Author: Charlotte E. English

‘As waiting rooms go,’ said Jay, ‘This one isn’t bad.’ He reposed himself upon the grass once more, shut his eyes, and apparently dozed off.

I stood watching him for a few minutes, undecided about whether or not to interrupt his nap. As opportunities for R&R went, the locale was ideal but the timing was pretty bad.

But he looked so comfortable lying stretched out in the verdure, with a tiny half-smile on his sun-bathed face, that I didn’t have the heart.

He didn’t seem to mind that he was exhausted, yet expected to soldier on; nor that Milady kept him hopping, week in, week out. He never complained. Either he loved the job that much, or he had one hell of a work ethic.

Which made me wonder, once again, about the Jay behind the workhorse façade. Though we’d been working together for some weeks now, I was aware that I still didn’t know him very well. There had hardly been the time to try.  The Jay I knew was tireless, unbelievably dedicated, magickally remarkable, and very self-contained. He’d occasionally got a little irritated with me (my fault, always), but his temper rarely frayed, he never panicked, and he hardly ever worried. A cool cucumber, you might say.

But nobody was like that all the time. Em Rogan had called him “controlled”, and she was right. Where was the real Jay, behind the top-of-the-class star student of the Hidden University? What did he care about, besides his studies and his mission with the Society? The only glimpses I’d really had into his inner world were disparate things like his dress sense (that jacket didn’t quite go with the image), the motorbike (ditto), and…

Nope, that was about it.

Might have something to do with the family, I mused. The only time I really saw him animated was when he talked about his siblings, of which there were at least three—

‘You’re staring at me,’ said Jay, and I realised with a start that his dark eyes were open.

‘Was not,’ I said automatically.

‘And you had that pensive look on your face.’

‘Pensive?’ I tried my best smile on him. ‘Wasn’t thinking anything, I swear.’

‘One might even say, inquisitive.’ Jay sat up with a slight groan, and brushed grass seeds out of his hair. ‘Whatever I’ve done to deserve such scrutiny, I beg mercy.’

‘I was just wondering,’ I began, but with a whoosh of magick — tasting like clear air after a thunderstorm, and smelling of white wine — our not-so-friendly local sprite was back.

She’d developed a smile.

‘My name is—’ she said, followed by several unpronounceable syllables I will not attempt to recreate. ‘It means flow of bright water in your tongue.’

‘…Is it all right if we call you that?’ I said.

‘Maybe just “Flow”,’ Jay amended.

Flow bowed her assent. ‘You are welcome in Aylligranir, Cordelia Vesper and Jay Patel,’ she announced. ‘Her Majesty is eager to meet the envoys of Queen Delia. If you will follow me?’

Her manner being far more gracious than before, I was somewhat surprised, and a shade uneasy. Obviously, our ruse had succeeded better than I had expected. Hopefully, anyway. That, or this was a counter-ruse, and upon accepting Flow’s gracious invitation we were to be thrown into a deep, dark dungeon.

And how was it that she knew our names? I didn’t remember telling her mine, let alone Jay’s.

‘Our fame has preceded us,’ I whispered to Jay, as Flow walked, stately and straight-backed, towards the sheer hillside.

‘Can’t decide if that’s a good thing or bad,’ Jay muttered.

Neither could I.

Instead of coming to an abrupt halt at the base of the emerald-green hill, Flow wavered like the water whose namesake she was, and vanished.

‘Um,’ said Jay. ‘What do we do?’

I eyed the impenetrable verdure, no less confused. ‘When in doubt, follow suit,’ I said, and walked after Flow, putting my feet, as best I could, exactly where she had stepped.

It’s hard to walk face-first into a slab of rock, so I shut my eyes.

No impact. No grazed nose. I took two steps, then three, then five, and when I still felt free-flowing air around my face I hazarded a glance.

‘Oh,’ I said, and stopped.

Flow had walked us into the middle of a city. Right into the middle: we stood in the centre of a wide street, paved in pale, silver-touched stone. To my left and right, and all around me, stupendous buildings soared. They were tall, they were graceful, they were pale and interesting, yet touched here and there with bright motes of colour. Starstone liberally glimmered, everywhere I looked. Pointed arches embraced grand, clear windows bordered in stained glass; engraved pilasters and carved friezes graced every façade.

I heard music: faint, ethereal, enticing. Faerie bells upon a summer breeze.

It reminded me, sharply, of the music I had twice heard Jay draw forth from a piano, or a spinet, and I looked keenly at him.

‘What?’ he said. ‘I can’t possibly be more interesting to look at than all of this.’

‘Nothing. Sorry.’ I needed to put a lid on my curiosity. Jay wasn’t a mystery to solve.

Flow, oblivious alike to our awed wonder and our conversation, floated away down the street. I hurried to catch up. There were not many other Yllanfallen abroad; our footsteps echoed in the quiet, and the distant music teased insistently at me.

Ahead of us loomed a structure of such size and splendour as to put all the rest to shame: a palace, in other words, set in gardens of such verdure, such ethereal beauty, I could have lived there forever.

