by ‘I’ve certainly learned that lately,’ I muttered, thinking back over all the bizarre things I’d witnessed in the past year. Jay’s Waymastery whizzery, and that thing he did with the voids. Perambulating buildings and a small army of chatty, haunted houses. Alternate Britains drenched in magick. Paintings of long-dead (sort of) people, who talked like they were still alive (which they sort of were). Griffins and Farringale. Turning into a unicorn.
That lyre.
‘Can you give us some kind of lead?’ I pleaded. ‘We just need a direction to go in.’
‘It may be that you will not be able to restore this grimoire into the Elvyngs’ possession,’ said Milady.
‘Uh. Then… then what do we do? We need that argent.’
‘I can send a negotiator to Ms. Elvyng. Perhaps she can be persuaded to sell the argent, if she is offered a suitable price. If not money, then there may be something else she will find desirable.’
‘That could work,’ I said, if doubtfully. Crystobel seemed very set on the grimoire. ‘What would you like us to do in the meantime?’
‘You won’t find this Merlin by looking,’ said Milady. ‘If she wishes to find you… she will do so. And I think perhaps she might, Ves.’
‘So… we’re waiting.’
‘Of course, if you have other leads to investigate unrelated to the woman from your exhibition, by all means pursue them.’
We didn’t. ‘Can I have a chocolate party while I wait?’
I heard the smile in her next words. ‘I believe you capable of mustering your own supplies of chocolate by this time, Ves.’
‘Yours are better,’ I said. Not only did they trounce every other conceivable hot chocolate in consistency and flavour, they also had a way of making you feel better. Plus, they were a display of Milady’s approval, like a gold star from your primary-school teacher (or a unicorn sticker, on one memorable occasion in my personal history). What’s not to love?
‘Very well,’ said Milady. ‘You’ll find a pot by your chair in the first-floor common room. Jay is waiting for you.’
Down I went, feeling rather predictable, but honestly not minding very much.
It wasn’t quite true that Jay was waiting for me. He was there, to be sure, slouched in his Jay-chair, but since he evinced zero interest in my appearance I couldn’t imagine him to be missing me very much. When my cheery greeting went unanswered I sat quietly down, and sipped chocolate in silence.
He didn’t move, not for ten minutes. Then suddenly he stirred, as though waking from a weird open-eyed slumber, and looked at me. Startled, like I’d just popped up out of thin air. ‘Ves,’ he said.
‘Hi!’ I said. ‘I’ve been here a while?’
‘Sorry, I was… thinking.’ He sat up a bit, snagged the rest of the chocolate (to my mild regret) and downed half the cup in one gulp.
‘About?’
‘The grimoire, mostly.’
‘To any great effect?’
‘If you mean have I solved the mystery, then no.’
‘Damnit.’
‘But I did have some new thoughts.’
‘I like New Thoughts!’
He grinned at me. ‘You might not like these.’
‘Hit me with them. I’m a big girl, I can take it.’
‘Well.’ Jay tugged gently on the end of his own nose, a weird/adorable habit I’ve noticed in him before when he’s thinking. I wonder if it helps? ‘There was a question I was asking myself,’ he said, and then stopped talking again.
‘Okay! Ask me this question too.’
‘You’ll probably think it’s stupid.’
‘You’re talking to crazy-idea Ves, remember? Something’s being merely stupid is no bar whatsoever to its also being brilliant.’
‘Good point.’
‘Jay,’ I said wearily, when he still didn’t speak. ‘Spit it out. It can’t be that bad.’
‘How do we know the grimoire was even stolen?’ he said.
‘Uh… because its owners told us as much?’
‘How do they know it was stolen?’
‘…because it isn’t where it’s meant to be anymore, and neither of them removed it?’
‘So we know that it’s missing from its case,’ Jay said. ‘That’s all. We don’t know that it was taken out of the case and the building by a thief, because there is no evidence for that. And whatever we may have concluded after meeting that scarily powerful lady at the exhibition, that doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody with godlike magickal potency breezed in and extracted it. There could be another explanation.’
I wanted to say, like what, with all due scorn, for theft was both the most obvious and the most likely explanation when you’re talking about a grimoire that changes hands for unthinkably large sums of money.
But I didn’t, because once I thought about it I realised Jay was right. There were other possible explanations, even if they were unlikely. But our current theory was spectacularly unlikely, too, so what did that matter?
