“However,” he continued, his tone becoming more insistent, “you mistake a lack of discipline for independent volition. Your magic feels spirited only because you have not yet learnt to command it. It is not untameable; it is untutored. True mastery would make it an extension of your own will, not a separate entity to be debated with.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to argue, the protest hot on her tongue. He was wrong. She knew her magic in a way he never could. It wasn’t merely an untutored force waiting for a master; it had an essence. It had moods, preferences, a wild and joyful life of its own that resonated with the living world around her.
But then she looked at him, looked at the uncompromising set of his shoulders, the unwavering confidence in his eyes, the sheer presence of a man for whom order was not just a preference, but the fundamental principle of existence. He would never understand. To him, anything that could not be categorised, controlled, and commanded was simply a flaw to be corrected. To argue the point further would be as futile as describing colour to a man born blind. It was a chasm of understanding she could not cross with mere words.
With a quiet, internal sigh of resignation, she let the argument go.
He gestured back to the unlit candle. “We will merely require greater efforts and more diligent practice. Try again to light the candle, if you please. With control this time, holding steady the image of the flame in your mind.”
They continued in this rather unproductive vein for what felt like an eternity, though the grandfather clock in the hall outside chimed only a single hour.
Despite herself, Elizabeth grew increasingly frustrated with each failed attempt. She managed, once, through sheer, teeth-gritting effort, to make the candle flame flicker feebly, a ghostly blue glimmer that died almost instantly. She succeeded in producing another, even larger, puff of acrid smoke that made Darcy cough. And, on one particularly memorable, if entirely unintentional, occasion, she caused a nearby vase of brown hydrangeas to shed all its petals simultaneously in an explosion that carpeted the nearby rug.
The candle, however, remained defiantly, stubbornly unlit. The last of Darcy’s instructions had died on his lips some time ago. Now, he simply turned his head and stared out the window, his gaze troubled. He seemed to have forgotten her presence entirely, his attention captured by the blighted trees on the lawn— a problem, she supposed, far greater and more worthy of his study than she.
A despairing gloom, a rather unfamiliar feeling, began to settle over her. She, who could find the humour in almost any situation, could find no amusement here.
As she entered the lesser library the following morning, she saw Darcy standing by one of the tall windows, once again staring out with a contemplative air at the blighted parkland below.
He turned as he heard her step, and they exchanged the correct greetings.
“I propose we try a different element today,” he said briskly, “Perhaps your particular resonance will find more affinity with air than with fire.” He gestured towards the centre of the room, where a feather lay upon the table. “The task today is simple.”
Simple. The word seemed an offhand cruelty, a dismissal of the frustration she had wrestled with the day before.
“You will attempt to create a gust of wind, one sufficient to move the feather from one side of the table to the other. No more, no less. This task requires focus and precision.”
The thought escaped her in a murmur, too quick to be contained. “I knew my attempts at control were a poor showing, but I am surprised to find you have abandoned the concept so readily.”
She winced, realising she had spoken the words aloud, and could only hope she had done so in a quiet tone.
His thumb, which had been idly turning the heavy signet ring on his finger, abruptly stilled. “I beg your pardon?” he said, without looking directly at her.
Evidently her tone had not been so quiet.
Her reply was delivered with a delicate lightness, a subtle challenge to his gravity. “I was merely observing your emphasis on precision today.”
“Then if you have concluded your observations,” he said, “perhaps you will now attempt the exercise.”
Firmly pushing every emotion from her mind, of which they were many, and few of them charitable, Elizabeth focused her attention on the feather. If the comparatively straightforward task of igniting a candle had proven so spectacularly beyond her capabilities, then the delicate manipulation of the air seemed an even more improbable, if not entirely impossible, feat. Her magic, when it chose to manifest at all, was rarely subtle and precise.
She took a deep breath, trying to recall the sensation of wind against her face, the way it whispered through the ancient leaves of the Longbourn oaks. She focused her will, or what passed for it in her untrained mind, picturing a controlled current of air, gentle yet insistent, nudging the feather across the table.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The feather lay utterly, almost insolently, still. Darcy remained silent by the window.
Then, with a sudden and violent whoosh, every loose paper on Darcy’s meticulously organised desk, including the heavy tome he had been studying earlier, was swept dramatically into the air, swirling in a malevolent vortex around the room before fluttering down. Several heavy books, dislodged by the sudden gust, tumbled from the nearby shelves with loud, protesting thuds. A nearby, heavy velvet curtain billowed dramatically inwards, then outwards again, as if possessed by an ill-tempered poltergeist.
The feather, however, the sole object of her intended efforts, remained stubbornly, almost defiantly unmoved in the precise centre of the table.
Darcy turned slowly, his expression one of utter, almost stupefying, disbelief. His dark eyes surveyed the paper-strewn, book-littered chaos of his usually immaculate library.
For a long, long moment, he said nothing, the silence broken only by the rustle of a stray piece of parchment settling on the hearthrug.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth and said, “It appears my affinity for air is no more refined than my command for fire.”
“I find that an accurate, if disheartening, assessment,” Darcy replied, his voice dangerously even. He picked up a fallen book. “It tempts one to wonder what delicate effect might be achieved were I to request a task of a more monumental scale. A request to level the west wing, perhaps, might yield a gentle breeze.”
Her face flushed. His polished sarcasm was a far greater insult than any show of temper. “Perhaps you should ask,” she said, trying vainly for a playful note rather than bitter, and strongly suspecting that she failed, “and we shall see if the results might be more to your liking.”
