Heart's Magic (20 page)

Elinor racked her brain for
a solution.
Solution.
Wizardry was often carried in a solution of plant
materials.

What if--
she began tentatively, thinking her way
through.
What if we could apply a poultice
over the area? We could load it with wizardry and sorcery both.
Perhaps we could lance the scar a bit, to allow the magic to
penetrate better, so it doesn't have to soak its way through the
skin. Or does that matter?

It takes longer to penetrate
the skin.

All right, then.
Elinor looked around at Harry's insides.
How do I get out again?

You--
Amanusa demonstrated. "Step out."

Elinor copied her, reaching
for the magic inside herself, her intention clear in her mind, and
she
stepped
back
into her own body. "I'll get that poultice."

"You're going to poultice
the splinter out o' me?" Harry caught her hand as she
stood.

"Oh. I'm sorry--I forgot
you couldn't hear us. There is no splinter. Just a place--" She
made a circle with thumb and forefinger. "About this big. Where you
have far too little magic. We're going to poultice magic into
you."

"What would you've done if
there 'ad been a splinter?" he wanted to know.

"Asked Dr. Rosato to cut it
out," Amanusa said briskly. "Aren't you glad Elinor already got it
all?"

"That I am."

Elinor excused herself to
go make her poultice. As she looped her apron over her head and
tied it around her, she considered what she had just done. Once
she'd begun moving around Harry's body, examining him from the
inside out, she'd forgotten the magic was based on blood. It had
ceased to feel peculiar or foreign, because it wasn't. It was no
more foreign than wizardry. Less so, because it came from her own
body.

Though Elinor had to
admit--she and her body were not exactly on speaking terms. As long
as it did what she wanted it to, she paid it little attention,
feeding and resting it as necessary to keep it doing so. She had a
feeling that might necessarily change. It was not a comfortable
feeling.

Pearl knocked on the still
room door and came in when Elinor called. "Grey and I are going to
lunch at home." She yawned. "I feel a nap coming on. But I wanted
to let you know--don't worry too much about that accidental
familiar business. You haven't exchanged blood directly." She
wiggled her forefinger. "Wound to wound, as it were. Just don't
work magic together and don't give him your virginity. Not until
you've pulled your blood back from him, in any case."

"I won't!" Elinor was so
shocked, she almost put in too much tansy. "I
wouldn't.
"

"I know." Pearl's grin was
as wicked as most of Grey's. She was picking up too many of his
worst habits. "I was just winding you up. It's so easy to do.
Amanusa is staying to help with the poultice's magic, all
right?"

"Yes, all right." Elinor
bade her goodbye, her mind already on her spell-mixing.

Where had she put that
adder's-tongue? Under "A" for "adder" or under "O" for
"ophioglossum"? She found a few dried seed stalks she'd harvested
near home last spring in a jar high in the corner, next to the
aloes.

Aloe. She'd bought a new
plant--
aloe vera
--imported from somewhere in the Americas by way of Cape Horn.
She'd tried it in her burn salve where it had worked marvelously.
Perhaps it would work in this. Or maybe she should try one of the
other aloes.
Aloe socotrina,
from an island off the Horn of Africa, had worked
well for wizards for years in closing wounds and easing pain and
she had some of that in the jar right beside the
adder's-tongue.

Elinor set that jar on a
lower shelf and climbed carefully down her stepstool to the floor
with the adder's-tongue jar tucked carefully in one hand. Once
securely at ground level, she set both jars on the worktable. What
else?

Crane's bill, she decided.
It was useful for internal injuries and what was Harry's ailment
but precisely that? That jar was lower and easily found. She would
use olive oil as a base, as it was inherently soothing, possessed
of solid magic, and readily took up more.

She lost herself in
measuring, grinding, mixing, and then stirring in the magic with
her favorite wand, the one she'd had since she made it when she was
twelve from the alder tree growing in the same damp ground where
she harvested her adder's-tongue. It had a little bend in it where
she'd cut away a fork from her branch, but it didn't seem to affect
the magic any. Or perhaps it simply suited her own bent. Elinor had
always thought of herself as a little crooked. Not crooked as in
wicked, but as in eccentric. No harm in that.

The poultice was ready. All
it needed was blood for the sorcery. Elinor eyed the sharp paring
knife on the worktable. If she put the blood in it here, no one
would know. The guild's secret would definitely be kept. But did
they need more, or would that already inside Harry suffice? And if
more was required, how much more? Better to wait on the lessons of
the master sorceress.

Elinor draped bandages over
her forearm, picked up the small bowl with her potion, and headed
back to the drawing room, noting the time on the large case clock
in the hallway with satisfaction. "Only ten minutes from start to
finish with this potion," she announced with pride. "Do we need to
draw more blood to finish it?"

"Perhaps a little. Jax will
donate." Amanusa stood, waving Harry back to his chair.

"I feel like some
blood-sucking ghoul, taking all the blood you've given me," Harry
said.

"Don't." Elinor held out
the bowl to receive the drop of blood. "It's such a tiny amount.
You've given more yourself for other magic."

"Yeah, but for bigger
things."

"And healing the magister
of the alchemist's guild isn't a big thing? You'll need to get out
of your jacket and shirt." Elinor flicked a finger at him before
taking up her wand to stir the blood and magic into the
potion.

She could feel Amanusa
adding magic to the blood from Jax and tried to put in her own. She
could, but it wasn't easy. The blood wasn't hers. It was--it felt
exactly like Amanusa's.

"I thought you used Jax's
blood," Elinor whispered.

"Jax is my familiar,"
Amanusa said in a normal voice. Nothing more. Elinor had to work
her way through the rest of it herself.

"Jax's blood is the same as
yours?" she whispered to Amanusa again.

