Title: The Heart's Desire
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara, Thomas Nightingale
Rating: General audiences
Length: 11k words
Written For:pendrecarc in the Five Figure Fanwork Exchange (![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fffx )
Summary: Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.
At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.
Peter Grant, apprentice member of the Society of the Wise, Constable of the Metropolitan Police, had the unfortunate propensity to act (and speak) before thinking. In a crisis, this quickness was a decided virtue. If only he could learn to consider his actions more carefully in ordinary moments, Thomas reflected, he would be an exemplary wizard.
But such meticulousness was (for the moment) beyond him. Fortunately for all concerned, Peter had a certain amount of serendipitous luck to balance out the possible consequences of his thoughtlessness, and none of his rash actions (or words) had resulted in truly dire consequences so far. Indeed, several of them had turned out remarkably well, all things considered. Such was the case with his promise, two years earlier, that he would begin teaching magic to his cousin Abigail Kamara, should she pass her Latin A-levels.
The young Miss Kamara was, if anything, even more promising than her cousin. Quite intelligent, staunchly firm in her ethical thought (albeit occasionally in unorthodox ways), ferociously dedicated to pursuing her goals and—unlike Peter—not prone to distractions or leaping before she looked. All in all, Thomas Nightingale, Master of the Society of the Wise, Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, was quite looking forward to teaching her.
That is, should her parents give consent. Which Peter had not considered when he so rashly promised that she should learn magic upon proving her proficiency in Latin.
It was obtaining that necessary consent which brought Thomas and Peter here today, to the Peckwater Estate, to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Kamara, explain the situation, and see if such permission might be forthcoming.
"Ah, Mr. Nightingale, sir, welcome to our flat!" Mr. Kamara said as he opened the door to them. "Peter, welcome, come in." He stood aside to let them enter.
"Mr. Kamara, thank you. And Mrs. Kamara, as well," Thomas said.
"Please, call me Debbie," Mrs. Kamara said. Thomas acquiesced with a slight smile, although he was honestly more comfortable with her husband's formality. Still, Mrs. Kamara was hospitable enough, and before long they were settled in the living room with mugs of tea. It was a small room, with little adornment, but still comfortable and homey.
"So, how's Abigail doing?" Debbie asked, once they were all settled. "She hasn't got herself into trouble, has she?" She had put Thomas and Peter on the sofa, with herself and her husband in chairs across from them.
"Not that I know of," Peter said. "Though, you never know, with her; she likes to solve things herself in her own way."
"Indeed," Thomas said, remembering the more distressing aspects of the incident with the house the previous summer. Young Abigail had been in over her head (though not, as it turned out, without the ability to keep herself afloat) and had not reached out for backup when it was appropriate to do so. Still, they had discussed the matter, both her failures and her successes, and he was confident that she would call him should there be another crisis in the future.
"Very self-reliant, that girl," Mr. Kamara said with an approving nod. "Tough. She's got a good head on her shoulders."
Debbie smiled and nodded. "How are her studies?"
"Excellent," Nightingale said. "Her Latin is coming along very nicely, and she has been a great help to us by doing research for several of our less dangerous cases."
"She says you have promised to teach her magic when she has learned Latin," Mr. Kamara said.
Peter winced. "I did, yeah. Sorry. I should have asked you first."
"We are here, in fact, to remedy that oversight," Thomas said.
"And when she's learned magic, then what?" Debbie asked. "Will you want her to join the police?" Her face was studiously neutral; certainly, she was aware that a youth of Abigail's talents and drive could find much more prestigious and lucrative employment than joining the police.
"If Abigail wishes, there would certainly be a place for her," Thomas said. "But training in magic is not contingent on any particular career path. Back when the Folly was at its peak, there were a number of professions for wizards, and many who were trained but chose not to use that training professionally. These days, I'm afraid, there are few careers for wizards directly, but we still have connections to assist her on her way. Doctor Harold Postmartin, at Oxford, will be writing her an excellent letter of recommendation to whatever university she might care to apply to. His influence is greatest at Oxford; that is the traditional university for wizards. Such a recommendation is not, of course, contingent on Abigail becoming an apprentice."
The Kamaras shared a smile at the mention of a faculty sponsor at Oxford.
"Why wouldn't she?" Mr. Kamara said, turning a bit more serious. "Become an apprentice, I mean. Her grades are excellent, she has learned Latin as you said, she has been working for you as a junior apprentice for two years, and she's been very single-minded about wanting to learn magic since she learned about it. If you are willing, I don't see what could stop her."
"That's the thing," Peter said with a wince. "What she's been doing now, book work and research and tracking down ghosts and things, it hasn't been dangerous at all."
"Aside from the things she did purely on her own, like investigating that house that ate children," Mr. Kamara said.
"Aside from that, yes," Nightingale said. "But I believe she has learned the importance of communication and backup from that incident. Hopefully, we shall not have similar problems in the future."
"But the next step is dangerous?" Debbie said. "Even if she's not doing police work?"
"Magic carries the inherent risk of stroke if one uses too much power in too short a period," Thomas said. "If you are properly supervised as you learn and are careful never to overdo it, the risk is minimal. But it is a risk, nonetheless. Abigail would be closely supervised and monitored during instruction and practice, and she would have regular brain scans at the Folly expense to catch any hint of damage before—"
"Brain damage?" Mr. Kamara said. His nostrils flared. "I think this is something you should have told us from the beginning, Mr. Nightingale."
"Nothing she's done for the Folly has been dangerous," Peter said. "Worst she's been at risk of so far is Molly's more dubious experiments."
"Yes, you have only been preparing her for the dangerous things to come, without asking her father and mother," Mr. Kamara said. "And now, what if we say no, the risk is too great? After she has put all this work into it? That is not fair to her. It is not."
"You are quite correct, of course," Thomas said. "I'm sorry."
"When I promised we'd teach her magic if she learned her Latin, I thought she'd be discouraged, lose interest," Peter said, shamefacedly. "Sorry. If I'd known her better I wouldn't have given her a challenge."
Debbie hadn't said anything yet; she was staring down the hall toward the bedrooms, arms crossed. "How likely is it that she would be able to teach herself, without your help? Or find someone else?"
"It's certainly possible to muddle through simple spells, even without a teacher," Thomas said. "But the risks are far, far greater."
"That's what I figured." Debbie shook her head. "Abigail's too much like my mum. She gets her head set on something, she won't never stop going after it. If we say no, she'll do it anyway and probably kill herself." She fixed Thomas with a stare. "You'll take care of our girl, though, yeah? Make sure she learns it safe?"
"I give you my word I shall do everything in my power to keep her safe," Thomas said.
And that was that.
When Abigail heard they'd talked to her parents about her becoming an apprentice without her being there, she'd given Nightingale a gimlet eye. But, as the end result was in her favor, she hadn't quibbled too much. Then came the oath, and the question of what (if any) ceremony should attend it.
"We're doing it at my flat," Abigail said. There were nice sandwiches all laid out in patterns on a tray with a doily, and a proper tea set, but she hadn't taken any yet, and wouldn't until any negotiating was done.
"That would mean that Molly couldn't be present," Nightingale said. He, on the other hand, had selected refreshments and was carefully making his way through them.
"Yeah, but if it's at the Folly, then Paul couldn't come, could he," Abigail said. "He could make it, but then he'd be too tired to really pay attention and enjoy it." It was only about two miles, but to get into and out of the car, plus time spent in traffic, would really take it out of him. Paul was cut off from so much, even with their new ground-floor flat; Abigail wasn't going to exclude him from anything she could possibly bring home to him.
"Of course, how thoughtless of me," Nightingale said. Which was why Abigail liked him; he might not always see the things she thought were important, not without prompting, but he listened when she told him what he was missing. "I'm sure Peter can film it on his phone for her."
"She can cater, if she likes," Abigail offered. "You know she'll like that almost as much as being there."
"True," Nightingale said. "Very well, we'll have it at your place."
Abigail gave him a sharp nod.
"Afternoon," Peter asked, poking his head in. "How's it going?" He flopped down in a chair and snagged a sandwich from the tray.
"We have settled upon the venue," Nightingale said. "Abigail's flat."
"Or the community rooms, depending on who wants to come," Abigail said. "Lots of people round the estate know about you by now. Bet some'd be curious."
"Did your families come watch when you gave the oath, sir?" Peter asked.
"By and large not," Nightingale said. "We took the oath during chapel on the first day of every school year, with our teachers arrayed in front of us. Though we did take another oath upon graduation, and our families were there for that." He picked up a book from the side table and handed it to Abigail. A ribbon marked a page halfway through it. "Here is the rite as it was done in my youth. Most of the ceremony of was simply the regular chapel service, which obviously doesn't apply. Truly, the oath itself is the only part that is necessary; we can make the ceremony as simple or as elaborate as you wish."
Abigail read through it. "What's this about clothing? How can you be in obedience to clothing?"
"I've always wondered that myself," Peter said.
"And you never asked?" Nightingale said, raising his eyebrows. "Most uncharacteristic of you."
"A lot was going on at the time," Peter said. "I had bigger things to worry about. And then I got distracted and forgot about it."
"Ah. Well, in any case, it's quite simple; at both Casterbrook and the Folly, we used to wear academic gowns at mealtimes. The professors and the Society leadership had elaborate hoods that symbolized their accomplishments and training; ordinary wizards, rather plainer ones. It's similar to the way certain guilds historically had specific garments as a mark of their trade." Nightingale poured himself another cup of tea, doctoring it as he spoke. "The gowns were purchased by the individual, along with one's ordinary clothes; but the hoods could only be awarded by a board upon being certified as having earned one. Thus, being in obedience to the 'clothing' really means being in obedience to the people who were entitled to be clothed by the Society."
"Which in your case means me and Nightingale," Peter told Abigail.
"Nah, you ain't been certified by a board," Abigail said. "You're still an apprentice yourself."
"Very true," Nightingale said, ignoring the betrayed look Peter gave him. He nodded approval at Abigail for having thought it through so quickly. "However, he is a senior apprentice and you are a junior one; he is an adult, and you are an adolescent. Thus he is, for purposes of the oath, a warden whom you are bound to obey in so far as it regards your training."
"See?" Peter said.
"Just so long as it's clear I'm an apprentice wizard, not an apprentice copper," Abigail said.
"Quite clear," Nightingale said. "At least in theory; we shall not be involving you in cases any more than we have to this point—similar research specifically on the magical or demi-monde aspects of certain cases which come to our attention."
Abigail considered this, and then gave a nod. "Fair enough."
"I thought you liked helping on cases?" Peter asked.
"I like figuring things out," Abigail said. "And I like knowing the things you can find in the library. And the things you can't. But I ain't gonna be a cog in the Fed machine."
"We're not Feds!" Peter said with some exasperation. "Apart from the fact that it's an American thing, it refers to agents of the federal government. I'm a constable in London's police. It's a metropolitan area!"
"You wanna be called the filth, instead?" Abigail asked.
"At least it's more accurate," Peter said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
"May I ask where, in your opinion, the line falls between assisting in the Folly's investigations, and being 'a cog in the Fed machine?'" Nightingale asked.
"I can trust the two of you, can't I," Abigail said. "You stay out of peoples' business unless they actually need you. You don't broadcast nothing about things people would rather keep private unless it's something that actually needs to be shared. You don't harass people just 'cos they're different, and you don't kick peoples' doors in unless they've done something to deserve it. But I can't say that of any random Fed, can I?"
"Hey, it's better than it used to be," Peter said.
Abigail stared at him, because 'better than it used to be' wasn't good enough and he knew it. "If I'm gonna stick my nose in other peoples' business, I want assurances that it isn't just somebody being a busybody, yeah? I want to be able to know we ain't making things worse, now or down the line."
"Very commendable," Nightingale said, with an approving nod. "One cannot always know the results of any action for sure ahead of time, of course, but knowing where one's own ethical lines are avoids a great deal of confusion and later regret." He took a sip of his tea. "Will you be wishing to continue your outside consulting work?"
"Got to earn my pocket money, don't I?" Abigail said.
"Indeed," Nightingale said. He took another sip of his tea. "However, once you are officially sworn in as an apprentice, your actions become a reflection of us. Therefore, I think it appropriate to institute certain guidelines to ensure that the Folly is represented well and not brought into disrepute."
"You mean, more than all the racist sexist crackpot wizards of the last two centuries did?" Abigail asked, shooting him a hard look. "I read the County Practitioner records, I've listened to foxes and Rivers and others, I know how the demimonde remembers them."
Nightingale nodded in acknowledgment of her point. "When one is starting on the back foot, it is even more important to put one's best foot forward. Having identified what we do not want the Folly to be, going forward, perhaps you would like to suggest some reasonable guidelines for the future? Ones which include procedures for checking in with Peter or myself so that reasonable safety precautions might be taken?"
