The Midnight Queen (10 page)

Sophie looked from her sister to Gray, and Gray found his voice again. “She has not c-c-caught cold, Miss C-callender,” he said, ignoring the question of the windows. “She is m-magick-shocked. She needs a hot drink and something to eat—cheese, or cold beef, or—”

“My dear Mr. Marshall, my sister has no more magick than I have,” said Miss Callender, with her father's exaggerated patience.

Gray rather wished that she had witnessed Sophie's display; it might have saved argument. “Miss C-callender, I assure you—”

A small sound from Sophie made him turn round. She was trembling more violently than ever, and—Gray knelt to look more closely, and breathed a few choice curses—a line of bright blood trickled from each of her nostrils.

Apollo, Pan, and Hecate! She will be very ill indeed unless I do something at once.

Sophie touched her upper lip, looked at her reddened fingertips, flinched, and swallowed hard. Her eyes met Gray's, frightened and pleading. Under their gaze, something in him roused itself and shook off the last vestige of concern with propriety.

“Come with me,” he said. Sliding one arm around Sophie's shoulders and the other under her bent knees, he straightened, towering over the protesting Miss Callender. “Rest easy, Sophie. We shall soon have you set to rights.”

*   *   *

In the kitchen Mrs. Wallis and Gray plied Sophie with strong cheese, new bread, ham, and hot sweet tea. She ate eagerly; soon the colour began to return to her cheeks, and her trembling ceased.

Gray had forgotten his own injuries in his fear for her, but with her visible recovery this effect of mind over flesh began to ebb. Using his right hand to pour her a third cup of tea, he winced as each small splinter of glass made itself felt.

“Gray, your arm—your
face
,” said Sophie, repentant. “I am so very sorry. Mrs. Wallis—could you—”

“Of course, dearie,” said the latter—who seemed remarkably unperturbed by the situation. “Whatever was I thinking of? Come 'ere, young man. Let's 'ave a look at you.”

Gray submitted meekly, expecting simply to have his wounds bathed and bandaged. But after rinsing away the blood, the Callenders' cook-housekeeper calmly laid strong, callused fingers against his temple and began drawing out the glass and sealing the cuts with a healer's magick. Gray swallowed astonishment; servant or no, how had such a talent slipped the leash of the College of Healers?

Sophie, scratching at the bridge of her nose, caught his eye and produced a shadow of her usual pert grin.

“One finds magick in the most unexpected places in this house,” she said.

*   *   *

“Sophie,” Gray began, “I owe you an apology.”

“I very nearly put out both your eyes,” said Sophie. “Surely it is not
you
who ought to apologise.”

“Certainly I ought. I ought to have defended you.” Sophie frowned at this, but he went on: “At the very least, I ought to have warned you what might happen.”

She sat up straighter. “Warned me? Do you mean that all the time you were asking me whether I was sure I had no magick, you
knew
?”

“Well,” said Gray. “Not
knew
, as such. In fact, were it not for the excellent Mrs. Wallis, I should have the scars to prove the contrary. But I ought to have done. I have certainly suspected for some time that you were talented—thought you must be—only I did not like to distress you by speaking of it. And I had never guessed that you might be so powerful. I shan't underestimate your capacities again.”

“Gray, stop it,” said Sophie, shifting in her seat. “You make me feel quite frightened.”

“I am sorry for it; but you must understand the implications. Not least, what the Professor may think to do about it. Sophie, in your reading of magickal theory—”

“Wait. Stop. You said you had suspected. What made you suspect?”

“Have you . . . have you never a peculiar feeling, when someone around you is using magick?”

Sophie looked puzzled. “What sort of feeling?”

“I feel it as though all my hairs were standing on end. But others feel it in different ways, and I have met talented people who feel nothing at all. Your father, I think, does not.”

Understanding dawned on her face as he spoke. “I know what you mean now,” she said. “At least . . . you'll think it silly.”

“Indeed I shan't. Wait—” Gray smiled suddenly. “Is it—does your nose itch, just
there
?”

She stared at him, at the finger that touched the bridge of his nose. “However did you know?”

“I've just remembered,” he said. “You were scratching it this morning, when Mrs. Wallis was healing my cuts—and the same that day just after I came here, when I was mending the hats. But the point is that I have
felt
magick being done dozens of times since meeting you, and there was sometimes no other way to account for it, though I could not think at first what magick it was you might be doing. So I ought really to have known that
something
would happen, and warned you.”

