Page 19

“Come, Your Majesty,” I called, holding out my hand. “Here, boy.”

But His Majesty, uniquely attuned to human discomfort, stalked towards Havelock, who fell back another step.

“What is it doing?” he demanded. He covered his mouth again and gave another violent sneeze. “And why is it so large? Can you not control it?”

“Your Majesty!” I hastened after the cat, but he only darted closer to Havelock, tail curled in a playful question mark. I made a dive for him and missed, the cat snaking aside and giving me the kind of growl that suggested he was eminently contented with this new game. Meanwhile, Havelock ducked behind the counter.

“Don’t think I won’t enchant you,” Havelock threatened, seemingly to me, but it was possible he was talking to the cat. We might have continued in this ludicrous manner, me chasing His Majesty and His Majesty chasing Havelock, but there came an abrupt pounding on the door, and it was loud enough to jolt even His Majesty to attention.

Both Havelock and I froze at the interruption, but he recovered more quickly than I.

“Valérie has never knocked in her life,” he said, moving towards the door. His Majesty hopped onto the counter, all the better to keep Havelock in his line of sight. “And anyway, I’ve established that the wards are functioning, so even if it is her, she could only posture and act menacing, which is a regular hobby of hers—”

“Wait!” I cried. “That awful noise, when you relocated the shop—could someone outside the building have heard it?”

He opened his mouth, then paused. “Ordinarily, no,” he said finally. “But as I said, I didn’t have time to smooth the spell’s intention, which made the journey rougher than it should have been. It’s possible that—”

The pounding came again. “Hello?” came a voice. “Police.”

“Yes,” I said faintly, “I think someone heard it.”

A second voice—an unfortunately familiar voice—said, more quietly, “What do you think?” which was followed by a murmured conversation.

“Laurent,” I said, and it came out as half a groan. “Detective Rouzet—he came by last week, asking questions about you. He’ll recognize the shelter. What do we do?”

Havelock, far from offering up any helpful solutions, made an irritated sound and scowled at the door. “Yannick is the one who deals with the police. I haven’t the patience for it.”

“At least they don’t know we’re here,” I said, then added in a hoarse whisper, “Wait a moment. Why don’t they know we’re here?”

“The shop looks vacant from the outside,” he said. “And they can’t hear us, even if we shout.” He gave me a dirty look. “Fortunately.”

I gritted my teeth. We both stared at the door, Havelock rubbing at his hair again. The officers spent another moment murmuring together, then there came the unmistakable sound of shuffling feet, which slowly died away.

“They’re gone,” I said, overcome with relief.

“For now,” Havelock said grimly. “Likely they’ve left to get a warrant. They’ll kick the door in if we don’t open it then. I suppose I could weld it shut with an enchantment, but that would rather raise their suspicions, wouldn’t it?”

My relief was swallowed by panic. “What do we do? How much time do we have? Can you move the shop back to Rue des Hirondelles?”

“Not quickly enough,” he said. “I only had the one transposition spell, and that magic is of the Third Fathom; I can’t just make another on short notice. I’d guess we have an hour or two, at most.”

I didn’t bother enquiring how he’d come to be such an expert in police warrants. “You’ll have to—to enchant them, then. Make them forget all about us.”

“There is no such thing as memory magic,” Havelock said. “Don’t you think that if there were, nobody would have learned of magicians in the first place? We’ll just—” He looked around, frowning. “Hide the cats, I suppose.”

I gave a disbelieving laugh. “Have you ever tried to hide a cat before? They aren’t exactly cooperative beasts. And we have nearly fifty! You’d have less difficulty hiding a gorilla.”

Havelock drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “If only I could summon Yannick—he’d know how to deal with this. But I sent him to Gaspé to barter with an Artefact smuggler.”

“Yannick,” I repeated. “Who is Yannick, anyhow?”

“Yannick is Yannick. He has no secret identity. You think that man could have kept it to himself?”

I almost laughed, picturing Yannick’s animated expressions. I stopped myself and scowled at him. “Then he is your representative?”

“He’s my apprentice. He’s been with me two years now.”

“What!” I couldn’t believe it. Yannick Abrams, a magician. “But he isn’t—” I frowned, squinting at Havelock, who seemed both more and less real than a regular person. “He doesn’t look like a magician,” I finished, unable to articulate what it was they looked like. “Like the rest of you.”