[Hydrargyru] Chapter 5

“For the first time in a year, she actually looks like my Eve again—not her ghost,” Summers said quietly, approaching the magus with his wife in his arms. He moved cautiously—after the lamps had gone out, the room was lit only by the faint glow of dawn struggling to filter through the cracks in the windows. He nodded toward the guard and the bloodstains on the floor.

“But was that really necessary?”

“There was no choice. Armilla,” Kayneth commanded, and the steel threads released their victim, coiling back into a bracelet. He picked it up from the floor and slipped it onto his wrist. “The spirit demanded extra payment. If it had escaped the circle, everyone in this room except for your wife…” He gestured toward a nearby cage holding a rabbit, dried and shriveled as if mummified.

“But you said yourself that it was ‘safe,’ sorcerer,” William protested, his face paling.

“‘As safe as possible,’” the magus snapped dismissively. “Don’t twist my words, profane fool. No magic is ever completely harmless. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I never miscalculate! Either the spirit grew bolder from too many sacrifices, or…” He hesitated. “Her condition was even worse than we had assumed.”

He didn’t like admitting that aloud. Saying so meant acknowledging an error in his initial diagnostics, a mistake Kayneth prided himself on never making. Especially not during a summoning ritual as straightforward as this one. However, he had another theory—one he did not think Summers needed to hear. Besides, there were more pressing matters at hand. He relented.

“Fine. Let’s call it my oversight. As compensation, I’ll waive ten percent of my fee—use it for your guard’s treatment. But we’ll settle the finances later. Unless you plan to shoot me right here and leave my body for the Aurors to find, we need to leave. Now.”

“Yeah, we should get out of here,” William agreed quietly, glancing around the room at the remnants of the ritual. Archibald almost thought the man hadn’t seriously considered killing him, strange as that sounded.

Summers cast a glance at the guard, who was still unable to rise, and shouted toward the boarded-up window, “Sam! Charlie! I need help here!”

“Open the door first, then start yelling,” Kayneth muttered wearily. “I set up a sound-dampening bounded field before the summoning. It’ll hold for another half a day.” What amateurs he had to deal with.

By the time they had finally exited the loathsome shack, Eve was lying in a van equipped with medical gear, and the injured guard had been hastily bandaged and shoved into an SUV. Summers turned to Kayneth for clarification.

“What about evidence? Your circles, the dead animals, fingerprints, tracks…?”

“Already taken care of. The fire will destroy everything.”

“What fire?”

“The one that’s starting now.” The magus, irritated by the obviousness of the answer, touched a chain of runes etched into the wall. A small pulse of power activated the pre-set spell, and flames crackled to life in several parts of the ancient wooden house. “Get moving. Now.”

“Into the woods?”

“No. The shortest route to the highway. We’ll blend into the traffic; they won’t find us there,” Archibald assured him, thinking of Diagon Alley and its almost medieval atmosphere. If the entire magical world of Britain was like that, wizards here probably had only a vague notion of how automobiles worked.

As their convoy of three vehicles turned from the narrow dirt road onto the main highway, Kayneth thought he saw swift shapes darting through the sky above the forest, heading toward the rising column of smoke. Then again, perhaps he was imagining things. He had worked to exhaustion over the last four days, snatching only three or four hours of sleep a night.

Casting a glance toward the forest fading behind the bend, then at the cars around them, Archibald exhaled slowly. It seemed the local Aurors had failed to pick up their trail—even if they had arrived before the house was reduced to ash.

Glancing at William, who was driving them alone in his car, without even a guard, Kayneth remarked, “You can relax now. Your wife is safe, as long as you don’t decide to turn yourself in. And it seems we aren’t being followed.”

“Is she fully cured?”

“Mostly. Her body is weak from the illness, so normal care will be necessary—a proper diet, fresh fruit, trips to the seaside, that sort of thing. No magic required. Now that we’re talking about it, I assume there’s a reason we’re alone. What’s next? Do we continue working together? Go our separate ways? Are you planning to chain me up in your basement to get free services whenever you want? Or will you just kill me and bury me in the woods so I can’t turn you in to the Aurors?”

“Is that an option?” Summers asked, his tone ambiguous.

“Continuing or parting ways is possible. Killing or imprisoning me? You could try, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Cursing someone—especially someone I know well—is far faster and easier than healing. No threat intended, just a fact: like the spirits, I always expect fair payment for my services.”

