angering their opposite numbers in Water. If he pushes his own powers much further trying to get rid of that horrible curse, he could hurt her.”

Elizabeth massaged her own temples, unwonted lines of weariness creasing her forehead. Margherita had the distinct feeling that she herself looked no better. “I wish we had an Air power here. I wish Roderick were still alive. Or that I could get any interest out of Alderscroft.” The expression on her face suggested that she would like very much to give the latter gentleman a piece of her mind.

“We’re small potatoes to the like of Lord Alderscroft,” Margherita said with some bitterness. “He only bothers with things that threaten the whole of Britain, not merely the life of one girl.”

Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “Pray do not remind me,” she said shortly. “I plan to have a word or two in person with Lord Alderscroft over the holidays. Not that I think it will change his mind but at least it will relieve my feelings on the subject. Still—” Her expression lightened a little. “—the curse hasn’t re-awakened, either. The—relative—still hasn’t made any moves, magically or otherwise. And even if she actually traced where Marina is and sent someone to find her instead of coming in person, at this time of year, any stranger to the village would be as obvious as a pig in a parlor.”

Margherita nodded. “That’s true enough,” she agreed, once again taking comfort in their surroundings; not a great city like Bath or Plymouth, where strangers were coming and going as often as one’s long-time neighbors, but a tiny place where nothing was secret.

Strangers did come to the village, but unless they were taking the rare permanent position as a servant that wasn’t immediately filled by a local, they rarely stayed. Temporary harvest help arrived and left again; travelers in the summer and spring, sometimes; people on walking tours, for instance. Peddlers came through, of course, and the booth-owners and amusement-operators for the fairs. But that was only in the warm seasons—not in winter. Never in winter, and rarely, once the cold set in, during the fall.

The moment a stranger entered their village at this time of year, people would take note and the gossip would begin. If the stranger stayed, well—he’d have to find a room somewhere. The pub wasn’t an inn; he’d have to find someone willing to let a room to him—not likely, that. In summer, the gypsies and tramping sorts could camp on the common, but he could hardly do that now.

To have any plausible reason to stay, he’d have to find a job somewhere nearby. According to Sarah, there were no positions available in the village or the surrounding farms, or even the two great houses. Of course, if Arachne sent a spy, she might arrange an “accident” to create a position for her hireling, but that itself would cause talk.

People talked a great deal about anything or anyone new in a village this small. And old Sarah, bless her, heard everything, and would faithfully repeat everything she heard to the people she considered as friends as well as employers.

“There are many advantages to being in a small village,” Elizabeth observed, with a faint smile. “Even though we have the disadvantage of being gentry, and people don’t talk as freely to us as they would to someone like you.”

“Oh, the villagers don’t talk to us directly,” Margherita admitted. “We’re newcomers—why, we haven’t a single ancestor buried in the churchyard! But Sarah tells us everything, and everyone talks to her.”

“Watchdogs without ever knowing it—and something you-know-who would never think of. Although I must admit that I never thought of it either, when we decided you should take Marina with you.” Elizabeth tactfully did not mention the third reason—that she had already known that Margherita couldn’t conceive, following a terrible bout with measles a year or two before Marina was born.

Taking care of Marina had filled a void that Margherita had not even known was within her until the baby had been in her arms.

“Well, Sebastian should be finished for the day by now,” she said, shaking off her somber mood. “And both of them are probably starving.”

“Marina will be, anyway. I worked her particularly hard today,” Elizabeth said, with a look that Margherita recognized very well. The pride of a teacher in a student who excelled past expectation. Margherita knew it well, because her face wore that look often enough. “She’s doing very well; she’s quick, and willing, and intelligent. I wish every student of mine had that particular combination of traits.”

They cleaned up the workroom after themselves; Margherita found it easier to summon Elementals when she had the help of incense, salt, and other paraphernalia. All this had to be packed back up and put away in one of the cupboards. Only then did they dismiss the shields that hid their work from the outside world and leave the workroom.

Those shields were so very necessary. Elizabeth had not exaggerated when she had warned Sebastian that any great exercise of her powers would shout to the world that a Magus Major had come to stay in this tiny little backwater village. Thomas—well, he was indeed an Earth Master, but his magic came out in the skill of his hands and his marvelous craftsmanship. It seemed that wood and stone and clay obeyed his will and formed themselves before he ever set tool to them. His power was so contained within himself that it never showed; he had never really needed to shield himself.

Sebastian seldom used his power as a Fire Master; it was ill-suited to his life as a painter. In fact, in all the time that Marina had been with them, he hadn’t (at least to Margherita’s knowledge) worked a greater magic more than a half a dozen times. When he had summoned Elementals or used great amounts of power, it had been in attempts to rid Marina of the curse that burdened her.

As for Margherita—though she had used magic more often and more openly than either of the men, it hadn’t even been in exercise of the healing magics that came so naturally to Earth Masters. No, hers had been kitchen witchery, the magic of hearth and home, more often than not. And again, when she had invoked greater power, it had generally been for Marina’s sake.

There had been magic openly at work in this little corner of Devon, but it had all been minor. Elizabeth had been very wise to be cautious. There was no point in hiding Marina all this time, only to give her presence away in the last year of her danger.

They left the workroom arm-in-arm, and encountered Marina fresh from a hot bath, cheeks glowing, hair damp, enveloped in one of the warm, weighty winter gowns that Margherita had made for her, a caftan of soft olive wool that Margherita had shamelessly copied from a Worth original, with a sleeveless overgown of the same fabric, lined in cream-colored linen, and embroidered with twining forest-green kelp and blue-green fish with fantastically trailing fins.

“Oh, I do like this frock, Mari!” Elizabeth exclaimed involuntarily. “Imagine it in emerald satin! Your embroidery design, of course, Margherita?”

“Yes, but Marina did at least half of the embroidery,” Margherita hastened to point out. “Probably more. She’s as good with a needle as I am.”

“I enjoyed it,” Marina said, blushing a little. “But Elizabeth, I thought the suit you arrived in was just stunning.”

“Hmm. It is one of my favorites, though I can’t say that I’m altogether fond of those trumpet-skirts,” Elizabeth replied. “Your gown is a great deal more sensible. And comfortable. But there it is; fashion never does have a great deal to do with sense or comfort, now, does it?”

“And I suppose I’d look a complete guy, trotting around the orchard in a trumpet-skirt with a mermaid-tail train,” Marina admitted ruefully.

“Believe me, my dear, you would; fashion is not made for orchards. And you’d probably break your neck into the bargain.” They were the first to reach the dinner table after all, and took their places at it, clustering at one end so that they could continue the conversation.

“But a suit like yours is perfectly comfortable in town, isn’t it?” Marina asked, with a wistful expression. “I mean, if I went into London—”

Elizabeth got a mischievous look on her face. “Young lady, if you go into London, I am going to see to it that your wardrobe contains nothing but Bloomer fashions! I want every young man who sees you think that you are a hardened Suffragist with no time for mere males!”

The look of dismay on Marina’s face made both of the older women laugh.

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