Chapter Seven #2
A brass band was playing on the stage in the bar, and the dance floor was packed with couples, cocktails in hand.
Plenty more clubgoers were grouped around the small tables that lined the edges of the room.
The scene was not dissimilar to those of many of the mundane nightclubs that Max had visited, except for the greater sense of luxury here—the glasses were crystal; the tables of the glossiest, finest wood; the chandelier overhead glittering, the jewels on the clubgoers sparkling in its light.
Many nightclubs felt a bit seedy, Max thought; Holloway’s, despite its trade in illicit goods, felt anything but.
It felt glamorous, and Max could understand its infectious appeal.
Vesper, her arm still linked with his, led him through the packed room, waving at the man and woman behind the bar, who nodded in greeting at her but otherwise carried on with the business of making drinks; the man had a cocktail shaker in hand, while the woman was sliding a delicate curl of orange peel onto the rim of a glass.
Vesper headed for the edge of the room, where, through an arched doorway obscured by a gauzy curtain, a small alcove contained a bookcase.
This nook was guarded by an attendant, attired in an immaculate coat and tails; upon seeing Vesper, he stepped aside with a nod.
Vesper reached out with a sure hand, removed a book from the shelf, and—with a faint click—the case creaked open, revealing a doorway that Max had to hunch to pass through.
The space that he emerged into was low-ceilinged and intimate.
The lighting was dimmer here; instead of a glittering chandelier, there were floor lamps with rosy shades tucked into corners and candles flickering in golden holders on the tables.
The walls were papered in a beautiful navy-and-silver pattern, the ceiling decorated with intricate molding.
An antique mirror in a silver frame hung on one wall, reflecting the room’s inhabitants; a marble fireplace occupied an enormous expanse of the wall opposite the bar, flames crackling cheerfully on this chilly autumn night.
The music from the other room was easily audible here—Max gazed along the walls and ceiling, searching for the vent that would allow it to pass through so clearly—but there was no dancing.
Instead, the clubgoers were far more likely to be engaged with themselves and their friends and the effects of whatever it was they had consumed.
There was one table whose occupants had clearly had the Flotation Fizzes—the very potion that had gone so disastrously wrong the night before.
Instead of spinning alarmingly near the ceiling like that unfortunate fellow, however, this group merely hovered a foot or two off the ground, laughing uproariously and clinking glasses of champagne.
At another table, there was a delighted exclamation as, before Max’s eyes, a woman finished the dregs of a drink and then was immediately engulfed in a puff of smoke, which cleared to reveal an entirely different dress to the one she’d been wearing seconds before.
“What the hell,” he muttered, and Vesper glanced at him, grinning. “It’s the New-Fashioned—gives you a new outfit. Only temporarily, though—you drink a second one before you leave the club, which will restore your original clothing.”
“What happens if you don’t drink the second one before leaving?”
“The moment you set foot outside the club, your magical outfit vanishes, leaving you in your knickers,” she said, and laughed in delight at whatever expression crossed his face.
“Come on,” she urged, tugging him toward the bar, where a woman in a black silk dress with ruby-red lips was handing a packet of spell powder to a customer.
“Hello—oh, it’s you,” the woman said, her practiced smile slipping from her lips when she recognized Vesper. Her gaze slid to Max; she blinked, then looked back at Vesper questioningly.
“Anna Llewelyn, meet Max Ashbridge,” Vesper said, and Max leaned forward to reach across the bar to shake Miss Llewelyn’s hand.
She was about his age, or perhaps a bit older, he thought; she had dark curly hair and dark eyes, and the lilt in her voice made him wonder if she came from one of the magical villages in Wales.
He’d never visited them, but knew from all he’d read and heard that their remote location in the mountains meant that they were largely carrying on as though Forbiddance didn’t exist.
“Anna, were you the one to serve the chap last night?” Vesper asked. “The one who—er—”
“The whirling dervish?” Miss Llewelyn asked, a mischievous grin breaking across her face. “Indeed I was.”
“Could we speak to you for a moment, then?” Vesper asked. She tilted her head toward the other end of the bar, where another bartender was uncorking a bottle of champagne. “Aiden can manage on his own for a spell, I think.”