“Hold on, man, I’m roasting you. Let go of my coat!” Quigley choked and sputtered.
“Not till you take back what you said!”
There was a pause. “Why, Eamon,” Quigley said at last, his voice amused, if a touch breathless, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I touched a sore spot—ow! You’re throttling me!”
“Don’t you dare breathe a word of this to anybody!”
“Have you tried to kiss her—oww! Let go of me!”
“Swear it,” Doherty snarled.
“All right, I swear I won’t tell anyone you fancy—argh!”
Clutching the book to her chest, Pen turned and fled upstairs to her room. Almost panting, she sat down on her bed.
Eamon Doherty liked her? It was laughable. Completely ridiculous. He’d made it clear from her first day that he loathed her and resented her presence in their class. Yesterday he’d been incredulous that she’d been able to heal him and said so to her face. He hated her.
Yet if it were ridiculous, why hadn’t Doherty just laughed it off? And what had Niall said when they’d bumped into Doherty? The look he gave you wasn’t one you give to someone you find loathsome.
Good lord, it couldn’t be. Could it?
She shuddered, remembering the desperate anger in his voice just now. Could a man despise a woman and still find her attractive? The very notion of such a thing made her feel soiled, somehow. Why, oh why, did she have to overhear that horripilatious conversation? How could she ever face any of them now?
A sonorous tone, and another, broke into her thoughts. She listened numbly as the clock finished striking ten, then resumed its thick, steady tick. Time for class.
But she didn’t move from her hunched perch on the edge of her bed. If she walked into Dr. Carrighar’s office now, she’d either burst into tears or hysterical laughter, and they’d know, Quigley and Doherty, that somehow she knew—
“Miss.” Norah was knocking on her door. “Miss, they be wantin’ ye downstairs. ’Tis time fer class.”
For a few seconds, she thought about having Norah tell them that she was ill. But no, she’d already fled one class in tears. She couldn’t avoid class every time something upset her because then Doherty would be right—she wasn’t strong and able enough to learn alongside men. And Norah would worry if she went back to bed complaining of illness, and would tell Dr. Carrighar.
“Thank you, Norah. Please tell the doctor that I’ll be down directly,” she called. After Norah had padded away, she splashed some cold water on her face and, after a moment’s hesitation, undid her plaits and went down with her hair falling unbound over her shoulders. It was not proper to appear so before others, especially men, but she would not be leaving the house and it would give her something to hide behind.
As it turned out, she would badly need to hide.
Everyone rose as she came into the study. Dr. Carrighar merely nodded his thanks as she handed his book to him and took the remaining seat—which, unfortunately, was next to Eamon Doherty. She managed not to meet his eyes, but her skirt brushed his knee in passing and he recoiled as if she’d struck him. Quigley sniggered, and Pen shook her hair over her face as she bent to arrange her skirts, lest they all see how red she’d turned. It was his problem, not hers. She would not let them intimidate or embarrass her.
“I thought that today we would do something a little different and attend to our reading at our next class,” Dr. Carrighar began when she was seated.
Pen breathed a silent sigh of relief behind her hair. A reprieve! She would be spared at least one embarrassment today. This would give her a chance to finish reading the chapters she hadn’t made it through, assuming that she got back from dinner at the Gormans’ at some reasonable hour. Oh, goodness, the Gormans’ dinner! She’d nearly forgotten. What would she wear? Had Niall seen her in her dark rose corded silk gown with the paler pink underskirt? It was a little grand for just a small dinner, but it did look very well on her—
A quick motion in the corner of her eye made her look up.
“Miss Leland?” Dr. Carrighar beamed as he looked at her expectantly, holding his handkerchief in the air, and she realized the motion she had seen was him whisking it off something on his desk.
“E-excuse me?”
His smile faltered. “I asked if you would care to begin our practicum this morning.” He gestured down with the handkerchief at two small piles of broken crockery that lay side by side on the blotter. Pen realized after staring at them blankly for a few seconds that they were shattered teacups.
