with a pink balloon poodle bobbing over her head. “See what I have, Miss Newton? I’m going to call her Guinevere. What do you think, Mr. Emfinger?”
Alec released my arm and stepped back. “I think that’s a lovely name, Olive. And now I must be going. It was so good to see you again, Miss Newton, and a pleasure to meet you, Olive.”
I barely heard Olive’s chatter on our way back to the house, I was so torn inside my mind. I did believe there was injustice, and I wanted to please Alec, but I doubted that my reporting on the governor’s home would do much for the cause. It would more likely jeopardize my position, which I couldn’t risk losing. Why did he have to ask such an impossible thing of me?
Monday morning’s newspaper contained a story about how the Masked Bandits had nearly been caught in an attempted burglary at the tax agent’s office on Saturday night. Guards had been waiting for them and the bandits had fled with no money, but the guards believed that at least one of them had been injured in the fight. I wondered for a moment if that could possibly have had something to do with Lord Henry’s wound, but as I studied him across the breakfast table from over the top of the newspaper, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe the eccentric and absentminded amateur scientist capable of committing such daring crimes.
As Olive and I walked our usual route back home from Rollo’s school that morning, Olive said, “Look, Miss Newton, there’s your friend!”
Nat stood on a street corner only a couple of blocks away from his previous position with a stack of papers. He waved to us. “Hey, Olive and Verity!” he called out. “Verity, you’ll want a copy of today’s issue. There’s an important story.”
Curious, I handed him a coin and took a paper. Olive stood on her tiptoes to look at the front page. “Those words are big,” she complained. “What does it say?”
“‘Mechanics’ Exposition,’” I read. “It means that people were showing off machines they built.”
“Rollo would like that.”
“I’m sure he would.” The byline on the article was “Liberty Jones,” but it was the article I’d written. I’d never seen my own words in print like that before, and I couldn’t hold back a smile.
Nat winked and said, “That article’s selling a lot of papers for me today. Liberty Jones must be a great writer.”
“It’s likely the subject matter,” I said, struggling for modesty. “Thank you for the newspaper, Nat. Come along, Olive.”
The thrill of having my article published didn’t change my mind about using my position to report on the magisters. I did waver somewhat, though, when the afternoon post brought a letter from Lizzie, with a banknote in payment for my article enclosed. I supposed that made me a professional journalist.
And, quite possibly in the government’s eyes, a rebel.
IN WHICH I OVERHEAR VALUABLE INFORMATION
I was correcting one of Olive’s papers late Tuesday afternoon when a surge struck me and I remembered that Lord Henry was teaching magic again. I groaned as I fought to get my breathing under control. I needed to be able to manage my reactions to magic, and that was even more important now that I was going to the governor’s house, whether as a journalist or as a chaperone.
Then it occurred to me that while so much magic was in use during the lessons, they might not notice a little more. This was my opportunity to learn how to shield myself. I headed straight for the library, where I hoped to find a basic treatise on the subject.
It wasn’t easy to concentrate with waves of magic making me reel. Every so often, I had to lean my forehead against the bookcase and take deep, steadying breaths. At last, I found what appeared to be the right book. I carried it to a table and hid it behind a history book.
I quickly skimmed the text. What I knew of magic, I’d learned by instinct or imitated from novels, so this was the first authoritative information I’d read. It seemed that the ability to use magic was a talent for channeling and directing power from the ether. “Spells” were merely a step-by-step procedure for doing this, and once someone had internalized the process, it was no longer necessary to consciously follow each step. I was rather pleased with myself for having learned this on my own. Hand gestures and contact were helpful