Spells and Sensibility Read online

  The kettle whistled, a reminder. Theo attended to it.

  He, Theo Burnett, had not ever liked disorder, nor distractions, nor unpredictability. His older brother might drink and gamble and generally disgrace the ducal title he’d been born to; Theo had seen the results of Clarence’s fecklessness, and their parents’ before that. He hadn’t wanted that life.

  When he’d felt the stirrings of magic in his soul, the first glowing shimmering sense of the land and the people and every brilliant spark of light that he might one day be able to see or to touch, he’d nearly wept with sheer relief: he had a place, a purpose, a clear path for his future.

  Henry was a distraction. A diversion. Unpredictable.

  And Theo could never have not offered aid. An impulsive act. Born of the moment. The sort of spontaneity which he did not enjoy. Even if the man possessed a faded dazzling smile, and attractive long-legged lean masculinity, and a tendency to apologize for soldier’s reflexes he could almost certainly do nothing about.

  Theo, refusing to think about Henry’s smile any longer, arranged everything on a tray, and went back out to the sitting room. The fire leapt in welcome; chairs and the small two-person sofa clustered near warmth, and white-plastered walls encircled the scene to keep all the heat close and snug.

  Henry had remained sitting right where Theo’d left him, eyes open but visibly not-asleep in the manner of someone too tired to drop off. He was watching—or gazing vaguely into—the fire, but turned fast when the door closed. A soldier, Theo thought again. Someone who’d seen battlefields.

  He said, “Tea, and bread and cheese, and some slightly elderly apples? Or not, if you’re not hungry. If not, I’ll eat the lot, never fear.”

  Henry focused on him more sharply. Murmured, “You would say that…”

  “About eating? Guilty, I’m afraid. I have an unfortunate weakness for iced cakes and scones with clotted cream, which is why I’ve not got any at the moment, in fact.”

  “No,” Henry said. “Not that. You want me to feel comfortable.”

  “You are my guest.” Theo settled into the softest chair, the large one with brocade cushions that invited his shortness to curl up in a terribly unprofessional manner. He would’ve done, if he’d been alone; he did not, just now. “Here you are. Drink this. I shall just toast some cheese, and you may join me or not. Were you looking for something specific in the College’s most bone-dry historical survey? I am your librarian, you realize, and I might be of assistance.”

  “Professional curiosity?” Henry took a sip. His hand did not shake, but Theo had the sense that this was only because iron-clad self-possession refused to permit it. “I hadn’t planned to inconvenience you any further. I did spend the requisite endless sleepless hours in the library while finishing my final apprentice’s showcase piece, under Honoria Merrill, if she’s still here and terrifying undergraduates. I can manage research.”

  “Professor Merrill is indeed still here. I quite liked her classes.” Theo stabbed bread with a toasting fork. Pointedly. “She appreciates tidy spellwork.” Honoria Merrill, silver-haired and straight-backed despite her age, refused to supervise more than one or two final apprentice’s projects each year, claiming she had neither the time nor the inclination to indulge anyone not gifted, dedicated, and disciplined. Henry, the opposite of neat and tidy, must have been impressive.

  Theo himself, of course, had already been good friends with Sir Roderick. He had, under that kindly grey-whiskered supervision, taken on a book-protection spell that’d extended the library’s fireproofing spells to each individual volume, even when checked out.

  He wondered what Henry’d done to demonstrate sufficient magical comprehension; that would’ve been before a summons to war, wouldn’t it? “And I am quite good at my job. I’d like to help.”

  Henry drank more tea, and gazed at him across the teacup. “This is excellent. Not just mint, but a hint of blue vervain?”

  “Thank you, and yes, it is. Are you avoiding my offer?”

  “I was thinking that we must have just missed each other at school. I’d’ve remembered you.”

  “Oh, no, you wouldn’t. I’m hardly memorable.” Theo retrieved toast, shining gold and molten with cheddar; slid it onto a plate, began another. “Good at research and history and retrieval spells, but sheer rubbish at College sport, competitive Fool’s Football, enhanced underwater rowing, and so on. I expect you were a splendid magical submersible oarsman or something of the type. I think you’re right, though, and you’d’ve been a few years ahead of me.”

