The Nightbirds are Simta’s best-kept secret: Girls with a unique and powerful magic they can gift with just a kiss.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Nightbirds, a lush new YA fantasy by Kate J. Armstrong, out from Nancy Paulsen Books on February 28, 2023.
The Nightbirds are Simta’s best-kept secret: Girls with a unique and powerful magic they can gift with just a kiss. Some would kill to possess them; the church would kill them outright. But protected by the Great Houses, the Nightbirds are well-guarded treasures.
As this Season’s Nightbirds, Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer will spend their nights bestowing their gifts to well-paying clients. Once their season is through, they’re each expected to marry a Great House lord and become mothers to the next generation of Nightbirds before their powers fade away. But as they find themselves at the heart of a political scheme that threatens not only their secrets, but their very lives, their future suddenly becomes uncertain.
When they discover that there are other girls like them and that their magic is far more than they were told, they see the Nightbird system for what it is: a gilded cage. Now they must make a choice—to remain kept birds or take control, remaking the city that dared to clip their wings.
PROLOGUE
THE MAGIC IN A KISS
All his life, young lord Teneriffe Maylon has heard whispers. They circled the edges of ballrooms and slithered through hushed conversations over port. The Nightbirds will change your fortunes, the whispers promised. Their magic can be yours with just a kiss.
If you can find them, that is, and meet their requirements. They are a privilege he’s about to pay quite dearly for.
At last, Tenny is allowed to remove his blindfold. For a moment, all he can make out is the bright burn of candles painting circles on the deeply purple walls. Then a woman perched behind a desk comes into focus, wearing a gown of fine velvet and a darkly feathered mask. It shrouds her face, mesh stretched over the eyeholes. He knows her only by her code name: Madam Crow.
She holds out a gloved hand, letting it hover. “Your payment.”
Tenny’s fingers shake a little as he extends the string of rubies. That shake is what gets him into trouble at the krellen tables—it’s such an obvious tell. Tenny is used to seeing money leave him, but it usually flows in the form of coins, not treasures pilfered from his dame’s jewel box. The shame of it tastes like the last dregs of bitter wine. He is tired, nerves tattered from avoiding his rather nefarious creditor and his sire’s certain wrath if he finds out about his son’s growing debts. Tenny’s had a poor run of luck, is all, but tonight, that all changes.
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Nightbirds
Madam Crow winds the rubies around her fingers. The dark gems seem to swallow the light.
“And your secret?” she demands.
Sweat slides down Tenny’s collar. “The jewels are payment enough, don’t you think?”
She arches a brow. “Secrets protect my girls better than gems, however pretty. I will have your secret, or you’ll have nothing at all.”
Tenny sighs and hands her the note he wrote that afternoon, explaining it was he who took his dame’s rubies. He threw in the extent of his debts and the dalliance with his family’s maid for good measure. It’s a risk, to put these secrets into Madam Crow’s keeping, but he knew money wouldn’t be enough to get him through this door.
The Madam reads his secrets, then folds them up again. She holds a stick of purplish wax over a candle flame until it drips. His pulse picks up as she pours it onto the paper’s folds and slides it toward him. He presses his House Maylon ring into the wax, marking its contents as authentic. Ensuring he will never tell a soul of what he sees tonight.
That business done, the Madam smiles. “Which Nightbird are you seeking?”
Tenny licks his lips. A few of his friends have boasted vaguely about their time with a Nightbird, but the magic they spoke of seemed too fanciful to credit. Wild tales to trap desperate fools like him.
The Madam lays down three cards on the desk between them. They look like krellen cards, but instead of mythical beasts and kings, they hold finely drawn birds.
“No Nightbird’s magic is the same,” she explains. “They are each a different vintage. The Goldfinch will help you change your feathers, making you look like someone else. The Ptarmigan gives the gift of camouflage—near invisibility. The Nightingale will let you manipulate someone’s emotions, smoothing them in whatever direction you desire.”
Tenny’s mouth has gone dry. All magic is illegal in the Eudean Republic, but this kind is also incredibly rare. He’s tasted plenty of alchemical magic—the kind that’s mixed into cocktails in Simta’s speakeasies and ground into powders in alchemists’ back rooms. Such concoctions will let you speak another language for a handful of minutes or make your skin glow in the dark. But a Nightbird’s gift is purer, and so much more precious. It is what those alchemists and barkeeps try so hard to imitate.
“The gift only tends to linger for a few uses,” the Madam says. “So choose wisely.”
