They did not work out the magnet spell over the course of the afternoon. The problem was that they both had such strong instinctive magic that they could do most things in their own way, without knowing how they were doing them. This was all very well until it came to dissecting what someone else had done and trying to use it for their own ends.
"Honestly, this is almost enough to make me see the point in magic theory" grumbled Christopher after the third failed attempt at the spell, for which he had stood in the cold rain (the snow of the previous week was a distant memory) at the gates, waiting in vain for twenty minutes to feel the magical tug hat would nudge him back towards the castle, whilst Millie worked the spell with the map in the drawing room.
"Never mind", she said cheerfully. "Your turn to try to do the spell from inside now, anyway. Lend me your galoshes."
But just then Mary came to tell the children that they were to have an early tea in the playroom, because there would be no servants to see to them later. The grown ups were just having cold meat and bread and butter for dinner later, she told them, but that hadn't been considering sufficiently nourishing for children. They might have rather preferred it to the boiled chicken and stringy beans they were given, but it was another bit of luck, of course, because it meant that they didn't have to worry at all about covering up their absence in the evening. Had they realised that the arrangement had been made because Mordecai and Flavian were going to use dinner time to introduce their colleagues to the winterberry gin they had bottled last year and now thought ripe for the drinking, and therefore that almost all the responsible adults in the castle would be drunk by 8, they would have worried even less.
So after dinner, with no time to worry anymore about the magnet spell ("we'll get back somehow", Millie said comfortably), they changed and crept downstairs to wait for the servants to assemble. They had made themselves invisible of course, but hid behind the many long coats hanging down the back of the hall that led down to the servants quarters, because if Gabriel, Rosalie or any of the other senior staff were to pass by then they were under no illusions that their invisibility would ensure they evaded detection. Millie was wearing an old tweed suit - trousers, waistcoat and jacket, with one of her own embroidered blouses underneath - of Christopher's, under an old coat they thought had belonged to one of the servants. This had been Millie's idea because she thought perhaps some of the girl's hostility the previous night had been because she'd been blinded by Millie's beautiful new royal blue coat and muffler, and the world of difference between them that it apparently revealed. Christopher said he didn't care if he was going to be invisible most of the time, he wasn't going to dress shabbily for anyone. So he was still wearing his warmest winter suit and his new coat with the magenta lining.
As the servants started to assemble, Millie and Christopher grabbed their tea trays and slipped out through one of the side doors to the hall, and ran around to wait at the front of the castle, where the carriage had pulled up. They spent some time considering where best they were to position themselves. The best place by far would have been the pillion seat at the back of the carriage. It was just a ledge, really, but wide enough to be quite safe. But they couldn't be sure that nobody else would try to sit there and that obviously would never do. To be on the safe side they pulled and scrambled - with great difficult, because it was a tall, impressive carriage, which was wet and slippery in the rain - their way on to the roof of the carriage and used very strong magic to fasten themselves there. There they waited, holding on to their tea trays and shivering, for the circus-goers to emerge. It seemed to take an age, and several times Christopher asked himself what had possessed him to encourage this hare-brained scheme of Millie's. He supposed he'd just been so pleased that the holidays had come and to be spending them with her that he'd have let her talk him into almost anything.
At last the party from the castle streamed out of the door and started filling up the carriage. There was much merriment as everyone joked about who should get the seats in the carriage, and who would have to sit in whose lap. Somehow Yolande who did the typing ended up sitting on the pillion seat with a young man called Fraser, whose job had something to do with monitoring imports and exports of magical substances and materials. Mille tried to exchange a glance of self-satisfied relief with Christopher - they had certainly been wise not to sit there - but of course they were both invisible.
Christopher was remembering that Fraser, like many of the staff at the castle, even those in non-magical roles, had some degree of magic. He knew that Fraser was no enchanter, but would his magical sense be strong enough to alert him to the magical activity on the roof of the carriage? He could only hope it wouldn't.
The carriage jerked and jolted off, to cheers from the group within it, and a little shriek from Yolande on the pillion seat. Fraser grabbed her comfortingly round the waist, and began to talk about how decent it had been of Gabriel to tell the staff that they could use the carriage for their own merry-making.
"It's not many people in his position who would do that", Yolande agreed, "let alone bespell it so that nobody needs to stay with it to keep it safe while we're gone. He's a lovely man to work for, Mr De Witt is."
Christopher almost snorted audibly. There didn't seem to him to be any reason why a man in Gabriel's position wouldn't let his servants use his things whilst he wasn't using them, and he was no frame of mind to hear Gabriel praised.
Worse was to come. Fraser went on to talk about how lucky Gabriel was to have Yolande working for him, and how lucky it was for him, Fraser, that he got to see her every day. Not long after that they were holding hands and kissing as passionately as anyone could be expected to kiss when the jolts of a two-horse drawn carriage on a rural road were bumping them about. The carriage ride seemed to last forever. Christopher was glad when the rain got quicker and harder, thinking that would stop them, but they barely seemed to notice.
"Thank goodness we're not taking the carriage on the way back!" Christopher said when at last the party had arrived at the circus, drawn up the carriage in a neighbouring field and the head gardener had unwrapped the spell Gabriel had given them. It immediately transformed the carriage into a rusty old cart, and the horses into fierce looking pit bull dogs. Everybody clapped and the party set off merrily for the circus tent.
"I'd rather ride on our tea trays for miles through the rain than listen to any more of that", Millie agreed as they clambered down. This was much easier to do now that the carriage was a cart. "What on earth possesses grown-ups to go so soppy?"
They took their tea trays and continued invisibly through the field towards the circus, too. "I don't know," Christopher said, "But I think it happens to the best of them. Look at Mordecai! He's really the best fellow anyone could hope to meet, but just look at how silly he gets when he's with Rosalie."
"Well, we're far too sensible to get like that; anyway", Millie said confidently. "Let's promise."
"No fear!" Christopher agreed, and after a few failed attempts to find each other's invisible hands, they shook on it.
