Steadfast (10 page)

She started to tense up, her eyes got very bright, and two of Jack’s salamanders suddenly
appeared at his feet, ran to hers, eeled up the legs of the chair, and settled in
on either side of her—to comfort her? That was what it looked like! It didn’t take
that to tell him that what was coming was very painful, even tragic. She’d gone quite
pale, and her throat showed strain as she swallowed.

She ducked her head, and clasped her hands tight in her lap, oblivious to the salamanders
cuddled up next to her. When she spoke, her voice was tight and choked with grief.

“Early February, it was. We were at a big Traveler horse fair. I don’t remember much,
only that Ma and Pa were tired, and since we were doing the shorter show with the
smaller company under the canvas, for-bye it was so cold, they just did the sideshow,
and then went to bed in the caravan early while I worked the big show. I just come
out of the tent, when I hear,
Fire!
And—” She choked back a sob. “It’s our caravan . . . our caravan, on fire, all roaring
up high, like a rag soaked in oil. I ran there, I tried to get in . . . at least they
told me I tried, and my dress was all burnt afterward, but I couldn’t get in, and
the fire was just roaring, roaring—they pulled me away—”

Her voice was so full of agony, Jack wished she would break down and cry, so he would
have an excuse to go to her, try and comfort her. But other than that one choked-back
sob, she showed no signs of being about to give way.

But she took several long, shuddering breaths, and then she was far too tightly in
control of herself again. Hands still clasped in her lap, she looked up. Her face
was as pale as the white wicker, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. The two
salamanders pressed into her like a pair of anxious dogs.

“I don’t remember much about the next couple of days. When it was over, in the morning,
I remember going to look at the caravan. There wasn’t anything left. Everything was
burnt, down to the axle. All that was left was the horses. I—”

She hesitated for a very long time, and that wariness came over her again. She dropped
her eyes, and Jack and Lionel exchanged a glance. Without saying a word, the look
they exchanged told each other what they both knew was coming.

The next thing she said would be a lie.

They’d been showmen for too long not to be able to read when a lie was coming.

“It was just me, and that wasn’t enough of an act, so they turned me off,” she said.
“They gave me a little money for my horses, and told me to find someplace else. They
couldn’t afford me a new caravan and all, and I wasn’t good enough to be a star turn
that could get such a thing on credit.”

No, they didn’t send her off, she ran. Maybe the owner tried to drag her into his
bed, maybe he mistreated her, maybe someone else in the circus tried to take advantage
of her. But she ran. She was never, ever turned off.
Jack was as certain of that as he was of his own name.
Even if she wasn’t good enough to be a star turn, there should have been someone in
the show that would give her space in their wagon, and she could have joined another
act. The clowns, even—acrobats make good clowns. Look at her! She’s tight as a banjo-string
with fear even now! Someone in that circus terrified her—terrifies her still. That’s
why she wants to wear a mask on stage. She’s afraid whoever it is will one day find
her again.

“Well, bad luck for them, and good for us,” Lionel said lightly. “There, now, that
was simple enough, wasn’t it? Thank you for telling us about yourself, Kate, and you
needn’t have worried. I promise that you’ve a place in my act for as long as you care
to keep it. And the more fools to that circus for not trying harder to keep you.”

She shuddered at that—though she did her best to hide it.

And being kept was the very last thing she wanted,
Jack thought, grimly.

“Thank you, sir,” the girl whispered.

“Lionel. I told you to call me Lionel.” The magician made a
harrumphing
sound. “All that sir nonsense makes me feel like an old man!”

Finally, she laughed. It was strained, but she laughed, and the two salamanders relaxed,
stretched themselves, and vanished in a poof of sparks.

Mrs. Buckthorn appeared at just that moment, with perfect timing, and a tray with
tall glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. “Well, gents,” she said with a laugh. “Are
you ready to be beaten soundly by an addled old woman and a wee bit of a girl?”

Katie looked up at the housekeeper; she was still pale, but swiftly getting her color
back. “I would not be all that sure of my skill at cards, Mrs. Buckthorn,” she said,
shyly. “I know bridge, and whist, but not very well.”

