Steadfast (21 page)

Oh she was a right little heathen, she was. He could see the rebellion in her eyes.
She didn’t like that, and she didn’t agree with it, not one bit. He
could
sympathize, but he shouldn’t.

“Let’s go back to that dog,” he said. “What do you think people do about a dog that
has attacked a person—even if the dog was defending the person?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never had a dog,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“They kill it,” he said, bluntly. “Dogs aren’t given trials.”

“But—that’s not fair!” she blurted immediately. “If the dog—”

“The dog has learned it is acceptable to attack a human, and
you
have shown you can’t or won’t control him,” he pointed out bluntly. “Now, perhaps
nothing will happen. Perhaps he will continue to be a good dog and loyal, and only
attack when provoked or in defense of you. But perhaps he will not. Perhaps, now that
he has learned he can attack a human and not be punished for it, he will decide that
the next time a human has something he wants, he will take it. Perhaps that human
will be a child, or a woman. Constables will not take such a risk, although,” he added
with a touch of bitterness, “If you are sufficiently wealthy and the dog is sufficiently
valuable, they will believe everything you say and merely demand that the dog be kept
muzzled at all times. The laws that apply to the rest of us often do not seem to apply
to the titled and wealthy.”

She nodded, and did not appear shocked at such sentiments. Well, she was a Traveler,
after all, and Travelers were well-schooled in the lesson that there were those with
privilege and there were those with none—and the Travelers were in the latter group.

“But that is neither here nor there,” he continued. “Elementals do not think as we
do. We don’t know how intelligent—or not—they are. We don’t know what the consequences
would be for some of them to learn they can harm humans at will. We
do
know that there
are
Elementals of all four sorts that hate humans, and will take any opportunity to harm
them.”

She gaped at him. “There are?”

He nodded. “Terrible things have happened when such creatures were given the power
by a magician or a Master of wicked intent to wreak their will on the world. And we
do not know
how
they came to be this way. Did it begin as something as simple as—defending a friend?
Like the dog? Once they travel that road, do they turn into something evil?”

“You don’t know that they do!” she protested.

“And we don’t know that they don’t.” He shook his head. “I have seen what happens
when men who were once good become used to doing terrible things. The war in Africa—I
don’t pretend to be a politician. I don’t know if Britain was wrong to be there, or
right. But I do know this; we were ordered to do increasingly terrible things there,
we Tommies. They told us that because the Boer men kept slipping off into the bush
to fight us, that we had to take all but the barest means to survive from the women
and children on the farms, because the farms were clandestinely supplying the men.
Then they told us that since that wasn’t working, we had to burn the farms out. Then
they told us since
that
wasn’t working, we had to round up the women and children, throw them into prison
camps where they starved, and if they didn’t starve, they died of disease.”

The words had come hard to him; they came hard every time he had to speak them. He
loved his country and his King—then, Queen. He just didn’t like what he’d been asked
to do. It had made him sick then; it still made him sick, and the fact that he himself
had not been
personally
forced to do those things did not make him any less sick about it. Because that had
all been luck—and he had seen what had happened to those who had.

•   •   •

Katie really knew nothing of what went out outside of the places she herself had lived
and roamed. She’d known there had been a war, and that it had been in Africa—but that
was all she knew.

But this man, this fine man who she trusted, and who had become her friend—it was
that war that had taken his leg, and from the sound of it, had inflicted an even deeper
wound on his spirit.

Then he told her what men like him had been forced to do, and it shocked her to the
core. The pain in his voice, on his face . . .

It made her hurt
for
him.

