by Gail Dayton
"Why?" He tugged her dress back up over her shoulders and began buttoning it. "Didn't 'urt nothing. Didn't even risk gettin' a babe on you."
"It's too dangerous. The scandal-- The risk--"
Her dress still half unbuttoned, Harry turned her around to face him, cupping her cheek in his big, calloused hand. "I told you 'ow to get rid of the scandal, but you won't 'ave none of it. Seems to me you're no stranger to risk or scandal, given you're a lady wizard an' were willin' to be my apprentice."
"That's different. That was for the magic."
"So you're willing to risk everything for magic--for your work, your mind--an' nothin' for your heart. Seems to me that's a piss-poor way to live, Elinor. Beggin' your pardon. It leaves you off balance. Standin' on your head, instead o' strong on two feet."
She would not stay and take any more abuse. She was not a silly girl to be seduced by faulty logic and--and blandishments. She didn't wait for Harry to finish buttoning her dress. She stood and dragged her jacket on over the half-open bodice, then her shawl, trying to tie her bonnet at the same time.
Harry came after her, but he only settled her shawl over her shoulders so it didn't drag the ground, then turned her so he could tie her bonnet. "This ain't goin' away, Elinor. There's something between us."
"Sheer animal lust," she snapped, jerking her head away. Her bonnet came untied, since he kept hold of the ribbons.
"Likely." He took a step closer and patiently retied the bow. "Nothin' wrong with that. We got bodies as well as minds, Elinor. To keep the one working properlike, we got to take care of the other."
"By fornication?" She transformed all her shame into scorn and put it into her voice. "For my health?"
"I ain't sayin' that. But I am sayin' it does no good to ignore it, what's between us. It's there, and it's real, and it ain't goin' away. Nor am I."
"Then I will." Elinor brushed his hands off her shoulders, where they'd gone when he finished with her bow.
She hunted for her best haughty look--difficult to summon given what she'd just done--and strode out of the room, out of Harry's house. She had to find another place to live. Immediately.
CHAPTER SIX
Harry thrust a hand through his hair, then scrubbed it down over his face before adjusting his trousers over his too-eager cock. Had that been disaster, or success?
Both, maybe. The trouble with that was, he didn't know which parts were which.
He'd got his kiss,and more. He lifted his hand for another scent of her desire. She'd liked it, what he did for her. What they'd done together. That was a success, he thought. But she didn't like that she liked it. That wasn't disaster, though. A challenge.
He'd never intended to propose marriage, but he wasn't sorry he did it. It made sense. While he was trying to talk Elinor into it, he decided he liked the idea.
He liked having her around and not because she organized his household to run more smoothly. His servants did that. He liked talking with her, liked bouncing his ideas off her clever mind. Who knew what things she might come up with? Like throwing her wands. Who would have thought?
During the few short months she was his apprentice--from last August halfway through January--he'd got used to seeing her, talking with her every day. If they got married, he wouldn't have to give that up, now she wasn't his apprentice any more.
Even better, if they married, he would have access to that lush little body of hers any time he wanted. And with marriage, he could protect her. Not just from scandal. A husband had a duty to protect his wife, like a master protected his apprentice. He didn't have that right any more, since she took master level, and he didn't like it.
She couldn't be worried he would interfere with her magic or start ordering her around. He gave her orders now, like he did pretty much everyone around him. She either ignored him completely and did what she wanted or she told him it was an idiotic order and then did what she wanted. Sometimes she did what he ordered, but that was only because she agreed with what he said. He didn't see how marriage would change that.
But she didn't turn him down because of how things were between them. She turned him down because of the rest of the world and what it thought.
His bollixed-up proposal hadn't helped any, he was sure. So that was a bit of a disaster there. And a challenge.
Because, like he told Elinor, he wasn't giving up. She wasn't his woman yet, but she would be.
