Betsy had been especially been looking forward to this time this week, even before it had involved Michelle Kwan. It was far quieter. There was still the lingering disappointment that it still was not as quiet as Thomas Bennett was used to; the building’s various systems hummed and there were even still a few cars on the streets, but this, Betsy knew, was as quiet as the modern world ever got.
That, combined with the good feeling she always got when she came to choreograph here, now, made her the easily most cheerful she’d been all week. Entering the building with Michelle sleepily following, she commented, “I suppose it has been a number of years since you’ve been up this early, hasn’t it?”
“It has a been a long while,” said Michelle. “Though my internal clock’s completely confused right now anyway.” Still, there was no denying that whatever time her body thought it was, it wanted to sleep.
“So,” said Betsy, “have you decided what you want? Your normal style, or radically different? I’ve got several musical choices for the former. If you want the latter, I’d suggested a black cat number to ‘Stray Cat Strut.’”
“Let me hear the other songs,” said Michelle. “Then I’ll pick one.”
Not the most efficient use of time, Betsy thought. And here she’d been hoping to find time to finished Camille and Rudy’s short program. The thought popped into her head, You have invited the King into your home. Did you think your life would not be horribly inconvenienced? Her next thought was a long-suffering, Mr. Bennett, please. Maybe Diamond and George were right about the whole journal idea.
As the songs Betsy had selected played in the rink, Michelle skated out onto the ice and improvised moves to them. Betsy watched her do so to the first two songs and found they both seemed neither more right nor less right for her than they had previously. When she started the third, she expected to reject it immediately. She thought it due to his mischief that she’d even thrown this particular piece of goth metal in. When the song started she warned Michelle quietly that its soft opening tone was deceptive. She watched Michelle look beautiful for the first fifteen seconds and thought that a pity. The tone changed, became loud and hard, and she waited for Michelle to stop.
About thirty seconds later, Michelle did stop, but it was to look at Betsy, nod, and say, “That’s the one. Not even usually what I do, so it’s a good compromise.”
There was a fleeting moment of disappointment-Betsy would very much have liked to be the one to choreograph a more “fun” number for her. But she felt the work for this one would be done much quicker, and that was an undeniable advantage. Besides, if she a good enough job on it, who was to say she would never choreograph for her again?
She had worried about Thomas Bennett’s deep cynicism hindering her style, but once she joined Michelle on the ice, she felt much more in her element and in control of herself and her mind. From there the work went pleasantly quickly, and by the time Camille and Rudy had arrived, the number was taking shape. Yet when Michelle ran through it, Betsy shook her head. “Something’s missing,” she said. “It’s a good number, but it’s not...” She drifted off.
“I feel like I should be doing something more with my arms,” Michelle commented. “Like I should be clutching a cloak or a shroud or something.”
“Hmmmm,” said Betsy, but she did not need to do much consideration; another mental run-through of her choreography and the music left her thinking the girl was probably right. “We’ll have to do the number over if we put a prop in.”
“I’m game,” said Michelle. Then her eyes fell on Camille and Rudy, sitting patiently, watching, and said, “But, of course, I understand if-”
“No, it’s fine,” Rudy cut her off. “What use is it to do anything, if you are not willing to put in the time needed to do it rightly and properly?”
“Then we need a piece of cloth,” said Betsy. “Now I wish I’d thought to bring one.” She glanced around, as if something the right size and shape might suddenly appear. So did the other three.
Then Camille suddenly cried out, “Oh!” as if she was frightened, and Rudy anxiously asked her what the matter was.
“Nothing,” she said, “In fact, look,” she pointed. “I think something must have caught their....their coat maybe, on the chair over there!”
She pointed to a dark spot underneath one of the chairs, that, looking closely, was indeed a piece of cloth that had been caught on the chair’s foot-and also looked like it was from Joshua’s cloak.
“It looks perfect,” said Michelle, very happily, unable to have any idea of the shivers running down the spines of her three companions.
Camille had already gone up to the seat and pulled it free, and when she brought it back Betsy shivered again, because she could sense, which Camille and Rudy could not, the menacing magic that saturated the cloth.
Michelle sensed nothing, either, when she took the cloth, but she could not fail to notice the mood. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is this really going to take up too much time?”
