She dressed rapidly, listening for steps on the stairs. A good night’s sleep—her first full night of sleep since her reversion—and the bright sunlight outside said today would be different, better, not like before.
After all, Aubrey had always been the objective realist amongst her friends. When two beaus bragged about fighting a duel over Margaret Wilton, Aubrey suspected they’d scuffed up dirt in the park, then adjourned to a pub for drinks. When Clara Trelawery accused a footman of stealing her necklace, Aubrey inferred that the thief was actually a guest (she’d followed that case in the newspapers; the footman left the Trelawery’s employ but didn’t end up in jail; the police must have entertained similar inferences).
She needed to bring the same hard-headedness to her circumstances now. I’ll give my statement, then make my own arrangements.
There was a new policeman in the lobby, not Smithy but an older man with a gleaming smile. He beamed at Aubrey as she descended the stairs and steered her into the office.
Mr. Stowe stood by the desk, perusing a stack of papers. Toast with jelly and a cup of tea waited on the chair. Aubrey picked them up and sat. Mr. Stowe came around the desk and half-sat on its edge.
“A statement of your experience will aid our hunt for Dmitri and Kev Marlowe,” he told her. “Will you tell your story as fully as you can remember?”
“Yes.”
“Give me all the details you can.”
He took her from Lady Bradford’s ball to her wakening in Kev’s house. His questions were like Kev’s but not. Mr. Stowe wanted to know about the taste of the punch, the size of Kev’s parlor, the precise substance of the conversation between Lord Simon and Kev.
“So Lord Simon said, ‘I allow you to do things the Academy wouldn’t condone’?”
“Words to that effect.”
“And then, ‘Continue the experiments’?”
“Yes, and he meant it.”
—the name of the potion shop, its owner, the exact herbs Dmitri had ordered, all the way to her flight to Shops. She wavered when she described her attack on Dmitri’s face, but Mr. Stowe exuded nothing but attentiveness.
Halfway through her testimony, a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a thick beard, entering from the outside, ambled into the office. He gave Aubrey a piercing glare, then settled on the couch.
“Is it true?” he said to Mr. Stowe when she finished. “Is Lord Simon involved?”
Mr. Stowe gestured at Aubrey. She said, “Lord Simon was there. He didn’t transform me.”
“He likely encouraged Kev Marlowe to harm you,” Mr. Stowe said quietly.
She was grateful he said harm rather than experimented on. She could meet the stocky man’s stare without discomfort.
The stocky man said, “An aristocrat consorting with slum magicians: that should be enough grounds for our waffling ministers.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? They can’t keep insisting that spells don’t last for more than a few minutes, potions are harmless, blether blether blether.It’s over, Charles. The Academy will have to submit to regulation.”
“The Academy has strong supporters, Perry.”
“Old nobles who are dying out—like Lord Simon. The ministers will see sense.”
“There are still the aristocratic leftovers and wishful thinkers.”
“The military lost interest years ago. Temporary invisibility won’t stop the enemy bombarding the hell out of a camp.”
Chapter 5: Leavings
Start from the beginning
