“What you saw last Sunday is called drucraft,” I told Colin. “It uses a resource called essentia to do . . . well, what you’d probably call magic spells.”
“Spells,” Colin said.
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t say any magic words.”
“No.”
“So . . . they’re like what? Psionics from D&D?”
“Something like that.”
Colin sat there looking at me. “Why does it work?” he said at last.
“Essentia.”
“What’s essentia?”
“It’s . . . hmm.” Colin’s studying natural science at Imperial College London; back at school, his favourite subjects had been chemistry and physics. I thought about how to explain it in terms he’d understand. “Think of it like a sort of invisible, undetectable gas. One you can’t touch and which can go through solid objects.”
“How?”
“Essentia doesn’t really interact with matter very much. For the most part it flows right through it.”
“So does it have mass?”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, then it can’t be a gas.”
“I said it was like a gas.”
“So where is it?”
“Here,” I said, pointing to the air in front of us. “And here, and here.” I could make out the currents that I was pointing to, grey-white swirls in the air that brightened as they flowed. “It’s all around you, and inside you, right now.”
“So what is it? Is it made up out of particles?”
“I . . . don’t really know.”
“Does it move faster than the speed of light?”
“I don’t think so?”
“Can you propagate waves through it?”
“Will you stop?” I said in annoyance. “I’m trying to give you the ‘Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drucraft’ here, and we’re only on page one. At this rate we’re going to be here all night.”
Reluctantly, Colin shut up.
“Drucraft spells are powered by essentia, but for the most part they don’t work on their own,” I said. I took out one of my sigl rings and held it out to Colin. “You see the little thing in the ring that looks like a gemstone?”
Colin squinted at the ring. It was steel, with what looked like a very small gem on the top. Unlike most of my sigl rings, the sigl was set onto the ring, instead of recessed into it. “Yeah.”
“That little sphere’s called a sigl.” I told him. “Human beings can’t use free essentia on their own. We’re constantly surrounded by this energy source, but we can’t access it. Same way that you can’t access the chemical energy in a lump of matter.”
“You can set it on fire.”
“That doesn’t always work.”
“That just means you’re not using enough fire.”
I resisted the urge to hit Colin. “So what sigls do is draw in the free essentia around them and turn it into a spell effect,” I said. “Like this.” I sent a flow of essentia down through my arm and into the sigl on the ring.
Blue-white light flooded the room. The sigl resting in my hand was the second one I’d ever made, a simple one that converted essentia into pale blue light. It’s about the most basic sigl you can get, but it’s still useful.
Colin had been about to ask another, probably equally annoying question, but the sight of the active sigl wiped all that away. He leaned in to stare, and I lowered the brightness a little so that he wouldn’t be dazzled.
“You aren’t wearing it,” Colin said at last.
“Don’t need to. It just needs to be close enough.”
Colin kept staring. I kept the sigl going for a while, then when he still didn’t say anything I let the flow of essentia cut off. The light vanished and Colin blinked, looking at the sigl as if coming out of a trance.
I lowered the ring. “Believe me now?”
Colin didn’t take his eyes off it. “Yeah,” he said at last.
It was sort of funny how big an impression my weak little light sigl had made. Apparently no amount of talk is half as convincing as a simple demonstration. “How did you do that?” Colin asked.
“When essentia passes into you, it attunes to you and becomes personal essentia. And personal essentia responds to your will. With enough training, you can channel it into a sigl.”
“Can anyone learn to do that?”
“Eventually. You have to learn to sense it first.”
Colin frowned. “Wait. All that stuff you used to do with your dad, when you were just sitting around . . . ?”
“Sensing and channelling exercises.”
“I thought that was just woo-woo spiritual stuff,” Colin complained. “Why didn’t you tell me it was for a reason?”
“I did. You just never believed me.”
“Damn it,” Colin said. He thought for a second. “All right, so what’s the deal with your new job?”
“To make a sigl, you need a very high concentration of essentia,” I told Colin. “Those places are called Wells, and they’re the bottleneck for sigl creation. Wells in this country are mostly controlled either by Noble Houses – magical aristocracy, basically – or by drucraft corporations. One of those corporations is called Linford’s, and they employ me as a locator. I find Wells, call them in on an app, and they pay me a finder’s fee.”
“And then they do . . . what? Use the Wells to make sigls?” I nodded and Colin pointed at the ring in my palm. “Is that how you got yours?”
“No, I made it myself.”
“Can anyone learn to do that?”
“Yes, but in practice most people don’t think it’s worth it and they just buy them instead. The fact that I could manifest a sigl was why I got into all that trouble back in the spring.”
“Wait,” Colin said. “This rich family that you were having trouble with, the Ashfords . . . are they one of your noble families?”
