Fallen Magic

“Do you have a black dress with you?” Edward asks when I come down for breakfast the next morning.

“Yes, I think so. Why?” He’s wearing black himself, I notice. Which isn’t all that different from his usual wear, except that his robes don’t have their usual Siaril-red lacing.

“High Princess Alexandra died in childbirth last night. The King has declared a week of national mourning. And not visibly mourning will be used against you politically. So I suggest you go and change into it immediately.”

“Stars,” I say instinctively as I process Edward’s words. “All right. I’ll be back shortly.”

I return to the dormitory, trying to work out what I’m feeling. Part of me is just sad, because a woman died, even if she wasn’t someone I knew. Part of me is angry that Edward is already considering how our response will reflect on us politically, as if that matters more than the fact a woman died. And part of me is thinking distantly, abstractly, as a historian would. Because the High Princess wasn’t just a woman. She was the heir to the throne. The future of Rasin. And that future has died with her.

I wonder what happens next as I change my outfit. Once the period of mourning is over, a new heir will have to be named. One of the King’s surviving children, or Alexandra’s child if it lived. But in practice, the heir is almost never chosen to be underage when there are equally placed adult candidates. Which only leaves two: Prince Stephen and Princess Miranda.

Most of my opinions about the royal family come from Edward’s interpretation of what his father has told him. And that doesn’t exactly inspire me, in this case. Lord Blackthorn thought highly of Alexandra, and did not have a similarly good opinion of her adult siblings. He called them superficial and obsessed with luxury, Edward told me, followed by but never mention that to anyone, the consequences if it gets out could be nasty.

If I recall correctly, neither of them are as sympathetic towards the Reformists as Alexandra, either. Which is also concerning, in light of the conversations I had yesterday. The prospect of a King allied with their cause could well have persuaded many Reformists unsympathetic to the current establishment against more drastic measures. And so the death of that prospect with Alexandra might well make a revolution substantially more likely.

The mood when I get back to the dining hall is sombre. Edward and I are far from the only ones already dressed in black, and the usual buzz of conversation seems at once more hushed and more urgent.

Edward tosses a copy of the Herald at me when I sit down. “Sensationalist as always, but it at least gets the facts across accurately.”

I skim the front page. His description seems approximately accurate. The only useful thing I learn is that her child did live. A daughter, Eleanor Alexandra. There’s a quote from Alexandra’s husband, now known as Dowager Prince Tomas, about the choice of name: We had agreed on Eleanor for a girl, after the first female King of Rasin. But after my wife’s tragic death, it felt only right to honour the woman who should have been the next female King. I can only hope that someday she grows into a woman as brilliant as her mother.

I can’t help feeling a little sorry for the newborn princess, reading those words. She’ll be forever living in the shadow of the mother she never met.

“It doesn’t say much about what happens now,” I observe when I’ve taken in most of what the Herald has to say.

“It sets out the mourning arrangements, doesn’t it? She’ll lie in state in the Abbey Royal from tomorrow, with a vigil kept by soldiers and priests. And the public are allowed to pay their respects from ten after midnight to four after noon, with private visits from the Kingdom’s most influential figures outside of those hours.”

“That wasn’t – “ I begin, before realising that Edward knew perfectly well what I meant, and that there was a good reason he chose to reply by regurgitating the Herald’s information about the mourning instead. It’s what he told me when I first came down. It’s the way the Blackthorns scrupulously avoid anything that could be interpreted as criticising the King or daring to have political opinions that disagree with the King’s. It’s politics.

It’s a little tragic. “The Abbey,” I say, realising something. “That’s where we were planning to go tomorrow.” With his mother, I carefully avoid saying.

“Yeah,” Edward says. “I don’t think this will change anything, though. Except that it’ll be busier, at least in the main room where – she’ll be. Besides, I – want to see her – on my own terms.”

For a moment I think he means his mother, but his words make more sense if he means the late High Princess. “Did you ever meet her?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “My dad kept me away from court. I would have met her after qualifying as a magician. But – she would have been King, most likely. When I become Siaril Royal.”

It seems strange, to hear him say that with so much certainty. As if it’s just destiny. How things are. “She represented the future,” I say. “Your future, specifically. And you want to mourn that.”

“Yes.”

I can understand that. Respect it. It makes me realise I haven’t fully wrapped my head around what Edward is going to become someday. It’s hard to imagine the boy I’ve spent so much time with advising the King. I guess what scares me most is not knowing what I’ll be doing, by that time.

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He has his future set out for him, and mine is… blank. Unknown.

Classes are cancelled due to the death, as we find out by walking into the classroom to see the teacher absent and a note chalked onto the blackboard. They’re expected to resume on Monday. In the meantime, the note suggests, we should use the time for mourning and quiet contemplation.

“Shall we quietly contemplate together, then?” Edward asks.

I laugh. “What did you have in mind?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, really. My dad says he’ll arrange for my family to visit the High Princess privately, probably tomorrow morning. So at least I know he won’t interrupt – he’ll be incredibly busy for the next while, I expect. I’d – I’d like to talk to Rosie, I think.”

“I don’t mind taking a trip to the library. That’s always a good place to quietly contemplate.”

I think of what Mildred did to me. Of hyperspace. That moment was the opposite of quiet contemplation. In general the idea that there’s nothing beneath your feet to stop you falling into nothingness, and that you might just dissolve if you stay there too long, is probably not good to help you relax.

