Cold Magics

Chapter 4

1

I really need a new coat and some decent boots, Thomas thought, before I freeze to death.

A cold wind was blowing in from the sea and through the streets of Hawksmouth, bringing with it the vague threat of snow and a damp that snuck between the layers of Thomas’s clothes and nestled against his skin. He pulled his inadequate coat tighter around his thin frame. Hours on the fencing floor had left him wiry, but hadn’t put any flesh on his bones to keep him warm. Another hour in the street and the chill would burrow into his body and sink into his bones. He shoved his black hair back, out of his grey eyes. He needed to get the unruly mop cut, but that, like the coat, was something he only thought of when he couldn’t do anything about it. Like now, when the shops were closing up.

The sun was starting to sink as Thomas to make his way home down the tree-lined main thoroughfare. The bright reds and golds of early autumn had given way to the greys and browns of empty branches. The leaves still left in the city were lying in the gutters or in the alleys, discarded by trees bracing themselves for the bitter cold of a seaport in winter. The first of the truly cold days was yet to come, but night was coming earlier now, and it was only a matter of time.

Thomas rounded a corner into the maze of streets that made up the student quarter. A gust of wind hit him face-on and left him shivering. Anyone with a hint of wisdom had retreated indoors to a warm fire and good company. Thomas, on the other hand, had let the cold and damp follow him from his apartment to a bookseller in the poor quarter. There, he spent several hours poring over worn, poorly printed volumes and old hand-written journals, looking for magic.

Thomas had only discovered that he could see magic at the beginning of the summer. He had gone home to Elmvale at his father’s request, only to be chased out again by Bishop Malloy, who’d wanted Thomas’s magic for his own. It had come as quite the surprise to Thomas, who hadn’t known that he even had any.

Timothy, a travelling juggler who kept his magic hidden behind his sleights of hand, was the first to have his magic and his life taken by the bishop. Other deaths had followed, and Thomas had fled with his friends, George and Eileen Gobhann, to Hawksmouth, the capital of the country and home of the Royal Academy. There, Thomas recruited his fellow students, learned that he could see the glow of magic on a printed page, and learned how to summon more.

The bishop had come to Hawksmouth, of course, and from there it had been a desperate race to stop the man from trying to take all the world’s magic for himself. Thomas cast his first real spell, then, calling magic from the earth into his body and temporarily giving himself unbelievable power.

Thomas had killed over a dozen men with steel and magic that month.

He’d found no magic in the old books and journals in the bookseller’s shop; only a pair of parlour plays, poorly bound and printed on cheap paper—ideal entertainment for when the cold drove the students indoors. Thomas bought them, as much to justify his presence in the shop as for any other reason.

The wind gusted again, blowing dirty leaves up from the gutters. Beggars shifted further into their corners and doorways, huddling together for warmth. Thomas walked with quick paces across the city, reaching the market square in the student quarter just in time to see the last stalls closing up, their red-cheeked, shivering owners putting away half-frozen wares. Thomas spotted a pastry seller still open and spent a pair of coppers on a meat pie and a fruit tart for his dinner. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast—his own fault for wandering so far and spending so much time in bookshops. Thomas contemplated a bottle of wine, then left it alone. He was too cold. Besides, without anyone to share it with, there was little point.

It had been a lonely autumn. His roommate Benjamin was dead—killed in the battle of the standing stones. Henry, his other roommate, was still in the North and not likely to return any time soon. By way of apology, Henry had arranged for his father to pay the entirety of their rent for the winter. Thomas appreciated the gesture, but would rather have had Henry’s company.

He still went out, of course. Not to do so would be give him a reputation for oddness that might lead some to wonder what he did with his time. So Thomas went out with the other law students and philosophy students, talking about the nature of reality or the latest doing of the courts, drinking far too much some nights and waking up with a hangover some mornings.

Thomas still dreamed of the dead.

It wasn’t every night, anymore, but the dreams still came. He dreamed of Timothy, and of the man he’d killed—his first—on the night he’d told Timothy’s sister about her brother’s death. He dreamed of Randolf, the bishop’s familiar, and of the soldiers he’d killed with lightning and steel in the bishop’s yard and at the battle of the standing stones.

Some nights Thomas dreamed of pulling the magic from Bishop Malloy, of running the man through with his sword, and of the angry, shocked expression on the bishop’s face when he died.

The memories of the battles had haunted his friends all summer, too. George had killed five men, himself. Eileen, not trained to fight, had still attacked a man who had tried to kill her brother. She’d had her face laid open by the soldier’s boot in the fight, and her nose now had a permanent bump where it had been broken.

Benjamin had died stopping the blow that would have killed her.

After they returned to Elmvale, Eileen demanded Thomas teach her how to use Benjamin’s rapier. Thomas saw her desperate need not to be helpless again and did as she asked. Eileen took after it with a ferocity that had shocked her mother and father. By the time Thomas left two months later, Eileen was becoming quite proficient.

Some nights the three of them had sat by the mill pond, looking at the moon reflected in the water and talking of the events they had survived. Thomas had wished Henry, who had been a soldier since he was fourteen and had led them to victory at the battle of the standing stones, could have been with them, but Henry had stayed in Hawksmouth that summer before his father summoned him north.

