Page 52

I gazed at him. In the firelight, his unearthly quality was more pronounced; the light played strangely on the planes of his face and sharp angles of his shoulders. “You don’t know?” I said in disbelief.

He wiped crumbs from his lip. “I’ve sometimes used the oven to dispose of Artefacts. Those that are spent and too unsightly to repurpose. The baking began to appear after I burned a locket that held a rather unstable spell for granting one’s heart’s desire. Clearly the Artefact still held some magic in it, which leaked out into the oven.”

I laughed, surprised. “Your heart’s desire is pastry?”

He smiled. “Many spells from the Renaissance are vague in nature, and they never live up to their promises. A ‘health and wealth’ spell I came across once caused three pennies to drop from the ceiling onto my head. I was never certain about the health part, though I didn’t suffer any colds that winter.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Those Renaissance magicians may have been on to something. Never-ending pastry seems a wiser thing to long for than the lofty ambitions many people set their hearts on, as well as far less likely to end in regret. And the absence of ailment is a blessing for which we should all be more grateful. Would not the world be better off if we contented ourselves with the small miracles of life?”

“That,” Havelock said, “is exactly the response I would expect from you. If you ever tire of collecting cats, you should craft motivational cards.”

I scowled, but he was gazing at me with amusement rather than rancour. He blinked, and we both looked away.

“Perhaps I was longing for Claude’s baking when I burned the locket,” Havelock said. “I don’t recall. I did miss him when he left—he’d found out that I was not, in fact, some run-of-the-mill Artefact smuggler, but the man who’d nearly ended the world.”

He sighed at the fire. “It would be for the best if I did have that book somewhere, and could unmake it—Valérie is the last person who should have that kind of power.”

“Is she?”

“I may have almost destroyed the world,” he said. “Valérie would succeed.”

The way he said it, a simple statement of fact, sent a shudder through me. “You mean Vortigern’s library. She wants to return to a time before it burned, and steal all that she can.”

He nodded. “Vortigern is said to have constructed all manner of fantastical spells—no doubt some are merely that, pure fantasy. But others—” He paused. “Vortigern was the most powerful magician who ever lived. Some speculate she burned her own library to the ground to prevent anyone else from getting their hands on her enchantments. People say those enchantments could level mountains and armies, pull the moon from the sky, make the dead walk, create monsters hungry enough to devour cities. As well as subtler magics long thought impossible—to alter memories or the currents of the human mind. If even a fraction of the stories are true, the owner of that library could reshape the world to suit their desires. We are fortunate that Vortigern had no interest in power, only magic. It was the making of spells that she loved, the craftsmanship—she often didn’t bother to cast them. Valérie is not so high-minded.”

It was ghastly to think about anyone getting their hands on such a hoard, let alone Valérie. Impulsively, I leaned forward and pressed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

He gave me a surprised look. “That you haven’t found the thing? Why should you apologize for that?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry you lost your sister. No matter how you lost her. I love Élise more than my life.”

His brow furrowed as he gazed at me.

“You don’t need to look at me like that,” I said, amused. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. And I’m not being kind to you out of some ulterior motive. Is that what most magicians are like?”

“If they aren’t too terrified of me to think, yes.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would be terrified of you,” I said lightly.

“You only say that because you’re far more terrifying than I am. I will never again underestimate the ability of a determined cat minder with a notebook and filing cabinet to wreak havoc on a place.”

“Of course you would see an absence of chaos as wreaking havoc,” I said. “And you say you aren’t a dark magician.”

He settled against the brick wall, gazing at me. I caught him looking at me often, in fact, and I recognized the quality of his expression—the furrow between his eyes, which could suggest either displeasure or intrigue. Since I couldn’t imagine a man like Havelock taking such an interest in the likes of me, I had always assumed these looks signified the former inclination, but now I wondered. When I met his eyes, he flushed but didn’t look away. I became very aware of the play of light and shadow upon his face, particularly how the darkness brushed the space below his cheekbones and pooled in the curve below his lip.

“Oh,” I murmured as the realization struck me. “That’s why you all look different. It’s the light.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You noticed? Most people don’t.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Delighted that I’d finally solved the mystery, I seized his hand and held it up to the fire as if it contained a secret message I might read. “I thought you all looked like old paintings, but it’s because of the light. It touches you differently.”

“It would be more accurate to say that magicians have more darkness around us,” he said. “We bring it with us from the Rivenwood.”

I gazed at him, and I saw that it was true. It was as if the firelight dimmed where he sat, rendering the shadows that touched him more resonant. That accounted for the discrepancy I’d always sensed in the magicians who came into the shop—in the light of full morning, they’d worn the luminosity of dawn; in the afternoon, they’d seemed to stand at the edge of twilight.

I realized I was still holding on to him; he was sitting very still, and I guessed that it had been a long time since anyone took such liberties with him.

“You’re not a very cautious person, are you,” he said as I released his hand.