Renegade Magic

by Burgis, Stephanie

  All the men in the bath stopped singing and splashing and jammed together into a semicircle, waiting for the three newcomers to join them.

  “Come on—the water’s hot!”

  “Hurry up!”

  “Come on, Stephenson!”

  The red-haired man on Charles’s right lifted his arms, and all the men shouted together: “Hail, Sulis Minerva!”

  Wild magic rocketed through the air, flashing through me like an electric shock. I staggered. If Lucy hadn’t held me, I would have fallen.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What happened?”

  I only shook my head. I couldn’t look away. The man behind Charles pushed him forward to the edge of the water, and Charles, grinning stupidly, yelled, “Grant me good luck at the gaming tables, goddess!”

  He opened one hand over the steaming water. Something fell into the mist, too small for me to identify.

  “Hail, Sulis Minerva!” the men in the water chorused.

  Wild magic exploded through the air again.

  That time I did fall over. There was a moment when I couldn’t see anything around me, only sparks of color flying before my closed eyes. When I opened them again, I was lying flat on my back with my legs hanging over the wet stone steps and my feet submerged in water, and Lucy was kneeling beside me, trying to pull me up.

  “Wake up, Kat,” she whispered. “Please, please, please—”

  I struggled up to my elbows and looked out over the bath. Charles had disappeared—he must have dived after his offering into the water. Yes, there he was now, shaking water out of his eyes and sputtering as he surfaced, surrounded by a circle of laughing, back-thumping men. But his two companions still stood in the open doorway across from us.

  Both of them were staring straight at me and Lucy.

  Fourteen

  Curse it! I’d dropped the magic-working.

  Can’t see us, can’t see us, can’t see us! I thought. But my brain still felt scalded by the wild magic that had passed through us, and I couldn’t summon any Guardian power. Even as I took a deep breath, trying to focus, the red-haired man raised his right arm and pointed at us.

  “Intruders on Sulis Minerva’s sacred mysteries!” he bellowed.

  Damnation. I leaped to my feet, tugging Lucy with me, and slammed our wooden door shut against him.

  I spun around to race back the same way we’d come—then stopped as I heard new cheerfully intoxicated male voices coming from the entrance we’d used. Curses. There were more Minerva-worshippers on their way. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped between two groups of drunken lunatics, especially when one group was dripping wet and already outraged. So I pulled Lucy around and ran down the corridor, past the line of closed doors and windows that led to the bath, skidding across the damp tiled floor and plunging deeper into the building.

  We raced through an open archway and into a small pitch-black room filled with the sound of dripping pumps—most of which I managed to slam into in the darkness. From Lucy’s whimper, I guessed she’d tripped into one as well. The tiles were soaked and slippery. As I slid and caught myself for the third time, I comforted myself with the thought that at least they’d slow down our pursuers, too. Male bellows followed close after us, though, echoing off the walls like the sound of enraged bulls.

  Lucy ran slower and slower, panting with exertion. “What—how—I thought we were invisible!”

  “We were,” I said grimly. “We’re not anymore. And until I find a safe spot for a moment of peace and quiet …”

  But every door we passed was locked, and there were no stairs in sight. Lucy dragged me to a halt at a turn in the corridor, gasping for breath. “Honestly. It can’t be that hard, can it?” She shook her head at me like a disapproving older sister. “Just use your witchcraft!”

  “That’s not as easy as it sounds,” I snarled, and dragged her with me around the turn, into another room full of hulking pumps.

  If only Angeline hadn’t been so stingy with Mama’s magic books, Lucy might have been right. But disguising ourselves as different people wouldn’t make our pursuers any more likely to let us off, even if there had been time for me to stand still and recite the only spell I knew. I could hear pounding footsteps behind us. I hurtled with Lucy out of the door straight ahead of us and almost fell into the Bath.

  More men yelled and shouted, splashing toward us.

  I could have screamed or wept with frustration. Instead, I spun around and pulled Lucy back into the room full of pumps. Pounding footsteps sounded outside the room. I spun in a tight circle, looking for something—anything—

  “Look!”Lucy said.