"There's another issue, too," Peter said. "You will be, legally and morally, a representative of the Folly. And the Folly is a law-enforcement organization. That's not all it is, but historically the line gets a bit blurry. Do you know how you're going to make sure it's crystal clear to everyone that your jobs are 'apprentice wizard does jobs on the side as a purely personal matter' and not 'the Isaacs asserting their power with a fig leaf of plausible deniability'? And even if you can, will that last beyond the first time you stumble onto something big that is something we need to handle officially as the Folly?"
Abigail frowned. That wasn't something she'd really thought about. Taking cases through Simon's mum was one thing, they weren't normally connected to the demimonde. And taking cases from her classmates and such was fine, too; they didn't even know the demimonde existed, much less that the Feds had an Official Wizarding Branch.
Abigail liked being independent. She liked figuring out what was really going on. She liked solving problems—really solving them, not just shoving them off on someone else or mucking them up further or pretending that official scrutiny would make things better. She could trust herself to do things right. She could trust Nightingale and Peter to do things right—even on things they didn't agree with her about.
But they weren't just individuals, were they, they were the long arm of the law. And there would be things that did need to be handled officially, or that were too big for her by herself. If she were the one looking at the setup from the outside, she wouldn't believe that she was an independent investigator.
"We need more wizards who aren't the filth," she said, feeling bare stupid not to have thought about this problem before. If there were other Folly members, it wouldn't matter so much.
"It would help immensely with a great many things," Nightingale said.
"What about, like, regular private investigators, the ones who go after cheating husbands and the like," she said. "Do they call the police when they find something big?"
"Depends on what it is, and whether they care about doing the right thing," Peter said. "A dead body or something, they're more likely to call in about."
Abigail nodded. "But, like, a psychiatrist, they have a duty of care, yeah? Certain things they are required to report. Like suspicion of child abuse."
"You think we should make up some sort of policy for you, like that?" Peter said. "Something you can tell your clients so they know where the line is ahead of time?"
"And also, so that you are clear where the line is ahead of time," Nightingale said.
The ceremony, when it happened, was simple. It was a far cry from the pomp and circumstance of his youth, and Thomas wouldn't have wanted to hear any of his masters' comments about it. Abigail's family and Peter's parents gathered in the living room of Abigail's flat. It was the first time Thomas had ever met Paul, and he noted the obvious care given to Paul's comfort and wishes. He was seated in the most comfortable chair, with pillows tucked around him to keep him in a good position, and Debbie next to him in case he needed anything.
Abigail was dressed in an outfit much more formal than Thomas had ever seen her in; it was different not merely in design but in color and pattern. Her hair, however, was exactly in its usual style.
The ceremony was quick. Thomas gave a short speech about the responsibilities and duties Abigail would be assuming as his apprentice, and how her dedication and strength of character would be assets in her life as a wizard. Abigail swore the oath, and Thomas swore an oath to be a fair and ethical teacher. It wasn't part of the traditional rite, but Abigail had insisted, and upon reflection Thomas had decided that formally acknowledging the inherent responsibilities and duties of his position was no bad thing. Peter filmed the whole thing.
Then they all had a formal tea in the silver and china Molly had packed up, and which a few of Peter and Abigail's relations had been recruited to move and set up.
It was a satisfactory afternoon.
Next came the hard bit.
For Abigail, anyway.
Abigail's first lesson began in a lab in the Folly, lined with old wooden counters, over a sink full of water.
"You should find this a trifle easier than most beginning students," Nightingale said, "as you have had such a long time to learn to feel vestigia. You should, therefore, be able to sense what I am doing quite precisely. What you have not done until now is take the next step and replicate it yourself."
"Right," Abigail said. She already knew this bit, and wished he'd get on with it.
"You will feel what I am doing and repeat it as exactly as you can," Nightingale said. "You will make the hand gesture, say the word, and mentally form the pattern, all together, each time you do it."
"But the word and the hand movement aren't, like, strictly necessary," Abigail said. "It's not abracadabra sort of stage magic, the thing you're doing with your mind is what's actually doing the work, right?"
"For a beginning practitioner, the word and gesture are absolutely necessary," Nightingale said. "It is very hard to train your brain to do something precise that does not have a physical component. Especially when it is unlike anything you have ever done before. By teaching your brain to associate the mental pattern of the spell with the hand movement and the word, we are giving it a physical sensation to associate the formae with, and that in turn will make it easier for your brain to replicate the correct mental shape. Once you have securely mastered a formae to my satisfaction, then you may attempt it silently. Not before, do you understand?"
"Sure," Abigail said. At least, she wouldn't try it silently anywhere Nightingale could see her.
"I must insist you take this seriously," Nightingale said. "Frustrating though it is, trying to speed through things now will only slow you down later. These spells you are learning now are the building blocks of everything that comes after. Single-order spells will work with hardly any accuracy at all. But when you try to combine them, they will not work if you are not precise enough. Or they will blow up in your face. And then you will have to unlearn everything and re-learn it the correct way. Better to do it correctly from the beginning."
"Fair point," Abigail said. She frowned. "Is that why Peter blows things up so often?"
"Not only that, but it is a factor, yes," Nightingale said. "Part of it is my own fault, for rushing his early training; but then, we didn't exactly have an overabundance of time, either. But we do have time with you. So we shall do things correctly. And you will practice formae exactly as I teach you to do them, and restrict yourself to approved time. Yes?"
"Yes," Abigail said. "Can we get on with it?" Although the words were those of a bored teenager, her eyes gleamed with anticipation.
"The first formae is lux," Nightingale said. "This first time, please close your eyes and do nothing but feel what I am doing." He demonstrated the spell until she was completely certain she had the formae in her head.
Abigail held her hand over the sink full of water, opened it like a flower while saying "Lux!" and thinking the formae in her head.
Nothing happened. She scowled at her hand.
"Nobody achieves any spell on their first attempt, particularly not their first spell," Nightingale said. "You did very well. Let me demonstrate it again."
Abigail didn't get it that time either, or the time after that. But she did get it eventually. (And when she asked, it was fewer tries than Peter had needed.)
Once Abigail had mastered lux and was a wizard in practice as well as in theory, it was time to start introducing her to the various powers in the demimonde. Father Thames was simple; he was a peripatetic spirit, wandering with the seasons, hosting and attending many functions at which the Folly might make an appearance and formal introductions might be made without causing an appearance that they were seeking approval. There was a fine line between showing respect and paying homage, and Thomas had learned well how to tread it.
Thus it was that, on the Sunday nearest the Harvest Moon, Thomas escorted Abigail to a Harvest Home festival in which the pagan roots of the day were rather more obvious than it had been in the services he'd attended as a boy.
Thomas and Abigail arrived after Father Thames had blessed the crops and the farmland surrounding the river; quite aside from the question of personal religious belief, it would be horribly inappropriate to give any hint that they were devotees of a genius loci.
"Good," Abigail had said when he explained it to her. "Means we miss all the stuffy bits and only get the party."
When they arrived, he introduced her to Father Thames, and to those of his sons who happened to be standing near him at the time. Abigail was polite and charming and smiled the terribly unnerving smile she used when she wanted something. (Thomas believed it was only unnerving to those who knew her well enough to see that it was a stratagem, and not her genuine smile.)
That done, she was turned loose to enjoy herself as she might and Thomas himself turned his attention to the food. As befitting a harvest festival, there was a great deal of it. Fresh fruits and vegetables spilling out of cornucopias, cooked dishes laid out on trestle tables, barrels of cider and ale, all dotting the field such that no place was far from the food and drink. Large corn dolls were also interspersed, in a pattern Thomas recognized was probably significant in some way. Peter would either know, or want to know.
Within a few minutes, Abigail had made herself friends among the younger people present, he noted.
"Clever girl, that one," came a voice from over his shoulder. "I like her. You could do worse, in choosing an apprentice."
Thomas turned. It was Oxley, who popped a tayberry into his mouth and swallowed.
"Of course," Oxley went on, meditatively, "I can't really decide if it shows the Folly's nepotism has changed—or that it hasn't."
"She is a bright young lady full of potential," Thomas said. "And her dedication to the craft is exemplary."
"Oh, of course, there's no doubt of that," Oxley said. "She wouldn't have gotten a second glance from your old colleagues, but that's their loss. On the other hand, she is the cousin of your first apprentice."
"Yes," Thomas said, spooning some raspberry jam onto a slice of bread. His traditional strategy in such moments was to say as little as possible, on the grounds that it was nobody's business and intelligence was something one preferred to have on other people rather than the reverse.
"One hopes she'll be a better choice than your second apprentice," Oxley said.
"I believe she will be," Thomas said firmly. "Miss Kamara has a very strong character, and a firm sense of right and wrong." It wasn't that Lesley had lacked such a sense; only that, in hindsight, it depended a great deal on a 'might makes right' sort of expediency of the sort that the Folly had been very used to in the old days. Thomas had taken it for granted, but it had not served the Folly well in the end, nor any of the wizards who subscribed to that belief system.
"Like her cousin, then, is she?" Oxley said. "I hope she gets into less trouble, then. Don't want to go digging her out from underneath buildings. Speaking of, where is young Grant?"
Thomas took a bite and chewed it before answering. "Studying for his exams—he's up for a promotion."
"Well, give him my best wishes and tell him we missed him, will you?" Oxley said. "Never a dull moment with him around."
"I shall," Thomas said. "Though if he would endeavor to indulge in heroics less, I would be heartily grateful."
Oxley laughed. "Now that, we can all agree on." His gaze drifted back over to Abigail and her friends, who were surreptitiously leaving the area, food in hand. "Ah, youth," he said fondly. "They probably think they're doing something new and exciting, rather than the same things we were doing a thousand years ago. And further back than that, too."
"Oh, yes," Thomas said. He couldn't see any bottles of alcohol, but that probably only meant they were being creative in hiding them. But Abigail was a sensible girl, and no serious danger would dare disturb Father Thames' Harvest Home. "Mind you, technology does add a few possibilities … but I find that most of them are only new twists on old themes. Peter and Abigail are always expecting to shock me, and it never quite works."
"Such a sad lack of imagination in young people these days," Oxley said, shaking his head in mock disapproval.
"So, you're a wizard, then?" asked Callum. He was a white boy, about fifteen, with light brown hair and a gap between his front teeth. Many of the people here were what the Folly called 'fae,' but many were ordinary humans who were connected to the demi-monde in other ways. It was rude to ask, but she was fairly sure Callum was completely mundane.
"Apprentice wizard, yeah," Abigail said. They'd found a little spot not too far from the main party, but shielded somewhat from the olds by a few trees and bushes. An assortment of teens—all white, except for one Pakistani boy named Tad—were scattered around, with plates of food between them.
"So show us a spell, yeah?" Callum asked.
Abigail didn't like the challenge in his voice, like he didn't think she could do it, and normally it would make her dig in her heels. But doing magic was still a novelty, and so she opened her hand and said "Lux," and held a werelight in the palm of her hand. (Low-powered enough not to fry anyone's mobile, of course.) A gratifying chorus of "oohs" went around, and Abigail nonchalantly let it go and settled back onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.
Callum scoffed. "Not much, though, is it? A light? Anyone can do that with a flashlight."
"Not many can do it without," Abigail pointed out.
"You can't do it, Callum," said Sophie, an overweight girl in designer jeans and sneakers Abigail would have sold rather than wear out to a dusty field. She and Abigail were the only ones who weren't eating. Abigail had eaten enough to be polite when she first arrived, and would probably eat more later, but she didn't want to be distracted while she was making new friends—or allies, or clients, or enemies, depending.
"I'm just saying, it's nothing like what Father Thames can do, is it," Callum said. "That's real power."
"Yeah, but you can't just … decide to become a River some day and actually do it," Tad said. He was probably fae of some kind; he had that air about him. But it was rude to ask, so Abigail hadn't. "But you might become a wizard, if you get the Nightingale to teach you."
"How did you get him to make you an apprentice?" asked one of the younger white boys, maybe ten or eleven years old. Abigail hadn't gotten his name, but he was probably part-fae, too.
"I asked," she said. "Had to learn Latin first."
"It couldn't be that simple, though," Sophie said. "The Nightingale hasn't taken an apprentice in like a hundred years."
Abigail shrugged. "He knows me. He trusts me. He knows I ain't gonna do something stupid with it, or evil, or hurt people who don't have it coming."
"Do you think he'd take another apprentice?" That was Oliver, the only person Abigail had met here so far who was from London. She wondered if that was because of the rivalry between Mama Thames and Father Thames, or just because Londoners thought London was the center of the universe and didn't like to leave it.
