by CE Murphy
“Capital,” Mr Penney was heard to murmur more than once. “Absolutely capital. I suppose the fishing is unparalleled.”
“So my brother tells me,” Miss Archer replied. “I have proven a very poor fisherman myself, showing an inclination to shriek and throw the wretched wiggling creatures back into the water. I did that once with a very fine perch Gerry had caught. He has never entirely forgiven me, I think. The creature’s size grows with every telling; if I should persuade you to stay on until his return, I am sure he will share the tale with you. Miss Dover, do tell me what you think of Gerry; I know you have seen him in every social sphere!”
“I am far too astonished to hear he has spoken of me at all to be able to think of how I might describe him, Miss Archer—”
“You must call me Persephone. But not Persy; please, not Persy.”
Elsabeth laughed. “I would never think to. Persephone, then; thank you, and you may call me Elsabeth, if you would like.”
“Miss Elsabeth, I think,” Persephone replied hopefully. “It is how Gerry most often refers to you, and I cannot help but think of you that way myself. You were telling me what you thought of my brother.”
“I think it is very strange to hear him called Gerry,” Elsabeth replied with a smile, “although this is not the first time I have heard that name applied to him. He has seemed too mannered to me to allow for nicknames, even bestowed by those he loves the most. He cannot be the one who calls you Persy?”
“No; to him, I am Perry. Perry and Gerry, because it makes me laugh. You might call me Perry, if you wished.”
“I should never presume to impinge on Mr Archer’s name for you, especially when I think Persephone itself is such a lovely name.”
“People think it mad. It is not proper; Mary or Rose would have been proper. Persephone is too wild. Oh, Mrs Wells, you have outdone yourself!”
“Say instead that Cook has outdone herself,” Mrs Wells corrected as she allowed a brace of servants with arms loaded by plates and food to step past her into the breakfast room. “She could do no less in welcoming Miss Dover to Streyfield.”
Elsabeth could not help but catch her aunt’s glance at this comment, and schooled her features into incomprehension. Mrs Penney was not satisfied, but neither could she query Elsabeth upon the topic in such company, and so, the luncheon was shared by all with no difficult questions to answer.
(49)
During the course of the meal a lively discussion ensued regarding whether the little party should remain at the inn or come to Streyfield; Miss Archer ended it by declaring flatly that she should be injured beyond comprehension if she was refused, and, in the face of such pressure, Mr Penney acquiesced. He would not, however, permit Taylor to send Streyfield footmen to fetch their belongings; he went himself, and Mrs Penney— reluctantly, as her burgeoning curiosity regarding the general knowledge at Streyfield of Miss Elsabeth Dover made her wish to stay—joined him.
Elsabeth, arm in arm with Persephone, saw them off before finding herself positively seized by Miss Archer and drawn into as small and intimate a corner as could be found in a manor of Streyfield’s magnificence. “Miss Elsabeth,” Persephone began, “I am about to be terribly bold, and beg your forgiveness for it before I even speak.”
“I can hardly imagine what you should require forgiveness for, given your great generosity towards us, but it is of course given, Mis—Persephone.”
Miss Archer emitted a sound small enough to be regarded as a squeak and brought her head closer to Elsabeth’s. “Miss Elsabeth, I have guessed at something and I must know, but cannot ask my brother. He has made you an offer, has he not? And you have turned him down.”
Elsa blanched so swiftly, she felt the sensation of her own hands going cold in Persephone’s, then coloured so violently as to bring tears to her eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to say she had been wrong, that there were questions that required— and should not receive!—forgiveness for asking, but the forgiveness had been sought and applied already, leaving Elsabeth unable to speak for a span of heartbeats that stretched toward forever.
“Oh, dear,” Persephone whispered. “That was even more dreadful than I thought it would be. Forgive me, oh, Miss Elsabeth, forgive me, and you must not answer. I ought not even have asked!”
