Lessons After Dark (6 page)

Olivia finished the final line of a pentagram and then lifted her pen from her journal and tried to shake the cramps out of her aching wrist. Teaching was no joke, not even with as few pupils as she had, and teaching magic was proving to be harder work than she'd thought. Her practice in London and her time under Gillespie had given her a head start, but not a particularly large one, and there were some areas that greatly needed filling in.

Protection, for example. Olivia had learned how to guard a room or a person against accidents and even the occasional predator that lurked in the realms beyond, but she'd skimmed lightly over protections against anything someone had purposefully sent. Nobody who could command demons, she'd thought, would have bothered setting them on a medium of no great fame or fortune.

The young men and women who would come from Englefield would be a different story altogether. Mr. Grenville
did
know protective spells—she was doing research in his library, after all—and would certainly cover anything more advanced, but there would be times when he was away or otherwise unavailable.

Those last two words covered a great deal. Olivia tried not to think about certain possibilities.

Instead, she leaned back in her chair and looked out at the rainy landscape. Rainy
without
Michael Fairley's influence this time: either her lecture or an hour washing dishes in the scullery had driven home certain points. Olivia hoped so.

Where powers were concerned, Michael's control was better than Elizabeth's, who
still
tended to react to any alarm by rising half a foot off the floor. However, Michael tended to cut corners in practice, and the incident with Dr. St. John hadn't been the first time he'd used his talent unfairly. According to his parents, by way of Mr. Grenville, it had been common for the clouds to open whenever Michael's governess tried to take him on an unwanted walk. So far, there hadn't been much self-indulgence of that kind at Englefield, but there also hadn't been much opportunity for it.

Olivia closed her eyes, pentagrams and circles still dancing in front of her lids, and let herself slip into further assessment. Elizabeth's problem was mostly being afraid of her own shadow. She was getting better, but as soon as she felt herself losing control, she'd grab and clutch and try to shut off all her talent, which usually only made the situation worse. She had nightmares too, with all the loss of control
that
implied, and Olivia was usually in her room to ground the energy no less than once a week. Elizabeth had never gotten as far off the ground as she'd done that first day, though, and Olivia counted that as a victory.

The older students were coming along well, she thought. William tended to rush things. Michael and Charlotte were also hasty about ceremonial magic, the spells anyone could do, which didn't surprise Olivia. Growing up able to do one form of magic simply by thinking about it might naturally render one impatient with the sort that took time and intricate planning. Elizabeth was the exception to that rule. She was as careful in spell casting as she couldn't be at levitation. She had the makings of an excellent magician, as did Arthur, who had an eye for patterns.

Much she knew, Olivia told herself with a small smile. She had all she could do keeping up.

That was no complaint. There'd been a vigor and a challenge about the last month Olivia hadn't known she'd craved. Teaching and research had been like taking a brisk walk uphill after weeks indoors.

Speaking
of
that…
With a sigh, she turned toward the windows.

The week since her visit to the dressmaker hadn't often provided her with weather suitable for walking much of anywhere, much less the forest. Olivia had also remembered Mrs. Grenville had told her not to go in without her or Mr. Grenville, and she wasn't inclined to flout that advice. She'd been a country girl once, but that had been ten years ago, and even then she'd been much more used to farms than forests. So she'd waited.

Neither of the Grenvilles had been available long enough. They generally weren't. Even now, Mr. Grenville was talking with his steward, and Mrs. Grenville was teaching the older students hand-to-hand combat in the ballroom. One could hear the shouts and thumps from fully three rooms away. The younger students, who would have their turn in an hour, were upstairs studying their normal lessons.

Absently, Olivia put aside the book from which she'd been taking notes and turned back to the shelves to retrieve another.
Spirits
and
Omens
of
Our
Grandfathers' Time
. She'd seen the title a few times before and had mostly looked over it on her way to something more substantial.

The book was no more than thirty years old and came complete with colored illustrations. It did not, Olivia quickly discovered, have an index, though the authors had been considerate enough to lump related incidents together. She idly flipped the pages past descriptions of black dogs and phantom music and paused at a section on ravens.

According to the authors, in a Greek myth, Apollo had turned the then-white raven's feathers black because it had informed him of his
inamorata's
faithlessness. Not much useful information there, except perhaps not to bring bad news to the ancient gods. She wondered what Apollo had thought the poor beast should have done, and flipped back a page.

Oh. Peck out the young man's eyes.

Lovely.

She looked up as the door opened. Dr. St. John stepped inside, then frowned as he saw her. Probably surprise, judging by his expression, though one never could tell with the man.

Oh well. She'd made good progress today, it was vile outside, and she wasn't going to let St. John put her in a bad mood.

“Your patron god,” she said, thinking of the myth, “does not strike me as much of a gentleman.”

