Chapter 1

Twenty million people were dead and London was going insane with joy. Bunting and bands and confetti filled the street as men, women, and children were out and about, waving the Union Jack and screaming their heads off about victory. The streets were packed with carriages and horses and motorcars and people, almost as much as it was packed with marching soldiers. Peering through the window of the Arthur-Perry’s family’s ancestral townhouse, Vane Vilimont was working his way through his third cigarette of the morning. The cigarette was clutched between fingers that were only half there – shimmering, opalescent echoes of fingers which had once been hale and hearty and true. His breath came through with gurgling, grinding effort.

“Phosgene,” he growled out with his ruined voice.

The other man in the townhouse had come through the war without a scratch.

Of course he had.

He was in cavalry.

“The Mundanes really put us through it, eh old chap?” James Arthur-Perry said, sipping from the one of the cups that the staff had brought for the two men. The teapot was stirring itself and as Vane held out his still physically present hand, the teapot poured itself and the cup smoothly whirred through the air to end up in his hand. Vane drank it down without noticing it and made a face. He put his back to the cheering crowds and glared at James.

“Understatement doesn’t suit you, James,” he rasped. “It doesn’t make you sound witty. It just makes you sound stupid.”

James pursed his lips.

“Why did you call me here, Vane? Is it to rake over old coals?” James asked. “We’ve done everything we could for you – healing magic has a bloody hard time with gas injuries.” He coughed as Vane’s face twisted with anger. Bitterness. “The King gave you a medal-”

“I don’t care about medals. I don’t care about...” Vane dragged on the cigarette. The hideous burning sensation in his lungs let him focus better. “ ... mundane trinkets.” He stubbed out the cigarette on the wall. James frowned, then set his cup aside.

“Vane,” he said. “If you come here just to throw a fit, I’ll have to ask you to leave before you make a scene.”

The faint sound of a wailing baby echoed up the stairs. James ignored it with the casual indifference of a man who had hired enough nursemaids and servants to pamper a child into silence after any complaints. He kept his eyes focused on Vane as the other man glared down at him. Then, with a serious effort of will, Vane breathed in, then breathed out. He breathed out nicotine smoke, and then began to hack and cough as his scarred lungs threw the eminently predictable fit. He touched his hand to his chest – and green-gray light flared under his palms. The coughing subsided.

“I didn’t come here to throw a fit, James,” Vane rasped. “I came here to talk to you about what comes after.” He gestured. “The Mundanes threw the world into the fire and we followed after them. That’s not how the world’s supposed to work.” He frowned at him while James shifted in his seat.

“We had treaties-” James started.

“Hang the treaties,” Vane’s ruined voice grew even fiercer. “Four years of war, a third of every boy-wizard in the whole Empire dead, a third of the survivors maimed.” He held up his hand – the stump of the arm and the glittering, half-real hand. “And for what? For some mundane Archduke and some Slavic rabble?”

James shifted in his seat, then drank another sip of tea. The wailing baby grew quiet – while the door to the room opened and a rather harried looking Lillian Arthur-Perry stepped in. She was dressed like a Magister’s wife from before the war – meaning her fashion was considered downright dowdy and conservative by modern standards. Broad brimmed hat, flowing robes, her house pin on her breast. Her wand was tucked into her belt – and Vane noticed with bitter amusement that it was a Lolipan’s mass produced wand.

She stated upon seeing him. “Vannie!” she said, sounding shocked – and halfway close to pleased. “James, you didn’t say Vannie was visiting.”

“He arrived rather unexpectedly,” James said, standing up, giving his wife a polite seat.

“Well, I’m glad to see you out of that awful Mundane uniform,” Lillian said, smiling at Vane’s clothing – a dapper civilian outfit. “That khaki and tin hat? I know it’s war, but did they have to make it so dreary.”

“How is Harry?” Vane asked.

“Oh, he should be all right,” Lillian said, shrugging. “The house fae are taking care of him.”

