The Blood Debt Chronicles:

The Case of the Missing Mummy

Chapter the Fourth or Why Dravan and Sarah Did Not Attend the Unveiling

In the hours before dawn, Sarah prepared finger foods that wouldn’t crumble or drip. Mainly, sandwiches, which had become all the rage about a hundred years ago, and were named after the Earl of Sandwich. Dravan had not come to their bed in the night, which meant he was likely to be hungry and wouldn’t consider eating breakfast foods like eggs.

He was particular about that, saying often, “A man should only breakfast after he wakes up, breakfast isn’t dependant on the time, but rather the state of a man’s being.”

It was odd, of course, but nobles were an odd breed. In her world, prior to meeting Dravan, breakfast was leftovers from the night before, assuming there were any. She had never known that there were people who only ate certain foods at certain times. How strange to be so wealthy that a body could afford such waste!

Sarah brought the silver tray into the library. Dravan was sitting on a tall stool, his feet dangling far above the floor. He leaned over a crumbly old tomb. The pages were yellow with age and the edges were gilded with gold.

“Dravan dear, I need to go out to get groceries. I made you some food.” She set the tray down with one hand while taking his untouched supper with her other hand. “Dear, you haven’t eaten!”

“Sarah! Look at this!” He pointed at a line on the page. The words were written in a cramped tight hand.

She read the line and then read it again. She was certain she had to be wrong, “Does that… does that say that they used to cast permanent spells?” That cannot be right.

“Yes!” Dravan exclaimed, “Apparently, everyone could do it if they had access to some kind of blood. I’m not certain what kind though…” His voice trailed off as he turned back toward the ancient pages.

Two thoughts raced through her mind, “Does that mean your casting on the kitchen could be permanent?” Whose blood did they tap into? The demons use the unwilling. Could this be…?

“It shouldn’t be. But I don’t understand this yet. Maybe. The casting should only have lasted a week…” He trailed off, deep in thought.

It’s been six months. I think we can assume it isn’t going by normal standards. “I’ve noticed something about the casting that strikes me as rather strange as well.” She rested her elbow on her hip. The silver tray was heavy laden down with food Dravan hadn’t eaten.

He nodded for her to continue.

“The kitchen… from your description of the casting… I expected it to chill the food like an ice chest… but it doesn’t do that at all. The room is cool, but not chilled like winter. And the food seems to be… maintained… rather than preserved.” She fumbled for her words, “I mean, if you salt fish it can still turn and the flavor changes. Or if you freeze some things… it spoils the taste or alters it. But this… I take something out and it’s like I had just put it in. Almost as if no time had passed.”

Dravan nodded, “We should experiment with this.” He rubbed his hand on his chin. The few days of stubble rasped against his hand. “Get something that we can tell how many days it has been. Fish, flowers or the like. Something with a strong smell.”

She kissed him on the mouth and he smiled into her. “I’ll go pick something up. Please eat, love. You missed your last meal.”

He nodded absentmindedly, turning back to the tome. A frown of concentration carved itself into his face.

She sighed. He was gone to wherever he went when he thought. She placed a note with his food and a few in other strategic places, hoping that when he was brought back to his body for one reason or another that he would realize where she had gone. More likely, I will return before he lifts his head from the book again.

Before leaving, she grabbed a bag from the kitchen. It had been in the room when Dravan had enchanted the kitchen and now it worked like a portable piece of it. It was spectacular for carrying delicate foods. If she had been a part of a great house, she would choose her fish and then send them home packed in ice, but Dravan lived in a boat docked on the Thames. There were no servants to answer the door and receive the fish, which meant that whatever fish she chose before the sun rose were with her for the rest of her shopping trip.

She left the boat, stepping onto the dock where Tucker, a sturdy lad of sixteen was waiting. This was her usual day, so she had hired a weekly escort to carry the packages. Dravan allowed her free use of his wealth so that he would not be troubled by such things. Still, she hadn’t hired a boy until he had seen her carrying the many bags in.

He had remarked, coming over to assist her, “Whatever lad you hired to carry the bags should be fired. He should at the least carry them into the boat for whatever you are paying him.”

