Later, she’d be embarrassed. Now there was no room for such emotion. There was only wonder and the need to see the ritual through.
She followed, listened, and watched as the walls came up and grew solid, watched in wonder until Stephen’s hand on her shoulder brought her halfway back to herself, dizzy and blinking.
“Oh,” she said again. Stephen’s face was close to hers. She met his eyes, and he took another quick, startled breath. Then he brushed his fingertips under each of her eyes, wiping the tears away.
“Silly of me,” she said and stepped back, her face feeling almost as hot as his fingers.
Stephen shook his head. “Furthest thing from it,” he said gently. “Forgive me. I should have remembered.”
“What—why—” The words for what Mina wanted to ask didn’t come. Maybe it was because she didn’t need to ask the first questions that came to mind. She knew why she’d been crying. It had been for beauty and joy; more than that, it had been for the certainty that there was more to the world than she’d suspected, and the knowledge of her own part in that greater whole. She’d seen a power that even she could grasp and use, as common and mortal as she was.
She settled for asking, “Remembered?”
“Magic—at least magic this complicated—has a way of overpowering you when you’re new to it.”
“Haven’t been that in a while, have you?” Mina asked and felt some of her wonder die away even as she said the words.
“Not in some time.”
There was nothing surprising in that. The knowledge settled into her chest, a hard little lump like a gemstone—and, considered sensibly, just as valuable. He was not mortal. He was not human. The more Mina had to face that, the better for everyone.
The sooner all of this was over, the better for everyone.
She smoothed her hair back and blinked the rest of the tears out of her eyes. “You should go lie down,” Mina said, putting her old brisk self on again. “You’ve taxed yourself quite enough for your first day on the mend. And I have work to do.”
Twenty
Sleep came quickly, lasted long, and because there was some benevolence to the universe, contained only darkness. When Stephen woke, it was almost sunset.
Immediately, he thought of Mina. She’d almost certainly already eaten and begun her day’s tasks—Stephen wouldn’t think of them as duties, since she’d taken them on herself—and the thought was a disappointing one. The one that followed was even less happy. Perhaps she preferred his absence. She’d certainly seemed eager enough for it the previous day.
It shouldn’t have mattered. She was mortal. A few months ago, she’d known nothing of the world beyond the obvious physical manifestations and would have laughed off any mention of magic as a tale for children. She hadn’t even been conceived when Stephen had made his trip to Bavaria. Yesterday and the day before had exposed Mina to a great deal. If she’d decided that she wanted no part of it—or of him—then the lass was showing good sense.
But he remembered the wonder in her face when she’d been casting the wards and the way her eyes had glimmered at the end.
He would have liked to see that expression on her face again.
“If wishes were horses,” Stephen said darkly to the empty room, and picked up the newspaper.
He didn’t read most of it. The political situation in France, the Queen’s latest speech, and the theatrical reviews brushed lightly past his consciousness. Trying to keep his mind off Mina, Stephen had to send it down other paths.
His health was one. Sleep had done some minor wonders for his lungs. He could breathe without pain now; more importantly, it would be safe to transform. Injury to the human form could cause…problems…if it was bad enough, and Stephen particularly wanted to be in full control that evening. He cleared his throat experimentally, felt no pain—and then froze, suddenly focusing on a column in the paper.
EastEndSlaughter, the headline read.
Below it, in smaller print:MenButchered, and thenPoliceSeekKiller.
An unsettling set of headlines, to be sure, but not one that would ordinarily have caught Stephen’s attention. London was a large city. Men had been killing each other for longer than he’d been alive.
Photographs were new.
One was of a lonely section of docks near a large warehouse. Someone had removed the bodies: no need to scare the ladies.
The other was older. One of the men had been in a police station before, brought up on charges of theft, and the officer there had been a forward-thinking man who took pictures of his charges. The picture was a few years old, and the paper didn’t reproduce it that well, but Stephen recognized the man nonetheless. It was Bill, the elder of the would-be thieves.
He would have wagered everything he owned that the other corpse was Fred.
When he went to tell Mina, she was in the library again, this time frowning assiduously at one of the larger and older books. Her ledger was open before her, and she had an uncapped pen in one hand. She looked up when the door opened but didn’t speak.
