by ‘I feel we need confirmation,’ I said.
Val nodded. ‘We are running too much on speculation. I’d like evidence.’
‘House thought Crystobel was telling the truth,’ I said. Which wasn’t evidence, but we all trusted house.
‘I do not doubt House’s instincts,’ Val said. ‘Or whatever they are. But what did Crystobel actually say?’
‘She said that little has survived from Cicily’s life,’ I said. ‘Define “little”.’
Val nodded. ‘”Little” could still include the books we’re hoping for.’
‘And regarding Cicily’s work, um,’ I thought back. ‘She said Cicily’s work was unrealised at the time of her death — which I took to mean nothing ever came of it at all. But perhaps it was completed after her death.’
‘By her son,’ Val agreed. ‘For example.’ Her hands were moving; she was stroking the arms of her new chair. Was there argent built into its frame? Was that why its levitation charms were so much better than either Val or I could manage?
‘Still isn’t evidence,’ I sighed.
‘We need something concrete,’ Val agreed.
‘She said argent couldn’t be manufactured—’ I said.
‘No,’ said Val. ‘She said there was nothing in alchemy that would do it. That is not the same thing at all.’
‘Giddy gods. You mean we might have been on the wrong track since the beginning?’ Why was I even surprised? We’d never found any proof of anybody’s making any form of alchemy work, ever.
‘Would that even be unusual?’ said Val.
She had a point.
‘If only we had something more… material,’ I mused.
‘I’ve always preferred paper to hot air,’ Val agreed.
When Jay realised both of us were looking at him, he visibly balked. As in, he took a whole step back, and raised his hands. ‘Hey. There’s only so far alumni status will get me.’
‘And how far is that?’ I asked.
‘Um.’
‘How about sending in a bulk request for anything attributed to Cicily Werewode-Elvyng?’
‘Surely they would never allow it.’
‘That’s sort of the point.’
Jay blinked. ‘Oh. Right.’
Val opened up her laptop, and turned it about to face Jay. ‘Here. Use this.’
As Jay clicked and typed, I thought. Our suspicions were huge, bordering upon crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. ‘Crystobel Elvyng,’ I said aloud. ‘Why did she really come here?’
Val directed a narrow-eyed look at the wall, deep in thought, but said nothing.
‘I mean, if there was really nothing for us to find, she could have just had her secretary phone you, or send an email. Why bother coming all this way in person?’ I had to kick myself for not having thought of that before.
Now I was thinking differently. Why had she come here, if not to discourage us from digging any further into her family’s most lucrative secrets?
‘It still isn’t evidence,’ said Val.
No. We couldn’t take a conspiracy theory to Milady and expect to be taken seriously. And Milady couldn’t take a bundle of suppositions, surmises and suspicions to the Elvyngs and expect to be taken seriously.
Hell, at this point we had nothing. Real evidence that Cicily Werewode, or her descendants, succeeded at creating the magickal silver, by alchemy or any other art? No. Evidence that she’d ever written down, or shared those processes if she had? No again. Proof that the Elvyngs had inherited her legacy? Well, only the will — and it made no reference to what Godfrey Elvyng’s inheritance had consisted of.
I suffered a moment’s gnawing, gut-dropping panic when I realised we could be wrong on all points. Cicily might have dabbled in alchemy as a very young woman, and stopped. The Elvyngs might be protecting quite different secrets. We could be chasing nothing but wishes and dreams.
But there were too many small links and subtle clues to really believe that. Cicily’s possession of Mary Werewode’s work, for one, and Mary had been a known enthusiast for strange arts such as alchemy. Cicily’s Yllanfalen grandfather, for another, and the fact that he’d come from the very same town that once boasted the Moonsilver Mines.
Valentine Argentein, and the discovery that argent not only meant “silver” but specifically magickal silver, at least in some circles. And somehow, Crystobel Elvyng had known this. We hadn’t come across the term argent anywhere else.
I rubbed my temples, frustrated. So many hints, so many maybes. Enough to keep us digging; not enough to give us any real answers.
