Bound Magic

by Jenny Schwartz

  They were already having to compensate for my absence. Luckily winter was a quiet time of year, but they’d need another one or two people for spring.

  “So that’s me dealt with. What do you need, chickie?”

  I smiled at him. “You just provided it. A feeling of home and normalcy.”

  He put a finger to the mirror.

  I matched him.

  Connection.

  “You really do have good people skills, Jarod. Love you, brother.” He felt like a brother.

  “Be cool, little sis.” He sounded a bit choked up. The mirror’s screen swirled and cleared to reflect my face. He’d ended the connection.

  I pressed the button to do the same at my end. The mirror clunked gently as I placed it on the bedside table. I reached up and turned off the lamp.

  Talking to Jarod, Digger and Stella had made me feel more human, more normal. But normal for me was changing. I hadn’t discussed with them the big issues that bothered me.

  I hugged the pillow that had been propping up the mirror. Rory was far away, near Portland. If he was here…I wanted to be held, and not asexually as Jarod might have held me. I craved the heat of desire, the warmth and freedom of it.

  If Rory was here I’d ask him what Hope Fang meant, why he’d named his pack so strangely, and if it tied into what he’d said about living a homespun life?

  Piros, the Red Drake, had warned humanity at the start that we’d be returning to a standard of technology equivalent to that of the Renaissance. After walking around Justice and talking to people I understood that the Faerene had travelled even further back in terms of the stages of their civilization’s development. In migrating to Earth they’d chosen to live with extraordinary simplicity for a society that had developed the capacity to travel between worlds and defeat aliens.

  I assumed that the homespun life was part of their effort to keep the Rift sealed and restore Earth to balance. No more than humans could the Faerene afford to profligately use the planet’s resources. Things had to die. Plans and people had to fail.

  “I need to adjust my idea of the pursuit of happiness.” It couldn’t be about linear progression any longer; about developing things along the lines of the way I’d been brought up. Instead, failure had to be accepted, welcomed even.

  Abandoning the pillow, I rubbed my chest. Crops would fail. People would die. The truth was that they always had. My old, privileged life wasn’t the norm for humanity through the ages. I needed to accept my helplessness.

  But I also had to seize hold of what I could do.

  I had to decide what I wanted in this new world.

  Did I want Rory?

  I smiled at the ceiling. A human familiar partnering with the head of a new pack might be contentious, but Rory didn’t seem bothered by the idea. Nor Istvan.

  Tineke…Lajos was worried about the woman he loved. Tineke cared what happened to me for reasons beyond the personal. I’d become fixed in her mind as a symbol of the changes and suffering humanity endured.

  The Faerene hadn’t caused the Rift to open. Unwittingly, humans had done that. Neither the Faerene nor humanity were responsible for the Kstvm lining up to invade and exploit us. The Faerene had intervened when they could have left us to the Kstvm’s nonexistent mercy. That the cost of humanity’s survival was so high was not the Faerene’s fault. I’d read enough on the news slate to understand more of how magic worked and how the shield around a healthy world was organically maintained.

  Melinda had taught me that magic was the memory of all the possibilities that hadn’t happened. They could be reshaped by a mage to alter reality. At the trials I hadn’t had the time or emotional space to come to grips with the implications of her explanation.

  Now, rightly or wrongly, I thought that magic did interface with human science. We mightn’t have known of magic’s existence, but we possessed physics theories that provided room for it. Some of our scientists had posited the existence of a multiverse, of parallel alternate Earths where choices not taken here were made there. But many scientists had disputed the theory. They just hadn’t known of magic, and it was the Faerene concept of magic that provided an answer to what happened to unrealized possibilities; that is, they became the raw material for magic.

  “What never was channels through me to become a reality Istvan creates.” Mind blown.

  My room was quiet. Downstairs, the night session for the magistrate hall was underway. Up here, I was alone with my thoughts.

  Even without my oath to Istvan, I didn’t want to use magic.

