“I have something serious to ask you.” Gabe said it clearly as soon as he pulled back from kissing Rathna hello. He’d been later than he wanted getting back. It was past seven.
Gabe had written, of course. He wasn’t careless about that if he had any choice. But he’d assumed he’d find Rathna downstairs, chatting with his parents, Uncle Gil and Uncle Magni, or whoever was about. He hadn’t expected to find her standing by the window, like she was as full of nervous energy as he usually was.
“Your parents are out for the evening. I already asked for supper up here.” Rathna hesitated, and that wasn’t like her either. “I have something serious to ask you too. Avigail first? She was missing you at tea.”
“Asking her something, being asked something, bedtime? Give me a hint, please?” Gabe could generally parse Rathna’s commentary better than that. The events of the day had him more than a little off his game. Part of him was still caught up by the implications of what he’d agreed to take on, as if it had unsettled his sense of north.
“Bedtime. You go, love. Read her a chapter. I’ll make arrangements about supper, and I wanted a couple of things out of the library. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back.” She shooed him off with a wave of her hand, and Gabe went.
Half an hour later, he came down, restored to his proper place in the ecology after having read their youngest a chapter of her current book. It was a rather fabulist tale that drew on folklore and natural history. The author, a Thalia Morgan, had quite a knack for a turn of phrase that both delighted children and gave the adults something to think about. It was a particularly neat gift. This was the latest of hers, and Gabe was enjoying it quite a lot.
Rathna was sitting, this time, at the small table they kept for private meals. That was more often breakfast or a working lunch, but it served just as well for supper. She was pouring tea as he came in. “I thought you wouldn’t want wine, at least not right now.”
Gabe shook his head. “A complicated conversation, and I’m not sure what you’re going to think about it. I’m not entirely sure what I think about it.”
Rathna nodded, pausing to brush her fingers over the back of his hand. “You first? Me first?”
“Ladies first is proper, yes? Even if Mama isn’t here to stare at me.” Gabe settled in. “Also, I haven’t eaten since half a sandwich at two, and it’d let me get a few bites in.”
His wife snorted. “Fair.” She did, in fact, let him get a good minute of eating in, enough to begin to take the edge off. He hadn’t forgotten to have tea, not exactly. But he’d been busy pulling things from the library, after he’d sent Isobel off to continue the analysis she’d been doing under some further supervision. He certainly wasn’t sure how to talk to her about this, and absolutely not before his wife.
Once he’d paused, Rathna cleared her throat. “I had a decent conversation with Ferdinand Howard.” Somewhere in the middle ground, then, not as easy as Gabe had hoped, in an optimistic phase, but not horrible, either. “He’s writing to Mhairi and Petrus, but I expect we’ll sign the papers on trial basis in the morning.”
“Did you ask about the portals?” This was the tricky part of talking through things, as they had done in depth as part of preparing. There were so many ways the conversation could go once the other party was actually involved.
“We talked about my research. He asked if I’d want his help with it. We didn’t get beyond that. He doesn’t know what to make of me.” Rathna tapped her finger on the edge of the plate, then nudged it closer to Gabe, and he took another half sandwich.
“You did get him off balance, then. Good. What did you think of the rest of it?”
“I think he loves his mother, and isn’t sure that’s permitted.” Rathna came out with it quickly. She must have been thinking about it all afternoon. “He’s cautious about her. Of course it’s delicate.”
Gabe nodded. They in fact knew more about the Heinrichs, Howard’s mother’s people, than he likely expected. That was thanks to both Geoffrey Carillon’s earlier connections in Germany, and Geoffrey and Alexander’s particular adventures in Berlin four years ago. Proud people, fond of their traditions, magically competent, but - as Geoffrey had put it once - perhaps a bit more focused on themselves than on others.
That Dita Heinrich had married an Englishman, even one of such excellent family as the Howards, had apparently been something of a scandal. And it wasn’t entirely clear why she’d been so insistent, not from the visible information. Geoffrey hadn’t been able to decide, still, whether she’d been deliberately escaping her family, or whether it had been an unexpected love match. Or both. Both was always a possible answer.
