The first any of them knew that something was unusually wrong was the wail of alarms from the courtyard.
Gabe had been at the Council Keep for perhaps half an hour in one of his increasingly regular meetings with Smythe-Clive, Rolls, and whoever else had an interest that particular day. Alexander had spent the duration lurking in a chair in the corner, making an occasional brisk comment. He was right, mind. But he was also sharper and sharper each time he spoke. Smythe-Clive hadn’t taken it personally, which made Gabe respect him a bit more.
Then the alarm went. Gabe saw how Alexander waited just a beat, as if to get some piece of information from the pitch and duration that Gabe couldn’t interpret. Then he took off out the door, his robe flowing straight out behind him. Gabe duelled the man regularly, and the way Alexander could go from rest to full speed in an instant was still a shock every time.
Smythe-Clive was standing, gone dead white, as though he’d been hit with a tremendous blow. Then he was reaching for something from a shelf, a small box. Gabe held his hands up. “Should I wait here? Go?”
“That’s the portal.” Smythe-Clive looked upward, as if considering his options. “Come. Stay back. Don’t touch anything unless you’re told.” He had no hesitation in the commands. The man had gravitas, as well as having the ultimate rule here. There was just an instant where Gabe felt the land react, the way it did to Gabe and his father on their own lands. He’d not felt that before here. Smythe-Clive was the Lord of this place - or if not that, the chosen steward. The land was making that clear.
Gabe - who was not, as a rule, inclined to follow an order just because it was an order - immediately decided to obey. He let Smythe-Clive go first, of course, following close behind while thinking through what he had on him. He had his wand, the better set of his working stones, and his satchel, with a few dozen bits of materia. Though he was sure if it came to that, that there was whatever he might need in the Keep itself, at least on that front.
He had a selection of potions in their padded case. There were the ones for wounds and for stamina and protection, a few vials of the one he took for his ankle, all the quotidian things he needed on the regular. And he had an evidence kit. He never left home without one.
He would hope that none of them were needed, but he’d seen Alexander’s face. And Smythe-Clive’s. Rolls was harder for Gabe to read, but his expression had held nothing promising at all.
He rounded the curve of the Keep a bare five paces behind Smythe-Clive, to find something that would have been a historic tableau, if this were a hundred years ago, and an artist had been handy to capture the moment. It was something out of a great battle painting, only stripped down to a few stark lines and shapes set against the unforgiving stone of the courtyard and walls of the Keep. Gabe rolled to a stop, a foot behind Smythe-Clive, taking it in, all his training shouting that here was danger of every magical kind.
Four bare steps from the portal was a figure. Garin Fortier knelt, his arms around a shape that Gabe couldn’t make out at first, but that then resolved into Livia Fortier. His wife. His late wife. Gabe was sure from a look, but he knew the charms that would confirm it, and he called the knowledge to him before he thought better of it. It was as if they’d been painted in broad dark swaths of ink or paint, bleeding across the stone in shapes that would not quite focus. Magic was fair crackling off him, visible, but also sharp sparks against Gabe’s own magic and protections.
Alexander had crossed most of the space, but he stopped five feet away. Far enough to have some warning of a sudden movement. Of course he’d think of that. He was focused entirely on Garin, but then looked to Gabe for just an instant. Gabe gave one slight nod. Alexander knew his skills, certainly well enough for this. And, for that matter, his impulses.
Smythe-Clive wasn’t moving, wasn’t saying anything, and Rolls peeled off, back to somewhere in the Keep, without a word or any sound beyond his shoes on the stone. Garin stayed bent over, rocking slightly, his voice rising, calling his wife’s name. Always the triplicate liv-i-a, like it was an incantation that might mend a hole torn in the world.
“Garin, talk to me. What happened?”
Alexander’s voice was curiously blunted. Not his teacher's voice, Gabe had heard that often enough. This was something made of bloody compassion that knew the only way through was to go forward, no matter how painful. Alexander had trained Garin before he’d trained Isembard. He’d known them both from their childhoods. He had the right, the way everyone in Albion counted it, to press on this point. Both as near enough kin, and as a colleague on the Council.
