Month 12, Day 5, 10:00 AM

Marie

When Marie returned to the office, she found Poe at his desk leafing through a book.

“Ah! Marie. I’ve a book here on the light spectrum that I’d like you to read. You might find that it will help you with the light spell.”

“Sure.” Marie replied.

Poe cocked his head, and took her in.

“You seem down. I guess that you were out to visit your Mama? But perhaps, you were visiting someone else?”

“No. I went to see Mama.”

Marie wanted to talk to Poe about it. But, what was she supposed to do?

“Is she well?”

“She’s … fine,”

“But, someone else is not. Your friend? The Parlor?”

“There is trouble.”

“Shall I interrogate you, or will you provide this information willingly.” Poe replied in a flat voice. His lips, however, lifted at the corners into a smile.

“It’s … the parlor needs someone to do glamours.”

“To attract more customers?” Frank shrugged. “Just dim the lights.”

“No. Other people come for glamours, and they want to know … can you do it?”

Poe’s smile faded. “No.”

“Maybe, we could find someone else for them?”

Poe leaned back in his chair, eyes wandering over the bookshelves. Marie did not interrupt his silence. After a few moments he replied.

“That might help us contact the Raven Queen; after all, a simple way to hide would be for her to use glamour. Wouldn’t it be ironic if she happened to just be selling that service somewhere? I should do a scrying and see if this is coincidence.”

“How would we find out if she was?” Marie thought about how scrying the Raven Queen had gone so badly at the Cappers’. “Aside from scrying.”

“Not all sorcerers are as law-abiding as me.” Poe leaned forward and said with half a grin. “And, there happens to be a group of them that we can go to for the parlor’s question. But they won’t be meeting for a while; at least a week or more.”

Mare was disappointed, she needed a substitute now.

“I think they need someone sooner.”

“Who, exactly, is they?”

“Uh. The Morrows.”

Frank wasn’t the type to frown, but the corners of his mouth flicked down.

“Why?”

Marie then explained her encounter with Kett Blue Eyes, and what Madame needed so the Morrows could hide their illicit activities. When she finished her story, Poe’s expression was flat and hard.

“I won’t be doing glamour for the Hands, Hearts, and Palms. Nor will you, unless you want to lose your apprenticeship with me. If Madame wants to hire me to find a glamourist, then I’ll take that investigation to Frigg for approval.”

“Can’t you …” Marie stopped her question when she saw Poe’s expression.

“The August Agency does investigations. We find people, observe others, and find answers. We do not take on commissions to provide magic.” Poe shrugged. “If I use some magic here and there to help an investigation, that’s fine. But, I’m not doing magic on commission. Least of all, for a gang of thugs that threatens my apprentice.”

Marie had never seen Poe furious, but as he finished, Marie felt his will spill out into the room, just a bit. Birds noisily took flight outside.

Poe took a deep breath and the air calmed.

“Violence never solved a problem without making more.” Poe recited. But, he eventually continued more mildly. “On the other hand, every respectable sorcerer in the University takes the battle magic course. And I am vaguely aware of what the Morrows do to those that abstain from paying their tribute or meeting their demands. I’ll have to deal with this, although we probably have time.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Protective charms are only going to take us so far. And, it would be unrealistic to have you stop visiting your Mama Stella. What we can do is give you a chance to know who to avoid.”

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“How?”

“It’s a divination that should give you a warning when someone dangerous is nearby. It’s also an esoteric spell my mother taught me.”

Poe began rummaging through desk drawers, until he pulled out an earring; it was a continuous circle made of jade, and had a bit of gold hardware that would let the jade be attached to the ear.

“Observe carefully.” Poe said. He held the earring out by the gold clasp, then began a chant.

Eyes are a liar;

sound ne’er does.

Bells come like a choir

and ring where magic does.

Enemies in their tow’er

Hid where their magic was.

Bells come consume and conspire

and into this ring, sing where an enemies’ magic does.

Bells come like a choir

and ring where magic does.

The sound of distant carriages and people on the street faded. Poe’s office had plenty of books to absorb the sound around them, but even those sounds one might normally notice faded. Poe’s office fell to the whisper quiet of a library.

Poe carefully handed the little earring to Marie. He gestured for her to hold it up to her ear. When she held it, the sounds from the street and room nearly fade entirely, but as she put it closer to her ear, she could hear a faint chiming noise.

“What is it?” Her voice sounded like the space around her was stuffed with cotton.

“The sound you hear is the sound of the active magic and enchantments around you. Move around.”

