Sorry I haven’t written in you much lately. It’s been busy times around here.
Tuesday Julian and I were having breakfast — it’s been nice and sunny this last week, and the kitchen was pretty cheerful. I’ve become besotted with crumpets, and Julian is excellent at toasting them over the stove. We were having them with honey and butter when we heard a knock on the front door.
Julian jumped up. Now, about a day ago we got a message from Ty saying he was coming with Ragnor to Blackthorn Hall. He seemed really worried that Julian would be mad, but Julian wasn’t at all mad. He was nervous. He went around all day looking distracted and bumping into things, so when we went to bed at night I took his hand and wrote on his palm, the way we always used to do, tracing each letter. W-H-A-T A-R-E Y-O-U W-O-R-R-I-E-D A-B-O-U-T-?
We curled up together under the covers. He told me that he was worried because he used to be the person who took care of Ty, and now it had been more than a year and Ty had been taking care of himself. He said he used to know everything about Ty, when he got up and when he went to sleep, and what he liked to eat and do, and now he feels like he’s lost track of him somehow, like maybe it will feel like they’re strangers.
I told him he would never lose track of Ty and their relationship would always be special, it was just going to be different than it had been because Jules no longer has to take care of everyone and pretend he isn’t doing it. He doesn’t have to carry this big secret weight around, and responsibility is always a weight no matter how much you love the people you’re responsible for.
After that, he kissed me, and the rest, Bruce, is none of your business. Goodness, you like to pry.
Anyway, back to breakfast and the knock on the door. It was Ragnor, looking a sprightly shade of green, like an English meadow. He sailed right past Julian and began inspecting the drapes. Well, he was probably inspecting something magical, like the curse, but to me it looked like he was examining the curtains and the wallpaper. Maybe he’s thinking of decorating his own place. Or maybe he was just giving Julian some time alone with Ty, because Ty was still standing on the stairs, with a duffel bag over his arm, looking adorably awkward.
I wanted to run down and hug him but I hung back because I could feel in my bones that this was Ty and Jules’ moment. Jules was just standing in the doorway looking at Ty with his face all tight and then he said, “Come here,” in a rough sort of voice and Ty dropped his duffel bag and ran up the stairs and Julian hugged him so tightly I thought for sure he’d protest. But he didn’t. He just leaned into the hug. Jules rubbed his back and said, “Ty-Ty,” and I missed what happened next because I was keeping my eyes very wide open and trying not to blink. It’s the best way I know how to keep from crying.
Eventually they let go of each other, and we showed Ty and Ragnor around the first floor, which did feel a little weird, knowing that Ty had already been here two years ago with Livvy. I think we could all feel it, the sorrowful elephant in the room. Julian kept casting anxious glances at Ty, but Ty didn’t look sad, actually — more thoughtful. Eventually Julian told him he should go upstairs and pick out a bedroom. “Any room! There are lots to choose from. Whichever you want, you can decide how you want to decorate it. Anything you want to do.”
“And where will I be sleeping?” Ragnor said grumpily. “Stuffed up the chimney?”
Ty was already headed upstairs with Julian. I told Ragnor he could sleep wherever he wanted though I recommended the couch downstairs if he wanted to be Close to the Ghost. Rupert still tends to turn up most often in the dining room. Ragnor didn’t commit to this, but only wandered into the kitchen instead and started making tea. I offered him a crumpet to be hospitable and when Julian came back downstairs Ragnor was dripping honey on the counter.
“Can I see the ley-line map?” Jules asked. “Or are you too busy attracting ants?”
“No ants,” said Ragnor, around his crumpet. “Not the season.” He licked his fingers, stuck his hand into his jacket, and pulled out a huge rolled-up parchment which, first of all, he did not fit in the jacket without doing some magic, so let it never be said that Ragnor doesn’t like a dramatic gesture, even if he claims to be above that kind of thing. He unfurled it on the long dining table and weighted it down with a candlestick and some books along the edges.
It was a map of central London—it’s hard to miss the distinctive shape of the Thames snaking through the middle—but absolutely covered in lines in several different inks—red, blue, green, gold. And along the lines were astrological symbols and arrows and numbers and the occasional bit of Greek. You could barely read the street names.
“Your map of London is in Greek?” Julian said. “Also, aren’t you going to get honey on it.”
“Honey is good for parchment,” Ragnor said. “It’s a preservative. And it’s Coptic.”
“Your map of London is in Coptic?” I said.
Ragnor regarded it fondly. “It is. Believe it or not, it’s one of the most readable ley-line maps of the city I’ve found. Some of them are just impossible. This one is from the 1700s, they just wrote in Coptic to be difficult. Warlocks are like that.”
I know, I wanted to say, but I didn’t, because Ragnor was doing us a favor.
“Is your ghost afoot?” Ragnor said. He had withdrawn a large magnifying crystal and was peering through it at bits of the map.
“Not sure,” I said. “Rupert? We have a visitor who wants to meet you.”
“So he comes and goes,” Ragnor muttered, as though to himself. “Interesting.” He took a small leather notebook from his pocket and paged through it.
“Is it interesting?” Julian said. “Maybe he’s just shy around new people. Before we showed up he was alone here for fifty years or so.”
Ragnor looked up at Julian. “My boy, there are telephone calls I haven’t gotten around to returning that are that old.”
“Well, you should be a better correspondent,” Julian said, folding his arms. “Do you see anything on the map?”
