Disclaimer: I own nothing herein that anyone recognises.


When he sent Hunch off to Ranton Hill to see what he could find out, he and Kim headed off to Bramingham Place to see what they could find out there. And Mairelon pushed her on her speech lessons the whole way. He wanted her to know she was wanted, and he needed to bring her up to more standard forms of elocution if she was to use what she learned to bring herself up in society.

Even as they walked and he tested her speech, Richard considered the questions raised by Hunch's information. Fenton was clearly connected to everything, the timing of his hiring and sacking from service were too coincidental to be anything of the sort. The question was, what did he have to do with all this?

On top of that, Renée hadn't appeared and that was quite concerning, especially in light of the message she'd sent him. And what was she playing at, telling people she was ill while being, in reality, at Ranton Hill?

Richard frowned. He could not figure out the connection between Renée and the current contretemps around the Saltash Platter, nor could he connect Fenton to anything.

When they reached Bramingham Place however, they found Fenton dead in a copse of trees on the grounds. He had two more forgeries with him, as perfect as the others he had gotten from Lady Granleigh and Stower.

And then he met Kim's Laverham. She was quite right. The resemblance between Laverham and St. Clair was pronounced. Richard felt a suspicion flare as he recalled that Laverham had gone to Harrow, but he let it slide.

And then Laverham was casting a control spell on Kim. She flinched as he began casting and Mairelon suppressed a frown as her flinch, as with the other times he'd seen her around spellcasting, seemed to be away from the structure of the spell itself. He could be fooling himself, but he could swear she was aware of where the spellforms were. They settled mere fractions of an inch away from her body, but they did not settle on her. It created an illusion she was under a spell unless one knew what to look for.

It was only luck that he had been reminded so recently of his own casting using the bowl. He slipped the reminders of the limitations of the spell into his questions of Laverham. If Kim had understood, she gave no sign.

He climbed in after her as directed. As the hackney started off following the directions Richard gave Stower and the driver, he deliberately essayed a fall into Kim. He murmured, "Don't worry," hoping to reassure her, or at least get rid of that horrible dead look in her eyes. It made him shudder to see, especially as it was so close to that closed hard look of suspicion he had been treated to so early in their acquaintance. He was suddenly reminded of her background and the terror she held of Laverham.

Her lips tightened ever so slightly, and he thought he saw an expression of annoyance in her eyes. But it could have been his imagination. In any event, Richard wished to know more. After all, the variations on the spell were fascinating. "That spell is terribly interesting, don't you think it's terribly interesting Kim?"

"A more tactless comment I have never heard," Laverham commented.

Mairelon blinked in surprise. While he had been fishing for information, it suddenly occurred to him how that had sounded. He saw what might have been a flicker of amusement in Kim's eyes and decided that it had been worth it despite how foolish he sounded. If she was aware enough to think him foolish, perhaps she was not fully as under as she seemed. Perhaps she was even merely acting.

And then Jonathon Aberford chose that moment to continue his Quest for the Sacred Dish.

"Jonathan Aberford!" Kim exclaimed, much to Mairelon's relief, "That bufflehead!" At least the look in her eyes was only caused by her fear of the compulsion.

It would have been dreadfully funny had they not all been in danger of being shot by criminals from London's back streets. Aberford had clearly run mad and was still posturing, attempting to play head druid while Laverham clearly struggled with the urge to simply shoot the imbecile and have done with.

Laverham decided, much to Mairelon's chagrin, that Kim should bind him. He watched her dig out the rope, and start tying him up. It hurt to watch her do this as though she had no choice. Did she think she was under compulsion and had to do what Laverham said anyhow? Or was it something else? She was quick enough to pick up the hint he had dropped, so maybe she wasn't able to resist. Because he was starting to wonder if there was a loophole involving the use of different parts of the set in relation to each other, or some other means of working around the one-time-use limitation.

And then she spoke. "There," Kim said, "You won't get out of that in no hurry."

"No?" Mairelon asked. Her voice was flat, and he searched her eyes for some hint that she wasn't subsumed in a spell. Her face gave nothing away and his eyes dropped to his bound hands in spite of himself.

Bound in the trick knots he'd shown her back that first day. The ones that came apart if you knew which loop to pull. He suppressed the smile that threatened to break out on his face and put all his appreciation for her cleverness and care into his words. "I see."

Laverham didn't catch any of it. He was utterly convinced that Kim was completely under his control. She repeated her performance with the rope on Aberford and settled back for the rest of the ride to the Sacred Lodge. Aberford's idiocy and his own tendency to tongue-in-cheek humour had pressed at Kim's patience to the point that she was visibly slipping Laverham's leash with her own sarcasm.

