Elfling (U.S. Edition)

by Corinna Turner

  “Uh…technically you dealt with the third one…”

  He waved this away. “You kept him occupied, which was what mattered. With those three on me as well, I could have been overwhelmed. But I strongly suggest you don’t experiment with your modest abilities in that way. In public like that. It’s very dangerous—and I don’t just mean for my people, but for you too. First of all, for you.”

  I bit my lip as I thought of what I’d done. He was right, it had been horribly indiscreet. Witch, the man had called me. At least the only two who’d been paying attention to me were dead. Was that…the real reason why Ystevan had slain the last man or had his protective instincts simply been roused? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. On the other hand…

  “I’d have been dead a whole lot sooner if I hadn’t done it,” I pointed out. “But I certainly won’t do it again unless I have to. I feel like…like a kitten now, for one thing.” My whole body did feel appallingly weak, as though I’d just had that near-fatal cold all over again.

  But he just placed a hand each side of my face and stared at me. “I’d have died otherwise is not a good enough reason, Serapia. In these situations you simply have to find another way. Humans are not good at telling the difference between natural elfin abilities and the devilish magic of a witch. You need to think, what would you have done if you had no such abilities?”

  I knew he was right about the danger, and that I had perhaps been too easily tempted into experimenting, but he was still making me angry acting as though I’d done something totally stupid—especially coming on top of that excruciating memory. “Run, and probably died!” I retorted.

  “You would not have died, I would have reached you in time.”

  “You hope!”

  He flushed slightly, sounding every bit an offended nineteen-year-old as he protested, “I would! Fighting evil is what I’m trained for!”

  Evil? Like my father? The thought popped into my head and my temper rose even more. I pushed away from him and got to my feet, only slightly shaky.

  “You can’t talk about evil!” I snapped. “Thief!”

  “Technically elfin do not steal memories, we only cloak them.”

  “I’m not just talking about that! Where is my hand-quartz? My diary?”

  His flush deepened. “By the time it became clear you actually believed that we would deliver you back to your father with your memories intact, we’d already given you those things...but just to use while you were with us, was how we saw it.”

  “Among humans, a gift is a gift, and once given it belongs to the person it’s given to. And taking it back is stealing.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. You were never supposed to...miss them. I didn’t mean to...to upset you.”

  His gentle words just made me feel even worse. Because what did they mean, coming from him? He’d still do his duty, come rack or ruin. For all I knew, he was planning to steal my memories all over again before leaving London, promise or no.

  “Why do you even bother acting as if you care a ha’penny about me?” I demanded.

  “I do care, Serapia. Very much.”

  “No, you don’t! You won’t even heal my father!”

  “A sorcerer is a sorcerer,” he snapped. “Why can’t you see that?”

  I stared at him. I hated it when he trotted out his absolutes. “You act as though a sorcerer—which my father isn’t, anyway—is the same as a dark elfin. But they’re not, are they? A dark elfin can’t help themselves, at least, not at the beginning. A human would have to be possessed to be the same. And a human who’s not possessed can choose not to be bad. Again and again, even if just once they chose poorly. Humans always have to choose. You could heal a good human and they could choose to do evil tomorrow.”

  “What’s your point?” ground out the guardian.

  “My point,” I said emphatically, “is that you’re judging sorcerers by exactly the same criteria as dark elfin and it just doesn’t work! It’s not like there aren’t exceptions even with dark elfin! Even you admit Siridean wasn’t evil.”

  “Probably wasn’t,” corrected Ystevan. “And I still don’t see your point. Sorcerers only become sorcerers by consistently choosing evil. The fact that they could choose other scarcely matters.”

  “It matters because my father is not a sorcerer,” I persisted. “He chose sorcery once, and ever since then he has always chosen good, though it will mean his death. So why won’t you save him?”

  “One choice of that nature is more than enough,” said Ystevan coldly.