Tenny is tempted by the Nightingale, who might help him sway the outcome at the krellen tables, but he doesn’t want to cheat his way out of his trouble. He wants to win his fortune back by himself.
He points to the Goldfinch.
The Madam’s smile turns sharp. “As you wish.”
She gives him the rules: no lasciviousness, no demands, no pointed questions. He is too nervous to take in more than a few words. Then the blindfold goes back on, and someone leads him down a hall that smells of lilies. Thick carpet gives under his boots as slender fingers tug him by the wrist.
After a few twists and turns, they stop, and the fingers release him. Paper shuffles, the covert sound of a card being shoved under a door.
Sweat dampens Tenny’s cuffs.
“Ah… how should I address her?” he asks the darkness.
There is a pause, then a scratchy male voice that makes him jump.
“By her code name. Otherwise, you don’t need to address her at all.”
More silence. Guilt prickles at the back of Tenny’s neck. His sire supports the Prohibition and is a staunch abstainer. What would he say if he could see his son buying such magic with some stolen family jewels?
Tenny sighs. He doesn’t know why krellen calls to him so strongly. Just that he loves how it offers players a chance to be pauper or king, god or mortal, a thrilling brand of risk. This night is a risk, as dangerous-sweet as any. He turns his thoughts away from his sire and toward the Goldfinch—only the Goldfinch. The mysterious, miraculous magic to come.
Tenny straightens his tie as a door clicks open. Light flickers through his blindfold, soft and warm. He is pushed forward, and then the door shuts behind him.
“You can look,” the Goldfinch says. “It’s just us now.”
Her voice is soft. No, rich, like blush wine from the Farlands, but strangely distorted. She must be burning some sort of voice-altering alchemical. Another layer of disguise.
He takes off the blindfold. The room is dimly lit and richly furnished, dark wood draped in velvet and wine-colored rugs. Two chairs sit near the fireplace, deep and beckoning. Amidst it all is a girl in a mask. Hers is like Madam Crow’s, covering most of her face in gold-edged feathers that catch the light of the candles on the hearth. The mesh over her eyes makes her anonymous, but he guesses she must be his age, perhaps younger. Though her smile speaks of a wisdom that is well beyond her years.
She isn’t a courtesan—he would be foolish to think it—but it’s hard not to stare at those full, generous lips. Has he seen them before? It would be dangerous to put a name to them. There is a reason for the code names and the masks. Some would kill to have unfettered access to such magic. The church, and many of the city’s staunchest abstainers, would likely kill the girls outright. No: It’s better that she just be the Goldfinch. Tenny doesn’t need more trouble than he has.
He bows deeply. “Welcome evening, Young Lady Goldfinch.”
Those lips curl, coy and playful. “Young Lord Maylon. Aren’t you a pretty surprise.”
His eyes follow the golden chain around her neck, traveling downward. Why do they call it a neckline when it tends to hang so much lower? He looks up, hoping she hasn’t noticed. With the mesh over her eyes, it is impossible to tell.
“Let’s have some wine,” the Goldfinch says. “Or perhaps something stronger?”
He nods, though his stomach is twisted. “Lady’s choice.”
The Goldfinch goes to pour their libations. The dark sequins of her dress wink as she moves. Truth be told, he isn’t clear on the finer mechanics of the evening he’s purchased. How will it start? How will it feel?
She hands him a glass full of amber liquid that smells of pine resin and thunderheads.
“Fortune favor you,” she says, tilting her glass to him.
He swallows hard. “And you as well.”
They drink. Tenny finishes his in one large gulp. He sits in one of the chairs, expecting her to perch on the other. Instead, she settles on his lap.
“Are you ready?” she purrs.
He nods, willing his hands to stop shaking.
The Goldfinch pulls out a simple black mask and fits it to the top half of his face.
“This is what will call up the magic,” she says, “when you’re ready to use it. Just tie it on and envision the person whose face you want to wear.”
He leans into her touch, her skin as soft as petals.
“You will need to hold something belonging to the person you want to look like. A kerchief is fine, if they’ve recently held it, but hair or fingernails are better.”
He nods again. His heart is thumping wildly. It feels like the moment just before he lays out his krellen cards, not knowing if he’s won or lost.
“Now imagine how you will use my gift,” she says. “Put the image in your mind, strong and clear.”
It isn’t hard—the images are there already. He sees himself walking into the Simtan Bank wearing his sire’s face, his voice, his manner, accessing the funds he needs to win his way out of the shadows. Money drips from his pockets, and once again he is golden. The son his sire expects him to be.
The Goldfinch tilts up his chin and kisses him.
