by Emma Newman
6
Max pulled down a side street and parked next to a huge red brick building. He’d set off from Bath before dawn but several hours later there wasn’t much change in the light. The rain hammered on the car so loud that it was hard to hear when the idling engine was turned off.
His coat was resting on the back seat. The gargoyle was crammed into the car’s boot and had finally stopped grumbling about that fact. Thanks to the weather, and the fact that it was Sunday in an industrial part of Manchester, the streets were deserted. Max was counting on there being very few innocents about.
Max found the new app that Kay had set up on his phone, along with the gadget Rupert had given him the night before. He managed to look at the map that the app was now displaying, work out that the small red arrow flashing on it was where he was, and how the shading of the area around him changed to indicate proximity to the target before a thud from the back of the car made him look in the rearview mirror.
“We’re on a public street,” he said to the boot. “You can’t come out here.”
There was another thud and the central armrest for the back seat flopped down, opening a small gap through to the boot’s interior. “I hate it in here. Are we getting out or what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to work out. I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, the target isn’t in Manchester at all.” He tried pinching the screen and moving his fingers outwards to try and zoom out, but it didn’t work the way it did for Kay. She’d made it look very easy in the office the night before. He tried again, and the third time all he achieved was moving the map to Scarborough and then closing the app by accident.
“Listen,” said the gargoyle, whose fidgeting was making the car rock a little too much for Max’s liking. “Do you really think that Rupert is going to start sorting things out after this woman has been dealt with?”
“That’s what he said.”
“’Cos I was talking to Kay and we’re not so sure. Rupert doesn’t seem fussed about finding a better way to do things.”
Max undid his seat belt and twisted round to see the gargoyle’s snout just visible through the gap in the seat back. “You don’t think that these phone ‘apps’ are better? The information management seems much faster to me.”
“No, we don’t mean that. We mean Arbiters. Kay and me were talking about it, and she’s really pissed off about the way we’ve been treated.”
“Why?”
“Because it was wrong!” the gargoyle growled. “We were torn in two and conditioned to think and believe things and we had no say in it. We can’t let it happen to anyone else.”
Max faced front again, trying to examine whether he agreed with that appraisal. He could consider the factual aspect of what had happened to him. He could remember the pain of it, but only in an intellectual manner, without any emotional discomfort at all. At the very most, he felt a reluctance to see another child go through what he had, but that was only part of his remit. That was one of the reasons why his work was so important; to prevent any breaches and thereby make it less likely someone would see too much and need to be removed from mundane society. He simply could not share any sense of injustice, however, nor feel anything else at all about his becoming an Arbiter. It simply…was. And it was a necessity. “I don’t agree that the technique is wrong. The dislocation of the soul is the only robust protection against Fae magic.”
“Yeah but there’s iron and copper and—”
“That was tried a long time ago. There’s always a weakness. Armour has gaps, for one thing, and the Fae and their puppets soon learned how to exploit them. Dislocation is the only way.”
The gargoyle muttered something Max couldn’t hear, though he had the distinct sense it was derogatory. “Kay’s going to make sure that Rupert looks for an alternative. And if there’s anyone who could do that, it’s her.”
“She’s a young woman with no esoteric skill. He is a Sorcerer with hundreds of years of experience. I doubt she will be able to sway his working practice enough to satisfy either of you.” As the gargoyle chewed that over, Max made a second attempt to use the app and failed. A text arrived from Kay: The target is not in Manchester. Drive ten miles south-west and then stop again.
“And when are we going to go and free those people in the Agency headquarters basement, eh? I know we were distracted, nailing that Iris bastard, but come on. I’ve been really patient and those people are suffering.”
“I’ll speak to Rupert about it once we—”
“He doesn’t give two shitty pebbles about anyone except himself. If we don’t push this—if we don’t just go and bloody get it done—it won’t happen. Let’s go find Cathy. I reckon we could come up with a plan and—”
“No. This isn’t the time.” Max was certain that letting the gargoyle spend any more time in the company of strong-minded young women was not going to be productive. Another text arrived: Rupert says you need to get going. You must get as close to the target as you can.
