Heart's Magic (12 page)

So, no, it didn't feel quite
the same as she'd felt
then
, but it was similar.
Like...
that.
Making
love. She made herself think the words. Stupid to shy away from
even thinking them. She'd said them. But that was before she'd done
it.

Though they hadn't exactly
done
it,
had they?
Just her part. Which didn't correspond with all the warnings she'd
received over the years, that men were concerned only with their
own desires, their own pleasure. And once they got what they
wanted, they were gone. Harry hadn't taken any. Pleasure, that is.
Unless he was playing a deeper game.

With a growl of
frustration--no, disgust--Elinor wrenched her mind from thoughts of
Harry back to her analysis of the fizzly sparks following her
around like shiny puppies.

Elinor shut the door to her
flat and sank into one of the soft chairs in the sitting room. The
sparks clustered round her again and she took another little poke
at them with the part of her that worked magic. The sparks
brightened. Practically bounced with happiness.

But she didn't-- She
couldn't-- She opened her magic senses, just a tiny sliver, and
slammed them immediately shut.

That was magic out there in
those sparks, surrounding her, begging her to use it.

But--but-- Sex magic was
sorcery.

She wasn't a sorcerer. She
was a wizard. The magister of the wizard's guild. Tip-top of the
bunch. She didn't
do
sorcery. She'd never been able to even
feel
it before.

The sparks closed in
tighter around her. She could feel a faint hum in her teeth, along
her skin, as if the magic was--was getting angry. Which was
absolutely and utterly ridiculous. Magic didn't get angry, or
happy, and it most certainly didn't beg. But she didn't like the
way it felt now.

"Go away." Elinor flicked
her fingers at it, using just a touch of her magic sense to goose
it along.

So, of course it had no
effect whatsoever. The magic sank closer, as if it wanted
in.

What was it Amanusa had
said? Sorcery abides in blood and bone and flesh.

Oh, ick. That did not
appeal to Elinor in the least. But the magic didn't seem inclined
to leave her alone.

She racked her brain for
anything else Pearl or Amanusa might have said about their magic.
They didn't talk much about it, especially the sex magic, except
that it existed. But Elinor had seen Pearl send out the magic from
the innocent blood of a murder victim to hunt the murderer and lay
the victim's ghost. Could Elinor adapt what she'd seen to this
magic and send it away?

What had Pearl said? How
had she done it?

"Um--hello? Magic?" How
idiotic could she be? Even if one could call magic, one did not
address it like a--a burglar lurking in the shadows.

Elinor stood, feeling as if
she ought to address herself to magic from a position of respect.
Respect for herself and the magic. She straightened her shoulders
and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. What
now?

It did seem as if Pearl had
sent the magic...out. Out from herself. Out
of
herself?

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad
if Elinor just let it touch her and sent it off again immediately.
But send it to do what? This was sex magic, not blood magic. She
didn't think it would be much interested in harassing
murderers.

She shook her head. Surely
the magic would know what it was intended for. All she had to do
was send it out to go do that.

Elinor took a deep breath
and let it out. She steeled herself against the alien magic,
squinched her face up as if anticipating a blow or the touch of one
of her brothers' slimy amphibians, and she slowly winched her magic
senses open.

The magic hovered, as if
now she'd opened herself to it, it was afraid to approach. Silly
thought. She had obviously done something to hold it back. Her
attitude, even her very stance indicated her unwillingness to touch
the magic. Working magic of whatever variety was all about the
will.

Elinor slammed her magic
sense shut again. Why couldn't the blasted stuff go somewhere
sensible, like inside leaves, or roots, or even berries? Why did it
have to want to be inside
her?

She started over, shaking
her hands, wriggling her shoulders, twisting her head this way and
that on her neck, in an attempt to relax. It would be fine. Amanusa
and Pearl handled this magic every day of the world, and they
didn't seem to mind it. So did all their apprentices. Of course,
that didn't necessarily signify. Not everyone was disturbed by the
same things. Elinor's brothers had spent their childhoods handling
toads and worms and all sorts of slimy, disgusting things and
actively enjoying it. But then they were males and males enjoyed
all sorts of peculiar things.

Still, if Amanusa could do
it, if Pearl could do it, never let it be said that Elinor Tavis
was too much of a coward to try. Though at this moment, she would
dearly like to be.

Still, this was not the
behavior of a woman who had not only faced down the whole of the
wizard's guild and its magister over her right to be a master
wizard, but had also faced a demon in battle. Did it actually
matter that the demon had really been fighting an angel and she had
been flanked by three other magicians doing nothing more than
deflecting the backlash from the demon-angel conflict? No, it did
not. She had been there. She was no coward.

However, she reserved the
right to call in the nearest large man with a shoe to kill any
cockroach or other nasty bug invading her presence. And perhaps
mice as well. And none of this was doing anything about the
insistent, hovering magic.

For a moment, Elinor
wondered what happened to the magic created by the marital
relations of non-magicians. Did it even create magic? What
about--

But she was just following
the rabbit trails in her mind to avoid dealing with the situation.
Something she had an unfortunately considerable tendency to
do.

Elinor shook herself again
all over and did rid herself of a bit of the tension gripping her.
What if she only took hold of the magic with her hands? That
wouldn't be so bad. Could she do it? She could only try.

She took a deep breath,
calmed her busy mind as much as possible, and opened her hands to
the magic, reaching out to touch it. The magic shivered a little,
then let her catch hold.

It wasn't slimy or
disgusting at all. It was...bright. And soft, and exciting, and
tender, and too many things for her to grasp--and yet not those
things at all, exactly, but something else. Magic.
Sorcery.

