Modern Magick

The Striding Spire: 6

'Please have a seat,' the giant finally said. 'Covers, please.'

This last made no sense to me whatsoever, but before I could ask for an explanation, two of the silver dishes shivered and spat their covers into the air, where they promptly vanished. The two dishes hastened to set themselves before us, and I noted with approval (but not much surprise) that mine contained three items: a piece of carrot cake, a custard slice, and a cup of chocolate. Three of my very favourite things.

I peeked at Jay's: it had a fat samosa, a plate of chips, and a cup of tea... no, the contents of the little cup were far too dark for tea.

'Since when are you a coffee drinker?' I whispered to him.

He shot me a vaguely guilty look. 'I like tea as well,' he said defensively.

'Traitor.'

He flicked a chip at me.

We had ended up seated within easy talking distance of Lord Garrogin, but not so close that I could see what his dishes were. I was disappointed. Food is a bit of an interest of mine — big surprise, right? — and I was curious about what kinds of things giants might like to eat.

'Cordelia Vesper,' said Garrogin. 'And Jay Patel. I understand you work together?'

'As of a few weeks ago,' I confirmed, picking up the shiny silver fork that came with my plate and tucking into the cake. 'He's our new Waymaster, and I am training him to join the Acquisitions Division.'

'Tell me about Acquisitions,' said Garrogin. He had a deep, soothing voice, and I genuinely did feel calmed by it. The flutter of nerves in my belly dissipated.

'Well, we are the — the public arm of the Society, I suppose,' I said. 'We track down and retrieve artefacts, treasures, trinkets and curiosities, books, beasts, talismans — anything really — that might be under threat, and make sure they get where they need to go. Sometimes that's here, sometimes elsewhere.'

'We fix problems, too,' Jay said. 'It's not just retrieval. On my first assignment with Ves, we went after a pair of stolen alikats and discovered a disease infesting half the dormant Troll Enclaves in the country. Took a bit to resolve that one.'

'And how did you resolve it?' said Garrogin, in the same even tone.

'In the end, we had to go all the way to Farringale,' said Jay, dipping a chip in ketchup.

That prompted a small reaction from our giant interrogator. 'You entered Farringale? What did you do there?'

So we told him that story, and that got us onto the tale of Bill the Book. By the time we had finished telling him about all of that, my cakes and chocolate were gone, and Jay had wiped his plate clean of chips, ketchup and samosas alike.

Garrogin hadn't touched his dishes at all.

'You have had a lively time of it,' he observed.

'It's never a dull job,' I agreed. 'Though to be fair, it's not usually quite that exciting.'

Lord Garrogin nodded thoughtfully, and at last — at last — he selected some small morsel of something from his plate and consumed it with ponderous slowness. 'What drew you to the Society?' he asked, looking at Jay.

The question came a bit out of the blue, so I could not blame Jay for looking a trifle startled. But he answered quickly. 'It's legendary, for one thing. Everyone here is really committed to the preservation of our magickal heritage, and... well, without Milady and her recruits, we'd have lost a lot of irreplaceable things by now. That's more important to me than anything. And then my parents both worked here, before I was born. They always had great stories to tell. I never really wanted anything else.'