Valerie raised her hand, waving it. “I heard conjurations vanish at midnight.”
Mrs. Heelis shook her head. “Not at midnight, twenty-four hours later.”
“Then they disappear? Like Cinderella’s dress?”
Mrs. Heelis nodded again. “Assuming that her dress had been conjured the previous midnight. Yes.”
“All conjurations?” asked Valerie.
“All conjurations, Miss Hunt,” Mrs. Heelis replied firmly. “The talismans one makes using alchemy are temporary, too. They last a month. There is a process for degossamerizing them—for making them permanent—but that is not a matter for this class. Shall we begin?”
The assignment was to hold the image of a twelve inch hoop in mind, clearly, and then conjure it. All around the room, students performed the muria cantrip, and then—with the help of their familiars, who reached up with their silver paws or wings or talons and pulled it from the dreamland—produced hoops of a pale white substance that reminded Rachel of ceramics.
Or rather, that is what was supposed to happen.
The princess and her Tasmanian Tiger produced a circlet of such pure gold that it reminded Rachel of the hoop above the Raven’s head. At the sight of it, Mrs. Heelis clapped with joy. Siggy and Lucky conjured a live alligator that had to be dispelled by Mrs. Heelis before it could eat Juma O’Malley’s tiny elephant. Fortunately, the tutor got it right away. If conjured items were not dispelled immediately, they remained real for twenty-four hours.
“Your elephant seems to be the target of choice,” Zoë observed wryly. Her hair was a pale jade color today. The feather was teal with dark green spots. “First, a cat. Now, an alligator?”
Juma shook his head of shaggy copper curls. “They must know Jellybean’s a tasty guy.”
“I guess that’s what you get when you name your familiar after candy,” Zoë snorted.
Juma shrugged. “What’s the name of your…whatever-that-is?”
Zoë held up her spotted, orange creature. “It’s a tiger quoll, and his name is Aardvark.”
“But…it’s not an aardvark?” Juma wiggled his eyebrows. Rachel noticed that he wore gold rings in his ears, like a pirate.
“Is yours a jellybean?” Zoë quipped back.
“Still, ’tis odd to name one animal after another.” The princess looked up from her second golden hoop. “Would you call a cat ‘Dog’?”
“I would,” Zoë grinned. “Nor am I the only one. Seth’s family had a cat named Dog.”
Seth Peregrine nodded from where he and his tortoiseshell cat were trying to manifest a hoop that looked more like a circle and less like an industrial accident. “It’s true. Though, in my defense, I was not one who named it.”
“What is the name of your current cat?” Rachel pointed at his feline familiar.
Seth grinned. “Turtle.”
Mrs. Heelis walked around the room, checking each student. Soon she would reach Rachel’s seat. Embarrassed to fail in front of everyone, she resolved that she would conjure something without a familiar to help her. She could hardly do worse than Seth Peregrine, and he had a familiar.
She tried very hard to picture the ring she had drawn, but she was not entirely sure what this ring should look like in three dimensions. As the tutor approached, Rachel hurriedly pointed her fingers upward and then pulled her fingertips together as she drew her hand downward.
“Muria!”
A white ring appeared, but it was only three-quarters solid. Mist billowed up from the inner section that she had not properly pictured. The mist smelled of plaster-of-Paris and lilacs.
As she breathed it in, Rachel felt unexpectedly sleepy.
The world tipped sideways.
Chapter Thirty:
I Don’t Remember That Cup
A breeze blew across her face.
Hands lifted her. Rachel opened her eyes and shrank away from the gray snake with two hollow eyes hovering over her. Then, her mind’s eye readjusted, and she recognized Jellybean’s trunk. The tiny elephant blew air into her face, fanning the mist away with its big ears.
Siggy and Juma leaned over her, too. Their hands were under her arms, lifting. Lucky flew around her, his gold eyes wide with concern. Embarrassed, Rachel shook off the boys’ hands and climbed to her feet.
Class was ending. Mrs. Heelis gave their next assignments and then said, “Very well. Everyone please put your hoop or facsimile thereof into the vanishing bin.” She finished with, “Miss Griffin, will you please remain? I wish to speak with you.”
