Chapter Three
History infuses our present the same way
tea infuses water (although it rarely tastes as good).
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
By the time Amelia arrived at the Oxford train station, she had Made A Decision.
The sort of decision that requires capital letters and a brisk nod of the head.
As she entered the platform with a suitcase in one hand, gray coat flapping and beret threatening to become stylishly askew at any moment in the darkening wind, she stated this decision firmly (but silently, since talking aloud to oneself in public was undignified).
No longer would she be rattled by Caleb.
After all, they had been friends for two decades.
There existed no good reason for her to suddenly go all fluttery in his presence.
It was bad for her cardiovascular health (to say nothing of museum galleries and library ceilings).
Furthermore, fluttery was worryingly close to slang.
A Tarrant never used slang when any number of erudite, multisyllabic words were available instead, even if no one else understood what they meant.
Henceforth, she would be sensible and self-controlled.
“You’re late.”
Amelia jolted as Caleb appeared at her side as if from nowhere.
Dressed in a black suit and matching coat whose wool had clearly been shorn from very expensive sheep, he looked like he’d stepped out of one of the dramatic poems he was forever reading.
Amelia’s Decision instantaneously shredded within the storm of her pulse.
In its place arose a memory of the crescent moon tattoo on Caleb’s left bicep.
He’d shown it to her soon after he got it, unbuttoning his shirt, drawing the fabric aside…
“You’re wrong,” she snapped before she could stop herself. “I am here three minutes before eleven.”
Caleb grinned boyishly. “It’s two minutes before, actually,” he said as he took her suitcase easily, never mind the large case in his other hand and the bag slung over his shoulder. “But that’s fine; the train will be late of course.”
Of course it would. This was England. Silently lecturing herself to calm down, Amelia wrapped her thin coat around her as they walked along the platform in search of Miss Tunnicliffe.
A small crowd awaited the train, dressed in somber colors as if to match the weather.
Around their feet skittered old leaves and torn newspaper pages, and Amelia wondered if there was time to ask the station manager for a broom before the train arrived.
“You’re cold,” Caleb accused her, frowning at her wind-blanched face. “Why are you wearing such flimsy gloves and a cheap coat?”
Because I earn less than you, thanks to our different genitals, Amelia thought darkly.
And because she’d not been raised in poverty like he had, and therefore didn’t feel a great desire to spend most of those earnings on fancy clothes and other outward shows of success.
But a busy train station was hardly the place for such deep conversation, so she answered with a lesser truth instead.
“Because I visited the bookstore before the clothier. Where is Miss Tunnicliffe?”
“I don’t know, I got here after you.”
Amelia gave him an incredulous look. Just then, someone called out, “Yoo-hoo! Professors!”
They half turned to see Vanity Tunnicliffe waving to them from beside a stack of pink luggage. She looked far more keen about the journey ahead than any intelligent person had the right to be.
“Oh God, don’t make me,” Caleb grumbled under his breath. “Meely, sweetheart, tell them I caught tuberculosis and had to go home to bed.”
“Sh,” Amelia whispered, striding forward so he would have to follow.
As they approached Vanity, the girl’s grin expanded beyond all hitherto known laws of physics. “I was worried you weren’t going to come,” she said in her pseudo-rich accent. “Are we excited? I’m excited! It’s very exciting!”
“Indeed,” Amelia lied politely. Beside her, Caleb set down both their suitcases and began removing one of his fur-lined leather gloves.
“So exciting,” Vanity reiterated. Leaning forward, she confided, “This is my first field trip.”
“Really?” Amelia said, affecting surprise.
Caleb took her right hand and began pulling his glove onto it, directly over the black kid glove already there, muttering all the while about her dying of pneumonia and thus abandoning him in the untamed wilds of Cumbria.
“We’re pleased to have you with us,” she told Vanity, smiling.
“Oh! Oh!” Vanity responded delightedly. “We’re going to have so much fun! Let me introduce the other member of our team.”
She gestured at a large, dour-faced man standing to attention a few steps away. He appeared to be in his forties and possessed more hair above his lip than anywhere else on his head. If he knew the concept of “fun,” he clearly did not like it.
“This is Sergeant Jack Sheffield,” Vanity said. “He’s been seconded from the army to provide security for our assignment.”
“Good morning, Sergeant,” Amelia said.
“Hello,” Caleb said.
