Half a Soul

by Olivia Atwater

  Lady Hayworth sniffed. “You seem quite certain you will be received, Lord Sorcier,” she said. “Miss Ettings already has other plans. She cannot be expected to rearrange her schedule for you on a whim.”

  Elias frowned at Dora, and she sighed. “I am... busy, Lord Sorcier,” Dora said. It certainly wouldn’t do to call the countess a liar in her own home. “If you leave your card, of course, I will see you when I may.”

  Lady Hayworth smiled approvingly at Dora as she said this. It came with the clear implication that she would not be seeing the Lord Sorcier again at all.

  You cannot be too thick to understand this, Dora thought at him, annoyed. The countess is right here next to me. I cannot just accept. She held his eyes, willing him to understand.

  Elias shrugged. “I see,” he said. “Clearly, I should know better than to knock at such a well-mannered door.” He nodded towards Dora. “I will see you when you may, then, Miss Ettings.”

  Dora closed her eyes with a sigh.

  So much for that, she thought glumly. The Lord Sorcier has better things to do than to argue with the countess in order to investigate my curse. Vanessa will be terribly disappointed.

  “Lord Sorcier,” Lady Hayworth said. “Your mirror.”

  Dora opened her eyes again. Elias had not so much as paused on his way out of the morning room. “I hardly need it,” he replied. “Miss Ettings may keep it, if she so wishes.”

  Lady Hayworth made as though to object—it was certainly not proper for the Lord Sorcier to be giving Dora gifts—but he was gone before she could make her case.

  “You must get rid of that thing immediately,” the countess said to Dora with a frown. “You cannot be accepting magical trinkets from that man. The rumours!”

  Dora clutched the mirror closer, trying to think quickly. “I should not have insulted him by turning him down,” she said. “He has left the mirror on purpose, Lady Hayworth. If I discard it, I will have seven years of terrible luck, I am sure.”

  The countess scowled at that, but Dora saw that she had reconsidered. “What a thoroughly unpleasant man,” she muttered. “Well! Hide it in a dresser somewhere, and do not take it out. We are the only two people who know that you have it, and neither of us shall tell anyone that you accepted it.”

  Dora nodded, relaxing slightly. “I will go and put it up now,” she said. “Thank you for your help, Lady Hayworth. I am not certain that I could have handled him on my own.”

  This compliment assuaged the countess, such that she waved Dora off to her room.

  Upstairs, Dora set herself on the edge of her bed and stared into the mirror. For just a second, she thought she could see those black depths again—but they slipped away from her when she next blinked, and only the silver backing of the mirror remained.

  Dora stowed the mirror in her dresser, and wondered whether the Lord Sorcier had indeed caught her meaning. Surely, she thought, he would not have left the mirror if he had not.

  The image of his bloody, agonized face floated back to her as she stood awkwardly in front of the dresser.

  Dimly, she noted that her hands were shaking.

  That has not happened before, Dora thought. How curious.

  In a few more minutes, however, the shaking stopped... and, as was the usual way of things, she found her attention diverted once again as she realised that she hadn’t yet had any of the delightful-looking biscuits downstairs.

  Chapter 6

  Vanessa was desperate to know just what it was the Lord Sorcier had talked about with Dora—in fact, she snuck into Dora’s room that evening after dinner, and refused to leave until she’d been given every small detail.

  “One foot in faerie?” Vanessa puzzled afterwards. “But what could he mean by that?”

  “I would be only too pleased to ask him, if I could manage to speak with him,” Dora sighed. “But the countess is determined to keep him away from me, and even while he was here, she was keenly listening to every word. I would not be surprised if he now gave up this whole charade and never bothered with me again.”

  Vanessa frowned at that. “I don’t believe that will happen,” she said. “I have done my due diligence on the Lord Sorcier, and if there is one thing everyone can agree upon, it is that he is even more stubborn when he feels he is being thwarted. Perhaps this is a good thing, Dora—if the countess makes everything very difficult on him, then he shall not lose interest in your curse.” She smiled at a stray thought. “Perhaps he might even marry you! He did come courting today, after all.”

