by ‘Setting aside for a moment the extreme improbability that Merlin ever existed in the first place,’ said Jay, ‘a fact which no one has any real evidence for, nothing but old stories—’
‘There’s lots of truth in old stories,’ I objected.
‘Yes, but also lots of nonsense, and a story isn’t evidence of anything.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Setting that aside,’ he repeated. ‘Those stories go back, what, a thousand years at least? How could Merlin still be alive?’
‘Improbably powerful magician,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘You did see her breeze past our best security like it was nothing? And you can’t have forgotten Farringale, either. Baroness Tremayne? The echoes? It wouldn’t even be the first time we’ve encountered someone who absolutely shouldn’t still be alive anymore.’
‘True,’ said Jay, but sceptically.
‘And before you feel it necessary to point out that this Merlin is female, we also have no evidence that Merlin was male, either. Just stories, many of them written well after the age of Merlin, and largely penned by men.’
‘Who might edit the gender of the hero of the story because of… reasons?’
I shrugged. ‘Nothing so nefarious. They might simply have… assumed.’
Jay sighed. ‘I concede that there’s something in what you say. And you might be right.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
‘But it’s crazy beyond all reason and we have no proof.’
‘What’s your guess?’ I said. ‘If she isn’t Merlin, who is she?’
Jay had nothing to say.
He tried, poor boy. His mouth opened, and I could practically see the gears whirring in his brain as he sought for another, more reasonable theory than mine.
But it would all be the merest guess-work, and he knew it. He gave up. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘What’s worse, I have no idea how we’re going to find out.’
A lowering reflection, that. Our maybe-Merlin had disappeared out of our lives in the blink of an eye, and even I wasn’t crazy enough to imagine we could somehow track her down. Where would we even start? How could we expect to find any trace of a person who could glide through doors, and ignore the Society’s most powerful magicks as easily as she might ignore a fly?
‘So we’re stumped,’ I said.
‘Yep.’
I turned and surveyed what was left of our exhibition. Our remaining visitors were all gathered around the case, talking excitedly; word of our maybe-Merlin’s feats of aborted thievery would spread far and wide after today. Rob and team were still engaged in their futile attempt to chase down our suspect. Various of our friends and colleagues from the Society were drifting about or slumped against walls, looking as tired and disappointed as I felt.
Yep, this was an epic fail.
‘Let’s get this lot out of here,’ I said, drawing myself up. ‘And then we’re going to dinner.’
‘Right,’ said Jay tiredly, and strode off in the direction of the Wand-case.
‘And it had better be a big dinner,’ I added to his retreating back.
In the end, I didn’t even eat much of our admittedly enormous repast.
I know. Me, Ves, lacked appetite, despite the small army of delicious dishes Jay and I had splurged on between us.
We’d been too tired, and too distracted, to faff about picking somewhere nice. So we’d headed for the nearest pub, and finding their menu replete with delicious stuff we had gone a bit nuts. We had deep-fried brie and baked camembert (Jay’s choices, proving himself a cheese connoisseur). We had a deep bowl piled high with heavily salted chips (my choice, proving myself not entirely uninfluenced by Addie). We had battered fish and peas, some excellent fresh bread, and a plate of raspberry cheesecake.
I attacked this feast with gusto at first, but rising nausea forced me to slow down to bird-like mouthfuls.
‘Are you okay?’ said Jay after a while, watching my lack of progress with sharp eyes.
‘Sick,’ I said.
‘As in, ill?’ Jay looked aghast.
‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘I just feel… weird.’ I shifted in my chair, too restless to sit still, despite my exhaustion.
‘It’s been a weird day,’ Jay offered. ‘And it’s possible to be too tired to eat.’
I nodded, though without fully agreeing with him. He was right, but I felt that my disorder, somehow, had something to do with Merlin. It had begun around the second time she had pinned me with that piercing gaze, as though something about that look had mixed up my insides.
And I was ferociously zapping everything I touched, which didn’t help. I speared a chip with my fork; zap. I gave up on the fork, and used my fingers instead; zzap. I picked up my glass of beer and took a swallow; zzzap-ap, and also STARS.
Pretty.
Disconcerting.
‘You definitely aren’t right,’ said Jay, having watched in silence as my rain of sparkly stars wafted over the table.
‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘But never mind me. What are we going to do about Merlin?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jay glumly.
‘Defeatist.’
‘I know, but I can’t think of a damned thing. Can you?’
I had to sigh. ‘No. And how galling is that? Mission accomplished, thief identified, fat lot of good it does us.’
‘I suppose it’s possible this woman wasn’t the same person who stole the grimoire?’ Jay said.
‘It’s possible,’ I said tonelessly. ‘But not likely. Who else do you suppose is out there, fixated upon Merlin’s personal odds-and-bobs and impossibly great at making off with them? Whoever took the grimoire left no clues. No signs of a break-in, no traces of a struggle with the case it was in. No evidence of how they got out again. And that has to be because they didn’t use the locks, and they weren’t affected by the magick. They — she — just walked in, picked up the book, and walked out again. Who else could do that?’
Jay’s turn to sigh. ‘I can’t think of a reason why you’re wrong there.’
‘Makes a change.’
‘Question,’ said Jay.
‘Great.’
‘Why’d this woman show up at our exhibition when she did? She needn’t have attracted any attention. She could have gone in after we’d closed up and left.’
‘The Wand wouldn’t have been there. We would’ve taken it away with us.’
‘Yes, but how could she know that?’
