Elementary (12 page)

Nettie sat down, startled that she'd actually hit something. A sylph materialized close by and pointed over Nettie's shoulder. Seagulls and crows and starlings of all shapes and sizes descended on the Tigress's boat in a thunderous cloud. The Tigress ignored the raking claws and stabbing beaks, hurling ball after ball of blazing fire into the sky. The air filled with the stench of burning feathers as birds fell by the dozens, their flaming bodies dropping into the water like burning cannonballs. Sylphs whipped through the air, trying to divert the fireballs. Nymphs swam through the sea, thrashing the water into huge waves that rocked both boats violently. The huge man rose to his feet, swinging one of his oars like a madman.

The raven dove into the midst of the battle, claws outstretched. His black feathers glittered as he grabbed the big man's collar, pulled him off balance, and let go. The boat shifted beneath the man's feet, and he tumbled into the sea. The raven dove again, snagged the Tigress's hair, and dragged her toward the side of the boat. Nettie's heart leaped as the Tigress lost her balance and fell into the boat.

The raven's left wing exploded in fire. The huge bird screamed and disappeared, leaving the Tigress sprawled over the edge of her boat. The woman shoved herself to her feet, a snarl on her normally placid face. Face distorted in anger, the Tigress flung her fists into the air over and over. Fireballs lit up the sky, the rest of the birds dropped like rain, and the sylphs disappeared.

Nettie watched the destruction with a sinking heart. There was no one left to help. No one who could save Li from whatever horrible fate the Tigress had planned for him.

Except her.

Nettie dove into the water and swam toward the Tigress. Nymphs gathered close, swimming effortlessly beside her. The water darkened as she entered the boat's shadow.

“Lift me,” Nettie cried as she kicked hard, driving her body up out of the water. Strong hands grabbed hold of her legs and waist as a pair of nymphs rose up beside her. Nettie caught sight of the Tigress's startled face, white in a tangle of black hair, and then she grabbed the edge of the boat and pulled.

The nymphs pulled with her.

The boat capsized, spewing its occupants into the sea. Water splashed into Nettie's nose and mouth. She coughed, then gasped for air as someone grabbed her bare ankle and dragged her down. Strong hands pulled her up even as she sank, nymphs struggling to help her back to the surface. But the force dragging her down was relentless.

Nettie forced her mouth to stay closed. She peered through the water at the hand clutching her ankle. A hand tipped with vibrant red nails. Black hair drifted through the water like lazy snakes around the Tigress's pale face. Nettie drew her other foot up and kicked. Over and over and over again, her heel connected with flesh. Finally, the grip on her ankle relented, and she shot for the surface, kicking hard. Her lungs screamed, and her vision started to darken. Nettie kept her jaw locked, refusing to take the watery breath that would surely be her last . . .

Hands grasped Nettie's elbow—friendly hands, helping hands—lifting her faster and faster. Her head broke the surface, and she inhaled a great, shuddering breath, looking wildly around for her brother. Fear rolled in her belly as the waves lifted and fell.

The water was littered with blackened birds, and her boat rocked gently a short swim away. There was no sign of the Tigress or her big man.

And no sign of Li.

A shadow flowed over the water as the raven circled awkwardly, compensating for his burned left wing. The bird dipped down until he almost landed on the water, then lifted heavily back into the air. Nettie swam toward the spot the raven had touched, refusing to think about what she might find. Her hand touched something cold and stringy, and she almost screamed before she realized she'd found her brother. A pair of nymphs held him faceup at the water's surface. The rowboat eased up beside them, and the next few moments blurred as the nymphs lifted the pair into the boat.

Nettie sat up, cradling Li's head in her lap. Tears streamed down her face as his eyes fluttered open. He coughed, then cleared his throat and gave her a crooked smile. She smiled back, feeling like her heart might explode from her chest.

Li coughed again. Then he struggled to sit up, giving her a weak glare. “What'd you do with my strawberry pie?” he asked.