“But you think he knows the portals?” Gabe offered this carefully.
She nodded once. “He didn’t say. And asking him to help is a huge question. Of course, he’d feel loyal to his family. Both sides of it. But I think he does. Or maybe he knows one somewhere that’s still neutral. I made it clear I’d be working on it, if I took him on.”
Gabe let out a rush of breath. “How soon?” That was the question. Was she going to go charging off to the Continent now, in a month, in the spring? The war was changing every day, and he knew - they both knew - that the window where she could do any good was shrinking.
“Not yet.” Rathna let out a long breath. “Early spring, probably. Even if he’ll help, we can’t do much before then. It’s a lot of outside work, it has to be. I’m not sure we could do it anyway until the ground begins to thaw. Even if the rest of it works, and I still have to sort some of that out.” She glanced down, then met his eyes again. “You’re sure?”
That was enough to get him to stand up and come around the table, going to one knee, the weight on his good ankle. “I have the good sense to be terrified of what might happen. But I also know how much you want to do something that could truly help. I know how brilliant you are to figure this out. We need that. I’m confident you won’t take any undue risks.”
“No more than you do.” It was what they’d said for all their partnership. He climbed out of windows, flung himself off horses, had tremendous duels with magic buffeting back and forth, descended into mine shafts, and a dozen other things. He took risks, he always would, even if he did his best to measure them and make every bit of the risk count.
Now, it made him flinch, just once. Her hand immediately came to cup his cheek. “And that would be your part, then?”
Gabe nodded, just once, turning his cheek to kiss her palm. “What else about yours? What can we do to help?”
“I need to get him to trust me, and I don’t know what’s going to do that. I can hear it, the little ornamentation in my head, not quite getting the overtones to ring.” She did like music for her magical refinements. “There’s nothing there now that’s blocking it, it’s just not…” She gestured with both hands, an open but unaligned space.
“So we hope that he’ll come to trust you and open up to you.” Gabe let out a long breath. “And begin with what you can. What does that look like?”
Rathna had a list. Of course she did. She was organised and systematic like that, not Gabe’s chaos. “I need more time to talk to Gil. I’d like to see if Magni can evaluate Ferdinand’s skills, the duelling and protection things, or recommend someone to do it. There’s a lot of gear to think about, and much of it’s going to be tricky to get.” Seeing as how it was in high demand for the war effort.
“You’ve got lists. We’ll work through them. Call in favours. Do you have—” He hesitated. Rathna was going to do this, whether she had permission or not. “Do you have any idea about permissions?”
“The Guild’s going to back me if I can figure out the locational anchors. And we probably could do something with Switzerland, if we had to, it’s just not as well positioned. We confirmed it this afternoon. The liaison to the Army wasn’t any too happy about it, when we brought up the idea a month ago, but he can’t stop us.”
The current man in charge was rigid, even by Army standards, and Gabe thought that wasn’t going to work out well for a lot of people. Major-General Gospatrick had been a great deal more reasonable, his father said, but the Army did eventually enforce retirement on senior officers. Rathna went on. “It helps that there isn’t a military application. If it works, we could get Healers to more places, though. Or get them out quickly.”
“Well, there’s just you who has the trick of the work. And not so many who could go over.” Her former apprentices might grasp the work, but Petrus was needed just as much in Plymouth, and Mhairi was expecting and couldn’t travel much, certainly not in possible battle conditions.
“So. I have to go.” Rathna hesitated, then reached for his hand. “Help me?”
“Always.” He pushed himself up, then, to tug her to lean against him. There’d be more of that later tonight. His stomach picked the worst time to grumble - or perhaps the best, because it made Rathna giggle.
“Eat. Sentimentality and pragmatism later.” It was one of the many unending things he loved about her, that she understood how to balance things. He smiled and kissed her before going back to his chair.
