Joe’s gaze moved from side to side, taking in width, while John’s kept moving up, high enough that Julian was no longer sure if he was looking at the house or the sky, deep blue with only a few thin, isolated wisps of cloud across it today, above it. What she was sure of, though, was that both boys looked absolutely stunned at the sight of her house, an impression finally confirmed by John.
“Holy – “ he muttered.
“Nice, eh?” said Julian.
“And this is yours?” asked Joe, apparently unable to believe it until she said it again.
Julian started to answer in the affirmative, but then shook her head instead. Joe raised an eyebrow in surprise and Julian smiled. “It’s ours,” she said, gesturing to include both of her brothers. “And the others, of course, but they’re not here right now, so – “
John glanced at her. “So the gods do stand up for bastards sometimes,” he remarked. “Are there any crypts?”
This struck Julian as a strange thing to ask, even for John. She really hoped the meaning of it became apparent quickly and didn’t involve using the bones of her ancestors for…any purpose she could possibly imagine, actually. “Not that I know of…” she said.
“Oh, good,” said John. “I was afraid we’d have to fight off a horde of – former-owners, you know, if any of them heard what you just said….”
Julian knew she would be within her rights to take offense to that, but she decided to laugh instead. It wasn’t, after all, as though he was wrong – the former owners probably would at least want to come back as a horde of zombies at the thought of her moment of sentimentality being true. “You clearly haven’t memorized the Advanced Defense books yet,” she said, mock-sternly. “Inferi require a Dark wizard to control them.”
For a moment, she could tell John was thinking of a Remark and she willed him not to make it. Apparently, it was a good day for the wandless, nonverbal Imperius, because he didn’t make the Remark she could practically see him formulating in his head. Neither of them had acknowledged fault in their argument at Easter, but nor had either of them ever tried to re-assert their points and John had been highly complimentary of the apple cake Julian had made the morning before the boys arrived home in no small part as a peace offering. Julian didn’t know if he had even meant what he’d said or if it had just been something made up in a flash of anger, but she wanted more than anything to think that it had been the latter. She tried not to think about the implications of John possibly being the sort of person who said horrible things just to hurt people when he lost his temper. It was better than the alternative.
“My mistake,” said John instead of implying that William or Sallie could do the job or any variation on the idea that she could surely rustle one up from somewhere in her extended family tree, a thing he knew nothing about. She couldn’t imagine half of the family members she was somewhat acquainted with conjuring up Inferi without laughing and couldn’t help but think that the other half would probably think dealing with stinking corpses was beneath them.
Since John had not presumed knowledge he didn’t have out loud, though, Julian put her hands together, trying to hide her relief. “Okay, come on,” she said, trying to hurry past the slightly strained moment. “I’ve just got time to show you two around before I have to go play landlady for a while.”
She was already walking away as she said that. Behind her, John and Joe glanced at each other.
“Did she just say ‘play landlady’?” asked Joe.
“She just said ‘play landlady’,” said John.
Julian led them into the house, where odd, angled windows near the ceiling provided most of the light for the entrance hall. The rest came from the kind of tall, heavy, tiered metal stands that held a dozen candles each, placed at intervals around it. The brightest spot was a pair of double doors situated between two of them. John squinted toward the doors and Joe followed his brother’s line of sight, making out what looked like a carving of trees.
“Those are all over the place,” said Julian. “Trees and rising suns,” she explained when John looked momentarily confused. “Like those.”
“One of the things ‘Crowley’ can mean is ‘wood of crows,’” observed John. “I guess they had that in mind, but I don’t know what rising suns would have to do with anything.”
“I don’t know why you know any of the meanings of the former owners’ name,” said Julian.
“I looked it up after I found out what it was,” said John. He did not elaborate on what Joe thought Julian had meant, which was why he had bothered to do that. “The other meaning’s something about ‘descendant of the hardy hero,’ if you’re Irish. How do you know it’s a rising sun instead of setting?”
“I was told,” said Julian. “Bertram said a lot of them started adding that to – seals and things – when they came here – to Canada, I mean,” said Julian, gesturing vaguely toward tapestries with images of the Rockies on them. “New beginnings and all – making the best of being second sons sent here to get them out of the way.”
“Good old Cousin Wooster,” said John.
“I liked him better before I realized he's sleeping with Sallie,” said Julian and John made such a bizarre noise at that utterly matter-of-fact statement that Joe slapped his back, half-concerned that his brother was choking on his own spit. “It’s just – kind of weird, under the circumstances,” continued Julian as though she noticed nothing. “Follow me?”
“To the death,” intoned Joe with undue gravity, and she laughed.
There was a bewildering array of rooms upstairs, all with that blend of the medieval and the Victorian that Joe thought of as distinctively pureblooded. None of them was particularly interesting, though, until they got to a pair of doors carved only with the apparently-rising (how, exactly, did one distinguish a rising from a setting sun in wood?) sun and Julian announced, “and here’s the library.”
John whirled around to stare at her. “You have a library?” he said.
“I haven’t checked all the books to make sure they aren’t fakes, but I think so,” said Julian. “It’s a room with a lot of bona-fide print materials, anyway. And yes, you can use it,” she said, preempting the next request.
“You may never get rid of him again, you know,” said Joe, grinning. John barely paused to give Joe a dirty look before opening the door and hurrying in to see his new toys. Joe and Julian followed him into a surprisingly spacious, airy room. Windows lined three walls and much of the ceiling, no doubt to give as much light to read by as possible, and the bits of wall visible between shelves and tapestries (spring trees, bright green leaves and pale bark, against bright blue skies) had been painted white. There was no check-out desk, which made it look strange to Joe’s eye, but the many shelves full of books, scrolls, and other parchments made it, unmistakably, a library.
