Cold Magic

2

"Cat!"

My cousin Beatrice exploded into the parlor in a storm of coats, caps, and umbrellas, one of which escaped her grip and plummeted to the floor, from whence she kicked it impatiently toward me.

"Get your nose out of that book! We've got to run right now or you'11 be late!"

I ripped my besotted gaze from the neat cursive and looked up with my most potent glower.

"Cat! You're blushing! What on earth are you reading?" She dumped the gear on the table, right on top of the slate tablets.

"Ah! That's my essay!"

With a fencer's grace and speed, Bee snatched the journal out of my hands. Her gaze scanned the writing, a fair hand whose consistent and careful shape made it easy to read from any angle.

She intoned, in impassioned accents, " 'His kiss was lightning, a storm that engulfed her'! If I'd known there was romance in Uncle Daniel's journals, I would have read them."

"If you could read!"

"A weak rejoinder! Not up to your usual standard. I fear reading such scorching melodrama has melted your cerebellum."

"It's not melodrama. It's an old traditional tale-"

"Listen to this!" She slapped a palm against her ample bosom and drawled out the words lugubriously. " 'And he slowly smiled, and… he.,.said-'"

"Give me that!" I lunged up, grabbing for the journal.

She skipped back, holding it out of my reach. "No time for kisses! Get your coat on. Anyway, I thought your essay was…" She excavated the tablets, flipped them closed, and squinted her eyes to consider the handsomely written title. "Blessed Tanit, protect us!" she muttered as her brows drew down. She made a face and spoke the words as if she could not believe she was reading them. " 'Concerning the Mande Peoples of Western Africa Who Were Forced by Cold Necessity to Abandon Their Homeland and Settle in Europa Just South of the Ice Shelf.' Could you have made that title longer, perhaps? Anyway, what do kisses have to do with the West African diaspora?"

"Nothing. Obviously!" I sat on a chair and began to lace up my boots. "I was thinking of something else. The beginning and ending of the world, if you must know."

She wrinkled her nose, as at a bad smell. "The end of the world sounds so dreary. And so final."

"And I remembered that my father mentioned the beginning of the world in one of his journals. But this was the wrong story, even though it does mention 'the world's beginning.'"

"Even I could tell that." She glanced at the page. " 'When our spirit was cleaved from one whole into two halves.' That sounds painful!"

"Bee! The entire house can hear you. We're not supposed to be in here."

"I'm not that loud! Anyway, of course I spied out the land fust. Mother and Shiffa are up in the nursery where Astraea is having a tantrum. Hanan is on the landing, keeping watch, father and Evved went all the way out into the back. So we're sale, as long as you hurry!"

I plucked the journal from her hand and set it on the table. "You go on ahead to the academy. I just need to write a conclusion, It's the seminar the headmaster teaches, and I hate to disappoint

him. He never says anything. He just looks at me." I excavated my slate tablet and pencil from beneath the coats and caps.

Bee shoved my coat onto one of the chairs, searching for her cap. After tying it tight under her chin and pulling on her coat, she swung her much-patched cloak over all. "Don't be late or Father will forbid us the trip to the Rail Yard."

"Which handsome pupil do you intend to flirt with there?"

She launched a glare like musket shot in my direction and strode imperiously from the parlor, not bothering to answer. I wrote my conclusion. Her little sister Hanan clattered down the stairs with her to bid her farewell by the front door. Up in the nursery, Astraea had launched into one of her mulish fits of "no no no no no," and our governess, Shiffa, had reverted to her most coaxing voice to appease her. Aunt Tilly's light footsteps passed down the steps to the ground floor and thence back to the kitchen, no doubt to consult with Cook about finding something sweet to break the little brat's concentration. I wrote hurriedly, not in my best script and not with my most nuanced understanding.

That is how those druas with secret power among the local Celtic tribes, and the Mande refugees with their gold and their hidden knowledge, came together and formed the mage Houses. The power of the Houses allowed them to challenge princely rule whileI heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and a key turned in the office door. I paused, hand poised above the slate. Men entered the office; the door was shut.

Uncle spoke in a low voice no one but me could have heard through the wall. "You were supposed to come at midnight."

A male voice answered. "I was delayed. Is everything here I paid for?"

"Here are the papers."

"Where is the book?"

"Melqart's Curse! Evved, didn't you get the book?"

"It must still be in the parlor. Just a moment."

I wiped the "while" from the slate and pressed a hasty, smeared period to the sentence. It would have to do. I scooped up the slate tablet and my schoolbag, bolted for the door, and got out just as the door between the study and the parlor was unlocked.

I halted on the landing to listen. Aunt Tilly was back upstairs, speaking with Shiffa about the girls' lessons for the day while Astraea whined, "But I wanted yam pudding, not this!" Meanwhile, Hanan had gone back to the kitchen and was chattering with Cook and Callie in her high, sweet voice as the three began to peel turnips. Pompey, with his distinctive uneven tread, was in the basement. I fled;down the main stairs and out the front door, and it was not until I was out of sight of the house that I realized I had forgotten my coat, cap, and umbrella. I dared not return to fetch them.

Yet what is cold, after all, but the temperature to which we are most accustomed? It is cold for half the year here in the north. However pleasant the summer may seem, the ice never truly rests; it only dozes through the long days of Maius, Junius, Julius, and Augustus with its eyes half closed. I stuffed the tablet in my schoolbag between a new schoolbook and my scholar's robe, and kept going. To keep warm, I ran instead of walking, all the way through our modest neighborhood and then up the long hill into the old temple district where the new academy had been built twenty years ago. Fortunately, the latest fashionable styles allowed plenty of freedom for my legs and lungs.

As I crossed under the gates into the main courtyard, a fine carriage pulled up to disgorge a brother and two sisters swathed in fur-lined cloaks. Though late like me, they were so rich and well connected that they could walk right in the front through the grand entry hall without fearing censure, while I fumbled with frozen hands at the servants' entrance next to the latrines. The cursed latch was stuck.

"Salve, Maestressa Barahal. May I help you with that?"

I swallowed a yelp of surprise and looked up into the handsome face of Maester Amadou Barry, who had evidently followed me to the side door. His sisters were nowhere in sight.

"Salve, maester," I said prettily. "I saw you and your sisters arrive."

"You're not dressed for the weather," he remarked, pushing on the latch until it made a clunk and opened.

"My things are inside," I lied. "I can't be late, for the proctor locks the balcony door when the lecture starts."

"My apologies. I was just wondering if your cousin Beatrice…" His pause was so awkward that I smiled. I was certain he was blushing. "And you, of course, and your family, intend to visit the Rail Yard when it is open for viewing next week."

"My uncle and aunt intend to take Beatrice and me, yes," I replied, biting down another smile. "If you'll excuse me, maester."

"My apologies, for I did not mean to keep you," he said, backing away, for a young man of his rank would certainly enter through the front doors no matter how late he was.

Inside, as I raced along a back corridor, all lay quiet except for a buzz of conversation from the lecture hall. I had a chance to get to my seat before it was too late. In icy darkness, I hurried up the narrow steps that led to the balcony of the lecture hall. The proctor had already turned off the single gaslight that lit the stairwell and had gone in, but I knew these steps well. With the strap of my schoolbag gripped between my teeth, I tugged my scholar's robe on over my jacket and petticoats. I shrugged the satin robe up over both shoulders and smoothed it down just as I felt the change of temperature, from bone cold to merely flesh-achingly chilly, that meant the door loomed ahead.

Had the proctor locked it already?

Blessed Tank! Watch over your faithful daughter. Let me not be late and get into trouble. Again.