  My frustration boiled over. It was like talking to a brick wall. “You just don’t want to admit that a person can go that far into evil and come back!” I cried. The words tumbled from my mouth one after another and I couldn’t seem to stop them. “You’d have killed Siridean yourself, wouldn’t you? The virtuous elfin or the evil demon, it was just a question of which of you found him first! You’ve decided Arathain can’t be saved, and it’s easier for you if you think that no one can be!”

  Ystevan’s face whitened to the shade of chalk, and my hand flew to my mouth.

  “No circumstance. Ever,” he bit off, then turned and strode towards the gate.

  “Ystevan?” I gasped after a moment, but he did not look back. “Ystevan? I didn’t mean that...”

  I hurried after him as fast as my tired legs would go, but I could not catch his long-legged form. I pursued him through the chocolate house and into the street beyond.

  “Ystevan!”

  But he was gone.

  I sank down on a nearby bench, fighting back tears. He’d probably never even want to speak to me again, and I could deny the truth no longer. He was never going to agree to heal my father.

  Susie hurried up to me, but I dug a coin blindly from my purse, belatedly checking myself for bloodstains, but thankfully my dress was a dark color and nothing had stained the lace of my ruff. “Go back inside, Susie,” I told her in a choked voice. “Have another cup of chocolate. I will be just out here.”

  Casting anxious looks behind her, Susie obeyed. I sat there for some long moments in miserable silence and solitude, until finally I realized that someone had sat beside me.

  “Pardon me for coming up to you like this…”

  I stared at him blankly, not really seeing him.

  “Forgive me if I am mistaken, but it looked as though you and Lord Ystevan had had a bit of a row.”

  Startled, I focused properly on the person beside me and my eyes widened. “I saw you on the road the other day!”

  The golden-haired youth smiled and nodded. “So you did. You gave me quite a turn. I had to hide ever so fast. But I know it is all right to speak to you now. You are the Rare Exception,” he finished humorously.

  “You know Lord Ystevan, then?”

  “Of course,” said the young he-elf. “We are colleagues, as you would express it.”

  Of course, he was a guardian. What had Ystevan said? That only guardians ventured among humans.

  “Lady Serapia Ravena,” I said formally, holding out my hand. “Delighted to meet you.”

  “Lord Vandalis of…well,” he smiled apologetically, shaking my hand with his own gloved one, “forgive me if I do not actually name my fort and clan.”

  “Have you been a guardian long?” I could not help asking. He seemed closer to my own age than Ystevan. He could be sixty years old, though, small wonder if he was already trained and trusted. I didn’t get so much of a…feel of him…as I got from most people. He felt strangely…blank. Maybe he was nervous and closed in, speaking to a human.

  “Not very,” he was replying, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “This is my first er...task…in the human world. You must forgive me if I was curious to meet you. It is a rare thing to meet a human with whom one may actually be oneself.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” I said. “I really am delighted to meet you.”

  “You looked so upset, too,” Vandalis added a little shyly. “I don’t kno
w what Ystevan said. He can be rather…hard.” He shrugged as though apologizing for his fellow guardian’s insensitivity.

  “Yes, he can,” I agreed ruefully, frantically marshalling what I hoped would be the most polished and persuasive version of my father’s tale yet.

  “What did you two, ah…?” Vandalis was inquiring delicately.

  “I’ve been asking him to heal my father,” I replied.

  Vandalis fixed me with a look not wholly unlike the one Ystevan and the elfin Queen had turned on me. He knew there was more to come. “I cannot imagine why he would refuse you. What is the nature of his ailment?”

  “I will tell you all about it, but I should mention first that, due to complicated circumstances, I never met my father—or knew of him at all—until this very year, so nothing I say is prejudiced in his favor in the way it might otherwise have been.”

  I shot a look at Vandalis, but his face still showed nothing but polite interest.

  Quickly, but calmly, I began at the beginning, explaining about my father’s love for my mother, about the onset of his foresight, how it had driven him near-mad with fear and grief.