"Dunno, do I," Abigail said. "He's a busy man. Lots of responsibilities. Might take a while to find someone he trusted and wanted to teach."
"But you just … asked him, and he said yes?" Oliver persisted. He seemed perfectly human, but that was no guarantee.
"Yeah," Abigail said. Well, she'd asked Peter and he'd thrown her a bone to try and get rid of her, but more fool he. "Then I had to pass my A-levels in Latin and spend a few years hanging out at the Folly doing, like, the boring bits of research for stuff he needed."
"What kind of research?" Sophie asked. "Anything cool?"
Abigail made a face. "Spent a lot of time reading the journals of nasty old wizards from like, two centuries ago, to see if there was anything relevant to whatever case they were working."
Several of the others groaned or rolled their eyes. Sophie shook her head and turned to ask the white girl in a hoody next to her about why a friend of theirs wasn't here. The conversation turned to other things, and Oliver was the only one still paying attention to her. Abigail wasn't sure if she liked that. She could have learned a lot more listening to the others.
"So, just Latin and book work then?" Oliver asked, scooting closer. "Nothing gross? Or creepy?"
"Nah," Abigail said, which was true of the jobs Peter and Nightingale had given her, although not true of all the side jobs she'd taken on by herself. "Lot of time in the library."
"What's it like?" Oliver asked.
"The library?" Abigail shrugged. "Posh wood shelves filled with of old books, written by boring old white men who thought they were a lot smarter than they actually were. Nightingale never updated anything, so finding things is all by card catalog. And the reports—the stuff that's most likely to have actually useful bits—are only partially indexed, so if there might be something you need you have to read the whole bloody thing."
"Bet they were happy to have you to handle some of that," Oliver said.
"'Course they were," Abigail said. She knew that library better than either of them, by this point. At least the County Practitioner journals, and maybe the rest of it. She liked knowing things, especially things nobody else knew. But you had to slog through all the boring bits to find the useful stuff. "What school do you go to?" she asked.
"Fortismere," he said. "You?"
"Acland Burghley," Abigail replied. "Doesn't Fortismere have bare hard classes?" And with that, she was able to get him to talk about himself and where he came from. None of it was a surprise, given that he went to Fortismere; it was a comprehensive, but one that served the posh neighborhood of Muswell Hill: mostly white, mostly middle and upper class, the sort of people who didn't mind that there wasn't a tube station because they never used the tube.
Oliver's mum was a doctor and his dad was a government bureaucrat, and it wasn't that far from the Peckwater Estate but it might as well have been on another planet. On the other hand, they couldn't be too white bread because they were here. And Oliver didn't say how they knew the Rivers or anything, but he'd been to a goblin market before and was friends with some of the Quiet People that were trying to acclimate to life above ground. How he managed that while not having a convenient tube station Abigail didn't manage to get out of him.
There were some questions, like "what are you" and "how are you connected to the demi-monde," that you just couldn't ask outright. Not on a first acquaintance, anyway. But the connection was probably through his mum, because his dad hadn't come today.
By the time the group headed back to the olds for more refs, Abigail had managed to get his cell phone number and a promise he'd let her know when and where the next goblin market was going to be.
The next spell Thomas taught Abigail was impello. She learned it as quickly as Lesley had; like Lesley, Abigail had a purposeful determination and a refusal to be sidetracked that served very well for magic studies.
Comparisons with Lesley were difficult to avoid, given her recent reappearance in the case concerning Jonathan Wild's ledger, the third Principia, and Christina Chorley's untimely death. Abigail had been informed of the generalities of the case as it transpired; she had needed to know who the Faceless Man was and what Lesley was capable of, in case she was targeted for her new and deeper association with the Folly. Thomas hadn't thought it likely, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Also, the case had consumed a great deal of his attention, and Abigail had deserved an explanation for why her lessons were temporarily scaled back.
Now that things were quieter, it was time for Abigail's first brain scan. Thomas escorted her to the hospital, where Doctor Vaughan performed the scan and explained to Abigail the precise mechanism involved in hyperthaumaturgical degradation, to the extent that Doctor Vaughan had established it. She also, at Thomas' request, showed Abigail a picture of young Christina Chorley, and her brain tissue. He was certain that Abigail viewed her training with sufficient solemnity and caution, but reinforcing that wouldn't hurt. But Abigail, as she often did, took a perspective Thomas had not anticipated.
"As long as you are properly instructed and follow the limitations set for you about how long and how intensely to practice, you should suffer no ill effects," Thomas said, as she stared at Christina's picture on the tablet.
"I know that," Abigail said. "I wouldn't have started learning magic if you didn't know how to teach safely. I was just thinking, Christina shouldn't have died. Her dad never taught her, did he?" she asked, looking down at Christina's picture. "He's this great wizard, and she wanted to learn, but he never bothered to teach her. And she tried to teach herself, and killed herself doing it, because she didn't know any better. And then he went all shock-and-awe on that drug dealer, as if it was the dealer's fault his daughter had holes in her brain. But she was going to die soon no matter what."
"She would have lived longer if she hadn't taken the drugs that night," Doctor Vaughan said. "I can't hazard a guess as to how long. But yes, the brain damage would have killed her eventually."
"If he'd put half as much effort into taking care of his daughter and teaching her as he did into trying to avenge her, she'd still be alive," Abigail said. She looked up at Thomas. "But he wanted someone else to blame for his own mistakes and for the random chance that that was when the bomb in his daughter's head went off. He wanted to hurt someone because he was hurting. And that's who Lesley betrayed us for."
"Yes," Thomas said. "I think that is probably an accurate summation of his character."
"Lesley wanted her face back, and she got it," Abigail said. "Do you think that's the end of it, for her? That she'll skive off to, I don't know, Spain or Italy now that she has a face again?"
Thomas considered the question. "I don't know," he said. "I don't believe Lesley to be shallow enough that a promise of restoring the damage to her face would be sufficient in and of itself, and she has never deigned to share her full motivations with us. If her face had been her only reason, why would she continue the association now that she has it back?"
Abigail was quiet for a bit, thinking it over. "I think she was angry and wanted other people to hurt as much as she did," she said. "And she was never going to get the opportunity to take her pain out on other people with the Folly, yeah? You and Peter between you, you'd make her toe the line."
"Did she say or do anything to hurt or frighten you when she was with the Folly?" Doctor Vaughan asked.
"Nah," Abigail said. "I was just Peter's annoying tag-a-long cousin, yeah? Beneath her notice. And she liked Peter, so she tolerated me. But she didn't bother trying to make herself look good to me, like she did Peter, and I never had a crush on her, the way he did, so I saw her a bit more clearly. He's bare stupid when it comes to women."
Thomas was forced to acknowledge that this was true, though he had to fight down twin impulses to defend Peter's honor and question whether her adult cousin's romantic travails were appropriate for young Abigail to be concerned with. "She does still seem to have an attachment to Peter," Thomas said. "That was the reason Chorley gave for not killing Peter outright at the start. However, given that such attachment did not prevent her from tasering him in the back and using lethal spells in combat with him, we cannot count on her good will in any future encounters."
"'Course," Abigail said. "I'm not stupid. If she'd attack Peter, there's no reason she wouldn't hurt me if she wanted to. And I only know two spells."
"We have no reason to believe that she would choose to harm you," Thomas said. "She is not a rabid dog, to attack without reason."
"Yeah, but you didn't have any reason to think she had anything to do with the ledger or Reynard, and look what happened," Abigail said. "She and her boss don't like the Folly, and I'm a member of the Folly for real, now. And the easiest nut to crack. If they do decide to come after the Folly, I'm the obvious first target."
Abigail had wanted to check out the goblin market since the first time Peter had mentioned it. Just to see what it was like. Peter had refused to take her because it was too dangerous and no place for a kid. Abigail thought he was thinking too much like a Fed, but couldn't have gotten in to one by herself. You needed to know someone who knew someone to get the location and password, and Abigail's most reliable contacts were the foxes. And they didn't go to the goblin markets.
She'd been texting Oliver, and he'd been to them before, which just went to show Peter was being overprotective. Oliver didn't usually go to them himself, but in November he texted her that there was going to be one the next Sunday, and he was going Christmas shopping, and she could tag along if she wanted.
"Sure," Abigail texted back.
She and Oliver met at the Canada Water tube station, and he led the way through the streets of Bermondsey to their destination. "So, why ask me to take you to the goblin market?" he asked. "I know the Isaacs know about them; the Starling's gone to a few, hasn't he?"
"Yeah," Abigail said. "But Peter thinks it's too dangerous for kids. Or corrupting, whatever."
"The goblin market?" Oliver said. "Why? It's just a bunch of people selling things, and hanging out, in a neutral location."
"How many of the things being sold fell off the back of a lorry?" Abigail asked. Even if it was a hotbed of theft and stolen property, it wasn't like she couldn't find stuff like that on her own back in her own manor. She just wanted to know what the demi-monde version of it was like.
Oliver snorted. "Not many. If you wanted that sort of thing, you don't need to go to the demimonde. It isn't that big. The only sorts of things you find in a goblin market are the sort of things you couldn't find anywhere else. The sort of thing ordinary people wouldn't care about or know what to do with. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble?"
"So why do you go to all the trouble?" Abigail asked, eyeing a white man in an expensive coat who hurried by them while talking self-importantly into his mobile. There was an awful lot of gentrification in the area; old warehouses and factories turned into upscale flats and boutiques. But you could still see the bones of the place. She wasn't quite getting suspicious looks, but she could tell those wouldn't be long in coming. The place had that sort of an atmosphere.
Oliver shrugged. "So you can let your hair down without having to worry about normals wandering in? And also, most of the ordinary places people gather are someone's patch. You go to the Spring Court or the Harvest Home, you're in River territory. Most of the pubs are owned or claimed by one group or another. That can complicate things, yeah? But the goblin market isn't owned by anybody, or controlled by anybody. It's its own thing. Neutral ground."
"Right," Abigail said.
"The Isaacs seriously think the goblin markets are just for stolen goods?" Oliver said, wrinkling his nose.
"Not just," Abigail said. She shrugged. "Peter's a Fed, and he was one before he was a wizard. He's always on the lookout for crime, and there's these things called nazareths, yeah? Secret pop up markets where people sell dodgy goods."
"And the goblin market looks like that, so he didn't think we've got reasons to be quiet without being crooks," Oliver said.
"Something like that," Abigail said.
"Disappointing," Oliver said.
"Why do you care what Peter thinks?" Abigail asked.
"He's different," Oliver said. "Or supposed to be. A sign the Isaacs are getting better."
"They are getting better," Abigail said. "I told you, I've read the old journals. Those old white men were seriously horrible. Nightingale isn't; he don't judge, and he don't think he's better than everyone else. Neither does Peter. They both want to protect people, do the right thing. And they count fae and rivers and all the rest as 'people,' which the old Folly didn't. It's just … when you look for something, you tend to find that thing and not see the rest of it. And Peter's a Fed."
"He looks for crime, so he sees it, you mean?" Oliver said.
"Yeah," Abigail said.
"Sounds like they need some wizards who aren't with the police, to balance things out a bit," Oliver said.
"Why, you want to be one?" Abigail asked.
"Maybe," Oliver said, "depending. I think it'd be cool to do magic, but I don't know if joining the Isaacs is worth it."
Abigail shrugged. "We're redefining the Isaacs, we are. In the old days, they wouldn't have let me in the front door—and maybe not even the servant's entrance. And now I'm an apprentice. And I'm never gonna be a Fed, and Nightinale is fine with that."
"Here we are," Oliver said, as they turned the corner and saw an old brick building with scaffolding around the outside. It didn't look like work had started on the building, though, nor was any planned to start soon, as there were neither dumpsters for demolition rubble nor pallets of supplies. There were metal shutters on the windows with graffiti on them. Oliver knocked on the door, and gave the password to a white boy in a hoodie with weird hair. He might have been fae, or just a bit odd; it could be hard to tell sometimes.
Inside the building, space heaters took the nip out of the air. There were three rows of long folding tables near the door, with goods laid out on them and people manning them. Beyond these were a bunch of garden tables and chairs, with people sitting and drinking, while Queen played in the background. There was an open area where a few little kids were playing—tag, it looked like. It could have been an ordinary jumble sale, if Abigail hadn't known better. Except there weren't any piles of clothing or whatever.
"This is a nice big one," Oliver said, nodding. "They don't often get this much space."
Abigail led the way to the tables. Oliver knew a few people and said hello, introducing Abigail as they went. Word had got around, Abigail noticed; he didn't say she was an apprentice wizard, but people reacted when he said her name. Not much, but Abigail was good at reading people, and by the time they got to the end of the first row, her back itched like there was a target on it.
