“Tobias of House Ashford,” Tobias said shortly. “And guest.”

  “Right this way.”

  * * *

  —

  Back when I’d been trying and failing to get into the Exchange, I’d spent a while imagining what might be inside. In my mind, I’d built up a mental picture of something like a big expensive jewellery shop, with bright lights and shiny floors and glass cases full of sigls. So as I walked through the entry hall and into the Exchange, that was what I was expecting to see.

  What I actually saw looked like a plush and very oversized living room. Thick red carpet covered the floor, while the walls were lined with velvet and held gold-framed paintings of landscapes. Private booths were set into the walls, each with padded seating and rounded wooden tables, and in the centre of the room were several floor-to-ceiling octagonal pillars with shelves that looked like standing desks. The air carried the pleasant smell of leather and old furniture.

  I could see a scattering of other people: two groups of Chinese-looking men in the booths, leaning forward and talking earnestly, and a South Asian couple speaking with someone who looked like a member of staff. Their voices didn’t carry: the fabric in the room had the effect of muffling sound. Even our footsteps were quiet.

  Looking around the room, I had two immediate reactions. The first was that this looked really interesting and I wanted to spend more time here. The second was that I was really, really out of place. The instant anyone found out who I was, I’d be thrown out.

  A man walked up to us. He had thinning white hair, wore a nice-looking suit, and greeted Tobias with a familiar smile. “Master Ashford, good to see you again. How long has it been, a year?”

  “Something like that,” Tobias said. “I’m just here to show this guy around.”

  “Ah.” The man turned to me and extended his hand. “Marcus Taylor.”

  I took his hand and shook it. “Stephen,” I said, trying to act confident. “I’m a family relation.” Apparently.

  “Welcome to the Exchange,” Marcus said. “If it’s your first time, would you like to see our catalogue?”

  Marcus led us to one of the octagonal pillars. The shelf that ran around it held several copies of a glossy leather-bound book. Marcus handed me one, then faded into the background.

  I looked at the book curiously—it had no title, only a gold stylised E—and flipped it open. At the front was a contents page.

  Introduction

  Light Sigls

  Matter Sigls

  Motion Sigls

  Life Sigls

  Dimension Sigls

  Primal Sigls

  Providers

  Conditions and Restrictions

  Index

  Under each category were subheadings. The introduction had subsections titled “Well Guide,” “Faraday Ratings and Carat Weight,” and “Universal to Faraday Conversion.” Under “Light Sigls” were subcategories titled “Light Sources,” “Darkness Effects,” “Power Sigls,” “Diffraction,” “Active Camouflage,” “Duplication,” “Illusion” . . . it just kept going. And that was just Light. The “Matter Sigls” category had as many entries as the Light one, and there were four more after that.

  I felt like a little boy in a toyshop. I wanted to look at everything at once.

  “You realise you can’t actually afford any of these,” Tobias said.

  “You are just determined to ruin my fun, aren’t you?”

  “Fine. I’ll stand here, waiting to see the look on your face.”

  The pages were glossy and smelt new. As I flipped through them to the “Light Sigls” category, I saw that each page was devoted to a different type of sigl, with prices and what looked like a maker’s logo. It did look like a catalogue. The word “invisible” caught my eye; I stopped and paged back.

  I’d reached the “Diffraction” category. At the top corner was a red rose with the name “De Haughton,” and lower down was a zoomed-in, high-resolution photo of what looked like a blue sapphire. I started reading the text.

  Phantom

  For over 500 years, House De Haughton has been a worldwide name in Light siglcraft. Our first Phantom sigl was shaped at our family Wells in Lancashire in 1961, and ever since then we have worked to refine and improve upon the core design, striving to produce a personal concealment solution that is both affordable and reliable.

  When essentia is channelled through it, the Phantom sigl creates a field that alters the wavelength of visible light around its wielder, temporarily shifting any rays into the radio range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The rays are then bent around the wielder, rendering them entirely invisible to outside viewing and enabling traversal of even the most dangerous areas in safety and security. As is standard for diffraction sigls, some visual distortion is inevitable, and incoming and outgoing light is of course affected equally: purchasers intending to make use of this sigl are encouraged to look at our range of vision-enhancing effects (page 76).

  The Phantom J is our entry-level model and is recommended for those who intend the sigl for stationary use and to achieve concealment at ranges of 15 feet or more. The Phantom K incorporates features that reduce this minimum range to approximately 10 feet, as well as slightly reduce distortion. Finally, the more advanced Phantom L improves field adaption speed to the point that it can maintain effective concealment even at walking pace. The Phantom L also allows for variable essentia use, enabling the diffraction field to be expanded or contracted to cover nearby people or objects (recommended for experienced drucrafters only).

  Phantom J   2.14 carat  £84,990

  Phantom K   2.42 carat  £119,990

  Phantom L   3.27 carat  £299,990

  Purchase Information: Page 469

  I started to turn to the next page and stopped with a jolt. They cost how much?

