Chapter 31 #2
We managed to put the shelter in order, cleaning up the mess and finishing off the morning checklist that Havelock, to my surprise, had mostly completed, even if he’d also allowed the cats to run roughshod over him and turn the place upside down.
I found myself smiling, in spite of the mess we were in.
The shelter smelled of custard and raspberries—there was a plate of tarts on the counter, which Havelock must have retrieved the previous night.
The chirrups of contented cats made my eyes prick with tears, and I realized how much I had come to see this place as home, and how I hated the thought of losing it.
“I’m not moving the shop again,” Havelock said.
He had put Banshee down and was ignoring her now, perhaps in a bid to recover his dignity, and she was letting him maintain the pretence, sprawled triumphantly in the middle of the floor with her front paws outstretched.
“There’s no need. The police will never find my workshop. I’ve put a spell on it that—”
“Turns it into a cellar when they try to get in—I know, we’ve seen it. But Havelock, Laurent is a magician.”
“What!” élise cried. “That hypocritical bastard.”
“He—and any other magician within the police—will be able to use magic against you once the council passes this new bylaw,” I said. “Could they break the enchantment you’ve put on the workshop?”
Havelock’s expression grew thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I don’t know how many magicians they have apart from that obsessive redhead, or the Artefacts at their disposal.
The police have confiscated a large collection, including several that should belong to me; I’d bought and paid for them, but the delivery was interrupted en route. ”
“Stop it, Havelock,” élise said. “I don’t want to feel any respect for Laurent right now.”
“The lantern,” I murmured.
“What lantern?” élise said.
“Vortigern’s lantern,” I said. “The one that absorbs magic. You said it was stolen. Havelock—could the police have it? Could they use it against us somehow?” I didn’t like the thought of an Artefact like that lurking somewhere out in the world, unaccounted for.
Though I didn’t much like the thought of any of Vortigern’s Artefacts, or Vortigern herself, truth be told.
Given Valérie’s obsession with finding her time-travel Artefact, Vortigern felt almost like a presence, a ghost lingering in the shadows of the shop, and I wanted nothing to do with the ghost of someone with such unholy power.
“I doubt it,” Havelock said, looking amused for some reason. “They wouldn’t know how to wield it, anyway.”
“Surely there must be some way out of this,” I said, because it was ridiculous that there wouldn’t be.
The shop was quite literally built atop layers of magic—floors of Artefacts of incalculable power.
Surely there were few problems in the world that magic couldn’t solve, at least when wielded by someone like Havelock, who had ended and then unended the world—how could a roomful of bickering city councillors be one of them?
I looked up to find Havelock watching me with a troubled expression.
And I understood without him having to say a thing: Havelock would come through all this perfectly unscathed.
Laurent had never had a chance of imprisoning the Witch King; Havelock could escape any snare either police or politicians set for him.
It was me that was in danger: me, and élise, and the shelter.
“If worse comes to worst,” Havelock said quietly, “I’ll create a distraction.
I’m quite good at those. Perhaps a pack of elephants will parade past city hall.
No, I know—I’ll bring the trees down from Mount Royal to my doorstep, like the forest of Birnam, and the police can fight their way through the undergrowth.
While they’re occupied, I’ll help you and the cats flee the city. We can go to New York.”
“élise can’t leave Montréal,” I protested. “She has Gabriel. What will happen to him if the shelter is engulfed in scandal, and people start pointing out the connection between Les Amis des Chats and his wife?” It was all such a tangle that I felt dizzy and sick.
We debated it for some time, interrupted periodically by the cats, some of whom seemed to be looking for reassurance that they weren’t to be consigned to Havelock’s care for the long term.
Marcel was crying at me, while Thoreau pulled at the cage bars with his claws in a display of poor manners that was quite unlike him.
I ended up allowing Thoreau to roam free—there was little danger to him with his tormentor, His Majesty, no longer in residence—and took Marcel into my arms, from which height he could more effectively glare at Havelock.
For his part, Havelock kept falling out of the conversation to mutter to himself about eight-layer spells and Artefacts of manifestation, or perhaps illustration—I had little patience for his speeches just then.
