Chapter 1
"You don't understand, you never understand!" She spits at her sister.
Her sister just sits there and takes it, looking into her face, so like her own, her mirror. She starts to smile.
"Why are you smiling? This is serious!"
Now she's yelling but this won't be for long. Jade knows her sister like she knows herself, better probably.
Jade looks at her sister's flaming red locks, pulled battling into braids, her green eyes with lighting strikes of yellow in them, her snub nose with a splatter of freckles on it, and knows that her sister is seeing the exact same thing.
"Are you even listening to me?"
Jazz moved into the middle of the room, and stood, glaring at her sister.
"Yes Jazz, I'm listening. It's all my fault and I never understand."
"Grr it's hopeless, impossible, unpossible-"
"That word doesn't exist." Jade interrupts with a grin across her face.
"As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, to fight with you!"
She flops down on the bed next to her sister, sprawling her long legs, and all the skirts and petticoats that go with them, over her.
"I know, I know." Jade sighs, faking regret. "I think of it as one of my many assets"
"You know what else one of your assets is? The ability to make someone want to hit you for saying hello to them." Jasmine said sarcastically. Jade refused to rise to the trap.
"No, I think you have that confused with the ability to exasperate someone so much that they give up on any argument they might have with me." Jade struggles to keep her face straight while watching Jasmine fail miserably trying to do the same.
"Jasmine, Jade Marie. Come down here immediately!"
"Oh no! Aunt Melissa!" Jazz groans. "We're coming!" She yells back going to the doorway.
"Do not yell Jasmine, it's very unlade-like!"
They started down the stairs.
"How did she know it was me? No one else can tell our voices apart." Jazz grumbles at Jade while they lift their skirts, and try not to fall down the stairs, like last week.
"Probably because you're the only one who yells when she's around." Jade retorted.
"Humpf. It's her fault; she just makes me want to do everything wrong. I can't help it, its just so much fun watching her puff up like a chicken that's had its tail feathers pulled."
"Jazz! That's really rude!" She tried to look appalled but failed. "I didn't know chickens puffed up when you pull their tails…" She added as an afterthought.
"Neither did I…till we went to Cousin Bella's farm!"
"Really girls, you could have come down those stairs without sounding like a pack of hyenas."
"Yes Aunt Melissa." They chorused.
"Now, Jade Marie, you can go and wait in my workshop for me, while I set your sister up with some weather charts."
"Oh yay, weather charts" Jazz mumbled under her breath.
"What was that Jasmine?" Melissa missed nothing.
"Ah, Aunt Melissa." Jade asked thinking quickly. "When will I get to learn that new spell on scrying?"
"When I say you can Jade Marie." She answered smiling. "Now Jasmine would you please go and get your weather charts and start your studies."
"Yes Aunt Melissa" She answered shortly.
"Um, Aunt Melissa, have you seen Theo this morning?" Jade asked as she could feel her sister's temper rising.
Their six-month-old puppy had a curiosity that wasn't helpful around a mage's workshop.
"That dratted dog was in my workshop this morning, knocking my tables over and turning himself blue." Her mouth was pressed into a tight line, but the crinkles around her eyes gave her apparent seriousness away.
"He's blue?" Jazz's eyes widened and then she started to laugh.
"Well, blue purple."
"That would explain why he hasn't been seen him all morning." Jade mused aloud.
"OK, Jade Marie, time for your lesson. Workshop, now, go." Back to business, Melissa started towards her workshop.
"Thank you Jade. As funny as she is mad, I wouldn't want to spoil your lesson." Jazz whispered, on her way out.
Walking into the workshop, Jade could see where the once tan puppy had been playing. A blue purple splotch was on the ground with big, slightly unsteady paw prints leading away and out the door. There was no other way to tell that there had been an adventurous puppy in the room. The workshop was neat and tidy with jars of powders lined up along the windowsill. The tables were now upright and in the position that they were always in. Jade settled at one of the tables at the window. Pulling a jar form the window sill, she opened it and poured it onto the white cloth in front of her. She sectioned off a part and scooped the rest into the jar. Tightly putting the lid back on, she placed it exactly where it had been. She then went to the next jar along and took it off. This continued until she had five neat piles of powder siting in front of her. Jade then sat back and took a breath; this next part was the trickiest part. She had to mix them very carefully then add water. If she did it in the wrong sequence, it would be deadly. Instead of helping plants grow, it would poison the fruit but worst of all, the mistake would not be discovered until someone ate the fruit and died. Jade looked for her aunt, she would feel better knowing that she was watch her to make sure no mistakes were made. Melissa saw Jade look up and around. She stood up and went to stand behind her. Jade sighed, an audible sound of relief. Picking up the mortar, she scooped up the first powder carefully. Then the second, third, fourth and fifth. Melissa smiled as the last powder went in. She had done this experiment hundreds of times but she still got nervous. Jade was also now smiling. This process went on for several hours, each time Jade made another mixture she sunk deeper into meditation. Her body continued what it was doing but her mind wandered. She thought about her mother, her father, her sister…everyone important to her really. There was one person that she tried not to think about but he crept into her thoughts. Denya Jaereon. He had been her best friend since she and her sister had been tiny children. But he had moved to the capital of Tortall six seasons ago, and she hadn't heard from him since. She didn't know if he was alive, if he was well, probably not even what he looked like any more. He could look completely different and she wouldn't know because she hadn't heard from him. Her thoughts continued on their way through her memories. She lost herself in the calmness that came with working in the workshop. It was clean and comforting. Melissa's magic surrounded her like a blanket; it was in the walls, the tables, the floor. That was what happened when someone's magic was used constantly in one place, and the workshop was the only place Melissa really did any magic. Her magic was all-purpose, like Jade's but she rarely had cause to use it. Any magic that was needed, be it a spell for health or a call for rains or winds, she handed it over to the twins, to strengthen their magic and control. By doing this, the twins, well Jade mostly, had extremely powerful magic and iron fisted control over it. Jazz however, was just as powerful but did not have the control Jade did. The power of her magic enabled her to affect the weather outside, for kilometres, and have any weather, no matter what the season at her call. Even if it was the middle of summer, she could have snow falling and staying in the ground for as long as three days. But she lacked control, if she was sad, happy, angry, anything, it would mostly be reflected by the weather outside. With a normal weather mage that had little control, it would normally be reflected inside and only in the room they were standing in.
