New Blood (48 page)

Rosato flung his hand toward her accusers on the stage, and Amanusa noticed tears flowing down Szabo's face, crumpled in remorse. Kazaryk stared straight ahead, expressionless, almost as if his mind was not at home in his body. Quickly, Amanusa checked the magic. Her blood still flowed through him, but the magic was quiescent, as it should be.

“The men who died committed torture, rape, and murder,” Rosato was saying. “They deserved their punishment. It was justice, delivered at the impartial hands of magic.”

“You lie!” The shout came from the traditionalist side of the chamber.

Rosato drew himself up in outrage. “Do you dare to insult my honor? Do you wish me to describe in detail every crime? Every blow? Do you wish me to describe the faces of the men who forced themselves on an innocent girl of fourteen? On a little boy, eight years old? Do you truly wish to fill your ears with such degradation, as I have just filled my mind?”

“Lies,” someone else cried half-heartedly.

“No,” Szabo whispered, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “No.”

He lifted his head, still shaking it. “It is true, all of it. I did not watch it. I could not bear to watch it, but I heard their screams and I did nothing to stop it. I heard the men joking afterward, and I joked with them.”

He broke into loud, broken sobs. “God forgive me,
I joked with them.
”

“And what happened to the men who died was justice, was it not?” Rosato demanded.

“Yes,”
Szabo sobbed. “Yes.”

“What about the assault against the Inquisitor?” Cranshaw demanded. “What about that?”

“Self-defense,” Rosato said. “
Signora
Greyson's fiancé, now her husband, was illegally arrested and tortured by the Inquisition for being a foreigner in an unexpected place, and having had a spell worked upon him.
Signora
Greyson used the innocent blood
of her fiancé to free him. A magician is permitted to use magic to prevent harm to oneself or others.
Signore
Greyson still bears marks from this ill treatment. Self-defense.”

“The government of France concurs with this report,” Vaillon said. “No crimes were committed by this woman. But if this man, this Inquisitor, were in my police force, I would have him in irons for corruption and abuse of power.”

“The conclave has oversight of enforcement of conclave law governing magicians,” Gathmann said. “Two reliable witnesses have charged Inquisitor Kazaryk with crimes. These charges will be investigated.”

The Austrian and Hungarian councils immediately protested, arguing that the conclave had no jurisdiction to investigate events inside Hungary. Amanusa feared the session would disintegrate into political wrangling without resolving her situation.

Harry climbed the first few steps of the dais to shout, “I propose that all accusations against Madame Greyson be dismissed as unfounded.”

Archaios started the huzzahs. It was some time after Gathmann climbed onto the dais to beat his gavel on the podium, but it was not until the battered podium was carried back to the center of the platform, that the chamber began to quiet. It took considerably more time before the vote could be determined, because each side tried to shout the other down.

Finally Gathmann and the governors declared that Amanusa was free to go. She had done nothing wrong. She sagged back into her chair in sudden relief. It was over.
The chamber erupted in a violent uproar as those on Amanusa's side celebrated, and those on the other attacked. Vaillon leaped to the floor to take command of his policemen in the lobby. The Massileans around the dais swept up everyone on it and hustled them into the maze of offices behind the chamber.

When they reached the safety of the governor's meeting room, the governors noticed that Amanusa and Szabo had both been spirited away along with themselves.

“What about this man? What is to be done with him?” Gathmann asked, looking to Amanusa more than the governors. “He is no magician, so we have no role in his fate. We could turn him over to the Austrian authorities . . .” He watched Amanusa now, without any pretense that he consulted anyone else.

“You cannot say that you've done nothing wrong,” Amanusa said to her old nemesis. “When you look the other way and do nothing to stop what you know is a crime, you have that crime on your own hands. Especially when you conspire with someone and encourage him to do it. You are guilty of everything done by the men under your leadership.”

Szabo groaned and curled into a smaller ball.