  “Submersible Rowing Captain,” Henry said. “Three years running. I grew up near a lake. Of course you’re memorable. And talented, if Sir Roderick left you the library. I didn’t mean any insult.”

  “None taken. I know I’m young.” He casually picked up a slice of toast, nibbled, watched Henry unconsciously do the same: mirroring the motion. “But I’ve always been good at finding things. Solving puzzles. Sorting out tangles. I enjoy that.”

  He also sliced an apple—getting softer, a late-autumn sort of apple, here at the edge of December—and idly held out a piece. Henry took it, apparently without thinking about it, and ate it, and then looked surprised.

  “Where were you staying,” Theo inquired, “before this? If you don’t mind me asking. Should we send a message along?”

  “Honestly?” Henry sighed. Then coughed. And pretended he hadn’t, drinking tea. “A week or two in hospital, a week or two at Apsley House…I hadn’t planned it out much past that. I’d hoped—I had thought I’d be going home.”

  But you didn’t, Theo noted but didn’t say aloud. You didn’t go home. And you’ve apparently stayed with the Duke of Wellington, briefly or not. You weren’t any sort of common soldier, and you weren’t common even among the Magicians’ Corps; aide de camp, you said. Personally reporting to the commander. But that can mean anything he needed you to do.

  Anything, indeed. In war. In France, among mud and rain and army-trodden paths. And given what had become of the Corps, given the blood and the pain and the losses—before the treaties, before they’d been formally disbanded—

  He said, “Well, you’re welcome to stay. I won’t ask for details if you’d rather not discuss it, but—as far as having been in hospital, and recovering, as you’ve said—is there anything I might do to make you more comfortable?”

  Henry, who’d eaten a second slice of apple in the meantime, hesitated. “If you’re concerned I might light your bed on fire if startled—”

  “Hardly. Someone who frets over nearly causing temporary harm would never injure my furnishings on purpose, and I’d never hold an accident against you. And I’m not convinced you can light more than a candle, at the moment.” He paused. Regretted his own words. “That’s part of it, isn’t it? My apologies.”

  Henry lowered his teacup without taking a sip. Cradled warmth in hands. Gazed down for a moment, as if mint and steam and water might lend him strength.

  When he looked up, his smile was wry, raw, laid bare and resigned to surrender, not without some humor. “You did say you were good at puzzles.”

  “Should I not have guessed? And you were looking into the origins and sources of English magic; looking for ways to restore it, perhaps?”

  Henry looked as if he wanted to draw a deep breath, bracing himself, but perhaps he couldn’t, with that cough. He met Theo’s eyes as if preparing for some sort of judgment, a flogging or a court-martial or another doom. “I thought I might find something to help.”

  And that was an admission; that was a yes. Henry went on, while Theo tried to imagine losing the glittering multihued strands of life that danced at his fingertips every day, “Even Arthur’s personal physicians can’t just magically replace what’s gone. I tried the healing-spells I know. Ridgeley’s Restorative—”

  “Requires strength and a clear focus, neither of which you have! And you’re not meant to cast that one on yourself! It’s an external locus. I’m surprised you didn’t simp
ly pass out on the spot, you completely idiotic man.” Theo waved the toasting fork at him in justified indignation. That explained the blood, at least—the spell needed the subject’s essence in some form—but did not explain the idiocy.

  “Er…” Henry became very interested in his tea. The tips of his ears went pink.

  “Oh good Lord. You did. Why are you upright and talking? You ought to be in bed. Right this instant. I’ll carry you up the stairs myself if necessary.” Belatedly, the fact that Henry was on a first-name basis with the Duke of Wellington registered in Theo’s brain, and momentarily made him forget words.

  “You should command battalions,” Henry muttered into his teacup. “In charge of us all within a week.”

  “I’m too short to shout at soldiers. You I can manage.” He’d in fact managed to get Henry to consume a hearty slice of toasted cheese and half an apple, plus the tea. Success.

  “I was a soldier,” Henry said. “More or less.”

