Spellswept

by Stephanie Burgis

  Miranda moistened her lips, her voice hoarse. “My husband’s spellwork is all safely locked within his study, which cannot be entered by magic. Neither can the corridor around it. It would take twenty minutes, at the very least, to retrieve it—and of course, they’d also have to look through all of his collected spells to find the right one. If—”

  Creeeeeeaaaaak!

  Every muscle in Amy’s body twinged with unmistakable recognition. She certainly hadn’t imagined that sound coming from the rounded walls. As she looked at the social stream of guests making their unhurried ways to the exit point before they left, vanishing only two at a time with well over a hundred still left in the queue, a sick sense of certainty coiled into place within her.

  “We don’t have that much time.” I’m sorry, she added silently to the woman who’d meant more to her than any other authority figure in her life. I would never betray you intentionally. “There is,” she said, “one person who knows that spell intimately. So she’ll have to be your reference for tonight’s work.”

  Miranda’s eyes shut. She didn’t faint; she didn’t even stagger. She was one of the strongest women in all Angland, and even the ruin of her only daughter’s reputation and the legacy that she had worked all her life to pass forward couldn’t overwhelm her now.

  But when she opened her eyes again, there was a lost look in them that Amy had never seen before, even as her lips stretched into an unconvincing smile. “Well,” she said briskly, “we’d best get to work, then. Shall we?”

  Mr. Westgate was already making his way through the crowds towards them, surrounded by three other mages Amy recognized...and by Cassandra, who held herself with rigid control as she followed them, as if she were suppressing herself with difficulty. “Mrs. Harwood.” Westgate’s nod was perfunctory, but it didn’t appear to be an insult; he had the look of a man deeply involved in a challenging puzzle. “If you would kindly vacate the ballroom for your own safety—”

  “I beg your pardon?” Miranda gave a laugh so harsh, it made the closest guest glance around with wide eyes. “Mr. Westgate, you’re here because my husband’s wedding gift to me is failing, and...” Her smile twisted as she looked around the growing group of mages that now surrounded them, drawn from all across the room. “My daughter,” she said with bitter clarity, “has just exposed a truth that was never meant to be known outside our family. Do you really expect me to leave now as if none of this were my business?”

  Westgate’s eyebrows rose at her words; then he shrugged. “We’ll speak frankly, then. In order to fix this spell, we’d have to trust that both your daughter’s recollection and her interpretations of it are correct—and as both of those points are exceedingly unlikely...”

  Cassandra’s face reddened—but it was Amy who stepped forward until she stood toe-to-toe with the Boudiccate’s foremost officer of magic. “Mr. Westgate,” she said coolly, “you may trust me when I tell you that I have the utmost faith in Miss Harwood’s capability, and so should you. Would you doubt the strength or perspicacity of any other Harwood mage?”

  Next to her, Lord Llewellyn’s mouth was opening and closing distractingly, like a landed fish struggling to breathe. “She—what—mage—? What?!”

  Westgate’s eyes narrowed. “Miss Standish,” he began, in the resolute tone of a man about to take control of a rather nasty situation.

  Amy sailed across his words with ease. “Her magical lineage is every bit as impressive as her political lineage, as you know perfectly well. It may be a trifle out of the ordinary that her family’s magical inheritance has chosen to express itself through a lady for the first time in this generation, rather than choosing her brother...”

  “A trifle?!” Llewellyn’s tone was strangled.

  “But as you are all aware,” Amy continued firmly, “we have no time for fussing over propriety at this moment. I understand that gentlemen are the more emotional sex, but I have utter faith that you will all rise above the frailties of your natures to show the world exactly how impressive your magecraft is tonight.”

  Creeeeeakkkkk!

  “...Preferably,” Amy finished, “before the roof falls in on all of us. If we could possibly save the gentlemanly swoons for afterwards?”

  “Gladly.” Westgate’s tone was grim, but Amy didn’t miss the grudging amusement in his eyes. There. She’d known she liked him, after all.

