by When we pulled up in William Elvyng’s driveway at two o’clock the following afternoon, we found my respected parent already present. She sat in the driving-seat of a beaten-up red Peugeot that looked about five hundred years old, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel and generally radiating impatience.
‘Mum,’ I said, when we had clambered out of our respective cars. ‘I thought you’d have a driver.’
Her missing hand was looking way better than it had the last time I’d seen her. It had healed pretty well, and was now a neat, rather than a bloodied, stump. Being Delia, she was totally unselfconscious about it, which was good. But ignoring it to the point of driving herself around one-handed might, I thought, be carrying insouciance a bit far.
‘Why would I want a driver?’ she said, apparently deciding not to hug me.
I gestured awkwardly in the direction of her missing hand, a hint she either missed entirely or chose to ignore.
When the awkward silence stretched, I changed the subject, Delia-style, by finding something else to criticise. ‘Or if there’s no gilded carriage for the queen of Ygranyllon, maybe a new car?’
‘What’s wrong with Bert?’ She patted the bonnet of her disreputable banger with marked affection. ‘Solid car. Been with me for years.’
‘I can see that,’ I said.
Jay smoothly intervened. ‘Hello, Mrs. Vesper. Nice to see you again.’
‘Not married,’ she said shortly. ‘But yes, lovely.’
Jay looked rather at a loss.
‘Just call her Delia,’ I said. ‘Everyone does.’
Poor Jay’s face said, but she’s the queen.
‘Right, Mum?’ I prompted.
She smiled in a silky way. ‘Queen Delia.’
I snorted. ‘She’s waiving her right to your majesty, just for you.’
‘Hey,’ said mother. ‘I’ve never been queen of anything before. Let me have this.’
‘How you’ve suffered,’ said I.
‘Coming from the future queen of Mandridore, that’s rich.’
‘Mum, there is a future queen of Mandridore and it isn’t me. Can we move on?’
‘Right.’ Marching to William Elvyng’s door, Delia rang the bell in what Oscar Wilde would describe as a Wagnerian manner.
The butler/housekeeper, whose name I confess to having forgotten, opened it almost immediately.
And then, to my supreme irritation, he bowed low to my mother and said, ‘Your Majesty of Ygranyllon. What an honour,’ and stood back to hold the door wide for her.
To Jay and I he was merely polite. ‘Miss Vesper, Mr. Patel. Welcome back.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I whispered, as my mother swept past the butler with head held high. ‘I want to be queen of my own faerie kingdom.’
‘You had the option,’ said Jay. ‘You declined, remember?’
‘I know! What was I thinking!’
‘You were thinking sane and sensible things like, Cordelia Vesper isn’t really queen material.’
‘Ouch. Are you saying I’d be a bad queen?’
‘I think I’m saying you have more important things to do.’
‘Than ruling a kingdom?’
‘We’re trying to bring back magick for all the kingdoms.’
I stood a bit taller. ‘You’re right. Excellent pep talk, Mr. Patel.’
‘Too kind, your honourary majesty.’
We were conducted into the same, lovely room as before, and found our host ensconced in the same armchair by the fire. He greeted my mother with a bit less reverence than had his butler, to my relief and (perhaps) my mother’s chagrin.
Just as well, really, for the moment she found herself in august company she apparently lost the power of speech, and became her brusque, largely silent self. She was almost snappish with poor Mr. Elvyng, and took the seat he offered her with an expression bordering upon a scowl.
I thought about issuing the Elvyngs with a Delia Vesper Manual, but it was a bit late by then.
‘So good of you to see us again,’ I said to the Elvyng patriarch, trying not to make up for my mother’s manner with a flood of gushing.
He inclined his head, quite gracious. ‘I understand you have some new ideas to pursue?’
‘Yes. It occurred to us — well, to Jay, in fact — that we had previously been so set upon a certain interpretation of events as to ignore other possibilities. We’ve brought Ms. Vesper—’ (No way was I referring to her as Queen Delia) ‘—because she has a pronounced sensitivity to past magicks, and may be able to tell us if anything unusual, and of a magickal nature, might have happened regarding the grimoire.’
‘You have some precise theory, or…?’
‘Nothing concrete,’ I said, unwilling to expound upon our mad-sounding ideas until we had some kind of supporting evidence. ‘We’d just like to experiment with a few possibilities.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Please feel free. Mr. Baker will conduct you to whichever parts of the house you will need to review.’ He turned his attention to my mother, and said: ‘It is gracious of your majesty to grant us some of your time, and the use of your skills.’
I held my breath, hoping Mum would find something socially acceptable to say.
This one time, she didn’t disappoint. ‘It is my very great pleasure,’ she declared, and if the sentiment was expressed with a fraction too much gracious condescension, I’d take it. It was better than a brusque nod and a grunt of assent, which would be very characteristic.
