“I’m not worried about her,” he said. “If anyone knows how to handle magic, it’s my sister. I’m thinking that the charter’s parchment is the skin of a sheep who drank from Ullswater.”
Elodie gasped. “That’s one of the lakes claiming to be where Nimue handed Excalibur to King Arthur! It’s a level six node.”
“Exactly. According to Amelia, the parchment has anextremely high thaumaturgic charge. This new trove is not so distant from those currently mapped along the 5-SEQ that it couldn’t represent a…” He winced very slightly. “A wiggle in the fey line. If we place the Magna Carta at a point along the line, ahead of the cascading energy, it could act like a reflective shield and make that energy rebound.”
“Aah,” Elodie said in approval. “Reverse the cascade and squelch the magic.” Gabriel looked at her, all bright and lovely and slightly rumpled from the things he’d done to her some fifteen minutes ago, her eyes reflecting magic from the sunlit geyser, and he nodded. The surrender to colloquialism was worth it just to see her smile in response.
“You’d be risking a massive explosion in the village,” Professor Jackson remarked through a mouthful of buttered muffin.
“As a matter of fact, my team and I did something similar a few years ago in Sheffield,” Gabriel said, “although on a smaller scale, and the result was a squelching rather than an explosion.”
“It’s a good plan,” Elodie said. “So we need to reach Hereford at all speed.”
“I still have my bicycle here somewhere,” Professor Jackson said. He looked around as if he expected the bicycle to be propped against the tree.
“That’s not necessary,” Gabriel told him. “We are dignified professionals. Bicycles have no place in this assignment. We will hire horses to get to Aberystwyth and catch a train from there.”
“And hopefully outrace the cascade,” Elodie said.
“I’ll come too,” Professor Jackson offered, licking butter from his fingers.
“No, we need you to stay here in case of further trouble,” Gabriel told him. “Mr. Jennings, you also stay.”
Algernon squeaked from behind the tree. “What? Here? Are you mad?! I’m going home to Leicester, where it’s safe.”
“Perfect.” Gabriel rolled up his map, then looked directly at Elodie. As she looked back at him, the silence between them seemed to pulse with the memory of that mad, beautiful experience in the cellar.
I love you, disaster girl,he thought.
Then he turned from her, his expression hardening as he stared into the horizon.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Philomel’s razor notes that, if a rational cause
for natural phenomena cannot be found, it must be magical.
That or you’ve drunk too much beer.
Blazing Trails, W.H. Jackson
Less than twohours later they were in Aberystwyth Station, impatiently awaiting the next train. Elodie shivered within the cold sea wind as she glanced surreptitiously at Gabriel standing nearby. He might have glanced at her too at some point, but if so, she didn’t catch him doing it. Mostly, he frowned at his wristwatch. He’d sent a telegram to his sister in Hereford, advising her of the situation, but one historian would be no match for a cascade of magic, and Gabriel looked like he might at any moment just start running along the train tracks to reach her.
Beyond him, Algernon was pacing nervously and startling at every little noise. And beyond the young accountant, Pimmersby, Hapsitch, and Mumbers posed in various states of manly swagger alongside the Misses Trevallion. The tourists had been so determined to “follow the fun” that not even Gabriel scowling at them had provided deterrent enough. Pimmersby, who’d spent much of the mad gallop to Aberystwyth shouting at intervals, “ ‘Half a league, half a league, half aleague onward!’ ” was now declaiming, “ ‘O the wild charge they made!’ ” and gesturing grandly, while Misses Trevallion sighed adoringly in a manner Elodie wouldneverdo.
At the edge of the group stood Tegan Parry. Her ostensible role was to organize the return of the horses, but she’d insisted on waiting to see them off properly—not so much from any fond feeling, Elodie suspected, but more to soak up every moment of dramatic pathos. Her father had given them only a brief farewell back in the village, having been preoccupied with intense emotion over the destruction of his inn. (The emotion of delight, that is, since not only would his insurance pay for an even better premises, but he now had a source of magical sulfur waters on his property that was even more significant than those in Llandrindod Wells, and visions of the spa he would create dominated his attention.)
“I’m sorry for doubting you about how dangerous the magic would become,” he’d said, however, smiling sheepishly as they saddled their horses.
In response, Gabriel hadlookedat him.
“Er, and I’m sorry for almost getting you killed,” Parry added.
The look intensified.
“Er, and compliments to your lovely wife, sir.” He’d bowed to Elodie, and Gabriel had at last allowed him to retreat in continued possession of his limbs.
