Fallen Magic

In the end I’m one minute late, which is still one minute too many. Thankfully Mary, the Alchemy teacher, isn’t as strict as a lot of the other teachers and lets my lateness go unremarked.

“Are you all right?” asks Edward quietly as I slide into the seat next to him.

“Overslept,” I reply. “Can we talk later?”

“Of course.”

That’s as much conversation as we can have in class, but it’s enough to stop me from disrupting it with a Malaina episode. I focus on taking careful and precise notes, the way I form each letter, as if that could possibly make any difference. It helps distract me from how my new life is already falling apart, at least.

The lesson seems to last forever, and Magical Theory after even longer. But I manage to stay awake and make it to the meeting room without a complete breakdown, which is surprisingly good.

“What’s happening?” asks Edward the moment the door shuts behind us, and I flinch at the urgency in his tone.

“I…” Now I’m about to say it, it feels pathetic. What’s happening to make me feel as if I’m breaking? “I can’t do this any more.”

“Is this about the project? I can tell my father not to – “

“No,” I snap. If I don’t meet him, it’ll all be for nothing and Mildred’s father will die. I have to keep going. Somehow.

“You’re not doing Mildred any good by working yourself to death, Tallulah.”

“I know I’m not. That’s the entire point.” He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t. I don’t know why I expected anything different.

“Tallulah. You are not failing.”

I laugh bitterly. “Really?”

“I’ve seen your work. It’s good, really good.”

“Not good enough.”

Edward sighs. “Tallulah, no-one could expect you to produce the perfect argument. Your expectations are unrealistic, and the fact you’re not meeting them isn’t your fault except for setting them in the first place.”

“So what?” I ask. “Am I just supposed to give up? Let him die?”

Edward stares at me for a long moment, and I realise that’s exactly what he thinks I should do. He doesn’t really care about this the way I do. He set up the meeting for me rather than for Mildred or her father, and now it’s not doing me any good…

I imagine looking Mildred in the eye and telling her I gave up. “I’m not doing that.”

“Okay. But you can’t keep going like this, can you?”

“No,” I admit.

“Sooner or later, you’ll hit breaking point, and… you have to stop before that.”

It might already be too late.

“If it makes you feel better about it, you won’t persuade anyone by being a sleep-deprived wreck.”

It kind of does, actually.

“Just take a couple of days away from it, okay? After the weekend you can come back to it with a fresh mind.”

“Mm.”

“Promise me you won’t work on the project until after the weekend?”

“What if he wants to meet before then?”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that – “

Edward sighs. “Okay. I don’t. But it’s unlikely, and honestly I think you’d do better with only what you have now and a day or two’s rest than after another two days’ work. Now promise.”

He isn’t going to take no for an answer, and I appreciate that. “I promise.”

And I keep to that promise, stubbornly ignoring the voice that tells me I’m wasting time, for the rest of the day. The papers the next morning have more reports of the trial; Lord Blackthorn began giving testimony yesterday. There are a lot of legal technicalities about the intersection of Intelligence matters which are supposed to remain secret and the process of justice which is supposed to be public, so from what I can work out most of the day was spent negotiating what exactly the lawyers are allowed to ask him and what he’s obliged to answer.

“See,” says Edward, “you have time. They’ll be bogged down in this for days. Longer, if the lawyers want to drag it out, which Cavendish’s certainly will.”

“Yeah,” I agree absently, wondering what good all this time will do me.

I have to admit, though, Edward is right. I feel far better after having slept properly and taken time to eat proper meals. I wonder where he picked up good habits about that, given the absurdly long hours his father must work.

Elsie and I meet early that morning: we’ve agreed to visit the Abbey Royal before going to the Market and want to avoid the inevitable crowds. It doesn’t take long to sign out and cross the Central Ring – I don’t look at the statue of the Mages, not wanting to be reminded of last weekend’s revelations.

I’ve come to the wrong place to avoid the Mages, though. The Esteral Altar is directly in front of us, down the main aisle, the second we open the door. It’s the site of the Mages’ greatest miracle, the reason the Abbey was built here and the most sacred place in the kingdom.

A thousand years ago, Rasin as a kingdom didn’t exist. Its lands were divided and claimed by half a dozen constantly-feuding tribes. Most of the historical sources are epic poems or Temple scripture rather than accurate accounts of events, but they do seem to agree on certain facts.

The two largest tribes had, after months of careful negotiation, arranged a marriage alliance between their respective heirs, Edmund and Hilda. All their lords and nobles gathered in what was then a fortress-city on the river that marked the border between the lands to celebrate the wedding, which would take place on the last day of the year, the Holy Day known as Esteral.

And then, the night before the wedding, Edmund was murdered in his sleep.

His family and tribe were naturally furious, especially since they had no other heir, and blamed the other tribe, who were equally furious about this insult. Many years more of bitter war were inevitable.

