A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

  We applauded the musicians when the waltz ended.

  “I don’t imagine that you want any refreshment,” Magnus muttered.

  “No.”

  “I must say, it’s staggeringly mature of you to answer me with one word at all times. ‘Do you agree, Miss Howel, with Plato’s concept of knowledge as recollection?’ Yes. ‘And how would you go about describing it?’ No. ‘What is your favorite color?’ Maybe.”

  “I’m more than ready for my commendation. It means my time with you will be coming to a merciful end.” We were snapping at each other now, and a cluster of young girls with fluttering fans noticed and giggled.

  “Where will you go once you’re commended?” Magnus said in a low voice.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll think of something. Rook will come with me.”

  “Yes, of course, mustn’t forget dear old Rook. Also mustn’t forget his powers of eternal night and nameless horror—that’s a very good trick for parties.” He paused, then said in a less angry tone, “You need to be careful around him. Something terrible might happen.” As we neared Dee, he whispered, “Despite what you may think, I do care what happens to you.” He swept back into the crowd in search of a new partner.

  Blackwood and I took to the floor in a quadrille. He was a skilled dancer, elegant and nimble. The dance also gave us an excellent chance for conversation.

  “What did you talk about with Palehook?” he asked as we made a turn.

  “Your situation.”

  “And?” He had to wait for us to circle back to each other.

  “You’re safe,” I whispered. “I think you’ll have to do something about it one day, but for now you’re safe.” After a few more turns, the music ended. The dance was done.

  “I didn’t know how lonely I was,” he said as we bowed, “until I had you on my side.” We left the floor together, his hand on my back.

  After that, we waited with Dee until Agrippa came out of the crowd. He clapped for the music and nodded to me.

  “It’s time, Henrietta. The queen will see you first.”

  “Shouldn’t we all go in together?” Dee said, putting his glass down.

  “Henrietta is a special case. Come, my dear.”

  “In fifteen minutes, it will all be done,” Blackwood said.

  I took Agrippa’s arm and walked toward my destiny.

  We entered a long receiving chamber. Gentlemen milled about, some in army uniform, others in fine dress. I recognized Imperator Whitechurch, who watched me with an unreadable expression. The men parted and formed an avenue toward a great throne, where Queen Victoria sat.

  Lord, she was only a girl, scarcely older than I. She was pale, almost sickly, her dark hair curled in fashionable ringlets, her tiny hands clasped in her lap. She wore a rich blue velvet gown and a great diadem upon her brow. I took a card with my name on it to a gentleman in a powdered wig waiting near the throne. He handed it to the queen. When she nodded, I curtsied before her. She extended her gloved hand, and I kissed it.

  “Your Majesty. I am your humble servant. I seek your royal commendation to take up arms against England’s foes and to defend Your Majesty’s life with my own.”

  “Thank you, Miss Howel,” she said, her voice soft and high. “We are most pleased by your presence. They tell us you are to be a weapon in the war against our aggressors. We dearly hope this is true.” She glanced at the army of men stationed around her throne, as if checking that she had done right. How must she feel, receiving requests and demands from these much older gentlemen day after day? I felt a brief and bizarre kinship to the queen.

  With her permission, I entered a circle of seven polished stones set on the floor. Agrippa came forward as a servant brought me my stave. I’d been forced to leave it with my cloak at the entrance.

  The servant moved to a long table laid by the side of the room, took up a silver bowl filled with water, and placed it before me.

  “Now is the time of judgment,” Whitechurch said, his voice rising over the crowd. “This young woman comes to be commended in our most sacred and ancient arts. We shall see if she is worthy.”

  Agrippa whispered, “Water first.”

  With the correct stave movements, I brought the flowing circle up around my body and transformed it, from water to ice, to sleet, to snow, to rain, and then to the three different variations of attack. I delivered them all perfectly.

  The queen leaned forward.