  “That much was an outright sham, Vanessa,” Dora said. “And I would not recommend that you set your heart on such a silly thought.”

  Dora pushed Vanessa out of the room after that, forcing her to bed. Her cousin had received more than one set of flowers today, which meant that she was likely to start receiving suitors any day now. It wouldn’t do for her to be rumpled and tired-looking when they arrived.

  Dora was just preparing for bed herself... but before she could put her head to the pillow, she found herself pulling the Lord Sorcier’s mirror from the dresser, holding it before her as she settled on the edge of her bed again.

  The memory of the awful scene she had witnessed earlier that day still gave her a faint sense of nausea. But the Lord Sorcier had implied that there was a connection, however tenuous, between Dora’s curse and the things that she saw in the mirror. She knew it would only benefit her if she could manage to bring on those visions more reliably.

  The mirror’s silvered back remained stubbornly visible, however, no matter how much she tried to force it into that dull blackness.

  Dora chewed at her lip. I saw the future once, and then the past, she thought. Both times, it was something to do with the Lord Sorcier, even if he was only present.

  Perhaps, she thought, she ought to focus on trying to see something more to do with him.

  Even as she had the thought, the silvered back of the mirror rippled like a pond. Dora focussed her thoughts on the Lord Sorcier—she imagined him standing before her as he had done earlier in the day, with his wild hair and golden eyes and careless manner of dress.

  Blackness encroached upon the mirror’s back. Slowly—ever so slowly—the figure of the Lord Sorcier solidified, becoming more real than before. He was sitting at a writing desk, looking over one of the tomes he had bought from the magic shop by the light of a candle. His jacket and his neckcloth were gone, however, and his waistcoat was unbuttoned. Had Dora been capable of the emotion, she might have been mortified to see him in such a state of undress. Even so, she couldn’t help but stare.

  “Ah, there you are,” Elias said briskly. He still had his eyes upon the book in front of him, and it took Dora a moment to realise that he was addressing her. “I was beginning to think I’d need to send you step-by-step instructions, Miss Ettings.”

  “Step-by-step instructions would have been nice,” Dora said. She paused, realizing that she had just managed to speak. That had never been the case before, in one of her visions. “May I ask what on earth is going on?”

  Elias turned in his chair. “Visions of the past and future are unpredictable, at best. But one may scry distant lands or distant people with better reliability,” he said. “I normally protect myself against such intrusions, but the mirror that you hold may bypass those protections if I please it to. It was a tricky bit of magic, if I do say so myself.”

  Dora knitted her brow. “Then you are at home right now?” she asked. She glanced down at herself, and saw that she was wearing only her nightgown. This was, in many respects, far worse than being caught by the Lord Sorcier in her stays and underthings—but he did not seem the least bit fazed, and so Dora decided that she shouldn’t be fazed either.

  “I am at home,” Elias agreed. “It has been a very long and very awful day, I might add. I will be glad to divert my attention to something less hideous for a brief time.” He closed the book on the desk, and leaned back in his chair to consider her. “I will admit, I was worried
that you might be scared away from further scrying after what you saw today. I must apologise again for that.”

  Dora knitted her brow. The words were utterly sincere. But of all things, the Lord Sorcier had finally chosen to apologise to her when she didn’t require an apology. “I do not know why you should apologise,” she told him. “It was a true thing that I saw, for all that it was ugly. I am sure that it pained you far more to live through it than it pained me to watch it.”

  She glanced away from him, unable now to look him in the eyes. “I am glad to have seen it, for all that it disturbed me. I realise now how awfully I misconceived the war. I had the notion that it was all men in bright uniforms and neat lines, simply being brave all the time. I must instead apologise to you for my own wretched silliness.”

