“Robin doesn’t come from magic at all,” said Edwin. Best to have that part out quick and clean. “Someone in the Home Office assigned him to us by mistake. He’s only been unbusheled a few days.”
Cutlery paused. The quiet of the table thickened.
Walt was looking at Robin carefully. After a moment he smiled, calling up a chill of association that made Edwin want to hide his fingers in his lap. To an unbiased observer it was probably a normal smile, peacock-tinted by Walt’s guidelight, which glowed cosily in the glass jar that sat next to his water glass. Tonight the jars in front of each place setting were all from the same set, an abstract mosaic of greens and purples.
Robin’s empty jar seemed suddenly like a rather unfortunate metaphor.
“And you brought him here,” Walt said.
“As good an introduction as any, if he’s to do the job,” said Edwin. He forced himself to hold his brother’s gaze. Anything to do with the curse could wait until tomorrow, and Walt and their father planned to return to London then anyway.
“I suppose it is rather nice for you, Win, not being the one in the room with the least magic,” said Bel.
Trudie turned to Robin with the expectant air of a child whose nose was pressed between the bars of a zoo cage, hoping the elephant was going to do something diverting. “It must be absolutely fresh and strange and wild to you, then.”
“The game of Cupid was something of a surprise,” said Robin.
Both Trudie and Bel went off into gurgles of laughter.
“No wonder you dodged, you silly thing!” said Bel. “It’s a game of nerve. The imbuement on the arrows is for them to seek movement. They won’t hit you, if you freeze in time. If you flinch, you’re more likely to be scratched, and you take the punishment.”
“Like the instincts of hunting dogs,” said Robin blandly. “Just scratched?”
“Nobody’s died yet,” said Francis Miggs, and laughed as though he’d said something amusing. His elbow jogged Edwin’s as he reached for the sauceboat, and Edwin avoided his eye. Miggsy was easy to set off, once he’d had a few glasses, and his sense of humour had coarsened but not progressed in spirit since the schoolyard.
“It’s best played in couples,” said Bel.
“Quite so,” said Charlie. “Not the thing to entrust the safety of one’s wife to another chap’s spell, after all.”
“So one partner shoots, and one controls the . . .” Robin made a floating motion with his knife.
“The lady shoots,” said Charlie. “Can’t expect a female to handle a directed levitation, can you? That takes training. But some of them are a dab hand with a bow.” He beamed, wide and complacent, at Bel. She beamed back.
Robin asked a few questions about how the spell worked; Charlie demonstrated, wiping butter from his fingers before beginning the cradles. He explained what he was doing in a condescending tone, getting several of the technical details wrong. The spell worked anyway, sending Bel’s chair hovering a good three feet above the table while she clutched her wine-glass and sipped theatrically.
“Not at dinner, Charles,” said Edwin’s father, but he didn’t sound displeased.
Charlie and Bel kept Robin involved in lively conversation after that. Charlie always liked people more once he’d explained something badly to them, and Bel just liked things that were Edwin’s.
After dinner, Mr. Courcey withdrew to his study and Charlie proposed a game of pool and a bottle of port.
“Not for me,” said Edwin. “I’m going to go and see Mother.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Robin. “That is, if you don’t mind. I’d hate to go to bed without having paid my respects to the lady of the house.”
Edwin couldn’t think of a reason, under the eyes of everyone else in the room, to refuse. “All right,” he said.
Though once they’d been left alone, Edwin’s guidelight having been decanted from its keeper to its place above his shoulder, Edwin didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “What are you doing? I thought you’d appreciate being in company. Go and drink with the others—go and play pool.”
“I’d be afraid of being scratched by a cue, without having you there to fix me. How does one play pool at a party like this? On the ceiling?”
“One cheats. Though I doubt Billy or Miggsy can provide much competition to Walt and Charlie, if they’re playing under Killworth rules. Ivory’s difficult to imbue without a lot of blunt power. They may be playing it straight, tonight. I’m sure you’d be in with a chance.”