Kady and Aidan both caught Myra as she stumbled in the darkness of the safe house. Still unused to traveling via kinetics—leastways by herself—it took a moment for the room to stop its wobble.
“I’m all right,” Myra assured her friends as she waved off their assistance. She looked about, noting hazy motes of dust suspended in shafts of light that crisscrossed the upper-story room. She had not yet been to this haven. She could happily have lived without ever having been.
The windows were haphazardly shuttered from the inside with a slap-dash method similar to that of the boards which had gated the door to the other safe house. But that building had been in a suspect end of town. Myra had been under the impression that this was the respectable sanctuary, something of Laurel’s that she still kept for sentimental reasons.
Must be a long ago sentiment. Myra sniffed, shuffling her feet on the dusty exposed boards. And not a stick of furniture. The plan to wait here until the chime of the next hour looked bleaker by the second.
“It’s the attic, Myra.” Aidan turned his eyes to beams that converged into a lofted ceiling. “Old servants’ quarters long unused.”
Oh. Myra tried to ignore Kady’s smirk and failed. Somewhere a diminutive squeaking indicated the passing of a mouse. Hopefully it lived in the walls, but with a space like this one could never be sure. Again, Myra eyed the floor, praying for the bell that would signal Stephen’s arrival below.
The promised sign came, and the three mages dashed down the stairs, quietly but quickly. It seemed that Myra was not the only one loathe to linger in the long-unused space. And she had had to wait the least amount of time.
Aidan opened the door to Stephen, ushering him in but standing so as to remain largely out of sight from any passersby. The ord entered, lugging with him a curious contraption. From the way his shoulders hunched, it looked heavy, whatever it was. Myra opened her mouth to ask and received a small shake of the head from Aidan. The instructions had been to remain mostly silent while in the main floor. Laurel’s safe house apparently had nosy neighbors that she could not shake.
Not that Myra and Stephen felt the need to regale Kady and Aidan with the details of their time at DMI. There would be an opportunity for everyone to hear the news over dinner. Myra was curious to hear what he had learned. And where he had gotten that odd metal box. It looked like a cross between a sewing machine and a safe. And heavy enough to be either.
At length Stephen satisfied Myra’s curiosity, leaning forward to whisper, “Typewriter.”
No more explanation was offered, and Myra nodded sagely, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. Small smiles passed through the group, a ripple that quickly died.
Taking care not to leave telling creases on the sheeted furniture, the foursome sat and waited. Myra found it rather funny. And kind. Kady could easily travel back to Grafford House with both Myra and Aidan. It was Stephen who must travel by carriage, not them—by foot was presumably out of the question now that he was hauling such hardware. Hopefully he had managed such an arrangement.
But it was nice to sit and do nothing for once. Myra, of course, relived her discoveries, pondering again Julius Griggs’ absence, her eyes on the typewriter that called to mind all too easily the man’s inventions. Perhaps it was something of his! A delighted shiver broke over Myra’s skin at this thought.
Six o’clock. Aidan and Kady winked from sight. Myra was slower to follow suit, first meeting Stephen’s eyes. He turned, bending to laboriously hoist the typewriter into his arms. Myra revised her comparison once again. The thing looked like an anvil. But it did make for the perfect excuse for Stephen to be slow with the doors, slow to enter the carriage. She and her invisible companions made their way with ease.
They alighted in the mews out back of Grafford House. Kady was the first to drop her invisibility, immediately turning to offer Stephen help with his typewriter. Aidan and Myra got the door to the house.
Never before had the warm lamplights of the grand old home seemed so welcoming. They burned away the shadows that had begun to gather ’round Myra’s heart. Imagining secret messages from Julius hidden within, she eyed Stephen’s typewriter. But first, refreshment. Her stomach rumbled in agreement, annoyed to have been forgotten for so long a time. To think that they had missed tea!
Luckily, of late dinner had become less a utilitarian affair and now came marked by resplendent feasting. With the larger table, it only seemed fitting that they might gather for greater length and in as high of spirits as they might achieve. Multiple courses and expensive ingredients pleased both plate and palate. Stephen, Myra found, had refined tastes and a skill at cookery which surpassed his companions. He also could afford such.