  I suspected that the Faerene wouldn’t be able to comprehend my attitude. For them, magic had always woven through their lives. My sense of identity and capability was far more physical and intellectual. I dealt with tangible, human reality.

  This afternoon magic had channeled through me to Istvan and I hadn’t felt it. Tomorrow, I’d ask what Nora had detected concerning my magic. If I lost it, my life would change. I’d be mundane, again. Would Rory still be interested in me?

  I rolled onto my stomach, burying my face in my pillow. I didn’t believe my magic would vanish, so I needed to be prepared for having it in my life. Having it, but not using it. My magic, via my oath, was Istvan’s to command.

  So what did I command? What were my assets, skills and abilities?

  What could one human among the Faerene do?

  Chapter 13

  All the magisterial guards were present at breakfast. I mumbled a general “good morning” and brought my bowl of porridge to the table. The seat beside Rory was empty, and I slid into it with Nils on my other side.

  A fine tension in the line of Rory’s shoulders disappeared, which meant it likely hadn’t been caused by the danger of fighting foxfire yesterday, but by our conversation the previous day. He was uncertain what to expect from me. “Sugar?” He passed me the sugar bowl so I could sweeten my porridge.

  “Aren’t I sweet enough?” I fluttered my eyelashes exaggeratedly, inwardly delighting at the subtle curving of his body that showed he welcomed the teasing.

  “Gah. Flirting at this hour. How do you have the energy?” Across the table, Oscar poured me a coffee and refilled his own mug.

  I’d only had fleeting glimpses of Oscar since he’d explained the Faerene economic system to me. The steward was constantly on the move or else locked in meetings.

  “They are young and enjoying life.” Peggy brought a plate of biscuits and a butter dish to the table. She rested a hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “My daughter Aria is single.”

  Oscar’s eyes bulged at the unsubtle matchmaking.

  I shoved a huge spoonful of porridge into my mouth, and almost choked on it and the giggles I was trying to swallow.

  Rory split a biscuit, slathering butter on both halves before handing me one. “Maybe this is safer to eat.”

  I took it. The biscuit was warm from the oven and melting butter oozed onto my fingers.

  He noticed. His gaze snagged on my fingers and stayed there while he licked his lower lip.

  “I think I have to agree with Oscar,” Nils said. “No flirting.”

  Rory’s heated gaze rose to meet mine, stealing my breath. “Do you hear anything?”

  “Envious voices?” I queried innocently. Then I transferred the biscuit half to my other hand and licked my buttery fingers.

  “Honey?” Rory reached blindly across the table for the honeypot. His gaze remained riveted to my mouth.

  “Mmm?”

  Yana and Berre exploded into laughter. “You are wicked,” she said to me.

  I grinned and went back to eating my breakfast.

  Rory sighed and shifted so that his shoulder and thigh brushed against mine. He ate his half of the biscuit.

  He was very pleased with himself and me—which would change when he learned of the plan I’d decided on last night.

  I pushed that thought away, unwilling to spoil breakfast with a difficult conversation. “Rory, why did you name your pack Hope Fang?”


  “Because hope is fierce and we will fight for the future.” His instant reply rang with the depth of his commitment.

  I stared at him. “I like you.”

  “I know.” A smug grin.

  “No. Well, yes. But I meant…that’s an answer I respect. I respect you for it. For what you’re trying to do.”

  “What we are doing,” Nils said seriously.

  Oscar plonked his empty mug down on the table like a punctuation to that statement, one of agreement. “And there’s a lot to do. Excuse me. I have a meeting.”

  “Oscar?”

  The goblin steward swiveled on his heel at my call.

  “Could you, please, have someone send a message to Tineke to join us here in an hour, if that’s convenient for her?”

  “Will do.”

  Frowns of curiosity focused on me.

  I focused on Rory. “I’d like you to be there, too. Istvan, as well, and Nora if she can portal in or talk through a mirror or whatever.”

  “We have a line to the bunker Nora works in.” Rory ran a hand down my back, tugging gently at my braid. “What are you plotting?”