“They’re a Lesser House, and I’m related to them, yeah,” I said. “Not that it’s done me any good.” I slipped the ring back onto my finger, grimacing slightly; my muscles had stiffened up while I’d been talking. It said something about how distracted Colin was that he hadn’t noticed I was hurt.
Colin kept questioning me about House Ashford and drucraft organisations in general, which led into the topic of Well locating, which led into me telling him the story of what had happened in the Olympic Park.
“Man,” Colin said once I’d finished. “When you said there was competition for Wells, I didn’t think it was that extreme.”
“It doesn’t even make any sense,” I complained. “That Well had a finder’s fee of £700. With the size of that raider gang, that’s a hundred quid per guy! How the hell is that worth it?”
“I mean, you’re assuming they’re in it for the money,” Colin pointed out. “If they’re like those guys that hang out around Stratford Park, you wouldn’t need to pay them to kick the crap out of some pretty-boy white kid. They’d do it for free.”
“Yeah, screw you too.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
I leaned back against the wall, grimacing slightly as pain shot through my shoulder. “For most of this year my big goals were to get stronger at drucraft, find my father, and deal with the Ashfords. That raid you saw on Sunday was the climax of ‘deal with the Ashfords’. It’s not over, but it’s on hold.”
“Wait. Today’s fight wasn’t because of the Ashfords?”
“No, that was just normal risks of the job.”
“That’s normal? I don’t think they pay you enough.” Colin frowned. “What was that you said about finding your dad?”
“I’ve been piecing things together over the last six months and I’ve started to find some leads,” I told Colin. “Now that I’ve got a steady job and the Ashfords are off my back, I can chase them.”
The conversation went on for a while longer, with Colin continuing to ask me questions about the mechanics of drucraft. I did my best to answer, even if some of the questions made me want to throw up my hands – how the hell was I supposed to know whether drucraft had a conservation law? – until around two a.m., when I told him that I was officially throwing him out, and that if he wanted to keep quizzing me he could do it in the pub another day, where it was warm and there was something to drink.
“Oh, yeah,” Colin said as he grabbed his stuff. “Almost forgot.” He handed me an envelope.
I opened it to see a card. On the front was a picture of a twenty-sided dice turned to the twenty face, and underneath was a message saying “LEVEL UP! +1 TO WISDOM!”
“Happy birthday,” Colin said.
I laughed and opened the card to see that all of our friend group had signed it. Felix had written a message saying that now I only had another five or ten years to go before I could buy a beer without getting carded, Kiran had told me that I’d better not make a habit of borrowing his car, Colin had written that you knew you were old when you needed more than one d20 to roll your age, and Gabriel had said he’d drawn a picture of me for the occasion, attached to a fairly realistic sketch of a penis.
“Thanks,” I told Colin with a smile.
“Just pick up next time I call, all right?”
“I will.”
Colin left, and I propped the card up on my bedside table. Looking at it gave me a warm feeling that lasted while I brushed my teeth and got into bed, then turned the lights off to settle down to sleep.
Lying there in the dark, I thought about what I was going to do next. In a lot of ways that talk with Colin had been the last loose end of the Ashford business. Now that it was tied up, I was finally free to move on to something else.
And what I wanted to move on to was finding my dad. It was something that had been growing on me for a long, long time, but which – until recently – I hadn’t had the opportunity to do much about. I’d been too caught up in the day-to-day grind of earning a living, and even if I’d had the time to go searching, I hadn’t had the means.
But that wasn’t quite so true any more. While being a locator wasn’t easy, it gave me a lot more free time than my last few jobs, and it was better paid enough that I’d been able to save up a little. More importantly, I’d started to build up a sigl collection. Strength, invisibility, healing, flash, slam . . . I still had a long way to go, but if I ran into some sort of trouble, I was a lot better equipped to deal with it.
The biggest change, though, had happened during Sunday’s raid. On the rooftops of Chancery Lane, I’d met a man calling himself Byron who’d told me that he knew what had happened to my father. He’d left me a card with his number and told me to get in touch if I wanted to know more. That same card was sitting in the drawer of my bedside table right now.
The problem was, what little I’d seen of Byron made me think that he was really bad news. To me, that card hadn’t felt like an offer. It had felt like bait.
But it was also my first solid lead in more than three years . . .
I tossed and turned for more than an hour, torn between hope and caution. At last I came to a decision. Off the top of my head, I could think of maybe three or four other approaches to finding my dad that had any chance of working. I’d try them all, and I wouldn’t stop until each and every one of them had failed. Only then would I call the number on that card.
Having a plan made me calmer. I settled down into my pillow and went to sleep.
