urban fantasy series

My errand was of a peculiar nature. It related to employing my Merlin magick at Home, in ways that hadn’t occurred to me to do before. Ophelia had only loaned me that power, but she had made no move to take it back, yet. We’d agreed on a week, so I had time.

And I had questions. Lots of them. I’d had questions ever since I had joined the Society, of course; everyone did. But I’d learned a lot since then, and I finally had an idea about the nature of our Home and how it worked.

And that being so, I was curious, so I had to test it. Right? Who could possibly resist temptation like that?

It couldn’t be done just anywhere, though. I made my way, slowly and uncertainly, through the winding corridors of our beloved and enormous House, and after wrong turns aplenty (even superpowered, I still have to be me), I found myself at the door to House’s favourite room.

I knocked.

‘Dear House. I know it is a trifle rude to arrive uninvited and unannounced, but this is important. Would you be so kind as to let me in?’

Silence.

Then, a click. The door had unlocked.

I turned the handle, and went in.

The room stood quiet and empty. I closed the door behind me, and took a seat on one of the upholstered ivory chairs. A fire flared to life in the grate, and a comforting warmth began to permeate the October chill in the air.

I sat in comfortable silence for a while, enjoying the ambience of the parlour. The grandfather clock tick-tocked to itself in the corner, a peaceful sound, and I began to relax.

The portrait of the troll lady in court dress was still there, above the chair Emellana had lately occupied. I studied it more closely than I’d had occasion to do before. She was of Emellana’s age, I judged: fairly elderly, but still spry. Her gown was an extravagant blue velvet creation, seventeenth-century in style, with a wealth of lace and ruffles and jewels. She was a court lady, no doubt about it. But: which court?

I looked around at the rest of the paintings. There were five more: two depicting figures in seventeenth-century dress, one male, black and Yllanfalen, one female, white and human. Another showed a young man with dark brown skin wearing the plain garb of an eighteenth-century tradesman. The final two depicted a little girl in a plain white Edwardian dress, and an elderly, blue-eyed lady in an eighteen-thirties day dress and sun bonnet.

The child’s portrait didn’t fit my theory, but the rest just might. My gaze lingered in particular on the older lady in the sun bonnet.

I closed my eyes. Time to listen; time to feel. I’d connected with the odd, old house at Silvessen in deeper ways than I’d ever connected with anything before; could I do the same at Home?

I sat there enveloped in near silence, breathing deeply, listening to every slight sound that reached my senses. The tick, tick of the clock. The soft crackle of flames in the hearth. I breathed in the dust of hundreds of years with every inhalation; I felt the softness of carpet under my feet and silk under my hands, a cold wind in my eaves, the chatter of birds sheltering from the weather somewhere under my roof. A comfortable babble of voices, the warmth of many bodies gathered under my embrace. The odd cocktail of smells from the kitchens, from the lab, from the surrounding woods and fields.

A knock came softly from somewhere; a door opened in response, and closed again. Not the parlour. Somewhere farther off.

I gathered my strength, and pushed gently against the door that had just closed.

It opened again.

‘Sorry,’ I gasped, surprised, and retreated, slamming the door behind myself again.

There was a pause.

‘Hello?’ I said into the silence.

I felt a palpable surprise exceeding even my own. Then a questing, curious touch on my senses, all my senses: they were exploring me.

‘I come in peace,’ I offered. ‘I’m just— interested. In who you are.’

An answer came, finally. Merlin, uttered a voice in the depths of my mind. It has been a long time.

‘I’m only a new Merlin,’ I explained. ‘Brand new. I’ve been here at the Society for a while, though.’

We know you, Cordelia Vesper.

We. That tallied with my suspicions.

I felt a rising excitement, and had to take a breath. Focus, Ves. Don’t get overexcited and ruin everything. ‘May I know who I am addressing? Are these your portraits?’

The faces we once wore are here commemorated, answered the voice. They are but echoes, now.

‘Memories,’ I supplied.

Yes.

Time for the million-pound question.

‘You recognise me as Merlin. Is that because you are archetypes, too?’

A fresh wave of surprise. Not now, came the answer.

‘Former archetypes. And when you passed on the role, and passed away, you chose to remain here.’

Not all of us chose to remain. Some journeyed on.

I felt thrilled, the delight you get from solving a fiendishly difficult puzzle. For more than a decade, I’d wondered how House came to be so — animated. Everyone had. And now I finally had something like an answer.

The spirits of former archetypes resided here. They were haunting the House, after a fashion; the way the Greyer sisters had haunted their cottage after death, and the way the Yllanfalen women of Silvessen haunted the craggy old house on the edge of the town. Except, not like that. They didn’t linger out of bitterness and rage, and they hadn’t been enslaved. They were here because they had loved the House in life, and they chose to remain with it after death.

I thought of the painting of Cicily Werewode, the way some part of her spirit was bound into it. Probably some part of those arts was employed here, too. The people depicted were dead, and yet they weren’t; they lived on, their consciousness laced through canvas and oils, through brick and stone and tile. Bound to the House, and to each other, but bound in love, not hatred.

‘Greetings,’ I said brightly. ‘It’s an honour to meet you. Which archetype did you embody, if I may ask? Were you all the same archetype, at different times? Or different ones? Is it the same one Milady currently embodies?’

Too many questions. I knew it as I uttered them, but they poured out of me anyway. I was just so interested, and Milady was so maddeningly vague.

I felt a flicker of something like amusement. More than just a flicker. A wave of it, coming from everywhere at once.

So much curiosity, said a voice, and it felt like a different person speaking. An enquiring mind.

I hoped I wasn’t imagining the approval that came with the statement.

‘I have more,’ I offered. ‘Lots more.’

There followed a pause. Were they thinking? Don’t think, I silently pleaded. Just answer!

The next voice, though, was very recognisable to me. It sliced through my thoughts with enough force to give me a blinding headache. Ves. Leave this alone.

Milady.

Curses.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly, and not altogether sincerely. ‘Can’t I ask?’

