Original Work The Many-Angled World (Mystic Albion III)

Hi, everyone

(Jet lag is a killer, but pushing on anyway.)

The Many-Angled World is the third and final book in the Mystic Albion trilogy, following The Stranded and The Land of Always Summer. It probably won’t make much sense without reading the first two, but the basic idea is that a handful of magic students from another world found themselves stranded in our world, discovered that there were still some magicians in our world, managed to escape … and, through a long string of disasters, accidentally merged the two worlds into one.

You can purchase the first two here:

The Chrishanger

(I’m happy to send copies of the first two to anyone willing to comment on this book.)

All comments are welcome; spelling, grammar, continuity problems, moments of dunderheadedness, etc.

I hope to keep a steady pace, but there will be a pause - my family and I have a lot to deal with right now.

I’ve been working on expanding my list of ways for people to follow me. Please click on the link to sign up for my mailing list, newsletter and much - much - more.

The Chrishanger

Thank you

Chris

PS – if you want to write yourself, please check out the post here - Oh No More Updates. We are looking for more submissions.

CGN

 

Prologue I: England, 1536

Anne Boleyn knelt on the cushion, her hands bound behind her back, and waited.

There was nothing else to do. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her fate was sealed. She had made a bargain with an entity and the price, she had been told, was that she would not live to see the promised land. She had thought she would die, perhaps in childbirth, and barely live long enough to see the newborn before she passed on to the great unknown. It seemed a sick joke, as she waited for her execution, to die in such a manner, to be accused of unnatural crimes and be sentenced to death by the king she had once lobed, but …

She felt calm, unnaturally so, as she waited. She had kept her side of the bargain. She had drawn the king’s eyes, then played her role to perfection. She would not be a mistress, like her own sister, but a wife and a queen. Her child would be legitimate, the result of a tryst between a married man and woman; her child would be in line to inherit the throne. It had been difficult to play the game to perfection, to make it clear that the king’s desire would only be sated if he married her; she had teased and flirted, without ever quite crossing the line until the die had been firmly cast. She felt no guilt, for all the former queen’s partisans – and the king’s daughter – considered her little more than a whore. And yet …

Anne closed her eyes, thinking of her child. Their child. Elizabeth would be Queen – Anne knew it, with a certainty that could not be denied – and yet, she would have a long and hard life ahead of her, even after she sat on her father’s throne. Anne knew, all too well, that the king had wanted a boy, that he had broken with his first wife and parted from Rome out of a desperate need for a male heir, but she took comfort from the prophecy. Her daughter would be queen, her reign would be blessed, and the Folk – the few remaining magicians – would have their gates to the other world. They would live forever in a land of magic, parted from the Burners; they would live their lives as they should be lived, rather than hiding in the shadows as the hunters closed in, searching for the last traces of magic. Anne felt cold – the last of her magic was long gone – and yet, she knew her name would be remembered for thousands of years to come. She would go down in history as the mother of salvation, as the witch who had sacrificed her life for her people. She would be known long after the king’s memory passed into dust.

Her lips twitched in bitter amusement. She had been charged with adultery and incest and witchcraft, the latter charge the only one that held any truth. She doubted there was a single man or woman in London who believed the charges, even in an age where the last traces of magic were still visible if one cared to look. The idea that a decent god-fearing woman would commit adultery was bad enough, but incest? It was outrageous, born of ignorance and malice and a king’s desperate need to pretend he wasn’t to blame for his lack of a male heir. No queen was ever alone, not even in her most private moments. Anne could have proved her innocence, if her husband had been interested in listening. But he’d steeled himself to the task of disposing of her, and her family, and that meant …

The clock ticked, once. Anne tensed. Time was running out. She would be taken to the block and beheaded … she wanted to think escape was possible, but she knew better. There was no one in London who would put his life at risk for her, even the learned men and religious thinkers she’d patronised when she had thought that reformation would save the Folk from extinction. The king was the only one who could spare her, and she knew better than to think that he would. She had to die, to secure her legacy and her daughter’s future … she wished, not for the first time, that she could take the child in her arms one final time, yet even that had been denied her. She would have cried, if she hadn’t known her daughter would survive. Her legacy would live on …

The clock ticked, again.

Anne tensed, feeling something behind her. Her skin prickled, her blood turning to ice. She hadn’t seen anything supernatural since the night she’d made the bargain, not a single dancing fairy or even a ghost. She had wondered if she’d lost her sight, although she was painfully aware that the magic was leeching away and the creatures that depended on it were going away too. And yet …

She took a breath as the presence grew stronger. Time itself seemed to slow down, the interval between clock ticks growing longer and longer. Her heart raced as she forced herself to keep her eyes closed, even though she wanted to turn and look at the entity. She knew better – to lay eyes on such a creature was to court death – and yet, she felt the urge to let everything go. She didn’t have to let herself be marched to the block, to rest her head on the wood and wait for the executioner to end her life. She didn’t have … but she did. The farce had to be played out, right to the very end. Her blood would stain the soil, her life sealing the bargain she’d made so long ago. Perhaps that was why the entity was here, after so long. It had come to claim her personally.

Her breath caught in her throat. “Why?”

There was no answer. She hadn’t expected one. She had been taught, time and time again, of the danger of bargaining with supernatural creatures. Some were unpredictable, some were inhuman, some were outrightly malicious. They would keep their bargains, she had been assured, and they wouldn’t break their world, but they were very good at keeping the letter of the agreement while overlooking or ignoring the spirit. Be careful what you wish for, she had been told years ago, for fear you might get it. She wondered, suddenly, if their desperation to save what remained of their people had blinded them to the risks. If they had made a mistake …

A breath brushed against the back of her neck. Anne shivered, helplessly.

“Why?”

She barely had a second to realise the entity had spoken before her mind was assaulted, an endless stream of images bombarding her thoughts. She was trained in mental defence – the small subtle charms to twist a person’s mind were about the only form of magic that still worked reliably, and if she had lacked those defences she would have been hopelessly vulnerable to the hidden witches at Court – and yet, there was nothing she could do to keep the barrage from flooding her mind. The images were strange, some so incomprehensible it hurt to even look at them; she saw a red-haired woman sitting on the throne, she saw the gates opening, she saw her people striding into a brave new world …

Tears prickled in her eyes. She would die, but her people would live. It would be worth her sacrifice.

The stream of images kept coming, the world shifting in ways she could barely understand. A dying queen. A young fool of a king. A commoner who would reign like a monarch … an endless series of images that twisted in front of her mind, something that bothered her at a very primal level. Anne knew she was far from stupid, but she was also all too aware of her own ignorance. Far too much magical knowledge – dangerously won knowledge – had been lost over the centuries, or hidden away for fear of the Burners. She didn’t understand what she was seeing and yet, the world was folding …

… And twisting into something new. Something apocalyptic.

“No!”

The images stopped, abruptly. Anne opened her eyes and threw caution to the winds, looking behind her. The chamber was empty. The entity was gone … her blood ran cold as she realised what it had been trying to tell her, in the last few moments before she was marched to the block. She had been given what she wanted, and yet the price was far more than her life. She saw it all now, far too clearly. The Folk would survive, but so would their enemies …

Keys rattled in the lock. It was time.

Anne closed her eyes, as the door opened to reveal the guards, and wept for the end of the world.

 

Prologue II: York, England, Now

Polly stared at the laptop, trying to understand what was happening – and what, if anything, had gone wrong.

Lord Burghley had told her and the rest of the staff to remain behind, in the manor, and wait to hear from the invasion force. Polly had been glad to do as she was told, all too aware that she was a novice in magic and that there was no point in her going to St Champions and putting her life at risk. The gates would be opened one final time, she’d been told, and the Brotherhood would take possession of a whole new world. Polly couldn’t wait. She’d felt enough magic, since she had been recited, to want more. The promise of power – real power – drew her, like a moth to the flame.

But something had gone wrong.

The reports were confused, chaotic. Large swathes of the internet appeared to have dropped out completely, servers and relay stations vanishing without trace. The country’s hardened electronic infrastructure wasn’t in any better state. She had high-level access to everything from government communications nodes to CCTV cameras, yet even they appeared to be worse than useless. What remained was contradictory, babbling reports that made no sense at all. She knew the plan, knew the gates should have been opened by now … it couldn’t be a coincidence, she thought, that the crash had happened just after zero hour. The odds against that were staggering …

The ground shook, sharply.

Polly tensed. An earthquake? Earthquakes were rare, almost unknown, in Britain. Polly had heard they were more common than most thought, but she’d never felt one. She checked the live feed from the manor’s security cameras, out of habit, and saw nothing … nothing, apart from a handful of security guards checking the perimeter. It hadn’t been that long since the flash mob had appeared out of nowhere, pressing against the walls and shouting and screaming about nothing in particular … she wondered, suddenly, if the manor was about to be attacked again. It wasn’t impossible. Her boss had been looking for the refugees from the other world for the last few months, and it was quite possible they were looking for him too. And they’d sent Norris – both Norris and Norris2 – into the other world from the manor.

And that makes us a target, she thought. If the other worlders are fighting back, we might be targeted first.

Another message popped up in front of her, someone babbling nonsense about dragons, of all things, and ranting about Game of Thrones coming to life. Polly tried not to snort in disgust as the idiot went on and on about fire-breathing dragons burning the Houses of Parliament to the ground, never mind that his location was in York and there was no way in hell he could see what – if anything – was happening in London. She checked, just to be sure, and noted that the Houses of Parliament were still intact. She tried not to feel disappointed. She’d seen too much, in her career, to have any faith in politicians, but Westminster was still the Mother of Parliaments. And yet … she knew her boss, and his peers, were the true rulers of the land. Perhaps it would be better if they came out of the shadows …

Light flared, a wave of magic that pressed against her senses in a manner that was almost painful. Polly was halfway across the room and hiding behind a wooden cabinet before her mind quite caught up with what was happening, her training taking control before she could freeze … the light burned through the cabinet, as if it was more real than anything else. It felt as if she were under the sun, the sunlight burning her skin, her muscle, her bone … she felt, just for a second, as if the entire world was burning away, leaving only the soul behind …

… And then the light just ... went away.

Polly staggered. She would have collapsed if she hadn’t already been on the floor. The world was dark, so dark she was afraid she’d been struck blind before her eyes started to grow accustomed to the gloom. She stumbled to her feet, the world spinning around her like a dreamscape … she pinched herself, hard, and winced at the pain. It was no dream. She forced herself to walk to the desk and look down at the laptop. It was dead, the keyboard smoking slightly … she cursed under her breath as she looked up, realising that half the lights were dead too. Someone shouted outside … a guard, she guessed. The entire manor had been hit by … by whatever the light had been, and that meant … she reached for her smartphone and discovered it no longer worked. Her mind raced. An EMP? No, she’d seen – felt – the magic. Her skin was still prickling. She had the weirdest sense she was standing in the open, the sun concealed behind a cloud and yet feeling it’s presence. The feeling was coming from her master’s office. It felt … wrong.

She hesitated, then forced herself to walk to the door. She’d been told, in no uncertain terms, that she was not to enter the inner office unless she was invited, yet … she swallowed hard as she rested her hand against the wood, checking for fire and wards, telling herself that it was vitally important she knew what was happening inside. The wards – the little charms that made it hard for anyone to even see the door, unless their attention was drawn to it by someone who already knew it was there – were gone. She pushed the door open and peered inside, feeling an alien warmth brushing against her bare skin. The office was dark and yet she could see something – someone – standing by the desk, the form alight and yet wrapped in darkness and shadow. Polly’s eyes hurt as she tried to make out the shape, a sudden stab of pain forcing her to close her eyes …

… And when she opened them, Cecil Burghley was standing in front of her.

Polly sucked in her breath. Her master had always been handsome, in a way that could not be described as classically handsome and yet drew the eye in a manner that could not be denied, but now … he looked strange, almost alien. His face had always been sharp, as if his jaw and cheekbones had been cut from rock, yet now he had a strange glamour that caught her attention and held it firmly. His eyes were dark, almost pools of darkness staring at her … she had the strangest sense, just for a second, that there was something hidden behind him, around him, a faint shimmer of something moving … she blinked and it was gone. Her master seemed almost human ….

… No, he was human. Wasn’t he?

“Polly,” Cecil Burghley said. His voice dripped honey and battery acid. He sounded as if he were learning to talk again. “Why …?”

Polly found her voice. “What happened …?”

She wanted to ask so much more, to demand to know what had happened to the invasion force or the other world, or … but she couldn’t think of the words. Her legs felt wobbly, as if she were caught in a nightmare … she told herself, for the second time, that she wasn’t dreaming. And yet, everything had an air of unreality about it that made it hard – almost impossible – to think clearly. Her eyes met his and … she stumbled, suddenly convinced the man in front of her wasn’t her master, but something else wearing his face. She blinked …

… And the thought was gone.

“We have much work to do,” Cecil Burghley said. He sounded more human now, more his normal self. Polly blinked, again. “Contact the Prime Minister. I must speak with him immediately.”

Polly nodded, even though she knew it would be difficult – if not impossible – to arrange an immediate meeting. She had been an administrative assistant – a secretary, by any other name – at the very highest levels long enough to know the Prime Minister would have been whisked into a government bunker by now, hiding away for fear of nuclear attack. His staff would know even less about what had happened than her, but there were contingency plans for EMP strikes and those plans would be put into action … good thinking on their part, she was sure. Whatever had happened, it had enough in common with an EMP for the plans to be workable.

“Yes, My Lord,” she said, finally. She forced herself to ask a single question. “What happened to the invasion?”

Cecil Burghley seemed oddly nonplussed, as if he didn’t quite know what she was talking about. That was bizarre. He had been the one who had recruited Norris and sent him into the other world, priming him to open the gates to allow the invasion to begin. Polly had no idea what had happened afterwards, but it was clear something had gone dreadfully wrong. The world felt as if it had been tipped on its axis, perhaps taken apart and put back together again in a manner that wasn’t quite right. Her head hurt, the more she tried to think about it. The world no longer made sense.

“We have a new priority now,” he said, finally. He smiled, revealing too many teeth. Polly blinked, again. She’d been seeing things. Hadn’t she? “Destiny awaits.”

 

Chapter One: London, England, Now.

“Where are you, you little monster?”

Alec kept his head low as he fled into the garden, all too aware his stepmother was right behind him. The woman had never liked her stepson, to the point she’d openly suggested Alec’s father should send him to boarding school or even give him up for adoption. Alec didn’t pretend to understand why his father didn’t send the woman away instead, but he knew there was no point in arguing about it. The woman had been drinking and grim experience had taught him that it was better to be well out of her way, when she opened his father’s drinks cabinet and started pouring wine down her throat. She was unpleasant at the best of times, but when she’d been drinking she was unbearable.

“Come here, now!”

He ignored the woman’s demands as he ran into the darkness. The garden seemed larger than ever before, giving him plenty of room to hide. His father would be back soon, he told himself, and … even his stepmother wouldn’t dare touch him in front of his father’s very eyes. He wondered, not for the first time, if the woman had cast a spell on his father, something to make him fall in love with her. Alec had read enough stories about evil stepmothers – and stepfathers – to convince him that all stepparents were unpleasant, nothing more than hermit crabs crawling into the space left by an absent parent and turning what had once been a pleasant home into a nightmare. He wished, desperately, that his mother hadn’t died, that his parents had stayed together … he shuddered, helplessly, as he heard heavy footsteps coming after him. He’d hoped the darkness would protect him, but … for a moment, the garden seemed both immense and very small. Tears prickled at the corner of his eyes. His stepmother was coming closer and …

“Why so afraid, child?”

Alec stopped, dead. There was a … a something sitting on a leaf, clearly visible even in the darkness. His eyes hurt to look at it, a stabbing pain that felt as if invisible hands were twisting his eyeballs, forcing them to roll in directions he knew to be impossible. He blinked, the pain vanishing in an instant, and opened his eyes again. A little man was sitting on the leaf, no larger than his hand and yet perfect in every detail. He stared, feeling a touch of awe that washed away his fear. He’d been told there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, years ago, but he’d never actually seen one. And yet, he’d believed …

The fairy was tiny, clearly visible and yet the details were hard to pin down. Alec found it hard to see anything, save for the shimmer behind the tiny entity’s back. Wings, Alec supposed, beating so rapidly they could barely be seen. The face was ageless, young and old; the eyes were dark, more like a bird’s than a man’s. His imagination filled in the details, suggesting clothes and a stance that was both friendly and wary. It was impossible to believe the fairy posed any threat and yet, he couldn’t force himself to look away. The fairy gazed back at him, calm and composed. Alec wished, just for a second, he could sprout wings and fly away, to Neverland or Fairyland or somewhere – anywhere – else, as long as his stepmother wasn’t allowed to follow him. He’d thought about running away before, when the old woman had shouted and screamed at him, but now … he could do it.

“I hate her,” he said, feeling all the buried anger bubbling to the surface. It wasn’t fair! Why had his mother died? Why had his father married again, to a monster in human form? Why, why, why …? “She hates me.”

“You’re safe now,” the fairy said. The words appeared in his head, without passing through Alec’s ears. Alec couldn’t even see the entity’s mouth move, as it spoke. It seemed perfectly normal for such a tiny creature. “You can stay with me.”

Alec didn’t hesitate. He trusted the entity … it crossed his mind, a moment too late, that perhaps he shouldn’t, that perhaps talking to a fairy was no better than taking candy from a stranger, but the fairy couldn’t be worse than his stepmother. It just couldn’t. Alec was seven years old and he couldn’t stand the thought of spending another eleven years with his stepmother, not when there was another possibility. The woman hated him. She didn’t even try to hide it.

“I will,” he said. He had no idea what would happen next – if he’d grow wings, if he’d be shrunk until he was as small as the fairy – but he didn’t care. “I …”

Something crashed through the garden, behind him. Alec froze. His stepmother burst into the tiny clearing, a giant smashing through the bushes and trees as if they were made of paper and cardboard. She was a towering woman, large enough to scare him; her eyes, harsh and cold, fixed on him. He cowered back, trying not to breath, as the stench of her breath washed over him. She stank of alcohol and cigarettes, of adult things he knew better than to try until he was a great deal older. She reached for him and her stumbled back, trying to escape as the real world crashed with the fantasy. The fairy …

The fairy was hovering between them.

His stepmother stopped, dead. She had yelled at him, time and time again, for making things up; she had never listened, when he’d told her about his day at school or the stories he’d told with his stuffed toys or building blocks. She wouldn’t have believed him if he’d told her about the fairy … no, she was staring at the tiny creature, her eyes going wide with horror and astonishment. Alec felt a surge of pure glee as she started to step backwards, fear clearly visible on her face. He’d never seen anything actually scare her before. And now …

The fairy spoke a single word. “Mine.”

It changed, so rapidly it made Alec’s eyes hurt. It grew larger, teeth and claws shimmering around it’s growing form, and lunged forward. Alec’s stepmother had no time to run before it was on her, her body seeming to explode into a fountain of blood and gore. Alec saw her eyes explode, followed rapidly by the rest of her head; he fell backwards, his head pounding as pieces of flesh and bone fell everywhere. He hit the ground hard enough to hurt badly, smacking his head against a stone. The fairy seemed to flicker, the tiny form he’d seen earlier somehow transposed with something far darker, and nastier. It was …

Alec opened his mouth to scream, but it was far too late.

***

Sergeant Kenneth Oswald cursed under his breath as he drove through the estate.

The call had been a prank, probably. A dangerous animal, loose on the streets … he had no idea why the dispatcher had ordered him to investigate, not when all hell was breaking loose elsewhere. The police radio net had partly crashed, messages from the nearest station contrasting oddly with bursts of talking and laughter that sounded distinctly inhuman. Kenneth suspected someone had hacked the net, probably intending to distract the police while they did something … or perhaps it was just another prank. The days in which prank callers, kids wasting police time, actually faced any sort of consequences for their crimes were long gone. A few years in jail, or even a month or two picking up litter, would teach them a lesson, but it was politically impossible to do anything of the sort. Kenneth cursed the uniformed politicians in police uniforms under his breath as he parked the car, reminding himself he only had a few years to go until retirement. He’d leave the force, move to a small town miles from anywhere, and forget the nightmare enveloping the cities. It wouldn’t be his problem any longer.

He clambered out of the car, gripping his flashlight in one hand as he looked up and down the street. It was surprisingly dark, the only source of light the stars overhead. The streetlights had been vandalised long ago and never been replaced, leaving the estate trapped in the shadows. Kenneth winced as he locked the door and started to walk, pacing himself as he made his way down the street. The hopelessness was almost a physical force, a grim reminder that anyone born on the estate would be lucky if they made it out. There were too many pitfalls for young men and women – drugs, prostitution, radical politics – and too few chances to leave the estate behind. It was almost a black hole, sucking its inhabitants into the gravity well and keeping them trapped. The wind shifted, blowing a hint of burning embers towards him. Kenneth tensed, eyes flickering further down the street. There was nothing there …

… And yet, his instincts were sounding the alarm.

He kept moving, keeping one hand on his truncheon. The proposals to arm every policeman in London had gone nowhere, and perhaps that was for the best, but his instincts were screaming at him to turn and run. He hadn’t felt so nervous since the first day he’d stepped onto the streets as a uniformed office, empowered to enforce the law and charged to protect the population, even from themselves. It wasn’t easy to be the iron fist in the velvet glove, to be calm and reasonable and yet firm; he knew, deep inside, that it was just a matter of time before he made a career-ending mistake. There were too many provocations, too many radicals intent on embarrassing the police or … he shook his head as he reached the end of the street. It was quiet. Too quiet.

His lips twitched at the thought, although it wasn’t really funny. London never slept. The ordinary law-abiding folks might be indoors, the doors and windows firmly bolted, but the streets were never truly empty. Here, so far from Westminster, the darkness belonged to the druggies or the radicals. His eyes lingered on a boarded-up home, soon to become a drug den if it wasn’t already. The walls were covered with obscene graffiti, making it hard – impossible – for whoever owned it to sell or rent, at least to anyone remotely desirable. And that meant …

Something shifted, a gust of warm air brushing against him. He looked up and down the street, his head spinning – suddenly – as he realised something was there. It was hard, almost impossible, to force himself to see it. A giant hulking shadow, with immense wings and huge red eyes, perched in the middle of the road … his brain stopped, just for a second, as he felt his legs buckle. The creature – the dragon – was simply impossible. It was … a wash of panic ran through him. There might be something in the air, something hallucinogenic … it wasn’t impossible. He’d seen fellow officers get poisoned, when they raided drug lairs, and it was quite possible he’d breathed in something dangerous. His hand dropped to his radio, his mouth suddenly dry as he tried to think what to say. The dispatcher wouldn’t believe him … he found the emergency beacon, concealed in his belt, and pushed it. Every policeman in the area would be on the way within moments, converging on his position. An officer in trouble took priority over nearly everything else.

The dragon moved, rising on its hind legs until it was towering over him. Kenneth found himself stepping backwards, unable to take his eyes off the best. It was impossible – it had to be impossible – and yet, he found himself believing what he saw. The dragon was real in a way he found impossible to deny, a presence that was simply too big … he saw it open its mouth, revealing too many teeth, and stumbled backwards as it breathed fire into the air, illuminating the entire street. A wave of heat brushed against him, an instant before the dragon took flight. Kenneth found himself on his knees as he saw it vanish into the air, tears prickling in his eyes …

It was impossible. He had to be seeing things. But he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

***

Syeda Ali rubbed her eyes as the plane turned again, cursing under her breath. It should have been a simple flight from Glasgow to London, an hour in the air followed by five hours in the airport before they boarded the flight to Bangladesh. Her aunt had been proud of the bargain she’d secured, booking a very late flight from Glasgow and then a very early one from London. She hadn’t known that their landing would be delayed for hours … Syeda hid her amusement with an effort, even though there was nothing really funny about it. They were already dangerously late for the second flight, if it hadn’t been cancelled completely. She had no idea what was going on below them, but what should have been an hour’s flight had somehow morphed into four hours over London.

She told herself to be glad of the delay, even though she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Her aunt had been tight-lipped about quite why they were going to Bangladesh, suggesting – to a young girl of marriageable age – that she intended to introduce Syeda to a young man and ensure they married before she returned to Britain. Syeda had seen it happen before, time and time again. A youngster would be taken abroad and told they had to marry someone they didn’t know, for the good of the family, and if they said no … Syeda shuddered inwardly, trying to brace herself for the tidal wave of emotional blackmail she knew was in her future. If she said no … she didn’t want to think about what would happen. She would be lucky if she wasn’t completely disowned.

Tears prickled in the corner of her eye. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to get a job and marry someone she chose, but one was impossible and the other … she knew girls who had been forced to leave their jobs, after they married someone who was unable to cope with a wife who earned more than them, or only held their jobs with their husband’s permission. She had dreamed of rising high, of reaching the top of her profession, but it would be impossible if she married the wrong person. She would be reduced, very quickly, to a wife and mother and little else … she shuddered, trying not to think about how her in-laws would treat her. Her mother had treated her sister-in-law like a servant, and now …

She swallowed, inwardly, as the sun rose. The plane was descending, finally. They’d land and see if they could get another flight, and then … she wanted to run, to simply leave, but it would mean cutting ties with her entire family. She would never see her parents or siblings again. She wasn’t even sure where she’d go, if she could go anywhere. There was little hope of escape.

Something moved, in the brightening sky. Syeda leaned forward, wondering if it was another plane. The pilot hadn’t been very informative, but he had told his passengers that they weren’t the only aircraft that had been delayed. Perhaps … she frowned, realising the moving object – objects – were getting closer. Too close … they were coming right at the aircraft. She felt too tired to be afraid, even though she was starting to wonder if they were missiles. Perhaps there had been a terrorist attack, perhaps …

… And then the objects came into view.

Syeda stared in disbelief. Three youngsters, no older than herself, were flying on broomsticks … it was impossible. She was seeing things. A ripple of shock ran through the aircraft as the passengers stared, some standing upright to peer out the windows as the flying people came closer. Syeda swallowed, hard. Two young woman and a young man, wearing robes … their faces were alight with sheer delight, in their own freedom, their hair blowing in the wind as they closed with the aircraft. She felt an odd little lump in her throat as she saw their joyful faces. They were free, able to go wherever they liked, while she …

“It has to be a stunt,” an older man said. There was no conviction in his voice. He was trying to convince himself he wasn’t seeing what he was seeing. “A publicity stunt.”

The flying teenagers flew next to the plane for a long moment – a girl looked at the aircraft, her eyes meeting Syeda’s for a long moment – and then they were gone, vanishing into the distance so fast they were gone before she knew what was happening. Her cheeks felt damp … it took her a moment to realise she was crying, sobbing silently as the real world reasserted itself. She was crying for her own freedom, the freedom she’d lost well before she’d known what freedom was. The girl had grown up with a power and freedom Syeda had never known existed … she knew it to be true, even though she couldn’t have put the feeling into words. She wasn’t the only one, she realised numbly, as the plane flew lower, the airport slowly coming into view. They’d seen a glimpse of a better world, a land of freedom and wonder, a land denied to them … she swallowed hard, forcing herself to sit back in her seat. The older man was still babbling, insisting they hadn’t seen anything, but he was a fool. He couldn’t even convince himself. And …

Syeda knew, deep inside, that it had been real …

… And the world had changed overnight.

 

Chapter Two: Gatehouse, York, Now

Helen could have kissed Richard.

They weren’t friends, not in any real sense, but they’d been forced to work together by circumstance before Richard and Brains had returned to Mystic Albion and Helen had chosen to stay behind, to hunt down the rogue magicians. She could recall a time when she’d resented his closeness to Brains, a time when she’d had no qualms about turning him into an animal – or an object – whenever he’d gotten on her nerves, and yet … that all seemed so foolish, in the brave new world. She wondered, suddenly, if Richard felt the same way. There were some things, she’d been told, that bound people together forever, and being trapped on another world was very definitely one of them.

She took a long breath as her eyes surveyed the remnants of the damaged chamber. The air felt funny, almost wrong. The magic of Mystic Albion felt … different, as if she was in a third world rather than her homeworld or the magicless OldeWorld. She reached for her power and felt it crackling around her, a relief after being almost powerless only a few hours ago, but it still felt different. She forced herself to take another breath, centring herself. She didn’t have time to rest, not now. Steve was right beside her and …

“Janet!”

