The London Institution in Finsbury Circus had been borrowed for the expanded testing day by arrangement with the institution's board of governors. It was a great deal nearer the East End than the Magician's Council Hall was. It was also close to an underground station, one of those operated by a tiny locomotive, as well as the Liverpool Street train station. Harry had long advocated for talent testing in varied locations around London, rather than solely at the Council Hall. Now that he was head of the council, he'd taken only two weeks to get the first one set up.
The doors to the institution were to open promptly at one p.m., to allow time for the candidates to eat lunch after church services. The churches in and near Finsbury Circus, from Allhallows Church to the Welsh Baptist Chapel, had overflow crowds that morning. Elinor saw them filling the doorways as she arrived early with the other volunteers to set up at the institution. By noon, the oval park in the center of the circus was packed with whole families queuing up to have one of their members tested.
All of the schoolmasters were present for the testing as it was part of their duty. Norwood had brought a company of Enforcers to keep order in the queues. All the magisters and Harry had come as well--the women, because they were needed for testing; the men, to support the ladies. The schoolmasters were enough to test the likely boys.
Amanusa and Pearl brought their advanced students to help with testing the anticipated mobs of women and girls. Elinor had called out all three of her master wizards, as well as inviting Dr. Rosato, who came. Nikos Archaios also offered to help test the girls, since he was sensitive to all four of the Great Magics. Elinor worried that they still didn't have enough testers for the girls.
"Don't be harder on the girls than you are on the boys," Elinor was saying, with a sharp look at Lewis Moreman. She didn't know him well enough yet to trust him very far. She turned her sharp look on Tonio Rosato. "But don't go easier on them either. We want wizards with actual talent, not just pretty faces.
"Mr. Archaios and I will be the first screeners for the girls," she went on, "since we can test for both wizardry and sorcery. We will send the ones who pass to either you gentlemen or Mrs. Greyson's ladies. Right now though, as I understand it, we're looking for raw talent. They won't actually choose a discipline until they visit the library. Is that correct, Mr. Fillmore?"
He was the only one of them who'd participated in a talent testing day before today. "Yes," he began. "It is generally possible to tell which--"
"Help!" Pearl's cry cut across all conversation from where she stood near the windows overlooking the street outside. "Oh, help--Thom! Grey! They're fighting--shoving the girls and throwing rocks at them!"
The men leapt into motion, Thom and his Briganti at the forefront. Elinor felt magic move--Amanusa and Pearl gathering up the power of innocent blood spilled--and ran to help. She'd never worked justice magic, but the outrage she felt, that someone would use violence to stop others from bettering their lives simply because they wore skirts, helped her grasp the magic's purpose and the method of using it. In concert with the other sorcerers, she invoked the blood and sent it out to quell the combat. It seemed to have a little burn to it--Harry's contribution.
"I've sent a request for regular police to keep order." Grey stopped beside the women at the window. "Now, I suppose I should go join Harry and Thom in cracking heads."
"If you feel you must." Pearl sighed. "It wouldn't do to let them have all the fun."
"No, it would not. I'd best hurry or all the best heads will already be cracked." Grey's grin was positively feral as he headed for the nearby door, adjusting his gloves.
Harry's concussion spell linked with Elinor's blood magic to head directly for those marked as the offenders. Thom and the Enforcer alchemists sent their own similar spells out, bowling over those pushing and shoving at the foot of the steps. The other sorcerers' justice magic kept those Harry's spell had knocked down from getting back up and allowed the conjury spirits to pinpoint them for the bobbies who soon came pouring into the square, bashing the few remaining recalcitrants into submission.
Apparently, from what could be gathered before the doors officially opened and the madhouse got underway, three separate groups were involved in the fracas: the "ladies" who were taunting some of the men with their presumed magical prowess, the men throwing rocks who didn't approve of uppity females using magic, and the boys and their families at the head of the line who pushed the girls and their families out of their way.
They all got sent to the back of the line, except for the rock throwers, who were carted off to clink by the police. Order was maintained by the regiment of policemen who remained in the circus. The Briganti took over once those applying for examination were admitted to the building.
