“The case and the card were probably my father’s,” said Susan awkwardly. “We’re trying to find out who he is because . . . um . . . well, a Raud Alfar warden shot at me, and both criminals and the May Fair goblins have tried to abduct me. All of which seems to be about my father.”
“What did Grandmother say?” asked Zoë. “Thurston said you saw her this morning. Which one was it?”
“The eldest, in the end,” replied Vivien. She hesitated. “Ah . . .”
“We won’t tell Thurston or Merrihew,” said Helen. She looked at Susan. “Yes, I can read minds a little. And I see our old granny told you something that scares you.”
“She did,” said Susan slowly. “Apparently, my father is of the oldest blood, one of the Ancient Sovereigns.”
“That would do it,” said Helen. She wheeled over, close to Susan, and held up her luminous hands. “May I touch your face, child? It won’t harm you.”
“Uh, I guess so,” said Susan uncomfortably. She leaned forward. The older woman gently laid her hands on Susan’s cheeks, cradling her as she might some grandchild. She held her breath for a long, long minute, the room silent, Susan hardly daring to breathe herself. Then she exhaled, sat back, and folded her luminous hands in her lap.
“There is a spark of some great and ancient power within you,” she said. “Only an ember . . . but embers can flare into mighty fires. Did you have a significant birthday recently?”
“May first,” said Susan. “I turned eighteen.”
“I don’t know what the power is or where it comes from,” said Helen. “Or whether it will grow. But it seems to me to be the promise of something to come. . . .”
She hesitated for a moment, before quietly continuing.
“I do not wish to give you sad news, but I suspect . . . only suspect, mind, I cannot say for sure . . . that you would not have this small spark within you if your father is still present in either the Old World or the New. It smacks of a gift given in inheritance, some small portion of a far greater magic that is no longer here.”
“You mean my father’s dead?”
“The Old Ones do not precisely die,” said Helen. “Most sleep, perhaps never to awaken, but they are here. Some have faded almost to imperceptibility. But a few have been . . . removed, I suppose you could say. Utterly destroyed. If that is the case with you, I am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” replied Susan evenly. “I always thought he must be dead. Otherwise, you know, he would have . . . I don’t know . . . written to me at least. I have my mum, a happy childhood home. I’m lucky.”
“And I bet super hungry,” said Vivien. “Can we leave the library card with Zoë and Helen? Let’s eat and then get you home.”
“Yes,” said Susan. “I am hungry. And tired. I’d forgotten I was up half the night, after I saw the Kexa watching me from the roof of the shed.”
“A Kexa, too?” asked Zoë. She frowned. “Thurston’s note didn’t mention half of these things. Only the May Fair goblins.”
“There was a Cauldron-Born in Northumberland House,” said Merlin suddenly.
“What!” exclaimed Zoë and Helen.
“We can’t be certain. I felt it, and Viv smelled laurel and amaranth and decay,” said Merlin. “But Una and her team didn’t find anything, and Uncle Jake checked the wards, which were apparently intact.”
“Have Thurston and Merrihew been informed?”
“Una said she called Thurston; Merrihew’s probably still on her way back to Wooten.”
Helen and Zoë exchanged a look, which the others correctly interpreted as an indication of lack of confidence in the current leadership of the booksellers.
“We’ll make sure to follow this up,” said Helen.
“I wonder if they’ve told the Grail-Keeper,” mused Zoë. “I think under the circumstances that needs to be done.”
“I doubt it,” said Merlin bitterly. “Great-Uncle Thurston is in raptures over a library purchase, and Merrihew’s going after that giant carp in the old clay pit lake. Again.”
“Hmm,” said Helen.
“Besides,” continued Merlin. “If there was a Cauldron-Born, how was it made? Who has a cauldron besides us?”
Helen and Zoë shook their heads.
“No, Merlin,” they said together. “The Grail-Keeper would never allow it.”
“But—”
“No,” said the two older women together, very firmly.
“We will inform the Grail-Keeper, even if the Greats have not,” said Aunt Zoë. “I can nip into the Serpentine tomorrow.”
Susan looked at her blankly but didn’t have the opportunity to ask what on earth that meant as Helen asked her a question.
“Are you staying with Merlin at the Northumberland, Susan?”
“No,” said Susan. She could feel herself blushing.
“She’s at Mrs. London’s; you know, the place Special Branch keep for us to park the oddbods,” said Merlin. “Though they’ve been naughty and put in a couple of Soviet defectors and I’d say some sort of ex-peace group infiltrator who’s been found out as well.”
“Is that who they are?” asked Susan, who had been mystified by her housemates. Their desire to not discuss who they were or why they were there was even greater than her own.
“Is it sufficiently secure?” asked Zoë. “You mentioned a Kexa?”
“It has the usual wards,” said Vivien. “It’s on neutral ground. As much as you can get in London, anyway. No known entity of the Old World resides there, or claims it; it doesn’t fall under the suzerainty of any Ancient Sovereign.”
“And I’ll be there with Susan,” said Merlin.
“In the house, generally,” added Susan. “Not in my room or anything.”
Merlin nodded, as if nothing else had been implied. Maybe nothing else had been implied, Susan thought. She didn’t know what was worse. He wasn’t as self-obsessed and vain as she’d thought, but no less attractive. . . .
“While it is not uncommon for some of the lesser entities and minor human dabblers to also be criminals in the ordinary sense,” said Helen, “this sort of directed activity by goblins—who most certainly would not answer to any mere mortal instruction—in combination with gangsters is very unusual. It can’t be a coincidence. And you think this connects with what happened to your mother?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s worth finding out,” said Merlin.
“It
