A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

“I’m always on the lookout for a worthy opponent.” He laughed as we stopped outside my room. “Look, I believe we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s reintroduce ourselves, eh?” He bowed low before me. “I am Mr. Julian Magnus, your obedient, humble, and ever-loyal servant, Miss…?”

  “Henrietta Howel.” I was not going to laugh.

  “An honor, Miss Howel. Please, you may address me as Mr. Magnus, or just The Great. That’s the Latin for Magnus.”

  “I knew that.”

  “You are brilliant. Now I take my leave. Adieu. Bonsoir. Good evening.” He kissed my hand, his lips soft against my skin. Then he was gone.

  I would remember how exasperating he could be the minute I finally stopped smiling.

  Gwendolyn Agrippa sat before the mirror, crying and running an ivory comb through her fine hair. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled away, her face twisted in fury.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  The old magician with the dark skin and the multicolored coat sat at the foot of my bed.

  “I knew it,” he said.

  This was clearly a dream. Everything in the room lay faded in mist, except for my visitor.

  The magician wagged his finger at me. “I knew.”

  “Knew what?” I asked.

  “Go to Ha’penny Row. Buy a totem for the answer.”

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “Stop tapping on my bedpost.”

  The magician shrugged. “I’m not. Perhaps someone’s at the door.”

  —

  I WOKE TO SUNLIGHT STREAMING THROUGH the window. Rubbing my eyes, I sat up and froze when I heard tapping.

  “Hello?” I called, but no one answered. It sounded like something hitting my bedpost. Turning my head, I found a stick of polished wood lying on the pillow next to me, utterly still. I pulled the blankets to my chin. “Hello?” I said again, like a fool. But what else does one say to a mysterious object?

  The stave was perhaps two feet long…a stave…

  “Are you mine?” I whispered, taking it in hand. I swore I felt the briefest flicker of a pulse, as if it were some living creature. At my touch, the wood stretched and squeezed, like taking a damp cloth by both ends and wringing it. When the wood relaxed, it no longer appeared smooth and polished. An unseen hand had etched the sorcerer sigils for fire, water, earth, and air into the wood. A five-pointed star appeared at the handle. A tendril of carved ivy leaves wound along the stave’s length.

  My hands trembled as I traced the images. It was mine. God, it was mine.

  I threw the blankets back and leaped to the floor, twirling the stave around and around in my hands.

  Lilly entered with a tea tray and gasped.

  I bowed it toward her, and a gust of wind erupted through the room, blowing her skirts above her knees. She jumped and a cup fell off the tray and smashed to pieces.

  “I’m so sorry!” I threw the stave onto the bed and went to help her.

  “Quite all right, miss.” She bent to pick up the pieces, joining me crouched on the floor. When our eyes met, we burst out laughing. I had a magic stave. What was a broken cup compared to that?

  —

  LILLY FOUND ME AN APPLE-GREEN DAY dress that suited my complexion a bit better than the blue. After she’d made me presentable, I took the stave and went downstairs to the breakfast room. Blackwood, Dee, and Magnus were already there. Blackwood stood by the window, sipping a cup of tea. He wasn’t wearing a jacket; it was shocking, seeing him in only his shirtsleeves. Dee ate his eggs in silence. Magnus was slumped over in another chair, asleep.

  Blackwood turned from the window and saw me. “Miss Howel,” he said, rushing to get his coat off a chair. “Forgive me. I forgot we have a woman in the house now. I only just got in from my training.” Fully dressed, he nodded at the others. Dee stood, and Magnus blinked awake. “Did you sleep well?” Blackwood asked.

  “Very, thank you,” I said. It took only a second for Dee to spot what I held in my hands.

  “She’s got a stave!” he cried. An instant later, he and Magnus were crowded around me. I held it out, feeling rather proud. “Look, the carvings,” Dee said, gleeful.

  “She’s a true sorcerer.” Magnus yawned and clapped a hand on my back. Blackwood seated himself and gazed at me over the rim of his cup.

