Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  "Very much so." Amanusa stopped outside the conservatory door. "The decision of how much sorcery you learn is yours, Elinor. But I must insist that you learn some. Enough that your talent is not a danger to yourself or those around you. So that you can deal with the magic flowing through your veins. Everyone has some magic there--even the men. But once you hear it, once you feel it, especially as strongly as you do, a sorceress must learn to control it, or it will control her."

  "But don't you want to learn?" Pearl was sometimes very much her age, only twenty. "Think of it. You already know so much about healing. What if you could combine your wizardry with actually looking inside the body, directing the potion exactly where it should go? Or looking to see which potion was truly the one needed?"

  "I could do that?" Elinor was sorely tempted.

  "I don't see why not. The sorcery would allow it, if the wizardry would." Amanusa's voice had taken on that tremendous gentleness again. "Perhaps your talents could help us discover a way to heal the mind."

  Elinor wanted it. She wanted the knowledge and the magic and, yes, maybe even the power. But she feared the price of that wanting.

  "Come." Amanusa opened the door. "Let us see how you do with the calling out of your blood from Harry."

  Elinor hesitated. "I was inside him yesterday, wasn't I? Riding his blood. I heard you."

  "Yes."

  "I panicked." It shamed her now, and frightened her. What if she panicked again?

  "You didn't know what was happening. Now you do." Amanusa indicated with a tip of her head that Elinor should come inside. "Do you not have delicate tropical plants growing inside? You don't wish them to take a chill."

  Elinor hurried into the warmth of the glassed-in room, feeling as if she crossed a threshold of an entirely different sort.

  "Will you look around inside Harry?" she asked. "Before you call your blood out? To be sure he's recovering properly and that the machine did him no permanent damage? One shot him, you know. The first one we found outside the dead zone. It made him quite ill."

  "I will supervise if you wish to look around." Amanusa gestured for Elinor to take the lead. "I am sure he is well. He always bounces back precisely as he should from his brushes with the dead zones."

  "But there have been so many." Elinor shed her shawl and then her pelisse as she led the way through the warm conservatory.

  "Then by all means, have your look."

  "And she says she doesn't love him," Pearl muttered bringing up the rear.

  "I worry about all of my patients." Elinor entered into the main part of the house, depositing shawl and pelisse with the waiting footman. He was piled quite high by the time Pearl followed.

  "We have come to assure ourselves of your recovery." Amanusa addressed Harry as she sailed into the drawing room where he lounged with Jax and Grey.

  "Have you solved the world's problems while we were away?" Pearl crossed to kiss her husband on the cheek.

  "I thought that was your job." Grey pulled her down next to him.

  Amanusa's greeting to Jax was more subdued, but just as intimate. All that intimacy made Elinor uncomfortable, but looking at Harry didn't help. Not the way he looked back at her with his eyelids half closed over eyes that smoldered with heat and--and desire. Elinor looked away, at the furniture, to decide where to sit. The only place remaining, however, was the end of the sofa from which Harry had just removed his feet.

  "We have come, Harry dear," Amanusa said from her seat in the chair Jax had given up to her, the one near Harry's end of the sofa, "to see how you are faring after your little adventure yesterday."

  "I feel all right." He shrugged.

  "Nevertheless," Amanusa said.

  "We want to be sure." Elinor folded her hands in her lap. "The effects of the dead zone no-magic have never lasted so long before."

  Amanusa pointed and beckoned. "Your hand, sir."

  Harry sat up straighter. He glanced at Elinor who looked implacably back, shrugged again, and laid his hand palm up in Amanusa's. She lanced his longest finger quickly, ignoring Grey's exaggerated wince, and a drop of blood welled up.

  Elinor sensed the moving of magic this time. She'd felt it before, she realized now, but had ignored it because it wasn't the cool bright green of wizardry. It was warm and dark and musky. It made her nervous.

  Amanusa didn't reach inside Harry, but called to what was hers. Elinor could--"feel" corresponded more closely with her physical senses. That bit felt like Amanusa, but that wasn't the bit she was calling out. The blood was Harry's. Misdirection?

