by Gail Dayton
"Bernard Stark--" Grey stepped forward, twirling a pencil threateningly between his fingers. "How many times did you fail the conjury master's test? Five?" He heaved an ostentatious sigh. "I take it this means you won't be continuing in your post as secretary to the council head." He shook his head sadly. "Sir William will be so disappointed."
"That guttersnipe isn't worthy to lick Sir William's boots," the conjurer shouted, "much less follow him in office. And you--you're a disgrace to your class!"
"Thank you." Grey bowed. "I do try."
"Thomas--" The other alchemist present addressed Norwood. "You're not one of them. Join us. I know you can't agree with what they're doing, all the dangerous changes they're making."
"But I do agree," Norwood said. "We have to change, because without the sorcerers and more wizards, we can't shut down the dead zones."
That seemed to stop their mouths up.
"Wot's that?" Harry raised his hand to his ear. "Is that your plan for the dead zones I don't hear?"
"Maybe we don't have one," Twist said. "Now. But we will and without turning the world upside down."
"Did you ever think we might be turnin' it back right side up?" Harry propped his hands on his hips. "Why did you come here this morning? Just to tell us you've made your own little boys' club, no girls allowed? Surely you didn't think you could just waltz in and take over. Or is that why your friends attacked last night?"
"We didn't--" Twist began, voice hot, then stopped himself and visibly wrested control over his temper. He did a better job of it than Harry had. "There are more of us than there are of you." He sneered. Quite good at it, he was. "You're bleeding membership. We don't have to attack. Your support will collapse from under you."
"More than us? I don't see but a dozen there." Harry sneered back. He wasn't so bad at it himself. "And so what if you do 'ave more? If this is an example of the best you got--" He waved a hand over their delegation, maintaining his two-step superiority. "I ain't so worried. All of ya together, you can't match up to just those of us standing here. There was around ten magicians in that attack last night. Against two of us. We're standin' in front of you. Where are they?"
He flicked his hands, dismissing them. "Go on, then. Run an' play at your make-believe council. Just know that this--" He stabbed his finger down at the step where he stood. "This is the council established and authorized by Crown and by Parliament, under the authority of the guilds' magisters who are the best magicians in each guild, and I am the head of council selected by them. We are responsible for the actions of all magicians in the country, whatever you might pretend.
"And if you get out o' line, it's us who'll be called to account for it, and it's us who'll be comin' round to knock you back in bounds. Now, push off. I'm sick of lookin' at ya."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Harry turned his back on Twist and his mates and climbed back up the steps. What a bloody mess. The council was splintered. They had no blasted idea where the renegade magicians had gone to ground, much less where Nigel Cranshaw had got off too. Harry was starting off his term as council head with a stack of disasters. And Elinor hated him.
That was the bit that made everything else seem so impossible. With Elinor at his side, he could handle anything, but without her?
He glanced at her as they all retreated to the council hall front doors. She pointedly ignored him. He had no idea how to fix it, but he had to do something. He couldn't just give her up.
"Bastard!" someone in the street shouted.
"Imposter! Interloper!" Someone else. Maybe two someones.
"'Ware!" Grey cried.
Elinor was already turning, already throwing a wands'-length of unfinished pine dowel at the dissident delegation. It hit the spell coming for them--an air spell like the concussion spell Harry had sent after last night's attackers--and blew into splinters, negating the spell.
Harry threw the same spell back at them, raising the power level just enough to make it clear he had plenty in reserve. It felt different somehow. Like--like Elinor. She was part of it, her magic contained in the spell. Harry yanked back on the power just as it broke over them, knocking the delegation to the ground like ninepins, more sound than fury. More power than he'd intended, but less than he'd unintentionally given it.
It seemed no one was seriously hurt, save in their dignity. Streets weren't exactly the cleanest locations.
"Mind your manners," Harry told them, dusting off his hands. He turned his back on them again as they helped each other up and waved his party back into the building.
"That's quite the handy trick you have there," Grey was saying to Elinor. "Are you teaching that in your wizarding classes?"
"I intend to, yes."