‘If you want to suggest that the Elvyngs have just mislaid the thing, I’d want to veto that idea,’ I said. ‘Surely that’s impossible.’
‘Not impossible,’ corrected Jay. ‘So improbable as to be nearly impossible, but it could happen.’
‘All right. I’m putting that one at the bottom of the list.’
Jay nodded. ‘It could, by some means or another, still be at the Elvyng residence, most likely without their knowledge.’
‘Meaning someone moved it, for motives unknown.’
‘Or it moved itself.’
I raised an eyebrow at him.
‘We are talking about the personal grimoire of Merlin himself.’
‘Or herself,’ I said.
‘Right.’
‘I’m putting that second from the bottom.’
‘You think the idea of the grimoire’s moving itself around is less unlikely than that the Elvyngs clumsily lost it?’
‘You’ve met Crystobel, right?’
He thought that over for a second. ‘Good point again.’
I slouched a little deeper in my chair, brain whirring. ‘Okay. So it might have moved, or been moved. But why haven’t the Elvyngs found it again, in four years?’
‘Could be that they simply didn’t think to look for it somewhere else in the building. Valuable items kept in glass cases don’t tend to just be set down in the wrong place one time, like a bunch of keys.’
‘Right, but they have a very capable and knowledgeable butler/housekeeper. Someone would’ve wondered what this fragile antiquity of a book was doing in the boot-room, halfway down a mountain of mud-crusted wellies.’
Jay winced at that vision of disaster. ‘Fair,’ he allowed.
‘Assuming it was visible to the human eye,’ I added.
Jay’s turn to blink at me. ‘What?’
‘Maybe it turned invisible. Merlin’s grimoire, remember?’
‘I suppose that could be it.’
‘It’s like Sherlock Holmes said. Once the impossible is eliminated, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that.’
‘Neat theory, but we seem to be developing a whole slew of improbable-but-not-quite-impossible ideas.’
‘Holmes didn’t have to deal with magick,’ I agreed. ‘In that he had a definite advantage.’
‘So an invisible grimoire.’
I nodded. ‘It could happen.’
‘Why would it be invisible?’
‘No idea. Why would it wander out of its protective cabinet?’
‘Touché.’
I took a breath. ‘And now for the worst idea I’ve got.’
Jay grimaced. ‘On a scale of one to gods-help-me, how bad is it?’
‘Bad as in, if I’m right then Crystobel might be taking our eyeballs out with a dessert spoon.’
‘Oh god.’
‘Okay, so… maybe it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone because it’s gone.’
‘So it literally… what, disintegrated?’
‘Could have.’
‘I want to ask why.’
‘But you won’t, because you know I have nothing to tell you.’
‘Right.’
‘Maybe it lost the will to live,’ I mused. ‘Separated from its owner and creator, splendidly alone in its isolated kiosk of a library, scarcely ever touched anymore—’
‘Ves,’ Jay interrupted. ‘You’re making me feel sorry for a book. Please stop it.’
‘Sorry.’ I shot out of my chair. ‘If we’re done theorising about near-impossibilities then we need to go back to William Elvyng’s house.’
Jay gazed up at me, and didn’t move. ‘To do what?’
‘To investigate!’
‘We’ve already done that.’
‘Yes, but last time we were so certain we were investigating a theft, that’s all we looked for. Signs of forced entry or exit, clues as to the person who undoubtedly made off with the grimoire. This time’s different.’
‘I realise, but how are we going to investigate a possible vanishment or disintegration? What clues do you suppose those would leave behind?’
I wilted a bit, deflated. ‘You’re right, but… then what? How do you propose to determine whether these ideas are correct, if we can’t investigate?’
Jay groaned. ‘I don’t know. We’re the worst detectives ever.’
I stood where I was, furiously racking my brains. ‘What would Sherlock have done?’
‘He would have noticed some small, but profoundly important clue, known immediately what it portended, and have had the mystery solved by tea-time,’ said Jay glumly.
‘You know, I’m not sure I’m liking this new, defeatist Jay.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I’m not loving him either.’
‘Em Rogan,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Clues,’ I said intelligently.
