by Gail Dayton
“Gentlemen.” Jax bowed and stepped to one side as he spoke. “May I present to you Miss Amanusa Whitcomb, blood sorceress and apprentice to Yvaine of Braedun.”
“Good God!” exploded from the older gentleman.
“Preposterous,” sputtered the blond wizard as he crossed himself.
The stocky alchemist stared silently, intently at Amanusa.
“Goody.” The splendidly dressed conjurer leaned against the mantel and folded his arms as if preparing to watch a show.
“Get out.” The younger wizard hurried forward, hands out to catch hold of Jax and his sorceress and propel them from the room. “How dare you? How dare you bring this, this whore of Babylon to—”
“‘Old on there, Nigel.” The alchemist caught the wizard’s coattail and stopped him cold, though the wizard—Nigel—struggled. “No need to be callin’ names and insultin’ ladies.” The alchemist’s voice carried the unmistakable accents of London’s East End.
“She’s no lady! And he’s spouting lies,” Nigel shouted. “Nothing but lies. Yvaine of Braedun was burned at the stake outside Yorkminster Cathedral in 1642. This woman cannot possibly be her apprentice.”
Ice ran through Jax, from the base of his skull to the end of his spine, and shot out to his extremities. He suppressed the shudder. He didn’t know what year this was exactly, but he knew it was 1860-something. More than two hundred years after Yvaine’s death. It didn’t matter. It was still the truth.
“We’re dealing with magic here, Mr. Cranshaw.” The council head seemed to have recovered his composure. “It would behoove us to step carefully before we declare anything impossible.”
The other wizard stopped struggling, but the alchemist kept his grip anyway. Jax approved.
The older man performed introductions, then looked pointedly at Jax, who swept into a low bow, one hundreds of years out of fashion.
“I, gentleman, am Jax, who was blood servant to Yvaine and set upon the task of finding her successor, whom I now serve.”
“You expect us to believe you’re two hundred thirty years old?” Cranshaw protested.
“Older’n that,” Tomlinson the alchemist said. “If ‘e was just two hundred thirty, he’d’ve been a babe in arms serving Yvaine, wouldn’t he? I’d say he’s two hundred sixty, at least.”
Jax wanted to turn around and look at Amanusa, see how she was taking all these revelations. Better than he was, he hoped. His stomach felt twisted into knots. No wonder he couldn’t remember things. He had more to remember than any human mind could store. Though he did remember more now than he had when he’d found her.
“In truth,” he said, “I am closer to three hundred and sixty years old, for I served Yvaine almost a century before her death. And she was old when I was bound as her servant.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Cranshaw jerked himself free of the alchemist and flopped into a chair in an act of deliberate rudeness. “You have no proof. No proof of any of this.”
“Proof’s in the magic,” Tomlinson said.
Sir William shook his head. “He could be telling the truth.”
“You cannot possibly believe any of this preposterous claptrap—” Cranshaw began, sitting up in his chair.
“There is a portrait.” Sir William ignored the other wizard’s outburst. “There are always portraits of current council members in the great hall, as you know. The old ones are not destroyed, simply moved into storage, or into other places in the council buildings. There is a picture of Yvaine in the library, where the books on sorcery are shelved.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Tomlinson nodded. “I’ve seen it. You seen it too, ain’t you, Grey?”
The conjurer raised one bored eyebrow. “What, pray tell, does a portrait of the last sorceress have to do with the current conundrum?”
“Because Yvaine isn’t the only person in the portrait.” Sir William spoke ponderously, almost ominously. “The portrait has a brass plaque on it, dating it to 1557, the year Yvaine bound a blood servant upon the death of her previous one, when she was already more than a century old, so that he could be identified by council members.”
“I remember.” Tomlinson looked hard at Jax. “Bloody hell, it’s him. That’s the man in the painting.”
“You are out of your bloody be-damned minds!” Cranshaw exploded from his chair. “This impostor might resemble the man in that painting, but he is not the same man. He cannot possibly be. The man in the painting died. He died, and has been dead for over two hundred years, set free from the abomination of serving that female.”
