The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  Eldyn didn’t know what to say, so he took a drink himself. He knew this could only have been hard news to his friend. First his own engagement to Miss Everaud had been broken off under a cloud of scandal, and now this. How unfortunate the subject of marriage must seem to him! All the same, Rafferdy must have known that, no matter what happened, he never would have been able to marry Miss Lockwell.

  “I’m glad for her,” Rafferdy said, his voice gone smoky from the whiskey. “I am given to understand he is somewhat old for her but that he has a large estate and is a respectable gentleman. So she is pretty, and he is rich. No doubt society will judge it an excellent match. I know my father does; thus a woman he found intolerable for his son is in turn found ideal for his associate. Strange, isn’t it, how it’s the direction we are viewed from that makes us attractive or abhorrent? But it is well. Yes, I am glad for her.”

  Despite Rafferdy’s grave look, Eldyn believed him.

  “To Miss Lockwell,” he said, raising his glass.

  “To Mrs. Quent,” Rafferdy replied.

  After that, they drank for a little while in silence.

  Gradually their spirits rose again, and their talk resumed. Soon they were laughing again like old times as Rafferdy imitated some lord or lady he had overheard at Lady Marsdel’s. At last the whiskey was gone, and with a sigh Rafferdy said that his errand could not wait.

  “What is it you must do that you find so disagreeable?” Eldyn asked.

  Rafferdy twisted the ring on his right hand. “I am, if you can believe it, on my way to a lesson in magick with Mr. Bennick.”

  At first he thought Rafferdy was making another jest. But no—he was serious! Eldyn expressed his extreme astonishment and pressed Rafferdy for his motivations. Last Eldyn knew, Rafferdy had mocked those young men at university who studied the arcane arts.

  “My reasons will have to wait for when we meet next,” Rafferdy said. “I am now very late.”

  Indeed, it was later than Eldyn thought as they stepped out the tavern door. The sun was already nearly to the Citadel, and boys walked about Greenly Circle, hawking the evening broadsheets.

  Eldyn shook Rafferdy’s hand and began to ask when they should plan to meet again. However, as he spoke, one of the boys passed by, holding up a copy of The Messenger.

  Rafferdy frowned. “What is it, Garritt? Did you have too much to drink? You look unwell of a sudden.”

  Eldyn reached into his pocket, fumbled, and pulled out the penny. It was dull copper again. “Here!” he said, throwing the penny to the boy. “Give me one of those.”

  He snatched the broadsheet from the boy, then turned it over, reading the headline that had caught his eye: NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMAN ESCAPES.

  “What is it, Garritt? You’re pale as if you saw a ghost.”

  Yes, it was like being haunted by the ghost of one thought dead. Eldyn read the first lines of the article. It had happened that morning, in the gray hour just before dawn. Howls were heard coming from the jail beneath Barrowgate. A guard was found dead, his flesh torn as if by some animal, his mouth stuffed full of Murghese gold. The prisoner was nowhere to be seen….

  A hand fell on his arm. Eldyn flinched away, but it was only Rafferdy. He looked at Eldyn, concern on his face.

  “What’s wrong, Garritt?”

  Eldyn shook his head. “It is…forgive me. I must go.”

  Before Rafferdy could say anything more, Eldyn turned and ran across Greenly Circle, clutching the broadsheet in his hands.

  HIS BLOOD DRUMMED in his ears by the time he reached the inn in Lowpark. Despite his dread, he had been forced to walk the last part of the way, for his lungs felt as if he had breathed fire.

  The inn was quiet as he entered. Hope rose within him. Perhaps he had not come yet; perhaps he was waiting for dark to fall. Eldyn hurried up the stairs to the chambers he shared with Sashie.

  The door opened as he touched the handle. He stepped into the room, and a low sound escaped him. The bedclothes lay in a tattered heap, and the pillows were gutted, their contents strewn about. The curtains had been ripped down, the table overturned. There were lines on one wall—four gouges made close together. Eldyn reached out a shaking hand, tracing the gouges with his fingers. A sickness welled up inside him.