  Sighing heavily, he turned to face the other mages, whose faces were a picture of mingled outrage and confusion. “Gentlemen, we’ll have to split our forces in two. Cosgrave, why don’t you lead a force of six in removing the rest of the guests safely from this ballroom? We can’t afford to wait for them to leave on their own. As for the rest of us...” His jaw set, but he showed the inner strength that she’d glimpsed earlier as he visibly forced himself to turn to Cassandra. “Why don’t you guide us through that spell, Miss Harwood?”

  Perfect. Amy stepped back, gracefully making way for the mages to all gather around the younger girl’s small figure.

  Anyone else of her age, in such a situation, might have quailed or frozen at their hostile looks; but Cassandra was a Harwood through and through, and she’d been raised by a mother who faced down powerful opponents every day. Pride rose in Amy’s chest as she watched Cassandra meet each questioner’s skeptical gaze and heard the clarity of the girl’s recitation.

  It was all gibberish to Amy’s ears, of course, but the confidence and authority of Cassandra’s tone shone through the unfamiliar terminology; and when an older mage broke in with a sneering remark, Cassandra’s quick retort made two of the younger mages laugh appreciatively.

  Amy didn’t need to look around to sense the intensity of Miranda’s gaze upon her daughter. “She is remarkable,” Amy said softly. “Schooling that entire group of grown mages without a qualm...”

  “She could have ruled the Boudiccate.” Miranda’s voice was thick with emotion. “She should have ruled the Boudiccate. But after tonight...”

  “Oh, Miranda.” Amy couldn’t help turning around at the anguish in her mentor’s voice. Perhaps...

  No. This was one crisis that she couldn’t fix. No matter how hard she tried, even Miranda herself could never convince the full mass of assembled mages in this ballroom to forget the insult of her daughter’s trespass into their territory. There was absolutely no chance of Cassandra Harwood ever entering politics after tonight.

  But then again...

  Amy stilled as a new idea flowered within her—an idea that would never have occurred to her before she’d met the Harwood family and begun to glimpse shocking and world-changing possibilities outside the security of tradition.

  Earlier this evening, when the concept had first occurred to her, she’d named it impossible to herself. After all, no one had ever done it before in all of Anglish history. And yet, as she looked now across the tiled floor at the mosaic of Boudicca herself, past the group of mages listening with grudging respect to Cassandra’s words, she could almost imagine that ferocious mother to their nation giving her a knowing wink.

  Had Boudicca ever let tradition stop her?

  How the Romans must have laughed, all those centuries ago, at the very idea of a woman—a mere widow to an insignificant king—rising up to overthrow their imperial rule and send them fleeing from the island in humiliation. That, too, must have been inconceivable to them. But once Boudicca had found a partner to her political and martial prowess in the magic of her second husband...

  They had set a mold for the ages with their epic partnership. But they had broken earlier rules to do it—and they broke even more when they started their radical new nation in the wake of the Romans’ expulsion.

  Amy had always yearned for a family and a place of her own; she’d always believed that following the accepted rules was the only reliable way she could ever possibly achieve it.

  But she’d always sworn that once she did find a family of her own, she would do anything it took to protect them. What if—despite every expectati
on—she had already found that family after all? If those stuffy old unquestioned rules were all that was stopping her from taking her rightful place within it...

  Well. What could any politician want more than to change her nation for the better? She’d already known that this would be the most important evening of her life to date. She only hadn’t known why, until this moment.

  “Miranda,” Amy said firmly to her mentor, “you’re wrong about Cassandra. She would have been a terrible politician.”

  Shock flashed across the older woman’s face. “I beg your pardon?”

  “When has she ever enjoyed compromise or negotiation?” Amy demanded. “And just listen to her now.” She tilted her head toward the stream of information spinning from the girl’s mouth. “When has she ever absorbed that level of detail—or even made the slightest attempt!—in any of the subjects you’ve forced down her across the years?”

