Modern Magick

Alchemy and Argent: 1

'Cordelia Vesper,' said Valerie, in the resonant tone of a disapproving headmistress. 'You are bored.'

'I deny it,' I said instantly.

Val looked pointedly at my desk, and all the evidence to the contrary strewn across it. I'd adopted an out-of-the-way nook in the library at Home, tucked under one of the big, bright windows overlooking the sun-baked grounds. The window was wide open, letting in all the intense heat of mid-August and an occasional, desultory stir of air. Not enough of a breeze to cool me down. More than enough to cause havoc among the thousand or so sweet wrappers littering my desk top.

'I got hungry,' I said, as a faint puff of wind whisked a few more onto the floor.

Val folded her arms. Ordinarily stationed at her enormous desk at the entrance to the library — where she was on guard as much as on duty, nobody touched Val's books without permission and expected to get away with it — she had floated through in her imposing green velvet chair to come check on me.

If only she could have done so back when I'd still been industriously employed. Like, about three days ago.

I gazed back at her innocently, and thumped the top of my respectable-looking stack of books. 'Lots of good stuff happening.'

'Excess of sweets,' said Val, pointing. 'Dearth of notes. Phone. Far too much staring out of the window. Need I go on?'

She was right on all points. My notebook, optimistically opened at a clean page, had exactly three words written in it ("Nicolas Flamel sucks"). My phone lay on top, screen on, currently displaying an ongoing text conversation between me and Alban that had not, to my regret, received any new instalments since Monday.

And I had been staring out of the window. It was the heat that did it, I swear. I wore the airiest summer dress I possessed (pale blue silk), and my hair (silver this week) was scraped up off my neck, but nothing could keep me cool in thirty-four degree heat. Not even in the great stone pile that is Home.

I drooped in my chair. Busted. 'All right, all right. I'm bored out of my skull. It's been two and a half weeks, Val.'

Her brows rose. She looked cool as a proverbial cucumber, her dark skin free of the perspiration so unbecomingly glimmering upon my own, her black hair elegantly swept up and frizz-free. Is there a charm to keep cool in summer? Why hasn't anyone ever told me? 'Whatever happened to Library Fiend Ves?' said she.

She had a point. The old me would never have got bored in a library like this. What was wrong with me.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, came up with nothing, and shut it again. 'I'm the worst person alive,' I said instead. 'All that time complaining that I wanted to come Home, and now look at me. Bored.'

Val softened. 'It is understandable. After weeks on end of wild adventures and daring deeds, the change of pace has been abrupt.'

Maybe that was it. Out on the Fifth Britain, chasing down the clues we need to halt the decline of magick, I'd felt like I was really doing something. Something important.

It was harder to feel the same way about combing through dusty old books, considering that the vast majority proved to have nothing useful in them at all.

'I'm addicted to danger,' I sighed. 'Hooked on adventure. The new Ves needs peril and adversity to thrive.'

'I think you were getting tired of that, too,' Val justly observed.

'You're right. Nothing pleases me. I've become a monster.'

She grinned. 'Why don't you take a break?'