Renegade Magic

by Burgis, Stephanie

  Taking Lucy back to the Baths, just hours after the wild magic had possessed her, was one of the worst ideas Angeline had ever had. So it was even more annoying than usual to see her brimming with self-satisfaction.

  As the last button was buttoned, Angeline’s cloth-woman asked, “And which bath will you three ladies wish to enjoy, miss? The Queen’s Bath is most—”

  “We shall be bathing in the King’s Bath,” Angeline said firmly.

  Lucy gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. The cloth-woman only nodded and led the way out of the changing room, into the corridor where a guide waited for us. Angeline followed directly afterward, head held high, and Lucy and I trailed behind.

  “What is it?” I hissed. “What’s wrong?”

  Lucy’s eyes were wide with shock but not, I was relieved to see, with unhappiness or fear. We were in no danger from the wild magic … at least not yet. “The Queen’s Bath is for ladies only,” she whispered. “The King’s Bath … well!” She squeezed my arm, her cheeks as pink as the ribbons on her bonnet. “It allows gentlemen as well!”

  “Oh!” I blinked. Then I said, “Well, at least it can’t be any worse than what we saw last night.”

  Lucy burst into irrepressible giggles. Angeline looked back at us with a quelling frown, and Lucy pressed her lips together, but the giggles leaked out anyway. For once, I didn’t actually mind. They made her seem more herself than she had all day.

  The guide led us down a set of steps and across depressingly familiar damp tiles to a wooden doorway that opened onto the same bath where the Minerva-worshippers had frolicked last night. Nine or ten invalids were already bathing in the steaming water, accompanied by their guides. Two of them sat together on a covered platform in the center of the bath, with the water up to their shoulders, while their guides chatted nearby. Others sat with their eyes closed, resting on underwater benches inside the dark stone alcoves that surrounded the pool. Beyond the terraced wall, I could hear more splashing and female voices—the Queen’s Bath, I assumed. The proper bath, Elissa would have said. I sighed.

  The fresh air was cool but not cold, and bright sunlight streamed down from the open sky above us, blending into the thick veil of mist that rose from the bath. In the full morning light, the water was a deep, mysterious green, and little copper bowls floated on its surface.

  A flash of light against one of the copper bowls caught my eye, and I looked up. Oh, no.

  The large windows that looked down onto the bath had been dark and empty last night, and I had been too busy to even wonder what building they might be part of. This morning, I could see flickers of color moving back and forth through the glass, and I realized I had made a bad mistake.

  “What’s behind those windows?” I said to Lucy, and pointed. But I was afraid I already knew.

  “Why, the Pump Room, of course,” she said. “Didn’t you look out the windows yesterday to see the bathers?”

  I shook my head. In the press of the crowd yesterday morning, I’d never even neared the windows, much less looked out of them. But I had the beginnings of a horrible suspicion.

  Angeline had maneuvered us all out to the Baths early in the morning, just as the fashionable elite were all assembling in the Pump Room next door. She had chosen this particular bath, just underneath the Pump Room windows. That meant she had wanted us to be seen. And that meant …

  “So you did dare, after all,” said a deep, horribly familiar voice just behind us. “Brave girl indeed.”

  I groaned as Angeline turned around. “Lord Scarwood,” she said, and smiled as she curtsied. Her eyelashes flickered down to cover her eyes. “Did you doubt my courage?”

  Lucy let out a squeak of sheer excitement. I ground my teeth. Lord Scarwood was wearing a bilious yellow bathing outfit of his own, which looked particularly bizarre beneath his fashionable beaver hat, but he looked as oiled and polished as ever—and enormously pleased with himself. The guides stood watching us like prime theatrical entertainment.

  “Lord Scarwood,” I said, and did not curtsy. “You don’t look ill.”

  “No?” He raised one eyebrow and looked at me with a gaze I didn’t like at all. It looked half-contemptuous and half … something I didn’t even want to interpret. “And yet, I must tell you you are mistaken, for I have been mortally wounded with the arrow of love.”

