The Native Star (33 page)

“This is the one everyone comes to see.” Ben reached out a finger to almost touch one of the nodding blooms. “The Dragon’s Eye Orchid. The largest in the world. Its roots go well underground into the limestone gravel underneath the conservatory.”

Emily nodded appreciatively, fanning herself with her hand.

“I hope it’s not too warm for you, Miss Edwards?” Ben murmured.

“Hot as Hades,” Emily said. Having grown up in the mountains, Emily had never experienced such a humid place. Sweat beaded on her brow; she wiped it away with three fingers. “Now I know how Mr. Stanton must have felt!”

Was it her imagination, or did she see a shadow of a smile pass over Ben’s face?

“Huh?” Miss Pendennis had stopped by a bed of vegetables and was looking at a purple cabbage that was the size of an ottoman. “What’s that?”

“Mr. Stanton. He is always so warm. You never noticed?” Emily said. “The first time he ever gave me his arm, I thought he was ill with a fever. But he said it was some kind of an impairment.”

“Impairment?” Miss Pendennis’ brow furrowed. “Nonsense. Dreadnought is healthy as a horse. Has a fantastic appetite.”

“Well, the appetite is part of it,” Emily said. “It’s why he has to eat all the time. He called it something in Latin … 
Exussum cruorsis
…”

“Burned?” Miss Pendennis’ voice dropped to a murmur. Her eyes went wide, and she stared at Emily with sudden horror.

“Well … yes. Burned. He said that was a rude way of putting it.”

Miss Pendennis put a hand over her mouth.

“Hortense never told me,” she said. “Oh, my. I never knew. That’s … tragic.”

“Tragic?” Emily drew her brows together. “I don’t see what’s so tragic about it, unless you have to pay his grocery bills.”

Miss Pendennis stared at Emily.

“You don’t know what being burned is, do you?” She paused. “He didn’t tell you?”

Emily felt suddenly apprehensive. “Tell me what?”

“Calling someone ‘burned’ is imprecise. What they are is ‘burning,’ as in ‘burning up.’ What is he, almost thirty?” Miss Pendennis did a swift calculation. “Oh, mercy. The poor boy can’t have more than ten years left. At
most.”

A sudden chill danced over Emily’s skin, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. But the day remained as clear and blue as before and the conservatory remained just as sweltering.

“Ten years? You mean ten years to … practice magic?”

“Ten years to live,” Ben broke in softly. His words were formed with delicacy and precision.
“Exussum cruorsis
is a degenerative magical blight. Within a few years, Mr. Stanton won’t be able to keep weight on at all, no matter how much he eats. He will starve to death.”

Emily’s head spun. The words rattled around in her head like lead shot dropped in a silver bowl.

Burning up
.

She remembered the conversation she’d had with him in the chophouse in San Francisco … 
Training as a Warlock aggravates it substantially
 … he’d made it sound like such a little thing!

Sudden fury made all her muscles tense and shake.

Emily was suddenly aware of the fact that Ben was watching her closely. She brushed past him toward the door.

…
Professor Mirabilis perceived profound advantages in having me attend the Institute
…

Oh, the stupidity! Emily clenched her fists tightly. How could he have done it? And how … how could he not have told her?

“Miss Edwards … hold on!” Miss Pendennis called after her.

But Emily didn’t hear the rest of what Miss Pendennis said, for she was running back toward the Institute, as quickly as her silk-shod feet would carry her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cupid’s Bludgeon

Emily raced through the gardens, stormed up the stairs, slammed a door behind her as she entered the cool darkness of the Institute. Stalking toward the broad marble stairs in the main hall, she did not notice Professor Mirabilis until she had torn past him, wisping rage.

“Miss Edwards.”

The words were low and not spoken with any particular urgency, but Professor Mirabilis’ voice stopped her as surely as if the old man had seized her arm. Clearly, one did not ignore the Sophos of the Mirabilis Institute.

Emily froze, stock-still and trembling, staring at the floor. She did not look up as Mirabilis strode casually toward her.

“My, don’t you look nice!” Mirabilis smiled. “And you’ve managed to give the strident Miss Pendennis the slip. You have excellent judgment.” His voice lowered an octave. “Miss Pendennis is an … 
exceptional
woman. But your native common sense is more than equal to the challenges that face you. I do hate to see women swayed by advisers who may not have their best interests at heart.”

Emily curled her lips back from her teeth, but said nothing.

“Now,” Mirabilis continued, “tonight’s Grand Symposium will be preceded by a small dinner for the colleagues. If you could be downstairs by eleven to meet—”

“Fine,” Emily said curtly.

“Additionally, please understand that this Grand Symposium shall be a dangerous gathering. No great thing can be accomplished without a correspondingly great measure of risk. For your safety, I have not told all to all. Answer questions honestly if I ask them, but volunteer nothing. Allow me to do all the talking.”

