1889, an international reception in the Palace of Versailles, France
They'd opened up Versailles for this damned thing. The palace rose above our heads, a pretty square cake with all its imposing floors, the walls inside and out done over with sculptures and ornate facades. It was perhaps not as gay as it had looked in the golden age of Louis XIV, with so much of the furniture imported for the ball, but it was still impressive. Wizards from all over the world minced about the grounds and various ballrooms, mingling in masks, catch-all translation charms of various types trading languages that morphed from mouth to ear and back.
Most of them were cheap, power-hungry hocuses with cheaper familiars, I saw, despite being the crème-de-la-crème of the human world, international statesmen and reputedly powerful wizards. It was irksome that my own master was among the strongest here, my doing as well as his.
I had grown bored of the coy, clever games Karasu played, his mouth constant motion behind the strange iron mask he had chosen, his long straight hair, aristocratic face, and the charms that turned his blue eyes to swimming red earning him many admirers. I half-pitied any of the young men who caught his eye, sons of Barons or Earls who were drawn to the arrogance and handsomeness Karasu exuded. So too, Japan had only formally sent delegations to this event starting a few years ago. There was a deal of intellectual curiosity in their adoration of him.
I was away from it all, at least, leaning against a balustrade overlooking the gardens, staring up at the moon. I let my long scarlet curls shine silver in the light. I felt eyes on me, many pairs, but I didn't bother moving.
My magic was inside, with him. I was but a pretty showpiece.
Part of me groused at the decadence, the orange trees grown outside their natural habitat, moaning for hills awash in golden sun, the pinched and poked gardens and hedges all around crying from their constant butchering, not minded as thoughtfully as a bonsai with every need met, but crudely hacked and left bleeding sap to be in pleasing shapes for the humans.
I understood their sentiment.
I was still not allowed my favorite form, the humanesque man-fox as tall as Karasu with his diaphanous white tunic, grave and beautiful. But the restrictions l'esprit de peine forced on me were off, at least in part, and I was allowed twin white fox ears and a beautiful tail, allowed to put glamours over my bruises, high quality things only a being of my strength and acuity could devise, which not even the sharpest of the familiars would see through.
And the truly marvelous thing: for once, I was allowed to wear clothes.
Karasu, despite being a representative of the Japanese delegation, had decided to wear nothing but Western formal wear, which I had taken pains to create as precisely, understatedly, and gracefully as any German princeling, observing all the rules of French etiquette from his waistcoat to his pearl cuff-links, his long black hair plaited behind his head. He had also admonished me, in a voice ridden with ennui, that I was to wear the most beautiful kimono and fox-mask I could devise.
Personally, I thought I outdid myself. Seeing the other familiars bedecked in the clothes of their master's home nations, turning in awe with the wizards to look at me as I passed, I could see I had reason to be proud.
I have a great patience for and liking of small details, and imagination, as well. It had been a stroke of genius, I believe, to surround myself with beautiful patterns, undetected in every direction, so no matter where I moved, the patterns stayed put, as though there were a mural behind them that I was walking along. I moved as if reflecting a light through stained glass, but fabric still. Every step I took, every minute movement, changed the pattern.
The patterns, too, I had spent weeks consolidating, and every half hour the canvass would change. my wrists got hot right before, so I knew to step towards the edge of this fabric and preserve the illusion that there was no real repeats, that the tapestry behind me continued indefinitely in every direction.
My porcelain mask was also a work of art, a simple kitsune mask, white, but delicately, masterfully painted with the typical representations of a fox-spirit in Japanese culture.
It felt good to hide my face.
It appeared my reverie wouldn't be allowed to linger for much longer. I listened to the approach of his footsteps.
He leaned next to me and turned so his back was to the other guests, keeping his voice low. "Your attendance is desired, whore."
"Must you call me that in public?"
He smirked and said, quieter than before. "Come or I shall invite three interested boys to our room tonight and show them your collar."
My ears stayed steady through pure force of will. They twitched a bit, though. I knew he saw. It was all in the way his eyes lit up with a hidden smile. He turned then and prowled back towards the party, sure then that I would follow. I came at a sedate pace, footsteps faint as whispers against the stone.
Karasu, tall as he was, cut a fine figure that attracted the other hocuses like bees to a hive. He was charming, and he knew it. I stayed near, listening to his flattery with half an ear, made uncomfortable by the eyes that followed me. The dancing, once it began, was quite beautiful. I stayed away from the other familiars, having had my fill of conversation this night. Food circulated, but I dared not eat. Drink circulated, wine, gin, but I dared not drink. It amused Karasu to control my sustenance, and he'd forbade me from partaking, and forced me to swear an oath naked at his feet. No one would think it odd. A familiar not in soul form did not have human needs.
I was not so lucky, beneath these beautiful illusions.
My stomach was rumbling—he had not fed me before the party in a usual cruelty—and the beef wellington they passed around looked divine. Flakey crust, tender meat in a sweet-smelling gravy . . . if my grasp on illusion was any less, the whole party would have heard my stomach growl.
As it was, I paid little attention to the waltz, and less to my master. The mask hid my expressions, and I felt no obligation to entertain him or anyone here.
The night wore on with masked faces whirling in dance and a full orchestra filling the air with music. For all the glitz and pomp and inflated egos, I enjoyed parts of it. The faster dances particularly, when the younger delegates reigned and their elders retired from the floor. People came from those gallops with cheeks tinged pink and heavy breaths, their laughs for once unforced, unfashionable. It was an attractive tableau.
"Meet me in the middle of the maze," I heard over our closed collection, and I snapped back from the quiche lorraine I had been eying.
My gaze found him, already excusing himself from his dance partner. Dread settled in the pit of my stomach, but I shrouded and followed him, as I knew he wanted me to do.
I walked through the tall hedge. I felt the borders of his other-space as soon as I reached it, and shivered when I walked through. The magic was my own, but I had long learned to fear it, now that it was in his power. "Your mask has been turning in the most amazing way, whore," he said, standing bold as brass in the moonlight. "Little twitches whenever a platter went past."
In that moment, my own magic wrapped me up. He gestured and the beautiful kimono disappeared, leaving me clothed only in moonlight. An irritated flick of his fingers, as though drying them of water, and my bruises reappeared, the illusions dissipating like smoke.
That he did not relieve me of my ears and tail confused me. I must have shown it, because he smiled.
"Those ears are . . . cute. They make you look so innocent, nothing like the nasty slut you are." He paused then, thoughtful. "You've always been good at hiding your feelings," he pondered aloud. It was an odd compliment, out of place with the circumstance. "But they are a beacon to anyone watching closely enough."
I said through a stiff jaw, "I'm glad they please you, Master."
He laughed aloud, no social false guffaw but a depraved cackle that suited him well. "Come to me as the dog you are," he said. "You may only bark and growl from this point." Seeing my look as he undid his slacks, he added, "Come along, puppy. I only mean to feed you."
I would not have needed his vulgar grin or his open pants to discern what he meant by 'feed.' I saw what he meant about my ears. They drooped despite best attempts to keep them up. I dropped to my knees in the gravel regardless, placing my palms and walking to him like some four-legged beast.