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By five PM the next day, I’m on a train heading north. I haven’t agreed I’ll take the case. But I’ve committed to visit Mannith, talk to Bren, and then make my decision.
The intervening thirty-six hours have consisted of a toxic mixture of internal debate and hurried logistics. I should have been in the Old Bailey today. But when my parents want something to happen, they make it happen. And I’ve never known them want something this much.
My clerk was mesmerised from a distance by my mother. My chambers know not to expect me back for a month or two. The other trial was delayed by a few days. Another lawyer was found. Maybe they’ll win and get the credit that should have been mine. Maybe they’ll lose, and my poor client will be screwed over. But Brendan’s the only thing that matters now.
It usually takes months from a defendant being charged to the start of a murder trial, but Bren’s will be starting in around two weeks—neither the Sadlers nor the Thornbers want this to drag on longer than it needs to. Goodness knows what cases have been pulled to make space for it.
I’m not sure my parents have quite appreciated the subtlety of my position. As far as they’re concerned, I’m now Bren’s lawyer. But as I’ve repeatedly tried to explain, I reserve the right to head straight back to London if the case seems unwinnable or I feel in danger.
Chrissie’s worked a spell on me from a distance to make me look just different enough that no one should recognise me. Disguise spells are surprisingly difficult, considering that the natural magic in the air and the earth tends to simply respond to our commands. You can play around with hairstyle or a few degrees of skin tone, but attempts to change people’s facial structure or body shape rarely last more than an hour or two.
In our teens, Chrissie and I occasionally attempted body-switching for the purposes of practical jokes, despite or perhaps because it’s famously meant to be impossible, almost up there with reviving the dead. Unsurprisingly, we never managed it.
Chrissie’s settled for shifting the way the light reflects off me and the overall impression I leave in people’s minds. It wouldn’t be enough to hide me from those who see me regularly, but I’m already fairly unrecognisable after six years away, a spot of natural ageing, and a total change of hairstyle and dress sense. The magic should tip the balance.
I’ve got a first-class seat on the train. Mum would be furious if she knew. I usually travel in standard, but if there was ever a day I deserved a little treat, it’s today.
I drink three awful train coffees before we reach Sheffield, after which I change from the intercity train to a slower, smaller, local line that links the surrounding towns and villages.
Thirty minutes out, the train reaches the edge of the Dome. I see it before me as an iridescent curved red wall rising from the earth to the sky—invisible to everyone except those born with the power needed to see it.
It catches me by surprise. I remember its boundaries as starting a mile or two farther north, just before the train station, but my memory must be playing tricks on me. The Dome is a constant. It’s been in place for generations, and despite Bren’s efforts years ago—the efforts I paid for so dearly—no one’s ever succeeded in moving or expanding it.
The train passes through with ease, though a few of my fellow passengers shiver or stiffen for a moment without knowing why.
For me, the effect is more pronounced, like I’ve charged headfirst into an electric fence. I dig my nails into the seat of the train and wait for the burning sensation in my nerves to subside. It only lasts a second or two, though those seconds are endless. Then we’re through, and into the outskirts of Mannith.
I shrug off my suit jacket. It’s summer, therefore the weather’s sunny and warm here. Things happen according to expectations in my hometown.
A glance in my trusty mirror shows that my irises have turned a light pink. I throw on my sunglasses. Merely being within the boundaries of the Dome is enough to set my magic surging towards the surface.
Contrary to what many people in town believe, the Dome isn’t the source of my family’s power. Our ancestors and a few other practitioner families have lived in Mannith for centuries, working our personal magic. The so-called Witches’ Church was built in medieval times, and there are family records of sixteenth-century spells, whereas the Dome is only about a century old. It allows magic to take place on an industrial, automated scale. It keeps the whole town permanently blessed, without us having to contribute anything towards this on a day-to-day basis. Were it ever to fall, we could still work love spells, curses, and all the rest of it, but Mannith would no longer be protected from everything from inclement weather to economic recessions. Those are the upsides. The downsides, as I understand them, are more complicated.
According to my watch, there are five minutes before the train reaches the station. I use the time to sink into a core meditation deeper than anything I’ve managed in years.
“We are now on the approach to Mannith. Mannith is our next station stop.”
I shake myself back to full consciousness, grab my suitcase and head for the doors. No one else follows. Mannith isn’t exactly the sort of place that encourages casual visitors. It’s astonishing it still has a regular train service. My parents’ doing, presumably.
The Victorian station is small, but pretty and perfectly preserved, as though it’s a microcosm of the town. There’s a little stone waiting room, painted dark blue and cream. A flower display of pink fuchsias and purple pansies that lightly scent the air. A rickety wooden bridge crossing the track. It’s all made more pleasant by the evening sun and the gentle breeze.
I stand there for a moment, gently reacclimatising to the town, until a man in his early-twenties strides towards me.
“Miss Elner?”
For a moment, I almost don’t respond to the assumed name we’ve agreed I’ll use for my stay in Mannith. Then my brain catches up with events. If someone were to look through the records of Gray’s Inn, they’d find evidence of a lawyer called Kate Elner having been called to the Bar. If they were to look on my chambers’ website, she’d be listed there, and all my colleagues would nod in recognition of the name. Kate Elner apparently has an impressive track record. It’s just one more example of the myriad complex strands of magic my family has spun over the last day or two.
“My name’s Connor Colson. The Sadler family sent me to pick you up and take you to your hotel.”
I stare at Connor, trying to place him. There’d always been a few Colsons in my father’s employ, but this one can’t be more than about twenty-one. I’ve probably met him at some long-ago family gathering, but if he’s a couple of years younger than me, he’d never have factored on my radar as a teenager.
The Colsons are another practitioner family, and if my parents have entrusted him with escorting me, his powers are presumably first rate. With his tight jeans, sleeveless T-shirt to show off his muscled and tattooed arms, and closely cropped brown hair, he looks nothing like the popular perception of a wizard—ruggedly handsome would be the polite way to describe him. “A nice bit of rough” would be the alternative.
I glance at his eyes. Diamond-shaped pupils, unsurprisingly. The sure sign of a Born Practitioner. Hopefully, the contact lenses and sunglasses are effectively hiding mine.
“Pleased to meet you, Connor,” I say, as he leads me towards his car. My local accent has naturally faded in the years I’ve been away, but now I play up the southern accent and the middle-class manners.
The way he slings my over-packed suitcase into the car suggests the muscles aren’t just for show. Probably one of my father’s enforcers—the brawn rather than the brains of the operation. But a well remunerated enforcer, judging by the shiny new Merc. Presumably, he’s perfectly capable of traveling by magic should he wish to do so, but nice cars are a status symbol for practitioners, the same as for anyone else. And though magic is always quicker than more mundane forms of transport, it has a really draining effect on the body over longer distances.