  Miranda’s jaw tightened. “She’s still young,” she grated. “She could have outgrown—”

  “Did your husband ever outgrow those interests?” Amy asked gently.

  She had seen the portrait of Mr. Harwood in Miranda’s study—and she had seen an identical look of confident genius in his daughter’s face, too, tonight.

  Miranda clearly had as well. Her gaze dropped. When she spoke again, her voice was low and bitter. “What could be the purpose in trying to judge such matters? The world will crush her if she tries to stand against it.”

  “Not if we don’t let it.” For the first time ever, Amy let her tone ring with authority over her mentor.

  Her admiration for Miranda Harwood would never change. Nor would her love and gratitude; but after a lifetime of supervising the world as it was, how could it not be nigh-on impossible for Miranda to imagine that world turning upside down? To conceive of such an outright transformation, one required a younger generation with fresh eyes—and Miranda’s own children had supplied that in spades.

  Together, the Harwood siblings had shown Amy how to imagine new possibilities outside the norm. But neither of them would ever move in the political realm—which meant that she, alone, might be the only person who could make those possibilities take shape for them both...and win an undreamed-of victory for herself along the way.

  “What if,” she said, holding her mentor’s gaze, “we make this tonight’s magical demonstration after all?”

  Miranda frowned. “You mean, we summon all of the guests back to the ballroom to witness it?”

  “No,” Amy said, “but we’ll tell them exactly what happened here afterwards—in great detail. And then we’ll send the announcement to the newspapers ourselves.”

  Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “Rather than attempting to hide the news, which would be a lost cause regardless...”

  “We shall brag about it shamelessly,” Amy finished with deep satisfaction. “Because of course it would be a Harwood woman who finally broke the bounds of tradition to excel in magic above every adult mage assembled here! As they all admitted themselves—and we’ll make very certain to repeat that in our statement—not even all of them together could have fixed the spell here, tonight, without her expertise.”

  A smile began to tug at Miranda’s lips. “Oh, yes.” Her eyes began to dance as the pleasure of the game finally overcame her shock and grief and fear for her daughter’s future. Amy had known her mentor would see the way once a real opening was placed before her! “We’ll be sure to quote Mr. Westgate himself on the matter,” said Miranda. “Won’t that be a lovely paragraph to read in all of the morning papers? And as Cassandra will have publicly proven herself to be one of the most astonishing new talents in magery...”

  “Let the Great Library try to keep her out now!” Amy’s grin was as fierce as the one painted on the great Boudicca herself. That great leader had faced down an army of Roman soldiers and the Roman empire itself; with their combined powers of persuasion and the newspapers on their side, Amy and Miranda could certainly take on a mere college of mages.

  Miranda gave a sudden wince. “Of course, the Boudiccate won’t like it, either. Once magic is opened up to women, after all...”

  “Not to women,” Amy said firmly. “To just one extraordinary girl—the single, shining exception in our history who saved the assembled Boudiccate from certain death tonight. They can call her the exception that proves the rule...unless they choose to stand against her and turn the matter into fodder for an open debate through all the newspapers.”

  Miranda let out a low laugh of delight. “Of course!” she said. “Can you imagine the letter columns? That’s exactly how I’ll put it to them. If they don’t want it to turn into a wildfire that rages until far wider-reaching reforms are called for...”

  “What in the world—?!” Lord Llewellyn’s sputtering voice broke through their warm circle of happy scheming. “Miss Standish!” Glaring at her, he shook his blond head. “You cannot be serious in your intent. If you imagine I could ever ally myself with a plan so offensive to any gentleman of dignity and standing—”

  “What a pity,” Amy said calmly, and gave him a nod of gracious dismissal. “Just as well we hadn’t made any announcements after all, then, don’t you think? We can part friends and say no more of the matter.”

  “But—!” He stared at her, blinking. “You can’t change your mind now. Once you’ve given your word as a politician—”

  “I,” said Amy gently, “haven’t given my word on anything—or even made any proposals to be revoked, Lord Llewellyn. Had you forgotten that salient detail?”

