Steadfast (23 page)

And it seemed that Jack couldn’t hear enough about her life—or at least the part of
it before Dick. He said wonderful things about her Da and Ma, and he even said he
used to envy Travelers as a boy, always going somewhere new, and doing interesting
things. Romantic, he called it. She doubted that he would have found the going hungry
and cold parts all that romantic, but she wasn’t going to ruin it in his mind.

When Lionel came in, she saw his eyes take in how closely they were sitting together,
and that they were holding hands—and saw little smile-creases appear in the corners
of his eyes. But he didn’t say anything, he just sat down in his chair and let them
separate naturally. For Katie’s part, it was also reluctantly. But it wouldn’t be
proper, nor polite, to act so in front of Lionel, so they both sat back in their chairs,
and she folded her hands in her lap to wait and see what he had to say.

“As I expected, my little library was bereft of information on Fire Magic, except
in how it works with Air Magic,” he said, quite as if he had found them exactly as
he had left them, and not “canoodling,” as Peggy would have called it.

“Well, that’s information we already knew,” Jack pointed out, “Since you and I have
worked together often enough. You’d think there would be more than that in your books.”

“I don’t have a large library, just what I inherited from my uncle,” Lionel said,
“And I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to get more books. Most magicians and
all the Masters are rather cautious about who they talk to about their libraries,
and insist on you coming to them. Then you have to work out if they have a spare copy,
or if they’ll allow you to make a copy, which, since it’s by hand, takes a great deal
more time. These books are not the sort of thing one can pick up in a shop.”

“You would think,” Jack replied, a bit crossly, as Lionel fanned himself, “That the
White Lodge would be a little more helpful in getting books out to the rest of us.
There have to be
some
good general books about all four forms of Elemental Magic, and it’s deuced difficult
for those of us who never saw the magic of another Element to try and help out another
magician. We don’t
all
own family libraries the size of this house, after all! How hard would it be to get
a private printing of some of the more useful pieces and offer it to the rest of us?”

Katie could tell this was a long-held grievance of his. She had the feeling it was
not the first time he’d made this sort of complaint to his friend.

Lionel shrugged. “Well, we are all mere mages, and rather below the notice of the
White Lodge in London unless they happen to need more bodies than there are Masters
hereabouts.” He flicked the fan in the direction of the garden. “We are the sparrows
of the Kingdom, and they are the hawks. It’s quite true that they do good work in
guarding the unknowing herd from nasty things, but I wish they’d remember we do quite
as much as they do, even if we are only eating up the bugs that would spoil the harvest
and not fighting the great monsters. But they never seem to unless something happens
and they find themselves forced to rely on one of us.”

Jack laughed. “Oh, yes, they’re all ‘Tommy go away’ until they need soldiers. And
somehow they never seem to grasp that the soldiers do better when they’ve got the
best guns in their hands.” But he didn’t sound bitter about it. “That’s all right;
I never had that much teaching out of books. Maybe mere mages learn their magic better
and easier by following their instincts and having someone along to guide. Maybe we
don’t need all the rules and faradiddle the Masters seem to think
they
need.”

“It’s entirely possible. I’ve gotten along all my life that way, and so have you.
I think we know more about doing a great deal with a very little, certainly. If ever
they find themselves cut off from the majority of their power, they’d probably be
as helpless as any man you pulled off the street. And most of them are toffs, anyway,”
Lionel said dismissively. “Reasonable, often fairly likeable toffs, but toffs just
the same. It never occurs to them that we’re any different from—oh—a valet. Or a butler.
Useful but not someone you invite for a brandy and a cigar.”

“Hmm hmm,” Jack murmured. “Officers and ge’mun.”

They nodded sagely at each other. Katie felt a little lost, but then, she often felt
that way around men who were great friends—it was as if they had a language all their
own. And they forgot, sometimes, that there was anyone else about.

But it seemed after all that they had not forgotten her, because both of them turned
to her in the next moment.

