Renegade Magic (Volume 2) (Kat, Incorrigible, Band 2) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stephanie Burgis is the author of Masks and Shadows. She has published over thirty short stories for adults. Kat, Incorrigible (US)/A Most Improper Magick (UK) won the Waverton Good Read Children's Award in 2011 for Best Début Children's Novel by a British writer. It was followed by Renegade Magic/A Tangle of Magicks and Stolen Magic/A Reckless Magick. Born in Michigan, she now lives in Wales with her husband, writer Patrick Samphire, and their children. Before becoming a fulltime writer, she studied music history as a Fulbright Scholar in Vienna, Austria, and worked as a website editor for a British opera company.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Renegade Magic

One

It was a truth universally acknowledged that my brother, Charles, was a hopeless gamester, a ridiculous oversleeper, and the one sibling too lazy to take part in any family arguments, no matter how exasperating our sisters might have been (and usually were).

But he had one shining virtue as an older brother: He was infinitely persuadable.

“You do know, Kat,” he whispered, “Stepmama will murder you for this if she finds out.” He was yawning so hard that most people wouldn’t have been able to decipher his words, but I had long experience. Ever since Charles had been sent home from Oxford in disgrace, he’d resorted to sleep as his safest escape from family obligations. Even as he yawned and complained, though, he was obediently following me down the creaking wooden stairs to the ground floor of our family’s vicarage.

It was simply too much trouble for Charles to hold out against anyone who didn’t give up the first time he said no. And I—as all three of my siblings could testify—was definitely stubborn enough for the task.

It was still dark outside, and the candle in my hand was the only light in the stairway. I held it up high for Charles’s sake, and carefully stepped over the spots on the stairs where the ancient wood was beginning to rot. “Stepmama won’t murder me,” I whispered back, “because she won’t find out. Anyway, she’ll be too busy preparing for the wedding to bother with either of us when she wakes up.”

“Huh.” As usual, he didn’t bother to pursue the argument … which was just as well, since nothing could have changed my mind.

In three hours my oldest sister was going to be married. In four hours—five at the most, if the wedding breakfast took longer than expected—Elissa would be gone, and all of our lives would change forever. Even when she came back for visits, from now on, she would always bring her husband with her—and as much as I liked her sweet-tempered fiancé, Mr. Collingwood, it could never be the same. They would be sharing a bedroom, for one thing. That meant I wouldn’t be free to slip into Elissa’s room any time in the day or night to get comfort or advice or help against Stepmama … or even just to let Elissa fuss over me, the way she had ever since I had been born and our mother had died, leaving my two older sisters to raise me.

For all that I’d complained over the years about Elissa’s prissiness and high-handedness, her lectures on propriety, and the fact that she never seemed to realize I was twelve years old and not a baby anymore. … Well, somehow, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

Nevertheless, I’d woken up this morning at four o’clock and lain staring into the darkness of my attic bedroom for a full hour before I’d given up and come down to pull Charles out of bed. What we were about to do would have horrified Elissa to the depths of her ladylike soul—but if I didn’t do it, I just might explode.

I stepped off the last stair and breathed a sigh of relief. We hadn’t woken anyone else. “Come on,” I whispered. “Mrs. Watkins won’t be in the kitchen yet. No one will hear us there.”

Shrugging, Charles padded after me. He was still wearing his dressing gown, nightcap, and slippers. His blond hair, the same buttery shade as Elissa’s and (before it grayed) Papa’s, stuck out in wild tufts from beneath the cap—he’d been sleeping facedown when I’d shaken him awake. I didn’t understand how he’d even been able to breathe in that position. Then again, I hadn’t understood much at all about Charles ever since Stepmama had first arrived in our lives, five years ago, and sent him off to Harrow to become a gentleman.

He might have come back from boarding school a different person, but at least one good thing had come of it: He had developed some very useful skills.

The kitchen fire was banked, and the big room was chilly. I built up the fire, lit two more tallow candles against the darkness that pressed in from the narrow windows, and got Charles to help me push the heavy wooden table to one side.

“Excellent.” I stepped into the space we’d cleared and raised my fists in the way he’d taught me more than a year ago, the first time he was sent home from Oxford for bad behavior. Above me, bunches of herbs and meat dangled from the ceiling, waiting to be used in the grand wedding breakfast later this morning, along with the covered dishes already sitting on the kitchen table. I tried not to think about any of them, or what they meant.

Elissa … My throat wanted to choke up. I didn’t let it. Instead, I kicked off my slippers and bounced on the pads of my feet on the cold floor. “Come on, then!”

“If I must.” Charles rolled out his shoulders and started to raise his own fists into position. Then he dropped them. “You know, it’s too early for fisticuffs. And if either of us has a bruise at the wedding service, Stepmama really will pitch a fit.”

“Charles …” I fixed him with my most imperious glare. I’d learned it from Angeline, our other sister, who was an expert. “You gave me your word of honor.”

“And I’m not backing out,” he said hastily. “If you insist on fisticuffs, that’s what we’ll do. But what about wrestling this time instead?”

“Wrestling?” I lowered my fists, thinking.

Charles had taught me fisticuffs and fencing last year, and Frederick Carlyle—officially Papa’s latest Classics student, but unofficially the only man in England who could match and measure up to Angeline—had taught me how to play billiards two weeks ago. Somehow, though, I’d never even considered adding wrestling to my list of useful and illicit skills.

“No bruises,” Charles said, “and no arguments.”

“Fine.” I dropped my arms to my sides. “Show me.”

“You’d better be the one to do it, not me.” He was frowning. “If anything goes wrong … erm. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. Come at me … yes, like that … grab me here and here”—he set my hands in place—“and then twist with your hips. No, wait! I mean …” He turned bright red. “Dash it. If Stepmama had heard me say that—”

“I know I have hips, Charles.” I rolled my eyes. “Just because ladies aren’t supposed to use the word—”

“Ladies aren’t even supposed to understand the word,” Charles muttered. “Not that you’d care about that, obviously …”

“Obviously,” I agreed. “So I twist, like this—”

“No, no, you aren’t doing it right. Like this …” We changed positions, and he showed me, moving slowly. “If you do it with enough force, you can throw your opponent over your hip. See, first you shift them off balance, and then—”

“What on earth is going on here?”

Angeline spoke from the doorway. I slipped as I turned in Charles’s arms. And Charles, caught in mid-demonstration, panicked.

He...