Alan returned the look. Jack’s formal evening suit was also magpie shades, but Oliver had ensured that the satin lapels of his tailcoat shone like dark water against the ice-white of shirtfront, waistcoat, collar, and bow tie.
“You look like a nightmare,” Alan said softly. For a moment his face was a portrait of hunger, and Jack understood exactly what he meant. The pull of a danger you could inhabit and then wake up from. “Be careful,” Alan added.
“The benediction of the evening. You as well.”
“Morris was wandering around the grotto and the lake earlier,” said Alan. “Came within a few yards of me and didn’t so much as blink. Looks like underfed magpies aren’t his type either. I ducked into the grotto afterwards to see if they’re using it as a hiding place, but it’s clear. I suppose they think we might be hiding Edwin in there. And,” anticipating Jack’s rather more vehement repetition of the be careful sentiment, “I’m armed.” His hand dipped into a hidden pocket of the black dress—thank you, Oliver—and emerged with a vicious little flick-knife.
“Borrowed this one from my cousin Berto before I left town,” said Alan. “And the dress comes off quick if I need to run.” He lifted an edge of black skirt to show riding breeches. Something else purloined from Jack’s youthful wardrobe.
“Show me the cradles again.”
Alan made four subtle shapes with his hand, one after the other.
They were ready. There was no other benediction to give. Edwin had been right: they’d all known they were signing up for a fight. If Jack couldn’t command his mother against taking risks, on his behalf or anyone else’s, he certainly had no hope of it with Alan Ross. I forbid you to be hurt. I forbid you to die.
Useless.
Music floated faintly across from the direction of the Hall.
“Here we go,” Alan said.
Sunset. Here they went. The Earl and Countess of Cheetham would be on the Hall’s front steps, where each arriving magician would do a small act of magic—a light was traditional—and be formally granted guest-right before being directed in through the house to the grand ballroom. Tonight it was no more than a way station, where they’d be served glasses of punch dosed with a particular imbuement from Whistlethropp’s to banish fatigue until the sun rose. Another tradition.
Jack met up with Maud, Violet, and Robin in the ballroom, and they toasted with their own cups of punch. Maud’s eyes were keen and determined above her mint-green-and-silver gown. Violet’s gown was subdued, for her: a remarkably tasteful pink that left her upper arms bare and which was intricately decorated with beads ranging from pale pearl to deep fuchsia.
“I think,” said Robin to Violet, “I’ve had a vision about that dress. Wish I could remember it better.”
“I’ll wear it to your wedding,” said Violet, taking his arm, “and we’ll say it was that.”
Jack led Maud out through the ballroom doors, down the back terrace, and out onto the lawn. The way from here to the lake was indicated by more of those glowing lights, strung up in the trees or from tall lantern poles where clean, white light glowed and illuminated the grounds. The magic that usually produced the Hall’s guidelights had been redirected and gathered atop those poles; it wouldn’t be needed indoors tonight.
The gentle slope of lawn and the large flat terrace filled steadily with people. The air smelled of honeysuckle and food and perfume, and even out here it faintly fizzed with the number of spells laid over the food tables to keep things fresh, hot, or cold as required. The maids and footmen had only to keep the tables stocked and the drinks circulating.
Maud turned her head at an offended peacock screech.
“I told Violet the peacocks wouldn’t like the cheetahs,” she said.
Violet was saving all of her magic for this evening, but she’d spent the past fortnight steadily at work constructing elaborate light-show illusions and then anchoring them to small oak-wood discs, which Edwin had shown her how to use as a power sink. Tonight her illusions required no magic from her at all. The oak-hearts would power them all night.
Already there were murmuring clusters of magicians gathered in various places to watch the show. An enormous koi fish soared in a slow, watery circle in the sky, giving off its own scarlet-and-gold light. A fairy-tale tower built itself from the lawn upwards, bricks first and then a rapid crawl of ivy and thorns. A pair of young men had already levitated themselves to window level, nearly twenty feet above the ground, to see if the tower was inhabited.
And there was a vivid illusion-menagerie featuring larger versions of the creatures that Violet had danced over Maud’s lap on the evening of the primrose wine. The poor pheasants and peacocks—very real, and unbothered by the throngs of people—were indeed giving the big cats a wary eye and the occasional threatening yell.
It really was a triumph. Magical society would be talking about it for months, even if nothing more interesting or dangerous than a giant fish were to happen. Jack had been running from magic for so long that to find himself surrounded by a brilliant celebration of it was somehow more jarring than trying to escape a magical building dissolving in a magical storm. A tight collection of buried emotions was unfurling. He forced himself to ignore them.
Familiar and half-familiar faces were everywhere, many of them being whipped away so that their owners would not be caught looking at Jack. Even beyond the rumours that were no doubt swirling about the Barrel’s destruction, nobody had seen Lord Hawthorn in magical society for years, and the rumours there were even better. Violet and Edwin had told him most of them. He’d lost his magic. He’d refused his magic. His sister had gone mad and he was halfway to following suit.
Jack heard the raised voice of Edwin’s brother-in-law Charles Walcott, loudly denouncing the disgraced Edwin as a black sheep of the family—nothing to do with the rest of them, no, hang the very thought! Jack caught sight of the Mannings and exchanged a nod with Pete. Violet’s dicentis Arthur Manning was there, along with two young women who Jack assumed were the bookish sister and the new fiancée.
“There’s George,” said Maud.
“Good,” said Jack. “Keep him in sight.”
George was indeed standing in a group of Assemblymen and their wives. Jack cast a quick look around. Robin and Violet—acting as the bait—would be keeping an eye out for Walter and Morris. Somewhere in this crowd was Edwin, disguised by an illusion sewn in white thread onto the white silk scarf draped over his tailcoat. Only Violet and Alan knew exactly what he looked like. And Alan was … there, busy behind another of the food tables, head bent. Jack let his gaze swing past without sticking.