Free Elementary by Mercedes Lackey

whisper. He closed his eyes as nine years fell away as if they’d been a single day.
    â€œWhat do you mean, he died in the bath? He’s a Water Mage!”
    â€œHis doctor says it looked like suicide, Kit.”
    â€œThe devil take his doctor! What about the undines?”
    â€œThey weren’t there.”
    â€œHow could they not be there? Where were they?”
    â€œI don’t know! Ask them, Kit. They love you; they’ll speak to you.”
    But they hadn’t, not for nine long years, no matter how often he’d asked or begged or demanded, they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him what had happened that night. Keening in distress, the little creatures had just eddied about him like tiny whirlpools, their pale, delicate features distorted with unhappiness, until he’d finally stopped asking. Now they hardly interacted at all, and Christopher spent more time staring into the bottom of a glass than into any pond or pool.
    They passed through the gates of the Clive family’s Bloomsbury house in Queen Square a few moments later. An ornate coach with the emblem of the Royal Astronomer was parked before the door, and Edward’s brows drew down as he alighted.
    â€œWhat’s Uncle Neville doing here at this time of the morning? I hope nothing’s happened to Grandmama.”
    â€œHe’s probably just stopping in on his way to another exotic locale to plot the course of yet another planet,” Christopher scoffed, turning his gaze from the splashing fountain in the center of the courtyard.
    â€œThen why are there no sylphs hovering about his coach?” Edward insisted. “The roof’s usually festooned with them.”
    â€œBecause they’re . . . with him?”
    â€œAnd they’re with an Air Mage inside a Fire Mage’s home because . . . ?”
    â€œThey . . . love him? But even so, we might want to hurry.”
    Together, the brothers took the townhouse steps two at a time.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    The London Chronicle
, March 5, 1783
    â€œOn Monday night about nine o’clock, a group of men carrying knives boarded the East India Company ship
Woodford
, threatened the passengers, and made off with goods totaling three hundred and five pounds, ten shillings.”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    The small cell in the Wood Street Compter was dark and cold and smelled of urine and vomit. Christopher groaned as a return to consciousness brought the return of bruises he hadn’t realized had set quite so deeply and a twisting, inexplicable sense of . . . grief?
    Raising himself up into a sitting position, he carefully opened his eyes. The room swam dizzily in front of him as he tried to sort out this latest visit from the last. He’d exchanged blows with Constable Townsend . . . no, he corrected himself . . . that had been the night before. He’d gone to see Philippa . . . again, the night before. He . . . A memory surfaced, hovering shakily in his mind’s eye, and he made a grab for it before it could vanish again. He’d had a fight with . . . Uncle Neville? No, that didn’t seem right. With . . . Teddy. That seemed equally wrong, but once dredged up, the memory remained, fuzzy with drink, but distinct enough to relive angry words, first growled, then shouted . . . His sisters’ faces, white with fear, his brother’s face white with uncharacteristic anger . . . Storming out, finding a tavern, drinking, raging, trying to drown out the resurgent tide of grief and guilt, blows.
    His hand strayed to his upper lip, finding it split and puffy. His throat felt raw, and there was an acrid odor of spell-casting about him. He frowned. Had Teddy and he used magic against each other? They never did that. True, they’d had some dandy fights as boys—like their sister Rebecca, Christopher had