by M. J. Putney
“With thirty or so ships, the Irish fleet must be carrying more than ten thousand troops,” Mr. Stephens said tightly. “Even the small squadron could transport over a thousand men.”
Tory sucked in her breath. “We’ve all seen the defense preparations here in the southeast, where invasion is most likely. Militia units and Martello towers and all sorts of fortifications. Even the magical wards are concentrated here. A successful attack in the west, where there are fewer defenses, will create panic all over Britain.”
Mr. Stephens nodded grimly. “If the French attack in areas that feel safe, there will be a firestorm of reaction. Perhaps to the point where the population will demand a peace treaty with France.”
Fairmount Hall, Tory’s family home, was built on the Somersetshire coast in southwest England. There were local militia units, of course, but their coast had none of the fortifications found around the Kentish coast, where Lackland was located. The thought of French troops landing near her home, perhaps burning Fairmount Hall … She shuddered at the stark knowledge that such a thing could happen.
“If the French invade, some people might want peace, but many others will fight,” Jack said firmly. “Since we can’t be sure of their strategy, let’s just blast those ships away from their goal with weather magic.”
No more discussion was needed—Tory felt the assent of everyone in the circle. Jack and Cynthia, the weather mages, were so much in harmony that they needed no blending of energies. Tory had only to channel the power in the circle to them.
She smiled with grim satisfaction to know that the French ships would be in trouble very soon.
CHAPTER 5
Cynthia squeezed Jack’s hand as the combined magic was channeled to the two weather mages. Cynthia and Jack had always worked well together, even when she couldn’t stand him. Since becoming a couple, they’d become an even better magical team. She loved his kisses, but she loved the emotional intimacy when they worked closely together just as much.
She let Jack take the lead as he searched for a storm system that they could move toward the French ships. He had more raw power and range than she, but she was better at sending weather exactly where they wanted it to go.
She felt his mental frown through their magical bond. “There isn’t much weather to work with,” he said aloud. “The French ships have a good wind, and there aren’t any major storms for hundreds of miles, which is unusual. We’ll have to pull a storm from quite a distance if we want something strong enough to disrupt the fleet.”
“Try the Arctic regions. One can usually find some good storms there,” Cynthia suggested.
After a pause while Jack searched through enormously complex weather patterns for hundreds of miles, he replied, “I’ve found a fine storm west of Norway. We can drive it down over the North Sea. That will take time, so we need to displace the good winds the French have now so they’ll be becalmed.”
Cynthia nodded. “First the winds. Then we can bring on the storm! I’ll aim the heart of it at the fleet heading toward Ireland, but the storm is large enough that it will blast the smaller group of ships as well.”
Jack joined his magic with hers as smoothly as a kiss, and they easily shifted the moderate winds away from the French fleet. Elspeth reported, “Well done! The French sails are flapping and the ships are almost dead in the water.”
“Now for that Arctic storm…” Jack reached north through the night.
Cynthia laughed with exhilaration as she discovered what a large, lively tempest he’d found. She loved working with storms. Wind and rain, thunder and lightning, yes!
She felt like a magical otter, diving into the storm’s power and playing in the winds just as real otters played in the water. When she and Jack did major weather work, they became a pair of otters playing together. It was very romantic, in a way that could be experienced only by two weather mages.
Using the combined magic of the other magelings made this weather working particularly enjoyable. She and Jack started herding the storm south across the North Sea. He did most of the heavy work of changing the storm’s course, while Cynthia coaxed it into exactly the right track to sweep it through the French fleet.
She didn’t really want the ships to sink and the sailors to drown. But she wanted the masts broken, the sails torn, the ships left helpless in the water a good safe distance from Britain. Then the French sailors could be captured by the Royal Navy and imprisoned until the war was over.
She exhaled with satisfaction when she had the storm moving exactly where she wanted it to go. Weather never wanted to behave, so a bit of tweaking would probably be required later, but for the next hours, no more work would be required.
