Archie Greene and the Raven's Spell

by D D Everest

  ‘A diviner can sense magical activity,’ Hawke added, ‘and provide an early warning of danger.’

  Archie had seen Wolfus Bone use a dowsing rod to tell where magical energy was coming from and how strong it was. Bone could also tell what sort of magic it was – natural, mortal or supernatural.

  Hawke began pacing again. He stopped abruptly and turned on his heel, as if he’d made up his mind about something.

  ‘I want you to take Wolfus’s place until he is ready to come back,’ he said.

  ‘But I don’t know anything about magic divining!’ Archie exclaimed.

  ‘You have the firemark,’ said Hawke. ‘That’s the most important thing. I can show you the basics and Wolfus can teach you the rest when he’s back on his feet.’

  ‘Erm, well, if you think I’m up to it,’ said Archie, ‘I’ll give it a try.’

  ‘Good,’ said Hawke. ‘Come back tomorrow and we’ll get you started.’

  *

  At that same moment fifty miles away in London at the offices of Folly & Catchpole, the oldest lore firm in England, Horace Catchpole shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He studied the open ledger on his desk. He’d heard that a dangerous book had been stolen from the Royal Society of Magic, and it had unsettled him. Horace knew enough about magic to know that there was something going on and it might be connected to one of the firm’s clients.

  Folly & Catchpole specialised in the storage of magical items and other secrets in its underground cellar known as the dungeon. Instructions were kept in ledgers like the one in Horace’s hands. An entry dated 6th September 1666 was troubling him. He had been looking at it all afternoon.

  Folly & Catchpole’s reputation was built on two simple principles: minding its own business and not making mistakes. It was the first of these that was bothering Horace. The firm’s clients expected their instructions to be followed to the letter. No one knew that better than him. And yet, as he read and reread the entry in the ledger, he couldn’t help wondering whether he should report it to the magical authorities. It said:

  Property of Fabian Grey.

  Do NOT remove.

  Owner will collect.

  5

  The Oculus

  It was the day after Archie’s new firemark had appeared and he was sitting on Gideon Hawke’s leather sofa. He still couldn’t quite believe he was working in the Lost Books Department, the most exciting and secretive part of the museum. It only seemed five minutes ago that he had started his bookbinding apprenticeship, and now here he was learning about magic divining. Bramble had told him it was one of the most advanced magical apprenticeships of all.

  He tried to focus on what Hawke was saying.

  ‘Today, I’m going to tell you about one of the most important divining skills – delving. Delving is usually something only finders learn at the end of their apprenticeship, but it’s fundamental to divining. It’s when you deliberately seek out a magical source. It can happen when the diviner is awake, or sometimes in their unconscious mind.’

  Archie thought about the strange dreams he’d been having lately. He wondered whether he should say something, but Hawke interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Have you ever sensed magic around you?’

  Now that Hawke mentioned it, Archie realised that he had felt something like that, most recently in the Scriptorium, but also sometimes when he was working in the mending workshop.

  ‘Sometimes I can feel it in the air like static electricity,’ he said, surprising himself. ‘Like a background tingle or hum.’

  Hawke looked pleased. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I thought you might have.’

  ‘And there’s something else,’ added Archie. ‘When I write magic I can feel it flowing through my body. It’s almost as if it’s part of me.’

  Hawke beamed at him. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘That means you are channelling magic. This is even better than I hoped for. It proves you have the natural ability to be a diviner, and now all we need to do is hone it.’

  ‘Let’s start with some simple delving spells,’ he said. ‘The first one is used to find magical books that are mixed up with non-magical books. See the shelves over there?’ he asked, pointing at a tall bookcase against the wall crammed with the spines of books. ‘Some of the books are magical, but which ones? Now watch.’

  Hawke concentrated his full attention on the bookcase and spoke the words of a spell.

  ‘Books of magic

  On the shelves

  Secret volumes

  Reveal yourselves!’

  As he said the last word, three books on the top shelf slid forward so that their spines stuck out proud from the others.

