Chapter Text
There was nothing unusual about that evening except for the book Segundus was reading. It didn't say anything about controlling weather, charming frogs and summoning flowers or any magic whatsoever. It was an absolutely common fiction but Segundus still was consumed by it completely. He read the last pages almost frantically, and after closing it, pondered for a while about his life that had become boring lately, and whether he wanted it to be more enticing or not, and decided on the latter.
By the time the agitation subsided, and his eyes began to close, it was almost midnight.
He twitched from the first chime of the big clock downstairs, and counted mindlessly the rest of them. The thirteenth one sounded very strange, loud and dull, like something crushing down on the floor. Segundus sat up in panic.
Despite all that happened within the walls of Starecross, by August, months after the turmoil of the winter's events, the house felt like home. Segundus still had hopes and plans to open the School of Magic, but it required a lot of preparations that would take at least a year more. He was also terrified by the idea of becoming its schoolmaster himself, while he was urged into it by several members of various magic societies and personally by Childermass (which didn't surprise him after his first Pale's Restoration and Rectification, but still pleased him very much).
Segundus, though, wasn't thinking about it at the moment. He fumbled through the bedside table for a tinderbox, found it faster than he expected and lit the candle on the first try, even though his hands were shaking for no apparent reason. He suddenly remembered that he was absolutely alone in the house, with Charles taking a short holiday and Mr Honeyfoot in York.
I should've read something else, he thought, a little bitter at himself and Ann Radcliffe, got out of the bed and picked the candlestick.
Objectively, it was probably nothing, and whatever made that noise was, most likely, just a window opening on itself, which wasn't unusual in such an old building Starecross was. It was one of the necessary renovations from the list put together by Segundus under Mrs Lennox's supervision and consultation.
But again, this wasn't occupying Segundus's mind. After a minute of rationalisation, he excluded the reader's excitement from the reasons of his unexplainably strong anxiety. What he couldn't dismiss was the nagging suspicion that something magical was involved. Since Lady Pole's departure, nothing exactly magical happened in Starecross except Segundus's own experiments and research, that Childermass often joined. There was always a faint presence of the magic of Starecross itself and its many secrets yet to be revealed as the part of the research, but no occurrences of alien magic finding its way here. Segundus was sure of it, because it was always a subject of his concern. A fay curse was something he never wanted to experience again.
The moment he stepped off the bottom step, he was adamant there was nothing natural about the noise. There was no wind at all, and his head started spinning in that distinct, unpleasantly familiar way. It was also much darker in the room than it was to be expected in such a moonlit night as this, although nothing seemed to prevent the light coming through the windows, and the outside looked completely unsuspicious.
Another loud sound startled Segundus and almost made him drop his candle. Its cause, however, was evident immediately. It was a bang of the entrance door being flung open, and there, backlit by the moon and black in contrast, was a silhouette that in the past would seem imposing and dangerous, but with time turned out to be exactly the opposite.
"Childermass!" Segundus exclaimed with relief.
"What happened?" Childermass said instead of greeting him.
"I don't think I know yet," Segundus replied mechanically, then narrowed his eyes and asked, confused, "What do you mean by 'happened'? How do you know that something happened at all?"
"I had a bad feeling," Childermass said simply and rubbed his brow. "I was on my way here and wasn't going to bother you until morning, but I sensed a wave of magic from..."
He didn't finish the sentence and instead walked in and shut the door behind him. Just as mechanically, Segundus's inquisitive mind noticed two things: it was a full moon, and its light didn't spread out into the house.
"Was it you knocking?" he asked, just in case, knowing that this hope was foolish. "Around ten minutes ago?"
"No," Childermass answered curtly. "Why?"
"I heard a sound. Very loud. Like something fell."
Childermass neither laughed nor asked any further questions, because Segundus's worry might've been obvious.
"I'd asked Charles to fetch water for Brewer, but it seems we have more pressing matters on hand."
"Charles isn't here," Segundus explained. "I'm alone."
"Alone?" Childermass frowned.
Segundus only shrugged wearily. Childermass looked like he wanted to say something but chose not to. But, possibly, it was only a trick of the dim light. There wasn't much moonlight any more, as if it had been slowly consumed by the shadows of the room.
Childermass inspected the room with a brief glance.
"I don't like this darkness," he said, "and I know a couple of things about darkness."
Segundus shivered at these words.
