by Sarah Hoyt
Gabriel cast a doubtful eye at him. “You can’t mean to go back to the ball.”
“Of course I can. I must. An announcement must be made by midnight.”
Gabriel cast a curious look over the Duke. He looked pale but composed, but– almost without thinking, he raised his hand and cast a pain-dimming spell over Darkwater. He could see Seraphim’s features relax almost immediately, and he looked easier as he stood.
“At least let me help you wash,” Gabriel said. “You reek of brandy.”
Darkwater chuckled. “So long as they think I’m such a desperate drunk as to come to my apartments for brandy before resuming the ball, they won’t suspect what I’m really doing.”
Gabriel clicked his tongue as he wrapped Seraphim’s arm and shoulder in a thin layer of bandages. “Take care, Seraphim. One day you’ll go a bridge too far.”
But he helped Seraphim into his shirt and coat, and removed his watch and accoutrements from the pocket of his ruined coat.
As he passed them to the duke, Darkwater’s pocket watch, his father’s old watch, emitted a loud whine, which almost caused Gabriel to drop it.
Darkwater reached for it, swiftly, with his good hand, and flicked it open. He swore under his breath. “Swamp. Give me my crystal ball, Gabriel.”
“Your Grace,” Gabriel said, using both the title and the tone of deference he rarely used except in public, and continuing, in tight-lipped, scolding tones. “You cannot mean to go rescuing anyone right now. You could barely rescue yourself!”
“My crystal ball, Penn, and do me the favor of being quiet.”
The Agent
There had to be worse things that could happen to a girl than dropping head first into a Regency novel. Nell Felix had no idea what they could be, though. A Regency novel with magic, at that. A world where she must mind her manners, curb her tongue, behave like a proper lady, and, oh, yeah, perform magic, too.
If you’d told her, back when she was a very junior programmer at Prince Management Systems – she could never make her bosses understand what was wrong with that acronym, either – that her use of the magic Grandma had taught her would attract the attention of an interplanetary spy and that, for his sake, she would end up living in another world where everyone still behaved as if the regency had never passed, and where America was just the colonies of dear old Mother England, she would never have believed it.
But it was true nonetheless. And in it she’d fallen in love with Antoine, somewhere between his telling her about other worlds and teaching her magic way beyond anything that grandma had known, magic beyond anything Earth would even dream about. And now she couldn’t leave this particular world until Antoine was released. Which meant she had to satisfy Siddell’s demands first. It had already been a year. How much longer would she have to work to ransom her lover?
The real Earth, or what she thought of as the real Earth, was so long ago and far away, and sometimes she didn’t know if it felt like a weird dream, or if her current circumstances did.
“Miss, Miss,” the cracked voice of the landlady called from outside the door to Nell’s lodging.
It wavered, breaking on the high pitches and making an awful descant to the pounding of the landlady’s impatient fist on the door.
Like cats mating inside drums, Nell thought, and her little, dark face, which was rather like a cat’s itself, twisted in an expression of distaste, as she put her long-fingered hands over her ears. Or like a car engine seriously out of tune.
She repressed a longing for cars – and for flush toilets – and leaned forward toward the complex chalk drawings on her floor and the bowl of water placed in the middle of them. Lord Siddell had told her to find what Seraphim Ainsling was up to. But the duke must be using some magical protection, because it was easier said than done. So far the bowl had shown her no more than a murky fog with occasional glimpses of blood and cut flesh. And while this didn’t reassure her that His Grace of Darkwater was on the right side of the law, it was hardly an indictment.
“Miss Felix. Miss!” The pounding and the voice, each competing – and somehow managing – to be louder than the other penetrated the ineffective barrier of her hands and shattered her concentration. The wavering image she’d been able to conjure in the water – of a green jacket seemingly bobbing about mid-air – vanished altogether, leaving nothing but water and cheap china. Cracked cheap china, Nell thought, noticing the chip out of the side and the wandering crack that descended like a yellow scribble towards the center of the bowl. “Yes, Mrs. Stope,” she said. “I am coming.”
