Chapter Five

The following morning, Mr. Caesar awoke in a tangle of long limbs and inadequate blankets as the sun began to slant in through the cracks in the shutters, but even had this not stirred him, the banging at the door would have.

"Captain"—the voice was Callaghan's by its lilt, and by the fact that it was definitely him; I went outside in my mist shape and checked—"there's a man here looking for your … for the guest."

Concerned that one of his more persistent exes or more irritating enemies had somehow tracked him down, Mr. Caesar called out a blearily irritated "Who is it?" before flopping his head back onto the nothing that passed for a pillow.

"Unless I'm by way of being extremely mistaken," Callaghan explained, "it's your father."

Most interlopers Mr. Caesar would have happily greeted with a polite fuck off, but if something had dragged the elder Mr. Caesar all the way to St. Giles at so early an hour it was certainly important. "Stall," he said. "And tell him I'm—fuck—just tell him I'll be there soon."

Ordinarily, when Mr. Caesar had an assignation with a soldier, he left before morning. He also ordinarily dressed down for the occasion so that he would not be faced, as he was now, with having to retie a cravat in an emergency.

"Your old man normally do this?" asked Captain James, propped up on his elbows and watching Mr. Caesar from the bed.

"No. Which is why I'm concerned."

"And he's happy with you …?" Captain James waved a hand in the air between them. "Because I've fallen foul of angry fathers before and I'd rather not again."

As it happened, Mr. Caesar had never explicitly discussed his sexuality with his father, but nor had either of his parents given him the sense that they were anything but supportive if—on those occasions that he fell in with less savoury sorts—appropriately wary. "My father cares about honesty, justice, and the abolition. He's never complained about where I spend the night."

He seemed, however, to be complaining now. Because despite Callaghan's attempts to delay him, he was banging on the door himself. "John, what's keeping you?"

What was keeping Mr. Caesar was, in point of fact, the extreme tightness of his breeches, which he had hoped to be able to put on at his leisure and when slightly less sweaty. "For a man with no valet," he replied—slightly regretting the remark because it was hardly his father's fault they had so few servants—"I think you'll find I'm doing remarkably well."

"I'm coming in."

"We are not decent."

"And I do not care. This is important."

It was no use. In Mr. Caesar's experience his father had two modes: contemplative and unstoppable. He wasn't being contemplative. The door opened, and he strode in, leaving his son just time to fasten his breeches and the captain just time to make no effort to react at all.

"Mary is gone," the elder Mr. Caesar said with a stoicism that the mortals of the era would have considered admirable.

"Gone?"

"Gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, John," the elder Mr. Caesar's tone was steadier than mine would have been at this point in the exchange. "Gone."

"What do you mean, gone ?"

"Far be it from me to butt in," said Captain James, "but I assume he means she's not there."

The elder Mr. Caesar nodded. "When Nancy went to wake her this morning she found the room empty and the window ajar."

The news of his sister's disappearance disturbed Mr. Caesar so much that he didn't even try to tie his cravat, he just bundled it up and held it. "We must look for her."

"I know. That is why I am here. Your mother, for understandable reasons, is refusing to leave Anne alone and we have sent Nancy to inform the earl. That leaves you and I to pursue … other possibilities."

The tone in his father's voice did not fill Mr. Caesar with confidence. "You surely don't think some harm could have befallen her?"

"I do not wish to." Mortal hearts are an open book to me, and so despite the elder Mr. Caesar's measured demeanour it was plain to me how badly he did not wish to. "But I must consider it."

On the other side of the room, Captain James was dressing with military efficiency. "I'll send a lad to have a word with the river police in case of the worst. And I'll put out that she's looked for. It's the older one right? The one that was upset at the ball?"

Both Misters Caesar looked at the captain with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. "You don't have to," said the younger. "I mean, it's not your problem."

"A young woman gone missing is everyone's problem." It was sentiments like this that made me dislike the captain. The fact that people like him exist is probably good for the overall survival of your species even if it is terrible for your entertainment value.

