A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(38)

“Ah, here we are. We should simply leave it by the hearth when we go to bed. They like anything dairy, anything baked, and anything sweet.”

“That sounds like the kind of diet that would give Memsa’b the horrors,” Sarah chuckled. “There are always leftovers from our dinners. We can make up a plate and leave it covered at the hearth.”

“It appears,” Nan continued, still reading, “That Durwin and Roan are bending the hob rules considerably for Robin. They’re supposed to work secretly, and humans are never to offer anything as ‘payment.’ In fact, if they are given anything as ‘payment,’ especially clothing, they are supposed to leave. We rather implied that, and they deliberately did not take offense.”

“Any more rules we should know about?” Sarah asked, as the quarreling in the bird room ceased.

“Well, we should never make it appear we take them or their work for granted, and get lazy.” Nan looked up from the book directly at Suki. “Which means, my love, putting away your clothing and toys is still your responsibility. Roan is your friend, not your personal servant. If he happens to help you out on a day when you are terribly busy, then just be quietly thankful.”

Suki heaved an exaggerated sigh of regret, and stuffed the last of her bread-and-butter into her mouth.

“We should try not to take any notice of Durwin . . . although to be fair, I think it’s in his nature to be not as secretive as Roan. Perhaps he’s not so much a traditionalist. At any rate, it seems that the proper etiquette is to announce whatever is pertinent to the empty air, or your companion. Such as, if we were going out, something like, ‘Well, since we are going out, I hope the birds and the flat stay safe.’ That lets the hob know something particular needs doing.” Nan looked at Suki again. “I think the rules can be bent for children. So I think if we go out and leave you, you can play with them.”

Suki’s face was wreathed in smiles at that.

“What about at the school?” she asked.

“Memsa’b will probably have Roan stay in the workshop, so you probably won’t see him. And it’s not as if you don’t have plenty of friends to play with at the school. You can’t expect magical creatures to be popping in all the time just to play with you.” Nan put a tiny touch of chiding into her tone, as a reminder that Roan was to be there mostly so that Memsa’b could call on Robin directly.

Suki sighed again. “Well, orl right,” she agreed.

“It also says here that Robin is a kind of hob,” Nan concluded, shutting the book. “I think someone was very much mistaken if they think that.”

“Well, technically he is one of the Great Elementals, so I suppose, if you stretched a point . . .” Sarah said, but doubtfully.

“That’s stretching it until it snaps back on you and leaves a welt on your chin,” Nan chuckled. “And I think I hear Mrs. Horace now! Let’s go down; the more we can help, the sooner we can feast!”



They returned to their flat laden with a tray and two baskets of good things, having told Mrs. Horace that they would attend to their own tea and supper from the leftovers. And still they had left Mrs. Horace with things to store in the pantry and the cold pantry, and wondering aloud why she had cooked so much and where she was going to put it all. It was a very good thing that Christmas was at the end of December, and that this was a cold Christmas at that. In the cold pantry, you could see your breath, and nothing was going to spoil.

They stowed their own goodies in their own, much smaller pantry, and went to bring the birds their share of the feast and look in on the hobs. The birds were overjoyed to see the food—Grey went immediately to work on one of the goose’s thighbones, cracking it open and eating the marrow with almost ghoulish relish.

“You know that’s cannibalism, right?” Sarah said, teasingly.

Grey looked at her. “That’s a bird. I’m a bird. I want some,” Grey retorted, and went back to her bone as Neville chortled. Then he set to on his chopped giblets.

Nan eased the door of the cupboard open, just a little. There were two shawl-covered lumps on the shelves, backs to the door, looking entirely comfortable, and easing Nan’s fears that the arrangement would be less than desirable, at least by hob standards.

She closed the door again. “They’re sleeping like a couple of stones,” she said. “The book implies we should just go about our business as normal, and they’ll be fine.”

The birds flew to their shoulders, and they moved back into the sitting room. Suki decided she would go and play with her Christmas toys, leaving them alone.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Sarah frowned a little. “And the one thing that we have not done is to try and figure out if there is any way our two particular talents would be of use in this uncertain case.”

She took her favorite chair on the hearth, and Grey went to the back of it. Neville elected to hop to the back of Nan’s chair before she could sit.

“Mine, probably not, unless this Old Thing decides to try and manifest somewhere near me,” Nan admitted. “And even then, it probably won’t be my telepathy that warns us, but having the Celtic Warrior manifest. I have the notion that this Old Thing may be related in some way to the creature in Berkeley Square that we finally trapped. The Warrior reacted strongly to that, and I think she would react even more strongly to this. But you—spirits might be able to tell you something, if you can find one that isn’t tied down to a place.”