“That is unfair,” Sophie protested. “How should you guess that my father would provoke me into breaking windows?”

“And what of this morning? Ought I to have stood there like a stuffed dodo while the Professor—”

“I can fight my own battles, Gray,” she said firmly. “I have done so all my life.”

And when Gray moved to speak, she glared at him. “If you intended to say that they ought to be fought for me because of my sex, you had much better hold your tongue. I should not like to hear you echo the Professor.”

Gray hastened to change the subject. “What did he mean by his ominous hints about your mother?”

“She died when I was eight years old,” Sophie said. “She tried a spell that got out of hand, and it drained her talent and killed her. At least—” She paused, looking thoughtful. “At least, that is the tale the Professor has always told. I begin to wonder, now, how much of it is true.”

“Is there anyone else who might know?” Gray asked. “Miss Callender, or Mrs. Wallis, or . . .”

“Amelia!” Sophie snorted derisively. “And I have asked Mrs. Wallis, and she tells the same tale, but of course with Mrs. Wallis one never knows.”

She was silent for a long moment, apparently lost in thought. Then her brows drew together and she looked up at Gray, dark eyes narrowed. “You said just now—you said you could not think
at first
what magick I might be doing. Does that not mean that today was not the first time? And that you know
now
what it was?” She stopped, still frowning. “Not that I
was
doing magick. I have not the least idea
how
.”

“But you have,” said Gray. He stood, annoyed to find that his legs still trembled, and crossed the room to stand by the large cheval-glass in the corner. “Come—I shall show you.”

Sophie folded her arms. “Show me? Show me what? How?”

“Come,” he repeated, and held out a hand.

With visible reluctance she obeyed. Taking her hand, Gray drew her in front of the mirror, which he tilted so that both of them could see their faces. The part of his mind not focused on conquering Sophie's scepticism appreciated the cool, firm touch of her fingers, and recorded that her hair smelled pleasantly of lavender and rosemary. Then he stepped back to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

Their two faces looked out at them, one scant inches from the top of the glass, the other nearer its centre. Sophie's reflection showed dark eyebrows drawn together above large brown eyes; a face pale and tight-lipped, framed by chestnut-brown curls. “What is it?” the face said, twisting up and around to stare into Gray's.

“Close your eyes,” he said. She did not. He pressed her shoulders very gently. “Trust me, Sophie. For a few moments, no more. I should never ask you to do anything . . . anything
wrong
. You have my word.”

Her eyes closed.

“Now,” said Gray, “think about . . . imagine you were with the Professor now, you and your sister Amelia, all going to dine at the Courtenays', with all their friends. Picture it in your mind, and think how you might feel as you went into the dining-room.”

He knew that she was following his instructions when, in the mirror, her reflection began to change. “Now open your eyes,” he prompted, and she did so.

Now the Sophie in the glass had limp, dun-coloured hair, pale lips, thin and sallow cheeks. Dull eyes blinked in puzzlement. “But that is only
me
,” she said.

“Of course.” Gray nodded. “But bear with me a moment. Think about something that makes you happy—think about singing!—and go on looking in the glass.”

In an eyeblink the reflection changed again: Cheeks plumped and warmed, hair darkened and grew glossy and thick, lips blushed and curved into a smile. The dull eyes grew deep and wide and sparkling.

“Do you see?” Gray asked.

“But,” Sophie said, “anyone's face may change when her . . . her feelings change. Is that not so . . . ?”

“Not as yours does, Sophie,” he said gently. “It is one thing to smile or frown, or blush, or grow pale. This . . . this is altogether different. Do you not see that your very eyes and hair change colours?”

She shook her head.

“I have never seen the like. When it suits you not to be noticed, you blend in. When you are happy . . . Like a human chameleon—you have read of the chameleon? Shape-shifting is one thing, but to do it without the least effort or thought, as you do . . .”

“This is not
shape-shifting
!” Sophie protested, turning to look up at him. “Shape-shifting is powerful magick, difficult magick. I am no chameleon. What you speak of is only . . . it is only . . .”

“I think,” said Gray quietly, “that it is a very rare magick, and a great deal more powerful than mine.”