  "Didn't you want to examine him?" Amanusa looked at Elinor as she blotted the drop on Harry's finger. "It is your decision."

  Harry gave her a curious look. The others' expressions held various levels of anticipation.

  "Yes." Elinor made up her mind completely in that moment. She did want what sorcery offered. She might never use its justice side, but she wanted the healing. She wanted to see. And she wanted to start with Harry.

  This wasn't something she could keep a secret, either. She cleared her throat, suddenly nervous. "It seems--" she began. "Amanusa and Pearl have informed me that--" She cleared her throat again. "Apparently, I am also a sorceress." She had to get it out quickly, or not at all. "Rather, I could be. I have enough ability to make the study of sorcery a necessity, not an option. Or so I am told."

  Harry stretched his arm along the back of the sofa till his fingers almost brushed her shoulder as he watched her. "I 'ave to say, I'm not actually surprised."

  "You're not?" Elinor gaped at him. "I am absolutely gobsmacked."

  "Yeah, well, you're walkin' around inside all that magic. You can't see yourself from this side." He offered up his hand. "You plannin' on 'aving a look from the inside?" He cocked an eyebrow at Amanusa. "She ready for it?"

  "She went on an accidental ride of your blood yesterday." Amanusa took his finger and squeezed another tiny drop from it.

  Pearl quietly poured a half-cup of tea, brought in by the butler since the ladies had joined the gentlemen, and Amanusa used the side of her lancet to scoop up the blood and stir it into the tea. Harry drank half, and Elinor drank the remainder. She could feel the magic in his blood--warm and musky, earthy as well--seep into her all the way down her throat and into her heart. From there, it traveled to her farthest extremities. Even her toes tingled.

  Amanusa called her name and Elinor turned from her absorption in Harry's magic melting into her. "Do you remember how you pushed the magic yesterday?" Amanusa asked.

  Elinor nodded. Speech felt too distracting.

  "Do that again. Draw it from inside yourself and push it into Harry's blood."

  She'd never thought of magic being inside herself before. It had always been something inside leaves and flowers, stems and roots. Even the old, feeble magic lingering inside furniture and floors. External. Other. She wasn't sure how to call it from inside her. Was it even there?

  But she'd felt the magic in Harry's blood and he was an alchemist. She was bound to have more. Elinor reached into all the places where she'd felt Harry's magic dissolve, into her fingers and toes, head, heart, and all the places between, and using the same technique she used for wizardry, she called.

  The magic came. Erratic and uncertain, but it came. Elinor couldn't help her delighted grin. How lovely.

  Now, to push. She wanted her wand, but sorcerers didn't use them, did they?

  "Make the connection with Harry's blood." Amanusa raised her eyebrow and pointed at Harry with a semi-disguised motion.

  Right. Connect with her blood inside Harry was what she had to mean. Elinor had felt it when Amanusa was stirring the magic, when she'd first lanced his finger. Elinor grasped the magic that had answered her call and pushed it at Harry, the way she had yesterday. And she was inside him, tumbling on the edge of panic.

  Steady. Amanusa was there, a reassuring presence beside her. A presence Elinor could use to orient herself. The falling sensation ceased. She wasn't falling. She
was--two places at once.

  She took a deep breath and felt her lungs inflate. But she could also feel Harry breathing. It was all right. Everything would be all right. This was what was supposed to happen.

  Intention is everything here, Amanusa said. What do you wish to see?

  His heart, Elinor responded promptly. And his lungs. Fainting can come from improper breathing.

  Already the sorcerers were rushing through him to see his heart beating strongly in its cage of ribs.

  I am no anatomist, but his heart seems to be working well. Elinor could not help her awe. She was observing Harry's living, beating heart.

  I don't know...

  What? Elinor moved them in a circle around the pulsing flesh, examining all sides. Amanusa's uncertainty frightened her.

  He looks-- Amanusa took them on a quick tour of Harry's internal organs. Elinor wished she knew what she saw.

  It may be that Jax has an excess of magic, Amanusa said. Since he is my familiar. But the magic Jax holds for me is in other places. It seems to me that Harry is still low on magic. Especially here.