  “Many things.”

  “Oh man.” Berre stood, half-laughing. “You’ll learn,” he said to his pack leader.

  Yana bumped him with her hip. “Like you’re an expert on women.”

  Berre leered at her. “What was it you called me last night?”

  Tough, confident Yana blushed bright red. She gave her mate a push toward the outside door. They exited in a tangle of playful, loving mock-fighting.

  An hour later everyone I’d invited was present in Istvan’s office. Nora was represented by an image on a wall-hung slate. She could see and hear us, as we could her.

  “Thank you all for being here. You’re all busy and I gave you no notice.” Nervousness made me overly formal. I gave myself a mental shake. I didn’t need polite courtesies. I needed words that cut through to the truth. “You’re all important to my future, and that’s what I’d like to settle now. At least, my immediate future, for say the next year.”

  No one had ever had a more attentive audience.

  Istvan crouched to my left. Rory and Tineke sat on chairs slightly across from us. Nora’s image on the slate completed the semicircle.

  I stretched out my arm and touched Istvan’s black, furry shoulder for strength and comfort.

  He regarded me patiently, attentively. Despite all the duties he carried, he’d put aside everything else when I’d asked for his presence. It’s what he’d promised, and what my parents had never given me.

  My parents were probably dead, lost to the apocalypse that those of us who’d survived it—which included the Faerene—had to build our way out of.

  “First, I need to know if I will have magic. If I’m losing it, my plans are moot.” I looked expectantly at Nora.

  She ruffled her golden wings and preened a feather nervously. “It’s very early, and the data is preliminary.” She settled her feathers and looked between Istvan and me. “Over the last two days, as Istvan has channeled your magic, your magic load increased.”

  Relief weakened my muscles. I leaned a little harder into my griffin. “That’s good.”

  “You want to have magic?” Tineke asked.

  I nodded. “I spent last night planning on the basis that I would. I can’t feel magic, but emotionally, being bonded to Istvan feels right.”

  His tail tapped my boot heels, affectionately.

  I looked at him, at his great size and predatory beak and claws, and appreciated the sharp mind that existed behind his gleaming obsidian eyes. “But I think the Faerene have gotten something wrong in your study of humanity. Perhaps it was simply distance preventing accurate calibration of your instruments for detecting magic.”

  I lowered my arm, no longer leaning against Istvan. We were partners, magician and familiar, but I also had to be my own person, both in the Faerene’s eyes and my own. “Human fairy tales have always told of people with magic. From the very beginning of our society there have been shamans bridging the world of tangible reality and the realm of possibilities. Just because you couldn’t sense the magic in them while you were on Elysium, on the other side of Earth’s shield, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”

  Nora was my main target for this bit. She represented the Faerene scientists, but also the politicians, who would influence the fate of humans like me who gained magic. She watched me fixedly. Birds don’t blink, or not in the way humans do.

  I reminded myself that different-to-human didn’t mean dangerous or antagonistic. Rory was proof of that, as were Istvan and Tineke.

  The elf woman leaned forward, green hands clasped together.

  “Maybe a few humans have always had magic,” I said. “Maybe familiars and familiar candidates aren’t new aberrations.” I took a resolute breath. “Which means humanity has been dealing with magic for millennia. We can adjust to it—and to you—faster than you think. The capacity is part of us.”

  Nora dipped her head fractionally. “The idea that we failed to detect humanity’s rare mages is a very remote possibility.”

  “Remote is exactly what Amy’s saying,” Rory said. “The timing is interesting. You couldn’t detect magic in humans while you were on Elysium, but soon after the Migration, it appeared. Maybe your instruments recalibrated here on Earth?”

  Nora preened agitatedly. “I’ll confirm that our data is accurate.” She refused to hear what I said.

  Tineke hissed. “Scientists should be open-minded.”

  “And realistic,” Nora shot back.