“I never had to do any of that,” he was saying, though from the sound of it, he might
just as well have done. “I was lucky, or maybe my Elementals twisted my luck to keep
me from it. But I knew men who did, and . . . it changed them, Miss Kate. It changed
them, and mostly for the bad. Some, it made harder; those were the worst, I think.
It made them hard, made them into men who were sure, as sure as they were that the
sun came up in the east, that anyone who wasn’t British was . . . only a little higher
than a beast, and deserved whatever the Crown decided to do to him. Self-righteous
they became . . . and as a consequence, were anything
but
righteous.” He passed a hand over his face; his complexion was a little gray. “Some
went mad—a bit, or a lot. Their minds just couldn’t take the cruelties they were asked
to do. Some just deserted, ran out into the bush and either joined the Boers or went
native. Most are like me; torn up inside, trying to reconcile what they think they
are with what they did.”

He shook his head again. “That is what I am trying to tell you, Miss Kate. That is
what doing as you were done by does to you. It eats your heart. It’s like acid in
your soul.” He looked into her eyes. “Miss Kate, it changes you. And if it changes
you, it changes the Elementals even more. Would you want that? Think of them—if you
won’t think of yourself, think of them, and ask yourself if you want to change them
for the bad that way, and have
that
on your conscience.”

Suddenly she found words coming out of her mouth that she had no intention of saying.
“I’m married, Mister Prescott,” she heard herself saying, her voice gone hard and
bitter. “I’m married to a wicked man, a brute. A man who hurt me, and scared me, a
man who took the money I earned and spent it on whores and gin. A man who might well
kill me for running from him. Are you saying that I don’t have the right to defend
myself from him if he comes for me? Are you saying I should just lay down and let
him beat me or kill me? That I shouldn’t let this power I have defend me?”

She couldn’t believe she had just said that. She was thinking it, of course, but she
couldn’t believe she had just come out and
said
it.

She expected him to—well, lecture her, or something. Tell her that she was wrong and
she should go back to her husband, that he was her rightful superior and she must
have done something wrong to make him beat her. That it was her duty, since she had
married him, to be and do whatever he said. That—well, all the usual things.

But he didn’t. Instead, he sighed, and looked as if all the pain of the world was
weighing on him.

“Miss Kate,” he said, wearily. “You still have a choice.
You
know you do. You can ask your Elementals to watch for him and warn you of him, so
you can run from him. You can get a divorce, and then if he lays a hand on you, it’ll
be the law on him. You can take ship for another country—I’m sure you have enough
money by now, or will soon. You can hide. You probably have a dozen things you can
do, if you need to. Or . . . you can ‘defend’ yourself by letting yourself get so
angry that your Elementals kill him for you, knowing that is what you are doing. And
that would be murder on your part, and it would corrupt them. And you know it.”

She felt her face flushing, partly in anger and partly in shame. Because she knew
he was right.

She hated it, but she knew he was right.

“It’s
not fair,”
she said, sullenly and angrily. “It’s
not fair.
Why is it that he can do whatever he wants, and I can’t?”

“Because you are good, Kate,” Jack said quietly, putting one hand over hers as she
clenched them together. “Because you are good, and he is not. It’s always harder to
be good. But it’s worth it, in the end.”

The touch of his hand on hers was unexpected, and so was the effect. She went very,
very still, shocked into stillness by the strange, almost electric feeling that came
over her from that touch. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Everything
came into sharper focus, and she was aware of a thousand tiny little things—mostly
about him. How gentle his hand was, so unlike Dick’s, as if her hands were fragile
flowers he was being careful not to crush. How there were lines of pain that made
his face look older than he really was—but lines of laughter, and smile lines about
his mouth, too. How everything about him was
clean,
trim, and in order—and nothing could have been more in contrast with Dick’s slovenliness.
Merely looking into his eyes put fire in her veins.

“Kate,” he said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “We care about you. We don’t want
you lost. We’ll help you, but it’s you that has to make the choice.”

“What choice?” she asked, choking a little on the words.

“Joy instead of anger. Peace instead of hate. Come to your magic like a child would,
happy in the new gift, and master it as an adult does, with reason and control. Give
over the anger. Let go of the pain so it stops blinding you, and you can see all the
other choices you have. I know it’s hard, mortal hard, but it’s worth it. Trust me.”