Vane frowned. “I see,” he said, then let out another cough. “Now, James, as I was saying: The world’s gone wrong. During the war, Magisters took orders from Mundane generals. We-”

“Well, we had to coordinate,” Jame said. Vane’s face twisted. “And, I’ll have you know, I was part of a lot of that coordination – if we hadn’t worked with Hague and Pétain and the rest, then the Huns would have run roughshod over us. Their Magisters were just in bed with the damn Prussian militarists – worse! Did you know they damn near let the magic get into the papers. We’re lucky the Germans sued for peace before the whole world found out.”

Vane’s face was a mask of fury.

“We have magic,” he growled, then coughed. “We have magic and-” He was hit by another racking cough. He lifted his hand to his mouth, shaking more as Lillian stood, hurrying to his side. Her hand went to his shoulder.

“Vannie,” she said, her eyes pitying. “You should take a seat.

Vane coughed. He tried to breathe, but it felt as if his lungs were betraying him – magic or no magic, the phosgene had gotten there. It had become barbed and fierce, digging into his lungs, ripping deep. The pain threw everything into sharp edged relief, like shadows and light were brighter than ever even as the edges of his vision grew dim. Before he had walked inside, Vane had imagined what he’d say. What he’d do. How he’d talk to his old friend.

He breathed in, and the ragged agony was so fierce that he almost started to cry. He closed his eyes.

James stood, and he looked so dapper and untouched and fine. He didn’t really care about how the world was going down the drain. And Lillian ... Vane could see her forming patronizing words. Comforting words. Hollow words.

Vane didn’t know if his hand moved before he thought, or if the thought coalesced so fast that action was unavoidable. He reached, casually, into Lillian’s belt, took hold of the mass produced wand, a wand designed for the wizard on the go. He drew it out and croaked out. “Cidak Slan Wif.”

The wand flared with blue-white light and struck Lillian in the chest. She slumped backwards as James gaped, completely shocked. Vane managed. “Cidak Slan Man!” His wand flicked and a blue-white beam of energy streaked out, hit James in the chest, and the other man crumpled as if he had been struck by an entrenching tool. As he sprawled, Vane coughed and struggled to get his breathing under control. He clutched his chest, swaying from side to side, and looked down at the two prone figures. They breathed quietly.

Vane whispered. “I’m going to set the world to rights...”

He knelt before James, who had just barely managed to shake off the effect of the spell – say what you would about James. He had been through the same training as Vane and some combat. He groaned and lifted his head, eyes narrowed to slits. “Vane...” he whispered. Then, he proved he really didn’t understand the world at all – his next word was: “Why?”

“Why?” Vane hissed, then shoved James onto his back. His face purpled and he growled. “You had everything, James, and you didn’t even realize it!” Spittle dripped around his lips, frothing as he pushed his ravaged lungs and throat. Then he thrust the wand into James chest – snarling out the complex, guttural words of the Dark Speech. James would have screamed ... if he had had lungs. His chest crumpled in and he gurgled, blood flowing out of his lips. He reached for Lillian – but she was out cold, and his hand slumped. James laid still.

Vane drew a slow, steady, pure breath in. Held it. Tasted its sweetness. Then he breathed out.

His voice was melodious. Almost whimsical.

“That’s one mistake corrected,” he said, then stood, brushing his palms along his chest. Vane chuckled as he regarded the two prone bodies. “Actually, I think you will find this quite to your liking, James. It is an idea that would suit your modern inclinations.” He laughed, giddy with the pleasure of breathing well and true once more.

Vane made sure of Lillian with a whispered spell, then closed and locked the doors. When he turned away and to the corridor, he saw that a house fae was approaching the room with more refreshments, he smiled. “The master and mistress of the house are taking some time alone – don’t bother them, if you’d be so kind.”

The fae bowed her head and retreated.

Vane did what he would need to do.

Then, he left, found a cafe, bought something to eat, and watched the celebrating crowds and waited.