“It’s…sort of hard to figure out the organization,” said Julian. “And not everything’s in English. I was hoping you and Mom could help me with some of the stuff that’s in Latin and French, and Paul with the German….”
John’s smiles tended to be short and rather mechanical, but his expression just then almost did a better job of lighting the room than the windows and candle trees did. Joe exhaled in relief, finally satisfied that his siblings were firmly back on good terms. They roamed the shelves, whose haphazard nature Julian had not over-stated, for a while before Julian glanced at her watch and made a tutting noise.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I have to change into robes before everyone gets here….”
“Why?” asked John, not looking up from a book whose title, though recognizably in English, contained not one word utilizing modern spelling. The condition of its binding suggested said spelling had been the modern spelling when the volume had first been produced.
“It’s just a thing…If you want to go see the gardens while I do boring adult things, just go down the stairs at the end of the hall and out the door on the right. Just make sure to turn around and run away as fast as possible if you see anything move.”
“Can we come watch you do boring adult things instead?” asked John.
Julian hesitated, but Joe couldn’t tell if it was from apprehension or just surprise. “Of course,” she said finally, “but I can’t see why you’d want to….”
Joe couldn’t, either, but John caught his eye and he decided to go along with whatever it was John had in mind. “We’re examining our career options,” he said cheerfully.
Julian raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t question him further. “Well, we’ll be in the room with the doors – the first doors we saw when we came in downstairs,” she said. “There’s side doors if you get bored and want to leave, just don’t make a fuss.”
The first doors they’d seen downstairs, it turned out, opened into a very large room. There were fireplaces on two walls, big stone ones, many surprisingly fancy metal brackets for torches, and the floor was patterned tiles, green and white and tan checks. The tan checks were surrounded by triangles of a deeper yellow-brown color, creating the impression of stylized golden stars and making the floor uneven enough that Joe could feel it through the somewhat worn (he needed new ones, but hadn’t been home long enough to get around to it) rubber soles of his runners. Two arched doors led into stairs and there were boxy brown wooden chairs with green cushions behind a table holding up a bright blue drape embroidered with golden stars, a bowl of fruit, a heavy, very old-fashioned looking book, writing implements, and a lot of candles. The golden-haired woman Joe recognized as Sallie Lynch, Julian’s birth mother and apparently her cousin’s lover, had charge of the book. At the far end of the table, standing beside a bench holding up a few people who seemed to be waiting for something in their Sunday best, stood Julian’s boyfriend William. He paused in making pleasant conversation with the first person in line when Joe and John entered, joining everyone else in looking at them in apparent puzzlement.
William, with his perfectly ordinary haircut and past history of dressing like a fairly typical country club type except for the different labels, looked very strange to Joe in robes. Almost as strange as Joe felt he and John must look to everyone else, as everyone else in the room was Very Magical in dress and both of them were wearing jeans, Joe had on a t-shirt, and John was in a short-sleeved plaid button-down that was hardly, in context, any better.
Joe did what came naturally in that situation: he grinned. “Afternoon, everyone,” he said, and a ripple of laughter followed. William grinned back, evidently deciding they weren’t apparitions and that he should just roll with their presence as though he had expected it all along.
“Good afternoon, Joe,” he said. “John.” John nodded, his eyes on a wall hanging several feet away from William. “Miss Lynch, I assume you know….”
“I do,” said Sallie. “I didn’t know they were going to be here, though.”
There was a sound of rapid footsteps on stairs and Julian emerged from one of the arched openings in the wall, her dress now either replaced by or covered by a set of long teal robes. She smiled distractedly and gave William a brief peck, to the indulgent smiles of her guests. She frowned a little, though, when she saw John and Joe just standing there.
“William, will you get my brothers some chairs?” she asked. There was some surprised murmuring, eyes moving between them all until Joe, to his horror, realized that these people might well assume he and John were her maternal half-brothers. He hoped John didn’t come to the same conclusion about what they were probably thinking; while Joe doubted John disliked Sallie as much as he did their birth mother, a theory supported by the frost that wasn’t forming on all the walls right now, John had never liked Miss Lynch, either. William, not looking best pleased somehow, did as Julian asked him to, and Julian was all smiles again as she settled into the largest chair at the center of the table.
“Now,” she said. “Mr. Aubrey, it looks like you got here first this time…”
Each of the little group handed Miss Lynch a small bag, which Joe quickly realized contained gold, and Miss Lynch made notes as Julian chatted with the person, asking after this one’s garden and that one’s sick grandchild. One had had to replace a fence, and Julian promised to see to it he got his expenses back. Several promised her produce from their gardens. Now and then, Sallie or William leaned over to say something in her ear, but Julian gave the – slightly bizarre, to her brothers – impression of being the one in charge here.
After a time, John and Joe exchanged a look and Joe nodded. They both quietly left. In the unfamiliar corridor the side stairs led them to, they stood side by side, looking straight ahead at a tapestry with pictures of a banquet on it until finally John broke the silence.
“Great Scott,” said John, his tone oddly dull for the circumstances. “Our sister’s a feudal overlord.”
“Uh-huh,” said Joe.
