by Elin Macsen
The Gant Estate
West Hall, Brampton
Cumbria, England
Impera under Imperium
July 10th, 1943
Apackage arrived for Victor the following Saturday. It was unusual that any post at all would arrive on the weekend and Evelyn frowned as she compared his package with a slender envelope addressed to her. Both bore postmarks indicating they were sent from London. For a moment her heart pounded in her chest. Kingsvale College maintained a separate Regent House from the university at large, for obvious reasons. Perhaps they had reconsidered their earlier vote.
No, Evelyn decided at last. Even then the letter would have come from Cambridge. Her grip wrinkled the fragile, brown envelope. If anything, it was an official notice of her revoked status.
Victor’s package, on the other hand, was a curiosity.
The package was wrapped in crimson Immolatory paper. This charmed invention was a rare sight in her corner of England. If opened by the wrong person, the magically imbued paper would instantly vaporize its contents. Even as she carried it into the hall, the paper throbbed a hot warning against her hands. Her only brush with Immolatory envelopes was in Vice-Chancellor Sutton’s office, where she had occasionally espied them from the other side of his desk, but she had never seen an Immolatory package before. This one was about the size of a large shoebox and quite heavy. From handling it, she guessed it contained books.
The package would have to wait. Victor was in the throes of his usual summer activities: fixing fences, moving cattle and sheep between pastures, and joining the Hominidae farmhands in their reaping of the harvest. Her only real brush with this other species was Ivar. As dearly as she looked up to him as a child, she found the men and women who worked the land quite forbidding. For as long as Evelyn could remember, they lived in small families in the village of West Hall.
The farmhands were a regular fixture. Still, she regarded them as foreigners, though they had largely lived in the rolling hills of the Cumbrian countryside as long as her own family. In a way, she was the foreign one when she moved through the estate’s pastures and fields. She would never admit it to herself, but it was true.
Peter Gant had gone to Brampton in the morning and wasn’t expected until the evening, so there was no reason for her to hide while she studied. After receiving the mail, she went to the library and sat in a broad leather armchair by the window. Dappled light fell over the pages of her book. She was quickly lost in the thrill and throb of magic as she tried spell after spell, though none of them came to anything without a wand in her hand.
She felt naked without a wand. Since she was a child, she had carried one everywhere she went. In her final hours before leaving Cambridge, a sneering regulator arrived at her dormitory and demanded the wand before snapping it in front of her. Her heart snapped too, a little—but she was determined to be cold. Emotions wouldn’t help her in Cambridge.
Now she thought of the package, the farm’s uncertain circumstances, and her brother’s easy way of throwing off the responsibilities of prophecy for mundane labor under the sun. Part of her envied her brother his ease. He made it look so simple. Meanwhile, she was ravenously studying magic, the one thing she was now forbidden to do.
It was a quarter past five when the interruption occurred.
Evelyn heard the reverberating toll of the doorbell and ignored it, knowing Ivar would come to the door. Visitors were rare in West Hall, but everything had shifted since the roiling skies and shrieking words of the prophecy. She turned the page in her book. Shrinking down in the armchair, she slung one leg over the side and returned to her rapt adventure into the form and function of magic.
Downstairs, the aged servant hobbled through the hall while the intruder pressed the bell a second time. The commotion barely reached her ears: she was already lost in another spell. This one was Latinate, like all magic taught in England, though there were other forms of magic studied theoretically or lost to history: runes, alchemy, vampiric magic in a different tongue, the magic of stars and signs known as divination… of these, only the magic of Vampirae had survived the cull of history.
Wandless, inaccessible, and utterly foreign to Magidae, Evelyn had no hope of grasping vampiric magic without a tutor. She considered it briefly, but she would have had to send away for books that were criminal for a mage to possess, much less an ‘undermage,’ an unlicensed practitioner.
