The creature had taken the forms and shapes of many beings over the years; an elemental creature of earth, it had first been conjured and inexpertly bound some three hundred years ago by an Earth Master who relied on instinct rather than learning, and whose self-confidence was nothing short of hubris. He was the first human that the creature had devoured; up until then, it had confined itself to lesser Elemental beings and animals. But once she had absorbed the magician . . . that was when things began to change.
Her talent, which had caused the magician to try to bind her in the first place, was that not only could she kill anything by absorbing its essence, she could then imitate it flawlessly afterwards. So once she discovered that, having absorbed her erstwhile captor, she was able to stay on the Material Plane, there was no turning back for her. She had taken on the form of that foolish Elemental magician for quite some time before his life bored her, and when she was ready to move on, it hadn’t taken a lot of effort to find someone else to be.
The creature—the first mage had called her a “Troll”—went back to bed. When the body was found, which it would be soon since the sky to the east was getting brighter, “Nina” needed to be in her bed, alone. She might not be sans peur et sans reproche, at least in the eyes of the world, but having him die in her bed might excite the suspicions of the wretched police. There were Elemental Mages everywhere They could, and would, banish her back to her previous existence. Or worse . . .
She wrapped the silk sheets around herself and settled into the lovely, soft bed. It had been a good day when Nina Tchereslavsky decided she was going to use magic to get the attention of a certain beautiful young poet who was not interested in her. The current Nina judged that this was a very foolish thing to do; not only would most love spells not have worked on someone who was devoted to someone else, there had been a dozen equally beautiful young men clamoring for her. As for the dancer, she had been prepared to throw her entire life away on a succession of these beautiful young men, none of whom would have done her a particle of good, had any money, or ever likely would have any money.
Whereas the creature that had taken her place had made her great. A much, much better use of the gifts that had been given her.
With these thoughts in mind, Nina drifted back off to sleep, fully expecting to be awakened by the maid bewailing the death of the old man.
Instead, she was awakened by the maid bewailing nothing, only bringing her the morning pastry and chocolate, and an envelope, a letter from the impresario of the theater in Salzburg at which she was expected to perform. She frowned at it before opening it. She really hoped he was not canceling her engagement. She needed to move away from Hungary altogether; too many men had died around her, and this last one might start some talk. Germany, that was far enough. She would be discreet. It wasn’t hard to be discreet when you knew what to look for.
Provided this impresario wasn’t having second thoughts.
But instead, what fell out was a note and a newspaper clipping.
I trust this note will reach you where you should be, the note read, because you cannot perform in my theater and one in England at the same time.
Swiftly she caught up the little cut-out bit of paper. It wasn’t much, only a note that Nina Tchereslavsky was performing at some music hall in Blackpool and that she was to be the star of an upcoming and very ambitious project by the owner of that theater.
At first, Nina did not grasp what this meant.
Then she flew into a rage.
When at last her initial anger was expended, the bedroom was virtually destroyed. The furniture was in splinters, the bedclothes and curtains in rags. The servants knew better than to approach her in this mood; she likely would have killed them.
Not that this would have mattered to the world in general. Her servants were not human.
She stood in the middle of the wreckage, trying to think.
This . . . girl . . . was impersonating her. It did not matter that she was off in some provincial little city in England, where no one would see her but farmers in smocks and thick boots. What mattered was that this girl was stealing the reputation that Nina had built. Stealing her identity.
She had stolen from Nina. No one stole from Nina.
Her skin flushed with rage again, just thinking about it.
She would go to England. She would find this girl and kill her. It could not possibly take any time, and it should be pathetically easy. She would do what she had done with the original Nina, she would take on the form of a beautiful young man . . . or if that did not work, a very rich, old one. She would seduce the girl, and then kill her, and leave it to look as if she had been murdered by her lover. And of course, that lover would no longer exist. Nina could change to another form, and leave the country, all in time to make her debut at Salzburg.
She finally felt her anger cooling, and even managed to smile. Amid the chaos, she found the pull for the bell, and rang for her maid. The servant opened the door a crack, timidly.
It was so frustrating that she was fettered to this solid form! If she had not been, she could have been in England within a day, moving in the secret ways of the Earth Elementals, swimming through the very crust of the earth itself. She could change her form, she could work Earth Magic herself, but she was still as bound to the laws of the mortal world as if she was mortal herself.
“Clean up this mess,” she ordered. “Then have the others pack my trunks. Tell Yuri to order my car and get tickets to England.” How fortunate that the ballet season was over! “And you, cancel all my engagements and send for some new furniture; have this room repaired and re-furnished while I am gone. There is nothing here I need to deal with that cannot wait.”
“Hold very still,” ordered Jonathon, as he closed Ninette into the cabinet. “And don’t be afraid. Nothing you see is going to harm you.”
“But—” she began, as he closed the door. He didn’t open it again, and she stood there, in the dark, in what felt very like a coffin, wondering what it was she was going to see that might—
And then the entire box was engulfed in flames.
