The sorcery magic felt nice. Not alien or odd at all. It was warm and happy and felt rather like Harry in a way. Not any way she could define, but it did. She let the magic settle where it wanted inside her. In her blood mostly, she thought.
There was magic left over. Quite a bit of it. She could send it out, the way she had last time, but she wondered what else she could do with it. Harry had contributed to the making of it, but she couldn't actually give him any of the magic, she didn't think. Since he wasn't her familiar. But maybe she could use some of it for healing that injury.
Moving her lips, Elinor silently invoked the blood still inside Harry centered around his wound. She pushed as much of the sex magic as she could into the area. It seemed to be healing nicely, just not as quickly as she would have liked.
"Elinor?" Harry called her back into herself.
She hadn't exactly stepped out, just looked, and guided magic. Or maybe she was getting the trick of blood riding. "Yes, Harry?"
Harry rolled to his side and sat up to shove his trousers off. He'd only managed to get them to his knees, given her urgency, which had most definitely and most rapidly communicated itself to him. He just didn't know yet whether she'd been in her right mind. "You all right?"
She'd gone limp again, after. But since he'd collapsed himself for a while there, he figured--hoped--she hadn't gone wandering again. And then there was the whole losing-her-virginity bit.
"Quite," she said in her usual crisp tones. "Where are we? Nigel's cell?" She didn't sound like someone weeping for her lost innocence.
He wanted to ask if she was sure, but didn't quite dare. He answered her question instead. "Yeah. He locked us in when he escaped."
He dug for a blanket to cover Elinor. A man took care of his woman and she was most definitely his now. He wished he could see her, though. "Biggs got hit with something. The door maybe, when Cranshaw rushed out. I don't know 'ow bad he's hurt, but he's not conscious, because he's not answering.
"Door's locked. I can't open it. The warding's that good, an' I ain't got the keys. So I reckon we're stuck 'ere till the guard changes. Not sure when exactly that is, but since it's too dark to see my watch, I don't guess it matters."
He dragged the rough wool blanket from beneath her and covered her with it. "I 'ate puttin' this scratchy stuff up against your skin," he muttered. "Wait--"
He leaned out from the cot, groping for one of the discarded petticoats. He had to leave the bunk before he found one. He lifted the blanket and spread the petticoat, netting side up, over her, inserting it between soft, delicate skin and scratchy wool blanket. Then he squeezed in beside her in the narrow confines of the cot.
Elinor hadn't said anything since she'd asked where they were. She wasn't an excessively chatty woman but the extended silence worried him. Who knew what was going on inside that head of hers? Especially since--
Massive doses of guilt rose up again from where he'd swallowed them down in the need to care for her. He thought she'd been back in possession of herself when they made love but he didn't know. He was almost positive she hadn't been when he kissed her and began undressing her.
He wasn't sorry for anything he'd done. In the same circumstances, he'd do it again. But a woman didn't always see things the same as a man did, and he still wasn't sure he hadn't hurt her some way. He hated that worry. So was it better to take his punishment now or later?
Now, he decided. Later would only give her time to dwell on it.
"Are you sure you're all right?" He turned them until he was tucked in behind her, the only way they could both fit in the limited space.
"Yes, I am sure." Elinor pulled his arm down beneath her head for a pillow.
That was a good sign, wasn't it? Harry allowed himself a tiny smile. "Wot about--well, you an' me? Any regrets?"
She took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it all out at once, before she wriggled around to face him. All her wriggling nearly had him standing to attention again. Would have, if he wasn't nearer to forty years old than thirty. He pulled her flush against him to keep her from toppling off the bunk.
"No." She leaned back against his hold in a futile attempt to see his face. Unless she had the vision of a cat. "Not really."
"Not really," he repeated. "That sounds like you do."
"But they're not real regrets." Elinor snuggled into him, rubbing her nose against his neck. "Just--well, it was stupid of me to get myself into that position to begin with. Except, I think I did some good, so I'm not truly sorry I rode Nigel's blood. But I shouldn't have come here alone."
"No, you shouldn't have." Harry managed, just, to keep his mind on what Elinor was saying and not let it shut down due to the softness pressed all along his naked self. The stockings tied just above her knees felt incredibly erotic, stroking his legs. "Why did you?"
"Foolishness?" Elinor shrugged. "I don't know. I thought you might stop me."
