The Thief on the Winged Horse

by Kate Mascarenhas

  “Here. From memory,” he said. “Your hex.”

  She examined the looping symbol and then folded the receipt into her purse. The sadness her father raised – the sadness of making people feel fear – made a kind of sense. But fear was helpful in some circumstances. It could propel you from a dangerous situation before further harm.

  “Every enchantment has a purpose,” she said. “I’ll use this for something special.”

  His expression was sceptical. A final question occurred to her. “If the enchantment on the Paid Mourner wasn’t Adrenaline-fuelled Fear – what was it?”

  He gave a nervous laugh. “Conrad will worry about the doll losing her mystique if I let on, you know.”

  “I don’t care what Conrad thinks.”

  “Good.” He smiled. “The Paid Mourner’s hex is written on her scalp, beneath her hair. It means Faith that All will be Well. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  The name summoned déjà vu. “Is there any chance you’ve told me before?”

  “No,” her father said, but he was melancholy, and she thought how much of his life was lost to blackouts.

  “My mistake then.”

  Persephone left shortly after. She was halfway to the train station when she turned her phone back on. The notifications blinked. Gratefully she relinquished thoughts of the Paid Mourner, and her father’s crime, and gave herself over to a message from Larkin. Booked us a night at the Randolph. As much as I enjoy the frisson of Mrs Mayhew at the door, I want you to myself, for once. Have checked in – you’ll come straight here, won’t you? I need you. Persephone sang the last three words in her thoughts for the rest of the journey. He wasn’t in touching distance, and he needed her anyway. I need you. I need you. I need you.

  46

  “Dearest,” Hedwig said. “You need advice.”

  She offered Conrad council in his drawing room. He’d been dictating greetings cards in celebration of Sigillaria, or The Festival of Little Figures, which the eyot observed on the twenty-third of December. Conrad would provide his tenants with a gingerbread doll, according to their custom, and a personal note. The beneficiary could add their personal hex, then snap the doll in two to leave one half on the step for the Thief. This ritual reflected their superstition that the Thief was most avaricious during the solstice and the equinox. A token gift was thought to stall him from taking more important things.

  Hedwig kept a list of names so Conrad could personalise his message with the gingerbread. They’d reached Persephone Kendrick, which had a red line through it.

  “You need advice,” repeated Hedwig.

  “What for?”

  “Handling Sephone’s defiance.”

  “I assume you mean her sale of unapproved dolls,” said Conrad tartly. “I intend to fire her.”

  And yet so far he hadn’t. He’d been slow to act on Alastair’s reports of mutiny, now made two nights ago. The morning’s incidents left Hedwig bullish; she’d resolved the blackmail, and her mind was free once more to coax Conrad into the directions she desired.

  “Persephone’s put you in an intractable position,” Hedwig said. “It’s no surprise you’ve given such thought to the issue. The solution isn’t obvious.”

  “It isn’t. Briar’s family are a source of endless strife. I must admit her actions here have vanquished my resources. She must go – yet I can’t make an example of her – if she’s shunned, or I evict her, she may set up business in direct opposition to us!”

  “She’s shared her sorcery already, with the interior designers. And refuses to reveal where she found the hexes.”

  “I cannot understand it. How did she get them? Has Alastair’s stewardship of our secrets been so slipshod? No one but the Sorcerers should be capable of making and enchanting multiple dolls. When that control is lost we have anarchy.”

  “If harmony can be restored, you, Conrad, are the only man to do it,” Hedwig said. “You know you are.”

  “If I don’t have the power, then nobody does,” he agreed.

  “The main thing we must remember is that Sephy’s determined to stay here. She’d only leave Kendricks if her hand were forced. I agree with you that she deserves dismissal… but it may not be in Kendricks’ long-term interest if, as you say, she then sets herself up in competition.” Nor did Hedwig wish to antagonise Briar by making Persephone’s life harder. “Swallow your gall, Conrad. Make her sorcery position permanent, and you will be setting an example that loyalty, if not obedience, will be rewarded.”

  “What is loyalty worth without obedience?” Conrad scoffed.

  “Better a disobedient employee than a disobedient rival.” Hedwig allowed Conrad to think on that. Her point was made. “There is an attendant, more worrying matter.”

  Conrad winced, but gestured that she should continue.

  “Alastair’s stewardship, you say, has failed us. Persephone may be the least of our problems. What if an outsider has come by the hexes, too?”

  Conrad’s eyes widened in alarm. “Do you have reason to believe so?”

  “Only logic – that a breach in security can admit two people, or two hundred, as easily as one. If we wait until we’re certain of it, there’ll be no time to act.”

  “But we can’t silence people who are unknown to us.”

  “We can do better than silencing. We can profit. Go to the biggest doll-making firms. Offer them your secrets in exchange for a stake in each business. Act now, and you may pre-empt any rogue hex thieves.”

  “But the Kendrick name—”

  “… will adapt, and endure,” Hedwig assured him.

  “I must take the time to think it over.”

  “By all means. But the longer you take, the more opportunity there is for rogues to talk first.” She looked down at the list of the gift recipients, to resume their notes. “Patrick and Unice Low are next. What would you like to say to them?”