When they got there, Aberford seemingly allowed his idiocy full rein and began posturing about preventing Laverham from defiling his sacred space. Richard couldn't help himself as he asked, "Just what would 'desecrate' a place where you and your friends drink, dice and wench until almost dawn?"

And once they were inside, they discovered Freddy Meredith was there. With Marianne Thornley, the young lady Lady Granleigh was planning to have married off to her brother. She had several fits of hysterics while Meredith and Aberford began arguing about whether or not the Sacred Lodge should be locked up.

And then Baron St. Clair arrived. Miss Thornley threw herself into another fit of hysterics, this time at what she clearly believed to be their saviour. The resemblance between Laverham and St. Clair was thoroughly pronounced when they were in the same room together. At least something of that connection came clear at that moment. They were half-brothers. It was the only explanation.

They began to argue, as familiarly as Richard and Andrew had ever argued, but with the full complement of genuinely nasty tendencies. And Richard felt the bottom of his stomach drop away when St. Clair suggested they use 'the girl' to carry a message to Hunch.

For one wild moment he thought Kim might have escaped St. Clair's notice as Laverham decried the notion of using Miss Thornley as a messenger. And then St. Clair said, "Not that girl, the one you've cast the control spell on."

Kim, who was clearly working to her own plan, destroyed Mairelon's attempt to keep her safe. But just as Laverham was about to send her off, another series of ridiculous arguments broke out in the ill-assorted party and there was another arrival.

It was another so-called druid, Robert Choiniet, whose appearance sparked another round of recriminations and infighting amongst the youth as Meredith exhibited a stunning thickheadedness, Aberford postured and insulted Meredith to the point that Miss Thornley threw herself violently into the debate to defend the dubious wit of her beloved.

It was when Lady Granleigh swept in, followed by her brother and the ubiquitous Stuggs, that Marielon caught another glimpse of Kim, who had been working her way to the door. As she made a rather rude gesture at Lady Granleigh, he lost control of himself and gave in to the humour of the situation. Lady Granleigh seemed convinced that St. Clair was there to assist her in retrieving Miss Thornley, Marston was making wild accusations about Meredith's character and the youngsters continued to utterly discomfit Stower, who was looking more and more panicked as he found himself unable to cover all of his hostages at once.

Laverham shot out one of the windows to get everyone's attention. He made himself quite clear that he was most definitely not working for St. Clair. Then he tried to bring everything under control. It worked, to a point, and Richard had to admit to being grateful for the sudden peace and quiet.

Of course, it was not helped by St. Clair informing Laverham that Richard had the Saltash Bowl, nor by Lady Granleigh and her brother insisting that they gave "Mr. De Mare" the platter. Most curious of all, however, was Stuggs' response to Richard's name. "Merrill," he said, "Well, well."

"What does that mean, well, well?" demanded Marston.

Stuggs promptly readopted the look of stupidity he'd had before, but Richard could already tell that this was another player in the game, not merely an adjunct to Marston and his sister. "Ain't he the cove you was lookin' for in London?" Stuggs asked.

Richard was finally able to explain that he had a fake, like seemingly everyone else Fenton had come into contact with, but Laverham seemed determined to believe that he was lying.

And then Renée appeared.

With Andrew in tow.

She claimed she had the Saltash Platter. Andrew claimed he was there to help Richard avoid being caught. His whole world had slewed sideways and he wasn't quite sure where to get a grasp on what was happening.

He caught sight of Kim, still trying to make it to the door under cover of all the madness in the lodge. She was still trying to get out, to whatever plan she was following. He must do the same. Put the other things out of his mind, and concentrate on the game.

Laverham was now threatening Renée if she did not immediately produce the platter. Renée chose to be indubitably French and informed him that, "I tell the truth. And it is quite true that I cannot give you the platter now. I am not a fool, me, and I do not wish to lose it. So I do not carry it about with me, especially when there are housebreakers and highwaymen and persons with pistols everywhere. If you were not yourself without sense, you would have comprehended that and not bothered me with silly questions."

Richard could have sworn he saw a tic developing on Laverham's left eye. It was almost as pleasurable and entertaining as if it had been St. Clair himself.

So Laverham gave up on that and pulled out the two spheres he'd used before to cast the failed control spell and began a spell of finding. And that idiot Aberford began rabbiting on about the dire consequences of defying the Sons of the New Dawn.

Moments later it became apparent that the young fool had been aware of wards on the lodge to prevent anyone from casting significant magics. Mairelon rapidly peeled off the ropes Kim had carefully knotted and demanded of the imbecile, "You might have tried warning him you had a protective spell up, you young idiot! What did you use? Quick now!"

He began to mumble. "MacPherson's corollory of energy interferences, only I tied the main focus into the lodestone and tied that to the ley line for a power source."

The idiot had thought he was being clever. Wonderful. Sheer laziness and the power of the ley line was bleeding into the whole mess. And Richard could see the thing was breaking up and apart even before Laverham's spell had begun tear at the supporting frame of the wards.