Steve darted forward, running to embrace his sister. Helen blinked in surprise. Janet looked different, so different she almost wondered if Steve had mistaken someone else for her, and yet … she hadn’t changed physically, not really, but her confidence had grown to the point she was practically a different person. Helen had thought Janet was weak, back when they’d been stranded on OldeWorld, yet now … Helen looked away, allowing Steve and Janet to hug in peace. Richard met her eyes, just for a second, and nodded coolly. Helen nodded back.

The Merlin cleared his throat. “My office,” he said. “All of you.”

Helen nodded, feeling a flicker of the old envy as Richard took Brains’s arm and steered him out the door. Brains looked as if he was in his own world, his lips moving silently as he contemplated magical concepts so far beyond her they wouldn’t serve any practical use for months or years to come. She felt the school vibrate beneath her feet and shuddered, inwardly, as they made their way up the staff staircases, into an office she’d been told she would never visit unless she wound up in very real trouble. The door closed behind them with an audible thud.

She sucked in her breath as she saw the windows. They normally showed the endless forest surrounding Gatehouse, the domain of creatures so inhuman it was difficult to lay eyes on them, but now they showed a city that was disturbingly grey – and familiar. York had been a drab nightmare, when she’d found herself and her friends in OldeWorld, and her opinion hadn’t changed over the last few months. It was hard to believe that a society so rich, in so many ways, could have so much poverty, both material and spiritual. And yet … she shuddered, helplessly. She’d complained about her lot, growing up in Mystic Albion with a family that both loved her and expected her to serve their interests first and foremost, but she’d been far luckier than Janet and Steve. And even they were lucky, compared to the poorest on OldeWorld. Their lives weren’t worth living.

Richard stepped up beside her. “The two worlds have really merged.”

Helen bit down – hard – on the urge to demand to know if he hadn’t believed it, when Brains had told him what had happened. She supposed it made a certain kind of sense. Everyone had thought, only a year ago, that there would be no further contact between OldeWorld and Mystic Albion, that the magical and technological worlds would never meet again. Now … she knew better. They all did. But none had expected the two worlds would actually merge into one. No wonder the magic felt strange. The rules had changed. Again.

“Is it everywhere,” Richard asked, “or just Gatehouse?”

“If my calculations are correct, everywhere,” Brains said. He sounded shaken. It was so unlike him Helen felt a flicker of alarm. Brains rarely seemed to care about anything, in her experience, something she’d found maddening a year ago. They’d been betrothed and … he’d felt nothing. “The entire world has changed.”

Steve joined them, his face grim. “Where are the lights?”

Helen gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”

“There should be streetlights,” Steve pointed out. The first glimmers of dawn were starting to appear in the distance. “Where are they?”

“Our arrival last time did damage the school,” Richard said. “If our entire world has arrived …”

Helen didn’t want to think about it. York had a strange, almost hazy air, as if the city was wrapped in an ethereal mist. She wanted to believe Brains was wrong, that the two worlds hadn’t merged completely, but … she shook her head, feeling a sudden tiredness falling over her. Brains was right, and that meant … she shuddered, inwardly, as the Merlin summoned tea and biscuits, then motioned for everyone to sit at the table. Helen felt too tired to be pleased, or fearful. Once, she would have given her back teeth for a seat at the table, for recognition as a person of consequence. Now, all she wanted to do was go to bed. Her lips quirked, wryly. Did she even have a bed in Gatehouse? Had her room been preserved or had it been cleared and cleaned, then given to another student? She didn’t know.

There’ll be a bed here somewhere, she told herself, as she sipped her tea. Gatehouse was used to students appearing randomly. It wouldn’t turn anyone away, if they wanted to learn and were willing to work. All I have to do is ask for one.

The Merlin cleared his throat. Helen forced herself to look at him. He was the most respected sorcerer in the world, the sole male in high office … Helen knew, without having to ask, that he had both the power and intelligence to make use of his post. And yet, he seemed tired and worn, ground down by the sheer scale of the disaster that had enveloped the entire world. It was hard to imagine what might be happening elsewhere, in Londinium or her family estate but … Helen wished, suddenly, that Brains had found something – anything – else to research as his senior year project. She would never have met Steve, or done something important with her life, but she would never have known what she’d missed. She could have come to terms with Brains. He wasn’t stupid, far from it. It wouldn’t be the first marriage that existed in name only.

“I will have to contact the Princesses shortly,” the Merlin said. His voice was calm and composed, betraying none of his inner turmoil. “Before then, I need to know what happened – and why.”

He looked at Brains, who was scribbling on a piece of endless notepaper. “Hiram?”

Brains didn’t look up. “We believed Mystic Albion was an alternate dimension, separate from OldeWorld,” he said. “We were wrong. Mystic Albion is actually a folded aspect of OldeWorld, a piece of dimensionally transcendent engineering on a colossal and unimaginable scale. Our world was literally bigger on the inside” – his eyes narrowed for a moment – “and the fact we couldn’t see the folds explains, I think, why teleportation and transportation spells were so dangerously unreliable at times. They were affected by twists in the fabric of time and space, like folded paper …”

He took a sheet of paper and folded it up, then rested the folded piece on top of another sheet. “This is our world,” he said, pointing to the first piece. “The unfolded piece is OldeWorld. Now” – he unfolded the first piece and rested it on top of the second – “the two worlds are merged.”

Richard leaned forward. “Can they see us?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt in Brains's voice. “More than just see us. They can get to us.”

Janet made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Helen felt a stab of sympathy. Janet had helped them, when they’d first met, in exchange for a promise they’d take her with them when they returned home. Richard had kept that promise – from the way they were orientating on each other, it was clear they’d grown very close indeed – but now there was a very real risk she’d be sent home. Helen could understand Janet’s feelings, no matter how much she would have preferred to deny it. She would have to go home too. She wondered, numbly, if her mother would let her leave again.

And she wouldn’t approve of Steve, either, she thought. She hadn’t admitted, even to herself, that she was starting to like him. What’ll she make of him?

Brains was still talking. “Everything that was bound up in folded space will have been dumped into OldeWorld. Magical creatures, magical entities … the old places of power will be coming to life, the old agreements taking force again. It will change everything.”

Helen felt cold. She had been raised in a world where the most powerful humans were still no match for supernatural entities. Her family was known for arrogance and yet even they trod carefully in high-magic areas, honouring the old ways to keep misfortune from following their every move. Janet and Steve had been raised in a world where magic was nothing more than a myth, save for the handful of magicians who had maintained some of their power after the gates had closed. They didn’t know the dangers, they didn’t know how easy it was to give offense to creatures that could destroy – or worse – a human on a whim. And if they said the wrong thing …

She swallowed, hard. It was going to be a nightmare.

The Merlin tapped the table, impatiently, as Brains descended into magical terms only a handful of sorcerers could hope to follow. Helen didn’t blame him. Dimensional engineering – making a building larger on the inside – was a very rare discipline, one so difficult to master that there were very few sorcerers who could. It was hard to turn a small house into a giant mansion and the cost would be prohibitive … the idea of doing it to an entire world was just incomprehensible. She had no idea which entity had answered Anne Boleyn’s call, when the last of the magic was flowing out of the mundane world, but its power was clearly unimaginable.

Her blood ran cold. It felt, just for a moment, as if someone had walked over her grave.

“Helen,” the Merlin said. He spoke politely, but it was a very powerful politeness. “What happened since the gate was briefly reopened, then closed again?”

Helen took a moment to compose herself. “Steve and I” – she nodded to Janet’s brother, who smiled back – “went looking for the rogue magicians. We discovered, eventually, that they’d worked out a way to use human sacrifices to reopen the gate themselves, then invade our world. Their magic” – she hesitated, wishing she had Brains’s insight into the tiny spells her relatives had developed since the two worlds diverged – “was different from ours, but very effective. We …”

She hesitated, unsure what to say. They’d found other potential magicians … they’d taken them back to York and left them in the vehicle, hours ago. Guilt washed through her. The boys and girls they’d recruited were innocents, children playing with magics that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Helen knew she hadn’t even begun to teach them the basics, let alone how to keep themselves safe when they started experimenting with more complex and dangerous spells. Magic was practically a living thing, responsive more to unspoken desires than stated intentions. It was very easy to hurt yourself – or worse – by casting a spell without proper precautions.

Her blood ran cold. OldeWorld’s magic was designed to make best use of what little raw power was available to local spellcasters. It was hard, almost impossible, to believe so deeply in magic that spellcasting became possible, and it was never easy. That had changed now, she suspected. The local magicians suddenly had more power than they knew how to handle and that meant … she cursed under her breath. There would be a disaster. There might already have been a disaster.

There has, she thought, numbly. We’re here.

She forced herself to continue. “We moved to stop them,” she said. “We were unable to keep them from reopening the gate, which gave me access to my magic. I thought I could best my opponent. Instead …”

Her memories were jumbled. It was hard to sort out what had really happened. It was ... she closed her eyes for a long moment, promising herself she’d use memory spells later to track down the fragments and put them in their proper order. Perhaps if she slept, allowed her brain to rest … she yawned, then flushed helplessly. It was rude, to say the least, to yawn at table. Her mother would not be amused. Oddly, Helen found it hard to care.

“The next thing I remember clearly is being in their old bedroom,” Helen said, nodding to Richard. The last time she’d been in that room, they’d fallen into OldeWorld. It was funny how glad she’d been to see it again, even though it was clear proof something had gone horribly wrong. “And the magic feels … different.”

“The magic field in the dimensional fold will have flowed out into OldeWorld,” Brains said. “I suspect the field will balance itself out, eventually.”

Helen shivered. “They were using human sacrifice to open the gates,” she said. “What’ll happen if they try that again?”

The Merlin looked grim. There was power in human sacrifice, so much power that few Sinisters – dark sorcerers – would take the risk of sacrificing a single life. The power surge might well obliterate the sorcerer who’d cast the spell, then break whatever containment wards and channelling runes he’d devised and devastate the entire area. No one in their right mind would try it … but on OldeWorld, with magic levels so low it was hard to cast even a simple spell, human sacrifice was relatively safe. Had been safe. Now …

“We’ll have to warn them,” the Merlin said. “And quickly.”

Helen nodded. It was just a matter of time until her relatives tried to sacrifice more lives … and if they didn’t realise the danger, they were likely to destroy themselves and much of the surrounding countryside. She pressed her fingertips against her forehead, uneasily aware it wouldn’t be long before they tried. She knew her family too well to think her relatives would hesitate. They had a long history of experimenting with risky magics …

… And her relatives on the other side of the gate didn’t even begin to understand the dangers.

Not on the other side, she reminded herself, sharply. The two worlds are one now.

She yawned, again. “I don’t have much else to contribute, now,” she said. She’d have to sit down and write a full account of everything that had happened, since she’d chosen to stay behind, but that could wait a day or two. “Is my bedroom still mine or …?”

The Merlin nodded, shortly. “It hasn’t changed,” he said. If he was irked at her rudeness, he didn’t show it. He’d always had a reputation for being a practical man. “Classes will be cancelled, tomorrow. I suggest you eat in your chambers and report back to me, when you wake.”

Helen nodded. “You’ll find something for Steve?”

“Of course,” the Merlin said.

Janet leaned forward. “What’ll happen to Norris?”

Norris? Helen didn’t recall a Norris. Who’s he?

“That rather depends on what he has to tell us, when he wakes,” the Merlin said. “We’ll see.”

He looked at Richard. “The room next to yours is empty. Steve can have it, at least for the night. Again, have your breakfast in your chambers and report back to me afterwards. I don’t know what we’ll be telling the rest of the students, after …”

Helen wondered, wryly, what they’d told the students the first time. Gatehouse had always encouraged its student body to experiment – quite a few magical discoveries had been made by students who hadn’t finished their education – but there were limits. She doubted the students had been encouraged to duplicate Brains’s experiment, let alone risk reopening the gates to OldeWorld. Not that it mattered now, she thought. The two worlds were one … she hoped, prayed, that the next meeting would be peaceful, even though she feared otherwise. The two societies were just too different. It had been hard enough for her to cope, when they’d been forced to attend St Champions …

The thought worried her. “If Gatehouse and St Champions are in the same place,” she said slowly, “what happened to St Champions?”

“Unknown,” Brains said. “The math suggests they’ll co-exist ...”

The Merlin looked pale. “And Londinium? Both cities?”

“Unknown,” Brains repeated. “We’ll have to find out. And quickly.”

“Yes,” the Merlin agreed. “We will.”

He cleared his throat. “Go to bed,” he added. “I’ll see you all tomorrow … later today.”

Helen nodded and stood, feeling tired and grimy. The scale of the disaster was beyond imagination. She didn’t even want to think about how everything had changed, at least not until she had a good night’s sleep, a bath, and breakfast. It might be early in the morning, but it felt very late at night.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told Steve. “And …”

She swallowed, hard. There was so much she wanted to say. But she didn’t have time.

“Get some sleep,” Steve advised. “I’ll see you shortly.”

 

Chapter Three: Gatehouse, York, Now

Janet couldn’t sleep.

Her life felt like a joke, her world a game played by a mad god. She had grown up on Earth – OldeWorld – knowing she would never climb out of poverty, never leave the estate … the chance to jump to a whole other world had been irresistible. She would have done anything, from selling her body to selling her soul, to go to a magic school and learn magic … and she had. She had learnt some spells, discovered she had a promising future after all, and … she’d even made the decision, when her relationship with Richard had started to bloom …

… And now the two worlds had merged into one.

She climbed to the top of the school, to the observation chamber she’d been shown the very first day she’d stepped into Gatehouse, and stared out over the land before her. The endless forest – too bright to be quite real – was gone, replaced by a very familiar city. Janet had never see York from the air – she had never left the city until after she’d met Richard and his friends – but she had no trouble picking out the landmarks, from the cathedral to the railway museum on the far side of the train station. The streets were surprisingly empty – it was still early morning – yet she knew it was just a matter of time before the world realised what had happened. Perhaps they’d refuse to believe the evidence of their own eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Her heart sank. She regretted leaving her mother – she wondered, suddenly, just what Steve had told their mother about her disappearance – and yet, she knew she would have made the same choice even if her friends had demanded a far higher price. The chance to study magic, to actually make something of herself, was simply too great to pass up, and yet … she had no idea what would happen now. It seemed like a sick joke. The entire world would be studying magic … her thoughts ran in circles, wondering if she’d be forced to return to St Champions or worse. The school had been a nightmare, little more than a glorified day care, and yet … she had seen enough of the system to understand its fundamental illogic. The people who caused trouble were feted and rewarded, bribed to keep them from upsetting the system any further, while those who tried to be good students were punished simply for existing. It just wasn’t fair. She had no doubt she’d be ordered to return to the old school …

… If it still existed.

She peered down, trying to pick out the streets she’d known – and loathed – from the moment she realised her life had been ruined before she’d even been born. It was hard to work out which streets were which, but … her eyes narrowed as she spotted the barricades, drawn up around the estate. It looked as if the entire area had been sealed off by the police. The ruined tennis court was clearly visible … her head spun as the pieces fell into place, letting her put names to the remaining streets. Gatehouse really was on top of St Champions. Janet hoped the school had been destroyed, the pieces blasted into another dimension. There shouldn’t have been anyone there so late at night, certainly not anyone innocent, and she hated the place too much to think it could be saved. The teachers had been useless and the students … she told herself, sharply, that things were going to be different. She was magic now. A young man who touched her without permission would be spending the rest of his life as a frog.

Her heart twisted, painfully, as she picked out her former home. It was as dark and silent as the rest of the estate. There was no sign of her mother, no sign of anyone she’d known … it was jarring to stare at the tiny apartment, as if she’d been reading Harry Potter and turned the page to discover the Starship Enterprise. It felt as if two worlds had collided … they had, in a sense. Her mood darkened as she stared at her fingers, feeling the magic sparking through them. She had come to love Gatehouse, over the last few months. The teachers knew what they were doing, the intelligent students were encouraged to follow their interests, there were decent career paths for all … and bullies and gropers, the puerile assholes who ruined education for everyone, simply didn’t exist. Gatehouse wasn’t perfect, but it was so far ahead of St Champions that there was no comparison. But would it be ruined by contact with OldeWorld?

Janet shuddered. She didn’t want to think about it. But it was possible. Too possible.

She clenched her fists. The estate could have been cleaned up overnight, if the government had been prepared to admit what had gone wrong and spent time and effort fixing the problem. St Champions could have been turned around, if the useless teachers had been purged, the bullies expelled and the gropers castrated. Her skin crawled, remembering little touches that had been far from innocent; she knew, as much as she hated to admit it, that she’d been one of the lucky ones. She hadn’t been that attractive, not compared to … she felt sick, unwilling to think about it. The pretty girls had had to seek out male protectors or pay the price of being alone. It was funny, she reflected bitterly, for all the blather about feminism and girl power that feminists did nothing to improve the lot of lower-class girls. But then, it was harder to fight someone capable of fighting back.

“It will change,” she promised herself. “It will!”

She heard the door open and looked back, smiling tiredly as Richard stepped into the chamber. He looked as tired and restless as she felt … she scowled inwardly, remembering how they’d been interrupted before they could consummate their relationship. She wasn’t sure if she should be mad at Brains for barging in or relieved. It had been her decision and yet … she couldn’t have taken it back, if they’d gone all the way. She’d heard the horror stories back home, from girls who had lost their virginities to the wrong man. It could end very badly …

Richard isn’t like that, she told herself. He isn’t!

His voice was soft, affectionate. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Janet confessed. She found herself chewing a strand of her hair and turned away, trying to hide her nerves. “I just feel …”

She waved a hand at the city below. York couldn’t have been shut down completely. It just couldn’t. The sun was rising now … people would be leaving their homes and heading to work, or the shops, or school, and they’d see the towering building looming over the city. Janet had no idea if Gatehouse was bigger than the tallest building on Earth – she had no idea which building was actually the tallest – but the school was bigger than St Champions, bigger than the druggie-infested apartment blocks that dominated countless lower-class estates. There was no way the people below could miss it. The castle was just too large.

“What’ll happen,” she asked, “when they realise what’s happened?”

Richard stepped up and stood next to her, companionably close without being too close. Janet felt a rush of affection and reached out to take his arm, drawing him closer to her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her lightly, tight enough to let her feel his heartbeat but not tight enough to make her feel constrained. She learned against him, unable to put her feelings into words. Richard was comfortable and secure in himself. He felt no need – she knew – to boost himself by putting someone else down. He made her feel comfortable too …

“I don’t know,” Richard said, quietly. “How many new magicians are going come into their powers in the next few days?”

Janet shivered. She had wanted magic powers, but she hadn’t known she had magic – or at least that she could use magic – until she’d met Richard and started studying under him. There was too little background magic in OldeWorld for spells to be cast easily, even the very simplest of cantrips. Helen had been rendered practically powerless when she’d fallen into OldeWorld and even Richard and Brains had had trouble casting spells. It had taken Brains days of research to figure out ways to reduce the amount of magic needed to cast a spell, and the rogue magicians were way ahead of them. She felt a hot flash of bitter envy and resentment. If they’d recruited her, she would have done anything they wanted in exchange for power.

And that might be how they got their hooks into Norris, she thought. It was difficult to wrap her head around what he’d done, how he’d somehow managed to get into Gatehouse and spy on the school for his shadowy masters. Norris had been an intelligent young man, yet … also a bitter nerd, an incel, a dog who had been kicked so often that he could no longer tell the difference between a helping hand and another blow. Did they offer him power in exchange for his service?

She shuddered. She knew girls who had given themselves to boys who would protect them from other boys. It was a terrible way to live – she also knew young mothers who had been abandoned by their boyfriends, after they’d fallen pregnant – but it was better than the alternative. Janet liked to think she wouldn’t have submitted to a thug in exchange for protection, yet … she shook her head. Norris hadn’t even had that. It wouldn’t take much to win his loyalty. A simple offer of protection, or even friendship, would have been enough.

You could have reached out to him, she told herself, but you thought he was creepy.

It isn’t your job to reach out to someone else, no matter how much they need it, her thoughts answered. You just need to refrain from making it worse.

Richard cleared his throat. “I think we’ll be doing outreach,” he said. “Will you help us?”

Janet hesitated, torn. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say no. She wanted to reach out and help all the girls like her – and the boys like Norris – and change the world for the better. She wanted to stay in Gatehouse and study magic, leaving the world to someone – anyone – else. She wanted to go with Richard, to do whatever he did, and also to put herself first … she sighed, inwardly. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She had been taught to share …

… But she’d also been taught that sharing was a mug’s game.

Not here, she told herself. The rules are different here.

“If I can,” she said, finally.

“You can,” Richard said. “If you hadn’t helped us, we would never have made it home.”

Janet felt a lump in her throat. If she hadn’t sneaked into St Champions – if she hadn’t listened to a poisonous friend – she would never have met Richard, Brains and Helen. If she hadn’t … she recalled how ignorant they’d been of the modern world and shuddered. They might not have survived the first day, let alone found their footing before the rogue magicians caught them … she didn’t want to think about what would have happened, if she’d never met them. Her life, at best, would remain bland and boring. At worst …

She supposed that was the answer. She wasn’t the only young girl who had been living a life of quiet desperation. Even the more popular girls at St Champions were trapped, unable to escape … she owed it to herself to offer them a chance at a better life, even if they refused to take it. And boys like Norris … she knew how quick Steve had been to learn magic and Norris, she supposed, had been very much the same. If they set out to take revenge on their tormentors … she didn’t feel any sympathy for bullying bastards, but it would be very unpleasant for anyone caught in the crossfire. Norris had already killed one of his tormentors … she wondered, suddenly, if he’d killed anyone else.

“I’ll do my best to help,” she promised. It wasn’t going to be easy. “You know …”

She changed the subject, hastily. “Did you see the way Steve was looking at Helen?”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “Did he tell you they’re together?”

“I don’t think they are, not yet,” Janet said. She didn’t think Steve had had a girlfriend before. He’d been too determined to turn his online business into a way of getting out of the estate – for good – to have a girlfriend. And yet, Janet had to admit Helen was smart as well as beautiful. Just looking at her made Janet feel dowdy. “But I think he likes her.”

“Charming,” Richard said. “I hope he doesn’t get his heart broken.”

Janet met his eyes. Steve and her hadn’t always gotten along – like most brothers and sisters, they’d had their ups and downs – but they loved each other. She had seen enough really screwed up families, on the estate, to know she was lucky to have a brother who treated her as a person in her own right. She would tease him about Helen, just as he would tease her about Richard, yet she didn’t want him hurt. And there was something about Helen she didn’t really like.

“Is that likely to happen?”

“It’s hard to say,” Richard admitted. “Helen grew up a lot, before she chose to stay, but … she’s still a Burghley, with all the obligations to her family …”

He shook his head, his voice trailing off. “You know she was betrothed to Brains?”

Janet felt sick. The idea of having her marriage arranged for her was horrific, and all the more so if the arrangements were made when she was a child. She knew girls who had been through arranged marriages and none had been really happy, yet there had been no way to escape without losing their entire families once and for all. The families might not force the two to wed – perish the thought – but they’d bring enormous pressure on the couple to marry and disown anyone who refused. And the thought of it happening here …

“What’ll happen if she says no?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said. His face darkened. “Her family will not be pleased. She might be blamed even if it is Brains who says no …”

He shook his head. “Most such matches involve mature couples, who find ways to come to terms with each other,” he added. “But Helen and Brains are too young for it.”

Janet winced. Steve deserved better. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

“I doubt it,” Richard said. “They’re old enough to refuse to honour the betrothal … the smart thing, I suspect, would be Brains putting an end to it. No one will risk disowning him. But who knows?”

“He’s your friend,” Janet said, quietly.

“He is,” Richard agreed. “But he’s also old enough to make his own decisions.”

Janet understood, better than she cared to admit. She had been free – on paper – back home, but she had never been allowed to make any real decisions. It had been partly because of her youth, yet also … because of when and where she’d been born and raised. There would have been consequences for stepping too far out of line, consequences that wouldn’t have been her fault and yet would have been blamed on her anyway. There was always someone willing to tut and say he got what he deserved for showing off, or she could expect no better when she wore revealing clothes … here, at least, she had a freedom she loved and yet wasn’t quite sure how to handle. And Brains …

Richard squeezed her shoulder. “Your brother is a mature young man,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

His lips twitched. “And you can teach him magic.”

Janet doubted Steve would need anything she could teach him. He had always been smarter than her, and far more technically inclined. “He already knows a great deal of magic.”

“Not like you,” Richard said. There was something in the way he said it that made her believe him, even though it was hard. “You have a very real talent for magic.”

Janet felt herself flush. She had never been good at anything, before she’d found herself in another world. It had been hard to study at St Champions – the classes were too disruptive for her to learn anything – and pointless, besides. For all the chatter about students going to university, Janet didn’t know anyone who had. It was costly and anyone who did would have had to go into debt, a debt that might never be repaid. Even Steve …

She shook her head. “Will you …?”

It was hard to say the next words. “Will you come to bed with me? I mean” – she flushed, helplessly; she hadn’t meant it to sound like that – “not do anything, just sleep together?”

Richard nodded in understanding. “Yeah,” he said. “Mornings always come too soon.”

Janet looked at the windows. The sky was brightening steadily … it was morning. And yet she felt tired, her world having turned upside down again and again. She wondered if they shouldn’t bother with sleep, then reminded herself she needed it. They’d be going outside soon and who knew what would happen then?

“Let’s go,” she said. The idea of sharing a bed with someone, even Richard, was both attractive and terrifying. She told herself she needed to get used to it. “We’ll be woken far too soon.”

 

She had thought she would die, perhaps in childbirth, and barely live long enough to see the newborn before she passed on to the great unknown. It seemed a sick joke, as she waited for her execution, to die in such a manner, to be accused of unnatural crimes and be sentenced to death by the king she had once lobed, but …

Loved not lobed..

 

Chapter Four: Gatehouse, York, Now

Norris was dreaming.

He knew himself to be dreaming, even though there was a reality about the nightmare that was impossible to deny. He had gone to a school where his intelligence and genuine talent had finally won the respect and admiration of his peers, the respect and admiration he would have killed to get once – just once. There had been a girl who’d been interested in him as a person, not mocking him with her body or picking on him because he was harmless in a way the real monsters were not. He had had a bright future ahead of him, one he could shape as he pleased …

… And then he’d thrown it all away.

The howling void in the heart of his mind was tinged with hurt and regret. He moaned as a flash of pain shot through him, a dagger driven deep into the core of his very being. He’d fucked it up, like he always did; he’d trusted the wrong person, again, even though he had known it was dangerous to trust. He’d had his trust abused before, time and time again; why had he thought, despite all the evidence, that this time would be different? He shifted uncomfortably, the ghost of Norris2 screaming as he tried – again and again – to banish his other self from his thoughts. He’d played with fire and gotten burnt and the simple fact he had known he was playing with fire should have warned him, but he hadn’t listened to himself until it had been too late. Far too late. The shadow at the back of his mind grew teeth and claws, digging into his very core. He had fucked up and now … he was fucked. And not in a good way.

He retched, reality itself seeming to spin around him. He was drifting in a formless void, trapped in his own mind alone with his thoughts. He was lying on a bed … he groaned, again, as the terrible nameless feeling of wishing that something had really – really – never happened washed over him. Everything else in his life could be blamed on someone else, and rightly too, but not this. He had screwed himself, so thoroughly there was no going back. He had messed up his own life, thrown away the greatest opportunity he’d ever been offered … his life was over and it would never end. He knew he didn’t have the nerve to kill himself. He had thought about it before, time and time again, and yet he hadn’t been able to take that final step.

It wasn’t because he was brave enough to live. It was because he was too frightened to die.

Shame boiled through him, shame and resentment and self-hatred – driven by his own cowardice – that he knew he’d never leave behind. He’d been a fool to think he could be anything other than a tool, something to be used and then discarded when he’d outlived his usefulness. His existence was worthless. It was just a matter of time before he died, as unnoticed as he lived. Perhaps he should have been content to remain unnoticed … but then, he had never been unnoticed. He’d just been noticed as someone who could be picked on with impunity.