  I intervened. “What will you do if magic appears in humans younger than me, in children? You’re tying adult human mages to Faerene magicians to control our magic, maybe to deplete it.” Nora opened her beak, but I kept talking. “If the Faerene want to control human magic—and I accept that at this point you maybe have to in order to keep the Rift sealed—what will you do to human mage children? Will you remove them from their families to grow up under Faerene guidance?”

  “Are you asking if we’ll train them as magicians?” Istvan questioned me carefully.

  “No. This isn’t the main purpose of this meeting, but it’s something I wanted to put out there…that I’d like your agreement on.” A shiver of nervousness slid over me and away. What I was about to ask wasn’t the purpose of the meeting, but it would define my view of Istvan and the Faerene. “I know this isn’t fair, Istvan. I know you didn’t want me as your familiar and that you refuse to have a junior magistrate. You don’t want to be involved in raising youngsters.”

  He jerked back as if I’d slapped him.

  “It’s okay,” I said hurriedly. “I’m grown up. I don’t need a parent or someone to be responsible for me. Not everyone wants to be a parent. But I…if magic appears in a human child and the Faerene decide the child should be guided, I want the child brought to us. I’ll raise him or her, or them if there’s more than one. And I’d like you all to help with the magic bit.” I didn’t include Nora in my plea.

  The three Faerene in the room with me seemed to freeze for a moment.

  Rory recovered first. Or not so much recovered as reacted with powerful joy. A big smile lit his face. “Children.” He gripped the edges of his chair as if to stop himself launching up and tackling me in an exuberant hug. “There is always room for children in a pack. I will help.”

  “And me,” Tineke said.

  I was right to trust these people. Melinda, the unicorn, would say the same and bring her wisdom to the hypothetical children’s lives.

  “A magistrate hall is not the best place to raise children,” Istvan said. “But Rory’s pack is. I would be honored to stand in the role of godfather to any child you raise, Amy.”

  Oh God. Unexpected emotion squeezed my chest. My griffin partner had gone even further than I’d asked. He’d just volunteered to stand as protector and guide to any children I might have.

  I hugged him tight enough that he made a choked kind of so
und.

  Or maybe that was his emotions choking him as mine choked me.

  Rory rubbed my back.

  I didn’t have to see him to recognize his touch. I whirled from burying my face against Istvan to being wrapped up in Rory’s embrace.

  He burrowed his face against my hair, seeking my ear. His voice was a combined whisper-growl. “Even if you don’t choose me, human children will always be safe in Hope Fang.”

  I nodded and clutched him harder.

  “This is all very emotional,” Nora said awkwardly. “But there’s no evidence to suggest human children will gain magic.”

  “Stuff it, Feathers,” Tineke said, and had her turn at hugging me.

  “I’m not unsympathetic,” Nora complained.

  Istvan had pity on her. “Juggling science and compassion is as difficult as juggling justice and compassion.”

  I smiled wobbily at Tineke.

  The elf’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile.

  Istvan was trying, but his tone of voice showed his discomfort with our emotional scene and with offering sympathy and understanding to Nora.

  I grasped Rory’s hand. Their kindness and support, especially his, made it painful to raise the point of the meeting, but my cowardice wouldn’t help anyone. Out there, beyond the town of Justice, a planet of hurting humans and newly settled Faerene needed a path forward: one more radical than Nora’s wait-decades-and-see approach. The plan I was about to announce would take me away from Justice and from Rory, who was based here, responsible for protection while Istvan was on circuit. Circuits happened throughout the year; each one lasting for two months with a month back at the magistrate hall in between. “I’ll miss you.”

  “What?” His body tensed, ready to ward off an attack.

  “I’m Istvan’s human familiar. My magic, like Chen’s, is growing rather than shrinking. I believe that. Nora’s data confirms it.”

  Istvan intervened. “Physical proximity is not required for me to channel your magic into my spells.”

  “I know, but I can’t stay in Justice. I mean, I can, but it would be cowardice and failure. I want to go on the circuits with you, Istvan. I need to see what world it is the Faerene intend to build, and…I have to witness what has happened to humanity.”