"Might've." He brushed his lips across her forehead. So smooth. "Might not have. Dunno. Might've come along."
"I'm glad you did. I'm glad you knew how to bring me back." She lifted her face. He thought she might be hunting his mouth, so he let her find it. Kissing meant she wasn't sorry, didn't it?
"I didn't know," he said, when she ended the kiss and tucked her face into his neck again. "I was just guessing. You've been a wizard all your life and 'aven't had to pay much mind to your body before this sorcery stuff popped up. I knew I could surprise you that way. I 'oped, is all."
"You did exactly the right thing." She paused, apparently thinking. "I suppose you could have brought me back by slapping my face and such."
"I could never," Harry swore.
"Of course not." Elinor gave a quick kiss to his jaw. "Besides, your kisses made me want to return."
"Did they, then?" Harry smiled, sure of her now. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about marrying me..." He let his words trail off hopefully.
"Harry."
He knew that tone of voice, even if he couldn't see her face, and sighed. "No 'arm in askin', is there? So it's to be a secret affair, is it?"
She took her turn to sigh. "I shouldn't. I should say, this once only and no more."
"But you won't." Harry didn't at all feel the confidence he put into his voice.
"I daresay I can't." She gave his collarbone a rather absent-minded kiss, as if it was there near her lips, and she could do nothing else. "I have the awfullest feeling that if I try to stop myself--even if I move out of that flat and locate a new stillroom and avoid being in your presence except during official meetings of the magisters--I think it's likely that during one of those droning meetings, you would only have to smile at me with that perfect mouth of yours and I would crawl across the table to kiss it."
Harry's head felt stuffed with air so hot it had inflated to three or four times its normal size. Elinor truly thought--? "Perfect? You think my mouth is--" He couldn't say the word again. It was too ridiculous.
"Of course it is." She traced its outlines with a fingertip. "The rest of you is quite nice as well, but this--" She favored him with a kiss. "Perfection itself."
"You sure you won't marry me?" He couldn't stop himself asking, though it would likely set her back up against him. He wanted her claimed, bound, and clearly labeled as his. "I got a conservatory and stillroom to offer, besides your use of my mouth any time you want it."
"Harry." But she laughed as she poked him and kissed him after, so that was all right. "I daresay I can have your mouth whenever I like anyway."
"True." He tucked her a little closer, relishing the feel of her there.
Elinor lay still the briefest of moments. "I am worried about Mr. Biggs. Don't you think he's been unconscious far too long?"
"I don't know 'ow long it's been, but yeah, it worries me too." He hadn't actually thought they'd get to sleep together, but he'd enjoyed their cuddle. They should be working on escape.
"Do you think--?" Elinor stroked a finger along his upper arm. "Is it possible he--that Mr. Biggs is dead?"
"I don't know." Harry hadn't wanted to be the one to mention the possibility. Elinor seemed to take death a mite personally. "You're the one with sorcery powers. Think you can use 'em to find out, even with us on this side of the door and 'im on that?"
"I can try." Elinor sat up, concentrating.
Harry sighed. Time to get dressed again and he had no idea where he'd tossed his socks. The rest of his clothes, though, should be-- He found his smallclothes and trousers, and tucked the petticoat blanket closer round Elinor before he got up to put them on. Undershirt and shirt next. The cell was--not cold, but chill, and the chill was increasing as the night aged.
"I can't tell anything from here," Elinor said. "Maybe if I was closer." She got out of the bed and Harry swung her up in his arms.
"Floor's cold." He arranged her covering to properly protect her backside and carried her to the door, petticoat netting rustling under the blanket.
He could sense magic moving but kept quiet so he wouldn't distract her. He'd never been able to sense other magics much. He could some--wizardry more than the others. Plants grew in earth, didn't they? And now he'd been around sorcery enough that he knew what it was, he could tell most times when it was being used. He thought his insensitivity to other magic was mostly because alchemy was so bright and loud to his senses that it was hard to pick out the other stuff.
With the wardings in place here in the tower, though, his alchemy sensitivity was muffled. He could easily recognize the magic Elinor was manipulating as sorcery, with a touch of wizard's fresh green added. He watched, fascinated, for once almost able to see her work clearly.
The rosy magic seemed to struggle to get past the door. Not surprising, given the warding. The magic wavered, shimmered, spread itself thin and slipped through, as if pretending it wasn't there.
