"I got it," Harry growled.
Grey offered his arm to Pearl and started back to the carriage when she took it, though she walked almost backward to watch the other two in "discussion."
"This many machine bits?" Elinor tugged at the basket. "We already know the stronger the alchemist, the faster the machines affect him. And you're the magister. I'm sure you don't want to be dragged back to the carriage by Grey."
"I'd drag you by your heels, old chap," Grey called out cheerfully. "Bash your head against every cobble in the street."
"Not proper, it ain't," Harry grumbled, giving up the basket to Elinor. "For the woman to bear the burden. You should carry it, Grey."
"It's your basket," Grey retorted. "With your toys in it. Besides, conjurers don't last much longer than alchemists, and since I am a more powerful conjurer than you are alchemist-"
"More powerful, my ars-my eye!"
"-I would likely faint as quickly as you, and then where would we be?"
"Why is that?" Pearl asked, breaking into Grey's entertainment without so much as a blink. "Why do conjurers and alchemists react so strongly?"
"Because wizards' and sorcerers' magic's alive," Harry said. "Conjury and alchemy ain't. That's wot I think, any road."
"The magic itself is alive, but its source is not," Grey amended. "Though spirits once were alive. Alchemy's source never was." He waved to the coachman to keep his seat and opened the door to Harry's carriage himself, while Harry stowed the basket in the luggage compartment.
THE REST OF the week, Pearl spent most of her days in study. Grey had a private office attached to the large Investigations Branch room which he set up as a study for her, so she wouldn't be so distracted by all the Briganti's to-do. She missed hearing how the inquiries were going, but it did help her focus on her reading, and that was the most important thing.
Grey had also cleared out a small corner of the workroom at his house to give her a little area of her own. Pearl kept a gas burner there with a tea kettle and a little stoneware pot just big enough to brew a few cups, so she could have tea without disturbing the servants. Everything else-the journal where she wrote down her notes, her books and such-she either carried with her or left in the study at I-Branch. Sorcerers didn't require much in the way of magical instruments. And Pearl was still in the reading and study part of her apprenticeship. She didn't need space for practicing spells yet.
She'd switched to the Basic Magic Theory book, in hopes that a grounding in theory, written in modern En -glish, would help her understand the ideas presented in Beginning Sorcery, even if it didn't help with parsing meaning from the archaic words themselves. The theory book was written for schoolboys, so while it was easily comprehended, it left a great many holes in things, to Pearl's way of thinking.
This led to intense discussions with her magic-master on the ride home, which generally led to dinners-with Harry and Elinor attending for propriety's sake-where the discussions lengthened and intensified. Most nights, Pearl and Elinor crawled into bed still following where the discussions led. Steeped daylong in magic, Pearl had never been happier.
Except for one thing. Grey.
Proximity to the man did not cure her foolish attraction to him. Indeed, it made matters worse. For while his appearance became no less beautiful, his shoulders just as broad, his eyes dark and soulful as ever, his character made itself known to her. And she liked him.
He answered her every question thoughtfully and thoroughly, never losing patience with the number of questions she asked. He was kind, though he didn't like anyone to know it, and he had a wicked sense of humor, which had Pearl laughing when she knew she oughtn't.
He rarely lost his temper, and then only when someone did not do what they should have. Or behaved in an abysmally stupid manner. Often, that someone was Pearl, but he made allowances-probably too many of them-for her student status. He only became toweringly furious when the should-have-done endangered someone.
She was getting better at not doing stupid things. She asked more often before plunging in-if asking made sense to her. If she didn't understand the spell she was trying to work. They were only baby spells, after all. Requiring less magic, less spit than even her "don't-look" spell. She hadn't graduated yet to any spells requiring blood.
She was tempted to jump ahead and look at the chapter on innocent blood . . . well, she had read it. But it didn't say anything. Just told what it was, where it came from, and what it was for. Nothing about how it should be used or how it was done. Not even how to gather it in, which she knew how to do already.
