Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. Sounds possible." He looked at the committee members who'd joined them here. "Think you lot can find anything out to verify that before the things fall apart too much more?"

  "Aye, sir, I think we can." Ian Ramsey led the rapid, clattering exit.

  Archaios didn't go with them. He wasn't technically a member of the committee, merely a consultant and observer from the International Conclave. Though Elinor thought he'd have gone if Harry hadn't been scowling right at him.

  "Why didn't you faint?" Harry grumbled. "You're an alchemist with plenty of power."

  "I am, nevertheless, not a magister," Archaios said with a little bow. "And I was farther from the machine. You advanced to assist Madame Carteret, if you will recall."

  "That's right, I did. Stupid, that." Harry sighed. "Suppose it's time we all get back to work."

  "Yes," Elinor said. "Except for you. You are going home to finish your recovery, not into any laboratory that contains any machine or parts of a machine, unless they are man-made." He did have bits of everything from watch gears to chunks of locomotive cluttering up his workspace, none of them with dead zone origins.

  "Yes, magister," he said meekly. Half-mocking, yes, but the obedience was also there.

  The remaining magicians began to file back out the door. Amanusa caught up to Elinor. "We need to discuss--"

  "You wanted me to remind you," Norwood caught her attention from his place holding the door.

  Elinor looked at him, racking her brain to think what she'd wanted him to remind her of. She was sure she had, but what?

  "To ask about Mr. Cranshaw."

  "Oh, that's right!" She looked back at Dr. Rosato, three people behind her. "How is he?" She stepped out of the doorway queue.

  "Elinor--" Amanusa reached toward her. "We really do need to--"

  "I know. And we will. I'll catch up with you. We can talk on the way home if you and Jax will take me up in your carriage."

  Harry scowled at that, but he had no say in anything to do with her.

  "Dottore," Elinor turned to the master wizard, blocking out her curiosity over what Amanusa thought was so urgent. School matters, likely. "Dr. Rosato, how is Mr. Cranshaw? I am ashamed of not visiting him, since he is my patient, according to you."

  "No, no, you should not go into such a place." Rosato took her hand and held it warmly between his. "I am happy to serve such a wizard as you. And Signore Cranshaw heals."

  Norwood had left the door and come to join them. He stood quietly to one side, listening.

  "His body, it will be badly scarred, here." Rosato let go of her hand to wave over his right side, around his waist and hip. "The scarring is even worse on his arm, and his hand..." He sighed, pursed his lips. "He can move his hand, so."

  Rosato curled his hand into a claw and flexed the fingers in and out slightly. "I think with exercises and more of your most excellent ointment, he will move it more. Perhaps gain some actual use."

  "That's his body," Norwood said. "What about his mind? That's what worries me."

  Rosato's animation vanished. He shook his head. "I am a physician of the body. Body and mind work together--what is in the body affects the mind and what is in the mind can affect the body--but I do not know how it does so. And Signore Cranshaw's mind--it is very ill. He raves, shouting nonsense. He speaks to devils only he can see."

  "Hallucinations?" Norwood asked.

  The Italian shrugged. "Who can say? You yourself tell me you have seen un demonio in the flesh. Perhaps the devils are truly there."

  "I'm talking to Amanusa later," Elinor said. "I'll ask her. When a sorceress rides the blood, she can see a person's thoughts. Maybe they can use that magic to heal minds."

  "Bene." Rosato captured her hand and bent to kiss it. "You are as kind as you are beautiful."

  Elinor felt the blush and hoped it didn't show. "I hope that I am far, far kinder than that, Dr. Rosato." She reclaimed her hand. "And now, I must hurry if I am to catch up to the Greysons."

  Norwood almost leapt across the room to reach the door first and open it for her. But she didn't have to hurry much. Amanusa, Jax, and Harry were dawdling along and had scarcely traveled two offices down the hall.

  "Signorina," Rosato said as he followed her out. "Do not forget you have promised to make your burn ointment with me."

  "I haven't forgotten." Elinor looked back at the handsome doctor and smiled. "Perhaps sometime tomorrow. I'm busy with my challenge potion today. I'll send a note round to your hotel. You're at Brown's also, are you not?" What was that noise? It sounded rather like a ... growl?