  Lucy sighed audibly. I fought the urge to be physically sick.

  “Come,” Angeline said. “Shouldn’t we all bathe, as that’s what we came for?”

  I shot a look at the big windows overlooking the bath. From this distance, I couldn’t make out any individual faces. They couldn’t see us yet, either, as we stood in the shadows of the doorway.

  “I’m not in the mood anymore,” I said. “I’d rather—”

  “But Kat, we aren’t here for you,” Angeline said. “We are here for poor Cousin Lucy, who was so agitated by her nerves this morning. Come, Lucy.” She reached out and took Lucy’s hand.

  I started forward. “Wait!”

  But it was too late. Together, they ran down the steps into the mist-covered water, and headed for the center of the bath.

  “Brave indeed,” Lord Scarwood murmured, and strode into the water with a predatory grin. Steaming water rose halfway up the back of his yellow coat, and his black hat shone in the bright sunlight as he struck out through the hot water, after Angeline.

  I groaned, took one last, desperate glance at the overlooking windows, and splashed in after them.

  Water closed around my body like a hot embrace, almost intoxicating in its sensation of comfort. As I sank neck-deep into the bath, mist swirled around my head, blinding me. For one brief, intense moment, I couldn’t see or move or even think—only feel, with every inch of my skin. Sparks sizzled up the length of my body. Instead of feeling painful, they felt invigorating. They fizzed inside my head like tiny bubbles exploding.

  I understood for the first time why people thought the water of Bath must be health-giving. It was certainly filled with magic.

  Magic. I forced myself to focus. Shapes bobbed around in front of me, hard to make out in the mist that swirled around my head and neck. I pushed myself forward through the water until I could ready out and touch Lucy’s arm.

  It burned against my skin. I jumped back, gasping.

  “Lucy? Are you all right?”

  She turned her face to me. Even through the mist, I could see her exalted expression. “Oh, Kat. I feel … I feel …” She opened her eyes. Sparks danced inside them. “I feel so strange,” she whispered.

  “We have to get you out of here.” I took hold of her shoulder, wincing at the shock of pain, and pushed her gently. “Go! Get out of the bath, now. I’ll be with you in a moment. I just have to make sure Angeline isn’t doing anything stupid.” Much hope of that, I added silently.

  Lucy nodded, but she didn’t move. “I feel so …”

  “Go!” I said, and pushed her harder. She started to move in the right direction, and I splashed through the hot water, blinking sulfur-scented steam out of my eyes.

  The water felt thick with heat and magic, forcing me into slow, heavy steps. With every movement, I had to fight my body’s urge to stop and stand still to luxuriate in the heat that surrounded me and the wild sparks of magic that raced up and down my skin.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed onward. The bath hadn’t looked so large when I’d seen it from the doorway—I’d been able to look across it in one glance and take in every bather. Now, though, with my head veiled by mist, all I could see were dark shapes around me, and the bath felt as wide as a river, and almost as impassable.

  Magic, I thought with loathing.

  I tipped my head back, blinking and focusing on the bright blue sky above me to clear my head. Colors flashed in the corner of my vision. I turned and saw a trio of people framed inside one of the large windows in the Pump Room.

  Oh, no. Stepmama, Maria, and Mrs. Wingate were all standing together, looking down at us. And what they mi
ght be seeing …

  I lowered my head and plunged forward with new determination. Even if Angeline wanted to throw away the rest of her reputation on the stupidest scheme I’d ever heard of, I was not about to let her do it unchallenged. If Elissa had been here, she would have kept Angeline from stepping into the bath in the first place. All I could do was keep our sister from damaging her chances even further.

  I heard their voices before I saw them.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid now, after such a display of courage.” That was Viscount Scarwood, of course, his voice damnably self-satisfied and smooth, like warm toffee swirling in heavy cream.

