Heart's Magic
Authors: Gail Dayton
Tags: #magic, #steampunk, #alternate history, #fantasy adventure, #wizard, #sorcerer, #adventure romance, #victorian age, #steampunk fantasy romance, #adventure 1860s
by Gail Dayton
As if Eleanor Tavis doesn’t
have enough to deal with already, given her upcoming challenge
against the magister of the English wizard’s guild, now she’s
developed this disconcerting attraction toward the man she’s
apprenticed herself to in her ongoing quest to become a
full-fledged wizard.
Harry Tomlinson is not only
an alchemist, working an utterly different sort of magic, but he’s
the magister of the alchemist’s guild and about as unsuitable a
person for a wizard’s overseer as it is possible to find. But he
was the only one willing to take her on as apprentice.
Then she
wins
her challenge and her problems
only multiply. The rest of England’s wizardry seem determined to
challenge her one by one. She somehow becomes the new wizard’s
magister and is forced to deal with
politics
. And even more
frightening–Harry has asked her to marry him!
***
For my fans. Thanks for hanging in
there.
by Gail Shelton
All rights reserved. This
book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any
manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in
critical articles or reviews.
***
This is a work of fiction.
Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the
product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious
manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual
events or locales is purely coincidental.
***
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"Tell me again why we have
come to the dead zone
this
time?" Elinor Tavis stood well away from the
zone's boundary, where the moss on the brick tipped over the border
from struggling to dead and the bricks themselves began to lose
their grip on the wall they'd been built into.
"One more time, but this is
th' last, a'right?" Harry Tomlinson, master of magic to Elinor's
apprentice status, let the Cockney in his voice fall where it
liked. When he was back in London's East End where he'd grown up,
it seemed to fall more often than usual, but when he tried to
control his accent, it only brought more attention to how he
sounded, so mostly he didn't try. "We got word from Paris they've
been 'avin' trouble with the warding we build round the dead zone
there."
"What sort of trouble?"
Elinor moved a pace or two closer and Harry turned around to glare
at her.
Didn't help. She closed the
gap between them, gliding to stand at his elbow, a scant half step
behind him. Only that half step farther from the dangers of the
dead zone. Elinor was not the most obedient of
apprentices.
Being that she was an
apprentice wizard and he was a master alchemist, he mostly stayed
out of her way and let her study what she liked. Sometimes
he...
dealt with
the
male wizards wanting to interfere with her studies. It was a
magic-master's duty to protect his apprentice, after all. So he was
relieved she at least gave him the half step.
"What sort of trouble?"
Elinor asked again. She was like that, keeping on till you told her
what she wanted to know.
"Not sure, exactly. They
don't know. In Paris." Harry glared into the dead zone again. Not
that he could see much on this cold, wet, gloomy January morning.
It wasn't raining, or even misting exactly, but the air
was...thick. Made it hard to see. "It's makin' odd noises, the
warding wall in Paris. Screams, like, or squealing sounds. An' they
don't know why."
"Does the wall look any
different? The one in Paris?"
"Dunno. They didn't say it
did. Didn't say it didn't, neither." Harry propped his hands on his
hips. "They 'aven't sent the report yet, only word by conjurer that
there's trouble."
He scowled at the ruined
territory beyond the faint iridescence of the magical boundary wall
protecting London from the dead zone and keeping it from growing
larger. They needed to stop the other zones from growing too--the
one across the river in Bermondsey and all the others scattered
over England and Europe. There were even a few appearing in
America, he'd heard.
"I hate dead zones," he
growled, carefully pronouncing the "h" in "hate."
"Why?" Elinor
asked.
Why?
That was a stupid question. "'Cause they're dead. They look
dead, all crumblin' and falling down. They smell dead--"
"How can you tell?" Elinor
made a face. She'd finally quit complaining about the East End
smells, but only because he ignored every complaint.
"Yeah, it stinks here. It
smells like rotten veg an' animal muck an' the Thames at low tide,
but that's just 'ow life smells sometimes. Death stinks too. In
there, that's beyond death. Nothin's left. Even the magic's dead,
an' magic gives life its flavor, don't it?
