by H. G. Parry
They all knew it was more of a story than a promise that could be kept. But she was a great magician: she had heard the voice on Saint-Domingue, and she could walk free when none of them could. So they believed her, in the way that stories are believed. Their whispered blessings followed her to the door and helped her turn back once to wave them goodbye, even though she thought her heart would break.
Getting on board the ship was another matter. She knew there were many in port bound for Saint-Domingue: Jacob had been right about the governor promising support to the white planters. No militiamen were going—Britain, far away across the ocean, had not been prepared to offer its armies—but the British planters in Jamaica were more sympathetic, and many were sending arms and supplies to the ports under siege at their own expense. Clemency, who sometimes helped out in the gardens of the big house, had heard that at least one ship was planning to set sail at first light, enough time for Fina to walk from her plantation to the docks and get on board. She hadn’t anticipated, though, how many people would be awake on each ship at this time of night, walking about its decks and checking the sails. Clearly, a ship being ready to leave port wasn’t something that happened by itself.
For a long time, she crouched behind a stack of worn crates, watching the nearest ship’s gangplank. Once she was on board, she was confident she could reach the hold and hide out of sight for as long as she needed. It was that dash across the narrow strip of wood that connected the ship to the dock that worried her. She only needed to be glimpsed, and it would all be over. She ran the distance in her head, across the docks and over the plank and into the open hatchway that led to the hold, over and over again, but she couldn’t move. Fear was as strong as spellbinding.
As much by instinct as by conscious thought, she closed her eyes and reached for her magic.
It was there in her blood: she’d felt it work away at the spellbinding over the years, and touch her mind with odd glimpses of the sugar-processing plant and the white mansion. She took hold of it this time and threw it out at the burly sailor on the deck of the ship.
The feeling was very like slipping into sleep. At once, her awareness of her surroundings muffled and faded, and in front of her eyes was a new view: close to that from her own eyes, but fifty yards distant, so that the sea was black and close and the horizon filled her vision. The ship rocked beneath booted feet, and she felt muscles not her own shift to keep balance. She was inside the sailor’s head, looking out through his eyes—eyes that were stinging in the salt spray and squinting in the early-morning dark. And, most important, not looking in her direction.
She had no time for wonder, or fear. She pulled away, blinking back to her own head. The view in front of her was her own: the gangplank was there, a short dash across the docks. And then, at last, she took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and ran it in reality. Her bare feet padded on the ground and made the plank bounce and rattle, but there was no cry of alarm. With her heart raging in her ears, she disappeared into the hold.
It was her second time in a ship. At first, the memory of her passage to Jamaica rushed back. She had thought she had forgotten it, but it reared up in her head like a snake. The hold in which she hid was a storeroom, not a dungeon: it was packed with weaponry, ship’s biscuits, salted meat, and rope, not hundreds of people lying in their own filth. And yet she could hear the tortured breathing and rattle of chains; she could smell the nauseous waves of fear and death. It took possession of her body in ways she had not expected. For the first few hours, as the ship plowed through the warm Caribbean Sea, she shivered, retched, and sobbed in spasms, all the while trying to keep as silent as she could. She was wedged tightly behind a crate, and her muscles remembered their old captivity and flooded her body with panic. In that moment, she knew that Molly was wrong. She would never be free.
Gradually, though, her fear quieted. She soon lost track of whether it was night or day. Bells rang to mark the hours as she dozed. Above her head, she heard the drumming of footsteps, the call of voices, the crash of waves over the deck. Ropes creaked; the boxes around her groaned and shifted. Sometimes she would hear footsteps, and then she would lock her muscles and try to breathe as little as possible until they passed again. But nobody disturbed her. By what might have been the second day, she began to feel a curious pleasure in that. The trip itself was worse than some of the tortures that her masters devised for their slaves, but the muscle cramps and thirst and seasickness were inflicted by nobody but herself. She had escaped. Whatever happened to her now, even if she were found and resold, her old masters would never touch her again.
Her magic, now that it had been used once, was awake in her veins. She practiced with it, tentatively, afraid all the time that the sailors would feel her behind their eyes but unable to resist. From the tiny dark hole in which she had sequestered herself, she could reach out and open her eyes—or rather another’s eyes—to bright sun and dazzling sea. The thoughts and feelings of those she looked through were a mystery to her, and the view was oddly silent: no splash of waves or roar of wind. But she could feel the salt on their skin, and the heat of the cloudless sky. She savored it, and the feeling of power it brought with it.
It brought other things as well, though—things she didn’t understand. Once, on the edge of sleep, she saw a garden: dark, leafy, like nowhere she had ever seen in the West Indies or in her memories of Africa. There were two white men there: one small and pale, the other tall and cloaked in shadow. Her instinct was that this was her magic too, not a dream of her own. As far as she knew, her magic could only place her inside the heads of others. What she was seeing, therefore, must be inside somebody’s head. But whose head, and where, and how, remained a mystery.
There was sound in this vision, as there was not when she saw the world outside. Leaves rustled overhead, and wind hummed through the grass.