Elinor let it twine around
her hands and slide up her wrists, under her sleeves or maybe
through them. She gathered it all up, sweeping her hands through
the air until all the sparks were contained in, or between, or
around her hands. She played with it, absorbed the strange but
lovely sensations as it moved over her skin.

Until she realized it wasn't
just moving
over
her skin, but through it.
Into
it.

She didn't panic. Almost,
she did, but not quite. She
pushed
the magic out again, forcibly keeping her
breathing slow and steady.

"Magic," she said,
addressing it firmly this time, with all of her will focused. Pearl
worked magic in English, so Elinor would too, with gratitude.
"Formed of my body and my--my desire."
No
stuttering allowed,
she reminded
herself.

The magic seemed to be
paying attention. It had stopped moving through her
fingers.

"Go forth," she said. "Do
what you were meant to do." What
was
it meant to do? Sex made babies, but she didn't
think-- Neither Pearl nor Amanusa was in an interesting condition,
and they used the magic all the time, or so they hinted, but Elinor
was afraid to add anything else. "
Go.
"

And like that, in an
instant, it was gone.

Elinor fell into a chair,
exhausted. What had just happened? And why had it happened to
her?

A yawn ambushed her,
stretching her jaw wide. Too much had happened today for her to
take it all in. She'd neutralized a nasty potion, defended herself
from alchemist's fireballs with an entirely new variety of
wizardry, and helped heal a severely burned man. She'd participated
in a boisterous celebration, after which she'd had an amatory
encounter, been accosted by sorcery, and required to discover a way
to fend it off and then disperse it. Oh, and she had also become
the reluctant magister of the wizard's guild. No wonder she was
tired.

Correction. She had
reluctantly become the magister. Now that she had decided to stay
in the position, there would be no more reluctance.

Her head bobbled and she
jerked herself awake. Too many things to think about and too tired
to do it. Tomorrow. She would think tomorrow. Sleep now.

In a locked room near the
top of Holborn Tower, the heavily warded building where the
Magician's Council placed its most dangerous outlaws, a sedated man
twitched in his sleep. Two others watched him through a grill in
the heavy iron door.

"How is he?" Thomas Norwood
asked the man at his side.

"Not well. But not
terrible, considering what Signore Cranshaw has done to himself."
Antonio Rosato frowned. "It is not his body, but his mind that
concerns me. His fears and obsessions--" His hands rose, made
gestures to match his words. "If we could but open his mind and
peer inside. Clean out the rot and replace it with
clarity..."

"I for one am glad that you
can't," Norwood said. "Don't want anyone mucking about in my
thoughts, do I?"

"Nor do I. But we are not
insane, my friend. Our minds do not torment us so."

"Maybe not. But who gets to
decide what's mad and what's merely eccentric?" Norwood shook his
head. "None of that matters. Is he all right to leave for the
night? Is he all right to be here, instead of in
hospital?"

"Safer here, I think, for
everyone. He is still wizard,
veramente?
" Rosato paused, his
too-long hair sliding forward into his face as he contemplated the
sleeping prisoner. "I will stay and watch. Signorina Tavis has
worked very much magic today and cannot oversee her patient. He is
healing very well, but I do not like to leave him alone. He was
burned very badly. He may wake in the night with pain--or
remembered pain. I have the medicine. I will watch."

Norwood nodded. "It's your
lookout. Your headache. Be sure and let the lads know if you need
to go in, since they have the key. You're not to be near him alone.
No one is. Tower regulations. Magicians can be tricky."

Rosato shook his hair back
and grinned. "I know. Am I not a magician myself?"

With a huff of laughter,
Norwood led the way back to an alcove in the corridor. "I'll have
someone bring up a cot, so maybe you can get some
sleep."

"My thanks,
amico.
" Rosato clapped
Norwood on the shoulder. "You are a good man for a
brigata.
"

"That's
Briganti.
" Norwood's broad English
face took on a mischievous air. "Though given how the Briganti
tribe made so much trouble for the Romans, I can see how an Italian
might want to call us brigands. We can still cause plenty of
trouble for magicians who get out of line." He lifted an eyebrow at
the wizard. "See you don't, then."

Rosato laughed out loud. "I
shall not. I will stay in this line where you have put me, for now.
Until your prisoner no longer needs a
dottore
all the night. Then I will go
and dance with all the ladies."

Norwood shook his head at
Rosato again and left.

In the prisoner's cell, a
shadow coalesced in one corner, thicker and darker than the rest of
the barren chamber. The man in the cot twitched and moaned, seeming
almost to whimper in fear. And the shadow gloated.

Elinor was late to the
morning magister's meeting. Of course. She slept so hard, not even
the maid's knock on the bedroom door and entry with the morning tea
and toast roused her. Harry had to send a footman inquiring whether
she intended to attend the meeting, which sent the maid back to
inquire, which had Elinor bounding out of bed in a great, tearing
hurry.

Though, actually, it was
more of a stumble than a bound. Between herself and the maid, who
was really more of a parlor maid than a lady's maid but could turn
her hand in a pinch, Elinor got herself clothed and her hair
stuffed into a snood. Presentable enough to dash across Harry's
back garden, into the back door and present herself at the
magister's meeting.

Thankfully, since they were
all friends and it was Saturday, the informal atmosphere kept
anyone from commenting on her lateness, other than a pat on the
shoulder from Amanusa sympathizing with all the magic she'd worked.
Even Harry refrained from--from smirking, or winking, or whatever
else he might have felt justified in doing, given her behavior
yesterday evening.