Rathna brushed her hair back from her face as Lucas came barrelling into the clearing where they were working on the portal. Again, still, always, it seemed. She looked up, alarmed.
“News?”
“German Army’s marching on Paris. Refugees are pouring out. Monsieur Dechamps wants to know how stable the portal is.”
Rathna let out a puff of air. They’d been working round the clock the last week to encourage the portal along, and it was only barely stable again. Probably. “It’s a risk.” She hesitated. “Means we might not get out by portal after.”
He took a half step back, looking at her. He wasn’t arguing, but she could see him judging the choice she might make. If she went down one path, she’d lose his respect, and he was right about that. Likely, anyway. She’d lose all respect for herself, too.
“Give me a minute. Let me think it through. They’re willing to have refugees here?” She knew he wanted to get people out. Rathna did too, but someone had to weigh the costs, and she’d apparently been elected, appointed, and touched with whatever divine madness picked leaders in times of chaos. She did not like it one bit. She was not born to this sort of leadership, and she certainly had not had anything like enough training. That was Richard, Gabe, Geoffrey, even Alexander and Isembard.
“They’ve got family in Paris, some of them. If they can get a portal here...” Lucas didn’t need to finish that thought. He picked up with the rest of what she needed to know. “Beyond that, they think they can get people over the mountains to Spain. All the coordination’s going by paired notebooks, though, so I’m needed back at the enclave soon as I can be.”
The family estate had acquired half a dozen new guests in the last fortnight, all of whom were deeply connected to the local magical community, such as it was. It had been a hub of planning and coordination, or as much of both as information and resources allowed.
“Right. Let me think through the tolerances. Ferdinand?” She pitched her voice higher, gesturing to a pair of rocks they’d taken to using near the back of the little clearing that held the portal itself. He trotted over, meeting her as she found a place on the stone. “Did you hear that? What do you think of the portal?”
Ferdinand winced. “I had hoped to have more time.”
“So had we all.” Rathna frowned. “You could go now, before we take them in. Get out safely. You and whoever else. Portal to Spain, get a ship from there.” She had to make the offer. She was responsible for him. For all he was a grown man, he was still a young man, and this particular part was not his sworn duty.
His chin came up, sharply. “Is that an order, Mistress?”
She lifted both hands, then turned them palm up. “I am looking at all our choices. Even the uncomfortable ones.”
“Mistress?” His voice dropped in pitch and volume. “If you insist I go, you won’t be able to hold the portal yourself. Not for long. Nor repair it.”
“No, I won’t.” Rathna half-closed her eyes. This wasn’t exact maths, none of it was, but she could make an informed estimate. “If we bring people through, in quantity, dozens, there’s a two in three chance it will damage the portal right now. Probably.”
“Probably.” Ferdinand echoed the comment. “If I stay and help?”
“Two-thirds if you stay and help. Almost certain if you don’t.” Rathna opened her eyes again to watch him. She was proud he’d asked, whatever he decided.
“Of course I’m staying. Is there a chance we could patch it enough to use again if I do?” Ferdinand shifted, both feet now firmly on the ground, back straight.
“A better chance. I don’t want to guess the odds. It’s very likely we’ll be stuck here, though. Or have to go across the mountains, and that has all sorts of risk.”
“The mountains themselves. The Fatae. Animals. Other things we don’t know yet.” Ferdinand nodded slowly. “I have a little experience in mountains, but not nearly enough.”
“It is times like this I wish Gabe were here. He is very good with a mountain, among his other skills.” He would, in fact, be tremendously helpful right now. He was not an infinite pool of magical vitality, and he especially wouldn’t be away from Albion. But he knew how to use his magic deftly, and most of all, he saw unusual solutions to problems. Near always. “But you’re sure you want to stay.”
“I am. My family might throw a fit at someone. I don’t care.” The Howards had been attempting to exert pressure, she knew that. The Guild Master mostly had kept her out of it, but Alysoun had kept her updated on what she heard. Ferdinand was a younger son. He’d chosen what he wanted to do even if he’d had no idea what he was choosing at the time. But parents worried, and politics demanded certain things of them, apparently.
Rathna looked at him, sharply. “Make your peace with them, a note in the journal, whatever else you do. If this does all go wrong...” She swallowed hard. “That’s not a loose end anyone should have to live with.”
“Mistress.” He subsided, at least for a moment. Then he looked up. “And you’re staying, whatever the rest of us decide?”
She nodded once. Rathna could feel the pull in her, the way she was torn between going home to Albion, to stepping through the Veritas portal and knowing down to her bones where she was and what it meant. But she also knew she had to try. Some of it was professional bravado. If they could make this work, it was the kind of challenge others would rise to meet, and that could be wonderful.
But mostly, she wouldn’t be able to look herself in the mirror if she didn’t.
“Mistress?” Ferdinand’s voice was tentative now. “May I ask why? I understood, a little, in the Netherlands. What you said about Magistra Levy’s people?”
Rathna half-smiled at that. “Yes. But now?”
Ferdinand let out his breath in a rush. “You know how they look at you. How they talk, even if you don’t know as much French? I’ve seen you, Mistress, when they won’t let you near the little ones. Why stay?”
