Dead Magic (4 page)

"There are things I must attend to now," the Witch said, keeping her focus on Valeda as she spoke. "Tomorrow morning we will discuss what you came here for, Miss Quinlan. Until then, you will be a guest here in Delgora Manor. Leona will see that you are properly cared for."

"I do hope I have not caused you any distress," Monty started to apologize, but Elsie cut him off.

"No, indeed. I always enjoy when an Untalented presumes to school me in Magnellum politics, Ambassador Taven. It quite makes my day."

"That was not my intention, my Lady. You have my sincere . . ."

"It does not matter, Montgomery Taven." Elsie turned away from them, but her last sentence carried over the sounds of birds and gentle brushing of leaves through the garden. "The prattling of society at large will make little difference to anyone very soon."

As she walked away from the table, the Witch waved her gloved hand, sending the serving cart into sudden motion. The cloth flipped back, the tea set lifted and floated, settling on the table with exactly the right place settings. Delicate saucers, pansy-blue patterned cups, all of it arranged itself without any noise or fuss. Valeda had a creeping sensation crawl up her spine as she stared at her own cup, now filled with amber, cinnamon-scented liquid.

"My wife does not care for tea," Lord Dorian said, mostly to Valeda. "But she knows the apple spice is a favorite of the Ambassador."

Beside her, Monty squirmed and pulled a kerchief from his vest pocket. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered a further apology. Valeda glanced between Monty and the Consort, sensing the unspoken challenge that drifted between them. Monty had been terribly rude, but the Witch had abused the Ambassador's time by forcing him to wait. Valeda understood the precarious alliances that held Magnellum together. Each House brought different bits of trade, different engineers and resources to the table, and each one was out to secure their own power and prestige.

With thirteen distinct House Lands fragmenting Magnellum, there were no fewer than sixty-seven embargos cutting the merchant business down. Of course, there was a thriving black market in every town, but the Warders were constantly raiding them. Valeda had done an article on the embargo of special soaps from Clenci in her home land of Tormey. One particularly fidgety shop owner she'd interviewed had made the simplest and perfect summation of the problem: "I couldn't care less if Lady Tormey's got her britches twisted over Lady Clenci's marital decisions. Their personal opinions haven't got anything to do with trade."

"Please extend my apologies to the House Witch," Monty sighed and shook his head. "Your announcement took me by surprise and I thought . . ."

"You thought her years living as an Untalented might have blinded her to the politics in Magnellum," Lord Dorian finished for him.

"Well, yes. She does seem out to defy everyone." Monty stared at the place she'd left through. "There are many in the Council who would like to befriend Delgora, but she is making that very difficult."

Valeda listened raptly. House tensions were nothing new, but Elsie Delgora was still a figure of speculation.
Years living in disguise as an Untalented,
she thought.
So not all of the stories I'd read had been exaggerated.

"Let me make something very clear," Lord Dorian leaned forward to adjust his teacup, pausing before he continued. "My wife may have lived humbly for many years. She may have been forced to endure more than any Witch-Born has ever conceived of in her lifetime, but she is nobler than any member of the Council because of it."

The force of his statement caused Monty to rock back on his heels. With a nod of his head, Lord Dorian bid them good day and left.

He woke with the train still hovering overhead. There was warmth and light where there shouldn't be and Winslow's groggy mind struggled to catch up. Beyond the train, just to the left, he could see starlight and the moon shining through high treetops. The train itself was a smudge of tangled iron in the shadows above him, looking like a jagged, toothy mouth gaping wide.

Shuddering, Winslow rolled to his left, flinching as pain shot through his leg.

He still needed to fix that.

He'd been about to access his magic when he spotted Mirabella. The little girl scurried out of the tree line with an armload of wood. Depositing the wood in a pile just beside a small fire, she propped her hands on her hips and harrumphed. She hadn't noticed he was awake yet, she was that intent on her job. Apparently deciding the fire wasn't right, Mirabella took a bit of wood from the pile and carefully pushed it into the fire. She bent so close to the flames that he feared she'd get singed.

"Hello, Miss Mirabella," he said, levering himself onto one elbow.