  His pale cheeks flushed. His jaw worked. “Everyone will hear about this disgrace,” he snarled. “How you threw away a match that could have brought you everything you’d ever dreamed of...”

  “Oh, dear. My very dear Lord Llewellyn.” Miranda Harwood’s tone had quelled generations of stronger mages. “Tsk, tsk.” She shook her head gently as she considered him. “To be so afraid of one young lady entering your field? What exactly is it that strikes such fear in your heart, I wonder?”

  “Good question, Llewellyn.” Jonathan Harwood slipped into place on his mother’s other side, his narrowed eyes focused on the other man. The tangible comfort of his presence slipped around Amy like a warm coat, relaxing muscles in her back that she hadn’t even realized she’d been clenching. “You don’t think my sister might be proven better at magic than you, do you, old boy? Because that’s certainly what it sounds like to me.”

  “Harwood!” Llewellyn glowered at him. “Of all the insulting, outrageous—!” Turning his glare around their united semicircle, he snapped, “Miss Standish, I have been grievously mistaken in your character. Everyone will soon understand that I would never even dream of accepting any proposals from you now or in the future!”

  “Of course not,” Amy said soothingly. “So I won’t embarrass either of us by asking. But don’t you think you should go and assist the others? You wouldn’t want the papers thinking you had fled in fear, after all.”

  “Insupportable!” Llewellyn gritted through his teeth, and strode away, visibly seething, to take his place among the other gathered mages.

  “Phew!” Miranda gave herself a shake, as if she were ridding herself of a bad smell. “I do beg your pardon, my dear. Clearly, he was not the right man for you after all. Have no fear, though. Once we put our heads together, we’ll soon find a far better partner for you, and then—”

  “Actually...” Amy drew a deep breath and looked past her mentor, her heartbeat suddenly racing in anticipation. Time to change the world...again. Her voice came out sounding uncharacteristically breathless. “I believe I’ve already found him.”

  Jonathan had looked away, expression tight, at his mother’s last words; now he jerked around to meet Amy’s gaze, his blue eyes blazing with an intensity that made her breath catch in the most delicious manner.

  “What, you’ve chosen someone else already?” Miranda’s eyebrows rose, and she discreetly angled herself to study the group of mages before them. “How
beautifully organized of you, as usual. May I ask which of these gentlemen—?”

  CREEE-AAAAAAAKKKKKK!

  Every voice in the room broke off. Amy’s gaze flew to the rounded ceiling. Oh, no.

  They’d all waited too long after all. Under her horrified gaze, the high panes of glass bent, buckled, and—

  “Now, gentlemen!” snapped Mr. Westgate.

  Glass shattered. With a roar that resonated through Amy’s bones, water that had been held back for nearly thirty years swept down in a nightmarish torrent. Amy barely even felt herself move as she threw her arms out—for Miranda, for Jonathan, for both of them at once. She felt their arms close around her, too...

  And then the water simply stopped twenty feet above their heads. It hung there in perfect silence, catastrophe incarnate waiting to rush down and overwhelm them all.

  Amy’s harsh, broken breath filled her ears. Still clinging to Miranda and Jonathan, she turned her head...and found Mr. Westgate gesturing a white-faced Cassandra forward while the gentleman mages remained in a semicircle behind her, their arms raised, their jaws clenched with visible effort, and their intent gazes fixed on the water that hung unmoving above them.

  Cassandra’s face was pale and set. She glanced at her mother, and a flash of pain broke her mask of composure; at her brother, and Amy saw her mouth soften with sudden, heart-stopping anxiety. Then Cassandra looked, with unmistakable desperation, to her.

  Finally. This, Amy did know how to handle.

  Fixing a calm, confident smile on her own face, Amy ignored the mounting panic within her chest, gave Cassandra the brisk nod that the other girl clearly needed, and then raised her eyebrows in a firm message: Well? Get on with it!