It was coming up on noon. The foyer wasn’t busy. Their small group—Robin, Edwin, Violet, and Jack himself—garnered curious looks from the attendants in the Barrel’s blue livery.
Perhaps it was mostly Violet. Edwin had tried to encourage her to dress soberly, but Violet Debenham wasn’t the sort of person to treat formality as armour. Quite the opposite. She was in full eccentric-heiress mode: her boots and skirt were both bright bottle-green, the skirt crawling with gold thread embroidery, and at least two ostriches were feeling colder in service of her ridiculous hat. She stood with her gloves clutched in her hand and an expression on her face that was obviously stolen from some character or other.
“Where’s this fellow you’ve hired for me?” she asked Jack, who looked up at the clock on the far wall. The season-clock was a boxy thing of stained glass and ebony wood, with a little balcony halfway up the face. There were charmed wooden figures inside which would emerge and act out various scenes from magical history: a different one for every hour.
When Lord Cheetham had taken his twins to the Barrel to deliver the hair after their lock ceremony, a delighted Elsie had dashed across the floor and floated herself up the wall to investigate the clock before anyone could stop her. Jack remembered the minor uproar, his father’s angry apologies, and the smugness on Elsie’s face later that day as she triumphantly pulled a carved fox from her pocket to show him. Away from the clock, it never danced again, but she didn’t care.
“I told him a quarter to the hour,” Jack said. Violet nodded tightly and began unpinning her hat. Jack looked at Robin and Edwin, who were sitting close together on one of the benches. “You two come here all the time. Stop looking as though you’re expecting snipers. Nothing will happen to you in the Barrel. It’s neutral ground.”
That was a truism hammered into the bones of British magicians. The Barrel was an absolute.
Robin, who was not a magician, gave Jack one of his stubborn Blyth looks. “I suppose nothing happened to Reggie Gatling. I suppose nothing’s ever happened to anyone that these Coopers of yours take against.”
“They’re not—” Jack started, and noticed the trap too late.
“No,” said Robin. “They’re your cousin George’s.”
Jack didn’t have grounds to argue. He’d tripped over a pothole and caught himself on an assumption. Lord Hawthorn, son of the Alston line, never felt unsafe anywhere in England; the Barrel least of all. But he did know how far the powers of the Coopers stretched. And he knew what had happened to Reggie Gatling, and knew how dangerous George and Morris and the rest of them could be, with or without the Assembly’s support.
And when he let his thoughts rest properly against George Bastoke for more than the customary few seconds, instead of whipping them away again as if burned, he did feel something close to fear. It tasted like blood and char in his mouth.
It wasn’t real. A secret-bind couldn’t respond to thought alone. But bodies didn’t always play by the rules.
A nearby door glowed bright around the bronze knob and opened to emit a broad-shouldered, freckled young man with limply curling fair hair. He wore the dark suit of most office workers, carried a briefcase in one hand and two thick books in the other, and looked apologetic as he extended a finger to pull the door shut behind him and then hurried over to them.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m late—are you Miss Debenham? And—Robin?”
Robin acquired a plank-whacked expression. He glanced at Edwin, then back at the new arrival. “Arthur?”
“How—what—” Arthur Manning, son of the Honourable Pete Manning, turned a telling shade of pink. “How the devil didn’t I know you’re a magician?”
“I’m not,” said Robin. “Er. Long story.” This time his glance to Edwin was rather desperate. “Edwin, Manning and I were at Cambridge together.”
“Yes. Ah—how d’you do.” It was addressed to Edwin, but Manning continued to stare at Robin as if the sun were rising and setting in his face. Jack had never in his life felt the slightest urge to fuck Robin Blyth, but it was enough to make him briefly wonder if he was missing out on something.
Edwin did not return Manning’s greeting. His eyes narrowed.
“Your name is Arthur Manning? A. Manning? Did you write a thesis on visual illusions, a few years back?”
“Er…” Manning didn’t seem confident in his eventual answer of: “Yes?”
The next few sentences began sensibly enough but soon spiralled off into a level of judgemental detail about cradling minutiae that was extreme even for Edwin. Robin began to open his mouth, then closed it again.
Manning was clutching his books to his chest as if they’d save him. Finally he managed to interrupt—“Stop! I—look, I didn’t write it. It was my sister. Abigail. But you can’t tell anyone. Our parents don’t approve of her fiddling around with spells.”
“Well,” said Edwin sniffily, “you can tell her it’s sloppily argued and lacking breadth.”
“I’m sure it’s a damn sight better than anything I’d be able to do!” Manning flared. “And it’s not as if anyone gave her proper training!”
“Edwin,” said Jack, “you’re wasting time. Apologise.”
This was the most amusing thing to happen in weeks: a jealous Edwin Courcey trying to wield secondhand academic cattiness against someone who’d fucked his partner. Normally Jack would have enjoyed the show and mocked Edwin about it afterwards. But they needed Manning. Antagonising him wouldn’t help.
Edwin glared at Jack, but delivered a halfhearted apology that Manning accepted with relief.
“Lord Hawthorn. Pa sends his regards.”
“How d’you do, Manning,” said Jack. “Congratulations on your engagement are in order, I hear. This is Miss Violet Debenham. Violet, Manning here will be your dicentis.”
“I’ll do what I can. I don’t want you to think I’m stuffed full of experience.”
“As long as you don’t tell me this is your very first day on the job, I’ll take whatever help I can get,” said Violet.
“Er. Third?”
“Third day?” said Edwin, who’d unwound a tad at the word engagement.
“Third time standing dicentis for anyone. So … yes?”
“He’s not attached to the Assembly,” said Jack. “There’s no telling who they’d saddle Violet with otherwise, or even if they’d grant her a dicentis at all. I’m sure you’ll do very well,” he added to Manning, leaning pointedly into the words.
Manning swept another uncertain look around the group, but nodded. “We can use one of the preparatory offices. Follow me.”
He set his briefcase and books down to cradle and then sketch a silver rune on the nearest door.
“Oak,” murmured Edwin to Violet.
“Runes,” she said in return.
Translatable enough. Jack was going to be called on to help with the next part of their Spinet investigation.
The rune glowed, and Manning opened the door and ushered them all into a modestly sized office on one of the building’s highest floors, going by the view from the small window. They settled around a table.