Yes. I am a big fan of positive thinking.

Anyway, here it is.

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The crowd in the banquet hall seemed to press in around Lyra. At least fifty bodies, most of them unknown to her, many of them shooting her calculating glances and then turning back to their own companions to gossip about the baron’s disappearance with the Lady Aelis.

Lyra knew that in situations like this, more of the blame would fall to her than to the baron. She wasn’t in her own home, after all; most of those around her were the baron’s people and therefore more likely to side with him, simply because he was the known entity. And he was prettier than she was, which galled her to admit; that a man was prettier than she, but by the time she hit twelve, she had reconciled herself to being smart rather than beautiful.

And she wouldn’t call herself plain, even, but put her beside a tall, blond man with the smile of a godling, and– Well. It didn’t take much for people to conclude that the persons involved didn’t exactly fit together.

But he was stupid, so he wouldn’t have been her choice for a husband in the first place.

Lyra sighed and fluffed her hair that immediately returned to its straight state. Creams and hot irons had all proved useless in lending her locks even a hint of curl. Cosmetics that applied smoothly to the skin of other women inexplicably clumped around her eyes, nose, and the corners of her lips. Privately, she simply reconciled herself to the statement artifice does not become her, and tried to embrace her features as they were. Or, failing that, to cultivate her other gifts.

A throat cleared at her side, and she turned, pasting a smile on her face, preparing herself to talk of the weather yet again to some busybody hoping to decipher why Lyra’s husband had disappeared with a woman who was most certainly not his betrothed. She had her phrases all set: “How I love that bracing Yaric wind!” (She’d never been all that adept a liar, but this one was becoming second nature to her.) “Oh, my, the sunsets are breathtaking here, aren’t they?” and of course, “Why, yes, I do find it a bit hot for mid-autumn, but I am sure I will get used to it as time goes by.”

It was the last one she still had trouble with, trying to sound sincere.

But the throat-clearer proved to be not yet another Yaric dignitary, but instead the waiter who had seen her in the kitchens, crying over the cake batter.

A memory she had rather forget. The cry had been necessary, she felt, but to be seen at it–

“Would you care for some wine? From what I’ve seen, you’ve had only a single glass, and that strikes me as far too few for one’s betrothal celebration.”

Despite herself, she chuckled and accepted a glass. “Thank you.”

Her eyes drifted from the server to instead scan over the guests. She was simultaneously pleased and chagrined to realize that she could name at least half of them. Then again, her father had always said she had a mind for such details, and a bent for politics. She was wasted as “just a mayor’s daughter,” he had said.

And now she was to be a baron’s wife. Oh, happy day.

“Kendrick of Pirvalle,” she said for no particular reason. She gestured with her wine glass at a man in a green velvet doublet entirely unsuited for the heat of Yaric. The man had a black goatee and spent far too much time staring at the bosom of his companion, a Mistress Yarksdale of– Damn, what was the hamlet again? She was sure it was a hamlet; nothing so very large or important. “Kendrick evidently lost his first wife in childbirth. Rumor is that he wasn’t very upset, as she was horse-faced and prone to complaining of his gambling. Though if he’s seriously thinking of making a match with Mistress Yarksdale, perhaps someone should warn him she’s an even larger gambler than he.”

Though there was no reason for the waiter to stay near her, he lingered a bit, to Lyra’s surprise.

“Is Pirvalle close to your home, then?” he asked. “For you to know a bit of their personalities, I mean.”

Across the room, over the waiter’s shoulder, Lyra caught her mother glaring at her. She withheld a sigh and noted to herself to be prepared for a lecture about speaking at lengths with the servants. Though in their own home they treated the servants more as friends, Corista felt that such behavior wasn’t at all appropriate for an incumbent baron’s wife.

Well, at least after the wedding, her mother would be back in Briggun, and her husband so occupied with using his fingers and toes to count to twenty, Lyra could arrange things as she liked. She ignored her mother’s baleful stare and returned her attention to the waiter. Dark gray eyes, with flecks of blue in them. Unusual. “No, Pirvalle isn’t particularly close to Briggun. But when the . . . match was put forth, I thought it might do me well to research Yaric’s political dealings.”

The waiter’s eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t that be difficult to achieve from a distance?” And then, seeming to remember his place, he said, “Forgive me. I shouldn’t ask questions.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Her gaze slipped away from him again, to note that now she was gaining her own set of stares. Gossip about Edmain with Lady Aelis or gossip about her speaking at length with a servant; she didn’t much care which it was. “My father may have been just the mayor, but he did like to keep in place a system of communication so he could keep abreast of the goings-on around the continent. Couriers, heralds, even just friend and relatives sending letters relating the matters at hand in places they lived or visited. He had a knack for it, I suppose you could say.”

When the silence stretched on too long, Lyra shifted on her feet. Her mother’s glare had turned into a glower, and though she spoke at intervals with guests, Lyra noticed that her conversations led her closer and closer to Lyra’s position. “Pardon me, but I think my mother wants me.” She tipped her wine in his direction. “Thank you for the wine.”

She started to turn away to get her mother’s wrath over and done with, but the waiter caught her arm, though he dropped it immediately. “My apologies.” Though he didn’t sound truly apologetic; more like he simply knew the statement was required of him and so he spoke it. “But you said had. Your father ‘had a knack for it.’ I’m sorry for your loss.” And where the sincerity had been absent from the first, it was present for that.

Lyra’s throat tightened. No, no; she was not going to cry in front of him again, particularly not when her audience had increased tenfold, and particularly not for something that had happened more than five years ago. She would not.

