The Mislaid Magician (17 page)

Yours,

Thomas

Dearest Kate,

As you may see from the inscription, we are
not
in London, nor, it seems, is there any immediate chance of our returning there. We are in Leeds, with no prospect of moving further. In point of fact, it is quite likely that we shall soon be compelled to return to Stockton, or perhaps Darlington. I am quite cross and altogether out of patience with a great many persons, most of them decades dead. My temper is not improved by the certainty that any news you may have sent will have gone to the London address and will therefore take several extra days to reach us.

We left Stockton yesterday morning. Both James and I were anticipating a quick and easy journey to London, as the weather was fine and the roads good. We chose to travel by conventional methods, rather than take the railway, as we did not wish to draw any more attention to our sheepdog (and traveling by railway is a novelty that attracts attention all on its own; attempting to bring a sheepdog along would undoubtedly be a nine days’ wonder in the village).

All went well for the first half of the journey, until the road turned away from the river, out of County Durham and into Yorkshire. Shortly thereafter, the sheepdog became restless. (I should mention that, as we chose not to travel on the Sabbath, I had spent much of Sunday attempting to devise a workable means of communication with Herr Magus Schellen. My efforts were of no avail; the transformation spell that affects him is quite thorough. Which is to say that, most unfortunately, Herr Magus Schellen is not a man in the shape of a sheepdog, who would perhaps be able to convey some useful information; no, he is simply a more-intelligent-than-usual sheepdog. So we had no way of discovering what the difficulty might be.)

As we continued on, the sheepdog went from restless to whimpering, and then subsided into a lethargy. By the time we reached the inn at Leeds, he was lying motionless on the floor of the carriage and I was growing quite worried. James was at first inclined to put the dog’s behavior down to carriage-sickness (or the canine equivalent), but he, too, was concerned when Herr Schellen had to be lifted down and then lay panting on the ground.

Our situation attracted the attention of a number of stableboys and various idlers, who made a great many unhelpful comments and suggestions about what to do with our dog. James responded more and more stiffly (a sure sign of irritation), while I was torn between trying to attend to the Herr Magus, wishing to avoid attracting more attention, and a strong desire to lay into the onlookers with my parasol.

And then I heard a voice that cut through the crowd easily without being raised to any vulgar pitch: “Does all this uproar have some point of which I am not aware?”

The onlookers melted away like snow in sunlight. Only an erect figure in a modish burgundy walking dress and matching bonnet remained. “Aunt Elizabeth!” I said in mingled surprise, gratitude, and trepidation. “Whatever are you doing in Leeds?”

“We came to find you and James,” Aunt Elizabeth replied, from which I inferred that Mr. Wrexton had accompanied her. “I had not expected—” She glanced at the sheepdog, and her eyes narrowed. “I had not expected to find you in such an
interesting
position,” she said, which I do not think was what she had meant to say to begin with. “You had better bring … everyone inside, where we can discuss matters without creating any more scenes.”

As it was useless to protest that creating a scene had been the last thing we had intended, we followed her in. Or rather, I followed her in; James stayed with the sheepdog, attempting to persuade him to walk. When that failed, he was forced to bribe the lone stableboy who had remained within earshot to assist him in carrying the Herr Magus inside.

I will spare you an account of the discussion with the innkeeper; suffice it to say, he was initially much put out by the presence of so plebeian an animal as a sheepdog, and James had to turn all top-lofty on him—and even then, I am not sure we would have prevailed had not Aunt Elizabeth taken a hand.

Eventually, the five of us—Aunt Elizabeth, Mr. Wrexton, James, the sheepdog, and I—were served tea in a private parlor, while Walker and James’s valet saw to the trunks. I was more than usually happy with the bustle of servants setting up tea things, for I was uncertain what tack to take when the discussion began. It is so awkward when one is involved in a secret matter and has no notion how much other people know, or whether they ought to be told more or not. Despite my worries, I was glad indeed to see Mr. Wrexton’s cheerful face.

Fortunately, I did not need to mind my tongue for long. As soon as the door closed behind the last of the servants, James turned to Mr. Wrexton and asked, “What brings you to Leeds?” (just as if he had not heard Aunt Elizabeth say, only a few minutes before, that they had come in search of us).

