Many Kinds of Magic

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Changes on WIP Wednesday

Millie doesn’t know she she can change shape. Here’s the scene where she finds out in my current draft of Wild Magic, the 4th book in Many Kinds of Magic.

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They heard the crowd before they saw them, yelling insults and curses, some in incredibly explicit language that painted Millie as an enchantress who consumed men. Millie could hear the coachman shouting at the crowd.

“I should have accepted the guard I was offered,” said Mr. O’Brien. “Mrs. Hexworth, if the crowd manages to breach the carriage, I am going to change into my wolf form. Leap onto my back and hang onto my neck. You can take tight hold of the thick skin and a handful of skin. You won’t hurt me. I’ll take us clear of the crowd. The carriage driver knows our first stop and will meet us there.”

He had time for no more than that when what he feared happened—someone wrenched the door open. Millie could feel the change in O’Brien’s aura as his power moved and began to shape him into a different form. And even as she sensed the way he changed, she found her own power imitating him, shifting her bones, her flesh, everything about her. The man who was trying to reach into the carriage fell back, his mouth open in astonishment or fear, and she heard the low grumble of Mr. O’Brien’s growl.

Furthermore, the carriage seemed suddenly ten times the size, and the face of the intruder was enormous. When she opened her mouth to make her own sound, it came out as a loud caw, and when she tried to leap onto O’Brien’s back, holding out her arms to balance herself, her arms caught the air and lifted her off her seat. In a moment, instinct took over. She flapped her arms hard and soared out of the carriage over the heads of those who were trying to break into it.

Looking behind her, she could see a large red wolf leap out of the carriage over the heads of the attackers. But she had little time to think about it, for she had problems of her own.

Her legs were doing no good, though she was trying to run with them, for she was twenty yards or more above the street. Her arms had turned into wings, and they had lifted her way up here. She tucked her legs up underneath her and swept the wings down in another strong beat, and then another and another, for she was flying, not in a graceful manner, but lurching from wingsweep to wingsweep as she got the hang of it. She climbed higher and higher, soaring away from the street and flying over the roofs of the buildings.

Could she circle in the air? Yes, she could. Down below, she could see the wolf—O’Brien—looking up at her. He must have realized she was watching him because he began to pad along the road, and she, still a little ungainly but gaining confidence and grace as she learned how this body moved in the air, followed him.

Millie’s bird form was able to keep pace with the wolf, and she flew on and on, following O’Brien’s red shape, which more or less kept to the ribbon of the road, but avoided places with crowds of people, leaving the road when he saw he was approaching a village and skirting through fields until he came back out on the road on the other side.

She wondered if he would have any trouble with other travelers, but here in England, where wolves were no longer in the wild, they must have assumed he was as human as they were and left him alone. For his own part, he simply padded along, ignoring the other travelers.

Eventually, when Millie’s chest and shoulder muscles were beginning to ache, he stopped within sight of a village that must have been about an hour and a half’s drive from Chester. Millie hadn’t seen the carriage they’d left behind—or at least she hadn’t noticed that one of the carriages on the road was theirs. Perhaps she had overlooked it, or perhaps it had passed them during one of their diversions around a village, because it was waiting for them outside the inn in the village.

O’Brien did not enter the village, but leapt over a gate into a field and sat there, his muzzle pointed up toward her, and his tail tucked neatly around one side to lie across his front paws. Did he want her to join him?

It suddenly occurred to Millie that she’d never landed before. Well, there was a first time for everything. The first thing to do was to drop low enough to consider how to reach the ground. Birds she had watched circled in order to come into land. That seemed a good idea. She tried it, stalling a couple of times as she scooped too much air under her wings and stopped in the air instead of merely slowing down. But each time she recovered.

O’Brien was probably laughing at her. It was hard to tell from his wolf’s face, though he was sitting there with his tongue flopping out one side of his muzzle as he watched her.

She learned from those two stalls and managed to circle down until she was not far above the ground. The last part was the bit she wasn’t looking forward to. It was, she supposed, a matter of a controlled stall as her feet hit the ground. She spread her wings ready, cupped the air, and held her breath. It wasn’t too bad an effort for a first time. She had to walk forward quickly, but she didn’t plant her face in the dirt as she had been very much afraid she might.

She should have said plant her beak, she supposed. She had a rather splendid one. And from what she could see, she was black all over. She rather thought she might be a raven or a crow. Furthermore, a raven or a crow she was likely to stay, because she had no idea at all how to change back.

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Magic for children in WIP Wednesday

Today, I have an excerpt from Small Magic, which I expect back from the editor late this week or early next. It is book 3 in Many Kinds of Magic, and sends my hero and heroine to join Napoleon’s army as it advances into Russia. But in this excerpt, my heroine is using her very small gift of magic to coax compliance out of two reluctant pupils.