Rachel’s heart dropped so far that she feared those in the classroom on the floor below would be sending someone up to complain. As the other students filed out, Rachel approached the art tutor with great trepidation. Mrs. Heelis’s ordinarily kind face had taken on a stern cast.
“Miss Griffin, we must never have a repeat of today’s events. Conjuring without properly comprehending the object is very dangerous. The mists of dream are not to be trifled with.”
Rachel lowered her head meekly. “I am sorry.”
She thought, but did not say aloud, that her chance of repeating such an offense was low, because the earth was about to be destroyed by the demon Azrael!
“I cannot emphasize this enough, child,” the art tutor continued. “Not only does this mist cause sleep, but also if you are injured while surrounded by it, no magic can heal you.”
Rachel nodded numbly.
“This is a great danger for conjurers, especially performers who use the mist as part of their act. Every decade, a few are permanently crippled. ’Tis very sad. There’s a girl in the Lower School who lost her family in such an accident. Poor dear is in a wheelchair. This mist is so potent that Agents use it for catching particularly odious monsters. You do not want to breathe it on purpose.”
Feeling hardly as tall as Thumbelina’s baby sister, Rachel nodded.
“It is our familiars’ task to make certain that no portion of the conjuration is unfixed before we draw it down. Where is your familiar, Miss Griffin?”
“I…” Rachel hung her head, tears pooling in her eyes. “He won’t come.”
“He won’t…come?”
“You saw him the day I brought him. Even when he comes, he’s useless.”
“He’s not a familiar quality creature, is he?” Mrs. Heelis asked shrewdly. “He’s a pet.”
“He comes from a long line of illustrious familiars.” Tears warmed Rachel’s cheeks. “I love him! I don’t want to give him up.”
“You must, if you wish to continue studying conjuring. And you must take this class to pass your freshman year. Would you like to borrow a loaner familiar from the menagerie?”
The idea of giving up on Mistletoe was unbearable. She knew, for certain now, that he would never be a familiar. He was not a wonder cat in disguise. She had picked badly.
Yet, her stubborn loyalty made her balk at the idea of replacing him.
Rachel gazed at the tutor imploringly. “Isn’t there a way to conjure without a familiar?”
“Certainly, but to do that, you must be able to hold a perfect image in your mind. Perfect in every way.” Mrs. Heelis picked up a mug, gesturing at it. “The color, substance, size, shape.”
Rachel straightened, suddenly intent. “I can do that.”
“How so?”
Rachel took the cup from her and ran her hands over the sides. It was a blue mug—cold, shiny, and smooth. She looked at it from all sides: above and below. Closing her eyes, she recalled it exactly. Without opening her eyes, she performed the cantrip, drawing her hand down.
“Muria.”
Rachel opened her eyes. In the air before her, a puff of mist solidified into a blue mug. She caught it and ran her fingers over it, awed. It looked and felt exactly like the original.
The art tutor’s old face lit up. “Oh! That’s…very good! Very good!” She clapped her hands. “Now, make one that is red and taller.”
Rachel balked. She stared at the mug.
Fi
nally, she said haltingly, “I-I don’t remember that cup.”
Mrs. Heelis’s brow beetled. She gazed at Rachel in confusion. Then, realization dawned across her kind, crinkled face. “Oh my. You’re Ellen Kim’s daughter.”
Rachel nodded.
“Your mother was one of my most beloved students,” the art tutor said, her face aglow. “I had her the first time I taught at Roanoke, before I departed to teach at the Montana Institute of Conjuring Arts,” she explained with a wry smile. “After the Terrible Years, I was asked to return, because there were so few tutors. Ellen was amazing. She could do the most advanced conjurations so quickly. She had a very reliable familiar, if I remember.”
“A black-and-white cat named Calidor?”
“Yes, that’s right! Oh what a sweetie that cat was!”
Rachel sighed. “What can I do? Only conjure things I remember? Memorize other student’s successes?” Her voice trailed off. How pathetic that sounded.
