Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  "It wasn't fully here." Grey was scowling down at Harry, hands on hips, when Elinor returned from her visit. "Part of it was still in hell, not like the other. That one brought its body with it. Nor do I think this was as powerful a demon as the one Ferguson let out. Also--" He backed out of the way as a stretcher appeared.

  "Take Nigel first." Elinor pointed. "He's in worse shape. And hand me his bag. I need to borrow a few things from it."

  "Isn't that your bag?" Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

  "Not any more. It's his now." She pulled out a pair of restorative vials and handed one to Jenkins, who was supervising Nigel's removal. "Give him this. It will help. I think his collarbone's broken. Something is--the machine hit him quite hard. I hope it's no worse than that. He wasn't strong to begin with, which has complicated everything."

  "Don't take 'im to the tower," Harry said. "We'll 'ave a hearing later, but his actions today'll go far in decidin' wot's to be done with 'im."

  "Where should we take him then, sir?" Jenkins asked.

  "Wizard's Hospital?" Harry looked to Elinor for confirmation. It was a very small, very exclusive facility, run primarily for magicians and high government officials. She hadn't had time yet to begin her plans for it.

  She nodded, handing Harry the other vial. "Drink it," she ordered.

  "Yes'm." He did what he was told. Elinor looked for mockery but found none.

  "Bring a stretcher for Harry, too," she called after Jenkins' retreating back. "He doesn't need to be standing any more, not with all the blood he's lost."

  "Yes, ma'am." Jenkins' nod echoed Harry's.

  Pearl was waiting anxiously at Harry's house when they all arrived back there.

  "How did you know to wait for us here?" Elinor asked her as the magicians followed several large and sturdy footmen carrying Harry upstairs.

  Harry hated every minute of it, being carried. Worst part was, he didn't think he could walk a single step on his own if he tried, much as he wanted to. Terrible thing for a man to admit, even to himself.

  "You and Harry were the ones missing," Pearl said. "The odds were that one or both of you had been hurt, most likely Harry. Where else would you come? Besides--he's head of council now. That makes his house headquarters, when we're not at the council hall."

  "I would've thought you'd be right there in the middle of it all," Harry grumped. "Elinor won't stay home."

  "Yes, well, Elinor's not expecting, is she?" Pearl looked both annoyed and pleased with herself.

  "They did make an agreement," Elinor said. "Before they married. That Grey would not issue orders, but Pearl would have to behave sensibly."

  "Ah." Would Elinor make such an agreement with him? Harry could only hope.

  Everyone--Elinor, Amanusa, Pearl, Jax, Grey, even Thom, Nikos and John Fillmore--crowded into Harry's bedchamber. And refused to leave while Harry's broken-nosed valet got him out of his ruined clothes and into a nightshirt. The ladies did turn their backs, but that was the only concession they would make.

  And since the ladies immediately bared his right leg clear up to made-no-difference as soon as he was tucked up in bed, Harry resigned himself to his fate. Poking, prodding, fussing, and embarrassment.

  He was engaged to be married. If she actually did marry him, he could put up with fuss, and baring his nether parts, or nearly, to the world. As much of the world as could fit in his bedchamber.

  They had just cut away the blood-soaked petticoat bandage to expose his injury. Everyone crowded round to take a look, even Nikos, Thom, and Grey, who knew nothing at all about the treatment of injuries. How long would it take for the fussing to end? When they did, would Elinor leave with the rest of the crowd?

  "It looks good," Amanusa said, poking his leg hard enough to make Harry grit his teeth.

  "Now that I finally found that little bleeder and stopped it." Elinor sounded caught between disgust that she hadn't found it earlier and satisfaction that she'd found it at all. "I need my bindweed ointment from my stillroom."

  "I'll get it," Jax offered.

  Elinor told him where to find it and which chambermaid to take with him. Sally cleaned the stillroom and knew where most things might be.

  "So," she asked Grey as she wet a cloth in the warm water sent up from the kitchen. "Harry told me to ask you why the demon didn't escape the machine before we broke it to bits."