  47

  The Randolph stood on Beaumont Street; it was a tall, yellow-bricked, neo-gothic building with chapel windows and a great entrance flanked by doormen. Persephone had seen it from the outside many times, because it was opposite the Ashmolean Museum, which she visited regularly for the art collections. But she had never been inside the hotel, nor indeed stayed overnight in any building off the eyot, and this lent her arrival a sense of occasion.

  The interior struck her as baronial: the foyer was dominated by a flight of marble steps with a dark red runner. Larkin had given her the name of the bar in which to meet him, because there were several other bars available to mislead her. She asked for directions at the oak reception desk. The receptionist checked that Persephone was a paying guest, but did not otherwise enquire about her business there, and Persephone was glad of the temporary anonymity that Larkin had bought them. She was happy as she explored the corridors – happier, she supposed, than any daughter who had just visited her father in prison ought to be – but wasn’t she owed some happiness? She wouldn’t chase it away out of duty.

  She stopped in the doorway of the wood-panelled bar, scanning the room for Larkin. Hardly anyone was there – one man reading a newspaper; another contemplating a brandy – and she could hear the crackle of the fire in the grate. A grandfather clock struck eight. Then she saw him; he was seated in a club chair, with his back to her, and she knew him by his curls, the shape of his head, the way he rested his temple on his fist. She delayed disturbing him, because it was delicious watching him in the moment before he knew she was there. Perhaps because it felt like watching over him, in a protective fashion.

  The carpet muffled her footsteps. His first awareness of her presence was when she touched his shoulder. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her with surprising intensity – as though he hadn’t seen her for much longer than a few hours – or as though he expected them to soon be parted.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  “It’s an astonishing thing. Once I start holding you I don’t want to let you go. You’re more addictive than crack.”


  “Can we go to bed? Now?”

  “You haven’t even bought me dinner.”

  “Would you rather go to the restaurant?” she asked primly.

  He laughed. “No, Persephone, I wouldn’t. Our room’s on the top floor.”

  They made their way to the lift. No one else was waiting, and the lift was empty when it arrived. Persephone admired their reflection, the two of them side by side, as the doors slid closed.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “The same thing I was thinking about the whole train journey,” she told his mirror image. “I want you to fuck me. Hard. I’ve not had any knickers on since Didcot Parkway.”

  In fact she had removed them in the ladies’ loos at Oxford station, planning the line which she thought would amuse him. It did; he laughed again, as he touched her hip to turn her towards him. She closed her eyes – felt his breath on her cheek – and the lift chimed to admit a passenger, forestalling the kiss. Larkin leant against the lift wall. He entwined his fingers with hers. Neither they, nor the third party – a man with a drooping moustache and a long black umbrella – uttered a word. Persephone felt the pulse beat in Larkin’s thumb while she watched the remaining floor numbers light up. The lift lurched to a stop when they hit Four. As soon as the hallway revealed itself, Larkin led Persephone out by the hand. She half ran to match his pace. They stopped at the corridor’s end.

  “We’re in here.” He produced a card and swiped it through an imposing lock. This, and the door’s satisfying heft as it swung shut behind them, pleased her. Inside they were cut off, from men with umbrellas and the rest of the world besides, from the inquisitions of Mrs Mayhew and her patrons, from the tawdriness of doll thieves and prison visiting rooms. Larkin drew her close to him in the darkness. She felt him, hard, against her stomach. He pushed her skirts up to her waist, and the denim of his jeans brushed rough against her skin. She kissed the corner of his mouth – his cheekbone – his throat. His hand was between her legs. Nearly, very nearly inside her, then he said, “I want to taste you.”

  “No,” she said instinctively. “What if I taste bad? What if I smell – wrong?”

  “I know how you smell, I can smell you now. You smell of you. That’s why I want you.”

  She knew why he wanted her. His perception was filtered through the enchantment. And yet she remembered his statement of need before she caught the train, when they were divided by fifty miles. It swayed her response. “All right,” she said. “Yes.”

  She lay on the white linen of the sleigh bed – like a butterfly, in a shadow box, Persephone thought hazily – and he kissed her from knee to inguen. She tensed when his mouth reached his destination, then she warmed to the movement of his tongue. It was only more kissing, she thought; more of the writing on her body, in shapes from a language they might both be influenced by. She sighed, tilting her pelvis closer to him, and he persisted. Momentum built and built and inexplicably he stopped.

  “Keep going,” she said. “Please.”

  “I want you to ache for me.” He lay down at her side, and teased loose the buttons of her dress. His hand pushed the cup of her bra from her breast.

  “I do ache for you,” she said, because her thighs were slick with want and inside she was hollow. She undid his belt.

  “The condoms,” he said. “They’re in my coat.”

  “Leave them,” she said. “You can’t feel me with them.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Unless you want them.”

  “No.”

  Haste took priority over discarding further clothes. She straddled him. His hand ran up the side of her neck. Their breath was shallow. He slid into her, touching her as deeply as it was possible to be touched, and she came because this was all she had thought of for hours, and now it was real. The glow spread through her. Her climax kindled his almost immediately.

