I quickly discovered that the dress was as frilly and absurd as I feared. Mum didn’t normally bother making us dress for dinner, but with Great Aunt Stregheria at the table we had to look our best. I glanced wistfully at the shower, then at the grandfather clock my parents had given me after I returned home. There wasn’t time to do more than wash my hands and splash water on my face before I got dressed. Being late for a formal dinner - even a dinner that only featured one guest - was the sort of thing that would lead to a frank exchange of views with my mother. She detested Great Aunt Stregheria, but she detested rudeness still more.
I pulled on the wretched dress, then inspected myself in the mirror. The long white gown looked faintly absurd on my lanky form, even though it contrasted nicely with the color of my skin. I was lucky that mum hadn’t joined other High Society ladies when it came to the latest fashions for growing girls. I’d seen dresses that were so absurdly complex that the wearer needed two maids to help them get the dresses on and off. I couldn’t help feeling as though the girls were forced to wear them, which made me wonder why the adults wore similar dresses. But then, the dictates of fashion had always been a mystery to me.
Mum would have to use magic to force me into such a dress, I thought.
I smiled at the thought, even though it wasn’t really amusing. Thankfully, my mother had given me something relatively comfortable. Alana might enjoy wearing ballroom gowns that were really scaled-down adult dresses, but I never had. I was not going to walk around wearing a fanned-out dress so large that sitting down at the dinner table would prove impossible. I’d long since come to believe that the reason society ladies stayed so thin was because they couldn’t sit down to dinner, while eating on one’s feet was regarded as bad manners. But perhaps it had something more to do with the formal dancing afterwards.
Pulling my hair down, I braided it into a long ponytail and inspected it in the mirror. Great Aunt Stregheria would sniff, I was sure, if there was even a single hair out of place. She’d probably be looking for some reason to complain, if I knew her. It was a mystery to me why anyone asked her back for a second time. I was fairly sure that my father hadn’t invited her, not after what had happened two years ago. But that did raise the question of why she’d come.
And why Dad let her through the gate, I thought, as I clipped on my earrings and concealed a bracelet high up my sleeve. Mum banned her from the estate after she used her magic on us.
The second gong rang, the sound echoing through the house. I swallowed hard - the prospect of facing Great Aunt Stregheria again was enough to make me want to run away - and headed for the door. June, the youngest of the maids, stood outside, looking as if she was nerving herself up to knock. I don’t know why she was so worried. It wasn’t as if she was dancing attendance on Great Aunt Stregheria. In her place, I would have been thrilled to be well away from the guest wing.
“You look lovely, My Lady,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, tartly. The dress might not have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t what I liked to wear. “Leave the room alone. I’ll clean it up later.”
June curtseyed, a flicker of ... something ... crossing her face. I felt a stab of guilt, which blurred into the butterflies in my stomach. It was probably too late to commit some hideous crime that would get me sent to bed without supper. And even if I did, my mother would probably insist that having to go to dinner was a worse punishment than going without. An evening with Great Aunt Stregheria would feel like an eternity.
I touched the bracelet on my arm as I walked down the corridor, passing a long row of portraits that glowered down at me disapprovingly. I’d often wondered just how I fitted into the family, even though I could draw and wield the Family Sword. The Aguirre Family dates all the way back to the Thousand-Year Empire, if you believe our historians. We have always been powerful magicians, counselors to kings ... sometimes even kingmakers in our own right. My lack of magic had shamed the entire line. Alana had told me, more than once, that I’d be disowned - or worse - the moment she took over the family. There had been times when I feared my parents would disown me well before they died.
And now they know what I can do, I thought. They don’t want to disown me now.
A cold shiver ran down my spine as I reached the formal dining room. It was immense, easily large enough to accommodate a couple of hundred people. The large table in the centre of the chamber looked tiny, faintly absurd compared to the immensity of the room. I would have preferred the family dining room, which was smaller and more comfortable, but my mother clearly had other ideas. Perhaps she was hinting that Great Aunt Stregheria was far from welcome. I rather doubted Great Aunt Stregheria had gotten the message.
My father sat at one end of the table, his face utterly expressionless; my mother sat at the other, her lips so thin with disapproval that they’d practically vanished. Great Aunt Stregheria sat next to my father, her dark eyes cold and hard. Belladonna, my other sister, sat on the far side, as far from our unwelcome guest as she could without being unbearably rude. The tension in the air was so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
“Caitlyn,” Dad said. He rose, indicating the seat next to Great Aunt Stregheria. “Please, take a seat.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. My mouth was dry. Sitting next to Great Aunt Stregheria ... I would sooner have sat next to a basilisk. Or a dragon. At least it would have been over quickly. I walked around the table, pausing long enough to curtsey to my mother, then took the seat. Courtesy forbade me from inching the chair away from the vindictive old crone.
Great Aunt Stregheria turned to look at me. I looked back, fighting down the urge to cringe back in my chair. It was hard to believe that she was related to my father, even though I’d seen her wield the Family Sword too. My father was a tall, powerfully-built man; Great Aunt Stregheria was slight, but with an attitude of power and menace that made her look like a vulture eying wounded prey. Her skin was still flawless, her hair as black as night ... I couldn’t help wondering if she used magic to keep it that way. My father was twenty or so years younger than her and he was already showing signs of going grey.
Perhaps it’s having us kids, I thought, as I turned my attention to the table. The maids had covered the table with a white cloth, then laid out a dozen sets of cutlery. Great Aunt Stregheria never married, let alone had children.
I should have felt sorry for her, I knew. Even now, Great Aunt Stregheria wore her hair down, signifying an unmarried woman of marriageable age. And yet, she had never married, never had children. It was one of the reasons her brother - my grandfather - had decided to pass the family headship to my father, rather than someone close to them in age. But the nasty part of my mind had no trouble understanding why Great Aunt Stregheria was still unmarried, despite her family ties. There wasn’t enough wealth and power in the world to make someone willingly spend the rest of their life with her.
Mum cleared her throat. “Where is Alana?”