  “I’m glad this is so excellent,” I said, taking my seat. “I was worried when I woke to find the stave on my pillow. Who put it there?”

  “Master Agrippa left it outside your room last night, but the stave placed itself beside you. It chose,” Blackwood said. “That is yours for the rest of your life.” He watched me with a curious intensity. “I hope it pleases you. It was cut from a magical grove of white birches on Sorrow-Fell grounds.”

  “I shall endeavor not to break it,” I said lightly.

  “Don’t break it. You will never have another.” Blackwood widened his eyes.

  “Yes, I understand. It was only a joke,” I murmured.

  “Your bond with that stave comes at a heavy price. Most of your power has been placed into it. If the stave breaks, you will die.”

  “I do know that,” I said. I didn’t need to be talked down to. “I may not have been raised a sorcerer, but every English child knows the rule about staves.”

  He took up a newspaper. “Pardon. It was arrogant of me to presume to instruct the chosen one.” There was no point speaking with Blackwood.

  We focused on breakfast. Sausages, smoked haddock, bacon, and soft-boiled eggs waited in steaming silver dishes; toast stood in racks beside glass bowls of butter and jam, and porridge bubbled in a china tureen. After the rich meal the previous night, I needed something simple. I helped myself to the porridge and some tea.

  “Is that all you’re eating?” Dee asked, horrified. “No one eats that.”

  “I do. Plain food is good for the morning.” I took a spoonful and found it rather delicious. Magnus sat across from me, buttering a piece of toast.

  “Spoken like a proper teacher,” he said. “You must have loved your old school’s diet.”

  “Not really. At Brimthorn, the porridge was always burned. So was the coffee.” I didn’t tell them how the portions had been too small, how I’d gone to bed with a cramping stomach more often than not. I doubted anyone else in this room had much experience with hunger. I didn’t want to set myself apart even more.

  “You were a teacher, Miss Howel?” Dee said. “What did you teach?”

  “History and mathematics, mainly.”

  “No French or music?” Magnus said.

  “I didn’t excel at those subjects. I don’t enjoy literature or poetry, either, really.”

  “What? Those are some of life’s chief pleasures.” I didn’t think Magnus was trying to bait me. He seemed curious.

  “I’m not interested in what’s pleasant. I’m interested in what’s useful,” I said. Blackwood lowered his paper and looked at me. Something about his gaze was unsettling.

  “Are you a good judge of what’s useful?” he said. By his expression, he clearly disagreed.

  “I like to think so. Yes,” I said, pulling my shoulders back. “Do you doubt it?”

  “I think that you feel things very strongly.” He returned to his paper. “And emotions often cloud better judgment.”

  I wanted to rip his paper away, but I knew that would be proving the point. Instead, I aggressively drank my tea. Two months of this would feel like a lifetime.

  “Anyway,” Magnus said slowly with an annoyed glance at Blackwood, “is that why you never went for a governess position? Your love of what’s useful?”

  “That, and the other thing.” I looked into my porridge, toyed with it.

  “Setting fires?”

  “No. Well, not only that. Rook. Taking a position would mean leaving him behind.”

  “I doubt he’d have wanted you at Brimthorn forever on his account,” Magnus said.

  “No. He did not.” There was silence. When I looked up again, I found Magnus staring at me across
the table, wearing a troubled look.

  “What on earth is wrong with you?” I asked.

  Magnus started, then glowered at me. “I have to imitate you, Miss Howel, until you give us a smile.” He replicated my expression so exactly that I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop the laughter. He winked.

  Blackwood folded his paper. “Magnus, if you’re finished, perhaps you can report to Master Agrippa in the obsidian room. The day’s lesson should begin after breakfast.”

  Magnus put his hand to his heart. “Dear God. Has Lord Blackwood deigned to speak with me? Is anyone paying attention to this historic moment? Will there be commemorative dishware?”

  Blackwood closed his eyes and sighed. “Please get ready for Miss Howel’s lesson.”

  Magnus pushed back from the table and whistled as he left the room. Blackwood took a final sip from his cup. “Shall we, Miss Howel?”

