A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

“Do you think?”

  “Yes.” He said it without doubt or hesitation.

  “Why?” I asked, without thinking.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you so kind to me?” I lowered my eyes. Somehow I felt very exposed.

  “Because I’m wonderful. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  “No,” I said. “Why have you never doubted my place as a sorcerer?”

  His smile faded a bit. “Because I’ve seen how a woman is treated when she dares to step outside her domain.” He went to stand before the fire. There was pain in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. “After Father died, my uncle thought I needed to be raised by men. I was a Magnus, after all. We’re warriors, have been since before Rome fell. He wanted to raise me himself, but Mother fought to keep me. She endured many great men bullying her, telling her what a little fool she was, that I’d grow up weak. Weak like a woman.” He winced. “Mother never yielded. Have I turned out so very bad?” He looked up as I came beside him.

  “No.” I smiled.

  “So. When I see a lady go up against a group of men who claim to know better than she does, I find I want her to succeed. You will succeed, Howel.”

  My cheeks grew hot.

  “I’ll have a better chance of success once I get my blasted lessons down. There’s still so much I don’t know.” I moved to the desk to straighten my papers. “Reading only takes me so far.”

  Magnus came up beside me. “I’m the very soul of experience. Let me tutor you.”

  “In what?”

  “Whatever you wish.” He raised an eyebrow. “Name anything.”

  I thought for a moment. “How did you bespell me into not recognizing you on the street?”

  “Who said it was magic?” He laughed and clapped his hands. “That’s what an actor does, my dear Howel. He shows you what you want to see.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Another question, my intrepid lady?”

  I recalled Hargrove sheathing his silver blade. “Why don’t sorcerers employ more human weapons? Maybe it would be useful against some Familiars, if not the Ancients themselves.”

  “Well, we do train in sabers and pistols,” Magnus said. Lord, didn’t I know it. The first time I fired a gun, I’d been thrown to the ground.

  “But do we use them much in battle?”

  Magnus gave a surprised laugh. “I suppose that’s a topic to discuss with the Imperator. Anyway, we use some blades more than others.” His eyes lit up. “How’s this for helpful? I’ll instruct you in another class of weaponry, one you haven’t yet learned. You should handle it a bit better than the pistols.”

  Magnus was the finest warrior in our house, without question. Anything he had to teach would be massively helpful. “Thank you, yes.”

  “They’re called warded blades. Master Agrippa wanted to wait until you’d a few more maneuvers in hand, but I see no reason to hold off. You take the ward you draw up around yourself, slide it down your arm to your stave, and fashion it with your thoughts into a weapon. Like this.” He took his stave and activated it with the name Excalibur. “What?” he said when I laughed. “I loved the Arthur legend when I was fourteen. That was right before I noticed how exciting girls were. Good thing I didn’t get my stave later, or I might have named it Louisa. Or Marianne. Or Emily.”

  “Perhaps we should start before you name every girl in London,” I said.

  He showed me how to put the ward up about myself, how to imagine that protective bubble shrinking on my body and gathering in my arm, and then how to slide it off my arm and onto my stave. “With enough practice, you’ll be able to create the blade with a simple thought. Now you see it, faint yellow and pointed. This will cut better than a human sword.”

  Indeed, the outline was scarcely visible, but when I put my thumb to the blade it sliced me. Magnus showed me how to hold the stave, my index and middle fingers on top for balance. “Now your movement stays central. Always keep the torso firm,” he said, placing a hand on my stomach. “As the weapon is light, you’ll want more control. Movement comes from your shoulder, not your elbow.” With Magnus lined up behind me, I created a few elegant sweeps. After that, he taught me some simple parries. We bumped into chairs and knocked over the desk globe.

  “You won’t have many great battles with these.” I laughed, lunging at him. He easily blocked me.

  “No, but this is tremendous fun if you want to see the fear in your enemy’s eyes.” With that, he knocked Porridge from my hand and grabbed me about the waist. “Voilà. I’ve captured you.” His arm stayed firm about me. “Perhaps I won’t allow you to escape,” he said, his cheek against mine.