  “I do love you,” he said, his head dropping back onto the quilt. “I love the shape of your cunt. I love the spaces between your toes. I love the birthmark on your hand. I love the way your brow knits when you paint. I love how you scowl in your sleep. I love everything about you.”

  She’d think of those words a lot, later.

  *

  They made love again; and at ten, showered together, by which point it occurred to Larkin that the restaurant would be closed.

  “But room service is probably still available,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”

  “I’m going to have a big, beautiful steak,” Persephone said, drying her ears with a towel warm from the rail. Her hair was tangled, which was a minor annoyance. She didn’t think she had a comb in her handbag.

  Larkin put on one of the terry dressing gowns and passed her the other. She followed him into the bedroom, where he sat on the bed, his back to her, to look at the menu.

  “They do steak,” he confirmed. “I think I’ll get one, too.”

  His luggage was tucked beneath the desk. He’d probably packed a comb she could use. She was about to ask, but he’d picked up the receiver and was placing their order.

  She pulled the doctor’s bag across the carpet. The clasp was tough to release because the bag was bulging – more than you would expect, Persephone thought, for a single night away. The sides sprang apart revealing the tightly packed Mourners; the ones she had seen in his zoetrope. Persephone stared, trying to make sense of why Larkin would have brought his work and little else. She touched one. Faith that All will be Well. The Faith faded as she let go. She had forgotten. It was the same enchantment her father said was on the real Paid Mourner.

  Larkin was finishing his call. She shoved the bag back under the desk, and joined him on the bed.

  “Should be twenty minutes,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry any more,” she said.

  He tipped her face up towards him with a finger under her chin, trying to read her expression.

  “I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I should have realised you’d be out of sorts, after visiting Briar. And I didn’t even ask you how it went. I’m a boor. You are thinking about him, aren’t you?”

  “After a fashion,” she said.

  Larkin went to the minibar, selected one of the tiny bottles – vodka, Persephone guessed from the clear contents, though the label was too far away to read. He poured it into a tumbler.

  “Did Briar say how he was going to plead?” he asked, casually.

  “No. It doesn’t matter how he pleads. He had the motive and the means. They found the doll on his property.”

  “His plea will make a difference to his sentence. For breaking and entering, burglary with a weapon, and taking an item of that value – he’s looking at thirteen years minimum, more if he seems unrepentant.”

  He passed her the drink. She shook her head.

  “You should persuade him to plead guilty,” Larkin added.

  She struggled to imagine what he saw as he looked at her. Could he tell how broken she was? Her face had never matched her feelings.

  She took his hand between hers, and his face softened. His stance gave away none of his guilt. He looked relaxed.

  She took a deep breath. “Did you steal the Paid Mourner?”

  At this he resisted her touch; and she thought – he loves me, and he wishes to spare me the truth. He wants to be able to lie, and it is harder in my clasp.

  “How would I steal her?” Larkin asked, evading her direct question with one of his own. “Your father knew the mechanism for entering the cage. I did not.”

  “But you found a way,” Persephone said. “I know every doll that passes through the till. That month you made an iron doll, and Dennis laid an enchantment upon it of Determined Perseverance. I remember, Larkin. I was paying attention to everything you made.”

  “So what?” His cheeks were enflamed.

  “You held it, didn’t you, when you approached the cage? The determination would be very strong, with iron. Enough to counteract the paranoia of the cage
latch. You took the doll; you found the hex etched under her hair, into her scalp; and when I told you how to lay enchantments, you placed that same hex onto the dolls in your zoetrope. How else could you know the hex for Faith? It isn’t in the wallhanging.”

  “You’re not making sense. I’d never steal the doll just to plant her in your father’s possession. I’d want to keep her.”

  “Maybe you only wanted the enchantment, not her. You found out how she made you feel. Then you discarded her.”

  He shook his head. “Only a monster would let someone else go to prison for such a crime.”

  His hand finally slipped from hers.

  “I haven’t done what you’ve accused me of. But if we’re talking about the matter, prison is the right place for your father. He hit you. He deserves to be locked up.”

  The self-righteousness in his tone took her breath away. His own capture was less likely if Briar took the fall, but he had used her being hit as justification for covering his tracks.

  “Larkin, that’s the worst thing you’ve said yet.”

  “If I let your father go to prison – if – it would be for you.”

  She shook her head, unable to tell if he believed what he was saying.

  “You don’t love me, Larkin, not really. You love me when you touch me.”

  “I wanted to love you,” he cried out. “I kept coming back, didn’t I?”

  She hid her face so he wouldn’t see her tears.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, more softly. “Love hardly ever happens. Most people are only presenting a reasonable facsimile of the thing, and they know it’s not real, it’s just an act we’re all agreed on. I did more than that with you. Isn’t that consolation?” He pulled her hand from her face, clasping it with deliberation. “We can still do what I suggested. Run away together; make our own dolls, and sell them. I wanted us to have money before we did that, I even made plans, but they fell through. Do you see? I want you near me all the time.”