“Any why not invest so in the entertaining of one’s diet?” Stephen had exclaimed heartily at one point, laughing in the face of James’ protestations. “We live not long in this line of work, and I have no progeny. I’ve tasted death and found it bitter, and my tongue cries out for succor!”
“He said that even before we thought him dead,” Robert had explained. “Never could abide my austerity of living, could that one.”
Myra had scoffed. This from a man with a private club and waistline that indicated excess. But if Stephen chose to spend his largesse thus, who was she to judge? Since Stephen’s return to M.I., he had taken it upon himself to act as sole proprietor of the Grafford House kitchen—including clean up! Myra considered it a small blessing that she no longer need take her turn at preparing a meal and thus expose her friends to her still-shocking lack of skill and judgment therein. She could imagine that Stephen’s reaction to anything she might dare serve was likely to be five times worse than any tongue-lashing from James.
But today Stephen had been out and a feast had still been managed. Sitting down to table, Myra wondered who had orchestrated such. Her eyes fell to James. He looked altogether too pleased with himself to be a mere partaker in the repast.
It was Stephen who spoke first, his mission at DMI having been the plainer one. In the contrast between his discoveries and Myra’s they hoped to realize something akin to the actual truth.
Stephen’s report was simple. He had not been allowed to advance past that first corridor. Mr. Black had made appearance after all, coming along once Myra had left to snoop upstairs. Apparently he had taken custodianship of Stephen’s typewriter and was loathe to give it up. And apparently Stephen had been blunt with his questions, receiving blunt answers for his honesty.
All evidence of Addair’s machine: gone without a trace. The very records of who had been present for the Flameists’ slaughter: expunged—along with those detailing the tenancy of the lost party and surrounding. The entire block—those not decimated by the explosion—had been turned out and relocated. They who had suffered loss of property and worse in the gas detonation simply disappeared, and with such folks having much on their minds, they were not particularly missed in the confused rebuilding and resettling of the street.
“So he’s a traitor then. Shoulda known from the first,” James passed judgment. Heads bent to dinner plates. Robert passed the salt to Kady. Myra was not certain as to how such a blatant cover-up of violence and treachery whetted one’s appetite. But there they were.
By “he,” James meant Griggs, no doubt. After all, he had gone silent, and then DMI had grown chillier than ever to the former agents. Julius’ necklace lay heavy against Myra’s skin, the metal hot with her guilt. She waited for her turn to speak, wondering if her discoveries in the first story of the Department offices damned the ord further still.
Myra noted Benjamin looking at her, his eyes on the pendant she hadn’t realized she fingered with an idle hand. Silent protest. Benjamin understood the import. He had helped fan that flame, written those silly letters.
Benjamin. Compassionate, curious Benjamin who sat at Myra’s side—both figuratively and literally—in these trying times. He was an enigma to her still, as impenetrable as Aidan and Kady were transparent. They huddled together, a team within the larger team of M.I. Disgusting. Sweet. And altogether enviable.
James and Stephen, too. And yet, to Myra’s gift, a rift stood between them, some quarrel she could not name nor even properly see. Blinding bright, Steve and James danced upon the fringe of each other’s regard, a careful safe distance balanced against terrible passion. Not even extraordinary measures in the kitchen on James’ part could do much against such.
Perhaps it had something to do with Steve’s lost gift? If so, how dare James be so callous. Robert, Laurel, Aidan, they’d all had trouble adjusting to the new reality within which Stephen operated, sometimes with melancholy, oftentimes with humor and grace. The absence remained, an un-being that lived as a ghost in their midst. Perhaps, like Robert’s infirmity, they would come to terms. But how quickly and at what cost? Stephen and James’ careful maneuvering—after experiencing what their kiss had done to her gift, it pained Myra to see it. And that with her barely understanding such.
Laurel was absent again. It reduced their company by one and forced Myra nearer to Kady by merit of their being the only two women present.
It was unsurprising. Laurie had been doing it a lot of late, said disappearing. And not to her rooms, either. Myra checked.