Don’t try to blame this on anyone else, his thoughts pointed out. They sounded like the one good teacher he’d known, the one who’d had to take early retirement after some parent had bitched and moaned about the man’s attempt to impose actual discipline on her sweet little angel. Never mind the angel had been a devil in disguise … it hadn’t even been a very good disguise. You did this to yourself.

“Wake up.”

Reality skewed to the right, then to the left, then finally snapped into place. Norris felt as if he had fallen from a great height, back into his body … a body that ached painfully as he opened his eyes. He wanted to believe – really he did – that it had just been a dream, or a nightmare, but the chamber looked too mystical to be a local hospital. Perhaps someone had slipped him a mickey … no, that wasn’t likely. There were no shortage of teenage druggies T St Champions – who boasted of connections they probably didn’t have – but none would waste a street drug on him. It wasn’t as if he were a beautiful girl, who could be drugged and then fucked and then left unsure what had really happened …

He retched, again. It was disgusting.

“I need to ask you some questions,” a calm voice said. It spoke with authority, the absolute conviction the speaker could issue orders and expect them to be obeyed. Norris hadn’t heard anyone speak like that until he’d met Cecil Burghley and then … “I would prefer not to force you to talk, but I will if there is no other choice.”

Norris forced himself to look up. The light was too bright, and it sent more daggers of pain stabbing into his mind, but he could still see the Merlin standing beside his bed. The air was heavy, like an approaching thunderstorm … magic. It was real. It had all been real. He’d had the chance to make something of himself and he’d thrown it away … tears prickled in his eyes, the urge to cry almost overpowering. He was going to be kicked out … it struck him, suddenly, that being kicked out might be the best possible outcome. He’d seen magic … he might face a fate worse than death. Or …

The Merlin leaned over him. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Norris said. The gaping hole at the heart of his mind was howling. “I …”

He swallowed, hard, as a memory surfaced. “It wasn’t Marion’s fault,” he said. “Please. Don’t blame her for anything …”

Norris was surprised at himself. It was hard to fall on his own sword – he was too much of a coward to sacrifice himself for someone else, normally – and yet, he was appalled at himself. At Norris2. The other personality might have grown into a separate entity, but he had still grown out of Norris himself. Norris didn’t want to think about what Norris2 had done, or concede he might do the same if he were unfettered by cowardice and any sense of human decency, yet … he had to admit he might have crossed the line. If he could … his throat was suddenly very dry. Norris2 had been him, shorn of everything that had held him back. How far would he go, if he thought he could get away with it.

Most men would commit rape, if they thought they could escape punishment, his thoughts pointed out. You are no better.

He gritted his teeth. He liked to think he had a sense of morality, but in truth his morality was more flexible than he cared to admit, even to himself. He called himself a pacifist … yet he was weak, unable to defend himself. He was harmless … he looked away, unable to even look at the older man for a second longer. It was the final bitter joke, in the nightmare his life had become … that he’d made it. He’d always assumed the bullies would eventually piss off someone with actual power, someone who would finally hold them to account for their shit, yet instead it had been him who was facing accountability …

And you deserve it, his thoughts pointed out. Don’t you.

“You cast enslavement spells on Marion,” the Merlin said. “We would not hold her accountable for her actions, while under the spell.”

His voice hardened. “But what are we to do with you?”

Norris had no answer. He knew what he deserved.

“You were sent into our school to spy on us,” the Merlin continued. “You signed up, like any other student, and joined classes … and did very well. You had very real promise; you could have gone far, if you had been one of us. And then you betrayed us. Why?”

Be honest, Norris’s thoughts said. You won’t get a second chance.

Norris took a long breath, and started to talk. He wasn’t sure if he was under a spell to make him talkative, or if he was hoping that telling the truth would get him off the hook, or if he just wanted to unburden himself before facing his end with dignity. Or as much dignity as he could muster. He went through everything, from his first magical lessons to the trap he’d set for Colin, and how he’d edited his own mind to overcome the fear that had kept him from striking down the wretched bully. The Merlin showed no visible reaction as Norris told him how he’d fled St Champions – it seemed a lifetime ago, back when the world had made sense – and how he’d been caught by Cecil Burghley, who had offered him a job. And …

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “It … it was the chance of a lifetime.”

“A fairly common delusion,” the Merlin said.

Norris flushed as he went through the rest of the story. His meeting with Marion – and their growing friendship. His first lessons. His discovery that he was actually good at it. His refusal to help Cecil Burghley any further … and his horror at discovering, too late, that Norris2 was a real person in his own right, ready and able to take over Norris’s mind and turn him into a puppet. And how he’d enchanted Marion and carried out the ritual in Gatehouse, opening the portal for invasion … his memories were fragmented at that point, images of reality – and unreality – so badly jumbled he couldn’t have sworn what had actually happened, or in what order. Richard had been there, Richard and Janet and Brains and a blonde girl … he thought. He wasn’t sure of anything now …

… And the next thing he recalled was being trapped in his own mind.

“I see,” the Merlin said, when he’d finished. “And why did you follow Lord Burghley so willingly?”

Norris felt a hot flash of anger. The Merlin didn’t understand. How could he? The Merlin was a man of great power; Norris was a youth of no power. The Merlin enjoyed the respect and admiration of his entire society; Norris was everyone’s punching bag. He would have done anything for protection, even signed up with the Death Eaters … or the Nazis. If they’d offered him safety, in exchange for committing himself to the shitty cause …

“It was the only chance I had,” he mumbled, finally. Cecil Burghley hadn’t just impressed him. He’d had the sort of power and authority Norris wanted for himself. “Where else could I go?”

“You could have stayed with us,” the Merlin pointed out.

His words made Norris’s heart clench. “I was a spy,” he said. “Would you have been forgiving, if I had come to you? Would you have …?”

He swallowed, hard. “I thought I could hide within your society, but he had other ideas …”

His heart sank. The deception would have been discovered, eventually. There would have been questions, questions he couldn’t answer … he didn’t even know enough to tell convincing lies. He allowed himself to entertain the fantasy, just for a moment, of marrying Marion and joining her family, but surely her parents would have asked a few questions about his family before agreeing to the match. The locals put more importance on family than the folks back home, parents actually interested in supporting their children and their children looking after them when they grew old and frail. He wondered, numbly, how he would have solved that problem, then shook his head in dismay. It was never going to happen. Marion would never want to see him again. And who could blame her?

Norris2 didn’t do everything, his thoughts mocked. You can’t blame it all on him.

“So it would seem,” the Merlin said. “Do you know what happened?”

Norris shook his head. “They were planning to invade. If you are here … I take it that didn’t happen?”

“No,” the Merlin said. “The two worlds merged.”

“What?” Norris thought, for a second, that he’d misheard. “They merged?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but … close enough,” the Merlin said. “I would have preferred to leave you sleeping for longer, to be honest, so you’d have more time to recover, yet … we needed to know what you knew. Right now, both worlds are waking up to discover they’re not alone. It won’t be long before the chaos starts.”

Norris swallowed. “Was it my fault?”

“You certainly played a role in making it happen,” the Merlin said, coolly.

Norris shivered, feeling as if someone had walked over his grave. The world had changed … he had wanted to make a name for himself, he reflected sourly, but not like this. If he …

He swallowed, hard. “What now? What’s going to happen to me?”

The Merlin met his eyes, evenly. “What do you think should happen to you?”

Norris looked away. The bitterness of old insisted that nothing should happen to him. He hadn’t been responsible for anything. But the new awareness pointed out, again and again, that he’d let himself be used, that he really had played a role in the whole disaster. He didn’t want to say it, yet … he knew he should be in jail. Or worse.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “It’s a mess.”

“Yes, it is.”

Norris flushed. His voice rose. “What do you expect me to say? I fucked up. I ruined my life – again – and I ruined everyone else’s life and …”

It was hard not to scream in frustration. It had been easier back home. He might have been everyone’s favourite whipping boy, but at least he’d known it wasn’t his fault. Here … it had been his fault. And the fact he’d been too cowardly to admit what he’d been doing …

“I have an offer for you,” the Merlin said. “You can help us to understand the magic developments in OldeWorld. I assume you were taught the basics?”

“Yes,” Norris said.

“You can help us do that, and assist us in making peaceful contact with OldeWorld,” the Merlin said. “In exchange, we will allow you to remain here as one of our citizens, on a more honest basis.”

Norris blinked. “You would do that for me?”

“You’re not the first person to mess up their life to the point they think they can’t go on,” the Merlin told him. “And if you work hard, you won’t be the first to repair the damage and build a new life for yourself.”

He met Norris’s eyes, again. “Understand, it won’t be easy. Our society is based on trust and you, through your actions, have damaged the trust that holds us together. We extended that trust to you, as we did to all new students, and you abused it. You will have to work long and hard to earn our trust, and some will never trust you again.”

Norris nodded. “Like Marion.”

“Quite,” the Merlin agreed. “And when she wakes, you need to talk to her.”

“I can’t,” Norris said. The thought was terrifying. She would hate him. How could she not? “What can I tell her?”

“The truth?” The Merlin leaned forward. “You owe her an explanation, and more.”

He sighed. “You will also attend therapy sessions, where you will talk to our mind-healers and hopefully come to terms with your issues. You were manipulated so easily, at least in part, because you didn’t know yourself as well as you should. This appears to be a common problem in OldeWorld, as Janet appears to have the same issue. You will attempt to deal with it.”

“I can’t,” Norris said. He’d made the mistake of being too open to a school counsellor once. Never again. The asshole hadn’t kept the Hippocratic Oath. There was no point in opening up to someone if his words would simply wind up being used against him. “It would be …”

“You have to come to terms with yourself, before you can improve,” the Merlin said. There was no give in his tone, no hint there was any way to avoid the session. “The mind-healers are sworn to secrecy, and they will not share anything you tell them, but they will force you to talk through your issues and overcome them.”

Norris groaned. The idea of opening himself to someone else was just … terrifying. But he wasn’t being given a choice. He knew he was lucky he wasn’t being kicked out on his ass, or turned into a frog and dumped in the nearest pond, or simply being put in front of a wall and shot. Spies could be legally shot, if he recalled correctly, and it was unlikely anyone back home would show mercy to a spy. Here … he wasn’t sure if he was being given a chance because they needed to know what he knew, or compassion, but it didn’t matter. There wouldn’t be a third chance.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised.

“Good.” The Merlin stepped back. “The healers will tend to you, then you’ll be escorted to Richard and Brains. I suggest you take full advantage of this opportunity. If you do anything to suggest we were unwise to give you a chance to redeem yourself, you will be released into your own world. Or what’s left of it.”

Norris winced. It didn’t sound like a terrible threat. But it was.

“I understand,” he said. It was hard not to bow and scrape. The Merlin was … Norris hated himself for his envy, for the urge to do everything the man of authority wanted. “I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t,” the Merlin said. “Our pity and compassion has its limits.”

 

Chapter Five: London, Now

Polly tried to relax as the private jet landed at RAF Northholt.

It wasn’t easy. It was early morning and her smartphone was already pinging constantly as she – and her subordinates – tried to keep up with the rapidly-changing situation. They’d been lucky that something had clearly been happening, after the gate had reopened for the first time in centuries, and they’d deployed more monitors to keep an eye on the supernatural websites – as well as the places of ancient power, which still showed flickers of wild magic from time to time – but the system was collapsing under the sheer weight of reports from right across the country. They’d been lucky, she supposed, that the event had happened at night, and that the government had put post-COVID EMP protocols into place, yet … she shook her head. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t long before it dawned on the world that it was more than just an EMP.

The aircraft landed neatly, the pilot steering his craft towards the hangar gates. A black car was already waiting, positioned neatly by the hangar itself. Northholt handed dozens of VIPs, from government ministers flying in and out of London to wealthy and powerful individuals who didn’t want to pass through Heathrow or Gatwick, and the security precautions that made commercial flying such a nightmare were nowhere in evidence. Polly wasn’t sure if she should be relieved about the lack of security officers pawing through her case or deeply worried, all too aware that the lack of precautions would be disastrous if a single terrorist slipped through the net. She knew everyone who used the airfield was vetted – at least in theory – but she’d worked for Lord Burghley long enough to know no vetting system was perfect. The stewardess nodded politely to them as the aircraft came to a halt, her eyes flickering oddly over Lord Burghley. She didn’t know what was wrong with him – he seemed perfectly normal, to the naked eye – but her instincts were telling her something wasn’t quite right. Polly stood, collected her case, and followed her boss down the steps to the car. The driver hopped out, opened the door, then closed it after they took their seats. A handful of police outriders fell in around them as they drive out of the gate and onto the motorway, heading into London. Polly felt oddly self-conscious. A police escort was rarely good news.

She leaned back in her chair as her smartphone pinged again, another report popping into her inbox. A sighting of something in the waters of Loch Ness … the Brotherhood had always known there was something in the loch, the remnants of creatures generally considered to be extinct, but most reports were little better than misidentifications, if not outright lies. Now … she swallowed hard, noting that an entire hotel of tourists had seen the beast. There was no point in trying to cover it up … she shook her head. The reports of supernatural encounters were coming in from everywhere, from strange lights to buildings that really shouldn’t have been there. The cover up was dead before it had even gotten off the ground.

The streets were weirdly quiet, as they drove towards Ten Downing Street. London rarely slept, but now there were only a handful of civilians on the streets … the majority, thankfully, following government advice to remain indoors, leaving the streets clear for emergency personnel, at least for the moment. That would change, Polly was sure, once the first shock was over, but … she swallowed, hard, as she saw the London skyline come into view. There were buildings there that hadn’t been, only a few short hours ago. It was one thing to see a dragon or a woman flying on a broomstick, and assume that one had simply drunk too much, but quite another to see a building that had come out of nowhere. The sense of unreality grew stronger as they neared the centre of the city, spotting a handful of alleyways that appeared to go in directions her mind couldn’t follow and buildings that looked ethereal, almost ghostly. Something moved overhead … she looked up, hoping it was a bird or a plane … whatever it was, it was gone before she could get a clear look at it. And yet …

There were more guards – armed policemen and soldiers – surrounding Downing Street. It felt wrong to see them on the streets of Britain, even as the gates opened to allow the car to drive onto the street and park in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. Polly had spent most of her working life in the company of the great and the good, including some people who were so rich and powerful they were never featured on the lists of the insanely wealthy, but she still felt uneasy on Downing Street. Perhaps it was the magic in the air, rooted in the country’s ancient past; wards cast, she’d been told, to protect the mother of parliaments from Nazi occultists. Or perhaps it was the simple awareness that the world had changed overnight. She couldn’t help thinking the soldiers looked jumpy, their weapons swinging from side to side as they watched for trouble. It felt as if they were going to be attacked at any moment.

A young man in a suit met them at the door and escorted them down a corridor and up a flight of stairs. Polly had known Ten Downing Street was an office – and that all the buildings on the street had been merged together long ago – but it was still weirdly disconcerting to see it in person. Lord Burghley had once commented that the British State was an iceberg – ninety percent of government was always below the surface, pretending it didn’t exist – and Polly was starting to see what he meant. It was more than just the secret history, truths that had been erased from public awareness long ago. It was a government that tried to pretend it was still a civilian enterprise, even though the civilians had been replaced by the elite long ago.

If the civilians had ever been there in the first place, she thought. Very few of Britain’s leaders had ever been truly civilian, truly common, and they’d lost the habit of thinking of themselves as anything other than elite shortly after being elected into power. The government is more beholden to special interests than it is to its own people.

She kept her face carefully blank as they were shown into the Prime Minister’s office. It was simple and elegant, the only real decoration being a large portrait of the king. The Prime Minister himself looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Polly knew enough about emergency procedures to guess he’d been yanked out of bed and whisked to a government bunker, the moment all hell had broken loose, then forced to confront the horrific prospect of the country being under nuclear attack. She knew it wasn’t that bad, but …

“Lord Burghley,” the Prime Minister said, tiredly. “Thank you for coming.”

Cecil Burghley bowed politely, as if he’d been summoned rather than asking for the meeting himself. Polly knew it hadn’t just been her who had been putting pressure on the PM to accede to the meeting. The Brotherhood – and the rest of the government elite – had been putting the pressure on too, calling on protocols that hadn’t been used since the Falklands War and yet remained on the books. She wondered, numbly, just how harried the PM had to be feeling, after so many people had called him. And what they might have told him …

Churchill was the last PM to be aware of magic, and only because the Nazis were experimenting with magic themselves, she reminded herself. After that, the knowledge was kept from the elected politicians. They couldn’t be trusted with it.

“Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

He sat, in a comfortable chair. Polly stood behind him – she knew her place – and studied the PM thoughtfully. He really did look tired, a middle-aged man who was clearly going prematurely grey. His eyes barely lingered on her, dismissing her as nothing more than a secretary … he didn’t even look at how her outfit had been carefully tailored to show off her curves without revealing any bare skin below the colour. Polly wasn’t too put out. She had worked with enough powerful men to know too many of them thought every young woman should be honoured, when they made sexual advances. Lord Burghley hadn’t made any attempt to get her into bed – it was one of the reasons she respected him – and the PM seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Or perhaps he simply didn’t have time. She had no idea how John Major had managed to have an affair while in office. There was simply too much to do.

“I do not have time to beat around the bush,” the PM said, bluntly. “Why did you request this meeting?”

Lord Burghley spoke with calm authority. “To summarise a long story, Prime Minister, I represent a government department that studies supernatural phenomena. It has been …”

The PM cut him off. He was too tired to be polite. “A Ministry of Magic? Why are you wasting my time?”

Polly winced at his tone, although she didn’t really blame him. Magic was – had been – astonishingly rare, and rarer still because few had both the gift and the inclination to spend years studying and practicing, shaping their minds to use what little magic remained in the mundane world. The Brotherhood had it easier, she supposed, because they’d seen proof magic existed – rather than fairy tales and movies with unconvincing special effects – but even they had problems recruiting newcomers. The PM knew nothing about it. Why would he believe them without proof?

“I understand your scepticism,” Lord Burghley said. He held out a hand, palm upright. A spark of magic flared into life, a flame blossoming on his bare skin. “As you can see, magic is very real.”

The PM stared at him for a long moment. He’d heard the reports – as many as Polly, if not more – and he clearly knew something was happening, but what? The magic could have been a trick, the flame a product of advanced technology rather than magic, yet there was something about it that felt real in a manner that could not be denied. Polly recalled the first time she’d seen magic, years ago …

“Explain,” the PM ordered, finally.

“Centuries ago, the magic started to leech out of this world,” Lord Burghley said. “Some magicians went with it, into a whole new world of magic. Others stayed behind, including my ancestors. They adapted to the new state of magic, refining their techniques as the power faded away. It was thought that the magic would eventually vanish completely. Instead, the power level remained low … but stable.”

He paused. “We did what we could to keep occult knowledge out of the mainstream. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. Many parties sought ways to boost what little magic they had remaining, throwing human decency aside in their quest for power. The Nazis, for example, performed a series of mass human sacrifices, brute-forcing their way to immense magical power. We were unable to perform such sacrifices ourselves, so we developed techniques that were more subtle, able to deflect their raw power and eventually redirect it onto their heads instead. That was the last time anyone engaged in open magical war.”

The PM said nothing for a long moment. “And all of this was covered up?”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “It helped that very few believed it.”

“I see.” The PM steepled his fingers. “And what does that have to do with what is happening now?”

Lord Burghley leaned forward. “A comedy of errors, Prime Minister. We believed the gates between our world and the magical haven were closed, and would remain so permanently. We kept an eye on their locations, from a safe distance, but as the years turned into decades and the decades turned into centuries we grew complacent. There was no reason to think there would be any further contact, until there was. A trio of magicians from the other world appeared in our world, in York, and vanished before we could mobilise and catch them. It rapidly became clear that they were teaching magic to locals, without any sense of responsibility. They were putting loaded guns in the hands of children.

“We tried to stop them. We were unsuccessful, but we were able to find a way to send an agent back into their world. Their culture has developed in ways that are inherently threatening to ours – they have certainly proven they are willing to meddle – and there was a clash that resulted in the two worlds merging back together. The reports of supernatural creatures, Prime Minister, is just the tip of the iceberg. Their entire world has been merged with ours.”

Polly kept her face blank as the PM glanced at her. Lord Burghley’s story was mostly true – she had to admire how he’d woven a handful of careful lies into the tale – and neatly covered up the details he didn’t want to share, including the uncomfortable fact that it was the Brotherhood that had been planning to invade Mystic Albion. She had no idea what orders her boss had been issuing, while she’d been arranging the meeting, but she was fairly certain he’d been covering up the truth and burying the evidence so deeply it would never be found.

“It is vitally important we take stern measures to stem the flow of magic before it is too late,” Lord Burghley said. The insistence in his voice was almost hypnotic. “This is a very real threat to the entire country.”

The PM looked back at him. “In what way?”

Lord Burghley twitched. “First, magic is not a tool. In many ways, giving a child a loaded gun would be safer. Magic responds to the caster’s innermost thoughts and feelings, making things happen … seemingly at random, but in reality in response to their emotions. How many people wish things they would never really want to happen, yet … magic can make them happen before they realise they don’t want it to happen at all. How many people out there” – he waved a hand at the wall – “think the country would be better off if all the politicians died horribly? It could happen, if enough people wish it.

“Second, the influx of magical creatures means an influx of entities that don’t follow human laws and can and will trap, or kill, humans if they get too close. Don’t think about Disney’s Tinkerbell, but … fairies that can kidnap or transform or kill humans, entities that have more in common with Maleficent – the cartoon Maleficent – than the sweet and harmless Tinkerbell.”

He paused. “And third, there will be an influx of magical humans, people from a very different society to ours. Some will regard them as angels, others as devils; they’ll regard us, I am sure, in the same way. We didn’t have a proper chance to interrogate the newcomers, but it is clear they had no regard for our society and no hesitation in trying to change it to suit themselves. It is just a matter of time until they start doing it on a larger scale, with the enthusiastic compliance of many of our own people, who think magic is the answer to all their problems and don’t realise – until it is far too late – that it will only make their problems worse. This is like” – he made a show of looking for an analogy – “the French Government leaving France for Britain, then trying to rule in Britain. We cannot tolerate an alternate government on our soil, Prime Minister, and that is exactly what we will be facing.”

“So you say,” the PM said. He stared at his hands, clearly looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and praying it wasn’t an oncoming train. “You don’t know it’ll go that way.”

“Remember all those school shootings in America?” Lord Burghley leaned forward, his voice grim. “Someone gets bullied, so they get a gun and come to the school and open fire … it’s going to be like that, again and again, as magical knowledge spreads. We have to get ahead of it now, Prime Minister, or all hell will break lose. We have to act fast.”

The Prime Minister said nothing for a long moment. Polly eyed him, wondering what he was thinking. Anyone with a background in politics would know to be wary of someone pushing them into taking immediate action – it was rarely a good sign – but the crisis wasn’t something that could be left to fester. The country was no longer in bed, unaware of the disaster unfolding around them. They might not know what was going on – not everywhere in the mundane world coincided with somewhere in the magical world – but they knew something was wrong. Lord Burghley was right. They had to get ahead of it now, before it was too late.

“It’s magic,” the PM said. He sounded like a man who wanted to deny everything he’d heard, including the evidence of his own eyes. Polly understood, better than she cared to admit. It hadn’t been easy to admit magic existed, back when the world had made sense. And she didn’t have to worry about governing a whole country. “What can we do about it?”

“We have magic too, Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “We beat the Nazis. We can beat our long-lost cousins too.”

“We’ll try a diplomatic solution first,” the PM said. “These people are not Nazis.”

“No,” Lord Burghley agreed. “With their knowledge of magic, including techniques lost for centuries, and their willingness to meddle, they could easily be worse.”

 

Chapter Seven: York, Now

Janet felt … uneasy … as she stepped out of Gatehouse.

It was hard, almost impossible, to put her feelings into words. She had known she was doomed to a life on the estate, unless one of Steve’s money-making schemes actually made a great deal of money, and she had retreated into fantasy at least partly because the real world was unbearable. Coming face to face with a genuine fantasy world, and an opportunity to study magic for herself, had been a dream come true. She would have been quite happy – almost completely happy – to vanish into Mystic Albion and never think about the mundane world again. She would miss her mother and brother, she knew, but the opportunity was too great to forego. If she’d said no, would she ever get a second chance?

The estate felt … wrong, on so many levels. She’d had a handful of nightmares, during the first month in Mystic Albion, where she’d found herself back home and now … she was back home. But it felt … weird. The streets were deserted, the homes and shops evacuated and boarded up … it felt as if she were standing on a movie set, surrounded by cardboard buildings that looked real until she tried to open the doors or take an apple from the boxes outside the shop. She held up a hand, testing her magic gingerly, and breathed a sigh of relief as the spell took shape and form. She had magic. She could handle anything.

Richard shot her a glance. “Are you alright?”

“It just feels strange,” Janet confessed. She wanted to turn and run into the school, to pretend the two worlds hadn’t merged. She wanted to curse the rogue magicians for trying to invade Mystic Albion and somehow – accidentally – bringing the two worlds together. She felt like a man who had two separate lives – two families, each unaware of the other’s existence – who had suddenly found himself faced with the truth coming out, and the two families colliding. “I think …”

She sucked in her breath. There had been men on the estate who’d had two wives, or a wife and a mistress, and it had never been pleasant when the truth had finally come out. It was funny how something could seem so reasonable and harmless in darkness and yet so incredibly stupid in broad daylight. She wondered, numbly, what her mother would say, when she realised that Janet had left her without a backward glance … not, she supposed, that there had been time to do more than write a letter, a letter she wasn’t even sure her mother had received. Steve had posted it, he’d assured her, but the estate had been evacuated so quickly that there was no way to know if it had reached its intended recipient.

“Let’s get on with it,” she said. “Shall we?”

She held up her hand, then cast the spell she’d been taught. A pair of flickering lines appeared in front of her, visible only to her eyes, one pointing directly to Steve and the other heading into the distance. Proof, if she needed it, that she had no other close blood relations. Her father was dead and her mother … she breathed a sigh of relief as she mounted the broomstick, torn between a childish belief it would actually work and a grim sense she was making a fool of herself. She’d seen people playing Quidditch in real life, but without actual broomsticks and magic it was little more than make-believe. Now …

Steve looked uneasy. “Are you sure you know how to fly that thing?”

“You can fly with me, if you like,” Richard said. He swung his leg over his broomstick and grinned. “Take your pick.”

Steve hesitated visibility, then clambered onto the broomstick behind Janet. She smiled, then launched herself into the air. Steve yelped and wrapped his arms tightly around her as she levelled out, Richard flying right beside her. Janet laughed, despite herself. She had never liked the idea of roller coasters, and she knew she wouldn’t have had the nerve to ride on one even if she’d had the chance, but flying a broomstick … the mere sense of flying gave her a freedom she hadn’t experienced in her entire life, until now. She flew higher, feeling the wind flowing through her hair. She was free …

She looked down. York was spread out beneath her, a handful of people clearly visible on the streets … the better streets. It was hard not to feel a twinge of envy, something she didn’t care to look at too closely, when her eyes lingered on the better schools, homes, public services and everything else, less than a mile from a poverty-stricken estate. She shook her head and told herself not to worry, as the line led her to the far side of York. She had magic now, and a freedom the rich girls below would never know. She was sure the people below were staring at them. They might not believe the evidence of their own eyes, not at first, but … they would come to believe. And who knew what would happen then?

The line led them to a small house, on the outskirts of the city. Janet frowned inwardly as she steered the broomstick down, coming into land just outside the garden. Her mother made – on paper – a reasonable salary, but the demands of raising two children and paying interests on her debts meant she had almost no savings worthy of the name. There was no way in hell she could have rented the house – it was finer than anything back on the escape – and the idea of her putting down a deposit and taking out a loan so she could buy it was just insane. Janet cast a handful of spells as Steve stumbled off the broomstick, looking green, but sensed nothing dangerous. And yet, her mother being here was bizarre.

Richard landed neatly beside her. “Shall we go inside?”