  “I didn’t say I was afraid. …” Angeline sounded meek and breathy and nothing like herself. She was definitely up to something. As I finally glimpsed her through the steam, she held her head shyly lowered, looking to one side instead of meeting Scarwood’s eyes. She looked every inch the innocent young lady, quivering with nerves. “But my lord, how can I tell if you are sincere? When I have heard such tales of your … adventures …” She let the word trail modestly off, wrapping the euphemism in the mist that swirled around them.

  I thought, If Viscount Scarwood can’t tell that she’s acting, he is a fool.

  But perhaps he’d had too many successful seductions to even think of questioning a new victory.

  “Rumors,” he said, and chuckled. “People have been trying to frighten you with rumors and tall tales, because they are jealous. Jealous of your beauty, and jealous of your luck in catching my eye when no other woman has before.”

  I snorted. But I was still too far away for them to hear me.

  “I shall tell you what is the truth,” said Viscount Scarwood, his voice lowering to an even deeper throbbing baritone. “The moment I first saw you, Cupid’s arrow struck me.”

  I gagged. Sulfurous mist entered my throat, and made me choke as well. I clung to my neck, trying to cough the mist out. I almost didn’t catch his next line until it was too late.

  “Ever since I first saw you,” Viscount Scarwood continued, his voice dropping so low I could barely make it out, “I have wanted to do … this.”

  “No!” I yelled. I threw myself forward, splashing through the hot water. But I was too slow. Even as I watched, Viscount Scarwood’s head tipped toward my sister. He closed his hand around her shoulders. She leaned into him, yielding pliantly to his embrace. …

  An unexpected voice spoke, breaking the spell.

  “Angeline?”

  Angeline broke out of the embrace, gasping. I spun around, blinking through the mist.

  I forgot all about Stepmama in the window above us. I forgot about Mrs. Wingate’s disapproval and Maria’s vicious, gossiping tongue.

  Frederick Carlyle stood in the closest doorway, holding his mother’s arm and staring at Angeline, his face pale with shock and betrayal.

  Seventeen

  At first I couldn’t even believe it. Frederick Carlyle was halfway across the country. He couldn’t be here. It simply wasn’t possible.

  Then I saw the smug look on his mother’s face, and I knew I wasn’t imagining anything.

  “You see?” Mrs. Carlyle said. “I told you she was a trollop. I told you—!”

  “No!” Angeline broke away from Viscount Scarwood. “Frederick!” she said. “Wait. It’s not—”

  “‘Frederick’?” Scarwood sounded richly amused. I didn’t turn to look at him; I was too hypnotized by the look of pain and shock frozen onto Frederick Carlyle’s face. “I take it I have a rival,” Scarwood drawled. “But perhaps—”

  “No.” Mr. Carlyle broke out of his trance. His face hardened. He gave a short, jerky bow. “I assure you, sir, you are entirely mistaken.” He shot one last, burning look at Angeline. “As was I. Obviously.”

  “Frederick!” Angeline struck through the water toward him, splashing through mist.

  “No,” he said. “No. We have nothing to say to one another, anymore.”

  “But—”

  He turned his back on her and strode away.

  “Frederick!” his mother squawked. Her smug look disappeared. She turned to scurry after him, holding up her heavy yellow bathing skirts. “You may not leave until you have finished escorting me through the baths. You may not …”

  They disappeared into the shadows beyond the doorway, her hectoring voice trailing behind them.

  Angeline stood like a statue of horror, staring after them.

  Viscount Scarwood reached for her arm. “Now, my delectable angel, you mustn’t let one priggish old suitor from the country discompose you.”

  “Oh!” She struck his arm away with a sound of pure frustration and lunged across the bath to the opposite doorway. In a moment, she was up the set of stairs and running, but—I could hardly believe it—she was heading in the direction of the changing rooms. She wasn’t even trying to go after Frederick Carlyle like a sensible person.

  I shook my head, sighing. Yet again, it was up to me to manage things.