"You tried it with anything smaller?" Harry asked. "Might be handier to carry a pocket full of pegs than a few longer wands."
Elinor disdained to answer. "I'm going home," she said to Amanusa. "I don't think I need worry about trouble from that bunch."
"That's not the bunch that attacked," Harry said. "We 'aven't found any of them yet."
Norwood eyed Harry as he spoke, checking to see if he objected maybe. "I can detail a few men to accompany you, Miss Tavis. In case trouble pops up."
Elinor rolled her eyes. "I find that highly unlikely, Mr. Norwood."
"Thom, please," he interjected. "If you don't mind."
Harry ground his teeth as Elinor smiled, oh, so sweetly at the bounder.
"I am honored." She smiled some more. "I, of course, am Elinor. And while I have my doubts as to the necessity of a Briganti escort, if you believe it is warranted, then I will acquiesce to your judgment."
Norwood glanced at Harry again and Harry had to nod his thanks. At least she'd accepted the bodyguards--though what they could do if there was another magic attack, he didn't know. What he did know finally was that he had to be in love with Elinor. He loved her. He was in love with her. The whole bit. And she wouldn't even speak to him.
Nigel huddled in the shadows, a ragged blanket wrapped around him for warmth, watching passers-by on the streets. He needed money for food, but couldn't bring himself to beg again. He hadn't actually gone begging yet, to be honest. Hunger had driven him from his peculiar refuge days ago, and when the pie woman at the cart had seen his hand, she'd given him a malformed pie without his having to ask.
The blanket had been purchased from a second-hand purveyor with money given--again without his asking--when he'd been in a park hunting the material for a new wand. He felt naked without a wand. He had set his tin cup beside the path near where he was searching--he didn't dare leave it in reach of those thieving creatures--and the working men and women who spent their bits of free time at the park had dropped money in, a half-penny at a time. It still made him feel peculiar when he remembered how arrogant he'd been, looking down at those ragged people from his lofty height.
He was hungry again, but pride held him trapped in the shadows, arguing with himself. He might be crippled but he was still a wizard. He didn't have to be whole to work magic. They should be grateful he deigned to grace their miserable existence with--
But they had been kind. They didn't know he was a wizard.
"Back again, are ya, dearie?" The round-faced pie woman showed gaps in her teeth when she smiled at him. "See you managed a bit of a wrap for yourself in this awful cold. Come an' 'ave summat to eat. Oven wasn't bakin' even this mornin', so this un's burnt round the edges. But if ya break off the burnt bits--" She demonstrated, then held the fat pie out to him.
There it was again. Kindness. It pulled Nigel from his shadows into the pale gray light. He saw no subterfuge in the woman, no ulterior motives. Nothing more than simple kindness. He took the slightly singed pie and tucked it away in his jacket pocket, pulling out the crooked wand he'd made from the fallen branch of a plane tree. He'd never used a plane-tree wand, but it seemed to conduct magic nicely, though its own magic was on the light and fluffy side.
"I have some small talent as a magicia
n, Madame." He bowed politely to her. "Might I offer a small spell in exchange?"
What was he doing? A small voice shrieked inside his head. He had escaped from Holborn Tower. He was hiding from the Briganti. If he worked magic, they would find him.
But a small spell couldn't hurt, could it? She had been kind. Surely he could be kind in return.
"Magician, are ya?" She looked him up and down, not bothering to hide her amusement. "Member of the guild an' everyfing, eh?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." They hadn't stripped him of his membership, had they? He couldn't remember. "Though I have fallen down on my luck lately." He flourished his ruined hand and the pie woman nodded, eyes filled with sympathy.
"Them burns is nasty things," she said. "Looks like you're lucky to 'ave the 'and."
Nigel looked down at the stiffened claw, surprised by the idea. "Actually," he said slowly, taking note of the burns that couldn't be seen. "I believe that I am lucky to be alive."
He looked up at the woman. "Allow me, if you please, a small demonstration of my gratitude for your assistance in keeping me in that condition." At her blank look, he amended his verbosity. "Let me thank you for your help."
