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Another day, a nervous young woman slunk into the shop as if expecting an attack, her hair in disarray. She was the only one who spoke to me.

“I don’t have much time,” she said, after running her gaze over the shop several times, as if we might be hiding someone.

I could have pretended I had no idea what she was after. But I wanted her gone, her and all the others, so I simply pointed towards the back room. She nodded once and hurried away, not bothering to close the door behind her. Thus I saw her fold the rug back and lift the trapdoor, a simple rectangle cut out of the floor with a brass chain attached. I did not see what was below it, because the trapdoor blocked my view, but I could tell she descended a flight of stairs, slowly lowering the door behind her.

I could have followed them into the back room, of course, and peered into the space below the trapdoor. I could have waited for them when they came out again, or asked what they were doing down there. But I never did.

Élise and I were in agreement on this point. “Is any of this worse than a nuisance?” she said. “And is tolerating a nuisance worse than returning to an unheated ruin? It’s a small price to pay.”

While the mystery gnawed at me, I agreed with her. I was additionally motivated to avoid the basement due to my unwillingness to admit that my theory had shifted. I no longer thought the place had once housed an illegal magic shop. I now wondered if the owner of the shop had never left.

At the end of that week, I paid a visit to the bookstore next door. Oksana, the owner, was not napping this time, but busy with a customer. I was pleased to see that her shop was not always quiet; several people waited in line, each with a stack of books. The weather was moody that day, the wind rambling up the narrow street, woven with leaves from the maples in the square. The wooden sign above the bookshop creaked back and forth.

I waited until the customers had paid and gone, then approached the counter. The woman glanced up at me, narrowing her eyes. This did not seem a promising start, but I reminded myself that a face might have a natural tendency towards mildness or severity, as a clock has towards haste or tardiness, and was thus not always a reliable measure of mood.

“You again!” she said.

So much for that, I thought ruefully. I decided to change my approach, for this was a person who seemed to value bluntness.

“I despise magicians,” I said. “I have never had anything to do with them, and hope I never will.”

She blinked at me for a moment. “Seems a bit late for that.”

I felt the breath leave me. So—there was my confirmation, of a sort. “You know who my landlord is.”

“I’ve been in this neighbourhood for decades,” she said. “I know all my neighbours. Including those who don’t wish to be known.”

I waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t. “I would be grateful for anything you could tell me,” I said. “But only if it won’t put you at risk.”

“What did the police want?”

I hesitated, taken aback by her tone. “They—you mean Laurent?”

“I mean Laurent. He’s more cunning than he looks, that one, and more determined than the others ever were. He’s been poking around that shop for nearly a year. I saw him through the window speaking to you. What did you tell him?”

This was baffling. I’d expected her to sigh at me for ignoring her warnings, or perhaps to suspect I was in league with whatever mysterious entity inhabited the basement, and distrust me. Instead she seemed to distrust me for an entirely different reason.

“You warned me to stay away from the shop,” I said slowly. “You implied there was something terrible about it.”

“Did I say that?” Oksana countered. “I warned you off because you seem like the wrong type for the place. I could see it a mile off—you’re just the sort that would make a report to the police and cause all kinds of trouble for the neighbourhood.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s your face,” she went on. “You look like the woman on the cookie tin.”

I flushed. I knew which cookie tin she meant—it was sold in shops around the holidays and featured a beaming hearty-looking woman with red cheeks brandishing a tray of shortbread. It was partly why Élise teased me as she did, though she also liked to say that I had a face for organizing bake sales.

“I’m not surprised you operate some silly charity,” Oksana added in a mutter.

“You believe charity is silly?”

“That one is. Do you not realize there are people in this city who need help?”

I decided to assume the woman didn’t mean to be rude, despite the evidence. A self-interested assumption—I cannot tolerate it when people dislike me. I never stop thinking about it, to the point where it is as though I am wearing their dislike wherever I go, which chafes like wet shoes.

“The city seems to have room for more than one form of charity,” I said.

She gave a disdainful grunt. “What are you so worried about?” she said. “Magicians like cats. The stories say Havelock Renard can turn himself into a black one.”