Spells and Sensibility

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3Theo, in the tower’s small kitchen, found the mint infusion he generally used when he’d given himself a headache from glaring at hexed manuscripts or careless students, touched the stove and brought heat to life, and set about assembling tea. If he kept his hands moving he wouldn’t have to think about Captain Tourmaline’s evident frailty, or the man’s offer to come and assist despite that, or the sound of his voice saying yes, Theo with quite astonishing acquiescence.

Captain Tourmaline—no, Henry; they’d established as much—looked as if getting up from the sofa might require herculean effort. Theo would never ask that of him. The man was a war hero, or something. A survivor, at least. When so many of England’s magicians hadn’t.

He found and sliced some bread, and some cheese, and a few small sweet apples. Not fancy, but the College dining hours had ended some time ago, and he did not think Henry would mind.

He leaned a hip against a shelf, and let himself think for a moment.

The tower’s heavy walls and medieval history tucked itself around him. The kettle warmed in sympathy.

His kitchen wasn’t much of one really, barely enough space for the shelves and a small stove and an enchanted icebox, but that was perfectly fine; Theo liked the history and the certainty of College rooms, despite the size and his own ability to in theory afford better. This tower had withstood the Clerks’ Riots of four centuries ago and the disastrous ley-line shifting attempts by the passionate wizards of Cromwell’s revolution; he imagined that between the walls and himself, they’d be all right.

Henry was most assuredly not all right. For someone who’d served under Wellington, the man was dreadful at concealment. Theo had seen him coughing, had seen the distress, had taken Henry’s weight.

He did not like the idea of someone so inherently kind being so injured. He did not mind in the slightest the sensation of Henry leaning on him; that had felt rather lovely, in fact.

The kettle whistled, a reminder. Theo attended to it.

He, Theo Burnett, had not ever liked disorder, nor distractions, nor unpredictability. His older brother might drink and gamble and generally disgrace the ducal title he’d been born to; Theo had seen the results of Clarence’s fecklessness, and their parents’ before that. He hadn’t wanted that life.

When he’d felt the stirrings of magic in his soul, the first glowing shimmering sense of the land and the people and every brilliant spark of light that he might one day be able to see or to touch, he’d nearly wept with sheer relief: he had a place, a purpose, a clear path for his future.

Henry was a distraction. A diversion. Unpredictable.

And Theo could never have not offered aid. An impulsive act. Born of the moment. The sort of spontaneity which he did not enjoy. Even if the man possessed a faded dazzling smile, and attractive long-legged lean masculinity, and a tendency to apologize for soldier’s reflexes he could almost certainly do nothing about.

Theo, refusing to think about Henry’s smile any longer, arranged everything on a tray, and went back out to the sitting room. The fire leapt in welcome; chairs and the small two-person sofa clustered near warmth, and white-plastered walls encircled the scene to keep all the heat close and snug.

Henry had remained sitting right where Theo’d left him, eyes open but visibly not-asleep in the manner of someone too tired to drop off. He was watching—or gazing vaguely into—the fire, but turned fast when the door closed. A soldier, Theo thought again. Someone who’d seen battlefields.

He said, “Tea, and bread and cheese, and some slightly elderly apples? Or not, if you’re not hungry. If not, I’ll eat the lot, never fear.”

Henry focused on him more sharply. Murmured, “You would say that…”

“About eating? Guilty, I’m afraid. I have an unfortunate weakness for iced cakes and scones with clotted cream, which is why I’ve not got any at the moment, in fact.”

“No,” Henry said. “Not that. You want me to feel comfortable.”

“You are my guest.” Theo settled into the softest chair, the large one with brocade cushions that invited his shortness to curl up in a terribly unprofessional manner. He would’ve done, if he’d been alone; he did not, just now. “Here you are. Drink this. I shall just toast some cheese, and you may join me or not. Were you looking for something specific in the College’s most bone-dry historical survey? I am your librarian, you realize, and I might be of assistance.”

“Professional curiosity?” Henry took a sip. His hand did not shake, but Theo had the sense that this was only because iron-clad self-possession refused to permit it. “I hadn’t planned to inconvenience you any further. I did spend the requisite endless sleepless hours in the library while finishing my final apprentice’s showcase piece, under Honoria Merrill, if she’s still here and terrifying undergraduates. I can manage research.”

“Professor Merrill is indeed still here. I quite liked her classes.” Theo stabbed bread with a toasting fork. Pointedly. “She appreciates tidy spellwork.” Honoria Merrill, silver-haired and straight-backed despite her age, refused to supervise more than one or two final apprentice’s projects each year, claiming she had neither the time nor the inclination to indulge anyone not gifted, dedicated, and disciplined. Henry, the opposite of neat and tidy, must have been impressive.

Theo himself, of course, had already been good friends with Sir Roderick. He had, under that kindly grey-whiskered supervision, taken on a book-protection spell that’d extended the library’s fireproofing spells to each individual volume, even when checked out.

He wondered what Henry’d done to demonstrate sufficient magical comprehension; that would’ve been before a summons to war, wouldn’t it? “And I am quite good at my job. I’d like to help.”

Henry drank more tea, and gazed at him across the teacup. “This is excellent. Not just mint, but a hint of blue vervain?”

“Thank you, and yes, it is. Are you avoiding my offer?”

