Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters (14 page)

“Myfanwy? Myfanwy!”

Glyn was there, cradling her. In the faint illumination of the lamps near the mine entrance, she saw that his beautiful face was streaked with soot and exhaustion. Saw that the press of the earth had weakened him—Air Magicians didn’t thrive well so far down below.

But he was alive, and they were in each other’s arms, and that was all that mattered.

Until a moment later when agony consumed her, and she screamed.

“What is it?” Glyn’s voice barely penetrated the pain. She felt as if her scalp were aflame, searing and blistering. Even the chilling rain failed to put out the excruciating fire.

Still, she clung to his voice. Dimly she was aware of the river-horse, rising from the canal nearby, and the Water Elementals, fragmented as they were in the raindrops that hammered around her. From them, she was able to choke out what was happening.

“Your hair.”

Glyn’s words made no sense. Her hair, short as it was now, was plastered to her head. It wasn’t on fire, searing her scalp.

“Siwan must have discovered the rope you made. She kept your hair because she could use it to bind you to her. It was her last resort in case you broke free of her. She’s burning your hair, Myfanwy.”

Her back arched as she writhed in pain. She didn’t know how to stop it, how to end it, how to—

Then she felt the Elementals of Water surround her again, nymph and dryad and naiad and river-horse, before they dove into the water and sped toward Castell Coch, and somehow she knew that the sylphs and other Air Elementals did the same.

It was the last thing she knew before she fell, blissfully, unconscious.

*   *   *

“Myfanwy.”

She rose out of the depths of sleep, reaching toward the voice she knew.

The voice of the man she’d realized, just before agony struck, that she loved.

She opened her eyes. She didn’t recognize the room she was in—a hotel, she guessed, with soft white sheets and the scent of tea in the air.

She reached a hand to her head. It ached, but didn’t burn. Her short hair was there, her scalp was unblistered.

Seeking answers, she fell into Glyn’s blue eyes.

Siwan’s body had been found in the banqueting hall of Castell Coch. She’d been burning something in the massive fireplace when, according to suggested reports, a surge of wind had blown down the chimney and the flames had escaped, consuming her.

But even more odd was the fact that the flames had gone out, that they weren’t what had caused her death.

That doctors had determined (and Glyn hinted that the doctors had been members of the Council) Siwan had actually died of drowning, her lungs filled with water.

“Well,” Myfanwy said finally, “I suppose I have no home now.”

“You can go wherever you wish,” Glyn said. “There are people in London who wish to meet you—and who can provide the rest of your training.”

“What about Rhian?” She couldn’t abandon her maid, not when she’d been so protective and kind.

“She’ll accompany you—after all, a lady needs her trusted servant.”

“And what about you?” she asked.

He smiled, and her heart thumped. “I think perhaps you’d need someone to show you around the city, if you’d have me.”

Myfanwy smiled. “I would like that.”

She would also, she thought, like to meet the river-horses who lived in the Thames.

She would like to get on with her life.

The Phoenix of Mulberry Street

Michele Lang

New York City

November, 1885

The little match girl stood on Mulberry Street between Houston and Bleecker Street, near the Central Office of the Police Headquarters of New York. The sight of her stopped young Fire Mage Jane Emerson in her tracks, on the threshold of the offices of the
Daily Clarion
.

The day was fading, and a cold wind whipped down Broadway, chilling Jane to the marrow. The Central Office rose up behind the shadowed figure across the street, a whited sepulcher of brick and marble. The little girl reminded her of the Biblical plague of hail, the fire inside magically enclosed in ice, striking the land of Egypt and destroying it. She shuddered at the image that rose in her mind: New York City pummeled by an icy storm such as they had just experienced, then immolated by a hidden fire.

The moment passed, and Jane stood on the threshold of the Clarion Building, trembling. She steeled herself against the sight of the girl—she saw the same or worse in the slums of the Tenth Ward every day of her working life. She could not do her work as a reporter for the
Daily Clarion
if she stopped in her path to help every orphan she encountered on the way.

And yet, this little mite . . . something about the child both frightened and compelled her.

Jane tore her gaze away from the girl and directed her steps to the doors of the
Daily Clarion
, where her employer and mentor waited for her report on the crisis at hand.

For the news she had uncovered was indeed a crisis. It threatened all of New York. She barged into Daniel Tappen’s corner office without knocking, unafraid of baiting the lion in his very den.

He raised a sardonic eyebrow when he saw who it was who had dared to invade his
sanctum sanctorum
. “Ah, Miss Emerson,” he said, his voice dry as vermouth. “I expect you have some news for me this afternoon?”

Jane colored at the flash of his flat, blue eyes, at the amusement playing like a shadow over his thin, patrician’s lips. She reminded herself that as his protégée, their relationship was strictly one of mentor and apprentice.

On the surface, in public, to the untrained eye. To the magical one, it was instantly clear that Mr. Tappen and Miss Emerson were linked together by the deepest, most magical ties.