Jack said, “Now that we’ve done that, I’m ravenous and ready to find what was in the food basket my mother packed for us. Does anyone want to use the circle energies before we close? Elspeth—”
Before he could finish the sentence, a gigantic fist of power slammed into the circle, battering and bruising minds and magic. There were gasps of shock, and the ring of magic shattered painfully as clasped hands were torn apart. Cynthia felt as if she were being hurled from a high place, plunging down, down, down into a drowning sea.
“French mages trying to stop us!” Jack gasped. As soon as he recognized the attack, he launched his power at the enemy.
Cynthia sensed him blocking and deflecting the destructive energy, as if he were a lightning rod drawing off a searing bolt. As the enemy attack shifted away, her mind cleared and she no longer felt as if she were falling out of control.
But all around her was chaos as the Irregulars struggled to recover from the assault. And Jack …
He collapsed, knocking over his chair as he crumpled to the floor and his hand dragged out of Cynthia’s. She cried out as she realized that Jack’s mind and magic were being torn apart by the attackers. He was sacrificing himself to protect them.
Scorching rage blazed through her. Recklessly she followed the fearsome energy back to the mages who were creating it. They were in France, eight or ten of them joined in a circle much like hers. They’d been keeping bad weather away from the French fleet and supplying fast, steady winds until the Irregulars had thwarted them.
Now the French devils wanted revenge.
An enemy mage sensed Cynthia and struck at her, but she parried the blow and called out to her friends, “Join hands again and send me all the power you have!”
“What are you going to do?” Miss Wheaton asked in a thin, ragged voice.
“I’m going to burn them!” Cynthia hissed. She’d lost her grip on Tory’s hand during the attack, so she reached out. Tory’s fingers locked around hers again.
Cynthia felt a solid pulse of power that became stronger and stronger as the circle regrouped. Allarde’s deep, smooth energy. The experienced power of Miss Wheaton and Mr. Stephens. Mrs. Rainford, burning with an anger to match Cynthia’s.
Elspeth reached across Jack’s empty place to clasp Cynthia’s hand. Cynthia wanted to wail with anguish, but there was no time to check Jack’s condition now. The enemy must be stopped before all the Irregulars were damaged beyond repair.
As Tory channeled the combined magic, Cynthia forged it into a flaming spear of furious power. When she’d gathered and focused all her friends’ energy, she hurled her magical weapon into the heart of the enemy circle.
The raging power blasted through the French mages like wildfire, draining their magic and hammering their minds. Cynthia could hear their wordless, agonized screams, but ruthlessly she continued her assault, engulfing her enemies in burning power until the last spark of magic had been smashed.
Then she slid dizzily into darkness.
* * *
The aftermath of the magical battle left Tory shaking. She was also, she realized, wrapped in Allarde’s arms. He’d been sitting to her right, and in the cacophony of the magical attack they’d instinctively turned to each other. His heart was hammering under her ear and his breathing was as ragged as he
rs, but in his embrace she felt safe.
When the world steadied, she straightened, though still holding on to him. “Are you all right, Justin?”
“I feel like I’ve been swept over a waterfall and crashed into the rocks below, but there’s no permanent damage done,” he said wryly.
She glanced around the circle. Others were stirring. Elspeth was bent over, her face buried in her hands, while Mrs. Rainford’s fists were clenched and her eyes were screwed shut. Mr. Stephens held Miss Wheaton and his face was buried in her soft brown hair. Cynthia had folded over onto the table and her head rested on her crossed arms as she gulped for air.
Jack was missing. Terrified, Tory shot to her feet and saw that his chair had tipped over and he lay sprawled on the floor. Dear God, he wasn’t breathing!
In an instant, she closed the distance between them and knelt beside his limp body. She gave thanks when she saw a pulse beating in his throat, but he still wasn’t breathing. “Elspeth, Miss Wheaton, Jack needs healing energy now!”
