Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  "You do that, Mr. Biggs." Norwood went through the door into the stairwell. "You might want to go ahead and lock the floor down now."

  "I will." Biggs took another, larger key off a hook on the wall. "Mr. Norwood--you know the lady magicians, don't you?"

  "I am acquainted with them. I wouldn't say I know them."

  "You believe they really mean to open the academy to females?"

  "I don't know about that, Biggs. I had heard that they intended opening a separate school for girls, but I could be wrong."

  "But they will be admitting girls on the same basis as they do the boys--if they have talent. Right? My Lizzie and me, we have five girls, and our eldest--she'll be seventeen come March, and I swear she can move magic. Not sure what sort it is, but I can feel it moving."

  Biggs fidgeted with the oversized key. "So I was thinking, if they are testing girls for magical talent, well, Sarah Biggs deserves as much of a chance as any. It's a better life as a magician than a shop clerk or seamstress, I'm thinking."

  Norwood blinked a little at the flood of words. "I should say she does. I suggest you sent a note to Magister Greyson at Brown's Hotel. And I will mention the matter to Magister--whichever one I see next, if I can. Perhaps suggest they hold a testing day for the ladies, like we do for boys."

  "You think I should? Send a note?"

  "I do. I know they are actively looking for students."

  "Well, then, Mr. Norwood, I will."

  The younger alchemist nodded and clattered down the stairs as the guard locked the door to the wizard's floor, shutting himself in with the prisoner.

  Inside the lone occupied cell on that level, Nigel Cranshaw stared into the deepest darkness beside the door. "You see how it is? You see how they treat me?"

  "It is not fair, is it?" A figure took transparent shape in the shadows, slender and youthful, not female but not quite male either, though it was dressed in trousers and a loose, open-necked shirt. "You were only trying to help them see the truth. Allow them to recognize the evil they are clasping to their bosoms."

  "Exactly. You understand. They put something inside me. It's still there." The wizard whimpered.

  "I know, dearest Nigel, and I do understand. The evil must be wiped out. All of it, utterly."

  "Yes, yes." Cranshaw sniffled. "It hurts. Why does it hurt so much?"

  The figure crept from the darkness, its face beautiful in the dim light, black hair curling around the pale skin, red lips a curving slash across it. "Poor Nigel. Poor, dear Nigel. Cry out against your pain. It was not your fault. That female did this to you. She infected you with her blood. She should pay. They should all pay. Feel your pain, Nigel, and know who caused your suffering."

  The beautiful being slipped onto the cot next to the wizard and took hold of his hand. It squeezed until Cranshaw howled and it breathed in the sound and the pain, and it smiled.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It had taken Elinor until well after teatime to finish her potion for Friday's challenge. Only when Freeman had knocked on the door with a tray did she realize the time. She took a break to eat--wizardry was not a magic where one could snack over the worktable--and went back to work. She might have finished sooner, if not before tea, if she hadn't wanted to make a different potion than the one she'd used with Cranshaw.

  It required a great deal of effort to make the astringent magic in pine needles mix with the purgative magic of broomtop in this new spell. And it took even more time and effort to understand how to tie a knot in the magic, as Cranshaw's potion had suggested, to keep it potent over time. She'd never tried knots before and magic was slippery stuff.

  She ate the food in the supper tray Freeman brought, creaked her way across Harry's back garden, and fell into bed exhausted.

  She woke late the next morning, not her favorite time any day of the week, and rose to eat the enormous breakfast sent over by Harry's cook as was usual on mornings after Elinor worked late. She'd barely managed to get dressed when someone knocked on the door to her flat.

  Amanusa and Pearl stood on the landing when Elinor opened the door. The wide skirts of both women barely fit in the narrow space. "Oh, ah..." Elinor backed away. "Come in."

  There were two comfortable chairs near the fire. They'd brought a second in for the few months Pearl had shared the flat. While the sorcerers removed their shawls, Elinor brought a third chair, wooden and slat-backed, from the small table near the window where she'd eaten breakfast. If they used the other dining chair, she could have three guests.

  "I know you said we needed to talk, Amanusa, but I didn't realize you felt the need quite this acutely." Elinor sat in the wooden chair, then popped back to her feet. "Oh, I should offer tea."

