A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding #1)(100)

Miss Morrissey leaned forward and smiled at her sister. “Would you say Sir Robert is a threatening figure?”

“Er,” said Mrs. Kaur. It was the most diplomatic single syllable Robin had ever heard.

“Are you afraid for your maidenly virtue?”

“I’m married, Addy,” said Kitty Kaur dryly. “I have none.” She eyed Robin. “He does seem the kind of well-built, pugnacious fellow who would follow through on a threat of bodily harm.”

“I beg your pardon,” Robin began to protest, and then the penny dropped. “Oh. Would it help if I raised my voice?”

“Yes, that would do nicely. Sir Robert strong-armed my sister into bringing him here to seek my help, and threatened us with harm unless I abused my access to the lockroom in order to locate Mr. Courcey. Overcome by concern for his friend, of course, but still. Most brutish behaviour.”

“And we are but feeble women,” said Miss Morrissey. “Woe.”

“Your sister is a magician,” Robin said, pointing out what seemed the largest hole in this story.

“Woe,” said Mrs. Kaur firmly, and Robin recalled what Miss Morrissey had said about the assumptions made by men.

Two more oak doors took them to their destination. The second one required a complicated cradle, which Mrs. Kaur fumbled the first time and then made a face as she began it over again—“The identification clause is a fiddle, and the secrecy one even more so,” she apologised, and then: “Hah,” with satisfaction as the rune flared into being.

Robin’s first thought was that Edwin had probably appreciated the lockroom, if he’d ever been there. It resembled nothing so much as the stacks of a library: a windowless room that had the feeling of being well below ground level, illuminated by pale orange ceiling lights that could have been either electric or magical. Rows of wooden shelves and drawers stretched away from the entrance. There was a peculiar, cathedral-like, anticipatory silence to the air.

“What is this place?” Robin asked.

“This is the Lockroom,” said Mrs. Kaur, and now Robin heard the way she said it. Title, not descriptor. “Every registered magician in Britain is represented in this room.”

A leather-bound ledger the size of a decent card table lay open on a bench, with words arranged in columns. A pen lifted itself from its stand as soon as Mrs. Kaur stepped close to the book. She raised her hands and moved them through the motions of a new spell, then paused with fingers held at angles.

“Catherine Amrit Kaur,” she said, and the pen entered it in one column, then hopped to hover over another. “His full name, if you know it,” she murmured.

“I don’t,” said Miss Morrissey.

“I do,” said Robin. For the rest of his life he would be able to recall the exact sight of Edwin kneeling, desperate and pale among closing holly, and hear the sound of Edwin’s voice. “Edwin John Courcey.”

Mrs. Kaur touched her index finger to thumb, creating a circle, and her hands glowed red for less than a second. There was a faint grinding sound from the bowels of the stacks. A new light sprang up in the distance, like a red ribbon unfurling to the ceiling, tethered at a particular point.

“Stay here, Sir Robert,” said Mrs. Kaur. She stepped across what Robin now realised was a threshold, a change from one pattern of wood on the floor to another.

Before long the tap of her footsteps brought her back with a small box in her hands, which was labelled with Edwin’s name. Inside was something small and pale, nestled on a velvet interior. Robin reached out to touch it, then snatched his hand back, belatedly trying to teach himself some caution when it came to new magical things.

“It’s all right. It’s only hair,” said Miss Morrissey.

“The Lock Room,” said Robin. “Locks of hair.” He swallowed and looked out at the depths of the stacks. “Every magician in Britain?”

“It’s a ceremony, when a child first shows signs of magic,” said Miss Morrissey. “A lock is cut. It used to be that your family would keep it safe, but now it’s kept here. Centrally. We know every member of our community.”

“Could someone do harm, using this?” Robin touched the lock of hair gently. It was like white silk, much whiter than Edwin’s hair was now.

“Nothing direct,” said Mrs. Kaur. “The hair’s dead. It’s no use as an active conduit. You can use it to trace because of . . . its memory, I suppose. The Assembly wouldn’t keep a potential weapon against its own people like that. But it means we can find and protect our own, when there are no other options.” A pointed look.

Robin was full of questions. How did this fit into Edwin’s rules about physical distance and the laws governing magic? What happened to the hair when someone died? Were there magicians who refused the ceremony, refused to have their children registered in such a way? What if a magician didn’t want to be found? The whole concept was more than a little creepy, but he didn’t want to be rude, and besides—he was, in this moment, very grateful indeed that the Lockroom existed.

Mrs. Kaur was already building another spell, standing in front of a dingy map of the British Isles that was pinned above the table holding the ledger. When she turned and flung her hands apart, she conjured a much larger version of the map into being; it hung in the air then drifted to overlay itself on the blank wooden panels of the wall behind them. There was some unevenness where the map dipped over the contours of the door and its frame. But it was the Isles, detailed and glowing and sprawled wide.