sleep. Twice she called out, without opening her eyes, making him start, and once she made jerky, warding-off motions with her bandaged hands. Risking personal injury, he took her wrists and held them firmly. She resisted, but only for a moment, before subsiding, muttering words that were ill-formed and unintelligible.
After breakfast had been served to the Enlightened Ones, Sophie parted the curtain and slipped in with a mug of tea for him and quiet concern for Caroline. She left, after patting him on the shoulder. He closed his eyes and brought the mug to his lips to savour it before tasting.
Caroline spoke. ‘If I ask politely, may I have some tea as well?’
It nearly precipitated a disaster. Aubrey’s eyes sprang open, he gasped and he tried to leap to his feet, all at once, while holding a container of extremely hot liquid. He swayed, wobbled, righted himself, then stared at his patient.
Her face was wan, but her smile was reassuring. She held up a hand, studied it, then put both hands together. Aubrey had done his best, but the bandages had made her elegant hands into bulky, gauze-laden mittens. ‘It appeared from nowhere,’ she said softly.
‘You were checking the antenna?’
‘I received some communication, then the interference was worse. I thought I might need to realign something.’
‘It was magic.’
‘Dr Tremaine?’
‘Or a magician underling. I can imagine it patrolling the ether and doing its best to ruin communications.’
‘And tracking down the source.’ Gingerly, she sat up. ‘I feel bruised all over.’
‘Your hands were burned. I did what I could.’
She held one out. ‘Let me see.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘I have more medical training than you, Aubrey. I have to assess what needs to be done.’
‘Are they painful?’
‘Somewhat. You didn’t put butter on them or anything like that, did you?’
‘George advised against it. He said it was folklore of a bad kind.’
‘He was correct.’
As carefully as he could, Aubrey began unwinding the gauze. She winced. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m being as gentle as I can.’
She favoured him with an expression that was equal parts exasperation and the sort of tenderness that made him melt. ‘You’re doing a fine job.’
‘There.’
Caroline brought her hand up close. She turned it over to complete her inspection. ‘No blisters, which is a good thing. Red and sore, but no real damage.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘As long as I don’t have to engage in a serious tug-of-war in the next day or so, I should be able to manage.’
She began to pick away at the other bandage. Aubrey leaned over to help and, naturally, this brought their heads close together. Intent on working on Aubrey’s awkward bandage knot, she leaned so her forehead rested against his, which he thought an arrangement extremely close to perfection.
Some time later – hours? days? – she straightened and tossed the bandage to him. ‘Now, what about that cup of tea?’
40
Caroline was a model of patience as she explained successively to Sophie, then George, then Hugo, who had darted back to the base to fetch a piece of equipment needed by the Enlightened Ones, that she was, indeed, well and that while she appreciated their concern she wasn’t about to take to her bed and become a valetudinarian.
George and Sophie went off to work on another article they were writing together. After waiting for Aubrey to make repairs to the antenna array and after listening to his warning to keep the time on air brief, Caroline tested the wireless. Her scowling told Aubrey the situation before her words did. ‘I still can’t get through.’
Aubrey gazed upward, through the wooden floor of the factory, through the roof, and chewed his lip. ‘I’d hoped that disposing of that creature might have freed the air.’
‘If one was made, then more would have been.’
‘Not necessarily true. If the spell was enormously complex, the cost could be too great. But Dr Tremaine has organised his spellcasting, systematising and delegating it. Distributed spellcasting?’
Caroline closed the wooden door of the telegraph cubicle. She linked her arm with his and led the way to the stairs. ‘You always say that Dr Tremaine is the foremost magician of our age.’
‘He wouldn’t have been appointed Sorcerer Royal if he wasn’t, not with his background.’
‘It seems to me, however, that it’s not just his spells that are revolutionary, if that’s correct.’
‘His spells are staggeringly innovative.’
Caroline let go of Aubrey’s arm and sat at the oval table. She played with a brush, one of the props they were using to make the place look like a real bookbinder’s workplace. At the other end of the large, open space, near a sunny window, Sophie was using a typing machine while George was scribbling with a pencil. ‘I’m guessing that Dr Tremaine is doing more than inventing innovative spells,’ Caroline said. ‘He’s also changing the way magic is done. He’s like that motorcar manufacturer, the one who’s broken the process into its individual parts and changed his whole factory to that end.’
‘Rivers? Harold Rivers?’
‘That’s the one. His mass production has meant that motorcars are rolling out of his factories at an unheard of rate.’
‘But we’re talking about magic, not machines.’
‘Aubrey, I may know nothing about magic, but I can see systems at work. I have the distinct impression that Dr Tremaine is working on that level as well as the coalface of spell casting.’
Aubrey had never felt that he was the sole repository of good ideas. ‘I think you may be right, but the implications scare me.’
‘They scare me as well, which is why we have to stop him.’
41
The next day, after a messenger arrived at the base with news of the arrival of their special delivery, Sophie prepared her story for Claude to take – but she couldn’t resist giving the earnest young newspaperman last-minute advice as they accompanied him. He was dressed in his best suit, no doubt hoping to make an impression when he reached Lutetia, but Sophie reassured him that the editors would be more interested in his news than in his fashion sense.
After they donned civilian clothes to minimise attention, and with Claude directing, George drove the wagon he’d bought to the riverfront a hundred yards from the collapsed railway bridge. The busyness on the docks had the vitality of old. The river was jammed with all manner of craft ferrying people and goods from one side to the other, where Aubrey could see the steam and smoke from a train that had just pulled up on the far bank. Claude ignored the touts who were offering to buy and sell anything he had and instead led them a distance upriver to where a barge was being loaded with crates of apples.
‘Henri is my cousin’s best friend,’ Claude said, introducing them to the captain. He was nearly as venerable as the craft he was in charge of, but his back was straight and his eyes were bright. A stubby pipe was jammed in the
