Harry and Finella stepped out of the Royal and looked about. Suppressing the surge of irritation, I went to greet them. Had Finella been alone, I would have ignored her. But she was with Harry. However close our relationship had grown, more friendly than strictly mentor and pupil, I never showed it in public. At the Anvil he might be simply Harry to me; before others, he was Sir Harry or Teacher, and nothing else.

  “Teacher.” I inclined my head respectfully.

  Outwardly I ignored Finella, though I did not neglect to scan her in the subtler planes. One never knew what to expect from that fool. Her aura was perfectly steady: her Elemental source of fire burned with an even red glow; something potent shimmered inside her handbag; her amulets lay dormant and she was not preparing any offensive spell.

  Harry, however, looked unusual. I was struck by how brightly all three primary energy nodes shone within his subtle body. Was it some sort of warning? Hardly anyone here would be able to see it.

  “Morning,” Harry said with a casual wave. Then he peered at me. “Hm… What’s surprised you?”

  “I’m used to you concealing your true strength.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your energy nodes.”

  “Is that so?” Harry muttered. He plucked a book from the air, then from the book a diagnostic spell, and opened it before my face. “Well now. Been dealing with illusions lately?”

  “Only yesterday.”

  “Congratulations, your…” He broke off abruptly and turned to Finella. “Young lady, you had business with Duncan.”

  “Yes, Sir Harry,” Spark admitted reluctantly. She stepped towards me and slipped her hand into her bag.

  I immediately drew my pistol and aimed it at her. Finella froze. Harry looked startled.

  “Duncan?”

  “Take your hand out,” I ordered.

  “There are reservoirs in there,” Finella said irritably. “By way of apology for my behaviour yesterday.”

  “I couldn’t care less about your apologies,” I replied, though I lowered the pistol.

  “Excellent! So you harbour no illusions — this wasn’t my idea, but James’s. As for me, I only regret not roasting your lying backside yesterday.”

  I passed my hand over the bracelet on my left wrist, activating a terrakinesis form.

  “Duncan!” Harry barked sharply. I had to stop.

  Finella gave a triumphant little snort and lifted her chin, only for Harry to cut her down at once.

  “I shall certainly inform James how precisely you carry out your brother’s instructions, young lady.”

  “To hell with him! At least I have Simon!” she shot back.

  “Had,” I corrected. “You dumped him yesterday.”

  Finella stiffened, though not much.

  “I merely expressed myself rather more strongly than I ought,” she said.

  I smiled coldly.

  “You always express yourself more strongly than you ought, and think less than you should. The lad was trying to change for you, and you pushed him away. Last night he was proposing to get drunk and go chasing women.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “Check for yourself. Go to his house. And then I’d advise a tour of the establishments he used to frequent before he met you.”

  I don’t care for sweets, but revenge upon Finella was sweet indeed. I savoured the fear and confusion spreading across her face.

  “I need to get back!” Spark declared.

  “Your problem,” I said.

  “Do you at least have a telephone? I can call a cab.”

  I pointed towards Bremor House, and Finella bolted inside.

  “Do cabs even come into the slums?” Harry asked mildly.

  “No,” I replied. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  Harry drew another spell from his book, activated it, and we found ourselves enclosed within a transparent bubble of mist magic.

  “The spell in your Third Eye has almost fully formed. Congratulations, your gaze no longer merely turns in all directions; it also ignores veils and illusions. Though I’m not sure whether it requires focus or not. What do you make of that fellow over there?” he asked, indicating one of our clan.

  “Tim Kinkaid. A strong Shifter.”

  “Family?”

  “Well, we most certainly share ancestors, though in which generation, I couldn’t say.”

  “Tell me what you see, not what you know.”

  “I see a large Spiritual Heart. Hah… I think I can even make out a spirit within it. I see his amulets: around the neck, on his fingers, in his pockets, at his belt. That’s all.”

  “And those?” Harry shifted his finger towards a group of ordinary builders resting by the fountain.

