The Silvered Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hagen be at the opera if there were any danger?”
    “If he didn’t want people to panic.”
    “There is nothing for anyone to panic about. Now be quiet!”
    Teeth clenched, Mirian watched the curtain rise for the second act and wondered if she were the only person in the Opera House putting two and two together and actually arriving at four.
    When
Onnesmina
finally ended, with the lovers reunited and a final aria sung, Mirian found herself with her hand firmly tucked into the angle of her father’s elbow and her mother close up on her other side as they made their way down the stairs to the reception in the lower lobby. Their clear concern that she might make a run for it was almost funny, and Mirian amused herself during the descent by imagining the dash through dark streets, her hair spilling down, her satin slippers worn through, one glove lost and abandoned in the gutter. She’d reach the house, push past Barrow, who’d be so astonished to see her an emotion might spill past his perfect butler facade, then she’d lock herself in her room and…
    And what?
    Might as well stay here.
    Her stomach growled.
    At least there’d be food.
    During the last act, the wrought-iron barriers that had previously separated the café from the lobby had been moved to create a corridor those not attending the reception could use to exit the building. At the entrance for the favored, an employee of the Opera House checked their invitations, then stepped back and bowed.
    Mirian thought her mother might have enjoyed the bow just a little too much.
    In a room filled to capacity, with everyone wearing the same loose, easy to remove clothing dictated by Pack fashion, it still wasn’t hard to identify the visiting members of the Pack. Like those of the Pack who lived in Bercarit, the visitors were so much more present. Those not in the Pack outnumbered the Pack about ten to one, but the latter dominated the room with a vitality and an assurance no one else could match.
    Although the four women and three men who were Mage-pack came close. Mirian suspected she could actually see the power surrounding them if she squinted a little.
    They had the power—mage and otherwise—to actually accomplish things, to not waste their lives on clothes and card parties and social positioning. She objected to the way her parents felt they could use her to solve all
their
problems and she objected to time wasted on futility—as she was clearly not suitable—but she had no actual objection to being a part of the Mage-pack. Who would?
    “Miri. Stop squinting!” The accompanying pinch was more to ensure her attention than to cause pain, but it hurt nevertheless. “And keep your head down, so they can’t see the lack of color in your eyes. Kollin, isn’t that Regin Fortryn, from the Council? He knows Lord Berin, and he’s certainly borrowed money enough from the bank. We shall have him introduce us.”
    Fortryn seemed pleased to see her father—not always a given when someone had “certainly borrowed enough from the bank”—and the two were soon happily deconstructing the city’s finances.
    Her mother waited, more or less patiently, until it became obvious no introduction to the Pack would be immediately forthcoming, then she tugged Mirian aside and murmured, “You must be hungry.”
    Most of both Pack and Mage-pack had gathered around Emilohi Okafor—as beautiful and charismatic offstage as on—but there were four young men—three members of the Pack and a lieutenant from the 2nd—standing at one end of the buffet table. As it was nearly midnight and she
was
hungry, Mirian didn’t bother pointing out that, given how close they were standing to each other, it was unlikely two of the young men would be interested in her.
    And besides, there was always the chance she’d meet the lieutenant’s gaze and they’d fall desperately in love. The thought of her mother’s reaction to a match with a junior officer who was neither Pack nor mage kept