Rogue Magic, Free Novel, Chapter 52

*Yes, this is late.  I had the brilliant idea to sort and clean my closet for the first time in a decade and a half.  This is something that must be done preparatory to moving (which might not happen till next Spring because the damage from the hail storm must be dealt with and it’s eating our time) I MUST somehow find the time to reconcile this.  But for now, here is a LITTLE chapter.*

The prequel to this — Witchfinder — is now up on Amazon.

This novel will get posted here a chapter every Friday or Saturday, or occasionally Sunday.  If you contribute $6 you shall be subscribed for the earc and first clean version in electronic format.  I think it will probably take another three months to finish.  Less, if I can have a weekend to run through and get ahead of the game.  It hasn’t happened yet.

NOTICE: For those unsure about copyright law and because there was a particularly weird case, just because I’m making the pre-first draft of my novel available to blog readers, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t copyrighted to me.  Rogue Magic as all the contents of this blog is © Sarah A. Hoyt 2013.  Do not copy, alter, distribute or resell without permission.  Exceptions made for ATTRIBUTED quotes as critique or linking to this blog. Credit for the cover image is © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com

 

Ginevra Mythborne:

 

The tears trick had never failed to work before. It was a magic that even humans could work, and I put all I had into it. Though I’ll confess it didn’t start as planned. The first tears came as Jonathan Blythe – I’d never think of him as the Earl of Savage, a role he filled as badly as a man could fill any role, but as the young rogue I’d met that night the demons had invaded London – turned on me, his face stern and said I would tell him the truth.

The truth… The truth is that I couldn’t tell him what I’d been told, a story that I had, at any rate, long started to doubt.

But on top of that I couldn’t tell him anything. I’d run out of lies, to him and to myself.

I remembered only the softened look in his eyes, the way he’d looked at me when he’d met me that first night, and even the way he’d looked at me when he’d met me in the Witchfinder’s office, and now – and now it was all gone, and all broken, and his eyes were cold, his face stern, and something emanated from him like the cold and distance of the stars looking down on humanity.

I’d always known he could be distant and cold. He had His blood after all, and of all the children of the Pater He was one of the few that even I couldn’t read – a creature of fog and slippery thoughts. He was not emotionless, but what his emotions might be, few knew. I guess you had to keep yourself detached to walk between worlds. I’d tried it myself, but at Jonathan Blythe’s look, something snapped.

The tears came. After that I realized I was in danger, and giving myself away, and decided to use my not-inconsiderable power to encourage him to feel sorry for me.

I saw something like a spark light up his grey eyes, and then he said, “Kindly stop it. It will not work. Miss Mythborne, you’ve led me a merry dance, and you might have been responsible for setting the rogue magic loose upon my world. I believe it’s time you gave me an explanation. And no. Don’t consider crying harder. It simply won’t work.”

I looked up into his eyes and saw that it wouldn’t, and yet, my eyes kept trickling out tears. “I don’t do it on purpose,” I said. And sniffled.

He took out his handkerchief and handed it to me. There was barely courtesy in the gesture, there certainly wasn’t any careful coddling of my feelings.

I ran the handkerchief across my eyes, and pressed my nose to it, and then I sighed. “You see,” I said. “People who are conflicted in their position and… and trying to subsume themselves into a place they don’t quite fit in, if they’re magical people, they give off a power that…”

“Yes, Miss Mythborn?”

“I can’t tell you. They would destroy me!”

“They?”

“The people who… sent me.”

“People?”

I looked up and met with his clear and speculative gaze. The amiable drunk and the easy going dunce he could play were both that, playing. This one was for real.

I shrugged.

He sighed. “Miss Mythborne, you have two choices. You can explain exactly for whom you’re working and why – and no lies this time – or I can deploy my not inconsiderable capacity for magic, that magic of rogues you seem to think is so powerful, on you, right now.” He narrowed his eyes. “I wonder what the result would be of using some of the nastier sorts of spells in Fairyland. You know, when my papa died, I found on his shelves several books of forbidden knowledge, including Barbossa’s spells of control.” His voice had gone all cold and speculative. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I remembered those spells from back when I’d got my education in the world of humans and I didn’t want to have them applied to me. I very much didn’t want to have them applied to me by this cold creature. But my concern was all too real. I let him feel it. “I can’t talk,” I said. “they will hurt me. They will… reduce me.”

His eyebrows went up. “Now, I wonder…” He said. And then cooly, managing to look as though he’d just gotten dressed, as though he were in his house, and in full control. “As I see it, a difficult choice is before you. You can tell me what I wish to know, right now, and I’ll protect you from those … others… to the best of my ability. Or I can use the best of my ability against you.”

I opened my mouth to talk, but he lifted an admonitory finger. “Only before I believe anything you have to say, I’m going to need to use a truth spell.” He grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin. “Perhaps the most innocuous of Barbossa’s spells, and frankly necessary to believe something such a gifted liar tells me.”

This was not going to be any fun at all. I wanted Jonathan Blythe back, the Jonathan Blythe I’d first met.

But I was afraid the games I couldn’t help but play had destroyed him. At least when it came to his feelings for me.