  As I rose, Dee said, “You really should name your stave, you know. Names give one a bit more control over something.”

  Bemused, I picked up my stave as I put my spoon back in my empty bowl. “Perhaps Porridge?” I said, grinning.

  To my surprise, the carvings glowed with blue light.

  “Oh no!” Dee said. “You should’ve given it a grand name. What’ll it say in the history books? Miss Henrietta Howel, the savior of England, and her stave, Porridge?”

  I felt the pulse again, almost like a heartbeat. Somehow I knew the stave was pleased. “I think it’ll look quite nice in the books, actually. Porridge it is,” I said, and left with Blackwood for my first lesson.

  We walked down the stairs, past curtsying maids and bowing footmen. I kept half curtsying in return, still not sure how to behave. Blackwood acknowledged everyone with ease. He kept his chin up, elegant with his smooth black hair and those strange green catlike eyes. I was sure he thought me graceless. I hoped my training wouldn’t require us to spend too much time together.

  “Miss Howel.” He stopped. “I would like to ask something.”

  “Oh?” Damn, I really didn’t fancy a private conversation with him.

  “May I see your stave? I wondered at a certain design.”

  I gave Porridge to him, a bit reluctantly. He twirled it in his hands, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I would have thought the decoration would be a flame, given your obvious gifts in that area. Instead, it’s tendrils of ivy. That’s a—” He paused.

  “A what?”

  “A rare insignia.” He handed Porridge to me. I was relieved when it was back in my hands. I didn’t know another person touching one’s weapon could feel so uncomfortably intimate. We continued toward the training area. He kept his hand on his own stave in its sheath, protecting it, as though I might reach over and snatch it without warning.

  —

  MY HEELS CLICKED AS I ENTERED the training room, and the catch of breath in my throat echoed throughout the space. I knew that sorcerers called their training areas obsidian rooms, but I’d never dreamed of this.

  The room was eight-sided, each wall a shining, polished obsidian. Within the walls, strange glowing symbols appeared and disappeared. The floor was jet black as well, save for a great five-pointed star carved with that queer, glowing firelight.

  Agrippa stepped forward. He wore black robes with pooling sleeves that draped to the floor. The silken fabric spilled over the obsidian like black moving within black. “These are the official robes of a commended sorcerer,” he said. “It’s not necessary to wear them for training, but I like to, for tradition’s sake.” Hopefully, I would receive robes just like these.

  “We do so many things for tradition’s sake,” Magnus said, circling me, “that few of us can remember why we really did them in the first place.”

  “Perhaps we should begin,” Blackwood said, removing his stave from the sheath on his hip.

  “Did Joan of Arc have a sheath for her stave?” I asked, wanting one of my own. The Maid of Orleans had been the last recorded female sorcerer. I knew our English Order hated that she was so very French.

  “I don’t think so,” Agrippa said.

  “It’s difficult,” I said, looking down at Porridge, “when your last point of reference died over four hundred years ago.”

  I felt a strange charge in the air, as if Magnus and Blackwood and Agrippa all shared some private glance. But when I looked up at the three of them, they were each focused on some separate task. The moment, if there had even been one, was gone.

  “There are other sorcerer women in history you might admire,” Agrippa said. “Hypatia of Alexandria, the teacher. Much like you.” He smiled. “Hatshepsut, deemed by many as the greatest pharaoh in Egypt’s long history.”

  It struck me as odd that most sorcerer women belonged solely to antiquity, as if the glory of female magic were some crumbling myth to be debated by scholars.

  “Now, no more talk,” Agrippa said. “It’s time for the lesson.” He bid me to remain where I was, at the center of the star. They formed a triangle around me. “Sorcerers are strongest in numbers, working best in groups of three. We’re forming this triangle and allowing you to stay in the center so that you don’t have to work as hard in the beginning.” Agrippa took out his stave. “You haven’t named yours by any chance, have you?” He looked pleased when I nodded. “Excellent. Do as I do and say its name.” He brought his stave to the floor, crouched down, and whispered, “Tiberius.”

  I copied him and whispered, “Porridge.” Magnus snorted in pleasure. The blue light crept back into the carvings.

  “You call power when you do that.” Agrippa noticed my timid handling of the stave. “Do you understand its purpose?”

  “Er, it’s a magical piece of wood?” I realized that my book knowledge would take me only so far in this course.

  He smiled. “In concert halls, a conductor takes his baton to command the music. It’s the same principle here. Your stave directs the elements of the earth as a baton directs instruments.” He circled me and continued. “You’re at somewhat of a disadvantage. There are six required maneuvers for commendation, all of them enormously tricky. Four demonstrate your mastery of the elements, one shows warding proficiency, and one highlights a specific skill. The young gentlemen have been training since they arrived in my home two years ago. We’ll have to work hard to have you ready by late June.” Sorcerers were always commended on Midsummer Eve, so that gave us nine weeks. Not much time at all. “George, if you would please demonstrate water?”

  Blackwood went to a small table, on which sat objects to help with the training. He picked up a bowl of water, brought it over, and set it down in front of me.

  “Allow me, Master,” Magnus said, sliding past Blackwood.

  “George is more skilled at water play, Julian.”

  “But Howel should get an idea of sorcerer form, and I’m the best example of that.” He winked at me. I pretended not to notice. He really was a shameless flirt.

  Magnus readied himself. With a whispered word, he swung his stave like a sword. The water before him began to spin, rising into the air from its bowl. He turned and, with a sweep of his arm, brought the water to circle around him.

  With one decisive whip of his stave, Magnus raised his arms, and the water flew up over his head, re-forming into a flurry of snow. He struck into the air, and the snow grew into a storm that chilled the room with its power. With another fast movement, Magnus morphed the snow into jagged-looking shards of ice. He sent them flying but stopped them before any of us came to harm. Finally, he summoned the ice back and melted it into a threatening black cloud. He punctured the cloud, and the water rained down into the silver bowl. Not a drop was spilled.

  When he’d finished, Magnus slammed the end of his stave to the floor. His breathing was heavy, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked enormously pleased with himself.

  “What do you think?” Agrippa asked.

  I could feel the raw energy buzzing over my s
kin. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. “I’ll have to do that?” I swallowed.

  “First you must learn to channel the element,” Agrippa said. He picked up the bowl and emptied it in front of me. The water grew into a perfect round circle, stopping inches from the toes of my slippers.

  “What should I do?” I breathed deeply and prepared.

  “Try to get it into the air, in an orb,” Agrippa said. “With your stave activated, take it in hand and touch the carved symbol for water.”

  I did as he asked, pressing my fingers against the triangle. It glowed briefly.

  “Now,” Agrippa said, “touch your stave to the floor, your left knee bent. Yes, your left knee specifically. Bring the stave up slowly. Clear your mind.”

  “How do I shape the water if I can’t think about it?”

  The sorcerers’ reactions were interesting. They looked as if I’d said something both amusing and grotesque. “You don’t shape it so much as you let it be shaped through you. Sorcerers ask permission; they don’t take control.” Sensing I’d made a colossal blunder, I blushed. “Again, bring the stave up. Feel it in your marrow, the water floating up from the floor.”

  I felt like I was only standing there, moving my arm in a silly way. Every time an image entered my head, I quashed it.

  The water didn’t move, not even a ripple.

  “Try again.” Agrippa frowned. My stomach gave a painful lurch. I did as he asked. After three more tries, I huffed in frustration.

  “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I be able?” How hard could this be, with three sorcerers aiding me? How incompetent was I? I searched Agrippa’s face for the smallest signs of disappointment.

  Agrippa didn’t respond.

  “You’ve enough power to make something happen, Miss Howel,” Blackwood said. “That it doesn’t is mystifying.”

  “Don’t scare her, Blacky,” Magnus said.

  “Enough,” Agrippa snapped. “Miss Howel, you mustn’t worry.”

  “Should it be this hard?”

  He clearly debated with himself for a moment. “No, I don’t believe it should.”

  What kind of prophetic savior can’t even complete the easiest task?