Tenny has kissed girls before. Boys, too, for that matter, but those were only sparks compared with this fire. Her magic spills from her lips and past his, warm and heady, twining itself around his bones. He is drunk with it. It makes him feel like a king—perhaps a god.
His arms go around her. He understands now why this girl is such a secret. To hold on to her, he would pay any price.
PART I
A Thousand Layers of Secrets
Darling Matilde,
This dress is old, yes, but it’s a fine vintage—one I believe will suit you well. I have had it re-charmed so its jewelflowers unfurl as they did when I was in your shoes, with all the world shining before me. Let it be honey that lures in only the worthy. Let it be your armor, too.
Fly carefully.
My deepest love,
Gran
CHAPTER 1
JEWEL, STAR, AND SEA
Matilde is a thousand layers of secrets. Some sit against her skin, there for anyone who knows how to read them. Others are tucked into a rarefied language only a few girls can speak. Still others have wings, and they are hidden inside her.
She smiles to herself behind her mask.
As Matilde descends the stairs into the ballroom, heads swivel. This is precisely why she made her family wait for over an hour before leaving for Leta’s Season-opening ball. Grand entrances, she finds, are the only kind worth making. Especially during the summer season, when Simta floods with people from all over the Eudean Republic, come to make matches, deals, and fortunes in the City of Tides.
The room is full of finely dressed people, talking and swaying to a tasteful string quartet. It’s clear that many of them have been to Simta’s best trickster tailors, who have outdone themselves enchanting their outfits for the evening. The seed pearls at one girl’s neckline unfurl into flowers. A boy’s evening coat sparks every time someone touches it. Masks smoke, lapels bloom, gloves glow. Matilde is sure there are alchemical potions she can’t see, hidden inside watch fobs and hollowed-out canes. Leta’s added some to her candles so they flame cerulean and emerald and black, her House colors.
Standing here, you would never know that magic is illegal. In the circles Matilde swims in, such laws barely apply.
Her brother, Samson, gazes longingly at Æsa, their pretty housemate, but she is busy staring wide-eyed at the room. After a sidelong glance to make sure their dame isn’t watching, Samson snags a few drinks from a passing waiter and holds one out to her. Æsa shakes her head—the newest Nightbird seems too nervous to enjoy her first proper Great House party. Matilde will have to work on that.
“I wish you had worn what I laid out for you, Matilde,” her dame says.
A dress with frothy skirts, like Æsa’s, and a far-too-tight bodice. The one that made Matilde look like a present wrapped for someone else.
“Really?” Matilde does a twirl. “I’m rather pleased with my choice.”
Her gown is a columnar sheath, with beaded jewelflowers shimmering darkly against wine-red velvet, gathered up at one hip with a golden clasp. She likes how it’s somehow both loose fitting and suggestive. It’s her gran’s from when she was a Nightbird, made over in the newest style. Perhaps that’s why her dame doesn’t like it—she thinks it’s something Gran should have given her instead, just like her Nightbird gift. Intrinsic magic runs through most of the Great House bloodlines, passed down from woman to woman, but sometimes it skips a generation. Matilde doesn’t think her dame has ever gotten over it.
Dame purses her lips. “It’s just the cut is rather…”
Matilde smiles. “Rather ravishing?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of risqué.”
Gran smiles in a way Matilde has practiced for endless hours but has yet to master.
“Good fashion is never risqué,” she says. “Only a little daring.”
Dame’s lips pinch together even tighter.
Matilde runs a gloved finger down one of the jewelflowers’ beaded petals. It curls, trickster-kissed to open and close as she moves. Gran has tried to grow real jewelflowers in their garden, but they don’t do well outside the swamps of the Callistan. One bloomed last summer, though, its near-black petals begging to be touched. Gran caught her hand before she could. This jewel’s beauty is her trick, she said. She lures in prey by looking soft, and once they’re close… She let a ribbon fall, and Matilde watched the flower swallow it, sizzling as the fabric turned to ash.
She thinks of it often, that flower with a secret. Poison in the guise of something sweet.
“Let’s get to our table,” Dame says. “We must survey the Season’s prospects.”
Prospective suitors, she means. The army of bores she will pour onto Matilde’s and Æsa’s dance cards, trying to push them both into an advantageous match.
“Really, Dame,” Matilde says. “We only just got here.”
Her dame lowers her voice. “You’ve already had too many single Seasons. People are starting to talk of it.”
Matilde rolls her eyes. “I’m not a prime cut of meat at market. I won’t start to stink if you leave me in the sun.”