  There was a closed door five feet away, almost hidden behind one of the pumps. I’d been running too quickly to notice it before. There was a sign on it that I couldn’t make out in the darkness, but the meaning was easy enough to guess: No visitors allowed. It had to be a workman’s entrance. If it was locked, like all the other doors we’d passed …

  I didn’t have any choice but to try.

  I tugged on the handle. It opened with a telltale squeak. Lucy and I barreled through the doorway together, and I closed the door behind us as quietly as I could.

  Maybe the men wouldn’t notice the doorway in the dark. Maybe they would assume it was locked like all the rest of them. Maybe …

  There was no light to guide us, but this time I was ready for the flight of stairs before my feet. We stumbled down them as fast as we could. The prickling pressure of wild magic grew stronger with every step, and I had to cling to Lucy to keep my balance. When we hit the bottom, Lucy yanked her hand out of mine and collapsed on the bottom step.

  Wild magic filled the air like a cloud of electricity, distracting me with every prick against my skin, every spark that flashed against my inner eye. The thought of summoning the power I needed for our invisibility felt as impossible as asking Lucy to run two miles across the hills of Yorkshire. Still, I took a deep breath, summoned up all my flagging energy, narrowed my gaze into a focus, and—

  A flash of light suddenly sparked behind me. A familiar voice spoke into my ear.

  “I might have expected it,” said Mr. Gregson. “Katherine, what have you done this time?”

  Luckily, Lucy’s shriek covered up my gasp. So I was able to look perfectly collected as I turned to face my former tutor. He stood in front of a pool of steaming, dark green water. It bubbled up from the ground in a rush before flowing away down a stone-lined culvert and disappearing beneath the remains of an ancient wall that looked distinctly Roman. Mist wreathed Mr. Gregson’s small, neat figure. Behind him, blocks of old stone lay in uneven piles, some of them glinting with faded color—broken murals, from the looks of them. The light that he had summoned gave tantalizing glimpses of strange carvings peeking out from the walls around us.

  “Mr. Gregson,” I said. “How nice to see you. I’m afraid we don’t have time to chat. There are some people chasing us right now, so—”

  “Not exactly unusual circumstances for you.” Mr. Gregson sighed and closed his eyes. Through the cloud of wild magic, I felt a new sensation in the air. It vibrated like the silent gong of a deep-throated bell, rocking through my bones. He opened his eyes and looked at us mildly through his spectacles. “I believe they will not think to look for you here,” he said. “And now, if you would care to explain?”

  “Well.” I sank down onto the bottom step, letting out all my held breath in a whoosh. “It was really only a case of bad timing, but—”

  Lucy grabbed my arm. “Ka-at?” Her voice turned into a squeak as she looked between us. “What’s happening?”

  “Oh.” I stood back up, belatedly remembering the proprieties. “Lucy, may I present Mr. Gregson? He used to be my … er … that is …” I darted a Help me! glance at Mr. Gregson, but he only looked back at me with bland interest. “We met him at Lady Graves’s house party,” I said. “Mr. Gregson, this is Miss Lucy Wingate. Her mother is a cousin of my stepmama. We’re staying at their hous
e while we’re in Bath.”

  “Miss Wingate …” Mr. Gregson bowed politely to her. He spoiled the effect, though, with the disapproving look he gave me as he straightened. “You thought it wise to bring her along on this adventure? Some might question the practicality of—”

  “She brought herself,” I snapped, and scowled at him. “I didn’t have a choice about it.”

  “Really!” Lucy rose from her curtsy with more speed than grace. “What a rude thing to say!”

  I ground my teeth and shot a considering look back at the stairs. I was almost ready to run back up to the Bath and the crazed Minerva-men.

  But not quite. So I said, “I didn’t mean to be rude. I was only explaining that I hadn’t been irresponsible.”