* * * * * * * *
Some examination of the nearest window led them to conclude they had somehow moved from the first floor to the third. When they rediscovered the second (a more complicated undertaking than it initially looked; John would bet Julian’s best hat that there were various enchantments on the stairs, all very old-school), Joe decided to take Julian up on her offer to examine the gardens while John opted to return to the library. He was curious to see what out there had brought on Julian’s admonition to run if it moved, but he needed to re-orient himself to this world where Julian was a feudal overlord first and so told Joe that he was just going to finish something he had been looking at when they’d left the library in the first place and that he would join his brother outside within ten minutes. He opened the doors, each one carved with a rising sun and with a third, divided bronze one for door handles. The smell of parchment steadied him considerably from the start, but not enough to make this strange new reality make the proper measure of sense. Julian, a feudal overlord. How did that happen? When was someone going to jump out and say ‘gotcha’? He couldn’t see it…
Nor could he see another person, not one inclined to say ‘gotcha’ or otherwise, but he could hear what was either a rat or another person somewhere in the mess. Frowning, he walked around a corner and found himself looking at a slender person – the soft lines of the face, long braid of hair, and slight protuberances at the top of the front of the cream-colored robes all indicated a girl – seated at a writing table he had noticed on his first pass through, a table now covered in books and papers.
The girl scowled back at him. “Who are you?” she asked. The lines of the rising sun, traced out on the back of her tall chair in gilt, briefly resembled a crown over her head before she leaned forward to squint at him. She was very dark, he noticed, with black hair and dark brown eyes; between that and the quality of her clothing and her generally haughty manner, he assumed she was some close relation to Bertram Crowley-Wooster. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m John and I’m looking at books,” said John.
This did not win him the approval of the presumed Miss Wooster. If anything, her frown deepened. “Tenants and their families aren’t allowed in the library without explicit permission and supervision,” she said severely. “You had better hope my cousin doesn’t think you’re upstairs to steal something.” She looked him over without making much of an effort to hide how unimpressed she was with what she saw. “You won’t do yourself any favors if you speak as insolently to her as you just did to me, either,” she added. “Who is your father?”
John was sufficiently irritated by that one that he didn’t even think to associate her cousin with his sister and explain the situation. “He’s called Mr. The-Hell-With-You,” he said instead as he turned away to let her know he didn’t find her too impressive, either, and so only just dodged the flash of light which came with spell-casting after that.
Fighting girls was Wrong and using his wand outside of school was illegal…generally. Under the circumstances, however, he was willing to take his chances. He snatched his wand out, cursing when his fingers briefly tangled in his shirt as he did, and threw a Disarming Charm back her way, but she ducked and it cracked the window she had been sitting in front of instead. Simultaneously complimenting the glassmaker and cursing his luck, he looked for the girl, but she was already busy performing a leg-locker curse from underneath the desk. His legs snapped together as abruptly as a pair of magnets, knees colliding with each other painfully, and John went down hard as his balance was completely thrown; he managed to take the worst of the impact onto his shoulder and right elbow, protecting his head from the stone floor, but the back of his skull still felt the impact of the edge of a wooden shelf and his hand wavered for a moment before he was, just in the nick of time, able to cast a Shield Charm against what he thought was a Stunner.
“Nicely done,” he said once his legs were free again.
“Thank you,” said his adversary, then threw a Full-Body Bind in his direction.
Everything they were both doing was defensive, he realized as he cast another Shield Charm. “Look – “ he said, ducking behind a shelf. “Books, candlelight – this really isn’t the best place for – any kind of combat, actually.”
“I agree,” said the girl, something he only half-heard as he tried to trace her movement by the sounds of her footsteps, “but here we are. Where you shouldn't be.”
“I’m not an intruder!” insisted John, dodging just before a Stunner went through where his head had been. Of course she could cast non-verbal spells. He prayed it didn’t start a fire. “I was invited! You’re the intruder!”
“Your father telling you you could come see the landlady and watch him pay rent does not constitute an invitation.”
“My father had nothing to do with this! He’s – “
At a Quodpot game in Medicine Hat, John meant to say, but he was interrupted by a sudden, startled cry and a crash. Automatically, unthinkingly, he stepped out of cover, only to find the girl in a heap and Joe calmly picking up a second wand off the floor.
“Let me guess,” said his brother. “You had it sorted?”
“No, not really,” said John, and Joe laughed out loud, a short, sharp laugh of surprise, at his candor. “Where did you come from? What did you just do?”
“I heard the window break, so I came in and Knockback Jinxed your friend,” said Joe matter-of-factly. “I know the regular disarming charm, but I’m better at this, so I thought my best chance was to knock her down until I figured out what was going on.”
John looked between Joe and the girl, imagining the way that jinx worked, and he realized his brother must have jinxed her in the back, without warning. “Thanks,” said John, after only a brief pause to contemplate this sudden new reality in which his brother was a little scary. He supposed he shouldn’t think so, as he’d have done the same in Joe’s shoes, but…it was different when it was him he thought about doing such a thing.
“Any time,” said Joe. “How did this happen?”
John looked at his…friend. She wasn’t moaning anymore, or in fact doing anything but watching them in a way that suggested she was carefully weighing how hard she could kick Joe in the knee whilst encumbered by those long robes. “Tell you later,” he said shortly. “Miss, are you all right?” he asked reluctantly, knowing he had an Obligation to do something about it if she wasn’t.
She looked up to face him. Somehow, she made the act of swinging her feet around behind her defiant. “I suppose I won’t be now,” she said.
John took a moment to figure out why she had said that, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, you should really try keeping some of your – you know – more overtly prejudiced comments to yourself,” he said. “You’ll make more friends that way.”
“He makes a point,” said Joe. “Every now and then.”