Clara gave in first. The temptation of the paper parrots proved too much for her, and she wrote three misspelled paragraphs about kittens. The writing showed promise. The sentence that described kittens as “tiny tigers that prowl the stables and are death to mice” was remarkably mature for her age. And Hannah was rather taken by the phrase “warm, sweet, and fierce,” which was perfectly true, even if “fierce” lacked an “i”, an “r” and a “c”, and had an extra “e” and an “s” in their place.

As her reward, Clara chose to learn how to make paper parrots rather than go out for a walk. Hannah assured her she could have both, but Clara cast a glance at her brooding sister and politely said, “Just the parrots please, Miss Prendergast.”

That being the case, the pair of them sat folding paper, Clara copying Hannah as closely as she could, and Hannah helping her to correct any mistakes. Before long, they had a little row of parrots waiting on the table.

Next came the spell. This time, Hannah said the animating rhyme out loud as Clara brushed the salt and ginger mix on one parrot after another, until a flock of them were fluttering around the room, with Clara dancing beneath them, laughing and trying to catch them.

Agnes stared at them with her mouth open, her eyes filled with longing, but when she saw Hannah watching her, she scowled, picked up a book, and began reading.

The parrots didn’t last long. They had a habit of crashing into walls or furniture, shedding some of the spelled mix and softening the paper. Hannah had already warned Clara that the effect of the spell would be temporary, and the little girl made no complaint when the last parrot crash landed on the carpet.

“Let us tidy up,” Hannah said, “and I shall ask for cheese and bread to toast for a treat.”

“For Agnes, too?” Clara asked. What a sweet child she was.

“I’m not hungry,” grumbled Agnes.

On the following day, Hannah once again talked about the benefits to both her and her pupils of cooperation, and the costs of a continued war. “For today’s treat after lessons, I propose the walk I suggested yesterday. I have another spell I should like to show you. Have you ever heard bluebells singing?”

Once again, Clara was excited to comply. She and Hannah went through her cat essay, discussing spelling and grammar. Once she had written a fair copy, they worked through a few sums. After seeing the essay, Hannah had formed a positive opinion of Nanny’s teaching abilities. Clara’s arithmetic put an end to it.

Still, the girl was bright and willing. She would learn.

Agnes, who had been watching from her seat by the nursery fireplace, said, “Nanny said we do not need to learn our numbers. Arithmetic is for men, not ladies.”

“Oh?” Hannah replied. “I think perhaps your mother would disagree with that. If you do not know your numbers, how will you manage your dress allowance. Will you just keep spending until your father growls? And when you are married, how will you know whether your cook and housekeeper are cheating you? Will you expect your husband to keep your household accounts?”

Agnes lapsed into silence, but she did not join in, so when Clara and Hannah left for their walk, Hannah asked the nursery maid to sit with Agnes.

Clara was bubbling over with excitement when they returned, eager to tell Agnes all about the wonderful singing of a forest full of bluebells. Agnes turned away and refused to listen. Clara told the nursery maid, instead.

It had been a single clearing, and the bluebells sang a simple nursery rhyme. Hannah, after all, only had small magic. But Clara had been delighted, and that was the main thing. Now Hannah had to think of something for tomorrow. Something that Agnes could not resist.

She would need to pull out her book of spells tonight, and go through it looking for ideas.

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A different approach to parenting on WIP Wednesday

I’m expecting Twisted Magic back from the editor within the month, so it is on my mind. In the following excerpt, my heroine is hiding from pursuers in a forest that is home to the fae. And she is comparing their way of living with that of people outside of the forests.

Sephie felt as if she was free for the first time in her life. Free from the expectations—and disappointment—of others. Free from responsibilities. Free from all the restrictions that built prickly hedges of “thou shalt nots” around well-born ladies.

The fae did not live like that. Like other humans, they all had different gifts, both magical and mundane, but they did not rank them, making one more important than another. A person with a gift for magical weaving was not less nor more important than a person with a gift for weaving without magic, and a person who could cause a tree to grow a branch broad enough for a house floor was not less nor more important than a person who could teach mathematics to the children and any adult with an interest, or throw a perfectly proportioned pot.

The only expectations, as far as Sephie could discover, were to find what one was good at and do it well, to treat one another kindly, and to cherish and protect the children.

She spoke to Taz about it one morning. The fae had not yet arrived and they had the rooms to themselves. “I did not know families could be like this. Is it only the fae? But Lord and Lady Baradine love their adopted children just as fiercely and completely. Did you know love like this when you were a child?”

