Magic most deadly, p.14
Magic Most Deadly, page 14
He was silent for a few more paces. Then he said, “It is only fair that you should know. My opinion of your aunt is … tainted, and you deserve to know why. And this particular assignment is more personal for me because of it. I’m not necessarily going to be as objective as I should be.”
Maia wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she waited.
Len continued. “When we first started hearing rumors of a magical advisor to the Kaiser—oh, now that sounds even worse than the Kaiser’s Advisor—I volunteered to go investigate, alone. Usually Becket accompanies me on assignments, but for this, I knew I would do better at getting in and out unnoticed if I was alone. The Council overruled me, said they couldn’t rely on one person alone for something this important; if something happened to me, they needed somebody else to be able to get the information back to them. Two others volunteered—my mate James, an agent a couple years older than myself, with whom I’d worked before, and a very young agent, barely out of his journeyman years, named Alec. My cousin, in fact.”
He fell silent. Maia winced, remembering what he’d said before about him being the only one to make it back. This story would not have a happy ending.
“Our superiors in MI said yes to Jamie, no to Alec. He was too young, had too much promise and not enough experience. The Circle … the Circle overrode them and sent us all. Your aunt was instrumental in that decision. She said it was important for us to have one strong magician on the team in case of trouble, and that Alec’s lack of experience was made up for by his magical abilities.”
They had made it to the edge of the gardens by this point, and by mutual unspoken agreement stopped so Len could finish his tale.
“Getting the proof about the KA wasn’t that hard. She’d been sloppy, and proof was everywhere. Getting that proof out of Berlin and back to England, however …
“Alec accidentally tripped one of the KA’s alarms, one that both Jamie and I had seen but neglected to warn him about, thinking he would see it too, except he didn’t have the experience to recognize it. The KA threw everything in her considerable arsenal at us as we fled.
“Jamie was caught by a curse—those are illegal and unethical, by the way, not that I can imagine you ever using one, but so you know—as we ran out of the Kaiser’s headquarters.” Len shuddered, his shoulders twitching. It was one of the nastiest curses he’d ever seen: it first stripped Jamie of his magical abilities, leaving him helpless to try to defend against it. Any magic that Len threw at it was sucked away as well, until Jamie had sworn at him to stop, he was only draining himself to no good use. A proper curse-breaker could have done something, but Len’s only training was in defense against curses, not in breaking them, and none of their training had prepared them for something of this sort.
Len forced himself to continue. “He knew he wouldn’t make it out in time, so he said he would draw our pursuers off to give Alec and me time to escape. I hated to leave him, but I couldn’t—nothing I could do would save him. The only thing to do was make sure his death meant something. So Alec and I went on, while he lured the magicians and soldiers away.”
Maia couldn’t imagine what a horrible choice that must have been. “A noble sacrifice, but an awful one to be on the other end of,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Len said briefly. He swallowed hard and continued. “Alec and I made it almost to the border when we ran afoul of a patrol. I know enough German to be able to pass as a citizen, but Alec—well, languages were never his specialty, and after the alarm and losing Jamie his nerves were already in bad shape. Not enough experience, just as I’d been afraid of. If he’d been on a few more smaller assignments, had had the chance to work up to something this big, he would have been the best in the business, but then, it was just too much for him. He panicked, and bolted, and they—they shot him. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
“I went on—I had to. I couldn’t let both their deaths mean nothing. If I stayed to avenge Alec, the odds were I would have been killed too, and the proof would have been lost. It was—it was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, but I did it. I did my duty.”
He puffed out a breath. “Lord, sometimes I wish nicotine weren’t so inimical to magicians! What I wouldn’t give to be able to puff on a pipe right now.”
“Oh!” Maia said, distracted and surprised. “Is that why I get ill around people smoking, and why Aunt Amelia said that gave her a clue that I was a new magician?”
“Yes. It’ll get better once your powers settle, but none of us are ever wholly comfortable around it. No one is quite sure why, either, but there is just something about nicotine that reacts poorly with magic-users.”
“Fascinating,” Maia said, then recalled herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your story.”
“Not at all. It’s just about finished, anyway. I came back and handed the proof over to the Circle and blasted them all for allowing Alec to go, and your aunt came back with some pretty sharp criticisms of my behavior, and we’ve been enemies of a sort ever since.” He gave a bitter bark of laughter. “The end.”
Maia gathered her thoughts. What to say in response to a tale as raw and painful as that one? “I’m sorry” was entirely inadequate.
The only thing she could offer in exchange was a story of her own, one that she’d never shared with anyone because it was too painful.
“I had a school chum, Sally Elliot, who joined the VADs the final year of the War. Because of me, because I had done so and in my one year at school she had always imitated me. Who knows why—I was the plainest and dullest of all the girls there. Perhaps because I was kind to her when everyone else made fun of her slowness at lessons and lack of ability at games, I don’t know. In any case, I was careless enough to mention that I had joined up in a letter to her, and without telling me she joined as well, and she was killed on her very first day of action. Killed because she didn’t pay enough attention to her orders, because she panicked, and because nobody understood that she was a bit stupid, and nobody took the time to make her understand or to help her. I would have, had I been there, but she wasn’t part of my unit. I only found out after it was all over, and all I could do was visit her family and extend my condolences.” She drew in a deep breath. This was harder even than she’d anticipated.
