“One for now!” Zee laughed, glad to change the subject. “Having fun with Reuben as his best man?”

“Fun is one word for it.” He swept his hands down to his old rock band t-shirt, jeans, and boots. “Do I look like a suit man?”

“You have to wear a suit? Wow. Which means Reuben is wearing a suit for the wedding? Wow,” he repeated, unable to imagine Reuben dressed in anything so formal.

“Of a sort.”

“But he wears board shorts all year round. Are you kidding?”

“No. So that means we have to start suit shopping.”

Zee, on the whole, had stayed out of the handfasting discussions, mostly because Reuben wanted to surprise their guests. He normally exhibited an air of insouciance, but lately that had been replaced with distraction, and endless list ticking on his phone notes. Of course, his surfing habit remained ever present.

“So,” Zee asked, now very curious, “this is going to be quite big, by the sound of it. I didn’t expect that.”

“Neither did El, nor Reuben, to be honest.” Alex smiled. “He’s determined to make this the best handfasting ever.”

“So, where are you shopping for a suit?”

“I have no idea! But who does wear a suit very well?”

“Newton? And Caspian!”

“Exactly. I mean, I wore one for Gil’s funeral, and so did Reu, but that’s a funeral! This is very different—and Reu has ideas!” Alex made air quotes. “So, because I’m the best man and I can’t duck out of these things, we four musketeers are going suit shopping. This fucking wedding is sprouting horns!”

“Oh! That’s priceless!” Zee started to laugh. “But Reu is happy, and so are the girls.”

“So happy.” He drained his half pint. “Avery is only a bridesmaid, and yet we are knee-deep in bridal magazines! Even Kendall is involved!”

“I confess that I have heard some flower chat.” Living with Kendall, it was inevitable. “But Kendall is being cagey.”

“Avery is not cagey enough for me!”

“You, mate, need a night at the farmhouse, killing stuff on video games. It will do wonders for your soul.”

“I might take you up on that.”

“How long to go? A month?”

“More or less. The longest month of my bloody life.”

“You love Reuben! You don’t mean that.”

Alex groaned. “No, I suppose I don’t. I’ll make him pay with my best man speech. I have many stories to share!”

Zee stood up. “Well, we better make sure most of this is under control before then, because I don’t intend that I or any of my brothers or Shadow will miss that wedding. I’ll phone Barak right now.”

Eight

“I just wish I’d bloody thought of that,” Estelle Faversham said, feeling cranky as she prepared a cup of coffee on Sunday morning. “Trust Alex to think of unveiling spells to use on the manifesto!”

“My love,” Barak said, standing behind her and nuzzling her neck, “he’s helping, and you should be grateful.”

“I am! And that’s even more annoying. I can’t believe I’m actually friends with them.”

“The dreaded ‘F’ word. Oh, no! You do know that you’re coming to the wedding, right? With me.”

“Yes.” She giggled as his lips moved along her neck. “It’s impossible to stay mad when you do that.”

“I know. I can do it more often.”

“Not in the kitchen!”

“No, not in the kitchen!” Lucien remonstrated from behind them.

Estelle turned around, laughing as she pushed Barak away. “Sorry. Barak is incorrigible.”

“You don’t normally complain.”

“We don’t normally have an audience.”

“I’m not watching like a peeping Tom,” Lucien said, horrified, as he headed to the cupboard to get a mug.

“I know! It’s just an expression.” Sometimes things got lost in translation.

Barak started to get food out of the fridge. “I was cheering her up, because one of our very good friends,” he shot her sideways look, “has come up with a brilliant suggestion for that manifesto.”

“Really?” Lucien was as frustrated with it as they were. “Like what?”

“Like a spell to unlock its secrets.” Estelle checked her phone—again. “He’s sending through some spells I can use on it. The only thing is, I might not have everything to hand here. Or it might be beyond my skill set. We may have to ask the Moonfell Witches for help—specifically, Odette.”

“But you cast a finding spell,” Lucien said. “Is that different?”

“Yes. The results were confusing.” She had cast it the previous night, and watched the smoke trail across Yorkshire, and then over Europe and into Italy. But then it diffused, pinpointing nowhere in particular, and leaving her very frustrated. She had tried several different variations with the same result. Perhaps the Fallen Angel’s presence had confused things, or maybe it indicated that several hands had designed it. Alex’s suggestion certainly sounded intriguing. “This could tell us so much more, but I’ve never cast such a spell before. If I damage the document, then I might not be able to use it again. Magic can be tricky.”

As she was talking, her phone buzzed with incoming messages, and she quickly scanned them. Alex was concise. He’d sent photos of the original spells and written transcripts.

“Have you got a printer here, Lucien?”

“In the study, upstairs. It’s new, like the PC. The Orphic Guild installed it.” He shrugged. “It’s a sort of backup office here.”

“Good. I need these printed off so I can study them better. Barak, will we be seeing Nahum today?”

“No. He’s taking Belial’s tokens to Cornwall with Olivia. Why?”

“In case I need the Moonfell witches. That’s okay. He can phone them and tell them who I am. I hate to cold call.” Estelle might be abrupt on occasions, but there were ways to do things, and rocking up on someone’s doorstep asking for magical help as a stranger was not the way to go.

Estelle didn’t often eat breakfast, so she left Barak and Lucien to it, and took her coffee upstairs to the book-lined study, filled with occult and arcane ephemera. She’d never met William Chadwick, but she had a sense of who he once was. Old-fashioned, obsessive, fastidious in his research, but chaotic in every other aspect of his life. He probably had his own, organised system that was confusing to everyone else. His occult collections in the series of rooms downstairs were meticulously displayed and organised, but here, in his inner sanctum, the place was a mess. Apparently, Mason Jacobs had started to organise the study, but hadn’t got very far. From the piles of books on the floor and notes in Lucien’s handwriting, it seemed that Lucien was keeping himself occupied by trying to organise the place.