Mrs. Heelis looked up at the walls of her classroom. On them hung the figures the art tutor had created in her famous youth: Peter Rabbit, Jemina Puddle-Duck, Squirrel Nutkin. The old woman smiled faintly. “Well, my dear child, you could always try the old fashioned way.”
“Old fashioned way?” Rachel asked, intrigued. “What is that?”
“Learn to draw. When you can draw an object from every angle, you can conjure it.”
Rachel gazed at the characters, beloved from her childhood: mice wearing glasses and reading newspapers while seated on thimbles; foxes in waistcoats beguiling lady ducks; young rabbits getting their jackets caught in fences. The idea of learning to draw grabbed hold of her. Not only would it help her conjure, but also it would solve her problem of what to do while tutors reviewed previously-covered material. Drawing would take just enough of her attention to keep her from growing too bored, without absorbing too much.
Her own artwork was currently not worthy of notice, but even as Rachel contemplated this, ways to use her memory to improve her drawing occurred to her.
She itched to try them.
As Rachel glanced at the walls, Mrs. Heelis gazed around the classroom as well. Smiling, the old tutor took a silver picture frame from one of the low cabinets that housed supplies and held it out toward Rachel. “You might enjoy seeing this, child.”
Normally, Rachel enjoyed old photos, but the thought of learning to draw had set her imagination aflame. She was dying to get to work at once. To be polite, however, she gave the old picture a cursory glance.
What she saw caused her to cry out in surprise.
It was an old daguerreotype, creamy with faded blacks. Five people, three young men and two young women, stood side-by-side. The men wore military uniforms from the Crimean War. The women wore Victorian gowns with large bustles. As in many old portraits, they looked rather serious, except for one of the young women, who was smiling, and one young man, who had a dashing gleam in his eye. Between the two women stood an extremely handsome soldier with deep bushy eyebrows and an imperious gaze—a very familiar imperious gaze.
“Grandfather!” Rachel peered closer. “And that girl who is smiling…” Rachel gasped. “I say…could that be Grandmother!”
“This was before Amelia took her vows,” Mrs. Heelis recalled. “She was a brainy girl with great moral strength. Your grandfather was so in love with her. That was before he met Estelle, of course.”
Rachel had no idea who Estelle might be. She examined the face of the youthful Amelia Abney-Hastings. The young woman looked so joyful. It was almost impossible to imagine that she could have become the strict disciplinarian Rachel had known. Of course, Vestal Virgins lived extraordinarily disciplined lives. Perhaps her grandmother had come to expect that same level of devotion from others
The thought of her grandmother abandoning her duties as a Keeper of the Eternal Flame to marry her grandfather sent a shiver through Rachel’s body. The elderly duchess had valued keeping one’s word above nearly all other things. It must have taken something extraordinary to convince her to break her sacred vows.
“And on the other side. That’s you! You were both so beautiful!” Rachel glanced at the rest of the photograph. She poked a finger excitedly at the dashing figure on the far right. “It’s him! I’ve seen his picture a thousand times, in all my favorite books! Only he’s a bit younger here. That’s Daring Northwest!”
“Yes. What a charmer he was. What an intelligent and driven man.” Caught in memory, Mrs. Heelis face filled with sadness. “How I loved him, but he never noticed.”
“He’s been my hero for years!” Rachel shook her head in amazement. She felt both delighted that she and her art tutor admired the same man and envious of the time Mrs. Heelis had spent in his company. “I had no idea Grandfather knew him.” She paused. “Maybe that’s why he had so many of Northwest’s books in his private library!”
Mrs. Heelis reached for a tissue and dabbed at the corner of her eye. “I was so sad when he died.”
“I’m sorry.” Rachel bit her lip, wishing for a better way to express her sympathy. “Had you known him long?”
“Since we were children. We had all known each other since…” Mrs. Heelis pressed her lips together and glanced warily out the window.
“Who is this?” Rachel pointed at the last figure, a fierce-looking young man with pale hair and an olive complexion.
“You would not have heard of him. He died in the fight against Bismarck’s sorcerers.”
