Chapter 16
“Agnes, you really shouldn’t—He doesn’t like anyone in his workshop; he only barely tolerates me.”
Yannick hovered at my elbow, looking simultaneously worried and apologetic, as I dragged the rug aside and grasped the chain on the trapdoor. élise stepped forward to help.
“If he comes back while you’re down there…” Yannick trailed off.
“He’ll what?” I said. “Blast my head off? He won’t. He needs me.”
élise and I lifted the trapdoor while Yannick muttered to himself and knitted his fingers together.
Still, he made no move to stop me, which I suspected he could have done, if he’d really wanted to.
He was a magician, after all. No—it was clear that Yannick wasn’t truly afraid of Havelock. Why, I had no idea.
I wasn’t about to tell him the real reason I wanted to get a look at Havelock’s shop. Namely, that I’d begun to suspect he was lying to me.
Not about everything. Likely his warnings about Valérie had been true. But why was Valérie so convinced Havelock had Vortigern’s book? Wasn’t it just as likely that he did and didn’t want to give it up?
And if Havelock had the book, why shouldn’t I take it and give it to Valérie?
I didn’t doubt Valérie’s malicious intentions—I’d seen her, after all—but I had no reason to believe she was any worse than Havelock, or would do any more damage with a dangerous Artefact than he would.
After all, it hadn’t been Valérie who had unleashed an apocalypse.
If I gave Valérie the book, she would go away and leave the shelter alone.
This felt even more important after what I’d heard about her followers.
élise had fetched the oil lantern from the counter, and she set off down the steep wooden staircase below without another word.
“You really shouldn’t,” Yannick said, still wringing his hands uselessly.
“You might be right,” I said. “But there are plenty of things you magicians shouldn’t do, yet you do them anyway. So you’ve no place to lecture me.” And I followed élise.
The staircase was so steep that I felt safer going sideways, clinging to the railing like an old woman.
It kept going down and down, much deeper than I’d expected.
Consequently, I wasn’t able to look about me until I stepped onto the floor, which was, to my surprise, made of creaky oak—I’d been picturing stone or earth, like the floor of a cave.
Perhaps a cauldron bubbling over a fire.
My first impression was of utter disorder.
The space was about the size of the shop above, I thought, and should have felt roomy, particularly given the impressive height of the ceiling.
But shoved against every wall were towering glass-front cabinets filled with an assortment of the most random objects, and towers of boxes and crates filled the remaining floor space, offering only narrow passages between.
Some objects had the look of archaeological finds, ceramic vessels or stone carvings, while others were more contemporary, including a gumball machine and gramophone.
Near the centre of the room was a massive table where someone had clearly been writing, for by the single chair were a stack of papers and pen, in addition to the piles of books and coins and other miscellany.
The place was illuminated by a warm, gentle glow, emanating from small globes of light set into the ceiling and walls, which gave it an air of an enchanted museum.
It was a curious thing, for the light was uneven and flickered like starlight.
I went towards one of the lights, which was surrounded by an odd, net-like lampshade.
As I leaned closer, the light darted sideways into a crevice in the wall with a quick, many-legged sort of skitter.
I recoiled. “They’re spiders!”
“Yes,” Yannick said, grimacing, though there was admiration mixed into his expression.
“Havelock grew tired of chasing them out, so he put a spell on the entire place: any spider who strays here develops a sort of bioluminescence. Well, if we can’t be rid of them, why not put them to use?
And it saves on lantern oil. He called it economical. ”
élise shook her head. “Of course he likes spiders. Proper familiars for a witch king.”
The lighting no longer struck me as particularly cozy. My skin tingled as if the things were crawling on me.
Against the wall, behind the landing of the staircase we had just descended, was another set of stairs. “How deep does it go?” I said.
“I’m not sure,” Yannick replied. “This is his workshop, but below this are three more floors, mostly crammed with Artefacts, like this one. There’s a trapdoor in the lowest floor, and I don’t know where it leads. He keeps it locked.”
“Another trapdoor,” I muttered, exchanging a look with élise.
“Maybe it leads back to the shop,” she said with a mirthless smile. “Or some hellish otherworldly version.”
I shuddered. “Or the Fifth Fathom of the Rivenwood.”
“Not possible,” Yannick said. “All doors to the Rivenwood lead to the First Fathom.”
“Why?” élise asked.
Yannick seemed to ponder. “It’s difficult to explain. The Rivenwood doesn’t obey our laws of nature. You can reach the other fathoms from anywhere in the forest—it doesn’t matter where you start. The farther you walk, the deeper you go.”
“That’s clear as mud,” élise muttered.
