Liberating Fight

by Melissa McShane

  “They will not question if they know and trust,” Amaya said. “You have made it a fear, not them, because you make it a secret and then it looks like truth. If you do not fear, no one else will.”

  “You know nothing of politics and nothing of ruling a country,” Lord Sacheverell shouted. “Your blind, irrational faith will do nothing but kill thousands, possibly tens of thousands.”

  “My people know what is true,” Amaya said, her voice rising to match his. “The Incas do not fear me even though I can kill with my talent. That is because I do not murder. Having an ability does not mean one must always and only use that ability.”

  Lord Sacheverell looked to be ready to erupt again, but when he spoke, his voice was quiet, if intense. “Get out,” he said. “You have one day to remove yourself from England, and then you will be removed. And do not think to subvert the law by marrying. You will find no special license available, nor will anyone, anywhere, post your banns.”

  Amaya understood very little of his statement, but the central point was clear. “It is your foolishness that does this,” she said.

  Mr. Fenton cleared his throat. “I do not believe Miss Salazar should be banished,” he said.

  Lord Sacheverell looked down at him as if he’d forgotten the War Office liaison was there. “I beg your pardon?” he said, sounding puzzled.

  “We don’t yet know what will happen,” Mr. Fenton said, coming to his feet. “But Miss Salazar is correct that we do not put restrictions on Scorchers or Movers or Bounders or any other potentially deadly talent.”

  “This is none of your concern, Fenton,” Lord Sacheverell boomed.

  “I am Miss Salazar’s liaison, and as such, it is my concern.” Mr. Fenton nodded at Amaya. “I say it is premature to treat all Extraordinary Shapers as criminals, and I will make this opinion known to the War Office.”

  “The War Office does not set policy.”

  “It is, however, responsible for the actions of the Extraordinaries under its command, and the government’s policy will affect the War Office first and most dramatically.” Mr. Fenton’s color was returning, and he stood his ground without a hint of fear. “And I know this policy has yet to be ratified—is that not so?”

  Lord Sacheverell said nothing.

  Amaya said, “Did you try to make me obey something that is not actually a law?”

  “It is good policy,” Lord Sacheverell said.

  Amaya had to clench her fists to keep from extending her claws. She settled for saying, “This is bad manners, Lord Sacheverell, and you disappoint me. There is no policy yet, and I will not obey it even if there is. I am going now, and you will not stop me and you will not make me leave England. I know this because you are afraid, not of me, but of these people you talk so easily of. They are more intelligent than you know, and they will not be fools.” She nodded politely to Mr. Fenton, who bowed in return, and let herself out.

  All the way back to the street, she shook with rage. Tried to fool her—tried to force her to obey a stupid policy—tried to make her leave the country—Lord Sacheverell was a fool, but was he a powerful fool? If the English government knew what Extraordinary Shapers were capable of and had kept it a secret, their plan had been formed years ago, and they would have another plan for implementing the first one. Which meant Amaya might be in trouble no matter what she did.

  She hailed a hackney and did not realize until the driver spoke to her that a lone woman requesting a carriage was unusual and likely improper. This irritated her further, and she spoke too sharply to the driver; her retort silenced him completely. Her bad mood stopped her feeling guilty about her words, and she sat staring out the window coming up with worse things she might have said to Lord Sacheverell and wishing she were still in a position to say them.

  She had directed the carriage not to the Hanleys’ home, but to the Grosvenor Square mansion where Elinor and Lord Enderleigh would live until after Elinor’s child was born. Amaya had arranged with Elinor that she would remain with them, since Elinor’s confinement was near. Today, the house’s dour façade matched her mood, and made her feel, contrariwise, almost cheerful, as if she were not the only one in the world feeling irritated.

  She knocked, and waited for the footman to admit her, then crossed the entry to the stairs. Voices coming from down the hall stopped her ascending to her bedroom as had been her plan. Elinor, and Edmund, and—

  With a cry of excitement, she plunged down the hall to Elinor’s sitting room and flung herself on Bess, saying, “It is so good—why are you here, I know you and Elinor do not know each other?”