The roaring blast sent people diving for cover and men and women screamed in fear. Vane polished off his meal, then stood and went running for the townhouse, crying out as he came to it. “James!” he shouted. “James, no! My friend lives there!” He allowed himself to be held back by onlookers as the townhouse burned merrily. Fire carriages arrived later than would be expected, forcing their way through the crowds that were still celebrating the victory. They put the fire out. They investigated.

A gas main leak, catching on some fire in the home.

A frightful accident.

Vane watched it all from the sidelines – playing the role of grief stricken family friend and military comrade to the hilt. He even professed profound gratitude that their young child had survived -whisked from the fire at the last moment by the firefighters. After all, it wasn’t like a loose end like that would matter to Vane’s ... plans.

And through it all, not a single scrying spell investigated the incident.

After all, it was a mundane accident.

Sixteen Years Later

Minerva Golding had no idea that her workplace had once been a townhouse where a witch and a wizard had died. Minerva Golding, in fact, had no idea that witches nor wizards were anything but storybook characters. Minerva Golding, in fact, had very little room in her life for any magic at all. She only had room at the time for typing, and she was very good at it. When her fingers pounded down on the keyboard of her typewriter, the chattering-clacking sound sometimes made some of the men in Dartmoth and Son’s Tool and Die Company look nervously around. Some of those men had been in the trenches and were getting on in years. Minerva ignored them, as she ignored most men in her life.

She had to work three times as hard for one tenth the pay, after all.

“Golding!”

The bellow jerked her up from the current report she was transferring from illegible handwriting to cleanly typed paperwork that could then be folded, stamped, filed and forgotten about. Herman Dartmoth – one of the ‘sons’ of Dartmoth and Sons – had emerged from his office and looked furious about something. This was an emotion that Herman Dartmoth of Dartmoth and Sons was primed and ready to wear: His face was broad, his nose flat, his lips thin and his eyes narrowed in perpetual suspicion. Despite being only thirty, he already had started to go bald, but rather than accept this with grace, he had instead purchased the world’s least convincing toupee. Sweat beaded on his face – the office’s fans did their best to stir the hot air, but it remained still and stifling.

“Yes, Mr. Dartmoth?” Minerva asked, sighing.

“Where is the German order?” he snarled.

“The order is in the invoice box,” Minerva said, tiredly. The whole firm had been hopping about the order from Mauser order ever since it had been landed. While the Depression had started to relax its grip on the Empire, the firm had still needed to scramble to stay afloat – and that meant taking orders from anywhere. Even...

“Well, I don’t see it there,” Dartmoth scowled down at her. “If you think this kind of sloppy work can be tolerated here, at my father’s firm, you have another thing coming!” He waggled his finger at her.

Minerva rather wished she had misfiled it now, if only so she could take credit. “I’ll get to work typing up a replacement, Mr. Dartmoth,” she said, keeping her voice even. Dartmoth narrowed his eyes, harrumphed, then turned and started to stalk back to his office. He didn’t even try to keep his voice down.

“Damn sheeny bitch...”

Minerva breathed in, then breathed out, then started to rummage through the files that she kept. She had made sure to make shorthand copies of everything she filed – this wasn’t the first time that Herman Dartmoth had lost something of hers. She pulled out the German order and glanced over it. Dartmoth and Sons produced molds to make other parts for other machines – machines that would build guns to put in the hands of Teutonic stormtroopers, from the looks of things.

She’d almost said something, but nobody else in the office seemed to think twice about it. But that made sense. No one else in the office was a Jew. No one else in the office seemed to give a single fig that every day, every hour it seemed, that maniac across the channel spouted off some new slurry of hatred and bile that she found all too depressingly predictable.