It is rude to pry, came Milady’s somewhat flabbergasting answer. Kindly remember your manners.

My manners?

I ground my teeth in silent frustration. I could see her point, more than I liked. I was poking and prying, trying to find my way through to secrets about Milady’s identity which she hadn’t chosen to share. I did not have that right.

Even so, it was maddeningly frustrating to have to leave it alone and back away. I was so close to solving the mystery!

I know, Ves, said Milady. It is very disappointing. But I remain unmoved.

I sighed, and relinquished the argument. I withdrew my senses from the dear old House, returning to the Ves I’d left behind: a pint-sized human with fabulous hair, slumped in an ivory silken chair. My limbs had gone dead in my absence; I shook life back into them, and took some care as I stood up.

I made a curtsey, to Milady and also to the various souls inhabiting the House. ‘Thank you for your time,’ I said, scrupulously polite. ‘I’ll show myself out.’

The door didn’t quite slam shut behind me, but it did lock in a manner I’d term decisive.

I wouldn’t be getting back into House’s favourite room any time soon.

***

My last errand for the day was of a less pleasant nature. As if bearing Milady’s disapproval (twice over) wasn’t enough, I was going to have to put up with my mother’s, too.

Oh well. I’d dropped myself in it, and had nobody else to blame.

I trailed back to my room, and picked up my phone.

Taking a deep breath, I dialled my mother’s number.

She picked up after the first ring, taking me by surprise. Normally she ignores my calls. ‘Cordelia. What do you want?’

‘Can’t I be calling just to say hel—’

‘Don’t bother. Get on with it.’

‘Right. Fair cop. I’ve got a problem.’

‘And?’

‘Well, to be accurate I’ve created a problem.’

‘And now you’re making it my problem.’

‘Sort of. A little bit. Are you disposed to help me or not?’

‘Depends what it is.’

So I launched into the Tale of the Dance Battle yet again, though I offered Mother a somewhat curtailed version.

Despite this, the silence when I’d finished was liberally flavoured with incredulity.

‘Yes, I know, I’m a complete screw-up,’ I said, before she could have a chance to say it herself.

‘Did it work?’

‘Well, it did. More or less.’

‘Then it wasn’t a screw-up, was it?’

‘Are you being supportive? Because I’m not sure I can take any more surprises today.’

‘Did we get to the part where you tell me what you want yet?’

‘Right. So Silvessen was probably an Yllanfalen town, and if we’re going to rebuild it sensitively then we need Yllanfalen aid.’

‘That can probably be arranged.’

‘And materials. Lots of those.’

That gave her pause. ‘I can’t just spirit up sufficient building materials to reconstruct an entire town, Ves.’

‘I know, but I’m stuck, so whatever you’ve got I’ll take.’

‘Noted. Oh, call your father.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because it’s his birthday tomorrow.’

‘Right. I know stuff like that, of course, because I’ve had a long and rewarding relationship with him up until now.’

‘Also, he’s a stonemason.’

‘He’s what?’

‘Did you not hear me, or are you just being difficult?’

A stonemason. Whose birthday was tomorrow. I realised afresh how little I knew about my father. ‘I don’t have his number,’ I said.

‘I’ll send it. Tell him I told him to help you.’

‘Will that work?’

‘It will if he knows what’s good for him.’

She hung up.

A moment later, my phone buzzed with a message. Dad’s number unfurled across my screen.

All of this was rather unexpected. I took my time over saving his number to my contacts, and adding his name. Thomas Goldwell. Tom.

I was procrastinating, probably because I was nervous. He hadn’t seemed super pleased to learn of my existence before, and though I had given him my number the one time I’d met him, he had yet to call me.

That suggested he didn’t want anything to do with me, didn’t it?

Still. I wasn’t calling him to propose a happy family gathering. I was calling him to engage his professional services for Silvessen. Mostly.

The phone rang several times before he answered. ‘Hello?’

I swallowed a flutter of nerves, and pasted on a smile. ‘Hi. Thomas Goldwell? Tom? This is Cordelia Vesper. You might not remember me—’

‘Of course I do,’ he interrupted. ‘Adult women claiming a near relationship with me don’t show up every week.’

‘Right. Well, Dad, I have to tell you happy birthday. For tomorrow. Mum said so.’

‘Thank you.’

That seemed to be it, so I went on. ‘Also, I hear you’re a stonemason.’

‘I don’t practise the trade much any more, but I do have that skillset, yes.’

‘Okay. Then I’ve got a job for you.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s important. We’re restoring an Yllanfalen town, and we need people with the right skills and insight.’

‘Interesting, but I’m busy.’

‘Also, Mum said you have to help me.’

‘She said what?’

‘I’ll quote: “Tell him I told him to help you, if he knows what’s good for him.” Those exact words.’

He might have sighed, or there might have been a passing gust of wind, I couldn’t be sure.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Tell me when and where.’

I was speechless with shock, too much to muster more than a strangled ‘thank you’ in reply.

He hung up on me without saying goodbye, demonstrating that he and my mother had at least one thing in common.

‘Great,’ I said into the phone. ‘See you soon.’

I put my phone away, uncertain as to the state of my feelings.

Mum was helping me out, and she hadn’t even argued that much.

And I would finally get to meet my dad again, even if he didn’t seem too excited about it.

Things among Family Ves were looking up. Vaguely. A little bit.

Sod it. If I didn’t need a husband, I didn’t need a mother or a father either. I’d managed just fine without those things.

Still, a girl can hope. Right?

Right.

And in the meantime, there’s Jay, who’s everything my family isn’t, and presently waiting to whisk me away to a dream dinner that I hadn’t even been able to scare him out of.

I dismissed my mountain of problems from my mind, opened my wardrobe and devoted myself to choosing a dress.

Enough work, Ves. Time to enjoy life a bit.

Explaining the dance party to Milady wasn’t as hard as you might think. She’s met me before.

‘So the only conceivable way to avert total disaster and certain death was to challenge the tormented and wronged inhabitants of Silvessen to a dance battle,’ Milady said, just to make sure she had it straight.

