A marvellous light, p.30
A Marvellous Light, page 30
“And I’ve been glued to the desk all day in case he turned up, but it’s not as if anything more important could be keeping him, and I’m—” She took a deep breath, and her mouth crinkled with concern. “He wouldn’t let me go with him because it was too dangerous, as if he knew the first thing about dealing with danger, and I don’t know where the Gatlings live—I’ve never met them—and now I’m worried he’s going to end up dead and dragged from the river, just like Reggie.” She said something else, a fluid muttering in a foreign language that had the clear intonation of being unladylike.
Fear soaked Robin like rain. A vision struggled up from the cracks of memory, one of those from the brief lucid period when he’d tried to direct the foresight: Edwin, lying pale and lifeless on the ground, surrounded by people—
No. No.
“How can we find him?”
“I was hoping you might have an idea about that,” she said. “That’s why I’ve come here. You’re the one who’s spent all that time with him, and to be frank, there’s nothing like a man with a title to open doors when you’re—” Miss Morrissey paused. She raised a hand to her mouth and tapped a finger there, a calculating motion. Her gloves were a startling shade of red.
“What?” Robin burst out.
“I’m not supposed to know this. We’d be breaking a few rules.”
“Good,” said Robin at once. “I mean, I don’t care.”
She nodded. “We need to go to the Barrel.”
“Sir Robert?” said his housekeeper, Mrs. Hathaway, from the top of the stairs. “If you—ah. Beg pardon, sir.” She folded her hands in front of her apron and descended like a queen, gaze locked onto Robin in a way that meant she’d already seen Miss Morrissey and was pointedly containing herself. “I’d heard you were going out. Will you be dining at home?”
“We were just leaving,” said Robin, conveniently still clad in outdoors gear. “As for dinner, ah . . .”
“I shall personally ensure that Sir Robert sends word,” said Miss Morrissey, “if he is delayed a minute later than planned.”
Her posh voice had somehow acquired a heavy gilt frame of further poshness. Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes widened. Robin didn’t trust himself to do more than nod. Then they were out the door and on the street.
“Sherborne Girls,” Miss Morrissey said after a moment. “If you were about to ask me where I learned to do that.”
Robin laughed, and a fraction of his tension eased with it. “By the time that’s made its way through the downstairs dining room, they’ll be saying I’ve taken up with the granddaughter of a maharajah.”
“What makes you think you haven’t?”
Humour quivered in the corner of her mouth, but Robin had a hard-earned sense for jokes that weren’t really jokes at all. “Honestly?”
The quiver expanded. “Not quite. He was—there’s no word for it in English, but my grandfather was a senior in the magical community in the Punjab before he came to England, and his sister did marry a prince. Mama used to tell us she’d come down in the world, marrying a mere colonel.”
The morning’s fog had grudgingly lifted, but the gloom of it hung in the darkening air. Miss Morrissey told him about her parents as they walked: her grandfather had lugged his family to England for what was meant to be a brief visit, due to the conditions of a will being contested. By the time the legal dispute over the property in question had dragged on for years, the man had become a sort of diplomatic liaison to the British Magical Assembly, and his daughter had met and married Colonel Clive Morrissey in a whirl of minor scandal. The Morrisseys had never been truly rich, or truly accepted in fashionable circles; they had their own circle of magician-peers, like the Courceys did, and moved quietly within that. Both of the daughters of the family had gained a taste for independence at school and had gone straight into civil service.
“It was that or marry at once,” said Miss Morrissey, “and both of us wanted to take a breath before we embarked on that. I’m glad,” she added. “Reggie’s—Reggie was a lot of fun to work with, even if he was prone to haring off around the country on no notice.”
“Were you close, the two of you?”
The rhythm of Miss Morrissey’s steps faltered. Her profile was burnished in the light of the streetlamps. “As close as any friend,” she said. “We worked together for two years. We both knew what it was like to grow up with magic and not have any ourselves.”
“I’m sorry,” Robin said, honestly. “For your loss.”