Amanusa sighed. “Let him go. His revolution has been destroyed by his own blind eye. He will never forget what he has done, or be free of the guilt that chokes him—at least until he finds some way to make amends for what he has done. It may be impossible. I do not know yet if I am capable of forgiveness myself. Perhaps someday. But until someone forgives—” She felt the visceral click of a spell locking into place. “He will find no peace.”

With a jerk of his head, Gathmann signaled to the Massilean guard captain who hauled Szabo to his feet and propelled him out the door.

“What will you do now, madame?” Gathmann still watched Amanusa with an intensity that felt a bit predatory.

“Find my husband.” Her smile flickered. “I am sure he has the news of my vindication already, but I am also sure he won't truly believe it until he sees me.” It wouldn't seem real to her either, until she found Jax.

She sighed. “And then, depending on what you gentlemen decide about my master magician's status, I suppose I will go lay claim to the sorcerer's tower I have inherited in Scotland, and begin taking apprentices.”

“Conclave law states that a magician must take apprentices—”

“Whatever likely candidates the national councils send me—or any woman who asks—I'll be happy to test for her affinity to sorcery and her talent for magic. If she passes the test, and has a good heart, I will teach her, whatever her status in society.”

“A good heart?” The Egyptian governor frowned. “What does that have to do with—”

“Everything. Magic without morality, without heart, is too dangerous.” She summoned up a smile. “Now. If you gentlemen will excuse me?”

Gathmann signaled for the Massileans to provide her an escort, though the noise from the chamber seemed to be dying down. The Massilean leading the way opened a door onto chaos filling the lobby. Magicians shouted at each other, occasionally
degenerating into shoving matches, but no further due to the swift intervention of Massileans or Vail-lon's policemen.

“Were you to meet M. Greyson in a particular place?” the guardsman escorting her asked, a concerned expression on his previously stony face.

“No, just—outside the door I went in, I suppose. He and Elinor—Miss Tavis—Harry Tomlinson's apprentice—were waiting there.”

The nearest magicians noticed them and surged forward. The Massilean escort stepped forward, invoking warding spells against ill intent, and the men swept right past. These were her supporters.

“Here's our heroine!” They tried to pick her up, apparently to carry her on their shoulders, but her skirts and crinoline foiled that idea, as well as a belated sense of propriety. Instead, they swarmed her, sweeping her into the lobby in a relentless flood of enthusiasm, congratulating her, shaking her hand and kissing it, introducing themselves in a blur of faces.

Amanusa lost her guard escort, lost track of Archaios and very nearly lost her footing before she spotted Harry's bright red waistcoat through the crowd and shouted at him. It took four tries and a helpful alchemist tapping his shoulder before he responded and squeezed through the crowd to her side. Grey and Elinor came with him.

“You did it!” Harry scooped her into a bear hug. “I never doubted it an instant.”

“Then why did you ask for a pardon rather than outright dismissal?” Amanusa raised an eyebrow at him. “Where's Jax?”

“Isn't he with you?” Elinor leaned to one side to look past Amanusa, as if she might be hiding Jax in her skirts.

“No.” Amanusa frowned. She could sense him through the magic—he seemed all right physically, not worried about anything. But she couldn't tell where he was. “I haven't seen him since I left you both here to go inside. Except for glimpses when the doors opened. Where did he go?”

“To meet you.” Elinor's hands clutched at each other, twisted together. “When the fighting broke out inside, at the end, one of the men with the striped sashes—a Massilean—he said you had left the building for your safety and Jax should meet you back at the hotel.”

“No, they just took us to a back room to wait 'til things calmed down—maybe the guardsman didn't know. Or maybe he thought things never would calm down.” Amanusa shook her head. “It doesn't matter. Let's go back to the hotel and find him. I want to tell him what happened.”

“He knows.” Elinor's smile was a little misty. “One of the journeymen passed the word when everything was dismissed. But he knew you were working magic. He seems to have quite a sensitivity to it.”

“Jax is head-blind.” Amanusa headed through the crowd toward the nearest exit. If she waited for the others to move, she might be waiting all day. “He has a sensitivity to me. And I want to tell him anyway. I need to see him.”

