Excantation Read online

  James shook his head with an anticipatory wince. “I could make room?”

  “I figured that’d be your answer. I’ll open up space here. House will enlarge the parlor and we’ll put more chairs in there. Table too, I would assume.”

  I nodded in support of this. “A table would be great. And maybe a dry erase board or chalkboard?”

  James made a humming noise of agreement in his throat. He swallowed coffee to tack on, “That would be quite helpful. It will allow us to draw out ideas we can all easily see. Do you have one, Agna?”

  “No, but I can easily go get one. Our clan master has made it very clear we are to aid you in whatever ways we can.”

  I had to assume Agna’s expansion worked different than Doors. Kobold space generally did, for reasons they failed to fully explain. It would be safer for her to do it than for James to try and make Doors in his own house and end up in trouble from overcrowding.

  Zoya chose that moment to join us and she eyed the plate I had in front of me with interest. “Good morning. Breakfast is served, I hope?”

  “It will be as soon as you sit down,” Agna promised her.

  Taking the hint, my master sat with commendable alacrity. At her heels was Ciarán, looking far more awake than the rest of us, but he seemed to handle time differences by taking many cat naps. As a cat. I found it unfair, to tell you the truth.

  Agna was clearly in her element with so many guests to fuss over, and since we were all jet lagged and sleep-deprived from last night, we basically let her.

  For their sakes, James repeated the info of our two new members coming in. As he talked, I could feel my brain coming fully online. It was something of a process, but when it did, a thought came to me. A rather obvious thought.

  I waited until they were done speaking before sending my thought up a flagpole, seeing if anyone would salute it. “James, you said the platform here in Waterloo was damaged, right? Can we work on fixing it while waiting on people to arrive? We might want to test things out, and it’ll be hard to do that with a damaged platform.”

  Zoya nodded in support of this but had to swallow the bite in her mouth first. “I know our knowledge of how the platforms were made is shaky at best, but we do need to figure that out regardless. I don’t see why we should sit about sucking our thumbs and waiting on the others.”

  Waffling a hand back and forth, James admitted, “I’m of two minds about this. We do have several platforms to study, in an undamaged fashion, that we can look at. But this might be a good opportunity to take one apart and see how it was put together. I’m still confused on how the aether powers the whole platform. Might as well examine this one like we did with Brazil’s. It’s already half-apart anyway, after all.”

  Oh. Good point.

  “But, the building it’s in is very unstable. I’d love to have your help fixing it today so we can safely enter it and work on the platform without fear of the roof coming down on our heads.”

  Zoya splayed a hand out before sipping at her coffee. “A fair compromise. Let’s attend to it after breakfast, then.”

  “Should we document this?” I asked a little uncertainly. “When we actually work on the platform, I mean. And aside from taking notes. Have a camera running and following people around.”

  “It’s a good idea, not that we have a camera readily available.” James pursed his lips in thought. “We can nip to a store and buy one, though. Who’d man it?”

  Ciarán lifted a hand. “Why don’t you let me? I’ll just be standing uselessly around anyway.”

  “You don’t mind?” I asked my pooka and got a shrug in response. Come to think of it, hanging idly around was probably pretty boring for him. He didn’t understand all we were doing. “Cool. If we hook it up to the laptop, we could do a livestream for other Imagineers too, maybe get real-time feedback.”

  “The reason why we need apprentices,” Zoya said to the table at large, “is because they are far better with technology than we are and think of things we’d never imagine. Livestreaming, for instance. Reagan, you’re in charge of that.”

  I figured I would be as soon as the words popped out of my mouth. The reward for a good idea was more work. Them’s the breaks.

  James got all excited, blue eyes sparkling, and rose to his feet. “I’ll grab a few things, meet you at the front door in fifteen minutes? Then we can start work.”

  “Maybe real shoes too, James?” Agna called to him sweetly from the sink.