Her body's reaction had surprised her, caught her totally off guard. Harry had the thought that she mostly ignored her body, as long as it functioned the way it ought, and wizards tended to be healthy. All magicians did. So, Harry figured, her mind could build all the barriers between them it wanted, but her body was vulnerable to him. It liked what he did and he thought he could tempt her with more. If he could get her body on his side, eventually her mind would come up with reasons to accept what the rest of her wanted.
Which meant that he had to keep her close and that could be a tricksy dodge, since she wasn't his apprentice any more. She'd be getting the magister's guild tithe now, so she didn't have to stay in the rooms out back. She could go live in Brown's Hotel with Jax and Amanusa. Or, God forbid, she could even move to the Wizard's Guild Hall.
He couldn't offer to help her with guild administration matters, because of that "appearances" problem, though he could perhaps offer the assistance of the alchemist's guild secretary. It would have to be the dead zones that would keep her close. Dealing with the dead zones required magicians from all four disciplines and with their shortage of wizards capable of working the magic, she wouldn't be able to completely hide behind the others. He would start there.
Elinor Tavis was his woman. She just didn't know it yet.
All the way out of Harry's house--by the front door, to preserve her dignity--around to the garden gate and through the garden to the back gate to the mews where her flat was, a peculiar, shimmery, sparkly, fizzly feeling clung to Elinor.
It wasn't exactly the same thing she'd felt when Harry--when they had done what they'd done. Although really, Harry had done it. She'd simply collapsed into a quivering, brainless heap and--and enjoyed it.
Elinor shuddered, the peculiar feeling poking at her again, though it wasn't precisely pokey. More fizzy. Sparkly, as in sparks, not jewels. She poked back at the sensation, turning her mind to analyzing it as a way of, hopefully, controlling it.
So, no, it didn't feel quite the same as she'd felt then, but it was similar. Like...that. Making love. She made herself think the words. Stupid to shy away from even thinking them. She'd said them. But that was before she'd done it.
Though they hadn't exactly done it, had they? Just her part. Which didn't correspond with all the warnings she'd received over the years, that men were concerned only with their own desires, their own pleasure. And once they got what they wanted, they were gone. Harry hadn't taken any. Pleasure, that is. Unless he was playing a deeper game.
With a growl of frustration--no, disgust--Elinor wrenched her mind from thoughts of Harry back to her analysis of the fizzly sparks following her around like shiny puppies.
Elinor shut the door to her flat and sank into one of the soft chairs in the sitting room. The sparks clustered round her again and she took another little poke at them with the part of her that worked magic. The sparks brightened. Practically bounced with happiness.
But she didn't-- She couldn't-- She opened her magic senses, just a tiny sliver, and slammed them immediately shut.
That was magic out there in those sparks, surrounding her, begging her to use it.
But--but-- Sex magic was sorcery.
She wasn't a sorcerer. She was a wizard. The magister of the wizard's guild. Tip-top of the bunch. She didn't do sorcery. She'd never been able to even feel it before.
The sparks closed in tighter around her. She could feel a faint hum in her teeth, along her skin, as if the magic was--was getting angry. Which was absolutely and utterly ridiculous. Magic didn't get angry, or happy, and it most cert
ainly didn't beg. But she didn't like the way it felt now.
"Go away." Elinor flicked her fingers at it, using just a touch of her magic sense to goose it along.
So, of course it had no effect whatsoever. The magic sank closer, as if it wanted in.
What was it Amanusa had said? Sorcery abides in blood and bone and flesh.
Oh, ick. That did not appeal to Elinor in the least. But the magic didn't seem inclined to leave her alone.
She racked her brain for anything else Pearl or Amanusa might have said about their magic. They didn't talk much about it, especially the sex magic, except that it existed. But Elinor had seen Pearl send out the magic from the innocent blood of a murder victim to hunt the murderer and lay the victim's ghost. Could Elinor adapt what she'd seen to this magic and send it away?
What had Pearl said? How had she done it?
"Um--hello? Magic?" How idiotic could she be? Even if one could call magic, one did not address it like a--a burglar lurking in the shadows.