Amanusa edged behind Jax, as if for protection. Good. Then she seemed to realize what she’d done and stepped back out. Jax moved to keep her shielded at his back.
“This is a plot cooked up by these two to get their hands on Yvaine’s gold,” Cranshaw ranted on. “They recognized the resemblance and—”
“How?” Tomlinson interrupted. “How could they recognize it? Nobody gets into the council library except students of the council school, magicians recognized by the council, and their apprentices. I ain’t—I have never seen either one of these two anywhere on council grounds.”
“Yvaine’s blood servant is dead,” Cranshaw insisted. “He was killed in the fire when the witch was arrested. You’ve studied the same history I did. The servant was struck down and left behind in the house when it was burned. He died.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Amanusa’s skirts pushed at Jax’s ankles when she moved closer to him. He hated these hooped monstrosities and the distance they imposed. Did she come closer for reassurance, or to offer it? Jax took whatever he could get.
. Even Cranshaw fell silent at Jax’s words, though more arguments were visibly building up behind the wizard’s eyes. Jax dragged the memories out of the abyss where they’d fallen. “I was struck down, yes. But I didn’t die. I wasn’t in the house when it burned. I lost my senses for a few moments only. They’d shut me in my lady’s dressing room to burn, but it had a small window. I had to dislocate my shoulder, to get out, but once I got my shoulders through, the rest of me slithered out behind.”
Amanusa’s tiny whimper should have been too quiet for him to hear, but it cut straight through him. Was she distressed on his behalf? The shoulder had hurt like the very devil when he’d done it, but better that than burning.
“I went to liberate Yvaine. Instead, she gave me her knowledge and sent me forth to find her successor. Because of the lies told about sorcery and the women who practice it, I have been this many years at the task. But it has ended. Amanusa Whitcomb is successor to Yvaine.”
“No one has ever told lies about sorcery. It is all truth,” Cranshaw sputtered. “Blood magic is spawned by the devil. It relies on pain and death and torture for its power.”
“How do you know?” Amanusa’s voice startled everyone.
Chapter 15
Jax tried to interpose himself when Amanusa stepped out from behind him, but she caught his arm and pinched it in a silent no. He eased to one side, keeping himself closer to Cranshaw’s threat.
Amanusa shared her attention among all four men. “How do you know where blood magic gets its power?” She arrowed her gaze at the younger wizard. “Have you ever used blood magic?”
“No, of course not—” Cranshaw sputtered.
“Then how do you know?”
“Everyone knows that—”
“Oh?” Amanusa cocked her head. Jax tried to watch her without taking too much of his attention from the men. “Just as everyone knows that all spirits called by conjurers are from the devil? Just as everyone knows all alchemists are greedy, and all wizards steal babies and trade them to the fairies in exchange for magic?”
“Myth.” Cranshaw dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Fabrications of fearful minds that—”
“Then why is it impossible to believe that what ‘everyone knows’ about sorcery might also be the fabrication of a fearful mind? If blood magic draws its power from death, why c
an only women—who bear the life of each new generation—practice it? Doesn’t new life come in blood and pain? Pain willingly borne, blood willingly shed by those who bring forth life?”
“Whore! Abomination!” Cranshaw was almost frothing at the mouth. The other magicians stared at him with various expressions of disgust, worry, and amusement. Jax watched him for the first sign of attack.
“Good Gad, Cranshaw, there’s no need for histrionics.” Sir William frowned at the younger wizard. “Get hold of yourself, man. We don’t know anything about blood magic or where the power comes from. That knowledge died with Yvaine. The witch burnings took more than enough of our numbers. It wasn’t just Yvaine who fell. Plenty of conjurers and wizards went up in smoke as well. We do not want to start that nonsense up again.”
“Why don’t you know anything?” Amanusa sailed a bit farther into the room, Jax doing his best to stay ahead of her. “Didn’t you say you had books of sorcery in your library? Doesn’t anyone read them?”
“I thought you said you were Yvaine’s apprentice,” Cranshaw said scornfully.
“Only a magician with a talent for sorcery can open ‘em.” Tomlinson ignored the wizard. “An’ there ‘asn’t been any since Yvaine. We been lookin’, but apparently not in the right places. Where did ‘e find you? Yvaine’s servant, I mean.”