Janet hesitated, then nodded. There was no way she could turn and leave, even though she had no idea what was going on. The spell was clear. Her mother was somewhere inside the house … it bothered her, at a very primal level. She tested her protection spells, then kept a hand on the broomstick as she opened the gate and walked up the garden path. If it was a trap, they could fly out of the garden and find help …

She rang the doorbell, then took a step back as she heard footsteps approaching the door. A dark shadow moved on the far side, then the door opened to reveal her mother … Janet let go of the broom and darted forward, without thinking, wrapping her arms around her mother and holding her tightly. She had her flaws, everyone did, but compared to some mothers on the estate she was an angel. Tears pricked in her eyes as her mother hugged her back, then drew Steve into the embrace. Guilt and shame threatened to overcome her, a grim reminder that she had abandoned her mother without a backwards glance … she was lucky, very lucky, she had found her again. And yet, she didn’t quite understand what her mother was doing here.

“You’d better come in,” her mother said, curtly. Her eyes lingered on Richard … Janet winced, inwardly. They had been groping their way towards a relationship and … her mother would be less than human if she hadn’t wondered if Janet had run away with Richard, which in a sense she had. “I … what happened to you?”

Janet felt her heart skip a beat. “You didn’t get my letter?”

“No,” her mother said. “What happened?”

Steve cleared his throat. “And what are you doing here?”

“We were told to leave the estate,” her mother said, shortly. “This place was arranged by the evacuation agency. I get to stay here, as long as I take good care of the house and garden. It’s been …”

She shook her head. “What happened to you?”

Janet forced herself to organise her thought as their mother led them into a sitting room. It wasn’t as chintzy as she’d expected, from the outside of the house, but it was still head and shoulders above their old house. Whoever owned the house had had a real eye for detail, carefully arranging furniture to complement the room’s appearance and making it appear comfortable rather than shabby. Steve sat at the table and unfolded his laptop, asking their mother for the Wi-Fi password as she boiled water for tea. Janet felt a lump in her throat as she sat down. It was possible – just possible – to pretend that nothing had changed …

But I don’t want to pretend nothing changed, she thought, bitterly. The world has turned upside down.

“Magic,” she said, as her mother carried the mugs of tea into the room and placed them on the table. “I saw magic.”

She cast a lightspell, summoning a globe of light to hover above her fingertips. Her mother stayed, swaying on her feet … Janet feared, too late, that she might faint. She steadied herself with an effort, then sat down and listened carefully as Janet ran through the whole story, wincing inwardly as she confessed to being in the school at midnight … that detail, at least, she’d tried to keep from her mother, back when the world had made sense. She should never have listened to Annabelle, her bitch of a false friend, but if she hadn’t she might never have met Richard and the others. Her mother looked thoroughly displeased, yet said nothing as Janet finished the story. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.

“And you decided to leave,” she said, finally. “You didn’t even …”

“There wasn’t time,” Richard said, quickly. “It was stay or go.”

Janet’s mother, as far as Janet knew, didn’t have any magic. But the look she gave Richard silenced him as effectively as a silencing spell.

“You chose to leave,” her mother said. She sounded angry, but it was an anger born of worry for her daughter. Janet had heard it before, when her mother had cautioned her of the dangers of growing up on the estate. The risk of trusting the wrong person and winding up a single mother in her own right, or worse, was too great. “Why …?”

“I’m sorry,” Janet said. A hundred arguments ran through her head, none offering the promise of making her mother feel any better. How could she? She would have missed Janet if she’d gone to a normal boarding school – or Hogwarts, the treacherous part of her mind whispered – but at least she would have known what had happened to her. Girls had gone missing on the estate before, their bodies never found; the police, damn them, had never given much of a damn. “I just …”

Her mother shook her head, slowly. “I wish … if you’d told me …”

“She did try,” Steve said. “I posted the letter. It just didn’t reach you in time.”

He paused. “You know how much crap there is on the internet right now?”

“And in other news, water is wet,” their mother snapped. “Why didn’t you …?”

She looked from Janet to Steve and back again. “What were you thinking?”

“That I would never have such an opportunity again,” Janet said. “I couldn’t let it go.”

“That if we didn’t go on the run, we might vanish into a secret prison,” Steve said. “And Helen needed help.”

Janet swallowed, hard, and reminded herself she had a place to stay. “Mum, I … I understand that you’re angry, and … I do understand. And I’m sorry … and … “

Her voice became a wail. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I was terrified when you didn’t come home,” her mother said, sharply. “I thought … I thought something had happened to you. I called the police and asked them to look for you and they promised they would, but … then we were evacuated and your name appeared nowhere on the lists of evacuated people and … I was scared I’d lost you both and …”

Janet felt as if she was the worst person on the planet, shame and guilt threatening to tear her apart. She had no idea how to fix the problem, or even if she could. Her mother wasn’t abusive, or a druggie, or even an uncaring stepmother who had been forced by law and custom to raise an unwanted niece. She was a loving mother who had done the best she could, raising two children … and she’d lost them both, without even having the comfort of knowing what had happened to them. Janet knew her mother would have been horrified if her kids had been raped and murdered, their bodies left in the gutter, but at least she would have had closure. Instead …

“Come with me,” she said, softly. “You could see the new world …”

“It’s here,” Steve said, looking up. “There are supernatural sightings everywhere. Lots of crap too … I really should try to get the old gang organised, explain what’s really going on.”

Janet’s mother ignored him. “Do you really expect me to drop everything and jump into Never-Never Land?”

“It is a real place,” Janet said, quietly. “If I could show you …”

She sighed, inwardly. She wasn’t sure she could invite her mother, although – from what Richard said – Helen had already brought a gaggle of new magicians into Gatehouse. It wasn’t as if anyone would object – she hoped – to her at least showing her mother around the school. Richard and her could arrange the visit, perhaps with help from Helen … she wondered, suddenly, if Norris had left anyone behind. She didn’t know anything about his family, even though he’d been a classmate for the last ten years or so. For all she knew, he was an orphan or a foster child or …

Steve looked up, again. “Mum, what are you doing here?”

“I have a leave of absence,” their mother said. “I have no idea when I am expected back at work …”

“So come with us now,” Janet said. “It’ll let you see the other world and …”

There was a sharp knock at the door. Richard tensed, one hand snapping into a casting pose. Janet swore under her breath, as Steve folded his laptop and their mother headed for the door. There could be anyone out there, anyone at all … she wished she’d thought to bring the brooms into the sitting room, so they could fly out the window, but she’d left them in the hall. The door opened before she could say no and … she heard a voice, a man trying a little too hard to be charming.

“I need to talk to the magicians,” he said. “Please.”

Janet and Richard exchanged glances as the man was shown into the sitting room. She’d expected a suited aristocrat, one of Helen’s relatives, but the man was nothing of the sort. He was … there was something oddly familiar about his appearance, although she had never seen him before. He looked unhealthy, his hair thinning and his face pallid … somehow giving the impression of being overweight even though he wasn’t visibly fat. His body was wrapped in a long brown trenchcoat, belted at the waist.

“I saw you land,” he said. His voice was charming, but there was a pleading undertone that undermined the effect. “I … can I get an interview?”

Steve made a choking sound. “You’re a reporter?”

“For the Yorkshire Digest,” the man said. “Andrew Darlington, reporter and blogger-at-large.”

He spoke as if Janet should know his name, but she didn’t. She didn’t recall reading the Yorkshire Digest either. She’d never been that interested in newspapers, even when her teachers had assigned her projects on modern living. The internet had swept most of the old newspapers away, replacing the major publications with social media and the tabloids with porn and crazy stories. It was hard to imagine the newspapers having any real relevance any longer …

“Sure,” Steve said. Janet shot him a sharp look. Her brother pretended not to notice. “Can you meet us at Gatehouse? We can hold a interview outside the school.”

Darlington eyed him thoughtfully. “What is actually going on?”

Steve grinned. “Imagine we all work up to discover Harry Potter’s Wizarding World was actually real, except it is just a country on the far side of the looking glass … but now that country has merged with ours, to the point we know magic exists and they know technology exists and everyone is going utterly crazy, because no one is even remotely prepared for such things.”

“I …” Darlington stared. “Is that actually true?”

“No.” Richard said. He looked as if he was trying to think of a proper explanation, a way to explain the unexplainable to a professional sceptic. “You know Sleeping Beauty?”

Darlington looked as if he wasn’t sure if he was being messed with or not. “The cartoon?”

“The cartoon was based on a very old story,” Richard said. The original version actually predated the sundering between the magical and mundane worlds. “Point is, the cartoon version is heavily sanitized. Even the Brothers Grimm version is more … tolerable than the original. The magical world you imagine is far kinder than the reality, if you don’t know the rules. Janet” – he visibly started to say something, then changed his mind and rephrased it – “ran into trouble because she didn’t know the rules.”

“I see,” Darlington said.

“And now that world is merged with yours,” Steve said. Janet was surprised he’d accepted it so easily. The scale of the disaster was beyond her. “Everything has changed. Everything.”

He stood. “Meet us at Gatehouse. St Champions. And you will see.”

 

Chapter Eight: Gatehouse, York, Now

Helen had never been quite sure what to make of the mundane world’s reporters.

There was no such profession in Mystic Albion. The population was not large enough to support anything bigger than a handful of broadsheet writers, collecting the news and distributing it to the world, and the few who made a career out of it were savvy enough to realise that harassing people, and openly lying about them, was a good way to get into serious trouble. Helen didn’t know for sure her mother had quietly disposed of one particularly unpleasant society reporter, but she’d heard the rumours and in truth she believed them. A person who violated the privacy of a great family, with both magic and political connections, deserved everything he got.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and watched the chaos. The grubby concrete yard outside Gatehouse – all that remained of St Champions – was starting to look like a fairground, with magical students mingling with mundane reporters, curious onlookers and passersby. The estate was still walled off, but the gates had been torn open and the local police were nowhere in evidence … Helen had no idea if they were keeping their distance, or if they were dealing with a crisis somewhere else, or if they were working up the nerve to go in and challenge the magical students. Or … she shook her head and forced herself to keep an eye on the younger students, who were demonstrating magic spells for the crowd, and a couple of older ones who were trying to outline basic rules for dealing with magical creatures that Helen had been taught as soon as she’d started to walk. It wasn’t an easy task. The students were trying to explain cooking to people who had not only never cooked in their lives, but also didn’t know how to light a stove, choose the right tools and pick the correct ingredients. It didn’t help, she noted, that half the audience seemed to think vampires were sparkly and romantic and the other half seemed to believe they were vulnerable to sunlight … which was, she supposed, partly true.

But it isn’t quite that simple, she thought, grimly. You need to do more than just toss the vampire into the bright daylight.

She scowled at a pair of young men who were pointing smartphones at her. The other students hadn’t noticed, but then smartphones were unknown in their world. She grimaced in disgust. The pictures would be halfway around the world in a matter of seconds, if they weren’t already on their way, and there would be no way to take them back. She told herself that Steve, Leesa and the others would have to give lessons on the dangers of OldeWorld too, all the little things that could easily get an ignorant student killed. She’d nearly been knocked down by a car – there was no such thing as cars in Mystic Albion – and there were plenty of other dangers, from the simple to the unimaginable.

Janet stepped up beside her, her face pale. Helen felt a pang of … something … she didn’t care to look at too closely. Janet’s mother might not have been pleased, to know her daughter had stepped into a magical world without a backwards glance, but at least she’d been told her daughter had had only a few seconds to make up her mind. It had been an opportunity that everyone had thought would never come again, and Helen couldn’t blame Janet for seizing it with both hands. And yet, it was a grim reminder she had made the same decision and her mother would not be pleased. Hadn’t been pleased. Helen suspected it was just a matter of time before she received the summons back to the estate, to explain herself …

“The Merlin said they’ve been able to get in touch with the rest of the settlements,” Janet said, tiredly. Helen wondered, sourly, why she had been chosen to deliver the message. “They haven’t been able to set up the teleport gates yet.”

“Everything’s changed,” Helen said. Brains had gone on about it in considerable detail, something about the local texture of the background magic, but she hadn’t been paying close attention. She kicked herself, mentally, for assuming the issue was only important to experienced magical engineers. Her family had always been able to hire experienced magicians, when it didn’t have someone with the right skills in the family, but she’d been cut off from their resources the moment she fell into OldeWorld. “I imagine it will be some time before they can make the crystals sing in harmony again.”

She couldn’t bring herself to feel upset. It had been easy to work out where Gatehouse had been, relative to St Champions, but she had no idea where her family estate had appeared, if indeed it had appeared at all. Londinium corresponded to London … she supposed … yet where was the family estate? The longer it took to get everyone back in touch, the longer it would be before she received the family summons … and before she had to explain herself to her mother. She glanced at Steve, who was discussing the principles of magic with a reporter who looked as if he didn’t believe a word of it, and reminded herself to compose a good argument for the match. Her mother would approve, if the match seemed good for the family …

“It feels weird,” Janet mused, looking back at Gatehouse. “The world feels … broken.”

Helen couldn’t disagree. The two realities had merged together and the repercussions would last for a very long time, perhaps forever. She looked up as a shadow flew overhead and sucked in her breath as she saw a trio of broomstick riders, followed by a small buzzing thing … it took her a second to realise it was a drone. She’d heard of drones, but she’d never actually seen one in person. Steve had told her they were effectively portable cameras, beaming video images across the world … there was nothing like them, either, in Mystic Albion. She wondered, suddenly, if they’d pose a danger to broomstick riders. If someone accidentally crashed into a flying drone …

“It’ll sort itself out,” she said, although she wasn’t sure that was true. The two worlds were just too different. The mundane would be scared of the magical and vice versa. And the rogue magicians were still out there somewhere. Whatever they were doing, she doubted it would be pleasant. “How long did it take you to get used to Gatehouse?”

Janet looked down. “If the two worlds are merged … will I have to go back to St Champions?”

Helen blinked in surprise, more at herself than at Janet. A few months ago, she would have sarcastically pointed out that St Champions no longer existed or reminded the other girl that she could be expelled from Gatehouse if she proved herself unworthy of the school. Now … she felt a sudden burst of affection, mingled with guilt and shame. She hadn’t been very kind to Richard, had she? And …

Janet grew up in a whole other world, she reminded herself. The rules are so different she finds it hard to comprehend that everything has changed.

She scowled, inwardly. Janet was old enough, by the standards of Mystic Albion, to choose her own path. If she could get a place at Gatehouse, or an apprenticeship with a powerful sorcerer, her parents couldn’t forbid her from going. Nor could the government override her parents, if she’d been too young to make the choice for herself. Parents were trusted to use their best judgement, and the few that proved they couldn’t be relied upon to do so were treated individually, but that wasn’t true in OldeWorld. She shuddered, unsure why the local population bent the knee to gross incompetents. How could a person who had never met the child, let alone all the country’s children, be trusted to determine what was in their interests? It was insane. Madness! Why did they even put up with it?

It’s an assembly line form of education, she thought, numbly. And it treats children as products rather than people …

“No,” she said, flatly. She had no idea how the diplomats would sort things out, when the two governments finally made contact and started talking, but she knew Mystic Albion would never accept the governmental oversight that so blighted OldeWorld. Janet would have the chance to make her own way in the world, not return to a school that had been so bad for her and her peers. “You’ll be allowed to stay.”

Janet looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to put it into words. Helen waited patiently, her gaze running over the edge of the barricade. The evacuated people were returning to some of the homes, now they knew there was no real danger, to recover their possessions and perhaps move back in. A handful of entrepreneurs had arrived and started selling food and drink … Helen winced inwardly as she saw a student she vaguely recognised trying to purchase a hot dog with a gold coin, rather than a credit card. Mystic Albion had stuck with the old monetary system, and she had no idea what the exchange rate was … the gold coin might be worth hundreds of pounds or it might be worth nothing. If there was one thing she’d learnt, in her first week on OldeWorld, it was that the society was thoroughly screwed up.

But there are rather a lot of them, she thought. Mystic Albion’s population was barely five million, if the estimates were accurate. OldeWorld had around sixty million people, perhaps more. They can’t afford to give everyone the individual attention they need.

She looked up, sharply, as a man crashed into view, followed by two men carrying a large camera and a woman carrying a clipboard. He looked as if he were a jumped-up commoner, wearing the clothes of his betters without even trying to ape their manners … Helen winced, inwardly, as she realised her mother might think the same of Steve. The camera crew pointed their camera at Janet and her, without even bothering to ask permission first.

“And we are here now with a girl from the supposed magical realm,” the man said, shoving a microphone at Janet. “And a groupie from our world.”

Helen blinked in honest surprise. She had been born and bred in Mystic Albion … and yet they thought Janet was a magician. Her mind caught up with her a second later. She hadn’t changed out of her local clothes, while Janet was still wearing robes that looked faintly silly, at least to mundane eyes.

“The people believe this is utter madness, a lie told by a stage school,” the man continued. “What do you say to that?”

Janet shrank back. Helen moved to stand between them, trying to wrap her head around the man’s words. She couldn’t really blame Janet and Steve for doubting the existence of magic, back when they’d first met, but the man could see Gatehouse with his naked eyes … and the broomstick riders, and the spells Steve was demonstrating …

The man shoved the microphone at her, poking her just above her breasts. Helen tensed, her magic boiling within her. No one touched her without permission, no one. She’d nearly killed a young man at St Champions who had tried to rape her … she felt a surge of pure disgust, a wave of naked anger that threatened to overwhelm her. Rape was almost unknown in Mystic Albion. Even the girls who never went to school knew how to protect themselves, and make sure anyone who tried would never hurt anyone else ever again.

“The groupie has no answer,” the man proclaimed, as if he had won a great victory. Helen knew aristocratic young men who were more humble … and had a great deal more to be humble about. “She knows it is a fake …”

“Look up,” Helen said, tersely. The man was either a moron or in denial. She could understand the latter, she supposed, but there were limits. If she’d allowed herself to believe OldeWorld was just a nightmare, rather than reality, she would have been killed – or worse – before she realised it was no dream. “The magic is real.”

“Tricks,” the man said. “Holographic illusions, stage magic … this is just a promotion, isn’t it? The castle is a cardboard mock-up, to promote Harry Potter and the Something of Something … isn’t it?”

Helen felt her patience snap. She could understand someone being reluctant to believe what had happened, and she didn’t really want to believe it herself, but the evidence was undeniable. The world had changed and … the man jabbed the microphone at her again, poking her in the chest. Her anger threatened to boil over. No one – no one – touched her like that, ever. She shouldn’t have let him get away with it the first time.

“I’ll prove it to you,” she said. Her power boiled around her, the spell taking shape and form. The man paled and stepped back … too late. “Deny this!”

She cast the spell. The man’s form wavered, then melted into a pig. The lead cameraman collapsed, dropping the oversized camera on the ground; the other cameraman took one look at the pig, then at Helen, and then turned and ran. The other woman looked as if she wanted to run or faint too. Helen felt a flash of grim pleasure, feeling her power billowing around her once again. She had missed it.

Janet giggled. “Now do you believe?”

The woman swallowed, hard, and reached out to touch the pig. The beast – it had disconcertingly human eyes – shuffled backwards, making noises that suggested it was trying to talk. Helen was torn between amusement and guilt. The idiot hadn’t believed in magic and the prospect of being transfigured would never have occurred to him … he certainly didn’t have any experience in having his body forcibly transformed, or in coping with the sensation and finding ways to counter or undo the spell. There were several ways for a transfigured human to turn himself back, tricks taught to every child in Mystic Albion, but the idiot didn’t know any of them. How could he? Magic hadn’t been part of his world, until now.

The pig shuddered, then made a pleading sound. Helen scowled. It wasn’t that hard to cope if you were transformed into an animal … it was object transformation that was the real killer, even if the spell wasn’t designed to be permanent. And he wanted her to turn him back …?

The woman cleared her throat, her voice terrified. Helen felt a flicker of disgust. The lowest maid on the estate, the young woman who cleaned the scullery, would not cringe or cower before her, or even her mother. Richard had never been a match for her, when it came to raw power, but he’d never been so openly terrified of her … Richard, she supposed, had known about magic. It wasn’t strange or alien to him …

“I …” The woman stopped and started again. “Will … will it wear off?”

“Eventually,” Helen said. She wondered just how much of the transformation had been beamed out, before the cameramen dropped the camera. “I suggest you take him out of here –and don’t leave him alone.”

The woman grabbed the pig by the ear and practically dragged him away, snapping at the cameraman to get up and come with her. Helen shook her head, wondering if she’d accidentally condemned the man to death. Anyone back home would know to check the eyes, before they slaughtered the pig, but here …? She sighed. The spell wouldn’t last very long, just long enough to teach the man a painful and unpleasant lesson. She hoped it wouldn’t be lost on the rest of the world.

“We’d better go back inside,” Janet said. Eyes were following them, not in a good way. “I …”

Helen nodded, and turned to walk back to the school. “Why didn’t he believe?”

Janet shrugged. “Who knows?”

The Merlin met them in the entrance hall, looking grim. Helen tried not to wince too openly. The law was on her side and yet … she wasn’t sure how the chips would fall, if the Merlin tried to discipline her. It would be an interesting legal case … on one hand, the reporter had touched her without permission and she had every right to push back, but on the other he hadn’t known about magic and it would be easy to argue that she’d overreacted. The Merlin might have expanded the wards, to keep track of which spells were being cast outside the school, but those wards wouldn’t note the context …

“Helen,” the Merlin said. “Did you have to do that?”

Helen braced herself for a fight. “He touched me, without my permission,” she said, flatly. The law was on her side. “It was important to show him that it would not go unpunished.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes,” Helen said, flatly. “OldeWorld is not very kind to women. Far too many men think they can get away with touching – or worse – without permission. If we let them think they can do it to us, they will.”

The Merlin cocked an eyebrow. “I see,” he said. There was a long cold pause. “And you are prepared to take the consequences?”

“Yes, sir,” Helen said. The magical consequences would only materialise if she cast the spell in deliberate error. The mundane consequences … well, the law really would be on her side. “And I am sure the world will agree with me.”

“We’ll see,” the Merlin said. He made a visible attempt to change the subject. “Meet me in the coachhouse in two hours. We’re going to Londinium.”

He paused. “No,” he added. “London.”

 

Chapter Nine: Gatehouse, York, Now

“This is a very neat solution to the low-magic environment,” Brains said, studying the diagram Norris had drawn out for him. “Given time, we would have duplicated these spells ourselves.”

Norris gritted his teeth, feeling a surge of anger that – he was willing to admit, at least to himself – had more to do with envy than dislike or hatred. Brains was a nerdy nerd, a young man with an intellectual bent – a genius, in many ways – who was socially awkward, perhaps even autistic, and spent most of his life in his own little world … and was rewarded for it, feted for it, while Norris was beaten up so often he hated himself as much as he hated his tormentors. If he’d been raised in Mystic Albion, would he have had as satisfactory a life as Brains? Would he have been rewarded for his intelligence, given opportunities that would lead to a good life … he knew, deep inside, that the answer was yes. The chance he’d been given, as a newcomer, was so much better than anything he’d been offered back home that there was simply no contest. It was hard not to scream in frustration and bitterness. Brains was what he might have been, if he’d been treated properly instead of being used as everyone’s punching bag.

We didn’t hate Wesley Crusher because he was a poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted character, he thought, morbidly. We hated him because he was a lie, a nerd rewarded for being a nerd rather than being punished just for existing.

He forced himself to look around the chamber, even though it made him feel no better. It was his room, five desks and tables piled high with parchments and books that looked to have been tossed around randomly, but had actually been carefully positioned in a manner that made sense to Brains. Norris had done the same, when he’d been at home, before his mother had insisted on sweeping everything away, forcing him to clean his room even though it was perfectly neat and tidy, at least by his standards. Brains had everything he needed, from access to libraries and research papers to good friends who respected his quirks and gave him both companionship and space. Norris tried to tell himself it wasn’t Brains’s fault, but … he scowled, helplessly. It wasn’t the fault of the rich kids that they were rich, yet it was easy to fall into the trap of envying them anyway.

Brains didn’t even notice. Of course not. He was lost in his own world, his pencil running down a long sheet of parchment as he charted out spellware and spellwork that was light-years ahead of anything Norris had ever seen. Norris knew he wasn’t an idiot, and he’d studied magic obsessively from the moment he’d seen it for the first time, but Brains made him feel slow and stupid. It made him wonder, despite everything, if that was how the bullying bastards had felt, when they’d seen him answer math questions that had been so simple to him, and yet so hard for them. The thought made him grind his teeth in bitter fury. The idea of having anything in common with them was …

His head ached. The dull pain had never quite gone away, not since he’d opened his eyes after everything changed. Norris2 was gone, leaving an hole in his soul … he wondered, numbly, if he’d damaged his own mind when he tore the other personality apart, committing murder for the second time. The first … he groaned in pain, wondering if he should feel guilt, or if he should tell himself it hadn’t really been his fault, or if he should just reassure himself that his victims had deserved it. Perhaps they had. Perhaps … but Norris2 had been part of him.

“It shouldn’t be that hard to unravel the rest of it,” Brains said. “The real question is just how they’ll react, in a high-magic environment.”

Norris nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt. “I didn’t have any trouble using them,” he said. “They slipped into the local spells effortlessly.”

Brains nodded, showing no hint of irritation as he studied his handiwork. He was probably the only person who wouldn’t, who didn’t care that Norris had entered Mystic Albion as a spy rather than a new student. Norris knew he should be grateful – it was unlikely anyone else would trust him again, and he could hardly blame them – and yet, it rankled that it came from Brains. Richard was a decent young man and Helen, from what little he’d seen of her, had been an aristocratic bitch with an entitlement complex to match, but Brains was too much like him for Norris not to feel resentment. If only he’d had a fraction of the opportunities offered to Brains, his life would have been so much better …

“Interesting,” Brains said. “Your spells worked rather like a computer virus … they slipped into the network and hollowed it out from the inside, creating room for the infection to spread.”

Norris nodded, stiffly. “I believe they used computers to help chart out the spells,” he said. “A number were too small for humans to cast alone.”

“An interesting development,” Brains agreed. “There will be a great deal of progress, once we work out how to combine the two ourselves …”

There was a sharp knock on the door. Norris looked up, wincing inwardly as the door opened to reveal Lucy. The young girl – she wasn’t even a teenager – was far more powerful than him, powerful and dangerous … another lucky youngster who had been given opportunities rather than being slapped down every time she tried to make something of herself. He tried not to cringe at the look she gave him, hard enough to make him feel like a worm beneath her feet. She could turn him into a worm, if she wished … he shuddered. How many school bullies, back home, now had magic as well as their fists?

“Marian is awake,” Lucy said, coldly. “You’re to go to her.”

Norris almost wished she had changed him into a worm. Or a toad. Or something – anything – else, preferably something that couldn’t think or feel. Marian was the last person he wanted to see, out of guilt rather than envy or fear. He had no doubt she hated him now, with reason. He had abused her … and the fact the worst had been committed by Norris2, rather than Norris himself, was no excuse. Even if he chose to believe they were two separate people, the fact remained he had shaped Norris2. And Lord Burghley had made it worse.

“Go,” Lucy said.

“I’ll see you later,” Norris said, to Brains. “Have fun.”

Brains didn’t answer. He was back in his own word, studying magic. Norris could feel Lucy’s eyes boring into his back as he turned and walked out the door, trying to move fast without actually hurrying. If looks could kill, which was quite possible, her gaze might atomise him … he tried not to think, deep inside, that being vaporised would be something of a relief. He wanted to pretend otherwise, but in truth he had only himself to blame for the mess his life had become …

The corridors were surprisingly quiet, as he made his way to the infirmary. He’d heard that a number of students had crossed into OldeWorld – Earth – and others were hiding in their dorms, hoping the world would start making sense again before they had to leave and come to terms with the sudden change in reality itself. He told himself to be grateful. He wasn’t sure how many people knew what he’d done, but … he shook his head. It was just a matter of time before the entire world knew, before they demanded his head – or worse. And then his life would not be worth living.

You were a fool, he told himself. If you’d gone to the Merlin, the moment you realised you were on the wrong side …

He shook his head, again. There was no point in dwelling on what might have been. All he could do was pick up the pieces as best as he could, and hope he could resume his life and … no. It wasn’t going to happen. The best he could do was to survive.

