Dark Destiny

by M. J. Putney

  She glanced away, wishing her magical gift were less uncomfortable. Being able to read people’s emotions and sometimes even their thoughts was an invasion of privacy.

  As soon as she’d arrived in England the week before, the Irregulars had begun to train her to use her power. The first thing she’d been taught was how to shield her mind so she wasn’t overwhelmed by the emotions of others.

  Though Elspeth said her talent was developing with lightning speed, Rebecca was still working on that lesson. It was particularly hard to block Nick, probably since she fancied him. And he fancied her, too. She could feel his intense interest whenever they were close to each other.

  Luckily he hadn’t yet said or done anything romantic. She wasn’t looking forward to explaining why there could be nothing more than friendship between them.

  Expression remote, Tory raised her hand and summoned the mirror from nothingness. It was a rectangle of menacing silver that faintly reflected the young people linked together in front of it.

  Mrs. Rainford reached out and pulled Nick back to her other side. “I don’t want you dragged through again,” she said.

  “Once was enough,” he agreed as he wrapped an arm around his mother’s shoulders. His fingers brushed Rebecca’s arm with a tingle of magic and attraction.

  He gave her a quick glance, then looked away when their gazes met. He was several inches taller than his mother, blond and broad-shouldered and altogether too good-looking in a very English way.

  Then Tory invoked the power of the mirror and it turned blacker than night. The five Irregulars vanished in a blaze of stunning power.

  Rebecca involuntarily pressed back into the wall. Silently she recited the Tefilat HaDerech, the Hebrew prayer for travelers. Might her friends arrive safely back in their own time and have the strength to do what must be done.

  Then the passage was over, leaving the chamber empty and dark except for the small mage light that Nick had created. He brightened the light. “They’ll be all right,” he said as if trying to convince himself. “They’re amazing.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Rainford said bleakly. Her arm tightened around Rebecca. “But I have a powerful feeling that the two of you are going to have to go to their time to help. And even all of you together might not be enough.”

  In a flash of absolute certainty, Rebecca realized that Mrs. Rainford was right: Rebecca and Nick would be called to the past to help their friends, and it would be very, very dangerous.

  So be it. Rebecca had spent the last week absorbing Tory’s shocking news that Rebecca had magical powers. The very idea ran counter to everything she’d ever learned from her scientist parents, yet it explained so much about how she was different from others. It was time to embrace her differences and learn to use them in ways that would help others.

  The mirror flashed briefly as a small object flew through and clattered onto the floor. A message stone.

  Nick scooped it up and unwrapped the piece of paper tied to the rock. Smiling, he read, “Home safely, French not yet on our doorsteps, will send sugar. Allarde.”

  “That’s good news,” Mrs. Rainford said. “Now it’s time for us to go home.”

  Silently they retraced their path through the tunnels and climbed up into the open air. It was full dark, a sliver of moon providing a bit of light. Rebecca had grown up in cities with lights all around, and she was always struck by how dark it was with the blackout rules requiring people to conceal all lights at night.

  The night felt quiet and safe, far removed from war. But Rebecca had learned when she and her family were imprisoned in France that safety was an illusion. She could have died there. A bomb could drop on her head here. Since death was always a possibility, she tried not to worry about it.

  She had been practicing her mental shielding to protect herself from random emotions. Now she cautiously lowered the shields and reached out to see what she could sense. Out here on the path along the cliffs that ran from the abbey to the village of Lackland, there were few human minds. But she found that when she made the effort, she could dimly sense the people in the houses along the road a quarter mile away.

  She’d learned that magic followed thought. To create an effect, she needed to understand, then visualize, the result she wanted. She told her mind to ignore routine emotions, and her awareness from the nearby homes faded away.

  As they neared the Rainford farmhouse, Mrs. Rainford said, “Now that you’re settled in, Rebecca, it’s time to start school.”

  “I’ll be glad to return to my studies,” Rebecca said. “After being imprisoned for almost a year, I must be far behind in all my subjects.”