"Commendable," observed the elder Mr. Caesar. "But—"

"No buts. Me and my men can shake some trees, see if anybody knows anything. You two stick to places she would have gone."

The elder Mr. Caesar nodded. "I will check hospitals and"—he looked grave—"mortuaries. John, I suggest you see if she has gone to Maelys or Miss Bickle. She trusts them, so if she has run away she may have gone there."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Mr. Caesar couldn't help wincing. "You realise if she's not with Lizzie, and I do go and speak to her, she'll only insist that Mary has been taken away by fairies?"

"She might"—the elder Mr. Caesar patted his son heavily on the shoulder—"but you should probably tell her anyway."

A nasty thought entered the younger Mr. Caesar's mind. "You don't think—could some gentleman have taken advantage of her? One we did not know about?"

"Perhaps," said the elder Mr. Caesar, though his expression said he doubted it. "Although she and her sister went walking with two gentlemen yesterday and on her return she … she did not seem besotted, let us put it that way."

"I'll tell the lads to keep an eye out for the usual sorts regardless," offered the captain. "If it is that kind of abduction then there's places people tend to go. Especially if they're army."

Thanking Captain James once more for his unnecessarily generous offer of assistance, the Misters Caesar hurried out into the city to begin a search that would, of course, be entirely fruitless.

Because the younger Mr. Caesar had been correct. Had he asked Miss Bickle, she would certainly have told him that his sister had been abducted by fairies. And she would have been absolutely right.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Caesar was in the Bickles' London townhouse, pacing the floor like a highly strung showcat and trying his best to filter thoughts that were a mix of deep dread for his forthcoming duel, mild triumph at having bagged an exceptionally fine officer, still deeper dread for his sister, and, deepest of all, frustration with his present interlocutor.

"She has not, " he said for the fifth time, "been abducted by fairies."

"Well, I think that very closed-minded of you," Miss Bickle replied. Not that any of her companions would listen to her because they, like all mortals, were utter fools.

Miss Mitchelmore looked sceptical. Mr. Caesar had collected her first, in order that he might have an ally in the inevitable fairy conversation. "I'm not sure closed-minded is quite the right term," she said. "I think justifiably uncertain might be better."

With a defiant spirit that continued to do her credit, Miss Bickle stuck out her chin. "Then what alternative theories do you have? Either of you."

"Anything but fairies," suggested Miss Mitchelmore, quite incorrectly. "She may simply have run away."

"Or been taken by ruffians," added Mr. Caesar. And then, not able to stop his mind escalating matters unnecessarily, he added, "Or run away and then been taken by ruffians."

Miss Bickle was pacing also—like Mr. Caesar she had an excess of energy, but unlike him she tended to find amusing uses for it. "Mary is young, and has had one or two upsets recently, but I don't think she's the kind to run away from home."

"You ran away from home when you were her age," Miss Mitchelmore pointed out. "Twice."

" Exactly. " Miss Bickle enjoyed looking triumphant, and did so at the slightest opportunity. This was one such. "So I should know very well if Mary is the kind of girl to do the same, and she is not. As for ruffians, was there any sign of struggle?"

Mr. Caesar considered this. "Father didn't say. But I'm sure he would have if there had been. At least if there had been anything obvious."

"So she has simply vanished," concluded Miss Bickle.

"It seems so." Mr. Caesar did not like the direction this conversation was going.

"Into thin air."

"Yes." He definitely did not like the direction this conversation was going.

Another opportunity presented itself, and Miss Bickle looked triumphant once more. "As if, one might almost say, by magic. "

Miss Mitchelmore, the only one of the three whose response to a stressful situation was to remain seated and spare the carpets, looked up. "I hate to say it, John, but I fear she might be making sense."

"There! Maelys agrees with me."

On the verge of being right, Miss Mitchelmore did as your kind so often do and corrected herself at the last moment. " Agrees is a strong word, but perhaps we should—I mean—it would do no harm to rule it out."

Mr. Caesar momentarily stopped pacing in order to glare. He tended to do this, which sometimes led me to wonder if perhaps his eyes and legs were connected to some intricate gear system that permitted only one or the other to function. "Which we would do how, precisely?"

