Rough Magic Read online

  I ate my beef stew without tasting it, concentrating on the discussion but aware that I needed fuel for my body. “I don’t silence easily. But nor will I speak up to parade my ignorance or ruffle feathers needlessly.”

  A goblin leaned in from another table. “Do you sit on the Fae Council to represent humanity?”

  I shrugged. “Whether I do so formally or not, the fact that I’m human will always matter.”

  “A politician’s answer.”

  The whisper reached me. I drank some tea.

  Another werewolf pointed a knife at the ceiling. “Councilors eat upstairs.” Question, rather than challenge, laced his voice.

  Digger aligned his knife and fork neatly on his empty plate. “I was an army sergeant. For my debut into Faerene society, Amy brought me here, rather than to the officers’ club.”

  His dry answer elicited chuckles and some confusion.

  I mentally marked those who laughed as ex-military. Civilians didn’t understand.

  “Not your first foray among us,” the werewolf Philip said. “You gave Amy away at her wedding.”

  “Yes. But Justice is different to Civitas.”

  The goblin who’d questioned me dragged his chair to our table and squashed in. “I bet. I’ve been thinking of moving my family there. Magistrate Istvan is a remarkable individual. How is it to be his familiar?”

  Talking about being a familiar was a relief. Just a few weeks ago I’d have felt awkward about it and about the Faerene’s assumption that a familiar was lesser. But now, I had bigger problems and answering a couple of questions about how my relationship with Istvan and magic worked was an easy way to end the meal.

  Meara leaned in as we said casual farewells. “As much as we fight, packs stand together. Call us if you have trouble.”

  I returned her hug. Werewolves touched far more than humans—or elves or goblins—to cement social bonds. Her action kicked off a round of hugs before we parted.

  Five werewolves strolled along with Digger and me to our suite and watched with approval as he cleared it before they ambled on. It was a show of support, one that I’d remember. So would Rory, when I told him.

  Alone in my bedroom, I fished in my pocket and found the small charm that had been surreptitiously dropped in. The charm was embedded in a seashell the size of a large land snail shell, cream-colored with a dark orange pattern. All I had to do to activate the charm was channel magic into it as I had into the slate when I’d talked with Rory and Tineke during the rough magic. I didn’t understand how it worked, but I’d been promised that while I held it active, only the people in slate communication with me would be able to see and hear me.

  First, I called Rory.

  After listening to my swift rundown of events, he looped Istvan into our communication network. What I might have to do would impact both of them. Equally importantly, I needed their insight and assistance.

  That they agreed with my assessment of the situation mattered, as well. It bolstered my resolve.

  When our call ended, I opened the armoire. Osana had supplied additional clothing.

  After I’d become Istvan’s familiar partner, I’d demonstrated my solidarity with his interests by wearing all black to match his black wings and fur. Although the jacket and trousers I wore, and that Osana had initially supplied, were black, the rest of the clothes in the wardrobe were a rainbow of colors.

  I frowned. Now was not the time for me to appear to be separating myself from Istvan. I searched through the clothes and found the black jacket and trousers I’d worn for spelunking, and after a further search, the black shirt. It had been hidden on a hanger beneath another shirt.

  I showered and dressed in my own clothes. They were practical rather than festive, but I was comfortable in them. I wound my hair into a tight bun, and while debating the need for a scarf—I decided against—briefly regretted that my enchanted coat was back in Justice. It would be cold on the roof.

  Digger met me in the suite’s sitting room. He stood as I entered; not out of politeness but because we were on a tight timeframe.

  The attempt to restore the latticework would begin in half an hour. While it was underway I had to be in public and demonstrably not using magic. It wouldn’t do for a rumor to start that I’d sabotaged Faerene efforts—as if I could or would!

  “We’re good,” I said to him, which was all I dared say about talking with Rory and Istvan.

  It was enough for Digger. He strode to the door and checked the corridor before he let me out.

  At the main staircase we joined a trickle of people heading for the roof. Far more were headed down. It was the fliers who’d be up above.