“I’ve been thinking… And I’ve decided magic isn’t for me. My business already gives me enough headaches and gray hairs. Getting involved in your occult mess would just make it worse—even if I don’t believe in God or devils. But I have a contact… someone who always knows the right people. He can acquire things that aren’t exactly legal. There are rumors about him—that he knows a guy, who knows a guy… Anyway, he seems connected to people like you. Those who offer special services outside the law. I dropped a few hints; he knows enough. You might find it easier dealing with him. I’ll pay you through him if you two can work together.”

“Fair enough,” the magus said, shrugging lightly. What else could he expect from a man clinging to his own narrow understanding of the world? Ordinary people panicked when even a glimpse of true reality was revealed. The only surprising thing would have been if Summers had responded any differently. Having achieved what he couldn’t obtain by mundane means, he would likely invent some fantastical story about a miracle drug from a leading pharmaceutical company to explain his wife’s recovery.

“Why didn’t you go to him sooner? Didn’t you search everywhere for help?”

“I did,” William admitted grimly. “Eventually. I didn’t have much hope, but I had to try. He listened, looked at the diagnosis, and the next day, he called back. Said none of his contacts would take the case—too difficult, too risky. I didn’t understand what he meant then, but now… I think I’m starting to get it.”

"Understood," the magus nodded, evaluating the situation. If Summers’ acquaintance had connections to the fringes of the magical world—renegades, criminals, or desperate youths seeking money—they might have either refused the difficult case or lacked the skills to cover their tracks properly. Even so, access to the underbelly of the magical society could be valuable; some things were only obtainable there. He had personal experience in that regard.

“Introduce us as soon as possible. The sooner, the better. I’ve already wasted too much time preparing,” Archibald added, mentally calculating dates. Today was April 7th. He had awakened in this body on March 13th. Nearly a month had passed, and he still had no stable residence, no money, and no worthwhile connections in either the magical or mundane worlds.

_______________________________

Summers, as always, wasn’t one to procrastinate (Kayneth assumed he was simply eager to shove the young wizard out of his life along with all the associated madness). He arranged a meeting with his contact for that very afternoon. The timing gave William just enough leeway to escort his wife home under guard, where the doctors he had summoned would be waiting, and then deliver the magus back to the rented apartment to wash up and change.

Kayneth had brought little with him besides makeshift magical reservoirs, and after three days spent drawing ritual circles, his clothes were covered in chalk, soot, blood, and dust.

The rendezvous point was a small restaurant in Camden’s tourist district—unremarkable, though not entirely unknown. Archibald had even visited it in his own world, the last time with Sola in 1993. By aristocratic standards, it was barely passable for a man of his station, but he had always liked the place—the food was excellent, and it was a rare opportunity to dine without encountering familiar faces at every turn. Pity his fiancee had never shared his appreciation…

Summers reserved a private dining room. On the way in, he ordered the dish of the day for two without bothering to check the menu. Kayneth didn’t object. Neither of them had eaten all morning, and there was no telling how long they’d be waiting for the mysterious contact.

Though caution dictated he should have cast sound-dampening and bounded fields to divert attention, his magic circuits were too drained for even a simple spell. Drawing circles here would have been far too conspicuous. A proper mystic code was essential in the future, but for now, even activating his circuits made him flinch. His reserves were still recovering from the last ritual, where he’d hastily drawn a new barrier and offering circle when the spirit nearly broke free.

About fifteen minutes later, a portly red-haired man in a crumpled raincoat entered. He looked like a worn-out traveling salesman, easily in his forties. He paused, sizing up the silent room where Summers and Kayneth sat with rare steaks before them, staring ahead in tense silence. The magus simmered with frustration over his unacceptable blunder during the ritual. Summers, meanwhile, appeared simply numb to the madness of the day—processing that a ravenous Chinese spirit had nearly devoured his soul.

The newcomer cleared his throat.
“Not to interrupt your meditative mood, gentlemen, but as they say, time is money. Mr. Summers, care to introduce us?”

“Yes, of course.” William seemed to shake off his stupor and spoke too quickly. “This is Albert MacDougal—‘Al’ to his best clients—a generalist in trade operations. And this is James Murphy… let’s say, a young man with certain unique talents. I believe you two can be of service to one another.”