  "Si. Yes, I am." Rosato caught up with the group. "Or I could come and assist you with your poison this afternoon."

  Elinor chuckled. "I'll send a note tomorrow. My poisons are my own. A lady must have some secrets."

  It was a growl. Coming from Harry. Elinor scowled at him.

  "And now you are too cruel." Rosato gave a teasing smile as he bowed, this time without the hand-kissing, thank goodness. "So, alas, I shall have to go observe the machines' dissection instead. Until tomorrow, Magistra."

  Rosato departed. Norwood went with him, with a quiet word about having a look in.

  Harry held out his arm, offering his escort. He had his greatcoat on now against the cold outside, so Elinor accepted it. They'd reached the exit by this time, with their dawdling. Both carriages, Harry's and the Greysons', were drawn up outside the door.

  "Sure you won't ride back with me?" Harry bent close to her ear, asking quietly. "I won't bite. Never 'ave, have I?"

  "It's not your teeth that worry me," Elinor retorted, just as softly. "And I have magic to discuss with Amanusa."

  "Right." With a sigh, Harry turned to his carriage and caught hold of the opening. As he climbed in, his foot missed a step or perhaps slipped off it and he fell. Not to the ground--his grip on the carriage prevented that, but it took him a moment to get his feet untangled from the steps and under him.

  "Well, I feel right stupid," he muttered, shaking off all those who rushed to help, including Elinor.

  As Jax and a Council House footman shoved Harry into his carriage, Elinor looked helplessly at Amanusa. "I have to go with him."

  Her friend nodded. "Yes. But you and I must talk."

  Elinor made a face. "When? I've got a potion steeping. For the challenge with Dodd. I have to finish this afternoon or it will go bad. At tea?"

  "Will you be done?" Amanusa sighed. "Come to tea if you have finished. If not, I'll call on you in the morning."

  Elinor nodded and scrambled up into Harry's carriage. He sat leaning against a corner, eyes closed. Elinor took the opposite back-facing seat as the door was closed and the horses started off.

  She watched him in silence for a few minutes, but decided he wasn't actually asleep. "Did you do that on purpose? The farce with the carriage steps?"

  "No." He opened his eyes to stare at her. "Might've, if I'd thought of it and thought it would get you here, given the way you've been avoiding me. But I didn't. Think of it, or do it."

  She studied him a moment longer, trying to read his face. "I believe you."

  "That's a relief." He dropped the sarcasm and gazed at her. "I don't lie, Elinor. Not to anybody, an' especially not to you. I might not tell everything I know, but what I do say's the pure truth. You should know that by now."

  A faint burn slid up her neck to her face. "I do." What kinds of things did he not talk about? What secrets did he keep to himself? "What about your actions? Can you lie by what you do? Your fall at the carriage was real. What about your stumble in the hallway, when we were walking to Grey's office?"

  He shrugged, a little sheepishly. "I was feelin' a bit wobbly. I just--wobbled a bit more." He watched her, his face absolutely neutral. "You've been avoidin' me. I missed you. And then you were there in the corridor--but you weren't. You used to take my arm."

  "That was before you--we--" This time the burn threatened to crisp her head
to ash. The blush had to be showing.

  "Kissed?" Harry suggested.

  "That was no kiss, Harry, that was--"

  The carriage hit a hole in the paving, jarring them from one side to the other. Elinor found herself in Harry's lap, wrapped in his anchoring arms. He had one foot propped against the seat opposite, providing a sort of back for her Harry-chair.

  "Sorry, guv," Sharkey the coachman called through his tiny window. "Traffic blocked me in. Couldn't miss it. Bloody potholes."

  "Watch your tongue," Harry scolded. "We've Miss Tavis aboard."

  "Sorry, miss. Won't 'appen again." The window slid shut.

  "You can let me go now, Harry." She couldn't get leverage to push herself out of his lap, out of his arms.

  She didn't exactly try. Her body rebelled, refusing to move, or moving feebly. She curled into his hold, which had become embrace, and her hand rose to rest on his shirt in the opening above his greatcoat buttons.