“War is coming,” the small man was saying. He spoke in a language she didn’t understand, but the meaning came to her intact. “It’s imminent. You need to help me stop it.”
“It’s imminent,” the other agreed, in a voice that was oddly familiar. “And I’ve told you what you need to do.”
The small man shook his head. His arms were folded tightly across his chest, as though he were cold, and his white face looked naked in the moonlight. His fine ginger hair bore traces of powder. “I don’t believe you really want to stop the war at all.”
“I never said I did,” the other said.
Fina knew his voice then. It was the voice that had called the slaves to rebellion, the voice she had come to find. The garden looked a very long way away, and yet in some way he was very close.
She was asleep when the ship arrived at Saint-Domingue. The sound of shouting woke her: shouting, and running footsteps. It was not the cheerful bustle of sailors sighting land and readying the ship for docking. The cries had notes of horror and wonder; the steps were the erratic staccato of panic. Without thinking, heart beating, she reached out with her magic and looked.
The blaze of light that greeted her was not the sun this time. The skies were pale gold with twilight, and the sea was white and silver. Not far from the ship, the coast of Saint-Domingue peeked over the horizon. It was on fire.
Through the eyes of the sailor, Fina saw a wide, circular bay surrounded by high mountains and dark green trees; beyond the docks were what had once been graceful streets and white houses. Now those same houses were blazing; many more, farther from the ports, were black and gutted. The streets were caked with soot and debris. The sharp reports of rifle fire sounded in the distance, as did the occasional scream on the wind. It was the view, though Fina did not know it, that Robespierre had seen in a dream six months ago and an ocean away. It had been a hope then, or a plan, something glimpsed from a mind reaching out to his own. This was real. It was Port-au-Prince, the capital of French Saint-Domingue, and it was burning.
As they drew nearer, the smell of smoke permeated the ship, even down in the hold where Fina was
hidden. She waited in the darkness as the ship slid into port with shouts and creaking of masts. She didn’t look out again through anyone’s eyes: the glimpse she had stolen had told her what was waiting for her, and she knew most of the sailors would be focused on their own work rather than their surroundings now. Instead, when all seemed as quiet as could be expected, Fina carefully unfolded herself from her hiding place. Her muscles were stiff and trembling from her long confinement, and her heart throbbed in her ears.
Once again, she hesitated on the threshold of a ship. It had been nearly impossible for her to enter in the first place; leaving it didn’t have the emotional wrench of leaving behind her family on Jamaica, but still her limbs were frozen. The world outside was so unknown and so angry, and she had nothing in the world except Jacob’s knife and Molly’s love and the promise she had made to find the voice that had started a revolution and bring it home.
The owner of the voice was here. She knew that now, without knowing how except that it was through her magic. She couldn’t see through his eyes, but now that she stood on the edge of the island she could feel him in every tree and stone. If she looked hard enough, through battle and bloodshed and civil war, she would find him; then, perhaps, she could bring the war to her own people. Jacob would have gone at once. Clemency would have gone. Molly would not have left the others, perhaps, but if she had come this far to save them, she would not have hesitated to go farther. None of them would have been afraid, as she was. She was the wrong person to be free. And yet she was the only one here.
She drew a deep breath and walked out into the flames.
London
April 1792
In the spring, France declared war on Austria. The threat of it had been hanging over the two countries since Louis’s attempted escape, but most never expected it to fall so fast, and still fewer had expected the final push to come from France. It was a war of defense, according to them, after Austria’s aggressive overtures the year before. This was true enough. It was also a war of expansion—not of territory only, but of ideals. The Revolution was coming to Europe.
In theory, France moved forward without breaking the Concord. Commoner magic was still illegal in the streets, even though the bracelets were inactive, and it was still illegal on the battlefield. When the rest of Europe sent stern warnings about the frequent explosions of fire and water from the French army, France responded with injured innocence.
We have not broken the Concord, they said. We have no intention of breaking the Concord.
But the Concord is being broken, the various ambassadors insisted. There is clear evidence that Commoner soldiers have unleashed their magic on the battlefield.
It’s illegal, France said. Of course, with the bracelets still inactive and the Knights Templar so ineffectual, it becomes very hard to enforce the law. In the heat of battle, things do happen. Soldiers defend themselves. But this does not reflect the official policy of the French Assembly of Magicians. The Concord remains intact.
“Really,” Dundas complained to Pitt. “Do they think we’re idiots?”
“No,” Pitt replied. “They think we’re afraid. And we are, aren’t we?”
The two of them were in Pitt’s office. Outside, the fragile sunlight had hardened into a bitter frost as the afternoon drew on. Eliot and Harriot, both of whom were staying at Downing Street over the session, sat side by side in front of the fire. It would have been a peaceful scene a year or so ago, when the subjects under discussion had been less momentous.
“If we choose to insist that they’re breaking the Concord,” Pitt said, “then by the terms of the Concord we need to see their actions as a declaration of war upon the whole of Europe.”
“The French government can’t want that either,” Eliot said. “Have they gone mad?”
