“No,” I agreed glumly. “I imagine not.”
The expressions on the kneeling Roman soldiers’ faces, in the nearby painting, echoed my feelings rather well.
“Now.” Amy plopped down onto the bed and patted the mattress invitingly. “No more excuses from you, please, darling. What on earth were you and Wrexham up to out there, to send you home in such a state?” Her eyebrows furrowed, her expression becoming fierce. “He wasn’t insulting to you, was he?”
“No! Of course not.” I stalked over to the window, unable to hold her gaze. The curtains hadn’t been lowered yet; I gripped the window-frame with tight fingers, embracing the damp chill that emanated from the dark glass.
The protection spells scrolled in iron along the edges of this frame wouldn’t be enough to protect me if the elf-lord came; the last war we’d fought had been more than proof enough of that. No, these spells would only keep out a minor fairy, at the most...and even if I still possessed my old powers, I couldn’t fight back without sacrificing my nation’s safety in exchange.
It was a startlingly bitter gift to discover that I still had more to lose, after all, than I had spent the past two months believing.
But if I told my sister-in-law the truth of the danger I was facing, I might as well rip that treaty up with both hands and damn the safety of the rest of our nation forever...because Amy never, ever gave up on the people she loved.
No. I’d spent the past four months being cosseted by my family, but this was one problem I would have to face alone.
My reflection was a ghost in the window before me. I said, keeping my tone as idle as possible, “You don’t know of any weather wizards in this party, do you?”
“Here?” Amy, bless her, took the change of subject in stride. I saw her eyebrows rise in her reflection, but after only a moment’s pause, she said, “I imagine at least half the husbands here must work magic. I know all of the members of the Boudiccate married magicians, certainly. But I’ve never asked about any of their specialties. That was always...” She stopped abruptly, but I could easily finish her sentence for her:
That was always your business, not mine.
I took one long, steady breath and then another, my breath frosting the glass in front of me. “Would you find out, please?” I asked. “If you could?”
“Of course.” Amy’s tone gentled. “But darling...”
My shoulders stiffened. I knew that tone only too well.
“You know what the physicians said,” my sister-in-law murmured, with sympathetic pain lining every word. “Any use of magic is prohibited. I know that weather wizardry isn’t quite the same as the sort you used to work on—”
“Used to cast,” I gritted through my teeth. “I used to cast magic. That’s what it’s called.”
The pity on Amy’s reflected face was unbearable. I closed my eyes to shut it out, my fingers tightening around the window-frame.
“I beg your pardon,” I said quietly. “I shouldn’t have interrupted you so rudely.”
Amy sighed. “Never mind.” Silk swished behind me, followed by the brush of footsteps on the polished wooden floor. I opened my eyes and found her standing behind me with her folded hands resting on her rounded stomach, gazing gravely at my reflection in the window. “You know we’ll always help with anything you ask,” she said softly. “And I will ask about any weather wizards who might be here. But please, darling, remember: there is more to you than your magic. There always was.”
Her words pierced a too-thin shell inside my chest. I let out a half-laugh as pain flooded out through the opening. “Magic wasn’t just what I cast, it was what I was. You, of all people, should know that! By the time you met me—”
“I know,” she said firmly. “I know you. And I know how tightly you had to shut out everything else to keep from losing your own purpose and being swept away by your mother’s great plans for you instead. But I know something else, too: Wrexham, for one, never wanted you for your magic.”
“Oh, Amy.” Giving up, I tipped my head forward against the damp, cold glass, letting my eyes fall shut as memories overwhelmed me. “Of course he did,” I said in a near-whisper. “If you knew just how strong our castings used to be when we worked together...” It had been a perfect partnership. It had been beyond exhilarating. It had been...
“He would have left you four months ago if that was all he’d cared about,” said my sister-in-law flatly.
I pulled myself upright, shaking myself out of the maudlin memories as I gathered my strength and turned to face her. “Wrexham is a good man,” I said wearily. “He would never willingly abandon anyone in need, much less someone he’d cared about. And when you add in his sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness...”