“Ah, true love . . .” Grey's cynicism shone through.

“He's my familiar as well as my husband,” Amanusa retorted. “Love is immaterial.”

“Love always matters,” Elinor said as she settled into the cab Harry flagged down. “It's obvious you two love each other.”

“How?” Amanusa sat opposite Elinor who looked puzzled so Amanusa expanded her question. “How is it obvious? What is it you see that makes you think we're in love?”

“I don't know about ‘in love,' but loving each other—You worry more about Jax's well-being than your own. Jax worries more about you than himself. You look after each other, protect each other, care for each other. That's love, and it's there between you. ‘In love' is another level, adding passion to the rest. It may be there too, but it's more difficult for an outsider to see.” Elinor gave a little unconcerned shrug. “But you and your Jax? A blind man could see the love there.”

Amanusa looked at Harry, who nodded.

Even Grey agreed. “It's quite tiresome, frankly. It's simply not done to wear one's heart on one's sleeve.”

“Be quiet, Grey. I find it quite lovely.” Elinor smiled at Amanusa.

Did she love Jax? How could she not know if she loved someone? Granted, it had been a dozen years or better since she'd had anyone to love. She was utterly out of practice. And if she loved him, was she in love with him?

Was this need to see him, to take his hand and tell him everything he'd missed—was it merely the blood bond of familiar and sorceress? Or was it something else? And was the uneasiness she felt trickling through her due to her confusion about love, or was something truly wrong?

They reached the hotel and Amanusa hurried up to their rooms and Jax. But he wasn't there.

Not in the parlor, in either bedroom, or the bathing room. The others followed behind her, searching the same ground again. She flew back down the stairs, to the concierge by the front door, her unease rising to worry.

“Excuse me. Have you seen M. Greyson? My husband? He's so tall—” She measured with her hand. “And he has ruddy-brown hair and—”

“I know M. Greyson. He married the lady magician. You. Everyone knows the Greysons.” The concierge gave a tiny heel-clicking bow. “And I have not seen your husband. I am told you and he departed the hotel together before I came on duty.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Amanusa tossed him a distracted smile before pushing her way out the hotel doors onto the street, where she came to a frustrated halt. She checked her sense of
Jax
in the magic, through the blood that bound them. Physically, he was still unharmed, but something began to worry him. What?

“Amanusa.” Elinor caught her hands, stopped her frantic pacing. Amanusa hadn't realized she was pacing until Elinor stopped her. “It will be all right. I'm sure he's simply been delayed. He'll be here soon. The traffic was terrible outside the conclave chamber, early on.”

“I don't think so.” Amanusa shook her head, clinging to Elinor's hands. “I don't think that's it. Something's upsetting him, something . . . I don't know what, but he's worried. Something's not right.”

“How do you know?” Harry was curious, not dismissive.

“He is my familiar. There is a blood bond between us. I know.” A horrible thought skittered into her head, and all her blood left it, dizzying her. She grabbed hold of Grey for support. “What if—since they failed in their direct attack on me, what if they've decided to get at me through Jax?”

Harry swore, long, colorfully, and almost indecipherably as his accent thickened to pure Cockney.

Amanusa led them back inside and found a lobby chair. Where could he have gone? She sat, closed her eyes and
reached
for her magic inside Jax, invoking the full spell to ride his blood. The distance made it difficult. He wasn't anywhere near the hotel in St. Germaine. The double layer to their bond—he wasn't walling her out, but she could only slip through cracks around his edges. He was asleep, she realized. Or unconscious, rather. She could smell herbs and magic, but couldn't identify which ones.

He was dreaming. Frightening dreams where an armored Jax fought with sword and flail against an army of bowler-hatted bureaucrats, who rose and fought again with missing limbs. He fought to reach Amanusa, to rescue her from the swarming hordes.

Amanusa inserted herself in his dream, at his side with her own bloody sword.
Together,
she thought at him.
Always together. Never alone again.

“He's waking up,” a strange male voice said.