He wanted to lean against the wall in fatigue, but it was cold and damp and very dark here, and none of those conditions agreed well with a Fire Master. Instead, he trudged back to Nigel’s flat. He knew the others were sound asleep by now, and with the crisis averted, he reckoned that morning would be soon enough for them to hear what had almost happened.
Nina tore the vagrant she had found in the gutter limb from limb in her rage, then sent the pieces off with her goblins, to be dropped into the sewers all over the city. And then, she went back to her hotel, climbed up the wall and in through the open window, and shed her blood-stained clothing. She set the maid to cleaning up the mess while she flung herself down into her bed and brooded.
What wretched luck that there was a Fire Master associated with the theater! She wondered what had brought him there tonight? Was it only restlessness and an urge to walk, or had he somehow been warned of what she was doing?
She was just glad she had been trying something without the taint of magic to it. This trick had come out of the annals of ancient sieges—sending animals into a city or an armory to set it afire. Rats were the favored vehicle for this—small and agile, they could carry the fire into the heart of the building. And she had paid the rat-catcher who served the building specifically for these rats and no others. Terrified, in pain, they would run to the place they thought of as home, dash through their secret ways in a futile effort to lose the thing that was hurting them, the fire tied to their tails.
It had been a good plan. Too bad the Fire Master had shown up to ruin it.
But she, at least, had gotten away. And he had no idea she was anything other than a mad little street urchin with a penchant for setting fires.
One good thing had come out of this. Now she knew the face of the possible opposition, or part of it, anyway. She would have to be cunning, careful.
She settled herself in her bed, and began to think.
“He what?” Nigel spluttered.
“He was tying bundles to the rats’ tails, setting them on fire, and—” Jonathon paused. “—and turning them loose.”
“That is an ancient siege trick,” Wolf said unexpectedly.
Jonathon did not ask the bird how he knew that. Wolf was always coming up with unexpected bits of information.
“Well what are you waiting for?” Nigel asked, regarding him angrily. “Is it Nina? Is this someone attempting to attack her? Is this what we should be looking for?”
And now Jonathon had to hesitate. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “There wasn’t anything at all magical about what was going on. It was just a street-boy, and it wasn’t as if he was actually trying to start fires that I could make out—more that he was just tormenting the rats for the fun of it.”
“But?” Arthur asked, watching him closely.
“But I don’t like it. If Nina’s enemy is clever, he could have paid the boy to do this. There would be no telling that it was the work of a mage.” He got up, all his interest in breakfast gone. “I just don’t know. It seems almost diabolically clever. But the storm—that is the work of someone who just doesn’t think. And yet—”
“All right, Jonathon,” Arthur said, finally. “What we can do is to be on our guard. The fact that your Salamander came to you before we had a burning theater means that they seem to have rapport with you we can probably count on.”
He nodded. That was reasonable.
“In that case, we should assume it was the work of Nina’s enemy, and that she’s been discovered,” he replied. “Whoever this is, he’s very subtle. So we should assume spies, attempts to lure her out somewhere alone, and indirect attempts, like on the theater.”
“Humph.” Nigel put his fork down and frowned. “I wonder, if it is Nina’s enemy, what he’ll come up with next.”
“Clearly we have to think in terms of things that are not magical,” Jonathon pointed out. “Whoever this may be knows very well that there are Masters here, and he is not going to make it easy for us to find him, or stop him.”
All three of the others, Wolf included, nodded. “We must think like a saboteur, or an assassin,” Arthur murmured.
“And not just that,” Jonathon replied grimly. “We must think like a clever one.”
Nina still thought that burning down the theater was the best plan. The question was, how to do so without showing her magical nature. Her second attempt was more straightforward in execution but devious in planning.
Taking on the look of one of the ruffians she had absorbed, she went in search of the sort of pub where unsavory deals could be made. Then, once she found such a pub, she let it be known that her employer had a building she wanted removed from the property it was on.
It was not long before she was sharing drinks with someone who thought that might be arranged. He was a little surprised to discover the building in question, but it was just a brief flash, and then he was all business. Nina was relieved to discover that he did not want to know why the theater needed to be burned. She did not offer said explanation. She merely paid him what he asked, and settled back in her suite to await the results.
But the results were disappointing. There was no fire on the stipulated date, and the next day the sensation of the morning paper was that a known arsonist had been caught red-handed, and he was expected to be spending the rest of his life in prison.
Credit for the discovery was given to a young police constable, but Nina cursed, knowing in her heart it must have been that wretched Fire Master.
She made one more attempt, but her heart wasn’t in it; like the first try, she used an animal to try and carry fire into the building. This time it was the starlings that nested in the top. She gave them matches and twists of oiled paper which they carried up to the roof and tucked into their nests; she intended to do just a tiny bit of magic to ignite the matches themselves. That failed as the first had; one of the wretched birds dropped its burden on a passer-by, and the next thing Nina knew, the building was being scoured and the poor starlings lost all the nests they had started.
She also looked for ways to lure the imposter out away from anyone else; if she ever managed that, the result would be that the imposter would be absorbed, and Nina would change into her clothing and take her place. At least for a little bit—just long enough to have a great row with the theater owner and flounce out.
But the girl wouldn’t accept invitations of that sort. No “I have something that might be to your advantage,” no supper invitations from handsome young men, no—nothing.
In fact, the girl led a life so cloistered that it gave Nina pause. Not the work—Nina herself did the work of a dancer, and a good one too—but the sacrifice, that was unprecedented. No little téte-a-téte dinner parties with select gentlemen. No afternoons off for a picnic. No afternoons off shopping! That was what truly astonished Nina; every other dancer she had ever known was an inveterate shopper!
It was a pity too, since shopping would have been the ideal way to take her. Become a helpful shop girl, suggest there were better things in a back room. Take her there—and become her. No one the wiser.
There would be a complication of course, because it was possible that she might just decide to stay here. That impresario in Germany . . . she could cancel the appearances . . . but then she would have to eliminate him, too, or return his money. If she didn’t he would probably sue for breach of contract.