Heart's Blood(67)

Jax was shirtless, braces dangling from his trousers, his face half lathered, in the midst of shaving himself. "Harry warned me you might be by to talk." Jax shook Grey's hand and waved him to a chair. "Sounded urgent, so I assumed you wouldn't mind talking while I-" He waved a hand at his shaving paraphernalia and gave a wry smile. "Completed my toilette."

"How did you know I was here?" Grey perched on the edge of the chair, poised to run.

"Footman told me." Jax lathered up the rest of his face. "Had them keeping an eye out for you. Since Harry's warning. I take it you want to know about being a sorceress's familiar."

Grey cleared his throat, which Jax took as assent.

He picked up the sharpened razor and examined his face as if selecting an angle of attack. "Truth is, I haven't much experience as a familiar. Yvaine, my first sorceress, made me her servant. Not her familiar." Jax tilted his head and drew the razor carefully along his left cheek. Without cutting himself at all, Grey marveled.                       
       
           



       

"There doesn't seem to be a difference between the two," Grey said.

"There is an entire world of difference." Jax paused to finish his cheeks, then spoke again. "I imagine my manner is a great deal of what has put you off the idea. I learned it over the century and more I served Yvaine. She chose me because I am completely blind and deaf to magic. I can't hear the faintest whisper of it, so I couldn't tell what she was doing to me until she had me bound so tightly I couldn't piss without permission. I truly was her slave. But Amanusa is not Yvaine. Neither is Pearl. And neither are you head-blind."

Jax took another moment to shave his upper lip. "The difference between familiar and servant is in the blood. The exchange of blood. Yvaine never took in a drop of my blood. Amanusa did, even before we were forced to break and remake our bond. Now I am as much a part of her as she is of me. I have the ability to choose. My will is my own."

He grimaced, looking odd with soap still on his chin and neck. "I am still head-blind, so I have little enough to contribute to the bond. That is why I hold back. Because I am no magician, not because the familiar bond constrains me. But you-" He gestured with the razor, flinging water drops about.

"You are magister of the conjury guild. You have enough magic in your own right that you could likely constrain Pearl with it, if you wished. She is a powerful sorceress, but small, so probably not as powerful as Amanusa."

"Size makes a difference?" Grey latched onto the trivial to avoid considering the deeper things.

"Sorcery must be held in blood, bone, and flesh," Jax said when he finished shaving his neck. "The smaller the sorceress, the less magic she can hold. But Pearl has great finesse. She can do more with less." Jax smiled in private amusement. "Amanusa tends to go in more for brute force."

"You're taller than I am," Grey said. "Does that mean you can hold more magic as a familiar than I was able to?"

"I'm also head-blind, and you are so very not." Jax shrugged. "I have no idea whether that makes a difference. Does your conjury block out some of the sorcery? Or does it provide more room? We could experiment, if you were still a familiar."

He held up the razor and gave his chin a determined look. "A moment, if you please. This is the tricky part. Not quite a divot in my chin, but almost."

Grey chewed over what he had learned, both from Pearl and from Jax. It sounded as if he had overreacted to the discovery that Pearl had made him her familiar. Indeed, he seemed to have done as much to cause it as she had, perhaps more. Furthermore, according to Jax, being a true familiar, was far from the subservient role it sounded to the ignorant. Like himself.

Now that he thought back with a mind clear of both fear and anger, Grey remembered the magic he and Pearl had worked together. She had never compelled him. She had tempted him-God, how she'd tempted him. But that had been just Pearl being Pearl. Merely the magic every woman held over every man in existence.

"Any other questions?" Jax was toweling his face clean. He reached for his shirt, pulling it on over his singlet.

"As Amanusa's familiar, you say you can choose. How?" Grey wanted it all out on the table face up, where he could see it.

"I can block her." Jax buttoned his shirt. "Most times, it's as simple as saying no." His smile was fond. No, besotted. "Though there are few things she wants I can say no to."