“I think not,” said Betsy quietly, for now that she had the thoughts swirling in her head and saw looking at Michelle holding that piece of cloth, she could feel the program getting ready to unfold itself wholesale.
“So, what do you think it’ll be? What should it stand for?”
“A shroud,” said Betsy. “Very much a shroud.”
Unfold itself wholesale was exactly what the program did. Betsy gave her subject continuous directions which she obeyed, and though it took it little extra time she was soon running through their finished project, their tattered piece of cloth whipping about her face and hair as she held it about her, falling to her knees in the end as she held it up above her head, gazing at it in mourning. It was a beautiful sight, one of the best works she’d even done, but Betsy wasn’t sure how many times she was going to be able to standing watching it.
She felt a tug at herself, even, as if there was something she would be able to do or see if she was more skilled in magic.
When it was finally time for Camille and Rudy to get onto the ice, Michelle greeted them at the gate the same way she had Sheila and Diamond and the Russians. She even spoke to Camille in French and made her turn pink.
She glanced at her watch. “I fear there’s not much time left,” she said, “But let’s see what we can do with your short program music.”
At least there was no hurry, she reminded herself. Camille and Rudy’s only competitive skate for the next year was going to be in December, if it happened at all. Kate, after observing her progress in learning pairs skating, was more inclined to focus them completely on just learning to skate together.
“Do you mind if Michelle watches?” she asked to two of them. “Neither of us have breakfasted yet, and I think I should take her out to breakfast after this. If you don’t mind waiting, that is.”
“Not at all,” said Michelle, and nor did Camille or Rudy mind having her there. In fact, Betsy thought, it might have given them some heart, and in the end, they got more work done that morning than she had initially assumed.
Because Motion was learned before Control, it was a chaotic business. This time Joshua and Mrs. Weller had come over to Doug and Kate’s house, where Kate, always a touch house-proud and even more so since adding Fitzwilliam Darcy to her brain, had painstakingly unpacked and laid out everything to make the beautiful kind of living room that Doug still thought the very rich were bred to have. Hard work done in vain; Joshua had set up magical barriers to make sure they didn’t do anything to anything outside the room, but refused to protect most of the structures in it, instead suggesting they take all the electronic items and books out first. “Anything else I can repair afterwards, and I need to be able to get a proper impression of what you all do uncontrolled,” he said. Kate had had her first serious argument with him over it, and though her temper was a terrifying thing, it hadn’t had much of an effect on Joshua, who, after finding muting her and depriving her of her muscle power only earned her refusal to cooperate with him, had finally continually declared he was going to do it and let her yell as him until she was worn down.
She was furious at him, and Doug was pretty mad at his treatment of her himself. Mrs. Weller wasn’t exactly happy with him either. All three ended up taking it out on the living room. Within five minutes of Joshua first showing them how to move masses and molecules with their brains the furniture was smashed to pieces, their contents strewn across the floor, the rugs overturned and torn, the windows smashed and the walls filled with pock marks, and he called a stop to repair things. That took him half an hour, at the end of which he declared they would be learning Control starting with the next lesson.
But first there was more to be learned here; they had to get a sense of direction and speed and substance, said Joshua. They asked him what he meant by “substance,” but he told them he would explain later.
He didn’t get around to it that day. The next two practice sessions didn’t wreck the room quite as badly as the first, but each still only lasted a few minutes before again Joshua had to stop them and perform lengthy and large-scale repairs. His ability to do this, more than anything else, left Doug truly impressed with his magical powers, and he said so.
“Ah,” said Kate, “but has he not suggest you might be able to surpass him. With proper teaching, you may be able to conduct his repairs in half the time it takes him.”
“Right now we have other priorities,” said Joshua, “but I think it’s time for you next private lesson anyway.”
“As you wish,” said Kate. “Betsy, if perhaps you would stay here and we can remove to the dining room? I wish to have a word with Mrs. Rannow, and I may need for you to do so as well.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Mrs. Weller agreed, and they exited, Kate already with her phone out.
Once they were gone, Joshua said, “Your wife has informed me that the week after next Mr. MacAddie will be leaving the area.
“Yes,” said Doug, “he coaches a pair of young skaters who will be attending a competition down south, in Sheffield. I am afraid you are unlikely to be able to dissuade him.”