  Nick laughed. “Few of my friends would be so keen to return to school.”

  Perhaps not. But they hadn’t been jammed in a stone cell for many months with the threat of death always present. Rebecca welcomed a return to normality.

  “Your mother told me that she tutored you and the other children while you were locked up?” Mrs. Rainford said, her voice questioning.

  “Yes, but the lessons were not well organized,” Rebecca explained. “To be accepted to a medical school will require certain courses.”

  “You have several years to get caught up, and the Lackland Girls Grammar School is quite good,” Mrs. Rainford said. “If necessary, we can arrange for extra tutoring for you.”

  Since Mrs. Rainford taught at the school, Rebecca thought the teachers would be helpful to a new girl who was under the Rainford wing. She wasn’t as sure about the other students. Polly Rainford attended the LGG, but she was three years younger.

  Rebecca had been in England for only a week, but she’d seen fair English coloring all around her. All the Rainfords were blond. Rebecca was dark-haired, foreign, and Jewish. She asked hesitantly, “How will the other girls feel about someone who is different, like me?”

  “They’ll think you’re really interesting,” Nick offered.

  “She is,” Mrs. Rainford agreed. “But this has been a peaceful little fishing village where anyone from more than twenty miles away was thought of as a foreigner. There will be some students who won’t quite know what to make of you at first.”

  “The war has changed many things,” Nick added. “Both the boys and the girls grammar schools have students who were evacuated from London when the bombing started. Everyone has heard of the refugees who came from the Continent to escape the Nazis, so Rebecca won’t seem as unusual as she would have two or three years ago.”

  “Fortunately, you speak lovely English,” Mrs. Rainford said encouragingly. “It won’t take long for people to accept you.”

  Rebecca hoped the Rainfords were right, but she suspected they were being optimistic. Ah, well, the school was for education. She would be quiet as a mouse and learn her maths and science—and would study magic outside the school.

  She resumed the search for emotions and people that were in any way out of place. She sensed nothing until they came in sight of the Rainfords’ rambling stone farmhouse. The house was over two hundred years old and solidly built on a bluff overlooking the English Channel.

  On a clear day, Rebecca could see her homeland, now conquered by the Nazis. Every day she prayed for many things, and among them were prayers for France.

  As they neared the house, she became aware of … an unknown presence inside. “You have a visitor,” she said.

  “You can sense someone this far away?” Nick asked.

  She nodded. “I’ve been practicing and my range is getting better.”

  “Polly is all right?” Mrs. Rainford asked.

  Rebecca focused her attention on the wispy traces of energy she was feeling. “Yes, and she’s happy. Perhaps Captain Rainford is home for a brief visit?”

  Mrs. Rainford’s pace quickened. “Oh, I hope so!”

  They entered through the kitchen door, moving quickly so no light would escape. Polly’s voice called out, “Look who’s here!”

  A lean young man was sitting at the kitchen table opposite Poll
y and wolfing down a bowl of soup. Mrs. Rainford cried, “Joe!”

  Rebecca had heard of Joe, the eldest of the three Rainford children and a fighter pilot in the RAF. With German aircraft pounding Britain daily in the assault known as the Blitz, being a pilot was one of the most dangerous occupations imaginable.

  Joe rose and hugged his mother hard. “I have a forty-eight-hour pass, so here I am, Mum. Hungry and craving some home cooking.”

  Mrs. Rainford laughed. “Rationing means I can’t make some of your favorite dishes, but I promise you won’t go hungry.”

  “Leave it to a pilot to just drop in without warning,” Nick said as he clapped his brother’s shoulder. As they stood next to each other, it was clear they were brothers, with the fair Rainford coloring and blue eyes.

  Joe’s glance moved past his mother and he saw Rebecca. “Who’s this? Have you acquired a girlfriend, Nick?”

  Nick blushed, but his voice was steady when he said, “This is Rebecca Weiss. Her parents are scientists working in Oxford, but she’s staying with us for a while.”