Minerva punched in the order again, typing her knuckles ached and her wrists throbbed, and then made a neat stack of the papers and took them to Herman Dartmoth’s office. He barely glanced up at her, while she went back to her place in the secretary pool. Minerva, though, had a hard time forgetting the order she had typed up, even after closing time came. She bade goodbye to the few other women that worked in the office, then started home. The afternoon was blisteringly hot, if not as bad as yesterday, August having well and firmly arrived. The newsboys were still crying out the headlines – among them the Daily Mirror’s blunt HITLER MASTER OF GERMANY, DECREED AN HOUR AFTER DEATH OF HINDENBURG! - which only made Minerva feel more hunted as she walked past them. She started to walk faster as she walked past several posters plastered up by the local political parties – the biggest and most obvious was the brilliant red, white and blue with a lightning bolt of the British Union of Fascists. It was like they were swaggering about, announcing that fascism was the way of the future – a way of the future that felt increasingly like a heavy boot about to come down on Minerva’s neck.

She ducked her head forward and kept walking. She thought she had reached her flat without getting into any trouble ... until she saw the three blackshirts out front. They looked like they had been in the middle of putting up their awful posters advertising for Mosely and his bully boys, some stupid rally in Hyde Park – but they had been distracted by something far more interesting to them.

Petunia.

Petunia was the girl that lived across from Minerva’s bedsit. She was devastatingly pretty, with fine cheekbones, pale skin, long curly blond hair, and a sweet temperament that, so far as Minerva could tell, had simply allowed the world to use the poor girl as a carpet. She looked to have been coming home with piles of cardstock, and had been caught in the midst of getting it up the stairs to the front door when the blackshirts had arrived. Petunia stood with her back pressed to the railing of the stairs – they had no idea it was to keep herself from keeling over. Her crutch was left at the bottom of the stairs – unnoticed by the fascists.

“Come on, smile for me, you can smile at least,” one of the blackshirts said, grinning broadly as his friend picked up and tossed the cardstock casually up the rest of the stairs – not even trying to be gentle with the flimsy stuff.

“W-Well, I, uh, uh...” Petunia stammered.

“Do you live here?” another asked.

“I, um, do?” Petunia looked near to tears.

Minerva felt her stomach knot. They were young men, too young to have served in the War, but they dressed like they were soldiers, with uniforms. Black shirt, black pants, cinched tight belt, silver lightning bolt on their shirts. She knew that they’d be just as eager to circle around her if they had seen her first.

“Did you know this building is full of liars and traitors?” the third asked. “Socialists too. Unionists.”

Minerva frowned. Liars and traitors, she thought. Wouldn’t want to be crass enough to admit you’re as much of an antisemite as your German friends.

Petunia stammered. “I-I’ve never heard anything like that,” she said.

Minerva squared her shoulders. She started up the stairs, then said. “Oh, Petunia, glad to see you here, come on,” she said, looping her arm around her arm – she knew that this would end up with her crutch being left outside, but they could get it after the blackshirts left. The blackshirts looked shocked to have their play interrupted – and one of them scowled at her. “Hey! We were talking to her,” he said, putting his hand onto her shoulder. Despite the heat, Minerva felt a cold gnawing pit in the depth of her stomach.

“Let me go,” she said, firmly.

The blackshirts laughed, and shifted his grip, grabbing her arm. “You can talk too, right?” he asked, grinning. Leering, really. They felt like they ran the world already; she’d heard that there were constant brawls in the streets between them and other political factions – but none of their opponents seemed to be here. Just herself and Petunia. Alone.

“We do need to get inside, please,” Petunia said, weakly.

“You can stay a biiiit longer-” the leering one crooned.

Minerva took hold of her hat-pin, yanked it out, and thrust it into his side. Hard. The man yelped and jerked backwards like ... well, like he had been stuck with a pin. If his friends had all grabbed her at the same time, or rushed her, then Minerva knew she would have been done for. Instead the other two looks purely shocked that anyone at all would stand up to them while she rushed past them with Petunia. She reached the door, shoved the it open, then flung it shut behind her as the men rushed after her. They began to thump on it – but Minerva breathed out a sigh of relief as she saw that the pounding was bringing curious tenants out of their rooms.

Petunia, her eyes beading with nearly shed tears, stammered. “Y-You didn’t need to do that.”