The housekeeper put the tray with the glasses and pitcher down on the side table and
took her accustomed place with her back to the windows, taking up the cards and beginning
a shuffle. “That’s all right, dearie,” she said. “I’m good enough for both of us.”

Jack laughed and took his usual chair, next to the table with the drinks, his wooden
leg making a thumping noise on the wooden floor as he limped to his place. Lionel
sat across from him, and Katie across from Mrs. Buckthorn, and they began a brisk
game of bridge.

Despite her assertion to the contrary, Katie was quite a good player, easily Mrs.
Buckthorn’s equal, and Mrs. Buckthorn had been playing the game for longer than Jack
or Lionel had been alive. This actually didn’t surprise Jack at all; card games were
the best way to while away the time for showmen everywhere, and he had never seen
a circus where someone hadn’t been playing cards, somewhere. He and Lionel put up
a valiant fight, but to no avail. Of the four games they played that afternoon, they
prevailed in only one of them.

Much to his pleasure, and Lionel’s, Katie seemed to have completely forgotten her
earlier distress, or at least, it had passed from her. She was happy; she laughed
a great deal, and smiled a lot, and even ventured to tease Jack a little. Not Lionel,
though; she continued to treat him with grave respect. Jack decided that was a good
thing; she didn’t seem to be afraid of him, but she wasn’t showing any of the less
palatable traits she could have had, given her background. Circus folks were not the
most polite, and Travelers—well, Travelers could be known for their insolence.

Then again, the salamanders had liked her from the moment she had shown up. And they
had shown a certain distaste for a couple of the assistants who had been inclined
to be pert and insubordinate.

Lionel would not put up with much of that. He might be easy to work with, and he might
be kind, but he would not tolerate outright disrespect. And he absolutely would not
tolerate laziness or slackness. His act relied on discipline, and the moment someone
showed a lack of discipline, they soon found themselves corrected. And if the corrections
didn’t “take,” they soon found themselves looking for other work.

That was, in Jack’s opinion, as it should be. The act
could
be very dangerous. He had to be able to trust his assistant, and his assistant had
to be able to trust him—and above all, they had to both be accurate to a fault.

It was beginning to look as if Miss Kate was going to be able to uphold Lionel’s very
demanding standards with grace.

As the evening turned to sunset, the quartet finished the last game, and Mrs. Buckthorn
wordlessly handed Lionel the cards to be put away in their case, then took the empty
glasses and pitcher back to the kitchen. Katie was quick to take the hint.

“I’ll be getting back to the boarding house,” she said, standing up, and waved Jack
back to his place when he started to rise. “I can go alone, it’s not bad for a girl
alone this early, and I know my way. Thank you
ever
so for a lovely dinner, s—Lionel,” she added warmly. “It was . . . I don’t think
I’ve ever had a meal so good. It was like eating in heaven.”

“Well, you may as well get used to it, my dear,” Lionel replied, rising. “You are
invited here for dinner with Jack every dark day. I like the company, Mrs. Buckthorn
loves cooking for more than just me, and I think it makes us something of a family.
We won’t always be playing cards, though, because some times I will be needing to
work on new illusions, but perhaps then Jack can show you some of Brighton.”

“I’d enjoy that,” Jack said gravely, before she could answer.

“In fact—” Lionel said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, rather than being
something he and Jack had already plotted between them, “—I have a capital plan. Next
dark day, you come here for dinner, Jack can borrow my little trap and show you the
city a bit, then you both go down to the Pier to watch the fireworks after sunset,
come back here for a spot of supper, and he can take you home in the trap! It will
probably just be cold tongue and chicken, but I always say Mrs. Buckthorn’s chicken
is as good cold as it is hot.”

She looked for a moment as if she was afraid to say yes, so Jack added a little more
incentive. “Please do,” he said. “I’ll have a few errands to run anyway by then, and
the trap and an extra set of hands will make it all that much easier.”

“All right then,” she agreed, flushing a little. “If I truly will be useful.”

“You truly will,” Jack promised, and rose long enough for Lionel to see her out of
the room and out the door.

