I looked at Luna. She was sitting up straight, meeting my gaze, and I felt a pang. She’s growing past the apprentice stage, isn’t she? How much longer before she’d be ready to strike out on her own? Two years? Less? I didn’t know, but all of a sudden as I looked at her, I felt sure that Luna was past the halfway mark. The time ahead of her as my apprentice would be shorter than the time she’d spent already. It was a strange feeling, proud and melancholy at the same time.
And if she was going to be a journeyman soon . . . then maybe it was time to start treating her like one.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “But I’m not promising anything.”
“Thanks.”
Once Luna was gone I opened up and spent the rest of the day running the shop. My shop’s called the Arcana Emporium, and it’s in the back streets of Camden. As far as I know it’s the only magic shop in Britain that sells actual magic (there are rumours of one in Ireland, but I’ve never gotten around to checking them out). The weather outside was cold, but I didn’t have any shortage of customers.
I get two general categories of customers in my shop: the ones who have a clue (the minority), and the ones who don’t (much more common). Generally speaking, the clueless ones aren’t a big problem—all they want to do is browse around and poke things. They’re just here for entertainment, and as long as they don’t break anything, I don’t really mind.
The ones who are a problem tend to be the ones at the far ends of the scepticism-to-credulity scale. First you get the sceptics, who are absolutely certain that magic isn’t real and will explain this to you at length. This is generally irritating rather than dangerous, but still gets old fast, particularly since a large fraction of said group seem to believe that if you don’t agree with them, then all that means is that you must not understand what they’re saying. So they’ll go back to the beginning and explain all over again about how all of this magic stuff is superstition and why no one in their right mind could really believe in it, while I try to explain in turn that yes, that’s very interesting, but there are three other customers waiting behind you and would you mind getting out of the way so I can talk to them instead?
At the other end of the scale you get the excessively credulous types, who believe in magic just fine, as well as everything else. Today’s representatives of the latter group included a guy who’d come into possession of a vase that he wanted identified because he thought it was magical (it wasn’t), another guy whose girlfriend had left him and who was convinced that it was for supernatural reasons (it wasn’t), a woman who thought she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra and wanted to talk to me about her destiny (that one went downhill fast), and some bunch of lunatics calling themselves the Circle of the Serpent who wanted my help with initiation rites (don’t ask).
In other words, a normal day. Hey, at least it isn’t boring.
But mixed in with the ones who have no idea what they’re talking about are the ones who do. And mixed in with those are the ones who might not know how the magical world works but have enough common sense to figure out that if they’re going to be involved in it, then learning as much as they can is a really good idea.
“For the last time, I’m not checking up to see if your wife is cheating on you,” I said. “I’m not a private detective.”
The man left in a huff and I turned back to the person I’d been talking to before he’d butted in. The adept was shorter than average, with scruffy clothes and overly thick glasses, but the eyes behind the lenses were perceptive. “Kind of,” I told him. “I mean, the way the law is right now, it doesn’t actually draw any distinction between Dark mages and Light mages anyway.”
“So what is the proposal going to do?”
“The big issue is Council membership,” I said. “Some mages want the Junior and Senior Council opened up to Dark mages, some don’t. This proposal of Morden’s is going further than that. If it goes through, there’ll be one seat on the Junior Council that’s only open to Dark mages.”
“But why?”
“Affirmative action, I suppose. If it’s any consolation, it’s not going to affect you and your friends directly. It only applies to mages.”
“But it’ll make a difference, won’t it?” the adept said. “If there are Dark mages on the Council, then it’s like saying that they’re approving what they do.”
“Yeah.”
“So isn’t that going to filter down? Like that thing that happened with that Dark mage, Torvald. The next time that happens they’ll be even less likely to do anything, won’t they? It’ll just keep getting worse.”
I sighed. “You might be right.”
“So what are we supposed to do? It’s not like the Council’s going to listen to us.”
“I don’t know. I wish I had some better answers for you, but I don’t. And it’s not as though the Council’s going to listen to me, either.”
“But you’re still a mage.”
“There is that. Look, how many are there in your circle?”
The adept (his name was Lucian) hesitated for a second before deciding to tell the truth. “Five.”
“So at least you’re not on your own. Okay, I’m guessing there’s something specific you’re worried about, so why don’t you give me a rundown on which of your friends you think are in danger and why. I can’t promise anything, but I can probably give you some advice that’ll make it more likely that if something goes wrong, it won’t happen to you guys.”
We talked it over. It took a while because the conversation kept on being interrupted by other customers: a girl who wanted to sell a dagger focus, three people buying various mundane items, two different guys wanting to buy magic tricks, and a latent mage just starting to come into her power who’d gotten in touch with me via e-mail. I bought the dagger off the first, sold the next three the things they wanted, gave the two would-be magicians business cards from the box on the counter, and booked a time with the last girl for a longer chat.
“Anyway, that’s the best advice I’ve got,” I said at last. “Look, you can give me a call if anything happens. Doubt I’ll be able to do anything directly, but I can give you some suggestions.”
“All right.” Lucian started to leave, then hesitated. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“No, I mean . . . Kath said I shouldn’t come. She thought you were supposed to hate adepts.”
“I’ve heard that too.”
“But you don’t, right?” Lucian said. “I mean, that thing with the Nightstalkers. You didn’t go after them because you wanted to, did you?”
“I wish everyone else would believe that. Look, you want to do me a favour back? Tell the other adepts you know that I’m trying to be one of the good guys.”
“Oh.” Lucian paused. “Okay.” He left, and I went back to dealing with the rest of the customers.
When you’re forced to see things from someone else’s point of view, it helps you put things in perspective. I often feel vulnerable in mage society—in both power and influence, compared to someone like Caldera, I’m a lightweight. But just as other mages are above me, there are others that I’m above in turn. I might be weak by mage standards, but I’m still a mage, and that gives me a certain automatic level of status and bargaining power. For adepts like Lucian, and for novices like that girl, magical society is a very scary place. Things can go wrong very fast and very badly, and when they do there isn’t much of a safety net. It was a reminder that my life could be a lot worse.