by ‘Ves,’ snapped Val the following morning, ten o’clock sharp, somewhere in the midst of the city of York. ‘Calm down. They aren’t going to be there.’
‘They might be,’ I protested. ‘Well, maybe not all of them. One of them? It could happen.’
‘The Elvyngs have more important things to do than hover about in The Shambles signing autographs.’
‘Hovering,’ I beamed. ‘Literally.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t want an autograph. I just want to…’ I paused. ‘I don’t even know.’
‘Gush about how amazing they are, knowing you.’
‘You think me absurd. I knew it.’
‘Ves, everyone thinks you’re absurd.’
‘Except Alban. He thinks I’m impressive.’ I wanted to add Jay’s name to the (incredibly short) list; he’d shown signs of looking up to me when he’d first arrived. But I had pretty much put paid to that by now. Nobody who’s seen me and a plate of cake in the same room together could hold me in respect for long.
‘He does,’ said Val, widening her eyes at me. ‘That’s a thought. Think your Baron could get us an introduction to Crystobel Elvyng?’
‘He isn’t my Baron, and no.’
‘No?’
‘He isn’t here.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Touring Europe with his wife.’
‘Ah.’ Val, wisely, let the subject drop. ‘No matter. If we need to talk to the Elvyngs, Milady will arrange it.’
The car drew to a stop in a side street, and our driver came round to let us out. Val used a proper wheelchair outside the grounds of Home, and we spent the first few minutes of our sojourn in York getting her set up in it. I’d witch it as soon as we got out of the regular city, so she wouldn’t have to roll the thing around.
‘Right,’ I said as our driver — her name was Candice — departed again with the car. I took hold of the handles of Val’s chair, ready to wheel. My fingers fizzed, and the chair jumped a foot in the air and began to levitate.
‘Ves,’ hissed Val. ‘Not yet.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to—’ I spoke softly to the chair and it settled down, permitting me to wheel it like a normal person once more.
This has been happening lately. Ever since I’d soaked up all that excess magick on the Fifth, in fact (almost blowing myself up in the process). A surge of something jazzy happens; there’s a fizz of magick; and anything I touch is in for an interesting time.
I made a mental note to spend an afternoon at Addie’s glade somewhere over the weekend.
‘Which way?’ I said, grasping the wheelchair’s handles firmly. My fingers had stopped fizzing. Probably it would be fine.
‘Why are you asking me?’ she said.
‘Because you know everything.’
The shameful truth was, I’d only been to Elvyng Lane once before, about a year after my induction into the Society. It wasn’t lack of interest that had prevented my ever making a return visit. It was lack of everything else. Impulse control, willpower, funds…
Val consulted her phone, then pointed. ‘That way, and turn left.’
We made slow progress in this fashion, pausing from time to time to check our bearings. The streets of York were busy, surprisingly so for the early morning. Summer holidays, of course. At length we made it to The Shambles, which is a crooked little street dating back something like a thousand years. Timber-framed buildings overhang the street, some of them pretty old — as in fourteenth century, Mary Werewode’s era.
Val and I quietly slipped between a chocolate shop and a tiny gallery, and, as far as the other shoppers were concerned, disappeared.
Don’t ask me how. I’m sorry, but it is a deep, dark secret and I’m not allowed to share.
Elvyng Lane is a bit of a misnomer by now. Maybe it was just an alley, once, but these days it’s more of a courtyard. We emerged from the secret snickelway into an airy square, lined on all four sides with buildings. The most imposing of them is the Elvyng Academy, a three-storey pile built in Elizabethan red brick with those wonderful twisty chimney-pots. It was founded (according to my hurried swatting on the way) in 1557 by Wauter Elvyng, father of Degare. Cicily’s father-in-law.
Ranged around the rest of the courtyard were such delights as the Magickal Archives of the City of York (whither we were bound), Gryffen’s bookshop (legendary for grimoires), and of course the Elvyng Emporium. The place that almost bankrupted me about nine years ago.
I resolutely turned my face away from the latter’s inviting façade and marched off in the direction of the Archives.
‘Ves,’ hissed Val when we were halfway across the square. ‘They’ve got new chairs.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ I begged, ‘or we may never get out of here alive. I’ll just move in and stay there forever and ever until I die of thirst. Or maybe longing.’
‘Chairs,’ said Val again, and gasped. ‘Green brocade — Ves, that chair is waving at me. Stop. Stop!’
I gritted my teeth. ‘What was it you said about serious scholarly field trip?’
‘Very serious,’ said Val. ‘Right after we get me a new chair.’
‘No. Work first, shopping later.’
‘Who are you and what have you done with Ves?’
‘This is the new Ves. The old one was absurd, remember?’
We were by this time safely across the square, the mesmerising Emporium behind us. Once we had passed through the grand doors of the Archives, and were out of sight of the magick shop, I judged it safe to charm Val’s chair. It rose a couple of inches, hovering nicely.
Val needed a couple of minutes to recover her dignity. I didn’t interrupt.
At length she gave a tiny sigh, and said: ‘Do you think it’s possible I spend too much time in libraries?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think it’s possible you spend too much time in libraries?’
‘I—’ I stopped. I wanted to say no again, but hadn’t I been complaining about exactly that only just yesterday? ‘We’re here for a good reason,’ I said instead, chickening out.
‘I finally get out of the House,’ grumbled Val, floating off towards the reception desk. ‘And the first thing I do is disappear into the Archives.’
This was unlike Val, so I ignored it. She was just grouchy about the chair. And maybe some other things too, for all I knew. She floated up to the desk — and stopped three feet short, before abruptly turning around again and making for the door.