∞
I woke up the next morning to the sound of loud meows.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered as I cracked an eye open. Sunrise in September in London is about six thirty. A glance at the greyish light coming through my window put the time somewhere around “way too early”.
Shivering, I pulled myself out of bed and levered open the window. A gust of freezing air rolled in, followed by a largish cat, and I slammed the window shut as quickly as I could. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Mraow,” Hobbes announced.
Hobbes is a grey-and-black tabby with yellow-green eyes. I’ve had him since a year or so before my dad disappeared, and he’s helped get me through some pretty bad times, even if he does like to wake me up at the crack of dawn. “You could have come in last night,” I told him. “What were you even doing out, anyway?”
Hobbes gave another meow and head-butted my leg hard enough to make me stagger. To my eyes, the green glow of Life essentia wreathed him, emanating from the sigl hidden in his collar and flowing out into his muscles. I’m not the only guy in London who knows how to make strength sigls, but I might be the only one who’s made one for his cat.
I poured cat food into Hobbes’s bowl, making him immediately lose interest in me, and while he was chomping away I went downstairs and made myself a stack of toast. You can get decent-quality bread pretty cheap in London as long as you go for the supermarket own-brand stuff – even once you add in the cost of jam or spread you still end up with a good-sized meal for less than 50p. I’m not quite as broke these days as I used to be, but when you’ve been poor enough for long enough you get careful about these things. On working days my usual breakfast is this, a carrot or an apple, and a big glass of water, and that’ll keep me going until afternoon.
Today, though, I had other plans. I went back upstairs, set my plate down on my bedside table, and lay down on my bed with my notebook. Hobbes hopped up next to me, sniffed at the food until I batted him away, then curled up behind my knees.
I turned to a new page in my notebook and began to list all the leads I had for finding my father.
First and most obvious was the private detective route. I’d tried that earlier in the year with some success, but that “success” had led to a short, vicious fight in Hampstead with a sigl-wielding boy who’d been one of the nastier opponents I’d gone up against. I had the feeling he was connected to Byron in some way, which was part of the reason I was so reluctant to call the number on that card.
A much safer approach was my mother. I still hadn’t heard back from her, but it felt as though if anyone could tell me something useful, she could. (At which point I put down my pen and checked my phone to see if she’d messaged me. She hadn’t.)
A slightly less obvious approach was my employer. Linford’s was a drucraft company, not a detective agency, but from what I’d been learning, drucraft companies tended to have their finger in a lot of pies, and in the case of Linford’s, I’d heard persistent rumours that they were supposed to have ties to government intelligence agencies. If they really wanted to find something out, they could probably do it. The problem would be making them care. I wasn’t optimistic that I could get them to help, but I should probably at least give it a try.
Going further down the list – and we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point – was my aunt. She was my dad’s sister, and she and her husband had taken me in for a while after my dad disappeared. The relationship had got pretty strained towards the end, but apart from me, she was my dad’s closest living relative. There was a chance she might know something.
And finally, at the very bottom, was Byron. Unlike the others, I was sure that Byron knew something about my dad’s disappearance. Problem was, I was also pretty sure he’d been involved in it. Approaching him felt almost as dangerous as going back to that boy I’d met in Hampstead.
But no matter how I looked at it, approaching Byron also felt like the plan that was most likely to work.
I closed my notebook, stretched, and got to my feet. It was time to go and see Maria.
∞
Maria Noronha lives about fifteen minutes’ walk away, in a nice extended house in Upton Park. Her job for Linford’s is “essentia analyst”, which seems to be a cross between sales and middle management, and she’d been one of my early teachers when it came to the drucraft world. I’d started my career in drucraft lacking a whole lot of basic knowledge that drucraft professionals took for granted, and Maria had been happy to help. For a price.
Unfortunately, the further I’d gone from “clueless newbie” and the closer I’d come to “aspiring professional”, the less helpful Maria had become. While Maria had a lot of insider knowledge, most of that was related to the sales and management side of things. Also, while she’d been happy to set me up as a locator, her reactions when I’d tried to push beyond that had been . . . less than encouraging.
As was happening now.
“I’m afraid I’m just not sure what I can do to help,” Maria said.
“Like I said, I’m trying to find someone,” I said. “And I was wondering if Linford’s might be able to do something.”
“How do you mean?”
It’s always a bad sign when someone won’t give you a straight answer. “I mean, your company knows people who know how to find things,” I said. “Right?”
“Do they?” Maria asked vaguely.
“Doesn’t Linford’s have ties to information services?”
“Who told you that?”
“Some people on the internet.”
“Oh, they say all kinds of things. I wouldn’t pay too much attention if I were you.”
