Page 23 of Harmonic Pleasure (Mysterious Arts #6)
By the bar, there was far more clutter of bottles, but also some hanging lights.
Those had a faint sense of magic to them, enough to make Farran fairly sure they’d been lit that way at one time.
The smaller chamber beyond felt rather like Uncle Cadmus’s forge, honestly, like the closeness was a virtue.
But also that it was not a place Farran wanted to linger, like there was something sacred there, but not for him.
“The well?” His voice came out a little unevenly.
“The well.” Vega turned to look at him. “This way, right?” She gestured across the cavern in the correct direction.
He nodded, and they picked their way over the layer of uneven rubble on the ground, to an archway and another tunnel.
Once they were there, she asked, more quietly. “Problem with the space?”
“Oh, no. I like enclosed spaces, actually. Just that, there, felt more… I don’t know. Like it wasn’t mine to disturb.” Farran shrugged, trying to pass it off as a minor fit of nerves.
There was silence for several steps. “You too? Oh, good.” Then she added, more conversationally. “I feel a tug from here, definitely. Do you know where the well is?”
“Yes. I don’t know how much water is usually in it.
” They went along, the path twisting a couple of times, but with no further openings.
Maybe fifty or sixty feet along, they came out in a room, about twice as long as it was wide, with a well shaft visible.
Vega stopped about five feet from the well.
“May I sing? I don’t think— I don’t think what we’re looking for is there. But I think something is. Does that make any sense at all?”
“Enough.” Farran considered. “What will the singing do, please?”
“Bring up what’s down there, the specific thing that’s tugging a little.
It’s not dangerous, it won’t shift the water around.
Just, um. Make whatever it is float like wood.
Or, I suppose, if you like the image better, a bit of cork or a barrel?
” Vega shrugged. “And just listen. Not the right time or place to ask you to keep a drone for me.”
“Of course.” Farran took a step to one side, so he could see both where they’d come from and the well, without twisting too much.
Without further comment, Vega took a breath and cleared her throat, and then she sang.
It was not in any language Farran knew, and he had that same feeling of something that wasn’t his to touch.
Some people, that would have made them want to grab tight.
He just wanted to stay where he was, not breathing, not moving, and experience it.
It was a soap bubble, beautiful and fragile and momentary.
Whatever the song was, wherever it came from, it worked.
He could see little ripples in the surface of the well, glimmering in the charmlight from the lanterns.
Then there were more bubbles, something rising from the bottom.
Vega kept singing, but now she took steps closer to the well, something out of a processional or maybe a particular dance.
It reminded him, suddenly, of Vivian, the way she moved when doing particular magic.
Farran shoved that thought down and away for some later and safer time.
When Vega reached the well, she bent over, a straight-backed bow from the waist, and then scooped something out of the water.
She brought the song to an end, at what was obviously the conclusion of a chorus or something of the kind.
It was as if everything shivered once, back into ordinary time and less magic, then Vega was coming back to him, as if this were an entirely ordinary Saturday afternoon.
“A ring.” There were still pitches in her voice, not quite sung, but not quite speech, either. “See, there’s the stone. May I take this back to my family when I have a chance?”
“You are the one who could get it back, so certainly.” Even if the laws about treasure troves had applied here, which he was fairly sure they didn’t, Farran would not argue. “If it needs to go somewhere else, I trust you’ll see to that?”
“Oh. Yes. That’s fair.” Now she seemed distracted. “We should— we should get back, surely? I don’t know how long it’s been.”
“And the air’s been well enough, just the two of us here, but I don’t want to test that too far.
” Farran agreed. “This way, then.” Going back was a fair bit easier.
Now it was just following the wall, keeping it to their left, until they wove back through the first passage again, and came out by the ladder.
This time, Farran let Vega go first. It was a matter of a couple of minutes for them to make their farewells, and to find a cab to take them back to central London.
An extravagance, possibly, but Farran certainly didn’t feel he had the stamina to navigate a walk to the river or to find the train or the Tube.
He left Vega at the corner nearest her hidden street, before telling the cabbie to go on toward his own rooms. Once back there, he washed up— the chalk dust had caked on his hands and around his ankles something awful— before falling into bed.