Taz shook his head. “From my mother, perhaps. Before she died. I was only eight, and I cannot be certain what I remember and what I merely wish to have been the case. Especially since, for years, I couldn’t bear to think about her at all.”

He fell silence, staring into nothing, and she took his hand as a gesture of sympathy. He turned hers over and placed a kiss in it. “What about you, Sephie? Did your mother love you the way these fae folk love their children?”

No. Not in Sephie’s memory. But perhaps, as Taz said, she was too young to know. “I am like you. I would like to think so. But I have few memories of her. Just a person in clothes that rustled, jewelry that glittered in the candlelight and a cloud of perfume. I think my nursemaid used to take me to see her when she was dressing for dinner. She would kiss my cheek when she saw me. If she was in a very good mood, she would hug me and rain kisses all over my face. And then she would tell the nursemaid to take me away.”

She sighed, the memory so distant that it seemed a dream. “Fae mothers see their children more than once a day, I think. Like you, I was eight when she left. She was running away with a lover, and died when her carriage went over a cliff.”

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Married love in WIP Wednesday

 

This is an excerpt from Twisted Magic, which I have just sent out to the beta readers. Twisted Magic is book 2 of Many Kinds of Magic, my regency romantasy series, and in this excerpt, the hero and heroine of book 1 are seen discussing the heroine of book 2.

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Delia spent at least part of every day with the magical beasts she had been adopting in the months since her marriage, and it was in the stable block that had been converted to a menagerie that Jasper found her.

He stood for a moment outside of the stall where she was cuddling a kitten that had been born with wings, and so tormented by its brothers and sisters that the farmer’s wife whose cat was its mother had brought it to Delia, “For it’ll need to be hand-raised, my lady, and that I cannot do, what with it being sowing season, and the children being in school each morning, and all.”

That was a dig at the Baradines, for the farmers and their wives had been most indignant at the decree from the manor requiring all children aged between six and twelve to attend three hours of lessons each day. Most of them grumbled about the loss of labor, but none of them dared to openly defy the dragon.

Jasper put his foot down when Delia declared her intention of keeping the kitten in their bed chamber so she could feed it hourly. He deputed the youngest stable-hand to the job, releasing him from all other duties other than keeping the menagerie clean and the animals’ water troughs full.

It had worked wonderfully well. The kitten was healthy and growing, the boy was in heaven, and Delia was considering giving him permanent work as aide to her animal keeper. The poor man was so overworked that last night he failed to latch the cages of the hawk-dogs, and one of them had escaped and wreaked havoc on some of the gardens, digging to hide bones.

Delia had been quite distressed over the extra work that had made for the gardeners, but Jasper had pointed out that they had always intended to give the beasts away once they were old enough, and if they could fly, they were old enough.

“I know you are there,” she said. She always did, though he had been standing still and making no sound. It was the catalyst gift, she had explained. One strand of her power was permanently connected to Jasper, and she had progressed in her control enough that she could follow that one strand to find Jasper wherever he went.

“How is the cat-bird?” he asked.

“Misty is well, thank you,” she replied. The little creature had been sitting purring on her lap, but now stood, stretched, and bounded across the stall to greet Jasper, its wings flapping as it ran.

He bent to scoop it up by a hand around its belly. It had been a mere palmful weeks ago when Delia adopted it, but on a diet of goats’ milk had already grown large enough to hang down both sides of his hand.

Delia had called it Misty for its color—both its fur and the down that covered its wings and the backs of its hind legs were varying shades of gray. He cupped its behind on the palm of one hand, let it lean against his chest, and scratched it behind its ears. It rewarded him with a loud purr.

“At least one of our foundlings shows some gratitude,” he commented.

“Is Persephone sulking again?” Delia asked, sympathetically.

“She is always either sulking or scorning,” Jasper grumbled. “I try hard to sympathize, dear heart. She was, after all, left motherless as a child, neglected by her father and then exiled, and—from what the man who collected her from Shropshire said—alternately ignored and abused by her grandmother. But she has an inflated sense of her own importance and a huge chip on her shoulder.”

“She is not an easy person,” Delia admitted. “I believe she is very unhappy, Jasper. Apart from anything else, it cannot be easy having a traitor for a father. Did her lessons go poorly? I had to leave early, as you know, but she seemed to be working hard.”

Jasper sighed. “Yes and no. She is getting the kinds of result to be expected from a completely untrained and unusual power. She, however, expects perfection, and when her gifts don’t behave exactly as she wishes, she loses her temper. Not with me, I hasten to add. With herself. And then she accuses me of being patronizing when I try to tell her she is doing well.”

The kitten rubbed its head against his hand, clearly indignant he was ignoring it, and he obediently resumed his scratching.

“Our approach to training gifts is not widely accepted,” Delia commented.