Elisabeth Waters

“Are you afraid of fire?”

“Not at all,” Sophia Pearce replied calmly. This might seem to be an odd question for Lady Mary to ask the new governess to her twelve-year-old daughter, but Sophia knew more about Eleanora than her mother did. Despite being the daughter of a Water Magician, wife of a Fire Master, and mother of twins Albert, Water Master, and Eleanora, Fire Master, Lady Mary did not know that magic existed. Sophia, who was a Fire Magician herself, knew that it did. She had also been extensively briefed on Eleanora before being sent to take this post.

“I'm afraid that my daughter is less than enthusiastic about having a governess, and that her education has been sadly deficient. She has a lot to learn, and only five years before her presentation at court.” Lady Mary frowned. “She needs a firm hand.”

“I will do my very best to teach her everything she needs to know,” Sophia said honestly.
But I have no intention of telling you
everything
I'm teaching her. Her most urgently needed lessons are things you wouldn't believe, let alone understand
.

Eleanora was summoned to the drawing room to meet her new governess. Her hair had escaped so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell what its style had been when she'd been dressed that morning. Her gown looked as if she had been climbing trees in it, or perhaps simply tried to destroy it; it also had grass stains, bloodstains, and a sleeve that was almost completely ripped off.

Lady Mary sighed. “Eleanora, this is Miss Pearce, your new governess. Please show her where the nursery is.” She lay back on the fainting couch and closed her eyes, obviously wishing she could ignore both her daughter and the entire situation. Eleanora scowled at her, then turned and left the room. Sophia followed, somehow certain that they would not be heading for the nursery.

She was not surprised to find herself led to a maze in the middle of the garden. “Can anyone see or hear us here?” she asked.

“No,” said Eleanora. “I can do whatever I want to here, and nobody can stop me.” Her attempt to look menacing was quite good for a child her age.

The most important thing I need to do is gain her trust. I need her to work with me rather than against me.
“Well, if you left my charred corpse here, it would provoke remark,” Sophia said calmly, “but we will need private places to work. This is probably a good place to give this to you.” She held out a letter. “Albert sent it with me; he didn't want your mother to see it.”

Eleanora grabbed the letter from her twin brother as if it were a lifeline, broke the seal, and started to read it. After a few seconds, she gasped. “He's what?”

“A Water Master,” Sophia said. “While he was spending all his time with your father and you, your powers apparently hid his.”
Or, more likely, completely overwhelmed them. Two strong Fire Masters and one untrained Water Master . . .

“So you know about me.” Eleanora folded the letter carefully and slid it up her intact sleeve.

“Yes, El. I know you're a Fire Master. I know that your father, Sir Nicholas, raised you as a boy and taught you magic, and I know that you helped him in his medical practice. Father Pearce at Christ Church is my brother, and he's very concerned that, despite years of training, you lost control and burned four inches of candle all at once when all you were supposed to do was light it.” Sophia smiled briefly. “The ladies of the altar guild are still arguing over who put out such obviously mismatched candles, but he doesn't feel it would help matters to tell them what really happened.”

“They're a bunch of stupid old biddies,” El said crossly. “They're always nagging us so a boy can't even play a harmless practical joke. And Father Pearce said I could be one of them when I'm old enough!” Her expression was somewhere between disgusted and betrayed.

“He asked me to apologize to you for that,” Sophia said. “He says you're the best acolyte he ever had, and he'd be delighted to have you back if he could be sure the Bishop wouldn't find out that you're female.”

“But the Bishop doesn't know!” El protested.

“He would find out pretty soon, no matter what else happened. You're supposed to be confirmed next year, aren't you?”

“Yes, all the younger acolytes were studying for it. Does being a girl mean I can't even be
confirmed
?”

“Not at all, and I'll arrange for you to finish your studies here. The problem is that in order to be confirmed, you have to produce your baptismal records, and the Bishop would notice that Eleanora Victoria is not a boy's name if he were asked to confirm you with the rest of the acolytes. Do you know the words the Bishop uses when he confirms you?”