  "You sure?" Harry's perfect mouth moved against her temple as he spoke. Then he kissed her there, just where she felt most vulnerable.

  It was a gentle, sweet, almost brotherly kiss, and it was nothing of the sort, sending flames licking through Elinor to concentrate in her most personal areas.

  "Do you want me to let you go, for true?" Harry stroked his lips across her cheekbone and pressed a new kiss in front of her ear. "I will, if you really--"

  He kissed her cheek. "Really--"

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. "Really want me to."

  He kissed her. On the mouth. His perfect lips settled over hers, urging them to part, and she was lost.

  The fires in her body consumed every thought in her brain. The sensations rocketing through her--though he did nothing but kiss her and hold her close with his arms in his lap--left her helpless to do anything but experience them. Every reaction of her body during its shocking awakening last week returned now to shock her again with a demand to know them again. She wanted. She yearned. And she couldn't make it stop.

  The kiss went on and on. She lost track of time. Sometimes Harry would leave her mouth to kiss along her jawline, or press light kisses to her eyelids, or trail the tip of his tongue down her neck, but he always came back to her mouth. She was drowning in sensation.

  Only the slight lurch of the carriage as it came to a halt brought an end to the kiss. And it was Harry who came to his senses, not Elinor. She sat dazed and bedraggled in the carriage long after Harry descended, while he stood with his hand up, waiting.

  "Elinor, you coming?"

  She blinked and saw his extended hand. "Oh. Yes. Thank you." She let him help her from the carriage, tuck her hand in his arm, and lead her up the stairs to his front door while she tried to sort out what had just happened.

  She had lost her mind. That was the only possible explanation. She had lost it--lost control of it, when the reactions of her body overwhelmed it.

  Freeman bore away their outer garments and Harry headed for the stairs, doubtless to go up and repair his coatless state. Elinor still stood in the foyer, slowly recovering herself.

  "You, Harry Tomlinson, are a dangerous man."

  "Me?" He turned back to face her, obviously trying to look innocent and looking delighted instead. "I'm 'armless, I am."

  "Hardly. You are..." She couldn't think of any other word that fit. "Dangerous."

  He came back down the few steps he'd climbed, stalking her. There was no other word for that, either. Eyes dark and intent on her face, he stalked right up within a breath of her. "Not to you." He touched her face with gentle fingers, the intensity of his eyes never backing off. "Never to you."

  "Yes." She didn't know how she got the word out. "Especially to me."

  "No." He shook his head. How could his touch be so gentle with all that--that fire in his eyes? "I'm no danger to you. Not the real you, the you in here." He laid his hand over her heart.

  "I'm only dangerous to who you think you want to be. Who you think you ought to be. The Elinor up here." He touched her temple, lightly.

  "But that's not really you. Not all of you. Is it?" His fingers spread, holding her in place with the softest of touches as he leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Trust me, Elinor. Trust yourself."

  This time, when he turned away, he vanished all the way up the stairs. Elinor took the opportunity to flee. And as she ran, she gathered up the magic sparks and made them go away.

  She locked herself in her stillroom and poured all her turmoil into the poisonous potion she was creating. She didn't know what to think about anything else--especially Harry. So she didn't. She would think about him tomorrow. Or maybe next week.

  Shadows gathered around Holborn Tower, creeping higher, growing deeper, as the cold winter night fell at its early hour. The tower creaked and groaned, the old bones of its ancient timbers settling into sleep. In many of its serried cells, piled one above the other, crammed into every gap, a single magician huddled beneath a blanket, locked away for crimes ranging from fraud to murder, all committed by means of magic. Most of them would eventually be released, barred by powerful spells from working magic for a year or two, or twenty.

  The shadows crawled along the corridors, fleeing before the lantern in the hands of Thomas Norwood, as he made his nightly rounds, checking that all was well, that each magician was in his designated cell and the magicians standing guard were alert. With the Briganti Enforcers' commander away, he was left in charge of the magician's prison, among other duties.