A practicum! Oh, why hadn’t she stayed upstairs and pleaded a headache? She vaguely remembered seeing the handkerchief-covered piles on his desk when she handed him the book. One of the cups was from the blue sprigged breakfast china they used every morning. The other cup was boldly patterned in green and gold reminiscent of Lady Keating’s tea set. Borrowing the cups must have been what Dr. Carrighar was discussing with Cook when she’d sneaked downstairs to return the book.
“Er, begin? Very well.” She leaned forward and stared at the teacups. Why hadn’t she been listening to him, instead of thinking about what to wear tonight? What did he want her to do to them?
Two broken teacups. What did she think he wanted her to do to them? She silenced the snide voice in her head and straightened, taking a deep breath. Reassembly spells seemed a little elementary for this class, but she’d not complain.
“Reficimini,” she whispered, narrowing her attention on the two piles of shards.
One of the piles—the breakfast china one—shifted, and in a small flurry of motion reformed itself once again into an intact cup.
The other pile of fragments didn’t move.
Pen blinked. Had she been showing off, trying to repair both at once? Or hadn’t she fully recovered from all her exertions yesterday? “Reficere,” she said a little more loudly, staring at the shards. You are a teacup. You are broken. Be made whole.
The pile did not even stir.
Someone—she wasn’t sure but it might have been O’Byrne—giggled softly. Pen resisted the urge to snap at him and tried again, putting a confidence into her voice that she did not feel. “Reficere!”
“Ahem.” Dr. Carrighar coughed. “That will do, Miss Leland. Mr. Doherty?”
Pen cringed. Why hadn’t she been able to repair the second cup? Now Doherty would do it and make her look incompetent.
“Sir.” Eamon Doherty sat up and took a deep breath. But before he could begin his spell, Patrick Sheehan leaned forward.
“But, sir. Eamon can’t fix it. It isn’t real,” he said, sounding puzzled.
Dr. Carrighar sat back in his chair and smiled. “Excellent, Mr. Sheehan. You are quite right. There is no cup, broken or otherwise.”
Pen blinked at the pile of fragments. There wasn’t? Bright morning light from the window behind Dr. Carrighar’s desk shone on the smooth glaze of the larger pieces. Shadows fell where they ought. There was even a faint drift of white powder and tiny fragments on the blotter underneath them.
“I am sure Norah and Cook will appreciate your mending this, Miss Leland.” Dr. Carrighar gestured to the whole cup. She could hear the disappointment in his voice. “And your attempt at mending both might be construed as one way to demonstrate that one cup was real and one wasn’t. But perhaps a closer examination into the nature of the cups might have been a better place to start.” He waved a finger over the broken cup, and it seemed to melt into nothingness.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Pen stared hard at where the second cup had been and told herself fiercely not to cry.
“Indeed. Now, Mr. Sheehan, what made you realize that the second cup was false?”
“I don’t know,” Sheehan admitted, after a pause. “I just knew.”
“Ah. Very interesting, my boy. Has this happened before? We might want to see if you have a natural gift for truth-seeing. Any others? Mr. O’Byrne? Mr. Quigley? No?”
Pen was vaguely comforted by the lack of response f
rom the others, but not much. If she’d finished the reading she was supposed to, would she have been able to tell that the cup was not real? Did that mean that Doherty and the others hadn’t done their reading either?
Or was it something deeper? Had she not been able to see it because she just wasn’t good enough?
You were good enough to put Eamon Doherty back together yesterday, part of her said indignantly. Don’t forget that.
“Perceiving illusion is one of the skills a user of magic should cultivate. A nonmagic person does not concern himself with such matters; the evidence of his eyes is enough for him. But those of us who know how easily the eye can be deceived by a fair exterior must learn to cultivate a deeper vision.”
Was it her imagination, or was Dr. Carrighar looking meaningfully at her? If he was, then what did he mean by it? What—or whose—fair exterior did he think she was unable to see past?
