A Matter of Magic

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “It was in between two big books,” Kim said. “They might have hidden it enough that the glow didn’t show.”

  “Or Madame de Cambriol might have done something rather special to safeguard her notes,” Mairelon said in a thoughtful tone.

  “Or that there cracksman might ’ave piked off with something else,” Hunch put in. “ ’Ow would you know if ’e ’ad?”

  “You’re starting to pick up thieves’ cant from Kim,” Mairelon observed. “I’ll have a look at this tomorrow; perhaps it will give me some ideas. Oh, and that reminds me—Kim, what do you intend to do about that button?”

  “Button?” Kim stared, wondering why Mairelon would care about the buttons she’d ripped from her dressing gown during her row with the burglar; then her mind made another connection, and she said, “You mean, the one Tom Correy sent?”

  “Yes, of course. You said it was a sort of summons. Do you want to go?”

  Kim looked at him in mild surprise. “Tom wouldn’t ask me to come if it wasn’t important. Of course I’m going, if I can figure out how.”

  “We’ll take the coach. Aunt Agatha won’t need it; when I left, she was talking about having a spasm, and that generally occupies her for at least a day. Up High Holborn to Threadneedle, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Kim said, but she couldn’t help smiling. All that fretting about whether to ask him, and he just barges into the middle of things without a second thought. “I meant . . .” She gestured, taking in her yellow walking dress, kid boots, and painstakingly curled hair.

  Mairelon’s eyes focused on her. A startled expression crossed his face; then he nodded. “Yes, I see. You can’t very well go wandering about the London back streets dressed like that, no matter what time of day it is. Particularly if Correy still thinks you’re a boy.”

  “That’s it,” Kim said, relieved that he had understood without more explicit explanation.

  “Hunch,” Mairelon went on, “do you think you can find a suitable set of boy’s clothes? Something a bit better than what she had when we met, but not fine enough to attract attention.”

  “And loose,” Kim put in, then sighed. “I hope it works. I wouldn’t fool a blind man in broad daylight, but I might still be able to pass for a boy at night.”

  “Nonsense. You won’t have any trouble at all,” Mairelon said.

  Kim stared at him. It was so like Mairelon to have overlooked the inconvenient physical changes in his ward that she could not help being amused, but she was a little hurt as well. Hadn’t he looked at her even once in the past six months?

  “She’s right, Master Richard,” Hunch said unexpectedly. “Look at ’er. She ain’t skinny enough no more.”

  Mairelon gave Hunch a startled glance, then looked at Kim for a long, considering moment. Slowly, he nodded. “I . . . see. I apologize, Kim.” Kim felt herself beginning to flush; fortunately, Mairelon turned toward Hunch and did not see. “Do as well as you can, Hunch.”

  “Cook might ’ave somethin’ from the last errand boy,” Hunch said. “I’ll check.”

  “Don’t forget something suitably disreputable for me,” Mairelon called after him as he left the library.

  Kim looked at Mairelon. “You expect to come with me?”

  “I am your guardian,” Mairelon said.

  All Kim’s annoyance with his high-handed ways boiled over once again. “If that means that I get no say in anything I do, I’d rather go back to the streets.”

  There was a brief, stunned silence. Then Mairelon said, “You don’t mean that.”

  “Not yet,” Kim admitted. “But even Mother Tibb asked what we thought of a job before she sent us out.”

  The silence stretched again. Finally, Mairelon said, “You said you wanted to go.”

  “I do.” Kim took a deep breath. “But I don’t think you should come with me.”

  Mairelon tensed. “Why not?”

  “I’ll have a harder time with Tom if you do. He won’t be expecting no toffs, just me. If you show up, even dressed like a dustman, he’ll muffle his clapper and I won’t find out a thing.”

  “You can’t go to that end of town alone.”

  “Why not? I lived there alone, for five years after Mother Tibb swung.”

  “But you haven’t been on the streets for a year,” Mairelon came back swiftly. “You’re out of practice.”

  “You’re more out of practice than I am,” Kim retorted. “Especially seeing as you weren’t ever in practice. I’ve got a better chance of not getting noticed if I go alone.”