“She said the same,” said Joshua. “But, unfortunately, he may be putting himself in serious danger. You all certainly will in the future when you leave Edinburgh.”
“But that’s unavoidable!” said Doug.
“As you’ve all made clear to me. But if the Disciples manage to connect you to me, they’ll be more likely to attack you when you’re traveling, and it’s only a matter of time before they do that. It’s soon enough that MacAddie might be safe this time, but I need to teach you tonight how to determine that.”
“This sounds like Awareness,” Doug noted.
“It is,” said Joshua. “In fact, you’ll notice I’ve already taught all three of you how to both detect and identify, and analyze, sources of magic, and, more importantly, active magic users, around you. But now you need how to do it long distance. I believe Mrs. Weller’s going with MacAddie.”
“Yes,” said Doug, “she works with his pair too.”
“So she’ll be able to do some work to protect him, but before that, we’re both going to have to search out this entire island and determine where the magic users are, and you’re going to have to help me determine what they’re up to.”
It sounded a little overwhelming, but Doug did not want to admit to that. “So how do we start?”
“Do you know where Mrs. Weller’s house is, in relation to this one?”
Doug run through his memory. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
“I brought a map.” He spread it out on the restored and even perfectly re-doilied coffee table. You two live here, Mrs. Weller here. It’s a distance of about two miles.” He had written that on the map, which of course measured things in kilometers, but Doug wasn’t very good with the metric system either, so he wasn’t about to complain. In her house, of course, is my former colleague who chased me here and whom I’ve put into a permanent sleep. You’re going to start by being able to detect her, and what’s been done to her.
Sit down. Make yourself comfortable, then focus yourself.”
Doug obeyed. He sat down in what had quickly become his favorite chair, closed his eyes, and let his attention settle on his new senses, the constant addition to his life that he still wasn’t really used to yet. It was easier to handle, however, when it was the center of his attention like this. He was aware of the heavy saturation of magic in the room from the evening’s activities, of Joshua being in the room with him as another active magic user, and of Kate and Mrs. Weller being in the next room, also as active magic users. He was also aware that Joshua was doing a lot of mental exercise, and that Kate was pissed off.
“Now reach out,” said Joshua. “Like you were straining your eyes or ears to see or hear something a little further away.”
Doug reached out. He could sense the people in the neighboring houses now. They were dull, no active magic. He couldn’t sense anything about their mental state, but that was normal, Joshua had said to them.
“How much do you have? Can you tell? How many people?”
Doug counted them up. “Eleven, not counting the four of us.”
There was a pause, and Doug felt Joshua strain-counting them up himself, he realized. “Good. Now stretch out further.”
This was starting to give Doug a headache. He wondered how he could possibly get two miles to Mrs. Weller’s, let alone sense anything about the woman there. He forced himself to pay attention to more people, tried to keep some notion of how far apart they all were from each other, found he was having trouble keeping count of how many people he was now aware of and gave up on that. A few minutes later he thought that was a mistake, for now he had no idea how far his range had expanded, and all he could think is that there was no way it could be anywhere near two miles, but it was driving him crazy that he had no idea what fraction of that he had managed.
“Stop,” Joshua commanded, and Doug relaxed in relief. His world shrunk back down to the magic-filled room and Kate and Betsy outside it and the neighbors milling around elsewhere on the block. “Can you still sense more than you did at the beginning?”
“Yes,” mused Doug, “I can get the neighbors now without any trouble. Eight of them, I think.”
He heard Joshua sigh. “I was hoping for more. This isn’t going to go fast enough.”
“I’m doing all that I possibly can,” Doug said defensively.
“I know you are, Mr. Dorsey. But we have only a week.”
He made Doug do it again, and again. To Doug’s disappointment, each time only got him comfortable with a tiny handful more of people, and meanwhile, his head hurt worse and worse. Finally he had to lay down. “Unless you can magically heal me.”
“You wouldn’t let me,” said Joshua.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t have at the beginning of this evening, but now I would.”
“You think you would, but it doesn’t work that way. Healing can’t happen without genuine trust.”
Doug had to concede it did indeed sound like Joshua couldn’t heal him. So he lay on the couch with his eyes closed until the throbbing of his skull died down. Meanwhile, he sensed Kate’s anger and concentration had passed, and he thought she and Mrs. Weller might have finished their conversation with the ballet teacher.
