“Show me your thoughts,” the dragon breathed, whispering aloud.
She could no more have resisted that demand than she could have resisted a flood sweeping her away. She felt her mind fall open, and sensed the dragon poring over what it found there, turning over this and that bit, quite as if it was examining its own treasure-hoard. Strangely, she didn’t mind; not when it turned over the thoughts she’d been having about Jack, not when it stirred the memories of Dick, not when it reached back and looked through her eyes as a child.
She couldn’t have moved if it had set her on fire.
Finally its head rose a little, and it looked down at her through multi-faceted eyes, greater jewels within the bejeweled head.
“You are worthy,” it said, then opened its mouth.
Rather than a gout of flames, the raging inferno she had half expected, what came from its mouth was a sort of gentle cloud of white fire, a cloud that settled over her, making her skin tingle, leaving her feeling a hundred times more alive than she ever had before.
“You are blessed with the breath of the dragon,” the creature whispered. “Care for my children, and you will always be so blessed. Protect my children, and you will always be protected.”
The great wings came around and cupped over her, feeling like a benediction.
Then the white dragon spread its wings wide, and flung itself into the sky, or what passed for sky here, somehow managing to take off without disturbing a hair on her head.
And that was when she woke up.
She lay there for a long, long time as the morning sun shone in her window, trying to work out if that had just been an unusually vivid dream or if it had actually been something real—even though it clearly didn’t take place in the real world that she knew.
A little bit of brightness caught her eye, and she turned her head to see a salamander standing on her pillow, staring at her.
Would it—?
Well, why not ask?
“Did I just dream all that?” she asked it.
Slowly, gravely, it shook its head from side to side.
“There really was a dragon?” she breathed, hardly able to believe it.
It nodded.
“And it—”
The salamander nodded vigorously, then rubbed its cheek against hers and turned three times and vanished.
She slowly sat up, and touched her cheek where the salamander had caressed her like a tiny cat.
“Well,” she said aloud. “I never.”
12
���WELL . . .” said Jack, as soon as Katie had left. “I told her Peggy had let the cat out of the bag, and she didn’t hit me with your mother’s precious toby jug.”
“And a good thing too, or my sainted mother would probably haunt you for the rest of your days.” Lionel’s eyes rested for a moment on the “precious toby jug,” a piece of unremarkable china-work that stood about four inches high, shaped like the late Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. The handle was a banner proclaiming the Great Exhibition of London in 1851. It had been his mother’s pride, for she had gotten it as a treasured bridal souvenir from her new husband on the occasion of her honeymoon in London to view that same Great Exhibition. For some reason, his mother had been as sentimental about Prince Albert as the Queen herself had been. Hanging on the wall all of his life, there had been a portrait of Albert with a printed black wreath around it, and a black ribbon on top of the frame. The toby jug had been the centerpiece of the china cabinet. As a child, the damned thing had frightened Lionel with its blank, staring eyes that always seemed to be looking at you no matter where you were, and it had haunted his dreams. He was just grateful it had always been kept in the china cabinet and that it wasn’t any larger than it was.
For some reason, Mrs. Buckthorn had taken an irrational liking to it, and had placed it in pride-of-place in the drawing room. I should just give it to her for Christmas, Lionel decided in a fit of inspiration. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Mother would like that, she only left it to me because I didn’t have children to break it. Mrs. Buckthorn would cherish the wretched thing and pass it on to someone else who would cherish it. Possibly one of the small herd of married daughters she had.
“Are you actually listening to me, or has that jug got you mesmerized again?” Jack asked.
Lionel shook himself out of the woolgathering he was doing about the toby jug and turned his attention back to Jack. “Katie actually took what I had to say to her very well,” Jack said. “I think perhaps we’ve been underestimating her. She’s got better control of her feelings than I did at that age.”
“She’s had to,” Lionel felt compelled to point out. “Brutes like that beast of a husband take any sort of display of emotion the way a bull reacts to a red rag. It’s a sign to attack.”
Jack nodded, and Lionel wondered if he should take that as an opening to ask about—well—the hand-holding. It might have been perfectly innocent. It might have been fatherly, or meant to comfort. He doubted it, but it might have been.
But, as usual, Jack shot right past Lionel’s hesitation and went straight to the mark. He sighed, and his whole expression softened, and he smiled. “Once we got past her husband, I asked her. She’s going to have me, Lionel. Once she’s free, she’s going to have me.”
