December Lights

Miss Jane Bigg-Wither reached her twenty-first year and, as a single woman must do upon attaining such an advanced age, resigned herself to spinsterhood.

That is to say, she embraced it with all her heart.

Jane was not ugly; she was not without family connections; she was in possession of a comfortable inheritance. Really, she had hardly any reason to remain unmarried.

Yet instead of marrying, Jane lived as quietly as possible under the circumstances in the country with her uncle, who was fascinated with all things to do with the magical element though he had no practical ability himself.

“My dear Jane,” said Sir Percival over toast and tea one cold, yet snowless, winter afternoon, “I’ve just received the most wonderful news.” He held up a letter as proof.

Jane looked up from her book. “What is it, Uncle Percy?”

“Well, it’s the Thameside College of Magic and Technology. It seems they want to name a new building after me! Isn’t that lovely?”

“Oh, indeed.” Jane sighed, closed her book, and prepared to listen.

Sir Percival beamed. “You know I gave them a little money last year. A trifle, really, nothing much.”

“I remember it well, sir,” Jane replied, smiling briefly at the thought of calling thirty thousand pounds a ‘trifle.’

“And by way of saying thank you, they want to name the new building after me. The Sir Percival Bigg-Wither Laboratories. It sounds rather good, does it not?” He glanced down at the letter. “The Dean of the college wishes me to attend a dedication ceremony just before Christmas. Would you like to come along, Jane?”

“Oh, not again,” Jane muttered.

“I beg your pardon, my dear?”

Jane sighed. How could she say no? But visiting the Thameside College of Magic and Technology meant encountering...

... Warlocks. Ugh. Jane shuddered.

The previous year Sir Percival had invited several newly qualified warlocks to Wither Castle, and every one of the young men had proposed to Jane. They had followed her around the estate; they had challenged each other to duels over who would escort her in to dinner; they had taken every opportunity to accidentally-on-purpose brush up against her or take her hand. Poor Sir Percival had been devastated when Jane had turned down every proposal, for he would have delighted to call a warlock his nephew-in-law. But Jane was adamant: absolutely no warlocks.

And so she remained a spinster.

“You will come, won’t you my dear?” her uncle asked.

Jane composed herself. “Yes, of course I will, Uncle Percy.”

Sir Percival gave a satisfied nod. “Very good.” He cocked his head and gave her a sly wink. “I believe the Viscount Sanditon will be in attendance.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jane murmured. Of all her persistent suitors, Sanditon was the worst.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I am quite sure he will be there, Uncle Percy.”

Sir Percival patted her hand. “Then it’s all settled. Thameside College a fortnight from today. Lovely!”

#

As Jane had expected, the dedication ceremony consisted of one tedious speech followed by another, which were in turn followed by a tedious celebratory tea held in the Dean’s sprawling house overlooking the river. Jane kept an eye on her Uncle Percy; as the center of attention, his round face grew pink with happiness and sherry. Jane, of course, was besieged by admirers, warlocks-in-training and several professors of magic. At the earliest opportunity she pleaded indisposition and escaped with a cup of tea to the Dean’s quiet library.

She was not alone for long.

A lean figure wearing a fashionable high-collared black cape, an embroidered waistcoat, and a quizzing glass hanging from a ribbon around his neck approached: Sanditon. He was rich, handsome, dashing, titled, everything a spinster might desire.

Jane raised the teacup before her face and shrank into the shadows, but it was too late; she had been spotted. “Oh damn,” she murmured.

As the viscount spied her, he gave an elegant bow. “My dear Miss Bigg-Wither!”

In response to his unctuous smile, Jane lifted the corners of her mouth and showed her teeth.

“Alas,” he said, seating himself with a flourish on a chair beside her and seizing her hand, “that the fairest flower should hide herself away to bloom unseen.”

Jane remained silent; she could hardly agree or disagree with such a statement and she refused to waste a simper on this particular suitor. Instead she sipped her tea.

“I have been speaking with your uncle,” Sanditon said.

Jane looked up, alarmed. “Upon what subject, sir?”

Sanditon stroked her hand. When he spoke, Jane thought she could see tiny blue sparks - the lingering presence of the magical element - winking from his teeth. “We spoke, Miss Bigg-Wither, about Wither Castle. I overheard Sir Percival mention to the Dean that his estate is somewhat...troubled.”