  "I don't actually know," Grey said, leaning against one of the foot posts on Harry's massive bed. "But it is possible that because it possessed a machine, rather than a human, it found itself trapped there. Humans, even when they are possessed, can cooperate with those trying to dispossess them. Toss the bugger out, in essence. With help. But this was a machine. It's possible the demon got itself stuck. I would rather not research demons, thank you, to discover whether my guess is actually true."

  "Don't you dare," Pearl threatened.

  Grey pulled her to stand in front of him, arms around her from behind, and rested his chin on her head. "Yes'm."

  "Weren't you goin' to say something else out there?" Harry needed distraction from Elinor washing the blood from his leg, both from the pain and from her touching him there. "When we were talkin' about how we got rid of it without the angel this time?"

  "Oh--that's right." Grey lifted his head to stand straight. "You were all there, at Waterloo Station when the angel shared power with us." He looked around the room at the magicians present. "That power is gone now, correct?"

  The others all nodded, even Harry.

  "But it--" Grey groped for words. "Left behind a conduit. A way for us to tap that same power. Maybe not at the same level but it is the same power. I believe that is what we did and that is how we did it."

  The others nodded again, thoughtfully.

  While they were busy thinking over what Grey said, Harry saw his chance. Elinor was washing him clean as impersonally as she might any patient, looking everywhere but at his face. He had no pride left, not when it came to Elinor. He had to know now, no matter how many witnesses he had to his desperation. "Elinor?"

  "Yes, Harry?" Now, finally, she looked up at him, her gray-blue eyes meeting his without hesitation.

  "Did you mean it? What you said out there?" After so long, such determined resistance, he was afraid to believe.

  She didn't pretend she didn't know what he meant. "Yes, Harry, I did. I do." She shot a sideways glance at Amanusa and Pearl who took the washing cloth from her and pretended not to be listening. Everyone else pretended too, but none of them left. Didn't matter.

  "I only just realized it then." Elinor moved closer to his head, took his hand in both of hers. "But I have--I think I have, at least a little, ever since you offered me the chance to be your apprentice."

  "Ah." He brought her hands up and kissed them, one after the other, turning his hand to bring them to his mouth. "Does that mean we can set a date?"

  She blushed. Elinor actually blushed. She rarely did. Not much embarrassed her, but now-- "As soon as my family can come to town. They haven't had time to write back and say when that might be--but I could write again and hurry them along. Mid-March?"

  "I want a date, Elinor. Not an approximation." He wasn't being arrogant or controlling. He was desperate.

  She seemed to recognize that and got flustered, rather than bristling up. "I don't have a--"

  Grey produced a calendar, like magic. "The banns can be called by March 13. That will give plenty of time for your family to reach London, Elinor. The first quarter is the 15th."

  "First quarter of what?" Now Harry was confused.

  "The moon," Pearl said. "Conjury marks the moon phases."

  "Tonight's the first quarter," Grey said. He drew a circle in the air with his hand. "First quarter to first quarter--completes the circle begun."

  "Grey." Elinor stared at him. "You're a romantic."

  "I like it." Harry said. "I've become somewhat romantic myself lately."

  Elinor blushed, but she didn't object.

  "The
15th is a Tuesday," Amanusa said.

  "So? You got anywhere else to be?" Harry glared at her. He didn't want to put off marrying Elinor any longer than he had to.

  He got his wedding date. But he still wasn't quite, exactly sure what kind of marriage it would be. She said she loved him. She never had before, but... He was still afraid. And that question he simply could not ask with witnesses present.

  Once Jax returned with the wound ointment--it had taken a bit of searching to find--Harry got his leg bandaged and everyone departed in short order to leave him to rest. Elinor lingered, but not quite long enough. Jax and Amanusa were still at the door. So Harry called her back.

  "What is it?" She turned where she was, halfway across the room.

  "Come 'ere for a minute." He patted the bed beside him.

  She looked puzzled, but she came. Maybe it would be all right.

