“The women do interiors,” her father said. “They’ve a knack for that, because they tidy homes in real life, too. Compared to men they’re more emotional, so working sorcery on dolls would stir them up a lot.”
“But you said Lucy Kendrick worked sorcery, you said she taught her sisters, who taught their sons—”
“They’re dead,” Dennis cut in. “And they had help.”
“From who?”
“The Thief on the Winged Horse!”
“But—”
“I’m sorry,” said her father to Alastair. “We’ll be getting on now.”
“It’s all right, Briar.” Alastair crouched, to Persephone’s level. “When you’re thirteen, Daddy will teach you how to lay an enchantment. Just the one, and it will be yours, forever. That’s traditional on the eyot. If someone turns out to be good at dollcraft – if they’re better than everyone else – we apprentice them as a Sorcerer, and they can learn all the other enchantments. Do you see? Only the very best people at craft get to do it as a job. Only they get to learn all the enchantments.”
Persephone sensed there was some insult in this explanation, though she couldn’t put it into words beyond asking, high-voiced with indignation: “How are all the best people men?”
“Let it go, now, girl,” her father said, frowning.
The change in his expression silenced her. Alastair handed him the wrapped dolls, and they left.
*
Now, she was an adult. She wasn’t making dolls on the top floor as she’d once imagined, despite repeatedly requesting an apprenticeship. She was out front, making sales, getting into trouble for being insufficiently cheerful with the customers. Two days after that stranger with the thin face had bought the Glorious Exultation doll, Persephone and the other workers were gathered on the ground floor for an announcement from Alastair. The stranger was at his side. He carried a doctor’s bag.
“Settle down,” Alastair began. “I know you’ve heard the rumours. Meet our new apprentice; this is Mr Larkin, who’ll be training with the Sorcerers, subject to probationary restrictions.”
“Welcome, Mr Larkin,” said Galleren Kendrick – another of Persephone’s cousins, from the architects’ floor. Pointedly, he asked, “Are you a man of Kendrick, Botham or Jackson?”
“Ramsay,” the stranger replied. “And just Larkin is fine.”
A murmur rippled through the group. Persephone caught the eye of Rieko, Alastair’s wife, a dark-bobbed Japanese woman with her hands in her dungaree pockets. She was twice Persephone’s relative, because she was a distant cousin of Persephone’s mother. Rieko ran the Interior Design department, and presumably discussed work matters with Alastair at home. But she shrugged her slight shoulders and shook her head at Persephone, as if to signal: this is all news to me.
Alastair coughed for attention. “Conrad Kendrick has been persuaded that our information on Jemima Ramsay was incomplete. It seems there’s evidence that she lived, as did her offspring, giving rise to a line we weren’t aware of. Larkin’s keen to start a reconciliation.”
Persephone thought of her own long-held desire to be a Sorcerer; no one in the workshop ever entertained her ambitions. This Larkin had arrived with a preposterous tale and less than a week later was given a job.
She walked to the front of the group.
“Does he have any skills?” she asked Alastair.
“We take apprentices with promise—” Alastair began, but Larkin raised a hand to halt him.
“I’ve brought a sample of my work,” Larkin said, lifting his doctor’s bag onto the nearest table. He opened it, and took out an intricate toy. The workers craned forward to look.
The toy comprised two figures: a young man in the tricorn hat of a highwayman, and at his side, a bonneted woman with a choker. Larkin twisted a key in the toy’s base. The dolls shifted into motion. Swooping, the young man kissed the woman, and with his free arm, stole an even smaller doll – no bigger than an inch – from the woman’s pocket.
The crowd sighed with pleasure. Persephone fell in love alongside them. The Kendricks did not make wind-up dolls as a rule; the mechanics distracted from the magic. But this had a fluidity of motion that was charming and, more importantly, showed Larkin’s talent was genuine. With this proof of his ability, Persephone wished still more intensely that she were in his place. No, more than that; she wanted to be him. To have a vision, and to be permitted to realise it, was so enviable – and unimaginable to Persephone in her own form.
She reached out, to brush her fingertips against the thief. She felt nothing but cold tin.
“There’s no enchantment,” she whispered.
“No,” Alastair said. “And until further notice, you mustn’t discuss how enchantments are laid in his presence. Larkin’s familial tie, along with his obvious craft, make him more than eligible for the job. But by Conrad’s orders he must serve a probationary period. If we’re satisfied with his attitude and progress in post then he’ll learn all the enchantments in due course. In the meantime, I’ll work sorcery on Larkin’s dolls.”
That was interesting. Larkin hadn’t wholly got his own way yet, then. Still he was smiling as he returned the highwayman to the doctor’s bag. Why shouldn’t he smile? When Persephone first met him, she thought his confidence was misplaced; he had no justification to state so boldly that Conrad would believe him. But he had been believed. Now he would be taught by the best crafts people in the world, and would be further rewarded in time. He would be one of the men on the top floor, like Alastair and Dennis, who decided how other people should feel.
The workers drifted back to their benches, and Persephone returned to her till. Dennis took some paint and a brush to the foyer, where he would add Larkin’s name to the lists on the wall. Persephone kept thinking of Larkin’s smile. In the solitude of the shop, she tried to smile that way at the dolls. It hurt almost immediately, and for once she was glad to hear the ring of the bell as a customer entered.
4
On the morning Larkin started his apprenticeship, Hedwig was fulfilling routine duties, which included checks on their supplies for autumn, starting with a visit to the cellar. But she paused at the open doorway. A light had been left on below. As Conrad rarely ventured into this part of the house, and she’d not been below ground either, the glow aroused suspicion.
She looked down from the highest stair, which let her see a narrow sliver of the cellar, and it seemed empty. But she heard the shuffle of feet.
“Who’s there?” demanded Hedwig.
A dishevelled figure shambled from an alcove. Briar; Conrad’s twin.
“Good heavens, Briar!” Hedwig took the steps two at a time. “Whenever did you get here? And how did you get in?”
“I let myself through the back last night.” Briar paused to clear the rattle from his throat. “I didn’t mean to stay this long, or fall asleep… Just thought I’d borrow a few things we ran out of at home.”
A door connected the cellar to the lower garden; Hedwig glanced at it, concerned he’d forced an entry, but there wasn’t any broken glass or splintered wood. Perhaps the house painter had left it unlocked. She’d have stern words with him for that.