Troubled wasn’t the half of it, Jane thought. Despite Uncle Percy’s inability to practice magic, the Bigg-Wither estate was strangely fraught with elemental storms and the odd occurrences that accompanied them. The castle’s west tower had been rebuilt repeatedly after being transformed by elemental bolts into ice and, on one memorable occasion, butter. The knot garden was infested with homunculi. The ha-ha had migrated from one field to another, and sheep continually stumbled into it, the stupid creatures, breaking their legs. The maze was dangerous; nobody knew, any longer, what lurked at its center and the gardeners refused outright to enter it.

“In order to explain all the odd phenomena,” Sanditon was saying, “Sir Percy and the Dean of the College have requested that I, as their most capable recent graduate, pay you a visit to investigate.” He gave Jane’s hand a lingering kiss. “As a warlock, I was delighted to agree; as a man I am even more delighted. I shall join you at Wither Castle in five days’ time.”

“Oh,” said Jane. “How nice.” He’d made a mistake. Now that she knew when he was coming, she could make arrangements to go on a Christmas shopping trip to London or on a visit to friends. One way or another, she’d not be at Wither castle when Sanditon arrived.

#

Later, after Jane had managed to scrape Sanditon off, she wandered the Dean’s house in search of her uncle. She’d had enough tea and had fended off several more unwanted advances by young warlocks. It was time to return home.

As she padded down one long, carpeted hallway, she heard raised voices coming from a room at the end. Jane continued, more quietly, and peered through the crack in the door into the Dean’s study. The Dean himself was seated behind a wide, polished desk. Standing on the patterned carpet, his back to Jane, was another man. The first thing Jane noticed about him was his height, which was exceptional; the second thing was his anger, for it was evident in the set of his shoulders and the clenched fists at his sides.

“Absolutely not,” the man was saying.

The Dean leaned back in his chair and laced fat fingers over the waistcoat stretched across his belly. “You haven’t any choice, Day. To begin with, someone must go along to keep an eye on Sanditon and his...er...you know. His condition. And I shouldn’t have to remind you that you still owe the tuition from your last semester, and you shan’t be granted your degree until it is paid.”

“I realize that,” Day replied. He sounded as if he were speaking through gritted teeth. “So now I’ve got to drop everything to trot out to some nobleman’s estate to find out why his damned sheep are behaving strangely?”

The Dean nodded. “Better that, Day, than reading the Political Register and fraternizing with Cobbett and his lot.”

“On the contrary,” the man replied. “The efforts of the Luddites are far more important than the Bigg-Wither shrubbery. Elemental magic must never be used to run machines that take work away from honest craftsmen. We will stop it any way we can.”

“Machine breaking, you mean,” the Dean said, shaking his head. “Degree or not, Day, you’re the finest warlock the college has ever produced, and you’re wasting your talent on radical activities that will only land you in prison.”

The tall man shrugged. His coat, Jane noticed, was rather shabby, and his dark hair needed cutting. This, she felt sure, was no fine gentleman. His next words confirmed her suspicion. “Then I’ll go to prison,” he said. “But at least—” Suddenly he broke off and straightened, head cocked as if listening to something. Jane was certain she hadn’t made a noise, but somehow he’d sensed her presence. Slowly, he turned to face the door.

As his eyes met hers, Jane caught her breath, feeling as if his angry gaze were penetrating the door and the silken folds of her tea gown and her skin to the very core of her being. To a place where no one had ever been before. What did he see there, she wondered, and why did it make him look so fierce? She broke the gaze, looking down to compose herself. After taking a deep, calming breath, she smoothed her dress and opened the door wider.

As she entered the room, the tall man’s frown grew deeper. “You’ve been eavesdropping!”

“You have a very loud voice,” Jane replied and, retreating into the forms of politeness, held out her hand. “I am Jane Bigg-Wither. I believe you’ve been invited with Viscount Sanditon to investigate the odd things that have been happening at my uncle’s estate.”

The man named Day continued to stare, stepping closer, as if drawn against his will, to take her hand. “You’re Jane Bigg-Wither.”

“As I said, that is my name.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard about you.”

Jane cursed inwardly and gave him a tight smile. From Sanditon, she had no doubt. What on earth had the Viscount told this man? “How very interesting.”

He nodded. Still gripping her hand, he moved closer, peering down at her. His eyes were gray, she noted, and his nose was rather long. “What they say is true,” he said. “How do you do it?”