Gasping, she whirled to face him. "Mr. Winslow!"

She charged forward, throwing herself onto him and nearly sending him back down. Surprised, Winslow caught her with one arm, realizing a second later that she was hugging him. Not only hugging him, as she buried her face in his shoulder, but crying.

Awkward and uncomfortable, Winslow gave her little form a tight squeeze and tried to murmur something reassuring. "Did you build that fire all by yourself?"

She nodded against his shoulder and tightened her arms around his neck. Her voice was muffled when she spoke, "I used Mommy's matches. She'll be mad when she wakes up."

Winslow spotted the still unconscious mother near his feet. "No, no. I'm sure she'll be very proud of you. How's your hand?"

Mirabella sniffled and pulled away from him. Tilting her head to the side, she gave him a puzzled look. "It's been better since I moved you."

He blinked in surprised. Normally he had to be conscious of accessing his magic, but as Mirabella showed him her hand it was clear that she was healed. She turned it over, stretching out all of her fingers, each little bone set perfectly where it should be. Winslow focused inward, suddenly afraid that he'd spent the last of his Talent without meaning to, but he recognized the healthy purr of his rejuvenated magic and relaxed.

"You really are a Witch-Born, aren't you." Mirabella's green eyes were wide with wonder.

"I am." Winslow carefully sat up. His fractured leg throbbed to life and he grimaced. With one hand on the aching limb, he commanded his Talent to mend the wounds.

Several soft, unsettling pops resounded from his body as bones shifted, correcting themselves. He felt each one of them and did his best not to swear in front of the girl. The sudden relief from pain left him shaky, but he winked at Mirabella anyway. She gave him a wobbly smile before glancing at her mother.

"She woke up but didn't talk," Mirabella shifted on her feet nervously. "Can you help her?"

Winslow patted Mirabella's shoulder and moved to kneel beside the mother. She looked alarmingly pale and pasty, strong bones in a broad face that bordered masculine. He'd thought at first that there were too many shadows playing across her features, but realized that her lips really were tinged blue.

With a deep breath, he splayed his hands over her chest and belly and summoned his magic. Each injury glowed in his mind, showing him the ruptured spleen, the blood collecting where it shouldn't be, and Winslow got to work. Just under his left thumb, he could feel the steadying beat of the woman's heart. It stuttered at first, and then leveled out, increasing in strength as each torn bit of tissue repaired itself.

Several vertebrae had snapped along the woman's spine and he had a sudden vision of her covering Mirabella with her own body as the train careened off course.
She's the best kind of brave,
he thought, letting his magic spiral through her body. Each of her toes snapped back into place, audible enough that he heard Mirabella make a small, distressed sound.

"She will be all right, Miss Mirabella," he murmured.

Winslow immediately regretted his words. What his Talent showed him next made every part of him cringe; a fracture in the back of her skull, severe hemorrhaging throbbing pressure against the wound. As Talented as he was, even Winslow knew his limits. Fixing her was going to take an incredible amount of time and focus, and if he didn't do so now, he risked her death.

Opening his eyes, he looked at Mirabella. "You should rest now. This next bit is going to take some time."

The little girl shook her head and plopped on the ground beside her mother. Cross-legged, she pulled her mother's limp, blunt hand onto her lap and continued to watch. Winslow smirked. He should have expected that response. Then he closed his eyes and devoted his attention onto the woman's head injury. He had to go slow. No bones could just snap into place here, it could disturb the delicate brain tissue beneath.

In his mind was only the contusion, the spider cracks webbing away from the impact point-a crater that terrified him enough that he avoided it for the moment. Magic swirled through the spot, oh-so-carefully mending the cracks, taking it a centimeter at a time.

If they were very, very lucky, he'd be done by sunrise.

***

"So now we
are
going to Tournament?" Dorian tried to hide the annoyance in his voice. It had taken him the better part of an hour to track his wife down, and what he found her doing was just as baffling as her sudden announcement at tea.