And as such, I was obliged to stifle an intense desire to turn tail and run away.

We were here on one errand: find out what the Yllanfallen knew about magickal silver, or indeed about Mary or Cicily Werewode, if the two things proved to be connected. But in posing as envoys from my mother, we would now be obliged to be envoys from my mother. And who knew what seductive magick this deliriously gorgeous place would work on our senses while we were at it? Aylligranir was like Ygranyllon, only… better. More beautiful. Less wrecked.

I glanced behind me. Jay walked at my left elbow, and several feet behind both of us strolled a pair of Yllanfallen men. They looked innocuous enough at first glance, but something about their demeanour, the matching dark-blue raiment they wore, and the incidental fact that they were armed tipped me off. These were guards. Either Flow had summoned them to keep us in order, or they had fallen in with us once we’d passed through the palace gates.

So much for my stirrings of a plan to sneak away. Not that it would have availed me very much, this time; it’s not like Flow wouldn’t notice.

No, we would have to brazen it out.

Palaces are never of meagre proportions, and this one was a fair specimen of its kind, in being far too big and improbably convoluted. Once through the soaring double doors, another ten minutes’ walking had to be gone through before we at last arrived at an audience chamber. Presumably. Flow liked the palace; I judged this from the dancing gait she’d adopted once inside the pale, cool walls, and the way her sea-foam gown frisked around her legs. She stopped before a tall, narrow door of solid starstone, the stuff gleaming pale and faintly blue even at this early hour, and bestowed upon us a smile of such angelic exaltation I began to wonder who we were to meet. A queen, or a god?

She said nothing, however, only faded away, as she had before: and the starstone door swung slowly open.

No throne-room lay beyond. No grand, imposing chamber of any sort, in fact; more of a salon, sumptuously decorated but surprisingly comfortable. A carpet the colour of rose quartz covered a silvered floor. Matching, gossamer curtains framed the tall, slim window of clear glass overlooking a profusion of yellow rose bushes below. Velvet divans with plump, embroidered cushions and deep armchairs made up the furniture, surrounding a low table of silvery stone.

The room’s only occupant was a slim woman seated at a birchwood desk near the window, pen in hand, eyes fixed upon something faraway. Her black hair was bound back in a simple plait, with a ribbon threaded through, and she wore a loose jade-green robe. Her skin was the colour of amber-touched honey. She looked a little out of place in the pale, elegant room; her vivid colouring washed out the delicate tints of the furnishings. In contrast with her, everything looked a little faded.

She did not look up as we entered the salon, nor did she make any sign that she had noticed us.

I paused a moment, uncertain. Would Flow return? Were we not to be introduced? Even the guards did not seem disposed to assist, having taken up positions upon either side of the door — on the outside.

The door had decided no further visitors were required, and quietly closed itself behind us.

When a couple of minutes passed in silence, I finally cleared my throat. ‘Um, good morning. We—’

‘Oh!’ said the lady, and jumped. She looked at us in round-eyed surprise, and dropped her pen. ‘Oh,’ she said after a moment. ‘The envoys? I had quite lost myself in thought, hadn’t I? Please.’ She stood up, came towards us with an eager step, and shook my hand heartily, and then Jay’s. ‘Do tell me your names,’ she said. ‘I am sure I was told, but I am afraid I was only half listening, and have forgotten.’

I repressed an urge to steal a look at Jay. Was he as confused as I? Who exactly had we been delivered to meet? Flow had implied that the queen would receive us, but this vibrant, daydreaming woman surely could not be her.

‘Cordelia Vesper, my lady,’ I said, with a curtsey. I could have no idea of her title, supposing she possessed one, but it never hurts to be polite.

‘Delia’s daughter.’ It was not a question, more of a statement, and came with a considering look that took in everything about me, from my hair to my shoes.

‘Jay Patel,’ said Jay, with a trace of diffidence rather unlike him. Had the splendour of Aylligranir and its palace intimidated him? Surely not, after our sojourn at Mandridore.

‘Patel,’ repeated her ladyship — the queen? She was, if anything, as arrested by Jay’s name as by mine, and subjected him to a fresh scrutiny.

Which did not appear to surprise Jay, though it did discomfit him. He endured it in silence, though his jaw clenched.

‘Yes,’ she said at last, and with one last, keen look, she released Jay from the pressure of her regard, and looked once more at me.

Llirriallon the Gentle, my hat. Welcoming she may be, but something about her was beginning to scare me.

‘Now then, what has my sister-queen to say?’ said she, confirming once and for all her identity. Did they not do pomp and ceremony?

I straightened, as if that would help. ‘Erm. Her Majesty, Queen Delia of Ygranyllon, has sent us to— er, to convey her greetings and respects, and—’

‘But she has not, has she?’ interrupted Queen Llirriallon, gently enough, but the words stopped me dead.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I stammered.