And she did trust him. Reluctant though she was . . . because the anger had been what
had saved her in the first place, and propelled her out of Dick’s clutches and onto
the road. Fear had only kept her paralyzed. Anger had given her strength.

“Anger will burn out and leave you with nothing, Kate,” he said, as if he was reading
her mind. “These past few weeks—have you
needed
that anger? No. Have you even felt it? I don’t think so. And aren’t you the better
for that?”

She couldn’t argue with that, either. It hadn’t been anger that had helped her create
those dances. It hadn’t been anger that had propelled her steps on the stage.

Slowly, she let out her breath.

“I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll try.”

And another electric thrill passed through her as he tightened his hand slightly on
hers. “That’s all I ask, Kate. That’s all anyone could ever ask.”

11

J
ACK felt as if he had just fought a major battle as he stumped back to his desk. He
was exhausted, but filled with a sense of triumph.

And filled with something else as well . . .

Something he really didn’t want to think about just at this moment, when the performers
were coming back from tea (or the pub) and he had to guard the door like the proverbial
dragon against interlopers.

Already word had gotten around about “the Russian’s” performance. This hall was too
small to rate a review yet—not unless she generated enough of a sensation on her own.
Perhaps the third week in, the papers would get around to sending their reviewers.

But there were people out there buying tickets for the evening performance because
of what they had heard in their boarding houses last night. And he knew this, because
of what the chorus girls and band members were saying as they trickled in; some of
them
could always be counted on to linger at the ticket booth just to hear what people
were saying. It made for great gossip fodder if there was someone they didn’t much
like.

Or, in this case, if it was someone they liked, like Katie, it made for something
cheerful to gush about. Plus . . . well, there was always the chance that if Katie
started filling the hall to overflowing, Charlie might put on another couple shows,
which would mean more money for everyone. Toffs sometimes hired on part of a music
hall show on a dark day to entertain at parties—so far that hadn’t happened very often
within Jack’s memory, but if Katie proved popular enough, that would provide another
source of income.

“There’s a
line,
Jack, wouldjew berlieve it?” one of the girls gushed as she edged past the desk.
“There ain’t been a
line
at the box since . . . well, since Charlie managed to get George Lashwood!”

Jack remembered that well. Like too many performers, Lashwood had been a bit improvident,
and his solution to the problem was to double-book himself, doing two halls a night—an
early one here, then his regular, and an “after midnight” show at the Brighton Hall.

Well, this was a good sign. He wouldn’t count on it, though, and he wouldn’t tell
Katie yet. It might be a fluke. He didn’t want to get her hopes up.

Nor to give her stage fright, either.

For a brief moment, he felt a sense of dislocation—not uncommon among Elemental Mages,
actually. Here he was, worrying about the box office and popularity of his friend
Katie—his friend Katie, who could, if she decided that was what she wanted and persuaded
her Elementals to help, probably burn this music hall to the ground. He and every
other Elemental Magician led double lives, balancing the “real world” against the
other that they lived and worked in. And sometimes that other world seemed . . . insane.
Impossible.

Just for a moment, then everything would settle into place again, and he would be
back to juggling the two sides.

He was just grateful that tomorrow was a dark day. It could not have been timed more
perfectly to get the lesson home to the girl while she was still open to it.

•   •   •

Katie was both glad and sorry that tomorrow was a dark day. Glad because at least
she would not have to juggle the magic business with the vastly more important business
of properly getting her
job
done. Sorry because she just knew that Jack and Lionel were going to make a full
day of it for her. She’d get no rest this dark day . . .

“Lionel’s, eight in the morning, Katie,” Jack murmured to her as she bid him good
night, wishing that she could think only of what Mrs. Baird was going to be offering
for supper.

“Eight in the morning. I’ll be there,” she said, then added rebelliously. “But he
had better give me breakfast! Mrs. Baird doesn’t serve so early.”

Jack chuckled dryly; the sound teased a smile out of her.

