Fallen Magic

Lord Blackthorn casts several spells, too quickly for me to understand. Edward tells me that they’re mostly detection spells, as far as he can work out. To make sure there’s no magical traps and no-one hidden in the cavern behind an illusion or invisibility spell. Then he layers several wards on top of the still-open tomb entrance.

“My office?” Electra asks, as he looks up from his work after what must have been several minutes.

“Why should you remain involved in this?” Lord Blackthorn asks sharply.

“Because my students need me. And I put my students first.”

That’s definitely a dig, and it’s not undeserved. Lord Blackthorn has barely looked at his son throughout the time he’s been here.

“I am putting them first. By making sure the country they’re living in doesn’t fall apart.”

“Fine. In which case, I should remain involved because I already know the most dangerous information, and you’ll need someone trustworthy to talk things over with. And also because I have information you don’t about anomalous effects in their magic.”

“Your ward network is secure, I take it?” Lord Blackthorn asks. “Even given a modification of the external network to close the Garnett loophole?”

“You work fast if that’s already been done. But yes, it’s secure. I’ll need to fix a few things to account for the modification, but my design is sufficiently compartmentalised that the rest should still be functioning normally.”

“Then I’ll meet you there once I’ve dealt with…” he shoots Sylvia’s body a venomous look… “her. I’ll be no more than ten minutes.”

He picks up his ex-wife as if she’s a sack of bricks and carries her out of the cavern.

“Thank you,” I say to Electra.

“You’re welcome. Are you okay to walk for a little while? We’re five minutes or so from the Academy entrance to the tunnels. The ground should be mostly smooth.”

Edward removes his hand from under mine and pushes himself upright. “I can walk.”

“So can I.”

And walk we do. I cast my own light-spell to illuminate our path out, because I don’t quite like the thought of relying on someone else’s. I’m surprised that I can find the calm and focus to cast. But the light-spell is the first spell I learnt, the one I know best, and it comes more naturally than others.

And the act of casting itself, and of keeping a part of my mind focused on maintaining the spell, calms me too. I understand more than I had before just how addictive magic can be.

It’s only a few minutes before we reach the end of the tunnel. It comes out in one of the Academy’s cellars, a room I haven’t visited before. We release our light-spells as we step out of the tunnel. The light in here isn’t exactly natural either, but it still feels wonderful compared to the endless darkness below.

Electra looks us up and down and then leads us out of the cellar. There’s a back-staircase which comes out on the first floor, and from there it’s only one flight of stairs and a minute’s walk to her office.

Lord Blackthorn is already waiting for us outside, which I’m dismayed by. There are some things I want to ask Electra, and it might be easier to get answers without him present. Besides, an interrogation from him is the last thing I need right now.

Electra lets us all into the office. She and Lord Blackthorn proceed to have a petty standoff over which of them takes her usual chair. Lord Blackthorn is less petty than Electra, it turns out, or at least doesn’t think the debate is worth precious time, so he stands.

“Let’s begin, then. How did you end up in those tunnels?”

Edward and I share a grimace, because now we have to explain that we were associating with Edward’s mother and deliberately hiding that from him. Still, it’s hardly the worst thing he could have found out.

I remember that vague sense of unease I felt, about not knowing how he found us. “Can I ask you something first?”

Lord Blackthorn sighs. “One question, if you must.”

“How did you know we were in danger in the tunnels?”

“I suppose we would have needed to discuss that anyway… I received a most interesting report from one of your classmates.”

My heart skips a beat. “You mean Elsie, don’t you?”

Stars. No.

“Yes. So you did know?”

“Yes,” I say, because there isn’t much point denying it now.

I thought it was over. I thought we’d survived. But – now – “What,” I hiss, “have you done with her?”

“Are either of you going to bother telling me what you’re talking about?” Edward asks.

Now Edward’s father already knows, there’s no sense keeping it from him. “She’s an oracle,” I say. “And – I assume – she had a vision of some of what happened to us? And told you about it?”

“Yes,” Lord Blackthorn confirms.

“Stars, Tallulah,” Edward says. I wonder if he feels hurt, or betrayed, that I kept that from him. But – I have to set that aside. At least for now.

“I suspect I already know the answer to this,” Lord Blackthorn says. “But why did you conceal that information from me?”

