Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  "What's happened, Nan?"

  "Magister Carteret sent word to Mrs. Greyson's secretary and they sent me for you," Nan said. "Mrs. Carteret is ill. From a machine?" She sounded doubtful, but continued her message. "And Mr. Tomlinson's fainted and won't wake. Mr. Jax said Mr. Carteret said to bring all your tricks."

  Harry, unconscious? Not waking up?

  Elinor shut her stillroom door and handed the key to the butler. "Lock it up for me, Freeman. I'm working on dangerous poisons and don't want anyone getting into it by accident." She spoke over her shoulder, already halfway to the front hallway. "Has the carriage been sent for? Oh, never mind, I'll catch a cab."

  Freeman came scurrying after her. Hopefully he'd taken the time to lock the door, but Elinor couldn't worry about that now. Pearl was ill and Harry unconscious. "The carriage has been sent for, miss, and should be waiting. Your cloak, miss."

  Elinor turned, saw Freeman holding her jacket for her to put on, her cloak folded neatly over his arm, awaiting its turn.

  "It is quite cold, miss."

  Yes, it was, wasn't it? Elinor put on her jacket and allowed Freeman to lay the cloak over her shoulders. He took her bonnet from the footman who'd fetched it from the conservatory where she'd left it and handed it to her when she finished fastening the cloak. Then he handed her her wizard's black bag. Where had she left that? In her flat? She thought so, yes. He must have sent someone to collect it when the message came.

  "You think of everything, don't you, Freeman?" Elinor took her gloves as the butler opened the front door and escorted her down the stairs to the waiting carriage.

  "I do my best, miss. Bring Magister Tomlinson home to us. Awake or no, we'll tend him best at home."

  Her smile could only flicker past the tightness in her throat and the sting in her eyes as she climbed in. "Of course. Thank you, Freeman."

  He shut the door and the carriage moved out sharply, almost before the latch caught. Elinor tried not to worry during the trip to the council house. At every corner, every turning, she fretted at the time it was taking. She wanted to shout at the other vehicles in the street to get out of the way. She tried to distract herself and prepare herself by reviewing possible reasons for extended unconsciousness, but that frightened her too much. So she went back to looking out the window and railing silently at the traffic.

  Finally, they arrived and as the council footmen came to open the carriage and assist her out, Elinor saw Thomas Norwood hovering inside the door.

  "How is he?" she asked, hurrying toward him. "What happened? Has Dr. Rosato been sent for?"

  "Aye, that's why I'm here." Norwood took her bag of potions and led her through the corridors. "I escorted the doctor from the tower, where he was checking on Mr. Cranshaw. They've taken Mr. Tomlinson to the ladies' retiring room, I'm afraid. It was the nearest place they could lay him out."

  "Nearest place to what? And remind me later to ask about Mr. Cranshaw's condition. I want to know, but not now."

  "Yes, miss." Norwood's lips twitched, but he didn't smile. "The magister was in the dead zones laboratory, I'm told. Mrs. Carteret was there helping dissect a machine they'd found."

  He led her through a crowd of people--Harry's dead zone committee--clustered in the hall. Waiting to hear, she supposed. Norwood opened the door to the retiring room, adapted from an office by means of nailing cheap mourning cloth over the glass half-walls. Elinor bustled through.

  Pearl was sitting up in a large, cushy wingback chair looking pale and fragile, holding a basin in her lap, while Grey hovered over her looking terrified. Harry was laid out on the chaise longue, which was both too short--since they didn't have him propped up on the back--and too narrow for him. One arm dangled off the side, though they'd managed to get his other arm to stay folded across his middle. His coat and waistcoat had been removed and his shirt opened to bare his chest.

  Elinor's heart lurched. She might not want to marry him, but that didn't mean she didn't him to live a long and healthy, happy life.

  Amanusa Greyson and Tonio Rosato looked up from either side of Harry as Elinor entered. "I've only just got here myself," Amanusa said, rising to her feet. "Let me take a quick look at Pearl and I'll be right back to check on Harry with you."

  "His heart sounds strong." Rosato pulled his stethoscope from his ears.

