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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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“According to the literature, the key is chastity. He can't turn me into an animal unless I've”—Jane cleared her throat—“been unchaste.” Her voice was calm but her color deepened as she blushed.
Lambert felt his own ears heat, as if in sympathy. “That's about the biggest piece of foolishness I've heard yet.”
“I agree. So did Fell, apparently. Where is he, do you know? Voysey told me he's about the place somewhere.”
“It's like the London Zoo in this place. But I haven't seen anyone but you. What's Fell doing here?”
Behind them, Voysey spoke, obviously amused. “I thought I'd help him concentrate exclusively on his research. So many interruptions back in Glasscastle, you see. Very bad for his work.”
“Oh, it's you.” Gun in hand, Lambert turned to confront Voysey. To his surprise, Voysey seemed to be alone. Lambert leveled his weapon at Voysey. It violated every rule he'd ever been taught, aiming at a man. “What took you?”
“Just recruiting a bit of help.” Voysey was cheerful. “Not that I need any, it seems.”
“There are two men coming up this staircase behind you,”
announced Jane. “They don't seem to be armed, unless you count the collar and lead they're each carrying.”
“They won't need weapons,” Voysey assured Lambert as he leveled the Agincourt device at him. “Not when I'm finished with you.”
Lambert dared not turn his back on Voysey to confront the men coming up the stair. “Don't come any closer,” he called. “I'm armed and I haven't had breakfast. So don't cross me.”
“They've stopped,” Jane reported. “But they're still there. They don't seem impressed with your warning.”
Lambert moved the armchair so Jane had her back to the wall. It was still too close to the top of the stair to suit Lambert, but there wasn't much room for maneuvering and the chair was too awkward to handle easily. He stood between the armchair and the men on the stair and stared, weapon leveled over Jane's head, at Voysey. “Do you choose what animal I turn into, or may I make a request?”
“Oh, the choice is yours,” said Voysey. He kept the brass device leveled, at Lambert's head. “The phenomenon derives from something implicit in your own nature, whatever the animal turns out to be. I have nothing to say in the matter. Robert Brailsford turned into a border collie. I had expected something far more impressive. Still, it suits him. Relatively high intelligence, a keen sense of duty, and a glossy black coat with touches of white. My first successful transformation.”
“What have you done with him?” Jane demanded.
“What were the unsuccessful transformations like?” Lambert asked.
Voysey ignored Lambert. “He's around here somewhere. Cook gives him kitchen scraps.”
Jane growled low in her throat, a sound of rage and disgust muted by helplessness. “He trusted you.”
Voysey looked regretful. “Not entirely. By the time he questioned me about the plans of the prototype I had planted in Fell's study, your brother had serious misgivings about the whole project. He meant to warn the Earl of Bridgewater, but I insisted dear Robert remain here.”
“Who's the four-point buck down the hall?” Lambert asked.
Voysey thought it over. “The vicar, I think. No one you know, at any rate.”
“Where are the inmates of this asylum?” Lambert asked. “What have you done with them?”
“So many questions, Samuel,” Voysey chided. “You're not playing for time, by any chance?”
Jane looked fierce. “What did you do to them?”
“Nothing, I promise you.” Voysey smiled at Jane. “To tell the truth, they didn't seem particularly mad to me. I sent them home. Let their families deal with them.”
“To you, no one seems mad.” Jane's disapproval was evident. “I suppose that makes perfect sense. Compared to you, they were probably quite sane.”
“Now, there's no need to be insulting. Are there any other questions?” Voysey prompted. “No? Very good.” He pointed the elaborate bundle of brass cylinders at Lambert.
Lambert fired. The report and recoil made him wince. Even in self-defense, pulling the trigger made him feel sick. His father's words came back to him, relic of the first time he'd ever touched a weapon.
Never aim a gun at anyone unless you're fixing to kill him.
He turned to cover the staircase,
lest Voysey's men dare rush him. There was only one man left. On the step beside him, a rat terrier gave a single sharp bark and then retreated down the stairs, leaving only a collar and lead to mark the place where he'd been standing.
“Missed.” Voysey was studying the device, scowling. “It's never done that before.”
“You or me?” asked Lambert. He stared from the Colt Peacemaker to Voysey. Both seemed to be in proper working order, which meant there was something very wrong somewhere. To judge from the expression on Voysey's face, he was thinking much the same thing about Lambert.
Jane's voice was crisp with annoyance. “You both missed. He is a wizard of Glasscastle, Lambert. You might give him some credit—for an instinct toward self-protection, if nothing else.”
“You mean he's made himself bullet-proof?” That was easier for Lambert to believe than that he'd missed at such short range.
“I do. You're lucky you didn't hurt yourself, the way the bullet ricocheted.”
“Are you all right?” Lambert leaned over Jane, his face only inches from hers.
Although her fine eyes were full of emotion, outwardly Jane seemed as composed as ever, only the edge in her voice betraying her agitation. “I think so. It's difficult to be sure, since I'm frozen from the shoulders down. I'm not bleeding or anything, am I?”
“You look fine. Just fine.” Belatedly, a thought struck Lambert. “Why am I fine? Why aren't I a rat terrier?”
“He missed you, that's why.” Jane sounded puzzled. “That
must be why.” Much more slowly and thoughtfully, she added, “Mustn't it?”
“I can't have missed you.” Voysey had finished his inspection of the device. Now he aimed it at Lambert again.
