The Magick of Merlin

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I could tell you just how much the Elvyng family, in the person of William Elvyng (Crystobel’s father), had paid for Merlin’s Grimoire back in the eighties. I could also tell you how much the spell-book had been valued at, about eight years ago.

Believe me, you don’t want to know.

You’d spit chips. Like I did.

‘How do people get so wealthy?’ I complained to Val, as I sat one morning in the library at Home, perusing the Elvyngs’ photos and documents pertaining to the impossible spell-book.

‘The argent operation can’t hurt,’ she said, without looking up from her laptop. ‘And you’ve seen the prices at the Emporium.’

Right. If you happen to be the only family in the country with a secret supply of the most important magickal substance known to man, and therefore sole rights to stock a shop with souped-up magickal artefacts, you would be rolling in it.

History had rather favoured the Elvyngs.

I sighed.

Val looked up, and directed at me the Quizzical Brow. ‘Suffering some envy?’

‘Aren’t you?’

Val shrugged. ‘What would you even do with that kind of wealth, if you had it?’

‘Well, I…’ I had to pause, and think about it. I could live in my own personal castle, with a swarm of servants to wait upon me hand and foot. I could have a private plane, and go anywhere I liked. I could eat every day at the finest, Michelin-starred restaurants in the country.

None of which sounded much like me.

‘I’d become the Society’s secret benefactor,’ I decided. ‘Oodles of funding, every year, and nobody would know where it came from.’

‘Like Ancestria Magicka.’

I grimaced. ‘Right.’

‘It’s too bad you’ve just told me, then, isn’t it? Cover blown.’

I sniffed. ‘You would never give away my secrets.’

‘Not without handsome compensation, anyway.’ Val missed the wounded look I sent her, having returned her attention to her laptop. Presumably she was still deep in the magickal dark web, scouring the online world for any mention of lucrative book heists, or the sale of improbably expensive grimoires.

I went back to Crystobel’s documents. I’d already lingered a long time over her photos of the grimoire itself, torn between wonder and horror. The book was old, and by that I mean old. Hand-stitched bindings, scrubby leather covers, crumbling pages — the works.

So far, so convincing.

I may have been a little disappointed at how ugly it was. I was definitely disappointed by its poor condition. Didn’t people know to take care of priceless artefacts?

My mind drifted back to the book-box that had stolen Jay’s heart, back when we’d (unwisely) paid a visit to the Elvyng Emporium. The box was enchanted; slowly, gradually, anything placed in it would be restored to a better condition, some of the deleterious effects of time reversed. I had no doubt the Elvyngs would have kept Merlin’s Grimoire in just such a box, which suggested it had reached them in a still worse state.

Merlin would’ve been crushed.

If there ever was a Merlin.

On this point, I remained profoundly sceptical. Merlin was a myth. Besides, while his purported grimoire was scarily old, it still wasn’t old enough. As near as anyone can determine, a hypothetical real Merlin would have lived something like fifteen hundred years ago, and possibly rather more; surely no book, however magickal, could have survived in legible condition for so long?

But all this might be immaterial. Crystobel had said, I am less concerned with the precise identity of the book’s author than I am with the contents. Whoever had written it, the grimoire contained charms and enchantments the likes of which most of us would kill for. That’s why the Elvyngs wanted it back — at almost any price.

‘Surely,’ I said aloud, struck by a sudden thought, ‘they’d have copies of every page.’

Val looked up, frowning. ‘What?’

‘Of the grimoire. The Elvyngs, I mean. Why do they need it back so badly? They wouldn’t be so careless as to keep only one source of such important magicks. They would have records. Photos. Transcriptions.’

‘No doubt, but now they also have competition. Potentially, someone else could be using all that secret magick.’ She blinked sightlessly at me. ‘That’s a good point, Ves.’

‘What point did I make?’

‘Whoever stole the book. Did they just want to own it because it’s valuable, or did they want to use it?’

‘Both?’ I ventured.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Anyone suddenly coming out with copies of magicks only the Elvyng family have been able to produce would attract a certain attention, no?’

‘If it were known. The thieves could be out there, working marvels in secret.’

‘So they could. The question remains: was it the book itself that was wanted, or was it something in the book that was important? A charm or something, that the Elvyngs wouldn’t share?’

‘Good questions all, Val, but I don’t see how they can be answered until we find the thieves.’

She sighed, and her mind came back from wherever it had gone. ‘Probably not. Still, it’s something else to search for. Accounts of unusual feats performed by unlikely parties.’

The laptop once again swallowed her attention whole.

I stared, a little hopelessly, at my pile of papers. I’d covered the desk in them. I had not only Crystobel’s documents, but sheaves of print-outs I’d squirreled up from all over the internet. Every mention I could find of the Elvyng family’s doings for the past several years (lots of attending-of-events and sightings-at-magickal-libraries, plus the various accomplishments of the individual family members, and the doings of their prestigious academy). Val had been hoping for reports of bad blood between them and someone else — another family, or organisation. Something.

No luck. They were perfect. Everyone loved them.

I had also struck out on the subject of Merlin’s Grimoire in the media, in that there was almost no mention of such a thing. Ever. All I’d been able to dig up was scant reference to the auction at which William Elvyng had purchased the book, and the account consisted of exactly three lines: a minimal description of the book, its purported provenance, and to whom it had been sold.

It hadn’t mentioned who had sold it, and when I had called the auction house to find out, they’d claimed they no longer had access to those records.