The first table on the second row was covered with books, some of them old, some of them obviously made in a copy shop. Abigail spotted a familiar cover on one of the old ones; it was Baxendale's Taxonomy of Ephemeralities, which was one of the most useless books about ghosts the Folly had ever produced. Flipping the cover open, it had a fancy bookplate saying it was from some wizard's private collection.
"You interested in that?" the black woman behind the table asked. Oliver wasn't interested in the books, and moved on to the next table.
"How much?" Abigail asked, out of curiosity.
"Fifteen quid."
"Fifteen quid?" Abigail was outraged. "For the stupidest book on ghosts ever written?"
"Yeah, but it's from the Isaacs," the woman said. "Genuine. Got a wizard's signature on the bookplate and everything. And it's funny, how much it got wrong. You want a laugh, can't get much better than that."
"No thanks," Abigail said, who could read it for free in the Folly library, and hadn't found it that funny when she did. "How'd you get it?"
"Estate sale," the woman said. "When the Isaac who used to own it died, his family didn't know anything about magic or what he did before the war, so they just chucked his books and whatnot in the sale with everything else. No staff or anything, more's the pity."
Abigail put the book down and was moving on to the copy-shop books when something caught her attention. She wasn't sure what it was at first, so she stopped, head bowed over the books as if they were the only thought in her head.
There it was. A familiar voice, a woman's voice. Lesley? She couldn't be sure. Abigail hadn't known her all that well, and it had been a while. But it sounded like her.
Abigail put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie as casually as she could, and brought out her phone. She opened up her texts, and brought up the text thread with her and Peter and Nightingale. She typed out a short message about possibly hearing Lesley, but she paused before sending it. No point in sending out a false alarm.
But Nightingale was right, when he talked about how important it was to be able to call for backup when she needed it. Abigail hit 'send.'
She put the phone back in her pocket and turned toward Lesley's voice. Abigail tried to look bored as she surveyed the crowd. Nobody with a mask, but then … Lesley'd learned how to give herself a face, Peter said. Learned it from old Faceless himself, who did things like fuse the skin of people he didn't like to trees, and blew up council flats for power. There were at least three blonde women within earshot with about the right body type to be Lesley.
Abigail felt for vestigium and signare, but there was nothing beyond the general background hum you expected from a gathering of the demimonde. Nobody was actively doing magic.
The voice she'd heard might not be Lesley. Even if it was, she might not have noticed Abigail; she'd never cared about Abigail as anything more than an annoying kid hanging around Peter. And she didn't want to hurt Peter; Abigail might not have heard the full story, but that was why Faceless hadn't killed Peter when he had the chance. Hurting Abigail would hurt Peter; Lesley probably wouldn't try that as an opening move. And if she had decided to go after Abigail for some reason, it'd be easier to scoop her off the street instead of grabbing her from a public place where everyone knew her. This had to be random chance. If Lesley were here for Abigail, the trap would have sprung shut by now.
Abigail could probably just walk out of here, back to the Tube station, and be just fine.
She could taste pennies in her mouth, from the adrenaline rush. It was almost like being back in that house by Hampstead Heath again, except in the house she'd had a plan and a goal and knew what she was doing and was doing it on purpose. And a hooley bar, a fireman's crowbar equally good for property damage or self-defense, as the need arose.
Right now, she had her wits, a panic button, and two spells. On the plus side, nobody else's safety depended on her, and it might not even be a problem.
If Lesley had noticed her and did have something in mind, Abigail would be much safer staying here where there were people who knew who she was and could at least tell Nightingale what had happened. You were always safer with other people around. And maybe she could stall until Nightingale or Peter could get here.
If they got here quick enough, they might be able to catch Lesley, arrest her. But that would work best if Lesley didn't know to run.
Abigail was starting to turn back and try to unobtrusively lose herself in the crowd when one of the blondes—the closest one, of course—glanced up, locked eyes with her, and froze.
Shit. Okay, they were doing this.
"Abigail?"
Yeah, that was Lesley's voice, all right. "Yeah?"
"What are you doing here?" Lesley asked. "The demimonde is a dangerous place."
Abigail couldn't help it. She scoffed. "That's rich coming from you, that is."
Lesley stiffened. "You don't know anything, you stupid little girl. I did what I had to do."
"Abigail?" Oliver was behind her. She didn't turn to look at him. "You ok?"
"This is Lesley May," Abigail said. She didn't raise her voice, but she made sure to speak clearly enough for anyone listening to hear. "She works for Martin Chorley, the wizard who destroyed Skygarden and tried to kill Lady Tyburn a few weeks ago."
Sure enough, people were listening. Nobody was obviously watching, but people were slowly sidling away.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," Lesley said.
"Neither am I," Abigail said.
Lesley glared at her. It was a lot less effective with a pretty face than it had been when she hadn't had one, and anyway, Abigail was an expert at ignoring olds glaring at her, so it had no effect.
You got into a lot less trouble saying nothing than you did running your mouth, so Abigail didn't ask any of the thousand questions she had running through her brain. 'Why'd you do it' seemed obvious, and Lesley wasn't stupid enough—or emotionally invested in Abigail enough—to give away any of her or her master's plans.
"You still chasing ghosts?" Lesley asked, after a while.
"Yeah," Abigail said, and didn't fill her in on any of the other things she was doing, on her own or with the Folly.
"How's Peter?"
That struck home, although Abigail kept her face straight. "What do you care? You tasered him in the back and joined up with a murderer so you could get your pretty face back."
"It's not about looks," Lesley hissed. "I'm not stupid, and I'm not narcissistic or whatever it is you think. Chorley has power, and he's going to use that power to make the world a better place in a way Nightingale never could."
"Never could, or never would?" Abigail asked.
"Does it matter?" Lesley asked.
"Yeah, it does," Abigail said. If you had power, there were a lot of things you could do that you shouldn't, and the more power you had the truer that was. Also, it mattered what you meant by 'better place.' Abigail wasn't stupid enough to think a posh white murderer would try to build any kind of world Abigail would want to live in. But there was no point saying any of that to Lesley.
How long would it take Nightingale or Peter to get here? She didn't even know where they were, today. The goblin market was only about five miles away from Russell Square. If they saw her text immediately, and if they were there, and if traffic wasn't too bad, they could probably make it in twenty minutes.
That was a lot of ifs.
Lesley could kill her easy as anything, or kidnap her, but she probably wouldn't want to. Not here, at any rate; not with so many witnesses, when she didn't have any plans going that Abigail could help or hinder. In twenty minutes, she'd be long gone.
Abigail's phone rang. Without taking her eyes off Lesley, Abigail drew it out of her pocket and thumbed it on. "Hey."
It was Nightingale. "Abigail, what's wrong?"
"I'm at the goblin market," Abigail said. "So's Lesley."
"Does she know you're there?" Nightingale's voice was tight, precise, controlled, like he'd been when she came out of the house by Hampstead Heath.
"Yeah," Abigail said.
"Can she hear you?"
"Yeah."
"Has she made any threatening moves?"
"Not so far," Abigail said. "I think it was just pure dumb luck."
"Tell Peter hi from me," Lesley said. She turned and walked off.
Abigail watched her walk off. "She's leaving," she said to Nightingale.
"Good," he said. "Stay there, in plain sight of everyone. I will be there as soon as possible to collect you."
"I wasn't planning on wandering off," Abigail said.
"Are there any rivers there?"
Abigail scanned the crowd. "Haven't seen any."
"Very well. You are probably safe as long as you stay in the market; even without the presence of the rivers, there are people in the demimonde that Lesley would hesitate to cross openly, and the market is supposed to be safe for all. Will you be alright until my arrival?"
"Yeah, 'course," Abigail said. "Sorry for interrupting your day." She was beginning to feel a bit stupid for hitting the panic button; after all, Lesley hadn't wanted anything from her, hadn't tried anything, had been as surprised as she was.
"Not at all," Nightingale said. "You did absolutely the right thing. We do not know enough of Lesley's goals—or Chorley's—to predict their movements, but they are quite dangerous, and I would much rather be safe than sorry. Particularly when it is your safety at risk."
"Yeah, okay," Abigail said, feeling a little better.
Thomas did not put the lights on, though he thought about it; traffic was moving along fairly decently, for a Sunday in November, and with Lesley gone, Abigail was not in immediate danger.
At the door of the defunct factory housing the goblin market for the day, Thomas rapped sharply on the door with his cane. It swung open, and a demifae woman Thomas had seen around the demimonde for years stood in the doorway. He didn't know her name.
"Nightingale, your apprentice is safe," she said. "There's been no trouble here today, and we'd like to keep it that way."
"So would I," Nightingale said. "Though of course if Lesley May should return, I would be obliged to arrest her."
The woman nodded and stepped aside. "Kamara's sitting with her friend over in the refs area."
Thomas entered the building. The crowd was sparse, and evenly divided between those who stared at his entrance and those who determinedly ignored it; food and drink was on the far side of the room, and Abigail sat at a table there with a boy of around her age.
Thomas strode over to them. "How are you, Abigail?" he asked.
"I'm alright," she said. "Nothing actually happened."
"And your friend?" Thomas said, turning to the boy.
"I'm fine, too," he said, looking Thomas up and down distrustfully.
"I'm Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale," Thomas said.
"I know that," the boy said.
"This is Oliver," Abigail said. "He was at Father Thames' Harvest Home celebration."
"How do you do," Thomas said. "Do you need a ride home?"
"Nah," Oliver said. "I can take the bus, it's fine. And I'm not done shopping."
Thomas considered this. While Abigail might be a target for the Faceless Man, Oliver wouldn't be. "Very well. I should like your parents' contact information, in case there is any need for a follow-up."
Oliver made a face but provided it, and accepted Nightingale's card in turn.
"Sorry about all the fuss," Abigail said.
"Not your fault the Isaacs' nemesis showed up," Oliver said. He looked at Thomas, then back to Abigail. "Stay safe," he said, and walked back towards the tables with items to sell.
"Shall we go?" Thomas asked, acutely aware of all the people watching.
"Yeah," Abigail said with a sigh.
They walked to the door in silence. Once they were in the car, Abigail related the entirety of the incident to him.
"You did precisely the right thing," Thomas said. "You kept your calm, you alerted backup in a timely fashion. If she had wanted to harm you, you ensured we would know immediately and with some idea of where to start looking."
"But it turned out she wasn't looking for trouble any more than I was," Abigail said.
"It is better to be prepared than caught off guard," Nightingale said firmly. "Especially when dealing with dangerous people." Peter's training was being terribly rushed, and it suffered because he was learning new formae not in a logical order, but in the order that would make him most able to defend himself from attack. He had thought that Abigail's training would be more thorough, more like his own days at Casterbrook; but perhaps that should change.
"Yeah." Abigail sighed again. She stared out the window at the passing streets. "What do you think she meant, that her boss is going to make the world better?"
"I'm afraid I've no idea," Thomas said. "Though I certainly would not trust the judgment of a man who has done the things he has done."
Abigail snorted. "Yeah."
She was quiet for a while and they sat there in companionable silence. Traffic slowed, until they were moving at a crawl.
"You know, the house on East Heath Road offered to help Paul," Abigail said at last.
"How so?" Thomas asked. But he thought he already knew.
"He could stay there forever and be happy," Abigail said. "And I thought, there's a lot of kids like Paul. Kids who are gonna die, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Where the cure will come ten, twenty years too late. For just a minute, I thought, we could make the house a clinic. The house gets all the kids it wants, the kids are safe and happy, and they live until someone figures out how to help them."
"Why didn't you accept the house's offer?" Thomas asked. "It sounds quite tempting."
"It wouldn't give up the others, would it," Abigail said. "It wanted to keep them all. It would never have been happy just with the sick kids. And when the time came for the ones like Paul to leave, it wouldn't give them up either. How many kids would spend their whole lives in someone else's memories, so that Paul could live and be happy?"
"And you couldn't do that," Thomas said quietly, knowing the kind of courage and integrity it would require to say no to someone offering you your heart's desire.
"No, I couldn't," Abigail said. "Not even for Paul. But Lesley would have said yes, and not care about the cost to everybody else, wouldn't she?"
"I'm afraid she would have," Thomas said. "She did. At least one person died as part of Chorley's experiments into fixing her face, and there might have been more."
"And she still thought she was in the right," Abigail said, with some scorn. "After all she's done, or helped with."
"Yes," Thomas said.
"I'm glad she's not in the Folly anymore," Abigail said. "Don't tell Peter."
"I won't," Thomas promised. "But regardless of Lesley's choices, I am quite pleased to have you with us. You are a credit to your brother and the Folly, not only today, but in everything you have done so far. I can teach the skills, the forms and wisdoms, to anyone. But knowing how and when to use them, and when not to … that requires character, which cannot be learned in a classroom. And in that, you are far superior to Lesley May."
The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.—Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.
