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I drew myself up, bracing myself to argue with him, but he only rubbed his hair and said with a sigh, “I didn’t mean that. I’ll enchant your silly felines, and you can continue your well-intentioned rampage through my collection, only allow me a few moments of silence. I need to rest this headache.”

He sat at his worktable and lowered his head onto his hands, massaging his temples. The motion caused his dark hair to fall forward, and his enchanted rings flashed in the spiderlight. I watched him a moment, feeling a pang of sympathy. No doubt he’d been up to something wicked, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that, was there?

I went upstairs to the kitchen. There I heated the kettle and scrounged in the cupboards until I located the familiar satchel of herbs. I went back downstairs and placed the mug in front of him, then picked up my clipboard and turned to the cabinet of Artefacts.

“What’s this?” he said. I turned to find him regarding the mug with such an expression of suspicion that I couldn’t help snorting.

“It’s for your headache,” I said. “Mugwort and dried lemon peel mixed with a strong Irish tea. It always helps Élise. She’s prone to headaches when she’s not sleeping well.”

His gaze shifted from the mug to me. He’d drawn one leg up to his chest, and with the flush rising in his cheeks, he looked startlingly youthful.

“How old are you, anyhow?” I said.

He took a dubious sip from the mug. “Thirty-two.”

“Really? You don’t look it.” I didn’t mean that he looked younger or older, but rather that he didn’t look any particular age, a characteristic I’d noted in several of the other magicians.

“Not all of my face is thirty-two.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, and shuddered inwardly. I gestured at the mug. “I’m not going to poison you.” I added, very gravely, “Wouldn’t be much point, given that you’re nothing but moonlight and cobwebs.”

He gave a huff that might have been laughter, and I turned back to my work. I was just recording the last Artefact in the cabinet and closing the door when I caught a flash of his reflection in the glass—he’d come to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder at what I was doing.

I gave a yelp and nearly dropped my clipboard. He jumped at my surprise, and we blinked at each other. I realized that he might not be aware of how unnaturally he moved. It seemed logical that magicians simply got used to themselves, in the way that I was used to my large feet and tendency to stomp about, which Robin had loved to tease me for.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just can’t work out what you’re doing.”

“You know what I’m doing,” I said, confused. “I’m organizing your collection, recording each Artefact. You can see I’ve added catalogue numbers—”

“Yes, but how are you recording the enchantments?”

“I’m—I’m not,” I said. “Obviously I have no idea what dreadful spells are stored inside them. But I can tell that none of the Artefacts I’ve recorded so far are seventeenth-century books.”

“Ah,” he said. “But Vortigern’s book might not look ancient. It might not even look like a book, as you have already pointed out. If Walker Clem knew he had one of Vortigern’s spells, even if he couldn’t work out what it did, he might have concealed it behind an illusion to trick would-be thieves. Mind, it would have to be an uncommonly strong illusion to last this long. Six layers at least, with—”

“I surmised that was a possibility, yes,” I interrupted, not caring to sit through another speech I couldn’t understand. “The problem is that half your Artefacts are stuffed into crates or buried beneath other Artefacts. If I can get them numbered and organized, it will be much easier for you and Yannick to use your magic to examine them. I’ve already questioned Yannick, and he’s told me that an illusion spell could change the appearance of the book, but not its weight. Thus I’ve made two trips to the main library to analyze the weight of books of varying sizes, and I’ve spoken to the woman in charge of their historical collection. From this I’ve calculated a weight range for a book of that age, adding an ounce on either end to be safe.” I motioned to the scale before me. “I’m taking special note of Artefacts whose weights fall within that range, especially if they seem suspiciously light or heavy. Based on my initial survey, such Artefacts comprise less than ten percent of your collection. Thus, even if I do not find Vortigern’s book myself, I will narrow down the number of possibilities and save you and Yannick a great deal of time.”

I didn’t bother mentioning that part of my motivation to organize his shop was that the thought of its disorder was driving me mad. I fully intended to organize every Artefact, even those that had nothing to do with our current predicament. The state of things was a disgrace.

Throughout my explanation, his eyebrows had drawn progressively closer together. When I finished, he regarded me in silence.

“You are a hurricane, aren’t you?” he said. “I’m half convinced that if I get in your way, I’ll find myself stuffed into a crate with a number glued to my forehead.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “You’d get your own shelf.”

He actually laughed—I realized he enjoyed it when I taunted him, which wasn’t a surprise, given that he seemed the sort of person who armoured himself in sarcasm. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed his reaction.

I returned to my work, blushing. The problem with Havelock wasn’t that he was attractive, but that he was attractive in the specific way that I preferred—namely, his good looks were unconventional. A straightforward handsomeness had never caught my interest; beauty has always seemed to me to be heightened by a few jagged edges. Robin had suited this description well, with his comically large ears and deep-set eyes that sometimes seemed to disappear beneath their dark brows, which had only made his smiles seem warmer, more fundamental.

Doing my best to forget I’d thought any of this, I replaced the music box in the cabinet and took up a plain gold chain that felt ancient, somehow. 18P, I wrote on a label, then attached it to the chain with a paper clip.

“Don’t you know how much danger you’re in?” he said. I turned to find that he’d taken several steps back, and stood behind his worktable. It felt like a closed door, a threshold I could not pass.

“From the Artefacts?” I said. “I thought you needed to speak a command to release their magic.”

He didn’t reply. After a moment, he said in a different tone, “Have you given any thought to how you would like your cats enchanted?” He paused. “I was going to follow that with a joke, but it feels redundant.”

I pointed. “On the table.”