  But how? The maid had gone. Elinor didn't have a bell to ring in Harry's kitchen where all her provisions came from. Still, despite her new rank. She needed to move out of this flat, declare her independence.

  "Never mind." Amanusa laid her gloves across her lap. "We don't need tea."

  "I do," Pearl said. "I told Grey to tell Freeman to have Cook send some up. He's come to visit Harry. With plenty of those delicious lemon tea cakes."

  "I know you're eating for two." Elinor sat down again. "But isn't this a bit excessive?"

  "Not at all. I haven't eaten anything all morning except two dry biscuits and plain black tea. I'm starving. And it is time for elevenses, even if you did just crawl out of bed." Pearl smiled merrily at the other two.

  "Please, we have important matters to discuss." Amanusa folded her hands and focused on Elinor, who composed herself in an attitude of curious patience.

  "Elinor." Amanusa held her gaze. "I have reason to believe that--"

  The tea arrived with all the attendant bustle of bringing it in and setting it up, dismissing the footman, pouring, serving, and then eating. Pearl ate. Elinor sipped at her tea. Amanusa might have.

  "Elinor," Amanusa began again.

  Elinor set her tea aside and folded her hands in her lap. "Yes, Amanusa? Goodness, such drama. I realize our school is very important, but cou--"

  "It's not about the school, Elinor. This is about you."

  "Me? What about--?" She broke off, fear suddenly springing up her throat, leaving no room for words. She didn't want to hear this, whatever it was.

  "You've been working sorcery, Elinor." Amanusa's voice was stern and gentle.

  "What? No. I'm a wizard. I don't--" How had Amanusa found out about the sex sparks? Elinor's face burned hot.

  "When you and Harry--"

  "We didn't--" Elinor broke in. "It was just-- Well, of course I know that, but--Just a--"

  "Wait." Pearl had to pause and swallow. She pointed at Elinor who'd managed to stop herself. "What are you talking about?"

  "It was just a kiss. Kisses." Elinor tried very hard not to wail.

  "What?" Amanusa looked surprised, but not very. And not shocked at all.

  "Why?" Elinor drew back in her chair, wary again. "What are you talking about?"

  "Yesterday. When Harry fainted." Amanusa skewered her with her gaze. "Have you and Harry been kissing?"

  Elinor stammered worse than before, trying to find a way to deflect the question, but she couldn't. "Well... Yes."

  "Just kissing?" Pearl asked.

  Elinor could not like the mischief on Pearl's face. She also didn't see any sense in lying. "Um--"

  But it was so hard to admit. Especially with Pearl twinkling at her like that. "We didn't! Not...intercourse. Just a 'bit o' cuddling.'" She tried to copy Harry's accent and failed miserably.

  Amanusa blew a sigh out her nose. "Well, that does explain a little more."

  "Explain what?" Elinor tried to pack away her shame and embarrassment, but she needed a bigger mental box. Things kept squeezing out the sides before she could get it shut.

  "Yesterday," Amanusa said. "When I was trying to push magic into Harry through the blood donations, you were in the way. You were the one building his magic back up, not me. I could, a bit, but mostl
y it was you."

  Elinor shook her head, rejecting the hypothesis. "I don't see how that's possible. I've never done anything like that before. I don't know how. I can't--I'm a wizard."

  "And a very, very good one," Amanusa agreed. "But yesterday, you worked sorcery. You cannot deny it happened."

  "I can--" Elinor caught Amanusa's expression and subsided. "But I suppose I had better not. How is it possible?"

  "You've never even sensed sorcery before?" Pearl asked.

  "Not really." Elinor shook her head slowly, trying to recall. "A bit, I suppose, when we were in St. James's Park with--"

  "With my friend's murdered body." Pearl supplied the words Elinor couldn't. "Have you ever cuddled with anyone before?"

  "No!" Oh, her cheeks burned. "Of course not!"

  "And after? Did you sense magic after your cuddle?"

  Elinor truly wished to sink right through the floor. It was wood. Oak, she thought. Maybe her magic would open it up for her. "I wish you would stop calling it that. It sounds silly."

  "You're the one who named it that," Pearl pointed out. "But all right. So did you? Sense magic? After your...?"

