Witchmark

by C. L. Polk

  “I see,” I said. “How am I supposed to know the answer?”

  “I want you to help me find it. You and Nick Elliot are the only witches I’ve met in Aeland. Mr. Elliot is dead. But here you are, alive and free.”

  And I had promised Nick, hadn’t I? He had given me his power so I could find the … truth. About the war, I guessed. The war I had come to loathe, the war that had left so many men shattered inside. Mr. Hunter wanted to help, but he knew too much about me already, too many of my secrets. I had no choice but to deny it. “You want my help in finding out who poisoned Nick Elliot, and knowing will lead you to— No, it’s insane. I can’t help you.”

  “You can, Sir Christopher. And I can help you.”

  My breath caught in my throat. This was worse than blackmail.

  I had been found.

  Run, I told my useless legs. Run!

  “You’re afraid,” he said. “Don’t be. I’m in as much danger as you.” Mr. Hunter raised one hand clenched in a fist. The edges of his fingers glowed red, and he opened his hand to show me a tiny light. The core of it glowed brighter than a candle, brighter than gas lamps, nearly as bright as aether.

  If he told the truth, it could only mean two things: He was a lowborn witch in fine clothing, or he was a runaway mage like me. He offered me this show of magic as a token of trust. He could report me, but I could report him back.

  If he wasn’t lying. But I should report him, if I knew what was good for me.

  I tried for one last bluff. “I’m sorry. How are you making that light?”

  “Like this.” He lifted the light and touched it to my hand.

  “What—”

  Another sense of self touched mine, tense and hopeful in the instant before the sensation of power linked with my own. I snatched my hand away. The light stuck to my fingers, wavering without his touch to steady it, fading, dying without him.

  “Link to it,” he said. “Touch it the way you would a heart.”

  The light steadied, a little dimmer than it had been. It balanced on my fingertips and my blood rushed, the magic making me feel taller, clear-sighted, powerful.

  I’d missed this so much.

  He touched me again, guiding my efforts. “You’re alive. You’re free. But you’re untrained.”

  The little light glowed. I had the trick of holding it, of feeding it droplets of the power to burn.

  I lifted my gaze from the light to Mr. Hunter’s face. His warm smile reflected the wonder I felt. I couldn’t see the link between it and me. I tried to coax it into brightening—

  A breeze rattled a loose windowpane. A draft made my gas lamp flicker, the cold trickling into my thoughts: Could someone see us? I closed my fist. My bones were shadows bathed in scarlet before the light extinguished, leaving me small and cold. I’d completely fallen into his hands.

  “Help me find out who killed Nick Elliot, and everything I can teach you before Frostnight is yours.” He propped his chin on the pad of his thumb and the second knuckle of his index finger, examining me again. “Starting with how to hide your true nature, I think. You shine, Starred One, to anyone with the power to see.”

  Possibilities lay outside the door he’d cracked open. If I could appear mundane to highborn mages with the trick of seeing magical auras, Kingston could be mine to walk again. “What happens then?”

  He hesitated. “I have to go home.”

  Only until Frostnight. How much trouble could he be, if he would be gone in eight days?

  Too much trouble, and I knew it. “I can’t help you. I have patients to tend.” But Nick Elliot had bypassed a better hospital and tried to tell me something about the war and its soldiers before he died. What did he mean? And who would want him dead for it?

  “I’d never ask a healer to abandon his patients,” he said. “But if I can teach you something you can use to help them, wouldn’t it be worth it?”

  If he could help me do something about what I saw when I touched them—

  No. No more miracles. But whatever Nick Elliot knew, it had died with him, unless someone worked to find it out. If Nick had known what troubled my patients, why they suffered, if their worst fears of violence would come true …

  The third stair from the top creaked. Mr. Hunter’s eyes widened in alarm, and we sprang into action. I took my seat as if we had been chatting over my desk. He unfolded the guest chair and slouched in it. No footsteps sounded in the hall. Rubber-crepe shoes. A nurse.

  I relaxed.