‘Two envoys from Ygranyllon arrived not three days ago,’ said the queen calmly. ‘The business they arrived to transact is already in hand; therefore I cannot imagine why Delia would trouble to send another, and so soon.’

Aylligranir. Courtesy of Jay, we whooshed up into West Yorkshire in no time, and courtesy of Addie we arrived at the historic entrance to the ancient kingdom of Aylligranir within about an hour.

So far, so good.

Next problem.

‘How do we get in?’ I said, gazing hopelessly at the sheer hillside before us. We were deep in the Yorkshire Dales, and all those people who claim that Yorkshire is the most beautiful county in England are really onto something. The sky positively glittered with sunshine; the grassy slopes were the vivid green of summer dreams; and the air smelled of… I don’t know, heaven.

I wasn’t an unhappy woman in that moment, except for the fact that I had no idea what to do next. For the hills, while beautiful, were also impenetrable, and though I strained every magickal sense I possessed, no sign of a way forward could I detect.

Reclusive, huh? I’m not sure that quite covers it.

‘I’ve… no idea,’ said Jay, dashing my hopes. When even the navigator is stumped, what does one do?

I sat down in the grass, cross-legged, and unwrapped one of the sandwiches we’d brought with us. Maybe I thought the comforting flavours of egg mayonnaise and cress might help me think.

‘Oh, we’re eating?’ Jay stood regarding me in some exasperation, though he was not absolutely devoid of a smile.

It occurred to me that he looked tired. Nothing serious; just a slight droop in posture, an extra shadow or two about the eyes. But while I had been firmly ensconced in the library for weeks in order to “get some rest”, albeit the scholarly kind, Jay had been working as usual. As our sole Waymaster, was that always going to be the case?

I patted the grass beside me. ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ I said, offering him a sandwich.

He took it, and sat holding it, and staring at the hillside. The verdant slope was criss-crossed with those unfathomable drystone walls, the kind that consist of stones piled atop one another and which by some mysterious force do not fall down again. There were sheep, woolly and dozing in the sun. Lovely.

‘Sandwiches taste a lot better if you put them in your mouth,’ I suggested.

Jay ignored that. ‘Did you find anything in all those books you were drowning in?’

‘No. Lots about how much they don’t like visitors, though.’

‘The lack of signposts was a bit of a clue there.’

‘Ring the bell for Aylligranir,’ I intoned, picturing a sign bearing this very legend in glowing magickal lettering.

Jay took a bite of egg mayo.

‘Then again,’ I said, a stray wisp of thought stirring somewhere within. ‘A bell. Maybe I’m onto something. They are primarily known for musical magicks.’

‘I see no bell,’ Jay observed.

‘Me neither, but for a community of hermits that would be far too obvious.’ I packed away my sandwich wrapping, and leapt to my feet.

‘That was energetic,’ said Jay, notably not following my example.

‘I am on fire with possibility,’ I informed him, retrieving my syrinx pipes from the bodice of my dress. I hadn’t thought to bring my Yllanfallen sheet music, the songs I’d had pressed on me by an obliging shopkeeper in Ygranyllon. But while my memory for directions is abysmal (and for lyrics, ditto, to my eternal regret), my memory for melodies — and obscure trivia — is something else.

I began to play Yshllyn Ara Elenaril first, but after three notes I changed my mind. Jay wouldn’t thank me for raining all over his sandwich, and what self-respecting Brit would ever ruin a rare day’s sun? I played Syllphyllan instead, a rippling, jaunty piece said to be beloved of sprites. I had not noticed any popping out of the woodwork at Home to admire me and my music, but if we were in — or near — Yllanfallen territory out here, then maybe…

‘That’s pretty,’ said Jay, sandwich-free and rather recumbent. Lucky I didn’t choose Llewellir. He’d be snoring by now.

I was about to retort — something along the lines of pretty is as pretty does — but I felt a faint stirring on the edge of my magickal senses. Something unfurled, like flower petals in the sun. It was the barest whisper of a sense, nothing so profound as an invisible magickal gateway opening. But it felt… familiar.

I played on, until I had gone through my entire repertoire of Yllanfallen songs — including Llewellir, Jay would have to take his chances with the soporific melody. I added Addie’s song on top, just for luck, and before I had got halfway through its beloved tones Adeline herself appeared again, ears pricked up, pale tail streaming like a banner in the wind, and the pearlescent spiral of her horn glinting in the sun.

Excellent. It wouldn’t hurt one’s credibility to show up with a unicorn once beloved of an ancient Yllanfallen king. Addie had serious connections.

When at last I ran out of music, I slowly lowered my pipes from my lips and half turned.

There, crouched in the long grass about twelve feet away, was a sprite. She was distinct from the others I had seen in Mum’s kingdom: this creature was lovely, a young one perhaps, with smooth, pearly skin touched with sky blue, tumbling pale-gold hair and an intriguing sea-foam gauze dress I really wanted to ask her about. Her eyes were wide and entranced, and she was staring at — Addie.

‘Hello,’ I said cautiously, and smiled my best smile.