El shook her head.

“‘Defend, O Lord, this thy Child with thy heavenly grace, that he may continue thine for ever. . . .' In the case of a girl, he substitutes ‘she' for ‘he,' and many bishops insert your name after ‘this thy Child'—I remember having to write mine in large print and hold the paper on the altar rail in front of me so the Bishop could read it.”

“Does your brother have magic?” El demanded.

“Yes, he's a Water Magician—in fact, he's Albert's teacher. I'm a Fire Magician, which is why the old boys' club in London sent me here to continue your training.”

“The White Lodge?” Apparently El had heard that nickname, too. “So you're not here to teach me embroidery?” she asked hopefully.

“I'm going to teach you enough needlework to keep your mother from asking what else I'm teaching you. It's camouflage, like a salamander hiding in the hearth fire. There are things we need to keep secret from your mother, and the easiest way to do that is to playact so that she thinks she's getting what she wants.”

“I don't want to be a girl!” El said petulantly. “Why does Mother think it's so great to be a girl, anyway?”

“Because it's all she's ever known.”

El frowned in thought. “You're saying that she's spent her entire life in a cage, so she never noticed the bars.”

“Exactly.”

“I do see the cage.”

“I know. That's why I'm here.”

 • • • 

When she found El at breakfast in the nursery the next morning, Sophia got a chance to see both what she had looked like when she was first dressed yesterday and what someone, probably her mother, considered suitable clothing for a female child staying at her grandfather's country estate. Granted, the grandfather in question was a duke, but even so . . .

El picked at her breakfast with the scowl that was becoming her habitual expression. “I can't eat in all this clothing. I can barely breathe.”

“I believe you. Are you wearing a corset under that dress?”

“Of course she is,” Nurse said indignantly, “but it's laced so loosely it could almost fall off. She has to learn to be a proper young lady!”

Sophia suppressed her first reaction, which was to say “Not right now, and maybe not ever.” Instead, she smiled at Nurse and asked if she had been nurse to Lady Mary.

“That I was. She's a beautiful lady, but I'm sure we'll be able to make you just as beautiful, poppet,” she said to El.

“I don't want to turn out like my mother!” El snarled. “She's pathetic! Did she really have her lower ribs removed?”

“Young ladies do not discuss things like that.”

“I'm not a young lady; I'm an apprentice physician,” El retorted, “and I know how harmful it is to remove ribs—and it's done for simple
vanity
! There's a reason she spent most of my life in a sanitarium in Switzerland. She doesn't have enough lung capacity to survive even a month in London. That's why Father sent her here.”

From the look on Nurse's face, Sophia suspected there was more to it than that, but all that Nurse said was, “Don't worry, dearie. I'm sure she'll be well enough to be there when you make your curtsy to the Queen.”

“Aaargh!” El flung her spoon into her porridge and ran from the room. Sophia quickly followed. As she went, she sent a mental message to the salamanders that tended to hang around her, asking them to lurk in the household fires—especially in the rooms where the servants were likely to gossip—and pass on to her what they heard.

 • • • 

She caught up with El by the lake. “
Nurse
,” El said bitterly. “
Torturer
would be more like it.”

“She means well,” Sophia pointed out. “She just doesn't understand. At all.” She looked out at the lake. “This is artificial, isn't it?”

“Yes,” El said. “Grandfather had it built. It's odd; water should bother me, because it's my opposing Element, but this feels soothing. Maybe it's because it reminds me of Albert.”

“Water doesn't bother me much, either,” Sophia admitted. “Perhaps the fact that our brothers both have Water Magic either gives us an immunity to the galloping collywobbles most Fire Magicians get, or maybe we have some small amount of Water Magic as well. Do you know how to swim?”

El shook her head. “It's one thing to sit here and look at it, but I have no desire to trust my body to it.”