  Elinor pulled more magic, feeding it directly into his heart to spread it throughout his body. Where?

  CHAPTER TEN

  Amanusa sped them through his abdomen to stop next to a dark, inflamed spot. After a moment, Elinor realized she was looking at the place where Harry had been shot--from the inside.

  Did I miss a fragment? She moved closer, explaining to Amanusa where they were.

  Even if you did, Amanusa said, it shouldn't still be affecting him after so long away from the dead zone. Surely it would be dead. Inert.

  These machines, the ones that travel outside the dead zones, are different. Elinor probed the dark spot and Harry hissed, as if it hurt. She asked him, feeling a bit as if she stood in a bucket as she listened to his reply.

  "A bit," he admitted.

  "Has it been? Since it happened? This is where the machine shot you, is it not?"

  "Yeah." He shrugged. She could feel his muscles move. "I figured it was just healin' up. Isn't it?"

  "Not properly. There may be a fragment of the dart left behind. I need to be sure. I'll try not to hurt."

  "I will block the pain," Amanusa said. "Elinor will learn how."

  Elinor sensed Amanusa intend to block pain and saw the magic act to wrap itself around and around the odd, almost star-shaped fibers surrounding the area.

  I am searching for someone to teach anatomy classes, so we can understand what we do, Amanusa said wryly.

  And probably having trouble with it. Doctors didn't want women in their classes any more than magicians.

  Ask Dr. Rosato, Elinor suggested. He would probably pay us to see inside a living body.

  She had work to do. Carefully, Elinor eased closer to the inflamed spot. She willed the magic to search carefully for any foreign substance.

  "What 'appens if you find something" Harry asked, almost too casually.

  "Let us worry about that after we do," Amanusa said.

  Elinor could feel Amanusa's tension as she blocked all sensation from reaching Harry, but she didn't dare hurry. She went deeper and deeper into the swollen area, probing carefully, but she found nothing. No tiny slivers of bone or crumbs of dirt. Not even a stray thread from his shirt. She'd been told that even so little as that could cause putrefaction. So what was wrong here?

  She pushed her magic to inquire, but her confused question only confused the magic. Then it occurred to her--Harry had fainted because of a shortage of magic. This was where he'd been shot. Where the lack of magic had been concentrated into a single localized area. Her--her sorcery confirmed it. The area was not infected. There was no corruption, just inflammation. She checked with Amanusa, who confirmed it. The trouble was magical in origin.

  So how do we fix it?

  I'm not sure, Amanusa admitted. I've never encountered this sort of thing before. But I don't think we should recall our blood yet.

  I agree. And we can feed more magic into him, as we are able. That will help this heal--but slowly.

  Amanusa scowled. Elinor could feel it more than see it.

  I don't like it, though, Amanusa said. We should be able to heal him more quickly. Direct the magic right to this spot and pack it in.

  Elinor racked her brain for a solution. Solution. Wizardry was often carried in a solution of plant materials.

  What if-- she began tentatively, thinking her way through. What if we could apply a poultice over the area? We could load it with wizardry and sorcery both. Perhaps we could lance the scar a bit, to allow the magic to penetrate better, so it doesn't have to soak its way through the skin. Or does that matter?

  It takes longer to penetrate the skin.

  All right, then. Elinor looked around at Harry's insides. How do I get out again?

  You-- Amanusa demonstrated. "Step out."

  Elinor copied her, reaching for the magic inside herself, her intention clear in her mind, and she stepped back into her own body. "I'll get that poultice."

  "You're going to poultice the splinter out o' me?" Harry caught her hand as she stood.

  "Oh. I'm sorry--I forgot you couldn't hear us. There is no splinter. Just a place--" She made a circle with thumb and forefinger. "About this big. Where you have far too little magic. We're going to poultice magic into you."

  "What would you've done if there 'ad been a splinter?" he wanted to know.

  "Asked Dr. Rosato to cut it out," Amanusa said briskly. "Aren't you glad Elinor already got it all?"

  "That I am."

