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No one ever taught Marisa van Zee ambition. It was simply part of her like her heart or her daemon. By the age of twelve she'd mastered the science of manipulating people with her beauty combined with a sweetness she'd learned to imitate. It was not an art at all. It required cunning and careful calculation. It annoyed her that she had to hide her quickness of mind, but she hid it well when it would be counterproductive to seem too intelligent.
Her time at St. Sophia's College came as something of a relief. It was easier to charm other women if there were fewer men around. She chose her acquaintances with great care. She was allowed to be smart as long as she didn’t flaunt it. Even people who did not like her, wanted to know her. She dropped a pen in the hall after a meeting with the history scholar. She heard the woman talking to her daemon, a bright-eyed raven. Marisa took her time finding the pen and listened.
"The oddest thing about that van Nee gel is that one thinks they like her until she goes away. Then one remembers they do not." The raven croaked in agreement.
Another person might feel stung, but Marisa felt a heady satisfaction. She would consort with kings and hold sway over the most powerful men in the Magisterium.
She met Edward Coulter in her second year at Oxford and added him to her list of possible husbands. He was enormously wealthy and close to the King. He wasn't handsome, but he was old enough that she wouldn't have to spend decades with him. Wealthy, respectable, widowhood would give her everything she needed. The only doors closed to the future Mrs. Edward Coulter were the ones only open to men. But if you controlled those men, it was all the same.
At her engagement fête she was introduced to the king and aristocrats of the bluest blood, richest estates, and oldest titles. She smiled, but not too broadly. Laughed, when it was polite or sure to intoxicate. Every single person was besotted, including the help. Servants offered her champagne at every turn, but she couldn't drink more than one glass because all the attention made her giddy. Priests, scholars, kings, matrons, ladies all fell under her spell so easily. She could tell exactly what they were thinking, or wishing when they looked at her. They wanted her. They wanted to be her. They wanted to be near her.
Until.
Edward hooked his arm though Marisa's and leaned in while towing her across the room. He'd been drinking port wine and his breath was intensely raisiny and sweet, which she did not care for. She was glad she could turn her face away to press her ear closer to hear him.
He said, "My dear, girl. I want you to charm Lord Asriel. It'd be a feather in my cap if we could lure him to our side. Use your wits though. The man's a scholar. Jordan. Experimental theology and all that."
Edward drew to a halt behind a very tall gentleman and cleared his throat. "Ah. Asriel."
Lord Asriel turned and looked at her and he didn't look charmed. He raised an eyebrow at Edward Coulter, who shuffled his weight a bit. Marisa had never seen him discomposed by another man. Asriel's eyes passed over her so quickly she might have been invisible. The golden monkey twitched and narrowed its eyes at Asriel's snow leopard daemon. The big cat looked away, bored.
Lord Asriel shook Edward's hand. "Coulter. Congratulations on your engagement." His mouth kicked up on one side as if he'd just told a mildly funny joke.
Edward cleared his throat. "Thank you. May I present my fiancée to you, my lord?"
Edward looked up at Asriel, too eager to flout his prize, which was odd. There was likely some history here Marisa didn't know yet. Edward said, "Lord Asriel, this is my fiancée, Marisa van Nee."
He wasn't impressed by her beauty or her extraordinary gold gown. She'd never experienced the like and didn't know what to do with humiliation. She curled the fingers of her right hand. Her daemon wrapped one of his leathery black paws around her fingers and squeezed hard until the urge to scratch the man's eyes out faded.
They stood silently and Asriel's great cat lay down, sphinxlike with crossed paws and yawned.
Marisa's eye twitched in outrage. For her it was the equivalent of screaming and breaking all the china. Asriel knew. She had no idea how, but he did. The faint crinkles around his eyes deepened.
Edward cleared his throat. He didn't know what to do or say, and for once neither did Marisa. It was the worst twenty seconds of her life. She stared at him and he stared back, unfazed.
People never saw beneath her surface. Her leg twitched, but her wildly expensive little shoes wouldn't hurt him at all. The golden monkey pinched the web of her thumb and she understood. She smiled. It wasn't the anbaric gleam she used to slay people. She smiled back as he had, rudely, as if at a sly joke.
She should curtsey, but she couldn't make her knees bend. Edward shuffled closer and placed his hand on the small of her back. She bobbed like an awkward child. She'd never done anything so graceless in her life, but it calmed Edward and gave her an excuse to move away from his touch.
Asriel nodded at her with all the insolence that 15 generations of landed aristocrats could breed into a single human being. He was the most horrible man she'd ever met, but the longer he stared at her the more she felt it everywhere.