‘Val!’ I took off after her, reaching her only as she sailed out into the street. ‘Forget the chair! You already have a great one.’
‘No,’ said Val. ‘This is not where we need to be.’ She paused on the doorstep, her eyes scanning the square. To my relief, she did not seem inordinately interested in the Emporium this time.
‘Er,’ I said. ‘If we want information, the Archives are always a good port of call. Surely?’
‘Not this time. Think about it, Ves. We aren’t here just to poke into the history of the Elvyngs, interesting as it no doubt is. We’re here about Cicily Werewode-Elvyng’s work, specifically anything derived from Mary Werewode. And, of course, anything the Elvyng descendants might have accomplished since. I already asked the archivists for anything else with the Werewode name, and they have nothing. The other thing they do not have is an Elvyng archive. I know this, because it’s frustrated me before. That family is secretive.’
‘There might be books from after her marriage in there—’ I began.
‘No. If the Elvyngs had developed a way to make magickal silver and they were interested in bragging about the fact, we’d already know. Everyone would know. They’re famous, and moonsilver is exactly the kind of expensive rarity they’d sell in the Emporium if they were minded to profit from it. If they have any materials on this subject at all, they’ve been sitting on them for generations. They aren’t going to be lying around on a shelf in the public archives.’
‘All right,’ I allowed. ‘That makes sense. But then, why did we come?’
‘To do some digging, right at the heart of the Elvyng empire. For once, Ves, we must be strong, and ignore the big, beautiful library.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I like digging.’
‘So. If you were a scion of a famous magickal family with limitless resources at your disposal, where would you put a library of secret alchemical research?’
‘Why would I bother having it at all if I wasn’t going to use it?’
‘Good point. Then they’re using it — somehow.’
‘Or, it doesn’t exist.’
Val shook her head. ‘Cicily was a dedicated scholar, and alchemy was her subject. Mary Werewode favoured silver as her focus, Cicily did too, and I can’t believe she would have abandoned her work.’
‘After marriage? She wouldn’t have been the first woman to do so.’
‘True,’ sighed Val.
‘Especially likely,’ I added, after a moment’s thought, ‘if she was championing the work of a woman history remembered as a crank. Would her husband and father-in-law have taken it seriously, either? If not: would that have stopped her, or might she have gone on in secret?’
‘She might have,’ said Val slowly. ‘Either because the work was considered risible, or — because it was not. Look at that place.’ She waved a hand at the glorious Emporium, inviting as it was, and dripping with money and magick. ‘All this wealth and grandeur had to come from somewhere, and the Emporium’s four hundred years old. They had an eye for valuables, to say the least.’
‘And a talent for profiting from them,’ I agreed. ‘Could she have feared that they’d do the same with her own and Mary’s work?’
‘Who knows. But altogether, I think it plausible that Cicily Werewode might have had a cache of secret research somewhere, which the Elvyngs may or may not know about.’
‘I wonder,’ I said slowly, going off on a minor mental tangent, ‘if they have any magickal silver artefacts in stock today?’
Val sucked in a breath. ‘Surely not. Do you know how rare such things are nowadays?’
‘Yes, but only as of recently. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but… magickal silver seems to be a lost idea in general, no? Not only do we have no idea how to make it — if there was ever a way — but the magickal world in general has forgotten that it exists. Including the Elvyngs?’
‘If they knew about it and knew how to make it, we’d all know,’ Val agreed, and nodded towards the Emporium. ‘Look at that place. The windows would be full of the stuff.’
‘So either, Cicily’s work never bore fruit and we’re chasing a red herring. Or, whatever she achieved was lost somewhere in the past five hundred years.’
‘Pessimistic, Ves,’ chided Val. ‘We’ve got Cicily’s journal. She must have produced other documents over her lifetime. Where would they have gone?’
‘They would have been absorbed into the Elvyng papers, most likely,’ I said. ‘Which, if they’re not in the Archives, must be…’
‘In one of the other Elvyng buildings,’ said Val. ‘Of which there are several.’
‘And!’ I said, not entirely listening. ‘Val, how did Cicily know about Mary Werewode’s work in the first place? She must have had something of Mary’s, too, something that indicated what she was doing. And if those things aren’t in the Archives, then—’
‘Then those might be with the Elvyng papers, too,’ said Val, sitting upright. ‘Yes! These ancient old families have boxes and boxes of such records lying about, and nobody ever cares to go through them. Anything important would be locked away, but crumbling notes on improbable subjects written by women nobody remembers or respects?’
‘What we want could be lying in an attic somewhere, just waiting to be found.’
‘So back to my earlier question,’ said Val.
‘If I was impossibly rich and spectacularly magickal, where would I store my junk?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I wasn’t actually joking about the attic.’
As one, we turned to look at the Elvyng Academy.
‘It’s said to have been founded in Wauter Elvyng’s own house,’ I said. ‘They had only four students to begin with, and they weren’t that rich yet. They didn’t have the means to buy a whole new property for it.’
‘Cicily might have lived there,’ said Val.
‘Almost certainly did,’ I agreed.
‘Do you think it’s too late to be admitted as students?’
‘Yes.’ I said this with some regret. As a child I’d dreamed of attending the Elvyng Academy — we all did — but the entry requirements would make your eyes bleed to look at them. I hadn’t been up to it. ‘We can, however, wave the Society flag and hope they find us impressive,’ I added.
‘If you can impress the Prince of Mandridore, you can impress the Elvyngs.’
‘Or their head teacher, anyway. Got your Important Person face on?’
Val drew herself up in her chair. I don’t know about me, but she can be imposing as hell when she wants to be. ‘Let’s go.’
