No, Edwin’s body couldn’t be trusted to make decisions.
They joined everyone else at the side of the lake. Bel had explained the basics over lunch—or rather, she’d begun to explain and then Charlie had taken over, with a touch to her wrist and one of those benignly bestowed smiles that said he didn’t want to tax the little woman’s intelligence. Each of them would have their own small boat. Bel and Charlie had drawn up a large map of the lake and divided it into squares, each one representing a section of the water about six feet in each dimension. Many of those squares had been set with charms, either friendly or not-so-friendly—“Nothing irreversible!” tinkled Bel. Some of them held floating lilies that would unfold, at a light tap, to reveal prizes. A few of the lilies would be decoys; there was no way to tell without rowing out to them and trying your luck.
One of the groundskeepers had rowed out and planted the lilies in the lake, held in place with hanging weights. Charlie had cast each trap-charm, folded them small and embedded them into the map, then overlaid a thorough sympathy that flung the spells invisibly out to haunt their positions in the lake like ghosts.
It was a fiddly, pretty piece of magic. All the prettiness of it was probably Bel’s. The bulk of the magic, of course, had been Charlie’s. The two of them had taken a sip of lethe-mint nicely calculated to cover the time they’d spent preparing the map, so that they could play alongside everyone else. A friend of Edwin’s mother had been known to do that in order to attend the same play every night of the week, or read her favourite mystery novel ten times over. It probably did the mind no favours to use it in that cavalier fashion, but nobody writing in English had ever studied these substances with the proper rigour, to Edwin’s irritation.
Edwin took the blue boat, next along the lake’s circumference from the red one Robin had claimed. He wrangled an oar to shove himself off, immediately won himself a splinter, and winced. By the time he managed to get the boat pointing towards the centre of the lake, Robin was already heading towards the nearest lily with a smoothness that Edwin would never be able to mimic.
Robin hadn’t gone far, however, before he jerked and began to laugh. And laugh, and laugh, doubling over in the boat. Laughter was coming from some of the other boats as well, and shouts of advice or mockery. The warmth of Robin’s laughter was beginning to take on the helpless edge of hysteria by the time the momentum of his boat drifted him out of the square and he was able to calm down.
“All right?” Edwin called.
“Tip-top!” Robin returned with a hint of wheeze.
“Billy’s trying for your lily.” Edwin pointed. Robin gave a cheerful curse and began wrangling himself expertly again.
Edwin ran into a blinding illusion and nearly lost one of the oars through the ring-lock by the time he’d fumbled for his string and managed a basic illusion-reversal by touch. His sight flooded back and he grabbed for the oar. Miggsy was close to a lily, cursing and rowing hard against some unseen magical current. Billy had the hiccups. Trudie was complaining loudly about her sleeves; her oars and hands were coated in green slime. Near the shore farthest from Edwin, Bel was laughing, teetering in her boat, but it just sounded like her usual laugh.
Robin was gone—no, there he was, emerging from a curtain-spell, right next to one of the lilies. He tapped it with his hand, then reached into the unfurled flower to pull out a fist-sized twist of coloured paper.
This was met with cheers. “Which is it?” called Charlie.
“Caramels,” called Robin, rustling the paper open. “I’m almost afraid to try one.”
“Oh, the prizes are safe. They’re prizes. I’ll have one even if you won’t,” said Billy, who had managed to bring his boat almost up against Robin’s.
Robin handed over one of his sweets, and dangled the twist of paper in Edwin’s direction as Billy took off towards another lily. On his way over to accept one, Edwin acquired a spontaneous and non-illusory fire in the bottom of his boat, which he extinguished with a few handfuls of lake water rather than bothering with his string.
He pulled up alongside Robin’s boat and his intended thanks died in his mouth. Robin was staring into space, hands lax on the oars, with the unseeing blankness that meant he was in the grips of the foresight.
“Robin,” Edwin said.
Robin blinked, and focused. His face had paled. He met Edwin’s eyes and nodded, then brought up a good attempt at a smile.
“Foul! No conspiring!” bawled Miggsy.