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

bit made her nearly nauseous.
    "Then wot did you challenge
Cranshaw for?" Harry propped hands on hips, coat folded back, in
his customary stance.
    "Because he didn't deserve
to be magister," she retorted. "And yes, because I want to be a
master wizard and a member of the guild, which I would never be
with Cranshaw in charge. I do want to be able to get at all those
books in the library."
    "An' you honestly think one
of the others would be any better than Nigel?" Harry gave her a
doubtful look.
    "What about your students?"
Amanusa asked. "What about Mrs. May, or Mary Ellen and
Berthe?"
    She named the women Elinor
had so far found, without actually looking, who had an aptitude for
wizardry. Valentina May was a widow who had been caught up in the
mess at Waterloo Station and had helped in the aftermath. She was
thrilled to have a way to better support her rather large family.
The other two had been brought to London as prospective sorcery
students--Mary Ellen Young from Scotland and Berthe Stroud from
Prussia--but had turned out to be better wizards.
    "We've been talking," Pearl
said, who of course had come along with Grey. "Amanusa and I. We
don't think we should open a Female Magician's School. We think our
students need to attend the Magician's Council Academy, with the
apprentice conjurers and alchemists. Don't you agree that we all
need to be part of the council from the very beginning?"
    "Well, yes,
but--"
    Amanusa took the discussion
back from Pearl. "How do you think that is going to happen if you
let some other wizard become magister? You are the only female
master wizard. If the magister is male, how much do you think
things will change? We will go back to battering our heads against
the door."
    "The change has already
begun." Elinor slipped her argument in while Amanusa took a breath.
"I am a master wizard. They can't toss me out again. The sorcery
guild has been confirmed as part of the council. They can't toss
you out either. They can't stop us from taking
apprentices."
    "And how long do you think
it will take for further changes to come about?" Amanusa demanded.
"If some man is the wizard's magister?"
    "Besides," Harry inserted
himself into the female debate. "The magister is the best magician
in the guild. The best alchemist, best conjurer, best sorcerer,
best wizard. Always. Cranshaw was head an' shoulders better'n any of the other
wizards, an' we just saw 'ow much better than him you are. Best
wizard is magister of the wizard's guild. And that's you. No way
past that."
    Elinor clung to her mulish
expression, but inside, she was resigning herself to her fate.
Amanusa was right. Harry was too, but the sorcerer's argument held
more weight with Elinor. It would be utterly selfish of her to
grasp this opportunity to work master-level magic and deny it to
other women. She did want others to have the chance she had, or
better. She wanted them to have the same chance as any grubby boy
from Seven Dials.
    Being magister wouldn't be
easy, or comfortable, but she had already determined to make any
necessary sacrifice to achieve her goals. She could sacrifice a
little more.
    Besides, Harry had already
promised she could delegate the paperwork. If only she could
delegate the politics.
    Elinor moved her hand from
the registry. "You write it, Harry," she said. "You were my master
of magic and you're the senior magister. It should be
you."
    He gave her a quick look
that sent heat flashing through her as he took the pen from
Amanusa. Elinor shook it off. She didn't understand it, didn't want
to.
    Harry carefully printed
"Magister" at the top of the separate qualifications section and
signed his name, without any swirls. He'd learned reading and
writing after he entered the academy at 16, so his handwriting
tended to the basic.
    Elinor took the pen back
from Harry. If young Simon Little was listed, her female students
should be in the book as well. She turned the page and filled in
three of the four sections on the next, carefully