‘Exactly,’ said I.

It was the next day, which was nice, because we’d had a free evening before we’d been summoned to make our report. An evening in which to get clean, and warm, and fed (again), and hugged (thank you Jay), and then to sleep the deep, peaceful slumber of Society agents who aren’t being mercilessly tortured by a quartet of unhappy glaistigs.

I had, however, been summoned particularly bright and early: it was barely seven o’clock, I hadn’t had breakfast yet, and was it my imagination or was the light getting steadily brighter in Milady’s tower-top interrogation room? Searingly bright, like I was under police questioning and nobody wanted me to feel very comfortable anytime soon.

I shifted nervously, and made myself stop.

‘And this worked out… well,’ Milady continued.

‘I mean, we lost,’ I admitted. ‘But I sort of did that my own self, so it’s not the same as actually being beaten, and the results were—’

‘Ves,’ Milady interrupted. ‘You’ve committed us to single-handedly restoring an entire town to its former glory. A town uninhabited for centuries, I might add, with no functional buildings and a magickal status best described as bleak.’

‘Yes! Isn’t it an exciting opportunity?’

There was a long and awful silence.

I didn’t even have my staunch and trusty comrades to back me up, because I’d been brought up here alone.

‘It’s not exactly single-handed when there are a couple of hundred of us at the Society,’ I ventured. ‘And I’d be happy to lead this project myself.’

‘Cordelia Vesper,’ said Milady, in a terrible voice. ‘If you think I will be landing anybody else with this — project, you are very much mistaken.’

‘Understood,’ I said quickly.

‘It is fortunate that some parts of the… necessary undertakings will dovetail, to some extent, with Orlando’s proposed programme of magickal restoration via the regulator.’

‘That’s what I was hoping.’

‘And the Troll Court may take an interest, considering that this restoration is similar to their hopes for Farringale.’

‘Exactly!’

‘As for the rest.’

I waited.

‘Do you have the first idea what it will cost to rebuild a town, Ves?’

‘Not really, but—’

‘And this is a heritage site of historical interest, so we cannot merely level the town and build whatever we’d like. Each of those buildings will have to be carefully restored, and rebuilt in a fashion that’s respectful to their origins. Which means special materials, expertise—’ She stopped with a gasp, as though the mere thought of everything had exhausted her.

I waited in meek silence for her to continue.

And when that didn’t work, I piped up with: ‘We have people for that!’

Which, in my defence, was true. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had to intervene to save ancient buildings of magickal import, and among the permanent employees at the Society were a range of people with exactly the sorts of skills in woodcarving, thatching, stonemasonry and ironworking that Milady was talking about.

‘And the materials?’

This was a question I didn’t have a smart answer for, a fact I betrayed with a lengthy and unpromising silence.

‘I’ll think of something,’ I finally said.

‘I would consider it advisable that you do,’ said Milady, still rather awfully, and I trailed away feeling chastened.

***

Explaining the dance party to Ophelia was considerably more challenging.

I hadn’t had the courage to face her straight after my grilling at Milady’s hands, so I took refuge in the first-floor common room.

Where she found me, an hour later, nursing a cup of tea and staring sadly out of the window.

Tea, note. Not chocolate. Milady was definitely not quite pleased with me.

‘You’re back,’ Ophelia observed, sitting down opposite me in the chair Jay usually occupies.

It wasn’t that I was unhappy to see Ophelia; she’s a nice lady. But I wasn’t pleased to see her right then, before I’d had chance to recover from my undignified drubbing at Milady’s hands. As I watched her sit down, cool and calm and full of questions, I may have actually quailed a bit.

I forced a smile. ‘As you see. How are you?’ At least the common room was empty apart from the two of us. Nobody else would have to witness my attempts to explain the inexplicable to Merlin.

‘Very well, thank you,’ she said serenely, but I didn’t miss the narrow look she shot me as she spoke. As usual, she saw through me. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ she went on.

I heaved a sigh, finished the dregs of my tea, and set down the emptied mug. ‘So. Silvessen was uninhabited, except not quite so uninhabited as we were expecting.’

The story took a while to get through, rather longer than I’d had to spend recounting everything to Milady. This was partly because Ophelia had questions. Lots of questions.

‘You did what?’ came up fairly often.

And twice she said: ‘Oh?’ in that dangerous way parents adopt while their children try to explain why they’re covered in chocolate spread from head to foot (example entirely hypothetical, definitely not something drawn from the storied experience of Tiny Ves).

Jay came in while I was about halfway finished. Finding his chair occupied, he took the seat next to me instead, and sat there in supportive silence while I stumbled through the rest of the story.

When I was finished, Ophelia looked at both of us in silence.

Finally, she spoke.

‘So you used the ancient magick of Merlin to hold a dance competition.’

I suppressed a sigh, and nodded. Take it like a queen, Ves. ‘It seemed the best thing to do,’ I offered.

Her eyes widened at that. ‘Did it?’

‘What would you have done?’

She just stared helplessly at me. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But definitely not that.’

I waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. She seemed shocked speechless.

‘Ves did great,’ Jay interjected. ‘The mission objectives were fulfilled, a rapport was established with the incumbents of Silvessen and a deal reached which will be of mutual benefit. Above all, no one was hurt.’ He smiled slightly, wryly, and amended that. ‘Save for a few pulled muscles all round.’

Ophelia was shaking her head. ‘To call it an unorthodox approach would not begin to cover it.’

‘That’s Ves for you.’

‘I see that.’

The look on her face. I tried not to feel like she was experiencing a crushing regret at having picked me for her successor.

Her next words dashed those hopes.

‘I chose you as the best candidate to inherit Merlin’s magick. Would you like to explain to me how that’s still true?’

I opened my mouth, and closed it again. I had a surplus of smart answers I could’ve given, but this was serious. For once, I had to be serious too. Why was I the right person to be the next Merlin?