The screaming did stop, but the pounding continued, if more subdued now, a tap, tap, tap, as though to remind Nell the landlady was waiting. Not that I’m likely to forget, Nell thought, as she got up and strode across the room to the door, being careful not to step on any of the chalk lines. On her Earth, she might get a peeved letter, but no landlady would actually be pounding on her door. Here, everything was so much more personal.
She was careful to make sure her body obscured Mrs. Stope’s view of the floor. Not that witchcraft was illegal or even uncommon – though more uncommon in the lower classes, of course – in Britannia, but the landlady was the type of person to worry about the chalk on the floorboards.
Mrs. Stope stood squarely in the middle of the landing outside Nell’s room. It would have been difficult to stand any other way, since the landing was hardly large enough to contain her. Not that she was fat. No, she was square. A short, blockish woman, with the sort of build that led one to believe that in a past life she had been a clock. The way she clicked her tongue also sounded much like a clock ticking.
She turned her watery-blue eyes up to Nell, then gave her a careful once over, from head to toe, clearly taking in the well-tailored skirt and the irreproachable black jacket. “Dressed to go out, are you miss?” she said. “And I hope you’re not intending to go for weeks, and the rent already overdue?”
“No,” Nell said. “I meant to go out for a moment only.” She regretted not for the first time that she couldn’t tell the truth: places to go, people to spy on. If she said that in this world, it wouldn’t even be a reference joke. It was still true. And it kept Antoine safe. Antoine… She swallowed and kept her mind from going down that path. The problem with loving someone is that it made it easy for people to hold him hostage and make you do what they wanted. “On some… errands. But I will have your rent for you when I return.” I’d better have it; at least Sydell is not so dumb as to forget it is unadvisable to delay paying your secret operatives, even your unwilling secret operatives.
Mrs. Stope bent her head, momentarily, under the weight of this promise, but rattled back into it, game as a pebble, “Only last time you said that, you left for three weeks and then I–“
“I always pay,” Nell said, pressing her lips together and allowing her face to show the mingled impatience and annoyance she felt.
“Yes, miss, but as I own the rooms, I need to have the pay regular, else how can I meet my own bills?”
“I will do my best,” Nell said, putting on the airs she had learned tended to bring these tirades to an abrupt conclusion. And then, to reinforce the idea, “I was about to go see my father.”
“Oh,” The landlady said, and her face showed a cunning sort of curiosity. “His Lordship is in town, then?”
Nell only nodded, preserving the sort of distance and secret that the landlady would doubtless expect if Nell were in fact the by-blow of a nobleman. Which she very much doubted she was, since Earth had very few noblemen and few of them were likely to give even an illegitimate child up for adoption. But she was adopted, and so she couldn’t say her parents weren’t noble. Heck, it was weird enough she had magical power. She suspected most people back on what she thought of as Earth had had magic bred out of them. Since it didn’t work very well or very reliably on Earth, it wouldn’t confer any advantage. So maybe her parents were nobility from some other world. She couldn’t swear they weren’t.
; Besides, Mrs. Stope had once seen Nell with Mr. Sydell and assumed that he was Nell’s father and that their relationship a great secret. It always shocked Nell how little it was necessary to tell people lies. They much preferred to tell lies to themselves. Particularly in this world, where so much of society depended on convention and secrets.
She didn’t exactly despise Mrs. Stope for assuming that Nell was of noble blood – she despised her for the reasons she gave for assuming so: That she’d seen Nell with Mr. Sydell, who was obviously a gentleman, and also that Nell’s features were delicately formed, her hands and feet small and her ankles elegant. In many worlds, Nell had seen just those features in dirt-poor peasants. And if I had a sovereign for every fat, blobby princess I’ve known, she thought. I’d be wealthier than the king. But there would never be a way of convincing the Mrs. Stopes of any world of that fact.