  Mr. Gregson coughed. It was an infuriatingly skeptical sound. I took a deep, steadying breath and kept my expression as placid as a cow’s. Before either of my companions could utter another word to make me lose my temper, I said, “We have more important things to talk about. What’s causing all this magic? And what kind is it, anyway? I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Lucy frowned at me. Mr. Gregson said, “Perhaps you had better begin by telling me where you first sensed this unusual magic, and anything you may have observed about it so far.”

  “Why?” I looked at him suspiciously. He had a closed-up expression that gave nothing away. “You know something about it that you don’t want to tell me, don’t you?”

  “Katherine …”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “But after I tell you what I know, you have to tell me what you know.” I crossed my arms in a pose that would have sent Stepmama into a fit of hysterics. “I sensed the magic this morning in that disgusting water at the Pump Room, but it wasn’t nearly this strong. I came back here to see what the Baths were like—”

  “So that’s why you were asking me all those bizarre questions!” Lucy said.

  I ignored her interruption. “—But when we came here tonight, I could feel the magic even from the street outside. It got stronger and stronger as we came toward the water. Then we saw the men by the main bath acting like idiots, and the magic exploded, and now …” I frowned, looking around the large, shadowy room, filled with rubble and carved stone. “Now it’s the strongest yet,” I said. “Have you been doing it?”

  “No,” Mr. Gregson said. “I have not. I have been observing the magic levels here since first dark, however, and they have been steadily increasing. I would very much like to know what has been causing it.”

  “Why here?” I said, and gave a dubious look at the puny pool of water. “It doesn’t look terribly important.”

  “It is the primary outlet of the Source,” Mr. Gregson said.

  I frowned at him. “The source of what?”

  He looked at me over the top of his spectacles, dropping into his tutorial voice. “The natural hot spring from which all the baths are filled.”

  “The spring sacred to Sulis Minerva,” I said, remembering Papa’s lecture. Then I remembered the rest of that lecture and felt my mouth drop open. “And they were giving it offerings. Oh, Lord …”

  “Offerings?” Mr. Gregson said sharply. “What sort—”

  But he was interrupted by Lucy. Her face was bright red and streaming with perspiration. “What do you mean you felt the magic?” she asked.

  I shrugged impatiently. “It’s just a sense I have, now that I’ve been practicing magic for a while. You wouldn’t be able to—”

  “Is it an itching feeling?” Lucy said. She swayed as she spoke, and her voice grew faint. “A sort of scratching, burning—”

  “Lucy?” I said. I took her arm. “Are you—?”

  Mr. Gregson started forward, frowning. “Miss Wingate, could you describe exactly—?”

  But before either of us could finish our sentences, Lucy’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she pitched forward.

  Mr. Gregson caught her before she could hit the ground, and I hauled on her arm to pull her back up. Her eyelashes didn’t so much as flutter in reaction. She had genuinely swooned, just like all the nitwitted heroines of her favorite books. As much as I hated gothic novels, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but worry as I looked at Lucy’s slack face, helpless in unconsciousness.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I said.

  “I don’t know.” There was a pinched line of worry between Mr. Gregson’s eyebrows. “Perhaps …”

  He shook his head, frowning harder, and lowered her carefully to the floor, propping her back against the steps. Lucy looked horribly vulnerable with her blond head lolling against her shoulder.

  “She was clearly sensitive to the uncontrolled magic in the air,” said Mr. Gregson. “Does her family have any history of magical practice to explain it?”

  “The Wingates?” I stared at him. Despite my worry, I had to fight back a laugh. “If you had ever met Mrs. Wingate or Lucy’s older sister …”

  “Hmm,” Mr. Gregson said. “So, not recently—or, at least, not on her mother’s side of the family.”

  “No,” I said. “Definitely not.”

  “In that case, I’m afraid something far more dangerous may have occurred.” He drew a deep breath. “Shall we take a look?”

  He knelt down and pried open Lucy’s left eyelid.

  “Ahh!” I jumped back before I could stop myself.

  Sparks of golden light filled Lucy’s eye, dancing across the eyeball. Mr. Gregson sighed heavily.