  A long silence extended between them. Eventually, Dora looked back up at the Lord Sorcier, and found that he was studying her with a strange look in his eyes. “...you were not silly,” he said finally. “You had no way to know. Pleasant-mannered men will not tell you of that side of the war, because it is distressing. Pleasant-mannered women, like the countess, will not hear of it in their presence. As a result, the ugly parts are largely not thought about by those who did not cross the channel.” A bitter weariness flickered across his face. “I cannot help but feel that if we had fewer pleasant-mannered people, then perhaps there would also be fewer of these hideous wars.”

  This gave Dora a distant sense of shame for some reason. Just now, in perfect privacy with the Lord Sorcier, she thought she might understand how he had come to be the way that he was. That shame slowly morphed into a dull sadness, which she thought she might examine more deeply at a later date.

  Elias cleared his throat, and she returned her attention to him directly. “I have a theory on your condition, Miss Ettings,” he told her, by way of changing the subject.

  Dora blinked. A hint of something unfamiliar swam through her chest. It wasn’t... happiness, per se. It was lighter than most emotions, however, and she decided that it might be some flavour of hope. “I am very pleased to hear it,” she told him. Then, because she was sure that her voice had not communicated her feelings on the matter clearly enough, she added: “Truly. I fear my abilities of expression are not adequate to the task of thanking you properly.”

  Elias smiled at that. For once, it was not a bitter or sardonic smile. It was soft, and perhaps relieved. The expression utterly changed his mien, and Dora thought in that moment that he was really very beautiful. “You may not be so grateful when I tell you my theory,” he said. “For I am still working out exactly what to do about it.”

  “Nevertheless,” Dora said. “To have a theory at all is more than I ever expected.”

  Elias nodded slowly. “Well,” he said. “As strange as it may sound, I believe that part of you is in faerie, Miss Ettings. Whichever part of you the faerie stole, he took it back with him to his lands on the other side. That missing part of you must still endure there, for you are unerringly capable of divination when given the proper instrument. I might even go so far as to say you could see such things in a normal mirror, if you strained yourself.”

  Dora considered this. “Then I would need to steal that part of myself back from him?” she asked. “That is your concern—that I would need to walk into faerie.”

  Elias shook his head at her incredulously. “You will not be walking into faerie, Miss Ettings,” he said. “What a ridiculous idea. If anything, I would be walking into faerie.” He frowned deeply at that, then added: “But since I avoid the place at all costs, we shall name that only as a last, most desperate resort.”

  “I could not ask you to do something so dangerous, my lord,” Dora agreed. “I would not even think of it, in fact.”

  Elias raised an eyebrow at Dora. “I insist on my lord only when I am intent on bullying someone,” he told her. “You may call me Elias, at least in private. It’s shorter, and it doesn’t make my stomach churn.”

  Dora knew that she ought to be flustered at this. Whatever the Lord Sorcier thought, the use of Christian names between men and women was a scandal in and of itself. But the embarrassment she should have felt was absent, and she saw no reason to deny his request if it might keep him feeling charitable towards her.

  “As you wish, er... Elias.” She had to force herself to say the name aloud. This time, there was a flicker of embarrassment, but it was quickly gone again. “I suppose that you should call me Dora then, out of simple fairness.”

  “Hm.” Elias considered this. “Dora. That’s a nice, straightforward name. I assume the more lengthy version is bizarre and unwieldy?”

  Dora sighed. He was so much more pleasant for a time, she thought. “My full name is Theodora Eloisa—”

  “Oh, dear lord, don’t tell it all to me now!” Elias snapped. At Dora’s confused look, he added: “You should never tell your full name to a magician. Nor to a faerie, for that matter. It gives them power over you.”

  Dora pursed her lips. “In truth, I am already far too deep within your power for it to matter,” she told him. “You know the secret that could ruin my family, and you are the best chance I have at any sort of cure. A name is a small thing, compared to those.”

  Elias frowned at that, clearly unable to find a logical reply. “I suppose you’re correct,” he said finally. “But I don’t wish to own your name, Miss Ettings.”

