In Loisail, Nina did not display her talent in public and they did notpractice tricks in Valérie’s presence. But upon his arrival at Oldhouse, Nina’s mother had asked if he would not perform for them. Hector obliged, presenting the sort of act he might have executed in cafés or taverns in his youth: spinning two plates, opening a book onto a page, making a coin dance above his open hand. When he was done and they’d all clapped, Hector turned to Nina and asked her if she wouldn’t show her family the trick with the coin. At first she had not wanted to, shy, but then she’d changed her mind and made the coin hover above her hand, blushing and glancing down when she was done.
Her family was surprised. He gathered that Nina’s talent had been more about knocking down books from bookcases by accident or shuffling cutlery in the kitchen drawers without realizing it than any formalized application of the ability, but that was no longer the case. Thus, in the evenings, they generally settled together to practice in view of all.
That afternoon was no different. Luc stood by the fireplace, Valérie rested on an overstuffed chair, while Hector and Nina occupied opposite sides of an old divan. They played with a pack of cards in the dim, cool room.
He shuffled the cards and then inclined his head, indicating it was her turn. Nina moved her left hand, making three cards slide from his deck and float toward her waiting fingers. He shuffled the cards again and again inclined his head.
“Dear me, how many times are you two going to do that?” Luc asked, hovering over Hector’s shoulder.
Luc was bored. He had been bored for the past half hour, fidgeting and circling them, frowning and stepping back. He was like a child, quick to pick up a toy and quick to forget it, always seeking a new, shiny amusement.
“We are practicing,” Hector said. “It’s important to get it right.”
“Whatever for? It is not as if Miss Beaulieu is a performer at the Royal, as you are.”
“It’s not the point.”
“What is the point? It’s all incredibly odd, this business with the cards. Weren’t you building a house with them yesterday? What shall that prove?”
“Physics,” Hector said.
“I’ll say, it’s peculiar to see a woman doing this,” Luc declared.
“Perhaps Nina means to reinforce her reputation as the Witch of Oldhouse,” Valérie said.
Valérie sat half-reclined, her lips curved into a sneer, her pale skin contrasting with the darkness of the room and granting her a provocative air. She was alluring, but when Hector glanced at Nina and saw the way her eyes went wide with quiet pain, he felt desire wilting from him.
“That is a cruel taunt to repeat,” he said, his voice hard.
Valérie leaned back haughtily. “Are you to reproachme? These idiotic parlor tricks are fit for rogues in gambling dens, not a proper lady. Not that Antonina behaves like a lady. Half the time she is close to a savage.”
“Pardon me, but Antonina is atruelady, unlike some others who put on airs and merely pretend to be gentlewomen,” he affirmed, his eyes firmly set on the older woman, the barb undeniable and as sharp as a saber.
Valérie stood up at once in a fury of pink damask and marched out of the room with such haste, several people stopped speaking. Hector sat in silence, letting the three cards that had been floating in front of him fall down upon the divan.
“Thank you,” Nina said.
Hector looked up at her and saw she was smiling. “You’ve slain a dragon for me,” she added.
“I’ve been crude and will no doubt pay dearly for it.”
“She deserved it,” Nina said, her voice low. “You don’t know how it was when I was small, how they’d taunt me for it. I didn’t mean to make the flour fly through the kitchen, I didn’t mean to make the stones rain or the porcelain shatter. It happened and they’d frown or they’d laugh or they’d say, ‘There goes the Witch of Oldhouse.’”
“It was like that, too, for me at times. I almost burned a guesthouse in Zhude—I knocked over a lantern. I did not mean it. They threw me out in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“You were angry?” she asked. “When I’m angry… it’s hard to keep a grip on it. I fear it will overcome me at times.”
“I was,” he said. This bit of their talent they had not discussed, both too afraid to voice the limits of their control. “But, the talent, you use it, it doesn’t use you.”
“That boy. I shoved him off a horse.”
“Yes, you mentioned it.”
“He was almost trampled. But I did mean it, I did,” she said, her voice faint.
“We all make mistakes.”
She looked at him, her eyes catching the light in the gloom of the large room, a winsome green shade in that instant. “Why were you angry, when the fire happened?” she asked.