I saw light dawn in Jay’s eyes. ‘Right! If anything magickal happened to the grimoire—’
‘Then someone with the right kind of sensitivities might be able to tell us what it was. Or if not that, at least she could tell us if something of a magickal nature happened. And since it’s hopeless to ask my mother for help, maybe we could borrow Em again.’
‘Is it hopeless?’ I didn’t like the searching look that went with the question.
‘She’s always far too busy.’
‘So you won’t even ask?’
‘She’ll say no.’
‘Ves.’
‘Mm?’
‘Are you afraid to ask?’
I scoffed. ‘Afraid? Of my own mother? Ridiculous.’
‘Forgive me,’ Jay said. He sat shifting in his seat, and well he might, raising such uncomfortable topics. ‘But I realise you’re used to your mother’s saying no to you a lot. I can understand that it hurts.’
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ I muttered, stung. ‘She’s just a busy person, that’s all. I’m fine with it.’
Jay’s smile was gentle and understanding and I felt a brief, but intense, desire to punch him. ‘Then there can be no harm in asking, can there? You never know, she might say yes.’
‘We don’t need her to say yes. We can call Em.’
‘Emellana Rogan is an important member of the Court at Mandridore. She’s also a busy person, and we’ve far less right to call on her than we have to call on your mother.’
I sought in vain for another reasonable objection to raise. I realised, dimly, that I had a far greater desire to see Em again than to see my mother Delia, and my mind shied away from examining why that might be. I only suffered a vague sense of guilt.
But what was I worried about? Calling my mother could have only one outcome. She’d say no, waspishly and definitively, and that would be that.
Then we could call Em anyway.
‘All right,’ I said, and with saintly smile and angelic demeanour — I deserved serious points for tractability, didn’t I? — I took out my mobile and dialled my mother’s number.
Any hopes I had that she might not even answer died away on the second ring. ‘Hello?’ she said, sounding, for once, fairly chirpy.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘It’s me. You busy?’
‘Always.’
Promising. ‘Jay and I could use your help.’
A sigh. ‘With what?’
‘We’re trying to trace a lost grimoire for the Elvyngs and we think something—’
‘The Elvyngs?’ she all but shrieked in my ear. ‘You’re working for the Elvyngs?’
‘Temporarily…’
‘Giddy gods.’
I swallowed. ‘You, uh, know them?’
‘I know of them,’ she said, and added acidly, ‘I’m not exactly the type to be on a first-name basis with magickal celebrities.’
‘Mum, you’re the queen of an Yllanfalen kingdom.’
A pause. ‘I’d forgotten that for a second.’
‘So anyway, we’re—’
She went on as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘They’re amazing. They’ve funded half of the most successful digs in recent history. Clamberwelle. Torrington. The Draypool Chalice was rediscovered because of them. Hell, Claud Elvyng was among the most prominent and successful magickal archaeologists in history. The things that man pulled out of the ground in the twenties—’
‘Mum.’ I thought it wise to cut her off, or she might bang on about it all day. ‘William Elvyng’s lost an important grimoire, his daughter Crystobel has hired us to find it, and we’ve a theory we want to investigate. We need someone who—’
‘Crystobel Elvyng? You’ve spoken to Crystobel Elvyng?’
‘Yes, we—’
‘I’ll help.’
‘What?’ I said numbly.
‘What do you need me to do?’
‘Er, we want to go back to the Elvyng residence and check for magickal residue in the—’
‘The Elvyng house?’
‘Yes…’
There followed an odd, sucking-in noise, which I interpreted as my mother trying not to scream with excitement. ‘I’m there,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
‘I thought you said you were busy?’
‘Never too busy to spare time for my daughter,’ she said primly.
Uh huh. ‘If you can meet us there tomorrow,’ I suggested, realising she’d have farther to travel than we did, and no convenient Waymaster to hand. ‘That’d be great. I’ll check with Mr. Elvyng, text you the time later.’
My mother, irascible and pragmatic Delia Vesper, may actually have squealed. I think that’s what that muffled, covering-the-phone-to-preserve-dignity noise was.
I tried to ignore Jay smirking at me as I hung up the phone.
‘See?’ he said. ‘That wasn’t so hard.’
I thought about explaining the fact that the hard part would happen tomorrow, when I had to spend hours in my mother’s company and she in mine. But that smug look on his face didn’t deserve much of a response, so I merely said: ‘I’m going to the library,’ and left him to congratulate himself alone.