  “Oh?” My pulse quickened as he pulled back just enough to meet my gaze. Magnus stroked the side of my face, his fingertips trailing warmth.

  “Mmm. Has anyone ever mentioned that you have a little freckle at the corner of your eye?”

  “Ah, no.” I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t. This wasn’t Magnus with his normal, silly flirtations. “I suppose it’s unattractive.”

  “Hardly. It draws attention to your eyes, which are brilliant.” He leaned in. “I think you have the loveliest eyes I’ve ever seen, come to think of it. They’re so dark they’re almost black, which gives you a very fierce expression in battle. But if I draw closer”—and he did, gently—“I see warm brown. When your gaze is soft, there are flecks of gold. Nothing about you is ever quite how it appears.”

  “I look tired. I know I do,” I murmured. His arm tightened around me.

  “That’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.” He cupped my cheek in his hand for one brief moment. “You’ve a beautiful face, Howel,” he whispered. He stroked my chin with this thumb. I closed my eyes.

  What about Rook?

  “Thank you. That is, for teaching me,” I said, pulling away from him. I gathered Porridge, fumbling a bit.

  “You did well for a first-timer. You’ll play the game in the end, though not as well as I.” He bowed. The softness of his look and voice disappeared, but we both knew what had happened. I felt as if the portraits, the books, even the fire, bore witness.

  “You can win the games, and I’ll win the battles,” I said, exiting at a brisk pace. I took the stairs at a run.

  Back in my room, I sat by the window, my breath fogging the glass. I closed my eyes. Magnus thought I was beautiful. The way he’d looked at me and touched me. What would have happened if I hadn’t pulled away?

  He’s a flirt. I knew that, and I’d never taken his teasing seriously before. But this had felt like more.

  Did I want more?

  What was I talking about, after what had nearly happened with Rook in the kitchen? What was I doing, entertaining these ridiculous ideas of Magnus?

  But Rook was still being distant with me. His disappointment in my refusal to run away was evident, no matter what he said. His disappointment in me was evident.

  What was I doing considering any of this? Rook was my friend; Magnus, my ally. That was all they were, all they could be. There was commendation, and if I got that far, there would be war afterward. Life was complicated enough. I resolved to stop thinking about the pair of them immediately.

  It took an hour of tracing patterns on the fogged window before I finally did.

  Hargrove placed the teapot on the table and rolled up his sleeves. “Your training begins. Turn this into a mouse, and be quick about it. I want it back into its regular form in time for tea.”

  This was far more than I’d expected from my first proper lesson. It was the following day, Sunday, where all that was required of Agrippa’s Incumbents was to attend church. I had used my freedom to rush right back to Hargrove’s.

  “Do I just poke at it?” I murmured, gesturing with my stave. Hargrove’s five children circled us, seated on the floor with their faces cupped in their hands.

  With an impatient huff, Hargrove knocked four times on the lid of his wooden chest. It sprang open in an explosion of pape
r and parchment. He burrowed his way through scrolls and letters and scraps of notepaper, until, with a cry of triumph, he held up a leather-bound book. Dusting it, he threw it onto the table and riffled through the pages until he alighted on the desired one. “Here,” he said. I squinted and stared at the watery, handwritten text.

  “I can’t read it.”

  “Must I do everything myself? It clearly says, ‘Whisker from a steaming spout, handle to a tail, china cracks to beating heart, fur and tooth and nail.’ ”

  I pointed my stave at the teapot and repeated the words. Hargrove wailed in exasperation. “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “No two magicians are the same. We’re like delicate snowflakes, or ears. That line was originally written in Latin—something muris fumo, something—well, I knew a magician once, Peg Bottleshanks, who used some Latin and some English and some musical notes from her nose whistle. You see? Total madness!”

  “Master Agrippa says a system is needed.”

  Hargrove blew a rude noise that thrilled the children. “We don’t bother with rules.”

  “But how will I know what’s correct?”

  “Far as you’re concerned, the word correct no longer exists. For instance, what say I walk on the ceiling?”