  A smile flickered across her lips. “You are supposed to call me Dora,” she reminded him.

  This did fluster him, but only because she had caught him out on his own request. “Yes, fine,” he muttered. “Dora.”

  Her smile settled in more deeply at that. “Might I ask, Elias, if you know exactly what it is the Marquess of Hollowvale stole from me?”

  Elias raised an eyebrow at the name, but he did not comment on it directly. “I have my suspicions,” he said. “But they are difficult to prove, one way or another.”

  Dora nodded. “Then perhaps you could tell me what it is that you suspect?”

  Elias rubbed at his chin. “I suspect that he has stolen much more than just your humours. It is possible that he has taken half of your entire soul.” He paused. “Likely, the faerie meant to take the whole thing, but you told me that he was distracted from the task. I have heard of faeries stealing souls before—though that is before my time—but I think that a faerie stealing only half a soul must be without precedent. If I am correct, then your case is probably the first.”

  Dora sighed. “Oh dear,” she said. “That must mean that it will be difficult to solve.”

  “Almost certainly,” Elias agreed. But there was a keen light to his eyes as he said it that made Dora suspect he considered this a good thing. Vanessa did say that he enjoys difficult things, she remembered.

  “Well...” Dora said slowly. “If you cannot steal back my soul directly, then I am not entirely certain of the possibilities that remain.”

  “Oh, plenty,” Elias said distractedly. “We might try stealing it back from afar. We might even try regrowing it—this has never happened before, so who knows what might be possible? I will have to continue researching and thinking on it, but I will let you know when I have something new to try.”

  Dora glanced past him at the book on his writing desk. “You have other things to worry about, of course,” she said. “Are you truly investigating a plague?”

  The darkness she had seen in him before returned abruptly, settling upon him like a heavy cloak, and Dora found that she regretted the words. “I am,” Elias said. “But it’s none of your concern.” Dora felt the finality in his voice, and she knew that he had finished with their conversation. “You should go to bed, Miss... Dora.”

  “I would, Elias,” Dora told him evenly. “But I have no idea just yet how to stop scrying.”

  That earned a slight twitch of his mouth, at least. “You’ll want to focus on yourself, and not on me,” Elias said. “Think on your actual surroundings, and the real sensations that you feel.”


  Dora tried to do as he asked. She turned her attention inward—tried to imagine the hardness of the mirror in her hand and the feel of the soft bed beneath her. But her mind wandered inattentively away, and she found herself soon wondering instead what a faerie like Lord Hollowvale might see when they looked at her, if she was indeed missing half her soul. Would the strands of her soul be ragged and torn? Perhaps it would simply be dull and colourless, like her other eye—

  “Dora,” Elias said dryly. “You are still here.”

  Dora blinked. “Oh. I’m very sorry. I’m afraid that focusing on myself is actually quite difficult.”

  Elias shook his head. “I see. Well... for the meantime, at least, I suppose I can offer you a push.” He raised one hand, and she felt a kind of tug at her chest. He shooed at her with his fingers...

  ...and she found herself sitting back on her bed at the townhouse, staring down into a silver-backed mirror.

  Chapter 7

  Dora was roused from bed the next day bright and early. One of the maids began getting her ready as though she were supposed to go out somewhere, but the servant either could not or would not tell her where it was she was going. At least, Dora thought, she was wearing one of her more practical dresses, and she was allowed to don the sturdier set of half-boots she had brought with her from the country, rather than those awkward pattens.

  For just a moment, Dora found herself wondering whether Elias had shown up and bullied his way past the countess again. The idea of spending the morning with him sparked a vague interest in her that she could not quite pin down.

  That spark withered disappointingly, however, when she came downstairs to find Albert in the morning room with Auntie Frances and the countess, and another woman that she did not immediately recognize. Albert was himself dressed in very practical clothing, and he had his physician’s bag with him. He was chatting very amiably with the two hens and the third woman, but Dora could not help hearing the note of impatience in his voice as she entered the room.