‘If only we could talk to Cicily,’ I sighed.
‘Her ghost?’ Val raised both eyebrows at me. ‘You’ve been spending way too much time with Zareen.’
‘Or, not enough. I wish she was here.’ Not solely for the purposes of the mission. I’d been missing Zar. Watching her break had been hard; I couldn’t begin to imagine what life was like inside her head, with the powers she possessed. She’d always seemed untouchable before. A powerhouse of a woman, always full of energy, and a brightness I now realised had sometimes been forced. Brittle.
‘Not every ghost can be fished up out of history,’ Val said. ‘Most of them go quietly on to wherever they’re supposed to go.’
True. The kind we had been hobnobbing with lately had been… different. Bound, mostly, to the houses they’d lived in — or been taken to. Some of them through their own will, some of them trapped there.
I dashed off a quick text to Zar (Hey scary lady, how’s the holiday?), even as my mind wandered back to the portrait of Cicily Werewode. Something about it teased at me, kept returning to my mind. Maybe it was the faint note of melancholy inherent in her expression, or the sadness of her exile in a tiny garret room of her own house. Why had they stashed her up there? Especially if our suspicions were correct: that would make Cicily Werewode the most important figure in Elvyng history.
With which idea, I’d answered my own question. If they couldn’t or wouldn’t share Cicily’s (possible) achievements with the world, they couldn’t prominently celebrate her connection with their family, either.
‘Denied,’ said Jay, looking up from Val’s laptop.
I went around the desk and bent over his shoulder. The Elvyng Archives are unable to satisfy your request. Apologies, etc.
‘What does that mean?’ I said. ‘Could that mean they’re already checked out, or something?’
Jay shook his head. ‘If that’s the case they put you on a wait list, and send an estimate of how long you’ll have to wait to get the books. And if they don’t have anything on the subject you’re interested in, or the document’s been lost, they’ll say something like We have not been able to match your request to any extant resources in our archive. This, I haven’t seen before.’
I straightened up, pleased but also frustrated. Yes, this stonewalling was suggestive. They didn’t want anyone poking too far into Cicily’s business. Asking for her will was one thing, considering how little telling information it contained. Asking for all her private papers was another.
‘How did her journal end up in York?’ I said, struck suddenly by the thought. ‘Why isn’t that also buried in the Elvyng Archives?’
Val frowned in thought, and tapped her favourite pen against her lips. ‘It dates from before her marriage,’ she said. ‘So in theory, the Elvyngs have no real right to claim it.’
Jay said, ‘But she must have given it away before her death, or it would have gone to her son with the rest of her personal things. And thence into the Academy Archives.’
‘So who did she give it to?’ I said. ‘And why?’
‘And how did it end up in York,’ Val echoed, retrieving her laptop from Jay. ‘I’m going to send a query about its provenance. They might be able to tell us who donated it to their library.’
We were back to the question of Cicily’s relatives again, and I simply couldn’t stand it.
‘No,’ I said.
Val looked up. ‘No? No what?’
‘No to everything! I am done with running in circles after Cicily’s non-existent paper trail. If there’s anything there to be discovered at all, the Elvyngs will stonewall us forever, and anything Cicily might have given to some other relative is untraceable. The whole thing is hopeless and we’re wasting our time.’
Val stopped typing. ‘I don’t disagree, but it’s what we’ve got. Do you have a better idea?’
‘I have a different idea,’ I said. ‘Forget Cicily’s obscure familial connections, and forget the Elvyngs. Let them keep their secrets, if they must. Why don’t we just ask Cicily herself?’
Jay and Val stared at me.
‘Um,’ said Jay. ‘Are we back to that thing about Zareen and Cicily’s ghost? Because it’s a crazy long shot there’s even a ghost left to talk to—’
‘It isn’t about that,’ I said.
Val sat back, folded her arms, and gave me the narrow-eyed look. ‘I believe I see a Patented Vesper-Classic Crazy Plan aloft on the horizon.’
