“Of course,” said Oren.
“And they’ll know Mr Blume’s there too?” No one answered, but Ilsa understood. The people who were trying to kill her just to settle some vendetta surely wouldn’t balk at slaughtering Bill too. They had already killed Martha. “They’ll hurt him, won’t they? If they think it’ll get me there.”
“So you see why it’s essential that it doesn’t,” said Oren. He addressed the surface of the table. “I am simply being pragmatic. It’s unfortunate, but we must ask ourselves if it is our concern. You are safe if you stay here.”
“Aren’t you listening?” said Eliot, drawing contemptuous looks from every corner of the room. He rested his teacup delicately on his saucer and rose from his chair. “She’s not staying. You said yourself, she isn’t a prisoner. And she’s right, the magician is in danger.”
Aelius snorted derisively. “Oren’s point remains—”
“Then damn you both,” Ilsa growled, feeling her blood rise. “I’m going to find Mr Blume and I ain’t asking for your help.”
“You can hardly go alone,” said Cassia. “I’m coming with you.”
“As am I,” said Eliot.
“Alright,” said Oren. He didn’t snap, nor raise his voice, but he quieted the room nonetheless. “But Cassia and I will be the ones to take you.”
“Good call,” said Aelius. He shot a suspicious glance at Eliot.
Eliot glared at Oren, then Aelius, and for a moment it seemed as if he would become a big cat and rip their throats out. The glimmer in his storm-blue eyes was one of unchecked malice. But then he smiled, a slow, seductive smile that transformed the hard mask into something as frightening as it was beautiful. He buttoned his jacket with quick fingers and inclined his head towards the group.
“Once again, it seems I’ve roused myself for nothing,” he said. “Please do wake me when I’m actually needed.”
Even over her fear, Ilsa felt the tension resonate between them all as Eliot stalked from the room.
Oren merely shook his head and led them out to find Bill Blume.
* * *
“We’ll see you at the abbey,” Oren said to Cassia when they had dressed for winter and gathered in the forecourt. “Be on your guard.”
Cassia nodded – and vanished into thin air. Ilsa blinked stupidly at the spot where she’d evaporated.
“She’s gone!”
Oren glanced up from where he was tucking his notebook into his jacket and hooking his umbrella over his arm. “Good. Fly as close to me as you can. We should be safe within the borders of Camden, but if you see anything untoward – an arrow, a spell coming your way – turn right around and fly back here as fast as you can. Don’t wait for me. What’s your fastest bird?”
“Uh – I can do a falcon,” said Ilsa. “I saw one in a bird show at the zoo once. The Otherworld zoo, I mean.”
“Very good. Falcons it is, then.”
Before she could ask about Cassia vanishing herself or what an oncoming spell might look like, Oren shrank, his feet left the ground, and he soared straight upwards in the form of a falcon. She followed in haste.
They dashed south, side by side, and Ilsa thought about the magician boy she had seen the day before. He had vanished into thin air just as Cassia had – that must have made him a Sorcerer too.
She wanted to tell Mr Blume. She wanted to tell him about a lot of things since they parted. The Witherward. The Changelings. How she was sorry for the finale. How she’d been thinking about family and whether it meant what she had always thought it did.
She finally had somewhere to belong, and suddenly the place she was desperate to be was back in the Otherworld, back at the theatre with Bill Blume. She didn’t know how she’d bear it if he’d been caught up in this. Not after Martha.
When Oren touched down in the crowded street in front of Westminster Abbey, Ilsa made another circle overhead. She wasn’t used to a world in which a falcon could transform into a man, and not a single onlooker would pay him any attention. Hesitantly, she dipped towards the pavement, and landed on her own, human feet. A man with his nose in the morning paper almost walked into her as she reappeared. He only tipped his hat and begged her pardon.
Oren replaced his glasses on his nose and looked her up and down. “You’d better wear a disguise,” he said. “Just in case.”
She became another girl from her boarding house – Eliza, red-haired and round-faced – and followed Oren towards the abbey.
When they reached the cloisters, Cassia was waiting for them. Like yesterday, the quadrangle was guarded by several wolves. But instead of surrounding them, they bowed their heads to Oren and Cassia, and stood aside to let them approach the portal.
“Would you like to take my arm?” said Oren at the top of the stairs. “The portal can be quite jarring until one gets used to it.”
Ilsa took hold of the crook of Oren’s arm. Again, they had only descended a handful of steps when the sensation of falling while standing still hit her. She gripped hold of Oren and kept walking, once again missing the exact moment they started heading up instead of down.
“You’re a natural,” Oren said, his eyes kind, like they hadn’t just been arguing about whether to leave Blume to his fate. He had called himself pragmatic, but he meant ruthless, yet he was also a gentleman. Ilsa couldn’t figure him out.
The sound of scraping stone came from above, then Cassia appeared around the corner. “The coast is clear,” she said.
Oren raised his umbrella to shield them both before they were doused in rain and ice, and the three of them stepped into the dark quadrangle. Even expecting the winter weather and the dark hadn’t fully prepared her. It had been so clear and
