Sorceress Lorraine strolled across the dais, gesturing at the large mirror hanging behind the thrones. “My lords and ladies, with their majesties’ leave the Water Guild installed a magic mirror, in which you may witness the events leading up to Lord Edmund’s death. Your Majesties may watch without leaving your thrones in these smaller mirrors.” She handed each a mirror the size of a schoolboy’s slate.
Beorn strode to the other side of the dais. He explained what everyone would see, and then the argument between Lord Edmund’s father and brother played out over our heads, loud enough for everyone in the hall, and possibly the crowds outside listening at the windows, to hear. The scene gave no hint of Edmund’s criminal behaviour—no surprise, that—as the father’s threat against his son’s sweetheart became instead a threat to withhold funds.
The scene in the mirror faded, replaced by Claire’s private wedding to Lord Richard, with only two witnesses. The onlookers’ first glimpse of Claire was at her most radiant. A gasp went up, followed by whispered conversations as we watched them leave the church. Lord Richard bent to pick jonquils beside the footpath, then handed them with a flourish to his glowing bride.
The murmur of voices grew as the next scene, an exemplar of domestic bliss, showed Claire, clearly pregnant, stitching beside a warm fire. She smiled at Lord Richard when he entered and kissed her. He stood in front of the fire, warming his hands, and talking about news of a blizzard in the northern districts.
A glimpse of an infant followed, and finally, my conversation with Claire. The scene did not, as I had dreaded, divulge Claire’s opinion of Lord Richard. It merely showed the end, where we realised Lord Edmund had lost his shields, and a message must be sent to warn him.
“That was the sixth of July,” the Fire Warlock said. “She sent the message that afternoon, but it was too late. It arrived at the White Duke’s manor after Lord Edmund Bradford was already dead.”
He waved at the mirror, the images shifted, and we watched Lord Edmund and his henchmen ride into the Archer’s yard.
I looked away from the mirror, and surveyed the room with my mind’s eye. The black mesh was breaking up, much faster now. Clear sections grew overhead and in the balconies, but the massive knot on the dais appeared untouched. Despair shook me. Even with two years’ experience drawing on the power of Storm King, I couldn’t do it by myself. It would kill me. How had I ever imagined our tiny counter-conspiracy, with only two level-five talents, could overcome conspiracy magic backed by all four Offices?
Because Beorn would come to my rescue when he realised how far the news had spread.
I eyed Sven. He stared straight ahead, knuckles white on the hand gripping his wand. Sven had gone along with my plan, despite his misgivings. He must believe in them, too.
It was too late to reconsider. The printers and pamphleteers had done their best; we couldn’t let them down.
Beside me, Maggie hissed. In the mirror, we looked over Maggie’s shoulder as Lord Edmund groped her. Her brother pulled him away.
Maggie quivered, as tense as a bowstring. “Wait,” I said.
A clamour of protest from the nobles turned into a collective gasp as the smith hit Lord Edmund and he went down. No one spoke. No one moved. The noise from the crowds outside, unable to see what had happened, was loud in the sudden silence. The earl leaned forward with his head in his hands. Claire put her arm around her husband’s shoulders.
“So you see,” Beorn said, “it wasn’t magic. He wasn’t second in line anymore, and the Fire Office didn’t shield him. He got into a fight, and lost. That’s all there is to it.”
“All there is to it?” the king screeched. “That commoner had no right to fight him over some halfpenny whore. He’s a murderer. Why hasn’t he been brought to justice?”
“Now,” I hissed, but Maggie was already on her feet.
“Lies,” she yelled, her voice carrying through the hall and echoing out in the courtyard. “I’m a maid, not a whore. My brother saved me from a man who’d already raped five women. There are lies all around us. The magic folk can see them.”
“And so shall you,” I thundered, my voice as loud as hers. My wand and Sven’s swept arcs across the ballroom, exposing the murky tangle to all eyes. The inert mass came to life, recognising, at long last, its attackers. Gears cranked, pulleys spun, strands lashed out at our group of witches and wizards, only to jerk away, burning, from the copper strands of the counter-conspiracy.
For a few moments, the spectators seemed spellbound, too confused or scared to react. Only the king seemed oblivious to the black horror surrounding him. “Guards,” he yelled, “evict this impudent hussy. Who does she think she is, slandering one of her betters?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Earl Eddensford rise, Claire beside him with her hand on his arm. How the magic worked I do not know, perhaps her touch freed him, because he said, in a ringing voice, “Let her be. She speaks the truth. Edmund was—” A wire whipped around the earl’s neck and tightened. He stopped with a strangled gasp and fell, his hands clawing at his throat.
Men yelled, women screamed. Witches and mundanes, noble and commoner alike bolted for the doors or cowered in their seats as the roiling tangle searched for other threats.
A stiletto of a voice—Sorceress Lorraine’s—soared over the commotion. “Mundanes, conspirators, freeze!”
Only the members of the counter-conspiracy, gathering closer to concentrate our power, were still free to move. Men, women, and children stopped dead in their tracks. The prince, diving from the dais towards his cousin, the earl, was caught in mid-leap. Claire, an angel come to rescue a poor sinner from the jaws of hell, stooped over her husband, golden hair haloing her face against the vile blackness.
A wire whipped around her throat, and tightened.