  Bess, laughing, caught her spectacles as they flew off her nose from the force of Amaya’s embrace. “It is all Edmund’s doing. He insisted I be introduced to Lady Enderleigh, as she is such a good friend of yours.”

  “Bess was with Mother when I returned home this afternoon,” Edmund explained, “and as I knew you would be returning from Westminster to this house, I took the liberty of bringing her along.”

  “I am so glad you did,” Elinor said from her seat near the fire. “You spoke so highly of Lady Ravenscourt, I have longed to make her acquaintance. Sit, Amaya, and I will ring for refreshments, and we will hear what you learned from Lord Sacheverell.”

  “Lord Sacheverell?” Bess said, sounding puzzled. “What have you to do with him? You are not a member of the War Office, surely?”

  “Then you know him,” Amaya said. She sat next to Elinor and untied the strings of her bonnet.

  “Know of him, at least. We have never been introduced. He does not have the pleasantest of dispositions, I am told, and my—I understand he is not fond of Extraordinary privilege despite his work with the War Office. Or perhaps because of it.” Bess sat opposite Amaya and settled her spectacles more securely. “He is sympathetic to a group within the government that would like Extraordinaries to have somewhat fewer rights than they currently do.”

  “I see. Now things about my speaking to him make sense.”

  “Tell us, or I will run mad,” Edmund said.

  Amaya found her bad mood had vanished. “There is little to tell. Lord Sacheverell says that the government wishes to make Extraordinary Shapers conspicuous so they cannot hurt with a touch. But it is not law yet. I believe he tried to trick me.” She frowned. “And threatened to make me leave England if I do not obey.”

  Edmund rose to his feet. “Leave England? Impossible!”

  “Maybe, or maybe not, I do not know. But I tell him I do not obey and I do not leave. Edmund, they knew! You were right that they were afraid of my talent, Sir Maxwell and Mr. Fenton and the other lord. They knew what Extraordinary Shapers can do and they keep—kept it a secret because they fear a riot if people learn of it.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Bess said, “but what is it you speak of?”

  Amaya glanced her way. “You have not heard?”

  “Lord Ravenscourt and I arrived from the continent only this afternoon. I have heard nothing unusual about Extraordinary Shapers.”

  A chill gripped Amaya’s heart. She took her fears in hand and said, “It is that an Extraordinary Shaper can hurt as well as heal.”

  “Yes, I know,” Bess said, “or rather, I guessed after Mr. Rutledge told me months ago that the government knew something sinister related to your Extraordinary Shaping. I did not realize it was a secret, though as I say this, I recognize that no one ever speaks of it. You mean to say this knowledge was actively concealed?”

  Amaya stared at her friend. “How did you guess?”

  Bess shrugged. “I did not make the connection immediately, though it is obvious—though perhaps it is only obvious to someone like me, who has been under the care of dozens of Extraordinary Shapers in her life. Anyone capable of enhancing my eyes must be capable of damaging them as well.” She tapped a finger beside her left eye. “Such knowledge is only frightening if one does not realize that most people are not evil, and they do not in general use their abilities, talent or otherwise, to harm other
s.”

  “That is what I say!” Amaya exclaimed. “You see it. I do not understand why Lord Sacheverell does not.”

  “Very likely it does not suit him to see it,” Edmund said, “if Bess is right that he would like to see Extraordinaries disenfranchised. I am more concerned that he threatened to deport you. How did he intend to enforce that?”

  Amaya shrugged. “I told him I will not go. So it does not matter to me what he tries.”

  Elinor shifted her weight and made an uncomfortable noise. “I am well, just weary,” she said when Amaya gave her a concerned look. “If this policy is not law, I doubt Lord Sacheverell has the power to enforce it. But perhaps Lord Enderleigh and I should look into this further. If it is on the verge of becoming law, we should be aware of that.”

  Absently, Amaya took Elinor’s hand to assess her condition as she had become accustomed to do. She stilled, listening to Elinor’s sunqu, hearing Bess and Edmund’s voices without paying any attention to them. “It will have to be Lord Enderleigh who does the looking,” she said, interrupting the conversation. “You will be busy elsewhere.”

