‘Is that your plan?’ demanded Rupert. ‘How sad.’
‘Oh fine, then,’ said Dot. ‘Instead, we’ll go to the Southern Archipelago and live with the cuttlefish.’
Dot prepared more of her tonic, mixing the lavender, chantarelle and crushed cockles, every movement difficult. She sliced off more of her dwindling supply of ambergris.
‘What if you ate the whole thing?’ Rupert nodded at the odorous hunk of marine matter.
‘If I were anaemic,’ said Dot, mashing together ingredients, ‘would you suggest I eat a cast-iron pot?’
Rupert took up a purple envelope and wrote a customer’s name across the front of it. Then, he got to work organising the orders while Dot prepared ingredients. All the while, Dot was irritated by that niggling glob of fury. Where was Archie? How had her non-magical grandfather mysteriously found the ambergris from a spirit in the South Sea that was in some way linked to her affliction? Why had Theodora hidden herself away?
A week passed. They started turning away all but the simplest requests, which Theodora already made in bulk and stored away in the workshop: mint and asphodel tea (which came with a packet spell for hay fever), pink ibis brew (fortifying one’s singing voice), and chamomile and fennel (of course, to keep the bad dreams away).
Each day, the customers complained more.
‘Where is Theodora?’
‘But my son’s wedding is Tuesday!’
‘Has she gone on bloody holiday?’
The patrons of the Raven’s Attic were worse.
‘I demand you tell us where De León has gone!’
‘Taken ill! Absolute rot!’
‘My Valiente would never miss a day of work. I tell you, if De León lasts another term after this, it will be a disgrace to the country.’
More envelopes landed through the Ethel Avenue door. Theodora’s friends from the studio each sent telegrams for Justine. Over the radio was an announcement of the disappearance of the Minister for Sorcerie and Magic. A parchment was sent fromthe King. Letters came from the Royal Institute of Alliaster. One morning, to Dot’s surprise, she even found a wooden token from the Ollianne Shrine, written entirely in runes. After that, a newspaper flew in with the headline:
CITY SHOCKED BY MURDERS – 13 SLAIN IN ALLIASTER
Yet, no matter how many times they knocked, Theodora would not open her door.
It wasn’t until a week and a half after the attack, when Dot was in the courtyard at dusk, watching Lio teach Rupert, that her resolve broke. Rupert had scribbled the rune forlevitate.
‘The fourth symbol is a little wonky,’ said Dot over his shoulder.
‘It’s perfectly fine,’ said Lio, and Dot felt a small slap of reprimand. She sat back against the wooden deck, and Rupert placed his hand on the rune.He won’t get this on his first try, Dot thought.
He did.
The parchment shot straight up in the air and the boy let out a cry of surprise. Lio cheered and thudded him on the back, and Dot flashed with envy of the most extreme degree. She raced into the house, forcing herself up two storeys. But she did not stop at her own bedroom – instead, she climbed the attic ladder, tears blurring her vision, and slammed her unafflicted fist against the door. For the first time in her life, Dot shouted at the top of her lungs.
‘Theodora! You open thisdamn dooror heaven help me I will find an axe and hack it open myself!’
The latch clicked.
The door swung open.
Dot paused in surprise.
‘Hurry up,’ came a gentle, broken voice.
Dot heaved herself slowly, dizzily, into the attic and saw, at last, Theodora’s bedroom.
The sky beyond the windows was purple, casting the enormous room in soft, indigo light. The space was a mess. The bed was covered in strewn pillows and scattered clothes and the floor was littered in papers, spell books and empty envelopes, half-drunk cups of coffee and jars of cold cream. The pageboy cap of Maz Bircham hung from one of the brass bedknobs; the cloak of Grand Magician Valiente had been thrown over a lampshade. There were several canvases of differing size, each half-finished with vistas of a valley of willows. Incense burned on the bedside table beside a bowl of salt. Above the bed hung a tuft of fennel.
