Page 50 of Homegrown Magic

Menorath Clauneck invites you to an exclusive fitting at Rastanaya’s dress shop, in preparation for the upcoming Midsummer Masquerade. All costs will be covered by the Clauneck family. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. sharp. Come alone. We’ve much to catch up on.

Margot crumples the letter in her fist.

“You have to meet her,” she whispers to herself. “Charm her, and perhaps she’ll believe you’re greater than you really are. Just buy yourself more time to save…everything.”

It’s possible, isn’t it?

She tucks the balled-up note into her pocket beside the original letter from the Claunecks, forever on her person, and heads back to her room, ready to lose her worries in Yael’s arms, a pile of pastries, and many cups of tea.

19

Yael

“So this is where you spent your scholarly years?” Margot asks, gazing up at Hair of the Dog. The iconic tavern was built to look like a ship beached on a cobblestone street bordering the Ivory Court, complete with a crow’s nest where a continual flame burns without ever scorching the wood, casting its fantastical glow into the night air.

“As far as I can remember,” Yael answers.

She turns toward them, lifting a brow.

Yael spreads their hands. “What can I say? Half the point of Auximia was what happened at night after classes ended, and we often washed up here. It was far enough from the Copper Court that most of our parents wouldn’t deign to come here, and close enough to the student chambers to crawl home after. You know, I always hoped I’d run into you out on the town. I would have remembered you the next morning.”

“Your flattery overwhelms my senses,” Margot deadpans, rolling her eyes.

Yael grinds their tongue between their teeth. Though there’s truth buried in there like a seed in soil, it does sound like shameless flattery, even to their own ears. They should have said, If only I’d found you sooner, I wouldn’t have spent all that time feeling lost. But the words wouldn’t come.

Anyway, who is Yael to speak those words to Margot? Who will Yael ever be to Margot Greenwillow? A friend? A lover?

Or just another Clauneck?

It was easier to pretend otherwise in Bloomfield, all-but-naked with their bare feet planted in greenhouse mulch, than it is while wearing this exquisite, olive-colored silk suit. A trunk full of clothing from the wardrobe Yael left behind was waiting for them at the inn when they rose this morning, sent over by their mother with a note that read: If you’re going to exploit our family name and fortune, then you had better dress appropriately to reflect both. The jacket’s a bit tight in the biceps and shoulders now, but not as much as they might have guessed it would be, or hoped. Aside from that, the fit is near perfect.

It’s Ashaway, Yael decides. This city makes it disconcertingly easy to slip back into their old costumes.

“Shall we?” Margot knocks them loose from their spiral before they can really get going.

Thank goodness for that. They’ve promised her a pleasant night out in the capital, not an identity crisis. “We shall.”

They offer Margot their arm—a habit now—and approach the door with its porthole window. Charmed to admit anyone with a pocketful of denaris, it swings open before Yael, just like old times. The tavern’s interior seems unchanged as well. Built to resemble a sprawling and luxuriously appointed captain’s quarters, its walls are pinned all over with nautical tapestries, maps, and illustrations of sea monsters curled among the waves—though as far as Yael knows, there aren’t any leviathans off the shores of Harrow. Certainly not in any mapped waters. They vanished generations ago, along with their dragon brethren. Patrons sit in overstuffed leather armchairs and rest their drinks on small side tables draped with jewel-toned velvets and silks. In the large stone hearth, a fire flickers in pale rainbow shades, like an opal enchanted to burn. Margot stops in the doorway to watch it, mesmerized.

“Well, gods be damned!” a familiar voice bellows. Alviss Oreborn—the last person Yael expected to find hanging around the Ivory Court—levers himself out of an armchair, hoisting his signature tankard to hail them from across the tavern. He splashes a bit of ale on his steel-studded tunic, which has the look of plate armor despite its fine fabric and shortened sleeves. “Yael Clauneck, a handsome sight for these old eyes!”

Yael sighs.

“Isn’t that the mine owner?” Margot asks. “I remember my parents going in with him on adventuring expeditions, sending parties out together, since they weren’t competing for the findings.”

“That’s him.”

“He gave them a fully kitted warhorse for my birthday. My eighth birthday.”

“Oh, Mulligan!” Yael exclaims.

“You remember Mulligan?”

“Of course; your parents regifted him to mine. He was a mean thing.”

“Truly a villain of a horse,” Margot agrees.

“Well, Oreborn has always been…colorful. And that’s his son.”