At midday, a rush of sadness and pain hit Jade's senses. Not knowing whether to expect hail, rain or snow, she looked out the window to see it pouring.
"Oh dear." Melissa studied her face. "It's Jasmine isn't it?"
She passed a gentle hand over her niece's face wiping tears away; tears Jade hadn't even realized were there.
"Go, see what's wrong."
For a strict Aunt, she could be very understanding when it came to her twin nieces.
Jade ran into the house through the kitchen and into the hall where Jazz was standing. As Jade came into the hall, Jazz crumbled, the tall man…no tall boy, in front of her just catching her before she hit the hard stones. Fighting off her own feelings of dizziness Jade raced to her sister.
"What happened?" She asked of the stranger as he stood there lowering her sister to the ground.
"Your father, my lady, he, he's dead."
These words shook her frame as she stood there, not believing, not listening as Melissa burst into tears at the news of her brother.
They were told it was a tragic accident; that their father had died due to a fatal mistake on his part.
"I can't believe it Jade, I won't believe it. That father could be so stupid or careless…it's just not possible." Jazz said later that night as they held each other in the security of their room.
"I know, I know. But what else could it be? There is nothing to gain from killing him. We aren't royalty, at least I don't think we are." Jade said, making a feeble attempt at a joke.
Sleep came strangely easily that night, even though grief still was scorched on their minds.
When Jade woke up the next day, all was quiet, which was odd as normally the staff were up, and busy, lighting the kitchen fires and singing as they went about other work. Even Suzy and Mandy, their personal maids who were more like sisters, weren't there. Jazz mumbled in her sleep, as her sister eased out from under the covers and tiptoed around getting dressed. Jade had a curiosity that had to be satisfied. She finished dressing wearing a dark grey, almost black gown with a black armband in memory of her father she went to the door. Looking back at her sister lying in the middle of her bed, almost lost amid the sheets and blankets that were on it, she left the room, closing the door after her.
Walked down the stairs, strange noises drifted up to her. A scraping sound, as though a chest was being drawn across the floor. She stopped just before the curve in the stair and peered cautiously down into the central hall.
What was seen was so unexpected, that she almost gave herself away and fell down the stairs. It was Melissa, ordering the servants around the hall, making them pack everything away. The tapestries were pulled down and rolled up, the paintings packed away in crates full of wood shavings.
"What's going on? Aunt Melissa? Why is everything being packed away?" Jade mustered up enough courage to step down from the stairs and walk towards her.
"Jade, dear, go back to your room and wake your sister, Suzy will be there soon to help you." Melissa waved her away distractedly.
Jade turned and went slowly up the stairs, turning back every few steps, until she passed the curve and could no longer see the servants dashing around, packing things away. She then ran up the rest of the stairs calling to Jazz.
"Jazz, Jazz wake up! Something is wrong, everything is being packed away." Jade turned into their open doorway and stopped in shock. Her sister was standing in the middle of their room, now fully dressed in a grey gown.
"I ah, noticed Jade. Suzy was just here, woke me up and helped me get dressed. Then she went flying off back down the servant's stair."
Jade still stood at the doorway looking at their once fully furnished room. It was now empty, except for the wardrobe and beds that stood empty and forlorn. All of the furnishings that made the room theirs were gone. The walls were bare; the silk hangings that had graced the walls were rolled up and placed next to a crate she guessed that held their clothing.
"What happened? I left here less half a bell ago! This isn't possible, not without…" Jade trailed, knowing her sister could tell what she was thinking, through the special bond they shared.
"Yes, it was magic. Suzy read some kind of spell off a piece of parchment, and the next thing I know I'm sitting here with nothing else. It must have been one of Aunt Melissa's creations. Suzy's magic just isn't strong enough."