“I always assumed the trapdoor just leads to another floor, where he keeps his rarest enchantments,” Yannick said.
I’d had the same thought, which meant that was likely where I’d find Vortigern’s book.
I paced over to the stairs and made my careful way down to the second floor.
It was similar in proportions to the first, and even more poorly organized, with boxes stacked on top of one another, some towering high above my head.
It was also brighter, owing to an even larger convocation of spiders.
“This is appalling,” I muttered. I didn’t mean the spiders, or not only them; I’d never seen such a disorganized space.
How did Havelock concentrate on whatever unpleasant enchantments he was concocting when he knew this horror lay below him?
I wondered half seriously how I’d be able to sleep now—I, who can never retire without putting the shelter in order and writing out tomorrow’s to-do list, ordered into categories.
The mouldering skeletons of Havelock’s victims would have been more tolerable than this.
I shuddered and went back up the stairs, almost bumping into élise and Yannick on their way down. I was tempted to explore further, but I’d only have had Yannick breathing down my neck the entire time.
“Are these all enchantments?” I demanded when we returned to the first floor. “Even these?” I gestured to the closest cabinet, which was full of antique clocks, all stopped at a different hour.
“I believe so,” Yannick said. “Havelock has been collecting Artefacts for years. He trades them, sometimes, for other Artefacts. Some he’s enchanted himself. A few are empty of magic—he experiments, and not every enchantment turns out.”
I stared at him. “You sound like you don’t know what half of them do.”
“Far more than half,” Yannick said with a wince. “Havelock doesn’t keep records. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s forgotten most of them himself, particularly those on the lower floors. It’s chaos down there.”
If this didn’t already constitute chaos, I had no desire for him to elaborate. Shaking my head, I turned slowly to take it all in. What astonished me more than the Artefacts, though, were the books.
They were everywhere. A bookshelf twice my height sat to the left of Havelock’s workspace—it had a ladder attached, and its shelves were disorderly, some double-stacked, others gap-toothed.
I tilted my head, examining the titles. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised by grimoires full of unreadable symbols, but they were novels.
I spotted a few leatherbound classics—adventure tales, for the most part, including Robinson Crusoe—but most were well-thumbed paperbacks, a high percentage of which had magic, witch, spells, dragon, or something similar in the title.
One of the shelves seemed to be devoted to mythology and folktales from various cultures.
Certainly none resembled a seventeenth-century grimoire.
I went to Havelock’s worktable. Buried beneath a pile of what looked like mariner’s rope and cupboard handles was another novel with dog-eared pages. Edrahil’s Curse and Other Stories.
“He likes to read,” I said, a question in my voice.
“Yes,” Yannick said. “Mostly when he was younger. I haven’t seen him with a book in a while. Well, he doesn’t have much time for it anymore.”
“No?”
“The shop keeps him busy,” Yannick said.
“He works mostly on commission these days—someone will come to him with a specific request, and he’ll take the work if it interests him.
Not only magicians, some humans, those among the wealthy and powerful, have learned of him.
He doesn’t care about the money,” he added.
“Only that it allows him to purchase more rare enchantments to take apart and study.”
élise was crouched by one of the cabinets, examining a vase. “He doesn’t cast the enchantments, then?”
“Not usually. That’s not what he cares about. Magic is—it’s like a puzzle to him. At least I think it is.” Yannick scanned the untidy desk. “Havelock isn’t much given to talking about his feelings. He isn’t proud, I think he just forgets sometimes that he has them.”
I couldn’t connect the affectionate expression on Yannick’s face to either the Havelock Renard I had met or the Witch King of his reputation.
I found myself itching to examine the rest of the cabinets, to rip open the boxes and spill their contents upon the floor.
It was curiosity of a morbid variety—my respect for magic was no greater than before.
But mixed up with it was frustration with Havelock, somehow, though he owed me nothing of himself, as if by rifling through his collection I might also better understand the man himself, or at least dent the mystery of him.
“Havelock could return at any moment,” Yannick said, half-nervous and half-despairing. I realized then what his concern was: Not fear of Havelock, but a desire to avoid—what? Disappointing him? Upsetting him?
I glanced at élise, who appeared perfectly composed, looking about her with a moue of disapproval. But I could read the tension in her shoulders as easily as a book—she hated spiders, and there was one making its creeping way across the ceiling above her head.
“All right,” I said. “I’ve seen enough. It looks like a load of junk to me, anyway.”
This was not precisely true, but Yannick didn’t argue—he looked beside himself with relief. I allowed him to lead us back up the treacherous stairs, a plan taking shape in my mind.