Heart's Magic (35 page)

At the bottom of the stairs
stood a group of five or six men, backed by another half-dozen
Briganti in their top hats and striped sashes. Norwood let out a
hiss.

"Your dismissed Briganti, I
presume?" Grey spoke from the corner of his mouth.

"You presume correctly,
sir," Norwood growled. "Damn it."

"You lot wait 'ere." Harry
pointed at the terraced landing just outside the huge carved doors.
"I'll go see wot they want."

They didn't wait, of
course, but they did let Harry take the lead, spacing themselves in
a semicircle behind him, the lady magisters on the inside. Harry
stopped at the edge of the top step and propped his hands on his
hips, feeling belligerent. "Well?"

The doors opened behind
him. Harry didn't turn to look, but he hoped reinforcements in the
form of loyal Briganti had arrived.

In the street below, a
flamboyantly dressed man in a Kelly green frock coat and checked
pants stepped forward. He propped both hands atop his walking stick
in his own pugnacious pose. "I am Jeremiah Twist," he said in a
bright, carrying voice. "Wizard and president of the Loyal Order of
Magicians in Britain."

"Where's Edgar Dodd?" Harry
demanded, temper rising hot. He struggled to maintain control and
keep himself from flying down the steps to beat the knowledge out
of the man. "Where's Phineas Allsup and Millwood Crump? An' wot in
bloody 'ell--beggin' your pardon, ladies--is the Loyal Order of
Magicians?"

"In Britain," Twist added.
"It is the council of all loyal magicians true to the crown and to
the great traditions of–"

"
Codswallop,
" Harry roared. Shouting
worked admirably to blow off excess temper. "You're a bunch o'
cowardly, hypocritical mugs afraid of losin' your so-called natural
rights. Rights that are neither natural nor right. Women were part
of the foundin' of the Magician's Council and were never meant to
be permanently excluded."

"Liar!" one of the
alchemists shouted. Old Vernon, Harry thought.

"Traitor!" someone else
shouted.

"We will not be part of any
council or order that admits women!" Twist cried, voice going
shrill. "You have destroyed the true council and betrayed its
purposes."

They meant it. They
actually meant to split the council. The thought staggered him.
Harry didn't want to be remembered as the man who presided over the
destruction of the centuries' old council. But he couldn't back
down.

"Where are they?" he
demanded. "Where are the criminals who launched an illegal attack
against a recognized guild magister and the properly elected head
of council?"

Twist's eyes went wide with
shock and he looked frantically back at the others.

"You didn't know, did you?"
Harry descended two steps, leaving three to give him dominance.
Those behind him advanced with him.

Twist backed up a step, but
the Briganti behind him held fast, so those in the street crowded
up together.

"You didn't know they
attacked me too," Harry said. "Not so funny now, is it?"

"We knew nothing about it,"
Twist protested. "We don't know where they are."

"But you could find out."
Harry took another step down.

"No, I swear!" The other
man was sweating.

"Didn't think about
consequences, did ya? Did you really think you could get away with
a sneak attack on not just the most powerful wizard in England--and
she is that, even if you don't like to think it--but the most
powerful alchemist as well?"

"We had nothing to do with
it!" Twist wasn't the only magician looking desperate.

"What do you think your
little rump council is going to do?" Harry liked seeing them sweat.
Stupid sods. "Are these the magisters of your new guilds? There's
none of you top tier magicians, 'cept maybe Wilfrid Vernon, and
Wilf--sorry to say it, old chap, but you're nearly past it. Most o'
the rest of you--what? Third tier? Maybe. Fourth?"

"Bernard Stark--" Grey
stepped forward, twirling a pencil threateningly between his
fingers. "How many times did you fail the conjury master's test?
Five?" He heaved an ostentatious sigh. "I take it this means you
won't be continuing in your post as secretary to the council head."
He shook his head sadly. "Sir William will be so
disappointed."

"That guttersnipe isn't
worthy to lick Sir William's boots," the conjurer shouted, "much
less follow him in office. And you--you're a disgrace to your
class!"

"Thank you." Grey bowed. "I
do try."

"Thomas--" The other
alchemist present addressed Norwood. "You're not one of them. Join
us. I know you can't agree with what they're doing, all the
dangerous changes they're making."

"But I do agree," Norwood
said. "We have to change, because without the sorcerers and more
wizards, we can't shut down the dead zones."

That seemed to stop their
mouths up.

"Wot's that?" Harry raised
his hand to his ear. "Is that your plan for the dead zones I don't
hear?"

"Maybe we don't have one,"
Twist said. "Now. But we will and without turning the world upside
down."

"Did you ever think we
might be turnin' it back right side up?" Harry propped his hands on
his hips. "Why did you come here this morning? Just to tell us
you've made your own little boys' club, no girls allowed? Surely
you didn't think you could just waltz in and take over. Or is that
why your friends attacked last night?"

"We didn't--" Twist began,
voice hot, then stopped himself and visibly wrested control over
his temper. He did a better job of it than Harry had. "There are
more of us than there are of you." He sneered. Quite good at it, he
was. "You're bleeding membership. We don't have to attack. Your
support will collapse from under you."

"More than us? I don't see
but a dozen there." Harry sneered back. He wasn't so bad at it
himself. "And so what if you do 'ave more? If this is an example of
the best you got--" He waved a hand over their delegation,
maintaining his two-step superiority. "I ain't so worried. All of
ya together, you can't match up to just those of us standing here.
There was around ten magicians in that attack last night. Against
two of us. We're standin' in front of you. Where are
they?"