“Eh?” the gargoyle said from the back. “What exactly does he want us to do?”
Please clarify instructions, Max texted back.
After a pause, a reply came through. Rupert says you need to get as close as possible. He needs an exact reading on her location.
“I don’t like this,” the gargoyle said. “We’ve seen what that woman can do. She’ll mash us up and serve us with peas.”
Another text arrived. Kay typed them much faster than he could. I don’t agree with Rupert. Trying to get a better idea of what you’re supposed to do, but he’s watching your location, so go to the estate and I’ll see what I can find out while you’re en route. Either way, you need to come back to Bath soon. We just got word via the Agency that the head of the Poppy family in Aquae Sulis has died in unusual circumstances.
“Cathy’s dad?” the gargoyle asked. “I wonder how she’s taken that.”
Yet another text from Kay arrived. And talk to the gargoyle. It’s important. Max deleted it, like all the others he’d received, as basic security good practice. “Kay says we need to go ten miles south-west. Why does she think I need to talk to you about something important?”
“We’re not very far from where our sister’s children live. Our niece and nephew. And their children, and their children and the ones that have just had their fourth birthday party. Twins. Our great-great-great-nephews.”
“I didn’t realise Jane had so many descendants.”
“Kay looked into it. They’re having a family get-together tomorrow. Kay found it on the Google booking faces thing. Our niece, Joy, is having her eighty-fifth birthday party in Chester. It’s not that far from here, actually.”
Max tried to work out why that should be of interest, and failed. “We should go to the next location to get a new reading.”
“Yeah, but we have to go to the party tomorrow, right?”
“Why? I can’t speak to them. I can’t risk them recognising any family resemblance and creating a breach. There’s no point.”
“Yeah…what point could there be? Oh, wait a minute! Because they are our only family in the world! That couldn’t be a better point if you sharpened it with a bloody big knife!”
“You pay too much attention to Kay,” Max said, starting the engine. “You are far too easily swayed by her. Dislocation doesn’t just protect us from the Fae.”
“Dislocation isn’t the only thing that makes you an arsehole.”
Max gave one last look at the road map on the passenger seat next to him. He checked his mirrors, flicked the indicator, and pulled out, ignoring the gargoyle’s insults as they drove away.
• • •
Cathy looked at the formula and went over each part in turn, referencing her notes and double-checking the symbols she was still unfamiliar with. After this cup of tea she’d take her work to her new tutor. She’d stayed up all night, devouring the lesson notes and exercises that Beatrice had given her the night before. She’d planned to stay up to speak to Sam w
hen he got back, but she’d been in the library at the back of the house, engrossed in her work, and he’d got back so late he must have assumed she was in bed.
There was no better reason for insomnia than the glimpse of a way to protect herself. Beatrice had written out the formula she’d need to ward herself from the Irises, but if life in the Nether had taught Cathy anything, it was to never accept magical assistance based on trust. She’d insisted on learning everything that underpinned it before actually using it, to be sure it really said what she wanted it to.
After the last slurp of tea, Cathy gathered her work and went up to Beatrice’s room to find her door slightly ajar. Cathy could see her working at the desk within, so she knocked on the door softly. “Beatrice?”
Her tutor turned to face her. “Have you finished the exercises already?”
“Yes. I worked through the night. Would you mind checking them?”
Beatrice stood up. “Let’s work in the library.”
The return to the library was welcome, as was the scent of the books. It was Cathy’s favourite room, even though it sent a pang through her for her old library, abandoned with the rest of that life. She’d thought it was such a romantic gesture, so thoughtful. She’d read far too much into it at the time. Just another example of Will’s manipulation.
“This is excellent work,” Beatrice finally said after reading it all through. “You have a natural aptitude for sorcery. And your practical experience with Fae magic will serve you well.”
