“No,” said Adelaide. “Oh, Tom, I told you we should have made an appointment!”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Jack. Perhaps he’d allowed too much of his natural tone to sneak in, there—the arrogance that was expected of Lord Hawthorn would be rudeness in a minor country squire. He coughed. “It’s about our girl Rosie, you see. Her lock ceremony was just last week. Normally of course we’d send the hair down by post, but as we were visiting London anyway—we heard tell it’s possible to bring it here ourselves, and watch it be put away in the Lockroom? Watch her be registered?”
“Rosie’s our eldest,” put in Adelaide, radiating goodwill. “It was such a proud day when her magic showed.”
“Of course,” said the attendant. “I’ll fetch someone who can take care of you. Please take a seat, Mr.…?”
“Pember,” said Jack. “And this is my wife, Margaret.”
Tom and Margaret Pember were deposited on a bench while the attendant traced a rune on a door, handed their coats through it into the cloakroom, and closed the door again. The next set of runes was more complex; the attendant turned the glowing doorknob and stepped through, and was gone.
According to Mrs. Kaur, there were three possible people who would be summoned to escort the parents of a new-minted magician for a lock registration. Jack and Adelaide waited a tense ten minutes before a stout man with buttery blond hair and a much-waxed moustache stepped out of a door, looked around the foyer, and then headed in their direction, smoothing back his already smooth hair as he came.
“Fawcett?” Adelaide murmured.
Jack nodded. He stood and strode forward, meeting the approaching man—Mr. Alec Fawcett, going by Mrs. Kaur’s description—with a hearty handshake. He adopted what he hoped was the smile of a proud father and captured Fawcett’s attention in introductions while Adelaide pulled a pebble from her bag and laid it on the floor beneath the bench.
“Maggie?” Jack called, after giving her enough time. “Come and meet Mr. Fawcett. He works for the Assembly.”
“Mrs. Pember,” said Fawcett, nodding politely when Adelaide hurried up to join them. “A pleasure. Congratulations on your little girl’s lock ceremony.”
“Thank you. I do hope we’re not pulling you from more important work,” said Adelaide earnestly.
“Nonsense. Nothing more important than registering a new addition to magical society, is there? And you’ve come all this way. Let’s give you a story to take home.”
Adelaide made a tiny rueful face at Jack behind Fawcett’s back as the man turned to lead them towards one of the oak doors. If they’d shared any cradlespeak, Jack would have told her not to be so sentimental. They would be inconveniencing the man, perhaps giving him a bit of a scare over nothing, but they weren’t sticking a Goblin’s Bridle on him. Or knocking him out and hiding him in a cupboard. This act of high theft was being run to Maud Blyth’s rules of moral engagement.
Fawcett cradled, traced a complex rune, and then opened the door. The view through it was warm with wood and orange light. Fawcett ushered them both through and into the Lockroom.
“Oh my.” Adelaide, who had been inside the Lockroom on illegal business only last year, clasped her hands. “It’s so much bigger than I expected.”
The Lockroom’s rows of shelves stretched away into gloom. The air was still and quiet; untouched.
“Every magician who’s come into their power since the Barrel was built,” said Fawcett proudly. He pointed to the enormous map of the British Isles on the wall, pinned up above the high bench containing the room’s ledger, and Adelaide hurried over with the keen air of someone determined to get their shilling’s worth at an art gallery.
“Look at this, Tom,” she insisted, and Jack joined her to inspect the impressively detailed but faded and unremarkable map. They needed to buy time for Violet to find the white pebble that told her which of the three expected men was in the Lockroom with them. Adelaide, ever practical, had also determined with Violet that a penny coin would mean someone unexpected, in which case Violet would need to improvise.
(Edwin had come up with three elegant and complicated ideas for charmed items, and three more ideas that were impossible because neither Jack nor Adelaide had any magic.
Robin had cleared his throat and said, “Er. Pebbles?”)
“And this is the map that you can use if a magician is in peril?” said Adelaide. “How thrilling. Could we see how it works? Not to spy on anyone, of course. I could name my aunt; I know she’ll be at home in Bath.”
Fawcett said, with the first hint of disapprobation, “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Pember. The magic of the Lockroom is not to be spent on demonstrations.”
“Quite right,” said Jack. “Why don’t you—” But before he could ask for a tedious amount of detail about the huge ledger lying flat on the table, there was a loud knocking on the main door to the Lockroom. Adelaide jumped.
“What the devil—excuse me, Mrs. Pember,” said Fawcett hurriedly. He raised his voice. “Who is that?”
“Mr. Fawcett? Alec Fawcett?” came an uncertain call. “Message for you, sir!”
Fawcett went to open the door. The tall redheaded woman standing on the other side leaned on its frame dramatically, catching her breath. Behind her a gloomy physical corridor curled away to the side. “Message for you, sir. Someone told me you were down here—sent me along from the staffing office—I’m sorry it took so long, sir, I’ve only been working here a week and I got turned around when they said to take the corridor down from the archives—”
“All right, girl. Take it slowly. What’s the message?” said Fawcett.
“Something about your wife?” Violet, in her disguise, let her voice rise uncertainly.
Fawcett went still. “Helena?”
“Might be?”
“Is it—was the message from my house? The hospital?”
“I’m sorry, I was only told to fetch you—to come at once, they said—”
Fawcett cast a glance over his shoulder. Jack did his level best to look harmless. “If it’s your wife, Mr. Fawcett, of course you must go. We won’t touch a thing while we wait.”
“I—yes, thank you. Will send—someone. To help you.”
The door closed behind Fawcett and Violet, and Adelaide let out her breath.
“I was hoping it’d be him,” she said. “A pregnant wife! Couldn’t be more convenient.”
Apparently Alec Fawcett and Manraj Singh had been gingerly bonding in the tearoom over their shared excitement and nerves about incipient fatherhood.
Violet would prove stubbornly unable to identify the person in the staffing office who had given her the message in the first place, and then would come to the realisation that she had the wrong name and was in fact seeking an Alex Mawson. And in the meantime, Jack and Adelaide were inside the Lockroom. Which anyone at all could open from the inside.
Less than a minute later, another knock came. This one was quieter and in a precise rhythm.