  I took a large rock, broke it into sand, brought it back together, broke it again into sixteen pieces, arranged and rearranged those pieces into different orders, and then bound the rock into a neat little wall. I created the spinning vortex of flame, flew around the room five times before creating a column of wind to escort me slowly to the floor, and warded Her Majesty’s spaniel so that no man could reach him (slightly to Her Majesty’s terror). The queen seemed beside herself with delight. Once I’d freed the dog, she cuddled him like a schoolgirl, giving no thought to her regal appearance.

  At last, the time had come for the column of fire. This was what the gentlemen and the queen most wanted to see, my singular ability to help defeat the Ancients. With a sweep of my stave I rose into the air, where I went up in a blaze of blue flame. The men gasped. The queen clapped her hands wildly. I unfolded my arms and hung there in pure triumph. With a thought, I brought myself to the ground, extinguished, and curtsied. My breathing was deep and my muscles ached, but I felt glorious.

  The crowd went wild with excitement. Even the Imperator smiled, nodding slowly. The queen seemed eager to leap to her feet and applaud, checking about the room to see if anyone would mind. The air hummed with victory. I was a sorcerer. I had done it.

  Then, from the back of the room, came a slow, deliberate clap. Palehook pressed forward through the collection of men.

  “What an extraordinary talent Miss Howel possesses.” He smiled.

  “Thank you.” I tensed. What was he doing?

  “Shame, really. Such a shame.” He shook his head.

  “What is?”

  “That you’ve lied to all of us.”

  The room broke out in murmurs. The queen looked confused.

  “What are you talking about?” I said, attempting to keep panic out of my voice.

  “Explain yourself, Master Palehook,” the queen said.

  “Our prophecy calls for a female sorcerer, Your Majesty, not a female magician.”

  “What?” I cried. God help me, I would not faint. The queen rose from her throne.

  “How can she be a magician? She couldn’t have been trained. Such a practice was expressly forbidden by my uncle, King George.”

  The Imperator signaled to Agrippa, his face white with shock. “Sir, explain this insane accusation.”

  Oh, thank heavens. Agrippa would sort this out. I was almost dizzy with relief.

  “Every word is true, Majesty, Imperator,” Agrippa said, without looking at me. “Her father was a Welsh solicitor named William Howel, a magician. He also possessed the ability to burn without harm to himself. He passed the talent to his daughter. She is a magician, nothing more.”

  It sounded as if the shouts and cries and questions around me came from deep underwater. I should have raised my voice along with the rest, but I couldn’t breathe. When I called Agrippa’s name, he turned his back. That was the gesture that almost broke me.

  Keep the pain down, I thought, forcing myself not to wail. Fight now, hurt later.

  “How can a sorcerer train a magician?” the queen said.

  “That is not possible.” The Imperator’s stunned look turned to anger. “Our approach to magic is entirely separate and impossible to reconcile. You should not have been able to train her,” he snapped at Agrippa.

  “It was deceit, sir. She let me believe she benefited from my teaching, but she sought out a magician who could help her perfect her abilities in an effort to pass as one of our kind.”

  Then I understood what was coming. The guards placed along the walls r
ushed me when I took a step out of the circle. I thought of fighting my way out, but if I got past the men, there were always Agrippa, Whitechurch, and Palehook to deal with. I was trapped.

  “Who on earth trained her?” the queen said, her frustration apparent. As if on cue, a door at the far end of the room opened. Two guards entered, and between them, they half dragged a ragged, stumbling man.

  “Howard Mickelmas,” Agrippa whispered. Men shouted in fear. The queen shrieked. The Imperator stood before Her Majesty, his stave in hand in case a battle broke out.

  “You bring that thing into our sovereign’s presence?” he cried.

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Majesty,” Mickelmas said. His right eye was swollen, and there was a long, ugly cut on his forehead. “I’ve come to confess.”

  “Confess what?” the queen said.

  He took a deep breath. “That Mary Willoughby and myself were responsible, solely responsible, for the arrival of the Seven Ancients. That I’ve hidden for many years when I should have accepted punishment for my crimes. And,” he added, looking at me, “that I have trained this young woman to be a servant of darkness. I’ve trained her to use her powers to fool you, gain commendation, and destroy the royal sorcerers from the inside, all in the service of the Seven Ancients, my true masters, long may they reign in chaos and in blood.”