I yelled at René, Help them.
He ran, slashing a burning path to the earl’s side with a fiery wand. Sunbeam saw Claire, and bounded after René, leaving Maggie exposed.
Cords lashed at her. She shrieked and dove for the floor. Tom vaulted the chairs and fell on her, knocking her flat and taking the brunt of a dozen scourging strands on his own back. He screamed. Other witches and wizards scrambled to fill in the gaps and tighten the edge of our circle.
Come on, Beorn, undo the spell.
The engine of lies, aware now of the gravest threat, abandoned the pamphleteers. The room darkened as gears turned, pulling in power, building an impenetrable mesh around its core. A bubble of fire formed around us where black strands met copper. If René and Sunbeam hadn’t created a similar bubble, God help them. I couldn’t.
Beorn, help. Now would be good.
Sven and I sent blast after blast of flame, hot enough to melt glass, shooting into the conspiracy’s dense core, but it barely made a dent. I would use all the power I had, and it would not be enough. Even my rising anger, a battering ram of fury against the two warlocks on the dais refusing to help, wasn’t enough.
The black mass pressed down on us, crushing our bubble. We squeezed together, a dozen witches and wizards crowding round me with their hands on my arms and shoulders. A thrashing cord broke through our defences, slashing a wizard across the face.
The copper strands of the counter-conspiracy wavered, and other whipping cords broke through. Witches and wizards around me flailed, screamed, clawed at my arms and skirts.
And then I discovered aid coming from an unexpected direction. Lorraine was freezing cables, sucking the power out of them. All around her, they fell to the ground and shattered. If there were just two of her…
The tightness in my chest disappeared. At long last, I understood what she had done. I threw back my head and laughed. Power, more than enough, surrounded me, and the gift of cold water made it mine for the taking,
I yanked my arms free and stretched them out to the thrashing tangle. With one hand I drew in power from the attacking cables, with the other threw it back out as flame. For ten long breaths, light and darkness seemed evenly matched, and then, at a pace befitting a king’s funeral cortege, the diabolical engine began to destroy itself.
My arms shook from the strain before the jet of fire sizzling through the murk punched a path all the way to the dais. Jean’s beacon flooded back in a glorious golden blaze, burning the hole wider and wider. In seconds, he pushed his way into the circle. Our burning bubble expanded, and encompassed more of the room. Terrified men and women stood frozen in place, forced to see and hear a battle they did not understand. Beorn, still ensnared, watched. René whooped and pumped a fist when our bubble swallowed his and Sunbeam’s smaller one.
The bubble reached Beorn, lighting him up like a bonfire. He jumped off the dais with a roar and reached for me over Hazel’s head. “What took you so long?” he said, grinning.
The black tangle disappeared in a dazzling burst, leaving the room clear. I followed the circle of fire with my mind’s eye as it expanded further and further outward, sweeping all of Frankland and burning away the last remnants of the conspiracy.
Beorn let go, and we were back in the royal palace, facing a ballroom full of frightened and bewildered people. That was all I saw before I pitched forward into my husband’s arms.
I regained consciousness in our bedroom, to hear Jean barking orders at our flustered staff.
“You wonderful, wonderful witch,” he said, punctuating each word with a brisk but fervent kiss. “Eat. Sleep. Rest here until you have recovered.” Another solid kiss, and he disappeared into the fireplace.
I ate. I slept. I woke, still confused over Jean and Beorn’s reluctance to help, but warmed by Jean’s praise. The anger that had been my constant companion for weeks melted away. I had been a fool to let fear and jealousy cloud my reason; he did still love me. Hadn’t he called me wonderful? Late in the afternoon, when neither Jean nor René had returned, and no word had come from Paris, I scraped together the last of my reserves, and called up images in the fire of the day’s events.
The ballroom would have been a maelstrom of screaming people if the spectators had not still been frozen in place. The few moving were the counter-conspirators, and Mother Celeste, scrambling down from the dais to lay healing hands first on Earl Eddensford and Claire, half-strangled, and then Tom with his flayed back, and other unfortunates gashed by whipping wires.
While she worked her healing magic, Beorn provided an account of what had just happened. It was the most polished speech I ever heard him give. As if he’d spent hours practicing.
Only then did Lorraine lift her spell. The din the shuffling audience made died quickly as they strained to hear the shouting king. Whether he was too dim or too self-absorbed wasn’t obvious, but he had failed to grasp Beorn’s explanations. He was still raging at Maggie Archer, claiming she had defamed Lord Edmund, and demanding a trial.
I leaned forward, not wanting to miss Lorraine’s sarcastic response.
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” she said. “Here and now. This afternoon.”
I almost fell into the fire. Maggie Archer on trial? Never once had I considered that possibility. Facing the Water Office was far worse than facing a magical conspiracy. Until this morning, the conspiracy had not tried to kill anyone.
Why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end? Maggie was in no danger. The Water Office didn’t freeze slanderers. And it wasn’t slander to tell the truth. With the conspiracy destroyed, the truth could be told at the trial. Maggie had nothing to worry about.
Then Lorraine’s words from weeks ago came back to me. “I would bring a test case to the nobles in August, to shock them…” Ice water flowed through my veins. We had handed her a test case, made to order, for her to demonstrate just how broken the Water Office was.