I was prepared for her to dash away, but she did not. She made no movement at all, only stared fixedly at Addie. It was as though I had not spoken at all.

I cleared my throat. ‘Um, where do you live?’ I tried. ‘Aylligranir?’

Her gaze flicked briefly to me as I spoke the kingdom’s name, and at once she began to fade, her outline turning misty.

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Don’t go. We aren’t here to cause trouble.’ On an impulse, I waved my syrinx pipes, letting the pallid skysilver catch the sunlight.

She looked at them, and frowned. ‘Had I known it was a human playing our songs,’ she said, and did not seem minded to finish the sentence. I supposed the implication was clear enough.

‘I’m an unusual human,’ I said hastily. ‘Daughter of Queen Delia of Ygranyllon.’ I made her my best curtsey. It hurt a bit to effectively credit Mum with my syrinx pipes, and indeed the presence of Addie in my life, but needs must.

The sprite looked hard at me, and she was no longer entranced. ‘And what does Her Majesty of Ygranyllon wish of us?’

‘Nothing,’ I began.

But Jay, on his feet again, came up beside me, and nudged me powerfully with his elbow. ‘We are here as envoys,’ he said. ‘With messages for Her Majesty, Llirriallon.’

The sprite folded her thin arms. ‘Then how is it that you linger here at the gate? Did not Delia, Her Majesty, grant you means of entry?’

‘Er, Delia’s only just taken the throne,’ I said. ‘And Ygranyllon was without a ruler for some time, as you may know. We are here to re-establish lost links with Aylligranir.’

The sprite checked out Adeline again, who unwittingly played her part by looking both deeply magickal and wholly unperturbed at hanging around with us.

I wished, briefly, that I had the power to be a unicorn myself outside of the borders of Addie’s glade. That might impress Miss Suspicious Sprite.

But at length she dropped the prickly attitude, and returned my curtsey. Hers, of course, was infinitely more graceful. ‘Doubtless Aylligranir will welcome the envoys of Ygranyllon,’ she said.

‘Tha—’ I began.

‘I will go and check,’ she said, ignoring me, and disappeared.

Dear Mum, ran my text. Can we please borrow a couple of your best alchemists. URGENT.

‘Think she will answer?’ said Val.

‘There’s almost no chance of it.’

Val had been waiting in the Academy’s entrance hall when I had finally made it downstairs, the tour having ended several minutes before. Denise must have noticed my absence then, if not sooner, but Val did not seem perturbed. She sat serenely near the door, unruffled. Only I knew her well enough to detect the signs of extreme boredom.

‘Riveting tour, then?’ I murmured as I hurried to join her.

Val gave me a sour look. ‘I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’ve made for you.’

‘For us, Val. For the cause! Wait ‘til you hear what I found.’ I grabbed her chair and whooshed us out the door, waving cheerily to the woman on reception as we passed. Fortunately, there was no sign of Denise.

‘It had better be good,’ Val said once we were back outside in the sun. ‘I had to hear every sodding detail of Crystobel Elvyng’s life.’

‘Academic career?’

‘If she isn’t the single most brilliant woman in magick, it isn’t for lack of trying.’

‘Childhood exploits?’

‘Avid tree-climber, isn’t that adorable?’

‘Favourite brand of underwear?’

‘Calvin Klein.’

I stopped. ‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘Small mercies. Anyway, here’s the scoop. I found zero promising-looking boxes of papers dumped at the back of a forgotten garret, but—’ I ran quickly down my discovery and my list of not-quite-conclusions, or nearly baseless speculations by any other name. When I said them all out loud, they suddenly sounded ridiculous.

But Val nodded along, her head bobbing with each of my major points as we trundled around the square. When I’d finished, she said (to my secret relief): ‘You really might be onto something there, Ves.’

I punched the air.

‘Milady requisitioned some alchemist from the Court at Mandridore, no?’ she continued.

‘Yes, and maybe she ought to purloin a few from some other Court, too. Like Mum’s.’

‘Just what I was thinking.’

So I sent the text, just in case Mum was paying attention. And since she almost certainly wouldn’t be, I also sent a note to Rob. It read: Ves & Val reporting. Strongly advise Milady requests a prominent Yllanfalen alchemist to attend at Home.

On second thought I added: If there are any. After all, I’d never heard of anyone bothering with alchemy in recent memory; but Milady had claimed the contrary. No one publicly bothered with it anymore, but that said nothing about private endeavour.

I wondered whether secret alchemical endeavour had played a part in the Society’s recent history, and why no one had told me about it if it had. Van der Linden had never fully succeeded at turning worthless rubbish into priceless magickal jewels, and had eventually abandoned the project; his having done so was generally credited as the turning of the tide, the point where the magickal community turned away from alchemy, and began to see it as foolish.

But what if some part of his work had borne some kind of fruit after all, and was even now being employed across Britain? Or even just at Home?

