by Jay, probably wisely, had eschewed pomp and gone for basic. He’d hired a low-key exhibition hall in a town so dull and unremarkable I can’t even remember its name. Possibly some of these choices had come about due to lack of time and lack of resources (we couldn’t exactly expect our clients — or the Society — to pay for the party of the century, after all). But it worked out well. We wanted people to show up for the Wand, not for the hors d’oeuvres. That should hopefully limit our visitor list to those with a sincere interest, either in magickal rarities or in Merlin paraphernalia. Hopefully both.
They didn’t take me there in a limousine, either, slightly to my disappointment. Jay having declined to try to haul everybody there via the Ways, one by one, he had sensibly hired a bus instead. Or more accurately, a coach.
Took me straight back to my school days, I can tell you. I tried to behave like a responsible adult, and mostly succeeded — in that I spent half the journey eating sweets with noisy wrappers, but I resisted the temptation to screw up those wrappers and turf them at Jay’s head. Or Rob’s.
It’s a mark of affection. Really.
Jay, unfazed, sat with headphones on the entire way, ignoring the lot of us. I asked him later what he’d been listening to.
‘History podcast,’ he said.
‘Very educational.’
‘I didn’t want to waste the time,’ said he earnestly.
This is why, in twenty years’ time, the Patels will have taken over the world.
And I’ll be a fifty-something unicorn, skulking in Addie’s glade and wondering where it all went.
Anyway.
I’ll spare you the details of arrival and set-up and so on. It’s not very interesting. Much of it was done by the time we got there, anyway; we had a ready-to-use venue, with a gorgeous (and, thanks to Rob, very secure) enchanted-glass case waiting to receive our priceless Wand. Ornelle had insisted on conveying the Wand itself, patently distrusting the rest of us to keep it safe. Me, especially. She kept shooting me scowly-looks, despite my disguise, and wouldn’t let me anywhere near the case until it was safely locked down.
I might have been offended, except for two things. One: I’m the only person in the country whose pet is a master treasure-thief in her own right (even if Pup has rather deserted me for Miranda, lately. Hmph). Two: there is the small matter of what became of the Sunstone Wand I wasn’t supposed to have kept forever, and then went on to… permanently lose.
So I quietly kept myself away from the pretty glass case, until it was so securely secured I’d have to throw a house at it to get it open again.
(That last part might seem counter-productive, considering we were hoping someone would steal it. But think about it. You’re a thief with some experience. You know exactly the level of security people tend to employ where priceless valuables are concerned. Then you show up with your thieving-suit on, all ready to burgle, and find the valuables in question in a case a toddler could break into. You’d pretty much smell a rat at that point, wouldn’t you? So we went for ultra-secure).
Rob had brought a team of security personnel along with him. Kind of like a batch of mini Scary-Robs. They looked the part, with dark clothes and stern visages, and I had no doubt every one of them had one of the Society’s most powerful Wands tucked away somewhere within easy reach. These were stationed near every exit, with two of them in the hall with the Wand. They were there for effect, as much as anything; they really made it look like we had something irreplaceable in there.
But they were also poised to protect the rest of us, in case our thief proved dangerous — and to launch the pursuit, as soon as our thief had (hopefully) got away with the Wand.
We had several other Society staff stationed about the hall, ready to talk glibly to our visitors about the Wand’s manufactured but terribly fascinating history. Jay was one of these, looking sharp in a dark blue suit. He’d got a pass from Milady on that one, seeing as he was too new to the Society yet to be widely recognisable as one of ours.
And of course we had me, disguised up to the roots of my hair, and doing a great job of fluttering about checking things, fiddling with stuff and generally looking very professional and experienced.
When the doors opened on the dot of nine o’clock, we were ready.
Oh wait, except for one thing.
The priceless Wand lay in its case looking really great — once you got up close to it. From a distance, though, we had a boring glass case with nothing much in it and that wouldn’t do. My sense of showmanship wasn’t having it.
With a sneaky, surreptitious little bit of magick, I gave the Wand a glow. It’s the same charm I use to throw out light-balls when I need to see where I’m going, except slightly modified.
When I had soft rainbow lights beaming gently from inside the enchanted glass case, I was satisfied, and could move away.
I definitely didn’t notice Jay rolling his eyes at me from the other side of the room.
‘What?’ I mouthed, shrugging. Who doesn’t love a bit of rainbow light with their ancient magickal artefacts?
I had to stop there, because people were coming in. Already. Two minutes after nine and there was a flood of them. An entire flood. They filled the hall inside of ten minutes, and we had to start a queuing system to allow people to view the Wand.
I watched this in stupefied silence for a minute or two, thinking back over all the things Val had done to get the word out about the Wand. I tell you, if that woman ever gets tired of being Goddess of Library, she’d be spectacular in public relations.
Then I snapped out of it, for as events co-ordinator it was my job to deal with this ocean of eager spectators. And so, with zero doddering, I got on with it.