"It seems an extremely . . . intimate bond." That made Grey uncomfortable, the intimacy. He'd never liked being so exposed to another person, so vulnerable. Yet he had been with Pearl. Almost from the beginning.

"It is, for us." Jax paused in tucking in his shirt and shook his head. "And I cannot tell you if it was always so. Yvaine was the last sorceress, and the only sorceress for most of the time I was with her." He looked up, meeting Grey's gaze. "You will have to find your own way in this."

"As in most everything else to do with sorcery." Grey sighed. He slapped his thighs and stood, then waited while Jax settled his braces on his shoulders.

"What will you do?" Jax said.

Grey opened his mouth and realized he had no idea what he meant to say, so he said that. "I don't know."

Jax nodded. "Whatever you decide, I'll support you. ‘Familiarity' isn't easy. Not everyone can manage it." He grinned. "But Harry said to remind you-the new moon's tonight."

Grey grimaced as he shook hands with the magister's familiar. "No pressure."

Jax laughed. "None at all."

But Grey had decided, or almost. He still had a few qualms, but they were his own squeamishness, mostly. He could deal with them. He checked his watch. The morning progressed. The sorceress and her students roused early to their studies. Pearl might be available for discussion. So, did he want this? Truly?



PEARL HAD JUST finished breakfast in the private parlor at Brown's, and went to the lobby to wait while the others went up to collect their wraps and umbrellas. She'd brought hers with her from her rooms over the carriage house.

"Miss Parkin." That dear, dark chocolate voice slid through her, leaving a trail of quivers behind.

"Grey." Pearl spun, faster than would display the cool unconcern she wished. "Magister Carteret. What are you doing here? At this hour?"

Why couldn't he leave her alone to heal? Why did she have to sound so alarmed? She wanted to sound indifferent.

"I had some business to conduct."

"Ah." She curtseyed, dismissing him to go conduct it.

But he didn't go away. "With me? What business could you possibly have with me? The bond is broken. Utterly and completely. I swear it. Amanusa swears it. Do we need to get Elinor and Cranshaw and Ferguson to swear it, too?"

He was smiling. At her. Was that good?

No. It was bad. Terrible. It made her think he liked her, and he didn't. Not the way she wanted him to. "What do you want?" She tried to keep her voice down. Truly.

"I want you to remake the familiar bond," Grey said.

Wait. What?

Pearl looked at him, studied him carefully. He was smiling, but faintly. Not as if he was waiting for her to laugh at his joke. Pearl removed her bonnet. Sometimes it interfered with her hearing. "What did you say?"

"I would like for you to remake the familiar bond." That sounded like what he had said the first time.

Pearl touched his forehead. He didn't feel feverish, so she touched her own. Could one feel one's own fever?

Grey laughed as he captured her fever-testing hand. "Only you can make me laugh at the same time I want to shake you. You heard me correctly, and neither of us is feverish."

"Then you have run mad. I'll have Harry come fetch you for the asylum. The last time anyone mentioned the word ‘familiar' in your presence, you very nearly frothed at the mouth."

"I apologize. Abjectly." He bowed, but he didn't let go of her hand. Pearl twisted it free. "But I meant what I said. I want the familiar bond remade."

"Why?" She sat on the hope struggling to break free. It was rather like sitting on a sack full of large cats wanting out.

"Harry came to see me. The new moon is tonight. We need all the magic we can get if we are to find Katriona and stop the murderer. Even I cannot deny the increase in magic for both of us when I was your familiar."                       
       
           



       

The cats stopped wriggling, drowning in despair. Though the despair was quickly overwhelmed by guilt. What did her own heartache matter when Katriona, or someone else, faced death and demons and worse? Though what could be worse-

Pearl cut off her mental blathering. "I see."

"Strictly business," he said.

"Of course." Pearl stanched the bleeding in her heart. It didn't matter. Katriona, or whoever the murderer planned to sacrifice, did. The demon did. "Very well. I will do it."