03 The Mislaid Magician

by Patricia C. Wrede

  Georgy must have read my intention in my face, for she snorted and said, "Don't be absurd. Come back to the house with us."

  "I must follow the caravan."

  "By all means, but do so in a curricle. It's not as if you don't have dozens of carriages to choose from."

  We don't, of course, not dozens, but the reminder that I had more resources than I realized steadied me. "Very well," I said, "but hurry!"

  We made our disorganized way back to the house. Never has time passed more slowly. It was agony. I called for a carriage to be brought round. Georgy had a word with the butler, who had a word with the groom, and so forth. By the time I had given Reardon orders to pack a valise for me, Thomas's light curricle was at the door, his best pair in the traces.

  Piers was ahead of me, checking the harness. "Shall I drive, my lady?" he asked, for all the world as if Thomas had engaged half a dozen bodyguards for me to choose among.

  "Yes, of course. I'll just be a moment." I made sure that all reasonable preparations were in train, all children safely battened down, and then I used the password Thomas had given me to enter his study.

  From the first magic lesson Thomas gave me, it has been dinned into my head that just as each of us has a distinct voice, each of us understands our magic in a way distinct from all others. Each of the spells I know well enough to perform fluently hurts my ears. When I set the wards, the world recedes as it should, yet the roar of discord caused by shutting out the world beyond the wards intensifies as I go deeper and deeper into the spell. Many a time I have finished a lesson with Thomas with my ears ringing. It is the way of things, yet I have not grown accustomed to the discomfort.

  I cast my calling spell first, and I cast it without a thought of the discord. I meant to call Thomas with all my might. The wards came into place with an ease and speed I have never achieved before. I shut out the world with all my strength, braced myself against the onslaught I knew would come—and marveled at the focus I was able to achieve. I held the notes of my spell (for it has always seemed to me that casting a spell is like singing while accompanying myself on the piano) without half trying. It built in power as I went on, and I hardly noted the rage of crossed tones and mismatched rhythms at the edge of my hearing.

  The calling spell seemed to have taken no time at all, once I cast it. I knew that was false. Time was fleeting. Yet I spared no effort in making sure that I closed down the spell properly and disposed of the leavings.

  When I had every trace of the calling spell cleared up, I cast my finding spell for Edward. Many times have I used that very spell to locate a missing key or a lost pair of scissors. This time I held the wards in place as easily as if I were playing counterpoint. When I came to the heart of the spell, I cast it with such force that I felt my own heart lurching in time with it, a solid rhythm running under the mismatched thudding and shrieking beyond the wards.

  It took great effort to clear up the finding spell properly, for the pulse of it beat so strongly in my veins, it was hard to keep still. I was quite beside myself by the time I had leisure to scrawl you a note to say your children were safe. It occurred to me that I could never post such a note all by itself. Sharing the news with you would have to wait until I could write properly.

  I closed Thomas's study, sealed it as carefully as I knew how, and tied the strings of my bonnet uncomfortably tight beneath my chin.

  There was no duty left for me to do but put on my heaviest cloak and march out to the curricle. I was free at last to go after Edward. I dreaded what lay before me, but it was quite a relief to turn at last in the only direction I wanted to go, and to know that in a few minutes, Piers would be driving me at top speed, that I would be following the call that beat inside me like deep music.

  The hall seemed small and dark. I knew people were there to see me off, but they seemed remote and unimportant compared with the brightness of the light in the direction I needed to go. I said nothing to anyone, just moved with all possible speed toward the curricle.

  When I was outdoors, Piers was standing at the horses' heads, and Thomas was there. I thought for a moment I was seeing things, that I had wished for him so hard that I'd turned my brain with longing. But it was Thomas in truth. He was looking rather pale, leaning against the curricle, and rubbing his forehead.

  I threw myself at him, and his hat fell off as he gathered me to him. I couldn't speak at first, and when I could, it was to utter pure idiocy. "You've come."

  "Of course I have," Thomas said gently. "I was almost here when you called me. Shouting down a rain barrel ain't in it, my darling. You've half deafened me."

