Chapter 17
It was a plan I put in motion that very night.
I made my way through the evening chores first, shadowed by Banshee. I kept stopping to inspect different corners of the building, convinced I’d find some difference, some evidence of its having been transported halfway across the city and back, but there was nothing. Even the dishes were intact.
I settled myself into one of the armchairs by the fire and waited for the hour to advance.
Around me the old shop settled with its usual nighttime creaks, which had slowly grown familiar.
I didn’t know how long I should wait, but I wanted to ensure I was not interrupted by any uncanny visitors, who occasionally dropped by in the evening hours.
“I know,” I murmured to the empty armchair across from me. It had been a habit of Robin’s and mine to take a glass of wine by the fire together after a long day, and I sometimes still spoke to him then. “You don’t need to tell me this is a terrible idea. But I have to attempt it—for their sake.”
The flames rustled like paper, and I could almost see Robin frowning disapprovingly at me over his newspaper, the light catching in his auburn hair. Though there was also that familiar glint of amusement in his gaze, as if to say, Let’s see how you get on, then.
When the fire had burned down to embers, I stood and made my way to the back room.
The cats were mostly asleep in their cages, nestled into their kingly bedding, but I caught one or two tapetum flashes in the dim light.
I paused above the trapdoor a moment, listening.
But as far as I could tell, Havelock hadn’t returned.
I caught myself wondering if Valérie had come upon him somewhere and attacked him again, before reminding myself that it was none of my business what fell out between them.
And yet I was about to make it my business.
Banshee had gone to take a nap, perhaps sensing that mine was a solitary mission—her favourite sleeping spot these days was the old baker’s oven, which filled me with trepidation.
I had no reason to think the oven was dangerous—beyond Banshee’s attraction to it, that is—but still I did not trust the thing, and wondered if I should put a grate over it.
I turned to the trapdoor. I had the lantern with me, even though it was largely unnecessary; the alternative was trusting the spiders.
Now that I knew what lay below, I was less afraid and moved more quickly down the stairs. The workshop appeared just as we’d left it, spiders glowing gently from random corners. No sign of Havelock.
Suddenly something leapt from the darkness and came stalking towards me, and I fell back with a gasp.
But it was only His Majesty, one of the luminous spiders dangling from his mouth. Judging by its frantic wriggling, it was still alive.
With a cry of disgust, I lunged forward, managing to grab the slippery cat before he melted into the shadows.
He gave a hiss of protest, which had the useful effect of forcing him to drop the spider, which scurried away.
It was a curious enchantment—in a revolting way, I mean—in that only the spider’s carapace was alight, not its legs, which made it appear perfectly ordinary from a distance, perhaps the flame of a small candle. Until, of course, it moved.
“How did you get down here?” I demanded.
I’d shut the trapdoor behind me, I was certain.
And yet wasn’t it just like His Majesty?
He was adept at finding narrow passages and escape routes, even by the standards of cats.
Robin had once found him on the roof at the old place, though all our doors and windows had been shut.
Our best guess was that he’d somehow scrambled up the chimney like a feline Saint Nicholas.
I tossed the cat over my shoulder, which he tolerated, and tried to carry him back up the stairs, which he did not—he launched himself free with his massive paws and became one with the shadows again.
Sighing, I settled for leaving the trapdoor open.
I’d no idea what sort of damage cats could do to enchantments, but I guessed His Majesty would make mischief somehow, and I could only hope Havelock wouldn’t notice.
Although, presumably, His Majesty had been exploring the basement long before me, and, with his usual feral logic, had already deemed it part of his territory.
I lifted the lantern and kept going. As Yannick had warned, the place grew progressively more disorganized the farther down one went. The third floor had crates stacked all the way to the ceiling, while I couldn’t even make out a pathway through the fourth.
“Absolutely appalling,” I kept muttering to myself, my horror only growing. How did anyone live like this? It was like wandering through the nest of some mad, burrowing magpie.
Each of the steep staircases hugged the stone wall, but behind the staircase connecting floors three and four, where there should have been stairs to the fifth floor, was a trapdoor.
It was more severe-looking than the one in the shop, being made of a single piece of black flagstone.
It had no chain, but one edge had a groove wide enough to slide my fingers into.
I gripped the flagstone and pulled, not truly expecting anything to happen. Yannick had said that the trapdoor was locked—with a spell, I assumed. I was already thinking about how I might search the other floors for the book as the flagstone rose easily.
I dropped it as if it had bitten me. Had Havelock forgotten to lock the trapdoor? Or had Yannick meant locked in a more sinister sense—effectively locked, because continuing would bring some curse down upon me?
I drew a deep breath, then lifted the flagstone and set it to one side. Beyond was a staircase just like the others, narrow and steep, leading into an uneven rectangle of shadow. Legs trembling, I lifted my lantern and descended into the darkness.
The room at the bottom of the stairs was smaller than those above, almost cozy, with a humble ceiling, low with unconcealed joists from the floor above, and an open fire that had burned down to a few embers.
Bookshelves lined every wall, and the half-open doorway in the far wall seemed to lead to a bathroom; I could just glimpse the edge of a tub.
The spiders were fewer in number here—I saw only three, strung up in their webs together in a corner like old friends.
Most of the uneven light came from the fire and a small lamp that burned next to a couch shoved against the only wall that wasn’t occupied by bookshelves.
The hope began to form that here I might indeed find the book Valérie sought, but it went out like a snuffed flame. Because on the couch was Havelock Renard.