  "Then why won't he wake? What happened?" Elinor looked across the room to Pearl, who was taking a sip from a cup Amanusa held to her lips. She swallowed and leaned back in the chair looking even more pale, holding up a finger as if to ask for a moment.

  "She has been plagued with nausea," Amanusa said.

  "They were opening up a damned machine," Grey growled.

  "Harry was?" Elinor looked down at him, laid her hand on his chest to feel his breathing. The dead zones seemed to interfere with that the most--breathing and consciousness. And the machines were like small, portable pieces of a dead zone. He seemed to be breathing all right now.

  Pearl shook her head. She swallowed hard, waited a moment, as if to see whether anything might change, then she spoke. "Harry was at a distance. Mr. Ramsey said they started making him stay across the room for dissections when he kept fainting and having to be carried out."

  "This has happened before?" Elinor couldn't quite conceal her alarm. She moved her hand over his heart to feel it beating. Not to keep touching his naked chest. "Of course it has. I've seen it myself, once. But he came to in seconds once he was away from the machine."

  "This one was different--this machine." Pearl was relaxing into the chair, her muscles losing their fretful tension. Amanusa slipped the basin from her hands and set it on the floor.

  "This machine," Pearl went on, "was found well outside the dead zone. Found in--Mr. Ramsey told me and Grey told me too, but I forgot."

  "In Hoxton, near Regent's Canal." Grey stroked the fallen strands of hair from Pearl's face. Elinor's heart ached with happiness that her dear friend had found such devotion.

  "Wait." Elinor's thoughts caught up with what Grey had said. "Hoxton--that's not anywhere near the dead zone."

  "Well, it's not as if they found it in Kensington or Battersea Park," Grey said, "but yes, it is quite a distance from the dead zone in Whitechapel and Bethnal Green."

  "How did it get there?" Elinor frowned. "Is this related to that creature Harry and I found? The one with all the nails for legs that was outside the zone?"

  "I think so. Harry could doubtless tell you more." Pearl closed her eyes as Amanusa touched her forehead. Sorcerer's magic. "But we believe the machine was armored to keep the magic from getting inside it. Which also kept the no-magic dead-zone atmosphere from getting out."

  "And when you opened it, all the no-magic got out all at once," Elinor said, quickly grasping what must have happened. "Instead of slowly dissipating as it was carried across London from the dead zone to the lab, like all the other machines you've investigated."

  Harry's chest hadn't moved to take a breath, Elinor realized. Not in a while, not while she'd been talking. She stretched her hand flat and pushed on his chest. "Harry, breathe."

  And he did, a gasping stutter of a breath that deepened and filled his chest, lifting Elinor's hand as it rose.

  "He needs magic. More magic inside him to replace the no-magic." Rosato took a vial from his black doctor's bag and shook it. "I am out of restorative. Signorina Magister, is there in your bag?"

  "Yes. Yes, I have some." Elinor let go of Harry to open her bag--just like Rosato's only larger. She liked to carry big jars and bottles. She only looked past it twice before she found the deep blue bottle with its flower-painted label, the one that held her tansy and mint-based restorative. She dug her maple wand from the bottom of the bag and stuck it down the neck of the bottle as soon as she uncorked it, sweeping as much magic as she could from the wand into the potion.

  "He needs sorcery," Amanusa said. "Body magic." She held up a finger with a fat droplet of blood at its tip. "Wizard magic will help, but he needs more. Donatio
ns of blood, because his blood is too weak."

  "Use the vial." Rosato uncapped his empty container and held it out for Elinor to pour her potion into it. "The blood will reach him quicker if we do not have to get so much down him."

  "Yes, all right." Elinor poured. She set the open bottle back in her bag and held out her hand to Amanusa. "You did say donations, did you not? As in more than one source?"

  "I did." Amanusa stirred her finger in the vial, then quickly lanced Elinor's finger, squeezing out a pair of drops. Dr. Rosato donated as well.

  Elinor pushed all the magic she could grasp into the potion as she dunked her finger and swirled it around. She waited for Rosato to put his drops in, then lifted Harry's head.

  "All right, Harry, I have something for you to drink," she said briskly. "You're to drink all of it, mind, and maybe more as well. It tastes quite nice, I promise. Like mint tea. There's tea in it. All sorts of lovely things." As she talked, she gave him sips from the vial. When he swallowed them, she gave him more until all the potion was gone, inside of Harry.

