by Gail Dayton
She stabbed pins viciously into her hair, enough to make the slick mass stay up in any but the fiercest wind--almost more pins than hair--and stomped out of her bedroom. "What does that mean--you're mine?"
That wasn't what she'd intended to say, but now she'd said it, she wanted to know.
"Just what it says. I'm yours. At your side, guardin' your back, backin' you up. It don't mean, if you want to jump off London Bridge, I won't do me best to argue you out of it. But if you manage to jump anyway, I'll be there in the river to catch you. I'm on your side, Elinor. I always 'ave been."
Dear holy heaven. That made him even more dangerous. How could she keep her distance? Maintain her equilibrium?
"All right. I accept." She realized she was twisting her hands together and made herself stop, lower them to her side. "You can send the announcement of our engagement to the newspapers. I do like your house, but perhaps there is another that will suit me as well."
"We're to live separately, then?" How could his eyes hold so much sadness?
"It would be best." She did not want to weep. This was the sensible solution.
"Wot about the familiar bit?" He lifted his hand, showing the red mark in his thumb from the glass splinter.
Elinor tightened her lips. "I don't know," she admitted. "It did prove helpful. Perhaps we should consult with Amanusa and Pearl before we do anything decisive."
"And Grey an' Jax." Harry nodded. "All right."
She smoothed her skirts, feeling the awkwardness of the moment. "I should go to work. There are plants in the conservatory needing repotting and pruning and such. You should get some sleep."
He shrugged, lifting her cloak from the hood by the door, where it looked very domestic, hanging snuggled up against his overcoat. "I'm all right."
"You cannot possibly stay awake for two straight days and nights and expect to work magic."
"I didn't stay awake. I slept in the chair." He shrugged into his coat and followed her down the stairs. "I set alarms to go off in case of attack and I went to sleep. I've slept worse places than your comfy chair. But I needed to be close enough to do something if the alarms went off."
Elinor shook her head. There wasn't a man living who would admit to any weakness.
"So," he said finally, when they reached the conservatory door. "We're engaged to be married, then?"
Elinor sighed. "Yes, Harry. We are engaged." She noted that he did not say "we're to be married." As if he did not truly expect it to come off.
He put his hand on the door, but didn't open it. He looked down at her, reaching up with his other hand to touch her cheek. "Somehow, I thought I'd be 'appier at this moment. I'm sorry for makin' such a mess of things for you."
She gave him a smile that likely reflected her own mixed-up feelings. "So am I, for my own contributions to the mess." She touched his arm. "It will be all right."
"We'll make it all right."
He opened the door and held it for her to enter.
Over the next few weeks, a pair of I-Branch conjurers discovered that several magicians identified in the attack on Elinor had fled the city for Ireland. Messages were sent to the magicians acting as Briganti in Ireland--there, they were called Erainn but they served the same purpose. The would-be murderers would have officers of the law waiting to arrest them as soon as they arrived in Dublin.
Two of those who ran hadn't been known participants previously, but once they bolted, a conjury-alchemy spell on the aetheric trail of the magic confirmed it. It also definitively determined that 10 magicians had taken part in the spell: four wizards, three alchemists, and three conjurers. They had names for three of the wizards, two of the alchemists, and a conjurer. One of the alchemists was still in the wind, along with the four still-unidentified men.
After questioning employees of the railway used by the fleeing magicians--who seemed to have run away in a group--Harry and Elinor learned that his wizardry-enhanced concussion spell had indeed traced its way back to their attackers. It was reported that a man matching Dodd's description had behaved as if he were deaf, and both Allsup and Crump, the alchemist in the group, had plaster casts on various limbs. Allsup was using crutches. The satisfaction she felt at the knowledge roused all sorts of guilt in Elinor.
The announcement of her engagement to Harry swept through the ranks of magicians--both loyal and dissident--like refiner's fire, except Elinor didn't know the word to quench it. It also brought a letter of reproach from Elinor's parents out in the Cotswolds after the newspapers reached them. Fresh waves of guilt rose to consume her.
She'd forgotten entirely to write them about it. She hadn't written her parents since being elevated to wizard's magister, though she had remembered to tell them that, at least. Too much had been happening.
Harry hadn't ever met her family. They rarely came to town and he didn't like going out into the country. Too much grass not confined neatly in parks unsettled him, he claimed. She immediately sent off an apology and an invitation to visit and meet her prospective groom. The tangle only became more tangled.
A few more magicians defected to the Loyal Order after the announcement, but again they were the weaker sort, those who could believe that Harry would dance to Elinor's tune. Conjurers with only one spirit a few years dead to call, or alchemists proficient in a single element. The younger, stronger, more open-minded magicians stood fast and congratulated them on their upcoming nuptials.
At Harry's request, Sir William had written to Col. Simmons at his health retreat in Bath, urging him to join the former council head in retirement. Surprisingly enough, the gouty curmudgeon complied. Apparently, the thought of being directly subordinate to "that upstart Tomlinson" did not appeal. Harry promptly appointed Thom Norwood commander of Briganti Enforcers and created the separate position in charge of Holborn Tower. On Thom's endorsement, he named John Biggs to the post. Things were coming together nicely.