  “He’s lying!” I screamed, my voice ringing off the walls. The guards caught me. Stretching out my hands to him, I cried, “Master Agrippa, tell these gentlemen the truth.”

  Agrippa turned away from me again.

  “Your true master has confessed, girl,” Palehook said. “It’s cowardice not to admit your treason.”

  This worm wanted to lecture me on cowardice?

  “Bastard!” I pulled away from the guards and thrust Porridge forward in some vain attempt at a spell. Palehook had his stave, though. He struck me with warded force, and I collapsed. A guard ripped Porridge out of my hands.

  “She attacked,” someone murmured. Two of the queen’s guards seized me and pulled me to my feet. Another guard stood before me, saber in hand.

  “If you even think of putting yourself on fire,” he said, pointing the saber at my chest, “I will run you through.”

  Agrippa came out of the crowd. His eyes glinted with tears.

  “She is not a sorcerer. I’ve been training a magician all this time,” he said. Shamed, I sought out Mickelmas. He was only standing because the guards held him upright. They’d tortured him into saying this.

  “Your Majesty, my lord Imperator, they’re all lying to you!” I cried. Everyone in the room regarded me with a cold, unfriendly eye. Five minutes before, they’d been delighted. The shame was unbearable.

  “God help her,” Agrippa said.

  “What I don’t understand,” the queen said, shaken, “is why you brought two magicians before me in such a way. How dare you risk my—our—safety.”

  “Indeed,” the Imperator said, his voice icy.

  “The fault is mine, Majesty, Imperator.” Palehook bowed to both of them. “We only discovered this yesterday. Miss Howel is a cunning creature and had kept herself from detection for so long. Poor Cornelius went along with my suggestion. He could think of nothing else on such short notice.”

  The queen sighed. “In the future, Master Palehook, you will not raise our hopes before deliberately dashing them. Guards, take Miss Howel down and confine her. We shall decide what’s to be done.”

  I was trapped in a windowless carriage. They’d chained me in manacles. Two guards sat across from me. One of them held Porridge. The other had a hand on the hilt of his saber, ready to kill me should I make this journey difficult.

  “Where are we going?” I asked several times before I gave up.

  The carriage took a sharp left and jolted to a halt. They hauled me out and dragged me across a stone courtyard. Soon I was led down several flights of steps, all the way to a long corridor of seven sectioned-off cells with iron bars. They set me inside one of the cells, swinging the door shut and locking it. This was a dank, windowless room, furnished with only a stool and a meager cot. I rattled my chained wrists, unable to believe any of it. I wouldn’t cry. I refused.

  Footsteps and voices sounded down the staircase, and Agrippa stepped into view. The guard unlocked the door and allowed him to enter. He stood before me with a mournful expression.

  Something almost amusing occurred to me. “Do you remember the last time you came to see me in a cell? You said I was a sorcerer. You were going to take me to London to see the queen. And look where we ended up. Funny, that.”

  “Yes,” he said. His voice wavered.

  “Why?” I didn’t cry or beg, I didn’t shout. None of that would help me now.

  “To save you,” he whispered.

  “Save me?” I’d felt numb for the entire carriage ride, but now I sensed the first stirrings of anger. “From royal commendation and a place in society, oh yes, you’ve saved me entirely. Now I’m imprisoned and might be—”

  “You will be executed tomorrow. They break your stave at dawn.”

  Of course this was how it all ended. More than anything else, I felt tired.

  “Yes, I’m a magician. But Mickelmas and I had no plan to harm any of you. I didn’t even know he was Mickelmas—” I stopped. I couldn’t betray Blackwood’s secret. “Until recently.”

  “I believe you,” he said.

  “Then why did you do this?”

  “Because I recognized the signs. I ignored them once, and it ended in disaster.”

  “I don’t understand. Were you planning this from the beginning?”

