Chapter 5

Five

"The heart of a saint is more complicated than necessary. It has an endless depth of understanding and compassion for all except themselves." — Sayings of the Blessed Crow.

A month passed before Mara finally began to believe that she’d seen the last of Augustus Vance. Her life returned to its normal, quiet rhythm. The sorcerer’s turbulent disruption to her life had highlighted just how quiet it had been.

God, that must be lonely. His words came back to haunt her as she lay in bed at night.

She had grown used to being forgotten and convinced herself she enjoyed her anonymity. Customers forgetting her had never bothered her before. Having Augustus forget her had been what she had wanted, so she didn’t understand why getting her wish bothered her so much.

Maybe it was the saint part of her that knew he carried far more unhealed heartache inside of him. The story of the leopard had been one awful drop in the ocean of pain he concealed.

Maybe because now Mara had time to process being remembered for once, it made her feel the ache of being forgotten more acutely.

God, that must be lonely.

"I suppose you think this serves me right for breaking the rules," Mara said, lighting the candles at Saint Anea’s feet. Anea looked as unsure as she did.

"Good riddance," Athanasius said, staring out of the shop windows. "I didn’t like the way he looked at you."

"He looked at me the way he probably looks at all problems." Mara sat down on the window seat beside the cat.

"You’re too old to be this naïve. Interested is what he looked. Do I need to remind you of the dangers of having an affair with a sorcerer? I’m living proof of the consequences."

Mara patted his head. "Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want to have an affair with anyone. Rest easy, Augustus has forgotten me like all the rest."

"Augustus, is it? I know I’m a cat, but I’m not a fool. You’ve been melancholy for weeks. Don’t even think about going anywhere near Albert Street."

"I love you, grandfather, but sometimes you don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Uh-huh, so why are you looking out for him?"

Mara stopped studying the street. She had not been looking for him. Had she?

"I was only seeing what the weather was doing. I’m going out. I need some air," she said decisively.

By the time Mara had fetched her keys, Athanasius had fallen asleep. She was pulling her coat from the rack when she spotted the gold and red scarf tangled around a hook.

Mara ran her fingers down the soft, silky fabric, the tingle in her fingertips telling her precisely who the scarf belonged to. Augustus had been upset and in a hurry to leave and must’ve left it behind.

Mara stuffed the scarf into her coat pocket before Athanasius saw it, stepped out into the street, and locked the red door behind her.

That day, the teashop had set itself up in Little Collins Street, and Mara let the streams of shoppers, students, and suits move around her as she walked past Princess Theatre and into the Parliament Gardens.

The scarf burned in her pocket like a secret. She needed to get rid of it. Mara found a metal rubbish bin overflowing with takeout containers and pulled the scarf out, ready to throw it away.

She hesitated, fingers tightening around it, unable to let the beautiful fabric drop. She put it back into her pocket, brought a coffee from a tiny park vendor, and then realized she was standing on Albert Street.

"What is going on…" she whispered to herself.

Did the scarf have a return spell on it? She wouldn’t put it past him. The three occasions that she’d seen him had been enough to tell her that Augustus loved scarves.

Mara crossed into Fitzroy Gardens and thought about what to do. He hadn’t returned to the shop for it, which meant he’d forgotten it and her the way he was meant to.

She could just put it in his mailbox. Even if he happened to see her through a window, it wasn’t like he would know—

"Mara?"

She jolted with surprise. Augustus stood on the path in front of her, and she had been seconds from colliding with him.

"Oh, hello."

"This is a surprise. What are you doing on this side of town?" he asked.

Mara held the scarf out to him. "You left this in the shop. I was going to return it to you because I thought you might’ve forgotten where you left it." Then she realized that he’d recognized her and hadn’t, in fact, forgotten her at all. He had been avoiding her.

"Thank you, I have been missing it. I felt like an idiot leaving it behind," Augustus said, taking it from her and wrapping it around his neck. "It’s my favorite. My sister gave it to me."

"Why didn’t you come and get it then?" she asked.

"I seem to upset you every time I come through your door. I thought it best to stay away."

"Then the miracle didn’t work." Mara was now feeling doubly mortified.

Augustus finished adjusting his scarf and gave her an awkward smile. "I wouldn’t say that. I remember you, but that doesn’t mean I’m not feeling better. You are the real deal, my dear. It scared the holy Hell out of me."

"Why? I told you what would happen."

"Because I thought you were a fraud, and I was going to prove it. Then I realized too late that you were legitimate, and I ended up telling you one of the most regrettable and cowardly stories of my life." Augustus looked around and then gestured toward the peach and cream-painted conservatory. "We should talk about this somewhere quieter. It’s about to rain too."