“People talk about me in Albion, too. I hear more of it, and it’s not just because of the French.” She shrugged. “I can’t let other people tell me what I ought to do. I tried that. It was miserable. I was miserable. And I was raised better than to sink to that level.” She looked off toward the portal stones. “Jewish teachings put a high value on life. Every life saved is a blessing. Whatever I can do that saves a life, that matters.” She hesitated. “What’s the verb tense for this? I wouldn’t like the person I became if I left now. So I’ll stay, as long as I might be able to help.”
“Mistress.” He subsided. “What will you do now? What can I do to help?”
“First,” Rathna said. “I am writing to Gabe. He might have ideas. Next, you and I will - do you know Behenian’s Eighth? Drawing vitality broadly from the local area? We need to be careful with it. We don’t want to affect the crops or the livestock.”
“I do.” He frowned. “I learned a variant from the home farm steward. Can I write and confirm it?”
“Please. Whatever we do, I want to start in...” Rathna glanced up to track the line of the sun, then checked her watch for good measure. She still wasn’t used to this latitude and what it meant for the light. “An hour. We’ll both eat and refresh ourselves. I’ll write to Gabe, take some measurements, and tell Lucas what we think we can do.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Ferdinand stood, made a slight bob of a bow in her direction. When she didn’t say anything else, he went off at a near lope, first to Lucas and then to his own bag with his journal.
Rathna pulled out her own. Then she stared at the page. Dear Gabe, I might be stranded here. Dear Gabe, I love you. Kiss Avigail for me. Dear Gabe, how are you still sane? Dearest Gabe. Every life we save matters.
She stared at the page for a good three minutes, then she took a deep breath, writing carefully. Dearest Gabe, I’m making a choice, and I hope it’s the right one. We’re going to open up the portal here for refugees from Paris for as long as we can. I don’t know how long it will hold, or whether we’ll be able to restore it afterwards, fast enough for whatever comes next. Whatever advice you can gather would be a help, what our options might be, especially for crossing the Pyrenees. I don’t know what I need here. What we need.
Rathna paused there, not sure how to say the rest of it. That she was taking a risk, a huge risk, they all were. Any number of things might go wrong with the portal. It could drain them all to the dregs and worse. Ferdinand was only recently recovered from the backlash. They could misjudge how long they had, and be trapped here.
Part of her wished they’d left as soon as they could, by whatever means. If they had to flee now, they’d be in the middle of a host of others, and that was another kind of risk. Especially when they were so clearly not French, not local, not connected to these places and these people by anything other than a thin thread of basic humanity. But that was not the choice they had, and it was foolish to bog down in things that weren’t true, and that certainly weren’t options now.
Rathna stood, taking her working stones to the portal. She made the measurements again, and they’d not changed since this morning. It might hold. It should hold. Maybe long enough. She came back to her journal and wrote out all the data she knew. Gabe could make sense of most of it, and if he couldn’t, he’d know who to ask. He knew where she was. She’d sent him precise coordinates already, after confirming them with the stars the first clear night they’d been here.
It took three pages and nearly all the hour. As she was finishing up, Ferdinand appeared, silently holding out food and a flask of tea to her. She set the journal down after sending the message, then took the baguette and cheese, balancing it carefully on her knees. “Can you get Lucas over? And I’ll need a couple of minutes to eat, but then we can start.”
“I have the details on the variant, Mistress.” He lifted one hand, and thirty seconds later, Lucas had joined them.
Rathna swallowed a bit of her lunch. “Tell them we’ll do our best. I’m certain - assuming the portal at the other end holds - we can get groups through. Open for a couple of minutes, maybe five, maybe just two or three. I won’t know how many until we do it, and we’ll need four or six hours between them. It’s more likely to close on the ends, rather than trap them wherever the middle travels. But it’s a risk, and I don’t know how to tell on this end when we reach that point for certain. Can you explain the risks to them?”
“I will.” Lucas grimaced. “They’ll take them, though. However risky it is, it’s a chance.”
“We’ll get as many through as we can, and then we’ll see what we have to work with.” There were, fundamentally, only four ways this could go. This portal failed, the Paris side failed, they both failed simultaneously, or they both survived and kept working. “Can you ask if there’s anyone who has any kind of relationship with the local Fatae? I’d—” She glanced back at the portal. “I’d like to make offerings, but I don’t know what’s proper or expected or entirely polite. I’ve asked a contact who might have ideas, but if there’s anyone local, that would be better.”
“We can’t.” Lucas looked as if she’d suggested swimming across the Atlantic. Something unfathomable, a mix of the utterly forbidden and the entirely impossible.
Rathna knew better. She’d had enough conversations with her Bengali family on their visits, but she had no idea how to translate any of that here. “We can. This is not Albion. We are not bound by the Pact in the ways we are at home. I do not know how best to do it, but I am certain it can be done. Enough for politeness, at the very least. And if we’re very lucky, perhaps a bit of help. If there are people here who they are fond of.”
Lucas gaped at her for a good twenty seconds, but then he just nodded. “If that’s what you need, Magistra. Will you be here all afternoon?”
Rathna nodded. “We should be able to establish the connection late this afternoon, but I want to give us the best shot we can. Have someone come by at...” Another glance at her watch. “Five. With food we can eat on the fly, if you can. We’ll likely have to sleep here.”
“The tent, then, plenty of padding to sleep on, and a campfire. We’ll sort that.” He looked relieved to have a task that would keep him busy. “I’ll send Grietje along as soon as I get back.”
“Good.” Or rather, none of this was good. But they had a plan, and having a plan would have to do for now.