“Yes?” Amy raised her eyebrows, looking ironic.
If there was a message in that expression, I had no interest in reading it. Instead, I gritted my teeth and met her gaze full-on. “I have no interest in being Wrexham’s pity project,” I bit out, “or the burden hanging about his neck. And fortunately, I don’t have to resign myself to either fate—because, although you seem to have somehow forgotten this, we are no longer betrothed!”
“Hmm.” Amy gave me a measuring look. Then, maddeningly, her lips curved into an understanding smile. “You are tired,” she said. “It wasn’t only an excuse after all.” Reaching out, she patted my arm consolingly. “I’ll see you at supper-time. You’ll feel better by then.”
Argh! I had to press my lips together to keep my groan of frustration from emerging.
The moment that the door closed behind her, I gave in. Scooping up a pillow from the bed, I pressed it to my face and let out a safely muffled howl.
There was some satisfaction in letting my feelings out, after all. But it couldn’t change the truth.
In only two hours, the supper bell would ring. Wrexham would be waiting. So would Amy...and so would a whole party full of happy, practicing magicians, laughing and toasting and arguing over spells that I would never, ever be allowed to cast again.
Cowardly though it might be, I wanted to barricade my bedroom door and stay hidden in this room for the next two full weeks of our visit. But...
“You have one se’ennight.” The elf-lord’s remembered voice whispered in my ear.
I set my teeth and braced myself as I dropped the pillow back onto my bed.
It was time to prepare myself for an evening of social gaiety...because like it or not, I had a rogue magician to catch and only one week in which to do it.
6
When the supper bell sounded, deep and pure, two hours later, I rose from the edge of my bed where I’d been waiting and walked toward the door with my head held high. No more hiding, I told myself firmly.
I had drunk a full pot of hot, fortifying tea. I had spent a satisfying half-hour coming up with my most inventive curses for the situation. And most importantly of all, I had prepared myself for social warfare.
If there was one thing that Angland’s greatest politician had successfully taught her recalcitrant daughter, it was the usefulness of a really good set of sartorial armor.
Tonight, I was wearing my finest bronze silk gown with a golden, braided rope belted underneath my bosom and a chain of shining pearls around my neck. A shawl of shimmering fey-silk was draped gracefully around my shoulders, and my long-suffering maid, Aoife, had arranged my hair into a braided crown worthy of Boudicca herself.
I was ready. No matter who or what awaited me outside—whether it was Amy, Wrexham, or the elf lord himself—I would meet them with calm confidence and sweep unhindered on my way.
I turned the stag-shaped door handle and stepped out onto the carpeted corridor, braced for battle.
It was empty. From the top to bottom of the long hallway, I didn’t see a single soul.
My shoulders sagged with relief. Letting out my held breath, I turned left and started at an easy pace for the staircase...just as the door across from mine flew open.
“Oh!” The voice that s
poke behind me was young, female and breathy, and it was all too horribly familiar. “What a surprise! I mean, Miss Harwood, what a marvelous coincidence it is that we both happened to be ready at the exact same moment!”
Oh, for...
It was the most appallingly bad acting that I had ever witnessed. I squeezed my eyes shut in pain as I stopped, forced by courtesy to reply despite myself.
“Miss Banks,” I said flatly. “What a marvelous coincidence indeed.”
“Isn’t it?” Beaming, she swooped in on me, letting her door fall heavily shut behind her. No longer covered by a heavy cloak, her fair hair was curled into fine ringlets about her thin white face, which was gently flushed with excitement. “I was so hoping to find the chance to have another chat with you!”
“Were you?” I asked dryly. “I had no idea.”
But it was impossible to escape such a well-planned ambush with mere sarcasm. Smiling hopefully, Miss Banks took her place at my side. “Shall we walk to supper together?”