The whole thing was unstable and it was making Laverham's spell unstable too. The spellforms were twisting uncomfortably about. Mairelon spotted Kim off to the side, her eyes wide and fixed on Laverham. He could have sworn she was watching the spell go to pieces.

With a sudden surge, she rose to her feet, putting all her strength into tossing the table into Laverham. And then he was too distracted by shielding himself and everyone behind him from the shards of the spell.

There was a considerable shuffle going on, Mairelon was dimly aware that Laverham and Stower were being taken captive. He was more concerned with his new assistant. "Kim! Kim?"

She emerged from under the table looking none the worse for wear and reassured him she was all right.

It took Renée's keen eyes for them to discover that the Saltash Platter had finally been found. It had been hidden under one of the hearthstones and it was the work of mere moments to pull it out.

And then Lady Granleigh attempted to take claim of it. It was a patently ridiculous statement. She sent her brother after it and Mairelon, purely on reflex, used it as a bludgeon on the man's head. "Anyone else like to try?" he asked, adding his best stage flourish in St. Clair's direction.

"Richard!" Andrew felt the need to expostulate, "You can't go around threatening peers of the realm!"

Mairelon felt his eyebrows fly upward. Peer? "Really Andrew," he said irritably, "He's only a baron." Off to the side, he saw Kim roll her eyes. He was unsure as to whether this was over Andrew's comment or his calling St. Clair, 'only' a baron. Of course, it could be Meredith's continued insistence that the platter really belonged to Henry Bramingham. Really, Mairelon was almost tempted to agree if it weren't for the fact that Bramingham would immediately hand the thing over to St. Clair.

No matter. As they again degenerated into useless squabbles, Everyone was silenced by Laverham's fury. He freely admitted to having been involved in the theft of the platter, to being St. Clair's half-brother and, most importantly to Richard, implicated St. Clair as the driving force behind the theft.

Aberford began speaking again, and was interrupted by Choniet begging him to understand this was serious. "Quite serious," Richard began talking over Aberford's foolishness. "This is—"

And then Stuggs was suddenly drawing attention to himself with a beatific smile. "—the Saltash Platter, part o' of a set as was stolen from the Royal College of Wizards upwards of five years ago, by a person or persons unknown." And then he declared Laverham and St Clair under arrest. It was an moment of uplifting joy for Richard.

"He's a Runner!" Kim gasped.

"Jasper you fool!" Lady Granleigh shouted at her unconscious brother. Mairelon wondered idly if Jasper were quite the fool everyone thought he was, or if he was simply over-bullied by his truly overwhelming sibling.

St. Clair still had one trick up his sleeve. Richard still didn't know how it was that St Clair had got ahold of the pistol he was suddenly holding, but it didn't matter. There was a pause, as everyone tried to talk him out of what he was doing. It was infuriating. St. Clair had framed him, and now he was going to get away.

But threatening Miss Thornley had an unexpected outcome. Freddy Meredith, furious at the way his fiancée was being manhandled utterly disregarded the gun and sent his fist into the man's jaw. The action so shocked everyone there, St. Clair was taken into custody with great rapidity and Miss Thornley threw herself at her hero with fevered excitement at his bravery.

Mairelon found himself being accused of stealing the set again, whilst everyone waffled about what to do with Laverham, Stower, Lady Granleigh, Marston and the lot of young people arguing in the background. Richard ignored the clutter going on around him just long enough to give Meredith and his vapid fiancée the opportunity to escape themselves.

At least he did finally get his explanation from Renée as to what she was doing at the Bramingham's house party.

Making peace between Richard and Andrew. It was really quite astonishing. He was amazed, because he could think of almost no one who would have gone to such trouble to force the two of them to make up.

Which was about when Shoreham, Bramingham, Lord Granleigh and Hunch appeared. Much to the relief of most people present.

It was perfectly obvious what had happened, and yet Shoreham made Mairelon spell everything out. Everything. It was as though none of them could reasonably be expected to put the pieces together themselves. Although in the process he found out that there had been some new developments in the college. And on top of it, everyone wouldn't let him get on with explaining, they just had to question, expostulate and generally rabbited on about inconsequentials.

And then finally, finally he was able to cross-question Lord Granleigh about Fotheringham's crystals.

Shoreham was his usual efficient self and began to arrange to haul the various criminals off to prison. Aberford began to sulk mightily. It was Kim who brought him out of it. He'd been whinging on about how he'd lost the platter, when Kim asked him whether any old "wicher-cheat" would do.

"It's exactly the right dimensions," he began, wittering on about combinations of abstraction and natural design. And Kim suggested he take one of the fakes.