  The silhouette in the frosted window was dark and short, the knock familiar. Robin pushed the door open and sidled halfway through. “You can leave the reports until tomorrow. The police aren’t coming.”

  “They’re not? Why?”

  “Everyone’s at another murder. Killer’s a veteran, like the last one. Horrible, from what I gather.”

  Robin caught sight of Mr. Hunter and ducked her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  He stood up. “Please don’t worry, Mrs.…”

  “This is Miss Robin Thorpe,” I said. “Robin, meet Mr. Tristan Hunter.”

  “Delighted, Miss Thorpe.” He offered his hand, but con verted it to a more formal half-bow when Robin bent her head in greeting.

  “My apologies, Mr. Hunter, but I’ve just been handling the body. A pleasure to meet you,” she said, and turned her attention on me. “Miles, didn’t you hear me? You don’t need to do that report now.”

  “I should take my leave so you can go home, Doctor. I hope you will consider my offer. May I have your answer tomorrow?”

  I wavered. It was unwise to step outside of the anonymous role I’d fashioned for myself, to get involved, but whatever Nick had known, if it would help my patients … I needed it. Damn it.

  “Come in the afternoon. I’m off shift at four, and I have a luncheon to attend.”

  “I look forward to seeing you then.” He left with a touch of his hat. My skin tingled as if he still touched me, guiding me in keeping the light ablaze.

  Robin waited until Mr. Hunter’s footsteps took him to the first landing, her hands on her hips. She turned to eye me once the sound of his departure faded.

  “What offer?”

  My pens lay askew on the blotter. I laid them out in parallel lines, tidied the reports in front of me. “He wants to know if Nick Elliot was murdered. May I have a smoke?”

  She grinned. “No. Bad days only.”

  “I lost a patient. Is that bad enough?”

  “No. Why would Mr. High Hat care if it was murder?” Robin asked, eyes narrow. “Didn’t he say he found Elliot in the street?”

  “He did.”

  “What if he killed Nick Elliot himself and wants to snarl up any investigation?”

  Clever Robin. But if he had, why didn’t Mr. Elliot accuse him? “I didn’t think of that.”

  “I suppose you can tell the police he’s a little too interested,” Robin said. “They’re the ones who’ll be doing the investigating, after all.”

  “I can do that.” I had no intention of doing that. All Mr. Hunter had to do was report me, and I was done for. “What are you still doing here? Aren’t you supposed to split your shift for the luncheon?”

  “You need to go home too. I need you to be extra charming to a rich dowager at the luncheon tomorrow. They’re cutting laundry again.”

  So the board’s savage little economies had struck Nursing this time. Beauregard needed money, but it was trying to eat itself. “I’ll ask her for five thousand marks.”

  I had expected her to smile at promising such an outrageous sum, but she stuck her hands in the pockets of her heavy gray skirt. “There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “I gave my notice. I’m going to medical school.”

  I caught my breath.

  Robin was the best nurse in the hospital. She was my friend. Everything would go to shambles without her. She’d have patients waiting a year to see her the moment she became Dr. Robin Thorpe. She was
leaving the hospital … leaving me.

  A good man would be happy for her. “Excellent. Congratulations. Queen’s University?”

  “Yes. I start with the Frostmonth term.”

  “General Medicine?”

  “Surgery.”

  The waiting list in my head doubled. “Those tiny hands of yours are perfect. You’ll need to stand on a box.”

  She laughed. “I could use stilts.”

  The ache curled around my heart. She’d be the best. “I’ll miss you.”

  “No, you won’t. We’ll stay in touch. Though you should leave here.” She described the hospital with a sweeping gesture. “You’re a better doctor than this.”

  “They need me.” None of the other physicians in Mental Recovery had seen the war. They didn’t know how the “hopelessly outgunned” Laneeri had fought back with surprise, silence, and savagery. The men here needed me. After everything I had been forced to do in Laneer, I could never abandon them.

  Robin sighed. “Okay. I’ll let it go for today. But you need to go home.”

  “I should write my reports—”

  “They can wait, Miles. Go home. Sleep in your own bed, and let’s have fun at the fundraiser tomorrow.”