“Do what, sir?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then gave himself a little shake and released her hand. “My name is Alexander Day.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Day,” Jane said. “You will be arriving at Wither Castle in five days?”

“I don’t seem to have any choice.”

Jane smiled, and he blinked, as if stunned. “Good.” She nodded at the Dean, who bobbed a hasty bow in return, and left the room.

In the hallway, Jane leaned against a wall, knees weak. Mr. Alexander Day was a warlock like all the others, but she’d never encountered anyone like him, anyone who made her feel so...exposed. And he was odd in a way that all the others were not, from his radical politics, to his anger, to his unusual height. Perhaps she would be at Wither Castle after all, in five days’ time.

#

If Miss Jane Bigg-Wither took extra care with her dress and coiffure on the fifth day hence, one might argue that she did so at the behest of her uncle, who wanted her to appear at her loveliest for the visiting warlocks.

Those two gentlemen arrived in Viscount Sanditon’s private carriage followed by another carriage packed full of baggage and the nobleman’s valet, hairdresser, and bootblack. The carriages rattled over the cobblestoned courtyard and to a halt before the castle, which loomed in all its moated, turreted majesty before them. Jane and her uncle came out of the keep’s great double doors to meet their visitors. The afternoon was icy cold and blustery, but no snow had fallen, so the lawns and trees around the castle looked bare and cold. Jane’s coat and skirts blew against her legs and tendrils of her hair loosed themselves from their pins. The air felt prickly, the way it did before the advent of elemental storms.

“My dear Viscount!” Sir Percival cried, beaming and clapping a hand to his old-fashioned wig, which threatened to fly away in the wind. “And Mr. Day. Welcome, indeed!”

“See to the baggage, Day,” Sanditon ordered. Tossing a fold of his cape over his shoulder, he bowed, then advanced upon Jane and took her hand. “You are a most gracious host, Sir Percival, and your niece! As always, a delight. Miss Bigg-Wither, I greet you.” He bent to kiss her gloved hand. Jane let it lie limp in his grasp.

Alexander Day, who wore a woolen muffler around his neck and the same shabby coat he’d worn before, turned from where he had been unloading a crate from the second carriage and greeted her uncle with a brief bow. To Jane he gave a nod and a look of suspicion. Then he turned back to the baggage.

Sir Percival was intrigued. “Mr. Day! What is that you’ve got there?” He pattered down the steps and out into the courtyard. “Did you bring...Equipment? And, perhaps...Instruments?”

Alexander Day nudged one wooden crate with his foot. “This is a portable Tuppence device.”

Leaving Sanditon at the front door to instruct his servants, Jane followed her uncle, noticing that Alexander Day edged away from her to stand behind another pile of crates.

“Portable! Really! And this one?” Sir Percy asked, pointing to a cloth covered dome.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Day,” Jane said.

Ignoring her outstretched hand, Alexander Day muttered a greeting and turned to her uncle. “This, sir,” he said, “is a bellweather.”

“Indeed!” Sir Percival stooped toward the dome. “For predicting the onset of elemental magic storms? Is it a bird? Might I have a look?” Before Alexander Day could answer, Jane’s uncle had swept the cover from what proved to be a domed cage. The animal within, a small, brown mouse, lifted its nose at the disturbance, twitched its tail, and settled again into a furry ball. “It stirred!” Sir Percival said, squatting down to peer into the cage.

Alexander Day crouched beside him, frowning. “Yes, it did. As far as I know, no elemental storms are forecast for this area. It’s very odd.”

As he stood up, Sir Percival laid a sly finger alongside his nose. “Ah ha, Mr. Day!”

Alexander Day got to his feet. Without seeming to realize it, he had moved to stand close beside Jane. “Ah ha, Sir Percival?”

Jane answered. “He means, Mr. Day, that elemental storms do not behave as predicted around Wither Castle. We have many, many rather unexpected manifestations of magic, in fact. That is part of the problem.”

Alexander Day frowned down at her. “Part of the problem,” he repeated. He gave himself a shake, as he had in the Dean’s office, and stepped away from her.

At that moment, Sanditon minced down the steps from the front door of the castle. As he stepped toward them, he sucked a few minuscule sparks of magical element from his fingertips, which he wiped with great fastidiousness on a handkerchief. “Be sure the device is handled carefully, Day.” He seized Jane’s arm. “And, my dear Miss Bigg-Wither, we must immediately get you in out of this nasty winter wind.”