The infirmary had always struck him as odd, compared to the nurse’s office – dirty, and underequipped – at school or the GP surgery he’d had to visit years ago. There was an air of calm detachment around it, the furniture comfortable rather than mindlessly practical; the healers, he’d leant, genuinely cared for their patients and did what they could for them, rather than ticking off boxes and passing the buck as much as possible. There were private rooms for injured students, surrounded by protective wards … the healer sitting at the desk took one look at him, then pointed at an open door. Norris hesitated, cursing himself for a coward, than stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.

Marian was sitting up in bed, her blonde hair falling around her shoulders and spilling over her arms. Norris felt his heart skip a beat. There was no makeup on her face, nothing to enhance her natural beauty, and yet she was beautiful, glowing with a life so many girls back home lacked, no matter how much money they wasted on cosmetics. There had been an innocence about her that had been … he staggered, under the weight of a blow far more mental than physical. Marian had been an innocent and he’d hurt her and … he’d shattered her innocence. She had liked him. Liked him. And he’d betrayed her.

God help us, he recalled someone saying, for we knew the worst too young.

He couldn’t remember who had said it, or where he’d heard it, but he supposed it was the difference between children born on Earth and their peers from Mystic Albion. He’d grown up in a world where there were dangers everywhere, from abusive parents to rapists and paedophiles to terrorists and climate change, while she’d grown up in a world where such dangers simply didn’t exist. Norris hadn’t been allowed to be innocent – he hadn’t been allowed to grow up in ignorance of the dangers – while Marian had enjoyed a certain safety Norris’s life had lacked. And that safety had blinded her to the threat he represented …

“Norris,” Marian said. “What happened?”

Norris hesitated. How much did she remember? How much had she been told? How much did she know … he wanted to pretend that everything was normal, that everything was fantastic, but it would be a lie. And a stupid lie. And … he wondered if she was going to blast him with magic, the moment he told her the truth, or simply snap his neck. She’d grown up on a farm. She was stronger than any of the girls he’d known on Earth, and most of the boys, and she could hurt him if she wished …

“I fucked up,” he said. He hadn’t wanted to talk, but the whole story spilled out anyway. His life on Earth, his semi-accidental murder, his recruitment by Lord Burghley, his career as a spy … and how he hadn’t realised, until it was too late, that the split-personality he’d created had become a personality in its own right. “I … I’m sorry.”

The words were so inadequate. He had lied to her, he had frozen her … did she even realise, he wondered numbly, just how vulnerable she’d been? He could have peered down her shirt or raised her dress or … the temptation had been there, powered by the certain knowledge that pretty girls loved taunting him with their bodies while denying him any chance to touch their bare flesh and satisfy himself. He knew it was wrong to think in such a way and yet … the bitterness was so intense it was hard, so hard, to think otherwise. He wasn’t a great person for not taking advantage of her, and yet it felt that way …

He gritted his teeth. If she wanted to hurt him, even kill him, she had every right. And he deserved it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again. There was no point in grovelling for her forgiveness, and yet he wanted to beg and plead … it wasn’t fair. He knew boys who had done far worse and they’d gotten away with it … but just because they’d gotten away with it didn’t mean that he should get away with it. “If you never want to see me again …”

“I liked you,” Marian said, echoing his earlier thoughts. “And you …”

Norris felt his heart clench in pain. He’d never quite believed Marian could actually like him. It was a joke … he’d known she wasn’t a bitch who would toy with his heart and yet … guilt and self-reproach blazed through his mind, a grim reminder he’d brought it all on himself. And yet … if he’d been raised here, would he have had a better life? Would he have been a better person?

“I liked you,” Marian repeated. Her voice shook. “And what did you do to me?”

Norris had no answer. It was rape, rape in every real sense of the word … the fact he had never touched her physically, let alone stolen her maidenhead in the process of divesting himself of his unwanted virginity, was no excuse. He had taken advantage of her innocence, he had abused her, he had … in the end, he thought numbly, he was no better than Colin. Colin, who had pulled down his trousers and exposed his penis to the world; Colin, who had never failed to miss a chance to put him down; Colin, who had lifted a girl’s skirt and exposed her underwear and somehow gotten away with it; Colin, who had died in screaming agony, after Norris had created a split personality ready and able to use magic to kill. He deserved no better. He wanted to die …

… And yet, he didn’t dare.

“Get out,” Marian said. She sounded as if she were going to cry. Norris couldn’t bear to hear her. “If I want to see you again, I’ll let you know.”

Norris flinched. He’d seen countless movies where the woman took the man back after he apologised for being an asshole … movies, he reflected ruefully, where the man had the scriptwriter on his side. God knew, he’d wondered why Rebecca had stayed with Colin after he’d shown her ass to the world … he shook his head, turning away in dismay and guilt. He deserved worse than a simple dismissal. Rebecca had put up with Colin because she’d had no choice – he could do far worse, if she didn’t treat it as a joke rather than sexual assault – and Marian was sending him away because she did have a choice. And …

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he opened the door. There was nothing else he could say. “Goodbye.”

He crumbled, the moment he stepped outside ad closed the door behind him. His head was hurting, the sense she was treating him unfairly warring with the awareness she had every right – and that she was in the right – tell him to go. It was hard to have any illusions about himself, any sense he might still be in the right … he wondered, not for the first time, how Colin had been able to live with himself. If Norris had done half the things Colin had done, the guilt would have overwhelmed him.

“You’ll report back here tomorrow,” the healer said. “Your first session with the mind-healer has been booked.”

Norris made a face. “There’s no point in talking about it,” he said. The less said about the guidance counsellor at St Champions, the better. The man had been worse than useless, a blabbermouth as well as a fool. Telling him the truth had been a mistake, one he’d learnt the hard way. “It can’t be changed.”

“Talking about your feelings and motivations can’t change the world,” the healer agreed, mildly. “However, talking can help you to come to terms with yourself and face the world as a better person.”

“It’s not possible,” Norris said. He thought he understood now. Colin hadn’t had any sense of basic decency, let alone a concept of right and wrong more complex than anything he wanted being right and anything he didn’t want being wrong. The idea there might be something wrong with using his brute strength to get what he wanted was alien to him. Norris almost envied him. Colin had been a barbarian, free of the guilt a civilised man would feel. Who would have thought that being a mindless brute would be so liberating? “There’s no point.”

The healer’s voice hardened. “Regardless, you will report back here after lunch tomorrow,” he said. “If we have to fetch you, it will not be pleasant.”

Norris winced. People were pushing him around, again. The fact he deserved it – this time – only made it worse. He wished, again, that he’d been born and raised in this world. It would have been far better for him and everyone else, even Colin. His lack of smarts wouldn’t have condemned him to a life of thuggish criminality. He could have worked on a farm instead, and perhaps been quite happy there. Instead, he’d been a thug until he’d been killed … murdered. No, it hadn’t been murder. It had been self-defence.

“I understand,” he said. He swallowed, hard. “Is there any magic that can change the past?”

“No,” the healer said. “But there is always hope you can learn from the past and walk into a brighter future.”

“Yeah,” Norris said.

But in truth, he wasn’t convinced he had a future.

 

Chapter Ten: London, Now

Richard felt cold as the flying carriage started to descend over London.

It wasn’t the first time he’d visited London – he’d travelled to the capital with Janet, before they’d figured out how to reopen the gate and return to Mystic Albion – but he hadn’t grasped the sheer size of the city. London was so much larger than Londinium that there was simply no contrast, the mystic city more like a large town compared to the immensity of London proper. The buildings were spread out for miles, the handful of familiar landmarks – some with shadows in the magical world, others recorded in history books written before the sundering – buried within a sea of other buildings, some as fancy as the older landmarks and others as drab and grey as the wretched estate. It was sheer luck, he supposed, that Londinium was centred on Windsor, rather than the more modern London. It might make it easier for the two worlds to realise they had to get along.

Janet clutched his arm as the carriage dropped down, landing neatly outside Buckingham Palace. A second carriage was already there, the occupants waiting patiently for them. The gates were sealed and heavily guarded, a large crowd outside watching the newcomers with eager eyes … Richard gritted his teeth, then pasted a calm expression on his face. He’d seen brief television programs, through Steve’s laptop, and it was clear the news was already spreading right across the world. It was funny, he noted ruefully, that Helen turning a reporter into a pig had spread faster and further than change on a national, indeed global, scale. But perhaps it did have the advantage of being a little easier to grasp.

The air felt odd, as he clambered out of the carriage. Buckingham Palace hadn’t been built when Anne Boleyn had given her life to open the gates, but the site had been developed for years and he could feel flickers of wild magic in the air. A ghost flickered in front of him, coming and going so quickly he couldn’t make out any features, let alone figure out who the entity might have been before they died. Ghosts were sometimes talkative, but very few realised they were dead … and the ones that knew they were dead were often dangerous, when the living asked the wrong questions. He shivered, inwardly, as Janet followed him out into the air, Helen and the Merlin bringing up the rear.

“Lord Merlin,” a calm voice said. “It’s good to see you again.”

Richard looked up, then hastily bowed. He had never been formally introduced to the Princess of Londinium until after their return from OldeWorld, when no one had known if they were going to be feted as heroes or punished for being dangerously reckless and carrying out an experiment that could easily have gotten out of control. The fact no one had known the underlying truth of Mystic Albion, or grasped the danger of tuning a gate in the castle, wouldn’t have been taken into account, if the damage had been far more extensive. Richard suspected they were lucky, to have been allowed to remain in the school. It could have been a great deal worse.

“And you,” the Merlin said, as Janet dropped a rough curtsey. “Sir Andrew?”

The man standing next to the princess nodded, curtly. Richard had never seen him before, but he wore the simple dark outfit of a mediator … the closest thing they had, he supposed, to a proper diplomat. There weren’t many contacts between Mystic Albion and other enclaves of humanity within the magical world … in hindsight, he suspected he knew why. The agreements between humanity and the Fae tended to themselves …

“Welcome to Buckingham Palace,” another voice said. Richard looked up and saw a middle-aged man wearing a fancy uniform that should have been laughable, but somehow he made it work. His eyes lingered on Helen for a long moment, the only sign of emotion he showed. “If you will come with me, I’ll escort you to the Prime Minister.”

Janet coughed. “We’re not meeting the King?”

“His Majesty is currently not in residence,” the equerry said. “He has, however, agreed to allow the palace to serve as neutral ground, given that he is the monarch of both worlds.”

Richard said nothing, but he was sure the Princess of Londinium twitched. The princesses claimed their right to rule from the people, even if they took their title in honour of Elizabeth I. It would be an interesting legal issue, he supposed, if the King of Britain insisted he was heir to the ancient obligations the Folk had to their Monarch … technically, he wasn’t that close a relative, or a descendent, but there was a case to be made he was their rightful heir. It probably wouldn’t matter. The princesses were elected, rather than inheriting their positions.

He looked around with interest as they walked through a side door and along a long corridor. The palace was the most elegant building he’d seen in OldeWorld, with a sense of dignity and grandeur most modern buildings lacked. It was impressive, and yet it made him angry. It wouldn’t have been hard, he was sure, to make certain that every building looked so elegant … it would have been better, so much better, for Steve and Janet if they’d been raised in such surroundings. But there was no point in worrying about it now.

The meeting room was just as elegant as the rest of the palace. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and a man who was introduced by name – and name alone – sat on the far side of a heavy wooden table, so ancient it was practically glowing with history. Richard opened his mind, just a little, and sensed the presence of ghosts growing stronger, as well as hints of controlled magic. The rogue magicians had protected the palace … he wondered, sourly, why he was surprised. The Folk had always been divided between aristocrats and commoners and the aristocrats had enjoyed a protection their commoner brethren lacked … the latter had been ruthlessly slaughtered by the Burners, while the former had simply slipped into the warp and weft of high-class society and hidden themselves away.

“It is rare for senior leaders to conduct such talks personally,” the Prime Minister said. Richard remembered his name, but little else. It hadn’t seemed important when they’d had hopes of returning home, leaving OldeWorld behind forever. “Given the need for haste, we felt it was necessary for us to talk directly.”

“We agree,” the Princess said. She spoke calmly, but in a manner that suggested she was choosing her words carefully. “Our society has been badly disrupted by the sudden … merge.”

“As has ours,” the Prime Minister agreed. He nodded to the third man, who unfurled a map of the British Isles. Someone had drawn notes on it with a pencil, marking locations where the two worlds had merged together. Richard sucked in his breath. The marks were nothing more than … marks, but they represented confusion – and destruction – on an unthinkable scale. “The world has turned upside down.”

The Foreign Secretary leaned forward. “There are reports of dragons, and werewolves, and other supernatural creatures,” he said. He sounded tired, as if the sheer scale of the disaster had worn him down. “Places that were open are now sealed, places that were sealed are now open … all the old sites appear to have come to life, strange things sighted near them …”

“It would be wise to leave them alone,” the Merlin said, quietly. “High-magic locations are dangerous, even for us.”

“So we gather,” the Prime Minister said. “How do we even begin to fix this problem?”

“I do not believe there is any way to turn back the clock,” the Merlin said. “The two worlds are merged now. Magic, and everything that dwells within magic, has been unleashed on your world. We have to figure out a way to cope.”

The PM looked from face to face. “What happened?”

“We’re still unsure ourselves,” the Princess said. Richard tried to keep his face impassive. They had been cautioned to say as little as possible about the rogue magicians, at least until they could figure out how to track them down. “As near as we can tell, something went badly wrong and the two worlds merged together into one.”

“Something went wrong,” the PM repeated. Richard had the oddest sense he knew more than he was saying. “You had some of your people loose in our world, did you not?”

Richard tensed. It was hard, almost impossible, to keep his face blank.

“There was an incident, several months ago, when some of our people fell into your world … briefly, very briefly,” the Princess said. “They were successful in figuring out a way to return, well before the merge. It is possible this triggered off a series of events that accidentally collapsed the barriers between the two worlds …”

Richard felt his heart sink. The PM knew too much. And that meant …

“I see,” the PM said, finally. “There is no way to undo the merge, is there?”

“There is much we don’t understand about how it happened,” the Merlin said, “We believe that no, it cannot be undone. The sheer power required is so far ahead of us …”

He shook his head. “It can’t be done.”

“I see,” the PM repeated. “What now?”

“A good question,” the Princess said. “I am empowered to negotiate on behalf of my government. Are you?”

“Yes.” The Prime Minister studied her for a long moment. “It is the official position of His Majesty’s Government that it is the sole government, the sole ruling power, within these islands. The government may tolerate a certain degree of independence or autonomy in places, provided they do not cross the line into criminal behaviour, but the final say always rests with the government itself. The idea of allowing a whole second government in the country is, pardon the expression, illegal as well as unthinkable. We cannot tolerate zones where our law does not run.”

He leaned forward, his eyes resting on Helen. “For example, you turned a reporter into a pig,” he added, in a tone that suggested he didn’t quite believe his own words. “To us, that is a peculiar form of assault, and quite unjustified.”

Helen kept her voice so calm Richard knew she was angry. “He touched me, twice,” she said, stiffly. “You may be willing to tolerate such abuse in your society, and to leave helpless women at the mercy of indecent men, but we are not. A few hours of being a pig will have taught him a lesson he will not soon forget.”

Sir Andrew shifted, slightly. “Lady Helen of Burghley is correct, Prime Minster,” he said, in a calm and reasonable tone. “Our society is quite tolerant of women who act in direct self-defence.”

“But therein lies the problem,” the Prime Minister said. “Our society does not tolerate vigilante action. We are governed by the rule of law, which stipulates that the criminal must be proven guilty, then sentenced by a jury of his peers, not by someone who took the law into her own hands. How do we tell the difference between a man transfigured with due cause, as either society would define it, and a man transfigured by a witch who lies about due cause, or massively overreacts …?”

“There are ways to tell,” Helen said. “I …”

The Princess held up a hand. Helen fell quiet.

“We have barely had any time to come to grips with what has happened, let alone study your laws and see how they interact with ours,” the Princess said. “We imagine there are acts that are perfectly legal in our world and illegal in yours, and vice versa. It will take months, if not years, for our legal teams to carry out a comparison, let alone put forward proposals to merge the two. There has already been a near-fatal collision between a helicopter and a broomstick and I image there will be many more, over the next few days.”

“Which is a point I intended to raise,” the PM said. “You can’t fly freely. Not here.”

Richard felt his heart sink. There was no way in hell that would go down well. Nearly everyone had a broomstick and being told they couldn’t fly where they liked would provoke a revolt. Or worse … he didn’t think the princesses could pass a law banning free flight, and even if they did it would be widely ignored. The mundane government was mind-bogglingly complex, intruding into every last aspect of its population’s lives … the princesses, by contrast, had very little authority indeed.

“We can and we will warn everyone of the dangers of flying free,” the Princess said. “But there is no way we can prevent them from doing so.”

The Foreign Secretary made a face. “Or turning our people into frogs?”

“If one of our people turns a man into a frog without good reason, we will throw the book at him,” the Merlin said, simply. “However, we will not remove the ability to do so from someone who has not proven they cannot be trusted with it, and in many ways we simply cannot. Our society is based on consent, not force, and trying to throw our weight around, against the will of the majority, will result in disaster.”

“And letting people act as they see fit, in every case, is a recipe for disaster here,” the PM said. “The people involved cannot be trusted to think impartially.”

“I would take that more seriously,” Helen snarled, “if your society was actually effective at getting rid of rapists!”

The PM studied her for a long moment, then looked at the Princess. “We have an impasse.”

“I understand your problem,” the Princess said. “I hope you also understand mine.”

She leaned back in her chair. “First, let me propose a compromise. Our districts, now present on your world, will continue to operate under our laws, at least until we can finish comparing notes on legal systems. If one of our people, outside our districts, commits something you consider a crime, we will help you to investigate, determine if the person is actually at fault, and if they are we will ensure they are punished. We will attempt to educate our people on the dangers of your world, such as the risk of accidentally flying into an aircraft, and if someone puts themselves at risk by ignoring the warnings, we will deal with them.”

The PM said nothing for a long moment. “And if they put someone else at risk?”

“We’ll deal with them,” the Princess said. “It will be a great deal easier to convince our people that we’re doing the right thing if we punish a specific wrong-doer, rather than everyone.”

Richard agreed. It was one thing to ban someone who had proven they couldn’t be trusted, quite another to bad everyone. It wouldn’t work. And even trying would fatally undermine the Princess’s authority.

She paused, then kept speaking. “The secondary problem is the flood of magic and magical creatures that have swept into your world. There will be magicians – unknown magicians – coming into their power, and entities that will be difficult, if not impossible, to counter without the right knowledge. Many are intelligent, in a way that your people will not expect, and others are very powerful and dangerous even without human intelligence. We are prepared, as a gesture of goodwill, to assist you with both problems. If nothing else, it will prevent later disaster.”

The Prime Minister’s eyes narrowed. “You intend to teach magic?”

“There’s no choice,” the Merlin said. “It is clear that your society has a considerable number of magicians, none of whom could use their powers in the absence of background magic, all of whom will now have access to power they cannot keep themselves from using or avoid the pitfalls that have slain magicians with more training than themselves. They will not only not know what they are doing, they won’t even know they can until it is too late. I would be surprised if there haven’t already been incidents of magic sparking and surging, responsive to emotions and feelings – the feelings no one wants to admit they have – rather than cold direction. Our magicians are taught control from a very early age, but yours don’t know they have magic. It would be like lighting a match in a gas-filled room.”

“I see,” the Prime Minister said. “I must consult with my advisors. We have taken the liberty of preparing chambers for you here, if you wish to spend the night, or you may return to your own world. I trust that will be acceptable?”

“Of course,” the Princess said. “But time is of the essence.”

“We would also like to discuss matters with Miss Mayweather,” the unnamed man said, looking at Janet. “As an immigrant to your world, she can tell us a great deal about you.”

Richard blinked. How had they known …?

“If that is fine with her,” the Merlin said. “If not, I fear we shall have to decline.”

“It’s fine with me,” Janet said. She didn’t sound very enthusiastic. “When?”

“Tomorrow, I think,” the Prime Minister said. “It’s very late now.”

Richard nodded, trying to hide his yawn. It had been a day – less than a day – since all hell had broken loose. No wonder the PM looked shell-shocked. His counterparts had known something of OldeWorld, but he … Richard cursed under his breath. The PM knew more than he was letting on, he was sure, and that meant …

… What?

“The equerry will escort you to your bedrooms,” the Prime Minister said. “His Majesty wants you to enjoy the hospitality of Buck House.”

“Thank you,” the Merlin said. “I am sure we shall.”

 

Chapter Eleven: London, Now

Janet had dreamed, when she was a little girl, of marrying a prince and living in a palace.

The fantasy had faded, as she’d grown older and realised it was never going to happen. She was a working class girl, from a working class family, and such girls did not become princesses. They didn’t even become the king’s mistress. The idea that she might visit Buckingham Palace was about as likely as getting a Hogwarts letter, a fantasy so absurd that she couldn’t allow herself even the slightest shred of hope it might happen. And yet …

She was, perversely, disappointed by the guest room. It was larger than anything she’d enjoyed as a child or a teenager, with a bed large enough for four, a bathroom with a bath deep enough to pass for a small swimming pool, and a large television mounted on the wall, but it didn’t strike her as particularly regal. It was more like a fancy hotel, although she had to admit the chances of her entering a fancy hotel – at least as anything more than cleaning staff – were pretty low too. The only hint the room was in a palace was the coat of arms on the wall and even that was meaningless to her. She was tempted to go explore and yet, she was afraid to risk leaving her room. The palace was more than just a house on a grand scale.

Janet sat on her bed and reached for the remote. It took her a moment to work out how to turn the television on – the remote was incredibly complex, as if it was designed to launch the space shuttle rather than simply change the channel – but the screen came to life at once, with none of the delay she’d come to expect from the fifth-hand television she’d had back home. The news was an incoherent mess, with reports of supernatural encounters from all over the country … and indeed the world. Janet felt a pang of guilt as she changed the channel, wondering just how much of the chaos was her fault. If she hadn’t helped the trio when they’d arrived …

You would never have had your chance to study magic, her thoughts pointed out, coldly. And you would never have visited Buckingham Palace.

She leaned back and watched a blonde anchor she vaguely recognised trying to conduct an interview with a hysterical mother and a father who was waving a butcher’s knife around as if he intended to kill someone. It was hard to follow the story – the hysterics meant the news came in dribs and drabs – but it sounded as if the parents had watched their child be lured away by a fairy, then discovered – too late – that the fairy had no intention of letting their child return home. Janet shivered, helplessly. She had nearly been trapped by the Fae herself and if Richard hadn’t come to her rescue, she would never have seen Gatehouse – or Earth – again. The poor child might be lost forever.

Her finger pressed down, flicking the channel again and again. Dragons flying over Westminster. Strange ships off the coast of Cornwall. Giant buildings in places no building had ever been, others merged so closely with their supernatural counterpart that their interiors now resembled the TARDIS, without the Doctor. An emergency broadcast ordering the evacuation of Edinburgh Castle and the surrounding regions; another ordering all military, police, and emergency service personnel to report in at once, without delay. Janet shook her head slowly, feeling tiredness threatening to overcome her. The world had changed overnight. It would be days – weeks, months – before anyone had a clear picture of what had happened, in a single disastrous moment.

The channel changed. The PM was speaking, addressing the nation in a tired tone that wasn’t remotely reassuring. “… Stay away from unpopulated areas. Keep your doors and windows closed. Refrain from speaking to supernatural entities. Do not practice magic. All schools are closed until further notice. Parliament has been suspended until further notice …”

Janet shook her head. It was going to get worse before it got better.

There was a tap at the door. She stood, checked her dressing gown was properly tied, and hurried over to open it. She’d hoped it would be Richard – they’d been given separate rooms, which both pleased and worried her – but instead it was a middle-aged man wearing a fancy uniform,. Janet tensed, despite herself, as he looked her up and down. There was something dispassionate in his gaze, as if he saw her as … as nothing. It bothered her on a very primal level.

“If you will come with me,” he said, in a tone that suggested the idea she wouldn’t had never crossed his mind, “the Prime Minister is waiting.”

Janet nodded, making sure to tighten her belt before leaving the room. There was no lock, no keycard … she told herself, dryly, that the palace was safe and besides, she didn’t have anything worth stealing. She’d grown out of the habit of carrying a mobile phone everywhere and there was nothing else in her bag but a change of underwear and some sanitary products. In hindsight … she shook her head inwardly, then closed the door and followed the equerry down the corridor. She’d seen photographs, but she’d never realised just how immense the palace truly was, or how empty. There were no servants or tourists to be seen. It didn’t seem fair. She knew families of seven or eight who were crammed into flats smaller than her family’s tiny house, yet the king and his family had enough space for an entire army? It really didn’t seem fair. Why did her family – and her class – have so little while the upper class had so much?

She controlled her bitterness with an effort as the equerry showed her into a smaller chamber. It was surprisingly comfortable and chintzy, the kind of place the lady of the house would take tea with her guests while her servants attended to her every need. It reminded her of a drama she’d seen set in the regency period, where men had donned silly wigs and women had worn absurd dresses, dresses that were only practical if the wearer had someone to help them get in and out of the outfit. Her lips twisted at the thought. Modern boys had enough problems undoing a woman’s bra …

“Janet,” the PM said. He stood and nodded, politely. “Can I call you Janet?”

Janet shrugged. She’d never imagined meeting the PM either. Politics had never interested her, not least because whoever was in power couldn’t – or wouldn’t – make things better for the working class. Tory or Labour, MPs collected fat salaries and perks and forgot about the poor bastards who elected them, at least until the time came to seek re-election. Janet didn’t hold with the extremists who flourished on the estate, from the far-right wankers to the religious nuts, but she understood them better than she cared to admit. If someone felt ignored and powerless, radical politics offered a way out …

She forced herself to study the PM. He looked … weaselly, in a manner that made her want to roll her eyes. Perhaps it was her tiredness, and his, but she found it hard to believe he had a spine. He reminded her of the last three headmasters of St Champions, men who had come and gone without making the wretched school any better … men who had no hesitation in pushing the weak and helpless around, but cowered if they faced even the slightest pushback from bullies and their enabling parents. She felt a surge of contempt that surprised her in its intensity. The PM had an entire army, literally. He didn’t have to cower before bullies …

“This is a very fraught situation,” the PM said. “The crisis caught us completely by surprise, as you can imagine, and we know very little about magical society … and even less about their environment. The people may be friendly, but their ecosystem may have other ideas.”

He paused. “Why did you go with them?”

Janet shrugged, chewing on a strand of hair. She had always found it hard to explain herself to people she knew didn’t really care about her. The PM was just like York’s MPs, she figured; they cared nothing for their people until the next election rolled around, when they had to spend time pretending they actually liked and listened to their constituents. There was no point in telling them anything. They never listened. They were just good at pretending they cared.

“The estate I grew up on was not a very nice place,” she said. “There was no hope, not for me and not for everyone else. The chance to go somewhere else, to do something else … I couldn’t let it go.”

The PM said nothing for a long moment. “How did you meet them?”

Janet hesitated, then ran through the whole story. She kept it vague over precisely why she’d been at St Champion’s at midnight – she didn’t want to be arrested for trespassing, even if the school was now as flat as a pancake – but outlined the rest of the tale, from the moment she’d taken the magic students home to when they’d invited her to come home with them. The PM listened carefully, asking a handful of questions from time to time. Janet did her best to answer. She’d been told to be honest, to avoid lying even if there were things she would sooner not discuss.

“You should have told us,” the PM said.

Janet giggled, helplessly. “Would you have believed me?”

She shook her head. If someone had gone to her, before the merge, and told her that they’d met students from a whole other world she’d have thought they were playing a practical joke on her. God knew, anything could be faked these days. Special effects were so advanced movie producers had a nasty habit of forgetting the need to write a decent plot. She would have been lucky if the police only laughed at her, instead of arresting her for wasting police time. And if they had believed her, it would almost be worse. Richard, Brains and Helen would have wound up being dissected, or handed over to the rogue magicians.

Her eyes narrowed. Did the PM know about the rogues? She didn’t know.

“Perhaps not,” the PM conceded. “What is their society like?”

Janet found herself smiling. “It’s wonderful, sir,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

The PM narrowed his eyes. “Because it has magic?”

