Modern Magick

Toil and Trouble: 11

I tensed, trying to keep Indira behind me while I kept a close watch on the two Ancestria Magicka agents. Would they spot us? Melissa's plan of serving as decoy had been put to an unexpectedly early test.

They did not. Something caught Mercer's attention; his eyes shifted briefly in our direction, and a faint frown flitted across his face. But Melissa spoke up just then, and his attention returned to her.

'Hi,' she said. 'So we know that, officially, you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Jay Patel and the book he found at Farringale. But unofficially, we all know that's rubbish. We come to offer a bargain. Keep the book. Return Jay.'

Katalin smiled. 'And if Mr. Patel does not wish to return to the Society?'

Mercer said, at the same time, 'You propose to do what to us, exactly, if we do not agree?'

They needed a lesson or two in negotiation, I thought privately. Typically it would be more productive to pursue only one line of argument at a time; two would confuse the issue and weaken the impact of both. But perhaps they had not been working together long.

Lucky that I had often had cause to test my concealment charms before. I know them to be virtually foolproof. I walked nonchalantly past Pataki and Mercer, drawing Indira with me. She looked far more concerned by the situation than I felt; she crept past them, oh-so-carefully, casting frequent nervous glances in their direction. I tried to reassure her by patting her on the arm, but I do not think my gesture was much heeded.

She relaxed a bit once we were safely past, and had covered a distance of some thirty feet or so. We were rapidly drawing up to the castle by then, and I was engaged in searching for the nearest and most convenient way in.

Indira gave a tiny sigh of relief.

'We were in no danger,' I told her.

'No danger? We were practically standing on their toes!'

'No danger whatsoever.'

Indira frowned. 'What did she mean about Jay's not wanting to return to us?'

'She was trying to manipulate Melissa, that's all. Obviously they would like to keep both Jay and the book, and without our making too much trouble for them over either.'

'I don't think they can care all that much about our making trouble. This seems like an obvious challenge to the Society.'

'Not quite, as they've officially denied it from the beginning. It's a gambit, a throw of the dice to see what happens. It isn't a declaration of war, yet.'

'Yet?'

'That will probably come in time.' We were prowling around the base of the turret by that time, and I'd spied a way in.

Good points: the door was not barred or padlocked and a cautious probe of its magickal defences revealed nothing I did not feel able to handle with the help of my spangled Wand.

Bad points: Historic buildings have a way of being odd, whimsical and downright contrary sometimes, and this one was a prime example. There was a door in the tower, but it was inexplicably situated halfway up the building. There were no stairs leading up to it, nor any sign that there had ever been any.

'Hm,' I said. I wished for a second that I had brought my Chair with me. I, like everyone else, have a flying specimen; Val and I had both gone for tall, wing-backed chairs with comfortably padded seats, high-rising armrests and plush velvet upholstery. Hers is in green, mine's burgundy. With my Chair, we could whizz up to the door in no time; in fact we could go all the way up to the window, and skip the door entirely.