Chapter Four #2
Amelia replied with a slow blink, the kind that reduced misbehaving students to tremorous wrecks requiring the support of the nearest chair.
Caleb himself was made of sterner stuff, however, and remained upright (although it must be acknowledged that, as he watched the glide of her eyelashes, he became more upright than was strictly comfortable under the circumstances).
“Maybe we should just go…” Vanity attempted. But she might as well have been a professor lecturing last thing on a Friday afternoon for all that they listened to her.
“I should think your behavior is clear to everyone without me needing to describe it,” Amelia said.
“Just admit that you left your thesaurus at home,” Caleb answered tartly.
Three plates on the table exploded.
Caleb and Amelia ducked with the speed of people well used to tableware being more dynamic than is the norm. Alarmed shouts echoed through the room. “Oh my God!” Vanity cried out, stumbling backward. Cutlery began to levitate, flashing with a blue tint of light along their silver handles.
Straightening, Caleb and Amelia looked at each other, irritation replaced by professional excitement.
“An eructation of perceivable thaumaturgic energy,” Amelia said. “Do you have a thaumometer at hand?”
“Why would I need it?” Caleb said. “I can see the magic.”
“Hm,” Amelia responded, as if one’s senses were an inadequate source of information, regardless of the teacup hovering right before her eyes. “This building must stand on a deposit of thaumaturgic minerals.”
“Or something in the room is enchanted,” Caleb suggested.
Amelia shook her head. “Unlikely. An object of such potency would be too valuable to be sitting in a third-rate pub.”
“Hey!” exclaimed a nearby waitress with indignation.
Amelia turned to apologize but stopped abruptly upon seeing a dessert trolley begin to glide across the room. No one was pushing it, but this was of minor concern compared to the fact that it glided two feet above the ground.
“Well, that takes the cake,” Caleb drawled.
Amelia gave him a look so unamused she might have been mistaken in that moment for Queen Victoria.
“I see my joke landed as flat as a pancake,” Caleb said. “By God, Professor Tarrant, you’re a tough cookie to break.”
“For goodness’ sake,” she muttered. “If you don’t—”
Thwack.
A large custard pie, having leaped up from the trolley, slammed itself against a framed portrait of the prime minister. It would have incited roars of laughter had the pub been a pantomime theatre or the House of Commons; as it was, horrified cries rang out.
And then the chaos really began.
Pastries began shooting off the trolley, pelting diners and, in some cases, bursting into flames midair. People clambered from their chairs and ran for the door, screaming, shoving tables and each other. A pavlova detonated, bombs of cream flinging through the room.
Caleb felt someone clutch him from behind and looked around to discover Vanity huddling wide-eyed against him. Disengaging her gently, he grasped her shoulders, shaking them a little to focus her attention. “Miss Tunnicliffe!” he shouted over the cacophony. “You need to evacuate the room.”
“Are you sh-sh-sure?” she asked, all her vivacity turned to custard. (Caleb spared a second to congratulate himself on yet another excellent pun.)
“Absolutely,” he said in the firm professorial tone he rarely bothered to use. “Go on ahead. Miss Tarrant and I will deal with this kerfuffle.”
Nodding, Vanity picked up her remaining suitcase, and clutching it like a shield, she joined the guests and staff in dashing outside.
Caleb watched to be certain she was safe, then turned back to Amelia, who had plucked her cup out of the air and was sipping tea placidly as she contemplated the situation. Caleb smiled at the sight.
“What?” she said. “I can think of no good reason why you should be smiling. This is all your fault.”
Caleb stuttered a laugh. “I beg your pardon?”
“You must have an unsecured thaumaturgic object upon you,” Amelia said, gesturing at him with her teacup. “You had the candle snuffer; what else is in your pockets?”
“Nothing,” he said, trying to repress a surge of indignation.
“Besides, my coat’s pockets are lined with cloth of gold to”—he paused, ducking as a plate of sandwiches whizzed past him—“repress the energy emissions of any thaumaturgic objects in them,” he said as he straightened again.
He stared fiercely through a fall of his hair at Amelia. “What’s in your pockets?”
She bristled. “Nothing, of course!” She set down her cup on the tabletop, so offended that she completely ignored its saucer. “I don’t walk around casually with invaluable magical items upon me.”
One of the plates on their table began spinning furiously, sausage rolls flinging off it with the speed of bullets.
“Are you sure?” Caleb asked dryly.
“I most certainly am!” Frowning at him, she patted the pockets of her skirt in emphasis.
Her frown went abruptly still. She winced.
“Oops?” Caleb suggested.
Reaching into one pocket, she drew out a teaspoon and held it up, still wincing.