“Similarly, we need to cultivate an inner vision to discern what intent may lie beneath otherwise fair-seeming magic. This perhaps comes more under the heading of studying human nature than studying magic, but remember that we are all human first and magic users second. My cup illusion was harmless, but it could well have concealed an ill intent. As has been frequently noted through the ages, all that glitters is not gold.”
An image of Niall’s shining hair popped into her mind. Could he be talking about Niall? But Niall wasn’t a wizard.
“We must, therefore, be doubly vigilant and watch for too-fair exteriors in both the mundane and magical levels. We must learn to perceive the true intention behind all magic. As humans we do not do a labor—and magic can indeed be difficult and taxing—unless we have a purpose for it. It is simple to perceive the purpose of regular human labor: One digs a hole in the ground if one wants to have a well. But perceiving the purpose behind a particular piece of magic can be another task altogether.”
Pen realized with a chill that Doherty was staring at her.
“If you will recall from our reading last month . . .”
Would this class never end? Would any of them notice if she practiced her invisibility spell and slipped out of the room? If only Doherty would stop looking at her with that speculative look in his eyes.
Somehow she managed to sit through the next hour and a half without squirming or turning herself invisible. Thank heavens for Mama’s training on how to sit up straight and look attentive when one was mentally miles away. She rose promptly when Dr. Carrighar excused them, wishing that she were in the chair closest to the door. As the four young men filed out of the study ahead of her, Dr. Carrighar cleared his throat.
“Please stay, Miss Leland. I would like to speak with you.”
“Yes, sir,” she said steadily enough, but her heart sank to somewhere around ankle level. Had he noticed her inattention? Was she about to experience her first tutorial bloodletting at the hands of the doctor? She sat down in Sheehan’s chair and hoped some of his imperturbability would rub off on her.
Dr. Carrighar toyed with the teacup still on his desk, not looking at her. His brow furrowed, but he remained silent. Pen took the moment of respite to brace herself for a scolding at her decidedly lackluster performance in class, but it didn’t come.
“I’m worried about you,” Dr. Carrighar finally said, setting the cup down and meeting her eyes.
“M-me?” She knew that sounded dull-witted in the extreme, but it came out before she could stop it.
“Yes, you. I don’t think this visit is working out the way we expected, what with poor Melusine being so ill. I cannot give you the attention she has, and I fear that you need it.”
Pen counted to five before she spoke. Ten might have been better, but she just couldn’t manage it right now. “I was not aware that I had given anyone cause to worry.”
“You haven’t. Not quite yet, anyway. But I—” He shook his head. “You see? I can’t even say what is troubling me without doing it wrong. I was not the, ahem, the best and most attentive of fathers, and count myself fortunate that only one of my sons went to the bad.”
Pen remembered the stories she had heard about Michael’s older brother, the one whose improprieties had left Michael open to blackmail by Sir John Conroy in London last year. “I do not think there is any danger of my going bad, sir,” she said, trying to temper her annoyance. Dr. Carrighar had been devastated by his older son’s behavior and subsequent removal to Canada.
Dr. Carrighar sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. “I didn’t say that you would. It is not your behavior I’m worried about. It is your vulnerability in this time and place, without a proper guardian to keep watch over you. You have no family here, and poor Melusine is too ill. I should be grateful that Nuala Keating has stepped into the breach and taken you under her wing, but something about her troubles me.”
Pen sat straighter in her chair. Was this what he had meant by “a fair exterior covering some other purpose”? Not Niall, but Lady Keating? But what could possibly be wrong with Lady Keating? She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up one hand.
“The fact that I can’t put my finger on what it is troubles me even more. And so, I have been debating writing to your father and advising that you go home as soon as possible.”
“What?” She stared at him. Leave Ireland? A choking sensation came over her at the thought. Leave Ireland . . . and Niall? “No, you mustn’t write that to Papa! Oh, please don’t send me back. I love it here! I feel as if”—she took a deep breath—“as if I’ve come home. As if I belong here. The people, the . . . the everything. Even the magic feels different—as if it fits me better. And Lady Keating has been an absolutely correct chaperone, not to mention a kind one.”
