The Wizard of London

now and again, leaving whoever it regarded usually feeling warm and protected. And that wise old soul wanted to help Isabelle.

With a sigh, she knew she was going to have to set her anger to one side. Sarah nodded a little as Isabelle settled her hands in the correct position in her lap, and went into a light meditative trance. She visualized her anger as a fire raging out of control, and slowly confined it to its proper place on the hearth again, because even negative emotions like anger had positive uses. It wasn’t easy, but she’d had good teachers in such discipline.

You must recognize that these things are within you and learn to use them, said the voice in her memory. Otherwise they will use you.

Yes, teacher, she said to the memory, and the fires crept back to their place.

She opened her eyes and looked down at Sarah, who was patiently waiting, and looked ready to wait forever.

“He’s very unhappy,” Sarah repeated. “I think he must have made some bad mistakes a long time ago. He thought he was being clever, but he was choosing a bad path. Now he’s all twisted up and—cold. And that’s bad, too. It’s going to make trouble if he keeps on as he is.”

Bad mistakes… The words took her aback for a moment. In the long view, which she was, for the moment, forcing herself to take, how important was a failed romance? It only really mattered to her, didn’t it? How could David rejecting her possibly lead to something Sarah would call a “bad mistake”?

“He does have a great deal of influence,” she said, thinking aloud. “What do you mean by saying he is cold?”

I know what I mean, but what is Sarah seeing?

“He doesn’t feel anything anymore,” Sarah said, her little face taking on an expression of deep sadness. “Or what he does feel he steps on right away. He thinks this is being clever, but it’s like bricking up your windows so nobody can see inside your house. Then you can’t see outside or inside yourself; you’re all alone in the dark, and you just kind of wither. And when people don’t feel anything anymore, they can do bad things without really thinking about it because it doesn’t matter to them.”

Isabelle felt shocked. Out of the mouths of babes! But then, Sarah was no ordinary child, “That’s quite true,” she acknowledged. “But if he doesn’t feel anything anymore, just what exactly can you and I do? It would seem that he is so far down his chosen path that our influence is negligible. He is not inclined to listen to me, and he definitely will not listen to you.”

Sarah frowned. “Well,” she replied. “I don’t know for certain if he really doesn’t feel anything for true, or if it’s only that he tries not to feel anything. But I think something bad is going to happen to him if we can’t wake him up again. And when that something bad happens to him, he’ll do a lot of bad around other people.”

Then the child shook her head. “It’s all hard to explain, and it’s not like I know something is going to happen, it’s just that I feel it is. I don’t have a picture or anything in my head, and Grey just feels the same.”

Too young to see the future, because she is too young to cope with needing to see it, and too young to cope with knowing what is to come. It would have been very useful if she and Nan had been in their late teens and fully into whatever powers and abilities they were going to get.

Well, perhaps Sarah could evoke more if Isabelle gave her more information.

Isabelle sighed. “He came here to tell me that he had encountered Robin. He wanted some information; I suspect he was not aware of Robin’s true nature and thought that he could simply coerce or confine Robin if —”

“If he thought Robin was in the way,” Sarah finished, with a decided nod. “Like Nan and me were in the way the other day when he came riding a horse through the hedge, and almost ran us down.”

Isabelle felt another surge of anger, but this one was clean, simple anger at the careless man who would pay no attention to where he was going—not that she thought the children had been in any danger from David. First of all, few horses that were not actually vicious or panicked were likely to trample people. Horses hated soft things underfoot, and given the choice, would shy rather than run something down.

Nevertheless—it was careless, it was heedless, and it was certainly an example of the sort of arrogance that was making her so angry with him.

He certainly had not come to anyone here at Highleigh to report the incident, which was the least he should have done. Any responsible adult would have done so. A truly responsible adult would have made certain the girls were well, then brought them to the manor himself.

No, she was vexed, very vexed with him. That was twice he had endangered the lives of two little girls with no demonstration that he considered them to be as important as a pair of stray kittens.

“Obviously, since you are not sporting hoofprints, he didn’t harm you,” she said with calm she did not feel. “I trust he apologized.”

That would have been the least that any decent man would have done.

“No. He shouted at us for being there, and Nan shouted back at him and he got angry. Nan said she thought he had no right being there, which got him more angry. So he just rode around the meadow, then went back.” Sarah shook her head. “And that’s why Nan’s angry with him,” she added. “He didn’t treat us very well, but I know why. He was in the wrong, but he feels like he has to be right all the time. The more wrong he is, the more he acts badly in order to prove that he is right. So since he feels that way, he can hurt people quite easily.” She looked thoughtful a moment. “I suppose,” she said, in tones that suggested she was trying to find David’s point of view, “if we had been crying and acting scared or hurt, he would have acted differently. But since Nan was being rude, he must have supposed that we were all right and he was free to be angry with us.”

Isabelle clenched her jaw, then forced it to relax. And she thought about what her friend Bea had said about this circle of Elemental Mages David was putting together, and how he had political ambitions. And then her blood ran cold.

The one thing that had kept the practitioners of the arcane from meddling as much as they could if they chose, was that they had kept themselves out of “secular” life, so to speak. There was little or no interference on their part with the lives of those who were not so gifted, except, perhaps, the occasional rescue.

And thus far, there had been no one who was really willing to take that step into the lives of those who were not Elemental Mages. There was an unspoken accord between the Mages and the Gifted and Talented that they would not interfere with one another either.

But combine a powerful Elemental Master, the circle he had founded, political ambitions, and the absolute certainty in that Master’s mind that he was right and what he wanted was what was best for all—

Add to that the unwillingness on the part of that Master to admit he could ever be wrong—

It would start small, of course. Such things always began small. First political contacts, and then, to a chosen man or two in very high places, the proof that magic existed and it could be used to produce real effects. Pointing out that using magic for the good of the Empire was the only patriotic way to proceed.

Then it would begin, with the Elemental Mages cautiously being given political and governmental positions and power. Perhaps there would be a special Ministry in charge of the Arcane. And at first, its work would be entirely benign. Renegade Magicians would be tracked down, rounded up, and possibly laws put through so that they could be made accountable for what they did. And in David’s circle there would be a sort of policing force ready-made. They would all have official government sanction, and a certain amount of power. Power could be very addictive.

But then—how long would it be before all Magicians were asked to register with this Ministry? How long until any Magician that had elected not to register was deemed a “renegade” and registration was no longer voluntary? How long before it wasn’t just Magicians, but all the Gifted and Talented as well?

And then, how long before the Magicians extended their hands over the ordinary people who had neither Gift nor Talent?

Then what?

There were many possibilities, and all of them were chilling.

All of this ran through her mind while the child sat there, solemn-eyed, watching her.

“Things could be very bad if his heart stays frozen, couldn’t they?” Sarah asked quietly. “Your face went all still, Mem’sab. It only does that when you’re thinking that things could be bad.”

Isabelle sighed. “Yes, Sarah. Things could be very bad. The trouble is, I don’t know how to put them