“And when her parents and younger sister shouted and screamed at me, blaming me for her death, I couldn’t say a word in my own defense, because they were right. It wasn’t my fault, but it was my responsibility. If it hadn’t been for me, she would have stayed safely at home, and because of me, she was killed.”
“Oh, but—” Len began to protest, then stopped. “Sorry. You don’t want to be told not to blame yourself any more than I do. Always easier to see clearly the other person’s situation, eh?”
“I suppose so,” Maia agreed. She added, “I do understand better about your conflict with my aunt. Thank you for trusting me with your story.”
“Thank you for sharing yours,” Len replied. He cleared his throat, then added, “So much for the past,” adopting a brisker tone. “I suppose we just have to make sure nothing like that happens in the present.”
“Yes,” Maia agreed fervently. “So what do we do next?”
“Get a good night’s sleep,” was his unexpected reply. “We’ve been doing nothing but discovering murders and magic and missing papers since last night, and neither of us are going to function well without some rest. We’ll sleep, and regroup in the morning. With any luck, things will be clearer then.”
Maia opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. He was right—she was weary down to her bones, something that her drive to solve the mystery and her delight in using her magic had hidden until now. “Very well,” she said. “But one way or another, we must end this tomorrow.”
“I agree entirely,” Len said.
* * *
Maia was slightly horrified the next morning to find she had slept until one of Julia’s housemaids bustled in with a cup of tea around eight o’clock. Good heavens, when was the last time she had slept past seven? Fashionable though late rising might be, she’d never been able to get into the habit of it. Oftentimes the early mornings were her only hours of peace before her mother and sisters rose, and she’d always made the most of them. Of late, of course, she’d been rising early to try to keep up with the housework, since they couldn’t ever keep maids or housekeepers for more than a few weeks at a time.
Sitting in bed with her dressing gown on, sipping a perfectly brewed cup of tea, Maia had to admit there was something rather nice in being pampered for a change.
Not that she intended to waste the entire morning lolling about in bed. No indeed; there was far too much to do today.
She lay back against her propped-up pillow and made a list in her mind.
1. Catch the true murderer of Mr. Carter
2. Find the missing papers
3. Convince Merry that Sir Bertram Grimes is not a good friend
4. Convince Ellie to …
Maia frowned. Convince Ellie to do what? Stop disgracing the family, her brain whispered. Maia wriggled uncomfortably, her pillows suddenly feeling full of lumps. What was it Ellie had screeched at her yesterday?
“If you didn’t act as though we were shaming the family name every time we had a little fun, other people wouldn’t be so quick to condemn us!”
But other people did disapprove of their behavior—Julia was the one who had asked Maia to intervene, for heaven’s sake!
Only … what if there was some measure of truth in Ellie’s words? What if there was something in Maia’s disapproval, her very attempts to cover her sisters’ poor behavior, that made them worse?
Rubbish. Maia set her tea down on the nightstand and shook her pillows out vigorously before leaning back and resuming her list.
4. Avoid Ellie as much as possible
5. Practice magic.
Maia smiled. She had to admit, she was looking forward to the fifth and final item on the list more than all the others, though of course capturing the murderer and recovering the papers had to be her first priorities.
The maid wouldn’t return until after Maia had gone downstairs for breakfast, and no one else was likely to come into her room this early. Maia closed her eyes and sought the magic swirling within her veins, then stretched out her senses to gather strands of light into a ball.
“Lux fiat.”
She opened her eyes to see a globe of swirling silver light hovering above her bed. A deep sense of satisfaction suffused her entire being.
What did Ellie’s tantrums and Merry’s folly matter in the face of something as marvelous as this?
Maia remembered Len’s warning about not overusing her abilities, but she couldn’t bring herself to dismiss the spell so quickly. She kept it going while she quickly dressed in a simple red day frock and sensible shoes, tucking her war souvenir into the top of her stocking as the final touch, and only when she was ready to descend to the dining room for breakfast could she bring herself to say,
“Finiatur.”
The light winked out as though it had never existed. Maia sighed, but brightened at the thought that she could bring it back at any time, forever, for the rest of her life—and more spells besides, once she learned them.
Once this case was solved, she had all the time in the world.
She came downstairs determined to see the end of this case today, both for Len’s sake and for her own.
Unfortunately, her good intentions and good mood alike were soured as soon as she came off the stairs into the reception space, where she found her sister Merry and Sir Bertram once again tucked into a cozy corner. It seemed that Sir Bertram was no longer content to only kiss Merry’s hand, as their lips were only inches away from touching.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maia snapped, exasperated beyond her ability to hold her tongue.
Merry jumped and pulled back, but Sir Bertram only turned his head to give Maia an oily smile, leaning casually back against the wall, entirely unconcerned over the fact that he had been caught behaving with gross impropriety. Canoodling with a much-younger woman, both of them guests in another’s home, in a public space, and before breakfast, no less! Really, it was one thing for Merry to ignore society’s unspoken rules—she was seventeen, and would hopefully outgrow this tedious stage before long. For a man of Sir Bertram’s age and experience to flout the rules was far worse, and his encouragement of Merry to behave in a fashion that would, even in today’s modern society, soon cause her to be shunned by all respectable folk if she continued in it, was unforgivable.