Elspeth had been sitting on Jack’s other side, so she slipped from her chair to kneel beside him and flatten her palms on his chest. As she closed her eyes and sent healing energy, she was joined by Miss Wheaton. The teacher rested her hands on Jack’s temples and murmured, “Breathe for me, Jack. Breathe!”
Mrs. Rainford joined them, tears glinting in her eyes as she took her son’s hand. “Don’t you dare die, Jack!” she said, her voice shaking. “I will not permit it!”
Tory rested one hand on Elspeth’s shoulder and the other on Miss Wheaton’s shoulder so she could use her talent for enhancing the magic of others. Despite the three of them working together, the flow of energy was worrisomely low even when Allarde and Mr. Stephens rested hands on her shoulder to add their power.
After what seemed like an eternity of anxiety, Jack gasped and began breathing again, though his eyes remained closed. Mrs. Rainford sighed with relief, her lips moving silently in a prayer of thanks. Then she rose and collected a blanket and pillow from a sofa and made Jack comfortable, staying beside him as he rested quietly.
As Elspeth wearily returned to her chair and began helping Cynthia, Allarde offered a hand to help Tory from the floor. “Apart from Jack, everyone seems to be more or less all right,” he said. “Did anyone suffer burnout of their magic?”
Mr. Stephens frowned as he evaluated his power. “I’m not burned out, but I am very drained. It will be several days before I’m back to normal.” He ran stiff fingers through his hair, his expression haggard. “We need to discuss what happened.”
“First we need to eat. Burning so much magic has addled everyone.” Allarde retrieved the basket of food the Rainfords had brought and began passing out meat pies. Since Cynthia was still dazed, Tory took pies and a teapot to Mrs. Rainford, who was a powerful hearth witch and could heat the food and tea water. The heating took longer than usual, more proof of how depleted everyone had become.
Tory was so ravenous that she fell on her beef-and-onion pie like a starving wolf. As she went back for a second, Jack’s eyes opened. He was silent instead of making his usual teasing comments, but he managed to get to his feet and sit between Cynthia and his mother. After eating his way through five meat pies and a slab of cheese, he began to look almost normal.
“We’re down to a handsome fruitcake. Your kitchen is wondrous, Mrs. Rainford.” Allarde carefully cut the dense cake into eight pieces and passed them out. “Which reminds me. Could you buy two large sugar loaves for us to send forward to our friends in 1940?”
“It will be my pleasure,” she said dryly. “In my experience, magelings couldn’t survive without sugar.”
Perhaps Mrs. Rainford was right, because after burning large amounts of magic, Tory was ready to eat her own weight in sweet cakes. She made a point of consuming her fruitcake slowly, savoring the sweetness of the dried fruit and the crunch of the nuts as she washed each bite down with her third cup of tea.
After polishing off the last crumbs, she said, “Now that good food has restored our wits, if not our magic—what happened? I gather that a circle of French mages were helping their ships break out and attack Ireland and Britain?”
Jack nodded, his hands clasped around his tea mug. “There were nine of them, I think. All men and older than we are. I don’t think they had as much individual magic, but they were very experienced. They knew how to use their power as a weapon.”
“We seem to have learned that very quickly,” Allarde said dryly. “Cynthia, I’m almost afraid to ask what you did after saying you’d burn them.”
“I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re wondering, though I might have if I’d been able to.” Cynthia’s eyes narrowed like an angry cat’s. “But I did manage to burn out their power. It will be days, at least, probably weeks, before they can do much to help Napoleon again.”
Jack frowned. “We temporarily burned out that circle, but I had the sense that it was just one group within a larger organization of mages. This group was made up of weather mages, but there must be other sorts of magic workers.”
“A depressing thought,” Allarde said, “but at least most forms of magic don’t work over distances the way weather magic does.”
“Jack and Cynthia, I’d like to have a medal struck in thanks for what you two did to protect us,” Mr. Stephens said. “Can you still work weather? I’m guessing not.”
