Renegade Magic

by Burgis, Stephanie

  “What a pity.” Lady Fotherington shrugged. “I rather doubt she can hold his interest through ten years of waiting. She’ll have to look for another gullible fool, one without any family to look after his interests.”

  “He is not gullible. He’s—” I began, and then stopped, biting down hard on my lower lip. I didn’t want to hear Lady Fotherington’s opinion of true love. Instead, I said, “Squire Briggs was in the church when it happened. He heard everything!”

  She laughed. “And you expect me to recognize the name of this, er, squire? Really, Katherine, your imagination …”

  “He could take away Papa’s living!”

  “If your father cannot control his own daughter’s witchcraft, then perhaps that would be for the best.”

  My hands clenched into tighter fists. I started forward.

  “Katherine!” Mr. Gregson said sharply.

  I dropped my fists and forced myself to stand still. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears.

  Lady Fotherington looked pointedly from me to Lord Ravenscroft. “You see? She is quite feral.”

  “Tho it appearth,” Lord Ravenscroft agreed in a lisp so high-pitched and so affected, I had to think twice before I could puzzle out exactly what he had said. He drew a canary yellow silk handkerchief to his nose, as if protecting himself from some outlandish stench. Judging by his expression, that stench came from me.

  It only took one look for me to understand. From the top of his oiled brown hair to his ridiculously tall cravat, his tight-fitting peacock blue coat, and the huge emerald and ruby rings he wore on almost all of his pale fingers, Lord Ravenscroft was a fop and a deuced dandy. I’d never met one before, but I had heard plenty about them from Charles. All that any dandy cared about was following fashion and seducing women.

  So I ignored him and turned back to Lady Fotherington. “You have to tell Mrs. Carlyle that you made a mistake.”

  “I shall do no such thing.” Her voice was suddenly full of poison, bleeding through the pretense of elegant boredom that she’d affected. “Did you really expect me to sit by and watch while another family of birth and breeding is drawn into your toils? While you and your sisters, just like your mother before you, fool everyone into thinking—”

  “Don’t you dare insult Mama!” I said.

  “I’ll say what I like about her.”

  “Lydia!” Mr. Gregson said sharply. “And Katherine. Perhaps we ought to take some time to calm our tempers.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm my temper after what she’s done!” I said.

  Power was buzzing in my ears, filling my veins with pulsing energy. I didn’t know any spells or magic-workings I could use, but Charles had shown me other options, options that felt all too tempting right now.

  Ladies of breeding never resort to using their fists, Elissa always said. A proper lady wouldn’t dream of punching Lady Fotherington, no matter how much she deserved it. Ladies of breeding never …, I repeated to myself. But my Guardian power was surging through me, making it hard to think anything at all.

  “Miss Katherine’s temper is incapable of restraint,” said Lady Fotherington. “As was clear to me from the moment we met. Exactly like her mother’s, in fact.” She walked toward me slowly, glidingly, her emerald silk skirts swishing around her legs, her elegant slippers whispering against the floor. Her green eyes focused on mine until they were all I could see. My skin tingled with discomfort, but I couldn’t look away. “Her mother was a traitress and a fool who could not restrain her own wild passions, and her daughters—all three of her daughters—are exactly the same.” Her mouth formed the word even before she spat it through her lips: “Shameless.”

  That did it. I was lunging through the air before she even finished speaking. There was no thought in me, only fury, only my fist swinging in a perfectly aimed arc through the air—

  And then I was flying backward across the hall as if shot from a cannon. Pain lanced through me as I flew, but it was nothing to the pain that came next as I crashed onto my back and slammed my head against the floor. I tried to moan or turn or lift my arm. I couldn’t. My body had turned into jelly.

  It had to be a magic-working. Limp on the ground, I couldn’t see the other three, but I knew Lady Fotherington had to be behind it. Well, I knew how to defeat Guardian workings, and I was certain she couldn’t stand against me.

  I took a deep breath, forcing myself past the pain. I pulled the energy up through my body into my head, until it made a pounding pressure even stronger than the throbbing pain of the headache that was already there. I gathered it all up and, with full force, threw it at the magic that held me down.

