,” a little voice buzzed in my ear. “What’s the matter, fan the flames a little too hard?”

“Oh, Shut Up,” I snapped, tying on my new mask, and surprised to find that my cheeks were wet.

Fortunately, I found my way out of the maze without getting lost, and I went back inside, where they’d turned the proper lights back on, to look for Winterfast. I was more than ready to go home.

I found Winterfast. He was with Uncle, who was talking to Lady Ardaya, who was accompanied by her new best friend, the princess. I tried to back away, but they had all already seen me.

Uncle looked very relieved when he saw me. “Cordy! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I was just asking Lady Ardaya if perhaps you’d been cornered by the Master for some theoretical discussion. You Council members never seem to stop working.”

“No,” I said, “no theoretical discussion for me tonight.”

Lady Ardaya was looking at me with narrowed eyes. “What an unusual mask.”

And then they were all staring at me. Ameliorene’s eyes went wide, Uncle looked suddenly suspicious, and Winterfast appeared amused.

I snatched off the mask and realized what I had missed in my earlier fluster. The mask didn’t just sparkle. It sparkled blue. Damorin may as well have scrawled his name across my face. Jalwa and his war band take all Masters and their stuck up ways! Why can’t they wear ordinary party clothes like the rest of us?

I can’t bear to think of the rest of that awkward conversation, so I shall skip over to coming home and going to bed. As soon as I’d given Winterfast and Jamin enough time to slip into sweet dreams, the Muse and I hopped the wall to my estate and spent the rest of the night setting up the new security system we’d invented. Or rather, the Muse tolerated what he called my “amusing human bumbling” for a few minutes, and then took over, so I’ve been writing to you.

I haven’t opened the pouch with the Stones in it yet. I want to be in my own house, behind my own safety wards before I do that. But the next time you hear from me, I will at last have unraveled the secrets of the Suldan Stones.

Ever Affectionately,

Cordy

P.S. I don’t understand what Sean means by maintaining a balance between being able to do things with and without magic. Perhaps we should also all practice walking on our hands, in case something happens to our feet!

P.P.S. I can’t believe he kissed me. I can’t believe he gave me that mask. And I can’t believe you’re not here to help me make sense of all this! I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s proving more difficult than I thought.

* The tradition of the masked Anniversary Ball and the Anniversary kiss is one that goes back to the first days of the empire. After Martaluk I ascended the throne and created the Imperial Realm, the crown prince (later Mukaluk I) fell passionately in love with a Nirabian princess. Although the girl returned his regard, she was already betrothed to another. She accompanied her royal father to a grand celebration given by the emperor to celebrate the first anniversary of his rule, and she the prince arranged an assignation during the grand ball. They wore masks to conceal their identity, which they exchanged during the rendezvous as pledges of undying affection. Fortunately, they were spied upon by both Imperial and Nirabian agents. Once the king learned his daughter had won the heart of the Imperial prince, he threw over the minor landowner to whom he had first engaged her and pledged her hand to the prince. Thus, a happy trade alliance between the Realm and Nirabia was born, and it endured until the disaster of the Shazar Pass. At that time, there was some discussion as to whether the Anniversary traditions honoring their memory ought to be abandoned, but public outcry was so great, and the merchandizing power of the manufacturers of masks and hooded cloaks (to say nothing of the Imperial Guide to Kissing franchise) so massive, that the traditions of the Ball remained intact.