They both turned to look as the doors opened again, only to find Julian staring at them in shock. As John looked around, he realized he and his friend, as Joe called her, had made more of a mess than he’d thought. Books and papers were all over the place now and one bookshelf had been pushed so it was no longer in a straight line with the one beside it. Before Julian could say anything, though, her boyfriend gasped and pushed past her and rushed to the girl.
“Give over, Will,” said the girl, before he could do more than just kneel beside her and grab her upper arms. “I’m just a little bruised.” She pointed at Joe. “That one jinxed me in the back,” she said.
“What?” exclaimed William.
“What in the world?” echoed Julian, finally recovering her speech. John spoke first.
“She started it,” he said.
“Did not,” snapped the girl.
“Did too,” John replied before he thought. He realized within a second how juvenile this sounded. He hoped Julian was covering her mouth out of shock, not a desire to laugh at him. “She called me an insolent thief and then she threatened Dad and then she attacked me. We were defending our - ” well, ‘selves’ wasn’t really the term, as Joe had been in no danger before he’d come to help John – “me!”
“Lenore!” said Julian, sounding stunned.
“What was I supposed to do, Julian?” asked the girl. “Let an intruder have the run of the library?”
“Intru – Lenore, these are my brothers,” exclaimed Julian, visibly flustered. “They’re not intruders – and anyway, even if they had been, that was all uncalled for – “
“I thought he had slipped upstairs to steal something!” said the girl. “He doesn’t look like a gentleman at all – “
“I’ll prove a villain, just for you,” said John.
“John,” said Julian sharply. “This isn’t the time for Shakespeare.”
The girl – Lenore; who was called Lenore? It brought that maudlin American to mind, Poe – looked between them for a moment, then apparently decided she didn’t want to know. “ – And you can’t have strangers in the library, Julian,” she continued. “There are all kinds of secrets here, about how the house is defended, how my house is, I – “ Lenore seemed to realize she had just said all that out loud with John and Joe still in the room, because she abruptly looked mortified and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Julian, to John’s surprise, glared at her. Only a little, but still. “I told John and Joe they could use the library,” she said coolly. She turned to look over the rest of the tableau as Lenore muttered something indistinct. “Joe, how did you – I didn’t even know you had your wand with you,” she continued. “I thought Mom put it up as soon as you got home.”
“She did,” said Joe. “But I got it back last night.” He shrugged. “I thought it seemed like a good idea, coming here and all,” he said.
“And you jinxed Lenore in the back?” asked William.
“He had the right,” said John hastily. “He was defending another wizard – there’s an exception for that in the law.”
William raised an eyebrow. “You felt you were in life-threatening danger from Lenore?” he asked.
“Ye – well, maybe more from the chance she’d start a fire than, uh, just her,” admitted John. Lenore glared at him, apparently offended that John had not declared her homicidal-looking. “But Joe wasn’t to know that, especially – “
He stopped talking as he realized William, far from mocking him further or taking offense to John’s characterization of someone who evidently knew William well enough to call him ‘Will,’ was giving him a surprisingly calculating look. “Julian never told me you listed the law among your many interests,” said William.
“Because it’s not one of them,” said John quickly, cursing his irrational moment of brotherly protectiveness. If Welles was investigating their family, John had resolved to direct the man’s attention directly onto himself, but he didn’t want to do so before he was sure there was a need to do so. “Every citizen ought to know it, though. Know his rights.”
“Oh, indeed,” said William. He looked back at Joe. “Well, that was misguided of you, Joe, but I see now why you’re considered the best spellcaster in your year,” he said. “That was foolish, to draw on an adult witch – “ John, startled, looked over Cousin Lenore again; she didn’t look like much of an adult witch to him. He’d assumed she was his age at most and possibly a year or two younger. She, evidently noticing his scrutiny at an inopportune moment, crossed her arms over her chest instead and gave him a look to rival any he, someone with a face built for scowling, could have produced – “but I admire your nerve, and family loyalty. Well done.”
Julian was looking between them, an odd, unreadable look in her eyes. “This is absurd,” she said abruptly. “It’s all been a misunderstanding. Lenore – these two are John – “ John waved and smiled at her without affection – “and Joe, my younger brothers. Boys, this is Lenore, my cousin. Joe, give her her wand back, please, and everyone just – shake hands and make up – “
His sister had always been an optimist. To John’s surprise, though, after Lenore put her wand away, she actually did thrust her hand out in his general direction. “I – apologize,” she said stiffly.
John wanted very much to make a sarcastic remark about not wanting to dirty his ladyship’s hand, or at least inquire for specifics of what she was apologizing for and who she was apologizing to, but he suspected this would not go over well with his sister. “No,” he said, reluctantly touching her fingers for a moment . No gentleman, was he? He’d show her one better. “I should have identified myself more, uh, clearly – it was obvious you were used to being here.” The effort of making that speech was tremendous, and not just because he didn’t like giving an inch, but he made it and Julian looked pleased, so one of his main reasons for doing it paid off.
“I still don’t think you should let them in the library, Julian,” said Lenore, ignoring his efforts. “We don’t even let Burhan in parts of ours, and he’s my brother, too.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lenore,” said Julian sharply. “It’s my library. I’ll let who I want to in it. What Eleazar does with his is his business.”
“Ladies, ladies,” said William soothingly, moving to put a hand on each of their shoulders. John looked at the one on his sister without approval. “I think we’re all a little – rattled – after this misunderstanding – don’t you agree, boys?” He didn’t wait for a response, which was probably for the best; for one second, even Joe’s mask had slipped, revealing frank incredulity at that tone. “Let’s all go downstairs and have some lemonade.”