"I could speak with Mother Mason," suggested Miss Mitchelmore. "Although she lives some days away. Or perhaps Tabitha—I understand the Galli are sometimes called to London to consult with the Undersecretary of State for Oracular Affairs."

A wayward and only partially unwelcome thought crept into Mr. Caesar's mind. "I do know of another mystically sensitive individual. Although he's a little rough around the edges."

"How rough?" asked Miss Bickle with wholly appropriate glee.

"He's from Newcastle."

"Oh, I say." Miss Bickle put a hand to her chest. "That may be a little too rough."

"And where did you meet this … mystically sensitive pitman?" asked Miss Mitchelmore.

"He isn't a pitman, he's a soldier," explained Mr. Caesar. "And I met him last night while Captain James was instructing me in swordplay."

Mr. Caesar remembered, a little too late, that this was the other hazard of bringing Miss Bickle into their circle. She had not hitherto known of the duel and he would, on balance, have preferred that she go on not knowing.

"Why were you being instructed in swordplay?" she asked, her expression that of a woman who was concocting a hundred theories, each more scandalous than the last. "Have you taken a commission? Have you been press-ganged? Are you to fight a duel of honour?"

Mr. Caesar nodded.

"You've been press-ganged?" Miss Bickle looked sorrowful. "How beastly. I really feel we should abolish the practice."

Mr. Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am to fight a duel of honour."

Inside Miss Bickle's mind, the possibilities unspooled themselves into a tangle of conflicts. "Did you insult a man's wife? Seduce his brother? Quarrel at a club about whether a window should be left open? Have a stern disagreement over a horse?"

"It's the major," Mr. Caesar told her. "Which might perhaps have been a more obvious conclusion to reach than the thing with the window?"

"More obvious," agreed Miss Bickle. "But much less interesting."

As ever, Mr. Caesar knew he would regret it. As ever, he asked. "How is it less interesting?"

"Well, because you wouldn't really be duelling over the window. That would just be the public pretence concealing what in fact would be a matter of the deepest personal passion the details of which are too devilish by far to be discussed by daylight."

"Your imagination," said Miss Mitchelmore, "is sometimes worryingly specific."

Miss Bickle gave a solemn nod. "Reality so often disappoints one." She didn't know how right she was. You haven't truly been disappointed by reality until you have been exiled to it.

"Well, then I am sorry my upcoming life-or-death struggle is insufficiently romantic for you," replied Mr. Caesar, acidly.

Irony, however, was wasted on Miss Bickle. "Don't be. It's still the most romantic thing that has happened this month. After all, you struck a man in defence of a lady."

"That lady was my sister," Mr. Caesar pointed out. "I'm not entirely sure it counts."

"You struck a man in defence of a lady, and were subsequently called out by him. Being no kind of shot or swordsman"—

"You're making me look rather poor here, Lizzie."

—"you threw yourself on the mercy of a gallant captain who has taken you under his wing and who I am sure will fall in love with you if he's the kind of captain who is interested in gentlemen, which I am sure some captains are because, well, it only stands to reason."

This was all too much. Even if Mr. Caesar had been the sort to share these kinds of flights of fancy (and he was not), even if he had been at risk of developing that kind of attachment to the captain (and he told himself he was not), now was the worst possible time to be thinking of it. At this juncture his and Miss Bickle's mutual pacings brought them face-to-face, which gave Mr. Caesar ample opportunity to gaze his disapproval directly at his friend. "Lizzie. Stop it. Nobody is falling in love with anybody. Nobody is having any kind of grand adventure. My sister is missing and we need to do something about it. And since"—he pursed his lips, not quite able to admit he was going to have to say what he was about to say—"your theory about supernatural abduction is actually our best bet, that means finding some kind of magician. And I happen to know one who lives locally."

Miss Bickle had already called for her pelisse. "Then what are we waiting for? We simply must find this magician of yours without delay."