“We got most of it through to Trellech.” What that was, he didn’t say, but it obviously meant something to Alexander and Smythe-Clive both. “There was, it was like lightning, the moment before it strikes, in the entrance hall.” He didn’t look up, but his shoulders shuddered. Gabe could see now that both of them were smudged with smoke and blood and all the signs of a magical duel of great force and power. “She took two of them out. Then.” He gasped and swallowed, his shoulders buckling.
“Did you seal the portal?” Alexander’s question was sharper now, needing to know, an urgency that burned in Gabe’s veins.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Livia, please.”
Alexander held up a hand, not looking away from Garin, as if Garin were a cobra who might strike at any moment. “Do you know how?”
Gabe was not supposed to know. He had never discussed what Rathna had taught him with anyone, not even his parents, though he was sure they’d guessed the rough measure of it. It was not precisely forbidden. She had taken no oath on it. She had thought, in her own particular view of the world, that he might need to know this thing, sometime. It was far easier to bar a portal than to open one up again. That was the thing.
He caught Smythe-Clive turning his head. “If you can, do it now. Temporary by preference, or something that can be undone with effort if you can’t. Tell us if that’s not an option.” Another order, and one Gabe was willing to obey. He circled around, skirting the tableau, giving them as much space as he could. It was not remotely enough, he did not want to be behind Garin’s back in this morning, not one bit.
Alexander was at least a little ahead of him. And so was Rolls. Gabe paused beside the portal stones, to take out the working stones he’d need for this. Rolls came back out, trailing an Indian woman and carrying a stretcher, two poles and a length of canvas. That was Vidya Archarya, a recent addition to the Council and also a Healer. Rathna approved of her. It meant Alexander could turn his attention to coaxing Garin to let them have a look at Livia, and Gabe could focus on the portal.
He began with observation, as Doyle and Witt had drilled into him. Instinct was all well and good - and his instincts were excellent - but rushing into a complex magical problem never ended well. He took a breath, as he’d been trained, then another. He had to find his own balance with the land, even if this particular bit of it was not his and he had no claim on it, beyond whatever claim anyone of Albion did. He was acting at the command of, for lack of a better term, its Lord, and it might know that. He let his senses float, like a bird gliding on the updrafts, without leaning into it. It was a time for seeing and hearing and sensing, not yet a time for doing.
Whatever had happened on the other end had done serious damage, the sort of damage that would take months to repair, if they even could. It wasn’t just physical. Whatever Livia and the other fighting had done, it was something that ran down to bedrock. Not that he could tell too much from here. All the magics between the two were tangled and shorn and jagged messes. He wanted to trace each of them, to figure out what had happened, all his instincts screaming that he needed to understand this, to unweave the tangle the way he’d been made for. It was a wonder they’d made it back, honestly.
“Can you?” Alexander’s voice was right behind his shoulder now, all of a sudden, and Gabe hadn’t seen or heard him move. Gabe had near enough got lost in the stone, and that would have compounded the problem no end. For Gabe, as well as the portal. He knew better. He had known better for twenty-five years. There was no time for that now. Alexander needed an answer.
“Lock it to the continent, yes. With a little time and luck, I should be able to keep it open to Albion. Does Trellech need to lock down?”
“Yes. Check with them. You know who to ask. And then, when you’re sure he can get through, write to Isembard. Tell him what he needs to know.” Alexander looked suddenly ancient and exhausted. “I trust you. Do what you think is needed. Wait for us in the room we were in earlier. We’ll be a bit.” His chin jerked to one side. “We’re taking her upstairs.”
It meant something to Alexander, and Gabe wasn’t going to ask for details. “It will take me at least an hour. Maybe longer. Probably.”
“Whatever it takes.” Then Alexander turned away abruptly, disappearing back across the courtyard without any further word. The instruction was clear enough.