Accustomed to Leopoldina’s outbursts, Elsa could not entirely censure Miss Archer, but neither could she avoid agreeing, “No, you ought not have,” before beginning to recover herself. “You ought not have, but I have promised my forgiveness, which is—granted, Miss Archer. Why...do you suppose Mr Archer has asked, or that I have...refused him?”
“I have never before seen him besotted,” Persephone replied with grave frankness. “He could not feel so passionately and not ask, and as you have not been announced as engaged, I surmise that you must have refused. Why, Miss Elsabeth? Do you not find him suitable?”
“Suitable.” Elsabeth glanced upward, allowing a laugh to travel toward the elegant cornicing. “Miss Archer, there may be no man more suitable in England, but his manner of asking was not suitable at all.”
“Oh, dear. Gerry does not always know when to hold his tongue instead of laying a foundation bare. I am given to understand that your younger sisters are...enthusiastic? It is a folly I myself have sympathy for, although I fear my own enthusiasm may have set Gerry against it more strongly than is necessary.”
“Enthusiastic. Yes. That is a word that could be used to describe them, my youngest particularly, and indeed, he was per- haps unnecessarily...blunt in the matter of my family’s situation. I may also have held certain prejudices against him that I have since learned were...not entirely founded, or have been rectified, but they do not dismiss the matter he was most condescendingly willing to overlook in order to marry me.”
A certain intriguing steeliness came into Miss Persephone’s eyes. “What matter might that be? I am inclined to like you, Miss Elsabeth, because my brother has spoken so highly of you, and I can hardly imagine what should be so insurmountable that he would have to overlook it in order to be your husband. If you can only explain it to me, I should rather like to discuss it with him, for I would so like to have a sister of my own.”
“I would rather you did not,” Elsabeth replied softly, “but I find I am increasingly desirous of performing that which I am forbidden. I would not ask you to keep a secret, Miss Archer, but if you could be discreet?”
“I am the very soul of discretion,” Persephone promised with, Elsabeth thought, perhaps as much veracity as Leopoldina might claim, but her mind was already made up: Persephone had barely finished speaking before Elsabeth lifted her hands and wreathed them in fire that cast pale gold light in the warmth of the summer sun.
“Magic is in my blood,” she said beneath Persephone’s astonished cry. “My family is thick with it, and it is the gift that Mr Archer was obliged to risk in order to consider me as a wife and the mother of his heirs.” She extinguished the flames and, at once, Persephone seized her hands, turning them this way and that as if she might find some trick to the power Elsabeth had displayed.
“I have never seen anything so magnificent! Gerry knows? Then he has told you of the library! And still you deny him? Miss Elsabeth, you are of sterner stuff than any other woman I have ever known! I envy you, that you should know yourself so well; I fear I am more easily led, or that I was as a child, at least. Oh, will you show me again? What else can you do? What spells, what charms, what potions do you know?”
Under this rush of questions, Elsabeth could not but laugh, and cast again to make dancing creatures in the sunlight. “I am afraid he does know, and I know no spells or charms, Miss Archer. Persephone. All I have is my native talent, which is most inclined to show itself in flames, although I have some small skill in ripening an apple before its time, that it might be feasted on during the course of a hearty walk. Would that I could do more; it is a bane upon me that this gift, so disdained, should be of so little use.”
“But he has told
you of the library,” Persephone said again, this time with a query in the words.
“I am told that Streyfield’s library is awe-inspiring, but that is knowledge I have from Mr Webber, not from Mr Archer himself.”
A breath escaped Miss Archer. “Then I can only conclude he kept the knowledge from you in order to not influence what he believed to be your most honest and deeply felt answer to his proposal. You must come with me, Miss Elsabeth. I must show you the library at once.”
Elsabeth allowed herself to be drawn to her feet and led through the house, though she could not do so without the amused protest that she had been in libraries before; that, indeed, Mr Dover’s own library, while by necessity inevitably smaller than Streyfield’s, was of no small regard, and that she herself was very well read from it.