Daniel Tappen, scion of Old New York, had pledged to teach his ward, Jane Emerson, how the other half lived, in the hopes that conditions in the slums could be improved. More than this, as an Air Mage, he had promised his sister to mentor and perhaps even tame the untrained power of the girl’s Fire magic. Miss Emerson, latent Fire Master and wielder of a dangerous inferno of magic, was too much for his sister’s placid Earth magic to contain and guide.

Their circle of Walden Pond mages had taught Miss Emerson in Boston as best as they could, but Jane’s spirited nature and immense promise could not fully flower under the tutelage of Mrs. Polly March, Mage of Earth. Daniel’s magic, of Air, had more affinity with Jane’s. But their magic was not the same.

Still and all, he had taught her the basis of all magical arts, all that he knew of the lore of binding, shielding, spellcasting, and healing.

But Jane wanted more, chafed under the strictures of her youth, her sex, and the limitations of her teachers. Mr. Tappen had told her that he knew a powerful Fire Master in London, Lord Alderscroft, and he hoped to send Jane across the sea to finish her education under his supervision.

Until then, she had more to learn from the streets of New York than anywhere else.

“I do have news,” Jane said. “I think I know who is behind the tenement fires.”

Daniel’s eyes sparkled. “I trust you have corroborated your sources, Jane?”

“I spoke with some of the ladies of the evening who know the Tenth Ward like the inside of their eyelids. And I spoke with some firemen who were so angry at the fires that they were tempted into . . . impertinence.”

Daniel sighed. “You understand that it is you who are playing with fire.” They both knew he wasn’t speaking in metaphors.

But Jane pressed on with her tale regardless. “Yes, they believe that it is arson. And it is my conclusion that these fires are the manifestation of Fire magic employed for foul ends.”

“I fear that is the case as well. But proving the source is another matter.”

“My ladies of the night told me that, despite the violence of the blaze at the shirtwaist factory last week, there were no strangers at the scene—nobody at all. Yet the fire was clearly arson, the firemen told me. And the orphanage, just last night . . .”

Jane could no longer keep her voice from shaking in outrage. It was one thing to burn down a business—terrible to put working folk out of their jobs, and dangerous to other buildings standing nearby—but at least a rapacious motive made some earthly sense. But to deliberately set fire to a building filled with innocent children . . . the thought made her seethe with anger.

“I take it the orphanage blaze was arson as well.”

“Yes, that is what the firemen said, and they weren’t shy about telling me the
modus operandi
was the same in all of these fires. They could not pinpoint the accelerant, no matter how ardently they tried. But it was Fire magic, I am sure! A Fire Mage of some kind has deliberately set these fires, destroyed lives and property, for ends that I can only imagine. Furthermore, I believe our Fire Mage is a financial giant of some kind.”

“Be careful now, Miss Emerson,” Tappen said. “You know as well as I do how many powerful interests vie for control of this city, even of the poorest precincts that provide political power. If you point your finger, in print, at one of these titans and cry murder, you realize that you are not merely twisting the tiger’s tail. The power of the press will not protect you in the end, or me.”

“But unless these crimes are exposed to the scrutiny of decent people, what is the point of a free press, sir? We have enough evidence to publish. Please allow me to write up the story, at least.”

Daniel sighed. “You don’t have enough to go to press, not enough for a paper that circulates among ordinary people. You may well have uncovered the crimes of a wielder of Fire magic. But unless you can prove with hard, mundane facts what you know only through magical means, we do not have enough to make a story.”

Jane could have cracked a tooth in her jaw-clenching frustration. “I understand,” she finally said. “You are not putting the kibosh on the story, merely demanding that I further corroborate what we already know. But it is murder, Daniel!”

Two orphans had died in the blaze, despite the children somehow having gotten advance warning before the fire roared through their dwelling. Jane could not bear the thought of standing by and not doing everything she could to stop the carnage before the arsonist struck again.

“Do you even have the name of the arsonist?” Daniel asked, an edge creeping into his voice.

Jane restrained a smile. If she was getting under the skin of her famously even-tempered mentor, she had achieved some kind of topsy-turvy victory, anyway. “I don’t have the name. But I have the profile and the motive, and a short list of suspects. This Fire Mage must have some financial interests that are in opposition to the places of business that have burned. And as for the tenements, the orphanage . . . the destruction of these poor people’s lives must also benefit the arsonist. In what way, I am not sure. But I propose to find out.”

“How?”

It was a simple but frustrating question. “Divination is not one of my gifts. But dear Mr. Tappen, you who move in every level of society from top to bottom, I am hoping that you may know of Sensitives who may divine more than I can with my shoe leather and obnoxious persistence in gathering facts on the ground.”

“No, it won’t be that easy,” Tappen said. “You must prove the wrongdoer’s identity if you wish to write about him. And that means uncovering the ordinary evil first, and using that only to make your case. I am sure you understand the need for discretion where magic is concerned. You will have to take down the arsonist with facts, without revealing your own magic, or exposing the magical accelerant used in these attacks.”

He returned to the papers littering the top of his enormous desk, and Jane realized with a start that their meeting was at an end.

“I hope I don’t vex you to death, Daniel,” she said, surprising herself as she said the words. “I don’t mean to be a plague upon you. I just cannot stomach any more of these attacks!”