  “I, busy? What do you mean?” Elinor asked. A peculiar expression, an inward-turned, questioning look, crinkled her eyes, and she splayed one hand across her enormous belly. “Oh,” she added.

  “Do not fear, all is well,” Amaya said. “But we will go upstairs. Bess and Edmund, I will see you later.”

  Edmund looked confused. Bess rose and brought him with her. “I understand,” she said with a smile. “Lady Enderleigh, it was a pleasure meeting you, and I hope to visit you again. Edmund, I promised Mother we would dine with her tonight, if you would accompany me?”

  Edmund caught Amaya’s eye. His expression showed clearly his disappointment at being deprived of her company. “Of course,” he said with a bow. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  When Edmund and Bess were gone, Amaya helped Elinor stand. “Do not be afraid,” she said. “It will still be many hours, and I promise it will not hurt.”

  “Oh,” Elinor said again. “I believed childbirth to be quite painful. Is pain not necessary?”

  “Not for one such as I.” Amaya tugged on her friend’s arm. “Come, and let us see who this child will be.”

  Chapter 30

  In which there is one final revelation

  Amaya twitched aside the curtain, then drew it back fully. Pale morning light lit the bedchamber, not enough to warrant turning off the lamp, but enough that she felt heartened after the long night. “It is almost time,” she told Elinor.

  Elinor struggled to rise from where she reclined on the bed, but subsided. “I am so tired,” she said. “I cannot imagine what this would be like if my exertions were painful.”

  Amaya took her hand and swiftly assessed her condition, then got her arm beneath Elinor’s shoulders and helped her stand. “There is some pain, because the pain and the need are too close together. But you are bringing a baby from inside to outside, so that is not so strange.”

  Elinor laughed breathlessly as her muscles contracted yet again. “Is this how childbirth happens among the Incas? You said only a female Extraordinary Shaper can attend upon the Sapa Inca’s wives.”

  “Upon any birth.” Amaya helped Elinor perch on the end of a delicate chair with slim wooden armrests. “It is a woman’s thing, though a male Extraordinary Shaper can examine the babe once it is born.”

  “Among the English—” Another contraction took Elinor, and she paused, holding her breath until it passed. “Among the English, we have male physicians as well. There is much argument over whether a midwife or a man-midwife is better.”

  Amaya chose not to comment on what seemed to her the unnatural practice of having a man in attendance on a birth. She hurried to spread thick cloths beneath the chair, counting under her breath. A second chair nearby held more cloths for cleaning and receiving the child, and a basin of steaming water sat beneath it. “There should be more of us,” she said, “more attendants, but it is not needed. That is, it is for holy purposes, to welcome the child.”

  “I did not feel comfortable inviting any of these servants to help, when you said they were unnecessary,” Elinor admitted. “I am a private person, and they are all strangers, and my sister is in the country—oh, that feels so odd.” Her face contorted briefly, and she gripped the armrests. “Please, tell me it is time.”

  Amaya rested her hand on Elinor’s forehead. A laboring woman was a strange creature, all her sunqu tense and inward-focused, Heart and Need expanding as if under a Shaper’s command, Sense keyed to its fullest, Strength and Release in abeyance. She let herself fall deeper into her sense of Elinor’s body. “It is time,” she said. “You will count with me, and when I say to push, you push down, and I will pull. It will be a few times we do this. Be patient.”

  Elinor nodded, speechless.

  Amaya moved her hand from Elinor’s forehead to her bare knee and knelt before her. “Push now.” She kept her voice calm, though excitement made her wish to shout.

  Elinor bore down with all her might, her face going red. Amaya sent her own commands through Elinor’s body, adding her strength to her friend’s physical exertion. The child moved, propelled down by the powerful forces of muscle and gravity. Flesh shifted, spread, and held. “Again,” Amaya commanded after a pause for breath.

  This time, the child’s head crowned against her hand, and what had been a void in her senses blossomed into awareness of a third individual, new and perfectly formed. “Oh, she is beautiful,” she breathed, and gave Elinor’s muscles added power.

