It was a good point. Miss Morrissey looked almost offended that she hadn’t been accosted and cursed.
It took them nearly an hour to reach the Barrel, a tall brick building just north of Smithfield that didn’t look like much from the outside. Robin had probably walked past it before and never spared it a second glance. He didn’t want to spare it a third. When he tried, he felt on the edge of some nasty, queasy vertigo. Best to keep walking, his feet seemed to say.
“Oh! I forgot about the warding,” said Miss Morrissey. “Give me your arm.”
With one red glove tight at the crook of Robin’s elbow, she walked the both of them up the steps. The queasy feeling got stronger and stronger, and Robin thought fuzzily that when they did locate Edwin he was going to congratulate him for managing to keep his wits even slightly about him in the Sutton maze, if it had felt anything like this.
The doors were high and heavy, studded with brass. Miss Morrissey pushed one door open and pulled Robin with her across the threshold, grey flagstone giving way to pale marble beneath their feet, and Robin felt normal at once.
Miss Morrissey pulled a shilling from her purse and showed it to him. “Pass token. Charmed to negate the warding; it’s not a strong one, just enough to avert curiosity for anyone without magic, which can be a bother for the in-betweeners like us. I’m sure Kitty can get you one of your own, if you—Sir Robert?”
At least twenty feet above Robin’s head was a jagged pattern of black lead between thick panes of clear glass, crisscrossed busily by feet. It was the view he’d sketched for Edwin in the library, after seeing it in a vision. The floor where he stood had the dull polish bestowed by years and years of shoes. There were no stairs, no corridors winding away. The marble swept from wall to wall like a field of wheat, and standing within it at random intervals and angles like a parliament of scarecrows were . . . doors. Just doors, of dark wood with bronze knobs, within their frames. From time to time a door would open and one or more people would emerge from it. Sometimes they would cradle a spell before opening a different door, which they would step through into nothing that Robin could see. Attendants liveried in muted dark blue stood around the walls and sometimes stepped in to converse with the people.
Robin found his palms pressed hard to the sides of his legs. Even after everything he’d already been through, the strangeness was tangible. It was like seeing a dog whistle blown: no sound, even as one’s eyes told the ears they should be hearing something. Here Robin’s eyes were seeing and his skin was aching, trying to sense something he was born without the ability to sense. There was just a hint of it, humming and warm, the bright opposite of the terror he’d felt in the hedge maze.
It felt like standing in the sculpture hall of the British Museum with the weight of history rising up and pressing in on all sides, almost brutal in its beauty. The world was larger than he’d thought.
Miss Morrissey led him a few steps to the side, where a bench sat snug against the wall, and deposited him onto it. She sat beside him and began to unbutton her coat in the warmth of the building’s interior.
“I think,” said Robin carefully, “that I’m revisiting the meaning of unbusheling.”
“The Barrel’s office doors are some of the most magical items in the world. Oak, you know. It can hold a lot of power. We live in modern times, and in a city as close-packed as London, magic’s often more bother than it’s worth. It takes so much of it to do anything really huge. But sometimes we put the effort in. Sink the power in slowly. Imbue every inch.” She shrugged her coat off and folded it on her knees. Her voice was soft. “Everyone deserves somewhere where they can be reminded of their potential.”
We, she’d said, not they. Robin tried to put together a question about her heritage, about knowing magic this closely and having none of it to call her own, but knew he’d only fumble it. And they were here for a reason. He removed his own coat and hat.
“How do we find Edwin?”
“We ask my sister,” said Miss Morrissey. “Follow me.” She marched them up to a door, seemingly at random, and signalled to an attendant. “Good evening,” she said primly, the gilt back on her voice. “Fourth-floor main entry, please. Sir Robert and I have an appointment. I’m afraid we were delayed.”
Titles and doors, indeed. The man hastened to cradle up a silver glow, which he smeared across the door, leaving a glowing rune in its wake, and opened it onto an unremarkable hallway. Robin followed Miss Morrissey through.