  “Gravity doesn’t work that way,” I snapped.

  Hargrove billowed his multicolored cloak about him, mumbled “Flibberty bop, to the top, allons-y, charge,” and to my surprise fell upward. Upside down, he danced a jig along the rafters, shaking free dust and a few cobwebs. The children applauded and cried with joy. After a moment, he returned in triumph. “You were saying, young upstart?”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I don’t know if you can. Play around with it; see what you find.”

  “I don’t like this,” I said, shaking my head. “The sorcerers have traditions.”

  “You like traditions?”

  I moved around the table to the wooden chest and rummaged through piles of crumpled rubbish. I winced at the mess. “I don’t enjoy this much disorder.”

  “You’re more of a sorcerer than I thought,” he mused. “Which is as it should be, if we want you to pass. What say we focus on controlling your gifts? You made progress last time, when you lifted that chair.”

  Leave a lesson unfinished? Never. “I’ll turn that teapot into a mouse, to show I can.” With that, I waved my hands and said the words exactly as Hargrove had spoken them to me. Nothing happened. I repeated the words while pointing Porridge. Still nothing.

  It went on like this for several minutes. Hargrove uncorked a bottle of gin with his teeth and sat, gulping it down. He drank too much. I attempted the entire thing in French (“And you’ve a fine accent, my cherub. I could listen to you say souris all day long”), and when that didn’t work, I said a few unladylike words and sat down to stare at the little teapot. It was white and chipped at the spout, with tiny roses painted on it. I’d no idea what to do.

  I took Porridge in hand again…and I could feel it warm in my grasp, almost like a living thing. It was impatient. I could picture myself drawing forth a mouse from the chiseled confines of a teapot. And in drawing forth, I imagined the sorcerer maneuver that called water from the earth, to be used in cases of dire thirst. I spun my stave clockwise and counterclockwise, and swept it through the air in an arc. The teapot moved slightly. Hargrove stood.

  I could feel the words he had taught me on my tongue. Whisker from spout…handle to tail. I completed the maneuver again, and this time, as the sweep of my arm came up, I imagined the teapot tipping over and a little brown mouse squeezing out, and whispered, “Spout to a tail.”

  The teapot bulged, then crumpled in on itself. It poured out a great blob of hair and ears, and a moment later, a bright-eyed little mouse with brown fur and bristling whiskers stood on its hind legs and wiggled its nose at us. It pounced from the tabletop and scurried across the floor. The children dove to catch it, but it slipped through a crack in the wall and vanished.

  “I did it!” I cried, tossing Porridge into the air in triumphant glee. Hargrove bellowed with laughter, dancing across the room to snatch paper and pen.

  “Write it down, exactly what you did. I’ve never seen anything like it.” His wide grin fell as he stared at the wall. “That was my only teapot. Well. Can’t be helped!” And then we returned to singing and twirling around the room. The children rejoiced, jumping to clutch my skirts.

  “I want to do another,” I said, breathless.

  “Excellent, I’ve just the thing.” Hargrove handed me an empty bottle. “Turn that into a teapot.”

  —

  SOON AFTER, HARGROVE WAS POURING US cups of gin-flavored tea. “Little magic mule, that’s what I’ll call you. A delicate hybrid of both races.”

  “Do you think I’m the only one?”

  Hargrove grunted. “Don’t imagine yourself so special. I know for a fact you’re not alone. There’ve been sorcerer children born as you are, and magician children as well. You’re simply in a unique position to realize both halves of your talents.”

  “How many did you know like me? I mean, back when, well…”

  “Back when it was legal to be a public magician? One or two. They’re dead now, of course. Caught training apprentices.”

  I shuddered to think of it. “Bloody Howard Mickelmas. It’s his fault we have to live like this,” I said. Hargrove merely shrugged and poured himself some gin. “What was he like?”

  “Mickelmas? Why?”

  “You’re the first person I ever knew who met him. Was it always clear he was evil?” I asked. Hargrove made a face.