"I don’t think it is…" Mara said just as water began to fall.

"Sorcerers always know," Augustus said with a wink before heading off. "Are you coming?"

Mara heard the entire Corvo bloodline wail in despair as the glass door closed behind her.

It was warmer inside of the building, the air heavy with the scent of flowers and growing things. Color was exploding everywhere she looked as Augustus led her deeper into the cosy greenhouse and to a stone bench.

"I can’t believe you thought I was a fraud," Mara admitted.

"It’s my job. I wanted to make sure that you weren’t taking advantage of gullible, normal humans."

"What kind of job is that?"

"I suppose if it was a job, I’d be paid. Let’s say it’s more of a penance."

Mara side-eyed the man sitting beside her. "I heard you were some kind of cop that keeps an eye on the supernaturals in Melbourne."

"Cop is better than a vigilante."

"I don’t imagine wearing a mask and tights is your kind of thing."

Augustus grinned. "Not recently anyway. I feel responsible for the magic in Melbourne, so I keep an eye on it. That’s all. The magic of your shop is fascinating. Do you know that in the past month, it has followed me wherever I go?"

Mara knew the shop moved nearly every day. She was so used to it, she didn’t find it unusual. That it was homing in on Augustus didn’t make sense, and she said as much.

"Every time I step out of my house to go anywhere, no matter what part of the city I’m in, I see your red door at least once. I wanted to ask you about it, but as I said before, I seem to upset you every time I come and see you, so I thought to try and figure the magic out for myself. Then I ran into you, coming to me."

"You put a tracking spell on your scarf. It led me here," Mara said.

"There’s no spell on my scarf, Mara." Augustus shook his head. "Melbourne’s magic is playing up again."

"Does it do that often?"

"More and more since I met you. It’s complicated."

"I’ll say. I’ve lived in Melbourne for over eighty years, Augustus. I don’t understand why it would be playing up now," Mara said.

"I don’t know either, but I have a theory. It would be easier to show you than explain it, though."

Mara gave him a hurry-up gesture. "Show me then."

Augustus seemed to be struggling to make up his mind, his eyes reflecting the dark skies above them.

"I want to, but you are going to have to trust me. Only a little," he added.

"How much is a little?" Mara asked suspiciously.

"Enough to walk across the road and into my house. I’ve been to your teashop three times without anything bad happening."

"And that means you trust me?" Mara snorted.

"God, no. Not after what you did to me during my last visit. I want to learn to trust you, though, and I can’t unless it goes both ways. This problem with Melbourne’s magic… I can’t be certain yet, but I think you might be able to help me fix it."

"Why me?"

"Because it’s going to take a miracle, and you are the only saint I know."

Ten minutes and a substantial amount of cajoling later, Mara reluctantly agreed to let Augustus show her the problem of Melbourne’s magic. It was still raining, but as soon as they reached the conservatory doors, a large, black umbrella appeared in his hand, and he opened it out over her.

"Thank you," Mara said and tried to take shelter under it without getting too close to him to breathe in his masculine aftershave.

They crossed through the rest of Fitzroy Gardens, and it wasn’t until she was walking through the gate to his terrace house that she hesitated.

Mara had been with a family of magic users long enough to know simple protection and warding. Augustus’s house had so many she was surprised they weren’t visible. They pushed against her, warning her off.

"Everything okay?" Augustus asked, pulling out his keys.

"You don’t really like visitors, do you?"

"No. You are probably the fifth person in the last hundred years that I’ve invited in." He unlocked the door and threw a grin over his shoulder. "Don’t stand out there being chicken, Mara. I don’t bite."

God, that must be lonely.

Mara straightened her jacket and marched up the front steps to the door.

"I’m not a chicken," she said, stepping out of her wet boots.

"I know. Got you inside, didn’t it?" Large hands came to her shoulders, and Augustus helped her take her overcoat off and hung it up for her. "Come on in."

The first thing Mara noticed was how normal everything looked. The house had honey timber floors, walls painted a muted cerulean blue that contrasted with the dark timber wainscoting, polished door frames, and antique furniture. It was masculine but surprisingly tidy and clean and nothing the way she imagined a sorcerer’s house to look.

Mara followed Augustus through a sitting room and made a small sound of excitement when she saw the wall of books. Like a moth to a flame, she zeroed in on the shelves and hurried to study the titles.

"May I?" she asked before reaching for them.