Thomas wished any of them could be with him, though especially Eileen.

The thought of her brought a smile to Thomas’s face as he headed for his apartment. Being with her had made it a good summer, once her father had gotten used to the idea of Thomas courting Eileen. Remembering stolen moments with Eileen warmed Thomas even as the cold wind picked up power, threatening to knock the bag off his shoulder.

He reached the courtyard that sat between the two student apartments, and headed for his own. In summer, the balconies were filled with students looking for cool air. Now, they stood empty. The plants and clothes that had hung on them all spring and summer were now inside near the small braziers the students kept in their apartments in their vain attempts to keep warm. He could hear snatches of conversation, laughter, and music as he went up the three flights of stairs to his own dark, empty place.

The room was cold, but not as cold as it had been, nor as draughty. In his search for books on magic, Thomas had come across the memoirs of a master carpenter with a charm for driving a nail into wood without splitting it. The seller would only sell it together with a box of the man’s tools, so Thomas had bought them both. The book turned out to be an excellent primer on carpentry. Thomas read it through, tried some of the projects, and surprised himself by enjoying it. Now, Thomas had a rough set of shelves to put his books on, the drafts in the walls were fixed, and the holes around the windows were plugged. George would have been proud. The other students were envious, and Thomas was certain he could have made a pretty good living repairing apartments. Instead, he had loaned out the book and the tools, and those who had applied both reported remarkably improved living conditions.

He put the plays on the shelves that held his very eclectic library. There were his schoolbooks for this year—he’d sent the older ones back home for Eileen—a half-dozen plays, and a dozen badly-printed treatises that had been thrust on Thomas at one student meeting or another, detailing various injustices in the kingdom. There were other books—philosophy, language, history, mathematics, and biology—that Thomas had picked up just for fun.

Interspersed among the others were the books with magic inside. All were second-hand; most were old and worn. A commonplace book hand-written by a merchant’s wife had a half-dozen charms in it. A pair of treatises—one by a nun, the other by a priest—held a pair of spells disguised as prayers to the High Father. The log of a ship’s captain had the spell against vermin. And there were a half-dozen more, all with tidbits of magic in them.

Thomas didn’t make copies of the spells, or take them from their books. He was wary of anything that could directly connect him to what the High Father’s church called witchcraft. Instead, he claimed to have bought them for their contents; to give him better insight into human nature. Those who visited gave him strange looks, but said nothing.

Thomas still had the spell book that he had stolen from the locked library under the theology building, and three books that had belonged to the bishop. The book from Theology was a true spell book, and each word in it glowed with magic. The bishop’s books, by comparison, were half magic and half nonsense. The master carpenter’s book had shown how to make a hiding place for valuables, and Thomas had followed the instructions to the letter, creating a compartment in the wall behind his bed for the books and sealing it with plaster.

Thomas lit his brazier and put the pie and the tart on top of it. By the time the food was warm, the room was warm, too. Thomas fetched his plate and a knife and fork from the cupboard and, rescuing his food from the brazier, sat down at the table.

Someone knocked at the door, and Thomas jumped at the sound. Annoyed at himself, he shouted, “Who is it?”

“Alexander.”

Thomas froze, unable to speak.

“I have to come in. Please.” Thomas stared at the door. “Please, Thomas, I’m cold.”

Thomas shook off his stupor and stumbled over to the door. The girl on the other side was shivering in dirty boys’ clothes that were meant for warmer months, even if she did have a thick cloak over them. Her messy red hair was only partly grown back from when they’d cut it short at the beginning of the summer. Her face was red with cold, and her cornflower-blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. One hand clenched the grip of the rapier at her hip.

Thomas just had time to say, “Eileen,” before she stumbled in and collapsed, crying, into his arms.

***

“I’m sorry,” said Eileen, snuggling closer into his lap and pulling the blanket tighter around them both. It had taken some time before she stopped crying, and still more before she stopped shivering. “I didn’t mean to collapse like that. I just haven’t eaten for a few days—”

“A few days?” Thomas used his free hand and the fork in it to cut a piece of the meat pie. “What happened?”

“I ran out of money,” said Eileen. “I had some from helping at Father’s stalls in the markets all summer, but it wasn’t enough. It was too cold to sleep in the woods and rooms were expensive and no one trusts someone travelling alone. Especially with a sword.” She shook her head. “I walked two days south to Greenwater where we caught the raft last time. I got a raft and paid them what I could and they made me buy my own food for the trip and that was the last of my money.” She took a breath. “I’m babbling.”

“You are,” agreed Thomas. He kissed her still-cold lips. “But it’s very pretty babbling.”

He lifted a forkful of the meat pie and blew on it, then held it up. Eileen let him feed it to her. She sighed. “That is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Thomas took a forkful to taste for himself, then cut another for Eileen. “If you say so.”

“I do.” She took the offered bite, savouring the flavour. “I ran out of food four days ago.”

“Four days?” Thomas decided his own rumbling stomach could just wait, and cut her another bite.