"How'd you do that?" He couldn't stop himself asking, hoped it didn't distract her too much. "Get the magic through the door?"
"Oh--" She sounded embarrassed. "I think because it's--well, sex magic." She whispered those last two words and cleared her throat. "Happy magic. It confused the wards."
Harry managed to stifle his chuckle and she couldn't see his wide grin. He waited another moment to control the amusement in his voice. "Will it do what you need it to?"
Elinor didn't reply immediately. He waited for her to finish her working, trying to sense the sorcery through the alchemical hum of the metal door. It felt like Elinor. And a little like himself, which only made sense, given that he'd been part of the making of it. Maybe that was why he could sense it, because it was a little bit him too.
"Biggs is alive," Elinor said then. "But he is badly injured. His head-- Harry, we need to get out of here. We need to take care of Mr. Biggs."
He blew out a breath. "Not sure 'ow we're goin' to do that. I tried, earlier. Before--" He wasn't shy about calling things what they were but Elinor was. "Before our bit of a cuddle. I couldn't do it. The warding's too strong."
Best to get Elinor dressed, if they were going to break out. They would do it. He just had to figure out how. He set her back on the bunk and began retrieving her clothing.
"Maybe we can make enough noise, create a disturbance that will call the other guards' attention," Elinor suggested. "I need my chemise first and my pantalettes. Even with all this metal and stone around us, you couldn't get the door open?"
Harry cleared his throat, grateful for the lack of light. His embarrassment didn't show. "Mighty powerful warding in this 'ammer. Hundreds of years' worth. An' I ain't exactly up to full strength yet after gettin' shot, even with your plaster yesterday."
"Hammer? Oh, yes--jail, hammer and nail--Cockney slang. Right." Elinor was rustling around, dressing, and now Harry wished the dark away. "About your injury--"
"Ready for your stays?" He held the garment out to her. "I'll 'elp with the laces."
"Thank you." Elinor took the light corset and a few moments later, her back brushed his fingers. She'd obviously got it hooked up the front. Harry found the laces and began pulling them taut. "Just till there are no gaps," she reminded him.
"Right." He lost himself in his task, sliding his hands here and there to make sure everything was smooth and gap-free, and wishing heartily that he could just see.
Light whooshed into existence, flames igniting in the oil that had seeped under the door from Biggs' fallen lantern. Harry jumped, startled. He spun around, his hand flying out to close magic around the flame with the closing of his fist, not to extinguish it, but control it. He didn't know where else the oil might have spread since Cranshaw had dashed it to the corridor floor in his attack and he didn't want to catch anything else on fire, like Elinor's petticoats. Or Mr. Biggs.
He hadn't lit fires with a wish since he was at the academy. He wouldn't have thought he could do it now, given the warding. He opened his hand a bit, loosening his grip on the flame, and it rose up nicely, a bright little light, strictly confined to its spot on the floor just inside the cell door. He built his spell inside his intent, for the oil to feed into the flame, for the flame to continue to burn, then set it with the word. "Flammo."
"About that, your injury--" Elinor's voice was muffled as, to Harry's disappointment, she pulled a petticoat over her head into place.
"Yeah?" At least he could watch the rest.
Elinor put on another petticoat, one with stacks of ruffled netting sewed on in tiers to keep her skirts filled out. "I used a fair bit of the magic we made--" She paused to clear her throat. "--To heal that dead zone injury of yours. It is entirely likely--since you just made us a lamp--that you are back to your full strength."
Harry picked up her dress and held it for her to wriggle into. "Yeah?"
He watched--he had a pretty good view through the top half of the dress--as the skirt settled down over her. She put her arms in the sleeves and pulled it up onto her shoulders, then turned her back to him again. Oh, right, she wanted him to refasten all those shiny little buttons.
They were white, to match the white and green stripes of the top part of the dress. The skirt was a light brown and both top and skirt were trimmed with rows of dark green ribbon and all those buttons down the back. Harry thought this dress might have just become his favorite of all Elinor's dresses. Of course, he thought any dress she let him take off her would be his favorite, at least temporarily.
"Harry, did you hear what I said?"
He kissed the nape of her neck above the last button he'd just closed. "Sure I did. It was--" He closed his eyes and hunted for the place he put things to think about later. "You said I might be in top shape again."
He used his hold on her shoulders to turn her round and kissed her forehead. "Let's see, shall we?"