Gabe gathered himself, taking a moment to lay out his tools where he could reach them easily, a flask of water in case he needed it. He wrote a bare six words to Isobel, “Busy. More later. Where I was.” She’d know from that not to expect him, and what to say to his parents.
Then the note to Trellech, adding Smythe-Clive to the list, asking them on behalf of the Council to confirm that they’d locked their portals against France. The Guildmaster would be there, at least, or handy enough. That they’d have more to share later. He knew the language for that, at least, honed in making formal reports for the Courts, and from everything Mama had taught him.
Now, he set to seeing what he could do, so Isembard could get here quickly. So the rest of them could leave, if it came to that. There was nothing near the Keep, neither portal nor train stop or ferry dock. That was going to be a problem if Gabe was not very clever. If he didn’t remember everything Rathna had told him.
Only then did he turn back to the portal, closing his eyes and sending a prayer to all those gods who removed obstacles, who blessed open doors, who understood how to balance on the head of a pin. It was mixing half a dozen cosmologies, and he didn’t care at all so long as it worked. He placed a hand on each of the stone pillars at exactly the same moment, and he could feel the magic pulse and arch through him.
For a moment, he thought he’d made the worst of mistakes. That Alexander would find him here, burned to ash and spread in the wind, torn apart by ancient magics. This was a far older portal than any he’d ever worked with before. He’d only done much directly with the one at Veritas, which was a child by comparison. It was foreign, in a way he hadn’t expected, but of course, it was Fatae made. One of the first of the Fatae portals, as the lore had it, was at least two thousand years old, possibly many more.
Gabe did the only thing he could think of to do and made himself vulnerable to it. There was no fighting a tidal wave, no ducking an earthquake. He could only ride through the storm swirling around him. He knew, deep in his heart, he would lose if he fought for even a moment. The power here could crush him, absolutely and impersonally, with the slightest twitch of a finger. Or a thought.
He hung there, willing himself to relax into it, to lean into it. It was perhaps the hardest thing he’d ever done. Stillness had never been his gift. Everyone who knew him teased him about being a perpetual motion device, always shifting. Here and now, he could only bring the focus he could gather to being here, in the moment, to making space for whatever was needed.
Gabe had no idea how much time passed. There was a moment where the enormous pressure was buffeting him, and then there was a moment where everything stopped. He had no idea if he’d passed into the eye of the storm, about to be tossed into the ferocious pull again any second, or if he had somehow come to a new place. He gathered his thoughts, and as clearly as he could, focused on his intention. Seal this portal against the Continent, leave open the paths within Albion. Please, for kin, for need, for duty, for the good of the land.
Something in those last phrases caught a scrap of fabric fluttering that unfurled into a heraldic banner. Gabe couldn’t make out the symbols on the green field, nor form any sense from a flash of movement he caught, like a stag leaping away in the woods. Then it formed into something that was absolutely not a stag, a sinuous curve of iridescent green whose wings spread for just a second before disappearing into mist. But he knew, in that moment, what was needed, how to thread what Rathna had taught him with the reality of this singular portal.
The power released him blinking into the afternoon light, and he’d gone to his knees somewhere along the way. Before he was thinking again, he had his tools in hand, working through the ritual of stone and affinity and measurement, over and over to lay out the trace work that would do what was needed.
Again, he lost track of time, but when he was done, he knew he’d succeeded. The portal hummed, and with harmony, not a singular note. He could hear Rathna’s voice in the mix, dozens of other people he knew, with a richness that defied human song. Only then did he settle back on his heels, and summon his journal to his hands, writing to Isembard.
First, a bare warning, “You’re needed at the Council Keep. Livia was killed, Garin brought her body back. Come as soon as you can.” Too blunt, too sharp, and a moment later he wrote to Thesan, too. “Livia was killed in fighting in Paris. Garin brought her back to the Council Keep. Isembard’s needed as soon as he can. Let someone know when he’s coming.”
It was only then that he took any notice of his other surroundings. The courtyard behind him was quiet, but as he shifted, there was a soft cough from his left. “It’s Mabyn Teague. Can people get in and out?” Smythe-Clive’s partner, and a Council Member in her own right for many years now.