  “What would I do without you?” I would find out, wouldn’t I? She would be gone right after Frostnight.

  “You’ll manage.” Robin handed me my hat, determined to see the back of me.

  * * *

  I was nearly home when I smelled fire. The sight of it soon followed: A narrow wooden house burned in the middle of the block, its gables ablaze. A soot-streaked woman stared numbly at the furniture her family had dragged out of the house, piled on the street as onlookers brought blankets, water, and prayers.

  I was off my bicycle in a moment. “I’m a doctor,” I called. “Is everyone all right?”

  A big man in a leather welder’s coat brought me a little girl, pale and crying. “She won’t stop.”

  “Are you her father?”

  “Neighbor. Father’s on shift at the presses. Everyone got out, but the closest fire wagon’s on Trout Street.”

  The heat of the flames made my face feel tight, while the night breeze blew cold on the back of my neck. Clouds crowded the sky, joined by black smoke rising from the burning house. “Are all the neighbors out?”

  He waved at the collection of people in the street who carried furniture, toolboxes, uniforms, and food out of their homes. The wind was on our side at the moment, but the tall, narrow houses on the nineteenth block of East Raven Street jostled each other’s shoulders. A gust could set the next roof burning, and the next, and one fire wagon against a block ablaze would be pissing on a campfire.

  The cold breeze on my neck crawled, and a high whine sounded in my ears, the way aether felt, only moving closer. The crowd parted for the long nose of a sleek, fabulously expensive black automobile.

  I shrank back, holding the crying girl in my arms. She’d inhaled a little smoke, but being out in the fresh air would cure her. I shielded my face behind her as the heavy doors of the car opened and a man emerged.

  He was dressed for an opera premiere. He rounded the nose of the car and opened the passenger side, bowing to the woman who exited the vehicle in a cloud of lavender cigarette smoke. A sparkling black gown draped over her elegant pale limbs, and a snow fox stole embraced her shoulders. I knew her family by the patrician sweep of her long nose and the icy paleness of her hair. She was a Carrigan, a Storm-Singer, and if she looked my way it was all over.

  My heart battered against my breastbone. She didn’t look at me or any of the crowd in the street, choosing to focus on the bank of cloud above the fire, amber light glowing on her skin. The man waited two steps behind her. She stood with her head thrown back, her fur looped around her shoulders, and did magic right under the noses of the people standing in the street.

  She gave no outward sign of her effort, but her Secondary’s knees sagged as she took as much of his strength as she pleased. I shuddered. That would have been me, if I hadn’t escaped. Nothing but a Storm-Singer’s minion, my own gifts dismissed as useless.

  I turned my face away when the Storm-Singer and her lackey returned to the car. They drove out of sight as clouds billowed overhead, huge and dark with water. Droplets landed on the upturned cheeks of the onlookers. The little girl in my arms stopped sobbing as a raindrop splattered on her forehead, and she scrambled out of my arms crying, “Rain! Rain!”

  Soon the nightgowns of the evacuated neighbors stuck translucently to their skin. They praised the rain as a miracle, hugging each other in relief. It was a miracle, for them. They had no idea that the wealthy woman in shiny beads and fur had saved their homes with magic; how could they? Magic was rare, a dangerous curse. It brought no one good fortune. I mounted my bicycle, heading east as fast as my legs would take me.

  I had to be small, as unremarkable as a mouse. If Mr. Hunter could teach me to shield my power, I could stop riding along back streets from home to work. I’d have to stick to the East End, but I could enjoy a restaurant, attend the cinema, socialize outside of the hospital without worry. And if Nick held the key to the nightmares and urges that troubled my patients, I couldn’t turn that aside.

  When I crossed the intersection of East 32nd and Magpie Road, the pavement was utterly dry. My near discovery and the overflowing feeling of Nick’s power made me sick. I’d only escaped because I was beneath their notice. I only survived because I was supposed to be dead.

  I tightened my grip on the handlebars and pedaled harder.

