Heart's Magic (26 page)

"Foolishness?" Elinor
shrugged. "I don't know. I thought you might stop me."

"Might've." He brushed his
lips across her forehead. So smooth. "Might not have. Dunno.
Might've come along."

"I'm glad you did. I'm glad
you knew how to bring me back." She lifted her face. He thought she
might be hunting his mouth, so he let her find it. Kissing meant
she wasn't sorry, didn't it?

"I didn't know," he said,
when she ended the kiss and tucked her face into his neck again. "I
was just guessing. You've been a wizard all your life and 'aven't
had to pay much mind to your body before this sorcery stuff popped
up. I knew I could surprise you that way. I 'oped, is
all."

"You did exactly the right
thing." She paused, apparently thinking. "I suppose you could have
brought me back by slapping my face and such."

"I could
never,
" Harry swore.

"Of course not." Elinor
gave a quick kiss to his jaw. "Besides, your kisses made me want to
return."

"Did they, then?" Harry
smiled, sure of her now. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind
about marrying me..." He let his words trail off
hopefully.

"
Harry.
"

He knew that tone of voice,
even if he couldn't see her face, and sighed. "No 'arm in askin',
is there? So it's to be a secret affair, is it?"

She took her turn to sigh.
"I shouldn't. I should say, this once only and no more."

"But you won't." Harry
didn't at all feel the confidence he put into his voice.

"I daresay I can't." She
gave his collarbone a rather absent-minded kiss, as if it was there
near her lips, and she could do nothing else. "I have the awfullest
feeling that if I try to stop myself--even if I move out of that
flat and locate a new stillroom and avoid being in your presence
except during official meetings of the magisters--I think it's
likely that during one of those droning meetings, you would only
have to smile at me with that perfect mouth of yours and I would
crawl across the table to kiss it."

Harry's head felt stuffed
with air so hot it had inflated to three or four times its normal
size. Elinor truly thought--? "
Perfect?
You think my mouth is--" He
couldn't say the word again. It was too ridiculous.

"Of course it is." She
traced its outlines with a fingertip. "The rest of you is quite
nice as well, but this--" She favored him with a kiss. "Perfection
itself."

"You
sure
you won't marry me?" He couldn't
stop himself asking, though it would likely set her back up against
him. He wanted her claimed, bound, and clearly labeled as his. "I
got a conservatory and stillroom to offer, besides your use of my
mouth any time you want it."

"
Harry.
" But she laughed as she poked
him and kissed him after, so that was all right. "I daresay I can
have your mouth whenever I like anyway."

"True." He tucked her a
little closer, relishing the feel of her there.

Elinor lay still the
briefest of moments. "I am worried about Mr. Biggs. Don't you think
he's been unconscious far too long?"

"I don't know 'ow long it's
been, but yeah, it worries me too." He hadn't actually thought
they'd get to sleep together, but he'd enjoyed their cuddle. They
should be working on escape.

"Do you think--?" Elinor
stroked a finger along his upper arm. "Is it possible he--that Mr.
Biggs is dead?"

"I don't know." Harry
hadn't wanted to be the one to mention the possibility. Elinor
seemed to take death a mite personally. "You're the one with
sorcery powers. Think you can use 'em to find out, even with us on
this side of the door and 'im on that?"

"I can try." Elinor sat up,
concentrating.

Harry sighed. Time to get
dressed again and he had no idea where he'd tossed his socks. The
rest of his clothes, though, should be-- He found his smallclothes
and trousers, and tucked the petticoat blanket closer round Elinor
before he got up to put them on. Undershirt and shirt next. The
cell was--not cold, but chill, and the chill was increasing as the
night aged.

"I can't tell anything from
here," Elinor said. "Maybe if I was closer." She got out of the bed
and Harry swung her up in his arms.

"Floor's cold." He arranged
her covering to properly protect her backside and carried her to
the door, petticoat netting rustling under the blanket.

He could sense magic moving
but kept quiet so he wouldn't distract her. He'd never been able to
sense other magics much. He could some--wizardry more than the
others. Plants grew in earth, didn't they? And now he'd been around
sorcery enough that he knew what it was, he could tell most times
when it was being used. He thought his insensitivity to other magic
was mostly because alchemy was so bright and loud to his senses
that it was hard to pick out the other stuff.

With the wardings in place
here in the tower, though, his alchemy sensitivity was muffled. He
could easily recognize the magic Elinor was manipulating as
sorcery, with a touch of wizard's fresh green added. He watched,
fascinated, for once almost able to see her work
clearly.

The rosy magic seemed to
struggle to get past the door. Not surprising, given the warding.
The magic wavered, shimmered, spread itself thin and slipped
through, as if pretending it wasn't there.

"How'd you do that?" He
couldn't stop himself asking, hoped it didn't distract her too
much. "Get the magic through the door?"

"Oh--" She sounded
embarrassed. "I think because it's--well, sex magic." She whispered
those last two words and cleared her throat. "Happy magic. It
confused the wards."

Harry managed to stifle his
chuckle and she couldn't see his wide grin. He waited another
moment to control the amusement in his voice. "Will it do what you
need it to?"

Elinor didn't reply
immediately. He waited for her to finish her working, trying to
sense the sorcery through the alchemical hum of the metal door. It
felt like Elinor. And a little like himself, which only made sense,
given that he'd been part of the making of it. Maybe that was why
he could sense it, because it was a little bit him too.

"Biggs is alive," Elinor
said then. "But he is badly injured. His head-- Harry, we need to
get out of here. We need to take care of Mr. Biggs."

He blew out a breath. "Not
sure 'ow we're goin' to do that. I tried, earlier. Before--" He
wasn't shy about calling things what they were but Elinor was.
"Before our bit of a cuddle. I couldn't do it. The warding's too
strong."