"Oh. Well--" She shrugged. "Didn't do it for the thanks, nor for coin neither, but if ya want--go on, then."
He lifted his somewhat zigzag wand and contemplated the materials available for his spell. He had no potions, not even a blade of grass in the grubby intersection where Osborn Street let out onto Whitechapel Road. But her cart was made of wood, little more than a box to hold the pies and keep them warm for as long as possible, set on wheels to make it mobile. He wasn't an alchemist, to generate warmth where there was none, but perhaps he could induce the cart's wood to retain that heat for a longer space of time.
Nigel touched his new wand to the cart and sought the magic inside the wood. It was an old cart, but its inherent magic had never been touched. He stirred it up, molded it into a new shape to insulate the contents from outside influence, then spoke his spell, finishing with the word to set the magic, "Coinníonn." Preserve.
He checked to see whether the spell had actually taken hold--it was the first he'd tried since his injury. It seemed to be humming nicely, settling in to become part of the wood fibers which, since the magic had come from the wood to begin with, was how wizardry worked. The spell had tired him. Obviously, he was not up to his previous strength, perhaps never would be, but he still had his talent. That dreadful woman hadn't utterly destroyed him.
"Thank you again, Madame." Nigel bowed.
"That's done it, your little spell?" Her gap-toothed smile was indulgent. "I must say, you're the politest bloke I ever met."
"That's done it," he agreed. "And you, Madame, are the kindest lady I have ever met."
He took his pie and his leave of her, wandering through the streets back to his tumbledown hideaway. As he was passing down Brick Lane, he heard loud voices coming toward him from ahead. Loud, familiar voices. He ducked around the corner into a narrower street, hunting a doorway to hide in. He wasn't far from his bolthole, but his hobbling pace was too slow for him to reach it in time.
"I tell you, I sensed it. Wizardry, in this place." The sound of boots went tramping by on the cobbles out in the lane, heading toward Whitechapel Road. "It's got to be Cranshaw."
"Or Dodd, or Allsup, or one of the others." Another voice heard from.
Nigel saw the striped Briganti sashes as the two men stamped past his shadow, leaving him behind. Why would they be hunting Dodd and Allsup? What had been happening while he'd been in hiding? How long had it been since his escape? The days and nights had blurred together. Did it matter?
He had the feeling he was supposed to be doing something, but he couldn't remember what it was. Revenge? Yes, that awful woman had done this to him. He should make her pay. But it seemed too much effort. And what if--when he tried to wreak his vengeance--what if she did something worse to him then?
He would think about it later. After he ate his lovely pie and rested up some.
The creatures clanking about in his hideaway seemed agitated when he returned and braced the half-rotted door closed. They kept charging this way and that, clicking and clacking their bizarre pincers and mandibles. Nigel paid them no mind as usual, save to kick them out of his way. Were there more of them? Possibly. But as long as they didn't bother him, he didn't care. He sat in the center of his mildewed mattress, folded his legs, and devoured his feast.
Elinor woke to darkness. It made sense, given that she'd gone to sleep not long before noon. She'd have slept through the remainder of the day and likely some of the night as well.
The darkness felt strange, though. Occupied. She strained to see through it and made out the darker form of an upholstered chair. A chair that belonged in her sitting room. Someone had carried it into her bedchamber and was now sitting in it, watching her.
No, not "someone." Harry. She recognized his silhouette, partly by the way his hair stood on end.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, sitting up. "This is an outrage!"
"I know." He didn't move, not a twitch of a single finger. "Sorry. But you're vulnerable when you sleep. I came to keep watch."
"You're not sorry in the least, are you?"
"I am. I'm sorry for upsetting you. But that doesn't mean I'm sorry for doin' it, or that I won't do it again tonight if we 'aven't caught the bastards that attacked you." He watched her a moment, while she tried to think of a suitably cutting retort. "Are you awake then? Not goin' back to sleep?"
"I'm awake. What time is it?"
He took out his pocket watch and flicked a finger at the oil lamp on her dresser, lighting it. "Nearly a quarter past four."