“This business of Wellington’s,” Mr. Wrexton replied. He frowned at the sheepdog. “Though I suspect my news will wait. What
have
you stumbled onto?”

James looked at me. I began an account of finding the sheepdog, but Aunt Elizabeth stopped me before I had gone three sentences. “From the beginning, Cecelia, please,” she said firmly. “Official reports are useful, but too often they sacrifice relevant details for brevity.”

She was very careful not to look at James as she said this, but since his are the only official reports there have been of this matter, it was quite clear what she meant. She added, “I need not fear that
your
narrative will suffer from a lack of description.”

(Dearly as I love Aunt Elizabeth, and much as I appreciate her sterling qualities, I confess that I
cannot
like the way she has of making me feel as if I am once more a scrubby ten-year-old with torn stockings and muddy petticoats.)

So I did as she asked. I began at the beginning—with Lord Wellington’s summons to James—and recounted the entire business in order. Aunt Elizabeth and Mr. Wrexton listened with great attention, and when I finished, they looked at each other.

“I believe this is more your area, my dear,” Mr. Wrexton said, gesturing at the sheepdog.

Aunt Elizabeth rose and went over to the dog. She felt very gently behind its ears and at the back of its neck, then frowned. Then she made a chopping motion with her left hand and said,
“Aperio.”

The sheepdog howled. Aunt Elizabeth closed her hand into a fist and the sound stopped abruptly as the sheepdog collapsed once more.

“Aunt Elizabeth, what—”

“Hush, Cecelia. In a moment.” She rose, dusted her skirts, and hastily reseated herself. Giving me a warning look, she began to speak in a voice rather louder than normal, and much more in Aunt Charlotte’s style than her own. “Now, about the shameful way in which you and Georgina have been neglecting the London Season—”

The door of the parlor burst open. The innkeeper stood there, sputtering apologies; behind him, the scowl on his wife’s face made clear who was responsible for their abrupt appearance. I blessed Aunt Elizabeth’s quick wits; for of course if she had not started in on the Season in that nonsensical way, the innkeeper and his wife might well have heard something they ought not.

Aunt Elizabeth fixed our hosts with an imperious glare. “Gracious me,” she said in a forbidding tone. “What
is
the reason for this intrusion?”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you’ll have to be keeping that dog quiet,” the innkeeper said. His wife punctuated his remarks with emphatic nods.

“Has there been some disturbance?” Mr. Wrexton asked with great politeness.

The innkeeper looked quite taken aback, but his wife was made of sterner stuff. “That dog was howling, but a minute gone,” she said. “And we can’t be having it. Begging your pardon,” she added grudgingly after a pointed glance from her husband.

Aunt Elizabeth put down her teacup and sniffed. I am sure you remember that sniff, Kate; we surely heard it often enough after our childhood adventures. “Nonsense!” she said. “Does that dog look capable of such an effort as howling?”

Everyone looked at the sheepdog. The dog blinked but did not raise his head from the carpet. He gave every appearance of being incapable of lifting so much as an ear. Throwing back his head to howl was plainly beyond him.

The innkeeper seemed willing to accept this evidence, and repeated his apologies. His wife was more reluctant to retreat, but it was clear even to her that she was no match for Aunt Elizabeth. When they had gone at last (and when we were quite certain that the wife was not listening at the door), I looked at Aunt Elizabeth and said, “Aunt Elizabeth, I never thought to hear such a string of bouncers from you, of all people.”

“It has long since become clear to me that I failed, in your upbringing, to impress upon you properly how unattractive it is for a lady of quality to use slang terms adopted from her brother,” Aunt Elizabeth observed. “And I must point out to you that no word of falsehood passed either Michael’s lips or my own.”

“A masterly job of misdirection,” James said. “But what, if anything, did you learn about our involuntary guest?” He nodded at the sheepdog.

“Cecelia is quite right; this is a case of transformation,” Aunt Elizabeth replied. “I cannot, of course, determine who he is, or was, prior to becoming a sheepdog, but I think it likely that she is also correct in assuming him to be your missing engineer. Unfortunately, I fear he will not be easy to disenchant. The spell is linked to a power source somewhere northeast of here.”