“Following a lead” was often the simple explanation given. Recalling the truth of Laurel’s condition, learned upon her first trip to the DMI offices, Myra did not believe it. And yet, it was truth. Sometimes, at least. For Aidan had confirmed it on the occasions where Kady went with her.
Ways-walking. Jealousy smarted for Myra. She, too, had the talent to walk the OtherLands. Why not take her as well? Was she an agent or no?
“Good of you to join us.”
As though conjured by Myra’s thoughts, Laurel entered the dining room. The mage glared her disapproval at James’ cool greeting and made to sit between him and Stephen. Each obliged by shifting to make room.
“Thank you,” Laurel bestowed her graceful response and turned to beckon a chair with her magic.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, swaying ever so slightly and clutching the table with hard fingers. Stephen was on his feet in an instant, offering his chair and grasping Laurie’s elbow to steady her.
Laurel waved off the assistance. “I’m fine. Just tired. Thank you.”
“You look fine,” James’ response was carefully callous but his face carried the evidence of having feared—and feared deeply—for Laurel’s safety.
Laurel’s eyes flashed angrily. “Don’t you start—!”
“Such a martyr.” James pushed back from the table. He wiped his mouth viciously and threw down his napkin. “But don’t—not for one second—think that I care what happens. That I’ll go looking after you when something befalls you. When. Not if.”
He rose, addressing the table, “We’ve few enough of us as it is. I’m not about to go sparing one of you so that—” Jaw working, James fixed his eyes back on his napkin and then, gently folding it, he laid it back over the plate and gave a small bow. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He exited the dining room, leaving seven astonished faces in his wake.
Laurel was first to recover, turning to follow and crying, “James—”
“Leave him.” Steve’s hand resumed its grasp on Laurel’s elbow. He deftly steered her into James’ abandoned chair. “You must eat. Aidan?”
At this last, five pairs of curious eyes turned to the Maester of Triewes. Aidan did not respond, taking the opportunity to fill his fork and shove its contents into his mouth.
“Eat,” he instructed through the mouthful, ignoring Stephen’s question.
Or had he? Myra felt Aidan’s anger from where she sat in shock. He had pondered Stephen’s query and found answer . . . even if he kept it for himself.
James had meant it. Had meant every word. The bastard.
Suppressing a shiver, Myra turned her eyes to her own plate, a temporary escape. The news from the Department that she was to impart now seemed of little importance. They had to see to themselves first.
Another screech of a chair on the floor drew everyone’s attention once more. Stephen rose to his feet, throwing down his napkin. “Excuse me.” He left without further explanation. Laurel followed a half a moment later.
Without James, Stephen, or Laurel present, there was no point in Myra’s telling the team what had transpired in her clandestine snooping in the DMI offices. They agreed, instead, to meet in the library in half an hour’s time. And while Myra was, herself, shaken by the very public argument between Laurel and James—and, to some extent, Stephen—no one else seemed to share her sentiments. Perhaps her Empathy was overplaying things. In any event, such would never have been tolerated at her house.
She sought out the three absent mages upon dinner’s conclusion. The dishes could wash themselves. Oh wait, they did.
Myra’s ill-humor melted into curiosity as she neared the library. A strange, metallic chunk-chunk came from within the room. Stephen sat before a roaring fire, tapping at his typewriter. He did not look up as she entered.
Myra crept forward, fearful of disturbing him at work. A large desk held the machine, and its lid had been opened to reveal four rows of keys. A sheet of paper stuck out of the top, wrapped around a large black roll positioned to hold it in place against the levers that stamped the letters onto the page.
“It’s beautiful,” Myra said.
“It ought to be. ’Tis a Sholes.” Still Stephen did not look up. The fury he had carried with him from the dining table translated into the force with which he struck the keys.
Myra sat in a nearby armchair, content to watch and wishing she could use her gift to soothe him. She supposed that the mechanical hammering at his piece of paper could be therapy enough.
“You want to ease my black mood.” Stephen chuckled, pushing back from the typewriter to hold his arms behind his head and stare up at the ceiling. “Harder on my lot, isn’t it?”
Nonplussed, Myra silently acknowledged the difference. What she wanted to talk about was Laurel and James. Which reminded her . . .
“So, they were saying that you had a theory about me. About my powers, really,” Myra amended.