Most of the applicants came into the front hall with at least one sponsor or parent. There, they were confronted by Elinor and Archaios, or Headmaster Whitson and the dean of the alchemy department, a quiet man named Hunter. Usually the sponsor would say something like, "the boy shows promise at his magic lessons," or "the girl's always watchin' things that ain't there." The magicians would ask the candidate to demonstrate his or her talent and either send them on to have their information taken down before entering one of the rooms for further testing, or send them quietly out the back way.
This--the sending them home again--happened far more often with the girls than the boys, because the system was fairly well established for finding boys with talent. Schoolmasters in the primary grades knew what they were looking for and were quick to mark out a boy with promise. But girls didn't get magic lessons in primary school, and by the time magic talent usually began to manifest, they weren't in the same schools as the boys. Most of them weren't in school at all and the ones who were, their teachers hadn't any idea what the signs of magical talent might be.
One girl came in as part of an entire family who'd accompanied her younger brother. While he demonstrated his ability to make bubbles in a bowl of water, she started playing with the wooden pegs on Elinor's table. When one of the pegs sprouted fresh pine needles, Elinor snatched her up, pushed her into the arms of a Briganti, and had her escorted directly to Dr. Rosato. Then she spent the next half-hour arguing with the girl's parents who didn't think she should outshine her podgy little brother. He was a fair enough talent, so Elinor begged Mr. Whitson to take them as a package, which he eventually did.
There was a ragged boy who marched defiantly into the building, straight up to Harry where he stood to one side, and announced that he could start fires with a flick of his finger. Harry put out the lamp on the table beside him and invited the boy to demonstrate, and when the lamp blazed to light, took him personally to the enrollment table at the end of the line. The rest of the boys who tried to jump the queue, he made go through the proper process.
Potential sorcerers were a bit harder to test than the other disciplines. Most of them wouldn't spit in public, so they'd devised a test where they were asked to pull in some of London's overabundance of innocent blood justice magic and place it in a spot of Amanusa's blood on a handkerchief. The miniature riot before the doors' opening provided more magic to work with.
One young woman, a store clerk, refused absolutely to spit at all, even in the private testing room with Pearl. She was not admitted to the academy. Another woman, obviously "no better than she should be," walked in trailing a cloud of sex magic five yards behind her. She was admitted on condition that she follow academy rules. That one made Elinor very nervous.
Though they were still testing girls and women long after the last boys had been passed through the tests and admitted or sent home for more practice, there weren't as many female applicants as Elinor had expected or hoped for. It was possible word hadn't got out as far as they would have liked. Many of them might have had to obtain permission to apply--permission which was withheld. Elinor also thought it likely the more prosperous classes saw magic as a thing for the working class. Something a genteel female would not sully her hands with.
It didn't trouble Elinor overmuch, except that there might be someone like her, with a thirst for magic. Someone who, unlike her, did not have parents with liberal attitudes toward female education and occupation.
The truth was, Elinor herself was the most genteel of the female master magicians, and her father was a country squire, barely above the ranks of prosperous farmer. Pearl's father had been a wealthy merchant before the crumbling of his fortune, despite her marriage to the black sheep son of a duke. Amananusa's parents had been servants; her father, the English valet to a diplomat in Vienna, and her mother, a Romanian chambermaid.
Elinor had hoped a few of the hordes of governesses or ladies' companions might have come to see if their little love charms had real magic behind them, but teatime had come and gone. She'd seen no one more genteel than the dozen or so shop clerks. Three of them had proved willing to spit and were admitted to the academy, however.
Whitson had put away his pencil case. Hunter had poured the water out of his bowl and was wrapping his candles. Grey had taken Pearl home at teatime. She'd been visibly wilting. Jax and Amanusa were gathering the rather wilted sorcery students. Elinor sat in her hard, slat-backed chair and dropped her wooden pegs one by one into their pouch, yawning until she thought her jaw would pop, when Archaios appeared at her elbow again.
"I thought you'd gone already," Elinor said when the yawn let her go.