Terror overwhelmed her; she shrieked at the top of her lungs. She tried to bring up her arms to beat on the door of the box, but it was too narrow, and she couldn’t move. There was no fastening on the inside of the box; she tried to get up her foot to kick and couldn’t even do that. The flames were everywhere, and—
Suddenly she realized, in mid-scream, that she wasn’t even warm, that her clothing was not on fire, that she didn’t smell smoke, that the inside of the box was not even warm to the touch.
Whatever Jonathon was doing, this was not real fire! And she was quite ready to kill him at that moment. He might have said!
That was when the trap door beneath her that she had been told about opened, and she dropped down onto a pair of soft mattresses. Her knees automatically flexed as soon as she was falling, so she landed lightly. But fuming.
She stormed across the space beneath the stage and up the stairs to the backstage; her face must have looked like thunder, because even the stagehands scuttled out of her way. With hands balled into fists, she stalked across the stage to where Jonathon had just opened the cabinet with a flourish to show it was empty. At the sound of her feet thumping across the stage—for a ballerina can walk very heavily if she chooses—he turned.
“Now that is the kind of scream I—ow!”
She had kicked him in the shin before he could finish the sentence. He looked at her in astonishment. She kicked the other shin.
“Ow!”
“You might have said!” she shouted. “Merzavets! Lopni tvoya selezenka I ospleni tvoy glaz, nechistaya sila!” The Russian simply poured from her lips without thinking, and she would have been surprised if she had not been so furious. “You frightened me to death!”
“I am a magician! You know it couldn’t have been real!”
Oh yes, and she very much doubted that this was any illusion or stage trick. Those flames had to ha
ve come from his powers as an Elemental Mage. But she could not say that, not in public, so instead, she kicked his shin again.
“I would have known if you had warned me, but you did not!” she retorted. “You close me in a coffin, and then, fire! How was I to know it was not some terrible accident?”
“You would have heard someone shouting Fire!” Jonathon barked, heatedly.
“I would have heard nothing!” she shouted back. “I was screaming!”
Silence descended on the stage. Finally Arthur chuckled from his position in the orchestra pit. “Admit it, Jonathon. You wanted her to scream. You gave yourself away when you said that was the kind of scream you wanted.”
Jonathon flushed and looked away.
“Oh!” she spluttered, and kicked his shin again before stomping off the stage.
Behind her, with some satisfaction, she could hear him swearing.
The cat was waiting in the wings, and walked back with her to her dressing room, where she slammed the door closed, sat down, and looked at him.
That was very bad of him, the cat observed. It’s a naughty schoolboy trick.
“He is quite old enough not to play such things,” she said severely. “I am doing my best to be a good assistant to him, and he should not play such things on me. Stage fire is not funny.”
Especially not when you are trapped in a box. The cat sighed. He hasn’t changed. He drove off more young ladies with his pranks than you could imagine.
She looked at the cat oddly. “You know him?”
His assistants, the cat said hastily. The stagehands talked about it.
Ninette turned back to the mirror of her dressing table, but considered, and not for the first time, that the cat sounded as if he knew, or had known, the Fire Master in the past.
But it could be when my father lived here, she thought. There was no reason why the cat should not have been with her father before he came to Paris. Though why the cat should want to conceal this fact, she could not imagine. Thomas was full of mysteries. How had he known to come here, to Blackpool, for instance? How did he know that there was a theater owner here, moreover, one who was looking for someone very like her? But she was not going to pose these questions to him. If he had not told her these things before, there was no reason to think he would do so now, and she was not in a position to force him.
Are you going to rejoin the rehearsal? Thomas asked.
“When I think I have been away long enough to have made my feelings clear,” she said firmly. “That was not funny, and I do not intend to put up with any more such pranks. I am not an assistant that has no choice but to endure that sort of thing.”
Well put. And about time someone taught him that schoolboy tricks are very unwelcome when played by an adult man.
She waited a few moments more, then came out of her dressing room and returned to the stage, where Jonathon was fussing with his apparatus. She cleared her throat and he jumped.
“You aren’t going to kick me again, are you?” he asked, turning to her with a grimace.
“I shall, if you do any such thing again,” she said stiffly. “I am not your hired assistant, who must endure cruelty in order to collect her pay, and if you play more tricks on me, I shall kick you somewhat higher than your shin.”
His eyes widened. “You’d do it too, wouldn’t you?” he said with grudging admiration.
“Yes, I would.” She looked up at him defiantly. “Now, I believe we have an illusion to rehearse. I take it you wish me to scream in a terrifying fashion when I see the flames?”
He nodded speechlessly. She returned to her “spot” and knelt, arms behind her back as if tied there, then nodded to Arthur, who took that as the cue it was, and lifted his baton.
This time the illusion proceeded in a professional manner. Jonathon locked her in the cabinet, when she saw the flames, she shrieked, and if she let out a bit more anger with her screams, well, no one was the wiser. The trap-door released, she dropped onto the mattresses, then made her way back up to the wings.