“I found some late season apples, but they were pretty bad, and there was some squash that fell off a farmer’s wagon…” She shivered. “I don’t want to be that hungry again.”

Thomas fed her the rest of the pie, one bite at a time. When it was finished, she sighed and snuggled closer. Thomas wrapped the blanket tightly around them both. Eileen sighed again, her body curving into his. “I have really, really missed you.”

“Me, too,” said Thomas. He held her tight a while. Finally, though, he had to ask. “Is that why you came here?”

Eileen blushed, and squirmed a bit. “Well…”

“Well?”

“Not really.” Eileen sat up straight to look at him. “I mean, I wouldn’t have come here if you weren’t here, but it wasn’t just about you.”

“Then what was it about? Did something happen at home?”

“No, nothing happened,” Eileen sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Nothing ever happened. That was the problem. I had to go back to working with Mother and George didn’t want to fence, and the nuns don’t teach anything except the lives of saints I never heard of and the history of the convent and the Great Mother and gardening and the uses of herbs. I was so bored and I thought, why can’t I go learn something real? Like history and philosophy and math. And I want to keep fencing and I want to know as much as you do.”

Thomas felt his heart going out to her. “I was sending my books.”

“And I brought them,” Eileen said, gesturing at the bundle that Thomas had set by the door. “But they aren’t enough, Thomas.”

Thomas remembered how he had felt when Bishop Malloy had convinced his father not to let Thomas return to the Academy. Not being allowed to learn had nearly crushed his spirit. Even so… “So you came here?”

“I know! It’s so stupid!” Eileen pushed herself off his lap. “I mean, it’s not like they’re going to let me in, is it? But it just got into my head. Maybe I could sneak in like before. Maybe I could attend some classes and no one would know I was there. Maybe I could be the first girl to graduate from the Academy!” She faced him, her eyes glittering with tears. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Thomas rose and went to her. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not!” Eileen pushed him away. “When I came by the first time you weren’t here, so I went to the Academy to ask after you, but of course they wouldn’t let me in and no one knew where you were. And I was standing outside the gates, and I knew they would never let me in. Not really.” The tears began rolling down her cheeks. “No one will teach me anything. I can’t afford to have anyone teach me anything. I got frozen and wet and hungry, and all that will happen is that I’ll have to go back, and Da will kill me!” She turned away, wrapping her arms tightly around her body, her shoulders shaking with sobs and anger. “It was so stupid!”

Thomas went to her again. This time she let him wrap his arms around her and press his chest against her back. “It wasn’t stupid,” he said. “Insane, yes. And poorly thought out. But not stupid. I would have done the same thing.” He smiled. “In fact, I did.”

Eileen freed up an arm to wipe her face with her sleeve. “Aye, but you had money.”

“Aye, but I was wanted for murder.”

“True.” Eileen sighed again, and some of the tension left her. “By the Four, I’ve messed up everything.”

“Not everything,” said Thomas. “I got to see you six months early.”

Eileen drove an elbow back into his ribs, though not too hard. “Idiot.”

“Aye, that’s me,” said Thomas, wincing. “How long do you think we have before your father comes?”

“I don’t know. I left a note saying I was going to Laketown, so they probably went there first.”

“Then we have a few days, maybe,” said Thomas, trying not to think of what Eileen’s father was going to do when he found them living under one roof. “Long enough to show you the city, if you want. And the Academy.”

Eileen turned in his arms. “The Academy? Really?”

Thomas smiled. “Really. I think I can get you in for the day, at least.”

Eileen’s face lit up. “Thank you!” She kissed him on the mouth, then she leaned her body against his and kissed him thoroughly. “Thank you.”

Thomas found himself grinning. “You’re welcome.” His stomach rumbled at him, making Eileen raise an eyebrow. Thomas fought down his blush. “There’s still the fruit pie. We can eat that up and then get to bed.”

“To bed,” Eileen repeated. She blushed and looked at the ground. “Uh… I know I came here, and that I said I really, really missed you, but I wasn’t… that is… we said we’d wait until Fire Night, and…”

Thomas found himself completely at a loss for words. They had not made love that summer, though the memories of what they had done—especially the night before he left Elmvale—had kept Thomas warm on many cold nights since. It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that, since they were alone together, there would be nothing to prevent them if they wanted to… Proof of how distracted I am, thought Thomas, who was now certain he wouldn’t be thinking of much else.

Eileen was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

“On Fire Night,” said Thomas, gently. “I promised.”

Eileen looked both embarrassed and relieved. “I remember. And I knew you would, too, it’s just…”

Thomas kissed her gently on the forehead. “Let’ s finish the pie. Then you can sleep in Benjamin’s room.”

“Benjamin’s…” Eileen faltered. “Do you think that’s all right?”

“He’d want you there. In fact, he’d probably rise up and haunt me if I suggested anything else.”

Thomas put Eileen’s things in Benjamin’s room and gave her his extra blanket. They piled a couple of Thomas’s robes over top of the bed to keep the chill off. After kissing her gently good night, Thomas went to bed. He lay in his room, staring at the ceiling and wondering what he was going to do when her father showed up. No answer came before he drifted off to sleep.