  Hawke regarded the books sternly. ‘Hmmm,’ he said after a brief pause, ‘and the rest of you?’

  Three more books on the second shelf eased out. ‘Come along,’ said Hawke, raising his eyebrows. ‘We haven’t got all day!’

  Two more books on the next row stuck out their spines.

  ‘I’m still waiting,’ he said. He began to drum his fingers on the desk. ‘Do I have to say the spell again?’

  There was a rustling sound from one of the lower shelves and four more books shuffled forward. Hawke pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling. ‘And finally?’

  A large, dusty tome on the very bottom of the bookcase slowly edged out of its row.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hawke.

  Archie couldn’t help grinning. The books reminded him of reluctant children in a classroom dragging their feet when the teacher asks the naughty ones to come to the front. He heard a bossy voice from the top shelf.

  ‘You heard the spell, wot kept you?’

  A sleepy voice replied from the large book on the bottom shelf, the one that had been the last to come forward. ‘All right, all right, keep your cover on. I was nappin’,’ it said, defensively.

  ‘Nappin’?’ said the first voice. ‘This is no time for nappin’! You gotta look lively with a delvin’ spell.’

  The books were bickering among themselves. Archie smiled to himself. When he looked up he was aware of Hawke’s eyes on him. For a brief moment he wondered whether the head of Lost Books could hear the voices, too. But Hawke wasn’t a book whisperer so it would be impossible.

  ‘Your turn,’ said Hawke, giving Archie an encouraging look.

  He took out a white quill and a crystal inkwell and placed them on the desk. Then, dipping the quill into the ink, he scribbled something on a piece of parchment and handed it to Archie.

  ‘It’s another delving spell,’ he explained. ‘This one’s for finding magical books that are hidden from sight. Go ahead and read it.’

  Archie took the parchment and read out the spell.

  ‘Secret volume

  Placed in stealth

  Book of magic

  Reveal yourself.’

  For a moment nothing happened. Archie felt disappointed. Then just as he was beginning to think the spell hadn’t worked, he heard an angry exclamation and a thud as a book fell from where it had been concealed on top of the bookcase and landed on the floor.

  Hawke stepped from behind his desk and picked it up. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I wondered where that had got to,’ he said. ‘It’s been missing for a while.’

  *

  Later that day, Archie was having lunch with Bramble and Arabella in Quill’s when Peter Quiggley walked past with a smirk on his face.

  ‘What’s he looking so pleased with himself about?’ asked Archie.

  Arabella rolled her eyes. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ she said. ‘He’s the new apprentice at the menagerie. He’s taking over Rupert’s job, working with Motley Brown.’

  ‘That’s why he made the comment about getting the best jobs – he must have known!’ exclaimed Archie. ‘But why did they give it to him?’

  ‘Brown likes him. Thinks he has great potential. And Quiggley’s been sucking up to him for months.’

  ‘What will Thistle say when he hears?’ asked Archie. ‘He’ll be devastated.’<
br />
  ‘He already knows,’ said Bramble, gloomily.

  ‘Poor Thistle,’ said Archie. ‘I bet he’s really upset.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Arabella. ‘Besides, we’ve got our work cut out just trying to keep up with rewriting the magical books.’

  *

  When Archie arrived at the Scriptorium that evening, he found a fresh pile of books on his desk waiting to be rewritten.

  Most of the books in the museum had originally come from the Great Library of Alexandria. When his attempt to open the Terrible Tomes had failed, Barzak had set fire to the library burning it to the ground. The books had been rescued and brought to Oxford by the Flame Keepers, but many had been scorched in the flames and their spells damaged, so now they were fading and had to be rewritten with azoth or their magic would be lost forever.

  Archie regarded the stack of books. There were eight thick volumes. It was going to be another long night. Arabella was meant to be joining him, but there was no sign of her yet. He decided to make a start without her. He slipped Fabian Grey’s gold ring from his finger, transforming it into a quill. Dipping the nib into the inkpot, he opened the first book, a book of gardening spells to help plants grow more quickly.