  Rather than looking offended or displeased, Viscount Scarwood looked disturbingly self-satisfied as I splashed past him. He was whistling between his teeth, a tune I didn’t recognize. I doubted I would want to know the words.

  “You may tell your angelic sister,” he called out, “that I look forward to seeing her again very soon.”

  I scowled and hurried up the wide steps that led out of the bath, through the doorway that the Carlyles had used. I could hear Scarwood splashing up the steps behind me, still whistling, but I ignored him. My mind was already working on possible tactics to get Mr. Carlyle away from his mother—or, failing that, the best way to force the truth into him without his mother’s interruption.

  I was so absorbed in my plans, I didn’t even notice the wild magic growing stronger behind me until it was too late.

  “HAIL SULIS MINERVA!”

  I spun around.

  The water of the bath wasn’t just steaming anymore. It looked like it was boiling. People were screaming and scrambling for the steps. The closest doorway was full of invalids and guides pushing and shoving against each other. I raced to a window and pressed my face against it. Sparks of wild magic formed a spiraling tunnel above the bubbling water, all swirling around a single person: Lucy.

  She hadn’t gotten out of the bath when I’d told her to, after all. She stood in the center, surrounded by boiling water and wild magic, and tipped her head back to face the open sky. Her bonnet had come off and her hair escaped its pins. It whirled in a blond mass around her face and shoulders. Her arms swept out to each side as if they were holding up the sky itself. And her face …

  Her face was utterly unrecognizable.

  “HAIL SULIS MINERVA!” her voice said again with the force of a million buzzing sparks of magic, and the great stone walls trembled around the bath.

  For the first time in my entire life, I had to fight against the impulse to swoon.

  Instead, I headed for the doorway, forcing my way past the increasing crowd in the corridor. Moving toward the bath felt like running through sludge; the pressure of the wild magic was so intense, pressing against me, I had to fight my way forward with every step.

  “Lucy!” I screamed.

  People were screaming all around me as they fled for safety—not just the invalids who’d been in the King’s Bath with us, but more bathers running down the corridor from the Queen’s Bath, and a whole host of guides who’d abandoned their charges. But not everyone fled. A few people stayed, pressed against the windows and staring at Lucy as if she were a monster. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scarwood lounging against a back wall, arms crossed. He gazed through a window onto the bath with as much amused fascination as if he were watching a play.

  Lucy’s mouth opened again, and I braced myself. “LUCK AT THE GAMING TABLES,” she said.

  A burst of wild magic shot out toward the Pump Room next door.

  “What—?” I clamped my mouth shut as I realized: It was what Charles had asked for last night, wh
en he’d made his sacrifice.

  Which meant … I squeezed my hands into fists, trying desperately to remember what Papa had told me about Sulis Minerva’s shrine. People had left her sacrifices in exchange for favors granted. But not just pleasant, helpful favors for themselves—sometimes what they asked for was …

  “A CURSE ON MY TUTOR,” said the enormous, buzzing voice through Lucy’s mouth. “MAY HE—”

  “No!” I gathered up everything inside me, aimed it all at the wild magic as it focused on the curse, and let my powers explode.

  I woke up a minute later, lying flat on the damp stone tiles of the corridor. Pain banged through my skull. Wild magic still filled the air, and that terrible voice still chanted. I felt as if I’d been hollowed out and left scalded and empty. I reached for my power.

  I couldn’t find any.

  I stared numbly at the tunnel of wild magic around Lucy’s body. It was growing even stronger, more and more clouded with sparks as she—or something—kept pushing it through her.

  If I felt scalded just from trying to break that magic with my Guardian powers, how did Lucy feel now? The real Lucy?

  How much of her was even left inside?

  I pushed myself up off the tiles, panting with effort. It hurt to move. I had to do something, but I had no idea what. I looked around for anyone left who could help.

  The corridor was nearly empty now. Only Viscount Scarwood was left, and he had plastered himself against his wall, all amusement gone. As I looked, he met my eyes.