Cursed secrets. I mean, I do get why alchemy’s such an enthralling idea. Who wouldn’t love to turn ordinary pebbles into ethereal rubies? Or lead into gold?

A reply came. Rob.

Why am I playing messenger boy?

Because Jay isn’t Home.

Nothing else after that. I hoped he would pass the message along, but if not, I could do that myself soon enough.

First, though: the Emporium.

What, you thought Val and I would pass up the chance to break our hearts over the Elvyngs’ unaffordable luxury goods?

Val might manage to be that sensible, but I certainly couldn’t.

‘About my chair,’ said Val, veering in the direction of the Emporium’s glittering doors.

All right, maybe not.

I made one last, feeble attempt to assert my inner sense of self-preservation. ‘Val, you know we can’t afford anything in there.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Val, and then she was through the doors, and what could a poor, weak Ves do but follow?

‘Hi,’ said Jay, and smiled.

‘Argh,’ I replied, jumping back about a foot.

‘Did I startle you? Sorry.’ He stood just inside the shining doors, hands in the pockets of his ever-present leather jacket, which was a wise move. Safely pocketed hands cannot reach longingly for impossible things.

‘I thought you were…’ I racked my brains. ‘Somewhere else?’

‘Wales. We pulled a charmed seventeenth-century chalice out of a crumbly local museum. They had it stuffed at the back of an exhibit called Women at home in the fifteen hundreds.’

My lips twitched. ‘Did you have any trouble liberating it?’

‘Not once they heard what we were offering.’

‘Show me a museum that isn’t strapped for cash and I’ll show you…’ I paused, struggling to think of something more improbable than that.

Jay grinned. ‘Flying pigs?’

‘I could actually show you flying pigs.’

‘I don’t think the pigs would like it.’

‘Might depend on the pig. Anyway, what are you doing in York?’

‘Waiting for you. I got back this morning, and Rob said you were headed for Elvyng Lane.’

‘Uh huh. How did you know we’d come in here?’

Jay just looked at me.

‘In my defence, it’s Val who lost her head over a levitating green brocade chair.’ I looked around, but couldn’t see her around the milling shoppers. That, and my eye snagged on a glittering grimoire crusted with jewels, and everything else went out of my head.

‘Do you need a security escort?’ said Jay.

‘Urgently.’

Jay saluted. ‘What are we shopping for?’

‘Whatever my greedy little heart desires.’

‘So in other words, everything.’

‘Just about.’

I emerged with nothing in hand, and about five hundred new additions to my wish list.

‘I’m sort of proud of you,’ said Jay as we hightailed it back to the relative safety of the square.

‘For not buying anything?’

‘Looks like self-restraint to me.’

‘Are you implying I’m bad at that?’

Jay coughed. ‘Er, not at all.’

Jay hadn’t made any purchases either, though he had been as enchanted by a bespelled book box as I had been by my bejewelled grimoire. I couldn’t blame him. The box’s charms not only proposed to keep the contents preserved against the deleterious effects of time, but would actually restore them to freshly-printed perfection, albeit very slowly. Imagine that. Ten years or so in Jay’s box and even the crumbliest tome might be brand new again. Or at least, less decrepit.

The price tag was about half my yearly salary.

Sorrowfully, we left it untouched.

‘That box reminds me a bit of what Fenella was talking about,’ I mused, not at all reluctant to change the subject away from my personal weaknesses.

‘You mean her restoration magick? Right. Though the box does it in a small way and at a snail’s pace.’

Out on the Fifth, Fenella had achieved a similar effect upon an entire room, and quickly too. I sighed a little, wistful once more for the potency of magick in that far-off Britain.

‘Have we lost Val?’ said Jay, turning cautiously towards the Emporium again.

I risked a glance. No Val.

‘Possibly for all of time,’ I said. Then a glimpse of a familiar spring-green colour caught my eye, and there came Val, sailing out of the shop in the arms of the brocade chair she’d fallen in love with a few hours before.

I swear, I’ve never seen so smug a smile before in my life.

‘Mortgaged house and home?’ I said as she drifted up. I wasn’t even joking, either. Up close, the chair’s craftsmanship was exquisite, the fabric was expensive with a capital E, and a glance was enough to tell me that its levitation charms far outstripped my own, not inconsiderable efforts. She glided up, smooth as silk, and I imagined the word “comfortable” didn’t even begin to cover it.

‘I may have to sleep on the street,’ Val said. ‘But it was worth it, Ves. It was worth it.’

I had no trouble believing that.

Back at Home, we hit the library again, hard. Val wanted to scour the catalogues — yet again — for anything about the Werewodes or, indeed, the Elvyngs. I wanted to research the kingdoms of the Yllanfalen, and any historical proclivity for alchemical pursuits that I fervently hoped to uncover.

We both came up empty. Val found nothing but the usual info about the illustrious magickal family: much the same spiel that we’d been given on the tour. They certainly had their public image down pat.

I found far too much about the Yllanfalen, little of which looked relevant, but who could tell? It might take weeks to dig up and read every word of every available resource, and with no guarantee of coming up with any answers.

