“Look at this, Tom,” she insisted, and Jack joined her to inspect the impressively detailed but faded and unremarkable map. They needed to buy time for Violet to find the white pebble that told her which of the three expected men was in the Lockroom with them. Adelaide, ever practical, had also determined with Violet that a penny coin would mean someone unexpected, in which case Violet would need to improvise.
（Edwin had come up with three elegant and complicated ideas for charmed items, and three more ideas that were impossible because neither Jack nor Adelaide had any magic.
Robin had cleared his throat and said, “Er. Pebbles?”）
“And this is the map that you can use if a magician is in peril?” said Adelaide. “How thrilling. Could we see how it works? Not to spy on anyone, of course. I could name my aunt; I know she’ll be at home in Bath.”
Fawcett said, with the first hint of disapprobation, “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Pember. The magic of the Lockroom is not to be spent on demonstrations.”
“Quite right,” said Jack. “Why don’t you—” But before he could ask for a tedious amount of detail about the huge ledger lying flat on the table, there was a loud knocking on the main door to the Lockroom. Adelaide jumped.
“What the devil—excuse me, Mrs. Pember,” said Fawcett hurriedly. He raised his voice. “Who is that?”
“Mr. Fawcett? Alec Fawcett?” came an uncertain call. “Message for you, sir!”
Fawcett went to open the door. The tall redheaded woman standing on the other side leaned on its frame dramatically, catching her breath. Behind her a gloomy physical corridor curled away to the side. “Message for you, sir. Someone told me you were down here—sent me along from the staffing office—I’m sorry it took so long, sir, I’ve only been working here a week and I got turned around when they said to take the corridor down from the archives—”
“All right, girl. Take it slowly. What’s the message?” said Fawcett.
“Something about your wife?” Violet, in her disguise, let her voice rise uncertainly.
Fawcett went still. “Helena?”
“Might be?”
“Is it—was the message from my house? The hospital?”
“I’m sorry, I was only told to fetch you—to come at once, they said—”
Fawcett cast a glance over his shoulder. Jack did his level best to look harmless. “If it’s your wife, Mr. Fawcett, of course you must go. We won’t touch a thing while we wait.”
“I—yes, thank you. Will send—someone. To help you.”
The door closed behind Fawcett and Violet, and Adelaide let out her breath.
“I was hoping it’d be him,” she said. “A pregnant wife! Couldn’t be more convenient.”
Apparently Alec Fawcett and Manraj Singh had been gingerly bonding in the tearoom over their shared excitement and nerves about incipient fatherhood.
Violet would prove stubbornly unable to identify the person in the staffing office who had given her the message in the first place, and then would come to the realisation that she had the wrong name and was in fact seeking an Alex Mawson. And in the meantime, Jack and Adelaide were inside the Lockroom. Which anyone at all could open from the inside.
Less than a minute later, another knock came. This one was quieter and in a precise rhythm.
Adelaide grinned and went to admit Robin and Edwin.
“I thought this place had an underground feel, the first time, and I was right. This isn’t just the basement, it’s the under-basement,” said Robin. “If we sneeze, we might disturb the foundations of the whole place. Huzzah for Kitty and her secrets.”
“All clear?” said Edwin.
“All going to plan,” said Adelaide. “Here’s your record, Edwin. Get to work.”
Edwin used his string to build an involved cradle into which Robin placed a scrap of paper with Lady Enid’s full name. Then he directed the rest of them to stand clear of the huge ledger, splayed open on the table below the map.
Magic flowed forth and over the book like a breeze, lightly ruffling both the long black ribbon that lay in the open book and the very edges of the thick pages. The spell gathered and kept gathering: a whirlpool of rippling air now, tinged with stormy grey. Edwin was concentrating hard. This must have been taking a great deal of his magic.
The left-hand side of the book gave a sudden jerk. Edwin said, “Got it.” His small storm of a spell sank into the pages, which began to turn themselves backwards as if flicked by a giant and impatient hand. Back and back.
And then, sudden as snapped fingers, the air was still.
Edwin rushed forward, still disentangling his string, and ran a finger eagerly down the page. “Enid, Enid—there! Look at that. She did request her own box. She used her married name to request it, but it’s registered under her birth name.”
“How do you think she got in?” asked Adelaide. “She must have needed privacy, like us.”
“I could live to be a hundred and not know half of what the Forsythia Club could do,” said Edwin. “All right. Ugh, Robin, can you—thank you.”
Robin lifted a chunk of the pages in order to turn the book back to where the ribbon indicated the present day. It was unwieldy and looked heavy; the muscles in his forearms bunched where they emerged from his casually rolled-back sleeves.
“Show-off,” murmured Adelaide.
Robin winked at her and let the pages collapse into place. Edwin ran his fingers through the motions of another spell, rehearsing, and then began it in earnest. This one looked simpler. A pen that lay in a holder in one corner of the table lifted itself into the air and hovered over the first column.
“Edwin John Courcey,” said Edwin. There was no getting around someone’s name going in the book. All that mattered was that they found the box and got out.
The pen wrote his name, and then the name Enid Charlotte May Blackwood, and then Edwin’s hands glowed red and an answering red light sprang up, a ribbon reaching to the ceiling, in the gloom of the stacks.
“Your work, Edwin,” said Jack. “You do the honours.”
Edwin looked hectic with the pleasure of solving a puzzle. He muttered, “It still might—I might still be wrong,” but he hurried away between the shelves and returned shortly with a wooden box in his hands.
Robin gave Edwin’s arm a silent squeeze, and Adelaide made an impatient motion. Jack’s pulse surprised him by picking up. He wasn’t entirely immune to a good puzzle himself. He contented himself with leaning against the wall to give his leg a break—it had been grumbling these past few days—and saying, “Not to fault your sense of the theatric, Edwin, but we are under some time pressure here.”
“Shut up, Hawthorn,” said Edwin absently. He set the box on top of the open record book and removed the lid.
This box was not lined with velvet. It was lined with a familiar beige substance, subtly textured.
“Cork?” said Robin.
“The only wood that’s completely inert to magic. And I’d bet anything the outer box is rowan,” said Edwin. “That’s why it hasn’t been doing anything to the magic in this place. And why they haven’t managed to triangulate it yet.”