In her old workshop, outside of Delgora Manor, Elsie had snuck away from all of the guards and Warders without even leaving him a note. It was only by relying on his Talent that he'd been able to find her. He left footprints through heavy dust on the floor and tried to ignore the drape of cobwebs in the corners. She'd abandoned this shop when she'd ascended to House Witch and, to be quite honest, he'd forgotten about it himself.

One of the dress forms had been stripped of its sheet and placed prominently in the center of the room. Likewise, she'd bared one of the work tables and sat sketching plans for a new dress. The only magic present in her current task was shown in the bright candelabra light fixtures. Dorian knew the electric lights were faulty, normally flickering and dim, but Elsie made them shine.

"It would appear so," she said without looking up.

"Is this another premonition?" Dorian self-consciously glanced at her right hand.

She'd taken off the glove in order to work, revealing the gold, shimmering tattoos that curled around her skin, looping between fingers. Eight years married and the sight still jarred him. He could still hear the pitch of Magic's voice as the Dellidus creature attacked, could feel the shared agony as it began to feed on their god.

"I wouldn't call it a premonition so much as an order." Elsie frowned at the sketch. "Lavender. Lavender would be better, she's too skittish for red."

Dorian took a moment to digest her words. Leaning against the doorframe, he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and squinted at her. "Elsie."

She stared at the sketch for another long minute before looking at him. The haunted, tormented look on her face only confirmed his suspicions. Things were getting worse. A mere month into their marriage, she'd started having nightmares. A week later, she'd taken to pacing through the Manor in the dead of night, not asleep but not totally awake, either. Dorian was aware of every shift in her, his Talent was so attuned to hers that he could feel the gnawing, ever-present fear she harbored. A fear she had no name for and precious little understanding of.

The ark project had mollified her, given her something to do, but it was almost finished. He hadn't understood what the thing was for at first, but he'd taken a tour three weeks ago and finally caught on. Inside the massive thing were rooms upon rooms, three large kitchens spread out to accommodate a lot of people. She'd made eighteen gardens inside the structure, all of them engineered to use artificial light. But perhaps most frightening of all, was that she'd made certain none of it required magic.

The pain in her eyes stabbed into him, but he stayed where he was. "He's talking to you now, isn't he?"

Her gaze fell to the tattoos and he watched her flatten her hand over the paper. "I should have known I couldn't hide it from you."

"I'm a little hurt that you wanted to."

She looked back at him and their eyes met. "I was afraid at first," Elsie smiled remorsefully as she explained. "I was afraid that I really was going crazy."

Dorian let go of the breath he'd been holding and pushed himself away from the door. He took the room in three strides and crouched down beside her. Covering the offending hand with one large palm, he endured the zaps that needled into his skin on contact. It was several moments before the unpleasant prickle subsided and they both looked at each other again.

"Elsie, I love you whether you're crazy or not." Holding her gaze, he tightened his grip on her hand and tried to give her a reassuring smile. "But we both know you're not. Something terrible is coming and you're the only person who can see it."

"I'm tired of being the only one, Dorian." With a shaky, unhappy sigh, she leaned over until her head was on his shoulder. "Just saying it out loud can't capture it all. Something is driving the Wild to breech our borders. When the Warding Pillars fail-and they will fail, Dorian-it wants nothing short of our complete annihilation."

"The ark . . ."

"The ark will preserve a few, but it will only buy them time." He felt a shiver pass through her and turned to kiss her forehead. "Something else has to be done. I just don't know what."

"It would help if the Council quit fighting. Maybe that's why we're supposed to go to Tournament."

She made a disgruntled sound. "They won't listen. They want to maintain their power and we threaten that."

"Right now, the Wild threatens that more."

"If they wouldn't listen to Fate eight years ago, they aren't going to listen to us."

Dorian grunted his agreement. "Does that mean we shouldn't try?"

Her sigh brushed across his throat and she nuzzled closer to him. Dorian pulled her out of the chair and half into his lap, balancing carefully on his haunches. She settled into him, her slender form relaxing against his and he held her tighter. He wanted to shake her, to get her to tell him everything, but he couldn't do it. If there was one thing he knew about his wife, it was that Elsie Delgora required her privacy. Even after eight years of marriage, she still had to keep secrets.