“Not a theory. A hunch,” Stephen corrected. He settled further into his chair and raised his hands as if to steeple his fingers. He stopped short, looking puzzled as though he, too, believed the gesture would look out of place on him. Again, Myra’s natural empathy rose within her. He was incredibly ill-at-ease with teaching. “A theory is more developed, has breadth and design. I merely postulated that, considering the rest of the Major magics, there ought be the possibility of a lesser mage exhibiting the powers of empathy.”
“Major magics?”
“Retrocognition. Thymesis. Apportation. Prescience. Ways-walking . . . to name a few. Major magics. The gifts.” At Myra’s blank stare, he continued, “As opposed to the Minor magics. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
Stephen slapped his hand to his forehead, groaning dramatically, “What are they teaching you in this house? Basics. You need the basics.”
Myra rushed to defend James and the rest, “The first day I was here, I asked. There was talk of lesser mages having one gift amongst the many. So it was not ignored.”
Stephen snorted, flat rejection of Myra’s clumsy defense. “You know, then, the shape of magic; what makes something a Major or a Minor Arcana; what constitutes a gift. No?”
Myra shook her head, both dumbfounded and excited. It was theory, to be sure. The dullest part of learning, and yet she was drawn to it. It was active in a way some of her other lessons had not been.
Stephen leaned forward, eyes alight. “The magic within a mage. It has shape, it is a thing as tangible as heart or liver, yet no being has ever seen it. It is like that which makes our lungs continue to draw and expel air, like the thought that allows us to walk, to talk, to move.” He lifted an arm in illustration, staring at it contemplatively for an instant before letting it drop. “It is muscle, bone, sinew, and spirit.”
“And only mages have it.”
“Only mages have it, yes, Myra.” Stephen nodded. “The why and the how, much like the mystery of the extent of magic’s form, is unsolved. Currently, the main belief is that the trait—much like mismatched eyes or a malformed organ—is inherited.”
Myra had a thought, dismissed it roughly. Alice.
No, there was no chance any of her family was magic in some way, not with how they had treated her gift. Myra remembered Agent Black’s questions to James with regards to Laurel. “Mages make mages . . .”
Stephen blanched at her words. “Yes, Myra. That is true. True also is how, with the Dampening, no more full wizards are being born. And that is how we get an alignment of one Major Arcana per lesser mage. A full magus has the freedom to learn and develop the skill to perform higher magics of all sorts—generally choosing a specialty or two to focus on. Like building up a muscle, channeling and shaping their magic to the exclusion of other Major magics but without the limit of permanence. Such a wizard can choose to change themselves later on, pick a different Major Arcana, remake their art and gift.
“Whereas a lesser mage has the direction of their Arcana, their gift, picked for them. Stuck. Permanent. And permanently ‘turned on’ . . . Like a full mage, they can work to learn and perform other Minor magics, but the Major gifts are a series of locked doors. The shape of their magic is fixed.”
“Like that malformed liver—”
“—or mismatched eyes. Yes, Myra.”
“And all—full or lesser—are subject to Violectric Dampening.” Myra lowered her gaze, remembering Stephen’s current state.
He nodded. “Addair suspected that there was something in the human body, specifically, that acted as conduit to the magic within, a weakness built into ourselves which electricity resonates with in a detrimental fashion. But that’s all something for another time, perhaps.”
Muffled voices could be heard through the open door of the library. James and Laurel’s argument, exposed by the silence in the wake of Stephen’s having ceased his typing. Myra could now understand why he had chosen that activity in particular upon exiting the dining room.
Stephen seemed to sense Myra’s dismay and met it head on. “We were talking about Laurel, Myra, yes?”
Myra blushed, striking boldly, “Laurel. And James. What’s their deal?”
“Deal?” It was Stephen’s turn to be nonplussed. Or, perhaps, he was simply amused. “That’s just how those two are. How their friendship works.”
“What do you mean? Doesn’t he—?” Myra looked from Stephen to the argument-amplifying doorway. “He’s the father of her child, right? Doesn’t that mean he loves her?”