But her “Thank you” sounded choked nonetheless, and she had to admit that her leave-taking was closer to fleeing than a simple departure.

She hated to be undone by kindness.

1.

The charm lay heavy in Gavin’s pocket, a ball of heat that bounced against his upper thigh with every step he took. So far it seemed no one at the baron’s bethrothal party recognized him as the newly arrived charm-seller who set up shop in the Yaric marketplace each day. But then, he didn’t expect them to find him out; he did know a thing or two about setting a glamour, after all.

What did surprise him was that Aelis hadn’t caught him out. She had always been the superior illusionist, and he doubted anything had changed in the fifty years since they’d last spoken directly to one another.

“What are you doing, man?”

Gavin startled and backed away from the curtain, where he’d been peering at the curious group of people evidently deemed worthy enough to attend the baron’s bethrothal party. He turned to face the chief cook, whose name Gavin couldn’t be bothered to remember just now. So he smiled and prepared to talk his way out of trouble.

But before he could get out a single syllable, the chief cook, beefy hands placed on ample sides, lumbered into a beratement. “You’re the new serving boy, aren’t you?”

For a moment, Gavin could only stare at the rotund and sweating cook before he remembered that in his current guise, boy was an accurate term. He nodded at the cook after a considerable delay.

The cook threw his hands up in the air. “Just my luck, the new serving boy is an idiot.” He leaned close to Gavin and pointed back toward the kitchens. “You . . . go . . . to . . . kitchens. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“He speaks! He comprehends!” The cook grabbed Gavin’s arm and pulled him away from the curtain blocking the dining hall from the serving staff. “Since you do understand me after all, quit mooning after whatever spotty-faced cow you found and get back to the kitchens. Have Gerard tell you what to do.”

Evidently Gavin hadn’t mastered masking blank looks in this guise, because the head cook spluttered and slapped at him, which might have been more effective if he weren’t nearly a full foot shorter than Gavin. “Gerard, boy! The head cupbearer. The man ostensibly responsible for directing you. Though he’s doing a piss-poor job of it.” The cook relinquished Gavin’s arm, evidently trusting him to follow behind. “By Elestra the Basket Weaver—may she be blessed forever—I’ve got more than enough to handle, what with the spit boy overcooking the roast, and the new baker’s girl sobbing into the cake batter. I haven’t got time to be watching over wayward serving boys as well when it’s Gerard’s job–

“Gerard!”

The cook laid hold of Gavin’s arm again and wheeled him about to face a dark-haired man with the legs of a stork and the face of a leprous pig. Pushing Gavin forward, the cook said, “Caught your new serving boy shirking his duties, staring at the worthies in the banquet hall. Probably mooning over some unattainable mayor’s daughter. Do something with him, will you? I have to go see whether that wretched girl’s tears are making the cake batter too salty. So help me, if she’s ruined that batter….” The cook bustled off.

Gerard, who did have some height on Gavin, but only a bit, looked him up and down. “I do not recognize you.”

And now Gavin remembered his story and spouted it off accordingly. “I’m new. Last-minute substitute. My cousin Adam, he come down with some wretched sickness—got blotchy marks all over his face and he’s been puking since dawn. His mother reckons it might be croup–”

Gerard lifted a forestalling hand. “Whatever his ailment, I don’t care to hear it.” He turned on his heel. “Follow.”

Gavin trailed after the lanky man to the kitchens, where the chief cook haranged a hapless-looking spit boy but left the sobbing baker’s girl to herself.

As he and Gerard passed the crying girl who stood over a vat of batter, Gavin did a double-take. Since when did baker’s girls wear silk underneath their aprons? He opened his mouth to say something—whether to her or to Gerard or the chief cook he didn’t know—but then she lifted her eyes from the batter and met his gaze. Light from the sconces on the walls caught the unshed tears in her eyes and made them shine. She shook her head in a clear plea for silence.

Gavin closed his mouth. The girl gave him a small smile. An unfortunately long nose kept her from being truly pretty, but Gavin rather thought that when her eyes weren’t puffy and her skin not blotchy from crying, she’d manage striking.

“Boy.”

Gavin turned to face Gerard again just in time to avoid a collision. The other man had stopped at a table whose top was covered with decanters of wine. Gerard frowned. “I believe I see what Kaven meant about you mooning about. You’re to take this wine and serve it in the banquet hall to whoever asks for it. Think you can manage that without staring at girls, crying or otherwise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Gerard pressed a bottle into Gavin’s hand. “No staring at the worthies. Baron Edmain would likely pay no mind, but we have a lot of visitors, and you never know if one of them might. Now get to it, boy.” Gerard shoved Gavin forward as if he meant to propel Gavin all the way back to the banquet hall.

Boy. Gavin mouthed the word. It’d be some time before he readjusted to not looking old anymore.

Well, as old. The last twenty years of Aelis’ curse were proving stubborn. Gavin just hoped that tonight’s bit of illusion wouldn’t set him back in his progress.

But he’d found the harpy. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to exact his revenge.

Even with that happy thought, he slowed a bit to see whether he could confirm his supposition about the silk-wearing baker’s girl, but her station by the cauldron of cake batter was empty. Pity. She had certainly been worth a second look.

Behind Gavin’s back, Gerard cleared his throat. Gavin increased his stride.

No matter about the girl; he had a charm to cast, justice to mete, and acting the part of serving boy would make his task all the easier.

This is for making me old, you harpy.

By the time he returned to the banquet hall, he suspected his grin was too broad for that of a mere serving boy, but he found he didn’t much care.