He flicked his hands,
dismissing them. "Go on, then. Run an' play at your make-believe
council. Just know that
this
--" He stabbed his finger down at
the step where he stood. "This is the council established and
authorized by Crown and by Parliament, under the authority of the
guilds' magisters who are the best magicians in each guild, and I
am the head of council selected by them. We are responsible for the
actions of all magicians in the country, whatever you might
pretend.

"And if you get out o' line,
it's
us
who'll be
called to account for it, and it's us who'll be comin' round to
knock you back in bounds. Now, push off. I'm sick of lookin' at
ya."

Harry turned his back on
Twist and his mates and climbed back up the steps.
What a bloody mess.
The
council was splintered. They had no blasted idea where the renegade
magicians had gone to ground, much less where Nigel Cranshaw had
got off too. Harry was starting off his term as council head with a
stack of disasters. And Elinor hated him.

That was the bit that made
everything else seem so impossible. With Elinor at his side, he
could handle anything, but without her?

He glanced at her as they
all retreated to the council hall front doors. She pointedly
ignored him. He had no idea how to fix it, but he had to do
something. He couldn't just give her up.

"Bastard!" someone in the
street shouted.

"Imposter! Interloper!"
Someone else. Maybe two someones.

"'Ware!" Grey
cried.

Elinor was already turning,
already throwing a wands'-length of unfinished pine dowel at the
dissident delegation. It hit the spell coming for them--an air
spell like the concussion spell Harry had sent after last night's
attackers--and blew into splinters, negating the spell.

Harry threw the same spell
back at them, raising the power level just enough to make it clear
he had plenty in reserve. It felt different somehow. Like--like
Elinor. She was part of it, her magic contained in the spell. Harry
yanked back on the power just as it broke over them, knocking the
delegation to the ground like ninepins, more sound than fury. More
power than he'd intended, but less than he'd unintentionally given
it.

It seemed no one was
seriously hurt, save in their dignity. Streets weren't exactly the
cleanest locations.

"Mind your manners," Harry
told them, dusting off his hands. He turned his back on them again
as they helped each other up and waved his party back into the
building.

"That's quite the handy
trick you have there," Grey was saying to Elinor. "Are you teaching
that in your wizarding classes?"

"I intend to,
yes."

"You tried it with anything
smaller?" Harry asked. "Might be handier to carry a pocket full of
pegs than a few longer wands."

Elinor disdained to answer.
"I'm going home," she said to Amanusa. "I don't think I need worry
about trouble from that bunch."

"That's not the bunch that
attacked," Harry said. "We 'aven't found any of them
yet."

Norwood eyed Harry as he
spoke, checking to see if he objected maybe. "I can detail a few
men to accompany you, Miss Tavis. In case trouble pops
up."

Elinor rolled her eyes. "I
find that highly unlikely, Mr. Norwood."

"Thom, please," he
interjected. "If you don't mind."

Harry ground his teeth as
Elinor smiled, oh, so sweetly at the bounder.

"I am honored." She smiled
some more. "I, of course, am Elinor. And while I have my doubts as
to the necessity of a Briganti escort, if you believe it is
warranted, then I will acquiesce to your judgment."

Norwood glanced at Harry
again and Harry had to nod his thanks. At least she'd accepted the
bodyguards--though what they could do if there was another magic
attack, he didn't know. What he did know finally was that he had to
be in love with Elinor. He loved her. He was in love with her. The
whole bit. And she wouldn't even speak to him.

Nigel huddled in the
shadows, a ragged blanket wrapped around him for warmth, watching
passers-by on the streets. He needed money for food, but couldn't
bring himself to beg again. He hadn't actually gone begging yet, to
be honest. Hunger had driven him from his peculiar refuge days ago,
and when the pie woman at the cart had seen his hand, she'd given
him a malformed pie without his having to ask.

The blanket had been
purchased from a second-hand purveyor with money given--again
without his asking--when he'd been in a park hunting the material
for a new wand. He felt naked without a wand. He had set his tin
cup beside the path near where he was searching--he didn't dare
leave it in reach of those thieving creatures--and the working men
and women who spent their bits of free time at the park had dropped
money in, a half-penny at a time. It still made him feel peculiar
when he remembered how arrogant he'd been, looking down at those
ragged people from his lofty height.

He was hungry again, but
pride held him trapped in the shadows, arguing with himself. He
might be crippled but he was still a wizard. He didn't have to be
whole to work magic. They should be grateful he deigned to grace
their miserable existence with--

But they had been kind.
They didn't know he was a wizard.

"Back again, are ya,
dearie?" The round-faced pie woman showed gaps in her teeth when
she smiled at him. "See you managed a bit of a wrap for yourself in
this awful cold. Come an' 'ave summat to eat. Oven wasn't bakin'
even this mornin', so this un's burnt round the edges. But if ya
break off the burnt bits--" She demonstrated, then held the fat pie
out to him.

There it was again.
Kindness. It pulled Nigel from his shadows into the pale gray
light. He saw no subterfuge in the woman, no ulterior motives.
Nothing more than simple kindness. He took the slightly singed pie
and tucked it away in his jacket pocket, pulling out the crooked
wand he'd made from the fallen branch of a plane tree. He'd never
used a plane-tree wand, but it seemed to conduct magic nicely,
though its own magic was on the light and fluffy side.

"I have some small talent
as a magician, Madame." He bowed politely to her. "Might I offer a
small spell in exchange?"

What was he doing?
A small voice shrieked inside his head. He had
escaped from Holborn Tower. He was hiding from the Briganti. If he
worked magic, they would find him.

But a small spell couldn't
hurt, could it? She had been kind. Surely he could be kind in
return.