It had proved a simple thing for Elinor to winkle all the wizards out of the guild hall. She'd simply had to provoke them into attacking her. Though actually, most of them hadn't taken part. Old Beddowes was the last to depart, after the workmen arrived to drape tarpaulins over everything. She'd have suspected them of draping Beddowes, as he spent most of his time snoring away in a chair near the fire, but apparently the hammering at the roof had rousted him.
He joined the Loyal Order, along with all the other wizards save Fillmore, Jenkins, and Moreman. Fillmore and Jenkins had both been part of the teams in the battle at Waterloo Station, and Moreman followed where Jenkins led.
And on the second Sunday after the change in leadership, halfway through February, the Magician's Council would have its first magical talent testing day in over 200 years that was open to females as well as males. It had been announced, denounced, and argued volubly in the newspapers, on street corners, and in pubs, inns, and teashops of all ranks. No conclusions had been drawn, except that it would take place. Elinor could hardly wait.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The London Institution in Finsbury Circus had been borrowed for the expanded testing day by arrangement with the institution's board of governors. It was a great deal nearer the East End than the Magician's Council Hall was. It was also close to an underground station, one of those operated by a tiny locomotive, as well as the Liverpool Street train station. Harry had long advocated for talent testing in varied locations around London, rather than solely at the Council Hall. Now that he was head of the council, he'd taken only two weeks to get the first one set up.
The doors to the institution were to open promptly at one p.m., to allow time for the candidates to eat lunch after church services. The churches in and near Finsbury Circus, from Allhallows Church to the Welsh Baptist Chapel, had overflow crowds that morning. Elinor saw them filling the doorways as she arrived early with the other volunteers to set up at the institution. By noon, the oval park in the center of the circus was packed with whole families queuing up to have one of their members tested.
&nbs
p; All of the schoolmasters were present for the testing as it was part of their duty. Norwood had brought a company of Enforcers to keep order in the queues. All the magisters and Harry had come as well--the women, because they were needed for testing; the men, to support the ladies. The schoolmasters were enough to test the likely boys.
Amanusa and Pearl brought their advanced students to help with testing the anticipated mobs of women and girls. Elinor had called out all three of her master wizards, as well as inviting Dr. Rosato, who came. Nikos Archaios also offered to help test the girls, since he was sensitive to all four of the Great Magics. Elinor worried that they still didn't have enough testers for the girls.
"Don't be harder on the girls than you are on the boys," Elinor was saying, with a sharp look at Lewis Moreman. She didn't know him well enough yet to trust him very far. She turned her sharp look on Tonio Rosato. "But don't go easier on them either. We want wizards with actual talent, not just pretty faces.
"Mr. Archaios and I will be the first screeners for the girls," she went on, "since we can test for both wizardry and sorcery. We will send the ones who pass to either you gentlemen or Mrs. Greyson's ladies. Right now though, as I understand it, we're looking for raw talent. They won't actually choose a discipline until they visit the library. Is that correct, Mr. Fillmore?"
He was the only one of them who'd participated in a talent testing day before today. "Yes," he began. "It is generally possible to tell which--"
"Help!" Pearl's cry cut across all conversation from where she stood near the windows overlooking the street outside. "Oh, help--Thom! Grey! They're fighting--shoving the girls and throwing rocks at them!"
The men leapt into motion, Thom and his Briganti at the forefront. Elinor felt magic move--Amanusa and Pearl gathering up the power of innocent blood spilled--and ran to help. She'd never worked justice magic, but the outrage she felt, that someone would use violence to stop others from bettering their lives simply because they wore skirts, helped her grasp the magic's purpose and the method of using it. In concert with the other sorcerers, she invoked the blood and sent it out to quell the combat. It seemed to have a little burn to it--Harry's contribution.
"I've sent a request for regular police to keep order." Grey stopped beside the women at the window. "Now, I suppose I should go join Harry and Thom in cracking heads."
"If you feel you must." Pearl sighed. "It wouldn't do to let them have all the fun."
"No, it would not. I'd best hurry or all the best heads will already be cracked." Grey's grin was positively feral as he headed for the nearby door, adjusting his gloves.
Harry's concussion spell linked with Elinor's blood magic to head directly for those marked as the offenders. Thom and the Enforcer alchemists sent their own similar spells out, bowling over those pushing and shoving at the foot of the steps. The other sorcerers' justice magic kept those Harry's spell had knocked down from getting back up and allowed the conjury spirits to pinpoint them for the bobbies who soon came pouring into the square, bashing the few remaining recalcitrants into submission.
Apparently, from what could be gathered before the doors officially opened and the madhouse got underway, three separate groups were involved in the fracas: the "ladies" who were taunting some of the men with their presumed magical prowess, the men throwing rocks who didn't approve of uppity females using magic, and the boys and their families at the head of the line who pushed the girls and their families out of their way.
They all got sent to the back of the line, except for the rock throwers, who were carted off to clink by the police. Order was maintained by the regiment of policemen who remained in the circus. The Briganti took over once those applying for examination were admitted to the building.