Was I, even? I wasn’t certain of that myself. How could I convince Ophelia?

In the end, Jay saved me.

‘Permit me to point out a couple of things,’ he said. ‘For one, Ves has a boundless imagination and an inexhaustible supply of creative solutions to difficult problems.’

Ophelia snorted with laughter, which seemed favourable, and shook her head, which didn’t. ‘Demonstrably true.’

‘And for another. Let’s consider the hazards of this kind of a power handover. The greatest danger has to be that you’ll pick someone who won’t prove trustworthy. Someone who’ll abuse Merlin’s magick, turn it to ill effect. Someone who’ll be corrupted by it. Right?’

The ghost of a smile crossed Ophelia’s face. ‘I see where you’re going with this line of thinking.’

Jay smiled, too, much more widely. ‘So you gave Ves the opportunity to test drive Merlin’s magick, and what did she do? She figured out right away that she could use it to influence, if not outright control, other people’s behaviour, but what does that mean to Ves? The idea that she could enslave people to her will wouldn’t even occur to her, let alone interest her. There’s no puppeteering, no power tripping, and definitely no bloodbaths. No, you give Ves awesome cosmic powers and what does she do? She holds a dance party. That’s Ves. And that’s why she’s the right person to be Merlin.’

I felt tears pricking behind my eyes, and had to swallow a lump in my throat. I couldn’t even speak, so Jay had to be contented with a look of heartfelt gratitude. He smiled back, his eyes lingering on my face with an expression of such tenderness I had to look away.

Ophelia digested Jay’s words in silence for longer than I was comfortable with. I felt like my fate hung in the balance here; if she didn’t accept Jay’s argument, she’d take back all the beautiful, ancient magick and go find someone else to embody the archetype.

I wasn’t deeply committed to becoming the next Merlin; my life would go on even if I was passed over for it. But failure stings. And besides, I had stuff to do with those powers. I had heritage to save, people to help, magick to revive.

‘A dance battle.’ Ophelia was shaking her head again, but then, to my intense relief, she began to laugh.

She laughed and laughed until tears streamed from her eyes, and when she’d finally finished laughing she said: ‘I’ll say this: your turn as Merlin is going to be a lot more colourful than mine.’

Colourful. Good point. I touched a fingertip to a lock of my hair, and with a wisp of magick I turned it into a fluid purple-blue ombre. ‘I’ll consider it a point of honour,’ I told Ophelia, who smiled, so that was all right, then.

Later, when Ophelia had gone back to her cottage-out-of-time, Jay and I lingered a while in the common room. I had a great many things to do: arrange for a burial crew to tend to the remains of the deceased at Silvessen; negotiate with the Troll Court for assistance with the rebuilding, via Emellana; exercise my Yllanfalen contacts in hope of further aid; and figure out where in the world I was going to get a town’s worth of rare and expensive building materials.

But I didn’t feel motivated to work on any of it. I was tired, which was fair; yesterday was a long, long day, and I’d exercised my physical and magickal powers in all manner of unusual ways.

I was also feeling a little deflated. Nothing had turned out quite the way I was hoping, and I wasn’t sure what to make of where I’d ended up.

I must have heaved a little sigh, for Jay looked over at me and said: ‘All okay?’

I gestured at the emptied teapot. ‘I can’t remember the last time Milady gave me tea.’

Jay knew what that meant; he grimaced. ‘You deserved chocolate, though.’

‘I think it’s the rebuilding that she’s unhappy about. It is going to be expensive, for sure.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘And it is good tea. I think there was even some cream in it.’

‘Not entirely in the doghouse, then.’ He smiled at me, in a way that was probably supposed to be encouraging. I tried to smile back.

Jay leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees so he could give me one of his long, intense looks. ‘Ves. I meant what I said. You did a great job.’

‘Thanks.’ I managed a better smile. ‘I hope Orlando’s happy with us, at least?’

‘Reckon so. Indira vanished into the attic last night, and I haven’t heard from her yet. They’re probably up to their eyeballs in data.’

‘That’s good. Probably be another test mission going on soon.’

‘Maybe. Indira’s going to be busy monitoring Silvessen for a while yet. All we’ve established so far is that the regulator’s basic functions appear to work. What the effects will be on the Dell is a whole other question.’

‘So we’ll all be busy down at Silvessen for a while yet, thanks to me.’

Jay smiled and shrugged. ‘Yes, but I for one am looking forward to it. I don’t think anyone’s ever brought an entire town back from the dead before. And if we can do something like that at Silvessen, what does that mean for Farringale?’

I nodded. ‘I’m hoping the Troll Court will see it that way, too, and help us out.’

‘Em will get them on board.’

I tried to picture anybody standing up to a serenely determined Emellana and prevailing. I couldn’t. Even Their Majesties were outmatched there.

‘Em and Alban,’ I amended. ‘Pretty sure he’ll support us.’

Jay frowned slightly, and hesitated over his next words. ‘About Alban.’

‘Yes?’

He straightened again and leaned back in his chair, watching me. I wasn’t sure what for. ‘Are you… are you and he definitely not—?’

He didn’t seem disposed to finish the sentence, so I took a guess. ‘Going to be a thing? No. Definitely not.’

He scrutinised me with a rather dark gaze. I couldn’t read his expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Are you?’

‘Maybe. Are you?’

I thought about it, but I didn’t need to think for very long. ‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘But not as much as I might have expected. I think I was… dazzled.’

‘He is pretty dazzling.’

‘I doubt it would ever have worked out.’ Saying that out loud hurt, a little. Part of me had really wanted it to work out, but that was probably the dazzled and stupid part. ‘Anyway,’ I went on. ‘I so rarely date. I don’t have time, or… inclination, much.’

‘Really? You don’t want to date?’

‘I know that sounds weird.’ I tried not to feel defensive; it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s reacted badly to the idea. ‘I don’t hate dating, but it’s a lot of trouble and I don’t feel in need of a relationship.’

Jay nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

‘That’s what I meant when I said I was dazzled. I was so swept away by Alban that I forgot who I am, for a little while.’