Author:
beatrice_otter Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara, Thomas Nightingale
Rating: General audiences
Length: 11k words
Written For:
pendrecarc in the Five Figure Fanwork Exchange (fffx )Summary: Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.
At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.
Peter Grant, apprentice member of the Society of the Wise, Constable of the Metropolitan Police, had the unfortunate propensity to act (and speak) before thinking. In a crisis, this quickness was a decided virtue. If only he could learn to consider his actions more carefully in ordinary moments, Thomas reflected, he would be an exemplary wizard.
But such meticulousness was (for the moment) beyond him. Fortunately for all concerned, Peter had a certain amount of serendipitous luck to balance out the possible consequences of his thoughtlessness, and none of his rash actions (or words) had resulted in truly dire consequences so far. Indeed, several of them had turned out remarkably well, all things considered. Such was the case with his promise, two years earlier, that he would begin teaching magic to his cousin Abigail Kamara, should she pass her Latin A-levels.
The young Miss Kamara was, if anything, even more promising than her cousin. Quite intelligent, staunchly firm in her ethical thought (albeit occasionally in unorthodox ways), ferociously dedicated to pursuing her goals and—unlike Peter—not prone to distractions or leaping before she looked. All in all, Thomas Nightingale, Master of the Society of the Wise, Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, was quite looking forward to teaching her.
That is, should her parents give consent. Which Peter had not considered when he so rashly promised that she should learn magic upon proving her proficiency in Latin.
It was obtaining that necessary consent which brought Thomas and Peter here today, to the Peckwater Estate, to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Kamara, explain the situation, and see if such permission might be forthcoming.
"Ah, Mr. Nightingale, sir, welcome to our flat!" Mr. Kamara said as he opened the door to them. "Peter, welcome, come in." He stood aside to let them enter.
"Mr. Kamara, thank you. And Mrs. Kamara, as well," Thomas said.
"Please, call me Debbie," Mrs. Kamara said. Thomas acquiesced with a slight smile, although he was honestly more comfortable with her husband's formality. Still, Mrs. Kamara was hospitable enough, and before long they were settled in the living room with mugs of tea. It was a small room, with little adornment, but still comfortable and homey.
"So, how's Abigail doing?" Debbie asked, once they were all settled. "She hasn't got herself into trouble, has she?" She had put Thomas and Peter on the sofa, with herself and her husband in chairs across from them.
"Not that I know of," Peter said. "Though, you never know, with her; she likes to solve things herself in her own way."
"Indeed," Thomas said, remembering the more distressing aspects of the incident with the house the previous summer. Young Abigail had been in over her head (though not, as it turned out, without the ability to keep herself afloat) and had not reached out for backup when it was appropriate to do so. Still, they had discussed the matter, both her failures and her successes, and he was confident that she would call him should there be another crisis in the future.
"Very self-reliant, that girl," Mr. Kamara said with an approving nod. "Tough. She's got a good head on her shoulders."
Debbie smiled and nodded. "How are her studies?"
"Excellent," Nightingale said. "Her Latin is coming along very nicely, and she has been a great help to us by doing research for several of our less dangerous cases."
"She says you have promised to teach her magic when she has learned Latin," Mr. Kamara said.
Peter winced. "I did, yeah. Sorry. I should have asked you first."
"We are here, in fact, to remedy that oversight," Thomas said.
"And when she's learned magic, then what?" Debbie asked. "Will you want her to join the police?" Her face was studiously neutral; certainly, she was aware that a youth of Abigail's talents and drive could find much more prestigious and lucrative employment than joining the police.
"If Abigail wishes, there would certainly be a place for her," Thomas said. "But training in magic is not contingent on any particular career path. Back when the Folly was at its peak, there were a number of professions for wizards, and many who were trained but chose not to use that training professionally. These days, I'm afraid, there are few careers for wizards directly, but we still have connections to assist her on her way. Doctor Harold Postmartin, at Oxford, will be writing her an excellent letter of recommendation to whatever university she might care to apply to. His influence is greatest at Oxford; that is the traditional university for wizards. Such a recommendation is not, of course, contingent on Abigail becoming an apprentice."
The Kamaras shared a smile at the mention of a faculty sponsor at Oxford.
"Why wouldn't she?" Mr. Kamara said, turning a bit more serious. "Become an apprentice, I mean. Her grades are excellent, she has learned Latin as you said, she has been working for you as a junior apprentice for two years, and she's been very single-minded about wanting to learn magic since she learned about it. If you are willing, I don't see what could stop her."
"That's the thing," Peter said with a wince. "What she's been doing now, book work and research and tracking down ghosts and things, it hasn't been dangerous at all."
"Aside from the things she did purely on her own, like investigating that house that ate children," Mr. Kamara said.
"Aside from that, yes," Nightingale said. "But I believe she has learned the importance of communication and backup from that incident. Hopefully, we shall not have similar problems in the future."
"But the next step is dangerous?" Debbie said. "Even if she's not doing police work?"
"Magic carries the inherent risk of stroke if one uses too much power in too short a period," Thomas said. "If you are properly supervised as you learn and are careful never to overdo it, the risk is minimal. But it is a risk, nonetheless. Abigail would be closely supervised and monitored during instruction and practice, and she would have regular brain scans at the Folly expense to catch any hint of damage before—"
"Brain damage?" Mr. Kamara said. His nostrils flared. "I think this is something you should have told us from the beginning, Mr. Nightingale."
"Nothing she's done for the Folly has been dangerous," Peter said. "Worst she's been at risk of so far is Molly's more dubious experiments."
"Yes, you have only been preparing her for the dangerous things to come, without asking her father and mother," Mr. Kamara said. "And now, what if we say no, the risk is too great? After she has put all this work into it? That is not fair to her. It is not."
"You are quite correct, of course," Thomas said. "I'm sorry."
"When I promised we'd teach her magic if she learned her Latin, I thought she'd be discouraged, lose interest," Peter said, shamefacedly. "Sorry. If I'd known her better I wouldn't have given her a challenge."
Debbie hadn't said anything yet; she was staring down the hall toward the bedrooms, arms crossed. "How likely is it that she would be able to teach herself, without your help? Or find someone else?"
"It's certainly possible to muddle through simple spells, even without a teacher," Thomas said. "But the risks are far, far greater."
"That's what I figured." Debbie shook her head. "Abigail's too much like my mum. She gets her head set on something, she won't never stop going after it. If we say no, she'll do it anyway and probably kill herself." She fixed Thomas with a stare. "You'll take care of our girl, though, yeah? Make sure she learns it safe?"
"I give you my word I shall do everything in my power to keep her safe," Thomas said.
And that was that.
When Abigail heard they'd talked to her parents about her becoming an apprentice without her being there, she'd given Nightingale a gimlet eye. But, as the end result was in her favor, she hadn't quibbled too much. Then came the oath, and the question of what (if any) ceremony should attend it.
"We're doing it at my flat," Abigail said. There were nice sandwiches all laid out in patterns on a tray with a doily, and a proper tea set, but she hadn't taken any yet, and wouldn't until any negotiating was done.
"That would mean that Molly couldn't be present," Nightingale said. He, on the other hand, had selected refreshments and was carefully making his way through them.
"Yeah, but if it's at the Folly, then Paul couldn't come, could he," Abigail said. "He could make it, but then he'd be too tired to really pay attention and enjoy it." It was only about two miles, but to get into and out of the car, plus time spent in traffic, would really take it out of him. Paul was cut off from so much, even with their new ground-floor flat; Abigail wasn't going to exclude him from anything she could possibly bring home to him.
"Of course, how thoughtless of me," Nightingale said. Which was why Abigail liked him; he might not always see the things she thought were important, not without prompting, but he listened when she told him what he was missing. "I'm sure Peter can film it on his phone for her."
"She can cater, if she likes," Abigail offered. "You know she'll like that almost as much as being there."
"True," Nightingale said. "Very well, we'll have it at your place."
Abigail gave him a sharp nod.
"Afternoon," Peter asked, poking his head in. "How's it going?" He flopped down in a chair and snagged a sandwich from the tray.
"We have settled upon the venue," Nightingale said. "Abigail's flat."
"Or the community rooms, depending on who wants to come," Abigail said. "Lots of people round the estate know about you by now. Bet some'd be curious."
"Did your families come watch when you gave the oath, sir?" Peter asked.
"By and large not," Nightingale said. "We took the oath during chapel on the first day of every school year, with our teachers arrayed in front of us. Though we did take another oath upon graduation, and our families were there for that." He picked up a book from the side table and handed it to Abigail. A ribbon marked a page halfway through it. "Here is the rite as it was done in my youth. Most of the ceremony of was simply the regular chapel service, which obviously doesn't apply. Truly, the oath itself is the only part that is necessary; we can make the ceremony as simple or as elaborate as you wish."
Abigail read through it. "What's this about clothing? How can you be in obedience to clothing?"
"I've always wondered that myself," Peter said.
"And you never asked?" Nightingale said, raising his eyebrows. "Most uncharacteristic of you."
"A lot was going on at the time," Peter said. "I had bigger things to worry about. And then I got distracted and forgot about it."
"Ah. Well, in any case, it's quite simple; at both Casterbrook and the Folly, we used to wear academic gowns at mealtimes. The professors and the Society leadership had elaborate hoods that symbolized their accomplishments and training; ordinary wizards, rather plainer ones. It's similar to the way certain guilds historically had specific garments as a mark of their trade." Nightingale poured himself another cup of tea, doctoring it as he spoke. "The gowns were purchased by the individual, along with one's ordinary clothes; but the hoods could only be awarded by a board upon being certified as having earned one. Thus, being in obedience to the 'clothing' really means being in obedience to the people who were entitled to be clothed by the Society."
"Which in your case means me and Nightingale," Peter told Abigail.
"Nah, you ain't been certified by a board," Abigail said. "You're still an apprentice yourself."
"Very true," Nightingale said, ignoring the betrayed look Peter gave him. He nodded approval at Abigail for having thought it through so quickly. "However, he is a senior apprentice and you are a junior one; he is an adult, and you are an adolescent. Thus he is, for purposes of the oath, a warden whom you are bound to obey in so far as it regards your training."
"See?" Peter said.
"Just so long as it's clear I'm an apprentice wizard, not an apprentice copper," Abigail said.
"Quite clear," Nightingale said. "At least in theory; we shall not be involving you in cases any more than we have to this point—similar research specifically on the magical or demi-monde aspects of certain cases which come to our attention."
Abigail considered this, and then gave a nod. "Fair enough."
"I thought you liked helping on cases?" Peter asked.
"I like figuring things out," Abigail said. "And I like knowing the things you can find in the library. And the things you can't. But I ain't gonna be a cog in the Fed machine."
"We're not Feds!" Peter said with some exasperation. "Apart from the fact that it's an American thing, it refers to agents of the federal government. I'm a constable in London's police. It's a metropolitan area!"
"You wanna be called the filth, instead?" Abigail asked.
"At least it's more accurate," Peter said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
"May I ask where, in your opinion, the line falls between assisting in the Folly's investigations, and being 'a cog in the Fed machine?'" Nightingale asked.
"I can trust the two of you, can't I," Abigail said. "You stay out of peoples' business unless they actually need you. You don't broadcast nothing about things people would rather keep private unless it's something that actually needs to be shared. You don't harass people just 'cos they're different, and you don't kick peoples' doors in unless they've done something to deserve it. But I can't say that of any random Fed, can I?"
"Hey, it's better than it used to be," Peter said.
Abigail stared at him, because 'better than it used to be' wasn't good enough and he knew it. "If I'm gonna stick my nose in other peoples' business, I want assurances that it isn't just somebody being a busybody, yeah? I want to be able to know we ain't making things worse, now or down the line."
"Very commendable," Nightingale said, with an approving nod. "One cannot always know the results of any action for sure ahead of time, of course, but knowing where one's own ethical lines are avoids a great deal of confusion and later regret." He took a sip of his tea. "Will you be wishing to continue your outside consulting work?"
"Got to earn my pocket money, don't I?" Abigail said.
"Indeed," Nightingale said. He took another sip of his tea. "However, once you are officially sworn in as an apprentice, your actions become a reflection of us. Therefore, I think it appropriate to institute certain guidelines to ensure that the Folly is represented well and not brought into disrepute."
"You mean, more than all the racist sexist crackpot wizards of the last two centuries did?" Abigail asked, shooting him a hard look. "I read the County Practitioner records, I've listened to foxes and Rivers and others, I know how the demimonde remembers them."
Nightingale nodded in acknowledgment of her point. "When one is starting on the back foot, it is even more important to put one's best foot forward. Having identified what we do not want the Folly to be, going forward, perhaps you would like to suggest some reasonable guidelines for the future? Ones which include procedures for checking in with Peter or myself so that reasonable safety precautions might be taken?"
