“Man isn’t quite the word for it,” a familiar voice cut in. Mayor Spade himself had emerged from the doorway at the end of the hall.
The mayor wore a canary yellow waistcoat and a coffee brown bow tie. He stumbled as he stepped out, sending his spectacles sliding down his nose, and he nudged them back up. Spade might have been the least intimidating figure in the room, incarcerated grandmothers included. If one were to vandalize the portrait of a slightly stocky twelve-year-old boy by erasing his hair and scribbling in a beard, one would have produced a reasonable likeness of Mayor Philip Spade.
“It took us some time to coax the whole of it out of him,” he continued, puffing out his chest proudly, “but we got the job done. Hello, Detective. Glad you could finally join us. I was beginning to wonder if my telegrams were going astray.”
“I read the first few,” said Jackaby. “I’ve instructed my duck to just file the rest directly under P. I left it to him to decide if that was for politics or paranoia.”
“No need for that,” Spade said, bristling. “Turns out we were right all along, weren’t we? You might have saved us a lot of trouble if you had lent us your assistance sooner.”
“I don’t think you need my assistance to rough up innocent people.”
“Oh, don’t worry. We let the people go,” Spade said.
Jackaby did not reply.
“Oh, come off it. Really. You and I are marching under the same banner, Detective. We’ve made a few mistakes, to be sure, but we’re correcting as we go. I am making New Fiddleham safe again.” He squared his jaw.
Jackaby looked unimpressed. “For whom?”
“For us!” Spade insisted. “For people!”
“There are at least a dozen sentient species represented in this chamber—so what gives you authority to decide which ones get to be considered people?”
“This is nothing,” said Spade, his eyes twinkling. “You should see what we’ve got locked up in the animal control office.”
“Mayor Spade,” Jackaby began. He took a deep breath. “Philip. This is wrong.”
The mayor frowned. “Thanks very much for your consultation, Detective. I will take that under advisement.”
“You can’t—”
“You only think I can’t!” Spade burst out. Beneath his beard, Spade’s cheeks flushed. His eyes narrowed and he readjusted his spectacles. “You’ve built a life out of thinking I can’t! You want a pat on the back and a nice reward every time you swat a bee for us, but all the while you’ve let the hornets build their nest in our eaves. I won’t sit around waiting for you to play hero any more, Detective. You’ve been telling me for years that there are things hiding in the shadows of my city. Well, I believe you. I have found the things in the shadows, Mr. Jackaby, and now I’m the one turning on the lights!”
“Don’t be asinine, Spade! You romanticize fighting oddlings the same way you romanticize a holiday in Spain. You make it sound like this grand exotic adventure—right up until you’re there, complaining about the food and watching your neighbors hang their unmentionables on the line. They’re just people!”
“Except they’re not people! We’re talking about magical creatures! Dangerous, unpredictable magical creatures, here in the real world!”
“Magic is just magic!” Jackaby threw up his hands. “It’s not inherently special or strange or dangerous! It’s everywhere! It’s already all around you! If just being magical meant that something was dangerous, you’d have long since been killed by a butterfly, or a bubble, or an apple turnover.”
“Those things aren’t magical.”
“Of course they’re magical! Argh! You infuriating man! If a unicorn came and sat in the corner of your office every day, then by the end of the year you’d be hanging your coat on its horn. There is magic in your life! Not appreciating it does not make it any less magical. Yes, some of that magic is dangerous, but so are scissors and electricity and politics—and plenty of other completely human inventions!”
Spade’s voice grew quiet, which somehow had the effect of magnifying his intensity. “Don’t presume to lecture me, Detective. Redcaps. Werewolves. Dragons. I know very well that there are monsters in New Fiddleham. My wife was one of them. How many people did you let that nixie murder before you captured her?”
Jackaby considered this soberly for a moment. “Fight the monsters, then, Philip. Don’t fight the innocent bystanders who happen to come from the same place. You’re not afraid of magic, not really. You’re just afraid of what you don’t understand—and too stubborn to try understanding.”
“I understand more and more, Detective,” Spade hissed. “I know very well what I’m fighting.”
“Do you really? Because based on this detainment facility, you appear to be winning the battle against bakers and mathematics teachers. What exactly do you think you’re fighting? Biscuits and geometry?”
“What I’m fighting,” hissed Spade, “is a war!”
The detention hall had gone eerily silent. Jackaby shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“This is war, Mr. Jackaby—make no mistake—and you find yourself dangerously close to the wrong side of it.” Spade’s voice had taken on a cold edge. “If you care at all about humanity, then stand with me.”
Jackaby turned his gaze to the crowded cells, and then back to the mayor, his eyes rimmed more with regret than rage. “It is for the sake of our humanity that I stand against you.”
Spade and Jackaby stood facing each other in tense silence for several seconds. At length, the mayor straightened his waistcoat and fixed Jackaby with his steeliest glare. “I’ll be watching you very closely, Detective.”
“I do hope so, Mayor.” Jackaby nodded politely and spun on his heel. “You might actually learn something if you do.”
Chapter Six
Jackaby did not speak as we left the building. We were three or four blocks away from the station house when Lydia Lee caught up to us, the coach rattling and clinking and the dappled gray horse stamping its hooves impatiently on the cobblestones. Miss Lee managed to convince the Duke to clop to a halt just ahead of us, and my employer climbed into the carriage wordlessly.
Miss Lee gave me an inquisitive look, but Jackaby finally broke his silence before I could explain. “Don’t bother with niceties. Take me home, Miss Lee.” He thought for a moment. “I’m going to need you to go to jail for me afterward.”
“That is the second time a man’s said those words to me,” she replied gamely. “Although the last time I got flowers and a dance first, if memory serves.”
“Bail,” amended Jackaby as Miss Lee hopped back into the driver’s box.
“They usually do, in the end,” she said, sighing.
“What? Listen, I have a jar of banknotes in my office earmarked for bail. I’ll bring it out to you as soon as we arrive. I need you to bring it to the processing officer at the Mason Street Station. He’ll sort out the paperwork. Just sign where he tells you to. Ask for Alton.”
“Allan,” I corrected.