In the light he'd made, Harry easily spotted the wand he'd blasted across the prison cell sometime in the previous century. Before Elinor. It had rolled beneath the table by the window. One of his socks lay nearby. The other was next to the cot. He retrieved all three and tossed the socks onto the bunk to put on later.
On the other hand, perhaps he should finish dressing now. He sat to put on his socks. "If I get the door open, it'll set off alarms. We'd best be ready for them to find us."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't have removed my shoes." Elinor sounded exasperated, but her lips smiled beneath the scowl in her eyes, so he didn't think she was too mad. She sat down beside him to button her shoes up.
Harry stomped his foot into his second half-boot. "You know there'll be scandal, just from bein' locked in 'ere together, don't you?" He put on his waistcoat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Won't be much we can do about that."
Elinor sighed. "I know. It can't be helped, though. You're right about that."
"Course I'm right. Aren't I always?" He grinned as he picked up his wand from the cot.
"No, you are not," she said crisply. She picked up the crumpled blanket and swung it over her shoulders. "Hurry. All this metal and stone makes me cold."
"Right." He turned, rolling his wand through his fingers to get a feel for the magic in it and the magic surrounding him. The wards felt like a great, muffling weight holding him down, but he knew all about lifting and hauling. He'd done enough of it before they let him in the school.
He pulled a little magic through his wand, enough he could feel how the wards would react. He'd need to be careful. He didn't want to drop the door on top of Biggs and hurt him worse. What if he could use the wards? Turn the magic back on itself?
Not entirely sure how it could be done, Harry played with the magic, sliding it from stone to metal and back again, creating a little swaying, back-and-forth wave while he thought.
Weight. He began there. Levers lifted weight. Pulleys did too. Catapults and mangonels--they used both, and counterweights, to throw things. Could he create a counterweight? Or a lever?
What did he have to work with? Plenty of metal, stone, and air, and now he had a little fire. He also had Elinor. Who was a wizard in a cell designed to hold wizards. She was a sorceress too, at least the beginnings of one, but he didn't see that sorcery had much magic for getting doors open. But, if the wards here were constructed against wizardry...
"Elinor, can you stir up a little wizardry?"
"How? There's nothing here I can use." She was sitting on the bunk, watching him.
"Not even a wand in your pocket?"
"Oh. Well--" She began digging through her skirts. "Yes, but it's my favorite. I don't want you burning it up."
"Nothing like that. I just want you to stir up some magic for the wards to move against." He raised a hand to placate the storm sure to issue from her open mouth. "I won't let it 'urt you. Never. But there's plenty of magic in the warding. I want to see if I can tip it against the door, get it open that way."
Her expression still dubious, Elinor nodded. "All right."
"Don't try helping me move it. You're going to be the rock it trips over, right?"
"Tree trunk," she corrected him, lips twitching as she fought a smile.
"Right. I'm the rocks. You're the trees." He grinned at her. "Let me get some magic movin' first." He started the magic swinging again, from the stone exterior wall to the metal interior walls, to the metal door, back to walls, to door, pushing it higher with each surge.
"All right, be ready." He wanted to time it just so.
Elinor lifted her wand, the one with the slight crook in it. Harry could just sense the faint smell of grass. When the alchemy was at its height in the stone, pushing back against the great heaviness of the warding, he spoke. "Now, love."
Wizardry bloomed, flooding the air with its fresh green scent, and the wards rose in fury. Harry pushed, setting his shoulders into his magic and shoving it hard against the warding magic, directing it against the wizardry knocking on the door.
The wards smashed into the magic, crushing it completely and weakening the door beyond. But how much?
"You all right? Didn't get caught in that?" He watched Elinor, searching for damage until she nodded.
"Perfectly well. I know when to step back."
"Most times, any rate." He winked at her before picking his way around the oil puddled on the floor toward the door.
He eased the little flame across the oil patches to the puddle farthest from the door, then extended his wand carefully to touch the door. The instant steel touched iron, the door collapsed into a thick pile of dust laid across the threshold. Sirens and alarms began howling all up and down the tower and its outbuildings.
Harry blinked at it for a moment. "Huh. It worked."
"Of course it did." Elinor was moving past him, skirts hoisted to stay out of oil and iron dust. "You're Harry Tomlinson, alchemist extraordinaire. Would you fetch my bag from the guard alcove?"