  "My calling spell worked?"

  "Not that it needed to. I was only half a mile away," said Thomas. "It worked a treat. And you've cast a finding spell to match it. If you cast any more spells of that caliber, my head may come clean off."

  I could not seem to let Thomas go. I could not seem to steady my voice enough for words, but I buried my face in Thomas's neck, and he soothed me with great efficiency.

  "There now, better?" he said, at last.

  I looked up at him and nodded. Words were beyond me. He produced a handkerchief, and I made good use of it.

  "Good girl," Thomas said, as he helped me up into the curricle. He climbed up beside me and took charge of the whip and reins. "Piers, you're our tiger."

  "Yes, my lord!" Piers retrieved Thomas's hat for him, then, nimble as a stableboy, clambered up to take his place behind.

  "Hang on," said Thomas, and sprang 'em.

  Is anything more noble than a pair of fast horses at a full gallop? All the rocking and lurching of a curricle is worthwhile for the sake of such speed. I would have followed Edward by mule if necessary, but a thousand times over I blessed the curricle and the team and Thomas's skill as we bowled along.

  I used the first few miles to compose myself. When I could speak sensibly again, I put the handkerchief away, then told Thomas, "Edward is in that caravan. He climbed in to explore."

  "I know. He was hidden from them at first," said Thomas. "They've found him now."

  I stared at him. "How can you know that?"

  "Arthur and Eleanor told me they scryed it in the cup Nurse Langley uses to rinse her watercolor brushes," Thomas replied.

  "Impressive." I had been so intent upon casting my own simple spells, I never noticed the children casting theirs.

  "I agree. Good day's work I put in, teaching them that." Thomas drove on.

  The miles spun away behind us. I leaned against Thomas to brace myself against the swaying of the carriage and the pounding inside my heart and head. I could feel Thomas's strength beside me, and I knew that he was using his power to help me use mine.

  "Edward's not in the caravan now," I said, after a long uncertain time. "He's so frightened. Oh, Thomas."

  "Don't falter, love. Take heart, and he will, too. Hold the link between you steady as you can." Thomas brought the horses down to a trot, intent on husbanding their strength and endurance.

  It made it hard to pay attention, focusing all my strength on that inward vision. I lost track of our progress. It seemed we had been traveling forever, rattling along as fast as the horses could safely go.

  Our route descended from the gentle hills. My vision seemed to darken slightly at the edges. When our speed slackened further, I realized we had begun to climb out of a valley toward a town on a hillside overlooking a river. With disbelief, I gauged the angle of the sun and found it was hardly midafternoon. "Where are we?" I asked Thomas. I was dismayed at how weak I sounded, how downhearted.

  "This is Stroud." Thomas used the whip to show me the crossroads we approached. "Stay on this road?"

  "Yes, it's straight on." I was sure of that. "Keep on toward the heart of the town."

  "How is Edward?" Thomas sounded a bit strangled, but otherwise quite calm.

  I rubbed my eyes, but the darkness I sensed had nothing to do with the sunny afternoon we drove through. "He's somewhere very dark," I said. After
another little while, I was able to identify the feeling that tugged at the edge of my awareness. "He's not so frightened now. More... interested."

  "Lord help us," muttered Thomas.

  We drove on. The streets of Stroud tangled around us.

  "This is the place," I said. I had not the slightest doubt of it.

  We found ourselves before a perfectly ordinary house, namelessly plain, in a street of respectably drab houses. Thomas put out a hand to stop me when I started to rise from my place in the curricle. "Let me."

  Thomas descended from the carriage. I stayed where I was, trembling with fatigue and emotion.

  With minimal gesticulation yet unmistakable authority, scarcely murmuring a word aloud, Thomas cast what even I could recognize as a spell masterly in its restrained power. Silence followed for a split second, and then a series of clicks sounded, like a thousand crickets gone mad.

  "What was that noise?" I asked.

  "The tumblers of every lock and the latch on every door in the place," Thomas replied. "It's all open now."