***

It wasn't fair, Gareth thought. He'd spent a useful morning filling out records and arranging new equipment in his office, he'd come into the library to reward himself with a novel, and he'd found Mrs. Brightmore with the lamplight gold on her fair skin, looking like some Pre-Raphaelite's idea of the Spirit of Knowledge, and talking like a madwoman.

A man of his age should have been able to expect
some
order in his life.

“Pardon?” he asked. “Patron god?”

“Apollo,” Mrs. Brightmore said and then paused. Gareth noticed she pursed her lips just a little when she thought. It drew a man's attention, made him consider the shape of her mouth and the slight fullness of her underlip. She was probably doing it on purpose. “I believe he's in the Hippocratic Oath,” she continued.

“Oh. Probably. Greek gods aren't really the memorable part. Nor are they generally gentlemen, if memory serves.” Gareth took a few steps closer to the desk. Now that he was here, it wouldn't do to retreat.

“No. That's why—” Mrs. Brightmore abruptly stopped herself. Gareth watched a blush spread itself up her neck and over her face. She cleared her throat. “I do hope I'm not in your way.”

“Not at all. I came to borrow some reading material. Something a little more lighthearted than yours,” he said, casting a quick glance over the books at Mrs. Brightmore's elbow. A small, leather-bound journal lay on top of a much larger, much-older-looking book. Gareth couldn't make out the title, and he didn't know that he wanted to. The book in front of her was about omens and spirits. “Not seeing any black dogs at crossroads, I hope?”

“No, I haven't seen anything. I'd heard a story or two in the village, but it's probably nothing.” She talked quickly. Other than that, there was no sign of relief that he'd moved on.

“Mm,” Gareth said. He put a hand on the desk, letting it support his weight without leaning too obviously. “‘That's why' what?”

Mrs. Brightmore bit her lip and was silent for a moment. She didn't pretend ignorance, though. He had to grant her that. “It's only a theory,” she said, “and it's not…some people could find it a bit insulting. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”

“And yet you did,” he said, “and now I'm curious.”

It wasn't entirely embarrassment coloring her face now. Her eyes flashed. “I won't have you stalking off in offense if I tell you, sir,” she said. “Not when I have to work with you. Or if you do, I won't have you blame me for it.”

“I promise,” he said, holding up a hand in a reassuring gesture, “I won't take it badly.”

Mrs. Brightmore relaxed a little, though there was still a certain wariness about her when she spoke. “In that first class, Charlotte asked why certain people could do magic at will. I said there were a few theories on the subject.”

“So I recall.”

“One of them, and I have reason to think it's true, is those people are somehow connected to…other beings.” She spread her hands in vague illustration and absently began to rub one of her wrists as she spoke. “Beings from places that follow different rules, or none.”

“Fairies?” Gareth lifted an eyebrow.

“Or angels. Or gods. Beings who call themselves gods, at any rate. All of them have supposedly had the appropriate sorts of…association with humanity. The, um, blessings in fairy tales, for instance.”

“Or the, ah, seductions in myth?” Gareth mimicked her hesitation and let a smile drift across his mouth. “I'm a grown man, you know. I'm not going to faint.”

“Just challenge me to pistols at dawn, perhaps.” Her fingers moved from her wrist to her hand, and she winced.

“Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Oh. Fine.” Mrs. Brightmore blinked up at him. “Thank you,” she added, sounding less grudging than surprised. Clearly she hadn't expected his concern, which Gareth found unexpectedly annoying.

“Let me see,” he said.

“It's nothing, really. I've just been writing for a while.”

Gareth stepped around the desk to her side. “They do pay me for something. Give me your hand. I promise you'll have it back afterward.”

The implied challenge did the trick. She extended her hand quickly and held very still as Gareth took it. He might have said something about that, but the feeling of her small, smooth palm beneath his thumb was more distracting than he'd thought. Flesh and blood, he told himself. Nothing out of the ordinary here. No reason warmth should spread from their linked hands; no reason to relish each circle his thumb made on her palm.

“So,” he said, “my connection to Apollo might not be just a symbol?”

“Ah.” Mrs. Brightmore's voice was a little distracted, a touch breathless. “Perhaps. Or Airmed for the Celts, or beings, perhaps a being, using those names.” Gareth pressed harder for a moment, and her eyelids drifted half-closed. “None of it's very clear yet. Probably, um, not Raphael, not if we're talking descent.”

“Probably not,” Gareth agreed. He'd stepped a little forward at some point, he noticed now, and he was looking down at the top of her head. There were strands of red and blonde in her chestnut hair, and a few that were almost black. His fingers moved down to her wrist, tracing lines and then circles over the tense muscles there. “Did you come up with this theory yourself?”

Mrs. Brightmore shook her head slowly. “No, I—had it explained to me. And then I studied considerably.”