I understood enough, though, to grasp that he didn’t have the magic at hand to move the shop to a different city, that such a spell might not even be possible, and I recalled how astonished Yannick had been when Havelock had relocated the shelter by a handful of blocks.
élise had stopped pacing and was nibbling on a custard tart.
“These,” she said, taking another bite, “are exquisite.”
“Most people thought so,” Havelock said. “Claude was always complaining about people stealing his wares. Well,” he amended, “he was always complaining that I was stealing them. Which was ridiculous, I rarely touched them.”
“I don’t know about ridiculous,” élise said. “You tried to destroy the world. Yet stealing pastry is a step too far?”
Havelock was frowning irritably into the oven, his gaze distant, clearly lost in an old argument. “Not once did I steal from Claude. The man disliked me enough—you think I would encourage him to poison me? Bakers are more dangerous than magicians; if they want you dead, you won’t see it coming.”
The floorboards creaked behind me, and I whirled around. But no one was there—we three were alone, and I stared at the empty patch of floor as if a ghost might be hovering there.
élise had turned in the same direction, her face tight with fear. “Is Yannick back?”
I didn’t understand. But then the sound came again, and it wasn’t the floorboards, as I had assumed—it came from beneath us. Someone was walking around in the basement.
Havelock had gone still. He brushed one of his rings in what might have seemed an absent gesture were it not for the expression on his face, an unnerving cross between longing and dismay. Then he turned himself into shadow and ember and sank through the floorboards.
The effect of this particular display could not have been more disturbing if he’d been trying.
élise and I both screamed and clutched at each other, because it’s one thing to have Havelock in your midst, talking to you like an ordinary person, and quite another to be reminded of what he is underneath.
We didn’t have time to feel embarrassed at ourselves, though—we turned together and sprinted for the trapdoor, to the dismay of Thoreau, who mewled at me, as always taking my loss of composure as a personal affront.
We thundered down the stairs to Havelock’s workshop, where we found two figures silhouetted against the warm light of the spiders, more of which had appeared as the winter wore on and the creatures sought refuge from the cold.
The smaller figure was more difficult to see, for even though she was facing me, more of the spiders were behind her.
She seemed to be holding something in her arms, the outline of which was painfully familiar.
I stepped forward as a shudder ran through me. It was Valérie, and she was facing Havelock from across his worktable. His Majesty was draped across her arms, looking equal parts indolent and disdainful. He gave Havelock a brief baleful stare.
“Your Majesty!” I surged forward, but élise, just behind me, grabbed hold of my arm and wrenched me back. “Put him down!” I cried, writhing in élise’s grip.
“Agnes,” my sister said through clenched teeth. “Look at him. Don’t you see?”
No, I didn’t see—I didn’t want to see. His Majesty stretched and rearranged himself in Valérie’s arms, looking more comfortable there than he ever had in mine, or anyone’s since Robin.
Ordinarily the cat would deign to be held for only a brief time, but there he was, lounging upon Valérie as if she were a throne.
I didn’t have the sense that he was ignoring me, particularly, as he eyed one of the spiders with the self-satisfaction of a predator that could catch anything he deemed worth his while; rather, he didn’t seem to care enough about my presence to be interested.
And I realized that I wasn’t surprised, which somehow hurt worse than the betrayal itself.
“He showed her a way in,” Havelock said unnecessarily.
He held Valérie’s gaze, but his focus seemed to be on something else: the string of pearls that Valérie had wrapped twice around her hand, the one she now lifted to scratch the cat’s chin.
I remembered those pearls, the iridescent, undersea shine of them against my own hand as I recorded them in the catalogue, but I couldn’t remember what enchantment they contained.
I only remembered being afraid when I found out, and replacing them hastily in the cabinet.
Panic pierced through the fog of misery that had settled over me. How long had Valérie been down here? How many of Havelock’s most dangerous Artefacts had she taken into her possession?
“Where did you get in?” Havelock said. His face was cold, but it didn’t seem genuine this time. I knew by now that Valérie wasn’t Havelock’s enemy, even if she’d declared him hers. She was only his sister.