“Well, if you’re seeing your father, Miss…,” the landlady said, with the sort of sigh more rooted in her despairing of knowing more than in her fear of not getting paid.
“Indeed I am,” Nell said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me and give me some time, I must write a letter to take with me.” For some reason, in this world, writing a letter was accorded the same sort of privacy that the real Earth gave calls of nature. Perhaps because writing with a quill pen was one of the most undignified businesses in any world.
She added ballpoint pens to the list of things she missed.
Before the woman could say, A letter, Miss? and try to figure out what the letter would say and to whom it would be addressed, a query that Nell saw all too plainly in her eyes, Nell shut the door in her face, and returned to her work.
Perhaps I drew the right-reverse spiral too wobbly, she thought, doubtfully, as she stared at the drawing on the floor. She twirled her fingers in her hair, rendering it what Mrs. Stope would doubtlessly consider a completely inappropriate coiffure for a gently reared female.
Kneeling down, she erased part of the spiral, then drew it again, slightly differently. Then she picked up the bowl and stared, again, at the vague picture of a green jacket floating midair.
She had to see clearly. She made passes midair and tried to concentrate. Seraphim Ainsling. What was the foolish man doing? He worried Siddell far too much for it to be innocent. Siddell had a second sense about these things.
Seraphim Ainsling. She remembered his haughty expression, his aquiline profile from a party at which he had resolutely looked through her.
Her fingers ran through her hair again. Right. The Duke of Darkwater. I am beneath his notice. If town rumor was right, he was getting engaged to Lady Honoria Blythe of Blythe Blessings. The eldest daughter of the Earl of Savage.
His profile was now firmly in her mind, the green eyes looking at her intently in her imagining, and she stared at the water bowl again and saw him clearly, wearing the green jacket, and a pocket watch, and saying the final words of a magical formula.
Too late, she realized what the formula was. A transport spell. Far too late, she realized she’d let her mind get enmeshed in it and in his magic.
There was a flash, a magical blast that hit her like a punch mid-body. And then she felt the transport spell pull her through the Betweener and into a destination not of her choosing.
Her bowl of water fell and cracked apart, erasing all her careful chalk markings.
The Lion, The Witch and The Pyramids
Seraphim looked at his watch, and then at his crystal ball. Neither was strictly necessary. It was possibly to use one or the other. But the one thing his father’s diaries had taught him was that it was never a good idea to rely only on one method. And Seraphim, rushing to the last alarm, had found that relying only on the watch might be the last thing he did.
The Others were perhaps no more cunning than he, but they were infinitely better armed, and there were more of them and they would have more magicians who could fake better alarms. And that was without counting the legitimate agents of his majesty, whose job it was to enforce laws forbidding citizens of Britannia from traveling abroad and who had once or twice come close to catching Papa. They too must be looking for Seraphim.
Seraphim got the coordinates of the talent at risk from the watch he’d inherited from his father, then tried to raise an image in his crystal ball to corroborate it; but all he could see was the shadow of his valet, standing determinedly between the light and the crystal ball. He obscured the light magic must use to form images.
“Penny, for the love of God–” Seraphim said, half in exasperation.
“No. You are in no fit state. You should not be standing up, much less going on a rescue mission where you might get stabbed again.” Gabriel squeezed his lips into a thin line. “Or worse.”
Seraphim clenched his lips tight. He wanted very much to answer, but he tried to avoid being rude to Gabriel. Gabriel could not answer in kind, and that made it churlish of Seraphim to abuse him. “We were not put in this world… in any world,” he said, “to take our ease while innocents die.” Realizing he’d just repeated something his father had written in his diary, and that shortly before committing suicide, Seraphim suppressed a shudder.
“There is a dire difference, Seraphim, between taking your ease and risking yourself foolishly. I beg you to consider what will become of your mother, your sister and your brothers should you–”
Before he could finish, a scratching at the door was followed by Lady Barbara’s voice. “Seraphim? I would have a word with you if I might.”
