by ‘Where,’ I said plaintively, some twenty minutes later, ‘is Jay?’
I’d searched most of the building for him, and then the gardens, too, and found no sign. Ending up at last in the first-floor common room, just in case I’d missed him before, I posed my question to the room at large.
Three people were there: Dave from the treasury (accounts, by any other name; Milady despises modern corporate-speak); lovely, Scary Rob; and a newcomer (she looked about five minutes old) that I didn’t know.
Rob, parked by the open window with a tall glass of water at his elbow, looked up from the magazine he was reading. ‘He’s not here,’ he said.
‘I discovered that for myself just now.’ I flopped into a chair, disconsolate. Searching the premises for Jay had only made me hotter, and without the satisfaction of sharing Val’s breakthrough with him. ‘So where is he?’ I’d checked my phone, too, in case of missed messages from him, but there was nothing.
‘He’s off on assignment.’
I blinked. ‘Without me?’
‘He’s with Melissa’s team on some kind of artefact retrieval.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
Rob smiled, kindly enough, at my disappointment. ‘He’s the only Waymaster we have, Ves. You do realise how in demand he is? Every department at Home has been clamouring to borrow him for weeks.’
‘Oh,’ I said again.
‘You were lucky to monopolise him for so long.’
I waved this away, duly humbled. ‘Any idea when he’ll be back?’ I asked, super casually.
‘Miss him?’ said Rob.
‘It’s not that,’ I said quickly.
‘Mmhmm.’ Rob went back to his magazine.
‘It’s just that we’re starting to make a bit of a breakthrough on the alchemy thing, and we might need him soon.’
‘Oh?’ Rob looked up. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Possibly, York.’
‘York isn’t that far away.’
‘You mean we should drive places? In a car? Old school.’
Rob grinned. ‘You’re getting spoiled.’
‘I like my personal Waymaster service.’
‘Uh huh. But you’re in no way missing Jay.’
‘I miss my Waymaster,’ I sniffed. ‘Who happens to be Jay.’
‘Yes, and he isn’t yours.’
What that meant, of course, was that Jay had graduated from the position of new boy and no longer particularly needed my guidance. He was a fully-fledged agent in his own right, and in great demand. Popular, too. I couldn’t help noticing that everybody liked Jay.
‘Lonesome?’ said Rob.
‘I am not lonely,’ I said with imperious dignity.
He gave me much the same sceptical look I’d been getting from Val. He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to. Val’s essential point held. I’d spent months rattling about the world(s) with Jay, frequently Alban and Zareen, and more recently Emellana Rogan, too. Now Alban and Em were gone back to Mandridore, Zareen was in recovery at the School of Weird, and Jay was off saving the magickal world without me.
Maybe I was just the teensiest bit lonely.
At least I had Val. And Addie. I could feel my link with my unicorn pal, wrapped tenderly around my heart. She was my familiar, and I suppose I was hers; I always felt her near me, even when she probably wasn’t. I’d taken more than one secret (hopefully) trip back to her glade to visit, and don my unicorn horn and tail myself. It felt good.
Possibly too good.
Rob was scrutinising me in that doctorly way of his. Looking for signs of ill-health, probably; Milady had given me stern instructions to rest. ‘Do I need a check-up?’ I asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said easily. ‘Are you feeling well?’
‘Completely.’ I flashed him my sunniest smile.
He was visibly unconvinced. ‘Look,’ he said, putting his magazine aside. ‘If you want to talk to someone, I’ve given Grace notice to give you an appointment anytime. She’ll see you whenever you want.’
‘Grace?’ I blurted. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Just in case.’
‘Did Milady put you up to this?’
‘She might have mentioned it.’
I said nothing more, fuming quietly. It wasn’t that I had anything against Grace personally. It was just the fact that Grace Clement is our resident psychologist. When Rob spoke of an appointment, he meant an intake interview. Or in other words, Milady thought I might be losing my marbles.
I don’t know quite why I felt offended by that, but I did.
Rob was waiting for an answer.
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said.
His dark eyes twinkled at me. ‘You’re annoyed.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
He thought about that for a moment. ‘Only if I thought Milady might be right.’
‘About what? That I’m a sandwich short of a picnic?’
‘No, nothing like that. But, Ves, you’ve been through a lot lately. Things nobody knew were even possible. It would not be surprising if you were feeling a little… stressed.’
‘I’ve had plenty of rest,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’
Rob nodded. ‘You should know that Jay saw her, before he left with Melissa.’
‘Jay? What? Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine. He just needed a little help processing a few things.’
Small wonder. Jay had joined us only in April, and as luck would have it he’d arrived just in time to be dropped in at the deep end. Way at the deep end. He didn’t have my ten-year experience of mad Society missions to help buffer the impact; he was fresh off the farm, so to speak. It was probably a good thing that he’d got some help.
I pushed aside some few, small, unworthy feelings — if Jay had been struggling, why hadn’t he talked to me? — and focused on feeling glad that he was okay.
‘Just think about it,’ said Rob. ‘Nobody’s going to push you, so don’t get mulish about it.’
