Maybe it was the oddly eager light in Cordelia’s eyes.
Maybe it was an uneasy feeling that he did not know nearly enough about what she was going to do—or said she was going to do.
Or that he sensed an invisible, icy presence lingering somewhere nearby. It was not one of the Ice Wurms he was used to using. It was a lot—larger. And it was able to conceal itself from him almost entirely.
Why would it want to do that?
The longer he stood here in the lightning-lit garden, watching Cordelia set out her preparations, the more his instincts were overriding his control. From nagging doubt to insisting, from insisting to screaming, they were telling him that despite all appearances, this was a bad idea, that he should leave—
Except that his instincts had told him this sort of nonsense before. He was more than instinct. He was a rational, thinking man. And all this fear could be the work of that very nature spirit that Cordelia meant to protect him against.
And yet—the spirit had been very specific. It had warned him against practicing his Ice Magics here, and no more. Or actually, it had warned him against practicing them against the countryside. As if there was any reason why he would do that.
So why was Cordelia so intent on protecting him from it? It wasn’t as if he had any reason to practice any magic at all in this place. And the creature hadn’t done anything worse than frighten him.
As he stood there uncertainly with a tempest overhead, and growing misgivings in his heart, the solitude of that corner of the garden was broken, not once, but twice.
And in that moment, everything changed.
A bolt of lightning struck the ground to the east of where he and Cordelia stood, blinding and deafening him for a moment. And when he could see again—
He felt himself go rigid. It was the nature spirit again, but—different. Very different.
It was taller, its features were sharper, and it was dressed, head to toe, in black. Surrounded by a coruscating rainbow of all powers, it stared at him and Cordelia in a dark rage.
That was when the thing that David had only sensed until this moment made itself visible to the west of where he and Cordelia stood.
Or—more visible. There was something about whatever the entity was that made him struggle without success to keep his eyes on the spot where it stood, and he couldn’t look directly at the thing at all. His eyes and his mind slid around the edges of it, without being able to concentrate on it.
And then—seven people strode into the garden as if they had every right to be there.
Two of them he did not know, but both were clearly foreign, probably from some part of India. One he recognized as the servant that had let him into Frederick Harton’s home and school. The fourth was Frederick Harton himself, and fifth and sixth were the two little girls he had nearly run down. And the seventh—
—the seventh was Isabelle.
Cordelia drew herself up in surprise. “Well,” she said. “I confess, I had not expected you to turn up here. Isn’t it rather late in the day to be playing the rejected lover?”
Isabelle ignored her. The lightning made for a poor illumination source, washing out all colors, and it occurred to David then that she looked like a marble monument. Her hair had come down and tumbled in wild profusion down her back. “David,” she called, her voice trembling a little. “You do not want to be here.”
“Oh, indeed,” Cordelia replied, her own voice utterly, coldly polite. “And why would that be, I wonder? Surely you are not going to claim that I have some nefarious designs upon him. Simple logic would show that if, indeed, I had wanted something of his power and position, I would have had it long ago.”
Isabelle ignored the jab, and concentrated on David. “You need to ask yourself why it was so needful that you be here now, in the middle of the night, alone. This woman is not your friend.”
“And you are.” Cordelia did not laugh. “This sort of flummery was all very well when you were a girl, Isabelle, but it ill-suits a grown woman who should have better self-control and a more realistic view of life.”
Isabelle continued to ignore her. “David, when has she offered you so much as a single moment of honest friendship?”
He paused; there was something stirring inside him at her question. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.
“Ordinary friendship,” Isabelle persisted. “Spending time in one another’s company not because you were expecting some sort of gain, but merely because you enjoy spending time there with him.”
Friendship. David could remember having friends. He could recall hours spent playing parlor games, or having discussions on anything and everything long into the night. He remembered, dimly, the pleasure he had gotten from it. When had he stopped doing that?
“What nonsense.” Cordelia’s eyes glinted. “This foolishness is for children. Adults have no such need. Begone.”
A rumble of thunder followed the word, but overhead the storm was dying, and the nature spirit was listening intently.
“I am not one of your familiar spirits to be banished with a word, Cordelia,” Isabelle said sharply. “David, you cannot go through life in isolation, seeing others as objects to be manipulated and used, and watching for the same behavior in others.”
And that was exactly what his life had become. He saw it in a stunning moment of clarity. He had not done a single thing he truly enjoyed in the last year, nor spent a single moment in the company of someone he would have sought out on his own. What had his life turned into?
“There are more important, and more lasting, things than power and position, David,” Isabelle continued. “Power is ephemeral and can be taken away. Position is just as ephemeral. But no one can take love and friendship. You can lose them by your own actions or lack of them, or by neglect, but they cannot be taken away.”
The clouds parted overhead, and bright moonlight shone down on them. The spirit moved closer, head tilted to one side. She glanced at her companions as she said that, and they moved closer to her. Her husband put one hand on her shoulder, and in another moment of clarity, David saw what he had not seen before. These people were not masters, pupils, and servants. They were also friends.
And what of his friends? He recalled their names and faces clearly and they were no longer in his “circle.” He had told himself he had outgrown them, but that was not the truth. The truth was he had thrust them away, or ignored them, because Cordelia had told him that his precious time was too valuable to waste in their company. And so they had stopped calling on him, stopped issuing him invitations. And he turned from friends to those who were politically valuable. His life had become an unending round of work. He no longer even read things that were not in some way related to his ambitions. He looked back over the past several years and saw nothing but empty hours, gray and uninteresting. He looked ahead to the future, and tried to imagine what life would be like if he achieved those ambitions. Surely, it would be worth the cost.
But he realized with a sinking spirit and a feeling of nausea that it would only be more of the same. More empty, pleasureless years, punctuated by a few hours of fame, which would only bring him to the attentions of people who were just like him, who had ambitions of their own, and hoped to maneuver him to get something.
If he married, it would be to a woman who brought him more connections, perhaps more wealth, who would spend as little time as possible in his company. She would be too busy exercising her own ambitions to become a notable hostess in the most exclusive of sets. Even if she felt some dim stirrings of affection, she would have no time for anything other than bearing the “heir and a spare” required of her, and furthering her own social climb.