She doesn’t know why Dame froths over the issue—most Great House boys would eagerly wed a Nightbird. They apply to Leta, their Madam, for the privilege, even though they don’t know who they’re getting engaged to. From what Matilde has seen, they don’t seem much to mind. The suitors are Great House born, and always diamonds. But choosing from a small, curated jewel box isn’t the same as choosing for yourself.
She goes to hook an arm through Æsa’s, but Dame beats her to it. Æsa looks like a fish caught on a line. Matilde has the notion that her dame is pushing Samson toward Æsa—not that he needs the encouragement. With red-gold hair, lush curves, and green eyes, she is stunning. She has no money, but being a Nightbird is a dowry all its own.
She wonders if Æsa can see her dame’s machinations. Since she arrived, she’s seemed too homesick for the Illish Isles to see much at all.
“I’ll take a turn first,” Matilde says. “Do a bit of my own surveying.”
Dame frowns. “The last thing we need is you causing mischief.”
Matilde tugs at one long, silken glove. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Dame sniffs. “You never do.”
Samson closes one eye behind his umber-colored mask, as if he might block out the brewing argument. “Really, ladies. Must we?”
Samson won’t be chastised for the cut of his outfit or made to dance with some sweaty lord with an underbite. Resentment burns hot on her tongue.
“Never fear,” Matilde says. “I don’t imagine I’ll break any rules between here and the refreshments table.”
Dame is clearly about to argue when Gran cuts in.
“Oura, it’s Matilde’s first party of the Season. Let’s allow her to enjoy it.”
Matilde waits as her dame pretends to consider it. She is not the head of House Dinatris, after all.
“Fine,” she says at last. “But don’t be long, Matilde. And no cocktails. I mean it.”
With that, she heads toward their table, tugging Æsa along with her. The girl looks back with don’t leave me eyes, her bright hair burning in the shifting light. Matilde should rescue her from Dame’s clutches, and she will—eventually. Samson follows, swiping a glass of Leta’s signature cocktail and raising it in a mock toast to Matilde.
Gran turns toward her, the grey-blue sequins of her simple mask winking. “Don’t mind your dame. You know how she worries.”
Matilde adjusts her own mask. “I’ve forgotten what she said already.”
It’s a lie, of course. Dame’s words from that afternoon are still circling. You cannot fly free forever. Eventually you must settle down and build a nest. Matilde doesn’t want to nest with someone who only wants her for her magic. She wants the freedom to choose a future for herself.
“She’s right, though,” Gran goes on. “You will have to choose soon.”
Marriage is expected of a Nightbird, so she can pass on her gift to a new generation of Great House girls. It’s practically demanded. The thought makes something tighten in her chest.
Gran adjusts Matilde’s corsage of winglilies, their House’s floral sigil, and gives her a secretive smile.
“I had adventures in that dress, you know. It has tricked many into thinking the girl beneath was soft and biddable.”
Matilde’s lips tilt. “Are you saying you got up to mischief in it?”
“Perhaps.” Gran taps the back of her hand with two fingers. “Fly carefully, my darling.”
Matilde smiles at the Nightbird watchwords. “I’ll do my best.”
She weaves through the room, guessing whom she might know and whom she should want to. Matilde enjoys secrets and puzzles, and so she loves the Houses’ penchant for throwing masked summer balls. People grow bolder with their faces covered; they gamble with fortunes and with hearts. It’s easy to tell who isn’t from Simta: They have a shine in their eyes like the wings of newborn flamemoths, dazzled to see so much magic on display. Simta boasts the Republic’s best trickster tailors and alchemists, and those with coin and connections know where their illegal concoctions can be found. Such powders and potions are coaxed out of herbs and earth, crafted by clever hands, and they make wonderful illusions, but it isn’t like the magic that runs through Matilde’s veins. Hers can’t be brewed: It lives inside her, rare and unfiltered. She loves being a secret glittering in plain sight.
She takes a deep breath. The air tastes of flowers and champagne, and the beginning of the Season. It’s a flavor that Matilde knows by heart. If this is to be her last summer as a Nightbird, she’s going to drink in every drop of it.
She reaches for a coupe glass full of Leta’s signature cocktail, Sylva—Dreamer. The magic in it makes it taste of nostalgia: a favorite childhood treat, a sunny field, a stolen kiss. But as it slides across her tongue, her thoughts turn toward the future. In just a few hours, she will be the Goldfinch for someone.
Whose jewelflower will I be tonight?
Excerpted from Nightbirds, copyright © 2022 by Kate J. Armstrong.