Footsteps marred her concentration. It wasn’t just the toiling climb of Ivar this time, either—a whole troop was upon the stairs. She thought she could hear distinct patterns of footfall: a prancing lightness that fell in neat syncopation with the servant, two light steps for each one of Ivar’s, and another, a grave and deliberate climber who waited for the other two to ascend and took each stair with forethought and patience.
Ivar knocked on the library door and waited for her to rise. He murmured something to the visitors. Setting her book aside, Evelyn ran a longing hand over its embellished leather cover in sapphire and gold before going to the door.
“Yes?” she asked. As soon as she saw the intruders her eyes widened.
Over the servant’s hunched shoulders stood a tall, slender man with half Asiatic, half European features. He looked her over with cool, impassive eyes. He was not impressed. Likely he knew her entire backstory, though she didn’t recognize him. There was distance there. He seemed almost otherworldly in some way.
Beside him was a woman about the same age, in her late twenties or early thirties. Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. No, she was not quite a woman. Her dark, Indian skin bore shadowy markings at her temples and around the fringe of her forehead, almost like henna. Her pupils were wide, vertical slits in the dim light of the hall. Instantly upon seeing Evelyn, she smiled and pushed past the servant to shake the girl’s hand.
“Evelyn Gant? I’m Lavinia Panthera. Haven’t you met Felidae before? No? I can see by your eyes you haven’t. Allow me to introduce Philip Park. We’re here to meet with your brother. He probably mentioned that Sentinels would be coming soon. Well, Philip isn’t really a Sentinel, but he’s here to help with the training program all the same. You must be very proud of your brother.”
“I am,” Evelyn allowed. She took her hand back from the smiling Felidae and stepped into the hall, closing the door to the library behind her. She might not be important enough to rise to the level of a Sentinel’s interest, but she couldn’t take the risk of being discovered with a forbidden spellbook.
“Victor didn’t mention it,” Evelyn continued. “He’s working on the farm now. Do you want me to help you find him?”
“That’s all right. Sir, what’s your name?” Lavinia Panthera asked the servant.
He responded with a bow. “You may call me Ivar.”
“Funny name,” Lavinia said.
“Panthera’s a bit on the nose,” Philip Park remarked under his breath.
The Felidae witch smiled again at Evelyn. “You’re not familiar with us, so I’ll let you know that he’s joking. You won’t find a Felidae who goes by anything but Panthera, aside from a select few. Speak my name and die, you know how it is.”
But she was joking about this too. Immediately, she winked at the girl.
“Right…” Evelyn said, her hand edging back toward the doorknob. She was anxious to return to her work, unsanctioned as it was.
“On second thought, Evelyn, maybe you can help us with something,” the witch said. Her eyes narrowed for a second. Evelyn realized belatedly that this was half a lazy, trusting blink. Felidae ran on instinct in a way that humans have mostly suppressed: she liked Evelyn, no matter what she and Philip had heard about the delinquent undermage. “We’re going to stay here for a while, possibly through the summer. Victor didn’t want to stay in London, so we’ve come here instead. I guess he didn’t tell you about that either. Is there room in the house for two guests? Otherwise, we’ll stay in the village…”
Evelyn exchanged a glance with Ivar, who nodded.
�
��We can make up some rooms for you. We barely use half the house as it is.”
“Excellent. We’ll settle in after dinner. Nice to meet you, I think. We’d better go find your brother.”
Both the Felidae mage and her somber shadow turned on the stair and departed in search of Victor. Evelyn sighed and offered to help Ivar prepare the rooms, though he demurred. A smile twinkled in his foggy eyes.
“How about that, miss? Think you can learn something from a Sentinel? The feline one, not that slender fellow.”
She laughed. “If only!”
CHAPTER SIX
THE TROUBLE WITH LAND
The Gant Estate
West Hall, Brampton
Cumbria, England
Impera under Imperium
July 10th, 1943
Books did not thrill the soul of Victor Gant.
“Textbooks?” he repeated incredulously, pulling a thick, entrancingly engraved volume from the folds of Immolatory paper. He held it off at a distance as though it might grow fangs and attack his arm. “Thanks, I… I finished my exams two months ago. I’m a lower mage now.”