‘Mulish? Me? Never.’ I stood up. ‘You don’t happen to know when Jay will be back, by any chance?’
‘I don’t think anyone does. He’ll be back when they’ve finished whatever they’re doing.’
I permitted myself a tiny sigh. ‘Thanks, Rob.’ I trailed off towards the door.
‘Ves?’ Rob said.
I stopped. ‘Yes?’
‘You can also just talk to me, if you feel more comfortable with that.’
I mulled that over. Maybe I would. I’d known Rob much longer than I’d known Grace, and we had been on several missions together. He had a solid, calm air about him that I found soothing, at least when he had his doctor hat on; not so much when he was in Scary Rob mode.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
I went up to my room. Someone had taped a page torn from a glossy mag onto my door.
Prince Alban Wows Europe, shouted the headline, and my heart quickened. He looked gorgeous, all princely splendour as he paid a state visit to some foreign troll kingdom or other.
He also had an unusual accessory. A woman almost as tall as he was stood at his side, decked in jewels and every inch a royal. Princess Marit, his wife.
My stomach dropped.
I snatched the page off my door and disappeared inside with it, retreating to my bed. I stared at the picture, hoping to find something to criticise. No luck. Marit was lovely, almost as beautiful as Alban was handsome, and with nothing of hauteur about her. Alban had implied that she was of a chilly disposition, but she didn’t look it. She was smiling, a real smile, not a fake, gracious-princess grimace. They looked good together.
I wondered who had left the page for me.
‘Right,’ I told myself after about ten minutes of this. ‘Get a grip, Ves.’ I screwed up the page and threw it in the bin, then sauntered into the bathroom. Enough pining. I’d deal with my used-dishcloth status with a cool shower, head down to the cafeteria for lunch, then get back to the library. My break hadn’t been quite the refreshing interlude Val had envisioned, and I’d about had enough of it.
Four hours later found me back in the library and glued to a computer. Val had reserved to herself the task of combing through Cicily’s journal again, looking for any clues she had missed. She also had three other books with her, the contents of which she would not tell me about. ‘Not until I’ve had a look,’ she’d insisted. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes. Or mine.’
I didn’t mind. My job was to scour the secret internet archives pertaining to magickal history, the kind that only Val had full access to. I’d been at it for hours already, and I had a long list of notes forming. None of them especially pertinent, but notes nonetheless. Notes are good.
‘Any and all mentions of the Werewode family,’ Val had said. ‘Write them all down, Ves, especially any pertaining to the York area. Check family history records, too. I want to know if there were any other Werewodes of interest, and I really want to know what became of Cicily.’
‘Probably marriage,’ I’d suggested.
Hours later, I stuck by that surmise, with one modification: marriage or death. That’s because I had found zero references to a Cicily Werewode after 1583, which was approximately when she had been writing her journal. And when the women of history disappeared off the historical record like that, it usually meant they’d died — or undergone a marital name-change.
Unfortunately, marriage records don’t really go back that far. We could consult the parish register for the area she had got married in, but for that we’d need to know where she came from. Sadly for my theory, that had not proved to be York.
Half an hour later, I had it. I didn’t even have to dig through the magickal archives for this one; I found it in an obscure collection of birth and christening records from 1538 through to 1672. No marriage record for Cicily Werewode — but there was a birth. In the Yorkshire parish of Kirkby Malzeard, in 1590, a Godfrey Elvyng was born to Degare Elvyng and his wife, Cicily.
Elvyng. Middle name: Werewode.
I stared open-mouthed at the screen for fully a minute, barely breathing.
Then I rocketed out of my chair, and high-tailed it to Val’s desk.
‘Val,’ I said. ‘I’ve got it.’
She looked up, noted my expression of euphoric excitement, and sat straighter in her chair. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Cicily Werewode was an Elvyng.’
‘What?’
‘She must’ve married Degare Elvyng — I couldn’t find a marriage record for them but I found a birth record, there’s a son—’ I babbled on, probably making a confused mess of it but Val, to her credit, managed to follow me.
When I’d finished, she looked as electrified as I felt. ‘And is this the Elvyng family?’ she said.
‘How many magickal families called Elvyng can there possibly be in Yorkshire?’
She nodded slowly, her face alight with an excitement echoing my own. ‘Ves, you’re amazing. This is huge. We have to be onto something.’
Onto something we were. See, York looms large among magickal communities of the modern age. It’s been a centre of magick for centuries. It’s home not only to the aforementioned Magickal Archives which Val has already been plundering, but also to the Elvyng Academy, an ancient school for certain magickal disciplines which everybody who’s anybody has graduated from. And more. Lots more. There’s an entire street called Elvyng Lane right in the heart of York, and it’s a spot any magick user would kill to visit.
‘Val,’ I breathed. ‘Tell me we’re going shopping.’
‘We are not going shopping.’
‘Damnit.’
‘We are going on a serious, scholarly field trip.’
‘Yes.’ I adopted a suitably serious expression.
‘And if we should happen to pass by the most famous magick shop in Britain on the way, we cannot be held responsible for the consequences.’
‘Now you’re talking.’
