by Emma Newman
“Cecilia was just as shocked as I was,” Oliver said, briefly distracted by a young beauty sweeping past. “It was sprung on both of us this afternoon. Something’s rotten about it, I just don’t know what. How did the gifts go down?”
“Well. Yours?”
“Jolly good actually. Father has promised me the estate in Derbyshire.”
“Congratulations. Mine has secured me a bride.”
Oliver stopped. “Gosh. Who is it to be?”
“You’ll see,” said Will with a wink.
“Oh, a disappointment then,” Oliver said. “If you were pleased you’d be falling over yourself to tell me.”
Will laughed. “Now I see the danger of travelling the world with one’s best chum; you know me too well now.”
The ballroom was filling up; he could no longer see Imogen and Horatio. He caught a glimpse of the Censor talking to his father, a statement in and of itself, as dozens of people had been desperately trying to catch her eye. When they parted, his father surreptitiously beckoned him over.
“I’ll see you in the card room later, old boy,” Will said to Oliver. “The pater wants a word.”
He navigated through the greetings and “welcome back”s and smiled at his father.
“The Censor is agreeable to announcing the engagement before the country dances,” he said, sotto voce. “I had hoped for one before the ball begins, but she has something else to announce, apparently.”
“I’ve heard there is a surprise guest, and it isn’t the Gallica-Rosa over there trying to woo Imogen.”
“I’ll see to that in a minute. A Rosa?” He shook his head in disapproval. “The Censor has been distracted this week, but that is hardly an excuse for allowing the riff-raff into Aquae Sulis. Perhaps it’s just as well to announce it later; the Papavers haven’t yet arrived.”
“Perhaps they want to be fashionably late,” Will suggested, now appreciating the crowd filling the ballroom. “Though any later than this would be approaching the embarrassing end of fashionable.”
A light knocking reduced the crowd’s low roar to a murmur as all faces turned to the gallery and the Censor rapping her closed fan against the rail. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Assembly Rooms this evening, and to the opening ball of the Aquae Sulis season.” Miss Lavandula’s voice projected magnificently. She was dressed in a lavender-blue ball gown, and a dazzling diamond brooch drew Will’s eye to her décolletage. “My brother sends his profound apologies for not being here this evening. He’s abroad dealing with a matter for our patron.”
Will noticed the ripple of commentary that spread through the room. He wasn’t sure if anyone believed her, but saying her brother’s absence was due to a demand from their patron made it impossible for anyone to speculate openly without being seen as crass. If he had disappeared, she had bought herself a few weeks at the most.
“But I can assure you that he arranged everything for a most spectacular season before he left,” she continued, drawing the crowd’s attention fully back to her address. “With the blessing of the Council of Aquae Sulis, I will be acting as Censor and Master of Ceremonies until his return.” Another ripple; her announcements were like pebbles being tossed into the social pond. “Whilst we will of course miss him, we shall not let him down. In a moment, the first minuet will begin, but first, I’d like to present to you our guest of honour for this evening.”
She looked to her left and beckoned someone onto the balcony with a smile. A young Indian woman, with hair like a river of black silk and flawless mahogany skin, walked out to take her hand, eliciting an excited rush of whispers from the assembly. She was dressed in a richly decorated sari that couldn’t have been more different from the corseted fashions on display.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my deepest pleasure to introduce you to Maharaj Kumari Rani Nucifera-Nelumbo, daughter of the Maharaja of the princely state of Rajkot in India.”
There was a spontaneous burst of applause and the princess smiled down upon them. Will looked for Oliver, wanting to share his anger. He’d spent two months trying to secure an audience with the princess with the express purpose of sponsoring her into Aquae Sulis on behalf of the family. She’d refused polite requests and gifts; now he knew why. Someone had beaten him to it.
“Princess Rani has been sponsored into the city by the Alba-Rosa family, represented this evening by Cornelius Alba-Rosa and his sister Amelia from Londinium.” They were beckoned onto the gallery too, where they were met with applause and no little speculation. Amelia was strikingly beautiful, the white of her dress making her skin creamy and the dark brown of her hair richer. So that was who had pipped him to the post. Oliver was lost in the crowd and would no doubt bait him about it later. He did spot Horatio though, whose lips were pressed tight together with barely disguised fury.