Jack and Cynthia shared a glance. She said, “My power is down, but I should be able to tweak our storm if needed.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to do major weather work for a few days,” Jack admitted. “But I’m not completely burned.”
“We’ll have to hope the French squadrons don’t recover and make it to land before we can stop them,” Allarde said soberly. “But for now, we all need to rest. Shall we meet again in two nights?”
After nods of agreement, the Irregulars did a brief closing circle to smooth out their ruffled energy. Tory guessed that most of the magelings were at about a quarter of their usual power, with Jack very close to burnout. She gave a silent prayer that they would recover quickly enough to prevent the horror of a French invasion.
When the circle ended, Allarde said, “I’m going to check to see if any messages have come through Merlin’s Mirror. Will you join me, Tory?”
She never turned down an opportunity to be alone with him. Taking his arm, she accompanied him into the tunnel that led back to the time portal. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, Allarde’s arm came around Tory’s shoulders to tuck her close to his side. Usually his energy seemed limitless, but tonight even he seemed tired.
There were no messages at the mirror. Tory turned and linked her hands around his neck. “I assume you have other reasons for coming back here.”
He laughed. “Indeed I do.” He bent into a kiss that made her pulse quicken and her energy rise. He murmured, “You are the best cure for burnout imaginable.”
“I try,” she said modestly.
He caught her gaze with his, his eyes serious. “I’m writing the letter to my father to inform him that I choose you over my inheritance. It’s … taking time.”
“Finding the right words must be terribly difficult,” she said, her heart aching for him. “I hope you never regret your choice.”
“I won’t.” He smiled with a warmth that curled her toes. “And now for one more kiss to remind me why I’ll have no regrets!”
CHAPTER 6
Lackland, 1940
Rebecca’s first day of school arrived, and she dressed carefully in the Lackland school uniform that Mrs. Rainford had provided. The straight gray skirt, white shirt, and navy blue jacket looked crisp and serious, and a dark red tie added a dash of brightness. All she needed now was to fill the empty leather book bag Mrs. Rainford had given her.
After tying her dark hair back neatly, she examined herself in the mirror. It was such a relief to look like a proper schoolgirl again. She’d worn the same dress day and night for months when impris
oned in France. After reaching England, she and her family had ceremonially burned the clothing they’d worn in captivity.
Polly wasn’t yet recovered enough from her blood poisoning to go to school, so Rebecca and Mrs. Rainford walked together to the village. Nick had already left for his school. As she walked down the footpath, Rebecca had a clear view of the harbor and the English Channel beyond. She’d grown up inland in France, but she realized that she loved the sea. She hoped she could always live near it.
The Lackland Girls Grammar School was a wide brick building with playing fields behind it. Rebecca guessed that it had been built sometime in the late nineteenth century, and many, many students had passed through it.
As they approached, Mrs. Rainford said, “How is your ability to read emotions and minds coming along? It will surely be useful when starting at a new school.”
“I can already feel the students in the building,” Rebecca admitted. “I’ve been learning how to ignore routine emotions and notice only what is unusual.” She gestured at the school. “I feel what one would expect. Thoughts about classes and exams and friends and family.” She smiled. “And boys.”
Mrs. Rainford laughed. “Rather a lot of thoughts of boys, I’m sure. Nick’s school is only a block away.” As they climbed the steps to the front door, she added, “I don’t want to hover too closely since that might make you the target of resentment from some students. But if you need help, I’m never far away.”
Rebecca nodded her thanks. But even after that reassurance, her palms were damp as they entered the school. She’d led a protected life until the Nazis came to arrest her family.
The halls were empty, though Rebecca could feel a low churn of emotions in the classrooms. The headmistress’s office was near the front door. Mrs. Rainford led the way in, introducing Rebecca to the school secretary before taking her into the headmistress’s private office. As they walked in, Mrs. Rainford said, “Good morning, Miss Smythe. This is Rebecca Weiss, the student I told you about.”