"There is no we here," Mr. Caesar insisted. "The gentleman I intend to consult is staying at an inn in St. Gi—"

He should have known better. Far better. Miss Bickle squeaked with delight. "Oh, John, are we to go to a rookery? To immerse ourselves in the grime and grit of real London?"

"Mayfair is quite real enough for me, thank you," said Miss Mitchelmore. But, just as Mr. Caesar was beginning to relax, she added, "Still, I agree that we should go with you."

This felt to Mr. Caesar like an issue on which he should stand firm. "St. Giles is not a place for ladies."

"Are half its residents not ladies?" asked Miss Mitchelmore, arching an eyebrow. I suspect this was a habit she had acquired from her lover, like behavioural syphilis.

"Not ladies of quality."

Miss Bickle was still grinning. "Oh, that's perfectly all right then. I'm not a lady of quality, I'm just very rich. In terms of heritage I'm as common as a church mouse."

This was not going the way Mr. Caesar wanted. Although were he honest with himself, he would have had to admit it was going the way he expected. And it was certainly going the way I wanted, which is my chief concern. "I could not guarantee your safety."

"Nor could we guarantee yours," replied Miss Mitchelmore. "But we have both been in danger before, and if we bring Lizzie then we shall have the use both of her grandfather's coach and of his large, heavily armed servants, who I suspect will see us secure enough."

There was little counterargument Mr. Caesar could make to that. He had not been relishing the thought of returning to St. Giles unescorted and the kind of entourage the elder Mr. Bickle would insist upon providing for his granddaughter would be a comfort indeed.

So he relented, and the three set out for St. Giles with your humble narrator, in my shape of mists and shadows, trailing in their wake.

They arrived at the Folly a little before noon, the late morning light rather spoiling the atmosphere of malevolence that at least one of their number had come there expecting.

"It's nicer than I thought it would be," observed Miss Bickle, disappointed. "Although it also smells worse."

Not having any sensical reply to that, Mr. Caesar led his lady companions, along with two of the four men who had come to guard them, into Lord Wriothesly's Folly. To his concern, it was a mostly different crowd from the one he had seen the previous evening, although in truth he had paid little attention to the ununiformed patrons.

The one red jacket in the room belonged to a young man who was leaning on the bar and watching the world with an expression of laconic disinterest that Mr. Caesar and I both greatly approved of.

"Sal?" Mr. Caesar said to the young soldier, hoping that he wasn't making an embarrassing error.

"Hello, sailor," Sal replied. "Can't get enough of us, eh? Sorry to hear about your sister, but if we find anything we'll tell the captain and he'll tell you. You've no need to come back to the slums."

The mix of greeting, reassurance, and implied rebuke in the space of two breaths gave Mr. Caesar a certain degree of social whiplash. "I'm here to see Barryson," he explained.

Sal yelled through to somebody who yelled through to somebody who was presumably going to rouse Barryson from a back room and I, from an abundance of caution, adopted an insectoid shape to aid my concealment. Then Sal turned back to Mr. Caesar with a lazy smile. "So who're your friends?"

Conscious that the ladies' virtues were potentially at stake, although equally conscious that each of them had the option to be more lax about their reputation than was typical, Mr. Caesar tried to keep introductions formal. "Sal, this is Miss Bickle and Miss Mitchelmore"—it struck him that given the company and Captain James's willingness to be on first-name terms with servants, it was best to introduce the men as well—"and these are …" He became rapidly conscious of a flaw in that plan. "Two gentlemen who work for Miss Bickle."

"Harris," said one.

"Hawkins," said the other.

"Which is pleasingly alliterative," added Mr. Caesar, who immediately regretted it.

With a level of gallantry that Mr. Caesar felt sure either of his sisters would have found head-turning, Sal kissed each of the ladies' hands (that is, he kissed one hand of each lady, not each hand of every lady; if there is ambiguity in that sentence it is the consequence of your limited mortal language, not of my intent) then bowed warmly to each of the gentlemen. "Charmed," he said, "on all counts."

"Hawey," called a voice from the back as Barryson emerged from whatever bowels the Folly possessed, "what you yelling for?"