Her mouth spasmed. Robin wished for the first time that he could have met his predecessor, to work out for himself if this irresponsible man had in any way deserved the subdued longing of two clever people. Perhaps he’d had a smile like a sunrise.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be quite all right if I can land a kick on one of the bastards who did it.”
Robin had a swell of fellow-feeling. “We haven’t had much luck at unearthing them. We don’t know how many men—er, or women—are involved.”
“They’re men.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if even a single woman was involved, they wouldn’t have decided that a man who’d been working there one day was a more likely source of information than a woman who’d been there for years.”
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.
It was just after five o’clock; they were weaving against the traffic in the building, which was full of people chatting and fastening coats and donning hats. Miss Morrissey led him to an office where two men stood back with a tilt of hat-brims to let them enter, then left via the same door, leaving them with the sound of a woman speaking and the louder sound of a typewriter’s keys.
“Wotcher, Kitty,” said Miss Morrissey.
The sole remaining occupant of the office glanced up, and Robin’s heart jolted. That woman, with her white shirtwaist and blue tie. This room. And this typewriter, paused now, which had clearly been imbued in a similar way to Edwin’s note-taking pen. It was the third time Robin had found his own experience lining up with one of his visions; the others had been the maze, and the view up through the Barrel, only minutes ago. Tension locked his shoulders. He had seen something relevant. He had managed to steer it.
“Hullo, Addy.”
“Kitty, this is the new Home Office liaison,” said Miss Morrissey, continuing to blithely ignore the existence of Robin’s resignation letter. “Sir Robert Blyth.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss—”
“Mrs.,” she said swiftly, and yes, there was a ring on her hand. “Kaur. How d’you do.” Mrs. Kitty Kaur had an arrangement of lovely features beneath the same coiled nest of black hair. She, if Robin remembered correctly, was the one who’d inherited all the magic that Adelaide Morrissey lacked.
“Kitty,” said Miss Morrissey. “Edwin Courcey’s gone missing, and we think he could be in danger.”
“You know I don’t work for the Coopers anymore. Don’t you?”
“But you still have access to the lockroom. Don’t you?”
A pause. Robin had had enough silent conversations with his own sister to realise when one was happening in front of him. He’d expected a lot more in the way of arguments and persuasion, and was prepared to embarrass himself in any number of ways if it would help, but the sisters Morrissey had a searching shorthand of glances that bypassed all of it.
“Addy,” said Mrs. Kaur. “I’ll still have to log it, and account for it later.”
“Blame me,” said Robin at once.
One thick black eyebrow arched.
Miss Morrissey leaned forward and smiled at her sister. “Would you say Sir Robert is a threatening figure?”
“Er,” said Mrs. Kaur. It was the most diplomatic single syllable Robin had ever heard.
“Are you afraid for your maidenly virtue?”
“I’m married, Addy,” said Kitty Kaur dryly. “I have none.” She eyed Robin. “He does seem the kind of well-built, pugnacious fellow who would follow through on a threat of bodily harm.”
“I beg your pardon,” Robin began to protest, and then the penny dropped. “Oh. Would it help if I raised my voice?”
“Yes, that would do nicely. Sir Robert strong-armed my sister into bringing him here to seek my help, and threatened us with harm unless I abused my access to the lockroom in order to locate Mr. Courcey. Overcome by concern for his friend, of course, but still. Most brutish behaviour.”
“And we are but feeble women,” said Miss Morrissey. “Woe.”
“Your sister is a magician,” Robin said, pointing out what seemed the largest hole in this story.
“Woe,” said Mrs. Kaur firmly, and Robin recalled what Miss Morrissey had said about the assumptions made by men.
Two more oak doors took them to their destination. The second one required a complicated cradle, which Mrs. Kaur fumbled the first time and then made a face as she began it over again—“The identification clause is a fiddle, and the secrecy one even more so,” she apologised, and then: “Hah,” with satisfaction as the rune flared into being.
