Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters by Mercedes Lackey Page A

wick melted and slid the wick back into the tube to extinguish it. The light subsided to a normal candle flame as Luke and I turned to go back to the sacristy. I took a brief look to my right as we went and saw El smirking at me from the front pew. Normally I would have found that annoying, but first, she
had
helped me, and second, it was the happiest I had seen her look in two weeks. As I entered the sacristy, where Father Pearce was hastily vesting, the crucifer handed Luke and me our torches before picking up the processional cross. I hoped that nobody else had noticed El using her magic. I knew Mother hadn’t noticed; she didn’t believe in magic, and she didn’t really know either of us.
    Mother was consumptive, so Father, who was a doctor, sent her to Switzerland to be cured when El and I were three. Between the soot in the air from burning coal and the frequent fog, London was no place for anyone with bad lungs. The mountain air in Switzerland had done wonders for Mother, even if her recovery had taken nine years. She remembered, however, that she had given birth to twins, but not twin
boys
—something El and I had pretty much forgotten. At the moment, she was barely speaking to Father. And El was barely speaking to anybody.
    El and I understood what Father had done. Between his medical practice and his duties as a Fire Adept with the White Lodge, he didn’t have patience for the fuss of raising a girl. Actually, he didn’t have much patience at all. So when he was left with no wife and two small children, he raised us alike—as twin boys. He shortened Eleanora to El and told anyone who asked that it was short for Elihu (which actually
is
a family name). El and I went to the same schools and learned the same things, though she was much better at mathematics, which she loved and I hated. Mother said that mathematics were unladylike, which was one of the
nicer
things she had said to El since her return—as if any of this was El’s fault. I really missed having El as a fellow acolyte. She was so much better at it than I was, and she was good at covering up my deficiencies.
    Now El sat stiffly next to Mother and Father in a pew at Christ Church. She was wearing a pale pink dress with a matching bonnet to hide her short hair. I didn’t have to see her to know that she was miserable. I stood next to the last pew in the nave, resting the base of my torch on the floor and carefully mirroring Luke’s position. The crucifer stood just ahead of us. When the introit ended and the opening hymn began, the crucifer would lift the cross, and we would raise our torches and process down the aisle, followed by Father Pearce, who stood behind us. From here I could see that the altar candles were now different heights. It looked as if about four inches of the Gospel candle had burned when El lit it. Ooops.
    The introit, being sung
a capella
by the usual tenor soloist, seemed to me to get longer each week. I wondered whether he was singing to glorify God or just to show off. Maybe it was both.
    While I was waiting for him to finish, I looked through a blur caused by the heated air just above my candle’s flame and wondered what was wrong with me. El could light candles with her magic, even when seated in the congregation unwillingly pretending to be a young lady, while I had trouble lighting even a previously burned candle from the flame on the end of the candle lighter. If there was such a thing as an anti-Fire Magician, I seemed to be one.
    After the reading of the Gospel, Luke and I took the torches back to the sacristy and extinguished them. We wouldn’t need them again until the recessional, when all we had to do was carry them and follow the crucifer. The middle of the communion service was my favorite part; I had no problems with the collection plate, the bread, the wine, or the water. Especially the water; I like water.
    In London, the water is at least more wholesome than the air—usually. We’ve had epidemics of