“It seems the Gallica isn’t very happy about this,” Will said to his father, the applause protecting him.
“The Albas and Gallicas are feuding again,” his father replied. “Horatio Gallica-Rosa probably thought he’d have the admiration of Londinium for getting into the city for the season.”
“And now he’s nothing special,” Will said, looking back up at the Albas, considering how furious Horatio must feel to be so spectacularly upstaged. Amelia’s gaze fell on him and lingered for a few moments. Will smiled and she returned it, openly and without a coy glance away. His smile broadened at her boldness, but then she was ushered away by the Censor as the musicians began the opening bars of the first minuet.
“Are you going to dance?” his father asked.
“No, I was waiting for Catherine. I thought it would be politic.”
The floor cleared as those planning to converse rather than dance gravitated to the edges of the room. Imogen was taking her place with Horatio, who was putting on a good show of not caring about the Albas as they entered.
William saw his mother. She made straight for them. “The Papavers have arrived.”
“They’re rather late,” Father muttered.
“But something’s wrong,” Mother continued. “Catherine isn’t with them.”
Max knocked on the door covered with sparkling words and entered at the sound of Ekstrand’s voice. Inside was a modest ballroom with a large mirror filling most of one wall. A small amount of light cast by an oil lantern resting at the Sorcerer’s feet revealed formulae chalked, painted and scratched onto the floorboards. The symbols arced out from the mirror, and as he hobbled closer Max realised the mirror was actually at the centre of a series of concentric circles of formulae, unbroken across the wall and floor.
Ekstrand was dressed in the same way as he’d been the very first time Max met him, when he was given the field glasses for testing. He wore a black morning suit with long tails, and his hair was neatly coiffed. He gave a curt nod. He held a thick tray upon which sat an artefact looking like a cross between a cockroach and an owl. It was made of wood and brass, had many spindly legs and a pair of huge eyes with closed brass eyelids. It was currently inert.
“We’ll begin once Axon is here. Where is the gargoyle?”
“I told it to wait in the parlour, as you asked, sir,” Max replied, leaning on his crutches.
“As you can see, I’ve prepared substantial wards.” Ekstrand pointed at the formulae. “We can’t be too careful.”
There was a knock on the door and Ekstrand called Axon in. “Any problems, Axon?”
“None, sir. I’m ready.” There was the sound of a rifle being closed.
Max glanced back at the butler and watched him pull the butt of a large-calibre elephant gun into his shoulder and take a marksman’s stance, the barrel pointed at the mirror.
The ring of a tiny bell sounded from the artefact and each of the mechanical legs lifted and settled again. Max recognised the signs of calibration, even though he’d never seen an artefact of that exact design before.
“The twin has entered the Nether,” Ekstrand said. “I’m going to act
ivate the link. Be ready.”
Ekstrand pressed a small nubbin on the top of the brass head and there was a gentle mechanical whirring as the eyelids opened, revealing two mirrored disks. At the same time the large mirror on the wall rippled as if it had become liquid yet remained impossibly flat and vertical. The distorted reflection of the three of them in the room with the lantern was replaced by the silver sky of the Nether and the familiar headquarters for the Bath Chapter loomed high.
“Excellent,” Ekstrand muttered.
Judging by how huge the building looked, and the angle, Max surmised that a replica of the artefact on the tray was now in the Nether – the “twin” – and that the image reflected in its mirror eyes was being shown in the mirror in front of him, like a huge scrying glass. Max had no idea how it worked. It wasn’t his place to understand sorcery.
The cloister, at first glance, looked undamaged. It was a large two-storey building with stout fortified outer walls reminiscent of a Norman fort, although it was much larger than its anchor and the majority of real Norman buildings in Mundanus. The Sorcerers, unlike the Fae, were able to embellish an anchor property’s reflection in the Nether, and from the cloister’s design Max theorised that they were somehow able to combine reflections to make amalgamated buildings in the Nether. Its windows were small, some only arrow slits, and there was a squat tower at each corner.