Marie walked around the room. The chiming notes coming from the earring became almost uncomfortably loud as she walked close to Poe’s coat stand. She pulled it away from her ear, and the sound faded considerably. The loud chimes would be the koi coat, she guessed.

But other parts of the room also had active magic.

For instance, all the bookshelves also chimed, although at a different pitch than the coat. And, when Marie approached Poe’s component chest, the magic set out a musical harmony of different pitches.

“Do I have to use this earring?” Marie eventually asked.

“No, you can apply to any metal or stone circle you can move; a bolt’s washer would do. The spell converts the sound vibration in the air into a different sound that you hear instead; most everyone else just hears the unnatural quiet. With all the enchantments here in my office, it’s probably noisy here; let’s walk upstairs, and see what magic you can hear.”

As they walked through the doorway Marie heard chimes at the door, and if she moved the earring, she noticed that the chiming was above her. Looking up, she realized that above the door’s lintel several small and delicate looking enchantments had been set in silvery metal.

She led Frank up the stairs. Even at a distance she could still hear the peculiar chiming of the coat, but the sound of the chimes above the door and bookshelves began to fade, but more chimes became apparent as she moved to the second floor. Poe’s room full of couches made an overlapping chord of chimes and ringing bells. She didn’t bother entering it, and she climbed up to her room.

As she did, even more of the sounds faded. The coat’s sound finally began fading, as did the sounds from the couches, but now she realized that there was some chiming in her room, and from Poe himself. As they moved farther from the coat, what she had thought came as art of part of the pure chord from the coat had elements of a sound from Poe.

Part of the sound was a drone. But, under that sound Poe sounded like a bass note, inflexible but reverberating.

“Poe.”

“Yes?”

“Why are you making a sound?”

He smiled. “This sound?” And he drew a battle wand from his pocket. “Don’t press the button, and keep it pointed away from us. Hold it close to the earring.”

Marie did as instructed, and the sound from the wand became apparent; a peculiar crackling sound, like a fire.

“Do all battle wands sound like this?”

“To an extent. Most will be louder than that one; it only has one charge of a gust spell in it.”

She listened carefully. The crackling sound felt like gritted teeth. The bass note was missing; Poe apparently still made his own sound.

“So, if I hear this …?”

“You’ll be close to someone dangerous.” Frank nodded to the earring. “What do you think of this spell?”

“It’s fun to listen to. Does it make me more quiet?”

“It makes everything quiet, but it will make you almost silent, because the little earring is the center of the spell. A good way to keep yourself unnoticed, although that is not the point of it.” Poe still sounded like he was speaking through cotton. “It also hides the approach of others, and people will, somewhat obviously, notice if it is active.”

Marie handed the wand back to Poe. She entered her room and heard soft bells in the direction of the pile of junk as well, but suddenly the ringing stopped.

“What happened?”

“I released the spell, because I’m going to teach it to you, so that you can hear when someone with battle wands and enchantments approaches you.”

Marie wasn’t entirely sure how useful this would be. Of course, it would identify enchantments that were close, but the coat, for example, practically drowned out all the other sounds of spells. Marie realized that was why she’d never seen Poe wear the earring or use it.

“The coat is loud, isn’t it? Really loud?” Marie asked.

“Yes, the coat is too loud for this spell to be that useful to me. That’s why I’m going to give you this earring. Do you want me to put it on your ear?”

“I don’t have a piercing.”

“This is a pinch type. If someone grabs it, we want it to pull off without hurting you.”

“Ok.”

Poe leaned down and carefully clipped it on Marie’s ear. It did pinch a little, but it was almost unnoticeable after a little while.

“Now.” Poe said. “Let’s teach you this spell, so you can find the magical trinkets left in your room.”

Poe taught the spell to her, then, after what Marie considered an abnormally large lunch of rice, fish, steamed greens, roasted and salted seaweed, pickled vegetables, and tea, Poe supervised Marie’s search of her apartment for assorted magical junk.

It was almost enough to make her forget why she needed the spell.

Marie eventually grew tired, and quit casting. When they finished training, Poe gave her permission to cast the spell for brief periods to listen for dangerous enchantments when they were separated.

“You should be able to hear a battle wand from a block or two away if you listen carefully. Try not to carelessly walk into an ambush?” Poe lectured.

“I won’t. And, um.”

“If the Madame wants us to find a replacement, we will consider it.”

“I’ll go to tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’ll come with you.”

“Good.” Marie beamed at him.