“Because I didn’t – don’t,” I correct with icy emphasis, “want you to use her. I know the stories of what happens to an oracle who draws too much on their power. And I won’t let that happen to her.”

“Do you really think I would use my resources so carelessly as to allow them to be spent or broken?”

“I think,” I say, my heart pounding furiously, “Elsie is not a resource, and she certainly isn’t yours. She’s a person. And she’s my friend. And she deserves to choose what her life will be and how her powers are used.” I want to leap out of my chair and attack him, even though I know it would be hopeless, just as a way of doing something, anything.

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“If only we lived in a world where people got what they deserved,” Lord Blackthorn says. “She’ll be comfortable. I’ll let you visit her, if you like.”

“A gilded cage is still a cage.”

I glance at Electra, who’s making no move to defend Elsie. I’m a little stung by that, and I wonder why. Is it because Elsie, not being Malaina, isn’t hers in the same way that Edward and I are? Or because she’s pragmatic enough to not try to stand between Lord Blackthorn and something he wants? Or does she just… not care?

I feel faintly sick. “Edward,” I say.

He gives me a long, lingering look. “I – I can’t, Tallulah. Not right now. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what he means. Whether it’s that he won’t go against his father for me, or that he’s refusing because he feels betrayed by my not telling him, or just that he doesn’t have the strength left to keep fighting right now.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I’m on my own. And I don’t know what I can do.

He won’t listen to moral pleas. Or to pure rage. I’m so much weaker than him.

Not with the anomaly. Not if I’m a Mage. I saw what Edward did, matching Electra flawlessly in a fight under the influence of the anomaly. Could I do something similar? I don’t know. I don’t know what would happen if I lost.

And I don’t know what would happen if I won.

No, that can’t be anything but a last resort.

What does that leave? Negotiation. But what could I offer him that would be worth more than an oracle?

It’s obvious. It’s simple. It’s unthinkable.

“I’d like to make a bargain,” I say.

“Name your terms, then.”

“You let her go. Completely. And in exchange, you get…”

I hesitate. I don’t know if this is the right decision. But it’s the only one I can make. Elsie sacrificed herself for me. I owe her the same in return.

“Me. My total, unhesitating loyalty.”

He wants that. I know he does from the conversations we’ve had recently. And that was before he knew I was a Mage. Now, he can only need that assurance more than ever before.

Enough to turn down an oracle? I don’t know. But I hope so.

“An interesting offer,” Lord Blackthorn says. His face is blank, his expression unreadable. “And if I refuse?”

I tell myself that this is a negotiation tactic. That he’s not going to refuse. I try to make myself believe that. I meet his eyes and force myself not to flinch. “You wondered once,” I say, “whether I would go to war with you for her sake. Do you want to find out?”

“No,” says Edward, his voice empty. “Don’t. Please.” I don’t know which of us he’s begging.

I hate myself in that moment more than I ever have before. My best friend is suffering. And it’s my fault.

But his suffering doesn’t even begin to compare to Elsie’s if I back down now. So I can’t. I force myself to not even look at Edward, to continue to stare unflinchingly at Lord Blackthorn.

“You and I are a lot more alike than I first thought,” Lord Blackthorn says after a moment that feels like an eternity. “I too have seen injustice I could not tolerate. And made the same decision you make now: to end it, even if it destroys me. I look forward to working together.”

“Then...” I say, willing my voice not to shake.

“Yes,” he replies. “I accept your bargain.”

I want to collapse and weep from sheer relief. I want to drag Edward out of the room and beg him to forgive me, promise him that I wouldn’t have done any of this if I’d had an alternative.

But I realise in that moment that I can’t make him the promise he most wants. I can’t promise him that I wouldn’t have gone to war with his father for Elsie’s sake.

Instead I say “Then bring her here. Now.”

“I agreed to let her go. Not to bring her in on an incredibly sensitive discussion.”

I’m probably not going to win this one. I’ve just used the entirety of my negotiating power, and security is something Lord Blackthorn does not compromise on. “Bring her here for just a minute though. So that we know she’s safe, and she knows we are.”

I’m not sure if I should have used we there, not with Edward… I force myself not to think about that.

“If you insist,” Lord Blackthorn says. “But this is the last interruption I will permit.”

“I insist.”

He leaves the room without another word.