“Not another lecture, May,” Merry said before Maia could say anything else. Her cheeks were red, evidence that she wasn’t entirely lost to all propriety, but her eyes sparkled with defiance. “I cannot stomach a lecture before breakfast.”
She exited the reception space with her head high, attempting to sweep out with dignity but only managing a pompous strut. Maia sighed and stepped aside to let her pass.
No, a lecture would not be sufficient for this. Merry and Ellie were both so convinced that Maia only wanted to spoil their lives that neither would listen to anything she had to say. Her only hope was to shame Sir Bertram into some sense of his wrongdoing, though looking at his smirk, she highly doubted that would work, either.
She toyed with the idea of using her magic to frighten him away from Merry, or even better, teach him a lesson in how to behave toward younger women in general, but she released that wistfully. That seemed like it would be very high on the list of things magicians were forbidden to do, and for good reasons. Using magic against someone who had none felt very much like bullying, and not even an odious pig like Sir Bertram Grimes deserved that.
Or rather, perhaps he deserved it, but Maia wouldn’t lower herself to behave in such an ugly fashion, regardless of the provocation.
“Really, sir,” she said icily instead. “Am I to understand from this that you will be calling on my father shortly to express your intention to marry my sister?”
He laughed. “You may not,” he said. “And if you expect Davies to do the same on your account, I warn you that you will be gravely disappointed.”
Maia hesitated, taken aback by this seeming non-sequitur. “Excuse—” she began, but Sir Bertram took advantage of her confusion to give her a mocking bow and leave the reception space as well.
What on earth had he meant by that?
Maia gave it up and went to breakfast herself, hoping others were awake so that she wouldn’t have to endure the company of the other two all on her own.
There, her luck ran better. Freddie was downstairs, and so was Dan, as well as Tim and Laura Spencer. Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, Maia decided that it would be another hour or so before Ellie stirred herself, and that Julia was most likely finishing her toilette, but Rob and Paul had probably already eaten and were now out enjoying the use of the Foy stables with a morning ride. No horsewoman herself, Maia had never understood the Danvers’ enthusiasm for riding, but she could sympathize, at least, with their lament that the vicarage had no stables and their father’s income was not sufficient to keep even one horse between them, much less two.
As for Hermione, who knew where she was? It wasn’t likely that she was still getting dressed, given her choice of a more simple masculine attire, and she had never struck Maia as the type to enjoy a lie-in in the mornings. Maia dismissed the puzzle from her mind in favor of reflecting over the Danvers lads. Was it at all possible that either one of them would have stooped to murder, theft, and treason for the sake of money? Rubbish!
The fact was that Maia couldn’t see anyone at this table committing foul deeds—save Sir Bertram, and he had an alibi. Nor could she make sense of it being Mr. Saunders, despite how little she knew of that man. While appearing meek and mild would surely be a good disguise for a spy or traitor, something about him didn’t make sense in that role. He seemed content with his quiet lifestyle, whereas someone who was wearing that as a mask would surely chafe beneath it—as Len chafed beneath his “foolish but amiable” mask.
Dan spoke up then, startling her by referring to the very couple she’d been pondering. “I’m afraid we’ve had to say farewell to the Saunders,” he said. “Mr. Saunders informed me last night before they retired that they would have to leave early this morning—something at their estate requiring their attention, terribly sorry and all that. Frankly, I think Mrs. Saunders simply wanted to escape the stigma of being a guest at a house party where something so unpleasant as a murder occurred, even if the murder itself happened off the property and we were only brought into it tangentially.” He shrugged. “I suppose I can’t blame her.”
Maia narrowed her eyes. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was Mr. Saunders after all, and now that he had the papers and the police had released all the guests he was going to escape back to his house with them and would send them on their way to Germany from there.
Len ought to be informed of this development, she decided, only to realize that there was no sign of him. Surely he wasn’t lolling about in bed. Where was he, then? Already off chasing clues, without her?
Indignation stirred in her veins, subdued only by the stern reminder that she didn’t know that was what he was doing, and it wasn’t fair to be cross with a man based on a mere suspicion. Much better to wait to be cross until one knew for certain one had been treated shabbily.
“Can’t say I’ll miss them too much,” Freddie admitted. “They didn’t seem to add much go to the party, what? Not like your sister,” he added to Maia. “Miss Ellie certainly livens things up!”
“One could say that,” Maia said neutrally. Freddie wasn’t the first young man to be smitten by Ellie’s charm without seeing the selfishness that lurked beneath. Then again, Maia considered, given the monstrous selfishness of Freddie’s father and older brother and the way they had gone through the family’s wealth to satisfy their own gambling habits, it was quite likely that Freddie considered Ellie’s selfishness to be mild in comparison. And given the way his sister always emulated a man, it was likely that Ellie’s exaggerated femininity was also appealing.
