The Royal Sorceress by Christopher Nuttall

floating up into the air, followed by the rope tightening around his neck. He started to struggle for breath as the noose grew tighter, but it was futile. His face darkened as he choked to death. It was not a pleasant way to die…
    …But it was how they killed on Tyburn Hill, Jack knew. He’d seen enough executions to know that the condemned– often men and women who hadn’t been able to bribe the judges or rely on the intervention of friends in high places – were slowly suffocated to death. A noose was the mob’s method of choice too, when it lynched infrequent victims. The enemies of liberty would know what kind of message Jack was sending them, once they saw the body. And they would know what would happen to them if they fell into his hands.
    Lord Burley made a final gasp and expired. Jack checked his pulse carefully – it would have been difficult to fake, but possible – and confirmed that he was dead for himself. The girl, who had been watching in terror, cringed away from him as he produced a knife. Ignoring her, Jack cut into Lord Burley’s leg and used the knife to pick up the blood, using it to write two words on the wall. When he was done, the words CAPTAIN SWING could be easily made out. Its intended target would know what he meant, and those who didn’t know would soon come to fear it. They would come to fear Captain Swing.
    He smiled as he checked that the girl could breathe properly and walked out of the door. It would have been easy to slip back out of the skylight, but he had a reputation to uphold. By the time London awoke, everyone would know about Lord Burley’s death – and the name Captain Swing would be on every man’s lips. Whistling tunelessly, he strode down the stairs, wondering how long it would take for the guards to notice him. A man as paranoid as Lord Burley would never have forbidden his guards to enter the house. They weren’t as well-trained as Jack had expected. He heard two guards running up the hallway towards him long before they came into view. The moment he saw them, he rammed a pulse of magic through the first one’s head and picked up the second one, slamming him into the wall. Jack heard the sound of breaking bones and nodded in approval. He stepped over the prone bodies, wrapping himself in illusion. The alarm would definitely be out now. He gathered his magic as a new guard appeared, clad in sorcerer’s black. Jack chuckled aloud as the sorcerer lifted one hand in preparation to use his magic. It was nice of Lord Burley to identify his pet magicians for Jack.
    The sorcerer launched a bolt of energy at Jack, which lit up the hallway a second before it slammed into Jack’s magic. A brilliant haze flared out in front of him and then flickered out of existence. The sorcerer gaped, clearly not expecting to see someone who could use two different talents – even if he’d seen Jack using magic earlier, he wouldn’t have expected a Master Magician. Jack didn’t give him time to adapt; he launched a pulse of energy himself, right into the sorcerer’s throat. The smell of burning flesh filled the corridor as Jack stepped over the dead sorcerer and down towards the doors. Outside, he could hear the sounds of men running towards the house. Lord Burley’s guards, better paid than the average soldier and therefore more willing to risk their lives for their master, had definitely realised that something was badly wrong. And if there was a Talker among them, the Bow Street Runners would definitely have been summoned.
    Jack sent a wave of magic out ahead of him as he approached the doors and they burst into fragments, slamming out and into the small army running towards the house. A handful reacted in time to cover their eyes or drop to the ground, but most of them were hit by flying splinters. Jack knew that some of them would probably be blinded, yet he found it hard to care. They’d chosen to uphold the established order and betray their roots by taking their master’s