  The words were still visible in places, but where the spells had faded completely the magic writers had to write new magic to fill the gaps and complete the spell.

  Archie tried to let the magic flow through him. First he had to relax his body and let the magic in. He had found that when he was tense he couldn’t write magic at all. He took three deep breaths.

  Then he closed his eyes and opened his mind. For a moment he sat perfectly still, with the quill held lightly between his finger and thumb. He felt the familiar tingle of raw magical power and began tracing the lines of the spells. Slowly at first, but getting faster as he got into his rhythm, he felt the magic flowing through his body and into the golden quill. As he rewrote each spell, he turned the page and moved on to the next one.

  He heard the door to the Scriptorium open. Archie opened his eyes, and saw that Arabella had brought some more books. She put them down on the desk.

  ‘Hawke put these out for us to work on, too,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot to get through so we’d better get cracking.’

  They set to work, both rewriting spells with the magical ink. It was a demanding job because they had to concentrate on what was still legible while also using their own magical ability to fill in the empty spaces where the spell had completely disappeared. Archie enjoyed filling in the missing lines the most. The other members of the Alchemists’ Club all agreed that he was the best at it, and they gave him the most badly faded books to work on.

  The collection of gardening spells took Archie half an hour because there were lots of spells to trace, but the second one, a book of popper spells, only took him twenty minutes because there were more gaps he could fill in. He was careful to turn the page as he finished each one so that the spell did not pop out of the book. The third, a book of love potions, was quicker still. By the time he reached the fourth book, a series of enchantments for musical instruments, his quill swooped and curved across the parchment making a scratching sound as it went. He finished the fifth and sixth books – some spells for preparing a banquet and a book of lucky charms – in short order. By now, Archie was lost in the act of creation, his mind full of magic and his quill hand a blur of activity.

  ‘You’re on fire tonight, Archie,’ said Arabella, noting how many books he had already finished. ‘That must be a record.’

  Archie gave her a thin smile. He was starting to feel lightheaded. The magic flowing through him could do that. Sometimes it gave him a headache.

  ‘How many more are there?’ he asked.

  Arabella glanced at the stack of books she’d brought in. ‘Another two,’ she said. ‘Do you think we can manage them all tonight?’

  Archie nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m on a roll,’ he said, although in truth he felt his energy was utterly spent and he just wanted to get home and go to sleep. He felt his bed calling to him.

  He picked up the book on the top of the heap and opened it. He was about to start writing, when he heard Arabella cry out.

  ‘What is that?’

  Archie glanced up and saw that she’d dropped one of the books and it had landed on the ground with its cover open. Arabella was pointing at it with a startled look on her face.

  A black flame was burning inside the open book of popper spells. It turned the letters of the spell to ash. Archie felt the air rush past him. It smelled foul, like rotting fish. The cinders blew away. Where the spell had been a moment earlier there was just a blank page.

  The breeze turned the pages and one by one the spells that Archie had written burned to ash.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Arabella, frightened.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Archie. ‘It’s the same thing that happened last night! Old Zeb said it would have to be a very powerful magic. We have to tell Hawke.’

  A frightening thought crossed Archie’s mind. The black flame was only attacking the spells he’d been working on! The ones that Arabella had rewritten didn’t seem to be affected. Could it be something that he’d done? Perhaps the spells he’d written were corrupted in some way?

  The two of them hurried up the stairs to Lost Books. When they reached Hawke’s office, the door was ajar and they could see into the room. They were about to knock when they heard a voice coming from the oculus.

  ‘Gideon? Is that you?’

  Hawke was sitting at his desk in front of the large crystal ball. The oculus was glowing and a face had appeared in it. Archie and Arabella recognised the bald head of Orpheus Gloom, the magic assessor from the Royal Society of Magic.

  ‘Good evening, Orpheus,’ said Hawke.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Gideon,’ said Gloom. ‘Terrible business the other night. How is Wolfus?’

  ‘He’ll live,’ said Hawke, ‘but no thanks to you.’