Best to get Elinor dressed,
if they were going to break out. They
would
do it. He just had to figure out
how. He set her back on the bunk and began retrieving her
clothing.

"Maybe we can make enough
noise, create a disturbance that will call the other guards'
attention," Elinor suggested. "I need my chemise first and my
pantalettes. Even with all this metal and stone around us, you
couldn't get the door open?"

Harry cleared his throat,
grateful for the lack of light. His embarrassment didn't show.
"Mighty powerful warding in this 'ammer. Hundreds of years' worth.
An' I ain't exactly up to full strength yet after gettin' shot,
even with your plaster yesterday."

"Hammer? Oh, yes--jail,
hammer and nail--Cockney slang. Right." Elinor was rustling around,
dressing, and now Harry wished the dark away. "About your
injury--"

"Ready for your stays?" He
held the garment out to her. "I'll 'elp with the laces."

"Thank you." Elinor took
the light corset and a few moments later, her back brushed his
fingers. She'd obviously got it hooked up the front. Harry found
the laces and began pulling them taut. "Just till there are no
gaps," she reminded him.

"Right." He lost himself in
his task, sliding his hands here and there to make sure everything
was smooth and gap-free, and wishing heartily that he could
just
see.

Light whooshed into
existence, flames igniting in the oil that had seeped under the
door from Biggs' fallen lantern. Harry jumped, startled. He spun
around, his hand flying out to close magic around the flame with
the closing of his fist, not to extinguish it, but control it. He
didn't know where else the oil might have spread since Cranshaw had
dashed it to the corridor floor in his attack and he didn't want to
catch anything else on fire, like Elinor's petticoats. Or Mr.
Biggs.

He hadn't lit fires with a
wish since he was at the academy. He wouldn't have thought he could
do it now, given the warding. He opened his hand a bit, loosening
his grip on the flame, and it rose up nicely, a bright little
light, strictly confined to its spot on the floor just inside the
cell door. He built his spell inside his intent, for the oil to
feed into the flame, for the flame to continue to burn, then set it
with the word. "
Flammo.
"

"About that, your injury--"
Elinor's voice was muffled as, to Harry's disappointment, she
pulled a petticoat over her head into place.

"Yeah?" At least he could
watch the rest.

Elinor put on another
petticoat, one with stacks of ruffled netting sewed on in tiers to
keep her skirts filled out. "I used a fair bit of the magic we
made--" She paused to clear her throat. "--To heal that dead zone
injury of yours. It is entirely likely--since you just made us a
lamp--that you are back to your full strength."

Harry picked up her dress
and held it for her to wriggle into. "Yeah?"

He watched--he had a pretty
good view through the top half of the dress--as the skirt settled
down over her. She put her arms in the sleeves and pulled it up
onto her shoulders, then turned her back to him again. Oh, right,
she wanted him to refasten all those shiny little
buttons.

They were white, to match
the white and green stripes of the top part of the dress. The skirt
was a light brown and both top and skirt were trimmed with rows of
dark green ribbon and all those buttons down the back. Harry
thought this dress might have just become his favorite of all
Elinor's dresses. Of course, he thought any dress she let him take
off her would be his favorite, at least temporarily.

"Harry, did you hear what I
said?"

He kissed the nape of her
neck above the last button he'd just closed. "Sure I did. It was--"
He closed his eyes and hunted for the place he put things to think
about later. "You said I might be in top shape again."

He used his hold on her
shoulders to turn her round and kissed her forehead. "Let's see,
shall we?"

In the light he'd made,
Harry easily spotted the wand he'd blasted across the prison cell
sometime in the previous century. Before Elinor. It had rolled
beneath the table by the window. One of his socks lay nearby. The
other was next to the cot. He retrieved all three and tossed the
socks onto the bunk to put on later.

On the other hand, perhaps
he should finish dressing now. He sat to put on his socks. "If I
get the door open, it'll set off alarms. We'd best be ready for
them to find us."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't
have removed my shoes." Elinor sounded exasperated, but her lips
smiled beneath the scowl in her eyes, so he didn't think she was
too mad. She sat down beside him to button her shoes up.

Harry stomped his foot into
his second half-boot. "You know there'll be scandal, just from
bein' locked in 'ere together, don't you?" He put on his waistcoat
and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Won't be much we can do about
that."

Elinor sighed. "I know. It
can't be helped, though. You're right about that."

"Course I'm right. Aren't I
always?" He grinned as he picked up his wand from the
cot.

"No, you are not," she said
crisply. She picked up the crumpled blanket and swung it over her
shoulders. "Hurry. All this metal and stone makes me
cold."

"Right." He turned, rolling
his wand through his fingers to get a feel for the magic in it and
the magic surrounding him. The wards felt like a great, muffling
weight holding him down, but he knew all about lifting and hauling.
He'd done enough of it before they let him in the
school.

He pulled a little magic
through his wand, enough he could feel how the wards would react.
He'd need to be careful. He didn't want to drop the door on top of
Biggs and hurt him worse. What if he could
use
the wards? Turn the magic back on
itself?

Not entirely sure how it
could be done, Harry played with the magic, sliding it from stone
to metal and back again, creating a little swaying, back-and-forth
wave while he thought.

Weight.
He began there. Levers lifted weight. Pulleys did too.
Catapults and mangonels--they used both, and counterweights, to
throw things. Could he create a counterweight? Or a
lever?

What did he have to work
with? Plenty of metal, stone, and air, and now he had a little
fire. He also had Elinor. Who was a wizard in a cell designed to
hold wizards. She was a sorceress too, at least the beginnings of
one, but he didn't see that sorcery had much magic for getting
doors open. But, if the wards here were constructed against
wizardry...