  "Encounter." Elinor snapped the word out, then could only muster a mumble for the rest. "Yes."

  "Is that the only time?"

  "No." A smaller, softer word.

  "Oh, ho!" Pearl grinned with absolute glee.

  If looks could kill, Elinor would have Pearl lying on the floor, stabbed through the eyes.

  "Pearl," Amanusa's quiet voice cut through the glee and murder. "Don't tease. Can't you see she's embarrassed enough?"

  "But why?" Pearl looked bewildered, and Elinor didn't think she was putting it on. "What's to be embarrassed about? Harry adores her. Elinor obviously adores him back--"

  "I do not!" Elinor put a stop to the nonsense. Or she tried.

  "Then why did you kiss him?" Pearl wanted to know. "Why did you 'encounter' with him?"

  "He kissed me," Elinor stated. "He--"

  "You kissed him back. Didn't you? You didn't stop the cuddling. Harry would have stopped if you told him to. We both know that."

  Was it possible to die of shame?

  Pearl reached across the teapot and took Elinor's hand. "Oh, dearest. It's nothing to be ashamed of. For honest and true. If you love him and he loves you--"

  "He doesn't. Nor do I," Elinor said again. "It's just--" She removed her hand from Pearl's and used it to gesture. "Physical."

  Neither Pearl nor Amanusa looked as if they believed her. They looked at each other.

  "That's what did it, I'm sure," Pearl said. "The desire. The 'encounter.' It woke up her sorcery talent."

  "And it created the connection with Harry," Amanusa agreed. "So that yesterday, Elinor was able to use the blood to strengthen him."

  Blood. The word made Elinor feel rather queasy. Yes, she'd given it. She'd done it before yesterday. Given twice to help build the walls around the dead zone in Paris and the zone in the East End. She'd given blood again to help in the battle at Waterloo station against the demon. She'd even painted it on her face that time. But she'd always had to steel herself against the sight and the smell of it.

  Oddly, it wasn't so much her own blood that disturbed her as other peoples', which was the exact opposite of most who fainted at the sight of blood. She didn't faint, though. And she hadn't lost her stomach in years. But she still didn't like it.

  She said so. "I don't like blood."

  "Then you'd better get yours back from Harry," Pearl said, like a strict schoolmistress, complete with frown. "You don't want to be accidentally making him your familiar, like I did Grey."

  That was what had happened between them at the end of last year, when Grey acted so horrible and Pearl was so miserable? It wasn't just some lover's spat? Well, it had been, but-- Oh my.

  "They haven't exchanged blood," Amanusa said. "It won't be so easy for her to do it by accident."

  "Still," Pearl said.

  "How do I do it? Get the blood back from him?" Elinor focused on the practical.

  "It's easiest if he's already got an open wound," Pearl said. "A healing scratch, or some such. If there isn't one, you'll have to make one."

  "Unless he's prone to nosebleeds." Amanusa nodded, as if making someone bleed was something she did every day. Which, of course, it was.

  Elinor waved her hands to move them past that part, swallowing down her reaction. "All right, so then what? Once I have this scratch?"

  "Then you find your blood inside him and call it out." Pearl ate a cream bun. The lemon cakes were all gone. "You blot it and burn it."

  "Yes, but how?" Elinor let her frustration show. Pearl made it sound as simple as reaching into a berry patch and plucking out the fruit, but Elinor knew it couldn't be as simple as that. Berry vines often had brambles.

  The two sorcerers exchanged a look and sighed in unison. "I need to call my blood back as well," Amanusa said. "I will lance him and show you how. Then you can do it."

  "What about Dr. Rosato's blood? He donated too." Elinor's curiosity had arisen, as it always did.

  Amanusa dismissed him with a gesture. "He is wizard, not sorcerer. His blood has only the magic we put in it. It gave Harry the strength he needed, and when the magic went into Harry, Rosato's blood--becomes not important. Maybe it dies. I haven't studied it.

  "But a sorcerer's blood--the magic is part of it. The magic stays and the blood stays alive. Or perhaps the magic moves to some part of Harry's blood which then becomes ours." Amanusa waved her hand again. "I have not studied this either. But this is how it works, and we must retrieve it."