  ‘Yes, well, it was all a bit of a mess,’ blustered Gloom. ‘If your chaps had arrived a bit sooner, the whole situation might have been resolved.’

  Hawke stiffened in his chair. ‘Surely, you’re not blaming us for your mistake?’ he said sharply. ‘If you had told us where the book was sooner – and that you had been harbouring it inside the Royal Society for the last three hundred years – then we might have stood a chance!’

  ‘Yes, yes, but the Royal Society thought it was safe here,’ said Gloom, looking shifty.

  ‘And you were wrong!’ declared Hawke crossly. ‘What is the point of having a lore about hoarding books when the people who are meant to enforce the lores ignore them?’

  ‘All right,’ said Gloom, holding up his hand. ‘We should have told you we’d got the book before, but it didn’t seem important. Locked away in the library here it was out of reach of the Greaders.’

  ‘Library?’ exclaimed Hawke. ‘How many magical books have you got?’

  Gloom looked sheepish. ‘Well, it’s not really a library,’ he said. ‘The Royal Society has a small collection of rare books, that’s all. They date back to before my time. I only found out recently myself. It’s a bit irregular, I know, but they didn’t seem to be doing any harm here.’

  ‘So what changed your mind about The Book of Night?’ asked Hawke. ‘Why did you ask us to collect it?’

  Archie and Arabella exchanged excited looks. So the stolen book was called The Book of Night! What sort of magic did it contain?

  Gloom looked even shiftier. He glanced over his shoulder as if he thought someone might be listening. ‘We received some threats,’ he said.

  ‘Threats?’

  ‘Yes. Letters. They said they knew we had the book and that if we didn’t hand it over there would be serious consequences.’

  Hawke leaned forward. ‘What sort of consequences?’

  Gloom swallowed hard. ‘The Royal Society would be closed down,’ he said.

  ‘And you believed them?’

&n
bsp; ‘We couldn’t take any chances. I thought it was time to move the book somewhere safer. That’s why I contacted you.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ mused Hawke, ‘but someone knew that the book was being moved and took it for themselves.’

  Gloom nodded. ‘Yes. And if The Book of Night is opened, Gideon … Think of it …’

  ‘I am thinking of it,’ snapped Hawke. ‘It’s all I think of these days! But the seventh Tome should never have been at risk.’

  Outside the door, Archie and Arabella made eye contact again. So they had been right – it was the seventh Terrible Tome.

  ‘Who else knew it was being moved?’ demanded Hawke. ‘Who did you tell?’

  Gloom shook his head. ‘Apart from the museum elders, no one.’

  Hawke’s brow creased into a frown. ‘And the only people I told were Wolfus and Woodbine Foxe. They’re men I would trust with my life. But someone knew and told the enemy.’

  ‘A traitor!’ breathed Gloom.

  Just then, there was a crackling sound and another face appeared in the oculus next to Gloom’s. It was a man’s face, framed with long, black hair, threaded with grey, and combed back to reveal a pronounced widow’s peak.

  ‘Did you say traitor?’ the man asked, and his voice was cold like a knife in winter.

  ‘Uther,’ said Hawke. ‘Good of you to join us, but I didn’t know the Magical League had started listening in on private conversations.’

  Archie felt Arabella tug at his sleeve. ‘That’s Uther Morgred, the chief magic enforcer at the Magical League,’ she whispered. ‘He’s very bad news.’

  Archie peered around the door to get a better look. The man held his head high. His sallow face was finely boned with deep lines etched into his cheeks and the corners of his eyes. He was clearly not in the first flush of youth but it was impossible to know just how old he was. Archie noticed that one of his eyes was a moss green and the other was so dark that it appeared to be black.

  ‘We monitor all magical activity,’ Morgred said. ‘A very dangerous book is missing, and I just heard you say there is a traitor operating inside the Royal Society or the Museum of Magical Miscellany. That is a serious allegation, very serious indeed. I will have to investigate. If there is a spy amongst us I will find him or her.’