‘And who is that?’

I hesitated.

‘If I may ask,’ Jay said quickly. ‘I don’t want to pry.’

I eyed Jay for a moment in silence. How much could I tell him? How much did I want to tell him?

‘I’m fine on my own,’ I answered. ‘I know people say that and sometimes it isn’t true, it’s a pose adopted against the loneliness that comes from wanting a relationship and not finding one. But in my case it’s the truth. I’ve never felt a strong drive to get into romantic or sexual relationships, and if I go through the rest of my life without one, I’ll be happy with that.’

Jay just nodded, giving me space to say more, if I wanted to.

I found that I did.

‘I don’t think I feel… attracted to people, the way others do,’ I said. ‘Not even Alban. I mean, he’s aesthetically delightful, and I might’ve liked to be kissed a bit, maybe, but that’s… that’s all.’

Jay nodded again, silent with a watchful attention which felt welcoming, not condemning. There was warmth in his gaze.

So I went on. ‘It’s hard to talk about, because… because people think that you must be broken, you know? They say you just haven’t met the right person yet, or that you must be damaged somehow. And maybe I’ve wondered, sometimes, if they’re right. You know how people talk about love and sex and soulmates — like it’s the crowning experience of all of humankind — and I’ve felt, sometimes, like I must be missing out on all that magic and beauty and — that my life must be the poorer for it.

‘So when Alban showed up and I was a bit starry-eyed over him I thought… maybe this is it, maybe this is the “right person” who’ll change those things about me, and I’ll finally learn what all the fuss is about. My life will finally be right and healthy and complete, in all the ways people talk about.

‘But that didn’t happen, because it isn’t that I haven’t met the magical person who’ll change me. It’s that I don’t need to change. My life isn’t broken and I’m happy as I am. So, no, I’m not too disappointed about Alban. I have a fantastic life and I don’t need a romance to complete me.’

I realised as I was speaking that I was trailing into defensiveness after all, but hey ho. I’d said it.

And far from condemning me, or recoiling from me, or arguing with me, Jay was smiling. ‘You’re dazzling,’ he said. ‘Never mind Alban. You’re the complete package all by yourself, and I agree: you don’t need a soulmate. Your soul’s perfect as it is.’

That sunk in all the way down, and lighted a little glow around my heart. ‘Thanks,’ I managed, through a fresh wave of threatened tears. Twice in one day, I must be tired. ‘It’s not that I don’t love people,’ I added. ‘I do. Deeply. You can love people completely even without sex or romance. I don’t think they’re the same things, at all.’

‘I have no trouble believing that,’ said Jay.

‘So… why were you asking about Alban?’

‘Um, well…’ Jay looked away, looked back at me, shifted in his seat. Uncomfy. What can of worms had I opened? ‘I had thoughts of… asking you to dinner. Or something. If you were free.’

‘You mean if I wasn’t hanging my heart on Alban like a coatrack.’

‘Something like that. But if you don’t want to date—’

‘I’d like to,’ I said quickly.

Jay hesitated, perhaps waiting for a “but something” to follow.

‘That’s it,’ I clarified. ‘I’d like to.’

A smile, somewhat relieved. ‘Let’s rephrase what I was going to ask,’ he said. ‘Would you like to have dinner with me with a view to developing a deeper relationship in a largely non-romantic way, and which certainly isn’t intended as a prelude to sex?’

‘Would that be… okay?’

‘Completely. Wonderfully.’

I smiled, too — then stopped as a thought occurred to me. ‘But wait. Weren’t you dating someone?’

‘Briefly. Not now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not. The idea was of interest to our parents, so we gave it a chance. But we found it wasn’t of similar interest to us.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re friends. It’s okay.’

‘And your parents are okay with that?’

‘Of course. They aren’t tyrants.’

‘Dinner’s on, then.’

Jay beamed. ‘How about tonight? Are you too tired?’

‘Tonight’s great. I do have something I want to do before then.’

‘Oh? Do you need backup?’

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but not this time.’

‘Zareen,’ I said, clearly and warily, as she approached me with that odd, jerky gait. Whoever was wearing her skin hadn’t had to operate a real, living body in a long time, I judged. She’d lost the knack of it. ‘Zar. Snap out of it. Please.’

There was a definite pause, or at least a slowing of the inexorable approach. Zareen was still in there somewhere. Good.

I danced back a few steps, searching my weary brain for an idea. Dealing with misbehaving spirits is Zareen’s job; what are we supposed to do when she’s the one who gets possessed?

‘Jay,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what to do here.’

‘Then it’s time for some of your trademark brilliant improvisation, because neither do I.’ We were backing up together, which worked fine until we ran out of street.

Zareen was closing on us, and— here came Indira and Emellana, neither of them in their right minds either.

‘We need Zareen back to fix this,’ I muttered to Jay. ‘Can you keep the other two busy while I work on that?’

‘Right.’ He took off at a run.

I didn’t see how he chose to carry out my somewhat peremptory request, because Zareen was getting in my face and I had more urgent problems. ‘Zareen, come on,’ I said, sharply clapping my hands. ‘You’re a boss and a queen and you’ve got this.’

She hadn’t got it. I could tell from the way she tried to grab my face with her red-lacquered fingernails (rather chipped).

Merlin time. What do I do, Ophelia, what do I do?

Go deep? Somewhere inside Zareen’s commandeered head my friend was still lurking, but how could I reach her? I didn’t have time to sit and commune with the elements, not while she was determinedly trying to claw out my eyes.

I tried anyway. I focused and I listened, and for a few seconds, I thought I had it. An echo of the Zareen I knew, something that felt like her. Yes. I grabbed hold of Zareen and I pulled.

And when that didn’t work, I lost my shit for a moment and tried the age-old art of headbutting. Why, you might ask? Did I think I could shock the ghost out of her by sheer brute force?

Hey, it was worth a try.