So I went back to badgering my mother. Seeing as she hadn’t replied to my previous message, I attacked her again.

What’s the use of being a faerie princess if I can’t cadge favours off Her Majesty, my Mum?

I set my phone on the edge of my desk, and went back to my book. The Yllanfalen were secretive and reclusive, I discovered (you don’t say), and while their kingdoms had been relatively welcoming in some halcyon past, the modern kingdoms rarely granted access to outsiders (perfect for my mother, then). They excelled at music-based enchantments and charms—

My phone buzzed.

Cordelia, Mum had written. You are not a faerie princess. Remember? You refused.

I know, I returned. I just wanted to annoy you so you’d talk to me.

Mum: What do you want with alchemists?

Me: Something nefarious and deeply disturbing.

Mum: We don’t have any.

Me: Okay, something heroic and spectacular.

Mum: Ves. Why the hell would I have an alchemist at court?

Me: You really don’t have any?

Mum: I. Don’t. Have. An. Alchemist.

Damn.

Mum: Nobody’s done alchemy since about 1781.

Me: Fine, get me an Yllanfalen alchemist from 1781.

Mum: You do know that the elixir of immortality was a crock of shit?

Me: You are no help whatsoever.

Mum: Maybe I would be if I knew what this was about.

Me: We want to make magickal silver.

Mum: What?

Me: Magickal silver. You know, moonsilver. Or skysilver, whichever.

Mum: Make it? You can’t make it. That’s absurd.

Me: Why is it absurd?

But that, apparently, was it. I’d exasperated my mother beyond enduring, and she’d thrown her phone down the toilet in disgust.

If I wanted an Yllanfalen perspective on alchemy, I’d have to look beyond my mother’s kingdom.

On a hunch, I turned to a map of Yllanfalen territory from 1562, or a facsimile thereof. Val wouldn’t let me have the original, for some reason. I’m sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with my habit of eating sweets at my desk.

The Yllanfalen had several kingdoms back in the day, and—

‘Ves.’ Jay had come in; I hadn’t noticed.

‘Huusshh,’ I whispered. ‘I’m on the brink of an exciting breakthrough.’

‘You mean like this one?’ Jay put a piece of paper down in front of me, half covering my map.

I flicked it aside, pointing. ‘If the Werewodes were part Yllanfalen, that suggests there was probably one of their kingdoms in the Yorkshire area in the medieval era. Right? And look, there’s one not all that far from York itself, at least in 1562—’

‘Aylligranir,’ said Jay.

I looked up, blinking. ‘Right. How did you—?’

‘Apparently our ideas were running along similar lines.’ He tapped the page he’d given me, which I had disgracefully dismissed.

At the top was written Aylligranir in Jay’s neat handwriting. It was underlined. Below it followed a list of facts: Mentioned 1442 by Amhar Edris, and similar entries; and at the end of the list, Current monarch: Llirriallon the Gentle.

Being Jay, he had also noted the locations of a known entrance, together with directions from the nearest henge.

‘Star pupil,’ I said, beaming.

‘I’m not really a p— never mind. Ready to go?’

‘Uh. Now?’

‘If we don’t go now, we don’t go at all. It’s only a matter of time before I’m dispatched to Land’s End, or possibly Timbuktu.’

‘What does Milady say?’

‘She hasn’t found an Yllanfalen alchemist yet.’

‘In that case,’ I said, rising from my chair. ‘Let’s swoop in and save the day.’

To my surprise, when we entered the illustrious Academy building we found the entrance hall full of people. And I do mean full. They weren’t students either, or they didn’t look like it. Most were at least my age or older, and only about half were human. The rest were fae of various tribes and cultures, including a couple of spriggans, a troll, and a willowy silver-haired man who would’ve looked right at home in the kingdoms of the Yllanfalen. I’d expect to see such a rabble pouring through the doors of the Emporium, but what were they doing here at the Academy?

A petite woman with a blonde ponytail and a thousand-watt smile spotted us as we came in, and leapt to clear room for Val’s chair. ‘Are you here for the tour?’ she asked us.

‘N—’ began Val.

‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘We’d love to join the tour.’ Not only were tours sometimes surprisingly informative, but the general chaos they caused was also perfect for surreptitiously sneaking off. Nobody would notice if a tour of twenty-plus people suddenly shrank by, say, one or two.

‘Great!’ said the tour guide, displaying enough energy for twelve people as she herded us all into a roughly organised group, and took up a position at the front. She placed Val front and centre, which was both considerate and convenient. We got a clear view of everything, even in the crowd.

The Academy building was not quite what I had pictured. It was small, relatively speaking, and I had no trouble believing that it had once been a private residence. The walls were built from that lovely, dark-red brick they favoured in the 1500s, at least those who could afford it; those things were painstakingly crafted by hand, after all. The leaded windows looked original, and the place had the eccentric, poky structure of antiquity; none of the clear, open spaces and featureless décor one would expect to find in a modern educational establishment. The Elvyngs hadn’t stinted on ornaments, either. Oil paintings hung in ornate frames upon every wall, probably depicting former scions of their line, and I spotted more than one artefact of great age and value prominently upon display.

