Praha, Ceská republika - 1970
The girl on the bridge could make the puppet dance as though it moved at a single thought - the movements of the mannequin were so smooth and careful as to be on the uncanny side of realistic, and at certain points no one in the crowd could see a single string tying the two, broken doll and beautiful girl, together.
The marionette looked like an ancient thing, something that had once been much-loved and much-cherished and had, as an unfortunate consequence of the care and love lavished on it, spent much of the last century gathering a thin layer of dust across its carefully painted features in a faraway attic. The skirt of its pale silver ballet costume, was ripped, its striped tights laddered, and one strap of its faded grey camisole top slipped down the slender twig of its arm. A silky matrix of spidersilk had been spun between the chopstick holding the doll's hairstyle in place and the elegant v of its neck and collarbone, and even the effortless dance of the puppet did nothing to dislodge the web or the spider that hung lazily from the apex as the doll moved back and forth on the wall of the bridge, somersaulting to the pavement, darting from the footpath.
The marionette moved with an elegance that was not often mustered even by human beings; it did not overbalance nor trip nor hesitate, and never was there the slightest hint that it was being propelled by anything but the force of its own will - no leap too high, no movement too sudden, no step too large, just one gesture fading into another.
The only sign that the silver-haired girl had anything to do with the doll's dance was the dance of her fingers as though she were conducting the violinist whose instrument sang along with the performance, releasing note after note after heartbreaking, bittersweet note into the air. When that song rose to a sudden crescendo and then ended, the song hovering, caught in the air, for a few moments longer, the doll's dance also ended, and it collapsed to the ground as though all of the strings holding it aloft had been unceremoniously cut - an angel fallen from heaven, dark hair spilled on the ground around a pale face. No longer a piece of art with a mind of its own - just a pile of wood and metal and string lying at the silver-haired girl's shoes.
If the crowd expected a bow or an encore, or indeed any sort of acknowledgement, they were to be disappointed. The puppeteer moved for the first time with the same kind of speed and grace that her doll had displayed at a gesture of her hand - in the blink of an eye, her violin case was closed and the marionette had been scooped up bodily and the girl was walking away from her performance spot as though she had never stopped to perform at all.
Walking away from the bridge that Sunday evening in early December, no sinister premonitions about the day approaching bothered Vika Vlčeková.
The only problem bothering her at all at that moment was that the comforting weight of the violin case filled with hard-earned money in one hand and her grandfather's art in the other left her no space to carry her coffee as she walked back to her apartment.
Luckily, it was for such situations as these that Vika had ensured that she had cultivated friendships, and she was glad to see Sebastian waiting for her outside their usual cafe, holding two styrofoam cups of coffee with his violin under his arm as he effortlessly charmed two teenage tourists out of their phone numbers. As Vika approached, the prettier of the two leaned forward and wrote something with a flourish on one of the cups, laughing a little and flicking her hair over one shoulder. Vika hung back by the bridge until the two had moved away and she could swap the violin case for one of the coffees. She peered at the scrawled number on her cup as they began to walk towards the Old Town, smiling a little.
"You sure you don't want to keep this? Sven - Svella - Svetlana seemed eager to get to know you."
"Absolutely certain." Sebastian shrugged. "She's not really my type."
"And what, you think she's mine? Mind you, I do like blondes." Vika glanced at him, raising her eyebrows. "What do you mean, your type? You have a type now?"
"Of course I do." He smirked. "I have high standards to maintain. I won't allow myself to date anyone uglier than I am."
"She was absolutely gorgeous!" Vika protested in disbelief. The same could not be said for her friend - though to a certain degree handsome and certainly aided by the dim light, his charm lay more in his body language and movements than in any physical attributes.
"So am I."
"I don't know about 'absolutely'."
"I am reasonably gorgeous."
She laughed. "Define reasonably. I don't think that word means what you think it means."
"I have not yet blinded someone with my beauty but I have taken quite a few girl's breath away."
"Probably," Vika said, blowing distractedly on her coffee to cool it. "Because they were laughing so hard. It may be hazardous to their health."
"O ye of little faith. I think you're still a little sore that I broke up with you."
"Hang on - if anyone dumped anyone, it was me-you. I distinctly remember telling you that it wasn't me, it was you."
He smiled. "I was too busy sobbing my eyes out to pay attention, I guess. You were unnecessarily cruel to my delicate pride, fragile ego and bruised masculinity."
"The first two have obviously made a fine recovery and I don't really want to talk about the third."
They were coming to the edge of the Old Town, sipping coffee and chatting.
Later, Vika tried to convince herself that for the briefest moment that she had been blind and happy - but even as Sebastian went to cross the street Vika couldn't stop herself from flinging out a hand and catching him before he could step out in front of a rattling bone carriage that had taken the corner at speed and looked as though it had raced out from the pages of a horror novel. Drawn by skinless, fleshless steeds and steered by a figure shrouded in papery robes, it careened past, invisible to all but Vika, who shuddered at its passing. Vika watched it disappear, hardly noticing that Sebastian was talking until the bone carriage had taken another abrupt turn and disappeared. "Ano," she said. "Sorry?"