“Bill,” MacDougal’s tone hardened as he studied Kayneth, “are you pulling my leg? The kid’s what—nine? He probably doesn’t even have a wand yet. What’s he supposed to do for me?”

The magus, irritated, glanced at his bracelet hidden under his sleeve. His patience was at its limit. Clenching his fork tightly, he hissed as pain flared up. Magic circuits flared, and the utensil liquefied without heating, morphing into a solid metal rose in seconds.

Kayneth stabbed the rose into the table halfway, abandoning the fork entirely, and resumed eating with his knife. Unorthodox, perhaps, but he needed to show confidence. Losing two-thirds of his remaining energy on a basic transmutation was a high price, but with no reputation or resources here, making an impression was critical.

Fixing MacDougal with a sharp glare, he asked,
“They didn’t tell you much about real magic, did they, Mr. MacDougal? Or did you think a wizard without a wand was completely helpless?”

“This… this isn’t a trick, is it?” Albert stared at the rose.

“Feel free to keep it as a souvenir,” Kayneth offered dryly. “But I wouldn’t recommend testing the thorns with your fingers.”

MacDougal plucked the rose from the wood, examining it under his breath. After a moment of thorough inspection, a grin spread across his face.
“Alright. I think we’ll get along just fine, young man. And if you ever feel like enlightening me on the finer points of wizardry, I’d be grateful. So… what can I do for you?”

“Five months from now, in August,” Kayneth began evenly, “I’ll be prepared to heal a patient, even in terminal stages, provided they can last another week. My fee is one hundred thousand pounds. How much you negotiate and what cut Summers takes for brokering the deal doesn’t concern me—as long as your greed doesn’t bring us unwanted attention.”

“Is that for real?” MacDougal turned toward Summers.

“Too early to say for sure,” William replied cautiously, “but if today is anything to go by… it’s starting to seem like this anti-science nonsense actually works. If I believed in prayers, I’d be on my knees.”

“Religion doesn’t quite work that way, Bill,” Albert chuckled. “Still, you’re going to need some serious spin to avoid unwanted questions about your wife’s recovery. I can help.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Summers assured him. “The story’s ready—proof, plausible explanations, the works.”

“Fair enough,” Albert shrugged, then refocused on Kayneth. “One patient in August. And until then?”

“Until then, I need a workshop.”

“A workshop?” the red-haired man repeated, tilting his head slightly.

“A place to live and work,” Kayneth explained in simple terms. He figured either the term was unfamiliar here, or this merchant was genuinely under informed about the magical world. He quickly calculated his current financial possibilities and decided to stick with the bare minimum.

“A rented property will do. An apartment in the north—Waltham, Haringey, or Barnet. Two or three rooms will be enough for now. I’ll need a housekeeper who doesn’t ask questions. I have money now, but no papers, no parents or guardians... in the ‘Muggle’ world. The biggest challenge will be avoiding questions about why I live alone, don’t attend school, and so on—anything that draws attention. Additionally, I’ll need access to certain materials, including dangerous ones, which won’t be sold to me. And I may require your connections later to obtain things I can’t access in the magical world yet.”

“Got it. Apartment, supplies, documents… Whose name should it be under?”

Kayneth paused, seriously considering the question. On one hand, he could reclaim his true name, abandoning the identity of James Murphy. After a few years, once he had strengthened his circuits, crafted a few specialized mystic codes, and accumulated enough magical energy, he could gradually alter this body’s appearance to something more familiar.

On the other hand, everything he had done in this world so far was an embarrassment to the Archibald family and the title of Lord El-Melloi. The thought of linking his current pathetic state—weak circuits, poverty—to his noble heritage disgusted him. Perhaps when he gained influence and began creating a new magic crest for the family, it would be more appropriate.

“James Victor Murphy. If you’re aware of the St. Someone-or-Other municipal orphanage in South Lambeth, they might have records for that name. Anyone there would confirm I was once a resident.”

“And in reality?” MacDougal asked, his curiosity plain.