Marisa regretted not drinking more champagne. The servants who'd been swerving into her path all evening were avoiding their tense little conversation. The golden monkey dug his little claws into her palm to remind her of her path and her plans. He didn’t like it when she was stirred up like when it wasn't planned.
Passion during an assignation in which Marisa controlled everything was well and good. Natural. This burning rage was like white light. It was made of other feelings: joy, fear, and a painful physical awareness of his body.
She must say something, but she could barely think. "I attended your talk at Oxford on the earth's magnetic fields, my lord."
For the barest moment his amusement slipped away and she thought he looked surprised. Maybe he couldn't see beneath her surface that well.
"I attended St. Sophia's," she added. It took considerable self-discipline not to add that she'd received a first in history.
"Did you find it edifying, Miss van Nee?" Asriel picked up two glasses of champagne and handed her one without asking if she wanted it. She wanted it.
She took the glass and drank much more than a lady like sip. Her monkey couldn't reach her hands, but he pressed close to her leg.
"Yes, my lord. It's not my field, but it seemed that you agree with some of Gerard Bonneville's theories of quantum entanglement."
Asriel's eyes narrowed ay Bonneville's name. "You know, Bonneville."
"His work, yes. I'd like to meet him," she said.
"He'd certainly enjoy meeting you," Asriel said.
Marisa shivered. There was obviously something very wrong with Bonneville. She'd keep it in mind.
Other men had gathered around them, but stayed at a respectful distance. Some were waiting for an introduction and others wanted to hear the conversation between the fascinating Miss van Nee and the enigmatic Lord Asriel.
Asriel didn't seem to notice them, though she knew he saw and heard everything. His great snow leopard had her eyes nearly closed as if nothing could interest her and she might as well nap. Both the man and the cat were alive and crackling with curiosity and awareness. Marisa could feel it as if he was dragging his fingertips over her bare skin. She could see beneath his nonchalance as easily as he saw beneath her demure society beauty routine. She finally found some traction and straightened up. Her monkey stepped off her hem and moved slightly closer to the leopard, who cracked open one eye to watch.
Asriel raised his glass and toasted Edward and Marisa. He drank down his champagne three large gulps and his attention drifted off to someone behind Marisa.
"A pleasure, Miss van Nee." Asriel took her hand and bent over it as if to kiss it, but didn't let his lips touch her. His fingers secretly searched the palm of her hand and found the vicious little indents her daemon had made. Asriel massaged them slightly, soothed them a little. It was far more intimate than a kiss on the knuckles. "If you'll excuse me."
Marisa transferred her champagne glass to her right hand so that neither her daemon nor any other person could touch it for a few moments. She drank her champagne though she didn't want it. It would intensify the dreadful effervescence and sparkling awareness inside her.
Edward patted her arm and said quietly to her, "Well done. You piqued his curiosity, I think. He didn't want to like you, but I think he rather did."
Marisa thought he rather didn't and for the first time in her life she cared. She smiled at Edward and nodded compliantly.
Edward said quietly, "Do what you can to persuade him, my dear. Within reason, of course. We can't have a scandal."
He introduce her to a dozen more men. They were all suitably dazzled and it left her cold and bored.
As soon as she could, she excused herself to find the ladies retiring room. She stared at the woman in the mirror like she was a stranger. She was mildly flushed, probably from the champagne. It was the sort of dewy look ladies tried to achieve with cosmetics, but never could. She examined her palm. The indentations were almost gone. She traced her fingers over the spot and her daemon leaped onto the edge of the vanity table in front of the mirror and placed his small black paw on the flat of her milk white palm. An apology. She smoothed his fur and all ways forgiven.
Marisa returned to the party. She danced with various important men. She listened patiently to silly people, boring people, and quite a few intelligent ones. At every moment she was aware of Asriel's position in the room and to whom he spoke, or danced with.
Marisa was crossing the room to speak to an acquaintance when Asriel stepped into her path, making it somehow look as if she'd been approaching him. "I believe this is my dance, Miss van Nee."
She couldn't refuse and in any event she didn't want to. She placed her hand in his proffered one and let him sweep her into the throng of dancers. Their daemons prowled about the edges of the dancers as they swept around the room.
They danced and it must be what champagne felt like all the time. Good lord. The man was making her poetic. Maybe she was growing ill, a fever making her delirious. It would explain why she was so warm.
She tried to look demure and cool.
"Did they teach you that expression at finishing school?"
That stung. She'd just told him she'd attended Oxford. "I told you. I read history at St. Sophia's."
"Did you now?" He was looking over her head and when he spun her around, Marisa found herself glared at by a tall, blonde woman, no doubt Asriel's lover. One of them. He probably had many.
"I heard you're interested in Rusakov's work."
Asriel's daemon flicked her tail furiously and her eye tilted forwards.