‘Coming in fast,’ I agreed, beaming. ‘Wanna hear it?’
‘Do we have a choice?’ muttered Jay.
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Listen, there’s something I haven’t told you.’ I held up both my hands, and wiggled my fingers. ‘There are one or two, er, lingering effects going on with me after that whole Vales of Wonder thing—’
‘Is this about those zappy little spurts of magick?’ said Val.
‘How did you know about those?’
‘Five days ago you left a scorch mark on the cover of The Life and Work of The Great Alchemist Nicolas Flamel.’
‘I did?’ I gasped. ‘And you didn’t have me cleaning the latrines in penance?’
Val tilted her head. ‘It isn’t a great book.’
‘Well. Those zappy little spurts can be useful, for all that they’re involuntary. When I was at the Academy I touched the portrait of Cicily Werewode—’
‘What?’ snapped Jay.
‘Only a tiny bit! I didn’t harm it, I swear.’
Jay rolled his eyes, but mercifully said no more.
‘Anyway, my fingers did that fizzy thing, but instead of scorching the painting — thankfully — it, um, cleaned it.’
‘Cleaned…?’ said Jay, his brows shooting up.
I nodded emphatically. ‘Cleaned off all the centuries of dirt until it looked new-painted. And there was a sheen of moonlight in her hair, and — and something else. I hardly know. Only I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the painting ever since. Something in her eyes nags at me. It’s like she was looking right at me, trying to tell me something.’
‘That’s extremely interesting,’ said Jay, and while I thought I heard a shade of sarcasm about the words, he did look impressed. At least, that’s how I chose to interpret that intent, searching look he directed at me. ‘How exactly does it help us?’
‘Jay, I can’t say how, but… what if she was trying to communicate with me? That painting isn’t normal. I have no idea how, but I believe some part of Cicily Werewode lingers there, and why would she if she didn’t have something to do?’
‘Her ghost, again? In a painting?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Well… probably not. I don’t know, Jay. I just have a… hunch.’
He grinned. ‘Like a Milady-in-training.’
‘I can only hope to be that awesome someday, though by preference I’d like to hang on to my corporeal form.’
He gave a tiny sigh. ‘So. Let’s see if I’m getting the hang of the Ves Crazy Plan. You think that portrait will somehow answer all the lingering questions we’ve run into about Cicily Werewode, the work she did, and where it went.’
‘Right!’
‘And you’d like to test this by…’ he paused in thought, looking me up and down as though he might see signs of my intentions emblazoned upon my dress. ‘Submitting an official, formal request to borrow the painting, via official, formal channels? No. That would be far too obvious, and besides it would—’
‘Take ages,’ I said. ‘Val, you remember the debacle of the Greendale journals?’
Val put her face in her hands, and groaned. ‘Four months. Four. Every single conceivable run-around…’
I nodded. ‘We don’t have weeks or months to spend jumping through the interminable hoops they call bureaucracy. You see that, Jay, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ he allowed, inclining his head. ‘And while I hate to admit it, the chances of such a request being approved are pretty slim, especially now that Crystobel Elvyng’s made it her business to try to stall us.’
‘Exactly!’
‘So there is nothing to be done but to sneak in and mess with their painting without their knowledge.’
‘It’s for the good of magick,’ I said gravely. ‘If we can pull this off, the Elvyngs won’t need to rely on magickal silver or argent or whatever anymore. There’ll be plenty of magick, for everything.’
‘Supposing that they are relying on argent,’ said Jay, with annoying but perfectly correct pedantry. ‘And then their business will collapse, because the very best of their wares today will become the very least we can do in the future.’
I waved this away. ‘They’ll adapt, and make even more amazing stuff.’
Jay checked the time. ‘Right. If we leave now, we can have this next exciting, law-defying adventure over by teatime.’
‘Well…’ I said.
Jay looked at me. ‘There’s more? Say there isn’t more.’
‘Um, I think we have to do it at night.’
