Authors: Gail Dayton
Tomlinson was on her side. Possibly Carteret as well, but she couldn't expect him to lift a finger in her defense if things went badly wrong. She wanted Jax. She could count on Jax.
No one challenged his admission to the council hall. Only hers.
Amanusa wrapped her hands around Jax's arm, taking comfort in its strength, insisting on his escort at her side when he would have walked behind. As they advanced down the aisle toward the front and the only place where chairs had been placed widely enough to accommodate her skirts, shocked silence rippled across the Great Hall, spreading from the point of her impact.
She held her head high, putting all the composure she possessed into her steps. She was Amanusa Whitcomb, blood sorceress. If they insisted on fearing what she could do, then
let them be afraid.
The man at the podium, up on the dais, tried at first to carry on as if nothing were happening. It seemed he didn't quite know what to do, whether to stop or continue. On the heels of the first stunned silence, a babble of conversation rose as those who could not see demanded to know what was going on, and those who could see began to discuss what it meant. Those on the platform gathered, conferred, and as the volume of voices rose, a few beginning to shout, a blond man wearing a red velvet stole and a gold cord draped around his neck seized the gavel from the
man who held it. He began pounding on the podium, shouting at the crowd in German, demanding quiet.
That didn't help much, so he shouted in German-accented French, then in English, and in French again. It took several minutes for the noise to subside, the blond man banging his gavel the entire time. When it was mostly quiet, someone shouted once more. In French, this time.
Amanusa looked up at Jax, who understood her silent question and translated. “He wants to know why a woman has been permitted to enter these sacred walls.”
She could understand Jax, whatever language he spoke, just as he could understand her, but everyone else had to speak English, Romanian, or German.
“Here.” Tomlinson nudged her and held his hand out. “Take this. I got another.”
Curious, Amanusa turned her hand palm up. The alchemist dropped a pebble into it and suddenly, she could understand everything being said. She turned surprised eyes up to him.
“Translation stone,” Tomlinson murmured. “Specialty of alchemy. Stick it in your pocket an' you'll do fine.”
“Thank you, sir.” Amanusa tucked the small stone away just as the German with the gavel turned to glare at Amanusa from beneath beetled brows and demanded to know the meaning of this.
Sir William straightened to his full, considerable height, and stepped forward, addressing the presiding officer, turned so the whole chamber could hear him as well. “This young woman is here to represent the sorcerers of Great Britain.”
Immediately the chamber exploded once more into cacophony, and the blond at the podium started pounding again. It didn't take quite so long this time to quiet everyone.
Sir William continued when he could. “Miss Amanusa Whitcomb has demonstrated an aptitude and a knowledge of sorcery sufficient for admission to the British Magician's Councilâ”
Amanusa raised an eyebrow at that. She supposed the older wizard might not want to air all their private doings before the conclave, showing a united front, and all that.
“As a member of a duly-constituted national council,” Sir William went on, “she is therefore required to be admitted to this conclave, particularly as she is the only delegate for sorcery from any nation at the moment, and particularly since the challenge we face, of these
endroits de la mort
is so great as to call for all four of the great magics practiced by our predecessors.”
Once more the council hall erupted into chaos. The president didn't try to restore order. He sent a group of stout fellows in striped sashes to collect the English delegation, gathered up the gentlemen on the dais, and left the chamber.
Amanusa clung tightly to Jax's arm as they were escorted through a door near the dais and the warren of corridors behind it to a room set up with a large table ringed by chairs. The men from the platform were already there.
“What have you been hiding from us?” The German pounced the instant Sir William came through the door. “It was agreed. Any council that rediscovered
any knowledge of sorcery would immediately inform the other councils. And you have learned enough to have your own sorceress? This is not acceptable. How dare you keep this hidden? How dare youâ”
“We haven't hidden anything,” Sir William roared back in the face of the German's outrage.
“There it is!” The blond threw an accusatory hand in Amanusa's direction. “There is what you have hidden, the knowledge you have refused to share.”
