Silverblind (Ironskin) Read Online Free PDF Page B

respectively. Stella was at the main university—one of two girls in the math department—and still had another year left, due to a gap year spent working as a governess.
    After yet another round of stories about someone who had been told she couldn’t have the job because she’d just get married and have babies, and someone else who was using her political science degree to governess for a toddler, Dorie suddenly burst out, “It’s like nothing’s changed. My stepmother is always saying you can do anything and you just have to get out there and show them. But then what do you do when you just hit that brick wall?”
    “But so much has changed,” Stella said. “Heck, ten years ago women couldn’t even be at this university, even if ninety-nine percent of my classmates look at me like a statistical anomaly. And that’s not even counting that time a couple decades ago where they stopped letting dwarvven in for a year.”
    “You’re doubly blessed,” said Jack.
    “Five years ago Jack couldn’t have gone to her art school,” continued Stella.
    “Trailblazing, as usual,” said Jack. “The first year we had separate life drawing classes for the women, where the male models kept towels draped modestly over their naughty bits.”
    “But somehow it’s okay for the boys to draw naked girls all day.”
    “Finally there was a big revolt—”
    “—led by a certain young lady named Jack—”
    “—that involved a sudden surprise confiscation of all the towels,” finished Jack. “Thank you, thank you.”
    “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” said Dorie. “The more things change…”
    “The more they don’t,” rejoined Stella. “Hey, did you hear Madame Martine ran off with our geometry teacher?”
    “No! Remember his ear hair?”
    “The ear hair! Remember the nose hair!”
    Jack bought more rounds until the tenner ran out, and Stella called for one more, that Dorie declined. Unsteadily she rose to her feet. Maybe Simons and the world in general were right. You couldn’t do anything as a girl, a girl who had to slink around for fear of being noticed. But if you had another option … were you wrong to try it? What if you could change things from the inside? “I think I’d better head home and crash,” Dorie said.
    “I’ll come,” said Jack.
    “No, no, you two stay and have fun,” said Dorie. She knew that was what Jack really wanted to do anyway. Besides, Dorie needed to be on her own for this. She hadn’t done it in years. Seven years, to be exact. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
    *   *   *
    Dorie sat cross-legged in the tiny top-floor flat she shared with Jack. She rather liked living with an artist—though the flat was crammed full of canvases, jars of brushes, turpentiney rags, and so on, its fire-hazardy disarray reminded her of home. Her father had been a sculptor, once. His hands were stiff from a long-ago accident, but he hadn’t been able to give up his artwork entirely. He painted in oils on the top floor of their drafty house, and the studio was crammed with the same sights and smells as here.
    Moonlight streamed through the thin sheet Jack had hung for a curtain. The window was open to the cool summer night, and the breeze blew away the lingering heat in the apartment.
    Dorie went to her room. Pulled out a locked box of copper she kept secreted at the bottom of a trunk. On a long necklace hidden inside her blouse was the copper key. In seven years, she had not opened this box till this very morning, when she had cracked the lid a fraction and slid the tips of her fingers inside, hoping somehow it would bring her luck.
    She unlocked the copper box now, flipped open the lid with enough force that it clanged against the outside of the box. The dense concentrated blue seemed to vibrate with its stored energy. Light streamed onto her face, her chest, her hands.
    Her light. Her self.
    Her missing half.
    Perhaps she had always known that, once she tasted the