“Ah. That will explain the animal’s lethargy,” Mr. Wrexton said. “The spell is drawing on the dog’s energy to maintain the link over too long a distance.”

“Good heavens!” I said, appalled. “You mean that he’s like this just because we brought him this far south? However are we to get him to the Royal College?”

“I don’t believe you will, dear,” Aunt Elizabeth said. “Not without disenchanting him first.”

“We can alleviate the problem, but only very temporarily,” Mr. Wrexton said. “Not long enough to get him to London, I’m afraid.”

The sheepdog whined. James and I looked at each other. “I don’t think Wellington is going to be pleased about this,” James said after a moment.

“That’s another thing,” Mr. Wrexton said, and his tone drew James’s and my attention at once. He cleared his throat and went on, “There’s a bit of a bother at the prime minister’s office.”

“Michael, dear,” Aunt Elizabeth said in a tone of mild reproof.

“Yes, all right,” Mr. Wrexton said. “I’ve been dancing around the facts for so long that it’s become a habit,” he said apologetically to James and me. “To give you the matter without any bark on it, information has been leaking out of the prime minister’s office, and we don’t know yet who is responsible or why.”

“Wellington’s staff?” James said in tones of horror.

“Doubtful,” Mr. Wrexton told him. “The problem seems to date back to some months before Wellington took office. That’s not much help, though; there are dozens, if not hundreds, of clerks and functionaries who could be behind it. And the fellow’s been careful, to get away with it this long. We won’t be able to narrow the field until we find out what he’s after.”

“What he’s after?” I said. “Can’t you guess from the sort of information that has been leaking?”

“That’s the problem,” Mr. Wrexton said. “The things we’ve traced have been very … miscellaneous. Everything from the progress of trade discussions to the prime minister’s opinions of quite minor bills in Parliament. Some of the gossip about that last argument between His Majesty and the Duke of Cumberland was traced to the office. Nothing important, but Wellington was furious. And now this latest incident—”

Apparently, James sent off an express packet to Mr. Wrexton last week, after the incident at Haliwar, asking him to check at the Royal College for information about the tower, ley lines, and all the rest of the things that have been puzzling us. As the request was part of our investigation, he sent it through Lord Wellington’s office. Lord Wellington sent it on at once, of course, but the next morning there were signs that someone had tried to enter his office. (Lord Wellington naturally takes magical precautions to prevent this; James says it is a habit he acquired long ago, during his India campaigns.) Since his secretary’s desk, which did
not
have any protective enchantments, was also rifled, and since the message packets appeared to have received considerable attention from the rifler, Lord Wellington and his aides concluded that someone wanted rather badly to find out what had been in James’s urgent letter.

And so Mr. Wrexton and Aunt Elizabeth made some hasty preparations and set out on the North Road, to act as a combination of reinforcements and messengers. I believe that Lord Wellington also had some hope that, because Aunt Elizabeth and I are related to Georgy and because there have been some garbled rumors flying about London regarding Georgy and Daniel (everything from murder to runaway matches with the groom and governess, Aunt Elizabeth says), it would seem natural for Aunt Elizabeth to come north to assist me in confronting Daniel, or some such. (I do not think that this is at all likely to fool whoever is rifling desks in the government offices, but it may do for an explanation to Society.)

Which brings me to the last of Mr. Wrexton’s news. James had, as I mentioned, asked for information about ley lines and Haliwar Tower. As Mr. Wrexton is no antiquary, nor any sort of expert on ancient magic or history, he went straight to the archives at the Royal College of Wizards. And what he found there is quite dreadful.

“You have to understand,” he said, “that the archivists at the Royal College are fanatics in regard to completeness. They write
everything
down. There’s even a thorough description of those experiments of Sir Hilary Bedrick’s, because even though they were illegal, unethical, and got him kicked out of the College to boot, he performed some of them while he was a member.”

James made a disapproving noise. I did not say anything, but I shared his sentiments. Sir Hilary’s “experiments” in stealing other wizards’ magic and driving people mad do not seem to me to be the sort of thing that the Royal College ought to preserve, and I do not believe that I feel this way
only
because I was one of the people he intended to drain and drive mad.