Lionel would have asked a regular fellow if this wasn’t more than a bit sudden—but he knew, as every Elemental Magician knew, that when two magicians were right for each other, there was no such thing as “more than a bit sudden.” People who weren’t magicians could pother and hesitate, and beat around as many bushes as they liked—and decide, in the end, to break it off. Magicians knew. Maybe not right from the moment that they met, but the more time together they spent, the more they were drawn together until it became a literal force of nature that it took a great deal to break. He’d heard of magicians who’d met for the first time on a weekend, and by midweek were in Gretna Green getting married, having no patience for the few weeks it would take to post banns and get a license as most people did.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said, lightly. “When you two get married, I won’t lose the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
Jack barked a startled laugh. “You selfish git!” he replied, mostly in jest, though with a hint of irritation. “Is that all you can say? Here I’ve gone for years, thinking no woman would ever want to be saddled with a cripple, then I find the dearest, sweetest girl in the world, and she’s a Fire Magician, and she wants me, and all you can think about is that you won’t lose your assistant?”
“It’s not me she’s marrying,” Lionel pointed out, and laughed. “Oh, congratulations, old man. Where would you like to go for a honeymoon? A nice volcano, like Vesuvius? That should suit a couple of fire magicians.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Jack growled. “First we’ve got to get her free. Of course, since she’s said she’ll have me . . .” A shrewd expression crept over his face. “She can’t object to my helping her with that divorce of hers. I’ve got a nice packet put away for a rainy day. I shan’t mind spending it to make a sunny one come faster.”
“I’m just a trifle concerned that she’s living in that boarding house, though, Jack,” Lionel said, interrupting whatever thoughts he was having. “She’s very new to the power and she’s coming on it very fast. If there should be an accident—all those girls—”
Jack’s expression became serious immediately. “Good Gad, I never thought of that. You’re right, of course. Things popped up around me all the time when I came into my power, but of course, my father was there to keep them under control, and my mother couldn’t have seen them if they’d danced in front of her nose. But who knows which of those girls there has just enough of the magic to be able to get a glimpse of such things? Particularly if they’re feeling curious.”
“I’m not so concerned with t
hings that people can’t see, but there are some that people can,” Lionel replied, and poured them both a brandy. “Fire sprites, for instance, who are having no qualms about turning up on stage with her! What if one decides to go exploring other rooms?”
“Well, how do we get her to move out?” Jack came straight to that point, and it was a good one. “She’s comfortable, she’s happy, and she’s well-cared for. More to the point, the lodging is cheap, and she is trying to save every penny.”
“We make up the difference, and don’t tell her.” Lionel had already made up his mind at this point. “We just tell her about accidents, let her own imagination work for a bit, then tell her we found a little furnished house for her at the same rate Mrs. Baird charges. The drawback will be she’ll have to cook and do for herself. The advantage will be she won’t have to be back by a certain hour in order to eat or face possibly being locked out. And her Elementals will be able to prowl without sending a house full of girls out into the street, thinking the place is about to burn down.”
“How will we—” Jack began.
Lionel just waved at him. “I’ll deal with that part. My banker found this house, he can find me another. Besides, once we convince her, it’ll be three magicians with the same goal again. Remember what happened the last time.”
Jack sucked on his lower lip. “A bit frightening how fast it happened, actually,” he pointed out.
“All the better in this case. Now,” Lionel said firmly. “I thought there was a certain weakness in the way she was handling her shields, but I’m not the Fire Mage . . .”
• • •
When Katie came down to breakfast, she found the table full of girls jabbering away at a much higher volume than usual. One of the girls was full of stories about “a dreadful little thing with eyes like fire!” that had looked at her out of the fireplace. Half of the others wanted to hear all about it, the other half were making fun of her. Finally Mrs. Baird herself put a stop to all the jabber.
“There has never been a haunt in my house,” she said, firmly. “And there never will be while I’m in it! You, Miss Jenny—you were eating nothing but jam sandwiches last night at supper, and I saw you!”
Shamefaced, but a little bewildered, Jenny confessed that was exactly what she had been doing.
“Well then,” Mrs. Baird said, sternly. “It’s no wonder you was seeing things and having bad dreams, stuffing yourself with sweet things before bed! You’ll be leaving off the jam at night, if that’s what’s going to happen to you.”
Hastily, Jenny promised that she wouldn’t stuff herself with jam before going to bed, and Mrs. Baird subsided. But—a thing in the fireplace with fiery eyes? Katie was altogether too certain of what that was, and it rather alarmed her. Why would one of her salamanders or sprites go wandering out of her room—and how was it that Jenny had been able to see it?
She finished her breakfast quickly, then went early to the hall, and caught Jack just as he was unlocking for the day, before anyone else was around.
“One of the girls saw one of my Elementals last night,” she said urgently, before he’d even had a chance to greet her. “How could that happen? And why? And—”
“Slowly, Kate,” he cautioned her, nodding toward one of the stagehands coming toward them from the alley. “This might be a better topic for later.”
She hated to put it off, but he was right, and she knew it. So she retreated to her dressing room and comforted herself with the certainty that if Jack hadn’t gotten alarmed, he certainly knew what was going on, and he certainly knew what she should do about it.
The rehearsals went smoothly, although now that the dance act had been established, Charlie predictably wanted to muck about with it to make it more “peppy,” and fussed about looking at the dances from every angle in the hall. Finally though, everyone broke for luncheon, and Lionel told Charlie that “If you don’t stop flapping about like a meddling old crow, I am going to turn you into one.”
