An elegant woman in a jewelled chair with wheels parted the crowd.
Dot edged along the outskirts of the room, dodging the wallflowers leaning languidly against the wainscoting. With considerable effort, she made it to the far side of the club and, as she reached the curtain, chanced a look back. No eyes were on her – they never were. She took a small breath and then slipped behind the curtain.
Indeed, she found a door.
Dot stared at it, horrified at her success. She raised her hand and knocked meekly. When no answer came, she knocked much harder. Still, nothing.
Dot stared at the handle for a long time, wrestling her own timidity and, at last, resolved that this was precisely what she hadcome to the Raven’s Attic to do. She seized the handle and twisted it, and the door sprung forward to reveal a fleet of rising stairs.
This, too, she had not expected to be successful.
‘Hello?’ Dot called into the darkness above, beginning to regret every choice she had hitherto made – from eavesdropping in the university library to leaving Seafarthing to buying a ticket to Saint Penelope’s Cathedral. Over the music, she could hardly hear her own voice. ‘Theodora?’
Dot stepped in and the door slammed behind her, throwing her onto the stairs. The lock clicked and the sound of the club was lost. The only light was that of a dim lamp, somewhere above her. What choice had she now? Dot climbed the staircase slowly with shaking knees, the carpet bag slipping constantly down her shoulder. The staircase was long and winding, jutting this way and that with none of the usual logic afforded to staircases. It exhausted her, but she kept on until she found herself on a landing in a small, poorly lit hallway. She called out to the darkness, ‘Hello?’
‘Yes?’
Dot shrieked. The hallway was suddenly washed in warmth and light. A woman stood before her holding a bulb of flame in her hand. Her hair was raven-black, cropped at her chin and finger-waved like the other young women of the city. From her right ear swung three golden daggers glinting in the firelight. Her complexion was dark, her face heart-shaped, and she had a wide nose, heavy eyebrows and clever, discerning eyes that fixed Dot where she stood.
Dot gawked at her.
The young woman’s voice was deep and calm. ‘Why are you in my house?’
She placed her free hand in her pocket, and Dot noticed now the extravagant coat resting upon her shoulders: a midnight blue thing with ivory buttons and wide sleeves and gold embroidered stars.
‘I was,’ began Dot, ‘I – goodness, I’m so sorry – I was looking for the witch, Theodora.’
‘You’ve found her.’
Dot’s eyes widened.
‘You’re breaking and entering, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dot.
‘You’ve already said that.’
‘I just—’ said Dot, wringing her hands. Oh, this was going terribly. ‘I had to find you.’
‘In the dead of the night?’ asked the witch. ‘In my hallway?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Well, what?’
‘I would like to learn magic.’ The moment the words left her lips, Dot regretted them. Only now, standing in front of Theodora – who, to Dot’s great alarm, was no longer a sickbed daydream but a real living person, with a mole on her cheek and brown eyes, who could only be a few years older than her – did Dot realise how childish she sounded.
‘You forced your way into my house,’ said Theodora, ‘to request an apprenticeship?’
‘The door was unlocked.’
‘Of course it was,’ said the witch. ‘I was the one who unlocked it. I wanted to see what you would do, especially after all that sulking you did on my front step. The customers could see you. I’ve a spell that could help with that. You know, melancholy.’
‘I wasn’t melancholy,’said Dot, mortified. ‘I couldn’t find you. I was frustrated. I—’ She looked at the witch. ‘Sorry.’
‘If you say that one more time, I will cast you into the street.’
Dot opened her mouth to apologise again and then snapped it shut.