#

Later, after the visitors had seen to their baggage and their rooms, they gathered in the drawing room for conversation, to be followed by tea. Jane tried to ignore Sanditon, who had squeezed in beside her on the sofa and kept pressing his thigh against hers even while nibbling sparks from his fingertips. Her uncle sat opposite her in a comfortable armchair, and Alexander Day stood with an elbow on the mantel, pricking his fingers on a holly garland and glaring at the fire.

After an exchange of pleasantries and talk of whether there would be snow before Christmas, Jane’s uncle introduced his favorite subject. “My dear Viscount, now that you’re unpacked, have you had the opportunity to consult your aetherometer?”

Sanditon gave an elegant shrug. “You must ask Day, Sir Percival. I leave all of the more instructive tasks to him, as he has not yet taken his degree. It is good practice for him, you see.”

Alexander Day continued to frown at the fire. “You were right, Sir Percival. The glass is falling. The bellweather is agitated enough that I think a storm will arrive by tonight.”

Uncle Percy beamed. “Then we will certainly see some magical transformations.”

“Indeed,” said Sanditon, reaching beneath the tea table to place a hand on Jane’s knee. “The storm will offer a perfect opportunity for me to conduct a few experiments.” He caught Jane’s eye and gave her a glinting smile. “I like experiments, Miss Bigg-Wither, don’t you?”

Jane responded by reaching down to push his hand off her knee.

Sanditon continued, unfazed. “Now that you have an expert on hand, Sir Percival, I will have the odd occurrences explained in a trice, I assure you.”

“I do hope so,” said Uncle Percy. He went on to describe the major and minor transformations wreaked upon his estate by elemental storms during the past ten years. “We have,” he concluded, “had some very odd chicks hatching from the eggs laid on the home farm. The pullets are not fit for eating, of course.”

After this comment, a brief silence fell. Alexander Day stirred at his post by the hearth. “What about you, Miss Bigg-Wither? Have you an interest in elemental magic?”

Jane blinked, surprised at being brought so suddenly into the conversation. “Yes I do, Mr. Day,” she replied. “I have long wished to commence a course of study, in fact, in order to educate myself.”

Alexander Day nodded. “You should begin with Sally Tuppence’s work.”

“I should like to read Miss Tuppence’s treatises,” Jane said. “I think it would be interesting to replicate some of her experiments. Uncle Percy, did she not attend Thameside College?”

“Well, yes, my dear Miss Bigg-Wither,” Sanditon interrupted. He gave Jane a benevolent smile and returned his hand to her knee. “But a lady such as you are ought not pursue such studies. Those sorts of things are not appropriate for study by the gentler sex.”

At the hearth, Alexander Day straightened. “How can you say, that, Sanditon? Tuppence was a genius, the greatest scientist we’ve ever known. Without her work, we’d know almost nothing about the operations of the magical element.”

Sanditon gave a dismissive sniff. “Day, we all know that Mistress Tuppence was a very great scientist. But she carried out her research fifty years ago, when the world was a very different place. Our age is more refined, more polite. We would never think of training up ladies to be scientists. In any case, Day, you are not a suitable advisor to a young lady of Miss Bigg-Wither’s class.”

Scowling down at the carpet, his hands thrust into his pockets, Day replied, “I don’t see why Miss Bigg-Wither shouldn’t study magic if she wants to.”

Jane opened her mouth to state her enthusiastic agreement, when she was interrupted by her uncle. “Viscount Sanditon is quite right, Jane. Magic is not for ladies. And now, my dear, you may ring for tea.”

Jane bit her lip to hold back her comment. Her uncle’s gentle commands were to be obeyed. With a sigh, she rose from the sofa and crossed to the bellpull, where she rang for the maid. Alexander Day returned to his morose contemplation of the flames.

When the tea tray was brought in, Jane reseated herself by the tea table and poured out, offering sugar and lemon and cucumber sandwiches. “Sugar, Mr. Day?” Jane asked with a sigh, holding up his teacup. “Lemon?”

“No.” He hesitated, as if having an internal argument with himself, then crossed the room to her. As she held out his tea, their hands met and his jerked back; the cup and saucer fell to the floor between them, making a mess of delicate shards and tea on the patterned carpet.

“Oh, damn,” Jane cursed quietly. Alexander Day looked up, his expression shifting from dismay to amused surprise.

“I beg your pardon, my dear?” her uncle asked from his armchair.