“In reality, you didn’t ask that question,” the magus replied darkly. He tried, at least. Threats from a ten-year-old rarely sounded convincing. “All you need to know is that the necessary documents are stored there. But be cautious—there might be a police inspection going on. It’s best to wait rather than draw unwanted attention.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage the details,” MacDougal interrupted with a condescending smile. “As for the rest, I might have a solution for half your problems. I’ll find a suitable woman to handle the housekeeping. She’ll be the legal tenant of the apartment and handle all legitimate purchases. For an extra fee, she’ll pose as your mother—or better yet, your adoptive mother, for authenticity. We’ll fabricate the adoption papers retroactively. A single mother with a child—sadly, a common sight these days. She’ll only interfere in your affairs as much as you allow. Specialized purchases will go through me.”

“Reasonable enough,” Kayneth admitted. The arrangement was slightly degrading, but he was coming to terms with the indignities of being a child. Spending energy to maintain a convincing illusion of an adult form would be far more taxing, and he didn’t have the magical reserves for that—and wouldn’t for a long time.

“What kind of budget are we working with?”

“Twenty thousand in two weeks and another fifty in a month,” the magus declared confidently, without a shred of doubt that the ritual had cured Evelyn and that the doctors would find no trace of illness. Nor did he question that Summers wouldn’t dare cheat him on payment—anyone, no matter how ignorant of magic, would know when it wasn’t worth risking their neck.

MacDougal glanced at William, waited for a confirming nod, then pulled a notepad and a flashy pen—gold-tipped, or perhaps actually gold—from his inner pocket. He began scribbling calculations. Occasionally, he looked to the ceiling, presumably running numbers in his head, then continued writing.

Finally, he tore out a sheet and slid it across the table.

“Something like this.”

Kayneth set his knife down by his empty plate and examined the uneven scrawl, growing more surprised with each line. Contrary to his assumptions, rent was the least of his concerns—forty to eighty pounds a week, 160 to 320 a month, 800 to 1,600 for half a year. In his previous life, property matters were handled by the family’s stewards, with little need for his involvement. He had expected the cost to be at least an order of magnitude higher. Then again, what could he expect from a rented shack on the outskirts?

Housekeeping, with all the extra duties and secrecy bonuses, was much more expensive. The notes also included rough estimates for living expenses, food, transportation, and utilities. But the cost of obtaining documents was downright obscene—full legalization, with papers, registrations, and zero questions, would devour nearly all the remaining funds.

There would be little left for magical books or experimental materials, let alone school expenses and preparation.

“Five months is a long time,” MacDougal murmured, clearly noting the change in the magus’ expression. “Healing will bring you good money, and I understand you can’t perform it too often without raising dangerous rumors. But between those treatments, there are other ways to earn discreetly. Potions, enchanted items, specialty services… You wizards don’t realize what treasures you possess. Things that seem trivial to you are worth fortunes.”

He sighed nostalgically.

“Once, I held a vial of liquid luck. Just a few sips, and Fortuna herself graces your side, like you’ve spent the night with her, and she whispers you’re her greatest lover. Bet on a lame horse, and it wins by three laps. Sit with card sharks, and your hand is all aces… I sold it for a king’s ransom, took a healthy cut, but I still wonder what might have happened if I’d drunk it myself.”

“Interesting,” Kayneth said neutrally. He’d never heard of such a mystery, but it didn’t violate any known magical laws. Conceptual manipulation of luck through a potion… The creator of that recipe had to be a unique individual.

Thinking over MacDougal’s proposal, he found it surprisingly sound. Yes, Archibald wanted the payment so he could focus on studying the new magical world and training, not bothering about money or housing—like a normal magus. But with only the vaguest idea about expenses, especially in criminal circles, he had failed to realize how much was needed to gain legitimate British citizenship with zero scrutiny. It was another miscalculation—two in a row—unforgivable. Lack of knowledge was no excuse.

And yet, this shady type offered a solution: work for him and make enough to cover the costs—maybe crafting magical items. That clashed with everything Kayneth stood for as a magus and scholar. In his old life, he’d never needed to chase money, devoting his time to research and, later, teaching the younger generation. His Clock Tower salary had been merely a token of respect, which he transferred to the family account without a glance. Now he’d have to spend time, effort, and—most importantly—magical energy on silly trinkets and marketable oddities just to keep food on the table. One ritual was bad enough, but doing it routinely? A disgrace, an indelible stain on any true magus and aristocrat. In proper houses, he would be persona non grata once word got out.

But he had no choice.