“But . . .” Sophie turned from him, and from the mirror, and sank down upon the sofa. “Gray, the Professor—he told me—how could he not know of this?”

Of course he knew. He must have known.
And it followed, did it not, that he must have had some strong motivation for keeping that knowledge from the person most concerned. He had kept her so close, in such isolation: why?

Gray had never wished to drag Sophie or her sisters into this whole sordid business. But . . .
I will deal with them both tomorrow,
the Professor had told Mrs. Wallis, in a voice of grim resolve. What had he meant by that? Certainly nothing to Gray's benefit, or, he was reasonably certain, to Sophie's either.

But Gray could say none of this here. Bad enough that he had said so much already; he could not risk discussing such matters where the Professor might have listening-spells in place.
The garden. We shall say that she needed some fresh air.

Leaning down to her ear, he spoke low and urgently. “Sophie, come out to the garden with me. There are things I must tell you.”

In Which Mrs. Wallis Comes to a Decision

“Sophie! Mr. Marshall!”
Joanna's voice, shrill with an anxiety not natural to her, rang out among the shrubberies and floral borders.

“So-
phieeee
!”

Gray and Sophie, out of sight in the little-tended corner they had judged safest from listeners, looked at one another and wondered what to do.

They had spent the past hour seated upon the grass in anxious, whispered conference, Sophie's eyes growing wider and her face paler as Gray related the circumstances and events that had led to his presence in her father's house and the discoveries he had made since his arrival. He wondered that she could so easily credit the bizarre tale he was spinning; Sophie had never struck him as credulous—rather the reverse. But perhaps she heard the desperation of truth in his voice, or perhaps the discovery of her magickal talent had made her more inclined to believe the unbelievable, for she questioned his recital of strange facts and half-proved fancies scarcely at all.

At last he had said, “He has done his best to to make it impossible for me to return to Oxford, but now I believe I must; and now he has threatened both of us—I cannot think it safe for you to remain here, certainly not once he discovers what has happened.”

And Sophie had not looked revolted, or even surprised; she had only looked at him gravely and said, “I should like to see this College of yours.”

Then they had fallen to discussing ways and means.

“There is one of the Professor's riding horses that would be tall enough for you, I think,” Sophie had said, “and only one of the grooms sleeps in the stables at night, and the dogs know me. Do you think, if we were very quiet—and if you were to help me with the tack—might we take two horses without raising the alarm?

“But we must say nothing to Joanna,” she added urgently, as though Gray had been suggesting that they should.

“You cannot be afraid that she would betray you?”

“No,” said Sophie. “That is not what I am afraid of, at all.”

*   *   *

Hearing Joanna calling them ever more frantically, they exchanged a nod of resignation. Gray clambered stiffly to his feet, then reached down to help Sophie; slowly they made their way towards the house.

“What if he is come back already?” she asked suddenly, though they both knew the Professor to be dining at the Courtenays', and likely to return very late or perhaps, as on two previous occasions, not until the morning. “Amelia will have told him everything . . .”

Cautiously, diffidently, Gray put an arm about her shoulders, as he might have done to comfort Jenny or Celia. “You were not frightened of him this morning,” he reminded her.

“I knew so little this morning,” Sophie said. She shivered as they passed the central fountain, with its statuettes of Venus and Adonis. “This morning I thought him only a pompous, petty-minded fool. Now—”

“Soooooo-phie!”
Joanna sounded close to tears.

“Joanna!” Sophie called, pulling away. “Joanna, it's all right—we are here, safe. By the fountain.”

There was a sound, as of running feet and bending branches; after a moment, Joanna's flushed, freckled countenance appeared in a gap between two box hedges, and in another moment she was standing before them, hands on hips, eyes narrowed indignantly. “No one knew where you had gone,” she said accusingly. “I called and
called
. I thought you had been kidnapped, or—” Stopping abruptly, she turned that indignant gaze full on Gray. “Mr. Marshall, you are not
courting
Sophie, are you?”

Gray stared.

At his side, Sophie began to laugh—a muffled, half-manic giggle. He turned slowly to look at her; by now she was gasping for breath, her face pink, her eyes watering. “Sophie,” he said quietly; and then, when she reacted not at all, “
Sophie!
”

She drew a deep, ragged breath and choked back one last giggle. “I am sorry,” she said, hanging her head. Then, after a moment, she calmly extended a hand to her sister. “Come along, Jo, dear. We had best show ourselves before someone else thinks to miss us.”