Most of the applicants came into the front hall with at least one sponsor or parent. There, they were confronted by Elinor and Archaios, or Headmaster Whitson and the dean of the alchemy department, a quiet man named Hunter. Usually the sponsor would say something like, "the boy shows promise at his magic lessons," or "the girl's always watchin' things that ain't there." The magicians would ask the candidate to demonstrate his or her talent and either send them on to have their information taken down before entering one of the rooms for further testing, or send them quietly out the back way.
This--the sending them home again--happened far more often with the girls than the boys, because the system was fairly well established for finding boys with talent. Schoolmasters in the primary grades knew what they were looking for and were quick to mark out a boy with promise. But girls didn't get magic lessons in primary school, and by the time magic talent usually began to manifest, they weren't in the same schools as the boys. Most of them weren't in school at all and the ones who were, their teachers hadn't any idea what the signs of magical talent might be.
One girl came in as part of an entire family who'd accompanied her younger brother. While he demonstrated his ability to make bubbles in a bowl of water, she started playing with the wooden pegs on Elinor's table. When one of the pegs sprouted fresh pine needles, Elinor snatched her up, pushed her into the arms of a Briganti, and had her escorted directly to Dr. Rosato. Then she spent the next half-hour arguing with the girl's parents who didn't think she should outshine her podgy little brother. He was a fair enough talent, so Elinor begged Mr. Whitson to take them as a package, which he eventually did.
There was a ragged boy who marched defiantly into the building, straight up to Harry where he stood to one side, and announced that he could start fires with a flick of his finger. Harry put out the lamp on the table beside him and invited the boy to demonstrate, and when the lamp blazed to light, took him personally to the enrollment table at the end of the line. The rest of the boys who tried to jump the queue, he made go through the proper process.
Potential sorcerers were a bit harder to test than the other disciplines. Most of them wouldn't spit in public, so they'd devised a test where they were asked to pull in some of London's overabundance of innocent blood justice magic and place it in a spot of Amanusa's blood on a handkerchief. The miniature riot before the doors' opening provided more magic to work with.
One young woman, a store clerk, refused absolutely to spit at all, even in the private testing room with Pearl. She was not admitted to the academy. Another woman, obviously "no better than she should be," walked in trailing a cloud of sex magic five yards behind her. She was admitted on condition that she follow academy rules. That one made Elinor very nervous.
Though they were still testing girls and women long after the last boys had been passed through the tests and admitted or sent home for more practice, there weren't as many female applicants as Elinor had expected or hoped for. It was possible word hadn't got out as far as they would have liked. Many of them might have had to obtain permission to apply--permission which was withheld. Elinor also thought it likely the more prosperous classes saw magic as a thing for the working class. Something a genteel female would not sully her hands with.
It didn't trouble Elinor overmuch, except that there might be someone like her, with a thirst for magic. Someone who, unlike her, did not have parents with liberal attitudes toward female education and occupation.
The truth was, Elinor herself was the most genteel of the female master magicians, and her father was a country squire, barely above the ranks of prosperous farmer. Pearl's father had been a wealthy merchant before the crumbling of his fortune, despite her marriage to the black sheep son of a duke. Amananusa's parents had been servants; her father, the English valet to a diplomat in Vienna, and her mother, a Romanian chambermaid.
Elinor had hoped a few of the hordes of governesses or ladies' companions might have come to see if their little love charms had real magic behind them, but teatime had come and gone. She'd seen no one more genteel than the dozen or so shop clerks. Three of them had proved willing to spit and were admitted to the academy, however.
Whitson had put away his pencil case. Hunter had poured the water out of his bowl
and was wrapping his candles. Grey had taken Pearl home at teatime. She'd been visibly wilting. Jax and Amanusa were gathering the rather wilted sorcery students. Elinor sat in her hard, slat-backed chair and dropped her wooden pegs one by one into their pouch, yawning until she thought her jaw would pop, when Archaios appeared at her elbow again.
"I thought you'd gone already," Elinor said when the yawn let her go.
"I was on my way, when I saw this lady outside on the steps." Archaios gifted Elinor with the smile that made ladies swoon. Other ladies. Elinor only swooned over Harry's perfect mouth, blast it. "She will speak only with you, Magister Tavis."
Elinor stood and offered her hand, trying not to appear too eager. This was obviously one of those ladies she'd been hoping for, given her good quality dress with its shabby edges. The woman was thin, rather faded looking, but she met Elinor's eye and shook her hand with a firm, but not challenging grip.
"I am Wilhelmina Kent," she said. "I debated all through my afternoon off as to whether I should come. I am due back at my employers at seven o'clock." She stopped, a fine shudder running through her. "And I simply cannot go back to that house."
"Can you work magic?" Elinor caught Jax's eye and signaled for him to wait.
Miss Kent bit her lip. "I am not sure. I--is there magic one can work by--" She pantomimed licking her thumb. "Placing a seal, thus?" She rubbed her thumb along the air, as if along a door.
"Indeed there is." Elinor beamed at the woman. "Come. Let me introduce you to the sorcerer's magister. I think we can arrange that you never do have to return to your former employer."