Dwelling on all this, Kayneth realized he respected his ancestor—his great-great… great-grandfather Arthur Archibald, founder of their line—far more than before. After all, that man had built their family’s magical crest from nothing nearly four centuries ago, juggling the perpetual problem of finding money along with forging new developments in alchemy and necromancy. It was humiliating, but if Arthur had endured it, so would he.

“I suppose I can offer my services. But not on a permanent basis—just enough to cover my main pursuits. We’ll work out the price and details once I’m settled in. And, of course, only work that won’t draw Auror attention. I won’t risk my reputation in the magical world for a handful of coins.”

“I’m already neck-deep in Azkaban-worthy deeds, so believe me, I don’t want to meet them either,” Albert answered vaguely. From his phrasing, Kayneth guessed he was referring to some wizard prison, but it made little sense—no one would lock up a mere Muggle in a magus facility if they could just modify his memory or ensure he vanished quietly. Possibly, the people MacDougal dealt with had scared him enough to avoid betraying them, or he misunderstood something about the magical world. Or local wizard laws were absurd. Archibald doubted it was that chaotic, though.

Meanwhile, Albert extended his hand.
“Happy to work with you, James.”

“Likewise,” Kayneth said without warmth, giving the man’s hand a limp shake. Then he froze, feeling a faint current of energy, and focused on the sensation. After a moment, he asked: “Do you happen to have wizards in your family line?”

“No idea. My other contact asked the same thing. Far as I know, no. But, say, I never knew anything about my maternal grandmother’s parents, and my paternal line’s fuzzy too. So it’s possible. But I can’t do any… magical stuff,” he said, casting another glance at the metal rose in his other hand.

“I could be wrong. But it feels like you’ve got a tiny spark, though it’s so weak I wouldn’t bother awakening it—especially at this age. If you have children, though, who knows what might happen.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind,” Albert replied politely, steering the conversation away. “But for now, let’s deal with our issues.”

“I agree,” the magus said. He had no interest in this man’s potential lineage—a couple of poor-quality circuits didn’t really qualify someone as a magus. And if his kin did contain legitimate wizards—whatever that meant here—they might attract unnecessary scrutiny. Still, he seemed intelligent enough to figure it out for himself.

“Looks like you two have settled things,” Summers concluded, standing up from the table. “Sorry, but I have a busy day. I’ll cover the bill, including the table repairs and all. If everything holds up, I’ll transfer the money to Albert on the agreed date. You can pick it up from him in cash or open a bank account. Anyway, I’m off.”

He hesitated for a second, then offered the magus his hand. Kayneth, after pondering for a moment, accepted it with a slight nod. Despite all the difficulties, William had so far kept his word. He hadn’t tried to renege on payment the moment his wife was cured, nor had he attempted to kill a wizard who knew far too much, even though he’d had the chance. That merited a modicum of appreciation.

“Good luck,” Archibald said icily to the man’s back.

“Take care, Bill. We’ll talk,” Albert called cheerily, waving. Then he pulled a bulky radiotelephone from the depths of his coat, extended its antenna, and turned to James: “So, what will it be—two or three rooms?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You mentioned a ‘workshop,’ and that you need a two- or three-room apartment in the north of the city. So which is it? I have to let my people know what to look for.”

“That soon?” The magus felt a twinge of surprise. “William’s not transferring the money for another two weeks.”

“You’re certain he’ll pay, and I’m certain you’ll pass those funds along to me to cover all this,” Albert said, nodding at the slip of paper with figures on it. “So I’m willing to work on credit for now. Finding decent housing isn’t easy, let alone dealing with new documents. You should have started yesterday, lad—or before you planned that ritual. Time is money.”

Thrown off by the man’s drive, Kayneth struggled to respond. Not that he minded—barring the humiliating fact that he’d be living on credit for a while—but he had no real choice. Among magi, deals were made more slowly and with a measure of dignity, rather than in a mad rush. Yet the merchant was right; he’d already wasted enough time.

Making up his mind, he played along:

“Then three is better. Three rooms: one for the housekeeper and to receive visitors, one for a small library, and one as my workspace. The bare minimum, but it’ll have to do for now.”

“Excellent. Then gather your things, and let’s go. We’ll drop by for a standard photo for your papers, and along the way, I’ll make some calls so they can start looking for a place. Lucky you, wizard—the housing prices in London are low right now…”

Still talking a mile a minute about everything under the sun, Albert promptly tucked the slip of paper and the metal rose into the depths of his coat and nearly dragged the child out of the restaurant, phone in hand. They had a great many urgent tasks ahead. After all, good profits demanded quick action.

