Gabe opened the door to his office at half-nine, carrying a basket. Isobel was already settled at her desk, tucked into the corner. It was a good-sized room, at least. He was sure Mason and Witt had helped him land in an office that not only had its own attached workroom, but plenty of room for him to pace. It was convenient when he had apprentices, as there was space for them as well without crowding anything.
“Happy birthday, Isobel.” He deposited the basket on her desk with a flourish. “A variety of things to amuse and delight and educate.” He gestured. “I’d invite you out to Veritas for supper, but it’s Diwali starting Thursday. Come out on Saturday, like you did last year, but we’ll find another time for a birthday supper?” She came out to Veritas every fortnight or so, for a meal that wasn’t out of the apprentice refectory, and a chance to get outside in the country, pet a cat or two, and see what new books Gabe and his parents had acquired.
Isobel glanced over, smiling, before she was distracted in peering at the basket. “Thank you! I enjoyed it last year. All the lights and the colours and the patterns.” It was one of the festivals Rathna - and now the rest of the family - made a point of celebrating. A bit more light and joy and abundance in the world never did any harm, was how Gabe’s mother put it. Gabe dropped his own bag by his desk, scribbling a note to Rathna and his parents and his father’s secretary before he forgot.
“Go on, open the rest of it.” He settled in his chair, leaning his chin in his hands. At the top was a small tin, with biscuits, Isobel’s favourite from Cook. Below that, though... First, she pulled out the small wooden case, and then the books, below. He watched her blink at the books, thumbing through a couple of pages, before she glanced up at him. “One from Rathna, one from Mama, one from Papa, one from Aunt Mason, and one from Aunt Witt. You know we want to keep building up your library.”
It was an interesting trick, making sure she had the resources to excel in a way she wouldn’t become prickly about. Gift-giving occasions were very convenient that way. Gabe had instituted three: her birthday, winter solstice, and the anniversary of her apprenticeship since it fell in early June. The arrangement was that on those days, she wouldn’t worry that what they’d found for her was too much. His, now, he expected she’d squawk about, but it was well past time. And if the new assignment went as he expected, she’d need them.
She pulled the case over, running her fingers over wood polished smooth as silk and made of good solid British oak. Then she opened the latch, then the lid. Her eyes went wide, her fingers simultaneously opening to push it away, and then contracting to draw it closer.
“You should have a set of your own. More so, after yesterday.” He knew exactly what she was seeing. The box held a set of working stones laid out each in its place, with the little delicate wood tool to use them. They weren’t all gem quality, but a wider selection than she’d used before unless she’d borrowed Gabe’s.
“I can’t. This is...” He could hear the vowels broaden, the way her voice changed when her control slipped enough.
“It is my responsibility to see that you have all the tools you need for your apprenticeship. And you’re going to need them.” Gabe flicked his hand, palm up. “You haven’t asked about yesterday.”
“I know better.” She swivelled in her chair, tucking a foot under her other leg, covered by her split skirt. Just as quickly, she’d gathered herself up. It was one of the things Gabe liked most about Isobel, her swiftness.
“We’ve been handed a tremendous task. Me, you. Half a dozen support staff to start. Likely two secretaries and typists and four analysts, plus an alchemist, but Witt’s still sorting out the precise details.” He’d stopped there on the way in, of course.
Isobel nodded, then pulled a notebook over. “And what will we be doing?”
“There’s magic moving in the world, in new ways and in old ones. It’s our jobs to figure out what’s going on, the moving pieces, and which ones we need to worry about.” Gabe felt his finger twitch. He wasn’t making light of it, exactly, but he knew he was skimming the surface here. He was also sure Isobel would call him on it. Rathna, last night, had looked at him, and left it for later. Tonight or tomorrow, probably.
Isobel tilted her head. “And that means what, exactly?” Gabe, despite himself, smiled.
“That’s the first question. On the one hand, we have what Albion is doing in the war. Much of that we know, can find out, or can approximate. Not least because I know a great many people, and a number of them can be provoked into being usefully informative.” Isobel snorted at that as Gabe went on.
“But there are a number of groups interested in bringing magical and ritual practices to bear, who are not of Albion. The old lore might or might not be relevant, Bran’s head and Vortimer’s parts buried at the ports to prevent invasion. And who knows? Some of their magic might work - the gods, such as they are, are outside the Pact, after all.”
Isobel’s pencil twitched, and she made a couple of notes before looking up. “And the other workings?”
“Might work, might fail, might cause difficulties for the rest of us. We care about that last one most, but all three might be relevant.” Gabe spread his hands.
“That already seems like work for an army of analysts, not half a dozen people.” Isobel had it right.
“We are what there is. We can call on experts, as we see fit, and that apparently includes anyone on the Council. So if we do need to arrange a proper negotiation with the Fatae, it is within the grounds of possibility.” Mind, he really desperately wanted to talk to Alexander about that part of things, about what the range of potential even looked like. It was one of those topics the Council never discussed, and Gabe had only theories and wisps of intuition to work with.
Isobel glanced up at him again and made several more notes. When she looked up more steadily, he went on. “And then there’s whatever Germany is doing that might need to be countered. There are already discussions about an agency on the British side, non-magical, to counter some of that in propaganda, if nothing else. Astrologers and ritualists and all that. I have a source who might be able to get some information about who’s in the midst of that, and whether they’re competent.” Gabe had no idea who Geoffrey Carillon reported to, when he was doing Intelligence work. But he knew there was someone, and that they could likely arrange a bit of useful information.
Isobel scribbled half a dozen things, paused, and added three more. “And? There’s something else you’re not saying.”