Elinor stood, feeling as if she ought to address herself to magic from a position of respect. Respect for herself and the magic. She straightened her shoulders and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. What now?
It did seem as if Pearl had sent the magic...out. Out from herself. Out of herself?
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Elinor just let it touch her and sent it off again immediately. But send it to do what? This was sex magic, not blood magic. She didn't think it would be much interested in harassing murderers.
She shook her head. Surely the magic would know what it was intended for. All she had to do was send it out to go do that.
Elinor took a deep breath and let it out. She steeled herself against the alien magic, squinched her face up as if anticipating a blow or the touch of one of her brothers' slimy amphibians, and she slowly winched her magic senses open.
The magic hovered, as if now she'd opened herself to it, it was afraid to approach. Silly thought. She had obviously done something to hold it back. Her attitude, even her very stance indicated her unwillingness to touch the magic. Working magic of whatever variety was all about the will.
Elinor slammed her magic sense shut again. Why couldn't the blasted stuff go somewhere sensible, like inside leaves, or roots, or even berries? Why did it have to want to be inside her?
She started over, shaking her hands, wriggling her shoulders, twisting her head this way and that on her neck, in an attempt to relax. It would be fine. Amanusa and Pearl handled this magic every day of the world, and they didn't seem to mind it. So did all their apprentices. Of course, that didn't necessarily signify. Not everyone was disturbed by the same things. Elinor's brothers had spent their childhoods handling toads and worms and all sorts of slimy, disgusting things and actively enjoying it. But then they were males and males enjoyed all sorts of peculiar things.
Still, if Amanusa could do it, if Pearl could do it, never let it be said that Elinor Tavis was too much of a coward to try. Though at this moment, she would dearly like to be.
Still, this was not the behavior of a woman who had not only faced down the whole of the wizard's guild and its magister over her right to be a master wizard, but had also faced a demon in battle. Did it actually matter that the demon had really been fighting an angel and she had been flanked by three other magicians doing nothing more than deflecting the backlash from the demon-angel conflict? No, it did not. She had been there. She was no coward.
However, she reserved the right to call in the nearest large man with a shoe to kill any cockroach or other nasty bug invading her presence. And perhaps mice as well. And none of this was doing anything about the insistent, hovering magic.
For a moment, Elinor wondered what happened to the magic created by the marital relations of non-magicians. Did it even create magic? What about--
But she was just following the rabbit trails in her mind to avoid dealing with the situation. Something she had an unfortunately considerable tendency to do.
Elinor shook herself again all over and did rid herself of a bit of the tension gripping her. What if she only took hold of the magic with her hands? That wouldn't be so bad. Could she do it? She could only try.
She took a deep breath, calmed her busy mind as much as possible, and opened her hands to the magic, reaching out to touch it. The magic shivered a little, then let her catch hold.
It wasn't slimy or disgusting at all. It was...bright. And soft, and exciting, and tender, and too many things for her to grasp--and yet not those things at all, exactly, but something else. Magic. Sorcery.
Elinor let it twine around her hands and slide up her wrists, under her sleeves or maybe through them. She gathered it all up, sweeping her hands through the air until all the sparks were contained in, or between, or around her hands. She played with it, absorbed the strange but lovely sensations as it moved over her skin.
Until she realized it wasn't just moving over her skin, but through it. Into it.
She didn't panic. Almost, she did, but not quite. She pushed the magic out again, forcibly keeping her breathing slow and steady.
"Magic," she said, addressing it firmly this time, with all of her will focused. Pearl worked magic in English, so Elinor would too, with gratitude. "Formed of my body and my--my desire." No stuttering allowed, she reminded herself.
The magic seemed to be paying attention. It had stopped moving through her fingers.
"Go forth," she said. "Do what you were meant to do." What was it meant to do? Sex made babies, but she didn't think-- Neither Pearl nor Amanusa was in an interesting condition, and they used the magic all the time, or so they hinted, but Elinor was afraid to add anything else. "Go."
