Modern Magick

The Striding Spire: 7

Jay had never met a spriggan before.

Neither had I, in fact, but since it was my sacred duty to be the knowledgeable, world-wise one, I had no intention of telling him that. I went forward to meet Mabyn Redclover with a practiced air of confident ease, and bid her warmly welcome to the Society.

Not that there was anything in her appearance to disgust, or even to disconcert. True, her head was a little overlarge for her body, but she was well-dressed and impeccably groomed and I respect that. She was a foot or so shorter than me (so, in other words, very short), and appeared to be of advanced age, judging from her wizened skin and white hair. She wore a sixties-style two-piece suit, jacket and skirt perfectly matched, with low heels and gold earrings. She hadn't gone for the beehive hair, slightly to my disappointment; instead, she had a nicely coiffed bob. We arrived in the hall to find her standing in the middle of it, looking around with obvious interest.

She took off her gloves when I went to greet her, and shook my hand warmly. 'Mabyn Redclover,' she introduced herself. 'I'm with the Ministry. Department of Forbidden Magicks.'

My eyebrows rose. Milady had reached rather high, and was it a coincidence that Ms. Redclover was an expert in magickal misdemeanours? I imagined not.

Jay and I introduced ourselves.

'Pleasure,' she said briskly. 'You are the two I was invited to meet, are you? What may I do for you?'

'Any connection at all to the Redclovers of Dappledok?' asked Jay.

A faint grimace flickered over her lips, and was gone. 'Once. A long time ago.'

I suppose you would distance yourself from family connections like that, in her line of work. But I wondered, then, why she had never changed her name.

Jay nodded. 'Has Milady described our current situation to you?'

'An outline only. A Dappledok beast has been found?'

'One of the questionable ones.' Jay proceeded to fill in the details. I, meanwhile, tried not to look as though I had the creature in question tucked into the bag hanging from my left shoulder, and hoped that the pup would not choose this of all possible moments to stick her head out for some air.

She didn't, but Ms. Redclover's eyes settled upon me with a shrewd expression I could not quite like. 'You have the pup here?' she said.

I sighed, and lifted the flap of my bag. I did so with some trepidation, in case Ms. Redclover, of Forbidden Magicks, should decide to confiscate her — or worse. But she only looked briefly into the bag, noted the dark shape of the pup curled up in the bottom, and withdrew. 'Disguised?'

'Yes.'

'Excellent illusion.'

I smiled, uncertain. Chit-chat? Surely she must feel some disapproval. 'There were three of them in the cottage,' I elaborated. 'Two failed to survive. We believe there must be some manner of secret breeding programme going on somewhere, and we'd like to get to the bottom of it.'

'So would we,' said Mabyn Redclover, with a thin smile. 'Milady has assigned you to assist me, so we will be working together for a time. I trust that will be agreeable?'

I felt a little surprise. Assigned to work with Mabyn? Had she not been sent to serve as our guide? Just who was in charge here?

It was typical of Milady to couch the situation in rather different terms to us, but the melancholy truth was: Ministry employees outranked us, especially the higher ups. And Ms. Redclover had every appearance of being one of those, from her manicured nails to her air of business-like efficiency. She was the kind of person who confidently expects to be obeyed without question, and that spoke volumes.