Born in Fire (Born In Trilogy #1)

Maggie turned into the house, leaving Brianna standing on the path. When she came back, she handed Brianna a box and a manila envelope.

“You didn’t have to get me anything—” Brianna began, but stopped. It was guilt she felt, she realized. And guilt she was meant to feel. Accepting it, she opened the box. “Oh, Maggie, it’s lovely. The loveliest thing I’ve ever had.” She held the pin up to the sun and watched it glint. “You shouldn’t have spent your money.”

“It’s mine to spend,” Maggie said shortly. “And I hope you’ll wear it on something other than an apron.”

“I don’t wear an apron everywhere,” Brianna said evenly. She replaced the pin carefully in the box, slipped the box into her pocket. “Thank you. Maggie, I wish—”

“You haven’t looked at the other.” Maggie knew what her sister wished, and didn’t care to hear it. Regrets that she hadn’t been in Dublin for the show hardly mattered now.

Brianna studied her sister’s face, found no sign of softening. “All right, then.” She opened the envelope, drew out a sheet. “Oh! Oh my.” However bright and lovely the pin, it was nothing compared with this. They both knew it. “Recipes. So many. Soufflés and pastries, and—oh, look at this chicken. It must be wonderful.”

“It is.” Maggie shook her head at Brianna’s reaction, nearly sighed. “I’ve tasted it myself. And the soup there—the herbs are the trick to it, I’m told.”

“Where did you get them?” Brianna caught her bottom lip between her teeth, studied the handwritten pages as if they were the treasures of all the ages.

“From Rogan’s cook. He’s a Frenchman.”

“Recipes from a French chef,” Brianna said reverently.

“I promised him you’d send a like number of your own in trade.”

“Of mine?” Brianna blinked, as if coming out of a dream. “Why, he couldn’t want mine.”

“He can, and he does. I praised your Irish stew and your berry pie to the moon and back. And I gave him my solemn word you’d send them.”

“I will, of course, but I can’t imagine—thank you, Maggie. It’s a wonderful gift.” Brianna stepped forward for an embrace, then back again, cut to the quick by the coolness of Maggie’s response. “Won’t you tell me how it went for you? I kept trying to imagine it, but I couldn’t.”

“It went well enough. There were a lot of people. Rogan seems to know how to tickle their interest. There was an orchestra and waiters in white suits serving flutes of champagne and silver platters of fancy finger food.”

“It must have been beautiful. I’m so proud of you.”

Maggie’s eyes chilled. “Are you?”

“You know I am.”

“I know I needed you there. Damn it, Brie, I needed you there.”

Con whined at the shout and looked uneasily from Maggie to his mistress.

“I would have been there if I could.”

“There was nothing stopping you but her. One night of your life was all I asked. One. I had no one there, no family, no friends, no one who loved me. Because you chose her as you always have, over me, over Da, even over yourself.”

“It wasn’t a matter of choosing.”

“It’s always a matter of choosing,” Maggie said coldly. “You’ve let her kill your heart, Brianna, just as she killed his.”

“That’s cruel, Maggie.”

“Aye, it is. She’d be the first to tell you that cruel is just what I am. Cruel, marked with sin and damned to the devil. Well, I’m glad to be bad. I’d chose hell in a blink over kneeling in ashes and suffering silently for heaven as you do.” Maggie stepped back, curled a stiff hand around the doorknob. “Well, I had my night without you, or anyone, and it went well enough. I should think they’ll be some sales out of it. I’ll have money for you in a few weeks.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Maggie.” Brianna’s own pride stiffened her voice. “I don’t care about the money.”

“I do.” Maggie shut the door.

For three days she was undisturbed. The phone didn’t ring, no knock came at the door. Even if there had been a summons, she would have ignored it. She spent nearly every waking minute in the glass house, refining, perfecting, forming the images in her brain and on her sketchpad into glass.

Despite Rogan’s claim as to their worth, she hung her drawings on clothespins or on magnets, so that a corner of the studio soon came to resemble a dark room, with prints drying.

She’d burned herself twice in her hurry, once badly enough to make her stop for some hastily applied first aid. Now she sat in her chair, carefully, meticulously, turning her sketch of an Apache breastplate into her own vision.

It was sweaty work, and viciously exacting. Bleeding color into color, shape into shape as she wanted required hundreds of trips to the glory hole.

But here, at least, she could be patient.

White-hot flames licked through open furnace doors, blasting out heat. The exhaust fan hummed like an engine to keep the fumes coating the glass—and not her lungs—to an iridescent hue.

For two days she worked with chemicals, mixing and experimenting like a mad scientist until she’d perfected the colors she desired. Copper for the deep turquoise, iron for the rich golden yellow, manganese for a royal, bluish purple. The red, the true ruby she wanted, had given her trouble, as it did any glass artist. She was working with that now, sandwiching that section between two layers of clear glass. She’d used copper again, with reducing agents in the melt to ensure a pure color. Though it was poisonous, and potentially dangerous even under controlled conditions, she’d chosen sodium cyanide.

Even with this the casing was necessary to prevent the red from going livery.

The first gather of the new section was blown, rotated, then carefully trailed from the iron. She used long tweezers to draw the molten, taffylike glass into a subtly feathery shape.

Sweat dripped down onto the cotton bandanna she’d tied around her brow as she worked the second gather, repeated the procedure.

Again and again, she went to the glory hole to reheat, not only to keep the glass hot, but to ensure against thermal strains that could break any vessel—and the heart of the artist.

To prevent searing her hands, she dripped water over the pipe. Only the tip needed to be kept hot.