  She kept his head in her lap to keep the potion inside him, not for any silly emotional reason like it made her feel better to have him there. She rubbed her thumb across that full lower lip, but that was only to wipe away a bit of potion that hadn't made it into his mouth. She made no attempts to comb his hair into order, though it certainly needed it.

  "Elinor!" Amanusa hissed at her. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing!" She looked to be sure. Yes, her hands were where they should be, on her lap beside Harry's head.

  "Push magic into him. Help me. Don't get in my way."

  "I'm not. How am I in your way?" Elinor kept her voice down, since Amanusa whispered. "I'm sitting here, behind Harry. You're over there."

  "Push." Amanusa somehow grabbed hold of Elinor's magic sense and pushed. "Like that. Do it. Now."

  Elinor could sense magic hovering over Harry. That wasn't right. It needed to be inside him. She did as Amanusa showed her, and suddenly she was--was inside Harry, with the magic.

  This time, she panicked. Went into flat-out hysterics, thumping around, tumbling through Harry's--mind? body?--screaming as she tried to find a way out.

  Stop that. Amanusa's voice spoke--not in her ears. Elinor didn't have ears. Or maybe she had Harry's ears. But she heard Amanusa some other way. Amanusa shook her, only she didn't, exactly. She pushed Elinor back out into her own self.

  "Ellie?" Harry's eyes were open and he blinked up at her from his position in her lap. "Elinor--" he corrected himself. "Wot are you doin'--? Thought you were in your room, brewin' poison."

  "I was. Till you tried killing yourself with that stupid machine."

  "The signore Tomlinson would not have died," Rosato said, his accent somehow thicker. "His heart, she beat. He breathe, when you tell him to. The magic in the air and everything in the world would have brought him back with time. He did not kill himself. He just--lose conscious."

  Harry smiled at her, a smile of pure happiness. "You came to save me."

  "I'd have come to save anyone. And yes, I'd have held their head in my lap, too."

  "Yeah, but it's not just anyone you saved. It's me." The smile slowly faded into a frown. "I remember--Pearl." He struggled to sit up. Elinor helped him.

  "Thank you for your attempt to aid my wife," Grey said with a rather mocking bow from beside the chair where she was now curled. "Next time, try not to faint and drag her down with you while you're helping her."

  "Sorry." Harry looked a little shamefaced.

  "And I apologize--" Pearl stopped to yawn. "For ruining your coat."

  "Oh. Did you?" Harry seemed only then to notice that he didn't have it on, or his waistcoat, and that his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging off one shoulder.

  Elinor was not disappointed when he pulled it back over the shoulder, nor pleased when he did not button it.

  "I was sick on it." Pearl sounded very apologetic. "Your coat. Violently."

  Harry shrugged. "Just a coat. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine, now Amanusa's got some magic into me."

  Grey looked at Amanusa. "Is she? Fine? She was rather violently ill. Several times."

  Amanusa's lips curved in a small, private smile. "That wasn't the machine. Mostly it wasn't." She raised an eyebrow at Pearl. "Do you want to tell him?"

  "Tell him what?" Pearl gave Amanusa a sleepily perplexed look.

  Amanusa looked back for a long moment. Elinor watched, trying to read the undercurrents in their exchange, and then she looked at Pearl, really looked with all her senses.

  "Oh!" Elinor put her hand to her mouth to hold back any other exclamations.

  "Oh, what?" Pearl flounced to a new position, frowning at them. "What are you both on about?"

  "You see it?" Amanusa now gave Elinor that long, studied look.

  "That she's--" Elinor's hand fluttered, trying to express what she didn't want to say aloud.

  "I'm what?" Pearl sat up straight and put her feet on the floor, having to scoot forward in the chair to reach it. "You are annoying me tremendously with your hints and winking and--"

  "I never winked," Elinor said.

  "Are you trying to say--" Grey began slowly, "or trying not to say, rather--that Pearl and I are to become...parents?"

  "What?" Pearl collapsed back into her chair.

  "I think so," Elinor said.

  "Yes," Amanusa said.