“No, of course not. The trouble is, this is a war of ideals as much as a war of conquest. There are magicians in that country who have been bound their entire lives. Now their bonds are cut. They would take any excuse to flex their muscles and stretch. The fact that using magic on the battlefield will draw the rest of Europe into the war is the only thing holding them back.”
“And if we claim they’ve done so already and go to war to stop them,” Eliot said, understanding, “then they’ll have nothing left to lose. And then there’s nothing to stop them breaking the Concord.”
“Exactly. If we go to war with them for any reason at all, come to that, they’ll have nothing left to lose. We need to remain neutral as long as we possibly can.”
Harriot spoke up thoughtfully, her chin propped on her hand. “If Britain was to go to war with France, and France does break the Concord—would Britain break it as well?”
“Not if I can possibly help it,” Pitt said.
She knew him too well to let him get away with that. She’d had the same political tutelage growing up as he had. “But other countries might. And if they do—if the Concord is broken on both sides—then this becomes a war of magic. We return to exactly the kind of conflict that the Concord was designed to prevent.”
“Nobody acting against France will break the Concord unless we do. They’ll wait for us to make a move.”
“You can’t know that, William. Besides, if France does use magic against us on the battlefield, how long can we realistically last without it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Which is one more reason why we need to avoid war with France if we possibly can.”
“If they cross over into Holland and threaten British interests,” Dundas said, “we will have to respond, magic or no. We can’t let them tear through Europe unchecked.”
“And we’ve told them that,” Pitt said. “With luck, that will be enough to stop them.” He paused. “Still. We should probably look at strengthening the navy, just in case.”
Harriot caught his eye, and he knew they were both thinking of their younger brother. It had been more than ten years now since James had died at sea, so soon after their father and their sister Hester. His ship had been in the West Indies. The name had been little more than a scrawl on a map and a list of British interests to Pitt at the time; he knew it much better now, thanks to Wilberforce’s efforts for abolition, but he still couldn’t quite picture the color of the ocean or the strength of the sun.
Harriot looked away first, the memory having come and disappeared like a pebble beneath the surface of a pond. Her gaze fell to Pitt’s desk, by his side. “The daemon-stone wants your attention,” she said.
Pitt followed her gaze. Sure enough, the black orb was humming softly. His heart sank. It wasn’t just that the stone almost certainly meant bad news, though lately it had. The messages had become so frequent lately, and from so far away: he had talked to their ambassador in France twice already that morning. Picking up a daemon-stone once was mildly unpleasant but forgettable, like having to swallow down a spoonful of bitter medicine. The cumulative effect was far worse. It was all too easy to believe, as Wilberforce did, that the stone was doing it on purpose.
“Well,” he said, as dryly as he could. “If that’s a declaration of war from France, at least we’ve already discussed it thoroughly.”
“That won’t help,” Eliot said. “All we agreed was that we didn’t want one.”
“We’ll leave you to it,” Harriot said, standing. She gave her brother a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as she left.
Either the shadow in the Downing Street stone was growing accustomed to Pitt or he was more practiced at letting it in; this time, his fingers barely curled around it before the cold, insubstantial presence rushed into his head. It seeped into the crevices of his brain like fog against glass and whispered without words. Meaning grew, flowered, and burst in a shower of sparks. Then it was gone, leaving only a chill and a dull nausea in its wake.
Dundas hadn’t left with Eliot and Harriot; he was there when Pitt blinked his way back into the room. “Anything of import?”
“Nothing to do with France—or not directly.” He shive
red, rubbed his eyes, and tried to chase the last of the shadow-smoke from his thoughts. “That was the stone in Manchester—and could have been sent through the usual channels, frankly. There are signs of agitation from the Army of Commoner Magicians, or whatever that chapter calls itself.”
Dundas didn’t seem reassured. If anything, his frown deepened. “We need to do something about these pro-magic societies. The more powerful France becomes, the more inflamed they get. We don’t need what happened in Paris to repeat itself in London.”
“I’ve already told Grenville and the others to hold back on the bill to relax penalties on Commoner magic—I agree it’s too dangerous at this point. Fox will almost certainly bring it forward himself, of course, just to embarrass us, but that can’t be helped.”
He refilled his glass from the decanter in front of him and took a drink. It warmed some of the chill from the stone, but not all.
(It was a terrible thing to bind a powerful shadow against its will, the shadowmancers said. It would serve you. But it would never forgive you.)
Dundas seemed to be hesitating. “Wilberforce is presenting his abolition bill tonight.”
“I know,” Pitt said absently. He was writing down the message from the stone before it faded from his mind. “We talked about it this morning.”
“You can’t support it,” Dundas said.
It took Pitt a moment to recall his thoughts from the paper in front of him. “I have no intention of doing anything else,” he said.
“You know as well as I do that these are dangerous times. This is not the time to advocate for the things that started the Revolution in France—not to mention Saint-Domingue.”
“The Revolution in France started over magical reform.”
“It started over talk of rights and freedoms. All those revolutionaries were abolitionists of some shape or form. Any talk of the same in light of recent events will do nothing but anger the king and Parliament, and frighten the people of this country. They don’t want what happened in Saint-Domingue to happen here.”