Joshua confirmed this when he went to the kitchen to get Doug some water, which Doug drank gratefully. He also brought a pile of paper. “Try to tally the people you sense,” he said, “and I can tell you how far along you are, at least tonight. Though if all goes well, later in the week we’ll go beyond my abilities, and you’ll have to develop your own sense of distance.”
Encouraged by this new approach, Doug tried again. But his head still hurt, and it was hard to start. “Are you sure I can even do this tonight?”
“You should be able to. As I said, you must master this tonight if Mr. MacAddie is to be properly protected in Sheffield.”
Some part of Doug wondered if that was really true, or if Joshua just thought it was because he was overly anxious. But either way, Joshua would insist on them persisting.
Doug was now getting enough people in one go that he was filling up the sheets with tallies very quickly, such large numbers that he wasn’t sure if Joshua really kept track of them or not. When Joshua informed Doug he’d passed the mile mark, Doug wondered if he was just saying that to encourage him.
He had to lay down again shortly after that, but it was getting easier, and his general range was getting broader. He could now also sense the vague magical trails that the four of them seemed to be leaving behind them as they went about, and that helped him stretch his mind in the right direction, along the route he was pretty sure Joshua and Mrs. Weller had taken to get there that night.
It was hours after they had begun and Doug had sensed that Kate had gone to sleep and Mrs. Weller was falling asleep as well when he finally became aware of another magically active person. Focusing on her was like trying to study a tiny piece of a large and complicated painting while standing on the other side of the room from where it was hung. But he was able to identify the trace of spell enfolding her, as if she was cloaked. He could even describe the spell as heavy. He described it to Joshua, saying, “You’ve shrouded her in sleep.”
“That’s close enough a way to describe it, yes,” said Joshua. “I think we’re done for tonight. I’ll wake Mrs. Weller up and see us both out.”
Doug sensed them both leave as he stumbled upstairs and into the master bedroom, and into his nightclothes. In the bed, Kate stirred, “Morning,” she mumbled.
Doug glanced at the clock. And groaned. “You’re right. You have to be up in an hour or so, don’t you?”
“It’s okay,” she said, “You can sleep in. I’ll get my own breakfast. Aggravating night, though. We’re going to need a new ballet teacher.”
“A little more forward...not so stiff Ken, but more stiff, Faye...a little more speed-perfect, now jump....” Faye and Ken were running through their long program, and Diamond was skating alongside them. They would run through it a second time right after this, to build up endurance. Though Diamond was worried about Faye’s endurance; she was looking pale.
They’d chosen the music on their own; it was the soundtrack to some movie that had come out the previous year. When they ended the program, the flourish was with real feeling, but, Diamond thought regretfully, they couldn’t properly express the music the rest of the time; their minds were so occupied with the elements.
“Good job,” he said. “Have a drink.” He handed Faye his water bottle; she thanked him gratefully. She and Ken both drank as he went over to reset the CD.
As he passed by the Russians, Mr. Prokofiev stopped him. “How many more?” he asked impatiently.
“Once more,” said Diamond. “Need I remind you they have a competition next week?” Then, deeply startled by his own boldness, he hastily skated away.
Despite their clear exhaustion, they managed the second run-through technically clean, though a little bit slow; they finished behind the music, and their entire skating throughout was bulky. Afterwards he told them so, and set them back to work on their individual elements. He still was not at all happy with their jumping technique; they’d had serious problems with downgradings in the past and were deeply at risk for them here.
As they worked, they continually had to move out of the way of Natalia and Sergei, who now had right of way, as they were doing their run-throughs. Diamond wasn’t happy, either, with the way they avoided looking at the two of them, or the shame in their eyes. It made him wonder if he should possibly try to schedule them to share ice with someone else.
“You shouldn’t feel bad, you know,” he finally said after watching Natalia and Sergei execute a throw triple lutz caused Faye to fumble the landing on a throw double lutz. “You actually do a more perfect lutz than her, you know.”