"I was on my way, when I saw this lady outside on the steps." Archaios gifted Elinor with the smile that made ladies swoon. Other ladies. Elinor only swooned over Harry's perfect mouth, blast it. "She will speak only with you, Magister Tavis."
Elinor stood and offered her hand, trying not to appear too eager. This was obviously one of those ladies she'd been hoping for, given her good quality dress with its shabby edges. The woman was thin, rather faded looking, but she met Elinor's eye and shook her hand with a firm, but not challenging grip.
"I am Wilhelmina Kent," she said. "I debated all through my afternoon off as to whether I should come. I am due back at my employers at seven o'clock." She stopped, a fine shudder running through her. "And I simply cannot go back to that house."
"Can you work magic?" Elinor caught Jax's eye and signaled for him to wait.
Miss Kent bit her lip. "I am not sure. I--is there magic one can work by--" She pantomimed licking her thumb. "Placing a seal, thus?" She rubbed her thumb along the air, as if along a door.
"Indeed there is." Elinor beamed at the woman. "Come. Let me introduce you to the sorcerer's magister. I think we can arrange that you never do have to return to your former employer."
The relief rolling off the other woman could almost be touched. Elinor didn't know what her story was and now was not the time for telling it. Even if her talent was small, she would be useful, especially while the guilds were being organized and students gathered.
Elinor introduced Miss Kent to Amanusa who immediately enrolled her to help keep order amongst all the new students who would be reporting to the academy in the morning. She took her along with them to Brown's for the night. Elinor waved them off with a happy smile, heaving a great sigh of weariness once the gang of sorcerers vanished through the door.
"Long day, wasn't it, Miss." John Biggs was the Briganti manning the door.
"It certainly has been. I'm surprised to see you here." Elinor tried rolling some of the ache from her shoulders. "How are you feeling?"
"Oh, right as rain. Your potions set me right up. And I never miss a testing day if I can help it." He rocked on his heels as he looked with satisfaction over the empty hall. "Reminds me of my own talent test, seeing all these lads get their chance. And now our Sarah's got that same chance. And though it's glad I am that Sarah didn't have to come through with this mob, it did my heart good to see all the girls here."
"They should do well," Elinor agreed. "We've got seven new wizardry students--can you imagine so many at once? There's rarely been more than one at a time, Mr. Fillmore tells me, and sometimes not any. And six good sorcery prospects, plus two more who might go in either direction. They're all older than most of the boys as well, so we shouldn't have to deal with inappropriate romantic connections."
"I shouldn't worry overmuch about that, unless there's someone taking advantage. I know the schoolmasters fret over the boys marrying too young, but it didn't hurt me any." He shrugged.
"Yes, but it's different for women." Elinor stopped there. She was too tired for this discussion now.
"Oh aye, it is. The woman doesn't have to go out and earn her bread, plus enough for another." Biggs nodded wisely. "She's got her man to provide for her, doesn't she? I was just 21 when I married my Lizzie and went to work at Holborn Tower. Mr. Frewing, who was alchemy dean then, pitched ten kinds of fit because I didn't go to his advanced classes.
"But I had my Lizzie to take care of. And our Sarah came along in a year or so, then the rest of the girls, and they needed feeding and frocks and such. I was proud to be able to provide. All that stuff in the advanced classes--learned every bit of it working at the tower and more besides."
He made a face. "Though I'd got a bit lazy, relying on the wards to do what I should be ready and able to do, which is how Mr. Cranshaw dropped me. He didn't use magic. I've got regular training set up for all the guards now."
"Here's all your pegs." Harry pulled the cords to shut the pouch tight and held it out to her. He kept hold of her wizard's bag, obviously intending to carry it for her. "You done? Ready to go? Hello, Biggs. Good to see you out an' about." He shook hands with the new tower warden.
"Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson." Biggs gave him a wink. "It'll be Sir Henry before long. And I haven't had the chance to congratulate the pair of you on your engagement. Meant to, Miss, before we got to talking. I know you'll be very happy together."