On the other hand, books. I still don’t mind taking a trip to the library.

“Sounds like a plan, then.”

I wonder as we’re walking to the library whether Rosie is even on duty, and whether the library is also closed. But Edward has his cousin’s shift schedule memorised, and she’s sitting behind her desk as usual. She’s wearing an elegant, lacy black dress which makes me feel plain and drab. I suppose plain and drab isn’t a bad thing when it comes to mourning-wear, though.

“I thought I might see you two here,” she says, seeing us.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Edward replies.

“Talk, then.” Rosie smiles.

“Is this the sort of talk I can be present for?” I ask. “Or is it a family affair? I’m happy to disappear into the library if you want that.” Well. Temporarily disappear. Not stay in hyperspace too long and vanish forever.

Edward shrugs. “You’re welcome to stay if you want.”

I do stay, because I’m curious to see what he wants to talk to her about.

“You met her, didn’t you?” Edward asks. There’s no need to clarify who he means, not today.

“I did,” says Rosie.

“What was she like?”

“Personally? She was… likeable. Very much so. I’m not quick to warm to someone, I’ve been burnt too many times for that, but with her you just couldn’t help it. I’m not sure how much of it was natural and how much was that it was her duty to be likeable. But she asked me about my research, and seemed genuinely interested.” Rosie laughs. “That might be because I gave her the layperson’s explanation, instead of the sort of explanation you’d give.”

“My explanations are perfectly comprehensible to laypeople, as long as they understand the basic concepts of magical theory,” Edward protests.

“Edward, your standards for what is considered a basic concept are so high that there are virtually no laypeople who would understand them.”

She’s probably right. I realise I like Rosie. She’s… nice. Friendly. About as normal as you can get while being a Blackthorn. And she chose to turn her back on the court and its associated politics to focus on studying hyperspace.

I don’t think I could do that, in her place, but it’s a brave choice and one I can’t help respecting. And it’s one that Edward will never even have.

But it’s good for Edward, to have a reasonably sane family member to talk to in times like this.

“What did the High Princess think of your research, then?”

“Don’t think I don’t notice you changing the subject so you don’t have to admit I’m right,” Rosie teases. “As I said, she seemed interested. In the applications of hyperspace. She spent a lot of time researching the Greyford disaster, and she was wondering if there was any chance of expanding the Portal Network without repeating it.”

“Not with the current state of hyperspace research,” says Edward.

“That’s pretty much what I told her. I guess now I don’t have the hope she’ll listen and we’ll get more funds a few years down the line. Oh – Tallulah, I’m guessing you don’t know about the current state of hyperspace research?”

I shake my head. “I’m guessing from context it’s not great?”

“You could put it like that.” Rosie grimaces. “They cut all of the funding after Greyford. Which makes sense, because why would you want to fund the kind of research that leads to that disaster? Except then all the people who worked on constructing the Portal Network retired or died, and they didn’t take students because they didn’t have the funding, so… there’s probably no-one in the country who’d understand how to make any substantial modification to the network. And not many people see that as a problem.”

“Except us,” says Edward. “By which I mean the Blackthorns. Which is why Rosie is researching it now, and why she’s going to teach me about it in a few years’ time, and then we’ll figure it out together.”

“But that’s a secret,” says Rosie. “In case you needed any more dirt on our family, Tallulah.” She laughs.

“Why – oh.” Because the economy of Rasin is so reliant on the Portal Network as a means of quickly transporting goods. Because if it was widely known that in a decade or so the Blackthorns will understand it and no-one else will… everyone would assume that it was part of a plot by Lord Blackthorn to gain economic control.

“Just to be clear,” I say, “is this actually – “ I pause, trying to find a delicate way of phrasing it.

“Part of a conspiracy by my uncle?” Rosie guesses.

“Yeah,” I reply, giving up on politeness. “That.”

Edward shoots me a look, which I ignore.

“Not as far as I know,” says Rosie. “But if there was a conspiracy, I don’t think anyone other than him would know until it was too late.”

I think she might be right.

Edward and Rosie talk for a while longer. Mostly about magical theory, which means I don’t follow much of it. But if it helps him to have something to distract him, then I don’t mind putting up with a conversation I can’t understand.

We part ways once they’re done. Edward says he wants to contemplate alone for a while. I don’t know if that’s really what he wants, or if he just wants to shut himself away from the world so that he can stop acting. I can’t blame him if he wants to stop acting.

I don’t really know what to do with myself. There’s half a dozen different things I should be working on, but none of them are that urgent (yet, at least). In the end I go back to my dormitory and dig out my copy of A History of the Kings of Rasin, which has been sadly neglected since I acquired Georgiana’s diary.

I turn to the blank pages at the end, where my younger self continued an account of King Robert’s reign. The last fragment is the marriage in 1036 of his daughter and heir High Princess Alexandra to Tomas, third son of the Queen of Thalia, and the accompanying trade agreement between the two countries.

It takes me a little while to find my quill. I write slowly, in handwriting even neater and more precise than usual. In early 1041, however, the High Princess died giving birth to her daughter, Eleanor Alexandra.

It feels incomplete, because it is. I want to write something about what happened to the succession as a result, or about how the people reacted, or about the newborn child. But I don’t know any of those things. Unlike Elsie, I can’t see the future.

History isn’t a static, unchanging past. It’s still being written. I’m living in it.