*   *   *

Miss Callender waited in the hall, in loco parentis, to greet her wayward sisters, and had evidently been marshalling her arguments at leisure for some time.

“Sophia,” she began composedly, her ire evident only in the fingers clenched among the folds of her gown, “Mrs. Wallis tells me that indeed it was
you
and not Mr. Marshall who was responsible for destroying the large drawing-room. She has, however,
refused
to tell me how or, more importantly,
why
you have seen fit to behave in so destructive a fashion. You I trust can offer some explanation?”

Sophie fetched a sigh. “It
was
magick,” she said at once, folding her arms. “Father made me extraordinarily angry, and what you saw was the result. Mr. Marshall assures me that once I have learnt a measure of control, I shall be able to prevent such unfortunate accidents in future.”

For a moment Miss Callender gaped at her sister. Then, as gracefully as if she had rehearsed the motion, she turned to glare at Gray, contriving somehow to look down her elegant nose at him despite her inferior stature.

“Mr. Marshall,” she said—the four syllables carrying a hundredweight of disparagement and scorn—“My father will be
most
displeased that you have encouraged my sister in this
unfortunate delusion
.”

Gray, exasperated by her wilful stupidity, drew breath to retort, but before he could speak, both he and Sophie were shouldered aside by a furious Joanna.

Goddess grant she has not her sister's magick, or we shall all be incinerated where we stand.

“You know
nothing
, Amelia!” Joanna declared. “Nothing about anything! You would not know magick if it slapped your face—you've nothing in your head but frippery and flirtations. You believe every idiotic lie Father tells you, and what's more—”

Miss Callender, pale with rage, raised her hand to strike her youngest sister—Gray heard Sophie's indrawn breath—and, each of them taking one of Joanna's elbows, they half dragged her away towards the relative safety of the kitchen.

“How dare you!” Miss Callender shouted after them, all composure gone. “I shall tell Papa! He will—”

Joanna struggled wildly. “Do as you like!” she cried. “It will not make you one jot less stupid!”

She succeeded in freeing herself of Sophie's grip and made as if to fly at Miss Callender again. “I think not,” said Gray, catching her about the waist with his free arm and slinging her, kicking furiously, over one shoulder. Abruptly she went limp, as though defeated, but Gray's brother Alan had long ago taught him that trick, and he merely tightened his grip about her knees.

*   *   *

Gray deposited Joanna, red-faced with outrage at being carried topside-to, on the flagstones of the kitchen floor, where Mrs. Wallis regarded her with an expression mingling amusement and dismay.

“Now then, Miss Joanna,” she said. “And what 'ave you been and done this time?”

Joanna ceased glowering at Sophie and Gray, the better to glare at Mrs. Wallis. “I
cannot
understand why you must all protect Amelia,” she said. “You know quite well that she would never lift a finger for any of us, and she has always been Father's favourite; it is not as though she needs anyone else on her side. Herne's horns, Sophie! If—”

“Jo
an
na!” Sophie tried valiantly to look disapproving whilst struggling against laughter. “Wherever can you have learnt such language?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a deep flush creeping up Gray's face.

Mrs. Wallis looked hard at Sophie, with an odd abstracted look upon her face. Then she straightened decisively in her chair and cleared her throat.

“We appear to be straying from the matter at hand,” she said crisply. “What have you told Miss Amelia?”

“The truth,” said Gray. “As far as we know it.” He seemed not to notice how little she sounded like herself.

Mrs. Wallis sighed. “Unfortunate,” she said. “I had hoped . . . Well. And what did she make of it?”

“An ‘unfortunate delusion,' I believe she said.”

“Amelia has never been particularly adept at irony,” said Mrs. Wallis, with another weary sigh, “but this time I believe she has surpassed herself.”

*   *   *

“You
knew
,” Sophie choked. “You knew that I was capable of this.” Both girls looked thunderstruck, as though a mainstay of their existence had been violently struck away—as, perhaps, it had.

“I suspected,” Mrs. Wallis amended, still infuriatingly calm. “Something must have happened sooner or later, with so much magick and no training at all. The—that is, your father put all his trust in the interdiction, but—”

“Of course!” The crash of Gray's fist on the tabletop made all of them jump. “An interdiction! First that confounded box-room, and now this house. How
could
I be so stupid? I ought to have recognised it at once.”

