Page 4 of Unexpected Magic

Weather working. Invisibility. Levitation. Elemental mastery. Magical beast handling. Scrying. Precognition. Translocation (of objects, sounds, and even himself—though he had given up on shifting living things when pieces of a pigeon he tried to translocate ended up in three different places. He could only be grateful it hadn’t happened the time he translocated himself.) You named it, Jasper could do it.Sometimes.

Apparently, today was not his day for precognition. Something was happening, somewhere? How useful was that? It was very frustrating.

He might as well go and seclude himself in the tower they had given him in the ducal palace’s gardens, so he could mess things up without affecting anyone but himself. He needed toread the grimoire Mr. Fellowes had sent him from one of the little principalities in Germany. It might have a few clues about managing his magic.

*

Nettleford Grange

Millie could nothelp Delia. The little scullery maid who came instead had heard the gossip that was, apparently, streaking through the house and out into the estate.

Polly reported that Father had sent for the stable girl immediately after the birth, because the little unicorn was lashing out in panicked anger at everyone in the loose box. But when he sent Millie in, the little unicorn had tried to kill her. Fortunately, the animal was too small to do much harm in the seconds it took for Father to retrieve the girl. “She has cuts and bruises, miss,” said Polly. “The master is furious. He is threatening to have some of the stable hands beaten before he turns them off.”

Polly was still hovering by the door to the stall. She was not accustomed to horses, was nervous around the mare and terrified of the unicorn, and was not large enough to wield a pitchfork or even one of the big stable brooms.

She was, however, another pair of hands, and the unicorn was calm in her presence, so she was still a virgin. And she should be, for Polly could not be more than ten. And Millie was only fourteen, and a good girl. Delia’s surge of rage at what must have happened to her friend disturbed the unicorn. He went rigid, raising his head and staring at the door as if to seek out whatever was upsetting her.

This would not do. Delia murmured soothingly, driving her anger back, focusing on her small charge. He looked up ather, his eyes changing from red to purple and finally to a brilliant sapphire blue the same color as the pretty shimmer that surrounded him. “There, now, Sapphire,” she said to him. “That’s better.”

“She is very pretty,” said Polly.

“He,” Delia corrected. “Unicorns are all boys. Isn’t he sweet? Would you like to pat him?”

Polly cast a hurried glance at the door, shut firmly behind her. “Won’t he attack me, Miss?”

“Unicorns attack men and also women who smell of men,” said Delia, calmly. “He likes nice little girls like you. Come closer, Polly. He won’t hurt you.”

It took time, but eventually, Delia had little Sapphire settled in Polly’s lap, the two staring blissfully into one another’s eyes.

Delia moved a few steps away, and Sapphire did not react. “Polly, I am going to take Lightning out,” Delia said. “She needs to have the man-smell washed away so that Sapphire can feed.”

Polly nodded without taking her eyes from the unicorn.

Lightning followed Delia from the loose box easily enough. She led the horse through a stable that was empty of all the usual bustle. Several horses watched her, as did the stable cat, but the place had been cleared of stable hands.

They were outside, scurrying back and forth from the little building that was occasionally used to quarantine horses. Father was directing the work, but came striding toward her as soon as she emerged into the courtyard. He stopped several paces away.

“Cordelia, how is the colt?”

“Calm, for the moment. Lightning needs to be washed, sir, so the colt can feed.”

“Good, good. I’ll have someone draw water. You’ll have to wash and groom the mare, Cordelia. I’m setting the maids to cleaning the quarantine house now the boys have finishedclearing it, and you can move the mare and her foal there once it is ready.”

Even as he spoke, here came the younger maids, a whole group of them under the housekeeper’s command, hurrying toward the quarantine house with buckets, dusters, brooms, and mops.

“Thank you, Father. He will be calmer if he has a place away from the main stable block.”

At that moment, Sapphire screamed his rage once more. Both Lightning and Delia whirled around to face whatever danger the little colt had detected. Before they could make a move toward the stable, the air in front of them shimmered and suddenly Edgar stood there in the center of the shimmer, his face panicked and then bewildered as he looked around the courtyard.

Sapphire’s rage cut off. “I need to check the unicorn,” Delia said, tossing Lightning’s bridle toward Father’s hand. She circled her brother and reentered the stable.

Behind her, she could hear Father asking Edgar what had happened. Delia could make a guess. Edgar had sneaked into the stable, and tried to see the unicorn, who had attacked. He must have escaped by magic, but whose? Polly had never shown any signs of magic, or she would not be a scullery maid, and no one else was inside the stable block. Could it have been the unicorn?

The little colt was still purple-eyed, standing as if on guard in front of Polly, who was pressed against the wall in the corner. It took Delia another ten minutes to calm them both down.

Back outside again, she found Lightning waiting for her, tethered to a ring, with buckets, brushes, combs and linen clothes set neatly beside her. No human was in sight. No stable hands. No Father. No Edgar.

She set to work washing the mare. Wet and soap the horse all over.