“Gentlemen.”
Amanusa had to put a touch of power into her voice to get their attention. “Flinging accusations before you know the facts accomplishes nothing, Herrâ?”
“Gathmann.” He clicked his heels into a precise military bow, a slight flush staining his cheeks, doubtless because she'd reminded him of proper manners. “Georg Gathmann. Alchemist. Praetor of the Prussian Magician's Council and therefore president of the conclave for this term.”
He introduced the others with him, officers of the governing board, from the United States, Russia, Egypt, Sweden, and France. There were other governors, from India and Brazil, but they hadn't been able to travel to Paris in time for this emergency session of the conclave.
Niceties out of the way, Gathmann turned on Sir William again. “How have I been âflinging accusations,' sir? What feeble explanation can you offer for this?”
“Only that we are just now bringing Miss Whit-comb's existence to the attention of the conclave because we first learned of her existence no more than an hour ago.”
Gathmann looked taken aback by the news. “You have not been secretly educating her in your hidden tower?”
“That hidden tower is a myth,” Sir William retorted. “It does not existâ”
“Actually, it does,” Jax interjected. “At least, I believe it still does. It should. Yvaine laid quite a lot of protection around it before we left that last time. It should still be exactly as she left it.”
“And how would you know where that is?” Suspicion and fear rode every line of Gathmann's lanky frame. “Where is it?”
“In Scotland,” Jax said. “In the remote Highlands. I know because I was Yvaine's blood servant. When she died, I was sent to find Yvaine's successor, and finally, I have.”
Amanusa hoped they didn't get into another discussion-slash-argument of whether or not it was possible for Jax to be three hundred years old. She hadn't yet wrapped her mind around the idea, but his age wasn't relevant at the moment.
“Gentlemen,” she spoke up again, hoping to divert them from Jax. “The issue here is the magic.
Sorcery.
Are you going to lose it again simply because you're afraid of it?”
“I am afraid of nothing!” Gathmann announced.
“Why are you not sorcerer?” the Russian conjurer demanded of Jax. “Were apprentice. Why not sorcerer?”
“I was Yvaine's servant, not her apprentice,” Jax said. “Her blood servant, bound to her by magic.”
“What are you now?” the Russian said. “Yvaine is dead.”
“I am Miss Whitcomb'sâ”
“Betrothed.” Amanusa got the word in quickly. She didn't want Jax shunted to the edges, or even pushed out of the room. He
was
her betrothed. Essentially. He'd promised to marry her when they got to Paris, if she asked him again. That was betrothed enough for Amanusa. “We are engaged to be married.”
E
VERYONE STARED. MOST
of them gave Jax pitying looks. Mr. Tomlinson's expression was neutral. Mr. Carteret blinked, then grinned and extended his hand.
“Felicitations, my dear.” He bowed over her hand, then shook Jax's.
Tomlinson followed suit, looking as if he had much he wanted to say, but wouldn't for now. No one else congratulated them, or even looked congratulatory.
“Butâ” Gathmann said, “if you haven't been educating her in some secret school, where did she come from?”
“Transylvania.” Amanusa rather enjoyed shocking them all again. “I came to the British council because I am Yvaine's successor and her membership was in Britain. And because the Austrian Empire is even less amenable to sorcery and female magicians than you are. Especially in Transylvania and Hungary.”
The way the conclave officers stared seemed to hold more than surprise at her origins, more meaning, more portent, moreâ
“You came to Paris through Hungary?” Gathmann asked.
“Why?” Tomlinson spoke up. “What's been happening?”
“Our investigators finally reached Vienna and Budapest, and have been able to send word back to us here. No one was available in the national offices to answer our questions because all of the magicians in the Austrian Empire were called out to hunt down a dangerous criminal.” Gathmann's gaze fastened on Amanusa at those words and tried to bore inside her head.