“Jax is my servant now.”
Jax liked the way she said that. Quick. Possessive.
“Abomination,” Cranshaw muttered. “No man should serve a witch.” Everyone ignored him.
“I was born in Vienna to an English father and Romanian mother,” Amanusa continued. “After the ‘Forty-eight, I lived in Transylvania, where Jax found me.”
“What magic can you do?” Tomlinson offered her a seat on one of the armless ladies’ chairs near the high wingback chairs where the men had been sitting.
Cranshaw burst out again. “You cannot possibly be considering—”
“Shut up, Nigel,” Tomlinson said.
Jax took the opportunity to assist his sorceress into the seat. It took a moment to adjust the hoops. Amanusa had been practicing, but neither of them had much experience with the things and they were blasted hard to sit with. Women’s fashions made no sense.
“I have a solid knowledge of the workings of sorcery and can work a number of varieties of spells with it,” she said when everyone was seated—Cranshaw sprawled again, sulking. Jax stood properly at her elbow. “I can heal serious wounds. I can cast illusions and protective shields, against physical intrusion as well as magical attack. And I can answer the cry of innocent blood for justice.”
“You don’t believe—”
“Shut up, Nigel.” It was the conjurer, Carteret, who said it this time.
In the commotion created by that little disagreement, Amanusa whispered the words to turn their eyes away from Jax, and he felt the magic prickle against his skin. They’d agreed that the invisibility spell would be the best for their purposes, since it was unlikely anyone would agree to be injured for her to heal, and they had no innocents handy needing justice. Before leaving their room, Jax had tucked a smear of his own blood in his hairline for Amanusa to call. Better his blood than hers. He didn’t like seeing her skin pierced.
“I admit,” Amanusa said when Cranshaw had subsided again, “that my control is not yet perfect, especially when dealing with the blood of innocents shed in horrific crimes. But I am improving with every day that passes.”
“Can you demonstrate, Miss… Whitcomb, is it?” Sir William gave her a frosty smile.
Amanusa smiled sweetly back at him. Jax shivered at the ice beneath its surface. “I already am, sir. Do you see my servant, Jax, in this room?”
“You have no servant,” Cranshaw snapped. “What is this nonsense?”
Tomlinson frowned. Carteret’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “I seem to recall—” the conjurer drawled. “Wasn’t there someone—?”
“A man came in with ‘er,” Tomlinson said. “‘E introduced her, said she was a blood sorceress an’ then ‘e…”
Sir William leaned forward, squinting at the place where Jax stood. Jax moved to Amanusa’s other side, but the older gentleman’s eyes did not track him.
“I see ‘im.” Tomlinson pointed straight at Jax. “There. I saw ‘im move.”
“You’re barking mad.” Cranshaw sprawled again. “She never had a servant.”
Sir William frowned, following Tomlinson’s finger toward Jax’s new position. “Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. He’s there.” Tomlinson narrowed his eyes, peering through his lashes. “He’s kind o’ shivery-shiny. Like mirrors an’ chameleon-colors mixed together. He’s hard to see, but he’s there.”
“Yes.” Carteret squinted at Jax. “I can see him now.”
Amanusa snipped the spell with a flick of her fingers and Jax returned to visibility.
“I thought you were a stronger magician than that, Nigel,” Carteret drawled, leaning back in his chair. “You completely forgot the man’s existence.”
The blond wizard flushed red, all the way to his thinning scalp. “Smoke and mirrors,” he snarled, but his denial felt weak to Jax.
Tomlinson sniffed. “Don’t smell no smoke. Not even from the fireplace. An’ I don’t see any mirrors. I vote we admit ‘er to the council.”
“Absolutely not!” Cranshaw exploded with venom once more.
Jax moved aside, away from the barrier of his sorceress’s hoops, ready for potential attack.
“Apart from the issue of blood sorcery—which is not so easily set aside as you might suppose,” Cranshaw was saying. “There is the inescapable fact of her sex. She is a woman!”
“Yeah. So?” Tomlinson seemed unconcerned.
“The practice of magic is not a feminine pursuit. Women cannot be, must not be, admitted to the council. They have no place in the Council Hall.”