"Thanks." Harry flashed a quick there-and-gone-again smile. "But don't hold your breath waiting for them to knight somebody like me. I crawled out from under too big a rock."
"Nonsense," Elinor said. "Anyone can see your sterling qualities." He did have them. They usually drove her to madness, but they were excellent qualities for a man in his position.
"Too right, sir," Biggs said. "Might take a bit longer, so I won't be holding my breath, no, sir. But it'll happen. Mark my words."
Elinor took Harry's arm. Usually she didn't, despite their engagement. It felt too intimate with a man she intended to keep at arms' length even after their marriage. But it would serve to move him along now. She needed to get away from everyone so she could think. She'd never considered before that there might be disadvantages to a man in marriage.
Harry took her hint, bade farewell to Biggs and to Norwood, who would be officially turning the building back to its caretakers after all the magicians were out, and they left.
"Oh look, the moon is out." Elinor stopped at the top of the stairs to gaze. Scarcely a wisp of cloud drifted across the night sky to block the light of the moon's first quarter, halfway back to full. She'd never paid much attention to the moon's phases before her acquaintance with so many conjurers. "The sky is so clear. I want to walk in the park."
Harry nodded a greeting at the bobby standing watch at the foot of the London Institution's broad stairway. The bobby gave a little salute in return. "All right. Seems safe enough."
She made a face at him, but he was right. Safety was important. The melee in the very street where they walked now had emphasized the point on his behalf. Female magicians, even females who wanted to be magicians, were at risk.
They crossed the street and passed under the circle of stately plane trees. Elinor let go of Harry's arm as she moved into the park beyond the trees, heading for the moonlight. He paced silently along beside her, hands clasped behind his back.
Thought proved elusive for Elinor. She knew what she ought to be thinking about, but she could only feel.
A riot of turbulent emotions had taken possession of her, disrupting her thoughts, and throwing her mental process into utter disarray. Every time she managed a coherent thought, some stray emotion came crashing through it, smashing it into bits. If she could define the emotions, perhaps she could make a start at bringing them into some semblance of order, but she couldn't do it. Anger was there, bashing about inside her, and fear. So was compassion. And guilt--or was that an emotion?
"Wot's that?" Harry was peering at something beneath the trees. "Elinor, do you see it? That white thing there?" He pointed into the shadows.
She squinted, not sure where he was pointing. "Under the rhododendron?"
"No, beside it. Next to the tree trunk there." He moved toward it, whatever it was.
Elinor, perforce, went with him. Horror shuddered through her when she saw the tiny grinning skull with its sharp teeth moving through the deep dark, stealing her breath, her strength. "What--?"
"Cat, I think," Harry said, as calm as if he observed a phenomenon in his laboratory. "Skull bone's harder than lots of the other bones. I wonder why it used the skull whole."
"What used it? How is it moving like that?" Elinor kept close to Harry, but behind him. Caution had its proper place.
"Machine. Out o' the dead zone. The rest of it's darker than the skull stuck on top, harder to see. I wonder wot it's doin' 'ere."
"Call your committee, get someone here to find out."
"No conjurer handy to call for me." He crept toward the machine step by slow step.
"Harry, you are an alchemist. You cannot be messing about with machines when they make you faint."
"Armored ones keep all their no-magic locked away inside their armor. Besides--" His teeth flashed in the moonlight as he grinned over his shoulder at her. "I'm your familiar now, or almost. I'm not just an alchemist anymore." He held his hand out, inviting her to take it.
This was why she couldn't make up her mind to break the familiar bond. Because it kept proving itself useful. She placed her hand in his. "At least give a shout to the bobby and ask him to report in."
"All right, I will. Just let me--" Harry turned back to look at the machine again just as something popped and a puff of dust or smoke drifted out one of the cat skull's eye sockets.
He grunted, a sound of pain. His knees buckled and he caught himself by his grip on Elinor's hand. She cried out, voice rising to a scream as the cat skull turned toward her. Something shot out from the other socket, a streak of shine in the moonlight. Elinor's scream cut off as all her muscles collapsed and the world went black.