“What was the last moment of simple pleasure you remember having, David?” Isabelle asked quietly. “Something you enjoyed for its own sake.”
With a plummeting heart, he realized that the only simple moment of pleasure he had experienced in the last several weeks was sitting down to dinner in his club and enjoying a well-cooked meal.
Weeks! He had gone weeks with the only memorable moment being a meal!
Cordelia glanced sharply at all of them, and must have sensed that she was losing him. “Enough,” she barked.
But he was too deep in despair at his situation now to pay any attention to the author of his misery. He looked at Isabelle, who had one hand resting affectionately on the shoulders of each of the children—at her husband, whose very posture proclaimed that he would quite cheerfully and publicly take her into his arms for a loving embrace at any moment, and know it would be returned with equal fervor. He looked at the three “servants,” whose protective posture said that they would lay down their lives for these friends—
These children were not even Isabelle’s by birth, and yet he could see they loved her unreservedly. If he had children of his own, they would grow up in the company of nannies and nursemaids, tutors and governesses. They would be sent away to school, return home only for a few days at a time, and over the course of twenty years, if he was in their presence for a grand total of six weeks’ worth of time it would be amazing. They would call him “Pater,” and they would respect him, but they would not love him, and when he died he would go to his grave with their dutiful attendance and concealed pleasure that he was gone and they could now enjoy his wealth and property unfettered by any rules or constraints of that stranger who had been their father.
The Hartons were surrounded by servants who loved and protected them. He was surrounded by servants who probably resented and definitely cheated him. Frederick had a wife who so clearly adored him that nothing made her unhappy except to be separated from him. He lived in a lonely empty house, a condition that would not change even if he took a wife of his own.
“I would not exchange a single moment of my life for all of your wealth, David,” Isabelle told him, as Cordelia seethed. “Your power cannot buy me peace. Your position cannot bring me friendship. Your estates cannot give me hope. And your wealth cannot purchase love.” Her voice took on tones of remote pity. “What you have is worth nothing to me. And this is what Cordelia has brought you to.”
Bleak, black despair settled over him like a blanket. If he could have gotten himself past the shame of it, he would have wept. By now, he was a cold, heartless, ruthless creature. He had lost the friends he had once had, and no longer knew how to make new ones.
And as for love—
He had driven it away.
He stared at Isabelle numbly, wanting to howl his grief to the moon.
The little girl with the parrot looked up at him solemnly, and paced forward until she stood a mere foot from him. And she held out her hand.
“I’ll be your friend, Mister Alderscroft,” she said soberly. “ ‘Cause sometimes the reason you are friends with someone is that they need one.”
Something broke inside him—or perhaps, it was better to say that something melted. Tears burned in his eyes as he took the child’s hand; they overflowed and trickled down his cheeks. The child tugged on his hand and drew him to stand beside her friends.
Cordelia’s cheeks flamed, and she made a summoning gesture. “You flout me at your peril!” she exclaimed. “You—”
“They have the protection of Robin Goodfellow, sorceress,” said the earth spirit, coming to stand on the other side of Isabelle. “The Fey do not take sides in mortal quarrels—but I am a law unto myself and I say they are under my protection—and have my friendship.”
Undeterred, Cordelia voiced the Words of Power to bring her creatures to her.
But David, with a little shock of surprise that he still recalled the words, called upon the allies of his true Element of Fire to come to his aid. After the way he had shunned them, he would not have been surprised that they did not answer.
But they did.
A rain, a stream, a river of Salamanders, greater and lesser, of Imps and Lyons and Firebirds and even a Phoenix, all came crowding about him at his summons, as if they had only been waiting for this moment.
They stood, shoulder to shoulder, in a compact group of solidarity, surrounded by creatures of Fire. And at last, the near-invisible Ice Lord spoke.
“
You have failed, woman
,” it said. “
You are mine
.” In the blink of an eye, it somehow surrounded her, and before she had a chance to scream or cry out, they were both gone.
Epilogue
DAVID Alderscroft surveyed his quarters with melancholy satisfaction.
He had closed and sold his town house, and moved into rooms at his club. Men in general were not so exacting of the requirements of friendship as women were. Some weeks and months of careful tending, and he would soon be living among men who considered themselves his friend. And at that point, he would begin renewing his acquaintance with those old friends he had thrust aside. They would take some more careful cultivation, but eventually he thought he could win them over again. And he would never make the mistake of losing them twice.
But there was no point in keeping up his town house, because he knew, deep inside, that he would never need it, for he would never marry. He had rejected love once. Unlike friendship, that sort of chance never came again. In the moment that his heart had thawed, it had also broken.
And it was his own damned fault.
Still. In the midst of heartbreak—there were the little compensations. He glanced affectionately at the pasteboard square in his hand.
Dear Uncle David, it said. Please come to the school this weekend. We want to show you the new ponies and take you riding on the paths we have been cutting, and we have decided to make September 12th Nan’s official birthday. There will be cake and ice creams. Love, Sarah.
David’s old estate was no longer empty and hollow. It rang with the happy voices of children—the children of Elemental Mages, the children of the Talented and Gifted, and the children of expatriates. It was now the home to the Harton School, and, he trusted, would provide a harvest of fine young men and women for decades to come.
It was a good legacy.
And he planned to create a second as well; his Circle would work not only for the protection of Mages and Masters, but for the protection of all of England, so that another creature like the Ice Lord could never slip onto the island without someone noticing.
Good legacies, both of them.
He set down Sarah’s invitation, picked up a pen, and began to write out his acceptance when a second piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Without his prompting, a Salamander manifested, darted to the floor, and retrieved it, returning it to the desk only slightly scorched.
Isabelle’s note, attached to Frederick’s accepting an honorary chair in the London Circle as spokesman for the Talented and Gifted, in response to his addendum that he was sorry he could not invite her, but that as the Club was exclusively male—
Dear David, if I wanted to prance around infancy dress, I would join the Order of the Golden Dawn. Their robes are just as ridiculous, and they serve a better tea. Affectionately, Isabelle.
The Salamanders danced as the room rang with laughter.
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