They ran through the trick three or four more times before Jonathon pronounced himself satisfied. “You are a capital screamer, though,” he said, apologetically. “I should have told you what was coming, since I can clearly see you would have done just right if I had warned you.”
She raised her chin. “I am a professional,” she said.
“I can see that.” He looked uneasy. “I am sorry I frightened you.”
She sensed that was the closest she was going to get to a real apology, and nodded. She was not going to apologize for kicking him, even though she was fairly certain that he now had four round little bruises on his shins.
“I think that the illusion is ready to use tonight,” he continued.
“I think so too. I will have just enough time to change after my ribbon dance.” She couldn’t help but smile at that. The ribbon, hoop, and ball dances had, with some more adjustment by Monsieur Ciccolini, been quite popular with the audiences.
“That’s a nice bit of business, that ribbon dance,” Jonathon said awkwardly, then paused. “You know, I have an illusion that makes a handkerchief fly about the stage. You might do a dance where you chase it. Or dance with it.”
“I would prefer a combination of the two,” she said after a moment. “I begin by chasing, then stop and dance to see if it can be lured, and lure it into dancing with me.”
He laughed. “That is a good notion. Let’s go talk to Nigel and Arthur about it.”
She nodded, and the two of them headed up to Nigel’s office.
Arthur was with him, as they both expected, going over some last-minute changes to the bill—just a little rearranging of the acts, since it was proving awkward to get the performing dogs off the stage in time for the ragtime dancers to enter, since they had to come in from both wings. The acrobats were going in after the dogs instead, since they could enter from one side while the dogs left on the other.
Jonathon explained the idea for the new illusion, Nigel approved it, and Arthur made several suggestions for music until they finally settled on a piece. Only then did Ninette ask the question that had been in her mind since her shock. “What were those flames?” she asked. “They were not even warm, but they looked so real!”
Jonathon chuckled. “Pure illusion, not stage magic, but one that ordinary folks can see. As a Fire Master I know everything there is to know about Fire and its creatures, and as a consequence, I can call up real fires, or summon up what is nothing more than the illusion of fire. That’s how I intend to burn down the Sultan’s Palace at the end of our production, except the fires will be partly my illusion and partly stage-craft.”
He held out his hand, and a moment later, there was a flame dancing on the palm. “Don’t touch that one, that’s real,” he said cautiously. He held out the other, and a second flame sprang up, but with the two side-by-side, she could see that there were differences. The illusory one was paler, and rather than flickering and moving randomly, this flame kept the same side-to-side motion, as if it was some sort of clockwork pendulum.
“That’s the problem with illusions,” Jonathon continued, turning both hands into fists to banish both flames. “Unless you concentrate all you have on it, you always wind up with a second-rate imitation of the real thing. Still, it wouldn’t do for me to burn down the stage, or my apprentice either.”
She smiled slightly. As witticisms went, it was rather feeble, but she was determined to hold the high ground and not show any further displeasure with him.
“By the way, Mademoiselle.” Arthur said thoughtfully, “How did you know about Jonathon’s regrettable tendency to make his assistants so angry at him that they leave his employ? He must go through two or three in a year.”
Jonathon flushed, and Ninette restrained a smile. She guessed that Arthur was also tired of Jonathon’s pranks, and was using that question as a means to show the magician that his behavior had not gone unremarked.
“The stage hands,” she said, a
fter thinking quickly about what the cat had said. “When he did not arrive with one, they talked about it. Frankly, they did not seem surprised, only anxious that one of them not be dragooned to serve as his victim in the illusions.”
Jonathon flushed with embarrassment, which well he should, given the circumstances. Whether the cat had known about it from some previous acquaintance and had lied, or it really had been the stagehands, it was rather unpardonable behavior.
“I well, I suppose I am notorious,” he said, with an artificial laugh. “Do you think we can get a spot of something to eat before the performance?”
She almost said something, then changed her mind. “I’ll send one of the boys out for something,” Nigel replied. “I wanted to talk with you both about whether or not you’d—noticed anything, or anyone, that seemed too interested in Mademoiselle Nina.”
They exchanged a glance. “I am not certain I would,” she said, finally, and shrugged. “You should ask Thomas.”
“I did. He looked inscrutable. By which I think he means that he has sensed something, but that it is nowhere near. Certainly not in Blackpool, probably not in the county, Possibly not in England. But I suspect that whatever it is, it will be here soon. So I suggest we plan for its arrival.”
Ninette could only look baffled. She could not imagine who among the circles of Elemental Masters good and bad, could be holding a grudge against her.
“All right. I suggest that you and I, Nigel, have our creatures watching for any other new Master that enters the city,” Jonathon said with a nod. “Now, the Master might be able to conceal himself to a greater or lesser extent, but Elementals gossip, and that’s something no Master has ever been able to break them of.” He grinned. “Even if he has Wardings on him, he’ll still cause a ripple in his element just by existing, and the other Elementals will sense that.”
Nigel nodded.
“Then what?” Arthur asked.
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