They are not toying with her; they are hunting her for the kill.
Come on, girl, run,I plead silently.
Our country can be brutal. The strong devour the weak. Yet chasing a child to murder her is not strength; it iscowardice. Miss Beattie recognises that, as do I. She steps forward to intercept.
As the frightened girl staggers past my gate, I extend the ward, pluck her off the pavement, and draw her into the garden. She quivers as I swing the front door wide and, with little choice, she stumbles inside.
I slam the door behind her.
She jumps. “Oh no…” she breathes, pressing a hand to her mouth. She sways, pale beneath the layer of dirt, then bravely scans the hallway, her brown eyes wide and bright with tears.
“’Ello?” Her voice trembles. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but if I can just wait till they’ve gone, I’ll be off the moment I’m able.”
The house magic lets me conjure anything I can clearly envision, form drawn from thin air. Within these walls, everything is mine to command. The rooms are empty, since I evicted my last ‘guests,’ so I conjure a Chesterfield sofa from the ether, curtains bloom across the windows, a rug unfurls, and dust vanishes. A coal fire crackles to life in the grate. By the time she peeks in, the room is homely.
“’Ello? Anybody ’ome?”
I swing the front parlour door wider.
She shuffles in, still muttering. “I ain’t harmed none o’ those mages, me pa sold me to that red-haired one—bushy hair, great fuzzy eyebrows, freckles by t’ dozen. I’m only sixteen.”
She looks closer to twelve.
I roll her words over in my mind, unable to dismiss them.Her father sold her.Rage rises, swift and sharp, yet it is threaded with something gentler: compassion. Thefeeling startles me. I have not felt this in so long—care, kindness, that aching urge to protect.
I did not think myself capable of it any more.
“I’m not one for boys. Papa’s neck-deep in debt. When I wouldn’t let that man lay a finger on me, he slapped my face. So I clocked him back. Shamed him, shamed all o’ them ‘cos I slipped away. I’ve been on the run for days. They caught me this mornin’. I never meant to make a fuss.”
She sways, taking in the room, fingers leaving smudges on the polished wood as she steadies herself.
They must have used a tracking spell to catch her.
“As soon as they scarper, I’ll be gone. They shouldn’t trouble you—though they did see you nick me off the street, so… let’s ’ope they don’t bear you no ill will.”
Blood drips steadily from the wound on her arm, pattering onto the rug.
“Just a tick,” she adds, her limbs trembling. Her knees give way beneath her and she collapses onto the cushions. “Mind if I sit? They’ve bruised me, and I feel dreadful. I promise I’ll be gone soon.”
The girl has a trace of magic—a technomancer. Most practitioners sneer, dismissing radio-wave manipulation and experimental developments like television as useless. I have always thought such people were simply born into the wrong age.
I want to heal her, yet I must ask permission. How, when I have no throat? Judging by her appearance, it is hardly unreasonable to presume she is illiterate. So no notes.
I hesitate?—
That wretched moustached mage claimed I could speak mind to mind with other magic users, though I never cared to try. But maybe… I reach out with essence, hoping the faint magic in her blood will let the girl hear me.
What is your name?
She jumps, wincing as she knocks her wounded arm against the sofa. She hugs it to her chest. “The blighters must’ve cursed me, voices whisperin’ in me ear. I’m goin’ daft.”
Gosh, it worked. The girl heard me.
I am the house,I murmur. I keep my voice gentle, though I want to whirl the room and shake the walls with excitement. After fifty-two years, I am finally speaking to someone—it is extraordinary.
“House? You’re the house?” She glances about the room, squinting up at the cornices.
Yes.
