Kate Elliott - Cold Magic

The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice.

Or at least, that's how the dawn chill felt in the bedchamber as I shrugged out from beneath the cozy feather comforter under which my cousin and I slept. I winced as I set my feet on the brutally cold wood floor. Any warmth from last evening's fire was long gone. At this early hour, Cook would just be getting the kitchen's stove going again, two floors below. But last night I had slipped a book out of my uncle's parlor and brought it to read in my bedchamber by candlelight, even though we were expressly forbidden from doing so. He had even made us sign a little contract stating that we had permission to read my father's journals and the other books in the parlor as long as we stayed in the parlor and did not waste expensive candlelight to do so. I had to put the book back before he noticed it was gone, or the cold would be the least of my troubles.

After all the years sharing a bed with my cousin Beatrice, I knew Bee was such a heavy sleeper that I could have jumped up and down on the bed without waking her. I had tried it more than once. So I left her behind and picked out suitable clothing from the wardrobe: fresh drawers, two layers of stockings, and a knee-length chemise over which I bound a fitted wool bodice. I fumblingly laced on two petticoats and a cutaway overskirt, blowing on my fingers to warm them, and over it buttoned a light-fitting, hip-length jacket cut in last year's fashionable style.

With my walking boots and the purloined book in hand, I cracked the door and ventured out onto the second-floor landing to listen. No noise came from my aunt and uncle's chamber, and the little girls, in the nursery on the third floor above, were almost certainly still asleep. But the governess who slept upstairs with them would be rousing soon, and my uncle and his factotum were usually up before dawn. They were the ones I absolutely had to avoid.

I crept down to the first-floor landing and paused there, peering over the railing to survey the empty foyer on the ground floor below. Next to me, a rack of swords, the badge of the Hassi Barahal family tradition, lined the wall. Alongside the rack stood our house mirror, in whose reflection I could see both myself and the threads of magic knit through the house. Uncle and Aunt were important people in their own way. As local representatives of the far-flung Hassi Barahal clan, they discreetly bought and sold information, and in return might receive such luxuries as a cawla protective spell bound over the house by a drua -or door and window locks sealed by a blacksmith to keep out unwanted visitors.

I closed my eyes and listened down those threads of magic to trace the stirring of activity in the house: our man-of-all-work, Pompey, priming the pump in the garden; Cook and Aunt Tilly in the kitchen cracking eggs and wielding spoons as they began the day's baking. A whiff of smoke tickled my nose. The tread of feet marked the approach of the maidservant, Callie, from the back. By the front door, she began sweeping the foyer. I stood perfectly still, as if I were part of the railing, and she did not look up as she swept back the way she had come until she was out ol my sight.

Abruptly, my uncle coughed behind me.

I whirled, but there was no one there, just the empty passage and the stairs leading up to the bedchambers and attic beyond. Two

closed doors led off the first-floor landing: one to the parlor and one to my uncle's private office, where we girls were never allowed to set foot. I pressed my ear against the office door to make sure he was in his office and not in the parlor. My hand was beginning to ache from clutching my boots and the book so tightly.

"You have no appointment," he said in his gruff voice, pitched low because of the early hour.

"My factotum says he did not let you in by the back door."

"I came in through the window, maester." The voice was husky, as if scraped raw from illness. "My apologies for the intrusion, but my business ism delicate one. I am come from overseas. Indeed, I just arrived, on the airship from Expedition."

"The airship! From Expedition!"

"You find it incredible, I'm sure. Ours is only the second successful transoceanic flight."

"Incredible," murmured Uncle.

Incredible? I thought. It was astounding. I shifted so as to hear better as Uncle went on.

"But you'll find a mixed reception for such innovations here in Adurnam."

"We know the risks. But that is not my personal business. I was given your name before I left Expedition. I was told we have a mutual interest in certain Iberian merchandise."

Uncle's voice got sharper without getting louder. "The war is over."

"The war is never over."

"Are you behind the current restlessness infecting the city's populace? Poets declaim radical ideas on the street, and the prince dares not silence them. The common folk are like maddened wasps, buzzing, eager to sting."

"I've nothing to do with any of that," insisted the mysterious visitor. Too bad! I thought. "I was told you would be able to help me write a letter, in code."

My heart raced, and I held my breath so as not to miss a word. Was I about to tumble onto a family secret that Bee and I were not yet old enough to be trusted with? But Uncle's voice was clipped and disapproving, and his answer sadly prosaic.

"I do not write letters in code. Your sources are out of date. Also, I am legally obligated to stay well away from any Iberian merchandise of the kind you may wish to discuss."

"Will you close your eyes when the rising light marks the dawn of a new world?"

Uncle's exasperation was as sharp as a fire being extinguished by a blast of damp wind, but my curiosity was aflame. "Aren't those the words being said by the radicals' poet, the one who declaims every evening on Northgate Road? I say, ,we should fear the end of the orderly world we know. We should fear being swallowed by storm and flood until we are drowned in a watery abyss of our own making."

"Spoken like a Phoenician," said the visitor with a low laugh that made me pinch my lips together in anger.

"We are called Kena'ani, not Phoenician," retorted my uncle stiffly.

"I will call you whatever you wish, if you will only aid me with what I need, as I was assured you could do."

"I cannot. That is the end of it."

The visitor sighed. "If you will not aid our cause out of loyalty, perhaps I can offer you money. I observe your threadbare furnishings and the lack of a fire in your hearth on this bitter-cold dawn. A man of your importance ought to be using fine beeswax rather than cheap tallow candles. Better yet, he ought to have a better design of oil lamp or even the new indoor gas-light to burn away the shadows of night. I have gold. I suspect you could use it to sweeten the trials of your daily life, in exchange for the information I need."

I expected Uncle to lose his temperhe so often didbut he did not raise his voice. "I and my kin are bound by hands stronger than my own, by an unbreakable contract. I cannot help you. Please go, before you bring trouble to this house, where it is not wanted."

"So be it. I'll take my leave."

The latch scraped on the back window that overlooked the narrow garden behind our house.

Hinges creaked, for this time of year the window was never oiled or opened. An agile person could climb from the window out onto a stout limb to the wall; Bee and I had done it often enough. I heard the window thump closed.