  NO! I thought with all my strength.

  But absolutely nothing happened. I tried to pull the power back up again. It was gone.

  I heard footsteps approach across the smooth golden floor. I couldn’t move. My breath came quickly, hurting my chest. Whatever Lady Fotherington had done, whatever she had in mind for me, Mr. Gregson was here to see it, and to protect me. He would stop her from doing anything too drastic. He …

  It was Lord Ravenscroft, not Lady Fotherington, who stood above me. He raised his quizzing glass and looked down at me with utter contempt in his muddy green-brown eyes.

  “Yeth,” he said. “You were quite right about her, Lydia. I can thee that now.”

  I tried to swallow. I couldn’t. The power that emanated from Lord Ravenscroft held me pinned like a piece of meat on a knife. Under his gaze, I couldn’t even blink.

  “Lord Ravenscroft,” Mr. Gregson said. I’d never heard him sound so wary or so humble. “I beg of you not to make too much of this one incident. Miss Katherine was greatly distressed by her sister’s disappointment, and could hardly be expected—”

  “To behave like a rational and civilized member of Society?” Lady Fotherington finished for him. She stepped up to join Lord Ravenscroft, and her lips curved into a smile of pure satisfaction. With the tip of one fashionable slipper, she nudged my waist. Her smile deepened. “And this, Aloysius, is the girl you expect us all to welcome with open arms into our ancient Order? To—heaven help us—aid in protecting good Society from misdirected and malicious magic?”

  “It doethn’t bear thinking of,” said Lord Ravenscroft. “You were right, Lydia—she ith pothitively feral.”

  I tried to speak. Only a wordless gurgle emerged from my throat. It hurt.

  Lady Fotherington made an exaggerated gesture of surprise. “But I haven’t made the proper introductions yet, have I?” She gestured down at me. “Lord Ravenscroft, may I present to you Miss Katherine Stephenson, youngest daughter of Olivia Amberson, who broke the most vital laws of our Order to make the most unsuitable marriage imaginable, to ruin her husband’s life and aspirations and ignore all the obligations of her own calling. And this …” She placed one hand lightly on Lord Ravenscroft’s arm, in a gesture of possession. “This, Miss Katherine, is Lord Ravenscroft, Head of the Order of Guardians, and our leader.”

  I gurgled. Mr. Gregson’s face appeared in the edge of my line of sight, looking more unhappy than I’d ever seen him.

  “Lord Ravenscroft, please—,” he began.

  “No, Aloysius.” Lord Ravenscroft waved Mr. Gregson off with a gesture as hard and cutting as his own voice had suddenly become, dropping the fashionable lisp. “I was willing to listen to your arguments earlier, but I have the evidence of my own eyes before me now. Lady Fotherington was absolutely correct. This”—his upper lip curled into a sneer as he looked down at me—“this wild, unnatural girl must never, ever be allowed to become a Guardian.”

  Five

  “But I am a Guardian,” I said.

  Ten minutes had passed since Lord Ravenscroft’s pronouncement, two minutes since he and Lady Fotherington had left the Golden Hall together. The magic-working had vanished the moment Lord Ravenscroft disappeared from the hall, but my muscles still felt as weak and shivery as if I’d run twenty miles, or been trampled by an elephant. Mr. Gregson had to help m
e to my feet. My legs were shaking too badly to stand on pride alone.

  When I spoke, he sighed but didn’t answer. The look in his eyes gave me a horrible twinge of fear. It had to be a mistake—it couldn’t be anything but a mistake—and yet …

  I pulled myself up straighter, ignoring the trembling in my muscles, and lifted my chin high. “I am a Guardian!” I repeated. “You know I am. I have Mama’s mirror, I have all her powers. You’re the one who told me that. So Lord Ravenscroft will just have to admit—”

  “Shh,” Mr. Gregson said. “Shh.” He frowned down at my hand where it rested on his arm. “Are you quite well enough yet to return home, or do you need to take some rest first?”

  I yanked my hand off his arm. “I don’t need to rest, and I don’t need you to look after me like some—some missish, swooning young lady! I need you to tell me the truth. What just happened? How could he say I can’t become a Guardian when I already am one?” Mr. Gregson sighed again and looked away, and I nearly screamed with frustration. “Just tell me!”