“It’s like algebra,” Cathy said, “and conjugating verbs. It’s all…tidy in my head. Using the Fae magic with it is like a part of the formula bracketed off, isn’t it? Like a shorthand for stuff that would be too broad to express with sorcerous terms.”
Beatrice stared at her long enough to make Cathy uncomfortable. “That is correct.”
“Where did you learn all the Fae magic? I’m married into the Irises and I wasn’t taught pure Iris magic. I had to buy it. Or have it inflicted upon me,” she added bitterly.
“I made deals,” Beatrice said, casually, as if she were talking about buying potatoes. “In return for knowledge of Iris magic, I instructed the Arbiters in London to ignore the activities of the Irises. Lord Iris felt that was of great worth.”
Cathy gawped at her, remembering the day she and Max had worked the Charm on the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square. “You were behind all that? How did you corrupt the Arbiters?”
“I didn’t. They think I am my late brother.”
Cathy couldn’t help but admire her, despite the fact that murder underpinned the admiration. “This hybrid magic of yours is insanely powerful. I think I understand this protection formula now. That clause must refer to Lord Poppy. And you’ve used the Fae magic here so you don’t have to write a clause for every single member of the Iris family and Lord Iris and all the different interpretations of that concept, right?”
Beatrice nodded. “That’s a very simplified way to describe it, but the essence is correct. This one is an additional clause to cover third parties employed by your husband and his patron. And you have discovered the fundamental weakness of sorcerous magic. It is too rigid. That’s why I had to develop the hybrid approach to achieve my goals.”
Cathy thought about all the artefacts and potions and Charms she’d ever directly experienced. Shadow Charms and that damn choker and the Charm to make her able to paint that picture to satisfy Poppy…all of them had a specific purpose. But then again, when she tried to think of a way to express their effects in sorcerous magic, she simply couldn’t do it. How could one define the concept of “stay hidden” in a precise formula without having to define where, when, and from whom? How could she express something as broad and subjective as improved artistic ability?
Then she considered the sorcerous artefacts she’d seen. She could understand how the function of the messaging tube that Ekstrand gave her was very narrow; it could only send that particular message capsule to one specific location. While it didn’t matter where it was screwed into the ground, it still had to be. It had to be activated in a very specific way. What else had she seen? She’d certainly heard the knocks made by Arbiters on the doors of Nether properties. Probably made with some sort of device held by the Arbiter and literally struck against the door. She could imagine the shape of the formulae involved: define the door, determine whether there is a Nether property anchored to it, send the sound to all doors mapped to the one being struck. Something like that, anyway. The pin Max had put into the keyhole of her drawing room when they needed to speak in private—simple! It would just define the sound within the space enclosed by the door and walls and stop it from penetrating them.
Her heart began to race as she started to understand the fundamental differences between the two types of magic. She had to persevere, to seize as much knowledge for herself as she could, so she could put the days of fearful ignorance behind her.
But then Cathy remembered the Truth Mask that Max had threatened her with that one time things had turned sour between them.
“How would an Arbiter’s Truth Mask work?” she asked. “How would a Sorcerer define a concept as loose and subjective as someone telling the truth or not?”
Beatrice’s eyes took on a wicked glint. “There is no sorcery used in a Truth Mask.”
“What?”
“It’s not needed. A Truth Mask employs simple torture and fear to achieve the result. All Arbiters are trained in torture techniques and all have a special set of tools designed to maximise pain in the Fae. After all, there is no better torturer than a man literally incapable of feeling guilt or any sort of empathy with their victim.”
The thought of it made Cathy feel sick. “Is that why you killed all the others? Because they did more harm than good?”
Beatrice’s face took on a contemplative expression. “That is an interesting question. I certainly believe that of the Sorcerers. But I destroyed the Chapters because I had to remove the tools of their power and oppression, rather than because of a judgement about the people themselves.”
“But…but don’t you feel bad about what you’ve done? All those people—lots of them victims of the Sorcerers themselves—are dead because of you.”