Caleb laughed. “That’s the Hereford teaspoon, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Amelia murmured.
“The teaspoon that broke a hole in the Min’s library ceiling.”
They both looked up at the painted fresco overhead, then back down at each other again.
“I put it in my pocket when I left Ottersock’s office,” Amelia said, “but was in such a hurry to catch the train I obviously—”
“Forgot it was there.” Caleb finished the sentence before she did.
“It happens to the best of us. I mean, not to me, but…” He shrugged, and Amelia’s eyes flared.
The spoon began to vibrate, blue sparks shooting from its bowl.
Immediately Caleb grabbed it from Amelia’s hand and dropped it onto the table.
“There was no need to snatch,” Amelia grouched.
“Excuse me for caring about your fingers,” Caleb snapped in reply.
Flames burst from the spoon. They whirled into the orbit of the spinning plate, rapidly becoming a fiery tornado that smelled of grease and dubious meats.
“Er, perhaps we should stop creating environmental discord,” Caleb said.
“It might be too late for that.”
They looked around at the magical chaos. Tableware dancing, food flying: it was more hectic than even an aristocrat’s party.
“Ottersock is going to kill us,” Amelia said.
“Or fire us,” Caleb countered.
“That’s worse.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll just blame it on the weather. He’s sure to believe us; we’re pretty effective liars by now. But we should probably try to contain the spoon’s magic.” He paused, frowning. “That really does sound ridiculous. Couldn’t you have found a magical dagger or ring instead?”
Amelia ignored the question. “I have a lead-lined container in my suitcase; it’s just the right size to secure the spoon and block its magic.
” She turned to reach for the suitcase before remembering that Sheffield had already taken their luggage away.
“What about putting it in your coat pocket?” she suggested instead.
“Worth a try.” Caleb reached for the teaspoon, but the merest brush of his fingers against its handle sent a painful shock through him. “Aah!” he shouted, snatching back his hand.
“Just deal with the pain for a few seconds,” Amelia said testily.
Caleb gave her an outraged look. “These are the fingers of an artist and pianist! I’m not risking them.”
“Rude sketches in textbooks don’t count as art.
” She gazed at him for a long moment, but Caleb knew she wasn’t really seeing him.
There were practically cogs of thought spinning in her expression.
“Since the energy is triggered by discord, why don’t we do the opposite?
” she suggested. “Show accord. Friendliness.”
“All right.” Caleb extended his hand, Amelia took it, and they exchanged a firm handshake, smiling at each other rather foolishly.
A bacon and egg pie on a neighboring table erupted in a cloud of chicken feathers and flew away, squawking.
“Perhaps a hug?” Amelia ventured.
Caleb dutifully wrapped his arms around her and she embraced him in return, as they’d done several times throughout their history: on graduation days; when he won the Henry Beauclerc Award; when she won it the following year; and most fatefully, upon news of her grandfather’s death.
Caleb had always loved hugging her. She smelled of lilac and new books; she held him as if she really wanted to; and altogether she felt like his dream of a home.
But the feeling now was like he’d entered that home, taken off his clothes and all his defenses, and tucked himself into bed with her.
Flakes from the ceiling showered over them like painted rain.
“Not working,” Caleb said, pulling away from Amelia before his body began to react the same way his heart had. “We’ve obviously grown too expert at arguing.”
“It’s becoming a habit,” Amelia agreed worriedly. “A bad habit. I don’t like it.”
“Yes, but it’s better than transferring to Cambridge University,” Caleb contended. “Their football team is rubbish.”
“But the campus is pretty.”
“In that case, I’d fit right in,” Caleb said. He smiled crookedly at her. “And you too, of course.”
They looked around the room hopefully, but this spot of banter had not fixed anything.
“We need something more,” Amelia murmured.
Their eyes met with silent understanding. Caleb’s stomach suddenly felt like a pub turned to chaos by magic.
“We’ve kissed before,” Amelia said with a calmness that wasn’t entirely convincing.
“We were eleven,” Caleb reminded her.
Blue smoke began to billow overhead. They looked up at it worriedly; then their eyes met again.
This time, the understanding was even more potent.
But just as silent—because Caleb for one had no idea how he could ever put into words what he knew in that moment.
Well, the words were actually simple. I want to kiss you.
But the reasons were a tangle he could not even begin to unravel.
“What’s one kiss between friends?” Amelia said, reasonable as ever. “And we are friends,” she added more loudly, addressing the magic surrounding them. “We love each other.”
“We do,” Caleb said. And cupping one hand against her jaw, ignoring the wild leap of his heart, he closed his eyes and kissed her.