  “Yes, but you’re…well, you. You’ve apologized to me, tried to protect me from yourself, complimented my tea, and evidently forgotten how Ridgeley’s Restorative works.” Theo bit an apple slice in two at him, and finished, “You’re not as intimidating as you think.”

  In fact this was only sixty percent true. Henry Tourmaline, an officer and a magician in wartime, very likely had skills and nightmares that Theo’s librarian’s soul could only imagine. That more or less phrasing lingered, a haunting: just what had Henry done, in the war?

  Henry was also older than Theo, though not by more than a handful of years. The ghosts of old charisma—a boy who’d been a captain at team sport, who’d been tall and kind and handsome and well-liked—hovered behind that crooked smile, those blue eyes. Henry would’ve been exactly the sort of person who’d’ve never noticed Theo Burnett, not out of cruelty or malice but because cheerful buoyant happiness would simply not have much attention to spare for a socially awkward, not terribly athletic, obsessor over small tidy details.

  Theo liked paintings that hung perfectly straight, and books arranged according to his system, and symmetrical cravats. He could not wear gloves, because if one acquired a spot or a smudge, they no longer matched, and he could never bear that. It prickled at the corners of his mind.

  His brother thought him merely fussy; Clarence laughed at him and occasionally hung an artwork crooked or displayed mismatched candleholders just to see Theo’s reaction. Theo knew his brother did not truly mean harm, knew that Clarence would forget about any comment in the next moment’s chatter about a gambling hell or a new racehorse bought with that ducal purse, and simply sighed and straightened the art each time.

  Did he find Henry Tourmaline, a man who’d done more than Theo ever could for the country and the cause, intimidating? Perhaps, he acknowledged silently. Perhaps.

  Which did not mean he had to show it. He took Henry’s teacup and refilled it. Henry watched him with the expression of someone thoroughly unused to small gestures.

  “I think you were on the right track,” Theo said, “as far as looking into wellsprings and sources and land-sense. Especially if those were more your strengths to begin with. But Johnson’s History won’t help as much, being, well, a history; you need something practical. But that’s a problem for the morning, I should think. You need to rest, and I tend to rise early.”

  “You do seem the type,” Henry said. He’d eaten another bite or so of a piece of toast; he looked better than he had, unless that was simply wishful thinking on Theo’s behalf. Still, headache-mending tea and some nourishment must be helping somewhat. “Early mornings and polished boots. You’ve got a daily dust-removal enchantment, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. Everyone should. It’s only a variant of the standard basic banishing spell. Drink that, and we’ll get you into bed? Unless you’d like me to look at your arm. I’m guessing you used your own blood for the thoroughly silly Restorative attempt, since it needs some form of…essence…and that’s one of the strongest…”

  They both paused. Theo knew, entirely knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were both thinking about certain other forms of magical essence a man might produce, and not tears or sweat, either. He tried not to blush. He was fairly certain he failed.

  Oh, well; Henry had no doubt encountered coarser talk among soldiers. Theo straightened his shoulders. “Er. Yes. Well. Do you need bandages, or a quick knitting-spell? I’m not the best, but I can do the basics, and a simple cut shouldn’t be too bad, assuming you haven’t done anything more out of the ordinary to yourself.”

  Henry had so far failed to produce any syllables. He did blink at Theo, finally, and then shook his head and took a very long drink of tea. Resurfacing, he said, “I managed. I do have about enough power to light a candle, as you said. Or close a tiny nick. I’m not hurt.” He sounded earnest about this.

  Theo narrowed eyes at him.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you,” Henry protested.

  “No,” Theo said, “you wouldn’t, would you? You’d try to handle everything yourself, and you’d offer to help me with tea things when you can barely stand, but you wouldn’t lie to me, Henry.”

  “Theo,” Henry said, as if the name, the answer, were inadvertent, instinctive, a yielding in the wake of his own name on Theo’s lips.

  “We’ll solve this.” Theo put a hand out, deliberately; he let it rest above Henry’s wrist, advance notice, then settled it into place. Tangible, but gentle: a skimming brush of touch, his fingers atop Henry’s weary arm. No soldier’s defenses, no flaring light, burst outward, so perhaps he’d done it right. “I promise. I like puzzles, and you’ve brought me one. You can tell me more about the circumstances in the morning, for specifics. For now, let me take you to bed. I mean my bed! I mean without me in it.”

