Certainly he hadn’t much time for deciphering the hand of whoever had written the journal—and wasn’t that what secretaries were for, in any case?
“If you come across anything,” he said, “let me know, of course. Don’t type it up just then, though.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself. Journals aside, what’re you here for? Austen or the cows?”
“Neither, fascinating as they might be. I’ve actually come to request your help in something rather unusual.”
“Well, that will certainly be a change.”
“What I mean to say is—it’s magic. Which you’ve not done before, unless I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong.” Mina tilted her head, frowning. “Which makes me wonder what use you think I’ll be. Doesn’t that sort of thing need training, or—or being a dragon?”
“It’s safer if everyone’s trained, aye. But I could guide you through the rite, and a spell’s stronger for having more than one person in it. It gets power from…echoing, you might say.”
When she was curious, Mina’s face was a study in wide eyes and slightly pursed lips. “What sort of spell?”
“Protection. I’ve some wards up on the house already, of course, but they could be stronger. Especially now.”
“All right,” she said without hesitating. “What do we do?”
The first order of business was to find a corner of the library with enough bare floor. They needed a circle about five feet in diameter, which they finally achieved by moving a good many chairs and a small writing desk.
“Although you shouldn’t be doing any of this,” Mina said again, as Stephen lifted another chair.
“Of course I should. I’m not entirely an invalid, am I?”
“Yes you are.” Mina shoved the desk to its final place against the wall. “You were coughing up blood last night and you slept until noon today. Do you get much more invalid than that?”
“A time or two,” Stephen said. “And you’re half my size—”
“Hardly.”
“—and a woman. I shouldn’t be letting you move great heavy chairs about.”
“You can try and stop me if you like,” said Mina, and suddenly looked down at the armchair she was pushing.
It was another of those moments where Stephen could read her mind without magic. At least, he thought it held a vague approximation of the images in his: the two of them, locked in a moment of wrestling, their bodies straining against each other. It didn’t help that Mina was flushed and breathing quickly from the work, nor that tendrils of her hair were curling loosely against her neck.
She laughed, only a little bit too high, only slightly breathless. “But I warn you, I pull hair. Ask any of the girls on my street.”
“I should have known,” said Stephen, and applied completely unnecessary vigor to the final chair.
Then came candles, easily acquired from the kitchen, and the small silver cup that Stephen took out of a locked drawer. When he unwrapped it from its covering of green silk, Mina whistled.
“What’s this, then, the Holy Grail?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Stephen. “I saw it being made, and I’m nowhere near so old as all that.”
He had been very young at the time. It was one of his first memories: the glowing heat of the forge, the shine of fire from the half-made bowl, and his sister Judith’s eyes reflected in it, her hands almost as steady as his uncle’s. He’d known enough not to touch anything, and that had been about the limit of it.
“We have older ones,” he said, “elsewhere. But even metal wears after enough time. And then there were so many of us, and we took to wandering—it was better to have more than a few such objects.”
“Oh,” said Mina, round-eyed again. “It’s magic too, then?”
“Not so greatly as the crown, not of itself. It’s a tool. But I daresay magic clings to it somewhat after enough use.”
“Things start to be part of each other,” Mina said, half quoting Stephen.