Robin’s first thought was that Edwin had probably appreciated the lockroom, if he’d ever been there. It resembled nothing so much as the stacks of a library: a windowless room that had the feeling of being well below ground level, illuminated by pale orange ceiling lights that could have been either electric or magical. Rows of wooden shelves and drawers stretched away from the entrance. There was a peculiar, cathedral-like, anticipatory silence to the air.
“What is this place?” Robin asked.
“This is the Lockroom,” said Mrs. Kaur, and now Robin heard the way she said it. Title, not descriptor. “Every registered magician in Britain is represented in this room.”
A leather-bound ledger the size of a decent card table lay open on a bench, with words arranged in columns. A pen lifted itself from its stand as soon as Mrs. Kaur stepped close to the book. She raised her hands and moved them through the motions of a new spell, then paused with fingers held at angles.
“Catherine Amrit Kaur,” she said, and the pen entered it in one column, then hopped to hover over another. “His full name, if you know it,” she murmured.
“I don’t,” said Miss Morrissey.
“I do,” said Robin. For the rest of his life he would be able to recall the exact sight of Edwin kneeling, desperate and pale among closing holly, and hear the sound of Edwin’s voice. “Edwin John Courcey.”
Mrs. Kaur touched her index finger to thumb, creating a circle, and her hands glowed red for less than a second. There was a faint grinding sound from the bowels of the stacks. A new light sprang up in the distance, like a red ribbon unfurling to the ceiling, tethered at a particular point.
“Stay here, Sir Robert,” said Mrs. Kaur. She stepped across what Robin now realised was a threshold, a change from one pattern of wood on the floor to another.
Before long the tap of her footsteps brought her back with a small box in her hands, which was labelled with Edwin’s name. Inside was something small and pale, nestled on a velvet interior. Robin reached out to touch it, then snatched his hand back, belatedly trying to teach himself some caution when it came to new magical things.
“It’s all right. It’s only hair,” said Miss Morrissey.
“The Lock Room,” said Robin. “Locks of hair.” He swallowed and looked out at the depths of the stacks. “Every magician in Britain?”
“It’s a ceremony, when a child first shows signs of magic,” said Miss Morrissey. “A lock is cut. It used to be that your family would keep it safe, but now it’s kept here. Centrally. We know every member of our community.”
“Could someone do harm, using this?” Robin touched the lock of hair gently. It was like white silk, much whiter than Edwin’s hair was now.
“Nothing direct,” said Mrs. Kaur. “The hair’s dead. It’s no use as an active conduit. You can use it to trace because of . . . its memory, I suppose. The Assembly wouldn’t keep a potential weapon against its own people like that. But it means we can find and protect our own, when there are no other options.” A pointed look.
Robin was full of questions. How did this fit into Edwin’s rules about physical distance and the laws governing magic? What happened to the hair when someone died? Were there magicians who refused the ceremony, refused to have their children registered in such a way? What if a magician didn’t want to be found? The whole concept was more than a little creepy, but he didn’t want to be rude, and besides—he was, in this moment, very grateful indeed that the Lockroom existed.
Mrs. Kaur was already building another spell, standing in front of a dingy map of the British Isles that was pinned above the table holding the ledger. When she turned and flung her hands apart, she conjured a much larger version of the map into being; it hung in the air then drifted to overlay itself on the blank wooden panels of the wall behind them. There was some unevenness where the map dipped over the contours of the door and its frame. But it was the Isles, detailed and glowing and sprawled wide.
A phantom cradle lingered in Mrs. Kaur’s hands, visible only when tilted at certain angles, catching up both the orange of the lights above and the blue of the map-spell. The dark creases of her palms ran beneath it at different angles again. At her direction, Robin gingerly placed the lock of Edwin’s hair into the cradle’s centre; he could feel nothing there, but the lock sat and stayed as though caught in a web. Immediately the map pulsed brighter and more purple, changing, rewriting itself on the wall to show a small section of city. Robin stepped close to read the neat text of street names.