  “She is?” Elinor gasped. “This is—I feel I am like to tear myself apart!”

  “Again,” Amaya said, and with a slip and a shift, the head came free, followed by the shoulders, and soon Amaya held the infant in her hands.

  She swiftly cleaned its mouth and nose and sent commands to its sunqu to make it draw breath. The babe sucked in air, turned pink, and let out a thin wail that made Elinor burst out in laughter and tears. “Oh, Amaya,” she said. “It is miraculous.”

  Amaya smiled. The infant wriggled, testing the limits of this new, cold world. Dropping into her deep awareness of the child’s body, she examined her thoroughly. It was miraculous, the way in which a newborn’s sunqu came to life after nine months of dormancy. How they all linked together so perfectly, revealing truths that would fade over time. “She is perfect,” she declared. “Let us finish this, and introduce her to her father.”

  Half an hour later, it was all over, the afterbirth passed, the cord cut, the mess cleaned up, the infant washed and wrapped in soft cloths and laid safely in her mother’s arms. Lord Enderleigh sat beside Elinor’s bed, touching the child’s downy head in wonder. “So very small,” he said. “I wish my mother could have seen her namesake. She loved children, and so few of hers survived infancy.”

  “We are calling her Anne,” Elinor told Amaya, “so that a little of her grandmother may live on in her.”

  “That is a strong tradition,” Amaya said. She lifted the impromptu birthing chair and returned it to its place.

  “And with luck, she will resemble her mother and not her father,” Lord Enderleigh said with a laugh.

  Elinor clasped his hand. “You are the most handsome man of my acquaintance.”

  Amaya did not consider Lord Enderleigh precisely handsome, even without the burn scars, but love did strange things to the perceptions. “She will be very much like her mother,” she said. “Though whether she will be an Extraordinary, I cannot tell. That is never evident in the sunqu.”

  “That would be something indeed, to predict her future,” Elinor said.

  Amaya paused in the act of straightening the drapes. “No, she will be a Scorcher,” she said, puzzled at Elinor’s response. “That I am certain of.”

  The baby Anne chose that moment to let out a sharp wail. Elinor absently tucked her child closer to her breast. “You cannot know that,” she said. “Talent cannot accurately be predicted. That is all fortu
ne-telling at best and charlatanry at worst.”

  “It is not prediction as you mean it, and not a guess.” Amaya crossed the room to stand at the foot of the bed. “Was that not why you wanted an Extraordinary Shaper to attend upon you, to know the child’s future talent?”

  “I wanted an Extraordinary Shaper so the birth would be safe and the child well cared for.” Elinor’s heavy brows furrowed nearly to meet in the middle. “Amaya, what are you saying?”

  Amaya raised a hand in a noncommittal gesture. “I cannot say how it is done. The sunqu of an infant are unformed and all connected for the first several days. That is, a baby may cry, and suckle, and eliminate waste all in the same movement. It is a kind of confusion. And in that confusion, if there is talent—if talent will manifest later—it shows now. Then, when the baby grows, that confusion passes.”

  Elinor and Lord Enderleigh looked at each other. Anne gripped her father’s finger tightly, but he seemed unaware of it. “Miss Salazar,” Lord Enderleigh said, too calmly, “what you speak of is unknown to Europeans. We have no way of predicting accurately if or what talent may arise. Such an ability is beyond desirable.”

  Amaya shrugged, uncomfortable at being the focus of his intent gaze. “I suppose it is not an obvious thing.”

  “Is it a thing you could teach others?” Elinor asked.

  “Yes. It was taught to me by another Extraordinary Shaper amongst the Incas, when I was new in talent.” Her discomfort increased. Elinor and Lord Enderleigh were clearly excited about something, and not sharing that enthusiasm made her feel awkward.

  “Then I believe we have a solution to the government’s problem,” Elinor said.

  “But you did not reveal this when you attended Mary’s confinement,” Edmund said. He helped Amaya down from the carriage and tucked her hand around his arm when she had safely alit.