All of these protests were silenced by the magnitude of the room Persephone brought her into: half of Oakden might have fit comfortably within it, and all of Oakden could have been stacked inside without reaching the ceiling. Polished marble floors reflected mahogany shelves that stretched three stories high; wheeled ladders leaned against them, and a circular stair spun upward and radiated narrow walkways leading to balconies encircling the second and third stories, that the books there might be reached on the ladders that were placed on those levels as well.
There were, at a glance, more books within than Elsabeth had ever seen in one place before; more books than she had fully appreciated existed, much less in a private library. Even with marble floors and stone walls behind the shelves, the scent of books hung in the air, and the sunlight filtering in through tall windows caught on motes of dust that did not appear willing to settle on any gleaming surface.
“Forgive me,” Elsabeth said in a small voice. “Mr Dover’s library is as nothing, after all.”
“I doubt that,” Persephone replied pertly. “It is more that Streyfield’s is as Alexandria, or so I fondly imagine. Please, this way; I hope you have a head for heights.” She mounted the curling stairway, climbing to the third story and traipsing lightly to the railed balcony, where she led Elsabeth, who carefully did not look down, to a corner of books that, while dusted, had the look of being long undisturbed about them. Persephone gestured to them; Elsabeth stepped forward, then frowned uncertainly at Miss Archer, who nodded encouragement. “Take one. Any of them. See what it says to you.”
Her frown deepening, Elsabeth crouched and extended a hand to glide it over the books, barely touching them; barely daring to. A strange piercing made her palm ache as she passed by one, and she returned to it, removing it from the shelf. Its weight surprised her; it was thick, but hardly taller than her hand, and imprinted with beautiful, nonsensical gilded lettering, as if someone had pressed living flame into the leather. Eyebrows drawn down, Elsabeth opened it to find more of the same meaningless letters, which suddenly shifted and resolved as she gazed at them, becoming words. Elsabeth startled and glanced at Persephone, whose face was alight.
“A gift for magic is required to even read them. Go on, Miss Elsabeth. Tell me what it says. I have always wished to know.”
“Firepower,” Elsa replied slowly. “Or perhaps, Fire Power, or...perhaps Fire Spirit, as the title, and beneath it...beneath it, it reads she who naturally calls this book to hand shall be known to herself as a Promethean; she is charged to read these words and defy the very gods for the good of all mankind. Miss Archer, what is this?”
“One of the oldest collections in the Streyfield library,” Miss Archer responded. “These books were old when my father was a child; he could not recall which grandfather, nor to how many greats, had sought out so many books of magic, or why, when the Archer blood was as mundane as any. That ancestor only thought they should be protected, and so, our grandfathers kept them even when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth commanded that all such books should be delivered to her army, that they might have the knowledge necessary to defeat the Armada. They are a secret; I suppose they might even be considered treasonous to hold. Father spent many hours with Gerry and myself, making certain we knew the library’s contents before he died; it was important to him that we should never lose sight of the knowledge we are privileged to protect here. He made no more fuss over these books than any other, but even a flighty girl of seven could see that they were unusual. I could not read them, nor even recognise the letters as any knowable language. But for you—!”
Elsabeth set aside the book of fire, then sat to draw another, then another, book from the shelves. Several were like the one she had first selected, only entitled Wind and Water and other elements; perhaps they were the most basic building blocks of magic, aspects which a gifted individual might have affinity for. Others were more massive tomes, and upon the opening of one, it became clear that the components of spells lay within: they called for ingredients and gestures both, and went on for pages. Another, entitled Æther or Spirit, was written in a crabbed but precise hand that became clearer as Elsabeth read aloud. “...my friend Marco, with whom I have maintained a long and pleasant correspondence, has travelled the world over and observes that we Europeans who consider ourselves so civilised have all but lost the gift that runs strongly throughout other more natural nations. Today, it is perhaps little loss, but I fear that someday it will be the ruin of our continent. It is to this end I write what history of magic I have been able to learn, as one who cannot practise it herself. When I am done, the spell will be cast over these pages so that only one who is herself a magician will be able to read it; when I am done, this story will be mine no longer. Even in these early pages, I feel some loss in that, although what I have studied can never be stolen from my mind. Here is what I do know: without the written word, magic and its history will certainly be lost in Europe, and even as lacking in talent as I am, I cannot bear that thought.
