Modern Magick

The Fifth Britain: 9

Hardly surprising, really. I'd guessed since the Greyer Cottage that they were after a pet Waymaster, preferably undead, and with the kinds of resources they had, of course they'd achieved it. In record time. While we were still flailing around, bumping into Millie Makepeace by accident.

Still, George wanted something from us. That meant we were ahead of them somewhere.

'Here's my counter-offer,' I said crisply to Zareen. 'I don't just want to know where Jay is. I want him to take us there. If he's got a tame walkabout house then that should be easy for him.'

Zareen gave me her weird, twisted smile. 'Thought you'd say that.' There followed a brief phone conversation in which she relayed this to Mercer, and soon rang off. 'Deal,' she told me. 'If Jay's not back by tomorrow, he'll take us to him.'

I wondered whether that hadn't been just a bit too easy, but I said nothing. Zar might be caught in a difficult position just now, but I trusted her. She might be chummier with Ancestria Magicka than I liked, but she would never betray the Society. Or me.

I hung onto that certainty with both hands.

We reached the Scarlet Courtyard just in time for dinner, which pleased my stomach greatly for (as I had begun to realise about halfway through the coach journey) we had managed to skip lunch.

Alas, food was not to be mine for a little while yet, because it turned out to be one of those occasions where everything happens at once.

Mrs. Amberstone met us as we trooped wearily through the hallway. She smelled enticingly of something that was probably pie. 'Visitor for you, girls,' she said. 'Chap from the Society.'

Intriguing. 'Thanks, Mrs. A. Whereabouts is he?'

'Somewhere about the gardens. Seems restless.'

That did not bode well, but I tried not to worry about it as I traipsed upstairs with Zareen. I wanted a quick change of clothes and a drink of water before I dealt with the next problem.

Halfway up the stairs to our rooms, though, my pocket buzzed.

Got them from Val, Miranda had sent. Anything good in there?

I stopped dead, frozen with astonishment. I read it a couple of times, just to be sure, before I showed it to Zareen.

She said nothing. There was nothing to say.

I hauled the two books out of my shoulder-bag again and snapped a quick shot for Val.

It didn't take long for her to reply. Where did you get those, and can I have them?

From Mir, I wrote back. Says she got them from you?

Those did not come from this library, Val replied.

I sat slowly down upon the steps and put my face in my hands, because as bad news went, this bordered upon awful. I was not quite so appalled as I would have been had it been Valerie or Zareen, or Rob, or Jay. But it was bad enough.

How far back did it go?

'Why would Miranda lie about that?' said Zareen. She'd joined me on the step, less because she was shocked, I suspected, than because she was exhausted.

'I can only think of one reason. If those books didn't come from our library and Mir's concealing the source, then they came from someplace she should not have access to.'

Zareen just nodded, her head drooping wearily.

'Shit,' I muttered, and hauled myself to my feet again. The question of why Miranda had gone out of her way to put those books into our hands, even at the risk of discovery, could wait. First I had to find out who had come from the Society.