“No.” Janet felt the old anger bubbling up inside her, the old helplessness and rage at her life being thoroughly fucked before she took her first breath. “It’s …”

She found herself struggling to speak calmly. “St Champions was a hellhole. It was … smart kids were forced to work with dumb kids, bullies were allowed to get away with it … do you know how many times I had my bra snapped, or my skirt lifted, because some asshole thought it was the height of humour? Nerds and geeks got beaten up all the time, and … the food was ghastly, the teachers didn’t give a shit, and the creepy caretaker kept staring at us with hungry eyes. I don’t think there was a single girl who hadn’t been groped, at least once, or …”

It was hard to keep going. “The estate was even worse. The police didn’t give a damn about druggies, or gang warfare, or religious nuts … they did nothing, nothing to protect us. There was no way out for most of us … there were girls on the estate who were single mothers at sixteen, or grandmothers and thirty … rape, robbery, murder … it all happened there and no one cared. There was no point in studying, no point in trying to go to university … no hope. I knew I was doomed, well before I left school …”

The PM leaned forward. “You could have moved to London …”

Janet laughed, harshly. “With what money?”

She had done the maths, years ago. Their mother was the sole breadwinner and she had debts to pay off. What little she had left needed to go towards the rent, and feeding her children, and … there’d been some attempts to set up mutual aid societies, to share resources, but they’d run aground on local shitheads and governmental pressure. It was funny, she’d reflected bitterly, that the government would ignore outright criminality, but react harshly to anyone trying to do the job the bloody government should have done …

The anger drove her on. “Gatehouse was different. The teachers had authority to crack down hard on bullies. The students were tested properly, and assigned to classes that challenged them. There were … I had the resources I needed to make something of myself, the keys to a better life, while here … here, I had nothing. Their society actually cares!”

“We care,” the PM said.

Janet looked him in the eye. “Then why don’t you show it?

“You have an army! You could send in the troops, round up all the criminals, and get rid of them! Everyone on the estate would be on your side, if you actually made sure those monsters would never have the chance to return to seek revenge! Why don’t you kick out the bullies, or the flashers, or …”

She shook her head, wiping away the tears. “You don’t care.”

“It’s not that simple,” the PM told her. “There are legal issues …”

“You don’t give a damn about legality either,” Janet said. She had heard it before, when the girls had tried to demand the school expel a particularly unpleasant boy. Sure, he needed an education, but did it have to come at the expense of everyone else? No! “It’s just an excuse for doing nothing.”

There was a long pause. The PM stood, walked over to a side trolley and poured two cups of tea. Janet almost giggled, between harsh breaths that threatened to turn into sobs, as she saw the afternoon tea arrangement. The tea cake stand was something right out of a period drama … she wondered, suddenly, if the tiny sandwiches were cucumber or salmon or something so fancy she’d never heard of it, let alone tasted it. The PM pushed the trolley towards her and handed her one of the cups of tea. The cup felt tiny in her hand, almost fragile. She had a feeling it was worth more than everything she owned put together.

“I wish it were as simple as you suggest,” the PM said. He sipped his own tea. Janet had no idea if he was trying to calm her, or if he was quietly buying himself time to think. “I went into office convinced I could do good, and then …”

“You did nothing,” Janet said, quietly.

The PM studied his teacup for a long moment. “How easy is it to learn magic?”

Janet hesitated, considering her answer. “Not long,” she said, finally. “It took me several weeks to learn how to channel magic, then I started practicing spells …”

She paused, unsure how to continue. “Magic … some things are very easy, but don’t last very long at all, while more permanent things take years to study and master. That’s how it was explained to me, at least.”

The PM nodded, not seeming to care about her vague answer. “And would you stop practicing magic?”

“If someone ordered me to stop?” Janet felt a hot flash of anger. “No. No way.”

“I see,” the PM said. “Why not?”

Janet gritted her teeth. “I had nothing. I would have left school in a few short months, with no prospect of bettering myself and climbing out of the estate. The best I could have hoped for, back then, was a decent husband … and by decent, I mean one who wouldn’t have beaten me more than once or twice a week. Magic offered me a chance to actually make something of myself, and if you think I’m going to give it up …”

She forced herself to calm down. “I was powerless. Helpless. There was nothing protecting me. I got pushed around and groped and I was lucky I didn’t get raped. I know girls my age who did! And now I have the power to defend myself, and … you think I’d just give it up?”

Norris’s face flickered through her head. Norris was very far from stupid. He would probably have cracked the secret of low-power magic, even without the rogue magicians. She wondered, suddenly, how many geeks and nerds were just like him, capable of intensely focusing on something that might just pay off handsomely. And they were the ones who got picked on all the time … that was going to change.

“Magic is here, like it or not,” she said. She had no idea what the PM was thinking and she no longer cared. Steve had told her that whoever cracked the secret of magic would change the world, would be the next Bill Gates or Tony Stark. “Magicians aren’t going to stop playing with magic, no matter what you say. All you can do is adapt.”

The PM nodded, politely. “Thank you for your time,” he said. “But tell me … how much do you know about how their government actually works?”

Janet took a breath. “It’s a true democracy,” she said. “Or it was explained to me that way …”

“A great many ideas look good on paper,” the PM said. “But in practice, they rarely work as advertised.”

He stood. “Thank you for your time,” he repeated. “I dare say we’ll have more questions for you shortly.”

“I’ll be going home soon,” Janet said. “This place isn’t my home.”

“We’re sharing the same patch of land,” the PM pointed out, rather dryly. “We have to learn how to get along, or face the consequences of not getting along.”

 

Chapter Twelve: London, Now

“She has been brainwashed,” Lord Burghley said, after the PM returned to the emergency committee chamber and replayed the interview with Janet Mayweather. “Magic, by its very nature, is dangerously addictive.”

Polly kept her thoughts to herself, as she stood against the wall and watched the movers and shakers debate the best course of action. The PM might not have much of a spine – the large portraits of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher seemed to be glowering down at their successor; Polly couldn’t imagine either being so indecisive when time was clearly ticking away – but she had to admit he’d acted fast, once the warning had been received. The state of emergency wouldn’t last forever, even with the backing of the Leader of the Opposition, yet it would last long enough for the government to come to grips with the situation. Or so she hoped.

“You don’t feel she has something of a point?” Lady Fowler, a middle-aged woman who happened to be a senior civil servant, spoke into the silence. “She grew up in an area we abandoned, to all intents and purposes, and it would not be fair to ask her to give up her magic …”

“Her position might be understandable,” Lord Burghley said, coldly. “A man who drank himself senseless every night to escape the mundane horror of his life would also be understandable. But that same man would not be forgiven if he got behind the wheel and rammed his car into an innocent child, or even if he was just caught driving while under the influence. Nor should he be. The excuse of being drunk only goes so far.”

He looked at the PM. “If anything, it is worse than I thought. We are dealing with a society of extremely powerful individualists, who have the power to act on their own and no qualms about doing so.”

“Against a man who was very rude,” another civil servant pointed out. A handful of nervous chuckles ran around the table. The committee had its own problems with irritating reporters, who could be neither ignored nor arrested, and very few had any issue with a reporter being turned into a pig. If they had their druthers, they might give the young witch a medal. “Let us not fall into the trap of assuming the victim cannot also be the victimiser.”

“Let us also not fall into the trap of assuming retaliation, massively over the top retaliation, can be justified by a victim complex,” a third man offered. “You might come home to discover your neighbour has scratched your car, but that doesn’t justify murdering him, raping his wife and selling his children into slavery.”

“There is a more serious problem,” Lord Burghley said, coldly. “It is a fact of life that different cultures react differently. One culture has no qualms about women walking around practically naked, another things they should be covered from head to toe; one culture thinks children should be beaten, if they misbehave, while others think that beating children is child abuse. Some cultures believe in arranged, or even forced, marriages; others think that marriage is a match between two people, and to hell with the parents if they disapprove. If you have spent any time in a multicultural environment, you know that to be true.”

Polly nodded, curtly. It was true.

“You also know that interactions between two different cultures can end very badly, if they refuse to get along. One culture’s respect for free speech can and does clash with a culture that refuses to allow any criticism of their religion, and demands they respond with violence to the merest suggestion of such. Even something as simple as serving the wrong food, or arranging a meeting at the wrong time, can be disastrous, when good faith is lacking and goodwill non-existent. And once you make a mistake, it can be very hard to recover, not least because you honestly don’t believe you did make a mistake.”

Polly couldn’t disagree. She’d been taught how to lay tables for a formal banquet and she’d had problems, real problems, grasping why the proper order was so important. The scolding she’d been given by her supervisor had seemed a gross overreaction, not least because the mistake could be – and was – easily corrected. Other issues … she sighed, inwardly. She’d had a boss who’d told her off for wearing comfortable shoes, instead of high heels, and … it had been so pointless. It wasn’t as if she’d been facing the customers …

The PM cleared his throat. “And your point is?”

“My point,” Lord Burghley said, “is that there will be clashes between our culture and theirs. And we have to be ready for them.”

He paused. “We discourage vigilante justice for a reason. These people encourage it.”

Polly kept her face under tight control. There was no way one could trust vigilantes to enforce the law. That led to lynching, unofficial gangs of zealots that thought they were the religious police, and a complete lack of confidence in whatever they had that passed for justice. A mob could not study the crime scene, collect evidence and determine, calmly and reasonably, what had actually happened, then determine if the evidence suggested the defendant was actually guilty. And yet, for the rule of law to work, the people had to have faith in it. And that faith had been fading for years. No one actually liked vigilantes, but if the only other option was letting the guilty party get away with it …

If the guilty party really is guilty, she thought, tiredly. If the mob is wrong, that would be pretty fucking unfortunate.

“These people are a challenge to the established society,” Lord Burghley said. “And their influence will spread far, and damage us, even if they do not intend to do any damage at all.”

There was a long pause. Polly suspected he was right. If she’d been offered the chance to learn magic, at school, would she have taken it? Hell, she had been offered the chance and she had taken it … although if she hadn’t been shown real magic, she might have doubted it was actually real. Now … she wondered, numbly, just how many youngsters would start experimenting, and just how many would succeed. There was no way to be sure.

“There is a further threat,” Lord Burghley continued. “The influx of supernatural entities is going to pose a major problem.”

“There have already been incidents,” Lady Fowler said. “There will be more.”

“A dragon chasing a jet fighter,” the Secretary of Defence said. “How did it even keep up?”

Lady Fowler essayed a dark smile. “Magic.”

The PM steepled his fingers. “They have offered to help us deal with the problem,” he said. “And we may have no choice.”

“We have had those poisonous offers before,” Lord Burghley said. “We have always regretted it.”

“This is different,” the PM said. “Or do you feel otherwise?”

“They were reluctant to discuss precisely how the first magicians returned to our world, or their further operations within our world, or just what happened to bring the two worlds together,” Lord Burghley said. “I don’t believe it bodes well for the future.”

And it raises a number of questions you can’t ask, Polly added, in the privacy of her own mind. Do they know the Brotherhood was planning to invade? Do they know about the magicians on this side of the gate? Or …

“These people have a superiority complex,” he added. “And they have magic.”

He paused, dramatically. “How long do you think it will be before they decide they have to take over? For our own good, of course.”

“You don’t know they’d do anything of the sort,” Lady Fowler said.

“They’re human,” Lord Burghley said. “There are men out there who believe that men being stronger and faster than women means that women should do as they say. There are women who think that being able to give birth means that men should do what they say. There are people who think that white skin is better than black, or black is better than white, or left-handed people are the spawn of the devil … humans have never needed much of an excuse to discriminate, or come up with new and inventive ways to rationalise it. You go online and it won’t be hard to find a dozen thinkpieces condemning toxic masculinity, or whiteness, or some other nonsense that buries bigotry under a should of make-believe rationality.”

He looked from face to face. “These people have magic. How long do you think it will be until they start thinking they’re superior?”

There was a long cold pause. “Going by human history, I’d say several microseconds. And that might be optimistic.”

Polly felt cold. She had grown up in the upper classes, and worked for people who were even more upper class than herself, and she had to admit he had a point. She’d met too many Ladies Who Lunch to have any illusions about their charity work being anything other than a cover for consension and the urge to meddle, not least because their planning sessions never made room for anyone they were actually trying to help. It was funny, she reflected sourly, how someone trying to help – without actually thinking about what they were doing – could easily be worse than outright malice. A person with enough money not to need to worry about a thing could do a great deal of damage, if they tried to help someone who didn’t …

She watched the mood around the table darken. It was one thing to deal with sovereign citizens, and others who thought they didn’t have to pay tax or follow the law, but most of those had little real power. The government could quietly ignore them, or jail them if ignoring them didn’t work … this was different. The newcomers had real power. And that made them very dangerous.

“I take your point,” the PM said. “What do you suggest we do?”

“We play a waiting game,” Lord Burghley said. “We have some magicians already – no match for theirs, at the moment, but we will get better. We work to build up our forces, to enforce our laws on our territory while conceding nothing on theirs, until we are ready to dictate terms to them. They can integrate into our society, rather than reshaping it or remaining a separate entity. I think we can all agree we cannot tolerate another government on British soil.”

“If nothing else, we will learn more about their society as we go along,” Lady Fowler pointed out. “I suspect that young lady never saw the world outside Gatehouse.”

Polly nodded, inwardly. Janet Mayweather was clearly smart, and a good observer, but it was quite possible for someone to be given a tour of an aircraft carrier, and be shown nothing of consequence, and never realise it unless they happened to be a naval expert. Polly could cite a dozen examples of ambassadors who had never seen the host country, outside the embassy and the centre of government, and found themselves blindsided by something they never saw coming, because they didn’t have any real feel for the country at all. It was quite possible she’d seen a façade of a fantasy land, an illusion covering a far darker reality.

It would be great to go to Hogwarts as a magical student, even if one happened to be muggleborn, she thought, wryly. But if you happened to be a squib instead …

“It will be risky,” the PM said. “But what choice do we have?”

“We could take possession of their territories now,” the Secretary of Defence said. “But we couldn’t guarantee victory.”

Polly tried not to wince. The British Army was amongst the best in the world, but the squaddies weren’t armed and trained to deal with magic. They might as well have planned to deal with an alien invasion. Hell, an alien invasion would make a great deal more sense. If nothing else, it would be a good way to assess high-tech conflict without naming and shaming a supposedly-friendly, and rather touchy, country. Magic … she had a sudden vision of troops being driven away, or turned into toads, or simply being unable to find the magical zones. Gatehouse, at least, was clearly visible. Others were hard to see with the naked eye, or so tightly intermingled with mundane zones that it would be hard to send in the military without killing countless innocent civilians.

“They’ll fight,” Lord Burghley predicted. “We must wait, and prepare, and act only when success is certain.”

There was a long pause. Polly tried to gauge the mood. The people gathered at the table were powerful, true, but their power was now under threat. They knew how they would act, if they were granted godlike power, and they feared how others would act. Magic didn’t so much alter the balance of power as it smashed the table beyond repair, changing everything so completely it was impossible to put the pieces back together. The gathered movers and shakers had barely a day to come to terms with the fact their world had changed, and was going to change again …

... An invading army would make more sense, Polly reflected. And they’d know how to handle it. This … is too much.

The PM silently canvassed the table, then nodded. “We will proceed with your plan,” he said, firmly. “The state of emergency will remain in effect, until we have a grip on the situation. If it fails …”

“It won’t,” Lord Burghley said.

The PM dismissed the meeting. Polly wondered, idly, if he would be staying the night in the palace himself, or if he’d be driven back to Downing Street. The diplomats would continue the talks, trying to come to some kind of temporary agreement … Polly sighed inwardly, all too aware that there was nothing so permanent as a temporary arrangement. It would be one hell of a madhouse for the next few weeks, if not months. The rules hadn’t changed so much as they’d been rewritten completely.

She stepped forward and walked with Lord Burghley as they made their way down to the cars. Her skin prickled oddly as they left the gilded sections of the palace behind, walking into a basement that could have been any basement. There were things in the distance … she blinked hard, trying to convince herself she was just tired. She’d taken a brief power nap earlier, while they’d been waiting for the magical diplomats to arrive, but it hadn’t been anything like enough. She had a feeling she’d miss the pre-wonder days soon enough.

If Lord Burghley was tired, he didn’t show it.

“Contact the hall,” he ordered, once they were in the car. His face seemed alight with a terrible energy, as if his skull was a mask that was threatening to slip. Polly blinked and the impression was gone. “I want everyone on the Omega contact list called, and ordered to present themselves tomorrow morning. No excuses.”

Polly frowned. It was already late at night, too late. The people on the list had, in theory, access to private jets or special trains, as well as cars, but she doubted they could all reach the hall in time for the meeting. She wasn’t even sure the private jets would be allowed to fly. The government had ordered all non-essential aircraft out of the sky and getting permission to ignore the edict would be tricky, particularly if there was no clear excuse.

“Sir,” she started. Her boss normally listened to reason. “They might not arrive in time …”

“There is no time to waste,” Lord Burghley said. There was an odd little pause, one that bothered her. She wasn’t sure why. “Inform them their presence is requested as soon as possible.”

Polly nodded and flipped open her laptop, sending the signal back to the hall. She wasn’t sure it was wise to continue to run operations out of the mansion – the other magicians did know it existed – but her boss was clearly not in the right frame of mind to debate the issue. The hall did have powerful protections, all the more powerful now they could combine their precise – very precise – spellcasting with high levels of raw magic. And besides, it was Lord Burghley’s family home. His place of power. There were few who could enter without his permission, and fewer still who’d be able to escape afterwards.

“We’ll start preparations as soon as possible,” Lord Burghley continued. He spoke with quiet confidence, as if he already had a workable plan. “Once the Omega list has been contacted, get in touch with the family staff and tell them they are authorised to continue their research as quickly as possible. I want a list of potential magicians by the end of the week.”

“Understood,” Polly said. She tried not to yawn. The night was wearing on her. And it wasn’t over yet. “I’ll see to it.”

Lord Burghley nodded, then sat back in his chair. Polly felt a stab of envy as the car drove through the London streets, deserted save for policeman and soldiers. Her boss could close his eyes and rest, while she had to work … she wondered, suddenly, if it would be dawn before she got any sleep herself. It was a short flight to York, followed by a drive to the hall and then … bed. She hoped.

She frowned, inwardly. Lord Burghley didn’t look as if he was resting, not in any sense of the word. He looked as if he were waiting, waiting for … for an instant, his face seemed too sharp and angular to be human. His eyes were bright in the semi-darkness, too bright …

Something flickered. The impression was gone.

Polly relaxed, slightly. It was just a trick of the light.

Wasn’t it?

 

Chapter Thirteen: York, Now

Norris felt … weirdly disconnected from the world around him.

It was an odd sensation, as if he truly didn’t belong. The concrete estate seemed strange now, as well as hostile. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing back, time and time again, to check that Gatehouse was still there, still looming over York. It felt as if he had been on holiday, and immersed himself in a very different country, only to come back home and discover the old world no longer felt right. But then, it never had. The estate had been a prison, not a home. He told himself he should turn around, go straight back to Gatehouse, and take his punishment like a man. There was nothing to be gained from visiting the estate one final time.

The wind shifted, carrying with it the stench of burning hydrocarbons, uncollected rubbish and the faint, but unmistakable tang of magic. The last few days had been rough for everyone, he’d been told; the barricades had been removed, but many of the evacuated people had refused to return to the estate, even when they’d been told their government-provided housing would be shut down shortly. Norris didn’t blame them, not one little bit. The estate had been a nightmare, a prison for everyone save for the ones who really should be in jail, and there was no way in hell he’d go back to the estate if there was any other choice. And yet …

He wondered, numbly, why the mind-healer had insisted Norris at least try to speak to his mother. She had been an indifferent mother at best, showing none of the protectiveness he’d thought he deserved because he’d been her son … Norris hadn’t wanted to talk about her, even to the healer, and he’d been surprised that so much had come pouring out of him, once he’d started to talk. Perhaps it had been magic, or perhaps it had been the simple fact he’d bottled it up for so long that he’d been unable to contain it any longer. He didn’t really want to think about it.

The air shifted again as he turned onto the street, the sense of disconnection growing stronger as he walked. Some homes looked surprisingly normal, with clear signs their occupants had returned home; others looked deserted, their doors locked and their windows barred. A handful had clearly been looted at some point, the windows smashed … he wondered, sourly, which of the estate’s bad boys was responsible for the deed. It would be easier to come up with a list of young men who wouldn’t do it, if only because the list would be a great deal shorter. The only reason there wasn’t more theft on the estate was because there was little worth stealing.

He stopped outside his house – his old house – and looked up at the blank door. The flimsy plywood offered no sense of safety, although – as far as he knew – the house had never actually been robbed. It was a bit of a surprise, he reflected tiredly. A thief might break and enter in hopes of finding something he could sell, but a bully would break into a house just to remind his target that there was no safety anywhere, not even in the supposed privacy of his own home. He gritted his teeth, then raised his hand to tap on the door. There was no answer.

Of course not, he thought. She’s not at home.

His key was long-gone, probably with Lord Burghley and his staff. Norris pressed his hand against the lock and muttered a brief spell, one that would be absolutely useless – worse than useless – against a magical lock, but effective against a lock designed by someone who didn’t know magic existed. The lock clicked, allowing him to open the door. The air inside was hot and dry, as if the radiators had been left on when the building had been evacuated … Norris’s eyes narrowed. His mother had been very sensitive about spending money, not without reason. She made so little that the slightest unexpected expenditure could send her spiralling into a debt trap, one she’d never escape. And yet …

He took a moment to let his eyes get accustomed to the gloom, then inched inside. The tiny living room was a mess, the handful of pieces of cheap and crappy furniture smashed and broken. The school photograph he’d brought home ten years ago lay on the ground, ripped and torn. He picked it up, his eyes seeking faces he knew … it was hard, impossibly hard, to pick out Janet, or Colin. His own face had been defaced … he wondered, numbly, how the intruders had known it was him. He’d changed a lot, in ten years.

A nasty thought ran through his mind and he threw caution to the winds, running into the kitchen. It had been searched thoroughly, with no regard for putting everything back in place afterwards. The floor was littered with cheap and nasty food – cereal, instant noodles, spices that were supposed to add a little favour – and the fridge was open, the contents strewn over the floor. They’d been lucky, he noted, that there’d been no fresh produce, no eggs or meat or even milk. But then, they couldn’t afford it.

Norris hesitated, then ran up the creaky stairs, nearly tripping over carpet that had been old and frayed when he’d been a toddler. His room was a mess, books thrown everywhere and his computer smashed beyond repair; his heart skipped a beat as he stared at the mess, remembering how he’d put the computer together from discarded components, trying to force them to merge into a single machine. It had worked – poorly, he admitted, but it had worked.

He turned and walked to his mother’s room, after a brief internal struggle with himself. His mother’s room had been hers, and he’d never liked entering even when he’d been fairly sure she’d been alone. The men she’d brought back to the house … he felt his heart twist painfully, wondering if the taunt that he was a whore’s son had been more true than he wanted to admit. Colin had insisted he’d fucked Norris’s mother … the asshole had been lying. He had to have been lying.

The door opened. Norris gasped. His mother was lying on the bed, very clearly dead. Her wrists were cut, blood staining the carpet below his feet … he stepped forward, unwilling to actually touch the body. How long did it take, he asked himself, for blood from a dying or dead body to clot? He didn’t know. Days? Weeks? His mother could have been lying there dead from the moment he’d been recruited by Lord Burghley, or she could have been killed only a few short days ago. Norris took a breath and tasted death in the air, a stench that made him retch. He stumbled backwards, choking heavily. His mother …

His mother was dead.

Norris closed his eyes for a long moment, unwilling to look at the corpse for any longer than necessary. Her wrists were slit … suicide? Or had someone wanted to make it look like a suicide? Norris didn’t know … how could he? He was no detective … not, he suspected, that any detective would give much of a damn about his mother, certainly if there was no reason to suspect foul play. She had been on the bottom of society, barely keeping herself afloat … Norris hated to admit it, but he knew why she’d had so little time for him. She’d had very little time for herself. Guilt stabbed through his mind, driven by a sense of relief … and the awareness he damn well should feel guilty. His mother was dead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. There were spells that could summon someone from the land of the dead … or so he’d heard. The lone book he’d read on the topic had been surprisingly fanciful and carefully avoided discussing how the spells actually worked. He had no idea how to cast the spell, and the book had gone into the dangers in such detail that he’d been sure the writer had wanted to discourage anyone from following in his footsteps. “I’m truly sorry.”

He turned and walked away, unsure what to do. Call the police? They wouldn’t care. Call the hospital? Why bother? His mother was dead. He walked back into his own room and picked up a handful of books, stowing them in his bag, then checked the hidden compartment under his desk. Someone had found the hard drive he’d concealed there and smashed it beyond all hope of recovery. Norris hoped they hadn’t tried to crack his password and access the files first. The porn he’d collected was tame, compared to some of the filth he’d seen shared at school, but it would still be dead embarrassing if someone else saw it.

The fuse box felt warm to the touch, when he opened it and flipped off the switches. There was no point in drawing power from the network now, and he’d probably get the bill if someone noticed his mother was no longer in a position to pay it. He knew people who had had their power cut off and it wasn’t pleasant … he shook his head and stepped outside, taking a deep breath. The air still stank, but it was cleaner than the air inside. His mother couldn’t have been dead for long, he thought, or her body would have started to decompose.

A voice cut into his musings. “All right, freak. You know the drill.”

Norris looked up and cringed. Gammon and Pike, James and Peter … friends of Colin, insofar as that monster in human form had had friends. They lived just down the road from him, and … it had only been a few months ago that they’d been charging him for the prilivage of walking home without being beaten up, then often beating him up anyway. He was surprised they’d returned to the estate, then realised it probably wasn’t a surprise. They might have been welcomed, at first, but that wouldn’t last. The police had probably been ordered to send them home, the moment the barricade had been removed …

“You killed Colin,” Pike said. “You’re going to pay …”

Norris thought it was Pike, at least. The four youths might have been attractive, once upon a time, but they’d pieced their skin with metal and dyed their hair and tattooed themselves with swastikas they swore blind were ancient symbols … it said a lot about the world, Norris had often thought, that people who claimed to care about violence in video games overlooked genuine outright far right bullshit, as long as the assholes were too tough to fight. Three of the four were practically interchangeable … the fourth, Peter, was a black kid. Norris had often wondered how he’d fallen in with the racist thugs, then decided it didn’t matter. If there was one universal rule, it was that only the weak were punished for their crimes.

Pike started forward. Norris gritted his teeth, fear and shame rushing through him … followed by a wave of raw magic. It didn’t need direction as it burst out of him, picking up the four louts and throwing them over the nearest lampposts. It would be hard for them to get down without help. If they fell … it was at least five metres, perhaps more, to the ground. He didn’t think they could clamber down the posts themselves.

“If you ever come near me again,” he said, with all the power he could muster. “I’ll kill you on the spot.”

And he turned and walked home.

***

Janet didn’t relax, not completely, until she was back at Gatehouse.

The talks had been long and tedious, broken only by brief breaks and private sessions between her and a handful of government agents. It hadn’t been easy to answer their questions – in some ways, they’d reminded her of her own ignorance – and some had been insulting, often in ways that she didn’t quite realise until it was long afterwards, leaving her feeling slow and stupid. She knew what they were trying to do – get an understanding of what sort of people they were dealing with – but it was still annoying. If they’d wanted to ask questions of a spy, they should have asked Norris.

Helen caught her arm, before she could hurry back to her room for a shower and a nap. “Can we talk?”

Janet hesitated, then nodded. “If we must.”

Helen walked beside her as she led the way up to her room. Janet wasn’t sure how she felt about inviting Helen inside, but … she shook her head and motioned for Helen to sit on the bed, feeling a twinge of amusement at the distaste on the older girl’s face. She wasn’t sure which of them was actually older, coming to think of it … Helen had acted like a spoilt brat at first, yet she’d grown up a lot even before remaining behind on OldeWorld. But did it actually matter?

“I need a favour,” Helen said. She sounded as if she would sooner have done something unspeakably awful than ask anyone for a favour. “Can I ask for your help … rather, your advice?”

“You can ask,” Janet said. She told herself that Helen was not about to ask if she could steal Janet’s homework. No matter how she looked at it, Helen had had far more years of magical education than her. “What can I do for you?”