Ragnor kind of hmphed and returned to the map. After a while he straightened up and said, “All right. Do you want to hear all the nitty-gritty details, or should I skip directly to conclusion?”
“Conclusion, please,” I said.
“I thought so,” Ragnor said. He sounded grumpy, for no reason I could imagine. That’s our Ragnor!
“Taking into account the different types of ley-lines and the various intersections, knots, and traces,” he said, “and assuming that the other objects are likely in central London, since all the others have been, and assuming that the objects are likely to be in locations relevant to the Shadow World…” He paused and cocked an eyebrow at us.
“With you so far,” Julian said.
“I see here and here as the most likely next search locations.” He had produced a pencil from somewhere, and he circled two spots on the map. “Here is the church of St. Mary Abchurch. And here…” He trailed off.
Julian leaned over the map where Ragnor was pointing. “Yes? It looks like just a street of townhouses in Soho.”
“Well,” said Ragnor, “once upon a time, for many years, there was an infamous Downworlder salon in one of these townhouses. The Hell Ruelle, it was called. It was a very clever name, you see, because a ruelle is a name for a kind of reception French aristocratic ladies used to hold in their bedrooms, a little like a salon, and also a ruelle is a narrow alley, such as the one this house is on.”
“Also,” I said seriously, “it rhymes.”
“Quite,” said Ragnor. “I’ve no idea what happened to it. Salons have been long out of fashion, but Downworlders do like their old-fashioned things. I’d wager it’s still a club of some kind, probably as scandalous as it was back in the day. Scandal never goes out of fashion, I’ve noticed.”
“We saw a playbill from there,” Julian told him. “It was displayed at the Herondale house on Curzon Street.”
Ragnor’s eyebrows went up. “You went to the Curzon Street house? What’s it like now?”
So Julian started telling Ragnor all about our visit there, which was fine because I wanted to go check on Ty. I had thought he might come downstairs to assist or at least observe Ragnor, but he’d apparently find someplace he liked and had remained there. Or some terrible dark magic had befallen him. But probably the first.
He was easy to find, at least—there are a lot of bedrooms but not that many, and besides, these old walls don’t do anything to block sound, and I could hear his voice in one of them. The “gray bedroom,” as Julian and I call it. It has a nice view of the duck pond.
I guess he was talking on the phone to someone; I could hear the pauses where he was listening to the other person. I thought I heard him say, “Well, I have no idea why, but it hasn’t been that long,” in reference to something, and then the door opened and he came out of the room. He immediately started at the sight of me standing in the hall. “Emma?”
“I just came up to see how you’re doing,” I said. “I think we’re going to get some takeaway in a bit. Is that the bedroom you like?”
“Yes,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the high windows. “It’s a good room, I think.”
“Were you talking to your sister?” I said.
He didn’t say anything — he sort of went red, then white. I wondered if he’d said something I wasn’t supposed to overhear, but I couldn’t imagine what. “I wasn’t listening,” I clarified. “I just assumed it was Dru.”
“Oh!” he said. “Yes. Yes, I was talking to Dru. She . . .”
“Probably wants to know what the bedrooms are like,” I said, trying to put him at ease. “Dru would definitely want the gothiest one.”
“Sure.” Ty and I started downstairs. “I’m not a good judge of what’s gothy, though.”
“I think the idea is ‘as creepy as possible,’” I said, and we reached the kitchen, where Jules and Ragnor were waiting. Ty relaxed pretty quickly; it turned out all he needed was (a) some tea and (b) to talk with Ragnor about the details of the ley-line map endlessly until food arrived and finally stopped them. Bruce, I swear at one point Ragnor told a joke in Coptic and Ty laughed. They’re hardcore over there at the Scholomance. Maybe too hardcore for me. But don’t get me wrong—it was very nice to have them here. It reminded me that when this project is complete and all the Blackthorns are here and can make it their own, this house could feel warm and friendly again. It didn’t even feel that cursed as we lay in front of the fireplace playing Clue (they call it Cluedo here) until Ty was falling asleep.
Update: Sunday night. Ragnor and Ty left this afternoon. It was really great to have them here, it was good for Julian and I to have other people here in the house to talk to other than the builders. Ty and Julian spent a bunch of time roaming around the gardens, deciding which old statues are ruined in a decorative, attractive manner, and which are just ruined. We’re going to have to get some new statues when we redo the garden, which Ty was very excited about; he thinks we should have one of Holmes holding a magnifying glass, and one of Watson.
The only weird thing is that Ghost!Rupert was missing for the whole visit, and then reappeared an hour after they left. We showed him the map and what Ragnor told us, and he just said he’s sure Ragnor is right. And it turns out he did talk to Ty at some point. He said Ty is “kind to ghosts.” Maybe Ty made him a ghost sandwich or read him a ghost bedtime story or something. Ty certainly didn’t say anything about it.
So, that’s all for now! I guess we’re going to head to St Mary Abchurch tomorrow afternoon, and then depending how that goes we’ll check out this townhouse and see if there’s still a scandalous Soho club there. Though what Ragnor would consider scandalous might not be that scandalous to us. I guess we’ll find out! For all we know it’s just some guy’s house and he’ll be very confused to see us!
Good night, Bruce. It’s nice to think of what it will be like when all the Blackthorns are here and the place is full of noise and activity. It’s the first time since we started I’ve really been able to envision it, even through the curse. Meanwhile, I’m going to tuck a Polaroid of us playing Cluedo here between these pages in case you want something to look at later.
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