Seraphim looked at the basin filled with bloody water, the discarded, blood soaked garments, the evidence of his injury strewn around the room, and then his eyes met Gabriel’s, and he realized that Gabriel’s thoughts had followed the same trend. “No,” Gabriel’s lips formed, though he didn’t say it aloud. “I will make your excuses.”
The valet went to the door and opened it. Seraphim heard him speak in a low voice, and could imagine what he was saying. His Grace is indisposed and other such rot designed to make Mama think that Seraphim was passed out, drunk, within. He heard Mama say once, impatiently, “Penn, he can’t be that–,” followed by a renewed flood of Gabriel’s words in a sensible, persuasive tone.
What Seraphim should be doing was clearing the room of evidence of his injury and then attending to his Mama. But there was someone in need. He looked at his watch. It was very definite about someone in need of his help on Pyramids, someone with a very high magical talent and too ignorant to shield it. He didn’t think it could be a trap this time. He didn’t know how the watch worked. It had been created by his papa, possibly before Seraphim’s birth. But he did know that it was rarely wrong. And that The Pyramids was a horrible world to have magical talent in. They put to death anyone who revealed talent or shape-shifting ability as soon as it was detected, and their thaumaturgic police were ruthlessly efficient.
But sometimes the alarms had a safety margin built in. Even in Pyramids, a few hours, a few days might pass before the new talent was spotted, and a couple of hours would give him enough time to go to the ball, announce his engagement, plead fatigue, and return to his room. Then he could go to Pyramids at his leisure.
He looked at the crystal ball, taking advantage of Gabriel not being there to obscure it, and he concentrated all his attention on it and on seeing the person at risk.
A breath, two, his eyes crossed and the lights and shadows arranged themselves into coherent images: a young boy running, pursued by … Royal Thaumaturgic guards in their dark green uniforms. They carried magic sticks, the discharge from which would severely wound or maim anyone with magical talent.
Seraphim cursed under his breath. Then, with Gabriel’s murmurs growing more urgent by the door, he started to say the transport spell that would take him to Pyramids, hurriedly as he must perforce do if he was going to be out of here before his mother forced her way in the door, or before Gabriel realized what was happening.
Just as he said the capstone word that closed the spell and activated it, he felt s
ome other magic touch his.
With the awful feeling that this was yet another trap, he tried to unsay the last word, but its echoes in the air could not be called back.
He heard Gabriel scream, “Seraphim, you bloody fool!” and his mother gasp, “Seraphim,” and then he was hurtling through the cold and burning hot of Betweener and landing on his face in hot sand.
Breath was knocked out of his body. He blinked, hard, at the bright light of sun on sand, and thought that at least this looked and felt like Pyramids.
And then someone fell on him.
She must have knocked him unconscious. At least, later he would think that, because all he remembered was the horrible pain to his chest and arm, and then – some indefinable time later – being aware of soft feminine hands pulling at his arms. It renewed the infernal pain in his injured shoulder and arm, but he concentrated on her face, which was small, dark and panicked.
“Oh, please, don’t tell me I killed you,” she was saying.
Pain and dizziness warred in him. He felt as though he would throw up, but controlled it with all his might, and managed to say in something that passed for a creditably steady voice, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not that easy to kill.” And then, somewhat more sharply, “Please stop shaking me.”
“You must move,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. “Or the lion will get us.”
“Lion?” he said. The surprise carried him into sitting up and looking in the same direction she’d glanced. And there was a lion. A young lion, whose huge paws and skinny sides betrayed it as nowhere near full grown. But the tawny eyes looking out at Seraphim betrayed intelligence and fear no lion had ever known. And the light around the animal’s head was the magical glow of a magical creature. The boy, Seraphim realized. He was not a witch, but a shape shifter. Of course, those were even more feared.