* * * * * * * *
Chapter Two
A week later, drinking a different glass of lemonade (whoever made the lemonade here did, John have to admit, produce some of the best he’d ever tasted) John took up a quill and began to write on a yellow-white piece of parchment paper.
Clark,
Help! I’ve fallen into the Renfaire and I can’t get out.
My sister kind of owns a small castle now (no, I’m not joking) and is a feudal overlord (still basically not joking) and is paying me to help her identify and index and organize its library and already I am thinking about how much I’d like to meet up with her boyfriend in a pit with broadswords. Both are available, so the only obstacle is that I have no clue how to use broadswords or any other kind of swords. I don’t even know how to fence. My brain insists the obvious solution is to challenge him to shields and maces instead, since I am used to hitting round objects with a club and putting a bunch of spikes on the club and blond hair on the round thing can’t make it that much different. If I am not exposed to some information more recent than Albertus Magnus soon, I am afraid I will come back to Sonora thinking one bath a month is sufficient and babbling in iambic pentameter.
On the bright side, Julian says I can use the library here as much as I want even when I’m not doing something for her. I have to admit, it’s not bad, and there is more English than anything (quite a lot of it is seventeenth and eighteenth century, but it’s English), so if you ever need a proper magical library after school, just say the word – for one thing, it will annoy Julian’s annoying cousin, who….
He glanced up, looking for Lenore. Usually, that was the moment she would have chosen to pop up somewhere, staring at him. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, not even Clark or Joe, but he had started carrying a bezoar with him just in case she had murder on her mind. He didn’t see her at the moment, though, and so, after a moment, went back to his letter.
…haunts the place and thinks I am no gentleman and that I intend to burn her house down. One of those statements is true, anyway. If she is a lady, I do not want to be a gentleman, either. She assumed I was there to rob the house and then she threatened my dad and then she attacked me. Fine manners, don’t you think?
John checked his watch and then wrapped it up. Hope your summer is lacking in crazy pureblood girls and generally going well, hopefully in a way that involves things of the current century you can tell me about at length. – John. That done, he put the letter away and headed for the door. He had an appointment below.
* * * * * * * *
Joe looked over the field with a degree of skepticism he doubted anyone could have missed. John, beside him, was harder to read, but Joe’s guess was that his brother was intrigued, which was just typical.
And the Big Old Families wonder why their numbers are getting low, thought Joe in disgust, praying – without much hope – that William wasn’t going to propose Something Stupid and that John wasn’t going to drag Joe into it after him.
The area in front of them almost resembled a Quidditch Pitch, only smaller, sandy-bottomed instead of grassy, and with rings along one side, the one without tall stands beside it, instead of at either end. These, though, were not his concern, at least not at the moment. His concern was with the tall partition in the middle, something he had thought looked like equipment for something he hadn’t thought quite possible until his sister’s boyfriend had confirmed that this was, indeed, what at least some rich pureblood youths did for sport.
The basic idea was simple enough: the relevant idiots, on brooms, flew toward each other, each carefully staying on his own side of the partition. While still moving, they tried to hex the ornaments off each other’s helmets, continuing the barrage until they passed each other (unless one of them felt up to flying backward, spellcasting in one direction while moving in the other). At the end, anyone still on his broom collected a pennant, then tried to duel his way back to his own end of the arena with it and to recapture his own standard, or at least force the other fellow to drop it, if it had also been taken. Full points went to someone who held both standards at the end and had not lost his ornament or fallen from the broom at any point, but the points system got more complicated from there: the greatest number of points went to whoever could knock his opponent’s ornament off at the greatest distance, knocking an opponent off his broom without damaging the ornament gained only half a point, but holding onto one’s broom even after losing the ornament also gained half a point, so when there were teams, each team putting up one player per round, this could lead to strange end results. Apparently the combatants did customarily wear a shirt with dragonhide over the front, which was the one sensible thing Joe had heard anyone here do, but there was nothing for it: this sport sounded insanely dangerous to him and he would have said so, had he not known that was the best possible way to get John to become keen on it. Keener than he probably already was, anyway. As it was, he could only shake his head and wait for the inevitable.
“By Jove,” drawled John. The old-fashioned half-swearing didn’t surprise Joe much now, John’s speech patterns always shifted according to where he was and what he was doing and this was part of the effect Julian’s house seemed to have on him, but the strangely dry tone did – it didn’t seem a moment where John would be sarcastic. “I’ll have to give you a run for your money next summer, William.”
Their sister’s boyfriend smiled his gleaming, perfect smile. This time, Joe thought it was just a bit amused. “Why next summer?” he asked.
“Because I’m not seventeen until September.” John smiled, too. “That – uh – misunderstanding with Miss Crowley – was one thing, but I couldn’t expect an officer of the law like-yourself to, to ignore me using my wand now for sport.”
“Eh?” William seemed momentarily confused. “Oh, that. Goodness, you are quite the legal scholar!” Joe winced slightly, wondering why it was that so many adults were such idiots. Did they really not realize that most people old enough and with capacity enough to attend a wizarding school could recognize condescension? He was amazed John had yet to call William out on it, or at least answer some remark in a way that directly led to William looking incredibly stupid in front of people. “We're nowhere near any Muggle – and anyway, your sister’s law is the one that counts here, and I don’t think she’d take kindly to me arresting you!”
John studied William again for a moment, then surprised Joe again by laughing.