  He tilted his head down to look at his own feet and blinked, bemused by the fuzziness that greeted his eyes. “I did think my feet were far too warm and comfortable.”

  Agna just shook her head, rolled her eyes, and went back to washing dishes.

  I bit my lip to avoid laughing. To be fair, on very sleep deprived mornings, I’d stepped out in my house slippers too and not realized it until later.

  Reminded of Agna’s warning, I pulled my phone out and took a selfie with the empty plate in clear view. Then I texted it to Klaus with a quick caption. I hit send before I realized autocorrect had once again done me in.

  Ciarán leaned in when I groaned. “What?”

  “So, I sent a pic to Klaus, and what I meant to say was, ‘Look, I’m a functional adult!’ but autocorrect kicked in and changed it to, ‘Look, I’m a fictional adult!’ Which was not at all the message I meant to send.”

  “I personally feel that’s more accurate.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs for that. He just sniggered, the rat. “Autocorrect and I just cannot be friends. It’s like this little gnome inside the phone, trying to be helpful, but it’s drunk off its rocker.”

  Zoya almost snorted coffee up her nose.

  The subway building housing our platform proved to be very close by indeed. In fact, we walked to it, a whole six blocks down. The temperature made for a good day of walking, in the low seventies. The air was a bit smoggy, but otherwise not bad. I enjoyed walking after being stuck on a plane all day yesterday.

  We walked along Westminster Bridge Road, and let me tell you, that was a very packed place. I was sort of used to congestion from California, as people built very closely together there. But London took it to a whole new level. I rarely saw even a crack of space between the buildings, they were sandwiched in so tightly. This road seemed to be a mix of churches, multi-story apartment buildings, and little delis or shops put in along the street level. There wasn’t a single one-story building, all of them at least three stories or more. Real estate was apparently at a prime.

  I saw other things, too, as I walked along behind James. A few doors opened, and I recognized them as Doors, with some mythical being popping in or out. They gave James a wave hello, which he returned. The vegan shop was one of them, and I got a good whiff of the place as we walked past it. It smelled rather good, actually. That might be lunch.

  And in between all those apartment buildings and small restaurants sat our target. It read “Westminster Bridge House” in black letters along the white sign, with a black gate below it locked with many a Keep Out sign in red.

  I looked the building over with some perplexity. Hadn’t James said this thing was broken and dilapidated? It didn’t look that way at all to me. The building’s face looked perfect, in fact, the grey stone on the bottom sort of gothic in style with its elaborate stonework touches. The top half of the building was made of red brick, with creamy stone columns bracing either side of the windows. What part of this was broken?

  “James, I thought you said the building was in bad repair,” Ciarán pointed out in confusion.

  “So it is, on the interior. The city council voted to at least fix the front exterior, so as not to be a blight on the city’s appearance. It looks much as it did when first built, or so I’m told. I’ve only old pictures to go off of and witness accounts. But wait until we reach the interior, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  I wanted to know just how we were supposed to go through when the gate contained a rather stout lock. And that looked
like black iron to me, which meant Ciarán might have trouble going through.

  To my surprise, James didn’t even slow down. He waltzed right through the gate like it wasn’t even there, without so much as a ripple to show for it. I whistled, totally impressed. Now that was some A+ glamour work, right there. Even with my magically-trained eyes, I hadn’t spotted it immediately.

  We all walked through like we knew what we were doing. Once inside, I saw more of what James meant. The ticket office to the left of us stood empty, its glass window in good repair with the gold lettering announcing it as a ticket office in perfect condition. I had a feeling it was part of the rebuild to maintain the façade of the building, though. Once we were past it, going further along the cement floors, that’s when things got abruptly dicey.