“I was thinking that we must have just missed each other at school. I’d’ve remembered you.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. I’m hardly memorable.” Theo retrieved toast, shining gold and molten with cheddar; slid it onto a plate, began another. “Good at research and history and retrieval spells, but sheer rubbish at College sport, competitive Fool’s Football, enhanced underwater rowing, and so on. I expect you were a splendid magical submersible oarsman or something of the type. I think you’re right, though, and you’d’ve been a few years ahead of me.”

“Submersible Rowing Captain,” Henry said. “Three years running. I grew up near a lake. Of course you’re memorable. And talented, if Sir Roderick left you the library. I didn’t mean any insult.”

“None taken. I know I’m young.” He casually picked up a slice of toast, nibbled, watched Henry unconsciously do the same: mirroring the motion. “But I’ve always been good at finding things. Solving puzzles. Sorting out tangles. I enjoy that.”

He also sliced an apple—getting softer, a late-autumn sort of apple, here at the edge of December—and idly held out a piece. Henry took it, apparently without thinking about it, and ate it, and then looked surprised.

“Where were you staying,” Theo inquired, “before this? If you don’t mind me asking. Should we send a message along?”

“Honestly?” Henry sighed. Then coughed. And pretended he hadn’t, drinking tea. “A week or two in hospital, a week or two at Apsley House…I hadn’t planned it out much past that. I’d hoped—I had thought I’d be going home.”

But you didn’t, Theo noted but didn’t say aloud. You didn’t go home. And you’ve apparently stayed with the Duke of Wellington, briefly or not. You weren’t any sort of common soldier, and you weren’t common even among the Magicians’ Corps; aide de camp, you said. Personally reporting to the commander. But that can mean anything he needed you to do.

Anything, indeed. In war. In France, among mud and rain and army-trodden paths. And given what had become of the Corps, given the blood and the pain and the losses—before the treaties, before they’d been formally disbanded—

He said, “Well, you’re welcome to stay. I won’t ask for details if you’d rather not discuss it, but—as far as having been in hospital, and recovering, as you’ve said—is there anything I might do to make you more comfortable?”

Henry, who’d eaten a second slice of apple in the meantime, hesitated. “If you’re concerned I might light your bed on fire if startled—”

“Hardly. Someone who frets over nearly causing temporary harm would never injure my furnishings on purpose, and I’d never hold an accident against you. And I’m not convinced you can light more than a candle, at the moment.” He paused. Regretted his own words. “That’s part of it, isn’t it? My apologies.”

Henry lowered his teacup without taking a sip. Cradled warmth in hands. Gazed down for a moment, as if mint and steam and water might lend him strength.

When he looked up, his smile was wry, raw, laid bare and resigned to surrender, not without some humor. “You did say you were good at puzzles.”

“Should I not have guessed? And you were looking into the origins and sources of English magic; looking for ways to restore it, perhaps?”

Henry looked as if he wanted to draw a deep breath, bracing himself, but perhaps he couldn’t, with that cough. He met Theo’s eyes as if preparing for some sort of judgment, a flogging or a court-martial or another doom. “I thought I might find something to help.”

And that was an admission; that was a yes. Henry went on, while Theo tried to imagine losing the glittering multihued strands of life that danced at his fingertips every day, “Even Arthur’s personal physicians can’t just magically replace what’s gone. I tried the healing-spells I know. Ridgeley’s Restorative—”

“Requires strength and a clear focus, neither of which you have! And you’re not meant to cast that one on yourself! It’s an external locus. I’m surprised you didn’t simply pass out on the spot, you completely idiotic man.” Theo waved the toasting fork at him in justified indignation. That explained the blood, at least—the spell needed the subject’s essence in some form—but did not explain the idiocy.

“Er…” Henry became very interested in his tea. The tips of his ears went pink.

“Oh good Lord. You did. Why are you upright and talking? You ought to be in bed. Right this instant. I’ll carry you up the stairs myself if necessary.” Belatedly, the fact that Henry was on a first-name basis with the Duke of Wellington registered in Theo’s brain, and momentarily made him forget words.

“You should command battalions,” Henry muttered into his teacup. “In charge of us all within a week.”

“I’m too short to shout at soldiers. You I can manage.” He’d in fact managed to get Henry to consume a hearty slice of toasted cheese and half an apple, plus the tea. Success.

“I was a soldier,” Henry said. “More or less.”

“Yes, but you’re…well, you. You’ve apologized to me, tried to protect me from yourself, complimented my tea, and evidently forgotten how Ridgeley’s Restorative works.” Theo bit an apple slice in two at him, and finished, “You’re not as intimidating as you think.”

In fact this was only sixty percent true. Henry Tourmaline, an officer and a magician in wartime, very likely had skills and nightmares that Theo’s librarian’s soul could only imagine. That more or less phrasing lingered, a haunting: just what had Henry done, in the war?

Henry was also older than Theo, though not by more than a handful of years. The ghosts of old charisma—a boy who’d been a captain at team sport, who’d been tall and kind and handsome and well-liked—hovered behind that crooked smile, those blue eyes. Henry would’ve been exactly the sort of person who’d’ve never noticed Theo Burnett, not out of cruelty or malice but because cheerful buoyant happiness would simply not have much attention to spare for a socially awkward, not terribly athletic, obsessor over small tidy details.