Helen met her eyes, evenly. “I am interested in courting your brother,” she said. “How do I broach the subject with him?”

Janet blinked, honestly surprised. She had known Steve was attracted to Helen – there was no accounting for taste; Helen really was gorgeous, and smart too – but she hadn’t known Helen felt the same way too. The sheer bluntness blew her away. Some girls giggled and blushed, dancing around the subject as if silliness would keep the discussion from becoming too real; some girls were simply not allowed to have anything to do with boys, not even to discuss them with their peers. Helen … she reminded herself, sharply, that Helen was from a very different society. She’d been betrothed to Brains … hadn’t she?

She found herself unsure what to say. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. It crossed her mind to suggest Helen simply kissed Steve, but she swallowed that thought before it could emerge from her lips. “What are you doing with Brains?”

Helen’s lips thinned. “We were betrothed, because my family and his believed our match would be good for us,” she said. “It was expected that we would … cooperate … to produce children, and after that … we could go our own way. No one would be surprised if we took lovers, as long as the children were ours. But …”

She paused. “The idea of doing that no longer appeals. I want … someone I can actually talk to.”

There was another pause. “My family won’t be pleased if I break the betrothal,” she added, slowly. “But if I can offer them someone in exchange …”

“My brother is not a pawn,” Janet said, hastily. She’d heard of one boy who’d agreed to a marriage to save a friend from a much worse marriage, but it hadn’t worked out very well. “If you treat him so, he won’t be very pleased himself.”

She found it hard to speak. “Why don’t you just talk to him?”

Helen shot her a sharp look. Janet understood. It was dangerous to let a boy know you were interested in him, if it turned out he wasn’t the knight in shining armour you thought he was. It might be worse for Helen, if she got her family – and his - involved before discovering the truth. If Steve hadn’t been interested in her … Janet had no idea if they’d have to go ahead with the match anyway, once the two families came to an agreement. The entire system stuck her as absurd, no matter how effective it might be in breeding stronger children, but … it was a fact of life. And now she – and Steve – were part of Helen’s world.

“I think you should have a talk with him,” she said, finally. She didn’t know if Steve had had any girlfriends. It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed. The idea of asking her brother if he was a virgin … she shook her head. Absurd. “I think he likes you” – she hoped to God that was true, now she’d spoken the words out loud – “but you need to be careful. His idea of a relationship will be very different to yours. You can’t even assume the words mean the same things.”

Helen grimaced. “I’ll try,” she said. “It would have been easier …”

“I suppose.” Janet had seen a few arranged marriages. Some had worked reasonably well. Some had had rough beginnings, then settled down. And some had been utterly disastrous. It would be nice, in some ways, if her mother found her a man, yet … how could she have been sure the man would actually be good for her. “He’s just as nervous as you.”

“Really?” Helen gave her a sharp look. “How can you tell?”

“I know him,” Janet said. “And I know how hard it is for a man to ask a woman out.”

Helen smiled. “How long did it take Richard to ask you out?”

“Too long, and not long enough,” Janet said. She felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t made anything like enough time for Richard, over the last few days. She promised herself she’d make it up to him as soon as possible. “And Steve has it even worse.”

She paused. “He knows nothing about your society,” she added. “If he gets into trouble through ignorance …”

“He won’t,” Helen assured her. “I won’t let him.”

 

Chapter Fourteen: Glasgow, Now

Jack looked up as Janie slipped into the abandoned house. “You found the stuff?”

Janie nodded and squatted down beside him. “Pretty much,” she said. “You know how hard it was to find?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But we made it.”

He gritted his teeth as he stared down at the pack. He had no illusions. It was hard enough finding genuine magical instructions on the internet – the vast majority of sites featured Harry Potter spells, a problem made worse by reports that some of those spells actually worked – and harder still to find the right ingredients for the ritual. There was little demand, these days, for goat’s blood, or vole fur, and obtaining both of them had been tricky. They’d been lucky Janie’s uncle worked in a specialist food shop. And that they’d been able to find a stuffed vole and strip the poor beast of its fur.

“Once we get started,” Janie said, “we won’t be able to stop.”

Jack swallowed, hard. The last two weeks had been chaotic – he wouldn’t have believed half the news reports if he hadn’t seen a sea serpent swimming down the Clyde – and yet, they’d been amongst the best weeks in his life. Ten days in lockdown had kept him indoors, safe from the bullies and thugs who infested his school like fleas on a dog. Ten days … he’d tried, hard, to master the magic he was sure he’d had, but results had been minimal … so minimal that he’d wondered if he had any magic at all. Faith was important, if the internet was telling the truth, yet developing and keeping that faith was proving impossible.

They made an odd pair, he reflected, as he opened the bag and carefully laid the spell components out on the floor they’d painstakingly cleaned over the last two days. He was a middle-class teenager, blonde and pale, while Janie’s face was unmistakably a blend between British and Indian features. Her parents had died when she was young, forcing her uncle to take her in … an uncle, Jack had heard, who hadn’t been very keen on taking his niece into the family and didn’t have any interest in her, beyond providing her with bed and board. They wouldn’t have been friends, he admitted sourly, if they hadn’t been neighbours … and, he supposed, they hadn’t been so isolated at school. But at least they were alone together.

“Make sure you follow the lines exactly,” Janie reminded him. “Don’t make a single mistake.”

Jack nodded, reaching for the chalk, dipping it in the goat’s blood and drawing the first circle on the floor. It wasn’t easy to keep the lines perfect and he had to rub it out twice – the instructions warned that the ritualist couldn’t correct his mistakes; he had to start again – before they had a handful of perfect circles, drawn with tainted blood. Janie produced the rest of the components one by one – rare herbs and spices, some of which had fallen out of fashion years ago – and put them in place, calling on Jack to check her work as soon as she was done. Jack checked carefully, while she checked his work. It might have been his imagination, but there was already a tingle of power in the air. The instructions had made it clear that the ritual was dangerous, that the slightest mistake could prove fatal. He didn’t think he could make himself believe they were playing a game now, playing in the make-believe world they’d constructed – together – to keep out the real world. It was real.

Magic was real.

“I think you did everything right,” Janie said. “Did I?”

Jack looked up at her, suddenly struck by just how beautiful she was. Her clothes were shoddy and slipshod, handed down from her cousins, and she wore a pair of oversized glasses, but they couldn’t hide her beauty any longer. She was perfect … he sucked in his breath, kicking himself for the moment of weakness as he forced himself to look away. She was his friend, his only friend. She didn’t deserve to be ogled or treated as anything less than the person she was.

“I think so,” he managed. Janie had always been precise, working hard in a bid to build a future for herself. Her uncle had no interest in providing for her, once she turned eighteen, and she had admitted it was quite possible he’d kick her out of the house. He wasn’t even prepared to arrange a marriage for her, although that was no bad thing. The idea made him feel a strange mixture of naked jealousy and sympathy, for the poor sod who wound up marrying her. “Shall we begin?”

Janie hesitated, noticeably. “Do you know what you want?”

“Power,” Jack said. It was a crude thing to want, but he needed it. The power to defend himself, the power to defend his best friend … the power to make something of himself. “You?”

“I want to speak to my mother, one final time,” Janie said. “And ask her why …?”

Jack looked down, feeling a twinge of guilt. He’d often bitched and moaned about his parents, who were both wealthy enough to attract the wrong kind of attention without being wealthy enough to send him to a good school, but at least he had them. Janie’s parents were dead, dead so long ago that she barely remembered them. Hell, she wasn’t even sure – she’d admitted in a tearful moment – if her memories were real, or if her imagination had filled in the gaps. Jack couldn’t imagine what it was like to be so unsure of himself. Janie would never know the truth. How could she?

“I understand,” he said. He glanced at his mobile phone – the hour was almost upon them – and looked out of the window. The sun was setting rapidly. “You told your uncle you were going to be home tomorrow?”

“He thinks I’m with a friend.” Janie’s voice was laden with scorn. “I needn’t have bothered. He doesn’t care about me.”

Jack nodded. His parents thought he was spending the night with a friend too … a pleasant fantasy, perhaps, but a fantasy nonetheless. He had no friends, apart from Janie, and there was no way he could spend the night with her. His lips twisted at the thought. He was going to spend the night with her, just not in the way everyone would think, if they heard about it afterwards.

He took a breath. The air was still tingling with power, and unspoken promise.

“If you want to back out,” he said, “this is your chance?”

He didn’t think she would, but the instructions were clear. It was bizarre to think that centuries-old instructions for magic rituals placed more focus on informed consent than many modern-day contracts, yet he supposed it made a certain kind of sense. Ritual Magic was deeply rooted in symbolism – there might be enough fragments of the True Cross out there to build a brand new Ark, but it didn’t matter as long as the ritualists believed it was a piece of the True Cross – and someone being dragged into the ritual against their will, or unaware of what it truly was, would have a very different symbolic meaning to someone who walked into the ritual with their eyes wide open. He had to ask her, and she had to ask him. They dared not play fast and loose with the rules.

“I’m in,” Janie said. “You?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I’m in.”

His hands shook as he reached for his jumper and pulled it off, then shook again as he removed his trousers and underwear. Janie gasped as his manhood jumped out at her … Jack reached down to cover himself, feeling a wave of pure embarrassment that almost made him turn and run. She had never seen him naked before, and … he tried to look away as she undressed too, taking each piece of clothing off separately like a person trying to inch their way into a freezing cold swimming pool. Jack suspected that was a mistake – it was better to rip the band-aid off than try to ease it off piece by piece – but he said nothing. They’d read the instructions carefully, and noted that they had to be naked while casting the spell, yet there was a difference between reading and doing. He forced himself to pick up his clothes and carry them out of the room, leaving them by the door. Janie followed a moment later. Jack tried hard – he tried – not to stare at her rear. It was a million times better than porn.

“I’m ready.” Janie sounded uneasy, even though she had known what was coming. She knelt on one side of the circle, pressing her legs firmly together. “Jack?”

Jack felt a stab of sympathy for her, mingled with lust and a twinge of guilt. They’d had to time the ritual perfectly, to make sure they carried it out when Janie was at just the right stage of her lunar cycle. The instructions hadn’t been vague on that point, but they’d used so many euphemisms that it had taken several hours to work out what it meant and then … she’d been so embarrassed that he’d come very close to calling off the whole idea. But in the end she’d insisted they went ahead, swallowing her embarrassment and timing her cycle to allow them to proceed.

He took his place on the other side, and fixed his eyes firmly on the small pile of spices and herbs in the centre. The ritual instructions hadn’t been clear on how the small pile was actually to be lighted, so he struck a match and carefully pressed the tiny flame to the pile, waiting until it caught fire. A faint haze started to form in front of them, an aroma of spice touching his nostrils. He looked up and saw Janie’s bare breasts, bobbling in front of her, but … his mood shifted, the world itself seeming to shift around him. He was suddenly very aware of himself, and her, and the building around them … and how fragile they were, compared to a much greater world. He saw things moving in the gaps between fragments of reality, great entities that were so vast as to be completely beyond his comprehension. The world felt as if it were coming apart around him …

… And it was all centred on the gathering haze.

Time itself seemed to slow down as he stared at the haze, feeling as if he were caught in a dream that could easily become a nightmare. His lips moved soundlessly, shaping the words they’d taken from the instructions and practiced time and time again until they could say them without hesitation. He could hear her saying the words too, although she spoke as quietly as himself. They were sharing the ritual together … he was suddenly very aware of every last atom of her body, of the meat that housed a human soul … he thought he saw flashes of her life and feared, despite himself, that she would see flashes of his …

… And then he was back in his body.

He staggered, feeling as if he’d been forced to run a marathon. The world felt … unreal … as if he were still dreaming. He thought he saw eyes peering out of nothing, strange spiders crawling through the air and resting on human minds … his awareness seemed to expand, revealing more people … he felt tears prickling at the corner of his eyes as he realised that every human had some kind of connection to magic. It was so wonderful he almost forgot why they were there.

The haze was growing brighter, a form slowly taking shape within the circle. Jack felt his eyes hurt as he looked at it, yet he was unable to look away. It was hard, almost impossible, to pin it down to any form. The only thing he saw clearly were a pair of inhuman eyes, staring at him so intensely they burned into his very soul. He heard Janie whimper and knew it was looking at her too, even though he could no longer see her. The entity was so bright, so real, that it was impossible to see anything beyond it. Reality itself was bending, twisted by its mere presence. It occurred to him to wonder, too late, if reality was a sheet of thin ice and the entity a hot coal …

“WELL.”

The voice thudded into Jack’s head without going through his ears. He’d never heard anything like it. No mortal man could speak in such a manner. It was cold and hard, yet also curious and playful … Jack knew he had to keep his eyes on the entity, to keep the doorway open, and yet it was hard to escape the urge to prostrate himself in front of the circle. It was … his awareness twitched suddenly, showing him a protuberance that reached out and out and out, into realms his mind could not comprehend and places he could not go. The entity in front of him was just the tip of an iceberg, an iceberg so vast that he couldn’t even begin to grasp its size. And he’d summoned it …

Jack felt the words jam in his throat. “We …”

He forced himself to continue. “We have called you because we desire …”

The entity seemed to look at him. There was no visible nose, but Jack had the impression it was looking down its nose at him anyway. It was the kind of look he was all too familiar with … it crossed his mind to wonder if his mind was trying to interpret what it was doing in a manner he could understand, or if the entity was not bothering to hide its contempt. The instructions had suggested the entity might try to truck them, like an evil genie from the old stories that might have been deeply rooted in truth, but this entity didn’t seem inclined to bother. Jack couldn’t tell if it was trying to lull them into a false sense of security, or if …

“YOU DESIRE,” the entity said. “WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?”

Janie’s voice was weak, trembling. “I want to see my mother again.”

Jack tried to keep his voice calm. He failed. “I want power.”

The world seemed to twist around them again. The walls fragmented and broke … Jack wasn’t sure, he honestly couldn’t tell, if their minds had been yanked out of their bodies again or if the abandoned house really was coming apart at the seams. The entity was all around them, holding them tightly … Jack felt his awareness expand again, too late. A translucent figure was taking shape in front of them, tiny compared to the entity. He gasped, despite himself. Janie’s mother was darker than her – he wasn’t sure how he could tell - but otherwise they were practically identical. Mother and daughter …

Janie breathed a word Jack didn’t recognise. He guessed it was Urdu for mother.

“Janie,” the ghostly mother said. “Run!”

“YOU WANT POWER,” the entity said. “YOU SHALL HAVE POWER.”

Jack opened his mouth, too late. The world seemed to explode around him. A fearsome surge of power, a sense of power, washed through him. He crashed back into the mundane world, the entity vanishing now the ritual was complete, but … it had left its mark. The world was suddenly very fragile … he pushed down, trying to stand, and felt the floor break underneath him. He shivered, and stumbled to his feet, driven by a strange and terrible belief he could do anything, anything he liked. It was almost like being drunk and yet, this time there would be no morning afterwards, no hangover or bruises. It would be …

Janie was right in front of him. He looked at her naked body and saw her, really saw her. His manhood stiffened. He could take her. He had the power. He could do whatever he liked and no one, no one at all, could stop him. The sudden fear in her eyes was almost intoxicating. It was obvious she was trying to run and yet her terror kept her rooted firmly in place. His eyes lingered on her breasts, then dropped down to her legs, firmly pressed together. It would be easy to part them, to reach for the sacred core of her womanhood and force his way into her very being. Who could stop him? There was no one …

The magic was all around him, humming with power. He could feel it, wield it, as easily as if it were part of him. It was part of him. He could see secrets beyond imagination, understand rituals and charms that would not otherwise be practical for years to come … horror washed through him as he realised his mistake. The entity hadn’t cheated him. It had given him what he wanted. But now he saw the price.

And the power was still getting stronger.

“Run,” he managed. He was bleeding, only bleeding fire rather than blood. A hundred things ran through his mind, a hundred things he wanted to say, but it was hard to think let alone speak. He’d been a fool and Janie was about to pay the price, if she didn’t get out in time. “Run …”

Janie stood and fled, scooping up her clothes as she ran. Jack had one last look at her rear, an instant before his vision turned red. His soul was burning, the air around him catching fire … he tried to hold himself together as long as possible, to buy time for Janie to make her escape, before letting go …

The world exploded around him. Something laughed, and then it was gone. It was over.

 

Chapter Fifteen: Lake District, Now

“We were here, only a couple of weeks ago,” Steve said, his arms wrapped around Helen’s back as she guided the broomstick towards the estate. “Did you know …”

Helen shook her head. Her relatives –some of them, at least - had had to abandon their mansions and estates in OldeWorld, when the time came to go through the gates or lose their magic forever. The replacements had been built within Mystic Albion and no one, as far as she knew, had bothered to work out where the estate was in OldeWorld. Her family had never felt the lack, at least until now. It hadn’t been easy for her mother to get the estate back in touch with the rest of the magical world, let alone come to terms with the fact it was now surrounded by the mundane world.

“I …” Helen swallowed and started again. “You recall how to behave?”

“I listened to your lecture,” Steve teased. “Is it really that important to impress her?”

Helen nodded, stiffly. “She has to see you as a suitable replacement for Brains.”

Steve tightened his grip, just slightly. Helen sighed to herself. He didn’t understand. The nobility placed vast importance on birth and breeding, carefully planning matches to ensure the bloodlines were mixed and matched to birth stronger children. Helen had watched the diviners studying the different families, working out which couples were likely to produce the best results and carefully integrating newcomers from outside the old aristocracy. Janet might be getting an offer, sooner or later, if she stayed in the magical world. A person with both Head and Heart talents would be a worthy addition to any family.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. If nothing else, Steve would be more charming than Brains. The bar wasn’t set very high. “And …”

The wards around the estate parted suddenly, revealing an exotic jungle in the heart of the Lake District. Strange creatures, including some who had never been seen in Britain for hundreds of years prior to the sundering, wandered the garden and prowled the walls, unsure what had happened to the world around them. Helen felt a twinge of gratitude for the paranoia of her ancestors, as silly as they’d seemed after the gates had closed without anything appearing to threaten the new world. It was just a matter of time before the locals noticed the estate had suddenly appeared in their midst, if they hadn’t already. And who knew how they’d react?

Steve sucked in his breath. She tried to see the estate through his eyes. It was larger than Buckingham Palace, so big and so oddly constructed that it was easy to believe it was several smaller buildings that had been woven together into one. They’d joked, back when she’d been a child, that the mansion had been designed by a madman and built by craftsmen who hadn’t really known what they were doing, but there was a logic to the design. The building rested on a ley line nexus, the design shaped to take advantage of the magic flowing through the region and the entities that lived around it. She wondered, suddenly, how many of the old agreements still held force. The old world – her lips twisted, humourlessly – had changed, beyond all hope of repair.

“And you grew up here?”

“Yes.” Helen felt her tone becoming more formal as she stared at the hall. “It was …”

She slung the broomstick over her shoulder and started to walk, pointing out a handful of features. The ritual stones, channelling power into the wards; the private herbal gardens, supplying the family’s needs; the small houses, half-hidden in the distance, that housed the tenant farmers and others who lived on the estate, trading their service for patronage and protection. They were all willing servants, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Mystic Albion was so desperate for manpower, even hundreds of years after the sundering, that anyone who wanted to find a job elsewhere could. Her heart started to race and she took a breath to calm herself as they reached the main doors, trying not to think about just how large and intimidating they were. A dragon could have flown through the gap and landed neatly in the entrance hall, without so much as brushing his wings against the stone.

The doors opened slowly, revealing the giant entrance hall. Steve gasped. Helen gave him a moment to recover, then stepped into the mansion. The wards felt different, somehow; she cursed under her breath as she realised that some of the older wards, rooted in the local magic, had been changed by the merger between the two worlds. Others were newer, unaffected by the shift … she hoped, prayed, they lasted long enough for a permanent understanding between the merged populations. The world was already in a mess. It could easily get a great deal worse.

“Helen,” a calm voice said. “Welcome home.”

Helen forced herself to look up, then drop a perfect curtsey. Lady Penelope Burghley – her mother – was not a woman to be taken lightly. Her position as the family’s matriarch meant she had to put the interests of the family first, even ahead of her own children. Helen had been told, when she’d tried to argue about the betrothal, that Lady Penelope had felt the same way about her match, but Helen hadn’t really believed her. Her mother’s personality was just too strong to let anyone dominate her.

“Mother,” she said. “Thank you.”

Lady Penelope looked Steve up and down, her cold eyes sweeping over his body even as her sixth sense probed his magic. Helen held her breath. They’d found Steve a nice suit – there was no point in trying to pretend he was a native, insofar as the team had any meaning after the merge – and she’d briefed him extensively on how to behave, but there was no way to cram over a decade of etiquette lessons into a handful of hours. If Steve made a mistake – quite by accident – it could ruin everything. Maybe. Her mother would overlook a lot if her prospective son-in-law had the potential to father strong grandchildren.

“You are welcome in my family home,” Lady Penelope said, finally. “You may eat and drink freely, without obligation.”

Helen let out her breath. A person who ate and drank without the customary greeting could find himself being held prisoner, or worse, for the rest of his life. There was no need to keep that rule amongst humans, she knew, but it was ironclad amongst the Fae. She wondered, numbly, just how many people in the mundane world understood the dangers of eating and drinking magical food, with no clear statement that they would owe nothing in return. Her mother wasn’t being unreasonable. A mistake here might be overlooked. A mistake in a high-magic zone might be lethal.

“Come,” Lady Penelope said. “We have much to discuss.”

Helen nodded to Steve, then followed her mother into the parlour. It felt almost as if she were a guest in her own home, although she supposed she had to be treated that way as long as Steve was with her. Invisible presences – house spirits – hovered around them, bringing food and drunk before shimmering away into the unknown. Helen took a seat and motioned for Steve to sit on the next armchair, rather than beside her. Lady Penelope would not be pleased if they shared a chair, no matter how romantic it seemed.

“You chose to stay in OldeWorld,” Lady Penelope said. “Why?”

“I discovered we had relatives over there,” Helen said, flatly. She was surprised that was how her mother chose to begin the discussion, although it was a serious concern. The House of Burghley might wind up bearing some of the blame for whatever their relatives had been doing, over the years. “I believed I could track them down. And stop them.”

Her mother met her eyes. “And did you?”

Helen forced herself to look back. She was no longer seven, nor seventeen going on seven. She had grown up, to the point she looked back on her earlier behaviour and cringed in shame and remorse. Her mother might be her superior, as long as she remained tied to the family, but Helen would never be cowed by her again.

“Sort of,” she said. She ran through the whole story, ending with the fight to stop the invasion that had ended, completely by accident, with the two worlds merging together. “I don’t believe they’re dead and gone. We have to track them down, before it is too late.”

“Which may be politically difficult,” Lady Penelope said. “No one is quite sure how to proceed.”

Helen scowled, not bothering to hide the expression. It said volumes, she thought wryly, that her mother hadn’t ordered her to wash her mouth out with soap. “They’re our family,” she said. “Rogue members of our family, but family nonetheless. We have to stop them.”

“And there are political issues,” Lady Penelope said. “The negotiations aren’t going well.”

“I know,” Helen said. “But …”

She sighed. The Princesses had decided to downplay the invasion attempt, on the grounds that the mundane government hadn’t known anything about it and that an open discussion would prompt calls for war amongst the magical population. Helen suspected that was a mistake, if only because Cecil Burghley had clearly had close ties to the government even if he hadn’t held any official position. She wasn’t sure if he were dead or alive, but surely he had relatives of his own …? It was rare for an aristocrat not to be married and have at least two-three children by thirty, at least in Mystic Albion, and she dared not assume it wasn’t true of OldeWorld. Cecil had looked old enough to be her father, and he had sired ten children.

“We will discuss the issue,” Lady Penelope said. “Perhaps we can take independent action.”

Steve shifted, uncomfortably. Lady Penelope looked at him. “You have something to say?”

The challenge in her voice made Helen grit her teeth. Steve kept his face – and voice – calm.

“Your government is relatively small,” he said. “Ours isn’t. It will disapprove of any attempt to enforce magical law outside the magical world, whatever the reason behind it.”

“Perhaps so,” Lady Penelope said. “But we cannot afford to overlook a potential threat.”

She switched subjects so quickly Helen was sure it was meant to disconcert them. “I understand that you wish to switch your betrothal from Hiram of Hardwick to this gentleman,” she said. “Why?”

His name is Brains, Helen thought, coldly. And the fact you insist on calling him by his family name is one of the many reasons the relationship will not work out.

She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Brains – ah, Hiram – is incredibly clever, but he has too many limitations to serve as a family consort. I do not believe he is interested in sexual relationships with anyone” – even Richard, her thoughts added darkly – “and frankly, I suspect his family will not choose to honour the betrothal. Even if they did … his limitations would make it hard to maintain the match.”

Lady Penelope said nothing. Helen pressed on.

“There is no need to look for a person of good breeding,” she said, silently congratulating herself on discussing the matter with Steve beforehand. Very few people in either world would be happy with a suggestion they weren’t of good breeding, no matter their other attributes. I have good breeding enough for two. I can marry for magical power and other traits, can I not?”

She kept going, just in case her mother decided to answer the rhetorical question.

“Steve is magically very capable, all the more so for only having studied magic for the last few months,” she said. “He was deeply involved with finding ways to blur magic and science together, creating ways to cast spells even in low-magic zones and assisting us to reopen the gate – briefly – and catch up with the rogue magicians. If he had been born and raised here, he would be a match for Brains. I think that Brains himself acknowledged the point. They worked together very well.

“He is also brave, ambitious and cunning. He had a plan to get his family out of poverty and that plan would have succeeded, even without our involvement. He understood both the potential and the danger of magic very quickly, and chose to come with me when he realised there were rogue magicians, putting his own life at risk to stop them. And he has shown strong ties to his family, taking good care of both his mother and sister. I like him.”

Steve grinned. “You’re turning me into a Mary Sue.”

Helen snorted. Steve had explained the concept to her once, when they’d been resting in a hotel room, but the whole idea had made little sense. The idea of fighting a nerd war over who played what character was just absurd. Didn’t they have anything real to complain about? But she took his point. She was extolling his virtues to a degree he had to find almost comical, if not absurd. It had to be done.

“He was checked by the healers at Gatehouse,” she finished. “His body is unscarred by magic. There is no reason to believe he is incapable of siring children” – Steve made a faint sound Lady Penelope chose to ignore – “or otherwise incapable of serving as my consort.”

She paused. “And there is a final reason.”

Lady Penelope quirked her eyebrow. “Yes?”

“The two worlds have merged. Like it or not, we are going to be deeply involved with the mundane world for the rest of time. Any hope of separating the two worlds again, or segregating them, was lost before we realised we needed to consider the possibility. There will be more magical students from mundane backgrounds, more attempts to blend magic and technology together, and – I’m sorry to say – attacks from rogue magicians as well as mundane factions. Having Steve join our family would help position us for the brave new world, but it would also send a message that there is a place in our world for mundane-born magicians, no matter their backgrounds.”

Helen took a breath. “The match is not only in my best interests, but also in the best interests of the family itself.”

Lady Penelope looked at Steve. “Do you understand what you are getting yourself into?”

Steve kept his face under tight control, despite the double-meaning Helen knew her mother hadn’t intended. “Yes, My Lady,” he said, carefully. “The match is advantageous to both of us.”

Helen heard the faint uncertainty in his voice and hoped to hell her mother hadn’t. Steve liked her, she knew, but … they were from very different worlds. It wouldn’t be easy to build a relationship, even without her mother demanding they announce their engagement and tie the knot as soon as possible. Steve would feel a great deal of pressure, and so would she … she wondered, suddenly, if she could delay matters until she graduated or if her mother would insist the wedding went ahead as quickly as possible. The plan had been to wait, but plans could be changed. If her mother felt they needed to move ahead fast …

“There is much you need to know about joining our family,” Lady Penelope said. “Helen will tell you the basics, if she hasn’t already, but there is much more. We will arrange for you to be told the rest, before you take the final step.”

She paused. Helen knew what Lady Penelope had left unspoken. She would make her own enquires, as best as possible, about the man her daughter wanted to marry. Steve’s mother was already resident within Gatehouse … Helen wondered, suddenly, just how she’d react to Burghley Hall. Would she be impressed or would she tell Steve to run?