  The roof was enclosed overhead, that much was true. But the rest of it…yikes. Someone had cleaned up—there wasn’t much actual debris lying about—but gaping holes dotted the interior. It literally looked like World War II had hit, which, yeah that wasn’t an exaggeration. Missiles had definitely gone through this place. Not a single door or window was left standing, and when we rounded the curve and got to the railway tracks themselves, it became obvious why they’d abandoned it. I could barely see any hints of tracks, and what remained was all twisted up and sticking out at random angles.

  “Wow.” I turned in place and looked around me at all angles, head craning to look up at the rather tall ceilings. “This place really took a beating. Um. Where do we even start?”

  “The city maintains that the building is structurally sound enough to stand,” James reported dubiously. “I, for one, would rather have more supports in here. The framework to the building was likely warped.”

  “Let’s you and I tackle that,” Zoya suggested to him. “That’ll take some sensitive teamwork. Reagan, why don’t you work on the area here? Banish all of this and turn it into more of a waiting room. Many passengers will come through here.”

  I went cross-eyed. “Uh, banishing?”

  My master gave me a pointed look. “You need the practice. With practice comes confidence.”

  Erk. She had a point. And I hadn’t seen that acidic purple goo the last couple times I’d tried banishing. Rubble no one cared about should be safe practice material, right? I wouldn’t experiment on my clothes, but I didn’t care if I screwed up with broken masonry. I tried to sound confident as I answered, “Sure. Should I model it off the waiting areas we saw in the paintings last night?”

  James perked right up. “That’s a smashing idea. Do it. Don’t wear your brain out, though. We’ll need it for later.”

  I took that warning to heart, as I hadn’t really learned my limits yet. It’s not that overdoing things was bad for my health. My brain wouldn’t implode from overuse. It would just feel like it and leave me a migraine as thanks. I was all for taking it in stages. “Sure.”

  They headed off, already talking about what to do about the frame, and how much of the second story they wanted to fully restore instead of just putting walls in. I did walk around the lower level a bit, getting my bearings. I wanted to see where the platform was. As it turned out, it wasn’t far away from the waiting area, just hidden by the rubble. It had its own enclosed room, the front facing out toward the rest of the building. I did look at it as much as I could. It seemed in rough shape, which was understandable when part of a roof fell on it. But I didn’t see any sign that it was completely unusable. All the columns were still upright. Maybe a few minor repairs needed?

  Hopefully I hadn’t just mentally jinxed us all.

  I turned and focused on the area in front of me. There was a sunken track—not by a lot, but enough to move a train underneath for some distance. I didn’t see any reason to keep that there. Our platform didn’t need to go underground.

  Okay, me. It’s okay to screw up here unless you bring the building down on your own head. Okay? Cool. Let’s just banish that section there first.

  It winked out of existence, easy as pie.

  Huh. Had my banishing skills improved magically overnight? Or was I just not stressed about messing up here, and that made the difference? I swear I could mentally trip myself up better than anyone else. Maybe I should be kind to myself.

  I focused and banished the next section, going a little larger this time. See, no problem. I gave myself a pat on the back.

  With a bit more confidence than before, I kept going, winking broken bricks and such out of existence. With the area clear, I then filled the area with concrete, giving it good strength. Roman concrete, of course, as that stuff was legit.

  “Very smooth,” Ciarán commented, admiring my handiwork. “And that leaves a great deal of space to work in.”

  “I think we need to split this up a little.” I judged the area with my eyes. It was now a rather large rectangle with smooth floors. “Someone’s going to want to put, like, a snack bar in here, maybe a gift shop.”

  “Or several,” he agreed. Walking forward, he started gesturing. “What if we leave designated areas for that? It doesn’t need to be built today, but if you want to put in benches for waiting passengers?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Then best to mark it all out beforehand, get a feel for it.”

  I rather agreed, so I first created a stack of poles with some rolls of bright yellow tape, like police use to cordon off an area. With Ciarán’s help, I started setting things up and marking them off, then created a measuring tape so I didn’t have to just randomly make crap up and eyeball it before calling it good. It did mean I had to Google the usual dimensions of kiosks and things, but that was fine. We’d be here for a few hours, and I had the opportunity to do it right the first time.

