“Oh, very well. Suppose I’ll go quietl—” At this, the man sneezed and vanished in a burst of fire and smoke. I put my hand over my mouth. The crowd gasped in amazement.
Agrippa looked about, baffled, and then returned to me, signaling to get back into the coach. “Come, Miss Howel.”
Rook jumped onto the driver’s bench, and I climbed inside. We rode along while Agrippa seethed.
“I’ve never seen a magician before,” I said, trying to calm him with conversation. Agrippa cleared his throat, mopping his forehead with a pocket square.
“I know it must seem harsh, cornering an old man like that,” he said. “Apprehending a magician can be difficult alone. You never know what they’ll do.”
I kept silent. I knew that magicians had been royally pardoned for aiding Mary Willoughby, so long as they abided by the law, but they were all rogues and criminals. When I was a child, there was gossip that one of them had come through a nearby village, offering to tell fortunes. Three days later, he took off with six chickens, two sets of good candlesticks, and the miller’s daughter. Still, I’d never thought magicians to be as dangerous as Agrippa implied.
“Do you hate them, sir?” I asked.
“They’re selfish, dangerous men. They would rather tinker with obscene parlor tricks than lift a finger to aid the crown in a time of war. Considering it was their magic that helped the Ancients cross into our world, that attitude is even more intolerable.” His cheeks tinged pink.
I decided not to mention how the magician had spoken to me, or that my appearance had stunned him. Truth be told, I preferred not to think about it myself. Surely it had been an attempt to trick me. Surely.
We continued onto a broad, bustling avenue. The street was a sea of activity, waves of humanity cresting and breaking.
“This is Ha’penny Row,” Agrippa said, pointing out the window. “The trade hub of unwarded London. Anything you’ve ever wanted you can find here.”
We passed women carrying baskets of loaves in their arms. People hauled trays of turtle, panes of glass, bags of flour. Voices called out wares of fruits and vegetables.
Agrippa sighed in exasperation as our carriage came to another abrupt halt. “What on earth is the matter today?”
He looked out the window for the source of trouble. He appeared to find it as, laughing merrily, he waved at someone. Curious, I leaned out to look for myself.
A young man on horseback trotted up to us. He rode a beautiful bay, and he removed his top hat by way of greeting. Reaching down, he drew out something that hung in a sheath by his side. He presented it with one hand to Agrippa, bowed at the waist, and then put away the stave and nodded. Here was another sorcerer. My stomach lurched as I gazed up at him. I hadn’t expected to be so nervous.
“Now, you can’t keep me away, Master Agrippa, you really cannot,” he said. “There’s five pounds riding on my seeing her first.” The young man peered in the window and cocked an eyebrow. “Is this the lady in question?” This last was addressed to me. “Mr. Julian Magnus of Kensington, at your service.” He bowed, a bit awkward, as he was still astride the horse. After nearly losing his seat, he said, “You’re the prophecy girl, I’ll be sworn. What’s your name?”
Magnus had thick, wavy auburn hair and bright gray eyes. He was broad-shouldered and, I admitted to myself, almost absurdly handsome. His mouth was set in a grin, and he seemed to believe us old friends, not strangers who’d only just met.
“Henrietta Howel.” I smiled in a way I hoped was friendly but not too encouraging. I didn’t know this young man, after all. Magnus laughed.
“Well, now that the pleasantries have been exchanged, we must make certain you’re the prophecy. A demonstration of your power at once!” He clapped his hands. “Come along, start burning. Nothing too grand—a small inferno will do.”
“Perhaps when we get home. I should hate to startle the horses,” I said. Magnus seemed to like that response. “What was your name again, sir?”
He snorted. “?‘Sir,’ is it? I told you, Mr. Julian Magnus of Kensington, at your service.” Here he gave a bow again. “To be commended by Her Majesty. You’re from Yorkshire, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. I had to force myself not to tuck a stray curl behind my ear. The force of Magnus’s attention was disconcerting.
“Northern girls have the ice and chill about them, but now that you’ve come south, you can thaw out as fast as you like.” He kept smiling, as though this wasn’t an insult.
“I’m sure I don’t need any ‘thawing out,’ as you put it,” I said, conscious of the edge in my voice. My irritation appeared to delight him.
“Cross with me, are you? That’s the glorious thing about northerners. They’re all Sturm und Drang.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” I muttered.
Magnus laughed, reached through the window, and shook Agrippa’s hand.
“Thank you, Master. It’s like Christmas. She’s the funniest girl I ever met.”
Agrippa struggled to contain a smile. “Mr. Magnus is one of my Incumbents. The son of a magical family spends ages fourteen to sixteen living under the supervision of an established practitioner.”
“That would be our dear Master here,” Magnus said. “It’s his duty to make sure we don’t fail our great test before the queen.”
So I was to share a roof with Magnus. I prayed I wouldn’t want to murder him every time we had breakfast.
“Allow me to escort you home.” Magnus grinned as he rode alongside our carriage.
After a further ten minutes, Agrippa pointed out the window. “Here comes the ward.”
There was nothing ahead but two men in crimson soldiers’ uniforms standing in the center of the road. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Wait a moment.” He knocked on the roof of the carriage, which rumbled to a halt. The soldiers stood directly ahead of us, their hands out in a signal for us to stop. I thought them ordinary guards until they each unsheathed a sorcerer’s stave.
“We request entrance,” Magnus called.
There was no gate. “Can’t we just ride past them?”
“Wait,” Agrippa said.
The guards bent down, touched their staves to the ground, and traced them slowly upward. Floating into the air, they moved toward each other, one from the left and one from the right. The men met in the center, drew their staves together, and dropped to the ground. They’d sketched an invisible square, about ten feet long and ten feet high.
Satisfied, Agrippa knocked on the roof again, and the carriage lurched forward and through the square. I gasped; it felt as if some enormous pressure was squeezing the sides of my head. An instant later and it was done.
“What was that?” I asked, hands over my ears.
“The ward is designed to keep the Ancients from entering the area. Only sorcerers’ staves can cut through the shield to create a brief entryway,” Agrippa explained.
Magnus gestured to the streets before us. “Welcome to London proper,” he said with a flourish.
If the unwarded area had been hell, this was paradise itself. Wrought-iron gates bordered parks and gardens. The sweet scent of fresh bread and cinnamon wafted from a bakery, and we passed a coffee shop where laughter and conversation bubbled out the doors.
“This is wonderful.” I leaned from the window for a better look as elegant women passed by in an open-air barouche. “The Ancients have never attacked here?”
“Not even R’hlem has set foot in the heart of London.” Pride tinged Agrippa’s voice.
I knew that sorcerers had the power to create a shield around themselves to block an attack. But I’d never dreamed of a ward like this.
“What about the area outside? Can’t you shield them?”
“No.” Agrippa cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “The sorcerers’ power forms the ward, and one of our members specifically designs it. Master Palehook assures us that we have stretched our ability to its limit.”
“Over there,” Magnus called, pointing to the front of a beautiful building, “is the Theatre Royal. I should take you for a show sometime. Have you ever been to the theater, Miss Howel? Do they get much Shakespeare up in Yorkshire?” His smile was full of false innocence.