  “Are you tutoring her in English, Mum?” Laughing, Joe offered Rebecca his hand. “Or magic?”

  Magic sparked when they touched, and Rebecca had a disorienting moment of double vision. Joe Rainford stood in front of her, his handsome face smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Yet at the same time, she saw him as a young man strained almost to the breaking point.

  Something bad had just happened, she realized, though Joe wouldn’t talk about it to his family. She sucked in her breath when an image flashed through her mind of his plane being shot down over the Channel just the day before.

  Joe had escaped with only bruises. But a close friend of his had been shot down at the same time and died. Their commanding officer had given Joe leave so he could come home and unwind before he shattered.

  All of that passed through her mind in an instant. Wrenching herself back to the moment, she said gravely, “I speak English well. I am here to study magic.”

  “Joe doesn’t quite believe in magic yet,” Nick said. “Perhaps he will after we tell him about our journey to France.”

  Joe blinked. “France? Surely that’s a joke?”

  “It was no joke.” Nick glanced at the pot of hearty bean soup on the stove. “That looks like enough soup for all of us, so let’s eat while we talk.”

  With a shuffling of chairs and a clattering of bowls, the five of them settled down around the table for bread and soup and cheese. As always, Nick managed to be sitting next to Rebecca. She liked having him close even as she told herself that it would be wiser to keep him at a distance.

  Rebecca wondered if Joe knew that he had magical ability, and that that power was keeping him alive. She hoped it never failed.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lackland, England, 1804

  Tory had thought the mirror transits were becoming easier, but this trip disproved that theory. Chaos and dissolution and formlessness tore at mind and body before she returned to normal awareness in a jarring collapse onto a chalk floor. She felt like a squashed bug.

  Her first attempt at speech failed. She tried again. “Is everyone all right?”

  Jack squeezed her hand, then released it. “I’m well enough. Cynthia?”

  “Still breathing,” she said grumpily. “Which makes this a better trip than some.”

  A mage light flickered on, held aloft by Allarde. Beyond him, Elspeth sat up, looking even paler than usual. Jack had an arm around Cynthia. She leaned into him, her eyes looking bruised. She’d always had more trouble with mirror passages than anyone else, but she was doing better now.

  Tory created another mage light and tossed it up to hover above them. Then she rose creakily to her feet. “Now to find if we’re back in our right time.”

  “I hope so. I want to sleep in my own bed,” Elspeth said with a sigh.

  “We’re not going to go aboveground and find French troops in Lackland, are we?” Jack said as he helped Cynthia up.

  Allarde hesitated, as if listening to voices only he could hear. “Not yet,” he said. “But soon. Invading across the English Channel is devilish difficult and hasn’t been done successfully since William the Conqueror in 1066. That’s why Napoleon has been hesitating for so long, building an army and a flotilla just across the Channel, but never giving the order to invade. Now he’s made up his mind, and will launch the invasion as soon as he can.”

  “I wonder if we can deduce what made Napoleon decide to invade?” Tory said slowly. “If we can, perhaps there is some way of countering that decision.”

  “We can try a clairvoyant circle with all of us working together,” Elspeth said. “We need to talk to Miss Wheaton and Mr. Stephens. They’re also in touch with mages outside the school. A threat like this will bring all the mages in Britain together.”

  It was comforting to remember that they weren’t alone. “If I calculated correctly, it should be very early in the morning several hours after you and Jack and Cynthia followed us to France.” Tory covered a yawn. “Time to get some sleep. We can take this up with Miss Wheaton and Mr. Stephens tomorrow.”

  “Who has the cake?” Cynthia asked.

  “I do.” Allarde opened the bag that was slung over his shoulder and brought out a bulging paper sack. As he handed out pieces of cake, he said, “Polly was generous.”

  Traveling through the mirror always left Tory ravenous, so she bit into the rich fruitcake immediately. The others did the same. Her birthday party might have ended badly, but the cake was a blessing.