"Yeah." He stepped over what had been the cell door and hurried to collect the tools of Elinor's trade, pausing for half an instant to check the door into the stairwell. Locked, as he'd assumed.
Elinor was kneeling beside Mr. Biggs, lifting his eyelids, checking his pulse, and doing other healer-ish things. She took her bag when Harry handed it to her, first swiping a pungent ointment onto the guard's moustache, then lifting his head in an attempt to pour a potion down him.
"He's breathing." She laid his head down on the folded blanket from the cell. "His heart is strong. I'm just worried about the blow to his head. The ointment should help revive him, but I'm wondering if--"
Guards pounded on the door. Harry recognized Thom Norwood's voice shouting for Biggs.
"Biggs is down. He's 'urt," Harry shouted back. "Cranshaw's escaped--likely 'alfway across London by now."
"Magister Tomlin--" Norwood got the key turned and the door opened, "--son? What--?"
"Get men 'unting for Cranshaw first," Harry said. "Then I'll tell you what happened."
"Already done, sir."
Harry couldn't like the suspicion on Norwood's face, but he couldn't honestly blame him for it nor for the anger. Norwood was young to be in charge of the tower prison. Colonel Simmons was the official warder but with his gout so bad, he was laid up with it more and more and Norwood took on more and more of the duty. And probably the blame when things went wrong. Harry gave a quick summary of what had happened. By this time, Biggs was coming around, but he didn't remember anything after Harry arrived.
"I'd like one of the sorcerers to take a peek at your head," Elinor said, packing up her vials, leaving one with Biggs for the headache.
"We'll submit to a sorcery inspection," Harry said, before he saw Elinor widen her eyes at him. No, she probably wouldn't want anyone knowing what else had happened. "On 'ow Cranshaw got out." There would be no need to query what had happened afterward.
"I would like to know how you did that to the door," Norwood snapped. "That door was two hundred years old."
"No wonder it rusted away." Harry hid his wince in a shrug. It would take ages to get the warding built back up to proper strength. "It took both of us to do it and we're neither one of us prisoners, with the wards specifically keyed against us." That should make him feel better.
By the time Harry showed Norwood and his guards how he'd done what he'd done--which meant he first had to figure out exactly what that was--the Briganti I-Branch had appeared, led by Grey Carteret himself at the head of a small mob of magicians.
"Good God, Harry, can't you stay out of trouble?" Grey squeezed through the crowd of Enforcers guarding nothing to stare down at what had once been a door.
"Wasn't my idea. I was just following Elinor to keep her out o' trouble." He slid a glance toward her, but she was helping a wobbly Biggs to his feet. "Good thing I did, too."
"Yes, it was a good thing," Elinor agreed. "Though if you hadn't startled me into beginning my ride too soon--" She sent the injured man with his co-workers to be delivered to his home. "One of the sorcerers will call on you in the morning, sir."
Harry ignored her. Didn't matter whose fault it was. That was in the past. What mattered was what happened next. Grey stepped carefully over the line of former door, waggling a finger at it. "Gather that up, will you, Duncan?"
"Aye, sir." Duncan was one of the I-Branch alchemists who examined evidence from the scenes of various magical crimes.
"Why?" Harry leaned on the door jamb to watch Grey prowling inside the cell. "That's not 'ow Cranshaw got out."
"We still might learn something from it." Grey shrugged. "No harm in looking, is there? Would you mind putting out your fire? We did bring lanterns."
"Oh, right." Harry reached out to grasp the flame again and this time when he closed his fist, he quenched it.
Grey approached the side of the prison cell nearest the corridor in his prowling and went still. He sniffed. He took another step and sniffed again.
"What--?" Harry cut himself off at Grey's upraised hand.
Elinor came up beside him in the doorway to peer in and Harry moved to the side, behind Duncan on his knees, carefully sweeping the door bits into a dust pan. Together, Harry and Elinor watched Grey slowly approach the shadowed corner, the light from the lantern in his hand showing nothing out of the ordinary.
Grey shuddered and took several steps back. He handed the lantern off to Harry, dusted his hands, and wiped his face with them. He gestured for Harry and Elinor to back out of the doorway, exited, and led them a little way down the corridor, away from the crowd, beckoning for Norwood and Grey's I-Branch second, George Meade, to join them.
"There's been a demon in that cell," Grey said quietly.