  “Ungifted. But the younger one, he seems to be practising. There’s a small spark in his Spiritual Heart.”

  “Is there?” Harry raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see that. Let’s have a look.”

  The wizard dispelled the veil and strode towards the workmen. The men noticed our approach and rose to their feet.

  “Gentlemen,” Harry greeted them, producing an iron pound from his pocket. “Would you permit me to examine your subtle bodies? I wish to test a new diagnostic spell. It is entirely harmless.”

  The older man agreed at once. The younger hesitated, but under the elder’s insistence quickly yielded. Harry illuminated them with his spell, rewarded each with a coin, and gave the younger a conspiratorial wink.

  “It is a pity so few nowadays strive to break the shackles of the subtle body and attain the Gift,” the wizard remarked.

  “That takes time,” the elder replied, “and money. Hardly for the likes of us to compete with aristocrats.”

  Harry shook his head.

  “I was born a commoner,” he said. The younger man started at this, and Harry added, clearly for his benefit…“I walked towards my goal for eighteen years. Good day, gentlemen.”

  We withdrew to a respectable distance before Harry admitted quietly that I had been right.

  While we had been talking and examining the workers, Finella had arranged for one of our lads to drive her back into the city. Harry and I watched as she dashed out of the house with Nolan Logg and climbed into a battered Austin belonging to the builders.

  “Did Simon truly snap?” Harry asked.

  “Almost. I talked him down.”

  “And Finella?”

  “Let her ride about — it’ll do her good. Simon stayed the night with us. He’s asleep in one of the rooms on the third floor.”

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  “You are merciless today. What happened last night?”

  I invited Harry to my room, made us tea, and told him everything.

  “My sympathies,” the wizard said. “I hope you and Ellie reconcile.”

  “I’m no longer certain that I want to.”

  “Think on it,” Harry said, without argument. “But allow me a piece of advice.”

  “I’d be grateful.”

  “You are both young and categorical. Yet no relationship survives without forgiveness and understanding.” Harry sighed heavily. “I speak from experience. And as for her doubting you — would you truly have acted differently in her place? And do not hold it against Finella either; she was defending her friend. Ring Simon’s house, leave a message with the servants, before she truly goes off smashing brothels.”

  “That may prove difficult. Since the murder of his old butler, Simon has had no permanent staff.”

  Harry shook his head reproachfully, but I would not yield.

  “Whether by calculation or by foolishness, she caused me no end of trouble. Let her pay for it.”

  “You could have used her visit to clear matters at once, yet you chose a petty spite. Take care such decisions do not return to you.”

  Perhaps Harry was right. But I had so many troubles already that I wished to push at least some of them further away. Explaining things to Ellie was one of those. And what if, even after hearing everything, she refused to apologise? I would not apologise. Whatever Harry said about forgiveness and understanding — I would not! The memory of yesterday’s quarrel still hurt; and when I recalled that only the day before Ellie had asked me not to leave her, it hurt more. I had promised nothing, yet it felt as though I had broken my word.

  Oh, damn the lot of it. Bryan had promised to sort things out — let him sort them out.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” I admitted.

  “Then occupy yourself,” Harry advised. “In such moods I find destructive spells helpful. Nothing complicated,” he insisted. “Explosion’ will suffice. Have you somewhere secluded where you won’t disturb anyone?”

  “I’ll find a place,” I promised.

  “Excellent,” the wizard concluded. “And I shall go and see how Knuckles is managing.”

  “Mr. Sparrow,” I corrected him. “Even the guards call him that.”

  Harry smiled, appreciating the move. The wizard went off to see his protégé, while I sought out Peter.

  In light of recent events, the tunnel work had stalled. There were too few hands, and those we had needed rest as well, so Peter had been gnawing at the earth almost alone and had nearly broken through into the sewer. He was delighted with my offer of help until he learned what I had in mind. Because Explosion is not the most reliable of assistants. Peter even began swearing that I meant to bury us alive underground, but then he proposed an alternative.