“You can learn almost anything from a book. Besides, these aren’t just any books. These are the books prospective Sentinels use to prepare for their magisterial exams in order to be admitted to the Guard. You’d be lucky to find some of these spells anywhere else under Imperium,” Lavinia scoffed.
She snatched the heavy textbook out of her pupil’s hands and shoved it in the general direction of Philip’s chest. Evelyn craned her neck, trying to read the title, but it was quickly obscured by the mage’s thin hands. “What do you think that prophecy meant, Mr. Gant? Really.”
They were in the dining room. Lavinia had settled in at once at the head of the table, while Philip took one look around, sniffed, and gingerly stood behind the witch as if he couldn’t bear to sit on the Gant household’s worn chairs.
Evelyn returned to her book. She was reading historical fiction set fifty years earlier and her mind was in the fantastical heights and hovels of that world—or so it would appear to an outsider. Though she briskly turned through the pages of the novel, her mind was focused on her brother’s predicament and the contents of his package.
Victor was aghast. “If you’re here to teach me spells, we’ll train with wands out when I’m done with my work on the farm. My father needs me here, so we’d better be efficient. Give the books to Evelyn. She’ll read anything.”
The Felidae Sentinel looked at the girl, seemingly considering this option. Evelyn kept her face half-shrouded in a curtain of red curls. It was almost too good to be true. She held her breath.
It was Philip who spoke.
“She’s not allowed to.”
Victor sighed. “I have no intention of becoming a Sentinel like yourself, but I’m not completely heartless. I’ll study and train with you, but you have to understand that the farm comes first. It’s been in our family for generations and my father can’t manage it all on his own.”
Evelyn looked up long enough to see the reluctance in his eyes. She had dreamed of Cambridge, but Victor had dreamed far beyond it. Whatever failure had occurred surrounding the land’s finances must be grave indeed if he was willing to set his aspirations aside and devote himself to the estate. Either that, or it was a feint to throw the other man off his guard, which seemed abundantly in order.
Lavinia turned to glower at each of them in turn, excepting only Evelyn from this snub.
“Don’t you feel any sense of responsibility, Victor?” she hissed. “Everyone in our world knows how fragile magic is, and how much we have to lose if it vanishes completely. This isn’t just about you or your farm. It’s about the future of our entire planet. You have no respect for the lives lost in the war, the families destroyed. Think about that for a second. You probably don’t even know what the prophecy means at all, do you, or you’d have more respect for the fallen.”
She was practically growling as she came to the end of this rebuke. It did not take a Cambridge-educated scholar to deduce that her own family had been grievously altered by the war. Victor had enough compassion to seem a little ashamed, though behind the witch’s chair, Philip rolled his eyes darkly.
“Well, it’s a riddle, isn’t it? You’re welcome to explain it to me,” Victor offered.
“Maybe another time,” she snapped.
When Ivar entered with the meal, Park slipped silently into the hall. Evelyn wondered what he planned to do for sustenance on the farm. The food was simple but good: his objection must be the company. She shrugged and moved her novel to her lap. Lavinia glared daggers at the prophesied hero and ate with somewhat menacing bites.
Easy-going and used to being liked, Victor was naturally the first to call a truce.
“Look, I’m happy to learn. Perhaps I’ve developed some rust. It’s been years since I was called on to hold a wand. They aren’t much use in Cambridge, you know. I was on the rugby team—I’m not afraid of a fight. I’ll learn whatever you’re here to teach. I only meant that of the two of us, Evelyn would have been the one to become a Sentinel, not me. She knows twice as many spells as I do, and if she only had her wand still, she could show you.”
“Certainly, you should help your family—hullo,” Lavinia said, rising as the weary head of the household entered the dining room. Peter Gant carried a light overcoat over his arm and held a brimmed hat against his heart. His face bore a strain that aged him another ten years. Behind him stood Philip. Curiously, the younger man held his wand in his hand.
