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The first event of the triennial Wizards’ Ball was being held in San Diego’s Balboa Park, in the Japanese Friendship Garden.

You can do that in January in San Diego.

The late morning sky was clear and blue, the garden was beautiful—especially to someone who’d grown up in Texoma, which never had enough water.

This event was what my husband, Eli, called a “look and walk.”

Though I was very anxious, I reminded myself that I was in a beautiful place with Eli and my sister, Felicia, both people I loved. My low heels didn’t hurt much, and the outfit my mother-in-law had loaned me fit okay.

Those were the good things about today.

Everything else made me scowl. I didn’t know this until my husband looked back at me and gave me a huge bright smile, a hint that I did not look pleasant.

I made my lips turn up. I felt so strange and wrong: so far from home, in clothes so different from my usual jeans and shirt, my Colt .

45 stuffed away in my borrowed handbag. One gun.

Backed up by a knife hidden in the inner pocket of my coat and one strapped to my thigh. That one chafed under the dress.

Since I was wearing a light red coat and a plaid dress, I’d also had to pull on stockings, garters to hold them up, a bra, a stupid hat, and the heels. And the handbag to have a means to bring one of my guns, illegal in San Diego.

I’d rather be fined for carrying an illegal gun than see my sister killed before my eyes.

I’d looped the black leather straps of the handbag over my elbow to leave my hands free. The bag banged against my side, weighted with the fully loaded Colt. If you need to draw a gun, time is really important. I’d worked on the bag’s clasp to loosen it.

Felicia turned to smile at me. It became easier to smile back. Felicia and I had different mothers, but we’d dropped the “half” some months ago. We were sisters.

Felicia looked lovely in the dark green version of my outfit.

Unlike me, Felicia was absolutely at ease in her finery, though she’d grown up even poorer than I had.

I’d been raised in a small town in Texoma, the poorest of the countries that had formed when the old United States broke apart.

It was a plain place, as the name gave away. Texas plus Oklahoma.

Felicia had—well, she’d never been “raised,” exactly. She’d lived in the poorest part of Ciudad Juárez, in Mexico, with her father and uncle. Then Eli and I had found her. Now Felicia attended the San Diego school founded in Rasputin’s name. She was the school’s star pupil.

The people we were here to be seen by? They were all practitioners of some kind of magic.

Today’s outing was the preliminary warm-up to the week of the Wizards’ Ball.

Every three years this was held in a different city around the world.

People of all magical persuasions were able to party, make deals, swap spells, and contract engagements and marriages.

On one of my trips as a gunnie, I’d found a book by Georgette Heyer at a secondhand store, so I’d learned about the London Season.

The Wizards’ Ball Week was the supernatural equivalent; it was the marriage market for the magically gifted.

Weeks before, all those wanting to be considered for marriage were required to submit their biographies and photographs, which were required to place candidates on the List. Our Listed candidate was Felicia Karkarova Dominguez.

Eli and I were there to protect her—to make sure everyone knew she had people.

Eli, wearing his brown dress slacks and jacket (under that was his grigori vest, which no Russian practitioner would be without), looked calm and at ease.

He’d been born an aristocrat, though his birth had been on the long-traveling flotilla of boats carrying Russian aristocracy and their servants in their years-old quest to find a new home.

Some days I found it hard to believe he’d married me. He looked like he was the king of the world. His long, light hair was blowing in the gentle breeze.

My own black hair was covered with gook that kept it in rigid waves.

Eli gave me the overdone smile again, so I tried once more to look agreeable. Just when I’d made my lips turn up (again), I spotted Felix standing on the path ahead of us. He was talking to a man and woman, both in their midtwenties.

Felix Drozhdov was small and dark-headed. “Hello, my student!” Felix called to Felicia, who grinned when she saw him.

Felix, who was grumpy by nature, was pretending as hard as I was. He only bothered because it was for Felicia.

My sister picked up the gentle pace we’d been maintaining. She hugged Felix. The death grigori endured it.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Felicia told Felix. “Where’s Lucy?”

Lucy, Eli’s sister, was Felix’s wife.

“She had things to do at home,” Felix said. “I had things to do here.” She had her work, he had his.

Eli made a little hand gesture at Felix to remind him to perform introductions.

“I believe you have met Clayton Dashwood, Felicia?” Felix said. “And this is his twin sister, Camilla.”