They must have good security at the Elvyng Academy — and a charming confidence in the rectitude of their students.

Hopefully the security wasn’t going to get in my way later. I had nothing like so much faith in my own rectitude. Oh, not that I was planning to walk off with a fourteenth-century enchanted music box (tempted though I might be). But a little sneaking and stealthing might well be in order.

‘Welcome to the Elvyng Academy!’ roared our tour guide, and the low babble of chatter and rustling of fidgeting people slowly ceased. ‘Over the next half-hour I’ll be showing you the highlights of this remarkable, early sixteenth-century building, home to generations of the brightest minds in magick. The Elvyng family’s contributions to magick are deservedly legendary, and you’ll be hearing all about those today.

‘It is the summer holidays so most classes are suspended this week. There may be one or two study groups still in session, so I must ask you please to keep the chatter to a minimum as we proceed. Okay?’ Tour Guide Lady beamed upon us.

We were an obedient tour group, for nobody spoke.

‘Okay, let’s begin!’ Tour Guide Lady led us out of the main hall and into a kind of salon, its contents correct for the sixteenth century: heavy, English oak chests and cabinet chairs, tapestries, etc. More paintings, the largest of which we halted in front of.

‘The Elvyng family legacy began with Ambrose Elvyng in the late fourteen hundreds,’ said Tour Guide Lady. I caught a glimpse of her nametag. Denise. ‘An early pioneer of the arts of charm-binding, he’s said to have been among the first to lastingly imbue inanimate objects with magickal properties. Isn’t that impressive? But it was his son, Wauter Elvyng, and his daughter Godlefe who founded the Elvyng Academy…’

Blah blah blah. I stopped listening, having already read much of this information off the internet. Keeping half an ear open for any mention of Cicily or the Werewodes, I devoted myself to a surreptitious study of the contents of an impromptu bookcase set up atop a heavy oak chest behind Denise. Between two weighty bookends of imbued crystal were half a dozen reasonably aged-looking books.

Great Expectations, Gulliver’s Travels, Jane Eyre…

Novels.

I suppose it was too much to hope that a book titled Magickal Silver and How to Make it would be lying there waiting for me, but was an interesting magickal tome or two just too much to ask of the Elvyngs?

Feeling obscurely piqued, I folded my arms.

‘What about Cicily Werewode?’ Val said, firmly interrupting Denise as she streamed smoothly onto the next topic. ‘She married Degare Elvyng, didn’t she?’

‘I believe so,’ beamed Denise.

‘What can you tell us about connections between the Elvyng family and the Werewodes?’ said Val.

Denise’s smile faltered. ‘Uh, there are no known connections with a family of that name, but I believe there is a portrait of Cicily Elvyng in the house. Perhaps in one of the bedchambers?

‘We would like to see that,’ declared Val.

Denise’s smile returned. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be included as part of this tour. Now! If you’ll follow me into the conservatory…’

Val shot me a meaningful look. Probably it said, so much for your bright idea of joining the tour.

‘Sorry,’ I mouthed.

Val shook her head, rolled her eyes, and made an awkward jerking motion in the direction of the upstairs. Then she sailed after the vanishing crowd of tourists.

Oh. Right.

Val couldn’t hope to sneak away without her absence being noted; not after she’d been given so prominent a position at the front of the tour, and being the only person in a wheelchair at that. But I could.

Portrait of Cicily Werewode. Right.

I waited until the rest of my tour group had disappeared through the far door after Denise, then quietly retreated back the way we’d come in. I’d glimpsed a set of stairs leading off one of the passageways we had passed through, which to my relief proved easy to find again (this is me we’re talking about, here. If anyone could get lost in the space of two rooms and a couple of passageways it would be me). I stole up to the first floor, blessing my random choice to wear flat, sneaking sandals instead of the heels I’d briefly considered. Thanks to the summer holidays, I encountered no one as I wandered into room after room.

I soon concluded I was still on the wrong floor. If any of these chambers had been bedrooms once, they were classrooms now, and none of them featured portraits on the walls. It took me ten minutes to find more staircases up, and I began to feel a little nervous of the time. How long would the tour take? Would anybody notice I was no longer in the group? Val could cover for me, but still… I darted up more stairs, and found myself at last on a floor with a certain air of neglect about it. Dustier than the floors below, and much less decorated, it looked little used and little valued; the deep blue carpets covering the floors were faded and threadbare, and nothing had benefited from a coat of paint in a while.

It was also much more cramped. I was entering the roof space, I judged, for the ceilings were lower and sloping. Servants were probably housed here, once, and now? Storage space. The kind of place boxes of old papers might be kept. And old, forgotten bedchambers nobody now had a use for.