  Footsteps sounded behind him. He lurched around, and so strong was his relief, his joy, that it overwhelmed him as much as fear had a moment ago.

  “Hello, sweet brother,” Sashie said, smiling in the doorway, a basket in her hands. Then she stepped inside, and her smile vanished. The basket slipped from her grasp. Oranges rolled across the floor.

  He went to her and took her hand. “Are you all right? Did you see anyone following you?”

  “Following me? I don’t understand.” She gazed around, her eyes large. “What’s happened, brother? Who did this?”

  “We have to go. Now.”

  “But my things, my dresses—”

  “There’s no time for that.” Tightening his grip on her hand, he pulled her after him, into the hall and down the stairs.

  He halted at the bottom. She began to question him again, but he pressed a finger to her lips. He gathered the dim air around both of them like a cloak, then listened. Usually there was a low murmur of conversation in the public room or clatters from the kitchen. However, the inn was silent. The lamps had not been lit against the coming night.

  Eldyn waited. He could not believe Westen was far. He had come looking for Sashie but had not found her. Yet surely he was close and had seen them both enter the inn. In which case, why did he not attack?

  Because he did not want to kill them—he wanted something far more than that. He wanted Sashie.

  Eldyn tightened his grip on his sister’s hand. She let out a gasp of pain, but he ignored it. Their only hope was to make a dash for the door and run down the lane. There would be people on the main thoroughfare below. He could not believe Westen would show himself in front of a crowd—not when he was a wanted man, not when a drawing of his face had appeared in every broadsheet in the city.

  “Move quickly,” he whispered. “And do as I say.”

  Keeping the gloom close around them, he started for the door, pulling Sashie after him.

  Ahead, something stirred in the dimness of the public room. He glimpsed the silhouette of a tall, upright figure as it passed before the silver square of a window. The figure was lost to sight, but a moment later another shadow appeared, this one nearer to the floor. A low sound, a kind of growling, rose on the air. Sashie screamed.

  There was no point in concealment now. He flung the shadows off.

  “To the door!”

  He pulled Sashie after him but hardly needed to, for she was fast on his heels. When they reached the door he dreaded it had been locked, but after fumbling with the latch he was able to thrust it open. They pushed out into the twilight and ran down the deserted lane.

  Like a coil of night, a dark shape burst out of the door of the inn behind them. Again Sashie screamed, and fear renewed Eldyn’s strength. He careened down the lane, pulling his sister after him. The sound of sharp things against stone followed behind, drawing closer with each step they took. They were a quarter of the way down the lane, now half. He could see light and people ahead.

  Something nipped at Eldyn’s heels, and he nearly went tumbling to the cobbles. He caught himself and ran on, but it was no use. Their pursuer would have them before they reached the end of the lane. His only hope was to give Sashie time to escape.

  It was, like all the bravest things, an act born out of fear and foolishness. He pulled hard on Sashie’s arm—so hard she cried out—and flung her ahead of him. She went staggering down the lane. At the same time he turned around and thrust his arms before him, as if his bare hands held any sort of power.

  “Back, devil!” he shouted, as the priest had once shouted at him. “Back to the Abyss from which you came!”

  He caught a glimpse of a crouching shadow—sinuous, humpbacked. Two amber sparks winked
to life, and the last faint glow of daylight caught on a jagged curve of teeth.

  The shadow leaped.

  “Get back!” cried a voice that was not Eldyn’s.

  At the same moment a flash of silver light and a clap of thunder shattered the gloom. Eldyn was blinded, stunned. Something gripped his arm, pulling him down the lane. Unable to see, he stumbled after.

  Noise surrounded him—the comforting sounds of people and horses and carriages. He blinked, and his vision cleared. Sashie stood beside him, a dazed look on her face. They had reached the avenue, still thronging with people after the brief day. Lamplighters went about their work. He glanced back at the mouth of the lane that led up to the inn. It was dark and empty.

