Captive Magics

26 - Farewell

Leander had a long, hard think about how his life was going and came to a decision the night they returned to Upper Church Street. What would Caroline say? He knew her responses well enough to imagine a whole conversation with her that he hadn't yet been allowed to have, and the fictional Caroline brought him to the conclusion he should have arrived at months ago. Something had to change.

In his head there was a list of everything which had happened to deliver them at this point. The attempted kidnapping, the unplanned successful kidnapping which followed it. The small palaver at the Home Office. Then, of course, the entire mental subsection labelled Fanton Court. A stolen grotesque, a break-in, the dungeon they had found and accidentally blown up. They both knew what they thought that dungeon was for, but there was no proof. Just a hunch and a potentially vengeful baronet who might want to know who paid a visit to his home. So, what to do next? There was no obvious answer, but what was obvious to Leander was what Lissy would want now. He needed to tell her soon. Before she roped him into it.

"We cannot reasonably tell Arthur though," she opined for what Leander thought must be the hundredth time, though it had only been yesterday they had returned to Upper Church Street. It was as if she hoped to invoke him by mentioning his name so much. Did invocations exist in magical theory or was it merely a myth? Leander would have to ask her. He realised his attention had wandered and she was looking at him for an answer to something.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, startled.

"Can you think of a better way to search for the truth?"

"A better way? Than what?"

"Going across the border! Have you listened to anything I've said?"

"I daresay it's a logical place to look now," he said, evading her second question.

"I daresay it's the only option," she told him. There was a silence that Leander found awkward because he knew what he had to say next, but after a moment's pause for thought Lissy ploughed on, comfortably unaware. "It will of course be unquestionably risky, there's the possibility of a dangerous confrontation with a very adept magician and of course the chance of being arrested as a spy. We could take a house in the capital. Perhaps I might spy on the sorcerers working for their king and send reports back to Arthur-"

"Do you want to increase your chances of being arrested by actually being a spy?" Realising how strict he sounded he attempted to moderate his tone, and suggested more gently: "Can you not focus solely on the one task and try to avoid being hanged?"

"But if I do not spy on them while there I risk being arrested as a double agent by Arthur when I return here," she argued. Leander gloomily thought it sounded very plausible. "Besides, I am confident that with you there with me they will be unreasonably suspicious of you and forget about me," Lissy added with a twinkling smile. Leander decided enough was enough.

"I'm not coming with you," he said flatly. The smile vanished from her face instantly.

"Oh. Well, you appear to have forgotten, Leander. You have to." Snapping shut the book which had been lying open and ignored in her arms, she marched upstairs to the library. Leander rose to follow her, heart thudding.

"Lissy!"

"I'm busy. Go do something useful."

"Okay," he said unflinchingly. "I'll go and pack my things. And then I will leave and see if I still have tenancy of my apartments." Lissy slammed the book into its place on the shelf and turned furiously, her skirts swinging.

"You will not!"

"I think I must. Lissy-"

"Don't forget who controls you!"

"Lissy-"

"The grates need sweeping, go and do it!"

"No. I am not your servant. Servants are paid, this has gone on long enough. If you want me to continue working for you then pay me a servant's wage."

"I hardly see why you need it," she said pettily, though she knew how unfair she was being.

"That is not the point," he told her, gentle and firm in a way that belied how his heart was still racing. "I will either be your servant or your friend. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, but I have neglected my family and we are both aware this is only a temporary-" She was already hurrying away from him again, and he threw his hands up in despair before following her.

"Lissy...Lissy! Will you just please-" She had got all the way downstairs and as far as the door to the conservatory by the time he managed to finally catch her arm.

"Get off!"

"Are you crying?"

"No!" Her arm was wrenched from his grasp. "Haven't you left yet? Oh gosh, just go!"

"I'm not just running off without saying goodbye. Lissy, please..." Lissy was still and upright as a post, hands clenched at her sides, turned resolutely away from him. He hurried in front of her. "Could we please talk for a few minutes about something other than the war?"

"About you leaving?" Her large, teary blue eyes rose to meet his. "I don't blame you."

"Lissy-"

"Do you hate me?" she asked, dropping her gaze to the floor. Two matching teardrops slid, gleaming and perfect, over her freckles, then fell from her jaw. They glittered in the air for the briefest moment, then vanished, swallowed into the growing stain on her blouse where others had already made their mark.

"Of course not," he said. How could he? The abrupt turn from argument to tears was dizzying, and he swayed close to her, drawn by the way she pressed her lips together and longing to kiss her until she stopped crying and began to laugh. But the chance of her laughing was slim: she was more likely to stop speaking to him if he did, and he knew better than to think she was in love with him this time.

The kiss landed safely on her cheek instead and for a moment they were close together, the scant space between them warm, a question mark, and he heard her breath hitch before he pulled away.

"You mean so much to me," he admitted, wiping the tears off her face and stepping back as colour flooded her skin. "I will leave my address on the hall table," he told her in a low voice. "It's your choice, Lissy: If you want to, you can find me." She was still staring with wide, frightened eyes as if she had just realised he might eat her, and he flushed too, awkwardly, wondering if he'd gone too far. They hesitated, balancing on a fine edge and both analysing that moment of tenderness. Before he could make another mistake, he left hastily, realising when he got to his room how little he had to take with him and gathering up what there was.

He had been expecting this, but still it was shocking to him how suddenly it had happened. The house was silent as he wrote his address out twice with a shaking hand, pocketing the first illegible copy and leaving the other on the hall table. He pulled the door to Fourteen Upper Church Street closed with a final click and left.