  Elinor excused herself to go make her poultice. As she looped her apron over her head and tied it around her, she considered what she had just done. Once she'd begun moving around Harry's body, examining him from the inside out, she'd forgotten the magic was based on blood. It had ceased to feel peculiar or foreign, because it wasn't. It was no more foreign than wizardry. Less so, because it came from her own body.

  Though Elinor had to admit--she and her body were not exactly on speaking terms. As long as it did what she wanted it to, she paid it little attention, feeding and resting it as necessary to keep it doing so. She had a feeling that might necessarily change. It was not a comfortable feeling.

  Pearl knocked on the still room door and came in when Elinor called. "Grey and I are going to lunch at home." She yawned. "I feel a nap coming on. But I wanted to let you know--don't worry too much about that accidental familiar business. You haven't exchanged blood directly." She wiggled her forefinger. "Wound to wound, as it were. Just don't work magic together and don't give him your virginity. Not until you've pulled your blood back from him, in any case."

  "I won't!" Elinor was so shocked, she almost put in too much tansy. "I wouldn't."

  "I know." Pearl's grin was as wicked as most of Grey's. She was picking up too many of his worst habits. "I was just winding you up. It's so easy to do. Amanusa is staying to help with the poultice's magic, all right?"

  "Yes, all right." Elinor bade her goodbye, her mind already on her spell-mixing.

  Where had she put that adder's-tongue? Under "A" for "adder" or under "O" for "ophioglossum"? She found a few dried seed stalks she'd harvested near home last spring in a jar high in the corner, next to the aloes.

  Aloe. She'd bought a new plant--aloe vera--imported from somewhere in the Americas by way of Cape Horn. She'd tried it in her burn salve where it had worked marvelously. Perhaps it would work in this. Or maybe she should try one of the other aloes. Aloe socotrina, from an island off the Horn of Africa, had worked well for wizards for years in closing wounds and easing pain and she had some of that in the jar right beside the adder's-tongue.

  Elinor set that jar on a lower shelf and climbed carefully down her stepstool to the floor with the adder's-tongue jar tucked carefully in one hand. Once securely at ground level, she set both jars on the worktable. What else?

  Crane's bill, she decided. It was useful for internal injuries and what was Harry's ailment but precisely that?
That jar was lower and easily found. She would use olive oil as a base, as it was inherently soothing, possessed of solid magic, and readily took up more.

  She lost herself in measuring, grinding, mixing, and then stirring in the magic with her favorite wand, the one she'd had since she made it when she was twelve from the alder tree growing in the same damp ground where she harvested her adder's-tongue. It had a little bend in it where she'd cut away a fork from her branch, but it didn't seem to affect the magic any. Or perhaps it simply suited her own bent. Elinor had always thought of herself as a little crooked. Not crooked as in wicked, but as in eccentric. No harm in that.

  The poultice was ready. All it needed was blood for the sorcery. Elinor eyed the sharp paring knife on the worktable. If she put the blood in it here, no one would know. The guild's secret would definitely be kept. But did they need more, or would that already inside Harry suffice? And if more was required, how much more? Better to wait on the lessons of the master sorceress.

  Elinor draped bandages over her forearm, picked up the small bowl with her potion, and headed back to the drawing room, noting the time on the large case clock in the hallway with satisfaction. "Only ten minutes from start to finish with this potion," she announced with pride. "Do we need to draw more blood to finish it?"

  "Perhaps a little. Jax will donate." Amanusa stood, waving Harry back to his chair.

  "I feel like some blood-sucking ghoul, taking all the blood you've given me," Harry said.

  "Don't." Elinor held out the bowl to receive the drop of blood. "It's such a tiny amount. You've given more yourself for other magic."

  "Yeah, but for bigger things."

  "And healing the magister of the alchemist's guild isn't a big thing? You'll need to get out of your jacket and shirt." Elinor flicked a finger at him before taking up her wand to stir the blood and magic into the potion.

  She could feel Amanusa adding magic to the blood from Jax and tried to put in her own. She could, but it wasn't easy. The blood wasn't hers. It was--it felt exactly like Amanusa's.