They had been at work on the glamural for a little over two weeks and their team of glamourists had developed a good working rhythm. Though the charity ball was only eleven days away, the ice palace showed every sign of being finished on time. The bulk of the large effects were in place, and their efforts had moved to finishing touches.
Jane was outwardly discussing the floor of the glamural with Nkiruka and Louisa, but she was in fact watching Vincent. He was placing the enormous folds that would make the icy ceiling of the palace. Overhead, a deep night sky sparkled with stars that peeked through the aurora borealis. Its greens and purples rippled in slow waves across the length of the ballroom. Though the ceiling of Jane’s design had been separated into crystalline fragments, each piece was so large, that even Vincent needed to take frequent breaks as he worked. Glamour’s tendency to drift towards the earth before it was tied off made creating the sharp edges of the ice at that distance a challenge.
Vincent had created two of the pieces thus far, and after the second, he had been so dizzy that he had been compelled to sit for a time. Not long enough, Jane thought. His cheeks were still quite flushed.
She became aware that Louisa was waiting for a response. “I am so sorry. I was distracted for a moment. Could you repeat that?”
Nkiruka snorted. “That man of yours, eh?”
“Yes. So sorry. He has a history of overworking himself, and I was trying to decide if I should intervene.” Jane resolutely pressed her hands together. “Now … Louisa, you had a question about the snow?”
“Yes, madam. I was thinking about the frost on the windows and how we used the Hobbson’s pleating to make that and the snow. Could we use it on the floor as well?”
“Instead of the Vantrose plait? It will require longer to place.”
“But it slower, so it is not so wearying.” Thanks to their efforts on the book, Jane and Nkiruka had a much larger common vocabulary of glamour than when they started. Nkiruka stretched a piece of blue-white glamour between them. “Look. Use a me ka ? d? ka mmadu j?r? anya na-ebe akwa ahu uz? with your Hobbson’s pleating. Is so snow look?” She slid the flat of her palm in a peculiar sideways motion that Jane was eager to try herself. Where her hand passed, the blue-white sparkled into something that looked like thousands of ice crystals.
“Oh—that is much easier than what I had planned. Yes. Let us do that.” She glanced to Vincent, who had tied off the folds and stood bent over with hands braced upon his knees. “Will you excuse me?”
With a knowing look, Nkiruka waved her away and returned to conversation with Louisa. Jane hurried across the ballroom as quickly as she could. A run was not possible, but a hurried waddle soon had her by his side. He was panting and sweat-soaked. “Are you all right?”
“Stupidly dizzy.” In spite of the speed of his breath, he did not sound distressed. “I keep forgetting that I am out of condition. No glamour for months. Then two weeks back at it.”
“Shall I get a chair?”
“I only need a moment.” His breathing did seem to be calming. “Oddly, I think I have missed this.”
“Missed being dizzy? This may explain much in your work habits.”
He chuckled, head still bent down. “Did you not spin in circles when you were a child?”
“Yes. When I was a child.” Though her own dizziness had become less frequent, Jane still took care when standing. As much as she rebuked him for overwork, she would rather have a fatigued and laughing Vincent. After the months of seeing him slowly break from the strain of dealing with his father, being merely dizzy seemed a delightful change.
“There is something about pushing to the edge of what one can do…” He tilted his head to the side and looked at the ceiling out of the corner of his eye. “It turned out well, though, eh?”
With the panels of crystalline ceiling in place, the edges of ice caught the aurora borealis and refracted the light into glimmering beams. The night sky seemed almost like a velvet setting for jewels, so deep and rich was the blue. He had added pale wispy clouds, just enough to diffuse the light as they drifted across the sky. “It takes one’s breath away,” Jane said.
“I can vouch for that.”
She laughed. “You do make me worry sometimes.”
“Since I worry all the time about you, that seems only fair.”
“You need only watch me waddle as proof that everything is well.” She had passed the seven-month mark, and it seemed their child had celebrated by suddenly increasing in size.
“You do not waddle.”
“Then you are not paying attention, for which I am glad.”
“I assure you that I most decidedly pay attention when you move, or speak, or laugh. You do not waddle.”
“And I assure you that this last week, I have most decidedly begun to waddle. Shall I take a turn around the room to prove it?”