Chapter 2 #2
The ache of my longing surprised me. It was almost fifteen years since I’d sprawled on that red-and-gold rug, pulling books from those shelves in stacks tall as my nose, greedy for everything—Latin and Greek, the science magics and philosophy, history and theomagic—that Henry and Edgar had to teach.
I turned away before the memory could burrow too deep. The streets were almost empty. I could smell rain on the wind, and it felt like twilight, even though sunset should be hours away.
It would be an awful storm. That put a spring in my step. Storms meant fossils. The hunting would be good. Maybe I should wait, I thought. Go straight to the beach and see if the storm shakes anything out of the cliffs—
No. I’d already made up my mind. I couldn’t keep hoping.
They’re called the slicks because of the serum.
Shining, black, and viscous. Slippery and staining.
Lucy says larger towns often have more than one slicker.
In London, she says, there are even multiple reliquemical quarters in different areas of the city, with slickers competing for business.
I asked once if that meant the rates were different, so people would use one slicker over another.
You would think so, she’d said darkly. She explained the government set the rate-of-pay, and the Reliquemical Guild frowned on anyone who strayed.
But slickers had other tactics, Lucy said, to ensure repeat business. Unenforceable contracts given to the illiterate, requiring exclusivity. Pallet beds for the homeless, to lure them in. A hunk of bread and butter when the transactions were complete.
There was only one slicker in Lyme Regis, so she didn’t have to resort to any tactics. The desperate would come to her anyway.
I sat on a wooden bench in the cramped waiting room, reading the Taylor paper. I muttered to myself as I made notes in the margins, and the man across from me—a fisherman, by the smell—avoided eye contact.
The black door, marked with the guild’s silver crest, opened. A hooded figure hurried out. The slicker called the fisherman back—not by name; we didn’t give names here—and he disappeared. The black door closed again.
Plesiosaurs have thin, pointed teeth. Good for catching small fish and cephalopods, true, but Taylor was wrong to say these comprised the whole of their diet.
I’d once seen remnants of gastropod shell in the stomach region of a partial plesiosaur skeleton.
I wasn’t sure how they managed it, given their teeth and jaw structure, but it was clear their diet was more varied than Taylor suggested.
“I’m ready for you.” The slicker beckoned. I stuffed away the paper.
It was always cool behind the black door, as if the air temperature dropped several degrees. The room smelled oily and acrid, a little like sulfur. Two reliq-lamps gave off a warm yellow glow, despite the black-painted walls. The slicker leaned against her stool.
Her name was Arabella Greene, but I couldn’t remember how I learned it.
People only ever called her “the slicker”—or, if she was within earshot, the reliquemist. She’d been the town’s slicker long before I was born, but her face was hardly lined, and her hair only dusted gray.
Lucy theorized there was something in the serum that did it.
“Why is it every slicker is the most beautiful person you’ve ever met?
” she’d whispered once, when we passed Arabella in town.
I’d shrugged; I’d only ever met the one.
The slicker never made small talk. I appreciated that.
“Consignment, enchantment, or sale?” Her tone was clipped.
I’d never worked consignment. You had to put down some kind of collateral, and the slicker provided the base reliq, probably bone or shell or metal. You wore it for a week or so—long enough to fill—and then returned it for your payment and collateral. The reliq you filled could then be resold.
I had brought my own objects to be enchanted, though. I’d brought this same ammonite to her a few years ago and paid the fee to have it turned into a reliq capable of collecting and storing my magic.
“Sale.”
I reached into my collar and slipped off the ammonite.
I knew it was coming, but the overwhelming sensation of wrongness still caught me off guard as the fossil’s warmth left my skin.
I swallowed, nostrils flaring. That sensation, a curdling in my stomach, would linger a few days. Best just to ignore it.
I saw the flash of nails as her palm turned over, the skin around them black from the serum.
She took my ammonite and turned to her desk, where serum and other chemicals bubbled away in tubes of glass.
She worked quickly, dropping my ammonite into something clear that might have been vinegar, and measuring it against the tick marks on the side and jotting down notes. Then she weighed it on a set of scales.
Slickers paid out the set-rate based on the quantity of magic stored in the object.
Any object could be turned into a reliq, but not everything was a good choice.
Fabric, for example, was a very poor vessel for reliqs.
Any magic leaches immediately through the strands.
The same for wood. Stone was better, though not by much, but shells and bone were fair, and affordable.
Those are common reliqs among the poor. For the rich, metal is a reliable holder, and gems, too, but obviously expensive.
But of all the substances tried and tested, fossils, we know now, are the best.
There was no magic in reliquemistry, any more than there was in geomagic. The magic was metaphorical here; it was careful science that made everyday objects capable of holding magic. I had some begrudging respect for that.
The precise chemical composition of the serum was known only to practitioners. But it was an open secret that bitumen—pitch, or tar—was one of the main ingredients in the formula. That much was obvious from the smell.
“I can give you six shillings, three pence.”
I winced. My rent was almost two pounds a month. But at least it was something I could hand to Mr. Bolington tomorrow. I just had to hope that would buy me more time.
I would write more letters, try to sell off more of my collection. Maybe I could take on some housecleaning work, too. It would cut into time for fossil hunting, but at least that would be cash, and not hope. I swallowed.
“Yes. All right.”
She nodded and took out the wooden payment box.
The black door burst open. Coins clattered as the slicker and I both jumped.
Lucy Murray panted in the doorway, her amber eyes huge.
My face flushed hot—shame that Lucy would catch me here, tainted coin nearly in my palm—but annoyance followed close behind. I had no patience for a lecture. I couldn’t afford her ideals today. Not with rent due tomorrow.
“Why,” I half hissed, half groaned, “can’t you ever mind your own business?”
Lucy ignored my seething. Her eyes sparked as she said, “Fishermen are reporting a landslide near Black Ven. Big one.”
My anger turned to a thrill of hope, probably just as she’d anticipated.
Not all landslides revealed treasures. But nearly every wondrous discovery—the first ichthyosaur, my best plesiosaur—had followed one. And Black Ven…
I looked between the indifferent slicker and Lucy, at war with myself. The slicker would soon close for the night, and Bolington expected rent first thing in the morning. But if I sold my reliq now, I would have no magic for the search.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “May I have my reliq back, please?”
The slicker shrugged, the barest hint of amusement on her lips as she set the coin box on the counter and returned my ammonite. “As you wish.”
Lucy grabbed my hand, and we hurried out into the storm. The cold wind stung my lips, but my reliq was warm against my chest, and my blood thrummed with the thrill of the hunt.