Read Online Heart's Magic by Gail Dayton - Free Book Online

suggest--" Grey Carteret
stepped off the dais to join his wife as he spoke, "that you make a
preemptive strike and go lay claim to the magister's office
immediately, before anything important is carried off."
    "Excellent idea." Harry
signaled to a couple of the nearest Briganti--Norwood was again one
of them--and used them to clear a path out of the chamber,
practically dragging Elinor along behind him.
    When had she lost control
of her life? She didn't know how to stop the landslide--that was
mostly Harry--now that it had started sliding down what appeared a
very steep slope, knocking over all the trees in the
way.
    The other magisters came
along too, with their spouses and a few hangers-on from the
international set visiting London. It made for quite a procession
through the halls of power.
    The wizard's guild office
in the council building was a small adjunct of the offices in the
guild hall, a building not far from Covent Garden.
    "'Ere we go," Harry said,
thumping a heavy ledger on the desk in the wizards' council office.
The ledger itself gave off a tiny poof of dust, but the council's
charwomen kept the desk and its surrounds clean. Cranshaw's desk
was disturbingly well-ordered, Elinor thought, the blotter
perfectly aligned, a single paper centered upon it, with pens
arranged in rigid rows beside the ink bottle.
    "Your list of wizards."
Harry nudged her, opening the enormous book. It was fully as tall
and wide as the ancient Book of Wizardry, though not as
thick.
    "We already know who all
the wizards are," Elinor said. "There are only twelve."
    "Thirteen. You're not in here, are
ya?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Amanusa handed her a pen and
Pearl opened the ink bottle.
    Oh. Elinor took the pen, dipped it, and wrote her name in the next
section under...Simon Little, apprentice. The only wizardry student
in the academy. "Should I write in the rest?" she asked the crowd.
"It doesn't feel right to be proclaiming myself master
wizard."
    "I shall write it." Tonio
Rosato pushed into the room through the crowd at the door. "Since I
am the one proclaiming you master of wizardry."
    "Write it in English,
mind," Harry said with a hint of warning in his voice.
    " Si , of course." Rosato glowered back
at him, as if insulted Harry would think so. The Italian made a
great show of adjusting his arms, flapping his coat with the
motion. He dipped the pen in the inkwell and spoke the words as he
wrote them. "Master. Wizard." Then he signed his name with swirls
and flourishes on the line for the adjudicator.
    "And shall I write in the
'magister'?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the others. "Or
is that for another magister to write in?"
    "I'll do it." Harry held
his hand out for the pen.
    "Oh, let me," Amanusa
teased him. Elinor thought so, anyway. "I need the practice for
filling out the sorcery ledger if it ever arrives from the
bookbinders."
    "Isn't the old one still
about?" Harry asked.
    "Yes, with pages so old I
daren't write on them. We'll start fresh."
    The exchange gave Elinor
time to formulate her resolve. Needing time to think things through
sometimes did lead to her being swept along by events, but she
managed sooner or later to dig in her heels and slow things
down.
    "I'm not entirely sure I
want to be magister," she said, laying her hand over the register
entry so no one could write in it without her approval.
    "Wot? Why not?" Harry
protested, as expected. He didn't understand.
    "You have to be magister,"
Amanusa said.
    "Why?" Elinor frowned at
her. "As long as Nigel Cranshaw isn't the magister, what difference
does it make? I need to be in my stillroom, working on my potions
and ointments and spells. It takes time to come up with things like
the burn salve, or--or the wands."
    The words and worries came
pouring out before Elinor could try to stop them. She wasn't sure
she wanted to. "If I'm the magister, I won't have time for the
magic. I'll have to deal with interruptions. And paperwork.
And--and politics ."
That last