Jane picked up a napkin and bent to dab at the tea, which had stained the hem of her skirt. “I said ‘Oh bother,’ Uncle Percy. I’ve broken the cup.”

“You could never be so clumsy, Miss Bigg-Wither,” Sanditon interjected with his glinting smile. “It was clearly Day’s fault.”

“No matter, my dear,” Sir Percival said. “Ring for the abigail; she will clean it up.”

“My lord Viscount, would you be so kind?” Jane asked.

Sanditon agreed, rising from the sofa to cross to the bellpull. As he stood, Alexander Day knelt down beside Jane and began picking up broken pieces of china. His bent head was very close to hers. The frayed collar of his coat, Jane noted, was turned up at the back, untidy. She restrained the urge to reach out to smooth the collar, instead leaning closer to whisper, “I wish to speak privately with you, sir.”

Alexander Day placed a handful of shards onto the tea tray. “Why?”

“Hmm. You might give me a reading list.” She straightened and put down the napkin.

Alexander Day remained on his knees beside her. “Really.”

“Yes,” Jane whispered.

“Really?” he repeated, leaning toward her.

“Well, no, sir.” What excuse might she give? “As my uncle indicated, something very strange is going on here.”

“I am aware of that.”

Having rung for the maid and explained the accident, Sanditon was returning to his place on the sofa.

Jane let out an exasperated breath. “Quickly, sir. Might we meet later?”

“All right.”

Jane gave a relieved nod. “Good. The library, then, in one hour.”

#

As evening fell, the storm predicted by the bellweather and the aetherometer advanced. Though she was not a witch or warlock, Jane felt a tingling excitement in the air as she entered the library. The room took up two stories in the castle’s south turret and consisted of tiers of shelves built into the curving walls, each shelf jammed with books on every subject. The shelves were interrupted, here and there, by tall windows, and by a set of French doors, which opened up onto a veranda, which in turn looked over the infested knot garden and the maze. Through the windows, Jane saw an elemental storm crouched over the distant hills, ready to pounce. Now and then a blue flash of magical element flickered on the underbelly of the slate-gray clouds.

Moments after Jane had arrived, Alexander Day joined her, closing the door behind him. “I wasn’t sure you would come,” he said, crossing the room to stand before her, frowning.

“Frankly, sir,” Jane replied, “I thought the same thing of you.” He was standing rather close and in the dim light he appeared very tall and dark.

He is a radical and a warlock, Jane reminded herself. She took a step back.

“Oh, no,” he said, following. “I came. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

“You didn’t want to, sir?”

“No.” With a visible wrench, he turned away from her and, as if seeking protection, went to stand behind a reading table. “I can’t figure it out. You are the niece of an idle nobleman. I should hate you on principle.”

Jane thought about protesting, but it was true: Uncle Percy was, indeed, idle. So was she, for that matter, though she had long ago tired of idleness.

Day continued. “Even so, I can’t stay away from you.”

Jane nodded. “You’re just like all the rest.”

Suddenly his face seemed alert and not quite as angry. “Just like all the rest? What do you mean?”

“Warlocks.” She shuddered.

“What do you mean, warlocks?”

“Whenever I meet a warlock, he...” Jane paused, embarrassed, then told herself to be practical. “He attempts to take liberties with my person.”

Alexander Day raised his eyebrows. “You mean you were not encouraging Sanditon? He is not your lover?”

“Certainly not! He simply will not leave me alone.”

“That is very interesting. Since I can’t seem to leave you alone, either.” Day glanced around the room. “Go and stand over there, Jane, by the window. And I will stand here, by the door.”

Jane went to stand by the window. The room darkened as, outside, the storm clouds advanced over the setting sun. “We ought to light a candle,” she said.

“Just a minute. Stay over there.”

He really should address her as ‘Miss Bigg-Wither.’ Most ladies would not put up with such behavior. “You are not very polite,” she noted.

“No,” he agreed absently. He frowned down at the carpet for a long, silent minute, then looked up at her. “There’s definitely something. I can still feel it, but it’s not too bad. I’m coming closer now. Stay where you are.” He took a few steps toward her, keeping the table between them, avoiding her eyes. “All right.” He swallowed. “Don’t be alarmed, Jane. I’m coming right up to you.” He did so.

Jane closed her eyes. But she felt his presence, very near. When she opened her eyes, he was standing before her, arms folded as if restraining himself, again staring at the floor. “What is the matter, Mr. Day?”