I was silent, but inwardly I was doubtful. Reliable information about drucraft corps is hard to find, but I’d heard a lot of references to Linford’s having intelligence connections. Maria should at least have recognised the rumours.
And I couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t really answered my question.
“Anyway,” Maria said cheerfully. “How’s the locating?”
“Fine, I guess. Although . . .”
Maria gave me an inquiring look.
“Has there been an uptick in raiding lately?” I asked. “Like people going after Wells they wouldn’t usually bother with?”
“Oh.” Maria sat upright, suddenly looking much more interested. “So you’ve heard about that?”
“Not ‘heard’, so much as . . . so I’m not imagining it?”
“We actually had a meeting about it on Friday,” Maria said. “With all the shortages and supply chain issues, it’s getting very challenging for people in our industry, and it seems as though some people are taking advantage of that. Apparently there was a really major raid just last week in Chancery Lane. So the criminal gangs who do this sort of thing are definitely getting bolder!”
I kept my face carefully neutral. “Criminal gangs?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. But you might be in luck. They were just saying that there’s a company-wide initiative to ramp up supply. I could put your name forward, if you like.”
“Ramp up supply how?”
“Well, demand for essentia’s gone up and they’re trying to meet it.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But . . . I already call in the Wells I find.” Okay, not all of them, but Maria didn’t need to know that part.
“I don’t actually know the details,” Maria admitted. “But it’d be a good opportunity for you. Shall I ask them?”
I couldn’t help but feel a bit dubious, but it wasn’t as though I had anything to lose. “Sure, I guess.”
“Great,” Maria said. “Oh, on that subject, have you got a finder’s stone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Finder’s stones are Light sigls that glow in the presence of Wells. They’re extremely short ranged – the ones I’d seen could only reliably detect a Well within maybe ten paces, and even then, they tell you nothing about it. “Because they’re crap.”
“They’re the most cost-efficient way to find Wells.”
“My sensing is better than a finder’s stone in literally every way,” I told Maria. “It was better when I started this job, and that was before I spent half a year as a locator.”
“I understand that it’s frustrating,” Maria said sympathetically. “But sometimes it’s important to do these things to show that you’re a team player.”
“I’m supposed to pay £2,000 to prove I’m a team player?”
“I think it’s £2,400, actually.”
“Since when?”
“It was probably back in July . . .” Maria turned to her computer and typed something in. “Oh, yes. Our cheapest model used to be £2,000, but that was only if you ordered before the end of the summer.”
I gave Maria a look.
“Supply issues,” Maria explained. “Costs have gone up.”
“Sounds like you’re just giving me more reason not to get one.”
“Well, with the increase in raids, there’s been a push to crack down on unregulated drucrafters,” Maria said. “And since locators without finder’s stones aren’t regulated in the same way . . .”
“You said Linford’s offered no-finder’s-stone contracts.”
“I think the location department is under pressure to stop issuing those,” Maria admitted. “You can probably get away with it for now since you signed on back in the spring, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.”
“I don’t want one of those things.”
“Sometimes you have to buy things even if you don’t really want them.”
∞
I left Maria’s house in a bad mood. Linford’s was starting to remind me of insurance companies. Even when you don’t want what they’re selling, they’ll still try to pressure you into buying it.
My phone rang, and instantly I forgot all about Maria. Pulling my phone out, I saw that an unknown number was calling. A spark of hope lit up in my chest. My mother?
I hit the “answer” button. “Hello?”
It wasn’t my mother, but as soon as I heard the woman’s upper-class accent I knew it was the Ashfords. “Hello? May I speak to Stephen Oakwood, please?”
“That’s me.”
“Oh, hello, this is Clarissa. I’m calling on behalf of the Ashford family. Is now a good time to chat?”
“Are you calling on behalf of one particular member of the family?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
My spirits rose. “Just a guess.”
“So, the suggestion was to set up a private meeting,” Clarissa said. “What sort of times would you be available?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Perfect. I’ll get back to him and confirm a time.”
“That sounds gr— wait, what do you mean, ‘him’?”
“Well . . . Calhoun Ashford. Sorry, I should have mentioned his name. It was just that the way you were talking, I thought you already knew . . .”
I stared at the phone, my good mood evaporating.
“Hello?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, changed my mind.”
“Um . . . sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. When did you say would be a good time?”
“Never,” I told her. “Bye.”
I hung up, shoved the phone into my pocket, and turned towards home. A small part of me wondered why the hell the heir to House Ashford would want to talk to me in the first place, but mostly I was just annoyed. As far as I was concerned, the only member of House Ashford I wanted to talk to was my mother; the rest of them could go to hell.
But day after day went past, and my mother didn’t call.