She shrieked, so did I (headbutting hurts), and nothing changed, except that on the next swipe she got hold of my face. Her thumb shoved into my mouth and her fingers were in my eyes and I was mad.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—’ I spat, and bit.

She shrieked again, and released me.

I took immediate advantage.

I opened my mouth and, with a wisp of Merlin-magick, amplified my typically dulcet tones to impossible volume. ‘SILVESSEN!’ I roared, and the syllables split the air with the force of a thunderclap, echoing off the bowl of the sky. ‘THIS IS SOMEWHAT CONTRARY TO THE SPIRIT OF OUR AGREEMENT, DON’T YOU THINK? PLEASE RECALL YOUR ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES TO A SENSE OF DECORUM OR WE DO NOT HAVE A DEAL.’

Jay shot past, high-tailing it to gods-knew-where. Pursued, a moment later, by Emellana and Indira, and then Jay came back around again.

Okay. Playing chicken with the glaistigs. That’s one way to distract them.

‘SILVESSSSSEEEN,’I screamed again, because Zareen wasn’t much daunted by my voice-of-the-gods routine and was coming at me again. ‘Don’t make me hurt Zareen or I WILL HURT YOU.’

I would have, too, in that mood. It had been a difficult day, I was tired, and worst of all, I was hungry. And the carrier bags containing my carefully chosen repast were lying scattered in the street getting rained upon because Silvessen’s miserable cronies fancied a possession party, I mean, who’s got time for this?

Thankfully, I wasn’t obliged to do either of those things because she’d heard me. Well, she could hardly help it.

Another voice rolled through the heavens, almost as thunderous as mine. ‘Alaiona. Celaena. Fanessel. Desist.’

Zareen stopped dead. Behind her, Indira and Emellana came to an equally abrupt halt, so sharply they almost toppled over. All three shuddered convulsively, and then all three screamed, which was super fun.

And then all three of my colleagues and friends collapsed in the dirt.

‘Thanks,’ I muttered weakly, and dropped to my knees beside Zareen.

She was already coming around; her eyes were open, and when she looked at me I knew it was Zar because she was angry.

She came up spitting with fury. ‘Bitches tricked me,’ she snarled. ‘And they teamed me, too, because they knew I was the threat. Let me at them.’

‘Nope,’ I said, planting a palm on her chest when she tried to jump up. ‘Silvessen recalled them because walking your carcasses around rather contravened the terms of the deal we just made. I’m afraid forcibly exorcising her only friends would have much the same effect.’

Zareen’s only response was a wordless snarl, but she made no further attempts to tear off in a murderous rage, so I let her be while I checked on Emellana.

‘Why does my head hurt,’ I heard Zareen mutter as I left her.

Em was on her feet by the time I reached her, brushing mud off her coat.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I feel like we shouldn’t have left you.’

Unruffled as ever, she twinkled at me. ‘Food was important. Where is it, by the way?’

‘Over there.’ I pointed. ‘You seem remarkably unperturbed for a recently possessed woman.’

‘It’s happened before. Never pleasant, but you can get used to anything.’ With which wisdom, she ambled away in the direction of food, leaving me to unhappy contemplation of her words.

What do you have to go through to get used to malevolent possession?

Did I want to know?

I did not.

I turned in search of Indira.

No need. Her big brother had her in a big hug, which was good, because even from here I could see she was drawn and shaking. Poor girl. She was so young, she’d had none of the experience Emellana benefited from.

‘I shouldn’t have left you,’ Jay was saying, echoing my own words. ‘If I’d been here—’

‘If you’d been here, what?’ Indira interrupted, and pulled away from him. ‘What were you going to do?’

Jay seemed at a loss for an answer. Fair, because it was a really good question. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally said. ‘Something to protect you—’

Indira became icily dignified, unconsciously mirroring Emellana’s gestures as she brushed herself down. ‘Bad things happen sometimes. You can’t prevent that.’

‘Even so—’

‘No. It isn’t up to you to protect me from the world, and it wouldn’t help me much if you could. How am I supposed to become competent myself if you never let me experience anything that might be challenging?’

‘There’s challenging, and then there’s forcible possession by a dangerous spirit—’

‘Jay.’ Indira looked him dead in the eye, ice-cold. ‘Resilience is the product of encountering adversity, and surviving. You do want me to grow into a strong and capable adult?’

There was no good comeback to that, and Jay didn’t try. Wise man. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I hear you. I’m sorry.’

She nodded, and that was that.

‘Thanks for the hug,’ she said. ‘It helps.’ And then both of them were looking around for me, and for food, possibly in that order or possibly not.

The mood as we tore through our repast was subdued. I don’t know what had led any of us to expect a nice, easy mission; when did that ever pan out? But we had, and instead we’d been emotionally tortured, our wits were tested, our physical bodies were pushed to their limits (and beyond), and finally several of us had been used as sock puppets.

And we hadn’t eaten all day. At least that was a problem we could fix.

We ate huddled inside one of the more intact of Silvessen’s cottages, which at least kept the rain and some of the wind off us. But a half hour sitting in one place left us shivering with cold and very ready to be going home.

I made the last morsel of my second eclair last, savouring the sweetness and the cream.

And when it was finished, and the last drops of cooling tea drained, I — and Jay and Zareen and even Emellana — turned a hopeful look upon Indira.

‘Let’s have a look,’ said she, rising (a little stiffly) to her feet.

She crossed the street and sat in the dirt next to the regulator, sat there for a while with her palms to the earth and her brain on some other plane of reality. I don’t know what she was doing, but after ten minutes she stood up, made a hopeless and ineffectual attempt to wipe the mud off her trousers, and shrugged. ‘It seems to be okay,’ she said.

Which is as good a way of tempting fate as any I’ve ever heard, and she really ought to have known better.

Because that was when the horde of carnivorous unicorns showed up.

Okay, just kidding about the unicorns. What actually happened was nothing, which at that point could scarcely have surprised me more.

‘It’s okay?’ I repeated dumbly.

Indira nodded. ‘I think so. Nothing anomalous is going on, and it seems stable.’