Gabe shifted, grimacing as his ankle complained. “Yes. I’ve written Isembard. And Thesan.” Who was, in fact, more likely to react to her journal promptly.
She looked strained, but she nodded. “I’ll wait here. I can tell Isembard a bit more, before - well.” Teague let out a long breath. “Cyrus will want to talk to you when he can.”
“I’m not expected back. If I could.” He could feel how his entire back was a band of strain, the ankle, a growing headache. “A bit of food and something to drink, so I can take a potion?”
“One of the staff is seeing to things. The room you were in earlier.” He had to admire that Teague, at least, was careful not to assume what anyone had told him. Gabe nodded, leaning to put the working stones back in their case, smoothing his fingers instinctively over them. He’d need to properly cleanse and align them and, blast, the full moon wasn’t for six days. He’d prefer that for timing. It would take twice as long to do it sooner, and it wasn’t as if he had time to spare. Good thing he had the backup set.
Then, carefully, he leaned to grab his cane, and levered himself up. The ankle held, and at least he’d worn ankle boots today under his trousers. It was a help. He repacked things in his satchel, making sure the potion he’d want immediately was handy.
Once he was standing, Mabyn nodded once at him, and he made his way with as much grace as he could back into the Keep. It had an ominous sort of silence to it, as if all the attention was far away. Gabe didn’t see anyone but the one member of staff who brought him coffee - Alexander’s preferred mode of it - and sandwiches. Gabe took the vial he’d pulled out, which didn’t so much conquer the headache and aches of his body as hold them back. He pulled out a second. He’d take that in a bit.
It was at least another hour before anyone else appeared, as Gabe peered periodically at the clock across the room from him, or counted the chimes for the quarter hours. He kept himself busy enough by laying out arguments for what should be done next. Even though it was not remotely his call, and likely no one would ask.
Just after five, there was a knock on the door, and Alexander came in, followed by Smythe-Clive. “Isembard’s with him.” There was something beyond the moment there, like there had been some great decision, shivered sideways, and Gabe had no idea how to measure it. “Talk to us, Gabe. What’s the status?”
It was Alexander as he must have been in the last War, at his height, before Perry’s death and how everything had shattered for him. He had a sharpness and focus Gabe had seen when duelling him, but also a purpose that Alexander rarely let surface. Everything in his world was divided into what mattered in this moment and what did not.
Smythe-Clive settled down heavily, reaching for the tray of sandwiches and a plate. He clearly knew what to expect from the food. He’d done this often enough to know how to eat when what mattered was getting some food eaten. He didn’t say anything, visibly deferring to Alexander.
“Whatever happened in Paris tore up the portals and surrounding magic no end. I don’t know if it’s repairable without the touch of the Fatae.” That was, arguably, France’s problem, for all they had much more immediate ones at the moment and by the thousands.
He went on, as well-ordered as he could manage, though Doyle would mark him down on several points. “The portal here is locked against the Continent. I tested it. I wrote Isembard, obviously. You should get someone up from the Guild to confirm it. I’d recommend Fortnum, though he might be difficult. But he’s got the most experience with that right now.” Gabe tracked the Portal Keeper guild politics as routinely as he tracked a number of other groups, if with more attention to detail, because of what it meant for Rathna.
“How sure are you? I don’t ...” Alexander rubbed his face, suddenly sinking into himself and going a sallow yellow-grey.
Gabe stood, without thinking of it, barely cursing his ankle in his head. He grabbed the potion vial he hadn’t taken yet and a cup of coffee, going to one knee and holding them out. “Take it. Witt’s make.” It was a stamina potion, and Gabe could get another at home.
Alexander snorted once, but he downed the vial and then took a long swig from the coffee, as the colour came back into his face. Gabe leaned back a little, only then glancing at Smythe-Clive again. “Did I overstep, sir?”