Mr. Caesar looked contrite, or as contrite as it was possible to look while maintaining a patrician fa?ade. "I'm sorry to disturb you. But as I believe you've been told, my sister is missing."

"Bad business that," observed Barryson.

"And my friend here"—Mr. Caesar indicated Miss Bickle—"is of the opinion that she might have been"—here an unwarranted embarrassment overtook his tongue—"abducted by fairies."

At the mention of fairies, Barryson's wild eyes scanned the room and I inched myself into a crack in a ceiling beam. "Could be," he said. "You bring watchers with you, John Caesar. There's an otherworldly air about all three of yez."

Miss Mitchelmore paled ever so slightly. "Oh, John, you don't think—this couldn't be because of me, could it? Did I somehow draw supernatural attention to your family?"

She did, of course. Just not the supernatural attention that was causing their present difficulties.

"We can't assume that yet," Mr. Caesar told her, "and even if we could it would still not be your fault."

"Perhaps," admitted Miss Mitchelmore. "But Georgiana swore off love for a lifetime rather than expose others to mystical peril. I might at least have thought about the possibility of my situation affecting those I care for."

Mr. Caesar's sometimes overbearing attitude towards his cousin had its advantages, and this was one of the rare moments in which it could be almost a comfort. "If you had, what would you have done to prevent this? Tied witch knots in her hair? Hung myrtle and wild roses over her window? Warned her to beware of fair ladies on white horses and handsome knights with sweet-sounding horns?"

Miss Mitchelmore conceded that she would not, indeed, have known which if any of those things would have proven efficacious (for the record, the answer is "two of them"; the others will kill you immediately) and that she would therefore have been no actual help in protecting Miss Caesar from supernatural danger. But she conceded it grudgingly.

It was agreed amongst those present (or most of those present; Harris and Hawkins had little say in the matter) that to determine if the unfortunate Miss Caesar had indeed been taken by my people then Barryson would need to examine the room from which she had disappeared. They returned, as a foursome (a sixsome, counting the servants, but who does?) to the carriage, and set out back through London en route to the Caesar residence.

We now encounter a slight problem. Mr. Caesar's plan, to recruit the services of a known seer in order to determine what might have become of his sister, was a good one. But since that involved determining whether there had been supernatural interference with the family in general, the sister in particular, and her room most particularly of all, I was conscious that my own presence might disrupt his divination.

Not that I cared. Or at least, not that I cared for reasons that you mortals will understand. My concern was entirely in thwarting my master's rival. I was loyal then, O my dread lord, and I remain loyal now. Ever your servant. Ever safeguarding your interests even when you do not know it.

Just saying.

But this left me with something of a quandary. My duty as a storyteller is to record every significant event that transpires and to relay it to you, my beloved readers, without embellishment or deception. My duty as a zealous (ever zealous, ever faithful, ever committed) servant of my lord was to permit this interference in Titania's plans to proceed. The deciding factor, in this case, was that I suspected staying out of the way would lead, eventually, to a better story.

As a consequence, I was not actually present in the room where the divination took place. But I have reconstructed it as best I can from my own speculations.

"Hoo hoo," said Barryson, standing mortally by the window with a mortal look on his face. "Well, this be a right pickle you do be in and no mistake. Fortunately, I have somehow conceived the vainglorious notion that having read a few runic scribblings by dead Norsemen, I am fully qualified to tangle with the immortal powers of the cosmos."

"I think this is a bad idea," said Mr. Caesar, looking mortal and priggish. "And disapprove strongly even though it is to my direct personal benefit and I am literally asking you to do it."

"Well, I think magic is fun," countered Miss Bickle. "And should like us to do more of it because my beliefs are extremely sensible and will get nobody killed. Of that I am certain."

"And I think our first priority should be assisting Mary," opined Miss Mitchelmore, "who you both seem to have forgotten in all of this."

Then Barryson reached into—oh, I don't know, a bag or something, whatever mortals carry things with—and drew out a sheaf of white wooden strips inscribed with symbols of divination. These he cast into the air and, eyes closed, selected from amongst their number. Even a floor down and three rooms sideways I could feel an unpleasant sense of being watched, of human perception interfacing with laws and systems with which your kind were never meant to interact.

