The Wizard of London

Since Isabelle could not imagine anyone she would rather talk to, she launched into her narrative with a will. She began all the way back at the point when little Sarah and Nan joined the school—because Sarah and Nan were so integral to the story—

“Though I can’t in all honesty call Nan a charity case, when she more than pays for her way with all of the hard work she does—”

Then she went on to the phony medium, Sarah’s true mediumistic abilities, all the inquiries about the girls— and went from that to the incident in Berkeley Square. Bea listened intently to every word.

“Well, I must say, I wish Nigel was here. That sounds like an Earth Elemental to be sure, but I don’t know enough to make an identification.” She frowned. “And I don’t imagine that an Earth Master gone wrong is going to identify himself to the rest of us.”

“Probably not,” Isabelle agreed, and sighed. “Still, if one of you could look into the situation—”

“That, my dear, is a given,” Bea told her, raising her head with a determined set to her chin. “We simply can’t have something like that loose, even if it is confined to a single building. Someone could be hurt. If we haven’t dealt with it by the time Nigel returns, I’m sure he’ll banish it, but I suspect I can find a Water Master to get rid of the vicious thing.”

Isabelle sighed, and nibbled a biscuit for the sake of politeness. “This was deliberate, you know. Whoever did this intended to frighten or harm my charges. I’d like to know who set it.” She braced herself, knowing she was unlikely to get an answer to that statement that she would like.

“Well—this is really something that the Elemental Masters should deal with, Belle,” came exactly the reply she had expected. “We do try to police our own.”

Run along, little girl, and don’t bother your pretty head about it. The old Isabelle would have snapped something rude at her old friend. Over the years, although diplomacy did not come naturally to her, she had been forced to acquire it.

“It isn’t precisely an issue internal to the Elemental Masters anymore, Bea,” she said gently. “Whoever did this mounted an attack on Talented children. My charges and my charges specifically were lured there and locked in to be attacked. Someone sent a cabby to the school to ask for them by name. Two boundaries have been violated, the one that says that the Masters are not to attack the Talented and vice versa, and the one that holds that children are off-limits. At the very least I would like to know why, if not who. There may be more such attacks, and I am the protector of these children; I have the right to know who I am protecting them against.”

Bea had the grace to flush. “That’s true enough,” she admitted. “I’ll see that you’re told whatever it is you need.”

Whatever you think it is I need. Still, it was the biggest concession she was going to get out of them. She nodded, and changed the subject to that of her old schoolmates. She needed to find out what they were up to anyway.

***

She stayed through luncheon at Bea’s insistence. It was definitely a treat; it wasn’t as if the Harton School could afford the sorts of dainties Lady Nigel could put on her table.

She had arrived by cab; she went home in Lady Nigel’s carriage. The congested streets that slowed the carriage’s pace to practically nil allowed her to sit back against the velvet cushions and think about her old friends, the young—now, not so young—women she had gone to school with.

That school was home to mostly young ladies of rank and privilege. She had, in fact, been given a scholarship, or her family never could have afforded it. Her benefactress had been a Talent of no mean ability herself, and knowing that there was no school for Talented girls had found and sent her to the next best thing. Presumably, the idea had been that she would get the sort of education fit to make her a governess, but whatever had been in the donor’s mind, Isabelle had found herself in the company of those who also recognized her Talent for what it was, and shared with her the secret of their own powers. For the first time she had found herself among girls from whom she needed to hide nothing, for she had been sent to a school populated entirely by, and taught by, the daughters of Elemental Masters and Magicians. There was only one other school like it, and that one was for the sons of these same families. She was not the only girl on scholarship there; nor was she the only one who did not share a spot in Burke’s Peerage. But she was the only one of the less-privileged lot who was comfortable around the titled, the legacy of hundreds of tea parties, tennis parties, and dinner parties accompanying her father to “the Great House” since her mother was no longer alive to do so. In English polite society, the vicar was the one man who was welcome in the drawing rooms of the rich and the front stoops of the poor, and Isabelle was well used to accompanying her father to both venues. Had it not been for her limited and modest wardrobe, she could not have been told apart from any of the girls of rank and title.

Isabelle had a knack for making friends, for being a warm and caring companion, and for acting as both a sounding board and a peacemaker. Once again, of course, such traits were invaluable to the daughter of a vicar. As she had soothed tempers around the tea table of the Lady’s Friendly Society, she now soothed ruffled feathers at the school, and was accepted as a friend by all. As a consequence, she was brought along on every possible excursion, and if her wardrobe was lacking, the clothes’ chests of all the other girls were flung open and at her disposal.

And that, of course, was how the trouble really started. There was no way for David Alderscroft to have known that she was not in his social circle. Her (borrowed) clothing did not betray the fact, nor did her manners. Whenever there was a party that was a girl short, Isabelle, with her wonderful manners, got an invitation, since the parents in question would always think, “Ah, now she’s not an Elemental Mage, nor has she independent means, she’ll be no competition for my girl.” And it was true enough that she should not have been—most of the young men in question already knew of her and her status, and while they laughed and flirted with her, it was lightly, and with no intent on either side.

Not so David Alderscroft. He had no idea she was only a vicar’s daughter; he had been schooled at home, by private tutors, and was not privy to the crucial information that she was, in the delicate terminology of his class, “not quite up to the mark,” at least in the sense that a marriage to her for any of the scions of these noble houses would have been a marriage far beneath them.

But she had flattered herself, when he began to pay her attention, that perhaps she was not so “ineligible” as all that. After all, although she was not a Magician, she did have arcane abilities of her own, inherited from both sides of the family. Her father, the vicar, was sensitive to spirits and to the emotions of others. Although she barely remembered her mother, her older sisters hinted that Mariana Carpenter had been even more Talented than Isabelle was. And vicar though he might have been, her father saw to it she was properly trained in the use of her unusual abilities, and looked the other way when that teaching skirted close to things that might be called “pagan.” He himself did not have the strength of Talent to become a Warrior of the Right-hand Path and a Light Bringer, but he was terribly proud when she proved to have that level of ability. By the time she was enrolled in Madame Grayson’s Academy, in her late teens, she had already achieved that accolade, and it was one acknowledged by the Elemental Masters as well as the Talented. The families of the Elemental Masters themselves were known to acquiesce to marriage across class boundaries, so long as both parties were Masters, and surely the title of Light Bringer was the equivalent. So there was every reason for her to consider herself David Alderscroft’s equal and carry herself that way.

As for David, as Bea had said, his father approved of her entirely, though His Lordship was a tragic case. He and a handful of other Elemental Masters had been forced to deal with an occult circle led by a renegade Fire Master, and as Isabelle understood the story, he had stepped in between the Master and his own men, and absorbed most of the power of an awakening Phoenix himself. He had not been the same man afterward; he acted like one lightning struck, with tremors, facial tics, and an inability to speak clearly. But he was able to convey to David that he approved of Belle.

Probably because I read him newspapers and books for hours on end.

Of course, she and Bea could both have misread the poor man. Maybe he thought David was planning to engage her as a companion, and not that David was interested in making her his wife…

She stared at her hands, fingers entwined in her lap, and sighed. No. No, she was sensitive enough to know, although she had not actually read the poor man’s mind on the subject, that the late Trevor, Lord Alderscroft had liked her for herself, and would have been perfectly happy to see her take a wife’s place beside his son.

No, she didn’t think old Lord Alderscroft had anything to do with what happened after Lady Cordelia appeared on the scene…