  “Very well, Katherine.” Mr. Gregson looked into my eyes. His own were filled with an expression that was even worse than the contempt of Lady Fotherington and Lord Ravenscroft.

  It was pity.

  “You did inherit your mother’s powers,” he said. “As well as her portal to this hall. But you are not yet able to use the powers you were born with.”

  “I certainly am!” I almost laughed. It was too absurd. “You’ve seen me—you know I can. I stopped Sir Neville’s spells, and Angeline’s spells—I’ve even stopped your magic-workings.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But you could do so much more, if you only knew how. Being a Guardian is more than instinct, more than the power to will other people’s magic out of existence. A true Guardian can create magic-workings of her own.”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew it was true. And a sick, horrible feeling was twisting inside me.

  You’ll learn in time … Angeline had said it only this morning. I’d thought it was true. I’d been so confident. Even after Mr. Gregson had told me the Order was debating my admission, I’d never really worried that I wouldn’t succeed in the end. It had never even occurred to me that Lady Fotherington might outwit me.

  “Without further training,” Mr. Gregson said, his voice as gentle and regretful as ever, “you will remain stunted and weak, like a magical invalid. You can never grow into your full strength without the training our Order supplies.”

  It would have been too easy to be afraid. So I focused on being angry instead. “You’re my tutor, remember? You’re the one who came after me and told me I had to join the Order in the first place. You’re going to teach me—”

  His quiet voice cut across mine. “I cannot teach you a single lesson against the will of Lord Ravenscroft. He is the Head of our Order. You felt his power just now. His decisions are law to all of us.”

  “But that’s absurd!” I said. “He only just met me. He can’t—”

  “He can,” said Mr. Gregson, “and he will. He is a powerful man, and a powerful enemy.”

  “But—” I stumbled to a halt. The sick feeling in my stomach was growing stronger. It felt like … I didn’t know what. But if I let myself stop to think about it, I might lose the anger that was the only thing holding me up right now. So instead I said, “I’m not going to accept his word as law no matter what anyone else thinks. And the next time I come back to this hall—”

  “You won’t,” Mr. Gregson said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You won’t come back to this hall,” he said. “I am truly sorry, Katherine. But you will find that your portal no longer works. Once it has taken you safely home today …” His voice dropped. “It will become no more than an ordinary mirror.”

  “What?” My voice came out as a croak. “That isn’t possible.”

  “Lord Ravenscroft’s father, our former Head, cut off your mother’s access to the hall when she was expelled,” said Mr. Gregson. “He only reopened her portal when she died, leaving it ready to be discovered by whichever of her children inherited her Guardian powers. But after today you, too, will be exiled from this hall, and from our Order.”

  “But …”

  I couldn’t finish. I knew what the sick feeling was now: certainty. The certainty of my own stupidity, losing me everything I’d wanted for my future—everything I could have so easily had, if I’d only followed my oldest sister’s advice and acted like a lady, for once.

  I looked into my tutor’s eyes, pale blue behind his spectacles.

  “I am sorry,” Mr. Gregson said. “I will miss you, Katherine.”

  I landed back on the floor of my attic room and promptly tripped on the torn ruffle of my dress. I fell with a thud and landed facedown on the floor. A layer of dust pressed rough into my cheek.

  Perhaps I should have taken more care last time I swept the room.

  Perhaps I should have done that more recently than a month ago. Or was it two months? I’d told Stepmama that I was going to sweep it only a few days ago, but of course I hadn’t.

  I’d been making a lot of mistakes lately. But compared to the one that I’d just made …

  I pushed myself up fast, before I could think, sneezing dust. It was only when I was standing, brushing off my dust-covered puce skirts, that I realized the golden mirror wasn’t in my hand.

  I spun around, searching. It wasn’t waiting on my bed, either.

  Mama’s mirror always found me. Always.