I hesitated, my gaze searching the corridor with real hope this time. If only another guest would emerge to join us now...
No such luck. Every door in the corridor remained firmly closed, and the sound of convivial cheer floated up through the floorboards. Apparently, we were the last stragglers. So be it.
“How delightful,” I said, and strode down the hallway as swiftly as I could.
She hurried to keep up. “I’ve been longing to speak to you for simply ages, Miss Harwood! You have no idea how many questions I want to ask you. How you managed your entry into the Great Library in the first place, and whether it was difficult to be the only lady there, and, if you would—if you could explain to me exactly what went wrong, when you lost your powers all those months ago—”
“Miss Banks.” I swung around, stopping in my path and baring my teeth in the vicious parody of a smile. “I have not lost my powers. I am perfectly capable of casting a spell now with just as great an effect as I could have managed five months ago.”
“But...” Her blonde eyebrows drew together. “I thought—that is, everyone said...you know, everyone has been saying—”
“The spell would still work,” I said tightly, “but I wouldn’t.” At the sight of her baffled expression, I jerked my shoulders impatiently, trying to loosen the knotted muscles of my back. “Casting any spell, even a small one...would kill me. Apparently.”
“Because—women really aren’t suited to magic, after all?” Her brown eyes looked suddenly huge and tragic. “Is that why it happened?”
“No!” I snapped. “Being a woman had nothing to do with it. The same could have happened to any gentleman magician—and it has in the past.” Not often, certainly; but it was enough of a risk that our teachers at the Great Library had warned us of the danger of over-extending ourselves in our training, and Jonathan had found mentions of similar incidents all throughout the library’s historical records. The effect was rare, but hardly unheard of.
I had still thought, at the time, that it was worth the risk...but only because I’d never actually believed that any such thing could ever happen to me.
The memory of my own reckless folly was unbearable.
I glared at my interrogator, giving up on subtlety. “This,” I said, “is a deeply personal line of enquiry, Miss Banks. May I ask why you feel so free to pursue it with a stranger?”
Her fair skin flushed in a wave of red that swept up from her neck to cover her cheeks. Still, she stood her ground and held my gaze. “I have to,” she said quietly. “I have no choice, you see. If I can’t prove that what happened to you won’t happen to me, I’ll never be allowed into the Great Library myself.”
My eyes widened. We stared at each other for a moment in silence, as my heartbeat suddenly thrummed through my skin and her words echoed through my head.
“I’ll never be allowed into the Great Library...”
“You...want to study magic?” My voice sounded strangely distant in my ears.
She nodded, her thin face pinched with tension. “I must,” she said. “I’ve always yearned to. And now—now, it’s the only way. For me and for Miss Fennell, both.”
What? I shook my head, remembering that jolly, striding creature I’d met earlier. “Miss Fennell wants to study magic, too? I thought she was famously politically minded.” She’d certainly seemed like a young woman destined to run the nation one day, whether the nation happened to care for the experience or not.
“She is,” said Miss Banks. “And she’ll enter the Boudiccate within the next ten years, I’m certain of it. It’s what she’s always dreamed of, just as I’ve always dreamed of magic. But...” She stopped, and drew a breath. “If she wants to be accepted as a member, she has to marry a magician. Lady Cosgrave told her so. Otherwise, she’ll be like your sister-in-law—never quite accepted into the inner circle.”
“What?” I demanded. The sudden influx of information in that brave, wavering voice was overwhelming. “What does Amy have to do with all of this?”
Miss Banks shrugged unhappily. “We’ve all heard the story. It was Boudicca’s second, magician-husband who stood by her side when she led her great rebellion, and helped her expel Rome from our shores forever. Now, each member of the Boudiccate is expected to form that partnership in her own turn.”
Whereas Amy...Amy was already married to Jonathan, my history-loving brother, who had fought just as hard to escape his magical heritage as I had fought to claim it.
How had I never made that connection before?