‘Can you… get it out of there?’

‘No.’

‘Milady won’t be happy.’

Indira looked pained. ‘I know, and I would prefer to remove it, but I can’t.’

‘So we leave it here.’

‘Yes. It’ll have to be checked regularly for a few weeks to monitor the results, tweak and recalibrate as necessary, but for now it’s fine.’

‘And we can go home.’

‘Yes,’ said Indira, and added, fervently, ‘please.’

‘Those glaistigs?’ I heard Jay mutter near my ear. ‘I get the feeling they’re disinclined to accept defeat.’

‘Dance-off’s still on,’ I agreed.

‘And I’d say we’ve been bested,’ said Zareen.

I shook my head. Vehemently. ‘If there’s one rule I live by, it’s this: never accept defeat in a dance-off against legions of the undead.’

And, hey, we tried. Jay played the Bee Gees and Donna Summer and we threw some shapes. We were a perfect disco-dancing dream team, but we were outnumbered a thousand to one and those glaistigs are smart. Why bother coming up with your own routines when you could just copy the other guy?

Everything we did, they did too.

I’ll say this: if you’ve never witnessed five-thousand mostly decayed corpses perform a ‘Saturday Night Fever’routine in perfect unison, you haven’t lived.

And while I’ve rarely been more entirely thrilled in my life, I couldn’t disagree when Jay finally said: ‘Ves? I think we’ve reached a point where this could go on all night.’

Regretfully, I concurred. ‘But I can’t tell you how much it hurts me to be beaten at my own dance-battle game.’

We stopped dancing.

So did our opponents. Instantly.

Hmm.

‘All right,’ I called. ‘We concede, I suppose.’

Silvessen’s voice answered. ‘That makes the contest a draw, does it not?’

I winced a bit as I replied. ‘Yes, yes it does.’

‘But I perceive that you have already availed yourselves of the boon you were to ask of us.’

I wondered how she knew that. Had they been watching us while we’d worked, or had the effects of the regulator’s installation been noticeable all the way out at the haunted house?

‘How about you win a prize, too?’ I offered. ‘Everybody wins.’

‘A boon?’

‘A boon.’

Zareen made a choking noise. ‘Ves, you don’t offer an enraged glaistig a carte blanche. Have I taught you nothing?’

‘It’s a fair deal,’ I protested. ‘Same deal they gave us.’

‘It is fair,’ Silvessen agreed, ringingly. I still couldn’t see her, or her fellows. Her voice echoed out of the air, impossibly amplified.

The skeletons hadn’t moved. They had frozen from the moment we had ceased to dance, as though controlled by a puppeteer who’d lost interest and wandered off.

‘Nice work with the, um, villagers,’ I offered, gesturing at the surrounding horde of the undead. ‘Very neat.’

A long pause followed. ‘True, I called them,’ Silvessen finally answered. ‘Some of them.’

‘Some of them?’

‘The regulator,’ Emellana said from behind me, ‘amplified the effect somewhat.’

Oh.

Silvessen hadn’t summoned five-thousand dead villagers. We had.

Sort of.

‘That was, um, not intentional,’ I said in a smaller voice. ‘Um, but you were a terrific troupe leader.’

‘Was I?’

I blinked.

‘I called them to the dance,’ Silvessen continued. ‘At first.’

‘You… at first? What were they supposed to do after?’

Her silence was eloquent in ways that sent a shiver down my spine.

‘Yeah,’ said Zareen. ‘People don’t usually haul corpses out of the grave for a dance party, Ves.’

‘Got it. But then… why did they…?’

Jay leaned closer to me, and spoke in a low voice. ‘Notice how they copied our every move?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they stopped as soon as we did?’

‘Yes…’

‘Think about it a moment.’

My stomach dropped through the floor.

What had I been doing, besides dancing?

I’d been guiding my team’s moves, that’s what. Using my Merlin superpowers to shape us into an elite, perfectly synchronised dance troupe.

‘The radius of effect might have been slightly larger than I intended,’ I muttered.

Jay patted my shoulder. ‘To be fair, this day could have turned out worse.’

Emellana agreed. ‘If you’re going to absently wrest control of an undead army from the hands of an enraged murder victim, there are worse things you could do with it.’

‘And hey, we’re in one piece,’ Zareen said. ‘No thanks to Silvessen.’

My face was so hot I was surprised I didn’t burst into flame.

‘Let’s move on,’ I said hurriedly. I had some things to think quite hard about, but that would have to wait. I’d still promised a favour to a long-dead Yllanfalen nursing an ocean of grudges, and the regulator was still out there somewhere, doing its thing. Unmonitored.

I lifted my voice. ‘Your boon?’ I called. ‘What would you have?’

Instead of an answer, she returned with a question. ‘What is it that you’ve done?’

She wasn’t talking about the skeletons, I guessed. ‘We installed a magickal device. It’s new and we’re testing it, but its intended effect is to reverse the process of magickal decay — or reduce the effects of magickal overflow, as appropriate — and, um, restore balance.’

The silence was longer this time.

‘Did you feel a change?’ Jay asked. ‘An hour ago. The earth quaked, and then…’

A fair question. I didn’t notice much difference, yet, but we had arrived in Silvessen approximately five minutes ago. Silvessen herself had been born and died here; the town bore her name. She had lingered down the ages through centuries of silence and decay, because… well, because she was angry.

Perhaps also because she’d loved the place.

If it changed, she would know.

‘Will it work?’ came her echoing voice, softer now, with a note of… hope?

‘We don’t know, Jay said, honest to a fault as always. ‘But if it doesn’t, we’ll work on it until it does.’

‘Then that is the boon I would ask,’ said Silvessen ringingly. ‘Make my town whole again.’

‘You mean… magicakally?’ I asked.

‘In every way.’

Rebalance, repair, repopulate. Tall order.

I exchanged an uneasy glance with Jay, who shrugged. Right. Fair was fair — what choice did we have?

Especially since I’d managed to lose my own dance battle by way of the most spectacular own goal in world history.