“Careful with that. You're going to run out of henchmen.” Lambert was aware of the man behind him retreating a half dozen steps so that he was far enough down the staircase to be out of the line of fire. “I think you ought to worry about ricochets too, Voysey. Wonder what kind of animal you'd make.”
“Snake,” said Jane instantly.
“Really, Samuel.” Voysey's tone was exaggeratedly patient. He sighted with care. “I've taken every precaution.” He lowered the device and gave it a violent shake. “Blast!”
“Why, Lambert,” Jane sounded pleased. “At this rate, you'll get an armchair of your very own.”
Lambert didn't risk a glance down at her. All his attention was on the man in his sights. “What are you talking about?”
“Don't tell me you're a virgin too?”
Lambert grimaced. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make the guess into a certainty. He felt his face and neck grow hot.
“You are.” Jane called to Voysey, “Score one for field testing. Imagine coming across this little problem in the field. This could change military recruitment standards drastically. Not to mention the demand for camp followers.” Jane grew abruptly serious. “
Run,
Lambert,” she said, her urgency unmistakable as she pushed herself to her feet. Silently, she confronted Voysey, who gaped at her.
“You can't—” Voysey began. “I forbid you!”
Lambert reached for Jane's arm. He intended to run with
her. They had to retreat together down the staircase no matter how many of Voysey's henchmen lurked there. But there was no arm. There was not even the fabric of a sleeve to grasp. He pawed at empty air.
Jane stood silently before Voysey, waiting for his response. She was still touching the chair.
Lambert tugged at Jane's gown, or tried. There was nothing to meet his touch, though every detail of vision told him Jane stood there. She might have been a ghost, she was so insubstantial.
“Go,” cried Jane, her voice trembling with strain.
Lambert gave up. He turned tail and ran down the stairs.
 
J
ane's departure from her room at the Feathers, mere hours after her arrival in Ludlow, had been ignominious. The armchair held her fast and clouded her mind. She was intermittently aware of her surroundings despite the pins and needles and eventual numbness that kept her helpless. She knew enough to understand that strong men were required to lift her, chair and all, down the stairs and into a horse-drawn van they had waiting. She knew enough to try to enlist help from the servants at the inn. All she could do, however, was sob and scream. The men said she was mad and in the silent faces that watched her struggles, she could see they were believed.
Nothing she tried helped. Everyone, even the men who hoisted her unwieldy chair, believed her to be mad. Nothing Jane could think of disabused them of the notion. Eventually she stopped fighting.
When Jane was locked up alone in her empty cell, in relative comfort thanks to the armchair, she marshaled the
strength she had left. She knew of no spell that could hold her indefinitely, provided she brought the right kind of knowledge to the task of breaking it, so long as her strength held out.
Jane settled in to fight the spell that held her. The task required exacting concentration. Jane grew impatient with herself as her mind wandered from the analysis of the spell to futile worries.
Why was she in this ridiculous situation? Who had brought her here? What did they want and when were they going to want it?
Useless fretting, Jane scolded herself, and went back to work.
After an amount of time that seemed like hours but that Jane assured herself could hardly have lasted sixty minutes, the door of her cell opened and Adam Voysey came in. He looked much as she'd seen him last, quietly pleased with himself. In the crook of his arm he cradled a gleaming metallic device about eighteen inches long. It was tapered, roughly the shape of a toy cannon, and had a narrower cylinder of equal length bracketed with it. There were a few smaller cylinders, some curving off in a purposeful way, as if they had been grafted from an unsuccessful musical instrument. Voysey patted the bright metal tubing with an air of proud possession.
“Welcome to the Agincourt Project, Miss Brailsford.” Voysey was as polite as ever. “I'm delighted that you will be able to participate in the field testing.”
“Well, I'm not,” Jane said tartly. “What do you think you're doing?”
“I'm about to test the weapon,” Voysey replied. He lifted the device to his shoulder and sighted through the narrower cylinder. As the mouth of the weapon was leveled at her, Jane could glimpse reflections within, as if there were lenses mounted deep inside.
“Don't point that thing!” Jane could only shout.
Voysey lowered the weapon and regarded Jane with deep satisfaction. “You can stop whining. I'm finished.”
Jane goggled at him. “You haven't done anything.”
“No, I haven't. There's one theoretical constraint confirmed. Though if it
had
worked on you, it might only have confirmed the rumors about young women who travel alone.”
Voysey's smugness snapped Jane's already threadbare patience. “Stop talking to yourself and let me go.”
Voysey left while Jane was in full spate. Eventually her voice gave out, her rage ran down, and she let the silence in the room have its way.
Jane had spent the time after that in vain attempts to free herself from the spell that bound her. Night yielded to day. Day gave way to night. Jane knew she had slept, but her uneasy rest was very like the nightmarish hours of wakefulness, so she did not know how long. Night yielded again to day, and somewhere in the middle of that endless morning, she'd looked up to find Lambert at the door of her cell, peering at her through the grille.
Relief flooded Jane. She hadn't known until that moment just how frightened she had been. There was too much she didn't know. She couldn't gauge the odds. But with Lambert here, already working on the lock, surely the odds were in their favor?
Lambert was staring at her as if she were his best hope of heaven. When he broke the silence at last, his voice was so deep and hoarse it was as if he were slowly remembering how to speak. “Are you all right? Has he hurt you?”
“I'm fine—” Jane broke off, horrified by how weak she sounded. She pulled herself together. “It's just taking me a while to break this spell.”
“God, you had me worried.” Lambert was fussing with the lock. He muttered something cross and then said, more audibly, “I don't know why. I told Bridgewater you could take care of yourself.”

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