Chaos and Conjurations

Chapter 2-2

He knew every hill, every tree, every pond. He’d gone out swimming and ice-skating with his siblings down at the lake. He’d flung himself into meadows, joyously soaking up the ground and the tall grass and the whirl of robin’s-egg sky above. He’d never got lost, because he’d always known where he was in relation to the world, the earth, the deep golden thrum that was like birdsong and heartbeats and the motion of sap through tree-veins and the slow deep shift of stones and the rhythm of spring.

The rain beat down hard. It splashed into puddles and formed miniature oceans. It spent itself like Henry’s heart, poured out and churned up in mud.

Theo didn’t have the same land-sense, affinity more in tune with books and symbols and paper. Except Theo did now, in a way: if Henry did magic Theo would feel it, would be scoured by it.

If he did magic. He couldn’t not. Like breathing, like being himself, ever since those childhood days. Another sense, the way he knew hearing and sight and sound and scent and taste.

He was letting himself feel the earth and the rhythms because he thought he’d go mad if he didn’t. He’d come close once already. Only the barest trickle of magic left, sucked dry, a wound ripped open and draining everything out of him, never healing…

He thought this much, simply being open and feeling and aching with relief and reprieve and wholeness, was safe. It had to be safe. It was only passive. He wouldn’t ask anything of it, wouldn’t reach out with intention or command. They’d worked out that much, over the recent weeks.

Even this was more than he’d had, three weeks ago. More than he’d believed, deep down, he’d ever have again.

Theo had told him not to give up. Theo had looked at the problem with those clear green genius eyes, and had said, obviously Johnson’s histories aren’t the place to begin, but I might have an idea or two, given our archives…

Theo. Oh, God, Theo. The other half of Henry’s soul, and the person he was afraid he’d broken forever.

“God,” he said aloud, “Theo,” and braced an arm against the carriage, a support, for a moment.

His father, from behind him, made a vaguely embarrassed paternal sound, and shuffled a boot.

Henry spun round. “Father! Sorry, I was—I just—we’d meant to say goodbye, of course, I was only checking on the carriage—”

“So you were.” George Tourmaline wandered over, ran an approving hand along a sleek curve. “No horses, then? All magic.”

“It’s not a spell I exactly know,” Henry offered, seizing upon conversational topics, and waved a hand. “I’m not a mechanical specialist. But I did learn, a bit…er, a more…haphazard…version, on the Continent.” Haphazard wasn’t the right word. Three of the Magicians’ Corps swearing desperately at stuck carts in the mud, and shoving as hard as they could in the direction they needed the convoy to go, would be more accurate.

Certainly not the polished precise clockwork spells of College mechanist-magicians, though. “Er…I don’t think I could do anything about a self-propelled plough, though. And I shouldn’t, anyway. Sorry, again.”

George propped a shoulder against the carriage door, crossed his arms. Shorter than his oldest son, eyes more grey-hazel than Henry’s own winter-sapphire, he looked like exactly what he was: a prosperous gentleman farmer, well-off and sturdy, a father and a husband and a man who loved his land and good meals and refreshing local ale and a healthy harvest brought in safe.

He said, “No, you shouldn’t be, I’m thinking. Your physician said as much, didn’t he? Not for you, for your Theo.”

“My Theo.” Henry slumped against the carriage next to his father. He knew he was taller and more magically powerful and a battlefield veteran; he did not want to be any of that, just now. The rain purred, velvet as a funeral drape.

His father, like his mother, had never been bothered by any of their children’s preferences as far as romantic partners; Henry knew enough to know that wasn’t always the case. The union of two men or two women—or, as in Dom’s Linnet’s case, someone who did not fit neatly into either box—might be legal, and might be acceptable for political or strategic or magical alliances, but it still wasn’t common. And it hadn’t been legal that long.

His father waited, eyebrows up, a patient invitation. He’d always been good at that: entirely unmagical, George Tourmaline—it’d come through Henry’s mother, and her mother before that—but gifted, Henry’d always thought, with a different kind of magic.

He sighed. Theo. His. If, if, perhaps. “I don’t even know if he is. If he wants to be.”

“You love him, don’t you? It’s in the way you look at him. Every time.” George waited a beat, and then, “Also, son, you’ve said it out loud.”

“I have. I do. With everything I am. I just…how can he? Love me, I mean.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I tore his life apart.”

“Well, now,” George said after a moment. “It seems to me your Theo made his own choices.”

“He did. Of course he did. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate me for it.” He couldn’t talk about his nightmares. Couldn’t talk about spycraft, and near-fatal curses, and France, and burning fields outside broken villages. Couldn’t speak of black figures and vicious words that haunted his dreams like a prophecy.