  The library door swung open, and Hunch entered, carrying a large bundle. Mairelon waved him toward the table and raised his eyebrows at Kim. “Not in practice? While you were living on the back streets, I was nosing about in France, if you recall.”

  “Huh.” Kim sniffed. “France ain’t London.”

  Hunch choked. Kim eyed him with disfavor. “Well, it ain’t,” she said.

  “Isn’t, Kim,” Mairelon said.

  “Ain’t,” Kim said firmly. “I got to talk to Tom tonight; if I sound too flash, he ain’t going to be comfortable.”

  “Very well. Just don’t slip in front of Aunt Agatha, for I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  Kim nodded. “I won’t. But you still ain’t coming with me.”

  Hunch frowned and began nibbling on the left end of his mustache. Mairelon sighed. “Kim—”

  “If you try, I won’t go. And Tom won’t talk to you alone, whatever he’s got to say. If he’d meant for you to come, he’d have let us know somehow.”

  Mairelon studied her for a moment, frowning slightly. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded. “If you’re determined. But I still don’t like the idea of you crossing half of London on your own at that hour. Hunch and I will take you up High Holborn in the carriage.”

  “That’s going to be inconspicuous for sure,” Kim said scornfully. “Me, pulling up at Tom’s door in a coach at midnight.”

  “Much as I’d like to do just that, I hadn’t planned on it. I have done this sort of thing before, you know. We’ll wait at the bottom of Threadneedle Street, or somewhere else nearby if you can think of a better place.”

  It was Kim’s turn to nod reluctantly. She had, for a few wild minutes, hoped for a night run through the back streets of London, an opportunity to visit some of her old haunts besides Tom Correy’s place. But Mairelon’s points were well-taken. The London rookeries were a dangerous place even for the experienced, and her experiences were a year out of date. The less time she spent on the streets, the better her chance of avoiding robbery or murder. Memories were no good to the dead.

  “That’s settled, then,” Mairelon said briskly, and handed Kim a stack of wrinkled clothing. “Now, do go and try these on while there’s still time for Hunch to find more if they don’t fit. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let Aunt Agatha see you, or we’ll both be in the suds.”

  6

  A heavy London fog had settled over the dark streets by the time Kim approached Tom Correy’s shop in Petticoat Lane. Here there were no streetlamps to mark the road with flickering yellow light, and Kim was grateful. In the dark and the fog, she was only a shadow moving among shadows. This close to the St. Giles rookery, anyone who was noticing enough to spot her would likely be knowing enough to pretend he hadn’t.

  Even so, the thought of Mairelon and Hunch, waiting in the carriage a few streets away, was more comforting than she had expected. The smells of coal smoke and uncollected horse dung, the sounds of drunken revelry from the public house on the corner, and most of all the penetrating chill of the fog brought back the constant undercurrent of fear that she had lived with for so long. She had almost forgotten the fear, in her year of safety and security with Mairelon.

  A church clock chimed the quarter hour. Kim jumped, then shook herself. Past midnight already. I’ll be home as late as a fashionable lady coming back from a ball. She frowned at the thought, then dismissed it. Pulling her jacket firmly into
place, she knocked at Tom’s door.

  An unfamiliar dark-haired youth opened it and looked at her suspiciously. “Who are you and what d’you want?”

  “I come to see Tom Correy,” Kim said.

  “And I’m a valet to His Majesty,” the youth sneered. “You’re lookin’ to unload something you pinched from your betters.”

  “What if I am?” Kim said. “You ain’t one of ’em, so it ain’t no lookout of yours.”

  “Ho!” The doorkeeper made an awful grimace and raised his fists. “See if I ain’t!”

  “I can see it just by looking at you,” Kim said. He was sturdy enough, but his movements were too slow; even out of practice, she had little to fear from a scrap with him, unless he landed a lucky punch. She shook her head. I’m not here to pick fights. “You’re wasting time. Tom’s expecting me.”