Lady Penelope stood. “Helen, you may show your young man around the hall,” she said, calmly. “The formal announcement of your engagement will be made shortly, once the family can be gathered. It will take some time to do so.”

She nodded politely, then strode out of the room. Helen glanced at Steve and tapped her lips. There was no such thing as privacy in the hall, outside the bedrooms, and she’d never been sure they were as private as her mother swore. There was so much magic woven into the building that her mother could see anything she liked, watch her children from a safe distance …

“Come with me,” she said, holding out a hand. “I’ll show you my suite.”

Steve seemed stunned, as they walked up the stairs and into her private rooms. Helen remembered his tiny bedroom in his tiny house and cursed under her breath. Her private bathroom was bigger than his entire house … it was too much and yet, she knew there was no point in trying to hide anything. Steve had to know what he was getting into, in all senses of the word.

“You grew up here?” Steve said, softly. The bedroom was almost absurdly frilly. Helen kicked herself for not having it redecorated, when she’d left for school. It looked like a nursery for an overgrown child, not a teenager. “It’s just …”

Helen shook her head. She had been a spoilt brat when she’d been a little girl, alternatively indulged and restricted by her parents. They had denied her nothing, back then, but they’d also tried to make it clear there was always a price. She was a Burghley, and that meant she had obligations that were deeply tied into the family magic. She couldn’t avoid them without surrendering her name. In hindsight, the way she’d treated Richard owed much to envy of his relative freedom. And his friendship with Brains.

“I know it can be overwhelming,” she said. She recalled the tantrum she’d thrown, when she’d seen the school dorms, and mentally cringed. The housemother had been incredibly patient. Helen wouldn’t have blamed the older woman, in hindsight, for slapping her. “But please give it a chance.”

Steve nodded. “I’ll try.”

 

Chapter Sixteen: Gatehouse, York, Now

Norris was starting to wonder, in all honesty, if he’d been forgotten.

He’d done what he could to help Brains, but Brains had moved ahead of him so quickly that Norris had been left feeling useless. Richard and Janet had been unwilling or unable to spend time with him, while Marian and the rest of the students seemed to want to have nothing to do with him. He hadn’t developed any close friendships with anyone, apart from Marian, before they’d discovered he was a spy and now it was too late to try to make new friends. The only person who had even spoken to him, willingly, was Lucy and that had only been because she wanted a target to test her new spells. It said something about how badly the isolation was starting to bite that he’d actually agreed to let her cast her spells on him …

It was hardly the first time he’d been alone, even in a crowd, but it was made infinitively worse by the certain knowledge it was his fault. Kids back home could smell a freak – a weak and defenceless freak – a mile away and allow their inner sadists to run free, yet here … the things that had made him everyone’s punching bag back home had given him a chance for a better life, and he’d thrown it away. How many of the students who shunned him would have been a friend, if he hadn’t been a spy? And how much of the suffering did he deserve?

He sat in the highest chamber, looking over York, and tried to come to terms with everything that had happened. His mother was dead and he had no one else … not now. He’d driven Marian away and everyone else hated him … he wanted to find her, to beg on bended knee for her forgiveness, but how could she ever forgive him? How could he blame her for wanting to have nothing more to do with him? He could have insulted her, slapped her, even raped her … and it would have been far kinder than what he’d done. He couldn’t ask her to forgive him when he couldn’t even forgive himself.

Magic crackled around him, a gift that had come too late. Cecil Burghley had used him and then discarded him, without even bothering to praise him, and now he was all alone. There would be no magnificent career as a magician, no brilliant apprenticeship … he wondered, numbly, just how long he’d be allowed to stay in Gatehouse. The school was open to all, without fear or favour … that policy might be rethought, after he’d taken ruthless advantage to infiltrate the school and spy on the staff and students. How many would curse his name, in the months and years to come, for depriving them of an education? He couldn’t blame them if they wanted to kill him. If he’d been in their shoes, he would have wanted to kill them.

Lucy stepped into the room. “Norris, the Merlin wants to see you.”

Norris stood slowly, feeling too tired to be afraid. The school didn’t need him any longer. He was probably about to be kicked out, or sent to jail, or … he had no idea. He forced his legs to move, walking down the stairs and trying to ignore the sharp glances aimed at him by other students. The only upside, he supposed, was that no one was trying to hex him. If he’d been at St Champions, someone would have pushed him down the stairs by now. Or worse. There’d been one kid who’d sneaked on the drug dealers, for very good reason, and they’d slashed her face. She should have known better. No one gave a shit about anyone, as long as they were criminals …

He put the thought out of his mind as he knocked on the door, then stepped into the office. The Merlin was seated behind his desk, reading a sheet of paper. Norris experienced a flash of cognitive dissonance as he spotted the laptop sitting on the table, right next to a piece of magical equipment that was so wrapped in raw power it was difficult to make out anything beyond a faint golden glow. Another man stood behind the desk, wearing a simple mundane suit … Norris blinked, wondering just how a mundane man from the mundane world had stepped into Gatehouse. He laughed at himself, mentally, a moment later. The two worlds were one now.

“Norris,” the Merlin said. His voice was calm, but it sent shivers down Norris’s spine. “Take a seat.”

Norris sat, trying to compose himself. The other man looked disturbingly authoritative … it took Norris a second to realise the man’s appearance bothered him because his general bearing was a lot like Cecil Burghley’s. They were very different in appearance – the newcomer looked younger, with lighter hair – but they had the same attitude. Norris tried to reach out with his senses, to determine if the newcomer was a magician, yet there was too much magic in the air for him to get any sense at all.

“This is Inspector Javier of Scotland Yard,” the Merlin said. Norris tensed. He’d heard of Scotland Yard. “We need to ask you some questions.”

Norris swallowed, hard. He hadn’t reported his mother’s death to anyone … what would have been the point? He didn’t know – he still didn’t know – if the death had been murder or suicide. If the house hadn’t been ransacked, he would have been certain it was the latter. His mother had always been highly-strung, and having her child be the target of a murder investigation might well have pushed her over the edge.

The Merlin leaned forward. “What happened when you returned to your home?”

It isn’t my home, Norris thought, reflexively. He was homeless now, to all intents and purposes. Gatehouse would toss him out soon enough and then … he had no idea. He had been promised a vast amount of money, as well as everything else, but he’d bet everything he owned that it had never been paid into his bank account. Did he even still have a bank account? He had no idea about that either. I am homeless and …

He forced himself to speak. “I discovered my mother was dead,” he said, grimly. “It was … I don’t know if it was murder or suicide.”

“I see,” Inspector Javier said. He had a rich plummy voice that sang of growing up in a decent home and attending a decent school and building a decent career … Norris hated it with a sudden passion that surprised even him. “And you didn’t think to call the police to report a dead body?”

Norris couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “You think anyone would care?”

Inspector Javier looked surprised. Norris was sure he was faking it. The estate had been a shithole. Norris knew there had been bodies left lying around – dead homeless or druggies, perhaps – until they started to stink. No one gave a damn about his mother, or him, or anyone who remained trapped on the estate. It was a sick joke that they’d only cared about one dead man … Colin. And Norris2 had killed him.

“Move on,” the Merlin ordered. “What happened after you left?”

Norris’s eyes narrowed. “This is about Gammon?”

The Merlin’s voice was cold. “What happened?”

“They accosted me,” Norris said. The shame and humiliation of endless suffering washed through him, despite his easy defeat of the four. “I … I pushed them away.”

“You left them hanging over lampposts,” Inspector Javier said, flatly. “One fell off and broke multiple bones. One tried to climb down and lost his grip, breaking both of his legs. The other two remained on the lampposts until the fire brigade rescued them. I should add that both of the wounded had secondary injuries, mostly from the lack of immediate care.”

Norris felt a hot flash of anger. “And if you had done your job and arrested the louts who thought throwing rocks at ambulances and fire engines was a good idea, perhaps the ambulances would have come faster,” he snarled. Gammon and his mates had been amongst those louts, he was sure, or his name wasn't Norris. “What is your point?”

“They gave your name,” Inspector Javier said, coolly. “You should be arrested for assault and battery. Their families are also planning to sue you …”

“Sue?” Norris wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. “They bullied everyone on that fucking street, demanded money to leave our homes and return, and you did nothing! They did …”

He felt tears prickling at the back of his eyes and blinked them away, hard. “They were thugs, who made everyone’s lives a misery, and you did nothing! They harassed girls from eight to eighty and you did nothing! They raided shops and everything else and you did nothing! I … you know what they did? They stole my trousers and pants and made me walk home nude below the waist and you did nothing …”

It was hard, so hard, to calm himself. “And they finally get hurt, and they won’t be hurting anyone ever again, and you want to arrest me for it? Go fuck yourself!”

“Language,” the Merlin said.

Norris took a breath. “Tell me,” he said. “Why is it alright for them to bully me, but not alright for me to lash out in self-defence?”

“You seriously injured two of them,” Inspector Javier said. “And the other two are in shock …”

“You don’t think pushing me around and cat-calling every girl walking down the street causes harm?” Norris felt his magic surge. Where had the inspector been, when his life – and countless others – had been ruined by the thugs? No doubt he’d been learning to make excuses for the bastards, like everyone else; no doubt he’d been taught that their excuses – a poor childhood, a bad upbringing – made it alright for them to treat everyone else like shit. “I’m pretty damn sure they actually did rape someone. You could go looking for that person and …”

He bit his lip. The sheer unfairness was galling. “How can they complain if they start a fight and it ends with them being seriously injured?”

“It isn’t your place to make those judgements,” Inspector Javier said. “Nor is it mine. It is a court that decides guilt or innocence …”

“And that court didn’t care.” Norris braced himself. “People used to call the police, when shit happened. But the police didn’t come, or the criminals were briefly taken off the street only to return shortly afterwards to take revenge, and people just stopped calling. What was the point, when the only people who suffered were the fools who relied on the police? You did nothing to help me, when you had a chance.”

He met the inspector’s eyes. “I acted in self-defence.”

The inspector looked at the Merlin. “I must take Mr Nicolson with me …”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the Merlin said. “Every word Norris spoke was true” – Norris blinked; he hadn’t even noticed the subtle lie-detector spell – “and self-defence is a valid justification, as far as our laws are concerned. Under the circumstances, Norris could have gone a great deal further without crossing the line. Had he killed them …”

He let the words hang in the air, suggestively. Norris felt cold. He had never really believed he could kill them. Colin had been killed by Norris2 … Norris himself was a wimp, lacking the ability to kill even if he had the power. But the Merlin was right … there were a great many things he could have done, from entrancing them to turning them into snails and stepping on them, to … he wondered, suddenly, if he could turn them into something permanently. No one would bother to look, he was sure, if the four thugs vanished completely. Even if they did, would they look at a handful of worms in a tiny garden?

But if you killed them, his thoughts pointed out, you would be a murderer even if no one knew what you’d done.

Norris scowled. They would deserve it, he answered himself. Wouldn’t they?

“Regardless, there is a case to answer,” Inspector Javier said. “And we must insist …”

“You may ask questions, if you wish, but Norris has been accepted as one of us and that means he will be treated under our law,” the Merlin said. “Those teenage thugs chose to attack him. He is entirely justified, legally speaking, in taking whatever steps he chose to defend himself. Had he actually killed them, there might have been a decent argument he stepped over the line, although I do not believe it would have been legally sound under our law. I do not believe he has a case to answer. They suffered their injuries in the process of committing a violent act.”

“And the fact they had no concept of the danger,” Inspector Javier said, “means nothing to you?”

“The fact they picked on someone they thought to be weaker than themselves is contemptible,” the Merlin said. “The fact they picked on anyone is contemptible. The fact that their families, far from realising that their children are bullies and treating them accordingly, are trying to extract Danegeld is contemptible. The fact that you claim to be the law, yet refuse to enforce it against four minor thugs, is also contemptible. If you fail to enforce the law, or refuse to do so, you cannot argue when others choose to take the law into their own hands.”

He paused. “If you have further questions, ask them now.”

Norris stared at him in honest surprise. He had expected to be thrown under the bus. The Merlin would hardly go out on a limb for him, perhaps not even for Richard and Janet and the rest. The magical world was merged with the mundane world now … the two would have to find a way to get along. Somehow. And if that meant letting him go face a kangaroo court … he swallowed hard, feeling an unaccustomed burst of admiration, even warmth, for the older man. Was this what it was like to have a father? A man who would raise him, and teach him, and discipline him, and …

Inspector Javier looked at Norris. “I do understand your point, but the law …”

“… Has been an ass for far too long,” Norris snarled. “Why did you let the estate get so far out of hand? Why?”

The Merlin tapped the table. “If you have no further questions, you can be escorted out of the school,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I must caution you against contacting Norris directly. I understand your problem, and we will do what we can to help, but we cannot let you turn Norris into a scapegoat. Or an example.”

The door opened. “Lucy will show you out,” the Merlin said. “Norris, stay here.”

Norris nodded, feeling stunned. The Merlin had gone to bat for him … why? It was incredible. It was unbelievable. And yet … he couldn’t have been more surprised if the three hottest girls in St Champions had visited his home, stripped naked, and had a foursome with him. It was the sort of thing that just didn’t happen, outside porn movies that sold a fantasy too fantastic to be taken seriously. It didn’t happen …

… And yet it had.

He swallowed hard. “Why …?”

“Because they want someone to put on trial, to send a message,” the Merlin said, tiredly. He leaned back in his chair. “Do you have any friends in Glasgow?”

Norris blinked, unsure why the subject had suddenly changed. “No,” he said, with considerable restraint. Glasgow wasn't that far away, as the trains ran, but it might as well have been on the far side of the moon, for all the hope he had of getting there. “I don’t know anyone in Glasgow. Why?”

“There was an incident last night,” the Merlin said. “A very big explosion in Glasgow. The lone survivor swears blind they were trying to perform a magical ritual, following instructions they found on the internet. One confirmed death, perhaps more. Given the sheer intensity of the explosion, and how it was confined by the remnants of a containment circle, we may never be sure how many other people were killed.”

Norris swallowed. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“I never said it was,” the Merlin reminded him. “But it is clear that something went badly wrong with the ritual. And that the government is trying to crack down.”

“It won’t work,” Norris said, slowly. He was too aware of his own flaws to try to hide from them. “Magic … there are too many people tasting power, real power, for the first time in their lives.”

“We know,” the Merlin said. “Your society is contemptible.”

Norris winced. “Why … why did you fight for me?”

The Merlin met his eyes. “Which answer would you like? I could give you several.”

“The truth.”

“They’d all be true,” the Merlin said. “You are one of us now, for better or worse, and you are entitled to the protection of the law. There is also the simple fact that you did act in self-defence. And, regardless of my personal feelings, to allow them to take you would set a dreadful precedent. And I do not choose to allow you to be turned into a scapegoat for the failings of a government that is incapable of living up to its promises, or wishes to make an example of you to deter others.”

He paused. “And you deserve a chance to redeem yourself. You can’t do that in a jail cell.”

His eyes went very sharp. “That said, you got lucky. If you’d killed them, or worse, I could not defend you. Nor would I.”

Norris nodded. “I understand.”

“Good,” the Merlin said. “Now, I have a job for you.”

 

Chapter Seventeen: Cromwell High School, York, Now

Janet felt torn between feeling like an imposter and an infiltrator.

Cromwell High School might have been in York, only a few short miles from St Champions, but it was so different from her old school it might as well have been on another planet. The students wore uniforms, carried the latest in educational technology and generally behaved themselves in manner utterly alien to her. The teachers looked calm and composed, not permanently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the corridors themselves appeared clean and tidy. Here and there, she spotted a few hints of adolescent rebellion – a skirt a little too short, a shirt unbuttoned to reveal a little too much – but they were islands of discontent in a sea of tranquillity. The whole experience was almost surreal. Gatehouse had been neat and tidy, by and large, but Gatehouse was – had been – in a whole other world. Cromwell High was in York.

The surge of raw anger caught her by surprise, her magic flickering around her as the student – a prefect, by all the gods she’d never believed existed – showed them into a large classroom. She had no idea what the secret was, unless it involved taking all the rowdy students and sending them to St Champions, but … it just wasn’t fair. If she’d gone to a school like Cromwell High, she might have made something of herself; if she’d had the chance to study in peace, without being disturbed or groped or threatened with far worse, she might have had an actual future! She caught sight of a young girl who reminded her of herself, except better … she felt, suddenly, as if she was staring into an alternate universe. The girl looked happy and content and studious. No one was snapping her bra, making snide remarks, or …

Richard put a calming hand on her arm. Janet glanced at him, then gritted her teeth and centred herself as best she could. It was one thing to visit a school in another world, but quite another to come face to face with the sheer inequality of modern Britain. The students looked surprisingly uniform, the teachers looked decent … the envy was enough to make her want to go back to London and give the Prime Minister another piece of her mind. It was too much. It was … she looked around the classroom, trying to keep her face under control. A large monitor where the blackboard should have been – it would have been smashed within hours at St Champions – and windows that were neither boarded up nor barred. It really was too much.

The prefect escorting them stepped back as the teacher cleared her throat. Janet sucked in her breath as, miracle of miracles, the class quietened. She’d seen some teachers lose their cool and scream for silence, and others do their best to start the lesson despite the back rows chattering so loudly it was impossible to hear the teacher, but here … she wondered, again, what she’d have become if she’d gone to Cromwell High. It could hardly have been worse than St Champions. The uniformity might be slightly disconcerting, but she couldn’t spot the telltale signs of drug abuse, parental neglect, sexual abuse or the simple blank eyes of a teenager who had given up, frightened to live and yet too afraid to die. She suspected Richard found it disconcerting too, for different reasons, but …

“Please welcome Richard and Janet of Gatehouse School,” the teacher said, nodding to the window. Gatehouse still loomed over the city, dwarfing a small helicopter that was buzzing around the towers. “They are here today to teach us about magic.”

Janet swallowed, hard. That wasn’t entirely true. They were here to warn of the dangers of magic, of the risks of death and damnation – literally – that shadowed any attempt to cast a spell without the caster knowing what he was doing. Janet knew better than to expect the students to stop experimenting – Glasgow hadn’t been the only incident, merely the worst – and there was an awful lot of information on the internet, much useless even if it hadn’t been deliberately crafted to drain or kill any magician who tried it. Steve was doing what he could to get better information out there, but the truth was constantly on the verge of being buried under a mountain of utter nonsense. Or worse.

Richard stepped forward at the teacher’s nod, clasping his hands behind his back. “Magic is all around us,” he said, in a tone that suggesting he was recalling a speech he’d heard years ago. “It is in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the world around us … and yes, it is in our bodies. Some are born with a talent for magic, others have the skills to take advantage of the magic around them and shape it to their will; others still, I should add, take the risk of bartering with supernatural entities, trading for magic and the skill to use it.”

He paused. “Magic is not a tool. Magic is a living thing. It can respond to your innermost desires, the intentions you refuse to admit even to yourself; it can sometimes be dangerously unpredictable, when the caster goes into the spell with dishonest intentions or simply doesn’t know what he’s doing. Some spells call on entities that are persons in their own right; others can shift and change as they interact with people with different intentions. And there is always a price.”

Richard held out a hand and cast a simple lightspell. Janet saw eyes going wide – the spell looked remarkable, for all its simplicity – and smiled to herself. A handful of girls were eying Richard with interests – she felt a pang of jealousy – while other students were studying the spell in a manner that disconcerted her more than she cared to admit. Magic was power, and the students in front of her had very little power. Cromwell High might be more civil than St Champions, but she’d be surprised if the school didn’t have its very own Norris. What would happen when someone at the bottom of the school found a way to climb the ladder? She doubted it would be anything good.

“That was true, in our world,” Richard continued. “But now it is true of yours too. There are people” – he nodded to Janet – “who will discover they have a talent for magic, and others that will learn how to shape the forces around them, and others still who will find themselves coming face to face with inhuman entities. There is no point in telling you that you shouldn’t develop your talents, if you have them, but you need to be aware of the dangers. A handful of basic precautions now can save you from utter disaster.”

Janet forced herself to listen, feeling a twinge of guilt, as Richard kept speaking, outlining the different types of magic and the dangers they represented. She was astonished he could speak so well, although Gatehouse taught public speaking as well as magic. It made a certain kind of sense – the magical world allowed a surprising degree of social mobility, and few aristocrats were fool enough to dismiss commoners completely – but it still surprised her. She took a breath and allowed her eyes to sweep the room, noting which students were writing down everything and which appeared to be paying little attention. There were surprisingly few of those. Back in St Champions, Richard would be wasting his breath. Only a handful of students would even try to pay attention.

“Human magic is one thing,” Richard continued. “Supernatual entities are quite another.”

He paused. “How many of you watched The Giggle?”

Janet frowned, inwardly, as nearly two-thirds of the class raised their hands. Richard had only watched The Giggle because Steve had tried to introduce their visitors to Doctor Who, but he’d found it more than a little disconcerting. Janet hadn’t understood why until she’d encountered the Fae. And … back home, only someone as socially awkward as Norris would have dared admitting to watch.

“There are some entities out there that are fully as powerful as the Toymaker,” Richard said, coolly. “They are so magical that they can do practically anything, by our standards, although they are bound by rules that make little sense to us. Others are far less powerful, but again they have very different ideas of how the world works, which can make them dangerously unpredictable by human standards. In a low-magic zone, the danger is very limited; in a high-magic zone, they can do almost anything.”

He ran through the basic guidelines, noting they weren’t complete or conclusive. If you found yourself in a high-magic zone, stay on the path; if you encountered anyone – or anything – that could speak to you, be as polite as possible; if you were offered food or drink or even a gift, do not take anything unless the offer was made freely and without obligation. Janet shivered as he ran through some of the lesser rules – do not step into a mushroom ring, do not follow distant lights no matter how much they called to you, do not open your door after dark – and swore under her breath. The world of 1900 would have adapted far better, she was sure, to a sudden influx of magic. The old folk traditions had been dying out for years, killed by modern technology and society. But now they were back …

“Some of the entities you may encounter are openly malicious towards humanity,” Richard finished. “They will stop at nothing, save openly breaking their rules, to lure humans into their clutches. Others do not intend to be dangerous, but their sheer inhumanity means they will give gifts and blessings that are nothing of the sort. There are no shortage of horror stories of people asking for gifts, without considering the possible consequences.”

Janet nodded. She’d been urged to read the stories. Very few had had anything resembling happy endings.

“You must always be careful,” Richard concluded. “A mistake with magic can be lethal.”

The teacher smiled. “Any questions, before we break for lunch?”

Janet glanced at the clock. Richard had been speaking for nearly two hours? It was incredible! The students she’d known had had attention spans that rarely – if ever – lasted more than ten minutes. The sheer boringness of some speakers had had something to do with it, she was sure, but … these students had paid attention, or at least had pretended to pay attention, for two hours. It was yet another reminder that St Champions had been right at the bottom of the ladder, as far as schools were concerned.

“I was reading about a girl who cast a love spell on a boy she wanted,” a girl said, diffidently. “Is that a bad idea?”

Richard gave her a sharp look. “Yes.”

He let the word hang in the air for a long moment. “As a general rule, there are lust spells and love spells. If you cast a lust spell on someone, there is a very real chance they will be overwhelmed by lust and force themselves on you. You will probably discover your protective wards don’t work, because you’re the one who cast the lust spell. Love spells are even worse, because the target can become utter fixated on you. It almost always ends badly.”

His gaze sharpened. “I should add, for the record, that casting a lust or love spell on anyone is a very serious crime, all the more so if you are not trying to get them to fixate on you. You could find yourself facing an entire string of charges, each carrying a very severe penalty.”

There was a long pause. The teacher leaned forward.

“Lunch time,” she said, with strained brightness. “We’ll convene again after lunch.”

Janet sighed inwardly as they were escorted down to the lunch hall. Magic had seemed a joke, once upon a time. She knew girls who had played with fake spells and fake wands, tarot cards and dreamcatchers and other pieces of nonsense … she recalled one girl who had tried to attract a boy with an absurd charm, one that had little or nothing in common with real magic. In hindsight, she wondered if the sheer fantasy of the ritual had erased any questions of morality. The concept of charming a boy – or a girl – into loving you was so fantastical there was no need to consider the cold reality. But now … lust spells and love potions were little more than date rape drugs, and needed to be considered the same way. It was the difference between a rape fantasy and an actual rape …

She shuddered. It was just … ugh.

Lunch was surprisingly – or perhaps not – tasty. The sausages were decent, the potatoes were actually cooked properly and the beans were heated thoroughly, rather than being shoved into a microwave for a few seconds and then dumped on plates for the unwilling students to eat. Janet felt out of place, all the more so after spending so long in Gatehouse. Cromwell High wasn’t a bad school – she guessed the students who were grumbling about the uniforms had no idea how bad their education could become – but it wasn’t hers. She couldn’t wait to go back home. It was Gatehouse now.

“You’ll be talking to the girls,” the prefect said, afterwards. “Your friend can talk to the boys.”

Janet nodded, and reminded herself it had been her idea. She hadn’t been keen on joining the outreach program in the first place, and the only reason she’d gone along with it had been the chance to teach girls how to defend themselves, in a manner that left no room for doubt the victim deserved everything he got. There would still be doubt, Janet was sure, but only amongst the people who knew little of women’s rights and cared less. She hated the idea of giving a class to a group of girls who were the same age as herself physically and likely a few years older than her mentally, but there was no one else. Helen was the only other person who understood how grim OldeWorld could be for girls, and she was occupied elsewhere.

Her nerve almost failed her as she stepped into the classroom. The girls were smart and pretty and everything she wasn’t, their attitude showing a confidence that might – might – be based in ignorance, but might not. Even in uniforms, there was a hint of money around them … a sense they had nothing to fear, because they would be protected. Janet bit her lip, hard. She was imagining it. A young girl might be wealthy, but that didn’t mean she had a comfortable or safe life.

“I won’t waste your time,” she said, forcing herself to sit on the teacher’s desk. She might be able to talk to someone one-on-one, easily, but she knew she would always be overshadowed by a crowd. “Magic responds, as Richard told you, to intention. Protective spells respond to the intention of the person attacking you, as well as your own. A person who grabs your arm to save your life, even if you are in no real danger, will be unharmed; a person who grabs your arm to drag you off and rape you will be zapped.”

There were some giggles. Janet relaxed, slightly.

“It isn’t actually easy to demonstrate the spells,” she continued. “Anyone I recruited to grope me would have my consent to touch me, which means the spells would not blast him even though the intention is to demonstrate the spells. It is simply impossible to convince the spells that consent was lacking – and he knew it. For the record” – she allowed her voice to harden – “if you use these spells and someone touches you without being harmed, it is considered proof he honestly didn’t mean to touch you against your will.”

A young girl leaned forward. “So I could withdraw consent and he’d still be unharmed …?”

“You’d have to tell him you were withdrawing consent,” Janet said, bluntly. It was hard not to flush. She had no idea how her mother gave lectures on birth control without dying of sheer embarrassment. “If you were kissing passionately and his hand started to slip under your shirt, you would have to say no. If he kept on, the spell would blast him.”

The girl smirked. “Blast him?”

“It depends on how you set the spells,” Janet said. “Some girls cast spells to give the boy a nasty shock, others to turn him into a toad. Which raises other issues, by the way.”

She sighed, again. Richard’s lecture had included ways for a transfigured person to signal they were a person, rather than an animal. She just wasn’t sure anyone would know to look, before it was too late … at least not immediately. If someone wanted to murder someone – and did it by turning them into a snail and stepping on them – would the police even realise the person was gone, let alone that they’d been murdered? How long would it take for them to wrap their heads around the concept?

Not long, she answered herself, if the victim is someone important.

She put the thought out of her mind. “Some of these spells can only be cast in direct self-defence,” she added. “Casting them successfully is proof you thought you were under attack. However, if it turns out you were wrong, there will be consequences. Be careful.”

Her eyes darted from face to face. The girls still looked … confident, in a way Janet knew she would never match, but there was something there … a kinship, perhaps, that both awed and frightened her. Her eyes lingered on a skirt … it might touch the wearer’s knee, yet it would still be easy for someone to put their hand on that knee and send it slipping upwards … she shuddered, feeling sick. It was going to change. She’d make it change.

“Watch me,” she said. “And listen carefully.”