“Oh, touch, maybe. There’s something about the feel of something? That’s part of what got me working with Master Philemon.” His tone changed a little at the end of the sentence. Not so much most people would notice, but Vega was trained to listen as well as to sing.
She considered whether it would be rude to ask, then said, “A problem before, and less of one now?” That could cover quite a lot of ground.
“Yes.” Farran seemed relieved and sounded less strained again. “I originally apprenticed with a talisman maker, and it went exceptionally badly. Vivian has an extended commentary about it. He wasn’t handling it well? But what he knew was that whenever he gave me something to do, it went oddly. Anything beyond the basics of shaping metal and stone, and sometimes that too.”
He turned one hand palm up. “That’s why I can do the sigils, though. If you don’t need them to be tiny and gorgeous at the same time, the actual inscription is the first stages of the apprenticeship.”
“I suspect you can manage smaller and more beautiful than you just implied,” Vega pointed out. “Oddly? Badly, or just not what was expected?”
“Both. And he was getting more and more annoyed with me when Vivian, well. When I asked Vivian for some help, and Uncle Cadmus met her, and she was quite willing to help arrange something better. Master Philemon thinks the knack’s quite useful. It’s not predictable, always. It’s a gift, not a skill, if that makes sense? I can’t be sure how it will come out, with any given object. But I’ve learned how to judge what’s going on much better, once something is in my hands. Or, sometimes, near me.”
There were several dozen implications in that, starting with why no one at Schola had noticed it well before his apprenticeship. And it explained why he was a hair older, maybe, than the usual apprentices, and why he was willing to take a chance on this. But she didn’t want to push him. They didn’t know each other well enough for that. A change of subject was in order, theme and variations. “All right, so where do we start with this? A tool to help us, but then we need to figure out where to look.”
“Yes. That’s where the maps come in.” Farran shifted a little, so he could pull out the main one. “We’re probably talking about the City of London proper. Maybe from the Middle Temple to the Tower, maybe Southwark. Maybe a little further afield. But what would be sensible is to sketch out a series of walks that would take us through the more likely areas first.”
“I can see the sense of that.” Vega considered the maps. “And I suppose we don’t know as much as we’d like about what buildings were where, at that point. Or what had been there. I know there’s all sorts of tales about underground London.”
“Well, some of it is logic. We might, for example, see about hiring a boat along the Thames and back, and see if there was anything. If there is, that’s a mudlarking problem, and I certainly don’t know how to do that sensibly. But we could probably figure out how to talk to someone who did.” Farran looked up. “I am not fantastic with tides. Thebes is well away from the Thames in Oxford. It’s on the other side of the rail line. And it’s not like the Thames is tidal that far up.”
It made her snort. “All right. The boat is a good idea. I can probably find someone for that who won’t ask odd questions.” She could, too, the family connections would be a help there. “Where else?”
Farran took a good minute to consider, then tapped several places. “The City, as we said. The Tower, though I think that’s a lower priority? Both because I think it may be a good bit more confused, to try to understand. I’d rather do it when we’ve a better sense of the tool and working with it together. But also, it’s been built and rebuilt and such quite a lot.”
“And it has very visible warders. Rather trickier to just wander around.” Vega agreed. “Where before that, then?”
“I don’t think it’s terribly likely to be in Greenwich.” Farran said slowly. “But it strikes me that Greenwich would be a good place to try everything out. Fewer people, there’s an extensivepark, wandering around it is the expected behaviour. And there are some interesting spots there. Roman coins turn up, there are former palaces, there are caves.”
“Caves, really?” That last one caught her off guard. She looked up to see Farran grinning broadly.
“Oh, yes, caves. Quite a few stories about them. I think they’re blocked off now, but that doesn’t necessarily have to stop us, maybe. I can do some more research.”
Vega felt she was supposed to be a modifying influence, but the idea of things hidden in caves was entirely appealing. If the caves were safe enough to explore, anyway. “Find out more, then, so we can decide?”
“Then there are spots that some people think are cursed.” Farran tapped on the map. “Cleopatra’s Needle. Blackfriars Bridge. The Embankment might be relevant.”
Vega shook her head. “Don’t tell me you believe in curses like that?”
“No. I mean, I do believe that curses are possible. And that cursed objects certainly are, since I believe the evidence of my own eyes and hands. But do I think large pieces of urban infrastructure are? No. Not like people talk about, anyway. And while I would entirely believe Cleopatra’s Needle might prefer her native bedrock as a foundation, it would take a fair bit of work to anchor a curse on that. Don’t you think?”
“Wait, you’ve handled cursed objects?” That was Vega’s first thought. Then she managed a nod. “The rest of it is good logic, I suppose.”
“Some people have exceedingly odd ideas about what to do with their art. Or what to make into art.” Farran said, his voice decidedly neutral. “We don’t handle those sorts of items, but sometimes they turn up in an estate, and someone has to figure them out. The magical part is usually one of the Penelopes. They like the puzzle, and they are much better set up to undo itsafely. Our part is talking about the object itself, and how much it mattered to the curse.” He hesitated, then added, “I might tell a few stories, sometime, when we’re better - more comfortable with that.” It was a tentative gesture at something beyond a purely business interaction.
“I’d like that. I mean. Hearing you talk about how you handle it.” She laughed, a little nervous now. “All right. So we should wander by those, but it’s probably not that.”
“Exactly. And then there’s figuring out what might have been disturbed or changed recently. There are closed Tube stations, for example, maybe someone got into a side tunnel and found something. Or that’s the point at which we might start criss-crossing the City, as deliberately as we can manage given the way the streets actually go.”
“All right. That’s sensible. Is there anyone we ought to be consulting about, um? Where to look, or historical maps, or something like that?” Vega had not kept track of the Research Society for some years, other than vaguely remembering there had been something unpleasant there recently.
Farran, thankfully, gave her the information she couldn’t recall. “Were you around in the spring of 1926?” She shook her head no. She’d been in France most all of that year. “There was a dreadful mess with the Research Society. More sensible people are running things now, but they’re still stretched thin. Also, none of them quite have the right focus for this, I think, though I’ll double check the directory just in case. You might know how they are, people get into tiny specialities. Carved horn buttons of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but absolutely not the eighteenth. Books by a particular printer. That sort of thing. There’s the other part, where it might alert someone who’d be interested for the wrong reasons.”
“Like Mister Thomas Vandermeer.”
“That is an entirely distinct problem, hopefully, but yes. I am not sure what to do about him, but that’s why a plan that starts with us wandering around Greenwich seems sensible. If he turns up, we can be significantly more suspicious, or something like that.” Farran sounded dubious. “I don’t suppose your family had any thoughts about what he’s after?”
“Not many.” Vega thought back to the conversation in the library. “But one of my aunts was wondering about, you know how there’s quiet discussion about making sure the Great War was the war to end all wars. But just in case, maybe it’s good to remind people of that? New weapons and tools and all that. An amplifier would be relevant, surely, for a number of magical things.”
Farran grimaced. “I suppose. Or there’s still a lot of America to be developed and bought up, in terms of sheer land mass. It could be a purely mercantile desire. I suppose we shouldn’t waste too much time about why he might want the thing, but focus on how to find it first.”