“It’s your money,” Emily said, aware that her voice was trembling slightly. “You’re paying for my time.”

Mirabilis knit his brow. His face was inscribed with annoyance, as if her petulance was a personal affront.

“Miss Edwards, is there something wrong?”

She tried to say nothing. She tried to keep her mouth shut, but words burst from her lips in a sudden molten gush.

“Profound advantages?” She lifted her eyes, fixed Mirabilis with accusing venom. “How could you let him do it? How could you let him discard his life so stupidly? And then you added insult to injury by making it all meaningless. Subverting him. Undercutting him. Sending him to Lost Pine. You never wanted him to succeed. All you cared about was his father’s connections! You never had any faith in him. You wanted to make him a failure. I don’t know why … but it’s horrible. It’s horrible and it’s vicious and I despise you for it!”

Mirabilis was silent for a moment, obviously sorting through the particulars of the wild flood of accusation.

“I don’t know what Mr. Stanton has told you,” Mirabilis began.

“He told me …” She searched her memory, her voice breaking with despair. “He told me it was a
defect
. He told me it was an
impairment
. He made it seem like such a small thing.”

“All credomancers are liars,” Mirabilis interjected, smiling at what was probably a very old chestnut within these walls.

“Mr. Stanton isn’t a liar,” she spat, refusing to be jollied. Mirabilis frowned.

“Miss Edwards, get ahold of yourself,” he rumbled, and the words were like a hundred strong hands seizing her and giving her a shake. She lowered her head, breathing hard. Mirabilis was silent a moment before continuing.

“Mr. Stanton was burned long before he came to the Institute,” Mirabilis said. “He continued his studies here with full awareness of the implications it would have for his health. It was his decision, and he made it for good reasons.”

“There are no good reasons for suicide,” she hissed.

“That, Miss Edwards, is where you are wrong.”

Emily stared at him. His eyes glittered dangerously.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Emily whispered.

“Credomancy isn’t the only thing he’s studied,” Mirabilis said. “And this isn’t the only place he trained.”

“The Erebus Academy,” she said, remembering Perun’s words in Chicago. Mirabilis nodded.

“It is an elite institution, the West Point of the Army’s magical divisions,” Mirabilis said. “Mr. Stanton was there for three years. That is where he studied sangrimancy, with the intention of becoming a Maelstrom.”

Emily felt as if the floor were falling from beneath her feet, but she stood stock-still.

“He did very well there, I understand.” Mirabilis clipped each word; it almost seemed that he took perverse pleasure in them. “Indeed, he was, by all accounts, exceptionally well suited to the practice of blood magic. His snobbishness, his impatience with human frailty, his rigid worldview …”

“Then how did he end up here?” Emily’s throat was dry.

“I approached him at a … fortuitous moment. I made arguments that helped him understand that studying at my Institute would be beneficial. That greater goals could be served.”

“What greater goals?”

“That’s really none of your business, is it?” Mirabilis said. “But you are correct in one regard. I never thought he’d amount to much as a credomancer. It is simply not his area of natural proficiency.”

“So you did subvert him. You did want him to be a failure,” Emily said, suddenly understanding, “because he was too dangerous any other way.”

Mirabilis looked at her for a long time.

“Don’t you think the world is better served by Dreadnought Stanton the mediocre credomancer than Dreadnought Stanton the very talented sangrimancer?” Mirabilis said at last. “Don’t you think there are enough Captain Cauls in the world as it is?”

“He couldn’t ever be like that,” Emily said.

“People can surprise you,” Mirabilis said. “And not always pleasantly.”

Emily stared at him, her eyes wells of horror. Mirabilis did not smile at her.

“The fact that you have developed a fondness for Mr. Stanton is abundantly clear. I wish to make it similarly clear that nurturing such fondness is a grave error. The blight he labors under is powerful. What is done cannot be undone. He is not for you, and he never can be.” Mirabilis frowned more deeply. “And if the boy had an ounce of decency, he would have made you understand that from the beginning.”

He clasped her solid hand, made a little bow over it. “Until tonight, then?”

And he walked off briskly, his footsteps echoing in the tall empty hall.

Damn him!

When Emily got to her room, she slammed the door behind her and began removing every single article of clothing Miss Pendennis had so carefully put her into. Her immaterial hand made this a tortuous process; buttons scattered and fabric ripped as she pulled at her garments angrily.

Damn Dreadnought Stanton!

She threw the dress in a heap on the floor, and piled the corset and the petticoats and the bustle and the chemise and all the other nonsensical pieces of effluvium on top. When she was finished, she climbed into bed stark naked but for the silk pouch she always wore. She curled herself up into a ball and pulled the blankets over her head.

Damn all Warlocks anyway!