Again, she let him get a bit of food, then she murmured. “Yours?”
“The meeting at eleven ran to past six.” Gabe took a breath and looked up. “Cyrus Smythe-Clive, Malcolm Rolls, Hespasia Wallace - she’s senior in the Ministry Beyond the Borders. And Aunt Witt and Aunt Mason.”
“And you.” Rathna considered. “And you were their choice, obviously.”
Gabe nodded. “And I could see why once we heard the details. They got a two-line summary, that it was something about the land magic. And obviously, well.”
Rathna waved a hand. “Half a dozen reasons why they started with you, only one of which is about Richard.”
Gabe felt his mouth quirk up. “Well. Who I am in other ways, also Papa’s doing. Do you have things to tell Mama about how the conversation with Howard played out?”
His wife grinned, and Gabe was glad to see her eyes dancing with amusement. He liked it much better when she was smiling, even if they were talking about difficult and complicated things. “Quite a few, and yes, she’ll be delighted. And she’ll probably want some distraction in the next day or two. I gather tonight wasn’t in the original plans. Magisterial social obligation of some kind.”
That meant a death or some other sort of crisis, or Papa wouldn’t have had Mama come along. Something with social expectations, as well as practical ones. “She’ll be glad to hear, I know.” Right, he’d had a chance to gather himself.
Rathna settled back in her chair, just waiting patiently, though she added. “It’s not going to explain itself, Gabe.”
“Long and short of it is that they want someone who can take a look at all the different threads of magic and attempted magic going on, and make sure no one messes things up horribly.” Rathna was about to say something, and he held his hand up. “Council doesn’t have the right people for it, which I had the sense not to bring up in the meeting, but I definitely need to talk to Alexander. Geoffrey as well, he’ll have good ideas.” Geoffrey was Lord in his own right, but he’d done extensive Intelligence work in the last War and since. He landed solidly in the generation between Gabe and his parents. But the Carillons’ own children were more or less of an age with Gabe and Rathna’s, and that made a bond.
His wife nodded slowly. “I assume there are briefing papers?”
“There are. And they didn’t have me make any additional oaths about it. Usual restrictions.” He wouldn’t have taken it if he couldn’t share it with Rathna, honestly. There were tasks where he would have, but not this one. To make it work, he was going to need to draw on every bit of skill and knowledge and expertise he had any connection to.
“How dangerous is it?” It was a fair question, and he knew he’d have to answer it.
Gabe set down his fork. “There are verified reports of the Wild Hunt riding at the start of the war.” He stopped, letting her react to it. It wasn’t a thing to rush. “Not public, not yet, but if people keep going on about astral workings and going out in the dark at night to do rituals that might or might not work, someone’s going to notice something. Pact or no, Silence oaths or no. That’s part of why they’re rather worried.”
He was understating the worry. The more they’d got into the details that afternoon, the more visible it had been. It wasn’t just the threat of wild magic, unknown magic. It wasn’t the uncertainty about what magic Germany and the occupied countries might bring to bear. It was that the Council were terrified of losing control of something.
Gabe hadn’t been able to ask what. But he knew well enough how to work with something that had its own mind. He’d done it with horses, he’d done it with duelling, he did it inside his own head, working through and with and inside his impulses, day in and day out.
His wife was watching him, reading it, he was sure. She always could, with him. From very early on, she’d traced his own throughlines as surely as she followed the lines of magical flow that were her life’s work. “And you need to figure all of it out. Well, that’s a proper sort of challenge for you. And Aunts Mason and Witt think you can do it?”
“They do. They’re helping, obviously. And I think it made them feel a lot better about things, like we’re doing something, the Penelopes, that only we could do. They need dozens of skills, in a couple of people.”
“Well, that does describe you, love.” Rathna considered, then picked up her own fork, going back to her own meal. “Both of us gone quite a lot, though I assume you’ll still be back here sometimes.”
Gabe nodded. “We need to talk about that.”