"Are you cold?" Childermass asked immediately, and Segundus suddenly became very aware of the way he was dressed. In another situation, it would embarrass him, but he was too busy worrying.
"No," he said. He was blushing anyway, a little, just by the force of habit, but second by second it drew darker and the colour of his cheeks wouldn't be visible in any case.
"You look like a romance heroine," Childermass noted with his peculiar lop-sided smile, which, however, at the moment seemed unsettlingly straighter than usual.
Even this couldn't make Segundus get offended or flustered, and it scared him.
"But it's not time for jokes," Childermass said, and any sign of the smile vanished from his face.
Another thing Segundus's mind could do excellently was seeing ways everything could go wrong. Today, fuelled with what at that point might've been as well called paranoia, the number of awful possibilities was enormous.
"Are you real?" he asked Childermass, and in response to his confused look, murmured rapidly to himself, "but it might not prove anything, because if it's a fairy's doing, it could base the illusion on my own memories, and if it were the case, any question I would ask would be answered correctly..."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Childermass put his hand on his shoulder to stop him. "It's very possible that the fey magic is involved, but despite my pessimism, or rationalism, I don't think we should jump to any conclusions just now."
"It's exactly what Childermass would say!" Segundus exclaimed and quickly collected himself. "I beg your pardon. I don't think that you are not someone you claim to be. I'm very nervous."
"I see that, don't worry," Childermass said gently.
"But then, why did the door open so easily?" Segundus whispered to himself again.
"I would ask you the same question," Childermass said almost angrily, in contrast, and apologized immediately, "I'm sorry." He paused, "I think we should get more light first."
The windows at that point were completely, unnaturally dark, like they were smoked and blackened to the point of the full opacity.
"There should be candles in the parlour, or we could just light the fireplace there," Segundus suggested.
"Both seem effective."
They made their way there across the hall, the darkness biting on the light of their candle.
In the parlour, Childermass went straight to the fireplace with his tinderbox, while Segundus looked for more candles, almost blindly. There were six of them in different candleholders, and he attempted to light them with his own.
"It doesn't work," he said simultaneously with Childermass, with frustration and fear in both of their voices.
Childermass stood up and came closer to Segundus, because otherwise they couldn't even see each other.
The darkness became suffocating.
"Do you know any spells that can help?" Segundus asked quietly. He never doubted Childermass's knowledge and skill, but all hope left him by this point.
"I do, but I don't have the necessary materials on me," Childermass sighed. "Since fire isn't working... You wouldn't have cheese on you, would you?"
"I don't have pockets," Segundus laughed almost hysterically and had to make himself stop before he started crying. "And I don't feel like going to the kitchen."
"I can try and intimidate them, whatever they are, with my connection to Raven Kind, but abusing this method seems just as dangerous."
They stood only inches apart now. The faint flame of the candle gave off no heat, and the wax that found its way to Segundus's fingers was cold as spring water.
"So," he began vacantly in a vain attempt to distract himself, "what do we know? All this started at midnight, it's new moon, the magic was strong enough for you to feel it from outside... Are there any conclusions we can draw before we d—"
"Stop," Childermass said sharply. "We are not going to—"
Their candle went out.
Childermass's hand immediately found Segundus's.
The same heavy noise sounded again, this time from upstairs. Then another and another. Like footsteps, they came nearer and nearer, leaving silence ringing in between.
Childermass swore under his breath and murmured something unintelligible. Even in the dark, Segundus could almost see concentration on his face.
Unexpectedly, he heard chickens clucking. Their voices were magnified, and the clearest of them all was a rooster's call.
The steps stopped immediately, and for a second, Segundus was blinded by the fireplace flaring up. When he opened his eyes, it was still burning, as well as all the candles he had been trying to light before.
He looked at Childermass in shock, catching his breath. Childermass was grinning, more with happy relief than his usual irony.
"I had no hope it would work!" he confessed.
"A rooster... It's brilliant!" Segundus exclaimed.
"Why aren't you asking me why I invented a spell to scare your chicken from a distance?" laughed Childermass and Segundus laughed too.
"I'm not in a state for asking any questions," he chuckled. "I'm tired."
"I suppose we have time until next midnight to investigate and understand what it was. Or, at least, find the means for temporal protection."
Segundus nodded sleepily and felt dizzy again, but this time malevolent magic had nothing to do with it.
"You are still holding my hand," he said to Childermass.
"Aye," he responded and looked at Segundus meaningfully.
Segundus returned the stare.