Mairelon smiled encouragingly at her. "One of the false platters should suit you admirably, Aberford. Better than the real thing, in fact; you won't have to worry about your," he paused infinitessimally on his choice of words, wondering how much of his true opinion of their hobby to let into his voice, before choosing the path of least resistance, "Spells getting tangled up with the ones that are already in the Saltash Platter and exploding or doing something equally unexpected."

And Aberford wittered on some more, attempting to be grand and druidic and succeeding only at sounding remarkably cloth-headed before marching off. He was followed in short order by Shoreham, Lady Granleigh, who had been taken sternly in hand by her husband, Marston, Choiniet, Bramingham and the rest, which only left Mairelon, Kim, Hunch, Renée and Andrew.

Andrew began to apologise profusely. For a moment Richard was tempted to demand that his brother grovel a little more abjectly. He'd had to fly the country under suspicion of theft, had listened to his own brother go on about how he'd known Richard's bad habits would get him into trouble. But it would do neither of them any good if Richard insisted on holding such a grudge.

So he shocked Andrew, which was always fun to do, by letting him off easily and turned to some more important business. "Kim?" Mairelon asked.

She looked so stricken. He didn't know why, but now wasn't the time to ask. "Yes?" She looked braced for some sort of bad news.

"Why did you tip that table over on Laverham when he was in the middle of that spell a few minutes ago?" He asked. She looked utterly confused.

"The table?"

"Yes, the table. I've told you more than once that interrupting a wizard is dangerous, and if you claim you forgot, I won't believe you. So why did you interrupt Laverham?" The details added up, but just in case, he maintained a stern air. He could be wrong about her latent talent, in which case she deserved a stern talking to. But the way she always flinched when someone was casting spells, the way her eyes seemed to track where the spellforms were shaping up . . .

She looked vaguely affronted, but still confused. "Because his spell was as queer as Dick's hatband anyway," she said. Apt, as always, although they really would have to do something about her grammar. "You know that."

He controlled his urge to grin. He could still be wrong, but more pieces were falling into place. "Yes, I knew it, but how did you know?"

Kim frowned, and began to pick through a clearly inadequate vocabulary. "It was the words," she said.

Mairelon could have throttled Renée when she said in tones of polite disbelief, "You speak the Latin then? Or the Greek, perhaps?" Wasn't it obvious what Kim was trying to say? And after what Renée had pulled, she didn't have the right to be snippy right now.

"I ain't got no need to speak it," Kim snapped back. The familiar bad temper gave him a sense of relief. Whatever happened, she was still Kim. "Laverham's words weren't . . . They weren't lined up neat and proper like they should of been."

A moment more of query, and Mairelon was almost certain of where she was going. He felt as though he was teetering at the top of a cliff. He tried a bit of the Greek of the Iliad out on her. "Apbeteon, or perhaps, 'Mênin aeide, thea, Pêlêiadeô Achilêos oulomenên, hê muri' Achaiois alge' ethêke'."

She shook her head. "No. Those sound right, but they don't have no edges. They're just nonsense."

And so Richard said the words of one of the early spells every wizard worth his salt learned. The ones to simply teach you how to handle magic, without seriously casting anything. A small ward, nothing serious. Just to test. "And these? Erigo vox quod permissum illic exsisto a obex."

She flinched. Then she nodded.

"My Lord," he said, feeling a heady moment of happiness. Because he had been refusing to admit, even to himself, that he wanted her to come with him. Enjoyed her company and the way she cut through all the social niceties to get to the heart of the matter. "No wonder you weren't hurt when the spell shattered."

She still didn't understand what a wonder she was. He'd never seen such a talent. Richard had been called uncommonly strong growing up, but even he could not recall seeing magic (before he'd begun to train to be a wizard) with the clarity she did, without even trying.

"There ain't nothin' wonderful about that," she said, still taken aback. "I just ducked."

Mairelon was already calculating what to teach her first and the best way to work Latin, Greek and Hebrew into her lessons as he told her that she was a wizard.

Renée scolded him for being difficult and explained what was happening to Kim. Kim had the potential to be a wizard. And just after he offered to bring her to London with him to teach her magic, reality, otherwise known as his inestimable brother Andrew intruded. Mairelon was set to defy Society before a far more sensible option presented itself to him. Kim would be his ward, she would learn magic, all the proprieties would be covered and he wouldn't get scolded by his mother or Aunt Agatha. Much.

"Well?" He asked Kim anxiously. She'd indicated in the past that she was concerned about too much time spent with 'toffs'. Did she want this? Would she simply demand payment and fade from his life as though she'd never been?

"Do I look like a looby? Of course I want to come!"

Mairelon felt everything resettle into its proper place. There was a new addition there, but Kim felt like she fit with everything else just fine. And with her blunt outlook, and interesting way of putting things, they would take the ton by storm. And anything might happen. Anything at all.