I opened a door at random — and stopped, arrested. I’d found a bedchamber, but so small it bordered upon classifiable as a garret. The furniture, simple and inexpensive, included a narrow bed with faded green tapestry curtains, a lone oak chest, and a couple of blue plastic chairs incongruously dumped in a corner.

A portrait hung by the window. Circular, mean in proportion and poorly maintained, the image was darkened with age and dirt; however, the subject matter shone through to my interested eye. It showed a woman’s face in profile, her pale hair crimped and braided according to the fashions of the fifteen hundreds. The portrait itself excited no especial remark, being a merely workmanlike piece of art; but the subject matter had me across the room in seconds, examining it more closely with breathless interest.

The woman was not human.

Or, not only human. The shape of her face was human enough, and though only her head, neck and shoulders were depicted, nothing suggested she was of other than ordinary human stature. But that hair was unusual: still pale blonde, despite the layers of grime coating the image. Were it cleaned, the woman’s hair would likely prove to be silvery in hue. Her eyes, too, could pass for blue, but were shaded with amethyst. I couldn’t have said what else it was about her that gave her ancestry away; something about her bone structure, perhaps, or even just some species of intuition with which we’re all occasionally blessed. But like the willowy man I’d seen below, the woman in the painting would not have looked too out of place among the Yllanfalen.

The Elvyngs had an Yllanfalen ancestress.

And somehow, I knew in my heart that this was Cicily Werewode. The era was right, the clothes she wore, everything.

‘Cicily,’ I breathed, lightly touching the carved oak frame. What was she doing, exiled all the way up here? Why was her husband so celebrated, and not she? Doubt washed over me. Were we right to think that Cicily Werewode had been onto something with her ancestress’s work? Or that she had continued to pursue it even after marriage? Perhaps she wasn’t, or hadn’t. Perhaps she had got married and given everything else up, as so many women had chosen to — or been obliged to.

But her obvious Yllanfalen ancestry suggested otherwise. I paused, thoughts awhirl, as disparate pieces of this puzzle swirled around my mind.

The Yllanfalen. At least one of their kingdoms — my mother’s, at present — had a magickal silver artefact that was of paramount importance to their culture. The lyre was so old, nobody really knew where it had come from, save that a mythical king out of legend was said to have created it. Well; had he used mined magickal silver, or had he — or someone of his court — created the silver, too? The possibility hadn’t crossed my mind before. But in my (admittedly not exhaustive) experience, the Yllanfalen were the only people who seemed to remember the Silver at all.

Mary Werewode. If Cicily had Yllanfal blood, had Mary also? How closely linked were the Werewodes to the Yllanfalen?

Mary and her moon-bathing. Moonsilver.

Skysilver? What had Mum actually called the stuff?

Both, I realised. She’d spoken of both. The lyre she talked of as made from “moonsilver”, and the syrinx pipes — like my own — were “skysilver”. I hadn’t asked what those things were, at the time, nor what the difference between them was supposed to be. But perhaps there was no difference. The names were a matter of legend only, they sounded good in a story — but in essence they were both the substance we were now calling (rather drearily, in contrast) magickal silver.

Hmm.

Had Mary Werewode favoured silver because she was Yllanfalen? That would explain why she had gone in so different a direction to every other alchemist of her era, eschewing mere gold in favour of a “Silver” far more valuable, to those who realised it. But most didn’t, hence the lack of respect in which she and her work were held.

Cicily had realised it. Had her husband? Had any of the Elvyngs? I’d never heard that the Elvyng family had any Yllanfalen connections. The influence of Cicily’s other heritage had long since disappeared.

I chewed a fingernail, my eyes still fixed to the strange, pale face of Cicily Werewode. Had the sixteenth-century Elvyngs had any idea what Cicily was talking about, or not? Had any of them taken her work seriously? Had she been permitted to pursue it at all? If so, where were the results of it now?

These were questions that urgently needed answering.

Then again, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe alchemy alone wasn’t the answer. Maybe we needed to go looking for the Silver among the Yllanfalen.

Moved by some strange (and reprehensible) impulse, I stretched out my hand once more, and let my fingertips lightly rest upon the surface of the canvas. One does not, ordinarily, go about feeling up delicate articles of great age; even the slightest interference can damage them. I cannot say why I so violated all such principles this time; only that I felt an odd desire to link myself with the enigmatic figure of Cicily Werewode, even if only for a moment.

And what a moment for my fingers to fizz.

Fffupht. Magick spurted. I snatched my hand away, but too late: a ripple of eerie light flooded Cicily’s face, momentarily obscuring her features. When it faded, it left traces behind: a faint glimmer here and there, like motes of moonlight woven in her pale hair.

The dirt of centuries was gone. Cicily’s face smiled at me, clear and vivid, fresh as the day her image was captured in paints.

I waited, breathless with anticipation. But the seconds ticked by and nothing else happened, save that the light faded from Cicily Werewode’s hair.

I turned away at last, reluctant to leave so alluring, so vibrant a woman alone in this dingy little garret.

‘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.’

‘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.’