“Padovan, we’ve been noticing...”
Alice was intensely aware of two things at that moment, the first being her hunger. Originating from the depths of her belly, it was the sort of hunger that gnaws at your mind, demanding every last scrap of attention. Unfortunately, Mr Phillips’ dingy office was hardly the place to dig into a good meal. Even without the shelves and oversized desk, the room would have been tiny, and a thick layer of dust coated every surface in sight. The crowning touch was the missing nameplate, which gave the place an air of neglect. A newcomer would have been puzzled to realise that Mr Phillips was a Councillor, rather than some forgotten investigator or low-ranking peon from the Records Department.
The other thing that Alice realised was that an unpleasantly difficult job was being shot her way. At twenty-two, most investigators at the Magical Regulation and Investigation Agency were sent on little tasks—cursed teapots, possessed cows and distressed spirits stuck in bottles of whiskey. Not Alice Padovan. One lucky investigation and the whole world insisted that she was capable of something. She didn’t think Phillips was taken in, but from the sound of things, this case was a real sizzler. Was she mistaken, or had sensible Mr Phillips finally been pushed off the edge?
“… Chraudìn tells us that it could be a Crèt-Werlänn Reversal combined with the Fa’s Hand Effect, intensified by the appearance of a Defoslem Cluster, but the likelihood of that is—”
“About the same as the chances of me not screwing this up?”
“We’re only asking you to take a look, Padovan,” he said, pushing a thick folder across the desk. The movement unsettled some small quantity of dust, which took to the air just in front of Alice’s nose. “Not that you can refuse orders.”
That was a lie. Alice was entirely capable of refusing orders. She didn’t, because she didn’t want to deal with the consequences, but she liked to keep her options open. After a brief pause, Alice stood up and took the folder. “You will regret this, Mr Phillips.”
“Any more and I’ll have you reprimanded, Padovan. You’re dismissed.”
She bowed and left, stepping out into a decidedly brighter and airier hallway. Two right turns, a staircase and a door later, she was standing outside the office, considering her next move. It took only a few seconds for her to decide. Alice walked slowly, taking the time to look into shop windows and examine trees. The way home was simple: one left turn, and then a long, straight stretch past fashion boutiques and fancy restaurants. Wedged between a music store and a grocery, her apartment was one of many small, old-fashioned buildings that filled the city.
And it remains as noisy as ever, she thought as she climbed the four flights of stairs to the top. Loud music blared from the third floor, mixed with what Alice presumed was a couple moving furniture while vehemently agreeing with each other. To add to the general clamour and mess, Mrs Fourth Floor was preparing a particularly evil-smelling Crosàl dish for their New Year celebrations. Though the door didn’t completely separate her from these goings-on, Alice was still glad for its muffling qualities.
“Make me sammich!” called a petulant voice from a room to the left.
Was it worth going back out to avoid Greg? A whiff of Mrs Fourth Floor’s cooking persuaded her against the matter. She didn’t want to walk through that again—not so she could wander aimlessly around Darnà, anyway.
“Make it yourself, lazy bum,” she answered, setting the folder down on the kitchen counter. Alice pulled a stool up and began to flip through the pages. The floorboards creaked as Greg lumbered across the front room, towards the kitchen. He was clad in a pair of exceptional purple boxers. For a moment, all she could do was marvel at the intensity of the colour.
“Sammich?” he asked, breaking her into her reverie. “No sammich?”
“I said make it yourself.” She swatted him away, but that only encouraged him to hover around her back, trying to see the contents of the folder.
“What’s that about Fa’s Hand, Alice?”
Alice looked at him. “You’d know about Fa’s Hand, wouldn’t you?” She sighed. “Quite frankly, it’s gibberish to me.” He picked up the first few pages in the folder and began to skim through the content. “Care to translate, Greg?”
“Holes,” he declared, not looking away from the papers. “Holes between worlds.”
“Nothing new.”
Alice stood up and began to assemble the ingredients for a sandwich. Bread, can of tuna, lettuce and a carrot. A knife appeared from the depths of a kitchen drawer, and a cutting board was pulled from the gap between a counter and the fridge. She wasn’t doing it for Greg, though the sandwich was quite big enough for the two of them. Alice was hungry, and she supposed if she was making a sandwich, she might as well make one that they could share.
“No,” Greg conceded, “but they usually close as soon as you pass through. These are staying open.”
She cut the sandwich in half and handed Greg his piece. “Bad news?”
He shrugged. “If it isn’t a Crèt-Werlänn Reversal combined with the Fa’s Hand Effect—”
“Phillips went over that,” she said quickly. If there was anything she did not need to know, it was the ins-and-outs of Theoretical Magic. It was the sort of subject that ripped off your trousers, took you by the hips and thrusted vigorously with no heed for consent.
Greg looked visibly disappointed. He was one of five students who had enjoyed the Theoretical Magic course, and the only one who hadn’t gone insane afterward. “Well, yeah. It’s bad. What’s he want you to do?”
“Investigate.” As she bit into her sandwich, she flipped through pages of explanations and meaningless numbers, past a picture of an upturned sheep, to the page at the end with actual instructions. “Take a look at the holes along World Seven. Seven?” On cue, Greg stepped through the archway into the front room. He pulled out an atlas, then came back and handed it to Alice. “Thanks,” she muttered, turning to a map in the back. “Earth,” her finger traced the lines of a continent. “Canada. Oh Gods, no. English.”