With a faintly amused expression, he nodded. "Of course. These are mostly fiction. The research and non-fiction are upstairs. You like books?"

"They are probably the only thing that’s kept me sane," Mara said as she scanned through them, her fingers running along the spines. "When you are forgotten by every person you meet, apart from very nosey relations, you find that fictional lives are the closest thing you get to normality. We constantly traveled, so it was hard to get new books, and often I had to leave them behind. I would’ve sold at least three of my cousin’s souls for such a thing as an e-book reader when I was younger so I could take my books wherever I went."

"Only three? That doesn’t sound like very saintly behavior," Augustus mused with a teasing smile. "When you were younger… How old are you?"

"How old do I look?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Thirty at most. Why? How old are you?"

Mara bit the inside of her lip. "I don’t actually know. My mother didn’t think keeping track of things like that was important. She said we lived outside of time and that trying to mark every year wouldn’t do me any good."

The Corvo family traveled the length and breadth of the known world (and a few places of the unknown), dispensing miracles as they went. They lived in Europe when the Second World War broke out, and fearing that they would be round up and put into a camp, Sophia had decided that moving from Europe was the only option.

She had packed up Mara in the middle of the night, and they had boarded a ship to Australia, as far away from the war as Sophia could get, and they would wait it out until everything blew over.

The constant travel had caused two things to happen within the Corvo family: a confusion of time on a cellular level meant the ordinary rules of aging didn’t apply to them, and that they had so much mixed blood they were destined to be forever without home or country.

Mara, who had been too busy reading book titles, didn’t realize she had spoken out loud.

"I’ve never heard of time being tricked in such a manner. You’re full of surprises," Augustus said, looking her over curiously. She hadn’t seen him pour two glasses of scotch, but he held one out to her. "Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned."

"If it is, I’ll make you suffer for it," Mara said, liking the way his eyes opened a little wider in surprise. Something in his guarded demeanor shifted, and she decided she liked unnerving him.

"Consider me warned. You didn’t come here to look at my books. I’ll show you what this is all about."

Mara followed him up a tall flight of stairs, and the sense of magic grew stronger with each step. They passed a closed door with shimmering golden sigils painted on the floor and door frame, and Mara instantly wanted to open it to see what was on the other side. A room full of dead wives, perhaps.

"This is my study. Sorry about the mess," Augustus said, opening a set of double doors.

This was what she had expected to see in a sorcerer’s house if a more mundane and less magical version. The room was dominated by a large wooden dining table covered in maps, papers, and books.

One wall had been painted with blackboard paint, and sigils spread along it like math equations, with notes in at least three languages.

Books were stacked neatly in shelves or in piles beside them; a makeshift lab had been constructed at one end, and another large desk stood near a fireplace with a laptop balancing on a stack of battered notebooks.

"What’s wrong?" Augustus asked.

"Nothing. It only seems more scholarly than I imagined a sorcerer’s workshop. Wasn’t your kind meant to have demon slaves trapped in jars or something to serve you and give you their magic?"

"Unfortunately, the only demons I have are on the inside and are all quite useless," Augustus answered, making her laugh.

The only part of the walls that wasn’t tacked with notes was a painting of a castle in a misty English forest with a silver stag watching them.

"You have a thing for stags, don’t you?" Mara asked as she looked at the painting. It was beautiful if a little melancholy.

"Why do you say that?"

Mara pointed at the stag in the painting. "You have one on the ring you wear too."

She had noticed the square signet ring he wore when she had passed him his tea. Set in onyx was a stag head and three stars set in silver.

"It’s my family crest," Augustus explained and joined her by the painting. "This is my ancestral home. My sister painted it."

"Do you miss it?" she couldn’t help but ask. If she had a castle in a forest, she wouldn’t spend her time living in Melbourne.

"Only occasionally. This is actually what I wanted to show you."

Augustus unrolled a map of Melbourne that looked like it had been printed in the late 1800s. He traced a line over it with his finger, and a soft, undulating glow rose out of it. In the center of the haze of light was a gaping hole.

"What is it?" Mara asked, leaning over it.

Augustus put on a pair of black square-framed glasses that somehow took the fierce sorcerer from his face and made him even more attractive. Mara quickly looked back at the map.

"This is magical energy, like ley lines but of pure magic. They move through the seasons, as does the hole in it. It should look like this," he explained, placing another map beside it and performing the same magic. This time the light was smooth and still and glowing brightly.

"How did the hole get to be there?" Mara said, her fingers tingling with the sensation of his magic as she ran her fingers through the light.