“Fair enough,” Sophia said, “but you will need to learn to ride if you're going to be living in the country, which means you'll need more practical clothing.”

“Please!” El said with heartfelt sincerity. “Maybe we can get Grandfather on our side. Did you know he's a Water Magician?”

“The Masters in London told me,” Sophia replied. “Is he likely to be any help to us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who
really
runs this household?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who has the power to get things done or changed? Who can modify the official rules or help you slide around them? It's not always the Master or the Mistress; sometimes it's a key servant, like the butler or the housekeeper.”
She thinks of herself as a physician
. “If this were a disease, what are your resources for fighting it?”

“I hear that Grandfather likes chess,” El said thoughtfully. “Do you know how to play, and can you teach me?”

“Yes, yes, and that sounds like a good place to start. In the meantime, we'll work on mollifying your mother. Young ladies are supposed to know how to dance, play the pianoforte, sketch, do needlework, and speak French and Italian. Did you study languages other than Greek and Latin at school?”

“No. Father taught us German, because there are medical books in that language. We picked up some French and Italian, but . . .”

“You learned it from patients at the charity hospital?”

El nodded.

“We'll do a quick run through the textbooks and work on your accent. Both French and Italian have a lot in common with Latin, so you shouldn't have trouble with them. We might be able to persuade your mother to help with the accent; that way she'll feel she's contributing, and if she's been in Switzerland, she's probably been speaking either French or Italian for years.”

“Don't they also speak German in Switzerland?”

“Very good. Yes, they do, but I don't see your mother as a German speaker. She may, however, understand some of it, so don't try to use it as a secret language. If you don't want most of the household to understand you, use Greek.”

“Do you speak Greek?”

“Is my brother a priest?”

“Yes . . . Oh. You studied with your brother, too?”

“Not officially; I didn't get to go to school with him. But we studied together when he was home, and Papa was willing to teach me. He was the vicar in a small town north of Weymouth, and he was willing to teach me anything I could tie in with Bible studies: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, history, geography. . . . Mother made certain I learned all the ladylike accomplishments, so that I could either marry well or be a good governess. So far, I have not met a gentleman I wish to marry.” Sophia stood up. “Let's go see what we can find in the way of language texts.” As El fell into step beside her, Sophia added, “Instead of embroidery, I think I'll start you with needlepoint. It's not fussy, and it can be soothing; I know several men who do it for relaxation.”

 • • • 

Over the next few weeks, El got better at pretending to be a young lady when her mother was around. Fortunately, this wasn't often. Lady Mary saw them for an hour at teatime, during which El wore the dresses her mother had picked out and either read French poetry to her or sat quietly and did needlepoint if Lady Mary had other company. Lady Mary was so impressed with the improvement in her daughter's behavior that she authorized Sophia to buy more clothing for Eleanora. Sophia, who favored the opinions of the emerging Rational Dress movement, got dresses that were much simpler and more comfortable and did not require a corset.

From the salamanders and from her own observations, Sophia was getting a better grasp of the household. The most shocking bit of information was that Lady Mary had not come home from Switzerland because she was cured. She had taken a lover there, and her father had promptly ordered her sent home to her husband, who had sent her back to her father. Word was that the Duke was furious with his daughter, but since he kept to his own rooms, Sophia didn't know this firsthand.

El's other lessons were going well, too. She had, after all, been a trained Fire Mage for several years now. What they were working on most was reestablishing the control that the complete disruption of El's life had shattered.

Unfortunately, there was no way to make El unlearn the things she had learned during the tenure of Sophia's predecessors. Neither Sophia nor El mourned the loss of the wooden paddle that had hung in the schoolroom for generations; that was, it hung there until it suddenly burst into flames when someone with a “firm hand” tried to use it on El. That governess had fled the house shrieking in terror, and she hadn't been the only one. Then there was the governess who had tried for a gentle approach, including stories about beautiful princesses rescued from dragons by handsome young knights.