  "Do I 'ave to go shopping for a new 'ouse?" he asked, point blank.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. Bloody hell. Now what had he done wrong? But she leaned forward and kissed him, slow and deep and so sweet that he forgot to worry.

  "No, Harry." She rubbed her smooth cheek against his rough. "I want to live with you in this house. I love you."

  He frowned at her. He needed to understand. If he understood, maybe he wouldn't have to worry all the time about messing up and losing her again. "Why? What's changed? You were so set against me--"

  "Not against you." She sighed. "I was afraid. And stupid." She shifted position, then stood and hoisted a couple layers of skirt and petticoat. "Untie these blasted hoops, will you, dearest? They're bent and broken and driving me mad."

  "Sure." He had to sit up and lean, but the bow hadn't gotten knotted and was easily pulled free. Elinor kicked them off, stepped out, and sat back down. "Afraid o' wot?" he prompted.

  "Very nearly everything. Losing the magic, mostly." She sighed again. "My mother is a singer. Opera. A very, very good one. She could have been the toast of Europe. The world. But she gave it all up to marry my father and raise all of us. I did tell you I have six brothers and sisters, didn't I? I have to invite every one of them and their respective spouses and children to the wedding."

  "All right." Harry didn't care how many relatives she had or how many people she invited to the wedding, as long as she married him.

  "Mother has always said she gave it up willingly--singing professionally. She hasn't given up singing altogether. She sings at church sometimes, and at musical nights at home and at the neighbors. She always said she wouldn't trade one minute of one day with all of us for any amount of money or adulation. And I think maybe--"

  Elinor's speech slowed, as if she picked her way through to the truth. "I think that was what frightened me the most. That I might love someone--you--so much that I would give away my dreams. My--my self."

  "Don't you know I'd never ask that of you?"

  She smiled, touched his cheek, relieved his heart. "Of course I know. I think I was afraid it would just--happen."

  She bit her lip, losing herself in memory again. "And you know, now I think back, I remember times Mama was invited to sing, but didn't. Evenings when the crowd was larger than expected and..." She looked up at Harry, her face wrapped in confusion. "Do you suppose Mama has stage fright? Maybe she really did prefer being at home with us."

  Harry drew Elinor in to lean against his chest, where she belonged. "She's your ma. You know her better'n me who's never met 'er. Do you think your Dad's the sort who would make her do anything she didn't want to do?"

  "No, never." The answer sounded instinctive. "In fact, I overheard him once telling her she didn't have to sing if she didn't want to. Encouraging her not to sing." Elinor shifted position against him. "I was in my suffragette period then--"

  "And you aren't still?" Harry interrupted, teasing.

  She poked him with a finger. "Hush, you. I thought he was oppressing her, keeping her from doing what she wanted. I wanted magic so badly then, you see, and the whole world seemed to be conspiring to prevent me from having it. But what if--" She sat up and looked at him, hands resting on his chest for support. "What if he was setting her free to do what she wanted? What if she didn't want to perform, but felt obligated? It isn't freedom, is it, unless you're free not to do things if you'd rather not?"

  "True. So that's what changed your mind?" He stroked a hand up her arm and back down again, covering her hand on his chest.

  "No. I just figured that bit out this minute."

  "Then wot did change your mind?" He needed to know.

  "You did." She turned her hand, capturing his hand laid over it, and brought it to her mouth for a kiss. That was good. "You and Nigel."

  "Nigel. Cranshaw?" That didn't sound so good.

  Elinor laughed and kissed his hand again. Then she leaned against him for another bit of a cuddle. "The demon kept talking about all Nigel had sacrificed for the magic. You see, I thought that I needed to sacrifice--give up a husband and family of my own in order to have the magic.

  "But there you were, loving me. Offering me everything I ever could have wanted. Magic and love. And suddenly, it just seemed--wrong. Wrong and stupid not to take the gifts God had for me. So I decided to stop being stupid and afraid, and grabbed hold of you with both hands."

  She sat up and looked him in the eye. "I am not letting go, Harry Tomlinson, and you had better not let go either."

