The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (3 page)

“It’s not here,” he said, scowling.

She smoothed his hair with a hand. Years ago it had been dark and thick, just like Mother’s and Rose’s and Lily’s; Ivy was the only one in the family who had light hair and eyes. Then, almost overnight, Mr. Lockwell’s hair had gone from black to white. That had been years ago, when Ivy was younger than Lily was now. Her father had not left the upper floors of the house since.

“Come, Father. Show me your globe.” She gave his arm a tug, and he followed as a child might, feet shuffling against the floor.

In a corner, on a carved stand with clawed feet, rested the globe. It was a fabulous artifact, larger than Ivy could put her arms around, fashioned from various spheres wrought of crystal and silver and lacquered wood. Some of the spheres were arranged concentrically, one nested inside the other, while smaller orbs were mounted on arms and could be swung around the whole.

While most globes depicted the world, this one was different; it depicted the heavens instead. The spheres represented the celestial orbs, which held the sun, moon, and stars in a substrate of crystalline aether, along with the eleven wandering planets, each of which was named for a figure from ancient Tharosian mythology. Inside the globe was a profusion of gears and pulleys, and the stand offered knobs that could be used to turn the spheres in different directions.

It was like some fantastical clock. Indeed, from what Ivy had read, the movements of the heavens
were
like the workings of a great clock. Each of the celestial spheres spun at a certain rate, moving about the others in whirling revolutions and subtle epicycles. It was by studying these patterns that men of science were able to predict the length of days and nights and when eclipses and other heavenly events would occur.

“Yes, very good,” Mr. Lockwell said, growing excited as he turned the various knobs with trembling hands. “I can use this to calculate when the conjunction will occur. I must set Dalatair to retrograde, and Anares must be in phase with Loerus…”

While her father worked the globe, Ivy began picking up books. Some of them were about magick, but other volumes discussed Tharosian philosophy, or the taxonomy of snails, or the making of mechanical engines; a few were books of poetry, and there was even what appeared to be one of Lily’s romances (the only kind of book her youngest sister would bother to open), which had somehow found its way up here—no doubt by means of Cassity and her haphazard methods of straightening.

A metallic sound interrupted her, and she looked up to see Mr. Lockwell’s hands slip from the globe’s knobs and levers. Two of the smaller, outermost orbs had collided. Now they were lodged against each other, so that the knobs would not turn.

Ivy rose and went to her father. She moved the two orbs apart, freeing them, and replaced her father’s hands on the knobs, but they slipped off again, falling to his sides. His lips moved, but no sound escaped them.

A heaviness came over her, a sensation of oppression, as if she could feel the night outside weighing down on the roof and straining to creep inside the windows, through cracks in the ceiling, pressing on the very air so that she could hardly draw a breath. It was like what she had felt in the parlor when she tried to work the incantation, only the feeling was more distinct now. It was as if the darkness wanted to suffocate her, or rather, it was as if it wanted to
replace
her, wanted to consume everything she was.

You’re tired and dusty from putting away the books, that’s all,
she admonished herself.

Only it wasn’t just that she was tired. Because maybe it didn’t matter how many books she read. No number of them would ever be enough, not if Lily was right. Not if a woman could never do magick.

She took Mr. Lockwell’s hand and gazed into his eyes, willing him to look back at her with affection and intelligence as he did when she was a child. He stared as if he did not see her and instead looked on some far-off place.

“Tell me, Father,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. “Please, tell me what spell will help you. All you have to do is show me the right book, and I will find a way to work the magick. I will!”

Mr. Lockwell’s lips continued to move, but he made no answer that she could hear. Lily might be the only one indecorous enough to say that it was too many books that had made Mr. Lockwell like this, but she was not the only one to think it. Mrs. Lockwell would not speak of it—and even Lily had prudence enough not to press their mother on the matter—but they all knew the truth of it.

They all knew he had been doing magick when he went mad.