The magic-reading, talking, and practicing it-helped distract her from her inappropriate feelings toward her magic-master. When his touch on her elbow sent a quiver shooting through her, she asked a question about magic. She'd taken to keeping a list of questions, every one that popped into her mind, some of them utterly inane.
It didn't matter to Grey. He answered even the silliest question with the same careful attention, which distracted her from the quivers and thumpetys and pitter-pats. Things still quivered and thumped, but she could ignore them and focus on the magic, on the mind rather than on the heart. Until she fell asleep and dreamed. But dreams weren't reality. Magic was.
ON THE THIRD Monday after Pearl started her apprenticeship, the first Monday in November, she stood in the big room behind Grey and listened. With any luck, he wouldn't see her for a while yet and order her off to her study room. Pearl liked to spend a little time in the busy office periodically, just to catch up on things. Sometimes, she was even able to contribute.
The Briganti investigators had finally raveled out the spells used to ward the Rotherhithe burglary ring operating on both sides of the river and tracked them home. The ordinary police would sweep them up shortly, with a few Briganti enforcers standing by to take care of the ring's leader, a guild magician corrupted by greed. One of Harry's alchemists.
The investigation into Angus Galloway's murder was not going nearly so well. Every time the Briganti in the I-Branch workrooms seemed close to teasing information out of something, the spell would collapse. The al-chemist Duncan, who had lost the draw as to who should report to Grey, was explaining.
"First off, the killer tried to wipe everything clean as best he could. Except for the sorcery Miss Parkin swept up, which none of us knows how to read-except for that, the bast-bloke did a right fine job of cleaning up after himself.
"But on top of that, it's as if he worked some other spell to confuse things for us. Stirring the magic together like it was in a cauldron or something. Or maybe he stirred the magic when he was working it. We can't tell. We can't get our spells to hold together long enough to discover even that much."
"What about you, Ferguson?" Grey turned a pointed glare on the young wizard. "What has that superior magic sense of yours been able to discern, hmm? Anything?"
Ferguson was sweating, his freckles dark islands in an ocean of pale. He had been back in the office, in the workroom, the day after his collapse in the morgue. He should have taken more time off, Pearl thought. But he hadn't. It made her wonder if that was why his magic sense had gone off, like curdled milk.
"It is as Duncan says." Ferguson's voice held confidence thinly laid over strain. "The magic is muddled together. Reading it is like an alchemist trying to read the future in the surf. And with the stink of sorcery laid over everything-"
Pearl stiffened reflexively. She'd thought Ferguson in favor of the return of sorcery. Had he lied?
"Beg pardon, Miss Parkin." He'd obviously noticed her affront. "I meant nothing offensive by my words. It's simply-sorcery smells like fresh blood to me, and I have never been fond of that scent."
Grey was watching her now, not Ferguson. She could feel his gaze like a caress over her skin, and it disturbed her. As usual. She shoved the disturbance away, tried to squelch her body's response yet again.
"No offense taken," she said with a twitch of her lips that might pass for a smile. It was hard to smile when Grey was watching her. Especially when she would not watch him back.
Finally he turned his attention back to the wizard. Pearl didn't see it, but she knew it just the same. It felt like crossing out of the sun's summer heat into shade.
"So." Grey leaned his knuckles on his desk. "You have made no progress in examining the evidence in the three weeks since we obtained it. Is this correct?"
"Sir," Ferguson began, "if the spellwork can only untangle the residues, I am sure-"
"That is correct, Magister Carteret," Duncan said.
Grey nodded looking down at the desk where his fists were propped, as if considering his next steps. Abruptly, he straightened, adjusting his cuffs. "That is why I have brought in assistance."
He pulled his watch from his pocket to check the time, and as he put it away again, the door opened. Elinor led the way through it, followed by Harry and a tall, dark man with handsome, though strikingly foreign, features.