William was not very easy to read. John was, in this matter at least, harder. Joe had known his brother disliked William within two minutes of seeing them together at Grandma’s barbecue last year, but John seemed to be trying to hide it, which was…weird.
“What’s so funny?” asked Joe, when John smiled again, shaking his head, several minutes later, while William was talking to Julian a little way off, presumably trying to convince her he wasn’t actually going to get John and Joe killed.
“I’m thinking about Juvenal,” said John. “And Inanna and Athena.”
Roman writer, Mesopotamian goddess, Greek goddess. That made perfect sense. Particularly when he thought about them in terms of the conversation John had had with William. Admittedly, John could have been using Juvenal’s name as shorthand for something Juvenal had written that John had read – Joe, who knew nothing about the dude except that he’d existed and possibly was the one who’d had a bit of a temper, couldn’t say – and Athena was associated with law and war-like things, but he really was not getting how the Mesopotamians came into it at all.
He did, however, get something else: this was not about that. This was about which of his siblings he trusted the most.
All reason said he ought to follow Julian’s lead. Julian was infinitely calmer and far more experienced with the people who were the problem than John was. She was also naturally good with people where John was naturally terrible - surely that had to say something about their relative ability to judge people fairly even when all other factors were equal, which they weren't here. He still, though, wanted to fall into step with John more, and worse, the Aladren-ish part of him kept pointing out that he did not even truly know why.
Was it because he truly thought John was right about William and the Crowleys?
Was it because Joe was fonder of John than he was of Julian?
Was it because he was subconsciously sexist and patriarchal and maybe a little bit blood prejudiced in the bargain?
...Was it because there was a tiny part of him which had wondered and worried ever since their biological mother had told him she thought John was crazy while the rest of him felt horrifically guilty about the existence of that sliver of doubt he hadn’t been able to completely shake since that day and like he had to do something extraordinary to make up for it?
He didn’t know. What he did know, though, was that the resulting internal conflict was troubling him so much that a week later, he did Something Stupid completely of his own free will: when some other cousin of Julian’s, a teenaged boy called Justin whose coloring and features strongly hinted at his status as Lenore’s brother even before William confirmed it, showed up interested in playing at their mad form of jousting, Joe, fully aware that William’s intent was for Justin Crowley to play against John, cheerfully said, “Great! Now I’ll have someone to match up with.”
William laughed, but then seemed to realize Joe was serious. All of the older males around him – William, John, Justin, and Justin’s half-brother Burhan – appeared to be variations on concerned and confused then. William, though, only lost his poise for a moment.
“I was, ah, thinking Justin might play John, actually,” he said. “And Burhan against me.”
“That second part makes sense,” agreed Joe cheerily. “But he’s – “ he nodded politely to Justin – “just fourteen.” Fifteen next month, apparently, but… “I’ll be fourteen in November. That’s fairer than letting John wipe the floor with him.” He shrugged. “Unless you just want to hand my brother an easy win….”
“I’ve never objected to one of those,” said John mildly. The look he was giving Joe did not match his tone.
“Nor I to sitting out,” said Burhan.
“Oh, no,” said William. “We shall have matched sets – brothers and brothers.”
Julian – along with a gaggle of other girls gathered to watch the fun, Lenore and two others who were apparently some other kind of cousins of hers – did not seem to think this was as brilliant an idea as her boyfriend did; she stood up abruptly after William spoke to her for a moment, then shook her head and gestured vigorously as they seemingly argued. John took advantage of the opportunity to pull Joe aside.
“What are you playing at?” he asked curiously. “You might not be that much younger, but he’s been in school...”
“I know,” said Joe, and then he shrugged. “I thought it wouldn’t look as bad for us if I was the one who lost.”
This was true, but not why Joe had done it. He had done it for Julian because of John's colossal Aladren ego. Joe had no idea why John was the way he was about William, or even what the way John was about William really was, but he knew that it wasn’t good and strongly suspected it would get worse if William established himself as superior to John in something other than smiling. At least part of that awful fight John and Julian had had at Easter had been about William, too, so giving William and John an excuse to participate in a fight, even a ritualized one, didn’t seem like a good way to preserve harmony in his family, either. If he could have figured out how to do it quickly enough, he would have talked them into being on the same team just for Julian’s benefit, but this would have to do.
For now. Sooner or later, they would have to learn to work together, because Joe was now almost certain that his sister intended to marry William. He had decided, though, not to mention that to John yet.
“You don’t think I can take any of these pretty boys?” asked John.
“Today? The first time we ever try this? No,” said Joe.
John laughed suddenly, surprising him. “Me, either,” he said. “Not completely. I was just going to knock Mr. Flowers down and take a half-win.”
Joe was in a foul mood as he, feeling a great fool, donned gear that more or less fit and mounted a broom. Knowing he had been right about John’s desire to humiliate William was a small pot of balm indeed after finding out that his brother was, against all odds, actually being reasonable. More or less.
Having to wear a helmet-like thing messed up his peripheral vision, but he could see his sister out of what was left of it. Julian was sitting down now and smiling, but her hands were clenched tightly in her lap. Joe could practically see her thinking about how if anything happened to him, Mom was going to kill her. He grinned, trying to look more recklessly confident than he was, and waved to her, and Julian waved back.
How did I get myself into this?