She had done that. There was a callus on her right forefinger where she would hold a pen. There were the ink stains. There were the books. “Ah.”

Gareth thought if he reached out his free hand he could just touch the side of her face, tilt her chin up, perhaps, so she was looking at him with those rich brown eyes. Her skin would be like silk beneath his fingertips.

Mrs. Brightmore's breath might have been quicker now, or Gareth might simply have been noticing the way her breasts rose and fell. They were easy to notice. Even in her plain skirt and shirtwaist the woman had the sort of lush curves no man would find easy to ignore. Perhaps it was just his perception.

All the same, under his fingers, he thought he felt the pulse in her wrist speed up. Mrs. Brightmore did look up at him then, and her eyes were dark. Her lips parted a little.

“I think that should suffice for any further studying,” Gareth said. He dropped her hand and stepped back quickly. “I assume you have quite a bit of it ahead.”

“Ah,” she said. In both distraction and acceptance, her tone was a mirror of Gareth's from a moment before, only with slightly more surprise. Did she sound disappointed too? He couldn't tell. He didn't want to tell.

“I won't intrude on your time any longer,” he said, his voice thicker than he would have liked. He turned away and heard her take a breath.

Fabric rustled.

Gareth didn't stay to hear any more.

A pillar of shining mist rose from the center of the ballroom, thinner and prettier than the gray-brown fogs Olivia had become used to in London. Prettiness served no purpose, but because the mist was more transparent, she could easily see the two children who were standing within it. It was brighter around them too, as it siphoned off the energy that glowed like a second skin within them.

“Michael,” Olivia asked, focusing on the boy's face now and letting her other awareness recede a little, “how do you usually begin to make it rain?”

“I go up to the clouds, in my head, of course, and—”

She held up a hand. “Let's start there. How do you do that?”

Michael fell silent for a moment. Olivia let him think and switched her focus back to the flow of energy in the room. As she'd hoped, the patterns she'd chalked on the floor held the mist in place, and the mist was steadily but not too quickly conducting energy away from Michael and Elizabeth. Olivia could see its lower edges glowing as it transferred power away and grounded it harmlessly.

Theoretically harmlessly, that is. She hadn't ever read that grounded power in floorboards would be a problem, any more than it was for electricity. Hopefully neither the floor in the ballroom nor that in Elizabeth's room would suddenly take a dislike to everything above it, turn to rubber, or start sprouting trees.

She turned her attention back to Michael as he started talking again. “I think about what the clouds look like right then,” he was saying slowly, “and how they're made, and then…it's a little like talking to them, maybe? Not like a conversation. More like riding. You dig your heels in, and the horse knows it means ‘go.'”

“All right,” said Olivia. “Elizabeth, is there anything in what Michael said you think you could use?”

Elizabeth bit her lip and looked at the floor, tracing a pattern with the toe of one stockinged foot.

All three of them had removed their boots on entering, Elizabeth and Michael following the habit Mrs. Grenville's practice sessions had instilled, and Olivia because the thought of wearing boots across the smooth expanse of floor made her wince. The ballroom, with its gold-papered walls and its large windows framed by amber-colored drapes, was one of the rooms that still looked like it belonged in a well-appointed country house, and she found she wanted to keep it that way.

“Maybe,” Elizabeth said, her forehead wrinkled, “if I think about how my power works? I know how
gravity
works, everyone does, so maybe if I think about that and then tell it to, um, stop working for me? A little?”

“A little,” Olivia agreed firmly. “Michael, do you tell the clouds how much rain you want?”

“Not so you could measure it,” Michael said, shrugging, “but a general sort of idea.” He looked over at Elizabeth. “Try and make a picture of what you want.”

“Now?”

Olivia nodded. “Now.”

The girl closed her eyes. Her face was squinched up into a mask of nervous concentration, and Olivia could see the power inside her start dancing like boiling water. Teeth firmly set in her lower lip, she took in a deep breath—

—and rose a foot in the air.

“Well done,” Olivia said, not allowing Elizabeth time to get distraught. “Much more controlled than last time.” That was true. She'd risen, not shot up, and didn't show any signs of going higher.

“It's more than I meant to move,” Elizabeth said, and she was doing a decent job of keeping her voice optimistic now too. “But it didn't feel as…as downhill as usual.”

“Right. You won't, in here.” Olivia gestured around the room. “And once you've practiced a little in here, you'll have more control outside. Do you think you could move? Fold your legs, for instance?”

“I…maybe?” Slowly and uncertainly, Elizabeth crossed her legs in front of her tailor-fashion. She folded her arms too, for either symmetry or self-protection, and floated like one of the djinn from the
Arabian
Nights
, if djinni had worn bloomers and blouses and had twin braids of red hair.