She had looked at him with surprise and then replied that he was right. She had engaged the service of a lad the next day.

Sarah and Tucker exchanged pleasantries as they headed toward the fish market. At first the lad had been shy around her. She knew she was beautiful and lovely women tended to make young men incapable of speech. Later, she had learned that it had been as much that as it had been that Tucker hadn’t known how to address her. Was she Magician Dravan’s servant? His mistress? Could he purchase her services? Where did she stand in the world?

She had made it clear that she was to be addressed as he would the mistress of a noble. Dravan wouldn’t tolerate her dallying with other men now. Frankly, she couldn’t stomach the idea either. It will be heartbreaking when he sets me aside. The thought had slunk into her mind before she could keep it out.

Sarah brushed some loose blond hair out of her face. The foul, unwashed stench of the fish market assaulted her senses. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have noticed it. Now that she was with Dravan lots of things were different. Noticing the stink of her old home quarter was the least of those things.

She selected her fish carefully. Her father had been a fisherman… it felt like a lifetime ago. He wouldn’t take her back after what she had done. She shook the thoughts away, refocusing on the fish. She knew what to look for so as to leave the bad or old fish for the inexperienced.

Tucker grunted under the weight of all the fish she purchased. She had purchased enough for a lord’s house. Of course, Dravan Cersideon was a noble in his own right and a mage on top of that. But he was an anomaly. He had given his estates to his younger sister and her husband to care for so he could focus on his studies. His residence on the Thames put him conveniently close to the Academy as well.

“Having a party miss?” Tucker asked.

She shook her head, “No. Just for Dravan and myself.”

Tucker blanched. He couldn’t fathom either eating that much or being so wasteful. “That’s… that’s a lot for two, miss.”

It was. No one wanted fish on the second day. Except that Dravan had asked for fish and she was curious herself whether the kitchen would keep the fish from fouling. If it didn’t… either Dravan would do a casting to clear the stench or she would hire another mage to. There is no way I’m living in a house with fouled fish again. Her childhood had not been… pleasant… and she wasn’t going to sleep where she would be reminded of it in her dreams. “Lord Dravan is performing an experiment.”

A smile pulled at the lad’s lips. Dravan was known for his experiments and the flashes of light that shone from the windows of the boathouse. “Well, miss, I certainly wish him all the luck in the world.” He looked down at the bag holding the fish, before adding quietly, “and you too.”

From the fish mongers they went to an alchemist’s. The old man had been making birth bane for her since she had come to London. Sarah didn’t think Dravan wanted children. If he did he would marry a noble woman, someone from the peerage like himself. If I became pregnant the child would be a bastard and have no inheritance except a poor reputation.

If she became pregnant, she would want to keep it. He would either insist on her losing it or throw her out. It was the way of men and nobles in particular. She knew many women who had found themselves turned out for that very reason.

Lady Longfellow wasn’t. A hopeful, traitorous whisper reminded her. Lord Longfellow is powerful enough to do as he pleases. She reminded herself dryly. Don’t you think Dravan is? He gave up his seat in the House of Lords to his brother in law and then took it back after the man died. His influence in the Academy is impressive to say the least and that doesn’t even consider his wealth and magical skill… Dravan has always done as he pleases. That wasn’t entirely true and she knew it. Dravan would rearrange the laws of the universe for someone he cared about.

Sarah muzzled her hope. She folded up her dream and stowed it away. She could not bear to hope and see it dashed. Dravan was a good man, but at least Lady Scarlet had been a skilled courtesan. Sarah had been nothing more than a common prostitute who serviced the young men of the Academy. If she ever became pregnant, and she prayed to the Divine daily that she did not, she would take her savings and leave.

Sometime later, Dravan sat poring over an ancient text. According to this, the magick artes were not as divine as his fellow magick users wished themselves to be. The Academy had taught him that the Divine had made the church and declared the church's will to be His will. He had been taught as the church moved from forgiveness for crimes to payment for crimes so did the Divine. The concept of this paradigm had always seemed antipodes[1] to him. This philosophy was why magick, which came from the Divine, was so structured. A magician did the right combination of things to put in a payment for his casting.