"An' if the magic keeps
dyin' an' the dead zones growin', it'll suck all the magic an' all
the life out of everybody an' everything until there's nothin' left
but monsters. And it'll kill me first, which means I won't be able
to stop it."
He paused, a little shocked
by his tirade. He knew what he thought about the dead zones. He
just never thought he'd say it aloud. "Any road, that's why I 'ate
the dead zones. 'Cause they hated me first." He looked at Elinor.
"You asked."
"Oh." Elinor nodded, like
he'd said something profound. She thought a moment. Elinor was
always doing that, thinking. Likely that was why she was such a
bang-up wizard. The only reason she hadn't already taken and passed
the master's test was that she was female. The other wizards--all
of them male--didn't like that about her.
There hadn't been female
magicians in more than 200 years. Not since the witch burnings back
in the 1600s, when the Magician's Council decided it wasn't safe
for women to work magic. Since then, the male magicians--especially
the few men who could master what had been the primarily feminine
art of wizardry--had become comfortable in their boys' club. They
didn't want to let the girls back in to play.
They hadn't really wanted
to let Harry in either, given his background, but with his talent
for magic they'd had to. They would let the women in for the same
reason.
Harry intended to make sure
of it. He wasn't so stupid as to ignore the talents of a
master-level magician just because she had tits instead of a
cock.
Besides, women's magic was
necessary to destroy the dead zones. They hadn't quite figured out
how yet, but Harry knew in his gut it was so. Sorcery, the school
of magic that was as female as alchemy was male, had been
completely lost since the last sorceress was burned. The next
sorceress, Yvaine's successor, was discovered just last summer, and
only with the four great magics working together had they been able
to wall up the dead zones. First the one in Paris and then this
past November, this one in London's East End.
"I
said--"
Elinor poked him in the side,
hard. "What do you hope to find, then, by standing here staring at
the warding wall? Since you don't know if it should look
different." She huffed out a breath and Harry edged over a step,
not sure if she intended to poke him again.
"It's not as if I don't
have a dozen--a hundred other things I need to be doing," she said.
"I have a magister's challenge coming up in just over a week, if
you'll recall. I don't even know what we're going to do. Dueling
potions? Wands at 20 paces?"
"That's right--wizards use
wands too, don't you?"
Elinor rubbed her arms
briskly, shivering. "Harry, I'm
cold
. Can we discuss it in the
carriage? Have you seen everything you wanted to see?"
"No. But I reckon I've seen
everything there is to see." He was disappointed, not finding
anything not expected, but keeping Elinor from freezing was more
important. "Come on, then."
He took her arm, wishing he
could tuck her under it, share some of his warmth and a few of the
capes on his many-layered greatcoat, but she wouldn't allow it. She
was his apprentice. He was her magic-master. Their connection had
to be strictly professional, completely above reproach. She
wouldn't risk anything that might knock her back from the few steps
forward she'd taken toward her goal, becoming a master magician,
the first among many female wizards yet to come.
Harry had to respect that.
Both the talent and the determination. And he did.
He respected her. He
admired her. Trouble was, he also wanted her. Wanted to strip the
layers of clothing from that softly rounded shape and sink right
into her softness. How stupid was that then, to walk through half
the day with a cockstand from wanting a woman who didn't want you
back? A woman you knew--knew for certain sure--wanted only magic
and accepted it from you only because she couldn't get it anywhere
else?
Then again, nobody ever
accused Harry Tomlinson of being a brain. Powerful, yes. Practical
and able to make things work one way or the other, but not the most
brilliant chap around.
They were almost to the
carriage--horses hated dead zones even more than Harry did--when
the beasts started misbehaving, stamping and neighing and trying to
rear.
"What the devil?" Harry set
Elinor aside where she'd be safe from the slashing hooves and
hurried to help his coachman settle the animals.
He caught the bridle of the
near lead animal while Sharkey caught hold of the off lead. They
were good horses, not too high-strung, and they settled quickly
with someone at their heads. The one Harry held snuffled at his
coat as if for reassurance and he stroked its nose. He'd always
liked horses, even before he could afford to own them.
Elinor's scream sliced
through his brain and shot him into action. He was across the alley
in a flying leap, thrusting hands into pockets for his weapons as
he raced to her side.