The bone carriage wouldn't have hit him anyway. She knew it wouldn't. Those strange, silent figures who directed it at least knew how to drive, unlike some people - no, not people, not really - she could mention.
"What the hell was that all about?"
Sebastian looked equal parts concerned, curious and annoyed, but all Vika could do was shake her head, and try to think of an excuse that would not make her seem insane.
"Uh," she said simply, and was aware of a man nearby laughing quietly at her awkwardness. When she allowed her gaze to slip past Sebastian, she could see the man, head down with an old-fashioned bowler hat obscuring his face, looking amused. For a moment her heart constricted before the glamour peeled away under her focused gaze and she saw the green skin beneath the man's hat, between his gloves and sleeve.
Not him, then.
"I meant to ask you," she said, trying to improvise as the red light appeared on the traffic light and the highly amused ifrit crossed the road, still giggling. "Whether you wanted to go at get something to eat. I'm starving."
He glanced at his watch, but Vika could still see the expression in his eyes - the expression that said 'I don't believe you and you're acting... well, not crazier than usual but certainly a degree of crazy'.The expression said: 'most people can invite other people to a cafe without attempting to break their ribs'. The expression said: 'why oh why am I friends with you?'
Vika swore that she would love him forever when she heard his next sentence.
"Růžena's probably working the late shift at Mikael's. We could go there and invite her on her break, if that's okay with you?"
Relief flooded her. She had done nothing to deserve such friends.
Vika tried not to make it too obvious that she was scanning the sky for any sign otherwise, any sign that it was not okay - but if he was back in Prague, he had neglected to get back into contact with her, and for that, at this moment, she could only be glad.
"Yeah," she said, with a smile. "Sure, that sounds great."
Sebastian smiled and looked as though he were almost going to laugh. Vika turned to cast one last glance in the direction the bone carriage had taken before she took a sip of coffee - and sighed in exasperation.
The tourist's phone number had rearranged itself upon the cup, the tiny ink digits unfolding and reforming like tiny black marks come alive. They contorted and twisted themselves into new letters, new words, a new message, in an all-too-distinctive handwriting.
DID YOU MISS ME?
And then, as soon as she had read the words they were unwritten and rewritten anew -
ASAP9876DO
"Um, Seb?" Vika said, trying to inject an apologetic note into her voice as she silently willed death upon the cup. "Raincheck on that meal."
He turned from where he stood, already a few metres ahead. "Another one of your errands?"
"Something like that," Vika said. "I just remembered that I have a... to do a family thing."
She didn't look up to see his disbelieving expression. Vika never spoke about her family, mainly because they only existed when it was convenient for her excuses and lies and half-stories for them to exist.
"I'll make it up to you," she said, and turned, and was walking away before he could answer her. If he replied, his response was lost to the greedy wind before Vika ever heard the words.
It was a remarkable sight, the sky beginning to stain the clouds bloody with crimson light, all the towers of Prazský hrad bathed in a soft glow, the tangled cobbled streets still curtained with shadows, lit only with the weaving, winking fireflies that were the city's lamplights and headlights. Vika leant against the wall from her perch on the balcony railing, her long grey hair stirring softly around her face in the gentle touch of the morning breeze. "Honestly," she said, in English for the benefit of the man behind her. "I don't see why you ever left the city. Especially with a view like this."
Magnus Bane straightened, correcting the fall of his jacket with a sharp tug. He was dressed in an unusually mundane and sombre fashion - no elaborate brocade jackets or ruffled shirts or high buckled shoes - and he was frighteningly devoid of glitter. The lone lantern lighting the apartment cast a blue sheen across the rough black silk of his hair and sent the silver loop in his ear aglitter brilliantly with a thousand colours that did nothing to lighten his expression. "Prague is so very dull," he said, his cat-like golden eyes distracted - no doubt by one of the mad, half-considered ideas that so often derailed the broken-down wreck he called a train of thought. "No magic carpets, no drug-addled vampires, very few apocalyptic madmen. What am I meant to do with myself all day?"
"Get a hobby," Vika said without a trace of sympathy. "Something that doesn't involve chaos and mayhem and bloodshed. Something where I don't have to rush across the city at the crack of dawn to help you unpack. Maybe then I could get some sleep without running to-and-fro and hither-and-thither at your every whim."
She raised her eyebrows - unlike Bane's, hers worked in tandem and it was her constant shame that she could not arch a single brow as the warlock could. Bane, she mused often, was rather a master at facial expressions - he could build a girl up or tear a man down with the slightest quirk of his lip, arch of his brow, inclination of his head - his expression alternately playful or terrifying. Vika, unfortunately, lacked this skill of her boss, along with nearly every other skill that the warlock possessed.
