Walter Courcey looked livid during Mrs. Kaur’s speech. But he didn’t yank on any of Evers’s strings when the dicentis stammered: “Well—in that case—no objection to Miss Debenham remaining in residence, although the challenge may still be brought—shall discuss with my client—”
“Yes, yes,” said Prest impatiently. He levelled a disapproving look at Violet. “I must say, some of the accusations made today have been very concerning, Miss Debenham. Very concerning indeed. But I shan’t argue against precedent if it exists in this specific case. Singh? Cowling?”
The other Assemblymen agreed that Violet’s eviction was unnecessary. Cowling, too, was now frowning at Violet as if he suspected her of bad behaviour but hadn’t been able to personally catch her hand in the biscuit jar.
“Dismissed,” said Walter shortly. He stalked very close to their desk on his way out of the room, probably to intimidate Edwin further, and Jack had a fleeting wish that it’d been a bad leg day. If he’d brought his stick, he could have tripped the bastard.
“Thank you, Mr. Manning,” said Violet. “I doubt that was what you expected out of your third time standing dicentis.”
“Not exactly, no,” said Manning. “If I’m to stand for you again, Miss Debenham,” he added, with a sudden flare of personality, “I hope you decide to fill me in on the pertinent context.”
“It’s a matter of what’s safe to know,” said Jack.
Manning looked at the doors through which Walter had vanished, made a complicated face, and took his leave of them. After this, the unmagical Inns of Court would probably seem a blessed relief.
“I think,” said Mrs. Kaur, “that I, too, will avail myself of the safety of ignorance. You can have Addy catch me up on anything you think I should know.”
“Thank goodness for you, Kitty,” said Robin. “Not to look a gift horse, et cetera, but are you really sure you should be—ah—” He went pink and abashed in the face of a long stare from Mrs. Kaur.
“I am expecting, Robin, not infirm. Glad to be of assistance, Miss Debenham. Edwin, you owe me a letter about that book I lent you.”
She sent a smile up to her husband on the dais and left. The rest of them reappropriated the preparatory office, where Violet cast a muffling spell on the room and Edwin added an auditory illusion of indistinct conversation. Nobody asked if the precautions were necessary. Edwin’s hand shook as he produced an odd one-handed cradle for the illusion, but he didn’t reach for string.
“Well,” said Violet, hurling herself and all of her skirts into one of the few chairs. “Did anyone else notice that that was a complete setup? Not just Aunt Caroline trying to get her hands on the goods.”
“They may not have talked to your relatives at all,” said Jack. “They didn’t need a challenging party to stand there. Just Evers.”
“Evers reading off Walter Courcey’s script,” said Violet.
“Walt wasn’t exactly hesitating to speak for himself,” said Edwin. “A darkness hovering on the horizon. He’s sure there is something coming—he said it when we were at Sutton last year. Billy Byatt said it too.”
“Crisis,” said Jack, “is an excellent justification for the seizure of power.”
Edwin shook his head. He had the twitchy expression that meant he was connecting ideas and was about to show you a pattern. “It was in the Grimm’s letter. The dark that’s coming. That’s more than false justification, surely? Robin, have you…”
“You know what I’ve seen,” said Robin. There was a terribly naked fear in the way he looked at Edwin now. Edwin flinched.
“Yes. No,” he said. “All right. That’s—that’s hardly relevant to British magic as a whole. But I wish I knew what the Grimm meant. About that, and about the Last Contract itself. And how Dufay’s song ties into it.”
“Add them to the list,” said Violet irritably. “Shall I recite it? We still don’t know how to get hold of Lady Enid’s knife, or if it’ll be snatched out of our grasp by the Assembly once we do. We don’t know what kind of spell or ritual Bastoke’s people are planning once they have the whole contract. We haven’t even decided how to hide these items, or otherwise prevent them from being misused if we get our hands on all three.”
A depressed silence followed this, delivered as it was in Violet’s most Shakespearean tones.
Jack cleared his throat. It was as a good a time as any to explain his suspicions about the equinox gala at Cheetham Hall and George’s plan to use the gathering of magicians to steal power with the contract—so he did so.
“And if you were hoping to call upon official help at any point in this,” Jack finished, “then today’s been a good illustration of how that’s likely to go. Now we’re all liars and troublemakers, and probably thieves as well.”
More silence. It was broken by Robin.
“Cheers ever so, Hawthorn. You can always be relied upon to lighten the mood.”
9
It was two days later when Alan made it to Spinet House again. He turned up in the early afternoon, having told the sub-editor that he was going out chasing details for a story that would appear in the Saturday edition.
In fact, the story was done. He’d ground his way by candlelight towards the small, dark hours for the past two nights, and only partly made up for it by napping at his desk in the Post’s office instead of going home for dinner in the middle of the day. Hunger he could ignore, but his temper became a sullen cat of a thing when his sleep was snatched away. And while lighting his second candle the previous night it had struck him that magicians didn’t have to pay for candles or gas or lamp oil at all, what with their glowing balls of light, and he’d been so furious at that injustice that he’d broken the nib of a pen. Nibs also cost money.
All in all, Alan was not feeling well disposed to anyone who lived in a magical Bayswater mansion and had nothing but leisure time on their hands.
Luckily for both of them, Maud Blyth was difficult to be angry at.
“It’s just me today,” she said, flitting into the drawing room to greet Alan. “Edwin and Robin are at the Home Office. Violet had a last-minute invitation to a luncheon with Lord and Lady Albert—I suspect they want her to be eccentric at people and talk up the opera company. And Hawthorn is at his club.”
“Which club?” Alan inquired out of journalistic habit. The Post’s readers were extremely interested in details like a gentleman’s club memberships.
“The Reform,” said Maud, excellent source that she was.
The most progressive club that was still full of aristocrats. Of course. Alan’s annoyance gave an enjoyable lash of its tail.
“If Edwin and Violet aren’t here, I suppose there’s no point me staying to play canary. When should I return?”
“No, stay!” Maud waved him back down onto the settee. Her eyes gleamed with her military-general look. “I should catch you up on what happened at the Barrel when Violet went to her hearing.”
She did so. Alan felt his eyebrows climbing his face.