She lay curled in the still whiteness of the bed, listening to her heart pounding against her ribs. Despite her best efforts to maintain a comforting shield of anger, it was crumbling beneath pain and confusion.

Why hadn’t he told her?

All those days and nights … everything that had passed between them. Everything they’d been through. And he’d never told her. Never told her he’d studied blood magic … never told her he’d planned to become a Maelstrom, just like that monster Caul … never told her he was dying … never told her anything about who he really was. And after all, why would he? One didn’t go around telling such personal and important things to the
luggage
.

Emily buried her head in her pillow, feeling acutely disappointed and embarrassed.

…
if the boy had an ounce of decency, he would have made you understand that from the beginning
…

How could she have let herself go and grow feelings for him? She was furious with her own stupidity. As if a few kisses meant anything. It was just a meaningless encounter, a by-product of the madness of sangrimancy. He didn’t want her. If he did, he would have told her. He wouldn’t have left such horrible explanations to strangers. He would have trusted her. Goddamn it, she had trusted him! She had trusted him, and he had trusted her with nothing.

Three times what thou givest
.

So there it was, then. The final and most crushing of the retributions she’d earned. A silly, stupid broken heart. How perfectly appropriate. And to think that she’d done this to Dag, good, kind Dag …

She wished for Dag, suddenly. If she hadn’t felt close to him before, she certainly did now. She understood him, understood the agony of loving someone who didn’t love you back. She wanted to crawl into his arms and be soothed, and soothe him in return, and forget all the grand ideas she’d ever had about true love, and the necessity for it. Because true love was a load of baloney. Finding a good friend … a good friend who trusted you … was more than enough.

Mirabilis had said that everything would be all right after the Grand Symposium. With a little luck, she could start for home in a day or two. With a little luck, she’d never have to look at Dreadnought Stanton’s face again. She buried her face deeper in the pillow, trying to reconcile herself to the thought.

There was a soft knock at her door. Emily huddled deeper under the covers as the door opened.

“Miss Edwards?” Miss Pendennis’ voice from the door was puzzled. “My goodness, your clothes are all in a heap! Are you all right?”

“I have a terrible headache,” Emily said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d—”

“Certainly,” Miss Pendennis said. “I’ve got something that will fix you right up.”

Emily had been planning to say “leave me alone,” but never mind.

The strange thing was that the pretending of a headache actually preceded the onset of one. A heavy bilious headache that came on abruptly. Within moments, Emily’s head was throbbing.

CARISSIMA MIA
.

Emily pressed fingers to her temple, trying to remember what she’d just been thinking about. Something that had made her angry and upset all at once. But though she tried hard to remember what it was, all she could come up with was a memory of huge rabbits. Huge black rabbits with red eyes.

“Here we are,” Miss Pendennis said, bustling in. Emily pulled the covers down just far enough to expose her eyes and watch Miss Pendennis approach. The woman was carrying the large leather case Emily had seen her unpack earlier that morning, the one that was bound in steel. Pulling a chair to the side of the bed, Miss Pendennis sat down. She laid the case on the bedside table and snapped it open, revealing an exotic assortment of items nestled in a blue velvet lining: bright iridescent bottles, long quills and parchment, candles of many colors.

Miss Pendennis lifted out the top drawer of the case, laying it aside, momentarily revealing another layer of larger items underneath. There was a chalice, a bowl, and … Emily felt a strange thrill go through her … an athame. A gleaming Witch’s blade, small and slim, a single piece of exquisitely sharpened steel with a handle wrapped in thin black velvet cording. It was neatly fitted into the bottom of the case. Emily’s gaze lingered on it for a long time. It hummed softly to her. She longed to touch it.

PERFECT
.

Sudden panic gripped Emily as images of spurting blood flashed at the corners of her eyes.

“No!” She sat up, sheet clutched to her chest, eyes squeezed shut against the sudden burning pain in her temples. She looked at Miss Pendennis, opened her mouth to say something, but the minute she did, the words evaporated.

Miss Pendennis looked at her, astonished.

“Miss Edwards?” she asked. “Were you going to say something?”

NO
.

“No,” Emily said quickly, the word sounding before she even knew her lips had formed it.

Miss Pendennis put her hand on Emily’s forehead, held it there for a long time. Her eyes took on a canny quality.

“You said Dreadnought drank a compulsion potion, didn’t you?” Miss Pendennis said. “But of course, when you drank the potion, nothing happened. Because of the stone in your hand.”

Emily opened her mouth to say, “That’s right.” But before the words could be spoken, she closed her mouth abruptly.

AH, IT IS A TRICKY WITCH! BRAVA!

“I never drank the potion,” Emily said, finally, laboring over the words.

Miss Pendennis looked at her.

“So you didn’t touch or taste any of it?”