“It’s stronger here.” He drew a shaky breath. “I’d better go back to the door.” He retreated, leaning against the door, clinging to the knob as if to anchor himself. “There’s only one explanation for it.” He fell silent, gnawing his lip.

“What explanation, sir?”

He did not answer.

“Tell me at once, or I shall come closer!” she threatened.

“No! Don’t do that.” He pointed. “Sit down in that chair next to you. I’ll sit down here, and we’ll be safe.”

She sat down. “Now tell me.”

“All right.” Without seeming to realize what he was doing, he stood up and began pacing across his side of the room. “We know of three types of magical creatures. The first are the Reservoirs, which draw the element within themselves and store it. Extremely rare. Maybe one in a generation, and none in England since last century. Then Bellweathers, like the mouse I brought.” As he lectured, his pacing continued, but with each pass he was drawn closer to her side of the room. “Bellweathers are somewhat common.” He halted and stood before her chair looking down at her, his eyes alight. “But you, Jane, are something else altogether.”

Jane slowly rose to face him. The room had grown very dark. From the windows came, at frequent intervals, flashes of elemental lightning. Thunder growled, even through the thick stone walls of the turret. Jane saw elemental sparks twinkling from the ends of Alexander Day’s hair, and then she saw nothing but darkness, for he had bent down to seize her in his arms and kiss her.

Jane expected to feel repelled, for in her experience warlocks were repellent. For some reason, she did not. Instead, she returned the kiss, with interest.

At that moment the elemental storm broke with a crashing roar over the castle and the library door flew open to reveal a lean, shadowy figure: Sanditon.

Jane and Alexander Day drew apart, but it was too late - they’d been seen.

The Viscount advanced, his mouth asnarl and his black cape aswirl. “I might have known! Sneaking away, Day, to assault this innocent young maiden!”

Beside her, Jane thought she heard Alexander Day mutter a comment on who was assaulting whom.

Sanditon circled the table and advanced. “Fear not, Miss Bigg-Wither!” He paused and gave what sounded to Jane like a high-pitched cackle. “I will avenge you! This blackguard will not live to rue the day he stole you away from me!” The storm punctuated his challenge with a ferocious strike of elemental magic.

There goes the west turret again, Jane thought.

Alexander Day took her hand and they backed away from the advancing Viscount. “What is the matter with him?” Jane whispered.

“He’s addicted to the magical element,” Day replied. “It makes him...well, you can see for yourself.”

As they watched, element from the storm saturated Sanditon’s body. He stood before them, lighting the room, cobalt sparks sizzling from his skin and the ends of his hair, surrounding him like a scintillant aura. “I challenge, you, Day, to a duel!” he shouted.

Alexander Day glanced at the window. The storm crashed and rolled outside, the sky flickering with elemental bolts. “All right.” He shrugged. “Name your weapon.”

Jane gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Oh, this is stupid. You can’t fight him, Mr. Day.”

Ignoring Jane’s comment, Sanditon sneered. “Of course you wouldn’t know this, Day, as you are not a gentleman, but it is for you to name the weapon.”

“Fine,” Alexander Day said. “Magic.”

For a moment, Jane thought she saw Sanditon hesitate.

But then he gave one of his shrieking laughs. Without waiting for Jane to get out of the way, he shouted out a spell, which emerged from his mouth as a roiling ball of sparks and bright blue flame. After floating in the air for a second, as if orienting itself, the spell flew through the air toward them, shedding sparks as it came.

Calmly, Alexander Day stepped out of the way, pulling Jane with him.

The ball of element splattered into the French doors, which dissolved into a whirl of sawdust and sand.

Invited in, the storm blasted through the open area. An icy wind howled. Thunder shook the turret, and bolts of elemental lightning ricocheted across the room, striking the shelves; each book hit by the element transformed into a bewildered white dove that floundered in the buffeting gusts. Sanditon was forced to his knees, the cape wrapped around his face.

Over the howl of the wind, Alexander shouted, and his words came out with puffs of steam in the icy air. “Too dangerous in here, Jane! Go outside!”

“But the storm!” she shouted back.

He grasped Jane by the shoulders and bent to speak into her ear. “It won’t hurt you, Jane - it can’t. The magical element—” He paused to glance over his shoulder at Sanditon, who was struggling to his feet. “—It loves you.” With that, he pushed her toward the veranda and turned to face Sanditon.