_________________________________

“Fervor, mei sanguis.”

Obeying Kayneth’s will, a hemisphere of mercury soaked in magic, nearly three feet across, hurtled forward across the yellow sand of the duel arena located deep beneath the British Museum in the bowels of the Clock Tower. The shining, giant droplet of metal moved swiftly and almost gracefully despite its immense weight. Any onlooker would sense the threat it posed, even without advanced knowledge of alchemy or magecraft in general. Kayneth’s opponent was no exception.

The swarthy magus, who had arrived from the Continent just last week but had already slandered the methods of instruction at the Department of Spiritual Evocation and thereby provoked a duel, raised his hand and hastily shouted, “Gandr! Gandr! Gandr!”

In the blink of an eye, the droplet repositioned itself into a shield-like veil, intercepting a flurry of rapid, though not terribly powerful, curses. Several dark projectiles—each no more dangerous than a pistol bullet—smashed helplessly against the thin, enchanted mercury. Then the droplet resumed its approach toward its prey.

Sensing mortal danger, the other magus drew a short knife from behind his back and slashed it across his own wrist, invoking some family spell wordlessly. Blood gushed from his veins, spreading into a pink mist in midair, drifting toward Archibald. Barely a second later, the cloud ignited, turning into a wave of flame.

El-Melloi didn’t so much as move in search of cover—his mystic code was trained to handle such threats on its own. Almost instantly, the mercury elongated into a semicircular wall of metal, absorbing the brunt of the magical fire. The flames were nowhere near strong enough to harm Kayneth’s creation. Only a faint ripple of heat reached the magus himself, slightly ruffling his hair and the hem of his coat. Once the threat dissipated, the mercury coalesced back into a mobile sphere and slid forward.

Time to show this cocky fool that Volumen Hydrargyrum wasn’t just an impenetrable shield but also a lethal sword. A very, very sharp sword…

“Scalp!”

“Aaaaaah!”

At his command, a yards-long whip of liquid metal neatly sliced the magus’s arm in half up to the elbow. The next strike would have taken the upstart’s legs off below the knee, when Archibald glimpsed a dark figure at the edge of the arena. Spinning around in place, he found himself staring into the barrel of a submachine gun, aimed at him by a disheveled, unshaven Asian man in an old coat. A moment later, the weapon roared, unleashing a long burst. Kayneth’s mystic code darted to intercept, trying to position itself between its master and the assassin, but even its incredible speed had limits.

Several bullets hammered into the magus, hurling him onto the sand, which began quickly soaking up his blood. Then, the mercenary drew another pistol, this one with an unusually long barrel, in his left hand and squeezed the trigger… Simultaneously with the shot, Archibald awoke in his new bed.

“May you be cursed…” growled the former Lord El-Melloi through clenched teeth, struggling to steady his pulse and catch his breath.

This nightmare, in various forms, had haunted him even in his previous life. Dying had only made it worse—now the bastard with the gun showed up in almost all of Kayneth’s dreams, even scenarios where he should never have existed, like now, when Kayneth relived a duel from about three years prior. In reality, he had cut off that arrogant simpleton’s limbs, then used healing magic to reattach them, then cut them off again, repeating the process three times until the fool grasped the full extent of his mistake. The conditions of that duel had prohibited killing…

Taking another deep breath, the magus glanced around, recalling where he was. A nearly empty room, with several magical circles on the walls and floor—some incomplete—and only a bed, a table, one chair, and a small wardrobe in the corner. Not even shelves yet. Through the slightly open door, he could see a bigger room beyond, completely vacant. His new “workshop,” if one could call such a cramped closet by that dignified name.

A week ago, he and MacDougal had driven all around London in search of an acceptable apartment. By evening, having grown weary of that pointless exercise, Kayneth remarked that if all the places they’d seen were identically miserable, why bother? So in the end, he chose this three-room flat in the Haringey area. Over the past seven days, he had tried to at least prepare some semblance of a workspace for his research. Comfort was secondary; more urgent was to shield this future workspace with even minimal bounded fields for privacy, noise suppression, and most importantly, to install an improvised reservoir that would absorb the inevitable magical surges from experiments—valuable both for safety and secrecy.

