“The hours are different here now,” he said, piling a few logs into the grate, “because my family doesn’t know, you see, that I’ve taken up the Points, they just wouldn’t understand, they’d say it wasn’t a fitting profession for someone in my position, but they don’t know me, not really. Always been a bit of a stray cat, I suppose. But you don’t care about that, sorry, I just wanted to explain why it was closed up. Different crowd nowadays, too….”
Ned trailed off, struggling with a piece of flint, and Kell’s gaze drifted from the half-charred logs in the hearth to the unlit lanterns scattered on tabletops and hung from ceiling beams. He sighed, and then, either because he was feeling cold or indulgent, he snapped his fingers; the fire in the hearth burst to life, and Ned staggered back as it crackled with the bluish-white light of enchanted flames before settling into the yellows and reds of more ordinary fire.
One by one, the lanterns began to glow as well, and Ned straightened and turned, taking in the spreading light of the self-igniting lamps as if Kell had summoned the stars themselves into his tavern.
He made a sound, a sharp intake of breath, and his eyes went wide: not with fear, or even surprise, but with adoration. With awe. There was something to the man’s unguarded fascination, his unbridled delight at the display, that reminded Kell of the old king. His heart ached. He’d once taken the Enthusiast’s interest as hunger, greed, but perhaps he’d been mistaken. He was nothing like the new King George. No, Ned had the childlike intensity of someone who wanted the world to be stranger than it was, someone who thought they could believe magic into being.
Ned reached out and rested his hand on one of the lanterns. “It’s warm,” he whispered.
“Fire generally is,” said Kell, surveying the place. With the infusion of light, he could see that while the outside had stayed the same, inside the Five Points was a different place entirely.
Curtains had been draped from the ceiling in dark swaths, rising and falling above the tables, which were arranged like spokes on a wheel. Black patterns had been drawn—no, burned—into the wooden tabletops, and Kell guessed they were meant to be symbols of power—though some looked like Ned’s tattoo, vaguely distorted, while others looked entirely made up.
The Stone’s Throw had always been a place of magic, but the Five Points looked like one. Or at least, like a child’s idea of one.
There was an air of mystery, of performance, and as Ned shrugged out of his overcoat, Kell saw that he was wearing a black high-collared shirt with glossy onyx buttons. A necklace at his throat bore a five-pointed star, and Kell wondered if that was where the tavern had gotten its name, until he saw the drawing framed on the wall. It was a schematic of the box Kell had had with him when he and Ned first met. The element game with its five grooves.
Fire, water, earth, air, bone.
Kell frowned. The diagram was shockingly accurate, down to the grain in the wood. He heard the sound of clinking glasses and saw Ned behind the counter, pulling bottles from the wall. He poured two draughts of something dark, and held one out in offering.
For a moment, Kell thought of Barron. The bartender had been as broad as Ned was narrow, as gruff as the youth was exuberant. But he’d been as much a part of this place as the wood and stone, and he was dead because of Holland. Because of Kell.
“Master Kell?” pressed Ned, still holding out the glass.
He knew he should be going, but he found himself approaching the counter, willing the stool out a few inches before he sat down.
Show-off, said a voice in his head, and maybe it was right, but the truth was, it had been so long since anyone had looked at him the way Ned did now.
Kell took up the drink. “What is it you want to show me, Ned?”
The man beamed at the use of the nickname. “Well, you see,” he said, drawing a box from beneath the bar, “I’ve been practicing.” He set the box on the counter, flicked open the lid, and drew out a smaller parcel from within. Kell had his glass halfway to his lips when he saw what Ned was holding, and promptly set the drink down. It was an element set, just like the one Kell had traded here four months ago. No, it was the same exact element set, from the dark wood sides down to the little bronze clasp.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“Well, I bought it.” Ned set the magician’s board reverently on the counter between them, and slid the clasp, letting the board unfold to reveal the five elements in their grooves. “From that gentleman you sold it to. Wasn’t easy, but we came to an agreement.”
Great, thought Kell, his mood suddenly cooling. The only thing worse than an ordinary Enthusiast was a wealthy one.
“I tried to make my own,” Ned continued. “But it wasn’t the same, I’ve never been much good with that kind of thing, you should have seen the chicken scratch of that drawing, before I hired—”
“Focus,” said Kell, sensing that Ned could wander down mental paths all night.
“Right,” he said, “so, what I wanted to show you”—he cracked his knuckles dramatically—“was this.”