Again, pain crossed Stephen’s face. “After a fashion, sure. But not the usual way. I mean, it’s hard to develop that sort of thing when you have limited options before you. You feel trapped.”
Limited options. Myra could tell Stephen wanted to say more but wasn’t sure he ought.
Reluctant and politely mandatory pause complete, he continued, “Wizardry, as you might have guessed, is not exactly the most genteel of callings. And neither is spy-craft. Which makes for limited options in courting if you wish to be even remotely honest about yourself.”
Again, a pause, this one hard. Personal. Myra remembered the kiss between Stephen and James upon the night of his return to the team. She’d seen and experienced that love—albeit secondhand through her gift. But then why had James and Laurel conceived? Laurie was far enough along that such would have happened before they believed Stephen dead.
“A shared past, mutual dangers faced, can provide a closeness that might otherwise be absent between friends. That, my dear Empathic, is the base of their regard for one another. Which makes their duty more palatable.” Stephen found a way out of his discomfort enough for him to give a wry smile.
“Duty.”
The question must have been writ on Myra’s face where words fell short, for Stephen chuckled and elaborated, “As you yourself have said, the gift of magic is—to some extent—hereditary. James therefore believed it his obligation to combine his and Laurel’s bloodlines in hopes of providing M.I. with its next generation.”
Oh! There was no hiding the shock that crossed Myra’s face. And in any event, she wasn’t sure she would have wanted to. To so casually talk of such things crossed so many lines of propriety. She actually hoped that her judgment showed. As well as her prudish surprise.
But Stephen was not to be judged so easily. He waved off Myra’s puritanical pout with a broad smile. “Come, we cannot all afford—”
“Good to have it back then, Stephen? I had told James he needed to go collect it.” Laurel’s presence robbed Stephen of what he had been about to say. Turning first white then red with embarrassment, he closed the lid on his typewriter, covering the keys with a metallic clang. Apparently such lapses in propriety were not something that happened around just anyone in the house.
Laurel approached the table, and Myra wondered if she looked as guilty as Stephen. James and Laurel? Lovers out of duty alone? Stephen and James—their romantic entanglement put aside for duty to crown and country. That explained a lot about dour and impassioned James James.
Stephen seemed eager to make his escape, muttering something about “going to check on James” before disappearing through the still-open door. Myra hadn’t time to process the new dynamic before Aidan, Robert, and the rest all filed into the room. It was time for her to give report.
She began, telling how she had slipped upstairs unnoticed, intent on Brackenbury’s offices at Stephen’s signal. Myra confessed how, rather than going straight there, she instead made for Griggs’ office, finding it empty—
“What the devil is he up to now?” Robert strode straight past Myra, eyes drawn to the abandoned typewriter with its white sheet of paper covered in neat print. She watched as Robert’s gaze swept back and forth, rapidly taking in the contents of Stephen’s abandoned rant. His brow grew dark, eyes graying with the oncoming storm of his anger.
“Robert—” Laurel half-rose, as if to intervene.
But it was too late. For Robert had torn the half-finished article from the machine. Crumpling the page, he waved it about. “Look at this! Accusations. Insurgent commentary not fit for print! ’S not like him. Not like him at all. Why would James let Steve write such incendiary garbage?”
He fed it to the eager fire, growling, “He’s not careful he’ll end up in Broadmoor like Maclean.”
“Broadmoor!” Myra hadn’t meant to shout the word but there it was. Five curious pairs of eyes turned her way. For a long moment nobody moved. Well, at least I finally got everyone’s attention.
It was Ben who broke the spell. “What was that?”
“Broadmoor,” Myra breathed, seeking Aidan’s face. Blank unrecognition. Kady stood at his side, equally puzzled. Something to do with the British agents, then, she concluded, turning back to Benjamin for answer.
He was still looking at Myra as though she had grown two heads. “You’ve— Have you been?”
“I’m sorry. What?” Myra revised her initial impression. He wasn’t looking at her with stunned surprise so much as fear. She gave him the barest shake of her head. Benjamin’s wand was out. Not threatening. But . . . insurance.
Guilt hit her from the side, an attack on her Empathy that rang almost physical. Myra again darted her eyes to Aidan. He, too, had his wand out.
It was pointed at her.