  Tobias was watching me with a sort of malicious satisfaction. I counted the number of digits just to make sure I’d got it right, and had to struggle to stop my eyes from widening. These were the affordable ones?

  Maybe some of the others were cheaper? I flicked through the pages, scanning prices. They weren’t cheaper. Most were five or six figures, and the high-end ones were seven. After a few minutes of searching, the absolute cheapest I could find was a “torchlight” sigl that sounded pretty similar to my own. The manufacturer’s logo said “Asmart,” and it was priced at £499.

  “Believe me now?” Tobias said.

  I tried to figure out what to do next. I wasn’t going to be buying any sigls, that was for sure.

  “So can we go?” Tobias said. “Because we aren’t—”

  “Could you get me one of these catalogues to take home?”

  “You don’t need a catalogue to take home!”

  I shrugged and looked off into the distance. “If you want me to come along tonight . . .”

  Tobias gave me a black look and headed off. He returned a couple of minutes later with a copy of the catalogue in a fancy-looking bag. “Have you got any idea how much these cost?” he said, handing it to me.

  “No,” I admitted. “That was why I got you to buy it for me.”

  “All right,” Tobias said. “You’ve had your fun. Now are you coming tonight?”

  It was tempting to see how much more I could get away with, but I had the feeling I’d pushed my luck already. Besides, I had made him a promise. “I’m coming.”

  “Finally,” Tobias said. He started to move towards the exit, then paused when I didn’t follow.

  “I didn’t say I was coming right now,” I told him.

  “Oh, for . . .” Tobias bit back whatever he’d been about to say. “When?”

  “When’s the party?”

  “Six. We’ll want to be there between seven and eight.”

  “I’ll stay here until six, then.”

  Tobias threw up his hands and left. I took my new catalogue over to one of the booths, sank into the leather seating, and settled down to read.

  * * *

  —

  I stayed in the Exchange all afternoon.

  Looking through the catalogue was fascinating. I’d had vague ideas about the sorts of things you might be able to do with drucraft, but seeing it all laid out like this made everything so much easier. Every page gave me a new idea.

  As five o’clock approached, I looked up to see someone crossing the floor towards me. It was Marcus, the white-haired man who’d greeted us when we’d first arrived. “Stephen . . . Ashford, wasn’t it?” he asked. “I hope you’re enjoying your visit.”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Any chance I could ask you about some of this stuff?”

  “I’m afraid we’re going to be closing soon.”

  “Can I come back tomorrow?”

  “Members of House Ashford in good standing are always welcome here.”

  Something in Marcus’s tone made me pause. Marcus was standing just a little way from the table, hands clasped in front of him, regarding me pleasantly. No one else seemed to be looking at us, and there was nothing I could put my finger on, but all of a sudden, I had the feeling of being watched.

  Slowly I rose to my feet. “Maybe I should go.”

  “I think that would be wise,” Marcus agreed.

  I took my bag and left, the murmurs of conversation cutting off as the door of the Exchange shut softly behind me. The doorman’s eyes followed me as I walked away.

  * * *

  —

  I left my bag and catalogue at home and took a bus northwest.

  The address Tobias had given me was on a street called The Bishops Avenue, in East Finchley. I’d never been there before, and once I reached the avenue, I started walking up it from the direction of Hampstead. The houses on the street seemed bigger than usual for London, set relatively far back from the pavement; most were half-hidden behind fences and trees. The sky had covered over with thick clouds, and the only sign of the sun was a sullen red glow in the west. A chill breeze swept down the street, cutting through my fleece and making me shiver. The night would be wet and cold.

  I’d been walking for a few minutes when I sensed something up ahead. No, not ahead—across and to the left, in that house there. It was a Well, and it was strong. Very strong. I crossed the street, drawn as if by a magnet.

  As I came closer, I realised that “very strong” had been an underestimate. This Well was unbelievably powerful. I was still hundreds of feet away, yet I could sense it as though it were right next to me, the essentia pouring out of it and suffusing the land and air. It made my Well feel like a puddle next to a duck pond. I drifted forward, a moth drawn to an open flame, my feet carrying me closer and closer . . .

  A hand waved in front of my face. “Hey.”

  I came out of my trance with a jolt. Tobias was standing right next to me, giving me a quizzical look. “Why did you space out like that?”

  I was too awestruck to be cautious. “The Well.”

  “You can feel it?”

  “You can’t?”

  “If I concentrate, I suppose,” Tobias said with a shrug. “We’re not that close.”

  It seemed more than close enough to me. “Is it . . . yours?”

  “Our family’s,” Tobias said. “The Bishop’s Well. Sixth strongest in London.”

  Through the trees, I could see the walls and roof of an oversized house. It must be built around the Well, and I looked at Tobias with new eyes. I’d known that Tobias’s family was rich, but feeling the strength of the Well somehow made it real to me in a way that it hadn’t been before. “You grew up there?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “How do you even sense anything?” I said curiously.