"Bibbity boo," he said, "magic magic magic, probably something about Odin. Yup, definitely fairies."

"Oh." Miss Bickle looked oddly disappointed. "Somehow that feels rather anticlimactic."

"… eels rather anticlimactic," the genuine, nonspeculative Miss Bickle was saying in the hallway.

"Magic often does," explained Barryson. "It's not all raising hanged men from the dead."

Miss Bickle gasped. " Can you raise hanged men from the dead?"

"I can, but there's not a huge amount of call for it, know what I mean?"

I made my way in my spider's shape to rejoin the companions, which took rather longer than travelling in a larger form. It's amazing how big a sitting room becomes when one is less than an inch across.

"What troubles me," Mr. Caesar was saying when I arrived, "is that I haven't the slightest clue what to do now. If she has, as you say, been taken by fairies, what recourse does that leave us?"

Miss Mitchelmore took her cousin's hands and looked up at him reassuringly. "We will find a way to rescue her. I am sure of it."

"People always do," said Miss Bickle with her typical confidence. "You might have to go on a very long journey, or fight an ogre, or hold on to her while she changes into lots of things you don't really want to be holding on to. But you'll win in the end. That's how it works."

For some reason, mortals often found Miss Bickle's unwavering faith in the beneficence of my people wearing but, on this one occasion, Mr. Caesar seemed to take the sensible position that she was extremely right and comforting.

"Thank you," he said. "And thank you as well, Barryson. This was beyond the call of duty, truly."

Barryson gave a sly grin. "No worries, I'm sure you'd do the same for my sister."

Since it had not occurred to Mr. Caesar that Barryson had a sister, or that he really had any life at all beyond being a soldier, that observation reproved him a little. Although only a little; he was, after all, still an earl's grandson. "If the lady ever needs"—he hesitated—"anything I am qualified to provide, please don't hesitate."

"Know any single dukes?" Barryson asked.

If he'd tried, Mr. Caesar could have named at least one, but this seemed to be going to dangerous places. "I fear relationships between untitled ladies and dukes seldom end as well as the popular imagination would have you believe."

"True enough." Barryson shouldered the bag that he was indeed carrying (you see, my descriptions were entirely accurate) and made for the door. "I'll tell the captain they can stop searching the river. Oh and, will you be wanting him to second for you?"

Mr. Caesar blinked. "Second?"

"In the duel."

The tiny matter of his sister's abduction had driven the tiny matter of the duel from Mr. Caesar's mind. "Ah. Yes. That. I suppose his seconding would indeed be valued and, well, is there still a plan for Jackson to …"

"Fuck the whole thing up so you don't die? Yeah."

Miss Bickle adopted an expression of approving outrage. "Are you going to cheat in a duel? Are you becoming a rakehell? Do say you're becoming a rakehell."

It was, perhaps, illustrative of Mr. Caesar's vexed relationship with the ton that rakehell was never a title to which he had felt able to aspire. Gentlemen with fairer fortunes, fairer skin, and more interest in the fairer sex might have been able to get away with cocking a snook at a world that at once despised and admired them. Mr. Caesar, by contrast, needed to reserve his defiance for dark rooms and closed doors and—very, very occasionally—punching annoying men in the teeth. "I am doing what it takes to secure my survival. And with current circumstances, the sooner I get this silly business with the major out of the way the better."

"John!" Miss Bickle's look of outrage grew rather less approving. "A duel is not a silly business. It is terribly romantic and exciting."

Barryson shook his head. "Nae, miss, it's silly. Now holmgang, that's a different matter."

Ever eager for stories of iron-thewed men doing sweaty things to each other, Miss Bickle gave Barryson a wide-eyed tell me more look, but Mr. Caesar preempted it by opening the door and saying, "Well, we shouldn't keep you."

A conclusion that Miss Bickle found dismaying enough that she pouted for the rest of the evening.