“That’s because she learned it earlier,” said Faye grumpily, which was true; Faye had had the good fortune to be learning the lutz jump at the time it had suddenly become essential to execute a proper take-off; Natalia had already learned a more faulty take-off and been obliged to spend the next few years re-training herself to jump against her original instincts. It was a difficulty Sheila had suffered from as well.
The whole situation made him so cross he demanded use of the rink’s music system back, so Faye and Ken could at least run through their short one final time. Much to his relief it was a good run-through; there was a shaky moment on the lift but that was all.
“Remember we have an extra session Wednesday morning,” said Diamond. “We’ll be sharing the ice with my training mates Camille and Rudy, and our coach assures us you two should have priority the entire time; Camille and Rudy will be completely focused on their individual elements.” For that they’d have to share the ice with not only Camille and Rudy but also George and Nessa later in the day, but it would be worth it. “And I’ll expect you again during the public session in the evening. Try to get some sleep when you can, since we’ll all be up early Thursday.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Ken, and Faye repeated his thanks as they both dipped down. On the other side of the rink, the Russians were paying the same courtesy to their coach. After a year, Diamond still was not used to that.
His students waved to him as they left for the locker rooms. So did the Russians. He waved back, then sat down and took out his journal. He sat down, rubbing his hands together, and looked at Marianne’s last entry, scribbled after practice that morning:
George was not mistaken when he said you were a man of routine. How can you stand having your mind so dulled?
Two short sentences, but it felt like they stabbed him even now. He looked up, blinked hard. But time was short; as soon as Sheila came in they would have to start their warm-ups. He pulled himself together and wrote:
I live a life where the unexpected is seldom welcome, and I think that is only likely to grow more true. Mr. Dorsey hinted that I may put myself in grave danger in Sheffield next week. That is even more distressing when you consider the danger I may put Faye and Ken in as well, and they to not even know of it. On top of that, it will be my first separation from George since our relationship began.
They had know from the beginning, of course, that this was going to happen. They were in fact very lucky to have found each other in the same rink. Most who would have heard Diamond lament their imminent parting would have laughed at him. But Marianne, at least, understood. She, in fact, might scold him, because he would try to eat as normal and even sleep, and when he could spend so many more hours on the phone with George, something that hadn’t existed in her time, though she did at least respect his sense of responsibility.
It sounds like a dreadful schedule. You’ll barely be back a week before he and Nessa are off to the States for a week. They scarcely return before you and Sheila go there to compete, and will you even return at all before they go to Canada? At least you’re both assigned to Paris.
A difficult month, at least, but after that we share all competitions and almost all shows. We shall not be parted again until this time next year.
That thought cheered them both up considerably, just as he heard Mrs. Mosley come in with both Camille and Rudy. He leapt up when he heard the sound of crying. “Camille! By God, what’s the matter?”
Camille was wiping her tears away. “Nothing. Just some trouble at school.”
It was the exact excuse, right down to the tone of voice, he’d used to his parents countless times back when he’d been in school. When now he considered some of the things he defined as “trouble,” his heart shuddered.
“Camille is learning that it is best not to try to appease ignorant classmates,” said Mrs. Mosley. “It is a waste of energy and causes unneeded extra distress. If they could not mock you for either sounding French or sounding English, they would find something else to mock you for. Remember you will achieve things they will not dream of.”
She spoke so coldly Diamond wanted very badly to call her on it. But she was his own coach, and such things were not done with her. They had not been done with Pamchenko, and they were not with Mrs. Mosley.
“Come on, Camille,” said Rudy more gently. “This is a place in your life they should not touch.”
Diamond saw some of her gloom dispel at his words, and she said, “You are right.” She peered over the barrier, and seeing the ice clearly made her feel far better. “Let us start our stretching?”
He nodded, and the two of them set to work. Diamond peered down in the direction they had come. “Where is Sheila?”
But here she came now, hurrying along. “Just saw Faye,” she said. “She said she’s starting to feel a little more excited.”
“She’ll have time to get more excited,” he commented, even as they stood side by side and automatically fell into the warm-ups.
“And you?” she asked. “This is a new level of responsibility for you, after all.”
There was a pause as they both strained their arms and had to breath hard. Then he said, “I have not yet had the chance to think about it; so much has been happening.” Except that at that moment, he felt a weight drop into his chest. He hastily batted it away, but he feared it would interfere with his sleep for the rest of the week.