  If there was one thing this year had taught me, it was do it right the first time. I wouldn’t find the chance to do it over.

  We had to play with it for a while, but I finally hit a point I thought looked good. And if someone disagreed, they could come in behind me and do it over. That was on them. I left the designated spots for snack places alone and faced the spot for my waiting area, cracking my neck to either side. “Right. Let’s get cracking.”

  “Reagan? Dying request?”

  I tilted my head to look over at Ciarán. “Yeah?”

  “Make the chairs actually comfortable? Every station I’ve been through, the chairs were hard and not to be sat in for long.”

  Remembering all the chairs I’d sat in at various airports over the last week, I had to agree. I threw out a fist for him to bump. “All the padding, my man. All.”

  He bumped with a grin on his face. “I knew I could count on you.”

  She blew in like a storm. I meant that literally. House opened the door and wind literally heralded her entrance, swirling about her with a wisp of fog. Leaves were caught up in her springy curls, red hair like a halo around her heart-shaped face. She held a staff in one hand, made of twisted woods, and looked like she’d just stepped out of some forbidden realm.

  I felt a shiver of jealousy. Now THAT, my friends, was an entrance. Could this possibly be our druid expert? She certainly looked the part.

  “Agna, I’m here!” she called out and then her head turned towards me. She spotted me in the chair next to a window, where I’d curled up to organize the Gramarye folder in Google Drive a little better. The redhead blinked at me and then snapped her fingers. “Reagan Hunt. Am I right?”

  “Er, yes.”

  “I thought as much. Brigid described you to me. You couldn’t be anyone else. I’m Aisling the Druid.”

  Brigid—as of the Tuatha Dé Danann? With all that had happened, I’d almost forgotten meeting her, but I had, the first day I was introduced to the clan. Aisling was on speaking terms with her goddess? Now wasn’t that interesting. “She’s quite lovely.”

  “She is,” Aisling agreed promptly with a smile. “And fierce. She said upon meeting you that you were destined for great things. I can see why she said that if you’re helping to spearhead this projec
t while still an apprentice.”

  I may or may not have blushed on that one.

  Agna appeared and saved me, taking in her guests with barely a blink. “You’ve made good time, Aisling. Come in, I’ve got a room set up for you.”

  I went back to working on the drive while she followed Agna upstairs. People had been throwing so much into this drive, it had lost its cohesion. I couldn’t figure out the rhyme or reason of it. It had taken a good hour just to figure out where everything had been put. I had to create a physical list to keep it straight as I moved things around.

  In between organizing, I checked my messages. Still no response from the parents. But I could see in the app that both had seen my message. Were they just too busy to respond right then and would later?

  So focused was I that I literally startled when an alto voice said in my ear, “Whatever are you doing?”

  My head snapped around. Ah. Aisling had rejoined me at some point. “I’m re-organizing all the information that’s come in. We’ve had way too many cooks in the kitchen and it’s gotten messed up.”

  “I see.” She regarded me curiously. This close, I could see that she had hazel eyes with flecks of gold in them. “I haven’t had a chance to look at any of this. I understand from James there are pictures?”

  “Yes, a very talented elf painted several of them for us, and a few sketches. Would you like to see those?”

  “If I may.”

  I obligingly pulled them up for her. Aisling pulled up a chair and perched on the side of it, leaning over the arm of mine in order to see better. I did a sort of slow slideshow, giving her several seconds to look at each before going onto the next.

  “These are fascinating.”

  “I take it you’re too young to have traveled through the Hub?”

  Aisling threw back her head in a hearty laugh, sounding like gusty windchimes, if that made sense. “Bless you, child, no. I’m nearly as old as the system you’re trying to repair, in fact. But I never used it. We druids have our own way of travel which was both cheaper and easier for me.”