Not with his father, with that straightforward sun-browned kindness. He couldn’t set that burden on those loving shoulders. “He might love me. He says so. But even if he does…”

“It’s complicated. Love is that, you know.”

“Not,” Henry said to his boots, “this much.”

His father put a hand on his shoulder. “No, well, you’ve had a worse time than some, I’m not disagreeing. And I know we don’t know the half of it, what you’ve been through. But that young man in there loves you, Henry.”

Henry looked up. “How do you know?”

“Everything he did,” George said, “he did for you. You ask him if he regrets it.”

Henry was too horribly afraid he knew that answer already. “Maybe.”

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I proposed to your mother?” George patted his shoulder. “She turned me down, you know.”

Henry excavated a smile. “She told you she refused to marry anyone who’d never even asked her to dance one time, you said.”

“Because I got so nervous, every time, and she was so beautiful, out there, laughing, spinning on someone else’s arm. And magic to boot, just a kiss of it, the way her Granny had, not like yours, of course. But she had that too, and we all thought flowers bloomed wherever she stepped.” George did the shoulder-pat again. “I was scared half to death just to talk to her. And you know, son, I still can’t dance.”

Henry nearly laughed. “We know.”

“But, you know…I made myself go up to her in the village bookshop, the next day, because I knew if I didn’t I’d regret it all my life. And I asked whether I could buy her that volume of Cowper’s poetry, because I’d read it too and I thought we could talk about it, perhaps on a walk. And she looked at me, and then she said yes.”

“And you went on a walk, and quoted bucolic nature-adoring landscape poetry at each other,” Henry said dryly. “Thank you, Father, I’m not sure I can offer to buy Theo any books. He’s read them all.”

“I didn’t mean you should try that, exactly.”

“Definitely not Cowper, anyway.” Henry sighed again. “That’s the other problem, isn’t it? Not even the worst one.”

“Theo not liking an immensely talented poet?” George coaxed, gently.

“I don’t even know whether he does. It’s…you know his family name. You know who his parents were.”

“Ah,” George said. “Yes.”

“His brother’s a duke,” Henry said. “And…on top of everything, everything…even if that weren’t…even if…I’m still me and he’s technically a marquess, I think, even if he doesn’t use the title, and he lives in a charmed tower in the College and he likes indoor plumbing and polished boots and raspberry jam on scones whenever he wants—and he should have all of that, he should be safe and warm and happy, and I—I’ve taken all that away, you see, I know his life won’t ever be the same.”

Full of danger. Shadows. A conspiracy. Henry’s past, stalking them both.

“Son. Listen.” George did the paternal hmph at him again. “He might be a marquess and all, but he’s a magician, same as you. And a good magician, a proper College-trained magician, that’s the social equal of anyone, except maybe the King himself.”

“I know—”

“And you can bet he knows it too.”

“He—”

“And furthermore, you were out on the battlefield, you’re a Captain in the Royal Magicians’ Corps, you served us all with honor, and you’re as good a man as anyone the Duke of This or Your Grace That. You’re good enough for anyone, Henry, and better than most, and don’t let any titles tell you different.”

“Thanks,” Henry said, muffled because he was hugging his father. “God, I’ve missed you. So much.”

His father patted his back. “Come home more often, then.”

Henry laughed, caught his breath on a hiccup of emotion, let the hug go. “I’ll try.”

“You’ll both try.” George waved a finger at him. “We like your young man. Very sweet. Polite.”

Henry had a momentary flash of memories of Theo, so many: Theo kissing him, Theo taking him to bed, Theo putting him on his knees…Theo’s eyes alight with pleasure at Henry serving him…Theo laughing and teasing him in a meadow, the single perfect moment of joy before it’d all come crashing down…

Theo white as chalk, collapsing into his arms.

He managed an inhale, through the collision of emotions. And an exhale. In, out. Holding it all together.

He said, to his father’s approval, “Yes. He is.”

* * * *

The carriage ride started out uncomfortable, and promised to continue even more so. Theo listened to the thunder, watched murky rain streak past dull windows, and shifted his weight on the seat. The cushions were trying their hardest, which was the best that could be said of them.

Henry dove for a lap blanket. Held it out. “Here.”

“I’m not cold. I’m simply wondering who designed these seats, and which torture device inspired them.”

Henry’s hand hadn’t moved, extending the blanket. “You could sit on it.”

“I’m not—”

Dom, without looking up, said, “You’re not going to fix Theo’s head with lumpy wool, Captain Tourmaline.” He’d been reading the latest issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and made an irritated face, setting it down, running a hand through his hair. Strands stood up in silver and black. “They’re right about the iron in the blood, five years after I made that same suggestion at a meeting in Edinburgh. Idiots. You, not the entire state of English medicine. Though, yes, them as well.”