Chapter 4
Celia Sinclair really should not have been drinking coffee.
Her nerves were jangled enough—about as fidgety as a gold digger dancing the Charleston.
She supposed that was to be expected after hearing the voice of her dead father.
For all the man had taught her about magic, it had still been a shock, hearing him speak from beyond the grave.
She stared into the black of her coffee, trying to read the Windmill’s reflected neon lights like tea leaves, trying to hold on to every echo of William Sinclair’s voice: My girl.
What are you still doing there? My death is not worth your life.
What was anything worth, these days? It was awfully hard to keep up, between postwar inflation and Bright Young Things who treated money with about as much deference as toilet paper.
“Sugar?”
Celia looked up at her companion. He was intriguing, this young man.
Handsome too, despite the disheveled hair.
There was a warmth to his features most men in her social circle lacked.
And his eyes… They were the most stunning green.
The color was pretty enough on Elizabeth Ellington, but paired with Ezra’s long black lashes, it was mesmerizing.
“No thanks, I take my coffee black.”
Ezra did as well, she noted as he set the sugar bowl aside.
His gold feathers were gone—shed as he’d carried Rose out of the Seek and Find.
None of his memories had followed suit, it seemed, even though the sun had risen on their cab ride to Rose’s home, painting the brick mews a bright, buttery color.
Celia kept staring at him, kept expecting to see emptiness whenever he gazed back.
But every time their eyes met, Ezra’s seemed fuller.
As if he was finally waking up, despite their sleepless night.
Or because of it.
Ezra remembered everything, and now he had questions.
“Why didn’t your wings vanish like mine? Why didn’t you want me to talk about my mother in front of the magicians? Why did my skin start glowing when I touched Rose?”
“All imaginings conjured in the Seek and Find are claimed by Hugo at the end of the evening. This boa comes from France,” she explained, pulling its feathers closer around her shoulders. “And it wasn’t just your skin. Your eyes were glowing as well… Has that happened before?”
A shadow crossed Ezra’s face at this. Celia kept an eye on his actual silhouette, but much to her relief, it stayed steady.
“Not that I can remember,” he replied slowly.
An interesting choice of response.
“There are some magicians whose brows shine when they perform magic—they’re called Sancts and they spend years collecting magic to create their masques. But usually you can see the light around their faces even when they aren’t casting spells,” Celia explained.
“My mother…” The young man across from her massaged his jaw, as if trying to work out the words. “Her temples glowed. I always thought I was seeing some sort of aura.”
“She must have been a Sanct.” This wasn’t a surprise, given what Celia had already learned about the woman.
“I’ve met quite a few in my travels abroad.
Some collect dreams and wonders. Others are a little less whimsical in how they harvest anima.
” To put it lightly. Hugo and Everett were proper arses, yes, but at least they didn’t swallow their friends’ souls to live a few years longer.
Yet. Celia was a bit murky about what happened in the higher echelons of the Order.
Though not for lack of trying… She’d spent the past two years sniffing out magicians’ secrets, but she still couldn’t confirm the rumors about the Apex’s age.
Or agelessness, come to that.
“In the war I saw… things in the trenches… not just angels, but demons too.” He took a sip of his coffee, then shuddered.
“There were creatures who bled shadows and drank blood… Even the rats were afraid to go near them. I thought it was all in my head. But now…” Ezra shuddered again.
“What does it all mean? What is anima used for, exactly? And why have I always been able to see this world? Why…?”
He seemed to want to say something more, but took another wincing sip of coffee instead.
“Anima is used to power spells. Our souls are magic,” Celia explained. “As for your specific situation, I’m not exactly sure. I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”
“Likewise.” He set his mug down. Hair fell in front of those striking eyes, yet Celia could still feel his stare—filled to the brim. “Why is it that you can see magic? That Hugo character seemed certain you’d forget everything.”
“I could see enchantments when I was a young girl…” Her father had made no effort to hide such things.
He’d delighted in making his young daughter laugh by animating her rocking horse or letting her fly around the nursery with a floating parasol he’d found at a Parisian flea market.