  Four centaur guards stood at the doorway to the roof.

  I wouldn’t have thought them to be the best choice. Near the outside ramp, maybe. They could gallop down it. But stairs were as tricky for centaurs as for unicorns. Then, again, the Faerene didn’t expect a threat from individuals. Tonight, was about conquering Earth’s magic. The centaur guards’ role was ceremonial.

  My assessment proved accurate when we were permitted past them and saw Fae King Harold standing beside Quossa and the griffin councilor, Vadim, who was talking to Piros. The other two watched the sky over the mountains.

  Four other dragons occupied the roof space, each taking a corner. In between, other groups, formed from a mingling of different Faerene peoples, chatted distractedly. As with Harold and Quossa, the mountains seemed to exercise a magnetic pull.

  Yngvar’s bunker was in the White Mountains, and from it he’d lead the restoration of the latticework. Around the globe, people would be in position to attach the quintessences they’d been instructed to form and hold ready.

  From what I recalled of the orb’s description, establishing the latticework was relatively simple. Certainly well within Faerene capabilities. The Faerene believed so. The vibe on the rooftop was of anticipation rather than dread. Yngvar was going to make them safe. They would return to the lifestyle the Migration had promised them.

  Raul had been watching for Digger and me. He smiled and waved us over to join himself and Henri and their group that included a couple of goblins, a griffin and a unicorn.

  “Melinda and I are old friends,” the unicorn mare said. “She speaks well of you.”

  I smiled. “Melinda is a sweetheart. I was lucky to have her as my tutor for learning about the Faerene, and luckier yet that she’s become a friend.” Melinda and her herd had chosen to stay outside Justice for the moratorium. Without magic, communicating with non-unicorns was annoyingly laborious.

  “Istvan’s familiar partner.” The griffin was three times louder than the unicorn. She introduced herself as Anastasia. It was Raul who added that she was a police captain in Civitas. Anastasia was as large as Vadim, though smaller than Istvan. Her wings and coat were the dusty color of a mountain lion. “And you’ve married a werewolf, Istvan’s second-in-command. I hope he follows your good example.”

  “Pardon?” I blinked, startled. “Rory—”

  “No, girl. How you train your mate is your business.”

  Digger choked on the beer he’d accepted from a passing waiter.

  Anastasia flared her wings and the waiter dodged nimbly aside. He also glared and left our group alone.

  “I mean Istvan!” Anastasia proclaimed. “Such a gorgeous male and so stupidly single.”

  “Nora?” I suggested.

  Anastasia cackled. “Her schoolgirl crush won’t hold his interest, if he even notices it. Besides, she’s too limited.”

  There was a momentary silence as we all caught our breath.

  Then Anastasia crashed on. “Don’t be silly, Selene. Nora knows my opinion of her. She’s all theory and no follow through.”

  At a guess, the unicorn Selene had telepathically advised Anastasia to hush and be tactful, and Anastasia was having none of it.

  Entertained, I chose to answer bluntness with bluntness. “Are you personally interested in Istvan?”

 
“Yeah!”

  I laughed. “I’ll tell him.”

  Her tail swatted me in a friendly fashion. “I like you.”

  “The feeling’s mutual,” I replied.

  “Stars save us,” Raul muttered.

  Instead, it was timing that saved him. It was five minutes to the hour and all the mage lamps that had been subtly illuminating the rooftop went out.

  Anastasia’s lighthearted manner extinguished instantly. “Amy, I’m here as your protection. Stay close.” Griffins’ vision is superior to humans’. When I blinked at her in surprise, she saw it. “I’m seriously interested in Istvan, don’t doubt that. But you are our sole proven means of activating the world spindle if we need a backup plan to control the rough magic. I’m sticking to you like a tick for tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Raul stood beside her, a silent guarantee of her trustworthiness.

  Behind him loomed Piros, the largest of the dragons, currently intent on the mountains.