  They couldn’t have taken it away from me, could they? Mr. Gregson had only said it wouldn’t work anymore, not that Lord Ravenscroft would actually confiscate it. If he had—if he and Lady Fotherington had it right now and were laughing over it to each other …

  I ground my teeth so hard my jaw hurt, and dropped back down to my hands and knees. It took me ten minutes of crawling around the floor before I finally found it, lying still and dusty underneath the bed. When I reached in and grabbed it, it felt all wrong. It didn’t tingle against my hand. It wasn’t warm, or strange, or magical. It was only a cold, dust-covered travel mirror, clasped and boring.

  I took a deep breath and pushed myself up to my knees. Please let him be wrong. Please, Mama … I undid the clasp.

  My own face stared back at me from the round mirror inside. There were dust streaks all along my cheeks. My short hair stuck out around my face in wild tufts, bereft of all the pins Stepmama had jabbed into it earlier.

  I had never seen myself in that mirror before. Not once.

  I slammed the case shut. Without even thinking, I swung my arm back to throw the mirror across the room and let it smash.

  Then my mind caught up with me, and a gasp tore out of my throat. I lowered my arm again, clamping my fingers tight around the mirror.

  It felt like carrying something dead. I couldn’t even make myself look at it. But it was the only one of Mama’s possessions I had left. When she’d first moved into the vicarage, Stepmama had locked every reminder of Mama and her scandals into a cabinet none of us were allowed to open. The first time I’d traveled to the Golden Hall, I’d accidentally destroyed almost everything in that cabinet with the magical force of my journey. Angeline still had Mama’s magic books, because she’d stolen them from the cabinet weeks beforehand. Mama’s miniature portrait had survived, but Elissa had taken that with her when she left.

  All that I had was Mama’s mirror. I couldn’t break that, too.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered. Heat prickled behind my eyes. I squeezed them tightly shut. I would not cry. I wouldn’t give Lady Fotherington or Lord Ravenscroft that satisfaction. Instead, I said out loud, “I will fix the magic in your mirror. I will make it work again. I promise!”

  A scream from downstairs interrupted my vow.

  Oh, no. I recognized that scream. It was the sound of Stepmama at her wit’s end, taking a terrible stand. Those stands never turned out well for any of us.

  “Oh, yes, you will, young lady!” she
shrieked. “And I will not hear another word against it!”

  Oh, Lord. Out of sheer habit, I started to stuff Mama’s mirror into my reticule, to carry it with me. Then I realized I didn’t need to anymore. When it was full of magic, it had followed me everywhere. The reticule had been the only way to keep it safely out of other people’s sight. Now, though, it would lie quietly and wait for me no matter how far away I went.

  It wasn’t a relief.

  “I’ll be back for you,” I whispered. I tucked it under my bedcovers, patting them down as gently as if I were covering an invalid.

  Then I shoved the heavy case off the trapdoor and hurtled down the ladder to the second floor, where trouble was definitely brewing.

  Stepmama stood in Angeline’s bedroom doorway, vibrating with outrage. “You,” she shrieked into the room, “will begin your packing! Now!”

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  Stepmama jerked around. “And you!” Her shriek dropped to a horrified whisper. “What in the world have you done to yourself this time?”

  “What do you mean? Oh.” I raised one hand to my dirty face. “I—well—”

  “You’ve never even worn that dress before. How could you have ruined it already?”

  “I tripped?” I offered.

  “Hmmph.” She snorted. “We will discuss that story later … as you work on mending, cleaning, and pressing your dress, young lady!”

  “Why bother?” I shrugged. “I’ll never wear it again. It’s too fine for everyday, and I won’t be a bridesmaid again for at least another ten years. By then it won’t even fit anymore.”

  “Oh!” Stepmama rolled her eyes up to heaven. “Will you two girls stop talking such nonsense? You are not waiting ten years for anything, and neither is your sister!”

  Only a steely silence came from Angeline’s room. It was more dangerous than any argument she could have made. Judging by the high spots of color on Stepmama’s cheeks, she knew that as well as I did.

  Stepmama enunciated her words as carefully as if she were speaking to an infant or an idiot. “We are not going to wait ten years on the hope that one particular thirty-year-old gentleman will choose to remember the promises he made at twenty to a girl he hasn’t seen in a decade, whom all his relatives detest. Only a daydreamer or a ninny would have faith in such an event ever taking place.”