A sob rose up in her, but Ivy suppressed it. She would not give up, not if she had to read every book in this attic a dozen times over. Her father had been a respected doctor and a man of science; when she was a girl, he had taught her that any problem might be solved if one applied sound logic and diligent investigation. It stood to reason that if it was magick that had altered him, then it was magick that would set him right again. The answer was there, somewhere in the books; it had to be.

“I can see them,” Mr. Lockwell said suddenly, his voice hoarse, but whether with fear or excitement she could not say. “I can see them through the door!”

“Who do you see, Father?” she said, but she expected no answer and received none. He was tired, she could tell by the droop of his shoulders and the way he followed her—docile as a lamb—as she took his hand and led him downstairs to his room. She sat him in a chair; Wilbern would come soon to make him ready for bed. Ivy kissed his brow, then went back up to the attic to finish putting away the books.

At last the only book that remained was the misplaced romance. Ivy had not seen this one before; Lily must have brought it into the house. It was entitled
The Sundering of Vaelus and Cyrenth
and appeared to be a retelling of the Tharosian myth of ill-fated lovers, whom the gods cast into the sky for a crime they did not commit, dooming them to never meet again. It seemed just the sort of gloomy fare Lily would favor. Ivy blew out the candles, retrieved the lamp, and carried the book down to the third floor to the room she shared with Lily. She put it on the shelf beneath the window, then reached up to draw the curtains against the night.

Her hands froze. The window looked out over Whitward Street, in the direction of Downhill. The street, so busy earlier, was dark and empty now. Then, as she leaned closer to the glass, they stepped into the circle of light beneath a streetlamp, reappearing to view. She could not see their faces, for they wore dark hats with broad brims. Black capes billowed out behind them, shadows summoned in their wake.

A thrill passed through her as the men paused before the front gate. Ivy could imagine black-gloved hands reaching out, taking the latch, raising it. The figures passed through the gate, and she lost sight of them, for she could not see directly into the yard below.

Ivy rushed from the room and down the stairs. As she reached the first landing, a breath of night air wafted up, and voices rose with it. They were deep and sonorous, and she halted, listening. While she could not make out the words they spoke, there was a questioning tone in them. They wanted something.

Before Ivy could wonder what it might be, she heard her mother exclaim, “And good night to you!” Then came the sound of the front door shutting. Ivy raced down the last steps.

“There you are,” Mrs. Lockwell said as Ivy reached the front hall. “Supper is nearly ready, though I must say it was nearly ruined instead. Mrs. Murch was on the verge of putting peppercorns in the sauce rather than cloves. Cassity had mixed up the jars!”

Ivy looked past her mother, but the front door was closed, and there was no sign of the dark-caped visitors. “Father is in his room,” she said. “I’ll ask Wilbern to bring up a plate for him. Are Lily and Rose downstairs?”

“Lily already fetched Rose to the dining room,” Mrs. Lockwell said. She started toward the stairs, then paused with a sigh. “
He
was the one who started calling you by those names, you know. Ivy, Rose, and Lily.” Her voice, usually pitched at a volume that could be heard two floors away, had gone low. “I always wanted to call you by your proper names—Ivoleyn and Roslend and Liliauda. Names suited for proper young women. But Mr. Lockwell said you were all so beautiful you were like a garden.”

Mrs. Lockwell turned her gaze on Ivy, and it was filled with affection. “
His
garden, he called you. And I daresay you’re all beautiful enough, though Lily tends to sway this way and that in whichever wind is blowing, and I fear our Rose is a tender bud that will never quite unfurl. And then there’s you, my dear Ivy.” Mrs. Lockwell took her eldest daughter’s hands in her own. “It’s you who binds us all together. Without you, I fear we should all fall apart. Or go to seed, more likely!”

These words left Ivy without a reply. She couldn’t imagine
she
was the one who held them all together; she only did what a daughter should. And it wasn’t nearly enough.

Yet perhaps there were others who could help her—others who knew her father and who knew far more about magick than she did. Perhaps, if she could speak to them, they could tell her what she had to do. Her eyes strayed to the front door.

“Who was that calling, Mother? Were they…acquaintances of Father’s?”