  “No, he ain’t,” the youth retorted. “He ain’t expecting nobody what would come sneaking around the back. He—”

  “Here, Matt, what’s the racket?” Tom’s voice drifted out of one of the inner rooms, followed by Tom himself. His face split in a broad grin when he saw Kim. “Kim, lad! You got my message, then. Come in, come in, and tell me how you’re keeping.”

  “Hellfire!” said the doorkeeper in obvious chagrin. “You told me you was expecting some flash frogmaker!”

  “Well, so I am,” Kim said in her best Grosvenor Square tones. If Tom had already said that much, there was no point in pretending. “But I didn’t want to be noticed, and walking the alleys in pantaloons and a silk cravat would have gotten me noticed for sure.”

  “Garn!” said Matt, obviously impressed in spite of himself. “You ain’t no frogmaker.”

  “Oh, ain’t I?” Kim glanced quickly around. The door was closed, and the windows shuttered; no one but Tom and Matt was likely to see. Raising her right hand, palm upward, she focused all her attention on it and said, “Fiat lux!”

  The tingling sensation of magic at work swept across her hand and arm. An instant later, a ball of light flared into being in the air above her palm. It was brighter than she’d intended; either she really was getting better at spell-casting, or annoyance had given her spell a boost. She rather suspected it was the annoyance. However it had happened, the effect was impressive. She heard Tom’s breath hiss against his teeth in surprise, and Matt’s startled exclamation, but she was concentrating too hard to respond.

  Kim let the light float above her hand for several seconds. Then, one by one, she folded her fingers inward. The light dimmed, and as the last finger touched her palm, it vanished. The tingling sensation vanished as well, leaving her hand feeling unusually sensitive. She let it fall to her side, resisting the temptation to flex her fingers; it would spoil the effect.

  “Coo,” said Matt, his eyes bulging. “Ain’t that a sight! What else can you do?”

  “Get along with you,” Tom said, cuffing Matt’s shoulder. “Do you think a real magician has nothing better to do than show off tricks like a Captain Podd with his puppets? Kim’s got things to do, and so have you.”

  With a resigned nod, Matt started for the inner door. Tom stood aside to let him pass, then called after him, “And if you say one word about this to anyone, I’ll have Kim’s master turn you into a frog!”

  Kim couldn’t make out the words of the muffled response, but it was apparently an affirmative, for Tom nodded in satisfaction and pulled the door to. Looking gravely at Kim, he said, “You hadn’t ought to have done that.”

  “It was just light,” Kim said uncomfortably.

  “That’s not the point, but it’s too late to mend matters now.” Tom sighed. “I just hope Matt has the sense to keep his jaw shut. If his uncle hears about this, we’re grassed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I forget, you don’t know what’s been going on.” Tom studied Kim for a moment, and forced a smile. “You’re looking well. I guess that Mairelon cove wasn’t gammoning me about feeding you up and teaching you magic and all.”

  “No, he’s done all that, right enough,” Kim said.

  Tom gave her a sharp look. “So? And what hasn’t he done?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . . different. Toffs take a bit of getting used to, that’s all. I’m fine.”

  “You’re a sight better off than you’d have been if you’d stayed here, and don’t you forget it,” Tom said emphatically.

  “I ain’t likely to, what with regular meals and all,” Kim said. “Why did you want to see me? And what was that about Matt’s uncle? Who is he, anyway? You never used to have anybody to help out.”

  “Matt is one of my Jenny’s nephews,” Tom said, and Kim grinned at the possessive fondness in his tone when he spoke of his wife, even in passing. Some things hadn’t changed. Oblivious, Tom continued, “Her sister’s eldest boy, come to London to learn a trade.”

  “So? Ain’t he working out?”

  “He was working out fine, until somebody talked Jack Stower off the transports. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Stower’s loose? When did that happen?” Kim was surprised, but not unduly alarmed. Jack Stower was Tom’s brother-at-law, and a bad lot if there ever was one. Kim had never had much use for him, but she’d never feared him as she had his boss, Dan Laverham. And both Jack and Dan had been arrested a year ago, when she’d first hooked up with Mairelon. A twinge of uneasiness shook her. “Laverham ain’t loose as well, is he?”