Smythe-Clive considered for a moment. “I think, on the whole, we might be considered to be on first-name terms, if you wish. We owe you.” No name, on the end of that, letting Gabe make the choice. That was frank, and at least it gave Gabe some idea of the implications.
Gabe stood again, feeling ungainly for a moment. He claimed his chair again before he spoke. It was easier to be dignified that way. “Cyrus.” He was trying it out, carefully. It wasn’t just that the man was head of the Council, tied into magics Gabe had no real idea about. It was what he knew about how Alexander had distrusted him, then trusted him, and whatever they were now, it was solid. “Please, the same. Gabe, by preference.” Gabriel was a different kind of formality.
“Gabe.” Cyrus rubbed his face. “They were getting treasures out of Paris, ahead of the invasion. From what Garin said, nearly everything we’d hoped for, irreplaceable gifts. What we know is that Livia and Garin - though Livia was in front - duelled at least four trained mages, skilled in combat. There were others converging, hoping to force the portal. She called down a final strike, delaying it just long enough to let them get through the portal. Vidya thinks she died near instantly, for whatever mercy that was. Garin is—” He paused. “I am exceedingly glad Isembard could come so quickly.”
Gabe knew the theory, of course, all of them did. Livia had traded all of her vitality, every single last scrap of it, for that magic, like lightning pouring down from the heavens. She’d called on one of the great magics, the miracle she needed, when no one could know if it would work until it was tried. Every single time was something out of legend. The previous one he could remember right now had been back in America in 1780 or so. He almost missed Alexander’s comment, his head twitching as he got himself to focus again.
“As am I. Garin is, in a word, an unstable magical point. Besides his grief, which is - I do not know how to describe it. Won’t, for some time.” Alexander picked up evenly enough, though the weight of the words began to fall like blows of a hammer on an anvil. “How much may we share with others on the Council about what you did?”
That was Alexander all over, figuring out how to hit the question square on. “Rathna swore no oaths against teaching me. But it would cause her some difficulty if it came out in public.” If she came home, but of course she’d come home, of course they’d have a future in which what he’d done might be a potential problem to her reputation.
“We will see it does not, then, not beyond those who need to know. Likely all twenty-o.” He caught himself. “Twenty of us.” Alexander looked at Cyrus. “We’ll need to as soon as we can.”
“I know.” That sounded weary of the world, a deep exhaustion that was going to chase the man for weeks and months and cycles. They’d need challengers for Livia’s Council seat, and sooner than later, Alexander was correct there. Though it would be a few months, at least, they needed to give people time to prepare, whatever the preparations involved.
“Can I be of any other help?” Gabe was not entirely sure what to do here. They had a desperate need for food and a snatched moment before they went back into the fray of what this all meant. Gabe could only provide the moment, not help with any of the rest of it.
Then, something moved him to say words he hadn’t expected. “I didn’t care for Livia. You know why, Alexander, how she was about Rathna.” Bigoted, provincial, and snobbish, in all the most destructive ways, all three of them. “But I respect what she did. Her skill and her bravery. If it’s any help to share that with either of the Fortiers, please do.”
Alexander nodded just once. “Will you be at home tonight if we think of something else?”
“Yes. I’ll keep my journal handy. And tomorrow’s currently not scheduled with much, though that will probably change by suppertime.” Gabe took that as his cue. “May I show myself out?”
“Mabyn’s still at the portal. We have people coming in, everyone who can.” Cyrus nodded. “We’ll talk more soon. Will you send along a report on what we didn’t discuss today, about your work, when you get a moment?”
Gabe nodded. He’d write that up tonight. He could do it while waiting to do the cleansing and realignment work for his stones. He stood and gathered his things without further comment. By the time he was outside again, he had begun to think about what it meant for Livia Fortier to make that kind of sacrifice, and how she’d done it whole-heartedly. There was something there that caught at him, and what that sacrifice meant, in the ripples it made out from her, over and over again. How some of them wouldn’t be known for years or perhaps even decades.
He nodded to Mabyn Teague, opened the portal, and stepped through to Veritas. Now, he just had to figure out what to say to Isobel and his family.