There was no response. “Well, at least I didn’t insult it,” he chuckled. “I’ll have to borrow your Verte and start asking it questions. The thing is, Isabella, you just can’t bring those creatures across from the spirit realms without a lot of power, and that sort of thing leaves signs about. I’m rather good at seeing those signs, and I haven’t seen any indication that there is a magician around here but me.”
“So what you are saying is they couldn’t bring themselves, and they couldn’t just invite others?”
“More or less.” He nodded, and adjusted his spectacles. “Although in magic, intent is very powerful. I got so annoyed that I had to keep summoning more and more of them to replace the human servants that kept leaving that it might have been that intent that gave my spells the power to call up more of the spirits than I would ordinarily have been able to bring. I do know that at one point, I was so angry I could hardly speak — I distinctly remember thinking, ‘For heaven’s sake, let this finally be enough to get the job done!’ That was right after the stable hands gave me notice, and there I was with a stable full of animals and no one but Eric who knew how to tend a horse.”
Her hands caressed the silk around the mirror. She was dying to take it to her room and see if it worked, but it would scarcely be polite to run off like a little child with a new toy. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” she replied, apologetically. “The only magic person I know is Granny, and she never did any in front of me. I mean, I know there is a lot of magic in the city. Every shop I go to has charms to bring customers and curses against thieves on it, but…I’ve never really seen anything at work, much less seen anyone doing it.”
He nodded. “And you won’t generally. Really powerful magicians are rare, which means that most magicians have to be very clever and careful, learn how to do the most that they can with the least power. For that matter, the only magicians who are profligate with power are the bad ones, because they just steal it from people.”
“Why doesn’t everyone?” she asked, curiously. “I mean, if no one is using the power — ”
“Because it generally kills the people you take it from, or makes them sick,” he told her bluntly. “Besides that, the best magic is unobtrusive. It just makes life go a little smoother. There still are thieves and they still will take things, and they have curse-counters to keep from getting hit by the curses that the shops have. But mostly, they get caught. Or the shop gets a reputation for paying for such good curses that it would be foolish to steal from it. And life goes on.” He sighed, with a glance at the floating armband. “If I had my way, there would not be a single spirit here. It would all be ordinary servants, getting ordinary wages. But things didn’t work out that way, and I’ve created something — well, let’s not mince words here — unnatural.”
“Your servants aren’t unhappy,” she ventured. “They seem to enjoy serving you, in fact.”
He smiled wryly, and a shadow crossed over his face as he pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “Yes, but did they have a choice in that?” he countered.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Did they ever have a choice in whether or not they enjoy serving me?” he repeated. “I tried to make my spell noncoercive so that it wouldn’t force any of them here, but did it force them to enjoy their servitude once they were summoned?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t tell, and they can’t tell me. If they even know. That is the problem with magic — it often merely pretends to be doing what you want it to, when in fact it is doing what it wants to.”
She blinked at him. “You’re talking as if magic is something like a person, with a person’s thoughts and feelings.”
“And sometimes it acts as if it is,” he said solemnly. “I can’t explain it. I just know that it does. And maybe that is why and how the intelligent ones ended up here. They certainly are not what I asked for when I cast the spell. It has me baffled.”
“All I can tell you is that the intelligent ones are as good as any servant that I have ever had,” she assured him. “And good servants are loyal. I must say…while I cannot swear that the best of my servants at home would have stayed no matter what had happened to me or what strange things came to inhabit my house, I would like to think they would have at least tried to accommodate everything before giving notice.”
He hesitated a moment. “It wasn’t only that I changed, or that I started to have the invisibles about. I think there was friction with Eric. You know, he’s neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, as the saying goes. If this had been a bigger household — or my father had taken more thought about Eric’s situation and done something to give him a defined place in the household…well, he didn’t. What’s done can’t be undone.”
Her hands unconsciously cradled the mirror, and he smiled a little. “I know you want to run off with that to be private,” he told her, kindly, his eyes behind the glasses a little sad. “So go and do that. But…you are likely to find time hanging heavily on your hands. If you do, I wouldn’t mind you coming to my workshop while I try to figure out a curse-breaker for our condition. Actually, I would like your company.”
“Wouldn’t I be disturbing you?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine why he would want her there. She didn’t know a thing about magic, and would probably only be in the way.
“Not at all. It would be useful to have someone to talk to, and you ask very intelligent questions. In fact, sometimes you could help when all I need is an extra pair of hands. I would very much welcome you then.” He made a face. “I know that I have the servants to help me, but they are magic themselves, and sometimes it is not good to have magic creatures hovering about where magic is being done. It’s a bit like having a pot of oil boiling on top of a fire.”
“Well…perhaps,” she told him, tentatively. “I’m still not sure I can be of any real help, and I might make things worse for you than if I wasn’t there. What if I did something wrong? Or what if something went wrong even if I didn’t do anything?”
He scratched his head and looked rueful. “Well…I can’t absolutely promise you nothing would go wrong. And I can’t absolutely promise you that you would be safe. Magic has a lot of uncertainty…and as I said before, sometimes it does what it wants to, and not what you want it to do. It is true that the invisibles have their own sort of protections. I would try to keep you shielded from harm, but — well, I know better than to sit here and pretend that you would be as safe as if you were in your own room.”
At least he was honest. “I will have to think about this,” she told him.
He gave her a lopsided, rueful smile. “I understand. And I understand that you want very badly to take that mirror away and see your family.” He waved his hand at her a little. “Go on. You deserve more than that. Much more. I just wish I could give it to you.”
Perhaps it was rude, but she just couldn’t wait anymore. “Thank you,” she managed to get out, as she snatched up her prize and ran as fast as the gown would allow for her rooms.
Once there, she made sure she was alone. She didn’t even want Sapphire around for this. Then she laid the
