Rachel Aaron - Spirit's Oath

“Late for what?” Miranda said.

Banage reached the door and glanced over his shoulder. “Did you forget so quickly? My apprentice has just bound a wind spirit, so I’m getting Krigel, and then we’re taking you out to celebrate. You’re not going to let your father ruin that, are you?”

Miranda’s face broke into a huge smile. “No, sir,” she said, jogging through the door he held open for her.

The cab dropped Miranda off in front of the Lyonette city home early the next morning. She climbed out of the hired carriage with some trepidation, clutching the battered leather bag that held everything she owned, which wasn’t much. Spiritualists traveled a great deal, and Miranda had never found much she was willing to lug around with her. Even so, she felt pitifully under-packed standing on the steps of the enormous, opulent mansion.

Her parents had moved since she’d gone to Court. This was her first time seeing their new house, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. The home she’d grown up in had been down by the river, a lovely old townhouse that had sheltered the Lyonette family for generations. It had been large and gracious, huge to a child, but it was nothing compared to the four-story monstrosity she stood before now.

Miranda hesitated on the street as long as she could, but when the carriage drove off, she forced herself to climb the white marble stairs to the covered portico at the top. Feeling more than a little awkward, she reached out and knocked on the shiny red door. A young woman Miranda didn’t recognize opened it at once. Her plain, dark dress and apron said she was a maid, but the look she gave Miranda’s travel jacket and trousers was as cutting as any noble lady’s.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Spiritualist Miranda Lyonette,” Miranda said, straightening up. “I—”

The maid’s eyes widened the moment Miranda spoke her name, and she stepped back immediately. “Forgive me, Lady Miranda, I didn’t recognize you.”

Miranda didn’t see how she could have, being as the girl was younger than she was and the last formal portrait of Miranda had been painted when she was three.

“Your mother is taking her breakfast in the corner parlor,” the maid continued, shutting the door behind Miranda the moment she was through. “This way, please.”

Miranda followed the girl with a growing sense of dread. The mansion’s interior was as opulent as its exterior, all lofty white ceilings and dark wooden floors covered with thick scrollwork carpets that muffled her boots to nothing. By the time they reached the corner parlor, which turned out to be on the second floor, Miranda was feeling decidedly small and shabby. Even so, she kept her head up and her fingers spread to show off her rings. She had only three—Durn’s large emerald, Alliana’s moss agate, and the heavy gold band of the Spirit Court itself—but she thrust them out like her hands were covered. Much as she would have loved to show off Eril’s pendant as well, she kept him hidden below her shirt. Even bound, wind spirits could be tricky, and nervous as she was right now, it was best if Eril stayed close to her core where she could keep a good feel on him.

The maid opened a white-painted door and stepped aside with a curtsy, letting Miranda walk into the small, sunny room painted a girlish shade of pale pink. Her mother was sitting on a white silk chair by the large glass window, sipping her tea and staring down at the street below. The pale pink color of the room set off her cheeks and the light blonde of her hair, creating the perfect picture of a lady taking her ease, which was undoubtedly the exact image she wanted to project. Almasetta Lyonette left nothing to chance.

“Miranda,” she said, turning to smile at her daughter, but the smile dropped the second she actually looked at her. “Powers, child, what did they do to you?”

Miranda sighed deeply. “Hello to you, too, Mother.”

Alma didn’t bother answering. She shot up from her chair and marched over, setting down her teacup on the carved mantel so she could grab Miranda’s chin and turn her face side to side. “Gracious, girl,” she muttered. “Did you take no care of your beauty at all? Your skin’s brown as the floor. What have you been doing, squatting in the sun?”

That was exactly what Miranda had been doing, actually, but it made no difference. No eyes except Alma’s could have picked out more than a shade of difference between mother and daughter, but Alma would never let a little thing like that keep her from finding fault.

“And your hair,” she continued, shoving her fingers past Miranda’s head to grab large, curly handfuls of her shoulder-length hair. “What did you do, chop it off with an ax?”

“It got caught when Master Banage and I were dealing with an Enslaver,” Miranda said, ducking out of her mother’s grasp. “Would you rather I’d lost my head instead?”

Her mother pressed a delicately manicured hand to her forehead and sank onto the divan in the corner. “You will be the death of me,” she sighed dramatically. “Why was I cursed with such a child? None of your sisters gave me these sorts of problems.”

“Well, maybe Father should have called one of them home, then, rather than dragging me,” Miranda snapped. It was petty, but she couldn’t help it. Being around her mother always made her feel like she was thirteen again.

“Mind your tone, dear,” Alma said, but the reprimand was more reflex than anger. “A lady’s voice is gentle. No one likes a shrew.”

“Why am I here?” Miranda demanded before she could give in to her old fallback of stomping off in a huff. “And don’t say you missed me.”

“Of course I missed you, dear,” her mother said. “The house has felt so empty since Tima got married last year. And when I saw Martin’s invitation, I just knew here was my chance to have all my girls together again.”

“Invitation?” Miranda said. “What invitation?”

Alma blinked in surprise. “Martin Hapter’s, darling. We’re going to his country home for a few days. Leaving this afternoon, actually. You mean your father didn’t tell you? Where are you going?”

Miranda was already at the door. “Back to where I belong,” she snapped, grabbing the knob. “I’m not going to a house party, and I’m not playing docile daughter for you or Father.”

The knob rattled under Miranda’s hand, and she realized with a flash of rage that the maid had locked it. She turned around slowly to see her mother was standing now, her pretty face, still girlish after almost fifty years and three children, was set in a scowl that still made Miranda cringe.

“Miranda Regina Felecia Lyonette,” she said sharply. “I understand that Banage has allowed you to run quite wild, but this isn’t your Court. This is my house, you are my daughter, and you will do as you are told. It is your duty to this family to at least pretend at a semblance of decorum. Now, you will go upstairs and change into something presentable, and then you will drive out to Mr. Hapter’s with us, and you will behave like a lady. Do I make myself clear?”

When she’d been a little girl, that speech would have sent her scurrying. But Miranda wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she wasn’t going to be pushed around. “I’m not going to a house party,” she said firmly.

“Is that so?” Alma said, crossing her arms. “And here I heard Spiritualists were supposed to be dutiful. I see that’s a lie, considering how quick you are to throw aside the duty you owe your family. The family who raised you, who supported your wish to go to the Spirit Court when no other family of breeding would dream of sending a daughter to such a place. “

“You sent me there to get rid of me!” Miranda shouted.