  I followed Thomas up the steps into the little foyer. After the bright day outdoors, it was so dim I could hardly see. The house smelled old, a compound of dusty furniture and damp wallpaper.

  Thomas said a word under his breath, and I could feel the pulse of power beneath the small sound. Although to the casual observer he may have appeared entirely undisturbed, Thomas was furious.

  "Come out," Thomas ordered. Despite his soft voice, the words carried throughout the gloomy house.

  No one came out.

  We searched together from room to room, from floor to floor, and found no one. I had every confidence in Thomas, but my consternation grew as we went on. The entire house was deserted, no one there for us to curse or question.

  As my despair and fear rose, I lost control. The tears began in earnest.

  "Wait." Thomas's curt tone was belied by the gentle touch of his hand on mine. "Listen."

  From above us on the stair to the attic came a rustle of cloth followed by a soft familiar footstep. We stared up into the gloom.

  "Edward?" I whispered.

  A blessedly familiar voice said, "Mama!"

  Edward descended the rest of the attic stairs in a leap that ended in my arms. One last throb beneath my breastbone and the finding spell faded away. I sat down hard in the dusty passage, cradling Edward as I buried my face in his hair. "Oh, you bad boy! We've been so worried!"

  "Me, too," said Edward. His voice was a muted squeak. "Loosen up a bit. I can't breathe."

  "You won't need to breathe when I've finished with you, young man," Thomas thundered. "What do you mean, giving your mother such a fright?"

  In his inimitably eel-like fashion, Edward freed himself from my embrace and turned to call with lordly pride up the attic stairs, "This is my father."

  Thomas helped me to my feet as we gazed in silence. From the top of the shabby staircase descended a girl no older than Eleanor. To judge by her expression, the child was quite unafraid of us. The dignity and grace with which she moved kept her petticoats clear of the dust on the steps. At the foot of the stair she stood, head held high, her back wonderfully straight, and regarded us in silence.

  Edward took her hand. He is young for formal introductions, but I was surprised at the instinctive ease with which he made it known to us that the girl was named Drina, and to the girl that we were his mother and father. "Drina took care of me." Edward regarded her with a proprietary air. "May she come home with us?" His tone was exactly what it would have been had he suggested he be permitted to keep some reptile or bird he had found.

  Drina said nothing. It seemed a matter of complete indifference to her what we did or didn't do.

  "She will want her own home and her own mother and father, I'm sure." I turned to address the child directly. "Or is this your home?"

  "Drina doesn't live here. Her people aren't here, either, and I want to go home now." Edward regarded his filthy hands with deep satisfaction. "Could use a wash."

  I drew Edward toward the light. "Darling, you're simply covered in soot." Belatedly I realized that I was covered in soot, too. Thoroughly as our son was coated in the stuff, there had been plenty to rub off on me as I embraced him.

  Thomas handed me his handkerchief and took up the questioning as I did my best to repair first Edward's appearance and then my own. "Hid up the chimney, did you?"

  "They locked me in with Drina." Edward gazed adoringly over the handkerchief at his trim young friend. "She gave me a leg up so I could climb into the chimney."

  "Oh, well done." Thomas turned his attention entirely to Drina. "There's no one else left in the house. If anyone should return, I will deal with it, trust me. There's no need to be afraid."

  Drina made no reply, but her chin lifted a fraction of an inch. The tiny movement spoke volumes. Drina feared no one, least of all us.

  Thomas asked, "Where do you live?"

  Drina looked at him in silence. I put the grimy handkerchief away and dusted my hands briskly. "Thomas, let's go home. If Drina doesn't care to accompany us, she can tell us so."

  Thomas seemed at a loss for a moment, but the look we exchanged persuaded him to trust me. "Very well."

  I held out my hand to Drina, and after a moment's hesitation, she took it. If she had not clung so tightly, I would have found her entire lack of emotion disquieting. As it was, the minor sign of distress touched me to the heart. Young Drina, whoever she was, had helped Edward in his imprisonment, so she could ask anything of us and I would give it gladly.