No; that wasn’t the way to think. It was better to think about how he had always had good aim. Aim was more important than knowing a lot of fancy spells here – if, of course, he was going to aim. Could he just borrow John’s strategy? It was easier than trying to outright win; a guy was a bigger target than a miniature metal fan on his head. Joe could hit Justin, he was sure…If Justin was standing a reasonable distance in front of him in a relatively confined space. Defense Against the Dark Arts at Sonora was a vigorous enough class that Joe could hit a moving target, at least sometimes, but the distance here…it was no Quidditch Pitch, but it was longer than a classroom, and he also had to account for three dimensions. In a classroom, an opponent could go forward, backward, and sideways. Here, he also had to think about up and down.
His heart rate had increased, he noticed; the organ was thudding almost painfully hard just beneath his ribs. His shoulders and the back of his neck were tingling. He told himself, very firmly, that it was anticipation, not fear, be that fear of losing face, fear of making a wrong move, or even fear of falling twenty feet and breaking his neck.
“Do me one favor?” he asked John.
“What?”
“If I die, you can use that to break them up if you want, whatever, I don’t care – “ John looked startled, though exactly why, Joe couldn’t say – “but can you…not be a completely good Catholic about the me-being-dead part?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” said John, but then he sighed and relented. “All right. If you die, I solemnly swear I’ll – walk after the coffin, with ashes on my face, and I’ll carry on and make a spectacle of myself until Mom tells me to shut up. That good enough for you?” But Joe was too busy laughing at the mental image to answer.
“Yeah, that should do,” he said when he could.
John gripped his shoulder hard for a moment. “Remember what I told you about Beating. Smart can beat strong. You’re smarter than him.”
“Here’s hoping,” said Joe.
He strongly suspected John had said that in a stilted attempt at kindness, but he actually did feel a little better. Close enough to better, anyway, to begin thinking of what bits of the situation he could use to his own advantage. He had to think about Justin going up and down, but it wasn’t very gentlemanly, up and down – not in the spirit of the event at all. He couldn’t control Justin, but he could control himself. Start slow and then speed up abruptly, small dodges – if Justin was not being sensible and was aiming for a spot slightly above Joe’s head, then even small changes to his trajectory could mean a spell going over his head. Or straight into his face, but he’d better not think about that….
One. Two. Three. He kicked off and, in a move that felt extremely strange in a moment that almost felt like the beginning of a Quidditch game, did not accelerate rapidly. Instead, once he was airborne, he proceeded at a quick but not aggressive pace, more as though he were flying for pleasure, though he felt anything but happy and relaxed as he tried to get the measure of his opponent. The other boy was flying faster than him, fast enough that Joe recognized the moment he started slowing down and knew Justin was about to try to hex him out of the air. He, however, was not used to having something in his hands when he flew, and it was only due to Justin’s over-confidence that the maneuver didn’t succeed; Joe raised his wand, sure it was too late, but the other boy was too far away to hit him.
Joe gabbled out the incantation for a Stinging Hex and then, without waiting to see if he had been more successful than his opponent, sped up as quickly as possible; that was why Justin’s second go, which he was nearly certain was a Knockback Jinx (a very distant corner of his mind silently cursed John and Lenore; if they hadn’t both been rude and arrogant, he wouldn’t have had to hex Lenore, therefore apparently making this personal for Justin), only clipped him. It was still enough, though, to knock him so far off-balance that his left hand was pulled away from the handle of the broom, dragged back so that splinters were driven under his nails, which had dug into the wood in his anxiety. Before he quite knew what was happening, he was rolling in the air.
Had Julian’s youthful relatives and family friends been truly old-school, he would have fallen, but they were modern enough to use brooms with stirrups. Using his heels and knees, he managed to cling until one hand, grabbing desperately, found its way to the handle of the broom, followed a moment later by two fingers of the other. He was still closer to upside-down than not, though; his stomach plunged toward his throat and he tasted something bitter, something thin and so acidic it burned, on the back of his tongue and in the part of his throat that led to the sinuses. Gasping, trying not to retch from pain and fear and the effects of the misplaced bile, he turned himself the right way up again, but the forces involved forced him into a dive toward the ground. Touching the ground was a forfeit. His back screamed complaints at him as, every nerve in him jangling like recently-slashed guitar strings, he flew up as fast as he could and, remembering at the last moment what he was supposed to do, snatched at the thin green banner hanging in front of him.
Wheeling around, he saw two things: one, Justin had the yellow one at the other end, and two, Justin was sitting wrong on his broom, one leg swollen out of shape. For Joe to notice that at this distance meant he must have hit it directly, and with an unusually strong spell, too. Well, panic and anger could fuel magic; John had simultaneously frozen the teacups and nearly set a chair on fire without a wand in such a state just a few months earlier, and while Joe’s feelings hadn’t been as intense as he thought his brother's must have been on that occasion, he had had a wand.
He adjusted his grip on it. Now things were really going to get interesting.
Twenty feet below him, John moved his shoulders, trying to dispel some of the tension in them. They were confused about why he wasn’t using them to point his wand, either to protect Joe or to inflict a world of hurt on the person who had nearly sent his brother crashing into the ground.
His brain, though, knew those were two of the worst things he could do unless it started looking like Joe was in Real Danger, which his brain knew Joe wasn’t. John’s brain was apparently superior in this respect to his sister’s. Julian’s expression no longer held the slightest hint of merriment and her hands were clenched in knots in her lap. John suspected he was breaking some kind of rule, but he walked over to lean over the edge of the partition separating the field from where she was with the other girls, plus Welles and another, older wizard John didn’t recognize on first or second glance – the second a consequence of who the wizard looked strikingly like, which was Julian. Filing that as a problem for another day, he spoke to his sister.
“Smile,” he said.
“What?” asked Julian.