  Henry opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head again. “Theo.”

  “Still me, I’m afraid? No one more impressive has turned up that I’m aware of, though toasted cheese is quite good at comfort, I’ve found.”

  “…toasted cheese,” Henry echoed. “I mean. Yes. It…is.”

  “Good, then.” Theo lifted his hand, but kept it offered. “Momentary assistance up the stairs? You may bring the rest of your tea; I’ll get the cup in the morning.”

  Henry looked at the hand, looked at him, and took it. Thin weight rested in Theo’s care, willingly given over; he fit himself under Henry’s arm again, and found himself glad that he was sturdy enough for that. “Come along.”

  They went. The flight of steps was short and broad, time-worn and stone but shallow; the tower rooms stood stacked atop each other in small cozy circles that’d seen ages of magicians come and go. Theo’s tower, the northeast of the inner older court, had three floors, and the topmost was only storage and the stair to the roof walk; the ground floor had the sitting room and kitchen, and the only other floor held the bedroom and washroom. It’d all been renovated a decade or so ago, in the lighter brighter styles of the time, and he’d updated furnishings and renewed insulation-spells and everything of that sort, but he hadn’t been able to make it any larger.

  He looked at his bed. It was more his size than Henry’s. No help for that at the moment, so he guided Henry over there and hovered through a brief coughing fit. “Drink your tea.”

  Henry did. “I like your tapestries.”

  “Oh—thank you. They’re not really expensive—local, not imported—but I liked the patterns.” They were simple, woven in interlocking colors, but deep and rich in color, regal purple and star-blue and antique gold. He’d liked the geometry and the lines and the hues. “Here, fire—” A flick of fingers and a word took care of that; he glanced around. “I’m not certain any of my nightshirts would fit you. Well, perhaps—you’re thinner than I am—but you’re also possessed of implausible height.”

  Henry actually laughed, a startled escape of breathless noise. He was still obediently sitting on the bed. “I’m a perfectly plausible height, I assure you. My brother Jack is even talle
r. You’re simply a study in miniature.”

  “You shall have to tolerate a miniature bed, then. I’ll get out a shirt, and you can decide for yourself.” He paused, glanced around, swept a hand at the room: a single cozy dark blue chair squished under the window, a bedside table, a woven rug, the partition that hid the shower-bath and necessary closet. The College had had plumbing, magically assisted, for quite some time; it took a bit of monitoring by specialists in copper and water, because it was complicated spellwork, but everyone considered the convenience of flushing toilets worth the trouble, versus the old privies and chamber-pots.

  The hot water for showers did not ever last long, but it came when called, and Theo adored his shower-bath and the resultant cleanliness. “Feel free to use anything you’d like. I’ll sleep downstairs on the sofa; just give me a moment to collect a blanket. I always have spare tooth-powder, and a brush, in that drawer over on the right.”

  Henry was regarding him with an expression that Theo did not quite know how to read. “Of course you do.”

  “One does hate to run out unexpectedly. Would you, er…like any assistance? With your boots, or—or your coat? Before I go?”

  “I shouldn’t need it,” Henry said, tone complicatedly rueful. “I can manage. Theo, all this…”

  “It’s no trouble. I deal with undergraduates on a daily basis; you’re not even in the top ten worst things I’ve seen come through my library door.” He scooped up a blanket from the chest at the bed’s foot, left it open—Henry might want more blankets—and tried not to think about Henry removing boots, coat, cravat…shirt and trousers…smallclothes, perhaps, if he was the sort to sleep naked…

  Relationships between two men, or two women, might be tolerated and legal in England these days—perhaps for political or powerful alliances, say—but that did not make them common, and not all men would welcome any overtures that direction. Theo, who’d grown up with a brother who enjoyed the charms of any and all of humanity at every offered opportunity—once upon the breakfast table, as he’d walked in to discover—had known of his own preferences toward men for quite some time; he had not been entirely celibate as a student, discovering London’s charms and the houses and pubs that catered to a certain clientele.