Jane stumbled outside, shivering in the freezing wind. The storm had pounced upon the castle and was shaking it as a cat does a mouse. Playful, she thought, but with rather serious effects for the mouse. Elemental bolts sizzled through the air. Peering through the darkness, Jane saw the knot garden writhing with the gyrations of thousands of tiny, green-skinned, dancing homunculi. Beyond, a dark shadow loomed up out of the evergreen bushes that made up the maze. Across the brown grass of the lawn, with the sound of cracking branches, an ancient oak toppled beneath the onslaught of wind and magic.

Yet not a single stray bolt threatened her. Even the wind seemed to caress, rather than buffet. Alexander Day was right. The magical element loved her. She was not a witch or warlock, so she could not use the element to transform the world. But if she called to it, might it come to her?

Jane stepped to the edge of the veranda and opened her arms, hardly expecting any response. At once, the storm whirled into a huge vortex above her, a tornado snapping with elemental lightning and blue-black clouds. Her skin tingled, and sparks effervesced from her fingertips. A great bubble of joy expanded in her chest. She threw back her head and rose up on her tiptoes, felt her skirts swirling about her legs and the pins explode from her hair, which writhed about her head like enchanted snakes.

As the focus of such exaltation, Jane cried out with happiness. She let the joy fill her for another moment, then composed herself. Very well, she told the storm, catching her breath. I’ve very much enjoyed your visit, but I’m afraid you must leave now.

From inside the library came a flash of sapphirine light and a crash of thunder as the element being used by the dueling warlocks rushed to obey Jane’s request. After swirling about her for another minute, the storm reluctantly drew off. Jane felt the element tingling from her skin, then fizzing slowly away. As the magical storm departed, the clouds opened up and flakes of snow drifted down.

From the hole in the turret where the French doors had stood, Jane saw a tiny lizard-like creature emerge. Peering through the curtain of snowflakes, she saw it skitter across the veranda, down the steps, and into the maze. The bushes there twitched, as if a large shape had shifted, and were still.

Next, a few battered-looking white doves fluttered from the opening, and then Alexander Day appeared. He looked a bit ragged but, to Jane, otherwise unharmed. She breathed a sigh of relief.

He approached her, cautious. “Are you all right, Jane?”

Jane smiled. She felt far beyond all right; she felt transformed. Even her uncle would not be able to determine her fate from now on. She would refuse to be idle; she would study magic, if she liked. Perhaps she’d even attend Thameside College and become a scientist, like Sally Tuppence. “I am quite all right, thank you.”

Alexander Day glanced at the storm, which was trundling off over the distant hills. “Good,” he said. Then he turned his full attention on her. “Jane, I’ll leave you alone now, if that is what you want.”

“No,” Jane said. “I think—” She paused. The lingering elemental magic seemed to be sparking in her bones, making her want to rise up on her toes and do...something...to the man before her. She restrained herself. “In the library, earlier, sir. We were interrupted.”

Snowflakes settled on his lashes, and he blinked them away. “Right. Interrupted.”

Jane couldn’t stop herself from smiling, thinking of the kiss they had begun. “You were about to tell me what kind of magical creature I am,” she prompted.

“Ah. Right. You are an Allure, Jane.”

“An Allure? What is that?”

“The Allure attracts the element to itself, which is why you have so many storms here. You lure them, Jane. Warlocks, and witches, too, nearly always have a very low level of the element present in our bodies. Not enough to effect a spell...”

“But enough that you respond to the Allure,” Jane noted.

“Yes. So it’s mechanical.”

“What is?”

“My attraction to you.”

“What a relief that must be,” Jane said drily. “You can go away and never think about me again.”

“Yes,” Alexander Day agreed.

Jane frowned. He’d answered just a bit too quickly. Well then, it was up to her. “I suggest an experiment.”

He raised his eyebrows but did not speak.

She shivered, feeling chilly in the falling snow. “You must kiss me, and I will kiss you, and we will determine whether the attraction is, as you say, mechanical or whether it is, as I suspect, not.”

Without hesitation, Alexander Day bent down and kissed her. She, at the same time, kissed him. Snow fell, the winter wind swirled around them, but Jane did not feel the cold. No, she felt something else entirely.

After a few minutes he stopped. He gazed at her, and caught his breath. “Not,” he said.

“Not, sir?”

“No, Jane. Not.”

- End -

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