  Grey stared at Pearl like he'd been hit in the head with a brick. Pearl stared at nothing at all, as if she'd been hit with a barrow full of them.

  "I think--" Jax seemed to appear out of nowhere, as he always did. He was always there, at Amanusa's side, but you never, ever noticed him until he spoke and drew notice to himself. "I think we should take our leave and offer the prospective parents some privacy."

  Harry let Jax lift him to his feet, buttoning his shirt as fast as he could. Elinor hovered. Harry was her patient. Or was he Rosato's? But the dottore was already at the door, heading out. Amanusa waited with Elinor, for Jax. Harry could walk and button at the same time, with Jax's hand on his arm to steady him.

  "Wait," Grey said, and the entire procession stopped, turned to him. "When?"

  "Some time in August, I should think," Amanusa said. "Perhaps near the end of the month."

  How did she know so quickly, without counting it up? Elinor always had to use her fingers.

  As they neared the door, she couldn't help looking back. Pearl still stared. Grey knelt beside her, took her limp hand into his.

  "Aren't you happy, darling?" he kissed her hand.

  Finally she looked back at him. "Are you happy?"

  "I asked you first. You're the one who has to do all the work."

  "Yes, but--"

  "Asked first," Grey reminded her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Elinor smiled as the door closed on them. All would be well. They were mad about each other, and would be utterly ridiculous about this baby.

  "...use bones for armor. Animal bone," Harry was saying when Elinor's thoughts caught back up with the rest of them. "Animal's the one thing we don't use for magic."

  "Why not?" Elinor moved up beside him to observe his recovery. He seemed to be walking all right. Jax had let go.

  "Dunno. Does it matter?" Harry wobbled, just a bit, and Elinor caught his arm.

  Harry tucked her hand in his elbow, as he would in simple escort. Was he playing a game, pretending to be worse than he was to get close to her? But his skin was still pale and sweaty when she looked at him and his pulse raced under her hand. She wished she could get more magic into him, but then his pulse steadied, so that was all right.

  "I think," he went on, "that bone acts as a barrier to magic for the machines, an' that's 'ow they're getting out of the dead zones to wander round the city."

  "But why?" Nikos Archaios had joined the group, along with a good many others who'd been at the dissection. "What do they hope to accomplish by this?"

  "Reconnaissance?
" Jax suggested.

  "Communication with the other dead zones." That was Mr. Ramsey's offering. Elinor knew him from all the times he'd called on Harry during her short apprenticeship.

  "Perhaps they don't like the wall we build round them," she said. "Perhaps they're trying to learn how to bring it down."

  Harry stopped and looked sourly down at her. "Lovely thought, that."

  He hadn't stopped just to frown. They'd reached the Briganti I-Branch office and progress had slowed to funnel through the door.

  Elinor shrugged. "Better to think of the worst possible event ahead of time than to be surprised when it happens. Why are we here? This is Grey's--"

  "Closest large space to confer that doesn't require stairs. Or contain machine parts." Jax was holding the door for everyone to go through. "Amanusa is an I-Branch consultant. It's her office too. And we do need to confer, if briefly."

  "Did you take notice of the differences between the two machines?" Archaios said as soon as Harry came through the door on Elinor's arm.

  "Somewhat." Harry leaned on one of the desks circling the large open space in the center. As soon as he did, Elinor removed her hand from his arm and backed a few steps away. "The first one was larger. And there weren't gaps between the bones on its shell."

  "Exactly." Archaios spun away to pace, the tails of his frock coat flaring out. "And the first one you found, was it not going in the direction of the dead zone?"

  "Yeah, it was." Harry started to roll up his sleeves, as if he could not be in shirtsleeves without rolling them up for work. Elinor hadn't seen him often without a jacket, but as far as she could remember, his sleeves had always been rolled up to expose his brawny forearms. "Till we tried to catch it. In fact, it kept trying to run away to the zone until after we hit it with magic a couple o' times and made it mad."

  "I suggest this." Archaios stopped pacing and stared at the floor a moment before speaking again. "I suggest that the second machine found, the smaller of the two, was the first one made. An earlier experiment. And that it was found broken because its shielding, its armor was not so complete as the later machine. The gaps between the bones allowed magic through."