  “Sense what?”

  “Regular essentia, like in the air or the ground. That Well’s so strong it drowns everything else out.”

  “You know most people don’t bother learning how to do that, right?” Tobias said. “You don’t actually need it to channel.”

  “But if you can’t sense free essentia, you can’t find Wells.”

  “I suppose?” Tobias said. “There are other people who do that stuff.”

  “How do you get new sigls, then?”

  “You buy them from the Exchange.”

  I shut up.

  “All right,” Tobias said, glancing around. We were standing a little way down from the house’s front gates. “We don’t want to go in too early, so get comfortable while we wait.”

  The sun dipped in the sky, eventually sinking so low that its rays reached up to illuminate the clouds from beneath in a vivid bloodred. From time to time a car would pull up in front of the house, and there’d be movement as people went in. I watched the arrivals filter into the house. If things had turned out differently, would I have grown up there?

  At some point I saw that Tobias was studying me. “What?” I asked.

  “You don’t look much like her,” Tobias said.

  “Who, my mother?”

  Tobias nodded.

  “Is she going to be here tonight?”

  “No.”

  I hesitated. “Do you . . . know her very well?”

  Tobias looked away.

  “So do you?” I asked when Tobias didn’t answer.

  “Not really,” Tobias said without turning around. “She travels a lot.”

  “Then—”

  Tobias spoke over me. “You ask too many questions, you know that?”

  I frowned at Tobias’s back. Okay, then. “This whole thing is about who in your family gets to inherit, right?”

  “That’s what most things in our House are about.”

  “So, something I’ve been wondering,” I said. “If Charles Ashford is the head of your House and you’re his grandson . . . well, I don’t know much about how inheritance works, but shouldn’t you be in line already?”

  Tobias still didn’t turn around. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “You don’t know much about how inheritance works.”

  I gave Tobias a look. From the way he’d talked, I had the definite impression that Tobias was more closely related to Charles Ashford than this Calhoun guy was. So why was Calhoun the favourite to be heir?

  I was getting the feeling there were some things about his family situation that Tobias wasn’t telling me.

  Actually, I had the feeling there was a lot Tobias wasn’t telling me.

  The sun sank until it was touching the buildings to the west; it slid behind their rooftops and in the space of a few minutes was gone. The shadows lengthened, and in the windows of the mansions all around, lights began to come on one after another. “All right,” Tobias said. “It should be busy enough by now.”

  I could feel the pull of the Well, like a bonfire in the darkness. We headed for the front gate.

  * * *

  —

  The Ashford house was fenced in by high spiked railings that looked like wrought iron. A couple of LEDs glowed from a box on one of the gateposts; Tobias did something, and the gate swung open with a whir of motors.

  Now that I got a closer look at the house beyond, I realised it was less of a house and more of a mansion. By London standards it was huge, built of stone and brick, with peaked roofs rising to three or four storeys, and wings and outbuildings that looked to have been added piece by piece over the years. Around the mansion were well-tended gardens. Lights glowed from the front door, but instead of heading towards it, Tobias turned aside onto a narrow flagstone path. The path wound between rhododendron bushes before leading to a small door set into the mansion’s north wall.

  I paused a few steps from the door. The path didn’t stop: it kept going to another tall black fence and a barred gate that seemed to lead into the mansion’s back gardens. The Well was in that direction, and it was close. Very close. There was so much essentia there . . .

  “Don’t even think about it,” Tobias said.

  I realised I’d been staring at the gate. I looked away quickly. “What?”

  “Taking from the Well,” Tobias said. He was giving me a knowing look. “You think you’re the first one to have the idea?”

  “You think they’d miss it?”

  “Yes,” Tobias said. “Yes, they would. Not that it’d matter, because you wouldn’t even make it that far.”

  I measured the fence with my eyes. “Fence isn’t that high.”

  “I’m not talking about the fence.”

  I looked at him.

  “Not all sigls get advertised in the Exchange,” Tobias said. “The Life sigls you would have seen in that catalogue are for humans. But there are ones designed to affect animals. Dogs, usually. You start with a regular guard dog, then enhance it. Stronger muscles, quicker healing, extra aggression. Sometimes they add other abilities too. They’re called hellhounds.”

  I gave Tobias a suspicious look. Is he making this up?

  Tobias just looked back at me with raised eyebrows. I turned to the gate and I cleared my mind, trying to sense.

  The mass of essentia made it hard to pick anything out; it was like trying to hear while standing on a club floor. As I concentrated, though, I began to filter out the background noise, searching through the currents. Searching deeper, I realised I could feel something. It reminded me a little of those sigls I’d sensed yesterday, but it was different, wilder. And all of a sudden, I had the clear and definite impression of something beyond those bars, hidden in the shadows, cold and watchful and still.

  I flinched, pulling back my senses and breaking the connection. I looked at Tobias.