‘Could be good,’ I ventured. ‘Could be interesting.’

‘Better hope Milady agrees,’ said Zareen darkly.

Emellana was shaking with laughter. ‘I think I can promise aid from the Troll Court,’ she said, when she’d regained control of herself. ‘Their Majesties will enjoy this story.’

‘And we have Yllanfalen connections aplenty,’ Jay put in.

‘Right,’ I nodded, ignoring Emellana’s remarks with superb grace. ‘You. Indira. My mum.’

‘I think the Society will want to do it.’ Jay smiled at me. ‘I mean, what does the Society do?’

‘Find things that are lost,’ I replied. ‘Mend things that are broken. Rescue things that need help.’

‘Exactly. This project is just a little bigger than usual.’

I took a breath, feeling better. ‘We have a deal,’ I called. ‘But it’ll take time; we can’t do it in a week. And we’ll need to bring a lot more people down here.’

No reply came, at least not in words. But a breeze wafted past, no longer the bone-chilling cold we’d suffered since we stepped into Silvessen Dell. This was a warm, soft wind, sweet and welcoming. A good sign.

And, to my immense relief, the legions of eerily silent skeletons turned around and walked slowly away. Back, presumably, to their opened graves, there to tuck themselves back in and return to slumber.

‘Okay,’ I sighed, stretching my aching limbs. ‘Indira. What do we still need to do before we can get out of here?’

‘I need to make sure the regulator’s stable,’ she answered. ‘Orlando said to monitor it for at least a few hours.’

‘If I’m expected to go another few hours without food, I will be committing multiple murder,’ Zareen informed us. ‘And there aren’t very many other people here, just saying.’

‘Got it,’ I said. ‘I undertake to preserve my life and that of my friends by way of pancakes, post haste.’

‘Sandwiches would be better, but I’ll take pancakes if that’s what you’ve got.’

She proceeded to stare at me expectantly, as though I might be disposed to magick up a couple of sandwiches on the spot.

Which I couldn’t, of course.

Could I?

Following my mishaps in the Fifth Britain and subsequent Merlinhood, more things were possible in Heaven and Earth than I’d previously imagined.

Maybe I could magick up sandwiches on demand.

I tried this.

‘Your face has gone funny,’ Zareen said, after a while. ‘Are you… doing something?’

‘I’m making sandwiches.’

Zareen’s brows rose. ‘To make a sandwich, you take bread, tuna fish, mayonnaise and sweetcorn, and combine them to delicious effect. What you’re doing is… no, I have no idea.’

‘I’m discovering myself to be significantly less amazing than I was hoping,’ I said.

‘Impossible,’ said Jay.

I smiled gratefully at him. ‘I’m glad you feel that way, because if I can’t spirit up some food on the spot then we’re going to have to go out for some.’

Jay bowed. ‘At your service, my lady. Lead on.’

‘I’m guessing you’re hungry, too.’

‘Absolutely famished.’

***

So Indira departed for the centre of main street again, there to stand watch over the regulator. She was accompanied by Emellana, and Zareen (‘Silvessen might have backed off,’ Zar explained, ‘but her friends are still floating around somewhere.’)

Jay escorted our local Captain of Food (yours truly) to the border of the Dell, and I took us back out into the world. The real world, the one that still had life and people in it.

It felt odd, like I’d been sitting in a blank silence for hours and was suddenly thrust back into vivid life again. Jay whisked us back to Bakewell, wherein we encountered movement and colour and the sounds of blissfully ordinary daily life. In other words, people.

I wondered how Silvessen felt after centuries of nothing and decay, with only a few, equally ghostly compatriots for company.

Then I pictured how she might feel if we could turn her town back into something like Bakewell. A community again. A centre for trade and industry. A home.

A worthy mission, I decided.

‘Tuna mayo for Zareen,’ I said, having exited a busy bakery, laden with carrier bags. ‘Cheese and tomato for you and Indira. Egg and cress, chicken salad, and sausage rolls for Em and me and anybody else who wants one.’

‘A fine haul,’ Jay agreed, eyeing the bags hungrily.

‘Plus, custard tarts, Danishes, chocolate eclairs, Bakewell puddings and a couple of flapjacks.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Tea. Buckets of it.’ I handed Jay a tray of drinks containers, gently steaming, which he took with the air of a man receiving a valuable and precious charge. If you want someone who’ll guard the tea with his actual life and never, ever spill so much as a drop of it, ask Jay.

Nor did he, even during the return trip back through the Winds of the Ways. We arrived in Silvessen with cups intact, bags only mildly savaged (sorry, I couldn’t help it), and plenty of good things for all.

Which was why it was a bit disconcerting to find nobody waiting for us.

‘Indira!’ Jay called, turning in circles (still without spilling the tea). ‘Emellana!’

No one answered.

I trotted to the middle of the main street, where Indira had set down the regulator. When I laid my palm against the damp earth, I felt a pulse of magick and a faint warmth: the device was still down there and still operative.

So where were my team?

‘Zareen!’ I yelled, straightening again. ‘Come on, you’re missing the tuna mayo.’

‘Here I am!’ Zareen trilled. And then she came walking around the side of the same tumble-down cottage in which I’d discovered the first skeleton.

Something was wrong with her voice, I noticed in passing; she sounded sing-song and shrill, which was not at all like her.

Something was wrong with her walk, too. She moved stiffly and jerkily, like a clumsily operated marionette. She grinned at us, but it wasn’t a smile; this was a horrifying grimace, a face-stretching pantomime of warmth and mirth that chilled me to the bottom of my soul.

If I had to guess, I’d say Zareen had gone and got herself possessed.

And if Zar, of all people, had ended up possessed, there wasn’t much hope that Indira or Emellana could have avoided a similar fate.

We had three angry glaistigs still on the loose somewhere — and we’d left our three friends behind without us while we’d gone in search of custard tarts.

‘It’s official,’ I sighed. ‘No mission in the history of time has ever been this much of a disaster.’