Sheffield nodded in response.
“So are we all ready?” Vanity asked. “Packed warm underwear? Updated your wills?”
“I beg your pardon?” Caleb paused in wrangling his second glove onto Amelia’s left hand to stare at the girl suspiciously. “Our wills? Why?”
“We’ll be dealing with magical antiques,” Vanity explained slowly, as if they’d never taken a history class before. “Magic is dangerous!”
“Only rarely,” Amelia assured her. “And not so much with manufactured items. Even if something is constructed from a metal or animal material containing a significant amount of thaumaturgic conjures, that energy invariably dissipates at an exponential rate.”
Vanity digested this silently. But just as Amelia was drawing in breath to offer a more high school–level version of the explanation, the girl said, “So it’s like a rich man on a first date: all flash and no follow-through.”
Caleb appeared to choke on his saliva. Amelia, however, managed to keep a straight face.
“Hm, yes, that’s a good analogy. Magic seldom lasts long in artifacts, which is why we don’t generally have people running around with weapons made from enchanted candlesticks.
Sometimes it does last, though, and in that case our job is to study it, then ensure the item is secured before the wrong person takes it to sell on the black market.
All manner of villains are willing to pay a fortune to get their hands on magic, which they’ll use for nefarious reasons—”
“Such as publishing a report about it before we can,” Caleb said, grinning.
Amelia cast him a brief frown. “Such as assassinating the Queen by use of a thaumaturgic iron poker—”
“Even though a regular iron poker would be just as effective,” Caleb interjected.
Amelia’s frown darkened. Giving up her explanation before Caleb turned it completely into a game, she tried a new angle. “Of course, in the natural world things can be more dangerous, such as with magical birds—”
Now Vanity was the one to interrupt. “Ooh, did you see that contest for Birder of the Year? So exciting! Professor Lockley is just dreamy.”
Amelia said nothing, very carefully. She could only too well imagine Vanity’s response upon learning that Devon Lockley was her cousin. The girl might well perish from an overload of enthusiasm.
“According to Mr. Hunt,” Vanity said, “magical antiques can cause damage to the very fabric of time, killing us all instantly—and slowly—and a hundred years in the future. Because, you know—”
“—the fabric of time is damaged,” Caleb supplied, and Vanity grinned, her head bobbing, as if she rather hoped such an entertaining event would come to pass.
“Mr. Hunt,” Amelia mused. “I don’t know that name. Is he a thaumaturgic analyst?”
“No, he runs the museum’s shop,” Vanity said. “But he’s read The Necromancer’s Clock.”
Amelia and Caleb were briefly silent. Then—“Isn’t that a gothic novel?” Caleb asked uncertainly.
“A bestselling gothic novel,” Vanity corrected him. “Unfortunately its author is a recluse, refusing all social and media attention, or else I’d have asked her to join our team.”
“Oh dear,” Amelia said over Caleb’s sudden amused cough. “Well, we Oxford professors shall try to do our best for you.”
“And that’s saying quite a bit,” Caleb added as he released Amelia’s hand, which was now so thoroughly gloved she could barely move her fingers.
“I really am rather clever,” he assured Vanity with a dazzling smile, “and Miss Tarrant manages to keep up. Don’t worry, love, we’ll save time from being destroyed and catalog your antiques for you. ”
Vanity’s expression swooned all over her face.
Amelia, abruptly irritated by the whole conversation, considered explaining that, when it came to temporal matters, the worst a thaumaturgic object ever did was transform old energy waves into what people thought of as ghosts.
But the train arrived before she could commit education.
Vanity handed out their tickets, and Amelia bade everyone a pleasant journey.
Taking up her suitcase, she strode along the platform until coming upon an empty compartment that looked decently clean.
A quick brush of the seat and she was able to sit in comfort, laying her suitcase beside her and exhaling a contented sigh.
The next several hours stretched ahead of her in a pleasantly unsociable vision of reading, gazing out at the countryside, and enjoying the marmite sandwiches she’d had just enough time to prepare.
“Shift over.”
She looked up to see Caleb enter the compartment.
Her wits didn’t have enough opportunity to respond before he was tossing his luggage onto the overhead rack, then hers after it.
He plonked himself down beside her, the woodsy scent of his expensive new cologne wafting through her personal space.
Amelia tsked but was unable to move aside without her skirt bunching uncomfortably beneath her.