Dravan had always thought it was strange. How could the Divine have changed His nature? The Divine had been in existence since before forever was a conceivable notion. Why would the Divine put his nature in the hands of willful, acerebral[2], barmecide[3], and fickle creatures?

This text though, this book, it could be the key to everything! His great nephew, rest his soul, had sent it to him from India. According to this text... his thought was shattered by the sounds of someone giving a firm knock on his door. If it had broken his concentration, they had been knocking for quite a while and were not likely to go away. He sighed, straightened up and hopped down from his chair. He couldn't do his work with some fool banging away.

The barge swayed under his feet with the familiar rocking of the Thames. Dravan had been living on this barge for close to seventy years. Given that he wasn't yet one hundred - it would be sometime this year he believed - he was still quite young for a gnome. The barge had been a gift from his father

"Sarah?" Dravan called. He didn't expect her to answer; if she had been here she would have answered the door on the first knock. It didn't hurt to check though.

He padded quietly to the hatch. It opened outward smoothly. Sometimes fools who had never been on a boat before would stand on it... He finished climbing up the ladder, stepped out and closed the hatch before looking at the child who had bothered him. "What do you want?" His scowl stretched into his voice.

The boy hopped back, his eyes going wide. "My lord... uh... message for you, sir." He held out the card.

Dravan snatched it from the boy and read the invitation. He flipped it over, read the warning without changing his expression, and flicked it into the Thames. They watched as the card was covered by the murky water. The boy took a step back, hesitation rigid through his body.

"Dravan, dear!" Sarah, all curves, sashayed up the boardwalk a bouquet in her arms, with a shop boy panting after her and carrying her groceries. "Don't terrorize the poor boy." She handed the lad a shilling, sensing his ereption[4] before it came. She was used to boys from the street and understood his hunger for money came more from a hunger for food.

"Thank ya, your ladyship." He ducked his head and ran.

Dravan looked up at Sarah. She was the first crepuscular[5] lady he had taken on as a student and she had always been the quickest and most able learner. She was a human of the British Empire; long legged, blond, with soft pale blue eyes. He looked away grumbling to himself, "I had to answer the door." She always filled him with the boyish urge to blush.

Sarah sighed, taking the bags from the shop boy and handing him a shilling as well. "I told you I was going shopping."

Dravan frowned, "You did no such thing."

Sarah took the produce into the improvised kitchen, "I told you before I left," she raised her hand interrupting him, "I even made sure we made eye contact and that you acknowledged both that I was leaving and where I was going, you asked me to purchase fish for an experiment with the kitchen." Dravan's grimace deepened, "I also left a note by your desk and put out a plate of food with another note."

Dravan took an apple from the food she was putting away, "I remember no such discourse and saw no such notes."

Sarah shrugged equanimity[6] flowing out of her like she had done a casting, "I'm not surprised. You were deeply engrossed in your research." She kissed his lips gently, "I do like that about you."

He smiled. His frustration and anger at being interrupted melted away. "That reminds me! Come look at what I've found."

Sarah had finished putting away the cold goods; Dravan had placed castings on the cabinets to prevent insects, mold and spoiling. Though, there were some curiosities that he wanted to look into. If he wanted to show her something, she had plenty of time. She followed him to his small library and study. She saw the half eaten sandwiches on the tray she had brought him and made a mental note to clear it away.

Sarah frowned at the musty tome. The faint scent of curry clung to the book and surrounding area. "What is it you found?"

Dravan turned back the page and pointed to some markings, "Read this."

Sarah's eyes widened, "No wonder Edward, rest his soul, was murdered." It was custom to bless the dead whenever they were mentioned. The poor believed it would keep them from returning to interfere with the living.

Dravan nodded, "This changes everything."

[1] diametrically opposite

[2] without a brain

[3] one who holds out illusory offers, or who promises but does not deliver, proffering a bounty only to withhold it until the profferer's terms are met

[4] snatching away

[5] active at twilight, of the evening

[6] calmness, unconcern