Dad is telling stories about cows, and it is making my mother nervous. Her family would never talk about cows, and certainly not at dinner--which is why I have to marry Boron. I can't make the same mistakes that my mother did, that she was forced to make.
Boron's dinner party won't have started yet. The richer you are, the later you eat. You can afford light, so you stay up late. One day I will join beautiful people in a party blazing with light and the swirl of colored dresses. I'm not invited. But that's okay because once I pass my exam and prove that I deserve it, I will lead at every party.
Dad laughs and gets up from the table. My mother and I breathe a sigh of relief, and I escape to my room. No one will bother me to do dishes or stand on a stool in the living room and have a dress pinned together around me. I don't like wearing dresses that my mother is making for someone else. When she does her sewing, Wren will have to stand in for me. She's a better shape for it, anyway, but my mother prefers to have me because I'm taller. This week, Wyren can do chores for both of us.
I light two candles and then switch off my lumicube. The bright light from the cube is good for studying, but I've used a lot of magic lately, so I'd better stick with fire. Besides, I like the warm light of candles better than the white light of magic.
I tap my pencil a couple of times, take a breath, and dive in to my studies. Before long, I forget everything except for the work I am doing, and I don't notice that the candles are shrinking, with long strings of wax dripping down the sides, until I look up and realize that time has passed. It's like waking up suddenly or like coming up for air when you're swimming.
My mathmagics book closes, almost by itself. It’s nearly midnight, and I don't think I can do one more equation. I’m not going to get ready for bed just yet, though, because he is at the dinner party. The party he didn't even think to invite me to.
But I can see the lights.
The women will be wearing colored dresses. The yellow ones are from less important families--like the one my mother was born into. But if you are green, then you walk like you own the world, because you probably do. Boron is from a Red House, so there will be reds, oranges, yellows, and maybe a few greens at the party. He will be wearing a tuxedo, of course, the black jacket playing up the black curls of his hair, the red tie lying against his dusky throat.
Now I really can’t study. Everyone in the house should be asleep by now. It’s time for a little practical magic.
For a long time, I've toyed with the idea of using magic to help me along, not just to pass my exam and win honors, but use it to help me a little bit more directly. Maybe it's because it's so late, but I know what I want to do now.
Quickly, I look out my bedroom door. It’s quiet and dark. Everyone should have gone to bed over an hour ago, but I never can tell for sure about my sister. Of course, what I plan to do shouldn’t make any noise, but you can’t always predict what magic will do—especially when you’re experimenting with illegal magic. It won't be good if I set the house on fire.
If I wait two or three weeks until I have my Class C license, it will be too late. He'll be visiting other domini and their daughters until he finds one that he likes.
I can't let that happen.
I pull out my box of crystals. It’s a beautiful set, I lift one up, twist it in the light to see the sparkles that mean it's full of energy.
I bet his glass sparkles just like this when he lifts it to drink, maybe while chats with the girl next to him. What if I were there, in a daring yellow dress with my hair held up by pearl hair pins instead of pencils? I’d say something witty, and then he’d laugh, and then his hand would brush against mine as he reaches for his glass…
I need to focus on magic, but I keep staring out the window at his house.
Every time I have been to the Domini House, I bring herbs and medicines from Anen, my grandmom. I go the back way, and I'm lucky when I happen to see Boron. I have never seen the dining room or the ballroom. I have never seen much of anything except my father’s farm. The brown farm filled with brown animals and weathered gray wood. Brown and gray are not really colors at all.
But my mother, before she married my dad, used to go to balls and dress as a Yellow. She was Canary Yellow, one of the higher ones, and she would have never married a man without a color except that her father died, and her family needed the money.
One day when I become Lady Kestrel, I will show them what I really am: a daughter of a Yellow House who took first standing in the Exam—instead of a farmer’s girl without any color at all.