Mrs. Lockwell’s eyes, so warm a moment ago, turned cool, and she pulled her hands back. “They had the wrong house,” she said. For a moment she appeared uncertain, even frightened. It seemed she wanted to look back at the door, only she held herself from doing so.

“Come, Ivy!” The strange moment had passed, and Mrs. Lockwell was back to exclaiming as she started up the steps. “We had best hurry. I fear what Mrs. Murch might try next if I’m not there.”

Ivy didn’t move.
I can see them through the door,
her father had said. A longing came over her to fling the door open, to go out into the night. To go searching for
them.

Only where would she look? She hadn’t the faintest idea. Leaving the door shut, Ivy turned and followed her mother up the stairs.

CHAPTER TWO

I
HAVE JUST HEARD the most terrible rumor, Mr. Rafferdy,” Lady Marsdel said, her voice rising above the hum of conversation in the parlor. “I demand that you offer your assistance at once in establishing its complete lack of merit.”

A hush fell over the room, and for a moment the only sound was the swish of playing cards being set down. Mr. Dashton Rafferdy turned from the window through which he had been watching the moon rise above the fine houses of the New Quarter. Few of those houses were finer than the one he stood in at present, and the parlor was of such ample dimensions that it was necessary to take a number of steps across the room to address the speaker in something less than a shout.

“Most rumors lack merit, your ladyship,” he said with a bow. “That’s what makes them irresistible.”

“Then it is not true you have made plans to leave the city?”

“Is that what you heard? Then this rumor you speak of is a rare specimen, for it is perfectly true. I will be departing Invarel at dawn.”

And may tonight be a greatnight,
he added to himself. Rafferdy had no idea how long this night was to be; he seldom consulted an almanac. What did it matter when the streetlamps were always lit and the taverns always open? But the longer the umbral tonight, the better it would please him; he was going to need time to drink enough.

“I am vexed that you will not refute this gossip, Mr. Rafferdy.” Lady Marsdel gave her fan a flutter; its lacquered blades were painted with exotic birds and scenes of Murghese palaces. “It is ill of you to defy me. The dullness of these gatherings will be greatly increased by your absence.”

“I cannot imagine that to be possible,” he said sincerely.

“This is a transgression,” she went on, “that will go far beyond my ability to forgive. I will write to my cousin tomorrow and tell him of your objectionable behavior, Mr. Rafferdy. I am certain he will order you back to the city at once.”

“Then I am just as certain your disappointment is assured,” he replied. “For it is at Lord Rafferdy’s command that I must leave Invarel. He sent a letter, calling me home to Asterlane.”

“And am I to believe you a dutiful son?”

“If you believe nothing else, your ladyship.”

“I believe many things, Mr. Rafferdy. And one of them is that young gentlemen in this day and age cannot be counted upon for anything.”

“I must disagree,” Lord Baydon said. He sat on the sofa next to her ladyship, all chins and mustaches and good cheer. “I find young gentlemen these days to be very reliable. Indeed, my own son always does precisely the contrary of anything I ask him. There is nothing in the world more constant.”

Rafferdy laughed with delight. “Did you hear that, your ladyship? We young gentlemen are not nearly so unreliable as you believe.”

Lady Marsdel subjected him to a scathing look, then waved him away with a flick of her fan. Playing cards were returned to their owners’ hands, and the drone of conversation filled the parlor again.

“I think you handled that very well, Mr. Rafferdy,” Mrs. Baydon said as he approached. She sat at a large table, fitting together a puzzle. Across from her, Mr. Baydon perused the latest issue of
The Comet.

“Do you think so?”

“Indeed. As a rule, my husband’s aunt does not accept
no
as an answer.”

“Nor, I’m afraid, does my father.”

“Then you should consider yourself fortunate to have found an escape from such a predicament.”

“You mean as a rabbit escapes a snare by gnawing off its own leg?”

Mrs. Baydon smiled up at him. “Really, Mr. Rafferdy, surely it’s not so bad as
that.
You seem, at a glance, to possess all your limbs.”

“Check again after my return from Asterlane,” he said, and sat down at the table.