  I ran to Harry and persuaded him to transmute two fivepenny coins into something resembling a ring engraved with the Explosion form. Such a thing, even without proper treatment, would last far longer than ordinary paper.

  Having changed into work clothes, Peter and I, accompanied by two Shifters, descended into the cellar and entered the tunnel. While I charged the form within the former coin, Logg used my box with the Liquid Stone spell on the dead end. Then I released the spell and struck from above.

  Instead of the rumble, crash and cracking I was used to when employing Explosion on solid clay targets, there came a swampy squelch, and I was drenched from head to toe in filth. At the dead end a crater opened up the width of two of my Cooper’s wheels.

  Behind me Peter swore foully. I wiped my eyes, blew a clot from my nose, and grinned. Harry had been right. I liked it.

  “Peter,” I said, “again.”

  “We have to clear this first,” the architect grumbled, pulling mud from his hair.

  “Don’t be stingy, fire at the wall!” I urged, recharging the form in the ring. “I promise I’ll swing a shovel afterwards.”

  Peter blasted the dead end once more, and I detonated the resulting slurry, punching a hole clean through to the brick lining. We had reached the sewer.

  Leaving the Shifters in that tunnel, I dragged Peter to another. The architect resisted, so I simply confiscated his softening box and indulged myself with the mud explosion. I would have to refine the spells and combine them into one. The result was powerful and tremendously entertaining, though undeniably messy.

  Earth was everywhere: in my hair, beneath my shirt, down my trousers, in my mouth, because my spirits had genuinely lifted and I found myself grinning every time a loud squelch tore another fountain of soil from the wall. My face acquired a thick crust with holes for the eyes, as I kept wiping them, and my clothes gained some forty pounds in weight. By then Peter would have liked to set me to labour, but could not, my mobility in that earthen armour was minimal.

  I did, however, honestly take up a shovel and struggled with it until Peter finally ordered me off to wash. Even then, it required the help of two Shifters to peel the clothes from me.

  It was fun. I was beginning to understand why children are drawn to rolling in mud. Or perhaps I am the one losing my mind? In any case, if I am, that is someone else’s problem. Personally, I am quite satisfied.

  After the mud bath I would not have minded a real one, but on reflection chose the shower, otherwise I should have ended up floating in dirt again by the end of it. Only then, clean and composed, did I resume practising the Pocket.

  Remarkably, the spell succeeded three times in a row without a single misfire. It failed only on the fourth attempt, when at the most crucial moment there came a knock at the door. A lad from Knuckles’ gang informed me that Dame Kerry had arrived and that Uncle Burke was hosting tea for her in the small guest parlour on the second floor. I was invited to join, if not occupied.

  I was not. And after yesterday’s blunder, ignoring such an invitation would have been unwise. Yet when I entered the parlour, I found no one there. The dame had decided to postpone formal introductions and begin instead with an inspection of the work we had already done with the street children.

  I found her in the orphanage building. In the company of Harry, Albert McLal, a couple of Knuckles’ urchins, and two unfamiliar young assistants, a man and a woman, she wandered from room to room with no apparent aim. The inspector did not cease questioning Albert and constantly issued remarks which her young aide dutifully noted in pencil upon a clipboard. Judging by her tone, she was in a distinctly hostile mood. Though I greeted her properly, I received little more than the barest nod.

  After trailing the procession for a while, I realised that Dame Rogers was delivering Bremor, embodied in Albert, a thorough dressing-down. According to her, the building was entirely unfit for housing and educating children. She used almost the very words Peter Logg had employed when arguing against the idea of using this house.

  The climax came in the square. After a fleeting acknowledgment of commendable enthusiasm, she steamrollered through every deficiency listed on her clipboard.

  And at that precise moment Donald McLal chose to return triumphantly from the night’s hunt. A pair of Coopers and an Austin pulled up before the main entrance, and weary fighters began lifting unconscious children from the vehicles.

  “Is this what you call voluntary admission, Mr. McLal?” the lady inquired coolly.