Considering we were at a distance of some decades from that sale, that was probably even true.

There had been no reports on the theft. The Elvyngs had kept that one very quiet. Why?

I heard the heavy clunk of one of the library’s ancient brass doorknobs turning, and the door to the main reading-room swung open.

Jay stood upon the threshold, eyes wide.

‘Hi,’ I said, beaming.

Jay stared at me like I was some kind of apparition.

‘What?’ I said.

‘How did I get here?’

‘You… were expecting to end up somewhere else?’

Jay released the door, and composed himself. ‘Actually, yes,’ he said, ambling in. ‘I’ve just left my room.’

So he’d expected to find the usual panelled passageway beyond, and instead had been neatly whisked straight downstairs. ‘House thinks you should visit us,’ I suggested. ‘I was thinking the same thing!’

It struck me that he was looking unusually smart. His beloved leather jacket was nowhere in sight; instead he wore a pair of neatly-pressed navy trousers and a matching jacket, with a white shirt underneath. Not a suit, but a far cry from jeans and leather.

‘Been somewhere interesting?’ I said, having looked him thoroughly up and down.

‘Police station.’

‘What?’

He grinned. ‘I went voluntarily.’

‘Jay, you’re the last person I’d suspect of getting yourself arrested, ever. For any reason.’

‘I can’t decide whether you say that as a good thing.’

‘I mean, I know I’m a rebel but I’m not that bad—’

‘What did you get?’ Val, impatient with our nonsense, firmly interrupted. Indeed, she directed her if-you-don’t-mind look at Jay, the kind that sets new recruits all a-quiver.

Even Jay, a little, for he snapped to attention. ‘Right. I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to talk to them on the phone, so I went in person. Looking respectable.’ For some reason, he appeared to be directing that last comment at me, for he frowned in my general direction. ‘After some fast talking and a deal of flirting—’

‘Flirting?’ I blurted.

‘Having taken a leaf or two out of the Book of Vesper—’

‘Me? I’d never flirt my way into classified information.’

I got the raised eyebrows look from Jay and Val.

‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘Did it work?’

By way of answer, Jay pulled a notebook from a pocket and flipped through it. ‘I did manage to blag my way into a look at the case file for the grimoire theft. I think. The Elvyngs weren’t too open about which book it was or why it was important; the incident report listed it merely as “a valuable book”, taken from the home of William Elvyng. Or, reported missing. Apparently there were no leads.’

‘None? Not one?’

‘No signs of forced entry, nothing else taken, no traces of any strangers in the house that day. I got the impression whoever responded to the call might have thought the Elvyngs were wasting their time.’

‘You mean they might have made a false report of theft?’

‘Which seems unlikely, before you get carried away with the idea,’ Jay cautioned. ‘Why would they do that? Insurance fraud? They have more money than they can spend already. It’s more likely that, finding themselves stymied, the police were only too happy to declare it hokum and set the case aside.’

‘And the Elvyngs let it go?’ I stared. ‘That’s spectacularly unlikely.’

Jay restored the notebook to his pocket. ‘They didn’t chase the police about it, at any rate.’

‘They hired a private detective,’ I said. ‘They must have.’

‘You mean, besides us?’

‘Definitely. It’s been four years. We need to find out who that was, and whether they discovered anything.’

‘Agreed.’ Jay leaned against the nearest desk, hands in his pockets. ‘What have you two dug up?’

‘While you were charming paperwork out of the police? Not much,’ I said. ‘The theft wasn’t picked up by the media, as there’s no mention of it, and the book wasn’t much talked about before, either. It seems to have been kept a deep, dark secret. And as far as I can tell, the Elvyngs have no enemies.’

Jay looked at Val.

‘Don’t look at me with the eyes of hope,’ she said. ‘So far I’m turning up nothing.’

‘No four-year-old shady auctions purporting to be selling off the most remarkable spell-book in the world?’

‘Not a one. Nor any chatter about thrilling heists pulled off against the most powerful magickal family in England.’

I gave a disappointed sigh, and laid my cheek upon my desk. ‘Reality is so disheartening.’

‘But there was a thrilling heist,’ Jay said encouragingly. ‘And it’s the best kind.’

‘The incredibly secret, no-one-could-possibly-track-us-down kind?’

‘Exactly. Challenge accepted?’

I sat up again. ‘Challenge accepted.’ I withdrew my phone, and dialled the number I had wrung out of Crystobel. I hadn’t yet had occasion to call her since she’d given us our unusual mission. I felt a curious flicker of anticipation — nerves? — upon doing so now.

She answered quickly. ‘Miss Vesper?’

‘Ves,’ I said. ‘Hi, Crystobel.’ After the obligatory exchange of pleasantries, I said: ‘Listen, we’re going to need an invitation to your dad’s house.’

‘My father? Why?’

‘We’d like a look at the place the grimoire used to be stored, and I’d really like to ask Mr. Elvyng a few questions about it.’

‘I can arrange that,’ she said.

‘Great. Also, do you happen to know if anyone else was ever contracted to go after the grimoire?’

‘Oh, yes. We went through three agencies at least. Father would have all the reports, I’m sure.’

‘Three? And nobody found anything?’

‘Nobody found enough, certainly.’

‘I’m touched by your faith in us.’

‘It’s desperation, Miss Vesper. If the regular investigators have failed us, I am forced to look elsewhere.’

‘So we’re the wild card?’

‘Something like that, yes.’