“But when I got older, the world became quite small: embroidery and afternoon tea. I felt like I was suffocating. I wanted to rip out the seams of my own life. Let loose. Go on an adventure. Papa was always doing those sorts of things. Traveling to far-off lands, learning languages, finding treasures. So when I was fifteen I hid in one of his steamer chests before he set off.”
“You were a stowaway?” Ezra’s lip quirked. Not quite a smile. His grins didn’t come easily, but Celia liked that about him. Especially after spending so much time with the Bright Young Things.
“Not for long,” Celia confessed. “I ran out of biscuits, and I hadn’t really thought the whole loo situation through.
Papa didn’t send me home, though. Our boat was already halfway across the Channel, and I expect he was rather chuffed to have the company.
He let me tag along on his errand to Paris…
I was Enlightened there, at this most amazing carnival…
” Her mouth began to water, but not for the plates of bacon and eggs their waiter was busing toward the table.
“There was a merry-go-round with wooden horses that trotted on and off, and as I rode it, I started to remember this rocking horse I’d had in my nursery.
My father used to enchant it to gallop and whinny…
And then I began to remember all the other magic he’d shown me.
When I confronted him about it, he didn’t have the heart to take those memories away.
He let me stay Enlightened. He began to teach me about magic—despite everything. ”
She paused when their breakfasts were placed in front of them.
Ezra thanked the server, before tucking his napkin into his lap. A man with manners. And not just for show…
“Despite the Order, you mean?” he asked as he started to slice into a salty slab of bacon with his fork and knife.
“Yes.” Celia picked up the meat between her fingers and took a vicious bite.
“In France, anyone can become a Sanct, if they have enough imagination. You can collect your own dreams and become a Daydreamer, then you can Enlighten other people and collect enough of their dreams to become a Sanct. It’s all very liberated.
The Order of British Magicians has never worked that way. ”
More chewing. More swallowing.
She’d always had to swallow it.
“The Order has focused on curating power through relics ever since the Dark Ages. Noble families established themselves by acquiring enchanted artifacts. These were either tithed up to the Apex or passed down as heirlooms.” She paused.
“My family had quite a few, inherited from my father’s father and his father before him.
If I’d been a Cecil instead of a Celia… Well…
” She’d like to think she would have been better than Hugo and Everett and their beastly parties.
“My father died two years ago. It was quite sudden.” She wasn’t exactly sure why she added this detail—only that it sounded better than the vulgar truth of Lord Beaumont’s murder.
“There was no son to take his place, so the Order stripped our house. They were like vultures, coming to pay their respects to my mother and me, and then leaving with paperweights and rings and paintings and anything else they could find. That lighter Hugo uses? It belonged to my father. He just waltzed into my house and swiped it off Papa’s desk.
Right in front of me. I had to stand in the drive and pretend I had no idea what was happening…
” Her next bite of bacon was hard and snapping.
“I have to pretend every damn day that those leeches didn’t drain my family dry. ”
Another brittle swallow.
Ezra watched her for a moment. His pupils were wide—so wide that it was hard to see the green there. “You still have some magic, though.” He nodded at Celia’s boa.
The wings. She really should take them off, in case Hugo and Everett decided to pop in for the same breakfast special. Not to mention the possibility of other, older Order members walking through the doors.
Celia pulled the feathers from her back and piled them into the booth beside her. “I told you: Everyone has magic. I could imagine you more wings right here and now if I wished.”
“Why don’t you?”
“The Order could be watching.” She nodded at the scatter of people at the other tables: mostly men and women winding down from a long, sparkling night.
“It’s a fine balance, you see. I can’t collect my own imaginations and become a Daydreamer because then my temple would start to glow, like your mother’s did.
The masque would give me away. I only conjure imaginings at Hugo’s parties.
The rest of the time I rely on the few relics I managed to save.
If the Order caught me using them, they’d seize those objects and erase my memory.
” Her world would go back to being the size of a goldfish bowl.
Working at a dress shop during the day, parties every night—all different themes, yet somehow the same.