  “Are you all right, Eldyn?”

  He blinked again and saw Dercy standing before him. As always the young man was dressed in black. His face was pale.

  “Dercy, how did you…What are you doing here?”

  “Getting you out of trouble again, it seems. I came to see if you were going to join me at the theater tonight. I almost didn’t. I was thinking you’d just show up on your own, but I’m glad I did. Is this your sister?”

  Eldyn nodded. It was hard to speak. “This is Sashie.”

  Dercy touched her chin. “Are you all right? Are you hurt in any way?”

  She stared up at him for a moment, then shook her head, her lips pressed tight together.

  Dercy looked at Eldyn. “What was that thing back there?”

  “I don’t know.” Except that wasn’t true. He did know. The story in the broadsheet had said the guard had been ripped apart by some animal, and his mouth stuffed with Murghese gold. “It was him, I think.”

  “You mean the highwayman?” Dercy said with a startled look.

  Eldyn swallowed; his mouth tasted like blood. “Yes.”

  Dercy scratched his blond beard. “Angels above. I don’t know how it’s…Well, whatever or whoever that was, he won’t come after you here, not with all these people around.”

  “But it doesn’t—” Eldyn glanced at Sashie. She had moved a few paces off, slumping against a wall. He lowered his voice. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? Nothing will keep him away. He’ll never stop pursuing us. I can’t watch her, not every moment. Sooner or later he will find her alone, and he will get to her. There’s nowhere in this city that is safe for us.”

  Dercy laid a hand on Eldyn’s arm, his eyes worried. He opened his mouth to say something. At that moment, music rang out over the city: the bright tolling of evening bells. Suddenly he grinned.

  “You’re wrong,” Dercy said. “There is one place in this city where you’ll be safe.”

  Eldyn could only stare. He was beyond wondering.

  “Come on, we’d better hurry. The doors close after dark.”

  Taking Eldyn’s hand on the left and Sashie’s on the right, Dercy led them through the city toward the sound of the bells.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  WITH A PEN, Ivy pointed to each word of the spell on the paper as Mr. Rafferdy spoke them aloud. From what she had read in one of her father’s books of magick, a certain fluidity and cadence was required for a spell to be effective. If uttered too haltingly or in a stuttering fashion, it could fail—or worse, it might function but with unexpected consequences.

  The intent was not for him to speak the entire spell at once—they did not want to work it here in the parlor at the house on Whitward Street!—but rather to go through it in parts, to verify Mr. Rafferdy could pronounce all the words correctly. Alone, Ivy had tried to speak some of it herself and had found it all but impossible; her lips could not form the sounds. It was as if she lacked some innate capacity necessary to speak the language of magick. However, like a person who could not play an instrument but who could recognize every note of a symphony, she knew the words as well as Mr. Rafferdy did—perhaps even better—and could discern if he was speaking them correctly or not.

  She moved her pen at a steady pace, forcing him to speak more quickly than he might otherwise have done. The words of magick fell from his lips in a drone. There was a tension on the air like that before a storm. She moved the pen to the next line. Yes, that was it, just a few more words to—

  Ivy winced. The tension on the air cracked like the pane of a window slammed shut. Rafferdy leaned back in his chair, a hand to his forehead.

  Concern filled her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m quite well. Though if you wanted to pick up one of the andirons over there and strike me on the crown of my head, I imagine it could only improve things. Please, feel free.”

  Ivy set the pen on the table. “You’re getting better every time you read it, you know.”

  “That’s a very pretty way of saying I’m terrible. You think me a wretched excuse for a magician. Even now you are deciding how to tell me you intend to find someone else to help you. Do not worry. You need spare me no hurt. I will hardly feel it over the aching in my skull.”

  “I am thinking no such thing!” she said, rising. “You have done what I could never do—you nearly reached the end that time. I know that if you only keep…”

  She halted. He was looking up at her, his brown eyes alight.