“You strike a hard bargain, Kate,” he said. “I’ll let him know.”

And then she was out into lamp-lit streets, which, on any other summer than this one,
she would have thought unusually warm. But compared to the baking heat of the day,
well, this was the closest thing to “cool.”

She passed a newsboy, still out and crying his headlines. There was a lot about strikes—strikes
at the coal mines, threatened strikes at the docks. Then one caught her attention.

A rail strike.

“Holiday towns” like Brighton and Blackpool depended on the railways. It was the only
way that people who couldn’t afford to keep their own automobiles and carriages could
get to the seaside for a week or so. What would happen if there
was
a rail strike? It was no good saying that people that were stuck here would come
to the Boardwalk and the halls! They wouldn’t be able to afford to—they’d have spent
all their holiday money and would frantically be trying to figure a way to stretch
whatever they had with them, or to find a way back. The last thing on their minds
would be spending more money to go to a music hall.

Was Charlie aware of this? Was Lionel?

She realized a moment later that she was standing still in the street, and people
were giving her peculiar looks as they had to get around her. She hurried her steps
to the boarding house.

Once there, she discovered that the topic of heated conversation around the table
was not any of the impending strikes, but the heat itself. “. . . niver thought I’d
be asking to wear
less,”
one of the girls was saying as Katie came in. “I’m telling you, they are right daft,
thinking we can go prancin’ about in fur and all in
this
heat!”

As Katie had suspected, the Russian craze was taking its toll on chorus dancers and
acrobats being asked to pass as foreigners. Katie was all the more happy with Charlie
now, who had consulted with Mrs. Littleton and seen to it that his chorus dancers
were not going to expire of heat under layers of velvet and fur more suited to the
bitterest winter than the hottest summer on record.

The bathroom was very crowded, and for once the girls stripped to almost nothing without
shame in order to get themselves at least a cooling sponge bath in a basin, if they
couldn’t get a soak in the tub. Nor did most of them trouble to do more than wrap
the thinnest of wrappers over themselves to go upstairs to their rooms.

Katie counted herself wise that she had taken her bath before supper, rather than
after, and went straight up wishing that she was an Air Magician and could conjure
a breeze, rather than Fire.

But then she remembered Jack’s lessons, and instead of trying to fight the heat, she
embraced it, lying down on the still-made-up bed, and reminding herself of how good
the heat would feel if it were winter, not summer.

The trick worked, and she fell asleep immediately.

On waking, she felt cool and refreshed, rather than hot and sticky as she had yesterday
morning. There definitely was power in Jack’s tricks. And . . . maybe there was power
in the other things he’d talked about yesterday. Usually she had at least one uncomfortable
dream every night, if not a nightmare. Last night—nothing. She’d slept as easily as
she used to as a child in the caravan.

Mrs. Baird was only just putting out the breakfast things—Katie had fibbed just a
little about that—and Katie was happy to sit down to tea and fruit and a little toast.
All that dancing was certainly giving her an appetite; she got up still feeling hungry,
and started toward Lionel’s house certain that when she got there she could easily
eat a second breakfast without thinking about it.

When she arrived, Jack let her in, and she and he proceeded to the dining room to
smell the heavenly aroma of bacon wafting down the hall.
Does anything smell as good as bacon?
she thought. Still, she wouldn’t have wanted bacon or anything else heavy if she
was going to be in the hot theater all day, but they would, presumably, be spending
their time here, in Lionel’s cool little house, and the bacon and eggs and all the
other lovely stuff that was waiting on the sideboard were so welcome that her stomach
gave a little growl in anticipation.

Lionel was already eating; Jack had obviously gotten up from his breakfast to let
her in. She helped herself and joined them. She had to admit that the male habit of
eating in silence and devoting yourself to your food was a rather nice change from
the twittering chorus that accompanied breakfast and supper at Mrs. Baird’s.

Only when everyone was satisfied and Jack and Lionel were sitting back and nursing
cups of tea did anyone speak.