  "Never," he swore, taking hold of her elbows with both hands. His heart was so full he didn't know how to hold it all. So he didn't. He gave it to his woman--love, magic, whatever was there. He had finally found home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  March 15, 1864, turned out to be a very busy day indeed. In the morning, Harry and Elinor were married in the wizard's guild conservatory since it was larger than his own. It could fit inside of it all their magician friends, some two score or so of Elinor's relatives--not all the relatives she had--and whatever strangers managed to squeeze in around the edges, or so it seemed to Harry. Most of the last were students, he thought, of either wizardry or sorcery. Romantical young ladies.

  The wedding breakfast, which was actually a luncheon, took place in the Great Hall of the Magician's Council. Nowhere else available was large enough for all the invited guests. Besides, it wasn't every day that the head of the council married the wizard's magister. The celebration was so long and so boisterous, Harry and Elinor had no time to change for their afternoon appointments. Elinor wore her wedding finery to Buckingham Palace.

  Elinor's gown of palest green satin taffeta did have the long train required, though she really should have had more plumes for her hair. Harry changed into knee breeches in the carriage conveying them there.

  The other magisters had managed to escape the festivities soon enough to go home and change. Amanusa and Jax, Grey and Pearl, and Thom, met them in the front foyer, where they had been waiting several minutes for them to arrive. Harry was trying to walk and fasten his knee buckles at the same time while they came through the door. He managed to get his breeches buckled up by the time they walked through the miles of corridors and climbed the mountains of stairs to a grand antechamber, where again, they waited.

  Less than ten minutes later, the door opened and they were ushered into the diminutive black-clad presence of the queen of England. Pearl was indeed smaller than the queen. Elinor was at least two inches taller. Amanusa, of course, towered.

  Her Majesty congratulated them on achieving their new ranks. She thanked them for dealing with the "difficulty" at Waterloo Station and the more recent one in Whitechapel. She expressed hope that something could be done about the dead zones. But when Harry began to tell her what they planned, she indicated the interview was over. Moments later, they were bowing, curtsying, and backing out of the room.

  "That went well," Harry said, neither quietly nor sincerely.

  "It did, actually." An elderly gentlemen with bushy gray sidewhiskers below bushy gray hair stepped forward.

  "Lord Palmer
ston." Harry bowed to the prime minister.

  Elinor sank into another deep curtsy, awed all over again. She didn't know how awed the others were, but they were all bowing and curtsying too. Jax might not be too awed. He'd known and served Henry VIII. Prime ministers had not been important then.

  "She spoke with you above ten minutes," Palmerston said. "Always a good sign. She is impatient with governance these days. Call on me one day in the next little while, will you, Tomlinson? Need to hear what you plan to do about these zone things. When you've had time to settle in to your new marriage. Felicitations, Mrs. Tomlinson."

  "So I shall, sir." Harry bowed again as Elinor murmured her thanks, and the prime minister--the prime minister!--wandered off again.

  "All I ever wanted was the magic," Elinor said to Harry as they followed the footman back down the long corridors.

  "Got to take wot comes wif it, doncha?" Harry seemed to have fallen hard into his Cockney after restraining it so heroically for so long.

  Unfortunately, their day was not yet ended. They went directly from their private audience with the queen to presentation at court, with the Prince of Wales and poor deaf Princess Alexandra presiding in his mother's place.

  As they moved through the succession of crowded rooms, Elinor became slowly aware of the subtle sensation of magic whispering past her.

  "Do you feel that?" she asked Harry.

  "Feel what?" he snapped. Harry did not take well to crowds, especially posh ones.

  "I do." Amanusa touched her arm. "Sorcery--but not."

  "It wants to be sorcery, I think," Elinor agreed. She went up on her toes and craned her neck, trying to see where it might be coming from.

  "It's like--" Pearl cocked her head, one of her plumes tipping dangerously to the side. "Like some of the girls, on testing day. So full of magic they'll explode if they don't use it."

  "Exactly." Elinor barely kept from crying out in exultation as Pearl said precisely what she meant. "So where is she?"