Page 27 of Elemental Truth (Mysterious Fields #3)

27

IN THE MILL

T hessaly stared at the room. The illusions had been rather fascinating actually, on a purely theoretical level. She wanted to discuss them with Aunt Metaia. She knew better than to discuss them with Magistra North. Using a distortion to hide a space that would otherwise be compellingly interesting was a clever sort of trick. Draw the eye to the thing you couldn’t really hide. That much copper, you’d need to design the illusions specifically for that, probably in multiple distinct sets. They hadn’t done that, which was also interesting.

“Tell me more about what a Faraday cage does?” Thessaly frowned, then shifted to lean one shoulder against the frame of the door, still on the outside. “I’ll keep watch, all right?”

“How long do we have?” Vitus sounded bemused. “Most of it can keep. Electricity creates forces, the movement, the flow of the electricity, but there are also magnetic forces. If you make a Faraday cage, they’re made out of metal, copper’s a reasonable choice, you can block the electricity from affecting that space. Maybe other things as well. That’s the part I can’t figure out.”

“I’ll be quiet, then.” Thessaly could feel something odd, and she couldn’t pin down what it was. Part of it was nerves, she was sure. It wasn’t as if she had experience sneaking around on other people’s estates. Though she had, in point of fact, done a little more here than many other places, when she’d needed a little time to herself during visits.

They’d been here at least an hour, maybe rather more. The world around the mill had gone from afternoon light to twilight and now was settled into night. She could see a little down the path, from the charmlight in the lanterns, but only ten feet or so. Less, far less, if she’d been looking at the lit interior of the mill. Thessaly set herself to leaning her back against the outside wall and focused on listening to the movements around them. Some of it was the wildlife. She could hear birds, the babbling of the river. It was cold out, certainly, but her clothing was charmed for warmth and the pockets were deep enough to cover her hands past the wrists.

Vitus made just enough noise inside that she could track where he was. He spent some time over by that series of knobs, then he was walking around. She could hear the boards creak and shift slightly. In between those sounds, all of a sudden, she heard someone coming. “Vitus, look like you’re doing the expected things.” She hissed it out, taking a couple of steps to the left, away from the doorway and deeper into the shadows, frantically pulling up the illusion magic again.

Out of the dark came a form. The shape was cloaked, making it hard to tell any details. A man, she suspected, he appeared to have trousers, beneath the cloak. He came bursting along the path, stopping at the doorway. “You blasted annoyance. What do you think you’re doing here?”

Thessaly could hear Vitus’s voice, shaky as anyone sensible would probably be. “I’ve permission to be here. I was taking some measurements.” He didn’t try to justify himself, that was good. But he also didn’t ask who it was.

“Away from that. Now.” That came out as a growl, the sheer anger in his voice making it impossible to tell what he sounded like when not furious. “You meddle, you foul everything you’re near. And you’re not even anyone, are you? Just a little grasping bourgeois nothing. You don’t know when to leave your betters alone. Do you really think a Lytton could ever look at you with anything other than disgust?”

Thessaly had a great deal she’d like to say to that, and she knew she couldn’t, not now. She started working through what she could reasonably cast. She could not get a protection over Vitus, not from this angle and with that man between them. And honestly, she wasn’t sure she trusted the effects, not inside the mill. But she could, she thought, get him from behind, draw his attention away, until Vitus could get out of the building and hide or something. Thessaly readied herself as best she could, a proper duelling stance that would let her move quickly, balanced on the balls of her feet. She was desperately grateful she’d chosen the boots. They’d be a help on uneven ground.

What she wanted to know was who this was. It could be Lord Clovis, it could be Sigbert, it could be someone in the extended family. She’d have considered one of the footmen, but not the way he was speaking. She didn’t know Bradamante’s sons-in-law well enough to recognise them in anger and bad lighting.

Whoever it was took another couple of steps inside. Now, Thessaly could see that he was masked as well as cloaked, choosing to obscure his appearance, perhaps even alter his voice. That didn’t suggest anything good, either. Vitus had pressed himself back against a wall as the man continued ranting. “If you weren’t in the picture, we’d be all set for a marriage. Not the original one, but it would do well. But no, you had to interfere. Make the chit think she could have a choice in the matter. She can’t, she’ll find that out. Her father’s quite willing to make the arrangements.”

It wasn’t anything Thessaly didn’t know, but hearing it stabbed like a fresh wound. Vitus, inside, managed a reply. “She has a choice, under the law.” Perhaps not the sharpest rhetorical blade, but it was true.

Unfortunately, it provoked their intruder further. “Law, you talk to me about law? You’re here, where you oughtn’t be. And your hands have blood on them, they must. You twisted whatever it was you did for the Council. You must have, or Childeric would still be alive, shining, all set to marry and become everything he ought to have been.” There was an odd note in there, something that Thessaly didn’t have time to make sense of, like there was a larger goal that somehow they’d missed.