“It was not a decision I made lightly. But I have reconciled myself with my actions. To create change, to disrupt a system of control, one must carry out radical acts. One must be prepared to destroy so that something new can be created. Those in control will never give up the power afforded to them voluntarily. It must be taken. If that requires the deaths of a few to give freedom to the many—and survival of the many—then so be it. This is not a gentle act.”
Memories of Miss Rainer’s lessons resurfaced. Debates about violence, about what was acceptable behaviour in the struggle for equality, and when the line could and should be crossed. There was nothing gentle about the more radical acts committed in the name of the women’s suffrage movement. Cathy had loved those lessons the most.
Cathy stared out at the snow-covered garden. “Be militant each in your own way,” Emmeline Pankhurst had said. Destroying the Nether was the most radical act she could consider. But it was more than taking away property; she would be destroying a way of life. Did she have the right to do that? Did anyone? She wasn’t sure, but she was certain that the Patroons had no right to keep their control over it. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, though. Aside from reflections of properties, the only things she was willing to destroy without guilt were those fragile male egos and their toxic masculinity. How far would she go to destroy the Nether? Beatrice had told her it was possible to warn the Fae-touched beforehand, but given her track record, was she trustworthy? Having killed all those people, would Beatrice care if a few more died?
“Besides,” Beatrice said. “I find it more productive to focus on what is still to be done, than what is in the past.”
“Do you plan to kill any more people?”
“No. All of the Sorcerers and the Arbiters—save a small number I k
eep in London in case of emergency—are dead.”
Cathy thought of Max and the gargoyle and kept silent. She was certain Max had told her that Ekstrand had been replaced. Perhaps Beatrice had killed him since they’d had that conversation. She didn’t want to raise any of it, not wanting to put Max at risk.
She was learning from someone she was afraid of. Cathy pushed the fear down, knowing there was no other way to gain this knowledge. “This clause here, can you explain that? I wasn’t too sure about it.”
“This one defines you. It is possible to define yourself in sorcerous terms, but it’s very difficult. Even though it can be shorthanded once defined, it’s slow and unwieldy.”
“Okay then. So if I wanted to leave the estate, would I just write this on myself?”
Beatrice nodded.
“Anywhere?”
“There are subtleties in Fae magic. Where would you write it?”
“Over my heart,” Cathy said. “Because of what it means to me, rather than physical proximity to the organ.”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Okay. So I’d write this on, then add the Fae bits with spoken Charms?”
Beatrice nodded. “Fae magic is more powerful when spoken from memory. And jewellery that holds the magic can always be lost or broken or stolen. This way binds it directly to your soul.”
“That oath last night was more Fae-based than sorcery, wasn’t it? Hang on, didn’t you say that Sam was bound by the same one?” When Beatrice nodded, Cathy said, “But how? Fae magic doesn’t work on him, so neither will hybrid magic.”
Beatrice’s smile was frightening. “It seemed Fae, but it employed purely sorcerous magic, executed with words alone. The sounds themselves acted as sigils. It’s very advanced. You need to concentrate on the written form.”
“But…to make that oath work, you’d have to define betrayal in all of its forms, before you even get to the words!”
“I did define it. Completely.” Beatrice replied. “It took me over ten years. The books I wrote the definition in could easily fill this room. The shorthand notation expressing it would fill one of those big ones over there.” She pointed at one of the huge leather-bound tomes. “Condensing that into a sigil that I could visualise perfectly enough whilst verbally working the magic of the oath took over a year to develop.” She tilted her head at Cathy’s shocked expression. “I knew that once I had killed all the Sorcerers, I would need to work closely with Lord Iron. Sorcerous magic is only as powerful as the preparation put into it.” She reached for her pen. “I prepared extensively. Now, you understand the oath that binds us, you understand that if I were to put anything into this formula that we have not discussed would be considered a betrayal, and you would know. This ward will do exactly as I have described and even if your husband, or Lord Poppy, or Lord Iris himself were to find you, they would be powerless to do anything to you that is against your will.”