Enter the Mages.

Three young magicians from a quiet mountain village, said to be more powerful than any known before them, even to have slain a dragon, simply walked in and claimed they could raise Edmund from the dead. And then they actually did it.

Edmund, upon being resurrected, swore oaths of loyalty to the Mages to repay this great debt, and eventually all the leaders of the two tribes swore the same oaths and chose the Mages to be their rulers. That was how Rasin was born.

And a thousand years of history later, Elsie and I walk towards the altar that marks the spot where the resurrection took place. It sits atop five long, shallow stone steps. On the step below it sits the sacred throne on which every king since Philippa the Bright has been crowned.

It’s not even close to the grandeur you’d expect from a throne. A simple wooden chair, with the symbol of the Mages carved into it: three intersecting circles and a single point in the centre.

We can only ascend as far as the second step: powerful wards prevent the public from going any further. The third step is reserved for priests giving services, the fourth for the king at a coronation or other ceremonial event, and the fifth no-one has been able to pass since before the Abbey was built; the altar was placed by magic.

On the edge of the second step, just below the third, sits a long row of burning candles. Each one of them represents a dead soul, and a prayer that one day that soul will be brought back like Edmund was.

Elsie kneels on the second step and takes a candle from her bag. Oh, I realise, feeling a stab of pity as I kneel beside her.

She sets the candle down in a gap in the row and whispers an incantation; it lights at once and begins to burn.

I don’t know that spell; she must have learnt it herself, possibly just for this moment. I’m not sure I want to know that spell, considering the arson I’ve already committed.

We withdraw slowly, not turning away from the altar and the empty throne until we’ve reached the bottom of the steps and stepped to one side to let others climb.

“Who…” I ask.

“My aunt,” Elsie says quietly. “She lived with us. She was a second mother, really. She died last year. I miss her every day.” There are tears brimming in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say mechanically. “May she ever walk among the stars.”

“She does, I’m sure of it. If anyone deserves to walk among the stars, it’s her.”

We sit in silence for a minute or two before setting off to explore the crypts. With two notable exceptions, there are no kings buried there, but they have the right to nominate others for that highest honour so there are many lords, magicians, generals and creators of great works resting here. Including Edward’s ancestors: Philippa the Bright infamously granted every descendent of Richard Blackthorn the right to be buried here, not doing much to quash the rumours about their relationship being closer than that of king and general.

I don’t want to visit the Blackthorn family vault, though. It doesn’t feel right doing that without Edward’s presence and permission.

Instead we go to the Martyr’s Tomb, the second most sacred site in the Abbey. When Isabella the Pious died, she asked to be buried in the Abbey she had built, and her funeral was held here in the crypts. As any self-respecting student of history knows, her brother Lucius had made sure the Abbey was connected by tunnels to his residence, the palace that would one day become the Academy, and assassins hired by him crept through the tunnels and murdered High Princess Elizabeth at her mother’s funeral.

Several decades and a Civil War later, Elizabeth was proclaimed a martyr for her courage and dignity in the face of death, and reburied in her mother’s grave. In fact she’s known to history as the Martyr, the only uncrowned king ever to have been granted a byname.

That grave bears a simple inscription: Here lie Isabella the Pious, who built this Abbey, and her daughter Elizabeth the Martyr, who died here.

We pay our respects to the long-dead kings in solemn silence, and I find myself contemplating just how twisted you’d have to be to murder your niece at her mother’s funeral. Even for the throne, surely nothing could be worth such a dreadful price.

Then we wander around the crypt, exploring the rest of the tombs and talking about the people buried in them. I’m startled to discover the grave of Elizabeth Waterford, one of the greatest generals of the River Wars and the woman my former school was named after.

I remember being eager to find out all about her when I was accepted into Genford, hoping that she’d be someone I could relate to or even try to emulate. No such luck: she was known to be viciously anti-intellectual, criticising academics and scholars for having no understanding of reality and how wars were fought on the front lines. Ironically, the battles she commanded are studied in almost every course on military history.

“So,” asks Elsie as we wander out of the crypts. “Do you think Richard and Philippa slept together?”

I laugh. “Straight to the controversial questions, then. I don’t know. She certainly never had his child, but if it did happen there are hardly going to be records of it.”

“I don’t think they did,” Elsie muses. “Philippa loved both of her husbands. Wait – no – not at the same time – that came out wrong – “

I laugh again. Philippa’s first husband was long dead when she remarried after becoming king. “Last time I checked she wasn’t a bigamist. Though even if she was, she’d still be a better king than Lucius.”

“A wet fish would be better than Lucius.”

We emerge from the crypts still finding creative ways to insult a long-dead usurper, and walk out of the main door of the Abbey and straight into a protest.