He could hear them talking in the hall as they made their way to the door; he assumed
Lionel was putting a little more persuasion into play. All to the good. He might be
able to figure out why so far she wasn’t seeing the Elementals. Usually Elemental
Magicians began seeing them in mid-childhood.

He was back to his favorite chair by the time Lionel returned.

“Any surprises?” Lionel asked, as he lowered himself to the settee again.

Jack shook his head. “Honest as a new penny right up to the point where she talked
about leaving the circus. And I will take any wager you care to make that it wasn’t
because she was turned out.”

“Because the owner tried to drag her into his bed, more like,” Lionel growled, echoing
Jack’s own thoughts. “Blackguard. I hate him already and I don’t even know him.”

“I was thinking—given how shut-mouthed she is about it—it was less
tried
and more
succeeded,”
Jack rumbled, feeling anger rising inside him and ruthlessly shutting it down. Anger
was dangerous in the Fire Mage. Fire Elementals were very quick to respond to emotion,
and the violent emotions sometimes caused them to act on their own with unfortunate
results.

“What about that fire, though, the one that killed her parents? It almost seems too
much of a coincidence that it was a fire that they died in, when she’s Fire. I admit
that troubles me.” Lionel looked at Jack hesitantly, as if he expected Jack to react
badly to the statement.

“Huh.” Rather than making him angry, the suggestion that Katie’s power might have
had something to do with her parents’ death caught him off-guard. “That never occurred
to me. She didn’t give me any hint that she was unhappy with her
parents.
On the contrary, they sounded like a loving family, and she was certainly grief-stricken
enough.”

“Well, it’s something we should consider,” Lionel pointed out. “What if she’d had
a quarrel with them that night? What if she’d taken up with a young man they didn’t
approve of? You
know
what happens when Fire Mages are not aware of their power, and are caught up in emotion.”

Jack didn’t
like
it, not the least bit—but Lionel was right. It
was
something they had to consider. “I don’t think it was—no, I
know
it wasn’t deliberate,” he said at last. “Salamanders won’t abide someone that’s used
their power to kill on purpose. They might get worked up on their own and think to
help
someone and cause harm, but they won’t go doing harm on the mage’s behalf without
being forced. Other Fire Elementals might, but not the phoenix, not the salamander.
She had two of them snugged up against her like a couple of cats.”

Lionel pondered this, drumming his fingers on the arm of the settee. “The only way
I can see it is if she somehow has rage inside her that we haven’t seen yet,” he said.
“Something that attracts the darker forces. Daemons, for instance. Or Imps.”

“If she could do that,” Jack snorted, “Anyone that tried to force her would be cooked.”

“How do we know he wasn’t?” Lionel countered. “Maybe that was what she’s afraid of.
Maybe that was why she ran. First her parents die in their caravan in a fire, then
maybe the man that forced her? I’d run too.”

Jack liked that even less, but he had to admit that it was a possibility that fit
the little that they knew. “All right then. I’ll keep a tight eye on her, and I’ll
see if I can get my Elementals to talk to me.” Mostly, they didn’t . . . but sometimes,
if he offered something enticing enough, they would. “But it still doesn’t feel like
a fit, to me.”

“Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” Lionel said, and stretched out his legs.
“And now, old man, how about a good smoke?”

•   •   •

Katie walked back to the boarding house with a great deal on her mind. She hadn’t
expected Lionel to want to hear about her past—it was when he’d first hired her she’d
expected the interrogation, not nearly a week later!

It had startled her into being more honest than she had intended. She really hadn’t
wanted to say anything about her parents’ deaths, but she found herself doing so before
she could stop herself.

She’d just
barely
managed to keep herself from blurting out how she’d found herself married to Dick.
Although she still wasn’t quite sure how she’d found herself married to Dick. That
entire time was a blur, as if she had been moving through some kind of a dream, a
waking nightmare. No matter what she really wanted, when Andy Ball said she was to
do something, she’d found herself agreeing. She scarcely remembered the brief ceremony
in front of some Non-Conformist minister, with only Andy and the lion-tamer as witnesses.
The entire wedding night was a blank. And then—one day, it was as if she had woken
up, expecting it all to have
been
a nightmare, except that it wasn’t, and she
was
married to Dick, and her parents
were
dead.