  “There’s enough for each person to have a bit more.” Allarde opened the bag and broke the remaining chunk into five pieces so he could pass them around. Nibbling as she walked, Tory took his arm as they headed toward the center of the Labyrinth.

  Their tunnel curved just before reaching the central area. “Odd,” Jack said as they approached. “Mage lights. Any study sessions should be over by now.”

  “Unless I didn’t get the time right,” Tory said.

  “Since everyone knows we’re gone, maybe they left a light to welcome us home,” Elspeth suggested.

  They turned the last bend in the tunnel and stepped into the wide central area. The room was furnished with worn but comfortable chairs and sofas as well as tables and kitchen equipment. A handful of mage lights clung to the low ceiling, and they illuminated a pair of half-naked bodies entwined on a sofa.

  Tory almost choked on the last bite of cake when she recognized that the couple was Miss Wheaton and Mr. Stephens. Miss Wheaton’s soft brown hair was loose and she looked younger and much prettier than when she was teaching. Swearing under his breath, Mr. Stephens sat up, yanking the blanket over Miss Wheaton.

  Not missing a beat, Allarde asked, “Have the French invaded yet?”

  As he pulled on his jacket, Mr. Stephens said, “Not yet, but very soon.”

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, Miss Wheaton also sat up. “Sorry!” she said ruefully. “We thought we were alone.”

  “Everyone knows the two of you are in love,” Cynthia said with a shrug. “The energy between you is very clear whenever you’re together.”

  The teachers exchanged a glance, as if silently conferring about what to say. A bond of blazing light flared between them. Startled by her intuition, Tory exclaimed, “You’re not just in love. You’re married, aren’t you?”

  Miss Wheaton nodded. “We’ve been secretly married since we were released from Lackland Abbey after our twenty-first birthdays.”

  Mr. Stephens continued, “Teachers of magical control are always recent Lackland Abbey graduates who were also Irregulars. Usually people teach for a few years, then leave to build lives elsewhere. Before that happens, they find new teachers among the oldest Irregulars and recommend them to the school’s board of directors. That way, the tradition of teaching students who want to develop their powers rather than be ‘cured’ has been passed down through the years.”

  Miss Wheaton—Tory supposed
she was really Mrs. Stephens—took her husband’s hand. “It’s not uncommon for the male and female teachers to be a married couple, but the school insists teachers be single, so marriages must be concealed.”

  “Waiting until you can be together must be difficult,” Elspeth said softly.

  “It is,” Mr. Stephens said, his voice terse. “But great danger threatens Britain. We’ve sworn to stay until that’s resolved since Beth and I are part of a network of mages who maintain magical wards to protect this coast from invasion.”

  Jack blinked. “I’ve never heard of magical wards here. What do you do?”

  “We visualize an impenetrable wall in the English Channel and send the command You cannot cross the sea,” Miss Wheaton explained. “This runs in the back of our minds rather than something we have to think about all the time, but it does take power and some attention. Luckily magic is enhanced here in the Labyrinth.”

  “Since I’m good with stealth magic, I also monitor the French ports in case they use stealth spells to slip ships through the British blockade,” Mr. Stephens explained.

  “Is magic used much in warfare?” Allarde asked. “Except for weather magic, most powers are small scale and local, like healing or lifting or warming a house.”

  Miss Wheaton looked rueful. “We don’t really know how much magic is used, or how effective it is. I believe that the wards help us, and that stealth magic helps keep our activities out of sight of the enemy. But the French have mages, and surely they also use their talents to serve their country. Weather magic, stealth magic, scrying—all can be useful in war. And we have very little idea what the enemy is doing.”

  Mr. Stephens nodded. “It’s much easier for me to practice stealth magic than it is to detect when someone else is using it. Several times I’ve detected attempts to break through the blockade. We have ways of getting that information to the Channel Fleet so they could head off the French when that happens.”