“You can read a cloister and learn all about the Sorcerer,” Max recalled his mentor saying as they stood outside it years before, not far from where the twin artefact was.
He’d pointed out the Norman influence, the initial vision for the cloister established by the first Sorcerer of Wessex, who’d been inspired by the architecture of the time. Inside, the building was more medieval in style. His mentor told him that it was Ekstrand’s predecessor who’d ripped out the heart of the fort and put in the cloister, giving the building a completely different interior once past the outer wall. They didn’t talk about what Ekstrand had changed, if anything, and Max wasn’t sure how many other Sorcerer Guardians of Wessex there had been. The Chapter Master didn’t think Arbiters needed to know such things.
Ekstrand pressed something on the artefact’s back and it started to walk forwards; it was then that Max realised the tray had a frictionless surface. The image on the mirror shifted, the twin moving forwards too.
“No damage, no signs of forced entry,” Max said as the artefact approached the arched wooden doors.
It went inside, Ekstrand manipulating its direction and speed with the twin, concentrating intently.
Seeing the entrance from only two inches above ground level gave an odd impression of the archway and its thick walls. It also made the sole of the boot the artefact discovered within seem as tall as a tree.
“A body,” Ekstrand said.
“And no one has cleared it,” Max added.
Ekstrand manoeuvred the device around the boot, the scrying glass revealing the plain, functional clothing of one of the cloister staff. The forward movement seemed to slow down.
“There’s something impeding its progress,” Ekstrand said as he scrutinised the twin device on the tray.
“Congealed blood,” Max said. “In the Nether it would take longer for the moisture to evaporate so it wouldn’t have dried out yet.”
After a few moments the view changed and a dark patch on the man’s shirt filled the glass. “You’re right,” Ekstrand said. “I’m going to press on.”
A second body soon came into view, another member of staff, close to the body of the first. “It’s hard to tell what inflicted the injuries,” Max said, seeing another bloodstain on the clothing. “I’m guessing they’re stab wounds, but I can’t be certain without going there myself.”
“Not yet,” Ekstrand replied, directing the artefact out of the other side of the entrance archway and into the first cloister.
There were more bodies. The device was turned in a circle and, almost everywhere the scrying glass could show, there were slaughtered men and women. Ekstrand turned the device right and picked a path between two of the deceased. There were no red patches on the clothes in sight.
“Can you move it to look at the neck, sir?” The view changed as the artefact turned slightly and headed towards a shirt collar. Max recognised one of the researchers. “He’s been strangled. What’s that?”
He pointed at something green in the background, the colour out of place amongst the sandstone. The device was steered around the body, and Max looked again at the man’s face, recalling his attention to detail and reliability. He looked like he was asleep.
The device made its way past the hand of another victim, in gigantic proportions that filled the screen for a moment, the wrinkles in the skin looking like crevasses, the pale knuckles like a mountain range. Another face came into view, this time a woman with her eyes open and glistening like wet marbles. A green stem replete with jagged-edged leaves emerged from her open mouth. A thorn had pierced her lower lip.
“Rose,” Ekstrand said and Max nodded.
“I’ve never seen a Rosa do anything like this,” Max said.
“I doubt they’d have a Charm powerful enough to do that. This is the work of Rose herself, or the brothers Thorn.” He adjusted a dial on the artefact’s back, part of the casing opened and the small horn of an in-built Sniffer emerged. After a few seconds, remarkably quickly, another little ping indicated enough air had been processed to identify a residue. Ekstrand nodded. “It’s Rose. Without a doubt.”
Max looked down at the floor, turning his attention inwards. As far as he knew, no Fae had ever openly attacked the Sorcerers since they’d been imprisoned in Exilium. Whilst they could enter the Nether and, under particular circumstances, certain places in Mundanus, most never dared, too fearful of retribution for breaching the laws agreed by Fae royalty. They still tried to meddle with innocents, but always through their puppets. Nothing like this.