He’d finished forging the reservoir last night, well after midnight, and placed it in the corner before collapsing into sleep. It resembled warped, asymmetrical deer antlers made of steel, with a barrier focused on it that could absorb surplus magic. But the protective and security spells around the apartment still needed considerable work, especially given that operating magic directly was nearly impossible and he had to rely on crutches like runes, alchemical circles, and mystic codes assembled from random scraps. He’d had almost no time or energy left for real training. In seven days, he’d only managed two diagnostic rituals, discovering that James Murphy’s birthday fell in November—some small clarity for his future plans. Of course, the magic circuits were at least in some constant use, accumulating and releasing energy as he worked, but that was nothing like a dedicated training regimen scheduled hour by hour, factoring in the body’s peculiarities and external conditions.

He cast a disgusted glance at the cheap alarm clock on the table and saw it was barely six in the morning. That meant he could finish another bounded field around his workshop before breakfast. Running a hand through his still-short hair in resignation, he dressed quickly and picked up one of his drafts full of calculations from the table. Many figures were crossed out or amended—he’d had to verify and tweak them at every step. After the fiasco with summoning Laoren, which had almost turned into a bloodbath, Kayneth had sworn off relying solely on memory and the formulas he’d once memorized. He already had a couple of theories about what had gone wrong, the main one fairly obvious: it was all because this was a different world.

It wasn’t merely an issue of altered magical flow or the density of leylines, though those factors mattered. More critical was that even if the basic principles of magic were unchanged, the evolution of local magical schools had shifted the “weight” of certain mysteries—how willing the world was to “accept” changes to reality, and how much energy it demanded in return. Wherever a particular system of magic was most widespread, its miracles came more easily and cheaply to its practitioners through their collective belief. Conversely, if, at roughly the same number of magi, this world had embraced a system relying on universal wands—completely unknown to him—it must have happened at the expense of something else, perhaps runic, drawn, or spirit-based systems. Hence they ended up less common and therefore more “costly” to wield.

This was why the spirit demanded extra payment: in this world, that was his rightful due. From his perspective, the magus had tried to cheat him. Everyone had been extremely lucky that Summers had brought along extra guards…

Thought for a couple of seconds

“Mister MacDougal asked me to inform you that your documents will be ready by the eighteenth,” Miss Stone notified him over breakfast. In addition to her duties as maid, cook, and housekeeper, she had also taken on the role of liaison with Albert.

She was a short brunette, appearing about thirty-five years old. Her plain clothing and minimal makeup convincingly conveyed the impression of an endlessly busy and exhausted single mother—either MacDougal had specifically chosen someone who fit the backstory he had concocted, or she had made the effort herself, but the result was strikingly believable. At least, Archibald had pictured such a person in precisely this manner, not that he’d had frequent dealings with lone mothers from poor districts in his previous life.

It was unclear how much she knew about the true nature of her “foster son.” However, she never asked questions about his work. Aside from her wonderful knack for minding her own business, Kayneth also appreciated that she didn’t try to play the mother role in private. She didn’t treat him like a ten-year-old brat except when necessary for appearances. In truth, her services likely did merit the fee he was paying—or, more accurately, would pay when he finally got any money at all.

“In addition,” she went on, “he asked me to remind you that you should think about the kinds of services you could provide and their approximate costs.”

“I’ll deal with it,” the magus muttered through clenched teeth. They barely knew each other, and already this merchant wanted to squeeze immediate results from him. Still, there was no point in taking out his frustration on Miss Stone—she was merely delivering a message. In principle, he couldn’t really blame MacDougal either—like any moneylender, the man was simply in business to earn a profit. Archibald himself had agreed to cooperate, becoming yet another resource in the merchant’s eyes, a hired hand. His anger, therefore, was best directed at himself and at those who had forced him into this situation in the first place. A pity he couldn’t get at any of them without being a master of True Magic.

“I need to finish preparing this place first,” Kayneth continued. “After that, I’ll get to work. On the eighteenth, along with the documents, I’ll need a sum in cash—I think three thousand will do—plus fifty pounds for travel expenses.”

“I’ll pass on your requests to Mister MacDougal. Anything else?”

“Don’t disturb me until dinner unless my personal presence is required. I have pressing matters to attend to before the eighteenth. There’s not much time left.”