“Nonsense, Miss Emerson. I admire your passion for justice and your ideals. I merely fear that life in this great city will prove a great disappointment to you if you cannot learn to live with the darkness as well as the light.”

*   *   *

Jane left Tappan’s office in a storm of frustration and doubt. She agreed with every word he had said, and yet she had hoped that somehow they could have found a way to publish the story. She quickened her pace as the shadows lengthened along the alleyways and gutters by the Mulberry bend. It would do no good to prowl such cruel streets after dark.

But when she saw the waif still standing on Mulberry Street near the Central Office, holding her boxes of matches between her blue little fingers, Jane made the mistake of looking at her face. With growing horror she realized those weren’t tears shining on the girl’s drawn cheeks.

But the glaze of ice.

Jane ran to the little girl, touched her shoulders, and a terrific shock blasted through her gloves and up her arms. It was as if she were Benjamin Franklin, discovering electricity anew on a Tenth Ward street corner on a fading day in November.

With an effort, Jane removed her fingers from the girl, so that she could think again. The poor girl was frozen, and in imminent danger. Jane rubbed her fingers together, took a deep breath, and accepted the surge of energy she had received into her body.

The surge fed her magic, strengthened her physically. She steeled herself for another jolt, and touched the girl’s arms again, rubbed the cold little fingers. This time the energy stayed with the girl, and she stirred under Jane’s fingers with a tiny groan.

“My dear child,” Jane said. “You are nearly frozen through. Come with me.”

The girl shuddered again, but met Jane’s gaze. Her fingers tightened over the girl’s, and she sent the energy back into the girl’s body as gently as she could. She didn’t want to frighten the child with an overt show of magic, but the girl’s condition was too grave for Jane to hesitate.

She was rewarded for her efforts with a flush of pink into the girl’s features, her frozen little fingers. “Let’s go, now,” she said. “Can you tell me your name, dear?”

The girl blinked hard, as if she only now heard Jane’s voice. “Rose,” she whispered through chapped lips. Her voice was a slight chuff of wind in a desolate arctic waste.

Jane removed her fur ruff and wrapped it twice around the girl’s shoulders. “You are coming home with me, and no mistake,” she said, hoping her voice carried a note of authority she did not feel. “A warm bath and some brandy, and you should be right as rain. And then we can find your people again, get you home.”

“Home,” the girl whispered, longing in her voice. “No home for me.”

Jane was shaking now, not with the cold but with both grief and anger. The Tenth Ward was a scandal and a shame, even without the prospect of deliberate arson. Little children like Rose lived in the streets all over New York, and one orphanage more or less was not enough to house them all.

But as God was her witness, this child would not freeze to death as more prosperous citizens like Jane herself walked by, rendering her suffering invisible. Jane would never look away again.

*   *   *

Jane hailed a carriage, and was lucky enough to find one near the police station before the light failed altogether. But when she arrived at the apartments for young ladies where she lived, north of Gramercy Park on Lexington Avenue, her landlady, kindly soul as she was, still almost refused the little girl entry.

“My apologies, Miz Emerson, but those Five Points orphans are all pickpockets or worse! Regular Fagin’s army they are, begging your pardon. I can’t allow such a creature up here, into the rooms. What if she nicked something?”

Jane summoned up her best manners and her magic, too. She understood Miss Annelise’s point, certainly. But there was something about this poor girl, something that broke Jane’s heart wide open. Somehow, she had to convince her landlady that Rose posed a threat to no one.

“I’ll watch over her, every minute,” Jane said. And ever so subtly, she sent the Fire into her words, investing them with a spark of persuasion that her unguarded, open-hearted landlady could hardly resist.

Miss Annelise shook her head, then laughed. “My goodness, your guardian in Boston did well to send you here. Always into some mischief or other. But always to the good. Well, let her in, give her some warm vittles and a hot bath. But she can’t stay here! These apartments are only for young ladies of breeding.”

Jane smiled sweetly, nodding her thanks, knowing that this was as much of a victory as she could expect to win.

The clawed tub upstairs was so enormous that Rose all but disappeared into the warm, sudsy bath that Jane drew for her. Jane gently undressed her and lowered her into the water, and after a moment of panic, the girl relaxed into the bath with an audible sigh.

Jane hoarded her questions like jewels, knowing the time for asking them would come. After she got Rose wrapped into a big, plush towel, she rubbed her long hair until it was only slightly damp, and then she carried her into her private bedroom.

“How do you feel now, Rose?”

“Better. Not so cold, finally.”

Jane smiled at that, and searched her wardrobe for some article of clothing that could decently cover Rose without overwhelming the girl’s tiny frame. After rummaging for a while, she found a silk chemise that could serve as a dressing gown until she could find the child some suitable clothes to wear.

Dressed in the shirt that came down to her knees, and wrapped in a wool afghan that Polly had crocheted, Rose looked like an entirely different girl. Her hair was black as jet, slicked against her angular skull; her eyes were almost amber. The warmth had returned to her cheeks and her limbs, and Jane was relieved to find that all evidence of hypothermia had gone, and that she would not need a doctor until morning.