  “No, he danced on air last November. It’s just Jack.”

  Kim blew out a long, noisy breath. “Then I don’t see what you’re nattered about. Jack will have it in for me, but I can handle Jack now.”

  “I thought that’s what you’d say,” Tom said gloomily. “And if it was just Jack Stower, I wouldn’t have sent for you to come here. But he’s hooked up with Mannering, and if that don’t worry you, it ought to.”

  “Why? Jack may think he can borrow enough to turn himself into a toff, but it ain’t going to happen. And if he’s in over his head with Mannering and the other cent-per-cents, he’ll have more to worry about than me.”

  Tom stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “I forget how much has changed since you’ve been gone. Mannering ain’t just a moneylender, these days. He’s got ambitions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like rounding up anyone with a hint of magic to ’em, and persuading them to work for him.”

  Kim snorted. “Laverham tried that once, and Ma Yanger gave him a week’s rash, and Sam Nicks pitched him out a window, and George and Jemmy and Wags gave him an earful in the middle of Hungerford Market. You’re telling me a creaky old moneylender’s had better luck?”

  “A lot better luck, one way and another, and nobody knows why. George and Jemmy and Wags turned him down when he first tried, right enough, but two weeks later they were working for him. Sam was stubborner, and he woke up one morning in an alley with his throat slit. Ma Yanger ain’t working for Mannering, but she ain’t working for nobody else, neither.”

  “Ma Yanger’s given up witching people?” Kim said incredulously.

  Tom nodded. “She’s holed up in her rooms, and she won’t see nobody. Been that way for two months now. And that’s how it is with everyone else—they’re working for Mannering, or they ain’t working at all. And since Stower came back, Mannering’s lads have been asking about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Stower told him you can do magic, and that you were getting training from some fancy toff wizard. I think Mannering would like to get his hands on both of you. I figured the toff could look out for himself, but I thought somebody ought to tell you what was up afore you found out the hard way.”

  “Thanks, Tom.” With a shiver, Kim remembered that Jack was one of the few people from her old life who knew of her masquerade. It doesn’t matter any more if people know I’m a girl, she told herself, but the old habits and fears kept her tongue locked.

  “So you see why you hadn’t ought to have been showing off in
front of Matt,” Tom went on. “Jack Stower is his uncle, and they’ve been thick as treacle since Jack turned up again. Jenny’s after me to keep Matt away from him, but how she expects me to do that I don’t know,” he added gloomily. “It ain’t like I can put leg-irons on the boy.”

  “I wish I could help,” Kim said, but Tom shook his head.

  “That ain’t why I asked you to come. Matt’s my business, and I’ll deal with him. But I don’t know that I can keep him from talking to Jack about this, and if he does, Mannering will be after you like a shot.”

  “Maybe he already has been,” Kim said thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t know something about a green cracksman who bungled a job in Grosvenor Square last night?”

  Tom considered for a moment. “No, but I can ask around if you like.”

  “Let it go,” Kim said, shaking her head. “If Mannering’s got you that nattered, you hadn’t ought to get any more mixed up in this than you are already. I’ll find out about it some other way.”

  “Kim, if Mannering has already made a try for you—”

  “It wasn’t anything like that,” Kim said hastily. “Somebody tried to nobble a book from Mairelon’s library, near as we can tell, and botched the job. It probably didn’t have anything to do with Mannering. He’s a deep old file; he wouldn’t send an amateur on a crack lay like that.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t bungled apurpose?”

  Kim snorted. “The cull didn’t know the first thing about housebreaking. Mairelon thinks he was depending on a spell to keep from getting nabbed, and even that didn’t work.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Tom said. “He’s a sneaking one, Mannering is.”

  “All the more reason he’d know better than to send a green ’un to mill a ken in Grosvenor Square. It’s pure luck the cull wasn’t laid by the heels right then.” Seeing that Tom still looked unconvinced, Kim shook her head. “I’m sorry I mentioned it. And I really am glad of your warning.”