“Something must have changed,” Ekstrand said. “And it has to be related to the London problem. It’s too much of a coincidence that the Arbiter there turned a blind eye to a Rosa’s crime. Rose must have known you were reporting it and attacked the Cloister to stop the information getting back to me.”
“But why not try to hide that fact?” Max asked. “What would be the point of covering up Rose corruption in London only to make it obvious they’d murdered an entire Chapter?”
“Perhaps that is a statement in and of itself.” Ekstrand was scowling at the glass. “Does this not say, ‘The Rose did this, and we’re not afraid of your reprisal’?”
“I’m not sure.” Max adjusted his grip on the crutches, his palms aching. He didn’t feel satisfied by that explanation, but he didn’t have enough evidence to counter it. He spotted a body that had collapsed over one of the internal window ledges facing into the quad. “There’s a body on the left, over there – can you use it to move the artefact to a higher position?”
As Ekstrand worked, Max thought over everything he knew and concluded it was in fact very little. Innocents had disappeared in London with a pattern suggesting Fae involvement, all connected to a modelling agency in Judd Street that was probably a front organisation owned by a Rosa puppet. He had witnessed a kidnapping, and the corruption of two Arbiters from the Camden Chapter, first-hand, and they’d tried to kill him. Twice. As he tried to report the crime, his own Chapter had been destroyed.
Now there was evidence that the Roses were behind the destruction of the Chapter, as well as involved in the London corruption, it seemed that the two had to be connected. But something didn’t sit right with it all.
“How could Lady Rose, or the brothers Thorn, find the cloister?” he asked.
“I don’t know how anyone outside the Chapter could have found it, Fae or otherwise,” Ekstrand replied. “But it’s clear the Roses are up to no good in London and prepared to go to extreme lengths to keep anyone else out of it.”
“Is there any way the residue could have been left by another, to frame
the Roses?”
“None. It’s Rose, no doubt about it. None of the Fae can use each other’s magic.”
Max watched the glass. The twin artefact was now picking its way up the body’s legs. At the highest point it could reach, Ekstrand turned it and adjusted where it stood to take in the carnage filling that side of the cloister walk.
“It looks like they killed each other,” Max said after a few moments of studying the positioning of the bodies. “That’s what I couldn’t understand; if assailants entered through the door, the alarm would have been raised and reinforcements sent to defend. But there aren’t enough bodies in the entranceway to reflect that, and the bodies here are too spread out. It’s like the alarm wasn’t raised at all.”
“The Roses are particularly adept at stirring passions,” Ekstrand said. “It’s speculation at this point, but I suspect they cast a Charm that drove the staff to kill each other. It must have been airborne, and incredibly powerful.” He paused, looking away from the glass for a moment. “I may have underestimated these Fae.”
“But what about the Arbiters not in the field? They would have been immune.”
“Murdered by staff on the rampage?” Ekstrand suggested. “We’ll know more once I’ve secured it and sent you in. But there’s no possibility of that until I’ve cleared the air and checked for any traps they may have left behind.” He turned to face Max. “No one must know about this.”
“Until the Moot,” Max nodded.
“No!” Ekstrand shook his head as he set the tray down. “The other Sorcerers are the last people in the worlds I’d want to know about this.”
“But the Fae have destroyed a Chapter, and it’s got to be rooted in London’s corruption. Surely the Sorcerers need to know how serious this is?”
“No one must know that we’ve been so seriously compromised. If anyone outside this room discovers what has happened we will have two more major problems on our hands.” He held up a finger. “One: the other Sorcerers will know that we are vulnerable. The Sorcerer of Mercia has always had an eye on my territory, he could use this as an opportunity to take my domain. Two: if word gets out to the Fae-touched in Aquae Sulis and surrounds they’ll be stealing innocents and acquiring properties faster than one crippled Arbiter can deal with. We need to understand how the Roses found the cloister, how they’ve corrupted the Camden Chapter and how far up that corruption goes. If we drag the Roses in front of either the Sorcerers or the Fae royalty, we may lose our chance to find these things out as well as reveal our weakened state.”