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As he approached, she took a moment to appreciate their similarities. I am odd, Dora thought. And Albert is odd. And everyone is aware, on some level
I told her that he was working under the severe handicap of his personality, and that she shouldn’t begrudge him the attempt.”
Why, the arrangement couldn’t be more perfect.” Dora gave up. Good luck with this one, Mr Lowe, she thought at Albert.
Fortune, Dora thought, had far less to do with the matter than did three particular meddling hens.
“I am very pleased to hear it,” she told him. Then, because she was sure that her voice had not communicated her feelings on the matter clearly enough, she added, “Truly. I fear my abilities of expression are not adequate to the task of thanking you properly.”
“I know my physician’s credentials are considered more respectable – but truly, Miss Ettings, proper physicians have the strangest medical ideas. Their obsession with bleeding confuses me terribly. I have never known bleeding to improve a patient . . . though I suppose it certainly quiets them.” He considered this very seriously, and then added, “On that note, I might prescribe bleeding for Elias one of these days. But only because he could sometimes use quieting.”
But Dora saw before he did that there was no blood of which to speak – only a small, angry red burn in the shape of the edge of her scissors.
“But are magicians burned by iron, Elias?” His golden eyes shuttered at that, and Dora was certain that a brand-new wariness had blossomed in his manner.
“I have known many human beings with a full soul to their name who do not have half so much compassion or practicality as you.
“Miss Ettings,” he greeted her. “How fine you look this evening. The dress does seem familiar, though, doesn’t it?” Dora smiled at him. From anyone else, the comment would have been an insult – and surely most of their company must have interpreted it as such. But since Elias had scoured the dress of colour himself, she suspected it was a friendly rejoinder instead. “Lord Sorcier,” she acknowledged him. “I fear you do not look so fine yourself; one suspects you have not slept enough. And your clothing also seems familiar. One suspects that you have slept in it.”
“I am scared of facing Albert,” he admitted. “I would rather face a French firing line again. But since it was Albert who saved me from something of that sort in the first place, I suppose that would be a terrible waste.”
“I can forgive much,” Vanessa said softly. “But if he should ever speak to you the way that he spoke to Lady Carroway, I will find a new pair of scissors, Dora.” Dora managed a smile at that. “You do not need to find a new pair of scissors, Vanessa,” she said. “You gave me a pair of my own, and you taught me how to use them.”
Elias did say that perhaps I could manage, even without the spells. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternative somehow, and so Dora slipped out of her borrowed room and went off in search of a mirror.
“What are you doing, you twit?” Elias’s voice hissed behind her,
This time, when his heat departed, Dora thought she must have felt the cold – because the absence of him made her feel as though something crucial was missing.
The pile of ugliness at the bottom of her mind was bigger than it had ever been before, pressing dangerously at the surface of her consciousness. Dora knew it was becoming a problem, but she continued to ignore it mostly because she did not know what else to do with it.
But I promised Albert that I would be kinder to myself. And so I tried to think of where I would want to be if I were not so bound to this hopeless task.” Dora knit her brow. “You cannot have thought of Lady Cushing’s ball,” she said sceptically. “I did not,” Elias said. “I thought of you, Dora. But you are here, and so here I am.”
My condition confounds me.”
“I am a doll sometimes, and not a human being at all.”
“It may be true that you only have half a soul, Dora,” he whispered, with a surprising abundance of empathy in his voice. “But that does not make you half a person
He paused, now looking somewhat offended at himself. “And I love to dance with you. That is the worst of it by far.”
Albert reached up to rub at his forehead. Wilder, he thought, was an odd one.
And these were the first words that the magician said, after an entire year of absence: “You are still missing an arm?”
“When you lose track of the tally,” Albert told Elias gravely, “I suspect that means that you have become friends.”