There it was. Gabe wasn’t even sure how she’d figured it out, except that she was as gifted with those flashes of knowing as he was. It was why she’d apprenticed with him. Him and not someone else, that was. The Penelopes had decided that she was skilled at the stubborn, gruelling application of time and focus. What she needed was the example of Gabe’s bolts of inspiration and the internal self-assurance to follow through on her own. Applied diligence was the kind of thing Gabe could do when it suited him, but had never been able to sustain if he got bored. It was, however, good for him to have a model of what that could do, sitting there and arguing back.
He respected how she’d stuck with it, reshaping herself over and over again to be what was needed. Much the same way Rathna had, and quite possibly more deliberately and consciously. He wanted, more than anything, to make sure that work paid off, that it gave her the gifts and joy and blessing she richly deserved.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. Just that there’s something deep here, something with layers that I don’t understand. Implications. You’ve seen enough code work, now, that it’s not just deciphering the words, it’s figuring out what they mean in this context, what the connotation is. It’s going to be dangerous, but I don’t know in which ways it will bring danger. Just...”
Just that sense of a flash, of something sharp and unknown. It could be a scythe or a knife or the flash of a snake’s fang, or something else entirely. That was the bloody annoying thing about intuition and symbol. Sometimes a knife was a knife and sometimes it was a hint of something else entirely. It was like that shiver he’d felt, when they first laid out the project, and it nagged at him that he didn’t know what he was feeling or where it came from.
Isobel hesitated. “How do we start, then?”
“That’s why I’m going to be working late tonight, and tomorrow, and - well, I’ll be home and out of the office for Diwali, but reading things there, too, most likely.” He let out a long breath. “The other part of it is, Rathna has a lead on something important. And if she can pull it together, and things there don’t utterly collapse, she’s likely to be on the Continent come spring.”
Isobel let out a low, fierce whistle. “Both of you. All right. Where do I come in?”
Gabe considered. “We’re going to need to go to a number of places, and play a number of roles, most likely. We can get you identity papers that will suit, but you’re going to need the right sorts of clothing and backgrounds prepared.”
“To match you or something else?” There was a flip of a page, and more scribbling in her notes.
“Both. I’m well enough known that I can’t pass for something entirely different. Minor aristocrat, known to have an interest in wildlife, and such, married an Indian woman, very progressive or questionable, depending on your politics.” Rathna had come to enough lectures with him, and they certainly knew a number of people in London. “We may need to send you off on your own. Charming innocence, that can play very well with some of the esoteric orders. A niece, maybe, where I’d take an interest, but not direct family.”
“How likely is it that they’re going to want to do something untoward?” Isobel wasn’t the duellist Gabe was - few people were - but she could hold her own in a number of situations. She had a deftness with boot, knee, and applied charms that went a long way.
“Depends on the group. We’ll talk through all of it before we send you off to do anything, but I want you to do the background reading on a lot of them. And then work out how to keep it all straight. Which ones are some splinter of the Golden Dawn, or the Rosicrucians, or who took some sliver of the Theosophists sideways, or - well, there are still some spiritualists active who aren’t scams, them too. They all have their own jargon, and you need to be able to pass for someone interested.”
“We’re going to need a cork board. A big one.” There was a space on the wall they could mount one; they had before, though it blocked half the window.
“If you’d go sort that when we’re done here?” Gabe tapped his fingers. “I want you to pick up training in the Guard salle again. I’ll ask who would be best right now.” Kate Lefton might do, and if not, she’d know who would. There was a trick in it, for someone like Isobel, who had to rely on swiftness and cleverness, rather than strength and bulk.
“And the projects we were working on?” Isobel pulled over a notebook to peer at it. “There was that set of warding, the safe and the room. That potentially cursed bracelet. And that tracing for the Guard.”
“Loft’s got the Guard work. I’ve an appointment to talk it through with her this afternoon. And I think we’ve given as much as we can to the other two. Doyle had a thought about the curse, or rather if it’s not a curse, what it might be. I ran into Althorpe on the way in. She wants my thoughts on a bit of materia work, plan to sit in on that.” He glanced at his watch. “An hour from now, she said she’d come here.”
Isobel nodded, scratching a few notes to herself. Then she leaned back. “Before we get entirely distracted, what should I tell my parents? My brothers and sisters?”
“We’ll be on research for a bit, yet. A few weeks, at least. But there will probably be field work, sooner than later.” He hesitated. “Here’s the thing. There are verified reports of the Wild Hunt riding at the start of the war.” Early September, that had been. “Quiet enough I hadn’t heard of it. The Council’s getting us the full details, but I gather it may take a few days.”
Isobel frowned. “That’s. That’s out of season.” There were choices in the seasons, but all the lore Gabe had ever heard had it at the liminal points, May Eve and All Hallows by whatever names they went by, or perhaps the solstices or some saints’ days. But no one had confirmed the Hunt riding in Albion in ages, he’d checked. All the lore from earlier times stacked up in certain ways, but that was far less of a help than it should have been.
“A time of great risk to the country. And I don’t think they actually touched the ground.” Which was an entirely different sort of diplomatic problem, as he understood it. “I don’t think they took anyone, but again, no details yet.”
“So. Tell my parents I’ve got important work. I’ll see them and write when I can, do a bit more now, because later is going to be much worse.” Isobel looked up, suddenly stubborn again.
“You don’t have to. You could bow out.” Gabe felt he had to make the offer.
“It’s my land too. Got to do my part.”
There was, after all, nothing he could say to that which wasn’t entirely hypocritical or outright wrong. Gabe nodded. “Right. I want you to go pull things from the library. I have a partial list and I’ll have more when you get back. I need a bit more time with the catalogue lists.” That would keep them busy today and into tomorrow, just figuring out what sources to lean on first.