“If Youko had not distracted me, the blackguard, you would have the most perfect record the world ever saw.”
“Blame attaches to no one, I am sure,” said Prunella hastily. “Pray do not fight, or wander off, and under no circumstance must you leave the reticule. I must go, my darlings, or Zacharias will be cross.”
“I thought we might consider the enchantments for summoning today,” said Zacharias. “We shall begin with the simplest example of such spells, a charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic—ours is thin stuff, but it is as well to know how to get at it if ever you need it. Then we shall work our way up to the greater summoning spells. We will restrict the scope of our endeavours to this realm—youhave no cause to do it, but to seek to summon oneself a familiar from Fairy is both unlawful and exceedingly dangerous. Summoning within this realm is not necessarily unethical, however, and if one agrees it in advance with the person to be summoned, it need not even be annoying.”
“Will I be summoning a person?” said Prunella.
“Oh yes. One can summon anything capable of being acted upon by magic,” said Zacharias. “The gentleman I shall ask you to summon is a colleague of mine, whom I met at a council of the world’s magicians last year. We have since corresponded by shewstone, and he has agreed to assist us. I beg you will not mention your familiars, but he knows I have been instructing you in the principles of thaumaturgy. We may trust him to be discreet: he is a reformer himself, though something of a skeptic as regards female magic, and he has some notion of the difficulties we face.”
Prunella thought very little of the charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic, but the summoning formulae were a pleasing contrast, more complex than any of the spells she had learnt before, and she soon grew absorbed. The fourth formula was the most difficult. Prunella was so little satisfied with her performance that she would have begun at once upon a second trial, seeking to correct the inelegancies of the first, if Zacharias had not stopped her.
“The summoning has taken, and you will saddle us with someone probably very cross if you repeat it,” said Zacharias.
“After all your demands for practise—” Prunella began, but then she saw the dark spot upon the horizon speeding towards them.
It came on swiftly, skimming above the trees, until it resolved intothe figure of a gentleman, dressed in foreign costume and travelling astride a cloud.
Prunella only had time to exclaim a pleased “Oh!” before the gentleman’s insubstantial conveyance drew up in front of them. He dropped to the ground, landing on his feet, and bowed.
He was of Oriental extraction, with a high, broad expanse of forehead, amused narrow eyes, and greying hair in a queue. He was dressed with great elegance in silk robes, his feet clad in neat boots, and his appearance was so completely that of the foreigner that Prunella was astonished when he said, in impeccable English:
“A most effective enchantment: I congratulate you, Wythe. However, did not the second verse go awry? My journey was unaccountably bumpy for a stretch.”
Prunella flushed and said, “It was only my first attempt.”
“Miss Gentleman,” said Zacharias, “may I introduce my colleague, Mr. Hsiang Han? Mr. Hsiang is a magician renowned in his native China for his great learning. Mr. Hsiang, Miss Prunella Gentleman, the lady I have been instructing in the magical arts.”
“Did you cast that spell, indeed, Miss Gentleman?” said Mr. Hsiang, bowing. “When Wythe explained his plan to reform women’s education, I told him he was a mere visionary—I called him any number of bad names—but now I see the reason for his resolve. Such a protégé, uniting beauty with genius, must fire any magician’s reforming zeal.”
“That is all very gallant, but I wish you would explain where I went wrong in the second verse,” said Prunella, too vexed by her mistake to be civil.
Zacharias looked reproachful, but Mr. Hsiang laughed.
“You expended too much power at the outset, so that too little remained for the conclusion,” he said. “In magic, as in all else, balance must be preserved. Let me send my cloud away, and you can execute the formula again to require its return.”
The second attempt proved satisfactory.
“I am obliged to you for your help,” said Prunella, looking at Mr. Hsiang with candid friendliness. “Would you be so good as to name your translation spell? It must be a very clever one, for I can scarcely tell that there is an enchantment at work at all.”
“She has found me out!” exclaimed Mr. Hsiang, looking at Zacharias.
“I said nothing,” said Zacharias. “That was Miss Gentleman’s own discovery.”
“Why, it was not very difficult to find it out,” said Prunella. “Your words sound green.”
“Are you able to describe the mechanism of the spell yourself, Miss Gentleman?” said Zacharias. “You should have sufficient understanding of basic thaumaturgical principles to deduce its workings.”
“I am very happy to provide an explanation,” said Mr. Hsiang. “I understand the lady has only recently begun her studies in our field.”
Prunella was on her mettle. It was one thing to complain privately to Zacharias that he demanded too much of her, and their lessons ran on for too long. The ironic eye of a learned foreign magician was another matter altogether, however. Prunella was in truth proud of her magical ability—though she had little fondness for thaumaturgical books and dry theory, magic itself she loved—and she was determined not to make a poor show before a stranger.
“There is a binding element, for otherwise one would hear two voices,” she said, thinking aloud. “The Culpeper solution would not do, for it only applies to solid objects, so it must be Starr’s entwining that is at work. But that is only the combining element. I shall say it is Horner’s spell for interpretation, with Starr’s entwining, bound together with Crashaw’s preserve. Do I have it, sir?”
“I require Wythe’s assistance to make sense of your answer,” said Mr. Hsiang, laughing. “Wythe, this Horner, this Starr and Crashaw, are they—?”
He spoke in quick succession a series of foreign names, fluid sounds that dropped unchanged through the translation spell.
Zacharias nodded. To Prunella he said:
