by ‘You want to do… what?’ said Milady, some twenty-four hours later.
‘Pop back into Farringale, ascertain the true cause of its infestation and consequent demise, mend it, divest it of its juiciest books by way of our well-earned reward, and be home in time for tea,’ I said smoothly.
‘Is the tea strictly vital to the mission?’
‘When have I ever been willing to miss tea?’
I chose to interpret Milady’s subsequent silence as either amusement or a hearty endorsement of the plan, and waited.
‘Ves,’ she said at last. ‘This is ambitious, even for you.’
‘What if I told you it was Jay’s plan?’
‘Hey,’ Jay objected. ‘My plan was to go into Farringale on a research and exploration mission. Scientific. Information gathering. That kind of thing.’
‘Right, sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I might have got a little carried away with the rest.’
‘If you find yourself with the means to restore the city then by all means use them,’ said Milady, with just a hint of sarcasm. ‘One suspects the situation might prove too complicated to mend by tea-time, however.’
When Milady starts referring to herself as “one”, she’s at maximum satire. ‘All right, we’ll take tea with us,’ I said sunnily.
The air sparkled. Definitely laughter; hopefully the nice kind. ‘May one ask what you are doing asking my permission?’ Milady continued.
Perhaps not the nice kind.
‘We’ll need Rob,’ I said. ‘And I’d like Indira, too.’
‘Wait, what?’ said Jay.
‘On the grounds that there’s little Team Patel can’t deal with,’ I went on, doggedly. ‘We’ll need the usual toys from Stores—’
‘Including that Sunstone Wand Ornelle has been complaining to me about?’ said Milady drily.
Since the object in question currently lay at the bottom of my satchel, with Ms. Goodfellow asleep on top of it, I smoothly let this pass. ‘And of course, we’ll need House to lend us the third key again.’
‘Ves,’ said Milady firmly. ‘Forgive me for pointing this out, but you would divest me of every single one of these advantages, without a word and without compunction, if you thought it necessary. So I ask you again: why are you asking my permission?’
‘Is it too much to believe that I’d like to do things by the book this time?’
‘Yes.’
Jay folded his arms and lifted his brows at me. The look said: Well. Go on.
So nice to have back-up.
‘Sneaking takes so much time and effort,’ I tried.
‘Undoubtedly, but Farringale has been lost for some four centuries already. It will await your kind, liberating efforts for another day or two.’
Unanswerable.
‘I miss Home,’ I said. I tried to sound nonchalant but I’m afraid the words came out in rather a small voice.
‘You what?’ said Milady. Even Jay looked a little surprised.
‘I miss Home,’ I said again. ‘I miss the Society. I miss my friends, and I miss you, even when you are witheringly sarcastic. I dislike being rogue and I want my family back.’ I paused. No one spoke. ‘Seeing as there’s no way the Ministry or anyone else could reasonably object to our assisting the Troll Court with a research expedition, I see no reason to go on playing the loose cannon while we do it.’
‘I see,’ said Milady, in something of a softened tone.
I avoided Jay’s eye while I awaited her verdict.
‘The matter of the fifth Britain is not yet resolved,’ she warned. ‘Not to mention whatever remains of the other seven. I had hoped to use the three of you to uncover more.’
‘You still can.’
‘Which cannot be done under the official aegis of the Society, for the Ministry is still being woefully stubborn upon that topic.’
My heart sank a little more with every syllable, but I tried not to let it show. ‘I understand,’ I said, which was true, though I didn’t like it.
‘However,’ said Milady. ‘The topic of Farringale is a loaded one. Its mythological status rivals that of Atlantis in some quarters. Were it to be widely known that we are launching an exploratory expedition, I fear we would be somewhat interfered with.’
My tension eased a fraction. ‘Most irritatingly,’ I agreed.
‘House, of course, is a related but separate entity and any choices made by her are little to do with me,’ she continued.
I was intrigued by this use of her to refer to the House. I don’t think I had ever heard Milady designate a gender before.
‘I will lend you Rob and Indira for one week, together with any supplies they should find it necessary to withdraw from Stores. You may not be aware, but Their Majesties of Mandridore recently communicated to me an urgent need for expert consultants in certain fields in which Rob and Indira excel. Naturally, we at The Society are always ready to assist the Court.’
I concealed a smile. ‘We’ll be very discreet,’ I promised. ‘Maximum sneaking.’
‘What’s more,’ said Milady, and the air glittered. ‘Tea will be provided.’
‘Typical Milady chicanery,’ I said to Jay half an hour later, as we sat waiting in a tiny back-parlour somewhere on the ground floor at Home. ‘If anyone asks inconvenient questions, she can simply blame the Court. And fairly enough. We are employed by them at present, after all, and they’ve got the might to out-manoeuvre the Ministry, if necessary.’
Jay slowly shook his head. ‘I may never get used to the double-speak.’
‘Give it time.’
‘Does she ever say no and, um, mean it?’
‘Frequently.’
‘Right.’
Confusion radiated off poor Jay, but one couldn’t explain these things.
We’d been sent down to the parlour to “wait”, officially, until Rob and Indira were ready to join us. Actually, we were hiding. The Society is full of wonderful, loyal people (I see no occasion to remember Miranda at this moment), but wherever there are people there will be gossip, and we did not want the grapevine ruining all our devious plans. Let them talk, if they would — after we’d got the goods.
I’d delivered a wish list to Rob, who’d promised to stop by Stores on his way down. I’d chosen him rather than Indira because, as charming as Jay’s sister could be (when she forgot to be shy), Rob had a way about him. I suspected Ornelle of being either a little afraid of his mildly forbidding air, or of harbouring a secret crush. The latter would hardly surprise me. Rob’s a good-looking man, with or without the greying hair, and underneath the grim exterior he’s marshmallow.
A few inches away from my feet, the floor bubbled. Considering that it was, in its entirety, paved with well-worn flagstones and carpeted with equally well-loved rugs, not a whole lot of bubbling should’ve been happening.
‘I think this is our key,’ I said to Jay.
We watched with spellbound fascination as a patch of stone a few inches wide buckled and boiled, belched bubbles into the air, and finally expelled a glittering key. I snatched it up. Its smooth silver, only slightly tarnished, was untouched by the churning goop, and its inset sapphire glowed.
‘Thank you,’ I said to House.
The floor settled back into its usual smooth, unbelching configuration.
I paused to consider. House could have simply put the key into my hand; what did the swampy-floor routine betoken? Did it — she — disapprove of our return into Farringale? She had helped us the last time, even without Milady’s concurrence. Now, it seemed, the situation was rather the reverse; Milady had persuaded, but House was not pleased.
‘Do you dislike the prospect, darling House?’ I said aloud. ‘Is it the possible restoration of the city that you dislike? Surely not.’
There came no reply, a silence I was unsure how to interpret.
‘It will only be opened again if it is no longer dangerous,’ I assured the building. ‘Any such outcome is likely to be some way off, if it is ever feasible.’
Silence.
‘You’re worried about Ves,’ said Jay suddenly. ‘You think she’s reckless.’
The floor belched loudly.
Did that mean Jay was right, or did it mean that House rained scorn upon the very notion that it might be concerned?
‘We aren’t trolls,’ I put in. ‘We should be safe enough from the ortherex.’ Even I had to wince at the unpromising word should in the middle of my sentence.
‘And we’re pretending the griffins don’t exist, just now,’ Jay added helpfully.
‘We survived them last time!’
‘So we did.’
I glowered at Jay. ‘It was your idea to go. Have you forgotten that?’
‘Nope.’ He smiled at me.
The floor belched out another bubble, this time rather nearer to Jay.
‘Too right,’ I said. ‘If we’re eaten by griffins, it is all Jay’s fault.’
‘In which case, if we save the city, that is my fault, too,’ said Jay.
‘Deal.’
Secretly I was proud of Jay. I was having a deliciously bad influence on him.
‘Ornelle wants her Wand back,’ Rob told me when he finally showed up, a full hour later.
‘But it loves me.’
He grunted. ‘We all do, more’s the pity. Ornelle knows she stands zero chance.’ He was offloading objects into my welcoming arms as he spoke: some of Orlando’s sleep capsules (they’re my style, all right?); a few bottomless phials filled with various restoratives; an emergency porridge-pot (I know, I know. Porridge isn’t my favourite food for the road either, but one takes what one can get and a steady diet of gruel is at least way better than gnawing hunger); and one of those scroll-and-quill combos I may have mentioned before. Val had the other one. If our phones should fail while we were out there, I didn’t want to be totally incommunicado.
Jay received a Wand of his own: the Ruby, very flashy. I gazed long upon it.
‘Stop it,’ said Rob. ‘You’ve already purloined one of the best Wands we’ve got.’
I cast him a sheepish smile, and tried my best to put a lid on my covetousness as he handed a beautiful Wand to Indira. It looked, to my experienced eye, like the Spinel: clear purple with a pinkish shimmer.
‘Thank you both for coming along,’ I said, with a smile especially for Indira. She, as always, said little, and besides offering a shy smile back, stood waiting in patient immobility. I was surprised to see that her broken arm was fully mended already. She’d been benefiting from some of Rob’s more potent healing enchantments.
Rob was senior enough to have his own Wand on permanent assignment, of course. He’d been wielding the Lapis Lazuli beauty for years. He generally wore it strapped to the inside of his arm, right alongside those deadly charmed knives of his.
I did a quick supply survey. Shiny toys from Stores: check. Alban’s map of Farringale City: check. Lady Tregawny’s Recollections of a Lost Age: A Courtier’s Memories of Farringale, purloined from Mandridore Library: check. Talkative, well-informed book named Mauf: check.
Jay, Rob, Indira and Ms. Goodfellow: check checkity check.
Me. Emphatic check.
‘Ready for adventure, danger and glory?’ I said, hefting my shoulder bag.
‘Lead on,’ said Rob.
‘Onward,’ said Jay.
Indira nodded emphatically.
‘Right, then.’
Off we went.
It felt like old times as we trooped down to the Waypoint in the cellar, a Society team once more. I hated a bit that I could say things like feels like old times about such a subject, and after only a few weeks of supposed independence, but I put that aside.
The journey proceeded much as before. Jay whisked us down to the Winchester area the quick-and-speedy way. I was pleased to note that my nausea was lessening with every Way-journey; either I was becoming a better Traveller of the Ways, or practice was improving Jay’s technique as Waymaster. Either way, I arrived in a Winchester field with my dignity intact and my spirits high.
After that, it was my turn. I fished up my syrinx pipes. (Will it surprise you to learn that I wasn’t really, technically, allowed to keep them? Their coming into my possession at all was more by accident than design, and there were those who’d objected strenuously to so rare and powerful a Treasure falling into such untested hands as mine were at the time. Milady made sure I got to keep them. I’m still not sure why).
Addie and Friends made excellent time, as is their wont. We swooped through the skies, wafted elegantly by unicorn wings, and landed near the bridge over the River Alre within half an hour. It was only mid-morning and the day stretched ahead of us, bright with possibility even if it was raining a bit.
I was soon grateful for my decision to request Indira.
‘I am too short,’ I said with chagrin, standing beneath the high-arching bridge with three keys in my hand and no way of reaching the trio of alcoves into which they needed to be set. Last time, we’d had Alban with us, who was plenty tall enough for the job. This time, our tall folk included only Rob and Jay, neither of whom had sufficient inches.
Indira subjected the bridge to one of her swift, keen looks, swept the keys out of my hands, and rose smoothly into the air by a distance of several feet. She levitated with the grace of a gazelle, while I (despite my aptitude with the flying chair trick) do so with all the elegance of an exuberant young bullock. What’s more, she could hold herself perfectly steady, the better to manipulate the tricky keys-and-alcoves combinations. Naturally, she needed no help discerning which key went where. Within minutes she had all three inset, and red, green and blue lights blazed over the bridge.
‘Right,’ said Rob as a door lit up in the ageing brick, and swung slowly inward. ‘Ves and me first. Shield, please, Ves. Make it a good one.’
I don’t fly well, but I do Ward. I shrouded us both in a tough shield charm, tuned to repel (hopefully) just about anything we might imminently encounter: poison, fire, lightning, physical attacks, incoming curses, hexes or other magickal unpleasantries, and more. It hadn’t the faintest chance of repelling a serious griffin attack, of course, but one does one’s little best.
In we went.
Last time we had ventured into Farringale, we’d found an empty but eerily tidy city, marred by scattered pools of stagnant water but otherwise largely intact. It had been utterly silent, of course, that heavy silence one finds in long-abandoned spaces.
This time was different. This time, we walked into chaos.