“Smile,” ordered John, beaming upward himself as Joe managed to collect the strip of fabric he was after and turn around in the air.
“You should, Julian,” said William placidly. “He’s doing remarkably well for a first-timer.”
John’s arm was resting on top of the partition. To his surprise, Julian reached out and seized his hand in a death grip as she forced a smile onto her face. “Don’t talk to me about Joe,” she said to William, her eyes on Joe. “Why did you let this happen at all?”
“For the reasons we discussed earlier, sweetheart. For wizards, this is all a bit of fun, and your brother – brothers, I should say – “ he added with a nod to John – “are not infants. They’re competent young wizards, and if they wish to test themselves….” He shrugged.
John looked at William in disbelief. “You said that?” he asked. William nodded. “Thank you.”
Lenore leaned forward from her seat behind Julian, light flashing off a pendant around her neck. She wore purple today and had most of her long hair hanging loose over her shoulders, with only a few locks twisted back. If it was not black, it was very close to; it shone in the light. He was sure it reminded him of some lines he’d read, or heard read aloud, more likely, but he couldn’t place them.
“Your brother flies very well,” she said. “That Knockback Jinx was meant for you, though.”
“Petty of your brother,” said John absently, for the combatants had just started toward each other again.
Both of them, John saw at once, were moving a little slower – they were both a bit battered from their first passes, he expected, and in Crowley’s case, a bit warier. He suspected, with a stab of fierce pride, that Crowley was taking Joe a little more seriously now. Inevitably, though, the two came within striking distance of each other again, and opening salvos were exchanged: the first two hexes struck each other and ricocheted off at angles to the squealed approval of Julian’s younger cousins. Bloodthirsty little mice, John thought, not sure whether to be amused or completely disturbed by them. Far above, both boys retreated slightly in the face of that first failure, but rallied quickly and proceeded toward each other, wands flashing.
Justin drove Joe back with a pair of hexes delivered at admirable speed, followed up by what, from the way Joe suddenly jerked forward, was an attempt at a Summoning Charm directed at the banner Joe held, or rather held one end of – the majority of it was wrapped around his arm, no doubt in an attempt to make it less cumbersome to bring along. Julian’s hand tightened on John’s like a vice, and John bit his lip, but Joe made a slashing movement, as though cutting a thread – there, he’d countered it, and then blocked an attempt to capitalize on his confusion and knock his hat off. From the way he twisted as he replied, though, at least one of Justin’s rapid-fire spells had gotten through, and John would be surprised if he hadn’t at least strained something in the arm holding the banner….
"He's all right," said John, patting Julian's hand. “Watch.”
Joe’s technique was off – John’s guess was while he had gotten Joe used to flying while a bit battered and Professor Pye had gotten him used to aiming at targets with his wand, he had never combined the skills before, much less while hurt – but he was managing. No doubt realizing that he was facing someone who in a few years would probably be a truly skilled duelist – John could have taken him, he thought, but he was three years older than Crowley, not nearly two younger – Joe threw cleverness to the winds and just sent a stream of sparks into the other boy’s face, giving himself time to fly away quickly, back toward his own home turf, while Crowley was momentarily hunched over his broom with his hands over his eyes. Behind him, John heard Lenore gasp, and he laughed a little wildly.
“Great, isn’t he?” he said.
Lenore stared at him, and for one moment her eyes were wide and dark and startled. Then, though, she was all composure once more. “I wouldn’t call a bare draw greatness. Mr. Umland,” said Lenore coolly.
She had a way, he noticed, of making what was superficially a respectful address sound deeply contemptuous. Julian didn’t seem to notice. “Draw?” she asked, sounding dazed.
William took up the role of lecturer. It was not one meant for someone with such wide blue eyes and full lips, John thought disapprovingly. His looks would distract too many of his students. “They each accomplished a third of their objectives, but both kept their seats,” said William. “It’s hard to declare a victor under those circumstances.” He shrugged. “It’s not uncommon with beginners, which I have to say even Justin is, more or less. Impressive them both staying in the air, though,” he added, looking toward Joe in a way that made John want to curse him.
“Justin did hit the other boy more than the other boy hit him,” remarked a tiny, very pale-haired creature. John doubted he could have told current pictures of her and younger pictures of Araceli Arbon apart. He glared at her before he remembered himself – he had Standards, and scaring little girls was beneath them – and she shrank back slightly. “Well, he did,” she said.
“Peace, Elyse,” said the older wizard who could have passed for Julian’s youthful uncle.
John made note of the exchange, but then looked back to his brother. The two boys were descending now; John scowled when Crowley refused to shake hands after Joe offered, but had to bite his lip to keep from laughing outright when Joe – moving slower than he might have, a little too deliberately, but steadily enough – approached Julian and made a passable bow before presenting her with the captured flag.
“This is right, isn’t it?” he asked nobody in particular. “The ‘queen of love and beauty’ thing and all that?”
Everyone started laughing then, even Julian, though she tried to hide it behind her hand. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Joe,” said Julian, standing as Justin Crowley made his way over, too, and his sister ran to him. “Let’s get you tidied up….”
“You forget, sweetheart,” said William. “We still have another round to play.”
Julian shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Not right now, anyway. Be quiet, Joe – I saw the look on your face when Justin tried to snatch this thing from you.” She indicated the banner with one hand while putting the other arm around Joe.
“Another time, then,” said the other brother, the one who was supposed to have been first William’s opponent and then John’s. John was surprised to realize that Burhan was speaking to him and that he accompanied the words with a respectful-looking inclination of the head.