“Of course I remember Clayton. It’s nice to meet you, Camilla. How are things in Virginia?”

“Still cold,” the young woman said. “Give us a couple of months, though, and the farm will be beautiful.” Twins didn’t always look alike, but Camilla and her brother both had the same brown eyes, narrow noses, and broad faces. Even I could tell that they were dressed with expensive good taste.

“We’re glad to meet up with you. I thought I’d have to track you two down,” Clayton said, including me in his smile. “How is the weather in Texoma, Lizbeth?”

I was a little surprised that he remembered me. “Dry and warm. In two months, it’ll be dry and hot.” I shrugged. Not that much variation in my part of Texoma.

Eli looked from Clayton to me, obviously waiting for me to tell him how I knew Clayton Dashwood. “Clayton was one of the early suitors last summer,” I reminded him. “Clayton and Camilla, this is my husband, Prince Eli Savarov.”

Camilla looked impressed. Eli didn’t use his title in Texoma, thank God, because I couldn’t have borne the teasing. But here I was Princess Savarova. Which was stupid, but sometimes useful.

“Do you have your schedule lined up for the week?” Camilla asked Felicia.

“More or less. This is my first time. I understand invitations will come in as soon as everyone is in town, which should be tomorrow.”

“I don’t know about you, but it felt really odd to send out that much information about me and my brother,” Camilla said.

Felicia’s face lit up. “Is this your first Ball Week, too?”

Camilla nodded. “The family says Clayton and I need to get out of Britannia to find ourselves sweethearts. You know how families are.”

We did, but maybe not in the same way as the Dashwood twins.

“We’ve been in Virginia for a hundred and fifty years, I guess,” Camilla continued. “Our folks want some zip added to the family tree. San Diego is as close to us as the ball is ever likely to be, while we’re eligible.”

Eli had told me cities across the world wanted to host the Wizards’ Ball.

It had been quite a coup for San Diego to get the bid three years ago.

Felicia was already in San Diego, and so was Eli’s family, so we’d grabbed the opportunity, though Felicia was only sixteen (maybe).

The youngest you could be Listed was fourteen, and that was for a contracted engagement.

No actual marriage until you were at least seventeen.

And after you were thirty-two, you couldn’t be Listed.

“The last one was in Paris, right?” I said. “You all didn’t want to go to that one?”

Felix scowled at me. He was always doing that, so I ignored him. What was rude about asking?

“We didn’t,” Clayton said. “My mother has a prejudice against the French. Don’t ask! It’s a long story.”

“Your dress is real pretty, Camilla,” Felicia said. It was navy with little white symbols, so with her coloring it looked cute.

“Let me return the compliment,” Clayton said. “You ladies look lovely.”

I had to smile. “The contrast must be what struck you.”

When he’d appeared in Texoma, popping out of nowhere, we’d been wearing everyday clothes… at least for me. We’d worn jeans and shirts, and we’d been grubby from a day outside.

“Have a wonderful time this week,” Eli said. He was trying to ease us away so we could continue our stroll and be seen by as many people as possible.

“I heard what a great grigori you are,” Camilla told Felicia. “Someone’s just going to snap you right up!”

“Not necessarily,” Felicia said. She was well aware that she had a “danger” sign attached to her back.

“Golly, gal, you’re pretty, you got a great bloodline, and you’re a known whiz at magic! That’s why Clayton visited you early.”

“That’s the way I feel,” I said, hoping to cut this conversation off before it got really awkward. “We were so pleased to meet Clayton when he came to Texoma. I’m afraid we must get going now, but I’m glad we got to chat. We’ll be seeing you, for sure.”

The Dashwood twins said their goodbyes, and off we went in a different direction.

Eli dropped back to talk for a second.

“Everything Camilla said is true. Felicia is all the things she said.” I was grousing. I knew how intimidating my sister could be.

He put his arm around my shoulders. “Lizbeth, my very dear wife, you also have an interesting bloodline: half grigori, half a lovely woman schoolteacher, and you’re a famous shooter.

But not everyone would think that would add to their family pool.

I was not everyone, and I saw the advantage of marrying you immediately. ”

Just when I felt like socking Eli, he’d say something like that. He hadn’t called me his dear wife in a couple of months. Or longer.