And like that, in an instant, it was gone.
Elinor fell into a chair, exhausted. What had just happened? And why had it happened to her?
A yawn ambushed her, stretching her jaw wide. Too much had happened today for her to take it all in. She'd neutralized a nasty potion, defended herself from alchemist's fireballs with an entirely new variety of wizardry, and helped heal a severely burned man. She'd participated in a boisterous celebration, after which she'd had an amatory encounter, been accosted by sorcery, and required to discover a way to fend it off and then disperse it. Oh, and she had also become the reluctant magister of the wizard's guild. No wonder she was tired.
Correction. She had reluctantly become the magister. Now that she had decided to stay in the position, there would be no more reluctance.
Her head bobbled and she jerked herself awake. Too many things to think about and too tired to do it. Tomorrow. She would think tomorrow. Sleep now.
In a locked room near the top of Holborn Tower, the heavily warded building where the Magician's Council placed its most dangerous outlaws, a sedated man twitched in his sleep. Two others watched him through a grill in the heavy iron door.
"How is he?" Thomas Norwood asked the man at his side.
"Not well. But not terrible, considering what Signore Cranshaw has done to himself." Antonio Rosato frowned. "It is not his body, but his mind that concerns me. His fears and obsessions--" His hands rose, made gestures to match his words. "If we could but open his mind and peer inside. Clean out the rot and replace it with clarity..."
"I for one am glad that you can't," Norwood said. "Don't want anyone mucking about in my thoughts, do I?"
"Nor do I. But we are not insane, my friend. Our minds do not torment us so."
"Maybe not. But who gets to decide what's mad and what's merely eccentric?" Norwood shook his head. "None of that matters. Is he all right to leave for the night? Is he all right to be here, instead of in hospital?"
"Safer here, I think, for everyone. He is still wizard, veramente?" Rosato paused, his too-long hair sliding forward into his face as he contemplated the sleeping prisoner. "I will stay and watch. Signorina Tavis has worked very much magic today and cannot oversee her patient. He is healing very well, but I do not like to leave him alone. He was burned very badly. He may wa
ke in the night with pain--or remembered pain. I have the medicine. I will watch."
Norwood nodded. "It's your lookout. Your headache. Be sure and let the lads know if you need to go in, since they have the key. You're not to be near him alone. No one is. Tower regulations. Magicians can be tricky."
Rosato shook his hair back and grinned. "I know. Am I not a magician myself?"
With a huff of laughter, Norwood led the way back to an alcove in the corridor. "I'll have someone bring up a cot, so maybe you can get some sleep."
"My thanks, amico." Rosato clapped Norwood on the shoulder. "You are a good man for a brigata."
"That's Briganti." Norwood's broad English face took on a mischievous air. "Though given how the Briganti tribe made so much trouble for the Romans, I can see how an Italian might want to call us brigands. We can still cause plenty of trouble for magicians who get out of line." He lifted an eyebrow at the wizard. "See you don't, then."
Rosato laughed out loud. "I shall not. I will stay in this line where you have put me, for now. Until your prisoner no longer needs a dottore all the night. Then I will go and dance with all the ladies."
Norwood shook his head at Rosato again and left.
In the prisoner's cell, a shadow coalesced in one corner, thicker and darker than the rest of the barren chamber. The man in the cot twitched and moaned, seeming almost to whimper in fear. And the shadow gloated.
Elinor was late to the morning magister's meeting. Of course. She slept so hard, not even the maid's knock on the bedroom door and entry with the morning tea and toast roused her. Harry had to send a footman inquiring whether she intended to attend the meeting, which sent the maid back to inquire, which had Elinor bounding out of bed in a great, tearing hurry.
Though, actually, it was more of a stumble than a bound. Between herself and the maid, who was really more of a parlor maid than a lady's maid but could turn her hand in a pinch, Elinor got herself clothed and her hair stuffed into a snood. Presentable enough to dash across Harry's back garden, into the back door and present herself at the magister's meeting.