  “You know perfectly well you’ve nearly mastered the spell,” she said, suddenly perturbed. She paced before the window. “You’ve known the whole while we’ve been sitting here!”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to think it was too easy for me. I’d rather you thought I was suffering. It makes me seem nobler, don’t you think?”

  She stopped and regarded him. “I hardly know what to make of you sometimes, Mr. Rafferdy. You disparage admiration even as you secretly encourage it. You are an exasperating man.”

  “You’ve only just now discovered this?”

  “Apparently I am not so clever as you. But since, as you have now revealed, you do not need the benefit of my tutelage, I will go upstairs and see to my sisters. I know that if they ask my help in something, it is because it is truly needed.”

  She started toward the parlor door, and at once he was on his feet, imploring her to stay, assuring her that her help was indeed needed, more than she could know. That new seriousness came to his face as he spoke, and she could only believe he was sincere.

  At last, Ivy agreed to stay. However, as she sat back down, she thought with some satisfaction that Mr. Rafferdy was not the only one who could gain a compliment when it was desired.

  “I really believe I’m beginning to master it,” he said. “Each time I meet with Mr. Bennick, I encounter more of the words of the spell in the Codex of Horestes. At first I thought it was only chance that I was encountering some of the same words of your father’s spell in the book.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Old Horestes used a word or phrase from the spell to name each of the places he went on his journey or the things he saw there. I didn’t realize it at first, but the words in the tale of his travels appear in the same order as they do in the spell.”

  “You mean the journey is the spell.”

  “It must be so. Mr. Bennick said magicians never tell anything in a straightforward manner.”

  Wonder filled her. “So instead of writing down the spell, he wove the words of it into a tale of a journey to mysterious lands.”

  “Just so, and we’re nearly to the end of the chapter. There were only a few pages left when last Mr. Bennick and I met. I’m sure to encounter the final words of the spell this next lesson. When I hear Mr. Bennick read them, I’ll know how they’re pronounced.”

  “Which means you’ll be able to speak the entire spell.”

  “I believe so. Only it’s odd, wouldn’t you say? That the book Mr. Bennick is having me read just happens to contain the spell your father set down in the letter he left you—it’s rather a brilliant stroke of luck.”

  “Perhaps not,” Ivy said after considering this for a moment. “After all, you asked Mr. Bennick to teach you how to do t
he very thing that the spell my father left for us does: renew an existing binding. It does not seem so unlikely that two magicians would think of the same spell for the same task. Indeed, it may be the only spell there is to accomplish such a thing.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be sensible about it, then I suppose you must be right,” Rafferdy said. He stood and went to the window. Outside, the light had gone gray. “His magick was taken from him, you know. I’ve thought about it, and it’s the only explanation. How else could it be that he no longer wears a House ring? And it’s more than that. I see the look in his eyes when I utter a spell. He can still speak the words, but there’s no power in them—even I can feel that. I wonder if he gave it up willingly.”

  Ivy stared, shocked by these words. “You think his magick might have been taken from him by force? Is that possible?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Either way, it must have happened a long time ago. By his own admission, he hasn’t performed magick in years, and I’m certain he couldn’t if he wanted to.”

  Ivy folded her arms. She hardly knew Mr. Bennick, but the thought of losing by force something so essential to one’s self, so much a part of one, left her with a chilled feeling. She shivered.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s only that…”

  “It’s only what?”

  She shook her head. “It’s foolish. You’ll mock me if I tell you.”

  “I only mock those who put on airs or wear awful hats. You do neither, Mrs. Quent.”

  Ivy gazed out the window. Twilight had settled like ash over the city. Never in her life had she told another how she felt at times when night fell, but she told him then: how sometimes it seemed that the darkness was a living thing, creeping through cracks and beneath doorways, seeking to consume all light, all life. On a moonless umbral, it was only the feeble protection of candles and streetlamps, and the faint aegis of the stars themselves, that kept it from devouring all the world.

  As she finished, she looked from the window and saw him staring at her. “There,” she said, trying to make her voice bright, “I knew you would laugh at me.”