  I wasn’t sure what the Faerene expected to see as Yngvar and his team restored the latticework. On the hour, three hundred and forty three Faerene around the world would fix their quintessences. Although I’d heard the orb’s explanation of how the ancient human mages had established the original latticework, my mind still shied from the strangeness of being able to fix a point that was somehow both in Earth’s atmosphere and bound here on Earth.

  Magic. Sometimes it just didn’t make sense to me.

  There was an important idea in there. Not in the magic and how it worked, but in how my mind stumbled over comprehending and using it. Maybe explaining away my difficulties with thaumatology shouldn’t be glibly reliant on an assumed difference between Faerene and humans. Maybe it was me that was different.

  A countdown started.

  “Ten, nine, eight,…”

  I joined in as I slipped into seeing magic.

  On the rooftop, Digger alone wouldn’t be able to sense what was happening. The advantage to that was that he wouldn’t be distracted. He’d be watching everyone, noting their reactions.

  Glancing at Anastasia, I realized that she also watched the crowd.

  Not that the rooftop was truly crowded.

  Our voices joined the countdown coming from the plaza below. “…two, one!”

  Magic flared across the sky. I twisted my neck to track it as it danced like an aurora in silver and violet.

  “Woohoo!” Shouts, howls and shrieks of jubilation split the night.

  The orb had described this. When the ancient mages had locked away their magic—our magic—by successfully embedding the quintessences around the globe, the orb had described it as “the world swam in glory”.

  Face tilted to the sky, Harold uttered a fervent prayer of gratitude. “Thank the guiding star.” He pressed his hands over his face for a moment before straightening. “Let’s join the party!”

  Maybe a third of the people rushed ahead of him down the ramp. Another third surrounded him to share the moment and claim that they had never doubted him or Yngvar.

  From a shouted comment I gathered that Yngvar was expected to join the party later—no excuses. “Too darned reserved for his own good. He’s a hero. We have to cheer him.”

  “A statue!”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  The excitedly bickering goblins took the stairs down to the party. Sounds of it warming up already drifted up from the plaza.

  I glanced at Anastasia for permission or guidance.

  She swatted me with a wing. “You heard the king. Party!”

  “Anastasia.” Harold overheard her loud comment and groaned her name.

  “Congratulations, Harold,” I said.

  The head of the Fae Council smiled wearily. With relief came exhaustion. He’d crash in a couple of hours. Maybe food and drink could extend that a little further, but not by much. “I did little. I am grateful for Yngvar and everyone who contributed to steadying our world. Including you.”

  Piros intruded, lowering his long neck. “I will be interested to see the world spindle on Thursday at the open forum, but for now…I smell barbeque!”

  I took the distraction he provided to sidle around Anastasia and somewhat out of sight of everyone as we headed down the ramp.

  A handful of people stayed to watch the lightshow from the roof, and perhaps, to mourn for the people and dreams lost to the rough magic.

  In the plaza, the mood was celebratory and self-congratulatory. The party in Governing House spilled out into the plaza where it met the party from town. Small food carts were dotted around, and double the number of trestle tables were loaded with a range of beverages. A string band played by the ramp, and drifting around from the seaward side of the building was the sound of a rock band, or the Faerene equivalent, with a driving drumbeat, guitars and two voices screaming.

  I took a drink and stood with my back to Anastasia, which was as safe from sneak attack, or to put it more mildly, to being surprised, as I could get in the plaza.

  The werewolves joined us, which helped mitigate my sense of isolation. Getting a conversation started about life in a werewolf pack helped, too.

  “I don’t think Hope Fang is like other packs.”

  Huffs of amusement greeted my statement. Rory had founded the pack on unusual principles. Most notably, that members didn’t have to be werewolves. It wasn’t that packs didn’t accept other people. They did. However, non-werewolves tended to be drawn into a pack by familial relationship: either marrying a pack member; or, being adopted as a child. Rory had started the pack with two werewolves, Yana and Berre, a goblin ex-army quartermaster, Oscar, and an elf, Nils, and had quickly added a dragon. Dorotta was indisputably an unusual addition to a werewolf pack.

  Stories about life in other packs, both on Earth and back on Elysium, provided uncontroversial conversational fodder.