  Norwood left the upper levels where the alchemists were kept in rooms made and fastened together entirely of wood. He descended past the conjurer's cells, the top floor of wood and the lower few of stone and iron since conjurers did not depend on physical materials for their magic. He stopped at the few cells on the single floor reserved for wizards, where even the bunks and tables were constructed of metal.

  "How is he?" Norwood paused by the guard at the stairwell door, asking about the lone wizard prisoner.

  "Same as ever. Mad as a hatter." The man shrugged. "Mr. Norwood?"

  Norwood looked down at the other alchemist, waiting for the rest of his question.

  "Do you suppose, now we're getting women wizards, we'll have to open up more cells in the tower?"

  "I hope not, Mr. Biggs. I certainly hope not." Norwood clapped him on the shoulder. "But I wouldn't count on it, myself."

  He walked down the corridor to the occupied cell and peered in. Nigel Cranshaw sat on his bunk in the dark, staring down at the burned claw that was his right hand. He was curling it in and out the tiny bit that it would, muttering to himself.

  "Good evening, Mr. Cranshaw." Norwood spoke through the barred window as he always did. Not with all the incarcerated magicians, but with this one. Madness wasn't a crime.

  "Norwood? That you, Norwood?" Cranshaw stood and hobbled bent over toward the door. Obviously, this was one of his better days. He sounded almost reasonable.

  "Yes, Mr. Cranshaw, it is." Norwood held up his lantern to let the light fall through the grille.

  The wizard scuttled out of the direct light into the shadows and Norwood lowered the lamp again. "Does the light disturb you?"

  "Not disturb, no. Not the light. Fire. Fire is--troubling."

  "I can see that it might be."

  "Can you see? I can. See in the dark. Most illuminating." Cranshaw edged closer to the door, adjusting his bent posture until he could peek out the tiny window with his pale, protuberant eyes. Cranshaw was a tall man, so even bent, he had to bend a little more. "Let us out, will you, Thomas? There's a good lad."

  "I'm sorry, sir. I can't do that." Norwood looked into the shadows inside the cell, looking for anything out of place, but could see little past the man looking out.

  "Of course you can. I shouldn't be here, Norwood. It's all a mistake."

  "No, sir, it's not. You used illegal magic to attack in a challenge without consideration of the others present. You could have killed more than Miss Tavis."

  "I had to, do
n't you see?" Cranshaw curled his good hand round the bars. "She's evil. They all are. You weren't there. You don't--"

  "Yes, I was there!" Norwood lost his temper. "You would have killed me, you mad bugger, if Miss Tavis hadn't shielded us. And you'd be dead now yourself, if she and the sorcerers hadn't healed you."

  "What?" Cranshaw jolted, his eyes disappearing so that Norwood saw only his beaky nose and thin-lipped mouth. "No, no! No, it wasn't them. It was Rosato. Dr. Rosato and his lovely ointment."

  "Rosato might bring it here to you, but it's Miss Tavis that made it." Norwood paused. "And I probably shouldn't have told you that."

  "They put something inside me. They contaminated me with their wickedness." The eyes reappeared, rolling wildly in fear. "Women are evil. Twisted. Wrong. We don't need them."

  "Yeah?" Norwood shook his head sadly. "How do you plan to continue the human race without them?"

  Cranshaw stared at something beyond Norwood. "Would that be so terrible?"

  "What?" Norwood glanced over his shoulder, but nothing was there, save his own shadow climbing to the ceiling where the lowered lantern cast it.

  "If we didn't continue..." Cranshaw turned and slowly hobbled back to his cot with its woolen mattress and woolen blankets. Nothing with plant materials a wizard could draw magic from. He sat and stared at his burned hand, muttering once again.

  Norwood walked back to the guard at the stairwell. "Keep a sharp ear out, Mr. Biggs. I'm afraid I may have agitated our prisoner."

  "Will do, Mr. Norwood." The alchemist on guard climbed to his feet, rattling only a little with a single key on his ring. "Seems quiet enough now."

  "So he does, but who knows if it will last." He sighed. "I wish I knew better what to say to him--whether to confront him with the truth of his crimes or appease his delusions."

  "I'll leave that to those of you higher on the magical power train," Biggs said. "I'll content myself with keeping him locked away."