Off we trailed, then, to the Grimoire Room — after a closing round of smiling pleasantries, of course, some of which might even have been sincere. The obliging Mr. Baker (I remembered!) let us in, and hovered again by the door.
‘Right,’ I said, all business. ‘Mum, do your thing!’
‘My thing,’ she said, glowering. ‘More specifically?’
‘Not your gracious queenly thing but your archaeology thing.’ Helpfully, I wiggled my fingers in illustration of my meaning.
She rolled her eyes at me, and turned away. ‘I can’t believe I’m in the Elvyng abode,’ she said, somewhat but not entirely sotto voce. ‘To think, Claud Elvyng probably stood on this very spot.’
‘Dignity, Mum. You’re a queen, remember?’
Her shoulders straightened. ‘Right. Quiet then, while I do my thing.’
Obedient daughter that I always am, I hushed. So did Jay. We busied ourselves conducting a silent and utterly pointless survey of the room, in quest of those very clues which (according to Jay’s very reasonable argument) were most unlikely to exist. And we found sod all, how about that? Shocker. I did want to talk to Mr. Baker; it wouldn’t hurt to verify just how unlikely it was that the grimoire could still be in the house after all this time. But that could wait until after Mum was done, since she apparently required complete silence.
I’d gone from uselessly employed to thoroughly bored by the time she was finished. It wasn’t even interesting to watch her work, since the process consisted of wandering around laying her hands on things and closing her eyes, or sitting cross-legged on the floor in apparently deep meditation.
I tried not to sigh too loudly.
At length, she opened her eyes, looked straight at me, and said: ‘There’s a lot of old magick here.’
‘Old as in?’
‘Old. Ancient. When was this room built?’ That last was directed to Mr. Baker, I judged, since her attention snapped to him.
‘It was built to house the grimoire, your majesty,’ said he. ‘It is therefore in the region of thirty years old, so I understand.’
‘You weren’t here then?’
He looked faintly offended, as well he might. He must have been a child back then, or at best a teenager. ‘I have only been employed by Mr. Elvyng for a short time.’
‘What I’m driving at,’ she said, ‘is the age of this spot. If this room, and the grimoire, weren’t always here, was there something else? Anything that might account for all this residue?’
‘I believe not, your majesty,’ said poor Mr. Baker, somewhat disconcerted by this barrage of brisk questions. ‘If I have understood Mr. Elvyng’s occasional comments correctly, nothing of any import occupied this space until the creation of this room.’
‘Then we can cautiously conclude that this magick relates to the grimoire,’ she said, rising from her semi-recumbent position upon the floor. ‘And that, Cordelia, means that the grimoire is probably authentic.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Reasonably. This isn’t modern magick, by any stretch of the imagination. At a guess, I’d say it dates back a thousand years, give or take a century or so.’
I swallowed. ‘That’s… intense.’
‘If it isn’t authentic in the sense that it actually belonged to Merlin, it is at least an incredibly compelling copy dating from an approximately contemporary period to Merlin. I’ll add that there is a depth to it which no modern magician could mimic.’
It took me a second to parse all those convoluted sentences — Mum had forgotten shyness and queenliness both, and got her academic back on — but once I had I was suitably enthused. ‘That fits!’ I proclaimed.
‘What about more recently?’ said Jay.
‘I’m getting to that,’ Mum snapped.
‘Right. Sorry.’
‘More recent activity is difficult to determine with any certainty. Obviously there are traces of what were probably security-related enchantments, plus some rather confusing dribs and drabs of various and apparently random magicks. I would surmise that Mr. Elvyng, or perhaps his daughter, has stood here at one time or another and played about with the contents of the grimoire.’
How cool, to be an Elvyng, and get to muck about with Merlin’s actual spells. I wonder which ones they chose? I wonder if they worked?
Jay was obviously big with questions, but didn’t dare interrupt my irascible mother again.
So I did it. ‘If I know you, Mum, you’re working your way around to a semi-spectacular conclusion.’
‘Semi-spectacular?’
‘You aren’t quite puffed up enough for a full-on spectacular reveal, hence the semi. Whatever you’ve got is good, but not great.’
‘Is that a not-so-subtle way of asking me to get on with it?’
‘Yep.’
She sighed. ‘My daughter has no sense of theatre,’ she informed Jay.
‘I’d… politely disagree,’ said he, with as much of a smirk as he thought he could get away with in the presence of two Vespers (a tiny one).
‘Right, fine,’ said Mum. ‘Long story short, yada yada, what was probably the last thing of a magickal nature to occur in this room does seem pretty odd.’
‘I love odd,’ said I.
Mum nodded enthusiastically. ‘Partly because of the possible nature of the charm, partly because of the timing.’
‘Mum,’ I groaned. ‘Please. Just tell us.’