She thought of the glad, warm light in Lady Keating’s eyes whenever Pen arrived at the house, the motherly embraces, the concern for her comfort and happiness. “I think Lady Keating’s really become fond of me,” she added.
“That may be so, Penelope. But you have a mother and father at home who can take even better care of you. And though you may feel a kinship with the magic, I’m afraid that has not shown up in your studies.”
Pen rose and took a few paces back and forth, trying to calm her agitation. “I’m sorry about the work. I meant to finish the reading last night, really I did. I promise that I shall plan my days so that I can get it all done. I’ve been bad, I know, about accepting all of Lady Keating’s invitations to stay for tea or dinner when I should be here studying. Please don’t send me back to my parents, not yet. What would Ally say if I left? I am quite sure her feelings would be hurt.”
Dr. Carrighar sighed and clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. “I rather doubt she would even notice. That is another thing. I have been trying to determine what is in the elixir Lady Keating gave Melusine, and I cannot.”
Pen stopped pacing. “But you said that you didn’t think it was harmful.”
“I know I did. It—it troubles me, but how can I deny it to poor, dear Melusine when it’s the only cure for her illness?”
Pen looked at his bowed head as a new thought struck her. He positively doted on his daughter-in-law. Was that his real problem with Lady Keating? That she’d been able to help Ally and he hadn’t?
“Sir,” she said gently, “don’t worry about Ally—er, Melusine. She’s comfortable, and that’s the important thing. And don’t worry about me, either. I am a grown woman, after all. I shall work harder at my studies. It will all work out in the end, I’m sure.” She touched the back of his hand, then picked up the intact teacup. “I’ll just bring this back to Norah, shall I?” Without waiting for his reply, she left the room.
Norah and the cook were sufficiently pleased to get the teacup safely back that they immediately agreed to make a plate of toast and honey for Corkwobble. While Cook got out her toasting rack, Pen hurried upstairs to her room. Dr. Carrighar’s concern over Lady Keating’s elixir had given her an idea. She retrieved the mostly empty bottle that she’d taken from Ally’s room the other
morning but forgot to give back to Lady Keating and slipped it in her pocket. Then, armed with a lamp and heaping plate of toast and a bowl of clotted cream, she ventured into the cellar.
“Corkwobble?” she called, entering the wine chamber.
“Eh?” Corkwobble’s surprised voice came from the corner of the room.
Pen blinked. The clurichaun was standing in the far corner of the room, his back to her and his hands occupied with something in front of him. A faint splash, as of liquid spilling on the ground, could be heard.
“Oh, ’tis you, bean draoi. I’ll just be a moment,” he called over his shoulder.
What was he doing? Then it hit her. Good heavens, he was . . . Pen nearly dropped Corkwobble’s snack. Should she laugh or shriek indignantly and run right back up the stairs again?
In a few seconds, however, she regained her composure. After all, she had a younger brother. Nothing should shock her. And Corkwobble was no human, bound by a human sense of propriety. She’d gotten so used to chatting with him that it was easy to forget he was of another kind entirely. She set the plate and bowl on the table and turned away to inspect a rack of bottles on the wall opposite Corkwobble, doing her best not to giggle.
The liquid sound stopped. “Now, that’s better,” he sighed.
Pen counted to ten then turned back. Corkwobble was doing up the last of the buttons on the front of his breeches as he sidled toward the table. He gave her his crooked grin. “’Tis glad to see you I am, bean draoi, though ye came at an inconvenient moment. Almost as glad as I am to see what you’ve brought me.”
“Norah would raise the roof if she had come downstairs and seen what you were doing just now.” Pen crossed her arms and tried to look stern.
“Well, I don’t see her down here emptying chamber pots for me.” Corkwobble pulled a stool from under the table and clambered up on it. “And she should be grateful, she should. Why do you think there isn’t a rat or even a wee mouse in this house? Clurichaun pi—er, you know what I mean—’tis a grand remedy against vermin.” His eyes gleamed as he pulled a small spoon from the air and began to slather the honeyed toast with cream.
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