“And there’s a warding on it,” Edwin said acerbically. “Wonderful.”
He took a deep breath and blew across his cradle, and the blue magic danced out like mist under a wind, spreading over the door and then vanishing.
The door looked no different to Alan. The dread was still there. But Edwin made a sound of satisfaction and his gaze sharpened. “I’ll need to look at the charts, but I’d swear there isn’t space behind there,” he said. “A door to nowhere.”
“That’s where I’d hide things,” agreed Violet. She left the spinet and came up next to Alan, then grimaced as the dread-feeling—the warding—clearly got her as well.
First Edwin and then Violet tried some more spells to see if they could get rid of the warding. Alan retreated to sit at the spinet and let them do it.
“This is getting us nowhere. Give Alan the wax thing,” said Violet after a while. “Knowing the wood always helps, and he might have a chance of getting close.”
“Holzprobierer,” muttered Edwin, but he pulled it from his pocket and handed it over to Alan without hesitation. He also had the charmed pen and a small notebook. “All you need is to get the wax in contact with the wood. I don’t know how you’re doing whatever you do, but … visualisation helps most magic. Try to picture a shield in front of you, perhaps? Something to keep the wrongness at bay.”
A shield. Alan’s free hand made a fist as he approached the door.
He’d pushed through bad feelings before. Gnawing, exhausting worry. Hunger that wore away at him like the story about the bird sharpening its beak on a mountaintop. Today alone he had healthy doses of fear, anger, and guilt all on the boil, bubbling away beneath the curiosity.
He could live through this too. It was only a feeling. Only magic playing a trick.
Thinking of a shield doubled the effort it took to keep moving in the direction of the door, like trying to walk into a gale with an umbrella held out in front. Alan gritted his teeth and managed another meagre foot. Push, push.
The eddying blue of Edwin’s spell came into his mind, and the green ice-water spell from earlier. Water in gutters built up behind a blockage, but you could release it in trickles and rob it of its force.
Feeling an absolute fool, Alan closed the imaginary umbrella. He stopped imagining a blunt protective surface and instead let things—flow. The wrongness surged closer, trying to drive him back, but Alan refused to be forced into anything. He was stubborn and a thief and he would go where he wasn’t wanted.
He took two staggering steps forward, arm outstretched, and the Holzprobierer touched wood.
Edwin might have said something. Alan couldn’t make out the words. A surge of energy came down his arm and he couldn’t direct it, couldn’t manage the flow, couldn’t do anything. His skull screamed pressure like a painfully overstuffed cushion. His next breath was a terrible warning that there wasn’t enough room in him for air as well.
He fell back hard onto the ground, whacking his elbow against the floorboards. His hand fizzed. His vision was dim and dull. Jesus Christ, his head hurt.
The blue-clad blur of Violet reached him first and touched his shoulder. Some of the pressure lessened at once, with a sense of blissful relief, as if she were siphoning it off.
She gasped and snatched her hand back. Alan wanted to grab for her again, siphon off more, but couldn’t persuade his limbs to cooperate.
“What is it?” said Edwin.
“I don’t know. He’s giving off something. It’s like magic, but I can’t use it.”
Alan could breathe and see now. He was not surprised when Edwin approached with a set frown and reached out a determined hand to Alan’s cheek. Edwin Courcey would probably emerge from an exploding building with the desire to see if he could make it happen again.
Sure enough: another gasp. Edwin’s fingers shook with effort, and he held it longer than Violet, then he too withdrew.
“How do you feel?” he asked Alan.
Scientific concern was better than none at all. Alan managed to sit up. “It’s … settling down,” he said. “Ugh. I don’t think this house is impressed with me.” Not that he could blame it.
Edwin held up his notebook to show him the new-written word OAK.
“That explains why the warding’s so powerful,” Edwin said, even though no it fucking didn’t.
“Do you have anything for a headache?” Alan asked.
Violet swept into hostess mode and told Edwin that they were done experimenting, at least until after some food. She offered Alan her arm for support, in a faintly hilarious display of chivalry, but he waved her off. There was only a lingering throb behind his eyes now. He could handle it.
The mundane magic of domestic service caused tea and muffins and cakes to appear in one of the parlours. The maid who brought it exchanged a few friendly words with Violet and met Alan’s eyes curiously. Alan caught himself in an odd pang of disappointment, as if he’d wanted to catch Violet in the act of mistreating her staff.
He was looking for another reason to keep these people at arm’s length. Another reminder. He heard his accent shift toward Clerkenwell as he thanked the maid—another bloody inconvenience of spending time with toffs. He always had the urge to set himself apart, make it obvious he was part of the downstairs team, even though he wasn’t. Not here. He was on no team but his own.
Alan had three heavily buttered muffins and a cup of sugared tea, into which Violet put a dash of something she claimed would help his head, while Edwin read about oak in Mrs. Sutton’s monograph and theorised on what they could do next. Alan saw more unpleasant umbrella-shoving in his future. That oak door was certainly keeping something hidden.
“Could I take some of these for my sister’s kids?” he asked Violet, of some golden cakes that smelled of lemon. “They never get sweets this good.”
“Of course!” Violet even called the maid back to put together a basket, which made Alan’s skin itch with the violent familiarity of receiving charity. Well, he’d already shoved his pride and his shame down enough to be here in the first place. Spinet House had bruised him for prying. He’d take today’s hazard pay in the form of sweets for Emily and Tom.
Edwin’s rambling, which had taken on the absent tones of someone working things out on his own with no need for external contribution, was interrupted by melodically chiming bells, followed by the arrival of Sir Robert and Miss Morrissey. This time Alan knew where they were coming from; Violet had explained that when Spinet was being built, the nearby Underground station of Bayswater was also under construction. Magicians could make all sorts of things happen in secret. Including a tunnel running between a side corridor of the station and Spinet’s cellar, with both ends magically disguised and warded.
“Oh, cake,” said Miss Morrissey, descending upon the tray. She lit up at the first taste of lemon cake in much the same way that Edwin had when Sir Robert entered the room.
“Robin,” Edwin said. “Have I forgotten a meeting?”
“No, no. But the Office received a letter that we want your eyes on, sooner rather than later, and—I had a vision.”
Edwin’s mouth went worried, which seemed odd. Having visions was what Sir Robert did, as far as Alan knew.