  THREE

  A Humble Mouse

  I scared sparrows off the high iron fence around the Beauregard Veterans’ Hospital gardens at half past six in the morning. I fumbled the bicycle lock with my gloves still on, but my fingers still tingled with Nick’s power and the need to use it.

  The heels of my best shoes echoed through the lobby. The seats collected around the silent wireless set sat vacant. I said good morning to a pair of surgeons in scarlet officer’s tunics. Their medals swayed as they gave my gray flannel suit disapproving stares. Disapproval, not horror or revulsion. My secrets would have been all over the hospital if anyone knew. Breathing came easier.

  Half the aether lights were still off at the nursing station for the Mental Recovery Unit. Smiles greeted me, but the unit nurses kept working, undisturbed by my presence.

  No one knew, then.

  I shivered and retrieved my white doctor’s coat from a hook, wishing I had a cardigan to wear underneath. One of the nurses laid newspapers at the best-lit desk in the nursing station for me while the coffee burper finished brewing.

  “Thank you, Kate.”

  Kate nodded. “Will you change into your uniform later, Doctor?”

  “I didn’t bring it.” Would she understand? “It doesn’t feel right.”

  She studied me. “You were at Kalloo.”

  I’d spent my whole tour there. “Mobile Hospital 361,” I confirmed. “Beauregard Battalion.”

  The doubt in the set of her mouth eased. “I had three brothers in Princess Anna’s.”

  Had. “Did any of them come home?”

  “Albert’s coming home right now.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Her smile faltered.

  I offered my handkerchief, but she had one. All her brothers gone to die in Sir Percy’s War. Lost siblings left a gap that hurt to touch, and I couldn’t help remembering my own as I patted Kate Small’s hand. She collected herself and moved to gather the night logs, leaving me with the pair of papers that represented the two sides of Kingston.

  The Herald’s front page bore a photograph of Dame Grace Hensley cutting the ribbon for Kingston’s newest aether-powered battery exchange depot. A Hensley Triumph, the headline read, followed by 300 New Jobs in Time for Soldiers’ Homecoming.

  I ran my fingers over Dame Grace’s face and shoved the Herald aside.

  The Star had stopped the presses in favor of printing a screamer, the paper’s
stark, huge headline only a single word: Horror!

  Some bold photographer had risked arrest for the photo sprawled across the front page, and they had to have cast-iron nerves to have stepped into that abattoir. I knew what those black streaks on the wallpaper had to be; the forms under the white covering sheets were too small, too still.

  I read the story of Cpl. James Badger, who had taken up a kitchen knife to stab his wife and children before turning the blade on himself. Neighbors had reported he became silent and withdrawn after his return from the war. A poisoning had nothing on this. Nick’s story would fill a space between competing ads for aether-powered wireless receivers and telephone service.

  “How awful.” Kate set the logbooks down and read over my shoulder. “Do you think—?”

  I caught her eye, and neither of us dared say it. I pushed the Star off my station’s blotter. “Do you want the paper?”

  She folded it closed. “The patients shouldn’t see this.”

  “You could try holding it back.” The men would hear the story on the wireless. They’d tell each other, and stories grew in the telling.

  The burper stopped gurgling. I pushed my chair back, but she said, “You take it black?”

  “I do, thank you.”

  A copy of yesterday’s memo lay on the counter, reminding me that I had to discharge a third of my patients. In all the excitement of yesterday, I’d given it little thought.

  “Has anyone seen Dr. Matheson?”

  “Not this early. The memo?” Kate gave me a steaming cup to cradle in my hands.

  “Of course.”

  “No one wants to send so many home, Doctor.”

  Not without a cure, or even confirmation of what I hardly dared think: that the veterans in my hospital unit and Cpl. James Badger had more in common than their combat service. If I sent a man home to bloody results, I’d never forgive myself. I had to find Nick Elliot’s secrets. I hoped they would tell me what to do. “I know. But they’re not ready.”

  Kate patted my shoulder and left me to read last evening’s paperwork. The duty logs were a chronicle of frustration: Patients wouldn’t sleep. Patients wouldn’t take their tonics. Patients were resistant.