  Anastasia didn’t have a chance to become bored by the tales. Her officers approached frequently with updates on crowd control and simply to chat.

  The combination of werewolves and cops proved effective at preventing strangers accosting me with questions. As Harold had made clear, all questions concerning the feral magic crisis and its resolution would be answered at an open forum hosted by the complete bench of the Fae Council here in the plaza in just under thirty six hours from now.

  Meanwhile, when I looked for magic in the sky above, the aurora was fading. Apparently, that was both expected and a good thing. Yngvar had predicted it.

  A roar went up as the lauded scientist and bunker chief was dragged into the plaza. He was a short, plump elf with chartreuse hair that stuck out wildly around his pointed ears. He had a generally untidy air.

  He spoke with decisive authority, a spell amplifying his voice. “The crisis is resolved.”

  Cheers.

  “I will continue to monitor Earth’s magic flows.” Monitoring Earth’s magic had been the responsibility of Nora’s team. Had that been reassigned or would Yngvar oversee their efforts? “Which is what I would prefer to be doing, now.”

  Good-hearted jeers answered that sharp complaint.

  Harold clapped a hand on Yngvar’s shoulder. “We owe you and your team our world. Thank you!”

  Cheers resounded across the plaza and throughout the city. Evidently, Yngvar’s brief, cranky speech had been broadcast via slate.

  An hour later, with the drunkenness getting worse, Raul advised Digger and me that we could retire. People mightn’t be questioning me, but they were watching. I’d been visible, but not forward, and now, I was glad to retreat to our suite.

  Anastasia, Raul and Meara escorted us to the door. Anastasia continued on inside, clearing the rooms with Digger. “Tomorrow, there’ll be hangovers and dull commonsense. If you want to wander around Civitas, it should be fine. My officers will keep an eye out for you. They’ll honor any request for assistance.”

  “Thank you.”

  She looked out the window, presumably at the remnants of the aurora.
“I’m trusting Istvan’s judgment of you, Amy. He is a very closed-off individual, but you’re important to him. That matters, as well as the fact that you’re a Fae Council member,” she finished wryly. She shook out her wings. “My advice to you, for what it’s worth, is to use tomorrow to wander Civitas and get a sense of the people. We’re the heart of the Faerene. It’ll help prepare you for the open forum on Thursday.”

  At the doorway, she turned her head. “Don’t worry if people track you, tomorrow. I imagine Raul will have an elf on the job, and I know Meara will either make an excuse to join you or have the packs watch for you.”

  “Busybody copper.” Meara punched Anastasia’s shoulder. However, when she looked at me, the werewolf’s expression was serious. “Some of us realize humans have to be part of how we go forward. Goodnight.” She stepped back, shutting the door in one smooth movement.

  Digger shrugged at me. “Werewolves and humans look similar, at least some of the time. People are watching you and Rory and wondering.”

  “What our children will be like?” My laugh split into a yawn.

  “That, but Nils reckons people are interested in how you balance each other. And you’ll have to ask him what that means. Goodnight.” He vanished into his room.

  I could take a hint. Plus, my bed was calling to me.

  So, too, was the slate, but Rory would be knee-deep in dealing with crises in North America. The civilians in Civitas might be willing to party, but I knew from Rory and Istvan that they had a list of five major spells they had to cast to correct damage from the rough magic, but which they weren’t willing to cast until the magic flows had steadied further—something the restored latticework was meant to ensure.

  Would the latticework hold?

  I didn’t intend to activate the orb again. But if someone did, lured by the knowledge inside it, would the orb tear down the latticework again? Or would the latticework fail for other reasons, which is what I feared. I fell asleep with my worries tangling with the noise of the party below.

  “Donuts.” Hot from the fryer and dusted with sugar and cinnamon, they were the perfect mid-morning snack. Or really, an any time of the day treat. Digger and I broke off our shopping expedition—well, my shopping expedition, his survey of Civitas—to take our bag of donuts down to the public dock where we stayed out of the way of the stevedores.