"That story will take a lot of tea," Augustus replied. "For the purpose of this conversation, I will tell you that the hole was made because that section of magic was stolen. I managed to stop the rest of it from collapsing, except the hole makes magic in Melbourne…unpredictable. I’ve been trying to find a way to close it since 1892."

The chaotic mess around them was starting to make sense. It was like a mad scientist’s lab of experimentation and observation.

"This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with me?" Mara said, knowing he was holding more than a story back.

Augustus unrolled yet another map and traced a symbol onto it. Pulsing light spread out over it, the hole in the lines now hovering over Little Collins Street.

"Ever since you performed the miracle on me last month, the hole in the magic has begun to follow the location of your teashop. Wherever you move, it moves."

"You said that the shop’s been moving wherever you are," Mara argued.

"It has. It’s like something has happened, and now we are chasing each other all over the city."

Mara looked back at the map. "That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t use magic, not in the same way that you do. I don’t know you; you don’t want a miracle, and yet you keep turning up…"

An idea itched at the back of her mind as she turned the problem over in her head. Having spent most of her life alone, Mara was more comfortable in her head than she was in the outside world.

She traced the glowing light before circling the gap over her store, and the idea pushed its way forward.

"You haven’t been able to find me since I established myself in Melbourne, and maybe the gap couldn’t either because my miracles don’t draw on its magic," she said slowly. "The shop appears to people who want a miracle. What if Melbourne does too?"

Augustus stared at her, then at the maps, then at her again. "You think it’s sentient?"

"You should know that better than me. You’ve been studying it for a hundred and twenty-eight years."

Mara took a mouthful of the scotch in her glass. It was woodsy spice and smoke on her tongue, and she drank more.

Augustus’s frown deepened. "The hole only started moving about regularly in the last eighty years, which aligns from when you and your mother moved here. If your theory is correct, it could’ve been searching for you."

"Even if it is, I don’t know how I can help. I can’t make magic a cup of tea."

"After my last visit, I noticed that the circumference of the hole seemed smaller. I thought I’d made a mistake, so I re-did all of my calculations. But it is definitely smaller."

Mara drank more scotch as Augustus glared at the map, and she understood what was making him so agitated. "Saints save me, you’re tied to it, aren’t you? Did you steal the magic?"

"No! I stopped the person who did as I said. I stopped the whole goddamn thing from unraveling. I hadn’t considered even for a moment that I had somehow become connected to it," he groaned.

Mara thought about her Aunt Mira and Aunt Suzanna, who used to be able to wield magic with their braids and store spells in woven bracelets of red thread.

"Your magic got tangled in with it when you tried to close it. I’ve seen it happen. My Aunt Mira died horribly when one of her weavings backfired on her because her magic got tangled with the energy of the tank she was trying to stop."

Augustus shook his head. "Another story you’ll have to tell me about. It’s not magic I’m familiar with, so I never even considered it. I keep finding your teashop because Melbourne wants its miracle."

Mara knew of that deep well of grief and guilt that she’d felt the first time he’d touched her skin. "Maybe you need one too."

"I’ll have to think about it. I don’t like…sharing," he admitted.

"I don’t particularly like sorcerers, and here I am."

"You don’t understand. They aren’t pleasant stories that are going to make me look good."

"Why should that matter? All grief is messy, and you’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before," Mara replied, the alcohol in her making it sound far more suggestive than she intended.

"I like to think I have a few tricks you haven’t seen before. Still doesn’t make me want to tell you all my deep dark secrets, even if some of them are spectacular."

Augustus grinned, and heat flared low in her stomach. Saint Anea save her, he was a handsome man when he smiled, and it made her hate him a little bit more. Mara passed him back her empty glass.

"Then don’t. It’s not like the hole in Melbourne’s magic is my problem anyway. I should be going. Athanasius will be worrying where I am." She was down the stairs and pulling on her boots when he caught up to her.

"It’s dark. I should walk you back," he said.

"No, thank you. I know the way." Mara put on her coat and did up the buttons.

"Why are you running away?" The question jolted her.

"I’m not. You wanted to show me what was happening, and you have. I believe the rest is up to you to figure out. Thank you for the drink," Mara said. Augustus’s expression was unreadable as his eyes flickered from green to dark gray. He opened the door.

"Take my umbrella at least," he said, handing it to her. "Feel free to hit anyone with it who looks threatening."

Mara looked at the pelting rain and took it, but the only threatening person she could see was him. He seemed to read it on her face and managed a half-laugh. "You’re more frightening than me, saint."

Mara smiled as she opened the umbrella. "Good night…Augustus."