Mrs. Baydon fit a piece into her puzzle, and Mr. Baydon continued to be absorbed by the news in
The Comet.
Though Rafferdy seldom looked at them himself, the weekly broadsheets were immensely popular in the city. Men might be observed reading them in every tavern, coffeehouse, and private club. While those of the higher classes favored
The Comet
or
The Messenger,
simpler folk were more likely to be seen reading
The Fox
or
The Swift Arrow.
As far as Rafferdy could tell, the only difference was that in the former the king was excoriated along with the worst of the criminals, while in the latter His Majesty was lionized with them.

Rafferdy slipped a hand inside his coat pocket, touching the letter he had received from his father earlier that day. He did so gingerly, as one might probe a recently acquired cut or bruise, desiring to gauge its severity without exciting further discomfort.

As a habit, he kept his correspondence with Lord Rafferdy to areas of discourse well-explored by sons and fathers for generations; that is, Rafferdy wrote requesting funds, and his father wrote back with a bank note as well as stern advice concerning the business of managing one’s finances. The advice was discarded immediately, and the money not long after, in clothing shops, taverns, and gambling houses. However, Rafferdy had had a good run at dice of late and had not been compelled to write his father for many weeks. Which made Lord Rafferdy’s letter every bit as unwelcome as it was unbidden. For what reason could Rafferdy be wanted at Asterlane?

He must have sighed without meaning to, for Mrs. Baydon looked up from her puzzle.

“Are you very bored then, Mr. Rafferdy?”

He leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t decided yet. I’ve heard that appearing uninterested in everything is the latest mode. Tell me, do you think I would appear more fashionable if I were bored?”

“You always look fashionable, Mr. Rafferdy.”

“Well, then I must be bored.”

Mr. Baydon glanced over the edge of his broadsheet. “As well you should be, Rafferdy. Socials at Lady Marsdel’s house have all the appeal of a streetlamp at night.”

“And how is that?”

“They’re bound to attract every brainless, fluttery thing in the vicinity.” The broadsheet was raised again. The headline read, C
ROWN
R
EFUSES TO
F
ORTIFY
O
UTLAND
G
ARRISONS
.

Mrs. Baydon fit another piece into the puzzle: a painting of a verdant garden. “That’s not true at all, Mr. Baydon. The guest list is very exclusive. Only thirty-two are invited to attend on any particular occasion. And it’s said everybody wishes to be invited to parties at Lady Marsdel’s.”

“Which is precisely the reason why I don’t,” Rafferdy said. “If everybody wants a thing, then it’s a sure sign it’s awful.”

“Really? Then why did you come tonight?”

“To help you find this.” Rafferdy picked up a piece and set it into the puzzle.

Mrs. Baydon clapped her hands, her face aglow; she was a lively young woman and always looked prettiest when animated. “I’ve been searching for that piece for the last hour. I must have stared at it a hundred times. Whatever will we do without you, Mr. Rafferdy? Lady Marsdel is right; everything will seem dreary when you’re gone. You
will
come back to us soon, won’t you?”

“Like a moth fluttering to a streetlamp, no doubt. I hope to return before the beginning of the month.”

Mr. Baydon emitted a grumble as he turned another page; all that could be seen of him were the furrows in his forehead and a thicket of curly brown hair.

“Why do you read those broadsheets, Mr. Baydon?” his wife asked. “You know they always make you frown.”

Rafferdy took the liberty of answering her. “But, Mrs. Baydon, that’s precisely the reason he reads them. Here in the Grand City, a gentleman’s life is so filled with ease and luxury that annoyance is prized as a novelty, and thus becomes a form of amusement.”

“Is that so, Mr. Rafferdy?”

“I swear to it.”

“Then your level of amusement is likely to increase, for here comes Mrs. Chisingdon, no doubt in search of a fourth hand to complete a table. You do enjoy playing parlor games, don’t you?”

“Nearly as much as I enjoy donning my most expensive coat and strolling St. Galmuth’s Square where all the pigeons fly.” And he excused himself, departing just in time to pretend not to hear Mrs. Chisingdon calling his name.