"What do you know about that sort of thing?" He maneuvered her slightly away from the throng, toward a less crowded corner of the room.
"Oh, nothing at all. Experimental theology is quite beyond me." She looked him right in the eye and almost anyone would have believed her, but not Asriel.
He danced her out through a set of open French doors onto the terrace. He backed her up against the marble balustrade. "I'd rather not do this if it's all the same to you."
"Pardon?" The cold of the marble seeped through her dress.
"Coulter wants you to dazzle me into supporting his agenda. You're pretty enough. I'd gladly have an affair with you, but I refuse to be dazzled and I'll never support any of his schemes."
Marisa could breathe now. She leaned into the frigid stone, in her element at last. "I'm relieved. I told him I couldn't do a thing with you."
Asriel stepped closer and whispered in her ear, "Oh. You could do many things with me. But nothing your future husband would approve of… unless. Is it going to be that sort of marriage?"
"No," she said. She'd like to say it didn't matter what sort of marriage it would be, because she wasn't that kind of woman. She didn't mind lying, but she tried not to lie to herself.
"Tell me where you heard about Rusakov. His work is controversial. If the wrong person overheard you, you could get into trouble."
"I'm not sure," she said, pretending to think about it. "I can't recall."
"You are boring me now." He started to step back and she grabbed his arm to hold him in place. His snow leopard rubbed her face against his knee. The golden monkey leapt up on the balustrade behind her and huddled against her back.
"I read your monograph and Bonneville's," she said. No more pretending she wasn't every bit as intelligent as he was.
Asriel nodded, his attention wandering to take stock of who was nearby and what was happening inside. Without looking back at her, he murmured, "I remember you."
"From?" Something too much like hope fluttered in her chest.
"From the talk I gave at the Union. Two years ago. You were in the second row." He turned toward her and leaned down. "Your daemon is distinctive. Such beautiful, golden fur."
The golden monkey peered, almost shyly, over her shoulder at Asriel and his daemon. Marisa shivered, not from cold, but from heat, as if she were a furnace burning great quantities of naptha.
"Good God, woman. You play your part too well. One would think you actually cared whether or not I noticed you. Almost as if you had a heart and weren't made of devious clockwork."
When he spoke to her, what he said and what he meant were different things. She'd been too overwhelmed by attraction to understand at first.
She smiled. A real and unpracticed smile. It would never do to become involved with this man. He was no doubt headed for disaster or infamy, but worst of all he understood her and she liked it. He saw through her beauty and faux sweetness. He saw her wit and guile and liked her anyway.
"I'm going to escort you back to Coulter before people begin to say we've been out here too long. I'll look suitably smitten and he'll be pleased."
"You won't feel foolish?"
"Not at all. You've made every other man and half the women swoon. Why should I be any different?" He held out his arm.
She turned and let her daemon climb lightly up onto her shoulder. The very tips of his golden fur brushed against the shoulder of Ariel's fine dark coat.
The man, the woman, and the two daemons froze. The great taboo forbid people from touching other people's daemons. The great snow leopard nudged Asriel back, away from Marisa and her daemon. It was too much. Too dangerous. If they continued to stand close in the shadows it would be too easy to forget where they were and who they were and why they shouldn't touch each other.
Marisa laughed, lightly, like she'd had too much champagne. Asriel looked puzzled.
"He didn’t mean to touch you. It was an accident," she said.
"Your betrothed is coming this way, Marisa." He stepped very close. "We might as well give him a good show."
He leaned down very close to her ear and breathed, but didn't speak. She thought it was merely a pose, to make Edward think Asriel was coming onto her. A soft, velvety jowl brushed her smallest finger briefly and then Asriel and his daemon stepped back again. Marisa had never felt so shocked and so pleased at the same time.
Then Edward was there. He and Asriel spoke politely and Edward was pleased at her conquest. Because he thought he knew her. He thought she would do what she was told. He thought she was a pretty package, with no more intelligence than a woman should have. She'd encouraged him to think that though.
Asriel bowed and left the terrace. Marisa turned and swallowed hard, pretending embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Edward. I should not have let him bring me out here alone."
Edward patted her arm. "You did well, my girl. I think you'll be able to wrap him round your little finger."
Marisa squeezed her little finger, the one the leopard and brushed against, against her ring finger. The shock and pleasure of that touch lingered. It was wrong. They shouldn't.
"The king will be pleased. He's wanted Asriel's support for years."
"I'm so glad I can help, Edward." She cast her gaze demurely downward. He patted her arm and led her back inside.
She'd thought Edward was reasonably intelligent, but he couldn't see that Asriel would have as much power over her and Marisa would over him. If he pushed Marisa at Asriel again and expected her to retain her virtue, he deserved whatever happened.