  I could tell I had Vandalis’s complete attention and continued, picking my words with exquisite care. But as I spoke the word “sorcery”, Vandalis’s face closed into an unreadable mask. I could have howled with frustration. Was it happening again?

  I hurried on, desperately, desperately seeking the words to break through his preconceptions and make him listen.

  “He truly is penitent. He has been penitent for years. Nothing will make him turn back to sorcery. If he were prepared to do so, he could actually have saved himself by now. But he chooses to die, instead. That is how penitent he is. How resolved to choose goodness at any cost to himself. Please, I beg you, won’t you help him?”

  And I waited, trying not to bite my lip, for his reply.

  Vandalis’s expression was still decidedly indeterminable. “Sorcery is not some venial little sin,” he remarked at last. “Indeed, it is not considered to be something from which one can come back.”

  “God’s forgiveness covers everyone! Even a penitent sorcerer. And he’s not even a...”

  “It isn’t safe to allow a sorcerer to live,” interrupted Vandalis. “It simply isn’t.”

  “But he is not a sorcerer!”

  Vandalis looked thoughtful. “You say not, but I have only your word for that. Certainly the only solid evidence of this case is that your father has had recourse to sorcery. As such he definitely comes into the category of those who are to be helped on their way to judgment if necessary. Still, let me have all the facts. How is it that he could now complete the sorcery if he chose?”

  I thought my heart would burst with relief. I had been sure that utter, irrevocable refusal was coming. Perhaps he might yet be persuaded to help me.

  Carefully, I explained what the sacrifice was to have been, how my father doubted whether he could actually have done it anyway, and my certainty that he could not have done. I told him about the sorcerers’ attempt, how my father had rescued me, sent them packing and destroyed the temple.

  “Hmm,” he said, when I’d finished, frowning in thought. “What can I make with all this... These sorcerers,” he went on, after a moment, “who were they? They were human?”

  “Well, the leader was this horrible staring man. I’m as sure as I can be that they were human, yes.”

  Vandalis nodded to himself. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Ystevan would tan my hide for helping your father. But the man is clearly no sorcerer. Ystevan is so very inflexible about these things.”

  “Would you come and look at my father?” I asked, struggling to contain my eagerness. “I mean, you could just come and look at him, see what you thought. Decide then…”

  Vandalis shot a glance at the sun, apologetic again. “I really cannot, not right now,” he said. He’d been looking up and down the street as we’d been speaking, so not wholly to my surprise he went on, “I have my business to attend to; I’m going to be ever so busy this afternoon. But…”

  He paused again, then shrugged. “I am not in Ystevan’s league, you understand, but… Well, I will be staying tonight at a well-warded house in London; I will not have time to go home. I really would rather not wander around at night without very good cause; did Ystevan explain about that?”

  I nodded, breathless with hope.

  “Anyway, if you bring your father to me at sixty-six Hounsdiche at say, eleven o’clock in the evening, I should have finished up everything to do with my business by then and be free to see him. And I will heal him if it lies within my power. I wouldn’t like to promise, you understand,” he added. “Though it is most likely that I can do it.”

  I nodded, my heart pounding with joy. He was prepared to try to heal my father, and he thought he probably could do it!

  “I truly cannot thank you enough, Lord Vandalis,” I said. “I’m delighted to find that not all elfin are so uncompromising.”

  Vandalis smiled ruefully. “Perhaps I will be so as well, after a few decades in the job. But just now, I hope I retain my sense of proportion.” He stood and bowed to me, so I rose hastily to curtsey back. “I will see you tonight, then,” he said, then added, “I, ah, really wouldn’t mention this to Lord Ystevan, by the way,” and was gone down the street.

  Mention it to Ystevan! Not likely. I gathered my cloak around myself so that Raven could climb out of my dress for a hug. “Did you hear, Raven,” I hissed. “He’s agreed to help!”

  Raven chattered her delight, but after a moment pawed at my thumb and shot a look in the direction Ystevan had gone.