“Fortunately, there is no magic that cannot be learnt by one with the natural talent, although some workings may come more easily than others. I will write only of the history of how it has been studied and developed, but my friend M—,” and this name Elsabeth could not read; no matter how often her eyes returned to it, the word twisted and shied, as if it did not wish to be known. After tripping through it a time or two, she went on, reading with greater urgency. “M— puts pen to parchment as well, and records all of the spells and charms, the castings and incantations, that he has learned in his long life; between us, we may have some hope of saving a working knowledge of magic for generations yet undreamt-of.”
Elsabeth clutched Æther to her breast and gazed wide-eyed at Miss Archer, feeling a mad urge to abscond with the book and all its brethren. “Any magic can be learnt...!”
“I will leave you,” Miss Archer said with a strange gentleness far beyond her years. “I’ll have tea sent, and scones and meats and cheeses, and I will leave you to your studies.”
“Miss Archer—Persephone—!”
“No,” Persephone said again, still with the strangeness. “You must stay, Miss Elsabeth; you must study what no other here can. There can be no other reason for your coming to Streyfield, if it is not my brother who draws you here. I will entertain your aunt and uncle, of whom I am sure I will soon be very fond, and when you are ready, perhaps you will show me a trick or two.” Her eyes shone with shy hope. “I should like very much to see what you can learn from our library.”
“I should like nothing more than to show you,” Elsabeth whispered in return. “I—thank you, Persephone. All my life, and more this past year, I have tasted bitter dregs that there should be so little to be done with magic; these books are riches unimagined.”
Miss Archer smiled and curtseyed, and before she had reached the library floor, she was forgotten, so engrossed did Elsabeth become. She sat with three books about her: Æther and Fire and a book entitled simply Incantations, and she could not read a few pages of one without being drawn to the pages of another, for the author of Æther and the sorcerer she called M— had worked together indeed, and the history often referenced a spell or explanation de
tailed in another book.
In due time, three books became six, then ten, until Elsabeth sat in a nest of increasing knowledge. Fire spoke of creating a consistent warmth without the need for fiery hands; Elsabeth, warm enough in the library on a summer afternoon, wished she had known that spell during Rosamund’s illness, and committed it to heart against needing it again. More immediately useful was a calling of light; as the sun sank and the library dimmed, she pinned flames in the air around her, like floating candles that burned air instead of wicks, and laughed in delight as they hung there obediently. They did not, despite appearances, burn air, according to Æther; they burned æther, or spirit; they burned the magical will of the sorcerer who set them alight, and would burn until the sorcerer lost strength or doused them. It was no more difficult than using her fingertip as a candle; knowing the fingertip flame could be pinched off and placed in the air, believing that it would not fade, was all the difference. So it went with easily the first half of Fire; nothing in its pages was beyond Elsabeth’s skill, only her imagination, and upon introduction to it, the ability evolved naturally.
A latterly spell, though, caught both her attention and her imagination; it was not as simple as the others, but its applications were gloriously obvious. To Scry, read the twisted lettering at the top of the page, and below detailed how an element might be used to find another like it, and give speech through it.
It could be done most naturally by two users of the same sorcery: had she another Promethean to call upon, their æther- born flame would lend itself comfortably toward communication. Next most easily came scrying with two fires burning from the same wood; the more in common they had, the stronger the link would be, but even a single stick would suffice so long as the common wood lasted. Third came fires lit from disparate sources, and finally æther fire to natural flame, which was conceded as nearly impossible for all save the most strongly talented Prometheans.