Mr. Hawkins and Lyddie would've given their eyeteeth for someone like Elizabeth, Olivia thought. She would have done so herself. Her hardest evenings had been when she was up against a Child Prophet or Girl Medium. Back then, she hadn't thought those girls had any power. Back then, she hadn't thought anyone did.

Now she wondered how many Elizabeths and Michaels had been among those children, and how many were still earning their living a step or two above sideshow exhibits. Had they looked down on women like Olivia, whose only abilities until three years ago had lain in swift talk and sleight of hand? Envied them for their control? Hated them, perhaps, as the reason people doubted them…or the reason people went to see them at all?

Past
is
past
, Olivia reminded herself. It had been one of Mr. Hawkins's favorite sayings.
You
can't live there, and it's best you don't visit too often.

For a man without much education, he'd been remarkably wise.

“Good,” she said quickly. “Now hold that as long as you can, and let me know if you feel yourself slipping. Michael, I want you to make it rain, but not too much. We've had enough in the past few days, I think.” She made a face, and the children, as she'd intended, laughed. “Just a shower
and
just over this part of the house.”

“How'll you be able to tell, ma'am?” Michael asked. “There's only the one window. Unless—is there a spell so you can see two places at once?”

“Probably, but I haven't cast it. I'll depend on your honor.”

Also, it didn't really matter whether Michael succeeded or not. The important thing right now was how the power drain affected his control.

He clasped his hands behind his back, recitation-style, closed his eyes, and took a breath. Concentrating, he looked even younger than usual. Power began to move inside him, but much more gradually than it had in Elizabeth. A few bubbles surfacing rather than a full boil. Olivia watched his face through the mist and restrained a sigh when she saw a fading bruise on his left cheekbone.

Olivia had glimpsed only a few of Mrs. Grenville's practice sessions, but what she'd seen made her wince even in memory. Necessary, perhaps—probably, since neither of the Grenvilles seemed the sort who'd indulge in wanton cruelty—but certainly brutal. Part of her was even surprised Mrs. Grenville had forbidden boots during practice, given the resources at hand.

Then again, as far as the students and their parents were concerned, broken bones probably crossed a line even if they could be easily mended. Mrs. Grenville seemed smart enough to realize that. Perhaps, too, she hadn't wished to put an undue strain on Dr. St. John's strength…or his patience.

Olivia wanted to make a catty remark about his lack of either quality, in the privacy of her mind, but couldn't quite make herself agree that he
did
lack them. She was no real judge of strength, either physical or magical. The only other natural talents she'd encountered were Michael, Elizabeth, and Dr. Gillespie, and they were all so different in form as to make comparison almost impossible.

As for patience, she'd rarely seen Dr. St. John display anything but control. Even a few days before in the library, one couldn't say he'd been
impatient.
Quite the opposite. Remembering, Olivia blushed and felt heat spreading to places lower on her body. The strength of the feeling was as surprising now as it had been at the time.

She turned to face the closest window, looking out at the overcast sky and the half-built dormitories down the hill. No rain yet. Olivia watched for it, trying to compose herself as she did so.

Olivia was no sheltered girl. She'd enjoyed the physical aspect of her marriage a great deal. That had been long ago, though, and memory faded. In the time since, she'd not become precisely a fallen woman, but she'd touched men and taken a few hands. There'd been the occasional spark, since neither her heart nor other parts were in the grave, no matter what Society thought was proper. There'd been nothing like what she'd felt with St. John's fingers on her, as outwardly close to innocent as the contact had been.

And what, exactly, had the man been playing at?

Olivia didn't believe for an instant he'd taken her wrist purely out of either duty or altruism. If he'd been trying to seduce her, he wouldn't have stopped, certainly not so abruptly. A magician might have been using the contact to better target her in the future, but St. John had admitted he was no magician. Besides, irritating as he might be, she'd never thought he was a danger.

The first fine drops of rain appeared on the window. As Olivia had requested, it was very light, almost a mist outside to match the one indoors. She turned back to face the children, fairly certain her face was its normal color again, and smiled approvingly. “Very nice, Michael. Is it more difficult than usual?”

“A bit, ma'am,” Michael said, sounding more cheerful and less petulant than Olivia had come to expect from him. Energy was flowing steadily inside him. Not particularly quickly, but more so than it had been when he'd worked under normal circumstances. “It's not too much trouble, though. I'm keeping it over this part of the house too.”

“Well done, then,” Olivia said. She looked from him to Elizabeth, who was still sitting cross-legged in midair. The girl's face was rigid with concentration, and her power didn't flow as steadily as Michael's. It seemed to stutter and skip on occasion. Even so she'd stayed about where she was, and that was a beginning.

Olivia smiled at them. “Now,” she said, “I want you both to stop what you're doing, as gradually as you can. Michael, let the rain stop, but don't send the clouds away. Elizabeth, float back down to the floor. Then we'll start the next exercise.”