"Almost," Amanusa murmured
back, magic still flowing.

Elinor laid out the fabric
to hold the potion and used the small wooden paddle she'd used for
mixing the herbs into the oil to spread it onto the tightly woven
surface. Harry had his shirt off, she noted with a quick glance,
and the wound area looked inflamed from this side of his body too.
Amanusa scratched her lancet lightly across it, opening up a few
small stripes in his skin, less than the equivalent of a cat's
scratch.

"You should have told me it
wasn't healing properly," Elinor scolded as she laid the cool
decoction over the reddened area. The oiled cloth tended to slide,
so she held it in place while she reached for the bandage. Amanusa
handed it to her.

"I thought it was." Harry
craned his neck to watch what she did, his arm up over his head out
of the way. "I been--well, not shot. But I've been cut before, 'ad
things poke into me an' make holes. Took longer than this to
'eal."

"But then, you didn't have
Elinor healing you," Amanusa teased. "She expects instant
results."

"No, I don't," Elinor
protested, then had to admit, "Not instant--but very, very
quick."

She found herself slowing
as she put her arms around Harry to pass the bandage behind his
back and made herself move faster. The last time she'd done this,
it had ended in a way she was determined would not happen again.
And the damned poultice kept sliding, which meant more turns of
bandage were required to hold it in place.

When she was finally able
to tie it off, she straightened and her head bumped Harry's nose.
She frowned at him and he leaned even closer. "You smell good," he
murmured. "Makes you hard to resist."

"Try harder." She
intensified her frown as she wiped her hands. They were a little
oily too.

She checked the bandage,
but there were enough layers, the potion shouldn't seep through to
stain his clothing. And the bandage was cotton gauze. The process
of transforming it from seed fluff to fabric took away much of its
magic potential, but she could still use it to create a protective
barrier to hold the magic against his skin.

"If it took only ten
minutes to make this potion," Harry asked, "why did it take most of
yesterday to make the potion for the challenge? Are poisons that
much 'arder to work with?"

"It's not the poison so
much as the magic," Elinor said. "This one was fairly simple. We
wanted to pack as much healing magic into it as possible and I
wanted to do it quickly, without including anything that would
interfere with the sorcery. We also wanted the magic to leave the
herbs quickly and go inside you. With the challenge potion, I want
the magic to stick strictly to the ingredients and be difficult to
remove--at least until it's drunk."

"But why do wizards use
poisons?" Jax asked. "Why is it even allowed?"

"Because in lower doses,
many poisons become effective medicines." Elinor held Harry's shirt
for him to slip his arms into. She needed him to be covered. "Even
without magic added, a tincture of digitalis--foxglove--can help
steady the heart. In large amounts, it will kill. Wizards should
also know the poisons in order to be able to neutralize them and to
recognize which has been used.

"Herbs are a tool, like all
magic. The evil is in the one using them, not the tool being used.
We must study what each one will do. We do not yet know, by any
means, all the uses even of the plants native to England and
Europe, much less those in the rest of the world. A great deal of
study is required."

"And with only twelve
wizards--" Harry buttoned up his waistcoat. "We ain't 'ad enough of
them to do the studying. Another reason to start admittin'
females." He allowed Elinor to assist him into his jacket. He
generally favored the shorter tail of a sack coat to the
long-skirted frock coats Jax and Grey usually wore. He seemed to
prefer the freedom of movement allowed. "Is it time for lunch
yet?"

After lunch Elinor had the
meeting arranged with the headmaster and faculty at the school. The
sorcery students were something of a special case, since most of
their sorcery classes would have to be taught by either Amanusa or
Jax, who held a vast reservoir of knowledge from his 300-plus years
of living. Though Pearl was ranked as master, she was still a very
new sorceress and worked much of her magic, Elinor feared, by
instinct. Pearl sat in on many of the sorcery classes and now
Elinor would too. Quietly and without fanfare.

The three female wizardry
students could follow the regular wizard's curriculum at the
academy. The ladies had adopted young Mr. Little, the lone male
wizardry student, as a sort of pet and he seemed to adore it, so
conflict among the students would not be an issue. But there were
other classes they needed, everything from history and mathematics
to magicians' law. Amanusa and Elinor had already decided how those
subjects would be taught.

The boys and girls had to
be in classes together. It wouldn't do to have the sexes looking at
each other like they were strange creatures from another world.
Eventually they would have to work together. They needed to know
each other, respect each other, and have knowledge of what the
various types of magic could do. Harry and Grey of course agreed,
and since the magisters of the four guilds were the directors of
the school, they had the final say.

Headmaster Whitson had been
amenable to the idea. As Grey had said, he was a forward-thinking
man. The faculty were another matter entirely.

It took most of the
afternoon and several threats of dismissal from their posts to
convince the schoolmasters that not only would they teach the
females in their classes, but they would also treat them fairly.
Oddly enough, the wizardry instructor John Fillmore was not the
most intransigent. That honor went to a crotchety alchemist. Elinor
had heard Harry claim several times, even before this meeting, that
the man should be put out to pasture. That time may have
come.

Elinor left the academy
feeling the need to crack heads. She was not ordinarily a
hot-tempered woman, but the stubbornness of certain arrogant,
self-important, ignorant-- She diverted her anger to grinding herbs
for her burn ointment. She did get a trifle snappish with Dr.
Rosato, even though he was truly a help in the making, but he took
it in good temper.

Friday arrived and with it
the second challenge. Elinor climbed onto her stepstool to retrieve
her potion hidden across the room from the prominently labeled
potion she'd used for Cranshaw. No one had attempted to break into
her stillroom to tamper or steal--an advantage of having the room
attached to Harry's house--but one could never be too
careful.