  Albert, having endured a reprimand from a woman twenty or thirty years his junior, finally snapped.

  “This is the liberation of children from werewolf captivity — creatures who feel quite comfortable in your charming city! Or does the dame believe the children would fare better with werewolves?”

  Rogers frowned, but did not dare reply harshly.

  “I want to see those children,” she insisted instead. “Now.”

  “By all means,” Albert hissed through his teeth, and our far-from-harmonious party moved towards the infirmary of Bremor House.

  The fighters had already cleared out. Only a weary Donald remained, picking at a hole in his left palm with a pair of tweezers.

  There were six children: five boys and a single girl. All filthy, exhausted, aged somewhere between twelve and fourteen.

  “What is wrong with them?” the lady asked.

  The young Feron healer tending to them glanced at Albert, waited for a nod, and replied,

  “Asleep. Very deeply asleep. The cause I have yet to determine.”

  “There,” Donald muttered, wincing as he produced an empty vial from his pocket.

  Charlie Feron carefully brought it to his nose and sniffed.

  “Interesting…” he said, crossing to a cabinet for other draughts. “If I’m not mistaken…”

  He withdrew one phial, then another, weighing them in his hands as though deciding something for himself. At last he pulled the stopper from one and poured a few drops into the mouth of the nearest child.

  “We wait,” he said. “It won’t act instantly…”

  But at that very moment the boy stirred.

  Dame Kerry stepped forward decisively, took the child’s hand, checked his pulse, and made an unfamiliar pass over his head.

  Gifted? I had not inquired the last time we met. She might well have concealed it, but now, if Harry was right, I could see far more than before.

  Looking at her in the subtle planes, I was surprised to find that she was indeed a weak warlock. Within her large Spiritual Heart circled some five sparks of different elements — spells bestowed by a patron spirit. She activated one of them.

  From her hand sprang a bright filament of blood and air. It pierced the boy’s brow, rippled through his body, and returned to her. Diagnostic, most likely.

  Our dame was full of surprises.

  Having gathered what she needed, she made another pass, sending a charge of blood and fire into the child. The boy jerked, slapped her hand aside and leapt from the bed, only to collapse at once. She bent to lift him, but he struggled violently.

  “It’s all right. You’re safe. No one will harm you.”

  She helped him back onto the bed, though he calmed only when she withdrew her hands. At last his gaze focused. He looked at us, then fixed on the woman…

  “Harry!” I warned. “He’s under an influence!”

  I did not know what sort of influence, but in the subtle body the breaches and stains that might have passed for exhaustion or injury began condensing into thin veins of primordial darkness, the same darkness that corrupted the energy nodes of werewolves and vampires. It drew inward from every part of his body, streaming towards the boy’s Third Eye.

  Nearly everyone stared at me in confusion, even Rogers, but Harry reacted instantly.

  A split second before the boy slashed at the lady’s face with black claws formed of that same darkness, the wizard yanked her aside with telekinesis and seized the child. The little demon lashed out again, and Harry’s invisible grip faltered. He caught him once more, but the boy tore free again and tried to leap at the woman. This time Harry flung him hard back onto the bed.

  Father and son McLal drew their weapons but did not fire, fearing to do harm. A grown werewolf would not have caused such hesitation. He would already have been lying there with shattered knees. But this was a child.

  I reached for my book to take up Petrification, but the young man accompanying the inspector stepped forward decisively and cast a spell of blood and ice. The little fiend stilled at once, though that was not enough for Harry.

  “Sedate him!” he ordered the healer.

  Feron rattled his vials, selected the proper one, sprang to the bed and gripped the boy’s jaw so deftly it opened of its own accord. He poured a third of the draught into his mouth and stepped back.

  “We must wait…”

  But the child had already gone limp, breathing evenly.

  “I think,” Donald said, not lowering his combat rod, “we’d best refrain from waking the others for the time being.”

  Dame Kerry rose, brushed herself down, and said coldly,

  “My doubts about your undertaking, gentlemen, are beginning to turn into certainty.”