  “I know,” I sighed, for sweet-tempered and helpful as young Lord Vandalis seemed, I had to admit that I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t like the stubborn and irritable Ystevan better. But he probably never wanted to set eyes on me ever again.

  “Pa will be healed, please God,” I whispered to Raven, “and that’s what really matters.”

  ~+~

  CHAPTER 42

  HOUNSDICHE

  There was just one more obstacle to my father’s healing, I realized as I strolled home with Susie, and that was my father himself. He was far too unwell to be lured from the house by any pretence of entertainment or visiting, yet even now I felt quite sure he would refuse to accompany me if I told him the truth. I didn’t want to deceive him, but I really didn’t think that honesty would work.

  Perhaps it would be best to say nothing at all. A small dose of sleeping draught in the wine he drank with his evening meal would do the trick. I could have him carried into the coach as though for an urgent trip to the physician. I bit my lip, considering. I hated the idea of treating him in such a way but...I really rather thought it was the only way I would get him out of the house.

  My father was asleep when I got home, so I ate a lonely luncheon and then sat around for a while, wondering if I would ever see Ystevan again. Even if he wished to see me again, he hunted someone who was hunting him back. Someone so evil they could hand a person their payment in a box cursed with such a curse... I shuddered just to think about it.

  Once activity in the house reached its lowest, mid-afternoon ebb, I paid a visit to the medicine chest in my father’s room and got what I needed. The suspense was torturous and eventually I went for a walk, or stride, around the grounds. I was tempted to take Hellion out and ride long and hard, but today was not the time to have a fall.

  Father Francis was in the graveyard as I passed the church, and after a moment’s hesitation, I went up to the wall. “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that yesterday, Father. I didn’t mean it.”

  But he just replied, “It’s quite all right, child, I know how you must feel.” He shot a look at my face, clearly reading tension as anxiety. “I can be a bit of a harbinger, alas.” He held out his black robes and flapped, crow-like, and succeeded in drawing a laugh from me.

  When I got back to the house my father was awake, so I cuddled to him in silence un
til it was time for the evening meal. He was too tired to talk much, and I feared my manner might give something away. Slipping the sleeping draught into his goblet unseen was ridiculously easy. I swallowed a painful lump in my throat as I remembered how fast and strong my father had been when he dueled my uncle.

  He will be fast and strong again, providing you do not falter, I told myself.

  I sat beside him, my head resting on his shoulder, and kept watch as he slept the long evening away. Raven curled up between my head and his neck, occasionally sharing hope-filled glances with me.

  When the clocks finally began to strike ten, I knew that it was time to act. I went to the room door. “My father must see a physician at once,” I told the waiting footman. “Order the coach.”

  He went off at a run, and I occupied myself wrapping my father in warm layers against the night air. “Carry him gently,” I urged them, when two footmen came to say that the coach was ready. My father was borne carefully downstairs and placed in the coach without a flicker of suspicion from anyone, and I scrambled in after him.

  “Sixty-six Hounsdiche, quickly,” I called to Richard. I did not want to be late, and it seemed best to keep up the pretence of urgency.

  By the time we reached our destination my father was stirring sleepily. “Serapia?” he murmured, as I braced him against the swaying of the coach. “Wherever are we going?”

  “There is a physician I have found,” I told him. “A physician who will be able to make you much more comfortable.”

  “Oh, child,” he said with a breath of gentle exasperation. “You know my eternal comfort or discomfort will be decided very soon now. What point is there?”

  “Pa,” I said, in a suitably upset tone. “I hate to see you suffering.”

  He snorted. “As far as these things go, Serapia, I am drifting away in the utmost comfort. Or I am when I am not being shaken around needlessly in a coach. Do tell Richard to take us home.”

  Fortunately, the coach drew to a halt before I had to reply. “We’re here now, Pa,” I said. “We may as well at least go in and see what he recommends. Please?” I added with the utmost appeal, when he began to shake his head tiredly. To my relief my tone succeeded in stopping the head shake in mid swing.