"There's another issue, too," Peter said. "You will be, legally and morally, a representative of the Folly. And the Folly is a law-enforcement organization. That's not all it is, but historically the line gets a bit blurry. Do you know how you're going to make sure it's crystal clear to everyone that your jobs are 'apprentice wizard does jobs on the side as a purely personal matter' and not 'the Isaacs asserting their power with a fig leaf of plausible deniability'? And even if you can, will that last beyond the first time you stumble onto something big that is something we need to handle officially as the Folly?"
Abigail frowned. That wasn't something she'd really thought about. Taking cases through Simon's mum was one thing, they weren't normally connected to the demimonde. And taking cases from her classmates and such was fine, too; they didn't even know the demimonde existed, much less that the Feds had an Official Wizarding Branch.
Abigail liked being independent. She liked figuring out what was really going on. She liked solving problems—really solving them, not just shoving them off on someone else or mucking them up further or pretending that official scrutiny would make things better. She could trust herself to do things right. She could trust Nightingale and Peter to do things right—even on things they didn't agree with her about.
But they weren't just individuals, were they, they were the long arm of the law. And there would be things that did need to be handled officially, or that were too big for her by herself. If she were the one looking at the setup from the outside, she wouldn't believe that she was an independent investigator.
"We need more wizards who aren't the filth," she said, feeling bare stupid not to have thought about this problem before. If there were other Folly members, it wouldn't matter so much.
"It would help immensely with a great many things," Nightingale said.
"What about, like, regular private investigators, the ones who go after cheating husbands and the like," she said. "Do they call the police when they find something big?"
"Depends on what it is, and whether they care about doing the right thing," Peter said. "A dead body or something, they're more likely to call in about."
Abigail nodded. "But, like, a psychiatrist, they have a duty of care, yeah? Certain things they are required to report. Like suspicion of child abuse."
"You think we should make up some sort of policy for you, like that?" Peter said. "Something you can tell your clients so they know where the line is ahead of time?"
"And also, so that you are clear where the line is ahead of time," Nightingale said.
The ceremony, when it happened, was simple. It was a far cry from the pomp and circumstance of his youth, and Thomas wouldn't have wanted to hear any of his masters' comments about it. Abigail's family and Peter's parents gathered in the living room of Abigail's flat. It was the first time Thomas had ever met Paul, and he noted the obvious care given to Paul's comfort and wishes. He was seated in the most comfortable chair, with pillows tucked around him to keep him in a good position, and Debbie next to him in case he needed anything.
Abigail was dressed in an outfit much more formal than Thomas had ever seen her in; it was different not merely in design but in color and pattern. Her hair, however, was exactly in its usual style.
The ceremony was quick. Thomas gave a short speech about the responsibilities and duties Abigail would be assuming as his apprentice, and how her dedication and strength of character would be assets in her life as a wizard. Abigail swore the oath, and Thomas swore an oath to be a fair and ethical teacher. It wasn't part of the traditional rite, but Abigail had insisted, and upon reflection Thomas had decided that formally acknowledging the inherent responsibilities and duties of his position was no bad thing. Peter filmed the whole thing.
Then they all had a formal tea in the silver and china Molly had packed up, and which a few of Peter and Abigail's relations had been recruited to move and set up.
It was a satisfactory afternoon.
Next came the hard bit.
For Abigail, anyway.
Abigail's first lesson began in a lab in the Folly, lined with old wooden counters, over a sink full of water.
"You should find this a trifle easier than most beginning students," Nightingale said, "as you have had such a long time to learn to feel vestigia. You should, therefore, be able to sense what I am doing quite precisely. What you have not done until now is take the next step and replicate it yourself."
"Right," Abigail said. She already knew this bit, and wished he'd get on with it.
"You will feel what I am doing and repeat it as exactly as you can," Nightingale said. "You will make the hand gesture, say the word, and mentally form the pattern, all together, each time you do it."
"But the word and the hand movement aren't, like, strictly necessary," Abigail said. "It's not abracadabra sort of stage magic, the thing you're doing with your mind is what's actually doing the work, right?"
"For a beginning practitioner, the word and gesture are absolutely necessary," Nightingale said. "It is very hard to train your brain to do something precise that does not have a physical component. Especially when it is unlike anything you have ever done before. By teaching your brain to associate the mental pattern of the spell with the hand movement and the word, we are giving it a physical sensation to associate the formae with, and that in turn will make it easier for your brain to replicate the correct mental shape. Once you have securely mastered a formae to my satisfaction, then you may attempt it silently. Not before, do you understand?"
"Sure," Abigail said. At least, she wouldn't try it silently anywhere Nightingale could see her.
"I must insist you take this seriously," Nightingale said. "Frustrating though it is, trying to speed through things now will only slow you down later. These spells you are learning now are the building blocks of everything that comes after. Single-order spells will work with hardly any accuracy at all. But when you try to combine them, they will not work if you are not precise enough. Or they will blow up in your face. And then you will have to unlearn everything and re-learn it the correct way. Better to do it correctly from the beginning."
"Fair point," Abigail said. She frowned. "Is that why Peter blows things up so often?"
"Not only that, but it is a factor, yes," Nightingale said. "Part of it is my own fault, for rushing his early training; but then, we didn't exactly have an overabundance of time, either. But we do have time with you. So we shall do things correctly. And you will practice formae exactly as I teach you to do them, and restrict yourself to approved time. Yes?"
"Yes," Abigail said. "Can we get on with it?" Although the words were those of a bored teenager, her eyes gleamed with anticipation.
"The first formae is lux," Nightingale said. "This first time, please close your eyes and do nothing but feel what I am doing." He demonstrated the spell until she was completely certain she had the formae in her head.
Abigail held her hand over the sink full of water, opened it like a flower while saying "Lux!" and thinking the formae in her head.
Nothing happened. She scowled at her hand.
"Nobody achieves any spell on their first attempt, particularly not their first spell," Nightingale said. "You did very well. Let me demonstrate it again."
Abigail didn't get it that time either, or the time after that. But she did get it eventually. (And when she asked, it was fewer tries than Peter had needed.)
Once Abigail had mastered lux and was a wizard in practice as well as in theory, it was time to start introducing her to the various powers in the demimonde. Father Thames was simple; he was a peripatetic spirit, wandering with the seasons, hosting and attending many functions at which the Folly might make an appearance and formal introductions might be made without causing an appearance that they were seeking approval. There was a fine line between showing respect and paying homage, and Thomas had learned well how to tread it.
Thus it was that, on the Sunday nearest the Harvest Moon, Thomas escorted Abigail to a Harvest Home festival in which the pagan roots of the day were rather more obvious than it had been in the services he'd attended as a boy.
Thomas and Abigail arrived after Father Thames had blessed the crops and the farmland surrounding the river; quite aside from the question of personal religious belief, it would be horribly inappropriate to give any hint that they were devotees of a genius loci.
"Good," Abigail had said when he explained it to her. "Means we miss all the stuffy bits and only get the party."
When they arrived, he introduced her to Father Thames, and to those of his sons who happened to be standing near him at the time. Abigail was polite and charming and smiled the terribly unnerving smile she used when she wanted something. (Thomas believed it was only unnerving to those who knew her well enough to see that it was a stratagem, and not her genuine smile.)
That done, she was turned loose to enjoy herself as she might and Thomas himself turned his attention to the food. As befitting a harvest festival, there was a great deal of it. Fresh fruits and vegetables spilling out of cornucopias, cooked dishes laid out on trestle tables, barrels of cider and ale, all dotting the field such that no place was far from the food and drink. Large corn dolls were also interspersed, in a pattern Thomas recognized was probably significant in some way. Peter would either know, or want to know.
Within a few minutes, Abigail had made herself friends among the younger people present, he noted.
"Clever girl, that one," came a voice from over his shoulder. "I like her. You could do worse, in choosing an apprentice."
Thomas turned. It was Oxley, who popped a tayberry into his mouth and swallowed.
"Of course," Oxley went on, meditatively, "I can't really decide if it shows the Folly's nepotism has changed—or that it hasn't."
"She is a bright young lady full of potential," Thomas said. "And her dedication to the craft is exemplary."
"Oh, of course, there's no doubt of that," Oxley said. "She wouldn't have gotten a second glance from your old colleagues, but that's their loss. On the other hand, she is the cousin of your first apprentice."
"Yes," Thomas said, spooning some raspberry jam onto a slice of bread. His traditional strategy in such moments was to say as little as possible, on the grounds that it was nobody's business and intelligence was something one preferred to have on other people rather than the reverse.
"One hopes she'll be a better choice than your second apprentice," Oxley said.
"I believe she will be," Thomas said firmly. "Miss Kamara has a very strong character, and a firm sense of right and wrong." It wasn't that Lesley had lacked such a sense; only that, in hindsight, it depended a great deal on a 'might makes right' sort of expediency of the sort that the Folly had been very used to in the old days. Thomas had taken it for granted, but it had not served the Folly well in the end, nor any of the wizards who subscribed to that belief system.
"Like her cousin, then, is she?" Oxley said. "I hope she gets into less trouble, then. Don't want to go digging her out from underneath buildings. Speaking of, where is young Grant?"
Thomas took a bite and chewed it before answering. "Studying for his exams—he's up for a promotion."
"Well, give him my best wishes and tell him we missed him, will you?" Oxley said. "Never a dull moment with him around."
"I shall," Thomas said. "Though if he would endeavor to indulge in heroics less, I would be heartily grateful."
Oxley laughed. "Now that, we can all agree on." His gaze drifted back over to Abigail and her friends, who were surreptitiously leaving the area, food in hand. "Ah, youth," he said fondly. "They probably think they're doing something new and exciting, rather than the same things we were doing a thousand years ago. And further back than that, too."
"Oh, yes," Thomas said. He couldn't see any bottles of alcohol, but that probably only meant they were being creative in hiding them. But Abigail was a sensible girl, and no serious danger would dare disturb Father Thames' Harvest Home. "Mind you, technology does add a few possibilities … but I find that most of them are only new twists on old themes. Peter and Abigail are always expecting to shock me, and it never quite works."
"Such a sad lack of imagination in young people these days," Oxley said, shaking his head in mock disapproval.
"So, you're a wizard, then?" asked Callum. He was a white boy, about fifteen, with light brown hair and a gap between his front teeth. Many of the people here were what the Folly called 'fae,' but many were ordinary humans who were connected to the demi-monde in other ways. It was rude to ask, but she was fairly sure Callum was completely mundane.
"Apprentice wizard, yeah," Abigail said. They'd found a little spot not too far from the main party, but shielded somewhat from the olds by a few trees and bushes. An assortment of teens—all white, except for one Pakistani boy named Tad—were scattered around, with plates of food between them.
"So show us a spell, yeah?" Callum asked.
Abigail didn't like the challenge in his voice, like he didn't think she could do it, and normally it would make her dig in her heels. But doing magic was still a novelty, and so she opened her hand and said "Lux," and held a werelight in the palm of her hand. (Low-powered enough not to fry anyone's mobile, of course.) A gratifying chorus of "oohs" went around, and Abigail nonchalantly let it go and settled back onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.
Callum scoffed. "Not much, though, is it? A light? Anyone can do that with a flashlight."
"Not many can do it without," Abigail pointed out.
"You can't do it, Callum," said Sophie, an overweight girl in designer jeans and sneakers Abigail would have sold rather than wear out to a dusty field. She and Abigail were the only ones who weren't eating. Abigail had eaten enough to be polite when she first arrived, and would probably eat more later, but she didn't want to be distracted while she was making new friends—or allies, or clients, or enemies, depending.
"I'm just saying, it's nothing like what Father Thames can do, is it," Callum said. "That's real power."
"Yeah, but you can't just … decide to become a River some day and actually do it," Tad said. He was probably fae of some kind; he had that air about him. But it was rude to ask, so Abigail hadn't. "But you might become a wizard, if you get the Nightingale to teach you."
"How did you get him to make you an apprentice?" asked one of the younger white boys, maybe ten or eleven years old. Abigail hadn't gotten his name, but he was probably part-fae, too.
"I asked," she said. "Had to learn Latin first."
"It couldn't be that simple, though," Sophie said. "The Nightingale hasn't taken an apprentice in like a hundred years."
Abigail shrugged. "He knows me. He trusts me. He knows I ain't gonna do something stupid with it, or evil, or hurt people who don't have it coming."
"Do you think he'd take another apprentice?" That was Oliver, the only person Abigail had met here so far who was from London. She wondered if that was because of the rivalry between Mama Thames and Father Thames, or just because Londoners thought London was the center of the universe and didn't like to leave it.
