Karigan sat up startled. For all the sisters’ fetish for propriety, and seeming ingenuous natures, she sensed an underlying intelligence of which she was allowed to touch but a small part. There was an intensity about them, like a bright burning fire within, but hidden behind a facade of proper social deportment, lightly sugared scones, and fine silver. Was their simplicity a deception, so as not to betray their hidden wisdom? Or was it that their father had taught them well? There was little about them, she decided, that was simple.
“I’m not sure I can make the brooch work,” Karigan said. “I don’t know how I did it the first time.”
“Just try for us, dear,” Miss Bunch said. “Try to remember what you did just before you went invisible.”
Karigan took the brooch with some hesitation. It was cold and heavy in her hand, the winged horse ready for flight as ever. She tried to remember the moments leading to her serendipitous ability to become invisible . . . Captain Immerez sitting upon his white horse in the rain, his one eye trying to see through her hood; a whip unraveling in his hand. She shivered. She had no idea what had triggered her invisibility except a strong desire to disappear.
“Oh!” Miss Bayberry straightened next to her, her eyes glittering. “The child has positively faded.”
“She is one with the upholstery,” agreed Miss Bunchberry.
To Karigan, the room had become leaden, all the furnishings, and even the fire, just shades of gray. Except the Berry sisters. Their eyes were as blue as ever—as blue as blueberries—and color and light danced about them, just like the colors of the trail that had led her to Seven Chimneys. Why the variation? The grayness weighed on her, just as before, and she wished herself visible again.
“We have learned much,” Miss Bunchberry said.
“Child, your brooch isn’t terribly powerful, just as we suspected. It gives you an ability to fade out, or more accurately, to blend in with your surroundings. It wasn’t particularly potent here in the parlor because of the amount of sunshine coming through the window. It must have been extremely effective in the dark forest with all the rain and fog.”
Karigan nodded, her temple throbbing. Maybe the terrible weather had been an advantage in her confrontation with Immerez after all.
“I can see also that the device saps energy from the user. That is often the fault with magical devices, and even innate power. There is always some cost to use it, and for the trouble, it’s often not worthwhile.”
Karigan hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. The brooch had proved its worth already. She dreaded to think what would have happened if she hadn’t used it when she met Immerez. “I still don’t understand how this brooch . . . how magic works.”
Miss Bunchberry poured another cup of tea to help “restore” her. The steaming liquid extinguished the throbbing in her head.
“Of course we’ve just tried to explain magic,” Miss Bunch said. “The little we gleaned from our father’s teachings, anyway. But one can’t explain magic, really.”
“It exists,” Miss Bayberry said, “as flowers bloom in the spring.”
“As the sun rises and sets,” Miss Bunchberry said.
“As the ocean rolls . . .”
“And as stars twinkle in the night.”
“You see, child,” Miss Bayberry said, “magic is. The world fairly glows with it. Rather, it did before the Long War, and for a while afterward. All we have left now are shards and pieces.”
Miss Bunchberry folded her hands decorously in her lap. “Child, we thought from all appearances you were an indoctrinated Green Rider. The magic accepted you, and the messenger service does take young ones, you know. Only Green Riders and magic users could recognize that brooch. To the ordinary person, the brooch would look like something other than its present form. Maybe a cheap piece of costume jewelry, or nothing at all. It is a way of setting apart the false Green Riders from the real Green Riders.”
“I don’t understand.” Karigan had never seen the brooch as anything but a winged horse. She had known it was pure gold—what kind of merchant’s daughter would she be if she couldn’t recognize true gold?—but she had thought nothing of it.
Miss Bayberry stirred some honey into her tea. “The brooch has accepted you. It wouldn’t permit or tolerate you to wear it if it didn’t perceive you as a Green Rider.”
Karigan was aghast. “But it’s just metal.” And she was not a Green Rider.
“With some very strange spells designed within it. I’m not sure how the brooch accepted you as a Green Rider, but it may have been the duress of the situation when young Coblebay passed his mission on to you.” Miss Bay tapped her spoon on the edge of her teacup. “Fortunately, the brooch found you worthy.”
Or unfortunately. Karigan hardly felt worthy of anything at the moment, and such talk made her dizzy. “I have a lot of questions. . . .”
Miss Bayberry reached over and patted her knee. “We understand, child. You left Selium under undesirable conditions only to find your life complicated by a dying messenger with an unfinished mission. I know my sister and I have said some unlikely things, but we are trying to be helpful for we have known some Green Riders in our lifetime—friends of our father’s—who shared with him what they knew of magic. They were the best kind of people.”
The sisters had said unlikely things, indeed! Ghosts? None that she could see. And magic? Karigan’s fingers tightened around the gold brooch. She felt the urge to hurl it into the fire along with F’ryan Coblebay’s message. Why had she taken on his mission? I must have been out of my head . . . or daft.