I shrugged. ‘She might guess that. Wouldn’t be hard.’
‘Right. Or she might have had some other reason for showing up when she did.’
‘Like what?’
‘Maybe she was curious about who had the Wand.’
‘Curious?’
‘She looked rather hard at you,’ said Jay, suiting action to words, and looking rather hard at me too.
‘You noticed that too, huh?’ I avoided Jay’s eyes, and looked at the table.
‘And now you’re spewing stars over the table and fizzing like a popped bottle of bubbly.’
I tried a smile. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
Jay didn’t say anything for a while.
I picked at a couple of abandoned chips.
‘Well, never mind me,’ I said eventually. ‘We need a plan of action.’
Jay still didn’t speak. He had stopped eating too, and sat fiddling with his fork. Sneaking a glance at his face, I found him gazing at nothing, typically unreadable.
‘The Wand lost her interest almost immediately,’ said Jay. ‘Overall, she seemed far more interested in you.’
I couldn’t disagree, unaccountable as it was.
‘So if that was Merlin,’ Jay continued. ‘She must have known in advance that the Wand wasn’t hers. Right?’
‘Unless she’s lost a Wand, somewhere back in the mists of time, and hoped this one was it.’
‘Unlikely. There are too many coincidences in that.’
‘And we’ve been spreading pictures of the thing everywhere. If she heard about the exhibition, she’d have had chance to see a picture, too.’
Jay nodded. ‘And the chances of Indira’s design happening to match any Wand of hers exactly are so small, it has to be impossible.’
I sat up a bit. ‘So she knew the Wand wasn’t hers. Why then did she come? Apparently it wasn’t to issue us with a cease-and-desist notice.’
‘Right. She didn’t seem to care that we were passing off a Wand as hers — or Merlin’s — and if she’s half as good as she seems to be, she must’ve realised, as soon as she saw it, that it was a new creation.’
‘So she didn’t come by to collect her Wand, or to lay the smackdown on us for fraud.’
‘She was interested,’ said Jay.
‘Curious? Really?’
‘In who we are, and what we’re doing.’
‘She asked no questions.’
Jay nodded slowly, thinking.
I cudgelled my brains into something resembling coherent thought, too.
At length I said: ‘Where might she have gone, when she left the exhibition?’
‘If we knew that—’
‘Maybe we could guess. If she’s half as interested in us as you imagine—’
‘In you,’ Jay corrected.
‘—then maybe she hasn’t vanished into the mist, never to be seen again, but—’
My phone rang. I’d set it down on the table while I ate, and it vibrated loudly against the polished pine.
All the words I’d been planning to say went straight out of my head when I saw the caller ID.
‘It’s Milady,’ I said dumbly.
Jay’s brows went up. ‘Okay…?’
I felt frozen. I can’t explain why. I had the oddest feeling of a great weight settling upon me, like something was about to happen that would change everything. Forever.
Maybe in ways I didn’t want and couldn’t cope with.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’ said Jay.
I just looked at him, wide-eyed and speechless.
He gave me an odd look, reached slowly past me, and picked up my phone.
‘Hi, Milady,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Ves is having a funny moment. What’s up?’
Silence for a few moments.
Jay’s brows climbed higher, and then higher again. He blinked.
‘Right,’ he said at last. ‘Right, okay.’
He ended the conversation with, ‘On our way,’ and hung up.
Silently he returned my phone to its former position beside my plate.
‘There’s a visitor at Home,’ he said calmly. ‘She is desirous of seeing you as soon as possible.’
I swallowed a lump in my throat. ‘She?’ I croaked.
Jay nodded.
He didn’t explain further, but he didn’t need to.
Whoever it was, Milady thought the situation important enough to haul us straight back Home. That was a first.
Whatever was going on, I was going to have to dig deep, put my Big Girl boots on, and pull myself together.
One way or another, magick needed me.
‘Okay,’ I said, rising from my chair. I paused to stuff two more chips in my face — if my life was about to be turned upside down, I was going to need sustenance — and collected my paraphernalia. My phone I put in my pocket, where I’d feel it if it rang again. ‘It’s lucky you’re driving,’ I said to Jay.
Jay’s gaze flicked to my fingers, which at that moment were fizzing so hard with magick I could barely feel the things I’d picked up. I don’t know how he could tell, but apparently he could, for he said: ‘It is. Come on.’
Out we went to the car park. The bus had already departed, taking the rest of the Society home the slow way. Jay and I had walked down to the pub. I waited while he faffed with his phone, checking the location of the nearest Way-henge.
‘Is there an app for that?’ I said.
‘Yes.’ Jay didn’t look up.
‘What? I was joking.’
‘Nonetheless, there is.’
‘For the… what, five or so Waymasters in the country?’
‘I mean, the world’s a bit bigger than that.’
‘Sure, but who thought it worth their while to make a whole app for so small a number of people?’
‘I did.’
‘Uh.’
Jay put his phone away, flashing me a brief smile. ‘This way. Come on.’
I thought about what Val had said about Indira. ‘We really aren’t paying you or your sister enough.’
‘Says who?’
‘I’m not sure we can pay you enough.’
Jay shrugged. ‘We’ve turned down better offers to be here.’
‘Don’t leave me?’ I cleared my throat. ‘Us, I meant. Please don’t leave us.’
Jay cast me a swift, sideways glance. ‘Certainly not for money.’
‘For something else?’
He thought. ‘Probably not.’
And I had to be satisfied with that.