There wasn’t a good reason to let this go on, and several good reasons to stop whatever it was. Thessaly considered her options. Then she pulled the talisman Vitus had given her, the one that made it hard to look at her. She shoved it in her pocket, letting the chain dangle where she could grab it if she needed to. Then she pulled her own scarf up around her face and hair, to obscure her own features, tucking the end in at the base of her neck to anchor it. Thessaly thought for a moment and then she clapped her hands twice, readying a charm as she did.

The man inside turned around, and Thessaly took several steps, dancing back. The first charm altered her own voice. It sounded odd, but it made her more a tenor than a soprano. That should be enough in the winter wind. “Is that all you can do, shout nonsense?” Taunting was a rather schoolyard approach, but she wanted to get his attention on her. She hoped Vitus would take the hint, and get out of the building, get somewhere he could get away or hide.

Before she could think beyond that, there was a roar from the doorway, and then the man was charging at her, bullish and aiming to knock her over. She was nimble enough on her feet; these were the drills she had been able to keep up, enough, the last months. Thessaly danced out of the way, treating it enough like what she’d been told of an actual bull fight. She wanted to lead him away from the mill, to give Vitus some space.

The problem was that the charmlights had gone out, and so there was near enough no light on the riverbank now. They were just a day or so off the new moon, which would make it easier to hide, but harder to keep his focus on her, without lighting herself up. She remembered something just in time, something Aunt Metaia had taught her, after talking about a particular prank she’d played in her younger years.

The charm. Could she get the charm to work? Yes. She felt the magic around her feet shift, and now the illusions were casting light, an eerie pale green flicker that was nothing like fire. It didn’t make it much easier to see, but at least she might avoid falling in the river. In the summer, it might have made a reasonable escape if she could float or swim, but not in January. Before she could think about that, the man was advancing on her, and he’d finally decided on something.

Or maybe it hadn’t been so long. Time moved differently in a duel. She automatically brought up more of her protections. That part of her training hadn’t faded it at all, especially not with the last two week’s bouts to reinforce it. He swung magic at her like a hammer, not like a blade, as if he wished to shatter her into pieces. The warding charms held, though she felt the blow and it forced her back a step or two. But that also brought her a little further away from the mill. She could see now, just barely, that Vitus was holding the charmlight, the last one, and he’d closed the door to the mill. He was out.

Another shuddering wave of magic hit her. She was braced for it better now. Before she responded, before she went on the attack, she fished the talisman chain out of her pocket, balled it up, and flung it toward the mill’s door. It landed short, but not by far, maybe a few feet in front of Vitus, and she could see him dive for it.

There, now he’d be harder to spot, and she could focus entirely on the duel. So long as Vitus didn’t try to help her. She sucked in a breath of too-cold air, even through the scarf, and then set to. First, to get her opponent off balance. Thessaly wanted him down on the ground, at her mercy. She wanted to know who he was, so she could figure out what happened next. And she absolutely, with all her strength and all her magic, didn’t want him to come out the winner, able to hurt her or hurt Vitus.

Now, she thanked Helena inside her head for one of the tricks Helena had tried on Tuesday. They were sharp, nasty charms, the kind that stung when they hit, no matter what protections were in play. It wasn’t fair, in a duel, but not all duels were fair. And this, this was not a duel. It was something far more vicious. The first one connected, she thought at his knee, and then she could drive him back along the river path, not letting him escape in any useful direction. She thought she might have felt movement behind her, but she was sure it was Vitus. She was betting a great deal that it was.

The fight was difficult, but the longer it went on, the more sure she was that she could get the upper hand. She was sure she was younger. She was more energetic. And Thessaly had a wider range of skill. Whoever this was duelled better than Childeric, but that wasn’t much of a marker and it certainly wasn’t terribly identifiable. She managed to get his ankle, limiting his ability to move.

He was grunting now, and there was a stream of incoherent swearing and ranting. Most of it drifted away in the wind, she couldn’t make it out properly. But now and then there was a phrase about wanting revenge, about calling on his magic. Whatever he tried didn’t work.

Thessaly was tiring, she could feel the limits closing in. She was not yet desperate, but it was time for something far more pointed. Emeline had taught her a lovely chain of charms, the sort of thing to use on men who wanted to take unpermitted liberties. She held her protections for a moment, keeping them steady while she positioned herself to get the right angle. It wouldn’t work nearly so well if she judged the arc wrong.

A second later, the man was on the ground, groaning, both hands between his legs, as if she’d kneed him. It wasn’t just the impact. The charm had a sharp streak of pain. She advanced, hoping to pin him down, but he managed to get up some kind of barrier, holding her back. While she fought against it, tried to figure a way around, he pushed himself upright. Then he took off limping badly, back toward the direction of the manor house and the estate.

Thessaly was breathing hard already. She was dripping with sweat. And as much as she wanted to chase him, there would be staff around and the estate wards besides. If they weren’t outside, it wasn’t actually that late at night yet, they’d be dressed and ready. She and Vitus had to get out of here, and fast.