I had two theories about how the theft might go down.
One option: it could happen at the busiest time of the day, when the staff were swamped and harassed and there were so many people milling around, no one would notice the thief. And I was prepared for that, all through the long hours that followed, for honestly the entire day was the busiest time of the day, and none of us had so much as a moment to breathe.
But the Wand remained in its glass case, untouched. And no wonder, really. Thinking about it in the abstract, it had seemed like a good time to steal an artefact, but when I was in the middle of it all I soon realised that was absurd. No thief, however clever, could get near the thing without the unwanted supervision of various staff, not to mention seventy-five impatient exhibition-goers eager for their turn.
So the other possibility had to be the other extreme: when the exhibition was at its quietest. First thing in the morning, I had thought, but that had turned out to be nonsense. There was no quiet period first thing that morning. So that left the very end of the day, when the flow of people had ebbed, and the staff were too exhausted and harried to keep quite the same watch on the Wand as we had been earlier in the day. That was when a sneak-thief might find it possible to slink in, do their thing, and slink out again with a certain treasure up their sleeve.
Unfortunately, by the end of the day, we were too exhausted to do a great job of keeping up our watch.
But that came later.
What happened first was a Distraction.
Not the spectacular kind that would draw the guards away from the Wand and give the thief an opportunity to steal it. Nothing so spectacular.
The distraction was of a personal nature, and only effective upon me, because at about half past two in the afternoon, Baron Alban walked in.
No. Prince Alban, Ves. Prince.
In he came, dressed in a pale summer suit with a fedora — an actual fedora, for goodness sake, and gods did it suit him — and spotted me at once.
Over he strolled, scarcely inconvenienced by the hordes of people in between him and me. It’s the height, perhaps, and the air of confidence. People got out of his way.
And I, forgetting I was disguised as a ninety-year-old spriggan, promptly went smiley and blushy.
‘It’s been a while,’ I said, beaming up at him.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to come by for ages, but my schedule…’
He didn’t elaborate, but I remembered what had been keeping him so busy lately. My smiles went out like snuffed candles.
‘I hope the tour went well?’ I said, with tolerable composure. He’d been swanning about on the continent with his wife, sweet-talking his fellow European royals, and generally doing pretty fabulously at PR himself.
‘As far as I could tell,’ he said, smiling his handsome smile. ‘You know how these things go. Everybody smiles and says the right things, and if they’re secretly thinking something different you’d never know it.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘That must be difficult.’ I blinked as my tangled thoughts lit upon a more pressing idea. ‘Wait. How did you know I was here?’ I felt a flutter of panic. What if word had leaked out about the Society’s involvement with the Wand? What if everyone knew it was us?
‘I didn’t,’ he said, and the hammering of my heart eased. A bit. ‘I came to see Merlin’s Wand.’
That didn’t quite explain everything.
His response to my questioning look was a wide grin. ‘I knew you the second I walked in here,’ he said.
‘What! But—’ I looked down at myself, indignant. It was a great disguise. How could anybody possibly see through it?
He shrugged. ‘I’d know you anywhere. You’re too… you.’
I squinted up at him, unsure whether to take this as a compliment. ‘You have the honour of addressing Ms. Cornelia Morgan,’ I informed him. ‘I am the co-ordinator of this little event.’
‘Pinnacle of your long career, no doubt?’ His eyes were doing their twinkly thing, the one that melted my insides.
I nodded primly. ‘And if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’ I didn’t want to walk away, but on the other hand I really did. The Baron — Prince — wasn’t the kind of distraction I could afford on that of all days.
He nodded. ‘I can see that you’re busy. What time do you close up?’
‘Um. Around five? Hopefully.’ If the seemingly endless flow of humanity — and other beings — had finally ebbed.
‘Dinner?’ He smiled.
And I hesitated. I wanted to say yes. I so badly wanted to say yes, but he was a prince and a married one, and a mere, foolish Ves had no business getting herself too mixed up with any of that.
And I caught Jay’s eye. He was busily feeding people into and out of the viewing queue, but half his attention was fixed upon me and Alban, and while he was as composed as usual, I detected signs of concern in the dark looks he kept directing at me.
He met my eyes for a long moment, and while I couldn’t read everything that was going on in his mind, it certainly was nothing good.
‘I—’ I began. Great, now I was stammering like a fool. ‘Actually, I already have dinner plans,’ I said, and I didn’t have to feign regret.
Alban hadn’t missed the direction of my gaze. ‘With Jay?’ he said, with a trace of surprise.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He nodded, and backed up so fast he almost squashed the old lady trying to pass behind him. ‘Great,’ he said heartily. ‘Have fun! I’ll catch up with you soon, all right?’
And he left, still smiling.
That damned smile. I looked ahead into the far future, and predicted miserably that I never would find it other than devastating.
I took a breath, tried unsuccessfully to calm the turbulent sensations discomposing my guts, and went back to my job.