“So!” Lionel rubbed his hands together, as if he was getting ready to do some great
work. “We’ve made a good start on some basic things, Katie, but you didn’t ask any
questions. Do you have any?”

“You already answered the only ones I had . . . about feeling as if I was full of
Fire somehow, and feeding it off to the salamanders.” She tilted her head to one side,
inviting any further information, if they had any.

Lionel leaned back in his chair. “That, I did find something useful about. It seems
that, now and again, Air magicians are able to do something similar—and Masters of
all four Elements always can. It’s something like this. You evidently have the ability
to store that magic, rather like storing rainwater in a barrel. Jack merely lets the
magic flow through him, rather than storing it, for instance. I do the same. You,
however, hold onto a fair bit of it. There comes a point where you are full, and you
either have to stop taking it in, or drain it off. Working with magic all day for
the first time, you got filled up. You can hold it, but that requires getting used
to holding it. I know it made you feel uneasy.”

She nodded. “A bit. Like I’d et a bit too much. Like I was restless beneath my skin.”

“Well, if you ever have to do something quite large, you’ll need to store it for at
least a while,” Lionel replied, fanning himself. “But for now, you can either drain
it off as you did, by offering it to your Elementals, or you might be able to make
objects to store the magic in, called Talismans.”

“I’ve heard of those. In stories my Ma told me,” she said.

“They’re often spoken of in fairy tales—and you will discover as we go along there
is a great deal that is true in fairy tales.” Lionel gave her a decisive nod. “Making
Talismans is useful, since that allows you to keep extra magic about if you need it,
but it’s dangerous, because such things tend to attract people and things that want
the magic for themselves. It’s difficult to shield them, impossible to hide them if
you can’t shield them. Unless you are making some just before a great work, I find
they are more trouble than they are worth.”

“The Masters feel differently, of course,” Jack interrupted. “But then the Masters
can do a lot of things we can’t, including making shields for things that are permanent
and don’t need work or thinking about.”

Lionel went on. “Feeding your Elementals is useful, since it will cause them to think
very highly of you, and will make them more inclined to help you when you need it,
but some might consider it wasteful, as opposed to making Talismans, which will certainly
be useful to you at some time or other.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not me. I’d rather have friends than things.”

“Well said.” Lionel looked very satisfied. “And on that happy note, shall we have
our tea? I think Mrs. Buckthorn has just finished laying it out.”

After tea, they practiced the shields and magic-gathering more—or rather, Katie practiced
while Lionel and Jack watched. This time, now that she was aware of it, she could
actually
feel
how she was drinking in the magic power she didn’t use in making the shields. And
when she started to feel tired again, with their encouragement, she called a couple
more of her salamanders and fed them—and this time they were joined by a handful of
shy little Fire sprites, and a glowing bird.

Once again, when she was done, she was ravenous. “Why am I so hungry?” she asked,
as they went in to a lovely cold supper, complete with ice cream. This was a treat
that Katie had seldom enjoyed—it was far too expensive for her parents to have gotten
for her more than twice, both times being on her birthday, when they had all been
at a Fair.

“You’re hungry, because it takes
physical
energy to move
magic
power,” Jack explained, as they helped themselves off the buffet; lovely cold asparagus,
and several kinds of pickles, cress and cucumber sandwiches, cold ham, cheese, cold
boiled eggs, sliced tomatoes. “That’s why we tell new magicians that they should never
do with magic what they can do with their hands. It might look a treat to snap your
fingers and light a candle, but it pulls more strength out of you to do that than
it would to walk down to the shops, buy some matches, walk back and light the candle
with one of those. So, you’ve been working as hard as if you were dancing, and now
you’re hungry.”

“Couldn’t I—I don’t know—use the magic? Eat it like food or something?” she wanted
to know. “I’d rather eat
real
food, it’s much nicer, but it would be good to know if I could.”