She refused to let him in. The man was an alchemist. Only blood magic could see inside another's heart and mind. “If it is a crime to be female and practice magicâand it
is
illegal in Hungaryâthen I suppose I am indeed a criminal.”
Amanusa let go of Jax, hoping he'd spoken truly when he said the white made her look delicate and ethereal. She held out her hands, wrists together as if already bound. “Do you agree? Am I evil? Should I be locked away and punished? Then do it. Arrest me.”
It was Sir William who cleared his throat, who looked away as if embarrassed. “I'm sure that won't be necessary.”
“The reports claimed this criminal magician left a trail of death and destruction.” Gathmann didn't back down.
Amanusa lowered her hands and raised an eyebrow.
“Is defending oneself from attack considered a crime now?”
“If that attack comes from duly-constituted authority, yes.”
“And if they had succeeded in destroying me, would you have scolded
them
for hiding evidence of sorcery's return? Or would you have ever known of it?”
Gathmann frowned as he opened his mouth for a retort, but apparently could find nothing to say.
“If you ask me,” Tomlinson said, ignoring the fact that no one
had
asked him, “the criminals are the ones who were hunting her down. Simply practicing magic shouldn't be a crime, no matter who's doing the practicing. The only crime is what's done with the magic. And any councils that have laws saying this person or that can't have magic should be told to change their laws or get out of the conclave.”
“This is not acceptable!” The Egyptian governor jumped to his feet. “The laws of theâ”
“We are not here to discuss changing national charters.” Gathmann cut him off. “This conclave is strictly for the purpose of finding ways to deal with the dead zones.”
“About thatâ” Tomlinson strolled farther into the room and propped a hip on the polished wood of the table. His accent slipped back toward Cockney as he stopped paying such close attention to it. “The dead zones shrank four weeks ago, exactly. Twenty-eight days back. We 'aven't been able to find any magic anybody worked that could've caused that change.”
Amanusa shrank toward Jax under the intensity of the look Tomlinson turned on her. The warmth of Jax's hand settling in the small of her back gave her back her confidence.
“Wot I want to know is thisâ” Tomlinson's eyes bored into Amanusa much more effectively than Herr Gathmann's had. She'd thought the English alchemist an ally. “Did Miss Whitcomb work any magic that might account for the dead zones shrinkin' that day?”
“Twenty-eight days past?” Amanusa looked up at Jax. She'd lost track of time while they'd traveled. “We've been four days in Paris. How long on the train from Vienna?”
Together they counted up the days until they reached the day they had left the outlaws' camp.
“I worked blood magic that day,” she said. “I answered the call of innocent blood for justice.”
“A great working?” Tomlinson asked. “Powerful magic?”
So powerful it had escaped her control and come close to destroying her, along with those who'd been judged and condemned for their crimes. But she wasn't telling them that. “Yes. It was the first time I had done such powerful magic.”
“Have you done it since?”
“Like that?” Amanusa shook her head. “No. I have done justice magic. Innocent blood was spilled and I used it in our defense. But it was not so great a working. Fewer crimes, fewer criminals.”
“You say your enemies are the criminals.” Gath-mann sounded scornful. “Criminals always claim innocence. Always blame the law for being in the wrong, abusing its power. It is
the law.
”
Amanusa turned her head to stare at the Prussian, using her gaze as he tried to use his earlier. She was more successful, for Gathmann flushed and looked away. “The law can be used to protect the people from those with power and wealth, or it can be used as a bludgeon against the powerless. Surely, in the years since Yvaine's death, when sorcery was lost to you, the magician's councils have not forgotten that innocent blood will cry out for justice, and that only sorcery can hear that cry.”
Most of the others could not meet her eyes either. The American governor, a brash young man with a gray alchemist's stole over his shoulders, was one of the few who did. “Yeah, I've heard that. I've also been told that blood doesn't lie. That true too?”
Amanusa inclined her head. “It is. Blood carries only truth.”
The Egyptian's eyes narrowed as he glared at her. “But the sorceressâbeing a woman and therefore weakâshe can lie.”