“Today will be a real day of magic lessons, Kate,” Lionel said. “We need to show you
how to shield yourself, first of all, for if you are feeling very strong emotions,
Fire shields will protect the Elementals from your feelings, as well as being able
to prevent other magicians from finding you, and protecting you in part from attack.”

“Wait—” she said. “Prevent other magicians from finding me? Attack?”

“I told you that you don’t want to go down the wrong path, Miss Kate,” Jack replied.
“There are those that will take your power if they can, and kill you if they can’t
have it, for fear that one day you might come to kill them. That’s what happens when
you go down the wrong path, you see. You start to look at everyone with power as either
someone to take advantage of, or as an enemy.”

It flashed into her head that this was
exactly
how Dick viewed the world. Everyone he met was either to be used, done away with,
or, if they were too strong, placated until he could find a way to get things out
of them.

“So, your best defense is not to be seen. Let’s go down to the garden room, I’ll show
you how to see Fire Magic, you might be able to see Air as well, and then we’ll show
you how to make something out of your magic that will protect you and keep you from
being seen.” Jack set aside his cup, stood up, and gestured to her to go along ahead
of him.

The rest of the morning was spent in that surprisingly pleasant task. When Lionel
described what this magical energy was supposed to look like, she had another revelation.

“It’s a sort of shimmer around everything alive, isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “And drifts
of faint color in the air, like oil on water!”

Jack and Lionel exchanged a look. “You’ve seen this before?” Lionel asked.

“All the time when I was a child. I suppose I just stopped looking for it when we
got into towns; it’s harder to see there. It’s hard to see anyway; easier to not look
when it doesn’t really mean or do anything.” She sucked on her lower lip, furrowed
her brows, and
looked
for the shimmer without being asked to. It felt for a moment as if something was
fighting her, as if she was trying to open eyes that had been stuck shut, but then
there was a sense of something unfolding—and she could see it again!

Jack smiled. “I can tell by your face you’ve got the trick again,” he said. “Now that
you can see it, we can show you how to use it.”

He showed her how to gather it—to her disappointment, she could only see the red mist
of Fire energy clearly—she could only manage a faint blue hint of Air, and nothing
at all of Water and Earth. He showed her how to move it about, how to concentrate
it, and just the beginnings of how to shape it. Two salamanders watched with silent
interest, but neither moved nor interfered.

That was when Lionel decreed that they would break for luncheon and a rest; it was
only when he did that Katie realized she was as tired as if she had been rehearsing
all morning.

Luncheon had been set up on the sideboard, and rather than being the large, hot meal
Lionel usually served, this was a buffet of cold foods. She was grateful for that.
She felt . . . oddly warm. Oddly, because she wasn’t
uncomfortable,
and it was a peculiar sort of warmth, not like a fever exactly, but as if she herself
were containing fire.

And that wasn’t uncomfortable, either. Just . . . different.

After luncheon, Lionel decreed a rest, which relieved her. She wasn’t at all sure
she could go back to work right away. As Lionel and Jack settled into their favorite
chairs for a read—and probably, she thought shrewdly, a surreptitious nap—she went
out into the overgrown garden with a pillow and a rug.

Throwing the rug down over the thick grass gave her a surprisingly comfortable place
to lie down. She did so, and closed her eyes, relaxing and concentrating at the same
time as Jack had shown her, trying to “see” what it was that was making her feel so
odd. Eventually she drifted into a state of half-asleep, half-awake.

Drifting in a state that was not quite dreaming, slowly, a picture built up in her
mind. Her veins, running with fire. Her body, every bit of it hazed with fire. It
was as if there were two of her, both contained in her skin, one of flesh and one
of fire.

It was . . . fascinating.

It was beautiful.

She could scarcely believe it was her, and yet, in this half-dreaming state, she understood
that not only
was
it her, she was going to have to do something to dampen it all down again. She wasn’t
uncomfortable now, but before too very long she would be. Then it would be painful.
Then . . .