“Women helped build that precious Council Hall of yours,” Tomlinson retorted. “They were part and parcel of the council from the day it was started until so many were burnt in the witch hunts that killed Yvaine. Same history you was quotin’ just now, Nigel. The council agreed not to take women as apprentices for a while. ‘Til it was safe for ‘em. ‘Til they weren’t so likely to be burnt.”
The Cockney alchemist looked from one man to the next, intent on his audience. “I ain’t ‘eard of anybody bein’ burned as a witch lately, ‘ave you? Not in a ‘undred years or better. I think it’s past time we brought ‘em back. We need women’s magic. I think we need more than just one sorceress, but if she’s all we got, I think we’d be idiots to turn her aside.”
“She is evil,” Cranshaw hissed.
“Oh for—” Tomlinson shut his teeth on oaths even Jax could see wanted out.
“Control yourself, man,” Sir William snapped. “You cannot go about making such accusations without any proof, on the basis of mere prejudice.”
“Are you all mad? She practices blood sorcery. Blood sorcery is evil, therefore she is evil.”
“Who says?” Tomlinson took up Amanusa’s cause. Jax wished he knew why. Because he believed in her? Or because he thought it would give him the chance to bed her? Jax stifled the incipient jealousy he had no right to feel. An alchemist was a far better match for a sorceress.
“Why would raising magic through blood be any more or less evil than conjuring spirits of the dead?” Tomlinson demanded. “Magic’s magic. It’s all in how it’s used as to whether it’s evil or not. Why d’you think we got Inquisitors and Briganti and Massileans and such? To catch the folk wot use it wrong. Sayin’ it’s evil just ‘cause of the kind of magic it is, is the same thinkin’ that got Yvaine and all those wizards and conjurers killed along with ‘er.”
“Where does the blood come from?” Cranshaw’s eyes showed white all around, his voice hoarse with terror.
“Women bleed every month, Mr. Cranshaw,” Amanusa said, matter-of-factly. “Does that frighten you? Is that evil?”
Cransha
w blanched. Sir William looked shocked. Carteret grinned and Tomlinson burst out laughing. Jax smothered his own grin. He had been gone from polite society a long time, but he was fairly certain such things weren’t discussed in mixed company even in these modern days.
Amanusa didn’t back down. “I realize it is most indelicate of me to speak of such things with men present, but I have it on good authority that this is why women have their affinity for blood magic. More than that, I cannot say. There are things held secret by your own disciplines to be known only to those who practice those arts.”
“By God,” Tomlinson murmured, staring at Cranshaw. “I think you might be right. I think the man is afraid of women.”
“Preposterous.” Cranshaw flung himself to his feet. “I will not stay and listen to any more of this lunacy. I am unalterably opposed to the admission of this or any other woman to the ranks of magicians. I vote nay, and I will never cease my opposition.”
He stormed from the room, the other occupants carefully not watching him go, staring mostly at the carpet until the door boomed shut behind him.
“Well, I vote aye,” Tomlinson said then, into the quiet. “That’s one for and one against. Makes you the tiebreaker, Grey. What do you say?”
As everyone’s eyes turned to the aristocratic conjurer, his air of languid ennui dropped slowly away until he sat straight in his chair, the hard planes of his narrow face making him seem almost a different man entirely. “I also say aye. Admit her.
“I agree with Harry,” Carteret went on. “Until we know what caused these dead zones and how to stop them, how to restore life to them, we cannot afford to exclude any possibility. Sorcery has been lost for two hundred years. Who knows how long the dead zones have been growing to become what they are today? Perhaps it was the loss of sorcery that enabled them to grow.”
Jax scarcely dared hope as all eyes turned to Sir William. As head of the council, he didn’t vote except to break a tie, but he could still affect decisions, especially decisions like this, made outside a full council session.
“I don’t know.” Sir William took a deep breath and puffed it out again, setting his mustache to fluttering. “Two to one. But Cranshaw has a point. Not about sorcery being inherently evil, but about plunging recklessly into things. Until we can return to England and compare this man with the painting, until the full council can meet to approve membership, we must be cautious.”