  “Uncontrolled magic,” he said. “It will always seek a host eventually.” He let go of Lucy’s eyelid, and it dropped back into place. Looking as grim as I’d ever seen him, Mr. Gregson looked up at me. “Now,” he said. “Tell me exactly what was going on in the baths above us. You said there were offerings?”

  “Yes,” I said. I knelt down beside him and took Lucy’s limp hand. The tingling of wild magic in the air around us had disappeared, but it wasn’t a relief, not now that I knew where it had gone. I tried to speak as steadily as I could. “There was a group of men in the main bath. Young men. They were intoxicated, and they weren’t taking any of it seriously. They thought it was all a game, throwing offerings to Sulis Minerva and asking her for favors. They didn’t even notice when the wild magic got stronger after every offering.” I thought of Charles, grinning and foolish, asking the goddess for luck at gambling. “They didn’t know what they were doing,” I said. “Someone else must have come up with the idea and talked them into it. When I heard some of them talking outside, they said that ‘he’ had figured it all out.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Gregson didn’t look away from Lucy’s slack face. “It certainly argues more knowledge of history than the average young man would possess, to come up with such a scheme for this particular spot.”

  “Well …” I hesitated, torn between loyalties. “I think—I think some of them may be students at Oxford right now. So I suppose they might be studying history there. But I’m certain they didn’t know what they were doing!”

  Mr. Gregson’s eyes flicked to my face. “You sound very fervent,” he said. “Do you know these young men, by any chance?”

  I met my former tutor’s gaze and shook my head. “No,” I said, and kept my voice clear and confident. “I’d never seen them before in my life.”

  “Hmm,” Mr. Gregson repeated. He did not look away from me.

  I said quickly, “Is this the magical crisis you were called to Bath to investigate?”

  “That is Guardian business, Katherine.”

  “I saw Lord Ravenscroft coming out of the Baths earlier today, so—”

  “Katherine!” Mr. Gregson stiffened. “I am not averse to occasional wild stories from you. I understand you are a creative child and lack interest in your daily life. However—”

  “I beg your pardon!” I glared at him. “I do not—”

  “However,” Mr. Gregson continued, speaking over me, “I will beg you not to tell wild stories about the Head of my Order, if you please, no matter how much his recent decisions may h
ave irritated you. Such an act is wholly unacceptable under any circumstances, and if you ever wish to be readmitted—”

  “I am not telling wild stories,” I said. “Why should I? I saw Lord Ravenscroft not half an hour after I met you in the Pump Room this morning.”

  “Then I am sorry to say I have caught you in an outright lie, which is something I did not expect from you at such a grave moment. I am extremely disappointed in you, Katherine.” Mr. Gregson looked at me reproachfully. “You may be interested to learn that Lord Ravenscroft spent today in Clifton, some miles from Bath, on personal business. It was the first day in the past week that he has spent outside this city, and it is the only day on which your fabrication could not possibly be believed. Now, perhaps, you might care to adjust your story?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s the truth. Why would Lord Ravenscroft tell you he was going to Clifton when he was really staying in Bath? If he wasn’t—”

  “Enough!” Mr. Gregson snapped. “I will not continue this conversation. However, I hope you will consider your behavior carefully tonight, after we have parted. I can understand disappointment and even anger at Lord Ravenscroft after your expulsion, but I certainly expected better from you than such childish and malicious libel.” He glared at me. “Perhaps I have been deceived in my estimation of your character.”

  “Not by me,” I said, and glared right back at him. “I’m not the one who’s lying to you.”

  His face tightened. He looked pointedly away. “We have a more important matter to see to,” he said, and gestured at Lucy. “Where is this young lady’s house?”

  “We can’t just take her home!” I said. “She’s full of wild magic!”

  “And what do you propose to do about that?”

  “Make it go away!” I stared at him. “You’re the Guardian. Do something about it!”

  He sighed. “Fine. Try to break the magic’s spell. You’ve always been good at that.”

  “Fine,” I said. I closed my eyes, summoned up the power inside me, focused on the sparking, prickling energy that radiated from Lucy, and let the power explode.