They all sat down at the table. Mrs. Buckthorn had already eaten, since they had gone
past their usual supper time, so it was just the three of them, as the shadows deepened
outside, and the bit of sky you could see through the dining room window turned to
a darker blue. Definitely sunset. “Supposedly, yes,” Lionel said. “Supposedly, there
are mystics who can do that. I’ve never known any, I’ve never
met
any, and I suspect they need at least a little real food to turn the trick. Most
of them are supposed to be in India and China, and it could be like all of those stories
out of India and China, all bosh.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and tucked into the repast.

Jack offered to accompany her back to the boarding house; the idea of him stumping
painfully along beside her made her ache for him, but she forced a light laugh. “Oh,
no need, and I
know
you two are buzzing inside with all the business you want to discuss without me being
here. True?”

The sheepish looks on their faces told her that she had struck the mark fair.

“All right then, tomorrow is a working day, so I will let you get to that, and
I
will get myself some sleep so I am fit for double duty!” She saluted them with two
fingers, as the saucy little chorus girls did in their “Only The Admiral’s Daughter”
number. “Don’t stay up too late!” she said, and Mrs. Buckthorn let her out.

•   •   •

•   •   •

She went to bed happy, and dreamed again, dreamed of all those fiery creatures, but
this time, they were clearly pleased with her. She walked through a space in which
they all had gathered, an arrangement of rocks and gigantic crystals in pleasing shapes,
although she couldn’t tell from the darkness overhead if she was indoors or out—or
if here there was any real difference between the two. The ground was a sort of soft
sand without any rocks or sharp things in it. When she entered the space, it was as
if she was entering something that was not as special as a party, but not as ordinary
as a simple crowd, the sort you might encounter around a village inn.

This time, she was something of the center of attention. The ones that had been aloof
smiled at her, or gave the impression of smiling. The ones that had been shy flitted
around her. The ones that had been friendly flocked to her like the little birds Jack
had described eating out of his hand.

It was the happiest dream she had ever had in her life. It was as if she was at a
gathering full of good friends, all of whom were fond of her.

These were the Fire Elementals in their true forms; she understood that now. Waking,
she could only see them imperfectly—sleeping, she was somehow able to slip over into
their
world and walk among them. They were pure, innocent in a way no mortal person she
had ever met could be innocent, not even a child. Despite the fact that some of them
were clearly far, far more powerful than she could even dream, her overwhelming impulse
regarding them was to
protect
them.

It was in that moment of realization of how truly innocent these beings were that
she knew, this time in her heart and without reservation, that Jack was right. That
no matter how much she hated Dick—no matter how much she wanted to be rid of him—no
matter how badly he hurt her—she could not bear to let that innocence be ruined by
turning them into murderers on her behalf.

Even as she thought that, she felt something . . . enormous . . . looming up behind
her back. She turned, quickly, and saw something like a huge, jeweled column reaching
upward. Except it wasn’t a column, and those weren’t jewels. It was a neck and chest,
supported by two legs that ended in clawed talons, each talon as long as her arm,
talons as clear and glittering as crystal, and the jewels were actually scales covering
the creature that sparkled and scintillated with power.

She gasped a little, and her gaze was drawn up and up—and the creature bent its long,
long neck and looked down at her, as flaming wings fanned out to either side of it.

Now she knew what it was. It was a dragon, a white dragon, though it reflected every
color she could name and some she couldn’t in its iridescent scales. It brought its
head down until she was almost nose-to-nose with it, and the hot scent of its breath
was in her nostrils. It breathed over her, and her hair floated away behind her from
the gentle force of its breath, hot, and spicy.

“Show me your thoughts,”
the dragon breathed, whispering aloud.

She could no more have resisted that demand than she could have resisted a flood sweeping
her away. She felt her mind fall open, and sensed the dragon poring over what it found
there, turning over this and that bit, quite as if it was examining its own treasure-hoard.
Strangely, she didn’t mind; not when it turned over the thoughts she’d been having
about Jack, not when it stirred the memories of Dick, not when it reached back and
looked through her eyes as a child.