“Sit down, Mr. Gant,” Philip murmured. His voice was soft and light, almost sweet. There was something extraordinarily dignified about the stiff grace with which he moved.
“No doubt you are curious who we are. I am Philip Park, son of Theodore and Nastasia Park. My father is a magnate, I suppose, best known for oil production in the Gachsaran fields. Lavinia Panthera is a Felidae mage and a highly accomplished Sentinel. I am no Sentinel, but I am here under contract to teach your son magic he would never otherwise have any hope of mastering. It will take more than a Sentinel to save our world, and I—” he drew himself up, though his posture already seemed excessively straight “—am more than a Sentinel. For example: Intueatur deinceps in caliginis.”
His voice deepened as he cast his wand forward. Shadow drowned out the lamplit haze of the room and a green mist pooled from the wand, collecting above the center of the table. It coalesced, binding into a brilliant globe that cast a febrile, greenish light over their faces. Mist and stars passed through the surface of the globe, their pace quickening as the man frowned and coaxed the spell with an incline of his forehead. Evelyn couldn’t tell if it was a trick or true sorcery. She leaned in, trying to catch a glimpse of truth in the globe.
Dark fire crackled against the viridescent landscape, followed by shrieks and snarls as a great, scaled beast plunged through the orb. It was a dragon, though no such thing existed. A triumphant male figure fought back with blazing magic, torturing the creature as it soared through the heavens of the scene. She blinked and an army appeared, flanking the figure. A castle burned in the background. Some terrible magic broke open the earth; bodies fell through a chasm as it plunged into being beneath them. The orb seemed to grow, filling the air above the table with this shocking scene.
“Finis,” Philip finished as coolly as he had begun. The magic spiraled into nothing, vanishing completely.
The three Gants stared at him.
“Is it true magic?” Victor ventured. “Or some deception? There is no way to know the future.”
“There is no way to know the future, but you may glimpse it if your magic is strong enough. Perhaps the details have been embellished slightly, but you will know it when it comes to pass.”
It’s just a cheap imitation of the prophecy in Cambridge, Evelyn thought, but she frowned. Maybe there was some truth to it. The magic of the heavens that day in Cambridge came from a force beyond mortality. This glimmer rang true in the same way. If th
e viridescent globe was real, if it was more than a mirage, this was almost worse. With so little magic left in the world, dwindling rapidly to extinction by all accounts, how could Park justify expending it just to show off?
Even Lavinia seemed somewhat hesitant. “You need to learn from a sorcerer, Victor, not just a full mage. Philip is nearly a sorcerer, and he was available on short notice.”
“What will it cost?”
They turned to look at Peter Gant. Evelyn saw now how drawn and gray he was in the flicker of lamplight, his voice dry, like a husk of corn.
“We are here as emissaries of the Alliance. The prophecy concerns the fate of Impera, so we’re not taking any chances. If Victor rises to meet his fate, he will be supplied and trained by the Alliance at no cost to your family. Consider it a blessing, not a disadvantage.”
The patriarch of the family crumpled back in his chair and nodded apprehensively. “The estate is heavily leveraged, you may know, and the Alliance holds the lien. I don’t suppose the boy has a choice.”
“We’ll start your training tomorrow,” Lavinia nodded to Victor, gracefully eliding acknowledgement of his father’s statement.
As she undressed for bed in her quiet chamber above the house, Evelyn found the letter from London in her pocket. She wrestled with anxiety as she studied the forceful slant of her name, then opened the envelope. Waiting wouldn’t save her.
She had to read the letter twice to fully comprehend the unexpected missive.
To Ms. Evelyn Guinevere Gant, U.M.,
It will be noted that your compliance with wand seizure and magical disapplication serves the case of remediation. Due to a full suspension, less expulsion, your name will not be stricken from the rolls of qualified Undermages.
If you proceed with becoming conduct, such as you have, you may expect re-qualification to become a Lower Mage after the sum of ten years, pending application. Any deviance from magical disapplication or wand seizure will reconstitute the beginning of the ten-year period and review of the same.
