“We saw a playbill from there,” Julian told him. “It was displayed at the Herondale house on Curzon Street.”
Ragnor’s eyebrows went up. “You went to the Curzon Street house? What’s it like now?”
Julian started telling Ragnor all about our visit there, which was fine because I wanted to go check on Ty. I thought he might come downstairs to assist or at least observe Ragnor, but he’d apparently found a place he liked and remained there. Or some terrible dark magic had befallen him. But probably the first.
He was easy to find, at least. There are a lot of bedrooms but not that many, and besides, these old walls don’t do anything to block sound, and I could hear his voice in one of them. The “gray bedroom” as Julian and I call it. It has a nice view of the duck pond.
I guess he was talking on the phone to someone; I could hear the pauses where he was listening to the other person. I thought I heard him say, “Well, I have no idea why, but it hasn’t been that long,” and then the door opened and he stepped into the doorway. He immediately started at the sight of me standing in the hall. “Emma?”
“I came up to see how you’re doing,” I said. “I think we’re going to get takeaway in a bit. Is this the bedroom you like?”
“Yes,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the high windows. “It’s a good room, I think.”
“Were you talking to your sister?” I said.
He didn’t say anything but sort of went red, then white. I wondered if he’d said something I wasn’t supposed to overhear, but I couldn’t imagine what. “I wasn’t listening,” I clarified. “I just assumed it was Dru.”
“Oh!” he said. “Yes. Yes, I was talking to Dru. She…”
“Probably wants to know what the bedrooms are like,” I said, trying to put him at ease. “Dru would definitely want the gothiest one.”
“Sure.” Ty and I started downstairs. “I’m not a good judge of what’s gothy, though.”
“I think the idea is ‘as creepy as possible,’” I said, and we reached the kitchen, where Jules and Ragnor were waiting.
Ty relaxed quickly; it turned out all he needed was (a) some tea and (b) to talk with Ragnor about the details of the ley line map endlessly until food arrived and finally stopped them. Bruce, I swear at one point Ragnor told a joke in Coptic and Ty laughed heartily. They’re hardcore over there at the Scholomance. Maybe too hardcore for me. But don’t get me wrong, it was very nice to have them here. It reminded me that when this project is complete and all the Blackthorns are here and can make it their own, this house could feel warm and friendly again. It didn’t even feel that cursed as we lay in front of the fireplace playing Cluedo until Ty was falling asleep.
***
Update: Sunday night. Ragnor and Ty left this afternoon. It was wonderful to have them here, and very good for Julian and me to have people in the house to talk to other than the builder gnomes. Ty and Julian spent a bunch of time roaming around the gardens, deciding which old statues are ruined in a decorative, attractive manner, and which are just ruined. We’re going to have to get some new statues when we redo the garden, which Ty was very excited about. He thinks we should have one of Holmes holding a magnifying glass, and one of Watson.
The only weird thing is that Ghost!Rupert was missing for the whole visit, then reappeared an hour after Ty and Ragnor left. We showed him the map and what Ragnor told us, and he said he’s sure Ragnor is right. And it turns out he did talk to Ty at some point. He said Ty is “kind to ghosts.” Maybe Ty made him a ghost sandwich or read him a ghost bedtime story or something. Ty certainly didn’t say anything about it.
So, that’s all for now. I guess we’re going to head to St. Mary Abchurch tomorrow afternoon, and depending how it goes we’ll check out this townhouse and see if there’s still a scandalous Soho club there. Though what Ragnor would consider scandalous might not be scandalous to us. I guess we’ll find out. For all we know it’s just some guy’s house and he’ll be very confused to see us.
Good night, Bruce. It’s nice to think of what it will be like when all the Blackthorns are here and the place is full of noise and activity. It’s the first time since we started I’ve really been able to envision it, even with the curse. Meanwhile, I’m going to tuck a Polaroid of us playing Cluedo here between these pages, in case you want something to look at later.
— Emma
JULIAN
Dear Alec,
Hello from Chiswick! I’m sure Magnus has been keeping you up to date on the adventures we’ve been having here at Blackthorn Hall. We’ve been making progress, slow as it is, but the place still feels very far from being a house I or my family would want to live in. Except Dru, who claims she’d rather keep it cursed for the ambience. (Not that she’s been here yet.)
All of that is to say, I suggest you thank the Angel every day that Tatiana Lightwood married a Blackthorn and this house is our problem and not yours. Anyway, you get the update this time instead of M.; you’ll soon understand why.
Our search for the objects holding the Curse of Tatiana continue! We’ve run out of direct clues from Rupert, which means we have gotten into the ley line maps. I can hear Magnus groaning from here as you read this to him.Yes, eighteenth-century ley line maps, second only to ancient Babylonian star charts for their ease of reading and understanding. You can tell Magnus he can stop putting his coat on, though, because we got in touch with Ragnor Fell and he came from the Scholomance to help us. I suspect Ty harassed him until he agreed (though I have no proof) but he was polite enough about it. Polite for Ragnor, I mean.
The ley lines suggested two locations to check—a Downworlder club and a church, both in central London. We decided to start with the church, which is named St. Mary Abchurch. (Am I wrong, or are British names weirdly silly sometimes? Emma immediately started calling it “St. Church von Church,” and now that’s the only way I can think of it.)
St. Church the Churchiest is a smallish red brick church on Abchurch Lane (funny how that works out). We took the train and then the Tube to get there, which may have been the most complex part of the day, figuring out how to navigate the whole weird mundane system. The church was fairly quiet and empty since it was the middle of the afternoon. There were a handful of tourists, but I don’t think it ever gets crowds of visitors, so we didn’t have to worry. We weren’t glamoured, but it didn’t matter; nobody paid any attention to us. Tattoos are common enough in London to not stand out, I guess.
We walked the whole church, pretending to gaze thoughtfully at the memorials and the paintings on theinside of the dome and so on, while waving the Sensor around as much as we could and waiting for it to respond.
And it was not responding. Covering the whole church didn’t take long; like I said, it’s smallish.
Emma pointed out just because the church was on a ley line in London didn’t mean Tatiana had necessarily left anything there. There are way more ley lines than objects we’re looking for. And she’s right—we’re assuming Tatiana didn’t break into some mundane’s house on the same ley line and leave anything behind, but I guess she might have. It would have been a very strange thing to do, but whatever else we’ve learned about Tatiana we are confident she was a strange one.
