Modern Magick

Alchemy and Argent: 3

'Ves,' snapped Val the following morning, ten o'clock sharp, somewhere in the midst of the city of York. 'Calm down. They aren't going to be there.'

'They might be,' I protested. 'Well, maybe not all of them. One of them? It could happen.'

'The Elvyngs have more important things to do than hover about in The Shambles signing autographs.'

'Hovering,' I beamed. 'Literally.'

'No.'

'I don't want an autograph. I just want to...' I paused. 'I don't even know.'

'Gush about how amazing they are, knowing you.'

'You think me absurd. I knew it.'

'Ves, everyone thinks you're absurd.'

'Except Alban. He thinks I'm impressive.' I wanted to add Jay's name to the (incredibly short) list; he'd shown signs of looking up to me when he'd first arrived. But I had pretty much put paid to that by now. Nobody who's seen me and a plate of cake in the same room together could hold me in respect for long.

'He does,' said Val, widening her eyes at me. 'That's a thought. Think your Baron could get us an introduction to Crystobel Elvyng?'

'He isn't my Baron, and no.'

'No?'

'He isn't here.'

'Where is he?'

'Touring Europe with his wife.'

'Ah.' Val, wisely, let the subject drop. 'No matter. If we need to talk to the Elvyngs, Milady will arrange it.'

The car drew to a stop in a side street, and our driver came round to let us out. Val used a proper wheelchair outside the grounds of Home, and we spent the first few minutes of our sojourn in York getting her set up in it. I'd witch it as soon as we got out of the regular city, so she wouldn't have to roll the thing around.

'Right,' I said as our driver — her name was Candice — departed again with the car. I took hold of the handles of Val's chair, ready to wheel. My fingers fizzed, and the chair jumped a foot in the air and began to levitate.

'Ves,' hissed Val. 'Not yet.'

'Sorry, I didn't mean to—' I spoke softly to the chair and it settled down, permitting me to wheel it like a normal person once more.

This has been happening lately. Ever since I'd soaked up all that excess magick on the Fifth, in fact (almost blowing myself up in the process). A surge of something jazzy happens; there's a fizz of magick; and anything I touch is in for an interesting time.

I made a mental note to spend an afternoon at Addie's glade somewhere over the weekend.

'Which way?' I said, grasping the wheelchair's handles firmly. My fingers had stopped fizzing. Probably it would be fine.

'Why are you asking me?' she said.

'Because you know everything.'

The shameful truth was, I'd only been to Elvyng Lane once before, about a year after my induction into the Society. It wasn't lack of interest that had prevented my ever making a return visit. It was lack of everything else. Impulse control, willpower, funds...

Val consulted her phone, then pointed. 'That way, and turn left.'

We made slow progress in this fashion, pausing from time to time to check our bearings. The streets of York were busy, surprisingly so for the early morning. Summer holidays, of course. At length we made it to The Shambles, which is a crooked little street dating back something like a thousand years. Timber-framed buildings overhang the street, some of them pretty old — as in fourteenth century, Mary Werewode's era.