“I suppose,” says Edward after a moment of silence, “that my father wouldn’t appreciate it if I were to leave.”

“That is most likely correct,” Electra says.

“Right now, I’m finding it hard to remember why I should care about that.”

I flinch. I want to comfort him, but I don’t know how. Because I deliberately concealed what Elsie was from him, and I don’t regret it, and nothing I can say will change that.

“You’re not going anywhere,” says Electra.

“If this is where you reveal you’ve been plotting against us all along, can you spare me the theatrics and just get on with it?”

Electra laughs. “The problem with affecting an air of villainy is that sometimes it works rather too well. I’m not plotting against you. I’m concerned for your safety if you’re not under my direct observation in the state you’re in right now.”

“I’m – “ says Edward, and then stops. Presumably because we all know fine would be a lie. “If you insist. At least until I have the energy to put up a fight.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help you recover for the next minute or two…” Electra offers.

Edward laughs bitterly.

“Then at least don’t feel like you have to pretend you’re not suffering. Tallulah and I both know it, and you can trust us.”

He laughs again. “Can I, though?”

I’d like to think it’s just Electra he’s doubting, but I know better. And it hurts more than I’d ever admit. “Yes,” I say. “You know I’d never – “ I can’t find the words. Oh, there are plenty of rational arguments for why I did what I did and why I would never truly betray him despite that. But Edward is not a rational creature right now. And I don’t know the words that will reach him.

“It’s my fault,” he says suddenly. “I shouldn’t have – I saw the things you did for me. The secrets you kept for me. The promises you made me. But you’d do that for anyone you’d had one friendly conversation with. Because you’re just a good person.”

Maybe it’s not the secret itself that’s concerning him, but the fact I kept it for someone who isn’t him. The fact I made the bargain with his father for someone who isn’t him.

Jealous. Possessive.

The words are ugly, and even uglier when I apply them to Edward. I want to pretend I never had the thought, bury it away under a tower of justifications: he doesn’t mean that. He’s just lived through his worst nightmare and he can’t even curl up in a ball and cry, anyone would be a bit irrational and say things they didn’t mean after that.

But part of me is dreadfully afraid that he does mean it.

“I’d like to hope being a good person and being your best friend aren’t mutually exclusive.”

I didn’t mean to word it quite like that. It’s too close to uncomfortable truths of my own. Like that I’m afraid that I really can’t have both. And that I don’t know which I’d choose, if it came to it.

The door opens before Edward has a chance to formulate a response. Lord Blackthorn strides through, and just behind him is Elsie.

She looks small and afraid, but wonderfully alive and free. And the way her face lights up as she sees me, and she runs forward to hug me… it feels like magic. Like a happy ending.

A happy ending that belongs to someone else. Because I’ve paid a heavy price for this, in more ways than one. And I find it hard to celebrate when I’m so keenly aware of that.

I hug her anyway. It feels nice. I hadn’t realised until just then how much I wanted the comfort of it. Like a child, just wanting someone to hold me and tell me it’ll be okay. Even that thought hurts, because I’ll never get that from my mother any more, and my dad… I can’t tell him about any of this.

“Thank the stars you’re both okay,” Elsie says, finally pulling away. “I – what happened? Was my vision – “

“I don’t know what you saw. But… yeah. I…” I don’t know what to say. Or I do, but I don’t want to say it, because how can I conceal it from her after everything that’s happened? “I can’t tell you what happened. I’m sorry.”

“What? Why? I know there was something. I saw some of it. You can’t just…”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I can’t.”

At least, not while Lord Blackthorn is right here. But I probably shouldn’t tell her even without him here. But she deserves to know. Stars, can’t things just be simple for once?

Apparently not. Not today, at least.

“Are you finished with your reunion?” Lord Blackthorn asks. “Because we do have a thorough debriefing to have.”

“…does that mean I have to leave?” asks Elsie.

“Yeah,” I say. I fight down the urge to apologise, because it won’t do any good. “But it’s fine. You know we’re all right – “ well, I really don’t think Edward is, but that’s a different matter – “and we know you are. That’s what matters. And I’ll come and find you when we’re done here.”

“All right,” says Elsie. She still looks so afraid. And I don’t know how to help her, not now. “See you in a while, then.” Her voice shakes, but she’s calm when she steps out of the office.