Page 76 of The Trick of It

He was grinning to himself as he entered the cobbler’s.

And in the end, he chose something pretty.

In two colors.

Always two colors.

Because he knew where she lived as well.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The whole time Seph was shepherding the other performers around the Twittens, she was thinking about Rhys’s explanation of fairy circles—of the mushrooms visible aboveground only being the tips of long fingers joined by a massive hand under the earth.

That was what she felt like she’d become part of. She was, perhaps, the thumb today. The important digit that determined what could be gripped, but only the tip of a larger ecosystem, whether she liked it or not. One that very literally had a mind of its own.

Just like the mycelium.

By the time they sat down for luncheon, they had not only bought a significant amount of treasures from around her favorite spots in the Twittens, but they’d managed to fill up Nini’s daytime schedule without her knowledge. Gordon, first, had volunteered to come to the house to teach Merlin how the puzzles were made and show off his favorite inventions, and Seph had thought it a good idea, a wonderful way to keep the man entertained in his long and likely painful final days.

But that had sparked a revolution of ideas and invitations. She chewed on her bread, watching the door for Rhys, and wondered if any of the actual invited guests would even have time to visit Merlin’s bedside now, with all the denizens of Lewes volunteering to come by with gifts and glitter and diversion.

It was the first time she realized she herself wanted to speak privately to the man. And she didn’t even know exactly why.

Perhaps she wanted his wisdom. Or perhaps she wanted to ask about the way he’d invited them there and what he knew about Rhys’s adoptive mother and his missing pocket watch. Or perhaps he just reminded her of her da. And she missed her da.

“I cannot believe she is the same age as I,” Madame Ivanova was saying with a sniff and a toss of her unnaturally red ringlets. “All those wrinkles. Still, perhaps she could preserve a peacock for me. I should like to have a whole bird.”

Seph winced, sparing a glance up at the other woman. “Those feathers are bad luck to my people,” she told her. “They watch you.”

“Do they?” asked Mr. Charpentier. “Like Merlin’s god’s eyes, hm? Are you going to keep yours? I’m keeping mine.”

And then the chatter had overtaken the others again.

“This bread is remarkable,” Master Yuri murmured, tossing a seductive glance at the Swedish woman behind the counter. “Perhaps the baker should have been invited to prove the existence of magic as well.”

“Well, that is the funny thing, isn’t it?” said the Breton gentleman. “Science and magic are all tangled up together. Just because we understand the function of something does not mean it makes any sense at all in a practical world.”

“What do you mean?” Seph asked, wrinkling her brow. “That is exactly what understanding the function provides. Sense.”

He shook his head. “Have you ever attended a scientific expo? They have them often in London, but I do not know if they come to Brighton in the summers to follow the prince.”

She shook her head. She didn’t think she had.

“If you put your loudest bell or chime under glass,” he said, miming it, “and take all the air away, it can no longer sing. The science says it is because sound needs to breathe, yes? But does that not fill you with unease? It implies that you should not be able to hear your child calling you if your head is under the bathwater, and yet you can.”

“There is oxygen in water,” Seph argued. “I am not classically educated, but I know that much.”

“Ah, perhaps,” said the man, shrugging. “But then you must think, if beyond us, out in the cosmos, someone were to ring a bell to let us know they were standing on Mars or Venus or the moon, we would never know.”

“Perhaps that is why most people cannot hear the spirits,” Madame Ivanova said softly, tilting her head to the side like one were whispering to her just now. “Because they do not breathe.”

“Then why can you hear them?” Master Yuri asked, smirking at her. “You breathe.”

“Because I have died before,” the lady answered flatly. “I was born dead. And then I was restored. I think that is why.”

After that, everyone fell silent for a time. Until Rhys appeared, bashing in through the door like an invading army with a wooden box under his arm and a grin on his face.

“Ah,” said Seph, breaking into a smile immediately. “My crudités?”