  “No. I thought you were a sorcerer until our lesson yesterday morning.” He shook his head. “You lost control of your emotions, and your power almost destroyed us. Only magicians manipulate their abilities in such a way.” Apparently Mickelmas had underestimated how much sorcerers knew of our kind. “After you attacked Julian, I went to speak with Palehook. He’d wanted to speak with me. He’d found Mickelmas and had forced him to talk of knowing you and your father.” Of course Palehook had “found” Mickelmas. He’d known where he was all along, no doubt. Had his own men recognized me leaving the magician’s home when they had gone to kidnap Rook?

  “What signs did you recognize? When?” I leaned forward.

  “Gwendolyn. If I’d heeded the signs, she might not be in such a terrible place now.”

  “You speak as if she were alive.”

  To my amazement, he said, “She is.”

  “She died of scarlet fever. Everybody knows.”

  “Everybody knows as much as I’ve told them.” Agrippa went to the cell door and leaned against the bars, looking into the hall. “Gwen was the brightest, most brilliant girl. From the moment of her baptism, I knew she was a miracle. God help me, I indulged her in every possible way. After we found that tapestry, I thought she was the prophesied one.

  “But the Ancients called to her. I don’t know how or why, but in her the pull was extraordinary. I noticed her short temper, her sullenness, her questing interest in them. From where had they come? Why? What did they want with us? She grew violent and hot-tempered, read every book on the Ancients she could find. She used her powers to damage objects. She hurt people. She complained of terrible dreams.”

  “Dreams?” I sat up straight. “What kind of dreams?”

  “Dreams of fog. That’s all she’d tell me,” he said. Dreams of fog, indeed. Dreams of a Skinless Man with an offer, more likely. “It got to the point where I had to lock her in her room. Then, one night, she disappeared.

  “For an entire week, I feared the worst. I searched every corner of London, until the day she materialized on my doorstep. She looked feverish and strange, and I put her to bed. Later in the night, I heard a noise—I’d been patrolling her hallway, making sure she did not run again—and I entered her room. It was full of a hellish light, and voices whispered in the corners. The language they spoke wasn’t human.

  “She
stood with her back to me, facing the window. The mirror shook; the combs and brushes on her vanity jumped. She turned to me. ‘I see now, Daddy,’ she told me, holding out her hands. ‘Daddy, I can see so well now.’

  “She held her eyes in her hands. She’d torn them out. Blood ran down her cheeks like tears, and the laughter.” Agrippa paused, cleared his throat, and continued. “At that moment, there came a sound at the window. An enormous black beast, like a stag, pawed to be let in. I fainted. When I woke, the window was open and Gwen had vanished.”

  That Familiar with the threaded eyes. It couldn’t be.

  “You think I’m on the same path?” My voice was hoarse. Wasn’t I? I had the dreams. I’d used my power against my friends. I was unpredictable. I had felt the temptation to submit to R’hlem. I…

  I had refused R’hlem’s hand. I would never give in to him.

  “I don’t believe that women should do magic now,” Agrippa said, his tone mournful. “Whether witch, sorcerer, or magician, they cannot be trusted to control their abilities. The dark powers call to them too strongly.”

  “I’m not Gwendolyn.” I had made mistakes, but I would never be Gwendolyn.

  “Women are ruled by emotion, and when they receive power, they warp themselves to fit it. You can’t help yourself. I’m not doing this because I hate you.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I’m trying to save your soul. I cannot allow such a terrible thing to happen to another girl I love.” Love? My throat tightened, my eyes burned. He didn’t love me if he wanted to kill me. “I would rather that you died tomorrow, innocent and pure, than be called into the service of the Ancients.”

  “Do the others know?” I couldn’t bear to think of Blackwood smiling at me as he led me off the dance floor to my death.

  He shook his head. “They think you’ve been escorted elsewhere for the evening. When it’s over tomorrow, I’ll tell them.”

  “And what of Rook?” I clenched my jaw.

  “Rook will be fine. I’ll see to it.” But I trembled to think of what might happen to him once his own abilities were discovered. Agrippa tried to take my hands. “Henrietta, I know you can’t understand now, but one day—”