Fortunately, at that point, Mrs. Charlie, who had turned up to run her eyes over the new act (and, Katie suspected, make sure Charlie didn’t have an unprofessional interest in the dancer in question) decreed that if Charlie didn’t take her out for luncheon that minute, she was going to go shopping.
That was threat enough to make Charlie cut the session short, and finally Lionel, Jack, and Katie were able to descend to the workroom and what privacy there was in the hall.
They both listened to what she had to tell them without interruption. Lionel cleared his throat when she was done.
“Well, the obvious reason this girl saw your Elemental was because she could,” he told her. “Some people have just a touch of magic, enough, when they’re in the right frame of mind, to be able to see any Elementals that were about. She might have been reading some penny-dreadful or a sensational novel full of ghosts and devils. She might have been half awake, and thus susceptible. She might be accustomed to having a drop or more of gin in secret before bed. It might even have been the fault of those jam sandwiches.” He shrugged. “The main point here is not just that she saw your Elemental, it’s that your Elementals clearly regard the whole of the boarding house as safe territory to roam in, and not just your room. That means this might be the first time one has been spotted, but it won’t be the last.”
Katie bit her lip; this wasn’t what she had wanted to hear. “But can’t I just explain to them—” she began.
Jack shook his head. “I told you, they don’t think as we do. They understand walls as boundaries, but not rooms within walls. Fire Elementals aren’t as flitty and forgetful as Air are, but they probably won’t remember what you tell them other than ‘don’t go past the wall.’ This is going to be a problem, Kate. It’s rather too likely that at some point someone will see one, or a group, and decide the house has caught fire. And you know what that will do.”
Oh, she certainly did. She felt the blood draining from her face. A house full of young women fleeing in hysteria from a supposed fire? It would draw attention. The one thing she didn’t want to do was to draw attention. Any attention. There might be a photographer. Her picture might be taken. If it went in the paper, someone she knew might see it.
Or someone who knew her might see her in the street in the hubbub. And then Dick would inevitably find her.
And even if that didn’t happen, Mrs. Baird would start looking for an explanation.
And what if in the panic, someone tipped over a lamp or something and started a real fire?
Before she could ask what she could do, Jack was already speaking. “We actually talked about this last night, Lionel and I,” he said. “What we’d like is for you to move out and into a little house of your own. Lionel is sure his bank man can find something cheap enough for you—and at that point, a lot of difficulties become easier. You won’t have to worry about anyone spotting your Elementals for a start.”
“You also won’t have to worry about coming home too late and finding yourself locked out,” said Lionel. “Come the fall and winter, if our acts are good enough, we sometimes find ourselves hired out for parties after the second show. Those parties can be late—gents that don’t work don’t have to worry about getting up in time to be at the shop or office. They pay well, these parties, I can tell you that. The extra pay will let you build up your fund faster.”
Well there was no use in pretending that the idea of extra money wasn’t strongly appealing to her. . . .
“You also won’t have to worry about coming in too late for supper, or oversleeping breakfast,” Jack pointed out. “You can do what you want when you want it. You can practice your magic all you like without being interrupted—and practice your dancing if you need to.”
It was dreadfully tempting . . . the idea of being able to have a bath no matter how late she came in . . . or make a sandwich and tea and eat it in bed . . .
“But the shopping—” she protested feebly. “When will I ever have time to shop?”
“Just tell me what you want and I’ll have Mrs. Buckthorn get it when she does my shopping,” said Lionel, instantly. “She shops in the morning before I’m awake to get all the freshest things. I’ll bring it along to the hall, and you can take it home that night. Milk, cream, butter and eggs will come to your doorstop with the milkman in the morning.”
Well, that settled it, then. She’d seen the milkman turn up at Mrs. Baird’s door every morning, and had marveled how easy it made things once Mrs. Baird had explained it to her. “Wouldn’t I need . . . beds and things?” she said, hesitantly. You didn’t need that sort of thing in a caravan. Beds and cupboards and everything else were part of it.
“My rooms are let furnished,” Jack said with a smile. “Not to worry, that sort of thing is usual, especially in places like Brighton, where there are a lot of holiday visitors. Given the chance to rent a little house for an entire year at a time instead of a week or two at a time during the season and scramble for a renter the rest of the year, a man would be mad not to take it.”
Well, they were in a better position to know these things than she was. And the more she thought about it, the more attractive it sounded. No more girls over her head dropping shoes and waking her up. No more lying there listening to two girls talking loudly in the room next door when she was trying to concentrate on the magic. Being able to take her meals when she wanted to—never being too late to get an egg—cool baths when she wanted them—
“If you can find something that’s no dearer than what I’m paying now . . .” That was the sticking point of course. She had no idea what a whole house, however small, would cost.
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