"Dunno, do I," Abigail said. "He's a busy man. Lots of responsibilities. Might take a while to find someone he trusted and wanted to teach."
"But you just … asked him, and he said yes?" Oliver persisted. He seemed perfectly human, but that was no guarantee.
"Yeah," Abigail said. Well, she'd asked Peter and he'd thrown her a bone to try and get rid of her, but more fool he. "Then I had to pass my A-levels in Latin and spend a few years hanging out at the Folly doing, like, the boring bits of research for stuff he needed."
"What kind of research?" Sophie asked. "Anything cool?"
Abigail made a face. "Spent a lot of time reading the journals of nasty old wizards from like, two centuries ago, to see if there was anything relevant to whatever case they were working."
Several of the others groaned or rolled their eyes. Sophie shook her head and turned to ask the white girl in a hoody next to her about why a friend of theirs wasn't here. The conversation turned to other things, and Oliver was the only one still paying attention to her. Abigail wasn't sure if she liked that. She could have learned a lot more listening to the others.
"So, just Latin and book work then?" Oliver asked, scooting closer. "Nothing gross? Or creepy?"
"Nah," Abigail said, which was true of the jobs Peter and Nightingale had given her, although not true of all the side jobs she'd taken on by herself. "Lot of time in the library."
"What's it like?" Oliver asked.
"The library?" Abigail shrugged. "Posh wood shelves filled with of old books, written by boring old white men who thought they were a lot smarter than they actually were. Nightingale never updated anything, so finding things is all by card catalog. And the reports—the stuff that's most likely to have actually useful bits—are only partially indexed, so if there might be something you need you have to read the whole bloody thing."
"Bet they were happy to have you to handle some of that," Oliver said.
"'Course they were," Abigail said. She knew that library better than either of them, by this point. At least the County Practitioner journals, and maybe the rest of it. She liked knowing things, especially things nobody else knew. But you had to slog through all the boring bits to find the useful stuff. "What school do you go to?" she asked.
"Fortismere," he said. "You?"
"Acland Burghley," Abigail replied. "Doesn't Fortismere have bare hard classes?" And with that, she was able to get him to talk about himself and where he came from. None of it was a surprise, given that he went to Fortismere; it was a comprehensive, but one that served the posh neighborhood of Muswell Hill: mostly white, mostly middle and upper class, the sort of people who didn't mind that there wasn't a tube station because they never used the tube.
Oliver's mum was a doctor and his dad was a government bureaucrat, and it wasn't that far from the Peckwater Estate but it might as well have been on another planet. On the other hand, they couldn't be too white bread because they were here. And Oliver didn't say how they knew the Rivers or anything, but he'd been to a goblin market before and was friends with some of the Quiet People that were trying to acclimate to life above ground. How he managed that while not having a convenient tube station Abigail didn't manage to get out of him.
There were some questions, like "what are you" and "how are you connected to the demi-monde," that you just couldn't ask outright. Not on a first acquaintance, anyway. But the connection was probably through his mum, because his dad hadn't come today.
By the time the group headed back to the olds for more refs, Abigail had managed to get his cell phone number and a promise he'd let her know when and where the next goblin market was going to be.
The next spell Thomas taught Abigail was impello. She learned it as quickly as Lesley had; like Lesley, Abigail had a purposeful determination and a refusal to be sidetracked that served very well for magic studies.
Comparisons with Lesley were difficult to avoid, given her recent reappearance in the case concerning Jonathan Wild's ledger, the third Principia, and Christina Chorley's untimely death. Abigail had been informed of the generalities of the case as it transpired; she had needed to know who the Faceless Man was and what Lesley was capable of, in case she was targeted for her new and deeper association with the Folly. Thomas hadn't thought it likely, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Also, the case had consumed a great deal of his attention, and Abigail had deserved an explanation for why her lessons were temporarily scaled back.
Now that things were quieter, it was time for Abigail's first brain scan. Thomas escorted her to the hospital, where Doctor Vaughan performed the scan and explained to Abigail the precise mechanism involved in hyperthaumaturgical degradation, to the extent that Doctor Vaughan had established it. She also, at Thomas' request, showed Abigail a picture of young Christina Chorley, and her brain tissue. He was certain that Abigail viewed her training with sufficient solemnity and caution, but reinforcing that wouldn't hurt. But Abigail, as she often did, took a perspective Thomas had not anticipated.
"As long as you are properly instructed and follow the limitations set for you about how long and how intensely to practice, you should suffer no ill effects," Thomas said, as she stared at Christina's picture on the tablet.
"I know that," Abigail said. "I wouldn't have started learning magic if you didn't know how to teach safely. I was just thinking, Christina shouldn't have died. Her dad never taught her, did he?" she asked, looking down at Christina's picture. "He's this great wizard, and she wanted to learn, but he never bothered to teach her. And she tried to teach herself, and killed herself doing it, because she didn't know any better. And then he went all shock-and-awe on that drug dealer, as if it was the dealer's fault his daughter had holes in her brain. But she was going to die soon no matter what."
"She would have lived longer if she hadn't taken the drugs that night," Doctor Vaughan said. "I can't hazard a guess as to how long. But yes, the brain damage would have killed her eventually."
"If he'd put half as much effort into taking care of his daughter and teaching her as he did into trying to avenge her, she'd still be alive," Abigail said. She looked up at Thomas. "But he wanted someone else to blame for his own mistakes and for the random chance that that was when the bomb in his daughter's head went off. He wanted to hurt someone because he was hurting. And that's who Lesley betrayed us for."
"Yes," Thomas said. "I think that is probably an accurate summation of his character."
"Lesley wanted her face back, and she got it," Abigail said. "Do you think that's the end of it, for her? That she'll skive off to, I don't know, Spain or Italy now that she has a face again?"
Thomas considered the question. "I don't know," he said. "I don't believe Lesley to be shallow enough that a promise of restoring the damage to her face would be sufficient in and of itself, and she has never deigned to share her full motivations with us. If her face had been her only reason, why would she continue the association now that she has it back?"
Abigail was quiet for a bit, thinking it over. "I think she was angry and wanted other people to hurt as much as she did," she said. "And she was never going to get the opportunity to take her pain out on other people with the Folly, yeah? You and Peter between you, you'd make her toe the line."
"Did she say or do anything to hurt or frighten you when she was with the Folly?" Doctor Vaughan asked.
"Nah," Abigail said. "I was just Peter's annoying tag-a-long cousin, yeah? Beneath her notice. And she liked Peter, so she tolerated me. But she didn't bother trying to make herself look good to me, like she did Peter, and I never had a crush on her, the way he did, so I saw her a bit more clearly. He's bare stupid when it comes to women."
Thomas was forced to acknowledge that this was true, though he had to fight down twin impulses to defend Peter's honor and question whether her adult cousin's romantic travails were appropriate for young Abigail to be concerned with. "She does still seem to have an attachment to Peter," Thomas said. "That was the reason Chorley gave for not killing Peter outright at the start. However, given that such attachment did not prevent her from tasering him in the back and using lethal spells in combat with him, we cannot count on her good will in any future encounters."
"'Course," Abigail said. "I'm not stupid. If she'd attack Peter, there's no reason she wouldn't hurt me if she wanted to. And I only know two spells."
"We have no reason to believe that she would choose to harm you," Thomas said. "She is not a rabid dog, to attack without reason."
"Yeah, but you didn't have any reason to think she had anything to do with the ledger or Reynard, and look what happened," Abigail said. "She and her boss don't like the Folly, and I'm a member of the Folly for real, now. And the easiest nut to crack. If they do decide to come after the Folly, I'm the obvious first target."
Abigail had wanted to check out the goblin market since the first time Peter had mentioned it. Just to see what it was like. Peter had refused to take her because it was too dangerous and no place for a kid. Abigail thought he was thinking too much like a Fed, but couldn't have gotten in to one by herself. You needed to know someone who knew someone to get the location and password, and Abigail's most reliable contacts were the foxes. And they didn't go to the goblin markets.
She'd been texting Oliver, and he'd been to them before, which just went to show Peter was being overprotective. Oliver didn't usually go to them himself, but in November he texted her that there was going to be one the next Sunday, and he was going Christmas shopping, and she could tag along if she wanted.
"Sure," Abigail texted back.
She and Oliver met at the Canada Water tube station, and he led the way through the streets of Bermondsey to their destination. "So, why ask me to take you to the goblin market?" he asked. "I know the Isaacs know about them; the Starling's gone to a few, hasn't he?"
"Yeah," Abigail said. "But Peter thinks it's too dangerous for kids. Or corrupting, whatever."
"The goblin market?" Oliver said. "Why? It's just a bunch of people selling things, and hanging out, in a neutral location."
"How many of the things being sold fell off the back of a lorry?" Abigail asked. Even if it was a hotbed of theft and stolen property, it wasn't like she couldn't find stuff like that on her own back in her own manor. She just wanted to know what the demi-monde version of it was like.
Oliver snorted. "Not many. If you wanted that sort of thing, you don't need to go to the demimonde. It isn't that big. The only sorts of things you find in a goblin market are the sort of things you couldn't find anywhere else. The sort of thing ordinary people wouldn't care about or know what to do with. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble?"
"So why do you go to all the trouble?" Abigail asked, eyeing a white man in an expensive coat who hurried by them while talking self-importantly into his mobile. There was an awful lot of gentrification in the area; old warehouses and factories turned into upscale flats and boutiques. But you could still see the bones of the place. She wasn't quite getting suspicious looks, but she could tell those wouldn't be long in coming. The place had that sort of an atmosphere.
Oliver shrugged. "So you can let your hair down without having to worry about normals wandering in? And also, most of the ordinary places people gather are someone's patch. You go to the Spring Court or the Harvest Home, you're in River territory. Most of the pubs are owned or claimed by one group or another. That can complicate things, yeah? But the goblin market isn't owned by anybody, or controlled by anybody. It's its own thing. Neutral ground."
"Right," Abigail said.
"The Isaacs seriously think the goblin markets are just for stolen goods?" Oliver said, wrinkling his nose.
"Not just," Abigail said. She shrugged. "Peter's a Fed, and he was one before he was a wizard. He's always on the lookout for crime, and there's these things called nazareths, yeah? Secret pop up markets where people sell dodgy goods."
"And the goblin market looks like that, so he didn't think we've got reasons to be quiet without being crooks," Oliver said.
"Something like that," Abigail said.
"Disappointing," Oliver said.
"Why do you care what Peter thinks?" Abigail asked.
"He's different," Oliver said. "Or supposed to be. A sign the Isaacs are getting better."
"They are getting better," Abigail said. "I told you, I've read the old journals. Those old white men were seriously horrible. Nightingale isn't; he don't judge, and he don't think he's better than everyone else. Neither does Peter. They both want to protect people, do the right thing. And they count fae and rivers and all the rest as 'people,' which the old Folly didn't. It's just … when you look for something, you tend to find that thing and not see the rest of it. And Peter's a Fed."
"He looks for crime, so he sees it, you mean?" Oliver said.
"Yeah," Abigail said.
"Sounds like they need some wizards who aren't with the police, to balance things out a bit," Oliver said.
"Why, you want to be one?" Abigail asked.
"Maybe," Oliver said, "depending. I think it'd be cool to do magic, but I don't know if joining the Isaacs is worth it."
Abigail shrugged. "We're redefining the Isaacs, we are. In the old days, they wouldn't have let me in the front door—and maybe not even the servant's entrance. And now I'm an apprentice. And I'm never gonna be a Fed, and Nightinale is fine with that."
"Here we are," Oliver said, as they turned the corner and saw an old brick building with scaffolding around the outside. It didn't look like work had started on the building, though, nor was any planned to start soon, as there were neither dumpsters for demolition rubble nor pallets of supplies. There were metal shutters on the windows with graffiti on them. Oliver knocked on the door, and gave the password to a white boy in a hoodie with weird hair. He might have been fae, or just a bit odd; it could be hard to tell sometimes.
Inside the building, space heaters took the nip out of the air. There were three rows of long folding tables near the door, with goods laid out on them and people manning them. Beyond these were a bunch of garden tables and chairs, with people sitting and drinking, while Queen played in the background. There was an open area where a few little kids were playing—tag, it looked like. It could have been an ordinary jumble sale, if Abigail hadn't known better. Except there weren't any piles of clothing or whatever.
"This is a nice big one," Oliver said, nodding. "They don't often get this much space."
Abigail led the way to the tables. Oliver knew a few people and said hello, introducing Abigail as they went. Word had got around, Abigail noticed; he didn't say she was an apprentice wizard, but people reacted when he said her name. Not much, but Abigail was good at reading people, and by the time they got to the end of the first row, her back itched like there was a target on it.
