Wister smiled. “No, I do not.” Without further elaboration, she shook hands briefly with Rosetta before gesturing to the room. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
Iris Ainsley, I had already observed, was a serious young person, and I could see how she and Wister Amsel would share a mutual regard. The resemblance to her brother, Walter, was apparent in her facial features, but there it ended. Iris had a bright, assured look to her: pensive brown eyes, a strong jaw, and a smile that tended to slyness. Her clothing was a step ortwo above sensible, reaching toward refined. Slate blue skirts and white sleeves were wrapped under a shawl of pewter gray. “I didn’t tell you so, Miss Amsel,” Iris commented, “because I didn’t know it.” She sat down on a mustard-colored armchair. “Tell us,” she demanded, “how you come to know as much?”
“It’s apparent in your aura, Clementine,” Wister explained simply. She sat back in her chair like a man, legs comfortably spaced apart as if she owned the room—perhaps she did, in fact, I corrected myself. With a gesture that somehow seemed more didactic than ill-mannered, she pointed at Clementine’s person. “Your capacities are evident. What I’d like to know is how you’ve acquired them. Self-study?”
“I began studying on my own some years ago.”
“How unconventional,” Wister said, her sarcasm softened by a gentle smile.
Clem smiled in return. “That’s true. But I came to the conclusion after my parents’ deaths that bowing to convention has few advantages. Father had already shown us the limitations. His true name, you see, was Roberto Quiñones. He was from Hispaniola, and our mother’s family would have preferred that he not be. So he became Robert Quinn, and yet the change of name failed to impress Mother’s family and did precious little to improve his chances in society.”
“But surely your father would have possessed excellent Spanish,” Iris objected, “and that could only be an advantage where enchantment is concerned.”
“He did,” Clem assented.
“Father taught Golden Age Spanish, as well as Latin, Arabic, and Catalan,” Rosetta said with some pride, leaning forward in her chair and enumerating the languages on her delicate fingers. “All the primary languages of enchantment. He taught usCastilian from when we were small, and when we were older he also taught us Latin.”
Wister smiled wryly. “And yet enchanters prefer their tutors to be Anglos with atrocious pronunciation. Avoiding the supposed taint of Spanish weakness, et cetera. Iris, it’s one of the great contradictions of modern enchantment. Everything it relies upon emerges from early Iberia, and yet Spain and its offspring are regarded as an abomination. And so,” she said to Clem, “he made a practical choice.”
“I suppose we’re all practical,” Clem replied. “We receive some support from our uncle, Tomás Quiñones, but for many reasons we don’t wish to rely on my mother’s more affluent family. After Father died, Rosetta went to extraordinary lengths to support us both with her copy work, and it was my hope to do the same through the practice of enchantment.”
“By making tokens,” Wister observed.
Clem looked surprised once more.
“I’m not going to report you to the constables,” Wister said drily.
“Yes,” Clem conceded. “I’ve made some small income from them.”
“Not such a small income, I would guess, from the remarkable quality of the tokens your sister wears. The bracelet is especially well done.”
Rosie stared at her, dumbfounded, and Clem laughed ruefully. “Well. I see that nothing escapes you.”
Wister smiled. “Indeed. So please don’t bother to obfuscate. You have done something different. You utilize the wearer’s nature to create the token’s effect, no?”
“I do,” Clem said slowly. “My method is to draw upon a person’s existing qualities. I am not so much disguising as Iam amplifying. For the tokens I wore to Commonwealth, for example, I enhanced the lower timbre of my voice, the natural cast of my shoulders, and so on. For this reason, all my tokens are custom-made.”
Wister eyed her narrowly. “You have other such customers? Whose appearance becomes more…masculine through the use of your tokens? Is it convincing?”
Clem smiled. “I think in most cases, yes. Especially when the ‘appearance,’ as you say, suits the nature of the person. My lawyer is one such. And I need not remind you that the practice of law, like enchantment, only permits men.”
“Very impressive,” Wister commented. “I’m very pleased to see that you haven’t muffled up your talent, smothering it as so many young women do.”
“I’m afraid my supposed talent, such as it is, was my undoing. By magnifying everything about myself that was most like a man, I reminded someone too much of my own father. I was exposed by a spirit thew.”
“Yes,” Wister said thoughtfully. “Iris conveyed as much to me in her letter.” She removed her unusual glasses and took a moment of silence, cleaning the lenses with the edge of her shirt. “And Judge Richardson has determined that you are to prove the worth of all women by accomplishing in mere days what most men never achieve in a lifetime. The procurement of a spirit thew.”
“That is my task at hand.” Clem looked at Wister with open curiosity to see what she would say next, clearly intrigued by the older woman’s insight and manner.
Wister didn’t seem concerned. “It’s as much as I would expect. Indeed, look around and you will realize that it is routine, women extravagantly outperforming men in order to be considered their possible equals. Why, down the hall there is a woman who speaksmore languages than your father did, and she puts it to excellent use baking soda bread and currant buns.”
Iris laughed. Rosetta looked shocked.
“I was also self-taught,” Wister said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. She fixed Clem with a hard stare. “And though I was no prodigy, I had talent.” Her black eyes were steady and unblinking. “But I failed to secure a spirit thew,” she said softly.
“May I ask what happened?”
Wister nodded. “You should well ask, if you are to rely on my instruction for the completion of a feat I never achieved.” She turned the question on Clementine. “What have you studied so far pertaining to the spirit realm?”