‘The timing,’ she said, with a glare at me, ‘is strange because whatever it was can’t have happened only four years ago, which I gather was the date of the disappearance. If my conclusions are correct, whatever it was occurred rather longer ago than that. Several years at least.’
‘Wha?’
‘And the charm itself, well… you’ll realise this is an imprecise art, and I can never be certain as to the exact nature of any magickal residue.’
‘Disclaimer accepted,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘But my best guess is: it was some kind of gateway.’
I gave myself several seconds to think that over, but no. It still didn’t make the least sense. ‘Gateway?’ I echoed.
Mum merely nodded.
‘As in… someone opened a new gateway?’
‘Possibly. As I said, imprecise.’
‘What kind of gateway? Like the one we found under Sheep Island?’
‘Cordelia, as I just said, I have no idea. This is the best I can do for you.’
‘Sorry, sorry. This is great, really.’
‘Except there is maybe one more thing.’
I refrained from loudly sighing, and merely raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s a flavour to this gateway that’s reminiscent of all that ancient magick I mentioned.’
‘The ancient Merlin magick?’
‘Reminiscent of, but not necessarily the same.’
‘But — that’s a millennium old.’
She looked down her nose at me.
‘So you mean to say—’
‘Suggest,’ interrupted Mum. ‘Imply. Hint. Not say, with certainty.’
‘You mean to suggestimplyhint that something or someone, similar to but not the same as this wielder of ancient and profound magicks, came in here rather more than four years ago, and opened a fresh, new gateway. Which no one does anymore because it’s beyond the power of modern magick.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Which suggests, implies and hints that this wielder of gate-opening magicks might themselves be a millennium old.’
‘Maybe.’
I thought of our maybe-lady-Merlin, and internally sighed. Everywhere we turned, we encountered more wild improbabilities.
‘Maybe it’s time to forget about what seems possible or impossible,’ I muttered. ‘Those words are beginning to lose all meaning here.’
‘I’m the queen of Ygranyllon,’ said Mum, apropos of nothing, but she had a point. A world in which Delia Vesper reigned over a faerie kingdom was already somewhat out of whack.
‘If I may raise a problem with this theory?’ said Jay.
‘Just the one problem?’ I said faintly.
‘Delia. If you’re right, and someone opened a gateway, presumably they used it to swipe the grimoire. And maybe it was this Merlin-person we’ve already met. But if they did this more than four years ago, how is it that the grimoire didn’t go missing immediately?’
‘Maybe it did,’ I said.
‘If it went missing much more than four years ago, they’d have noticed. Surely.’
‘Maybe it came back.’
‘What?’
‘She’s right,’ said Mum. ‘Gateways work both ways.’
‘But—’
‘Jay, you said yourself that theft might be too simple an explanation.’
‘Why though?’ said Jay. ‘You only need to get away with the loot once. Who steals the same thing twice?’
‘I don’t know, but if we’re dealing with someone who may be a millennium old then I don’t think we should assume she thinks the way we would.’
Jay inclined his head. Fair enough.
‘And it’s at least as likely as that the grimoire took itself off. Mum, can you tell if the gateway’s still functional?’
‘Nope.’
‘Because if it is—’
‘I know, and I realise this would be useful information, but I can’t tell. If it is still functional, we can conclude it hasn’t been used for at least four years.’
I went over to the grimoire’s long-empty case, and tried the lid. It wasn’t locked anymore. There wouldn’t be much point.
I don’t know why I thought it would be useful to stare soulfully into the depths of the grimoire’s cradle; there was nothing there to see. No glimmers of ancient magick, visible to the naked eye. No ghostly fingerprints, tantalising traces of the presence of one of the world’s greatest magickal legends. Just a book-sized nook lined in velvet.
Jay came up beside me. ‘There’s one way to test if a gateway still works,’ he said. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and placed them carefully in the centre of the vacated book-nook.
The three of us waited, breath held, for something spectacular to happen.
Nothing did.
‘It was a nice try,’ I sighed, and picked up Jay’s keys.
My fingers fizzed.
‘Ouch,’ I yelped, for the keys were burning in my hands. I dropped them; they fell to the floor with a distant clatter.
Blood roared in my ears, and a white mist floated across my vision. I vaguely heard Jay’s voice shouting something, and his hands supporting me — was I swooning? But my hand had strayed back into the depths of the grimoire’s case, my fingers were splayed over the velvet, and the strange, intense sensation of distilled magick coursing through my system had spread over my whole body.
‘Ves!’ I heard Jay say. ‘Let go of the case!’
But I couldn’t. There was no time. A thundering in my ears drowned all sound; dizziness swamped me; nausea rose.
And then, I achieved a spectacular nineteenth-century swoon, straight into the waiting arms of Jay.
Or so I thought.
‘Ah,’ said a woman’s voice, one that I distantly recognised. ‘It is you.’