The first table on the second row was covered with books, some of them old, some of them obviously made in a copy shop. Abigail spotted a familiar cover on one of the old ones; it was Baxendale's Taxonomy of Ephemeralities, which was one of the most useless books about ghosts the Folly had ever produced. Flipping the cover open, it had a fancy bookplate saying it was from some wizard's private collection.
"You interested in that?" the black woman behind the table asked. Oliver wasn't interested in the books, and moved on to the next table.
"How much?" Abigail asked, out of curiosity.
"Fifteen quid."
"Fifteen quid?" Abigail was outraged. "For the stupidest book on ghosts ever written?"
"Yeah, but it's from the Isaacs," the woman said. "Genuine. Got a wizard's signature on the bookplate and everything. And it's funny, how much it got wrong. You want a laugh, can't get much better than that."
"No thanks," Abigail said, who could read it for free in the Folly library, and hadn't found it that funny when she did. "How'd you get it?"
"Estate sale," the woman said. "When the Isaac who used to own it died, his family didn't know anything about magic or what he did before the war, so they just chucked his books and whatnot in the sale with everything else. No staff or anything, more's the pity."
Abigail put the book down and was moving on to the copy-shop books when something caught her attention. She wasn't sure what it was at first, so she stopped, head bowed over the books as if they were the only thought in her head.
There it was. A familiar voice, a woman's voice. Lesley? She couldn't be sure. Abigail hadn't known her all that well, and it had been a while. But it sounded like her.
Abigail put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie as casually as she could, and brought out her phone. She opened up her texts, and brought up the text thread with her and Peter and Nightingale. She typed out a short message about possibly hearing Lesley, but she paused before sending it. No point in sending out a false alarm.
But Nightingale was right, when he talked about how important it was to be able to call for backup when she needed it. Abigail hit 'send.'
She put the phone back in her pocket and turned toward Lesley's voice. Abigail tried to look bored as she surveyed the crowd. Nobody with a mask, but then … Lesley'd learned how to give herself a face, Peter said. Learned it from old Faceless himself, who did things like fuse the skin of people he didn't like to trees, and blew up council flats for power. There were at least three blonde women within earshot with about the right body type to be Lesley.
Abigail felt for vestigium and signare, but there was nothing beyond the general background hum you expected from a gathering of the demimonde. Nobody was actively doing magic.
The voice she'd heard might not be Lesley. Even if it was, she might not have noticed Abigail; she'd never cared about Abigail as anything more than an annoying kid hanging around Peter. And she didn't want to hurt Peter; Abigail might not have heard the full story, but that was why Faceless hadn't killed Peter when he had the chance. Hurting Abigail would hurt Peter; Lesley probably wouldn't try that as an opening move. And if she had decided to go after Abigail for some reason, it'd be easier to scoop her off the street instead of grabbing her from a public place where everyone knew her. This had to be random chance. If Lesley were here for Abigail, the trap would have sprung shut by now.
Abigail could probably just walk out of here, back to the Tube station, and be just fine.
She could taste pennies in her mouth, from the adrenaline rush. It was almost like being back in that house by Hampstead Heath again, except in the house she'd had a plan and a goal and knew what she was doing and was doing it on purpose. And a hooley bar, a fireman's crowbar equally good for property damage or self-defense, as the need arose.
Right now, she had her wits, a panic button, and two spells. On the plus side, nobody else's safety depended on her, and it might not even be a problem.
If Lesley had noticed her and did have something in mind, Abigail would be much safer staying here where there were people who knew who she was and could at least tell Nightingale what had happened. You were always safer with other people around. And maybe she could stall until Nightingale or Peter could get here.
If they got here quick enough, they might be able to catch Lesley, arrest her. But that would work best if Lesley didn't know to run.
Abigail was starting to turn back and try to unobtrusively lose herself in the crowd when one of the blondes—the closest one, of course—glanced up, locked eyes with her, and froze.
Shit. Okay, they were doing this.
"Abigail?"
Yeah, that was Lesley's voice, all right. "Yeah?"
"What are you doing here?" Lesley asked. "The demimonde is a dangerous place."
Abigail couldn't help it. She scoffed. "That's rich coming from you, that is."
Lesley stiffened. "You don't know anything, you stupid little girl. I did what I had to do."
"Abigail?" Oliver was behind her. She didn't turn to look at him. "You ok?"
"This is Lesley May," Abigail said. She didn't raise her voice, but she made sure to speak clearly enough for anyone listening to hear. "She works for Martin Chorley, the wizard who destroyed Skygarden and tried to kill Lady Tyburn a few weeks ago."
Sure enough, people were listening. Nobody was obviously watching, but people were slowly sidling away.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," Lesley said.
"Neither am I," Abigail said.
Lesley glared at her. It was a lot less effective with a pretty face than it had been when she hadn't had one, and anyway, Abigail was an expert at ignoring olds glaring at her, so it had no effect.
You got into a lot less trouble saying nothing than you did running your mouth, so Abigail didn't ask any of the thousand questions she had running through her brain. 'Why'd you do it' seemed obvious, and Lesley wasn't stupid enough—or emotionally invested in Abigail enough—to give away any of her or her master's plans.
"You still chasing ghosts?" Lesley asked, after a while.
"Yeah," Abigail said, and didn't fill her in on any of the other things she was doing, on her own or with the Folly.
"How's Peter?"
That struck home, although Abigail kept her face straight. "What do you care? You tasered him in the back and joined up with a murderer so you could get your pretty face back."
"It's not about looks," Lesley hissed. "I'm not stupid, and I'm not narcissistic or whatever it is you think. Chorley has power, and he's going to use that power to make the world a better place in a way Nightingale never could."
"Never could, or never would?" Abigail asked.
"Does it matter?" Lesley asked.
"Yeah, it does," Abigail said. If you had power, there were a lot of things you could do that you shouldn't, and the more power you had the truer that was. Also, it mattered what you meant by 'better place.' Abigail wasn't stupid enough to think a posh white murderer would try to build any kind of world Abigail would want to live in. But there was no point saying any of that to Lesley.
How long would it take Nightingale or Peter to get here? She didn't even know where they were, today. The goblin market was only about five miles away from Russell Square. If they saw her text immediately, and if they were there, and if traffic wasn't too bad, they could probably make it in twenty minutes.
That was a lot of ifs.
Lesley could kill her easy as anything, or kidnap her, but she probably wouldn't want to. Not here, at any rate; not with so many witnesses, when she didn't have any plans going that Abigail could help or hinder. In twenty minutes, she'd be long gone.
Abigail's phone rang. Without taking her eyes off Lesley, Abigail drew it out of her pocket and thumbed it on. "Hey."
It was Nightingale. "Abigail, what's wrong?"
"I'm at the goblin market," Abigail said. "So's Lesley."
"Does she know you're there?" Nightingale's voice was tight, precise, controlled, like he'd been when she came out of the house by Hampstead Heath.
"Yeah," Abigail said.
"Can she hear you?"
"Yeah."
"Has she made any threatening moves?"
"Not so far," Abigail said. "I think it was just pure dumb luck."
"Tell Peter hi from me," Lesley said. She turned and walked off.
Abigail watched her walk off. "She's leaving," she said to Nightingale.
"Good," he said. "Stay there, in plain sight of everyone. I will be there as soon as possible to collect you."
"I wasn't planning on wandering off," Abigail said.
"Are there any rivers there?"
Abigail scanned the crowd. "Haven't seen any."
"Very well. You are probably safe as long as you stay in the market; even without the presence of the rivers, there are people in the demimonde that Lesley would hesitate to cross openly, and the market is supposed to be safe for all. Will you be alright until my arrival?"
"Yeah, 'course," Abigail said. "Sorry for interrupting your day." She was beginning to feel a bit stupid for hitting the panic button; after all, Lesley hadn't wanted anything from her, hadn't tried anything, had been as surprised as she was.
"Not at all," Nightingale said. "You did absolutely the right thing. We do not know enough of Lesley's goals—or Chorley's—to predict their movements, but they are quite dangerous, and I would much rather be safe than sorry. Particularly when it is your safety at risk."
"Yeah, okay," Abigail said, feeling a little better.
Thomas did not put the lights on, though he thought about it; traffic was moving along fairly decently, for a Sunday in November, and with Lesley gone, Abigail was not in immediate danger.
At the door of the defunct factory housing the goblin market for the day, Thomas rapped sharply on the door with his cane. It swung open, and a demifae woman Thomas had seen around the demimonde for years stood in the doorway. He didn't know her name.
"Nightingale, your apprentice is safe," she said. "There's been no trouble here today, and we'd like to keep it that way."
"So would I," Nightingale said. "Though of course if Lesley May should return, I would be obliged to arrest her."
The woman nodded and stepped aside. "Kamara's sitting with her friend over in the refs area."
Thomas entered the building. The crowd was sparse, and evenly divided between those who stared at his entrance and those who determinedly ignored it; food and drink was on the far side of the room, and Abigail sat at a table there with a boy of around her age.
Thomas strode over to them. "How are you, Abigail?" he asked.
"I'm alright," she said. "Nothing actually happened."
"And your friend?" Thomas said, turning to the boy.
"I'm fine, too," he said, looking Thomas up and down distrustfully.
"I'm Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale," Thomas said.
"I know that," the boy said.
"This is Oliver," Abigail said. "He was at Father Thames' Harvest Home celebration."
"How do you do," Thomas said. "Do you need a ride home?"
"Nah," Oliver said. "I can take the bus, it's fine. And I'm not done shopping."
Thomas considered this. While Abigail might be a target for the Faceless Man, Oliver wouldn't be. "Very well. I should like your parents' contact information, in case there is any need for a follow-up."
Oliver made a face but provided it, and accepted Nightingale's card in turn.
"Sorry about all the fuss," Abigail said.
"Not your fault the Isaacs' nemesis showed up," Oliver said. He looked at Thomas, then back to Abigail. "Stay safe," he said, and walked back towards the tables with items to sell.
"Shall we go?" Thomas asked, acutely aware of all the people watching.
"Yeah," Abigail said with a sigh.
They walked to the door in silence. Once they were in the car, Abigail related the entirety of the incident to him.
"You did precisely the right thing," Thomas said. "You kept your calm, you alerted backup in a timely fashion. If she had wanted to harm you, you ensured we would know immediately and with some idea of where to start looking."
"But it turned out she wasn't looking for trouble any more than I was," Abigail said.
"It is better to be prepared than caught off guard," Nightingale said firmly. "Especially when dealing with dangerous people." Peter's training was being terribly rushed, and it suffered because he was learning new formae not in a logical order, but in the order that would make him most able to defend himself from attack. He had thought that Abigail's training would be more thorough, more like his own days at Casterbrook; but perhaps that should change.
"Yeah." Abigail sighed again. She stared out the window at the passing streets. "What do you think she meant, that her boss is going to make the world better?"
"I'm afraid I've no idea," Thomas said. "Though I certainly would not trust the judgment of a man who has done the things he has done."
Abigail snorted. "Yeah."
She was quiet for a while and they sat there in companionable silence. Traffic slowed, until they were moving at a crawl.
"You know, the house on East Heath Road offered to help Paul," Abigail said at last.
"How so?" Thomas asked. But he thought he already knew.
"He could stay there forever and be happy," Abigail said. "And I thought, there's a lot of kids like Paul. Kids who are gonna die, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Where the cure will come ten, twenty years too late. For just a minute, I thought, we could make the house a clinic. The house gets all the kids it wants, the kids are safe and happy, and they live until someone figures out how to help them."
"Why didn't you accept the house's offer?" Thomas asked. "It sounds quite tempting."
"It wouldn't give up the others, would it," Abigail said. "It wanted to keep them all. It would never have been happy just with the sick kids. And when the time came for the ones like Paul to leave, it wouldn't give them up either. How many kids would spend their whole lives in someone else's memories, so that Paul could live and be happy?"
"And you couldn't do that," Thomas said quietly, knowing the kind of courage and integrity it would require to say no to someone offering you your heart's desire.
"No, I couldn't," Abigail said. "Not even for Paul. But Lesley would have said yes, and not care about the cost to everybody else, wouldn't she?"
"I'm afraid she would have," Thomas said. "She did. At least one person died as part of Chorley's experiments into fixing her face, and there might have been more."
"And she still thought she was in the right," Abigail said, with some scorn. "After all she's done, or helped with."
"Yes," Thomas said.
"I'm glad she's not in the Folly anymore," Abigail said. "Don't tell Peter."
"I won't," Thomas promised. "But regardless of Lesley's choices, I am quite pleased to have you with us. You are a credit to your brother and the Folly, not only today, but in everything you have done so far. I can teach the skills, the forms and wisdoms, to anyone. But knowing how and when to use them, and when not to … that requires character, which cannot be learned in a classroom. And in that, you are far superior to Lesley May."
The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.—Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
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