“Jasper Hawke!” whispered Rachel.
“Yes!” Mrs. Heelis cried, surprised. “Did your grandfather tell you about him?”
“No…Dr. Mordeau mentioned him while she was fighting the dean.” Rachel would have said more, but it occurred to her that, finally, she had found someone who might know the answer to the question that consumed her. “Mrs. Heelis, do you know…about the tragedy my grandfather suffered? The one that caused my grandmother to break her sacred vows and marry him?”
A terrible sorrow came over the old art tutor’s face, far worse than the sadness of remembering the death of the young man she had once fancied. Icy chills, like the grip of a cold hand, constricted Rachel’s heart.
“Yes, child. I do.”
“Wh—what was it?” Rachel’s voice was barely audible.
“Are you sure you want to know?” Mrs. Heelis asked gently. “If your parents haven’t told you, I am not sure I am the best…”
“Please!” Rachel begged. “I must know!”
The art tutor gazed at her, her face full of pity, but she said nothing.
“Please!” Rachel cried desperately. “No one will tell me. Loving someone and not knowing…the horrible things that occur in my imagination. It is worse than knowing the truth!”
“It might not be worse,” Mrs. Heelis whispered. She covered her face with her hands.
After what seemed like a long time, she pulled them away again. “I know what that’s like, child. No one knows how Darius died. He just went into the Glass Hall in Castle Beaumont and never emerged. We kept expecting he had popped through some travel glass and would appear again from some odd corner of the earth…but he never did. That was over a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Rachel swallowed with some effort, nodding.
“Very well, child.” Mrs. Heelis seemed frailer. She made her way to her chair and sat down. “Bismarck sent a monster to attack your grandfather. I never learned the full details, but Blaise…got there too late.”
“Too late?” Rachel asked confused. “Too late for what? I thought it attacked him.
She shook her head, a slow and creaking motion. “The creature slaughtered his family.”
“His…his family?” Icy fingers gripped Rachel’s heart, constricting until she thought she might faint. “What family?”
But the words made horridly terrible sense.
In Grandfather’s library, eternal candles burned before three paintings: King Alfred the Great, the Second Duke of Devon, and a portrait of a woman and fi
ve children dressed in Victorian garments. Grandfather had been over two hundred years old when he died. He had lived through the entire Victorian age. Why had Rachel always assumed the six people in the portrait were ancient ancestors?
Mrs. Heelis whispered, “His beautiful wife, Estelle, his three lovely daughters, and his two sons—the heir, Lord Falconridge, and a babe in arms. All murdered.”
Azrael.
“Before his eyes,” Rachel’s voice spoke on its own, without permission from her mind. It sounded distant and flat in her ears. “They were murdered before his eyes, weren’t they?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Heelis looked faintly surprised. “Your father’s friends, Hawke and Crowley, were present, too, but they too late to help. Back then, Crowley had not yet been lost to the path of black magic. The three of them, your grandfather, Crowley, and Hawke, cast a spell. They bound the creature in some manner. But the harm was already done. And Jasper died in the process.”
The sound of her own heartbeat echoed oddly in Rachel’s ears, like thunder.
It had been Blaise Griffin who had cast the spell that bound Azrael, but at a more terrible price than she had imagined. He had lost his own family. Her family. He had sacrificed his companion-at-spells, Aleister Crowley, who had gone on—while possessed by Azrael—to become one of the blackest sorcerers of all history and, later, one of the Terrible Five.
And Grandfather’s other friend, Jasper Hawke—the beloved of Jacinda Moth, now the Dean of Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts—had given his life to complete this spell. Rachel reached out and touched the fierce-eyed Jasper Hawke in the daguerreotype. In her mind’s eye, she recalled the happy mother and children in her Grandfather’s painting.
So many people, lost.
As she recalled the painting, her lips parted in astonishment. It had been some time since she had studied that portrait closely. Calling it to mind now, she recognized one of the figures—the serious young heir in black clothing. His face and garments were the same as the ghost boy who rode beside her when she raced her pony across the moors.
Thunderfrost’s boy.
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 36