  Elinor tipped her head, as if that would tip her thoughts into better connection with each other. "If the magic stays in the sorcerer's blood, then it's not the blood you take that is used for magic, is it? Not primarily. It's the blood you give. You don't ride the blood you take from others, you ride your own blood inside them."

  Amanusa held Elinor's gaze, her expression solemn. "Your blood is sorcerer's blood also. This secret of the sorcerer's guild is one you cannot reveal. You might be magister of the wizard's guild, but by the magic in your blood, you are also a sorcerer, subject to our laws. Our secrets."

  "Why not reveal it?" Elinor didn't understand. "If people know that sorcerers won't steal blood for magic--"

  "So then these wicked people who do not listen, but believe what they wish--" Sometimes Amanusa's English took on strong overtones of her mother's Romanian. "Then they can steal our blood for their magic?"

  "Conjury can't call demons," Pearl reminded her. "But that doesn't stop people from trying."

  "True enough." Elinor knew the world was as full of idiots as it was of wickedness. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, trying to accept what she'd been told. "I'm a wizard and a sorceress?"

  "Are there not singers in the opera with a range of four or five octaves?" Amanusa stood and dusted off her skirt, though she hadn't eaten anything to create crumbs. "Come. We will test your talent to ride the blood and record your name in the sorcery guild register."

  "As apprentice?" Elinor didn't think she liked that idea. It would be exceedingly odd to be apprentice and magister both at the same time. She tidied up the tea tray as best she could for whoever would come to fetch it.

  "I think student a better designation," Amanusa said.

  "Didn't you ever open the old books in the library?" Pearl dusted a veritable storm of crumbs to the rug when she stood.

  "Harry nor I saw a need for it. I was a wizard." Elinor found her jacket and shawl while the others put on theirs.

  "You learned magic from Sir William, didn't you?" Pearl asked. "When you were a girl?"

  "Yes. Though I kept studying when he tried to cut me off."

  "So wizardry was the only magic you were exposed to." Pearl followed Amanusa down the narrow stair, Elinor behind her.

  "It was." Elinor grasped her meaning. "I had no idea sorcery even existed. Not then." She blinked. "Are you saying I'm some
kind of--of prodigy?"

  "No, nor virtuoso. Not yet. But you could be." Amanusa led the way across to the back garden gate. "Your sorcery talent is sadly undeveloped. If you want to be that virtuoso, you will have to work at it."

  Elinor made a face. "I don't know if I want to."

  "It is for you to decide." Amanusa shrugged. "But for my curiosity, why would you turn it down? Isn't magic the thing you have fought to have your whole life?"

  "Yes, of course. But--" Elinor shuddered in an exaggerated manner. "I don't like the idea of magic--some foreign substance--being inside me. It disturbs me."

  "But it's already inside you." Pearl stepped daintily across the mud puddle just inside the gate, to the first stepping stone. "It's part of you. You have to take out of you and put it somewhere else to work magic with it."

  "The--the spark magic wasn't inside me," Elinor protested. "It was definitely outside. Following me like a pack of puppies, wanting in."

  "Spark magic?" Pearl was teasing again. "I suppose it does feel a bit like sparks.

  Amanusa hid a smile. Elinor was certain she saw it. "The magic of desire," Amanusa said, "begins within and blossoms without. It would not exist if not for what is in here." She touched her heart, then smiled such a wicked smile it shocked Elinor a bit. "And lower places in the body."

  "But what do you do with it?" Elinor wanted to know. She did not want to know how to make it. She'd made all she intended to ever make.

  "What did you do with it?" Amanusa turned the question back on her.

  "I sent it away. Told it to go do whatever it was meant to do." Elinor hurried to catch up, walking through the damp grass beside the path, uncaring about her hems. She wanted to see their faces. "What is it meant to do?"

  Sure enough, the two sorcerers exchanged another significant glance. What weren't they telling her? "It's meant to create life," Amanusa said.

  "Protect," Pearl said. "Heal. Probably more things than that, but we haven't had time to dig them out of the books or Jax's brain."

  Elinor trudged on across the garden, moving back to the path. Wet skirts were one thing. Wet stockings entirely something else. "I didn't think it was for the same purpose as innocent blood. I copied what you did there at Rose Bowers' body. With alterations. Was that all right?"