Bane merely shrugged off her comments as though he had barely noticed them, like so much rain rattling on a window pane - she was making noise but no impact.
"Where have you been recently that was so interesting, anyway?" she asked, tilting her head so that she could see him.
"Here and there and everywhere," he said vaguely. "New York is very nice in the winter."
She jumped down from the balcony, and considered the warlock who had been her boss, mentor and bane of her existence for nearly nine years. "I'm guessing," she said. "That you didn't call me up here because you wanted someone to admire the scenery with you." After all, the sooner she got this job over and done with - whatever it was - the sooner she could return to her normal life, where men were rarely (if ever) green, and malfunctioning magic carpets were not considered a significant problem, and no one spoke Cthonian or Tartarian, and demons did not - could not - exist. "Where am I going today? Bucharest? Bishkek? Belfast?"
"Not quite so far," he replied, turning ceaselessly on the spot for a moment, his eyes scanning his belongings - he may as well have been talking to the air for all the attention he paid to her. "Aha!" He plucked the offending object up and held it out to her - an envelope, slim enough that she doubted there was anything inside, even a sheet of paper. "Take this - don't look inside - don't even hold it up to the light and take a peek - no - I don't trust you - I know what you're like, Emily - you need to take it to the cathedral - now where has that parcel gone?"
He disappeared into one of the many other rooms of the apartment, and a bored Vika took the opportunity to pick up one of the books that lay on top of the box nearest to her. A book of runes - she recognized most of those embossed on the leather cover. Had she helped him bind this tome? Perhaps not Bane - maybe this was one of those books she had worked on during one of the many long, lazy summers spent with Fell or Loss when Bane couldn't be bothered to deal with a bored, restless teenage apprentice and she had been too young and immature to be left alone.
She flipped open the cover. She recognised those runes printed on the page - Clairvoyance, Healing, Intuition - but in the margins were scribbled new shapes and figures and runes. At the top of the page, her own cramped handwriting - Marrakesh, '69.
The less said about that trip, she thought, the better.
She set the book back down just in time for Bane to reappear with a package in his hand, wrapped untidily in brown paper, secured with butcher's string. Distinctly unfabulous - she doubted very much that this was Bane's own handiwork. She tucked it under her arm and nodded. "The cathedral?" she prompted him.
He nodded, looking distracted. "You'll need to get in at the top," he said, and he barely seemed to notice the smile that spread across Vika's face.
"Can I fly?" she asked.
He looked at her. "I don't know, Lucy. Can you?" And then he was gone again, muttering to himself in Indonesian as he crossed the threshold from one room to another.
The front door swung open, the meaning evident. Time to go, Vika. Go forth and run his errands like a good girl. She muttered something unpleasant about his questionable heritage under her breath as she tucked the envelope into her jacket and stepped back towards the balcony railing.
How long had it been since she had last flown? Too long - but Magnus usually did the spell for her, and Vika's magic was untrustworthy at the best of times. She didn't want to soar a hundred feet above the city only to have the spell fade or flicker at the worst possible moment.
She steeled herself. Bane wouldn't always be around to do the work for her, and she had improved a lot in the last few months when he had been absent, despite her infrequent practise beyond simple parlour tricks.
She jumped up to the wrought-iron balcony railing with none of the elegance of her puppet, balancing herself precariously, crouching to steady herself. She took the opportunify to tie the package to her belt - once she had dropped one of Magnus' strange packages and had spent the following three weeks a beautiful pale blue colour with tiny horns sprouting from her cheekbones and an inability to speak anything but Avestan and Chhattisgarhi.
She rose lightly to her feet, balancing precariously on her toes at the edge of the railing. She took a deep breath and stepped backwards.
There was a brief moment of panic, exhilaratiom, pure adrenaline, as nothingness engulfed her and she was in freefall. Her mind was blank - the spell, the enchantment, fly girl fly.
The ground wasted no time in rushing up to meet her.
Bane's magic was as ostentatious as he was - blue tongues of fire, blazing sparks of energy, the frission of magic tangible as he worked. Vika's was not so dramatic or impressive - it was quiet, simple and unexceptional, much like herself. Her magic, slight though it was, manifested itself simply in a changing of laws, of reality, as the natural world stretched to accomodate the decidedly unnatural. It had unnerved Bane at first at how subtle her magic was.
The rush of air as her falling body cleaved a path through the sky, the burst of light above her as the sun burst over the horizon, her own exhilarated laughter all conspired to wipe the correct enchantment from her mind. And she doubted she could do anything to help herself if she hit the ground.
She closed her eyes. Pictured the rune.
She didn't even have time to focus.
Then she changed angle abruptly, so suddenly that she spun, starlight hair whipping, and she was heading back up the way she had come, towards the rising sun.
Flying, she was relieved to find anew, was easy.