  I tried to conceal any trace of my curiosity, for to be honest, I found it a trifle vexing that a child of Drina's tender years could outdo me in the matter of sangfroid.

  "I would have climbed out the chimney if you hadn't come," Edward informed us. "Even if you hadn't come, I would have escaped."

  "Yes, dear. Of course, dear." We left the house and descended to the street, Edward clattering and chattering at our heels, as prosaically as if we were returning from a social call.

  Thomas settled Edward and Drina between us in the curricle with his cloak spread over them for warmth. Piers took up his position behind. With all due respect for the exertions the team had endured, we turned for home. I believe that both of the children were sound asleep by the time we reached the Gloucester Road. I dozed a little myself.

  We arrived at Skeynes without incident. Edward stirred awake at the hero's welcome he was given. Happy return indeed. He is in perfect health, although prone to fits of irritability when Arthur and Eleanor pester him for details of his captors. I tried to stop them, but Eleanor was reproachful as she pointed out my error. "We would never pester Edward, Aunt Kate. We are just gathering clues."

  The child Drina remains mute, although it is plain that she understands every word spoken. At first she was such a stoic, I wondered if she viewed herself as our prisoner. If so, I think she has revised her opinion. Edward alone might not reassure her, but Arthur, Eleanor, Diana, and the babies seem to have done it.

  Georgy has locked herself in her room, which I find a curious response to Edward's safe return. More curious still, Georgy helped herself to the last of my best writing paper. I will ask her why when she emerges. Meanwhile, please excuse this paper. It is some the twins were given for their Map.

  Thomas is deep in inquiries concerning the house in Stroud.

  As soon as Thomas has enchanted this letter so that it can be read by your eyes only, I will post it. Perhaps then I shall lock myself in the nursery. Perhaps I shall stay up there with the children and send down only for meals. When you and James and Thomas have unraveled all these mysteries for us, I may descend. Then again, I may not. It depends on how thoroughly the old nursery tranquility works its spell.

  Yours in deepest consternation,

  Kate

  13 April 1828

  Skeynes

  Dear James,

  This was going to be such a brief letter. I was going to make it look like a dunning no
tice from your tailor. It then occurred to me that, as in all likelihood you've never made your creditors wait so much as five minutes for payment, you wouldn't recognize such a missive should you receive one.

  So instead you have my cipher note containing instructions on how to persuade this letter to permit you to read it, a note which you must have deciphered or you would not be reading this now.

  Oh, enough of thinking about things from your point of view. Not only does it slow me down, it may make you doubt this letter's authenticity, and we can't have that.

  I owe you, James. Cecy, too, I suppose. I'm very grateful to the pair of you for loaning us your children. Diana and Alexander still seem harmless enough, but Arthur and Eleanor have been an immense help in the past few days.

  No, this is not some new kind of code. I am quite sincere.

  Kate will have told you (via Cecy) of all the excitement we have had here. They began without me.

  Kate's finding spell, cast entirely on her own, with no assistance from me or anyone else—not that there was anyone else qualified to help—was a hell of a finding spell, James, a finding spell that would have worked had Edward been shanghaied and shipped out to the Fiji islands. I am so proud of her, I can hardly contain myself.

  Edward has answered our questions readily enough. If he knew precisely what happened to him and why, he would tell us. Unfortunately, he has only a dim idea of where he went and no idea why. Indeed, he seems to delight in confusing us with varied accounts of his adventure.

  Luckily, his cousins are superb inquisitors (as you have reason to know), and I trust that soon they will have the whole story out of him in accurate and comprehensible form. Arthur makes a particularly ruthless questioner, for he burns with indignation that his cousin should have had this adventure. In Edward's place, Arthur is sure he would have made a much better thing of it, if only he hadn't behaved with such foolish good sense and restraint.

  I applaud Young England's desire for adventure, but I have made a point of thanking Arthur for behaving as a true gentleman should. He looked to the welfare of the ladies before his own. If Edward demonstrates even half as much good sense at Arthur's age, I will be proud of him.