He retreated into the study and there discovered a number of men who, like him, were refugees from the parlor. They were drinking brandy and discussing the ills of the monarchy and agreeing that only Assembly was wise enough to lead Altania in these trying times; they were, in other words, avid readers of
The Comet.

Still, they were preferable—if only just so—to a table of Mrs. Chisingdons and an endless game of Queen’s Court. Rafferdy claimed an empty chair on the edge of the room, declined the tobacco box a servant offered him, accepted the brandy, and pretended to find a globe of the world fascinating.

There was a general complaint in the room that the making of business had grown risky of late. The Outland counties were all but lawless, with the king doing nothing about it; the roads were unsafe. And how many ships, laden with gold and chocolate, had been dashed to bits by capricious winds on their way back from the New Lands? True, trade with the Murgh Empire was profitable.
Very
profitable, several men were quick to say. Even so, there were whispers of an ill wind that might one day blow west across the sea. Yes, there had been peace for over fifty years with the empire, but who knew when
that
might change?

There was, in sum, an overall want of stability, a deficit of that most precious predictability upon which both civilization and business relied. Nor was there any hope that the king would do anything about it. Rothard’s will was as weak as his constitution, though all agreed his daughter, Princess Layle, was a modest young woman, sensible and not given to frivolous displays. The only hope was that she would be married to a man of good sense who would do what King Rothard had not: namely, rely upon the wiser heads of Assembly in determining the best course for Altania. Regardless of the man, marry she must, and before her father’s health failed. That a woman should rule Altania on her own was, of course, unthinkable.

“It seemed to go well enough for Queen Elsadore all those centuries ago,” Rafferdy said, looking up from the globe. “Grant you, I’m no historian. But there is a rather enormous statue of her in front of the Citadel.”

“And a shame it was ever erected!” exclaimed Sir Earnsley, a high-colored old fellow who wore a gray flannel waistcoat despite the balmy evening. He was a baronet—that is, a member of the gentry, and not a far step up from a country squire. Lady Marsdel must have been positively frantic to get to thirty-two that night. “What sort of signal does it send to the young ladies of our nation to have
her
lauded so? Queen Elsadore never took a husband.”

“I believe that, upon her ascension to the throne, she claimed she was married to Altania,” said Mr. Harclint. He was a nephew of Lady Marsdel—not that this was at all special, as her ladyship seemed to have a multitude of nephews. This one had the usual receding chin and watery eyes.

“No, not married to Altania,” Sir Earnsley said darkly. “She said she was married to the
land
of Altania. We all know what that means. It is wrong for her likeness to stand in such a place of respect.”

“Just so, Sir Earnsley,” Rafferdy said, “for I gather she did nothing at all, save to turn back endless hordes of Murghs who wished to overrun our fair island, thus preserving the sovereignty of our nation and the identity of the Altanian people forevermore. I agree,
that’s
hardly worth commemorating.”

Earnsley glowered but said nothing more on the topic, and after that the conversation turned to a proposal put forth by Lord Farrolbrook, which, if passed by both halls of Assembly, would require the king to seek approval before commissioning new ships for the royal navy. At present, the king could order new ships at his whim. As the government must pay its debts, Assembly was forced to levy new taxes to pay for the ships whether it approved of their being built or not. This, it was agreed, offered another example of the monarchy’s unwarranted powers and habitual irresponsibility.

“Your father sits in the Hall of Magnates, Mr. Rafferdy, does he not?” Mr. Harclint asked.

Rafferdy set down his empty brandy glass. “Yes, Lord Rafferdy holds a seat in the Upper Hall, though circumstances have not allowed him to attend Assembly of late.”

“Tell us, then, what is Lord Rafferdy’s opinion on the New Act for Rationality in the Commission of Naval Vessels?”

“I have no idea. You’ll have to ask him when you see him next.”

This resulted in a moment of blinking on the part of the questioner. “Well, what about you, Mr. Rafferdy? What is
your
opinion?”

“How can that be of any relevance? I neither sit in the Hall of Magnates nor have a vote on such proposals.”

“Yes, but we would know what you
think
about it.”

“Even when it can have no significance?”