  “He was just a proper magical bloke. Bit stupid, of course, but if we executed for stupidity, there’d be no one left to walk the planet.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Don’t know. We never saw his face at Guild meetings. He’d send a raven or a cat. It would sit in the center of the room, and he’d talk through it. Great party trick. Used to consider him daft, but now no one knows what he looks like. Probably how he’s survived all these years.” He gulped more tea. “I don’t like talking about him, if it’s all the same to you. Irritates me.”

  I understood his feelings. “Could my father speak through animals?”

  “Nope, just the old set-yourself-on-fire routine.”

  “But he could play with fire. Isn’t that a sorcerer trait? Don’t you think it odd that a mixture of the abilities can exist in one person?”

  He snorted. “Lord, it’s as if William Howel rose from the dead and returned to lecture me in a dress. That’s a dreadful image.”

  “My father asked the same questions?” I leaned forward.

  “Yes, and arrived at the staggering conclusion of nothing.” He sighed. “William had such hopes for magic in England, insane, irrational hopes. He wanted a consortium.” He put his thumbs and index fingers together to fashion a triangle. “Witches, sorcerers, and magicians, all on the same level. All in service of the crown. All equal.”

  “Why?” I was eager. Before our lessons, all I’d had of my father was a half-remembered picture on my aunt’s fireplace.

  “Because of his belief that all magic comes down in a straight line. Witches, sorcerers, magicians.”

  “Witches are first?” I frowned.

  “Enough questions.” Hargrove startled me with his brusqueness. “I used to tell your father this, when he got off on a ridiculous tangent. Knowledge is as powerful as fire. The brighter it burns, the more it devours. Now we must pay for our lessons, little one.” He extended his hand, fingers wiggling.

  I gave him a sovereign, wincing as I did so. “I sold three silk hair ribbons. I’ll have to tell Lilly I lost them, or she’ll be out of her mind with worry.” Scowling at him, I said, “You’ve made me a thief.”

  “I notice you’d no qualms stealing that bread and cheese,” he answered, pocketing his money. The church bells struck six. I leaped to my feet. How had I let time slip by like this? “Blast. I’ll n
ever get through the ward at this hour.”

  “Leave it to me.” Hargrove guided me to the curtained-off area that contained his cot and magic trunk. Pulling the bed aside, he revealed twelve odd little squiggly symbols that had been carved into the floorboards, forming a circle about three feet wide. “Get in. This will take you home.”

  “What is it?” I stepped inside.

  “A porter’s circle. Old magician’s trick. It will take you wherever you wish. But you must think clearly of the place, or it might become confused and drop you in northern Africa.”

  “What are those lines?” I inspected the squiggles around my feet. Something about them looked rather familiar.

  My dream of the Seven Ancients, the night of Korozoth’s attack. I’d stood in a circle of stones whose carvings were very similar to these. A chill slid down my spine. I’d learned not to take dreams for granted.

  “These are letters borrowed from summoning circles, reconfigured for our purposes,” Hargrove said.

  Summoning circles. These markings felt wrong. “Can’t I be like you and disappear on my own?”

  “Oh, I’m not that special, chickling. My cloak, you see, has porter runes sewn into the fabric.” He swirled his coat, and I caught the glint of golden thread at the edges by his feet. There was nothing else for it but to use the circle.

  “What do I say? Some magic words?”

  “No, say ‘please take me home.’ It’s only polite.”

  I did as he asked, thinking of the house near Hyde Park. With the loud rushing of wind in my ears, the room vanished.

  —

  “WHERE ON EARTH DID YOU COME from?” a startled Agrippa said. I realized with horror that I had appeared beside him on the street. Thankfully, there was no one else nearby. I tried for a nonchalant attitude.

  “I was walking up the other way.”

  Agrippa shook his head. “Goodness, I need to be more attentive. Can’t have Ancients popping up beside me, can I?” My heart sank to realize how he trusted me.

  “May we do a lesson in the obsidian room?” I asked. Even if I was a magician, I could at least make him proud. Agrippa sighed and looked as if he wanted most to change into his evening clothes and have dinner. “I think I’ve made progress. It’s all the reading Lord Blackwood’s had me do.”