Pharamond’s mouth twitched. ‘In this house?’
‘It’s the Brightening, however,’ said Oriane. ‘It shall not be quite such a chaos. Perhaps the ballroom?’
This proposition was accepted. Only then did it occur to anybody to wonder — Oriane among them — how it would be possible to leave the room in the first place.
‘We have this,’ said Pharamond, and held up a tiny book. It was filled with paintings, and the one he had chosen depicted the very same ballroom in which he would be waiting. ‘I only need a mirror.’
‘Can you, Thandrian?’ murmured Oriane. ‘You would only need to hold it for a bare minute, I think, and perhaps less.’
The clock mustered itself with a whirr of gears and a creaking of aged wood. ‘Be ready, Pharamond,’ Oriane warned. ‘You shall have your mirror in a moment, but it is b