“What is an
interdiction
?” Joanna demanded.

“An ambient spell,” recited Sophie, “designed to impede or prevent certain uses of magick.”

“So,” said Mrs. Wallis, nodding in what looked very like satisfaction, “you have made good use of your nights in the library. Well done, Miss Sophia. And what else might you know about interdictions?”

“
That
is why he brought you here,” Sophie said to Gray, ignoring this interruption. “It must be. So as to cripple you, and prevent your telling anyone what you know. An interdiction is not like a protective working—it cannot be attached to a movable object, or imposed on a person without his consent. So he brought you here, and then interdicted the house and grounds—”

“But it was not for
me
, Sophie,” Gray protested. If she had not collected thus much from Mrs. Wallis's earlier assertions, could he convince her? “The Professor may well have interdicted the box-room in his College rooms on my account, but the interdiction here was already in place when I arrived. It was for you.”

“Then,” Sophie began after a long moment, her voice pitched scarcely above a whisper, “then he
did
know. You were right, Gray; he knew all along, and hid it from me. But”—for a moment as imperious as her sister, she rounded on Mrs. Wallis—“but not from
you
.”

“I knew you were talented long before he did, Miss Sophia,” said Mrs. Wallis, meeting her gaze with perfect calm. “Your mother told me, when you were only a babe in arms.”

“My
mother
?” Sophie's face was ashen now, as starkly white as the kitchen walls. Joanna's rapt gaze moved from one of them to the other, as though she watched a duel or a game of tennis. “When I was a babe in arms? But how . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“The present interdiction on this house is the Professor's work,” Mrs. Wallis explained, “but it was meant to replace one worked by your mother, when you were very small. She suspected that you should grow into considerable power; she meant to teach you the use of it, when you reached the proper age, and worked the interdiction to guard against . . . accidents. Accidents of the sort that occurred this morning. Alas, after her death, the Professor . . .” Mrs. Wallis paused delicately. “His talent was never as great as your mother's—an affront on her part which he has never forgiven—and he did not take seriously her predictions with respect to you. And of course, as you know, he does not consider higher magickal teaching appropriate to the female sex.”

Here Joanna made an impolite noise; Sophie seemed about to question some part of what she had heard, but Gray, wishing the tale to continue uninterrupted, laid a hand on her arm.

“He seems to have decided,” Mrs. Wallis said, “that, rather than put himself to the trouble and expense of educating you and teaching you the use of your talent, it would be easiest simply to continue the interdiction, maintain the fiction that you are as untalented as your sisters, and trust that no happenstance should result in the discovery of the truth.”

Again Sophie began to laugh, the sound quickly taking on a manic edge. She controlled herself, however, sufficiently to gasp, “Perhaps he will enjoy the irony—I should never have known, had he not made me so
furious
 . . .”

“On the contrary,” said Mrs. Wallis, “I planned to explain all of this to you when you came of age, when the Professor had no longer any standing to prevent it. In the meantime, you have had the library, and a measure of safety in your innocence, and now”—she nodded at Gray—“it appears that you have also a teacher.”

If she had intended this last as a diversionary tactic, it was extraordinarily effective, for Sophie turned at once to Gray, her eyes widening, and said eagerly, “You will teach me, will you not? I shall have so much to learn. Oh! Shall I be able to call light?”

“I should expect so,” said Gray, answering the second question first, “and I shall do my best, of course, but—”

“But you have just said,” Joanna interrupted him, “that there is a spell upon this house to prevent people from working magick.”

“Evidently,” Gray said, “this interdiction is a selective one, affecting only those acts requiring a very significant expenditure of magick.” Somewhat abashed to find that he had reverted to the formality of the lecture hall, he glanced to Mrs. Wallis for confirmation.

“It is meant to interdict only very powerful spells, yes.” She nodded. “Else it would interfere with the running of the household.”

This was only natural, of course; had the interdiction been worked to affect all magicks, he should not have seen the Professor call fire to light his pipe, could not himself have called light for nocturnal excursions or worked his small spells to unlock doors, should at this moment have been swathed in linen bandages to protect the morning's injuries from infection. And no mage could live comfortably under a total interdiction, as three mages—four, if one included Sophie's mother—had quite evidently done in this house for many years.