Fennen had come downstairs with an odd look on his face, and immediately rushed to the back room to retrieve a blue box labelled, ‘Nkntemente Poudr.’ He began to pour its contents on to the floor while muttering, occasionally raising his voice to a sudden shout. Sitting on the counter with a kettle on his lap, Athanasius watched his master’s actions dispassionately. Two years of apprenticeship had taught him many things, but none of the lessons had involved putting salt on the ground. Athanasius thought for a while, then came to the conclusion that it was protection against the evil influences of snails.
“Stop that,” Fennen snapped.
“Mr Fennen?”
He turned around and walked over to the counter. “You are mentally disaparaging my enchantment powder.”
“Is that what it is?” Athanasius asked. “You spelled it wrong.”
“Really?” He looked at the box thoughtfully, then back at his apprentice. “Doesn’t matter. You were still discouraging my Enchantment Powder. Apologise!”
“Er—sorry?”
Fennen frowned and shoved the box under Athanasius’ nose. “Do it properly,” he said, his voice low and threatening. Tiny, cherub-faced Fennen had suddenly become the most menacing thing his apprentice had ever seen. In that light, at that angle, it wasn’t hard to believe the man was over a century old. It wasn’t hard to believe that powerful magicians had cowered at the idea of him. “Now.”
“I’m very, truly, absolutely sorry for my uncalled-for thoughts about your protective and magical abilities, Salt, and I hope that you will forgive me, because I’m a worm, and a dog, and a duck, and—”
“That will do.” In a moment, the man was back to being as threatening as a fluffy lamb. He turned around and continued his circuit of the room, before returning to the counter to set the salt down. The pattern was subjected to a brief examination, which it passed by a good margin. Fennen sighed. “Flopett, that is an Arc of Certain Winds. Make an observation about the Arc of Certain Winds.”
Athanasius looked at the salt. He climbed up on the counter, and looked at the salt again. Finally, he jumped off, went upstairs and tried to see a pattern from the landing. The boy saw something, but he didn’t trust his eyes enough to accept what was in front of him. “It appears to have been put down arbitrarily, Mr Fennen,” he said, hoping that if he was wrong, it wouldn’t be a glaring error.
To his relief, Mr Fennen nodded. “The Arc of Certain Winds is put down in any which way, Athanasius. Just pour some Enchantment Powder, say the words and you’ve got your Arc.”
“Er… what does it do?”
“Cleans the air of nasty smells just beautifully.” There was a pause. Athanasius considered whether it was prudent to speak, but decided against it. “And it keeps the magic-space-time fabric nice and steady. That thing you saw—a Globbly, we call them—it’s a kind of fold, you see? A dropped stitch in the woolly Scarf of Existence. They don’t like Arcs of Certain Winds.” Fennen added, “But really, they’re to clean the air.”
“That makes sense,” Athanasius said, making his way downstairs. It didn’t really, but he didn’t want to spark another discussion about the magic-space-time fabric. That always mixed them up, and Athanasius had no particular desire to hear Fennen butcher the phrase, ‘Crèt-Werlänn Reversal,’ ever again. “But Mr Fennen, what are we going to say to the customers?”
The little man blinked. He turned around and caught sight of a woman crossing the street with a purposeful stride. Candice Feathers. “Oh. Right.”
The thing about Greg was that he had a one-track mind. Alice took care not to describe it as a bad thing, because it was entirely capable of being good in the right situation. If the rest of the organisation hurried to take care of some rogue wizard, Greg would still plod along and make sure the streets were free of self-aware couches. That was what he had been asked to do, so he would do it. Most people thought self-aware couches weren’t important if there was a man building a fortress in the middle of Darnà, but one dissatisfied chaise lounge could very well be the organisation’s downfall.
Greg had a one-track mind, and that was not a bad thing. It was just inconvenient sometimes.
Like now, Alice thought. She had known Gregory Hepburn since she was six, and there was no mistaking the look on his face. It appeared at the same time every day, no matter what the circumstances. One part wistful, one part petulant and three parts—
“Sammich?”
It wasn’t the word she was thinking of, but three parts sammich seemed to fit the recipe. She sighed. “Greg, we’re standing on an airship dock.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly.
“I’m standing in front of the Indomitable Weasel. I’m going to board it in a few minutes. I’m going to another world.”
Greg’s eyes lit up. “You can get me a sammich on the way back!”
Alice knew it wasn’t supposed to be this hard. She knew that somewhere in Greg’s mind, there was a, ‘Not Getting a Sammich,’ button. It was just… deeper… than most people’s… but it was there, and she was going to find it before the Indomitable Weasel left the dock. “I can’t get you a sandwich, Greg. I’m working.” He frowned. “You’re not getting a sammich. Sammich. No. Get. No Sammich.”
To their left, the captain slammed a door shut. She pulled off her greasy gloves and shoved them into her back pocket, nodding to Alice as she walked up the gangplank. “We’re set to go in five minutes, Padovan.”
The task of explaining to Greg that he was not getting a sandwich was one too big to squeeze into five minutes. Alice decided that she could make it up to him later. “I’m going now, Greg. Be good.” She kissed his cheek. “Feed yourself. Don’t get too lonely.” She stepped on to the ramp. “Bye now.”
He watched the airship slowly float away with a quiet, philosophical look that Alice took for resignation. “Bye, ‘Lis!” Her triumph was later shattered when he shouted, “Don’t forget my sammich!”