Elinor collapsed back on the bed in despair. "I realize that it's too late to fret over scandal at this late date, given what you said in front of the whole world yesterday, but I can't help hoping we might avoid making it worse. Why do you have to do these things to me?"
"I'm sorry. I truly am. I wouldn't 'urt you for the world." He sounded sincere and looked it, leaning forward on elbows propped on knees, head down. "When I lose my temper, I say things without ever thinkin', and then I wish I hadn't, but it's too late for wishing. Too late for anything but sorry."
She sighed and pressed her fingers into her eyes to ease the ache. "Yes, well-- I'm not sure what good that does either."
Harry's sigh echoed hers. Elbows still on his knees, he clasped his hands, steepling his forefingers, and rested his mouth against them. "I've been thinking and thinking, since before I came to watch out for you, trying to find some way to fix it, what I did. And still, the only thing I can come up with is for us to marry. I know you don't want it, Elinor, but I don't see any other way out."
He lifted a hand to hold back her protest, sitting up straight. "We'd live separate--you in your 'ouse, me in mine. You like the conservatory, so you take this one. I can find another easy enough. I wouldn't interfere, wouldn't make any demands. I would move out o' London and leave you to it, except you lot just made me council head, so I've got to be 'ere some. And you're magister, so you've got to be here some too."
Elinor sat up again so she could watch him, tucking the covers tightly under her arms. "What about the exchange of blood, our infant familiar bond?"
Once more, he gave a heavy sigh and held his hand out to her as if offering it up for bloody sacrifice. "Break it. I won't stop you, not any more. I don't want to 'old you against your will."
He meant it. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he held out his hand, in the expression on his face. "Why? Yesterday you fought me tooth and nail when I tried to break it. What's changed?"
Harry rubbed a hand over his mouth--still perfect, damn him--and stared at the ceiling while he assembled his thoughts. "Me," he said finally. "I've changed. I figured out one or two things since then. One of 'em is that you're not mine. I wish you were, but you're not, and I can't make you so.
"Thing is--I'm yours, Elinor. I'm your man,
no matter what, and that means I 'ave to give you what you want. What you need. And you're the one who knows what it is you need, not me. So. There we are."
He stood and picked up the chair where he'd been sitting. "I'll wait out in your sitting room while you decide. I know I said it before--'Whatever you want.' And then I tried to make you want what I wanted. I'll do better this time, if you'll give me the chance to try again."
Awash in confusion, Elinor could only nod. She didn't recognize this Harry. He left the room with the chair, closing the door behind him.
That wasn't true. This was Harry, the man he was when he wasn't trying to rearrange the world to suit himself. He had shown more of that man, his tender, affectionate side, when they were alone together. When she wasn't kicking at him to back off so she could stand on her own.
Was Amanusa right? That she could cut him deeper because he cared more about her opinion? Because he showed her that tender side? What did he mean, anyway, when he said he was hers?
Elinor fell back on the bed again, but knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. She rose, washed quickly in the--warm water? The maid hadn't brought it. The maid didn't appear until later. "Harry, did you warm the water?" she called to him through the bedroom door.
"Yeah." He didn't need to raise his voice much to be heard. "Didn't want you to catch a chill."
He was thoughtful like that. Not always, but often enough to be noticeable. Elinor didn't know what to think. She tried, while she dressed. She considered his proposal. It wasn't any more romantic than any of his previous ones, but she hadn't planned on marrying. She had never dreamed, like so many of her contemporaries, about how her future spouse would propose. She had no preconceived notions as to how it should go, nor did she mind the lack of romance. Though she found his offer to give up his house to her--the house he'd bought to show off his rise from the streets--incredibly romantic.
Romance didn't matter. She would not live her life tossed about by emotion. A life ruled by reason brought longer lasting satisfaction. And reason said, given the situation as it existed, that Harry's solution made sense. She had encouraged Pearl in her engagement to Grey, though that had ended up as sappily romantic and emotional as any debutante's dream. Elinor couldn't ignore that same sensible solution for those same sensible reasons in her own case. If she had wanted to remain unencumbered, she should never have fallen into bed with Harry. But since she had...