Of course my mother had never felt required to warn me of that rule. She would have simply assumed that I would marry a magician, as every other woman in our family had for generations. Knowing my own rebellious pull toward magic, she would have considered it a foregone conclusion.
Still, Amy must have known the rule, too—even discussed it with Lady Cosgrave when she was so pointedly passed over for my mother’s seat on the Boudiccate. I’d never understood why that snub had occurred...but then, she would never have told me or Jonathan that truth, would she? She would have been far too concerned with saving our feelings even as her own were trampled.
My jaw clenched as fury built inside me. “What utter idiocy,” I snarled. “As if there weren’t plenty of magicians ready to defend the Boudiccate, without any marriages being involved in the matter.”
“Nevertheless, it’s still the rule,” said Miss Banks quietly. “And that’s why I have to study magic, you see. It’s the only way that Miss Fennell and I can wed.”
Her words lingered for a moment in the nearly-empty hallway before I made any sense of them. Then my eyebrows rose. “Oh,” I said. “Oh.”
Well, that wasn’t unheard of either...at least not in ordinary society. It was a truth universally acknowledged that women were the more pragmatic sex; that was why we were expected to run the government, while men attended to the more mystical and imaginative realm of magic. So it was commonly accepted that every once in a while, two ladies with no interest in bearing children might well find a more sensible match in each other than in a gentleman.
And yet...
“Would they allow it?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of a Boudiccate member without a husband.” I’d accepted that all my life as mere hidebound tradition, without ever thinking the matter through—but of course, now that Miss Banks had pointed it out, their mimicry of the great Boudicca’s own pairing was obvious. How had I not solved that mystery myself long ago, to finally understand the reasons behind Amy’s snub?
The answer was damnably simple: Because I wasn’t paying enough attention.
That decision had been made just after my mother’s death, when I’d been beset by grief for her loss and for all those bitter battles that we would never have a chance, anymore, to forgive...but even as I’d wept and raged every night for her cut-short life, I’d spent my days at the Library in a grim blur of unbroken focus, throwing myself into my studies harder than ever before.
Oh, I’d stil
l been outraged for Amy’s sake when I’d heard the news, for all that she’d made light of her disappointment in her letters to me...
But when it really came down to it, one truth had dominated: It wasn’t magic, so I hadn’t been interested enough to pursue the matter any further.
It was an uncomfortable realization to make about myself. More uncomfortable yet was Miss Banks’s steady, expectant stare as it rested on my face. “There never was a lady who cast magic, either,” she said, “until you.”
“Quite.” I swallowed hard.
What had I told myself, only minutes earlier? Time to stop hiding, indeed.
I’d retreated to the safety of my old bedroom in my family house and locked out every visitor so that I would never have to hear what the world might say of my notorious fall.
But clearly, there were other women who had been listening while I’d stayed sheltered with my fingers in my ears.
None of them deserved to be denied their own future for my failures.
A door opened in the corridor behind us. The sound of a tuneless whistle emerged.
I took a deep breath. “I will tell you everything,” I promised Miss Banks in a whispered rush. “And I’ll do it within a se’ennight.” I could put it off no longer. “Will you walk with me in Lord Cosgrave’s knot garden one morning after breakfast? We can talk privately then.”
“Of course.” Her face blazed with such hope, it was painful to look upon.
Had I looked that way, too, when I’d first sensed the doors of the Great Library opening to me?
The whistling behind us broke off. “I say!”
It was my older brother’s voice; I turned to find Jonathan smiling affably, his thick brown hair rumpled as if he’d been pulling at it with his fingers and a dab of dark blue ink smeared against his jaw. “I thought I’d be the last one to supper,” he said. “I’m glad to find you two still here. I had to finish up a rather urgent note I was writing—a bit of an addendum to that article of mine for the Journal of Deniscan Studies. I’ve been reading the proof copies, you see, and they’ve got the footnotes all wrong!”
Snowspelled: Volume I of The Harwood Spellbook Page 5
