“Something suited to the weather,” Miriam muttered. Brilliana was wearing a black dress that would have passed unnoticed at any cocktail party from the 1960s through the 1990s. In the setting of a cold, sparsely furnished castle, there was something unbelievably surreal about it. “Listen, that’s a fire and a half.” Her skin crawled. “Is there any chance of using it to heat a lot of water? Like, enough for a bath? I want to get clean, then find something to eat.” She thought for a moment. “Afterward you can choose something for me to wear tomorrow when I go to talk with Lady Olga. And for the reception in the evening as well, I suppose. But right now, I’d kill for a chance to wash my hair.”

Fire Wall

It turned out that there was a bathtub in her suite. The huge claw-footed cast-iron behemoth lived in a room she hadn’t seen before, on the far side of the huge fireplace. There were even servants to fill it: three maids and a grumpy squint-eyed lad who seemed to have only half his wits about him. His job seemed to be to lurk in corners whenever anybody forgot to send him packing for another load of Pennsylvania coal.

Readying the bath involved a lot of running around and boiling coppers on the fireplace. While everybody else was occupied, Miriam pulled on her overcoat and went exploring, picking up Brilliana as a combination of tour guide and chaperone. She’d been half-asleep from exhaustion when she first arrived—and even more dead to the world after the reception at the palace. Only now was she able to take in her surroundings fully. She didn’t much like what she was seeing. “This palace,” she said, “tell me about it.” “This wing? This is the New Tower.” Brilliana followed a pace behind her. “It’s only two hundred and eighty years old.”

Miriam looked up at the roof of the reception room they’d walked into. The plasterwork formed a dizzyingly intricate layering of scalloped borders and sculpted bouquets of fruit and flowers, leaping over hidden beams and twisting playfully around the huge hook from which a giant chandelier hung. The doors and window casements were not built to a human scale, and the benches positioned against each wall looked lost and lonely.

“Who does it belong to?” asked Miriam.

“Why, the Clan.” Brilliana looked at her oddly. “Oh, that’s right.” She nodded. “The families and the braids. You understand them?”

“Not entirely,” Miriam admitted.

“Hmm, I had thought as much.” Brilliana paced toward the far door, then paused. “Have you seen the morning room yet?”

“No.” Miriam followed her.

“Our ancestor Angbard the Sly walked the worlds and accrued a huge fortune. His children lacked the ability, and there were five sons, sons who married and had families, and another six daughters. In that generation some kin married their cousins directly, as was done in those days to forestall dower loss, and the talent was rediscovered. Which was a good thing, because they had fallen upon hard times and were reduced to common merchants. Since then we have kept the bloodline alive by marrying first cousins across alternate generations: Three families are tied together in a braid, two in each generation, to ensure the alliances are kept close. The kin with the talent are shareholders in the Clan, to which all belong. Those who lack the talent but whose children or grandchildren might have it are also members, but without the shares.” She waited at the door for Miriam, then lifted the heavy bolt with two hands and pulled it open.

“That’s amazing,” Miriam said, peering into the vast gloomy recess.

“It is, isn’t it?” replied Brilliana, squeezing through the half-open doorway as Miriam held it open for her. Miriam followed. “These murals were painted by The Eye himself, it is said.” Miriam blinked at dusty splendour, a red wool carpet and walls forming scenes disturbingly similar to—and yet different from—the traditional devotional paintings of the great houses of Europe. (Here a one-eyed god hung from a tree, his hands outstretched to give the benefit of his wisdom to the kneeling child-kings of Rome. There a prophet posed before a cave mouth within which lurked something unspeakable.) “The palace is held by the Clan in common trust. It is used by those family members who do not have houses in the capital. Each family owns one fifth of it—one tower—and Baron Oliver Hjorth occupies the High Tower, presiding over all, responsible for maintenance. I think he’s angry because the High Tower was burned to a shell eight years ago, and the cost of rebuilding it has proven ruinous,” she added thoughtfully.

“Very interesting,” murmured Miriam. Thinking: Yes, it’s about fifty feet long. This part of the palace was clearly doppelgängered, if the wall she’d seen in the warehouse was where she thought it was. Which meant that her own corner was far less secure than Angbard had implied. “Why was I accommodated here?”

“Why, because Baron Oliver refused you as a guest!” Brilliana said, a tight little smile on her face. Miriam puzzled for a moment, then recognized it as the nearest thing to anger she’d seen from the girl. “It is unconscionable of him, vindictive!”

“I’m getting used to it,” Miriam said dryly. She looked around the huge, dusty audience chamber then shivered from the chill leaching through its stones. The shutters were closed and oil lamps burned dimly in the chandelier, but despite all that it was as cold as a refrigerator. “What does he have against me, again?”

“Your braid. Your mother married his elder brother. You should inherit the Thorold Hjorth shares. You should, in fact, inherit the tower he has spent so long restoring. Duke Angbard has made it a personal project to bring Oliver to his knees for many years, and perhaps he thinks to use you to provoke the baron into an unforgivable display of disloyalty.”

“Oh shi—” Miriam turned to face the younger woman. “And you?” she demanded.

“Me?” Brilliana raised a slim hand to cover her mouth, as if concealing a laugh. “I’m in disgrace, most recently for calling Padrig, Baron Oliver’s youngest, a pimple-faced toad!” She shrugged uncomfortably. “My mother sent me away, first to the duke, then to the baron’s table, thinking his would be a good household for a young maid to grow up in.” For a moment, a flicker of nearly revealed anger lit up her face like lightning. “Hoping he’d take a horsewhip to me, more like.”

“Aha.” Miriam nodded. “And so, when I arrived …”

“You’re a countess!” Brilliana insisted. “Travelling without companions! It’s a joke, a position of contempt! Ser Hjorth sent me to dwell with you in this drafty decaying pile with a leaking roof—as a punishment to me and an insult to you. He thinks himself a most funny man, to lay the glove against a cheek that does not even understand the intent behind the insult.”

“Let’s carry on.” Miriam surprised herself by reaching out and taking Brilliana’s arm, but the younger woman merely smiled and walked by her side as she headed toward a small undecorated side door. “What did you do to offend the Baron?”

“I wanted to go across to the other side,” Brilliana said matter-of-factly. “I’ve seen the education and polish and the source of everything bright in the world. I know I have not the talent myself, but surely someone can take me there? Is that too much to ask? I’ve a mother who saw miracles in her youth: carriages that fly and ships that sail against the wind, roads as wide as the Royal Mile and as long as a country, cabinets that show you events from afar. Why should I not have this, but for an accident of birth?” The anger was running close to the surface, and Miriam could feel it through her arm.

She paused next to the small door and looked Brilliana in the eye. “Believe me, if I could gift you with my talent I would, and thank you for taking it from me,” she said.