“I don’t like cheating on the mayor.” Veronica was trembling. It was cold in this dark classroom, but also, was he really talking himself into a motive for having stolen the book? Because no one will notice it’s missing? “The council members believe right has been done if the mayor uses the book. They believe that all is well with the world. When the book is missing, people will start gossiping. I’m sure that at least some of them will be able to tell that he’s not using the real book. They went to the Academy themselves. There will be talk.”

  “So much misplaced faith in humanity. Ah, the youth of today, with their innocent minds! I didn’t think people needed any elaborate excuses to start to gossip.”

  Probably not.

  She forced the discussion back to the subject. “Can you make it?”

  “Can I make it? Of course I can! All depends on whether I want to make it, though.”

  “I would want the potion with some urgency. How long does it take for you to make it?”

  “Urgency?”

  “The principal has given me a week to try to find the book.”

  “And if she doesn’t find the book, eh?”

  “I don’t know. That is for the principal to think about.”

  If Veronica couldn’t find the book, it was probably removed from the school and it might be hard to find if they couldn’t find out who took it. “I really need the potion. There are a lot of potential suspects.”

  “Oh, I understand what you’re saying, but I want to warn you to be mindful of the unintended side-effects a truth potion might have.”

  “Unintended side-effects?”

  “Well, if you give someone the truth potion, they will tell the truth. There will be truths that you like to hear, but there will also be a lot of it that you don’t like to hear, especially in a place like this, where gossip is rife and where rivalry exists between the departments and between students. You give someone a truth person, and you’re going to get a lot more than you bargained for.”

  “It will just be a couple of people. Not many, and no one in important positions.”

  “All right. If you’re absolutely sure, come back tomorrow morning, and I will have it ready for you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Mrs. Everhart had organised a student teacher to take her classes, so Veronica spent the rest of the day going through the information Mrs. Everhart had given to her.

  The people who had a key to the spellcraft tower were the teachers in the department, the principal, and Barnaby. Mrs. Wild didn’t even have a key for when she needed to clean the room. She would sign out the one in the principal’s office. That key could be used by anyone, but whoever wanted to borrow it had to tell the principal.

  By contrast, the key in the spellcraft department could be borrowed by all the teachers in the department without telling anyone.

  Barnaby had the key all for himself, and he probably carried it on his big noisy keyring that dangled on his belt. Anyone other than Barnaby who had that key would also have all his other keys and Barnaby would notice this very quickly.

  Veronica made a list of the people who she wanted to give the potion. Barnaby was at the top of that list, but she also moved Jasper there, although how she was going to deal with such an awkward situation she didn’t know. She couldn’t see any other solution than to require all the teachers in the spellcraft department to come, because otherwise it would look like she was picking on him.

  She could imagine that many teachers would not be happy with this situation. Especially Mr. Fairweather who had more or less incriminated himself by talking about how the book could easily be replaced.

  But she would just have to deal with that.

  She had to know if Jasper had stolen it. Because he could be guilty and she wanted to know if he was.

  Once she had decided on the list of names, she wrote letters to each of them, and called up a small army of fairies to deliver them to the people who were to be interviewed.

  Once these letters had gone out, Veronica waited for the inevitable outraged voices in the hallways.

  “How dare she?” Mr. Stone called out in the courtyard at a volume that went far beyond the four spellcraft teachers he was talking to.

  Veronica left the school through the service entrance to avoid having to confront any of them. She’d explain when she saw them that she required this of all people who had access to a key. Except Mrs. Everhart. Although she suspected that Mrs. Everhart would be happy to take the potion if that meant her solidarity with the other teachers.

  At home during dinner, her parents revealed more of the deals that might be part of her potential marriage to Jasper Bloom.

  The Bloom family would cover their rent in return for their produce and a say in what products they grew on the farm.

  “They want us to grow plants for making fabric dyes,” her mother said. “They want to sell exquisite fabric in bright colours.”

  “Yes, they already have sheep for the wool and want to buy spinning and weaving machines, and Oliver said I could get to learn how to supervise them.”

  “But if you can’t grow your vegetables, how can we pay for food?” Veronica asked. “They might cover the rent, but you need more than that.”

  Her mother said, “We’ll surely be able to grow some for ourselves.”

  “You want to make sure that is covered in a contract. Also, won’t the owner of the land be upset that you’ve passed the tenancy on to another family? Their contract is with you, not the Bloom family.”

  Veronica’s mother sighed. “You ask so many questions.”

  “Those are questions you need to ask. That’s why you sent me to the Academy, right? So that I can see what is behind the actions of the rich people.”

  “We sent you so that you can teach, because you were smart.”

  “Being smart is not just knowing things. It’s also understanding things about how other people are using you.”

  “And the Bloom family are using us?”

  “Of course they are! It might even be fine that they’re using us. We just want to know why.”

  “It seems… ungrateful,” her mother said. “They’re helping us. If the business goes well, we might well have enough to buy all our food without having to dig up the potatoes and shell the beans.”

  But Veronica saw in her father’s expression that he at least somewhat understood what she was saying.

  She continued, “Well-off families are smart with money. When they make a proposal, they’ll do that because they think they might get something they want. You don’t sign that proposal until you know what it is.”

  “Don’t you like Jasper Bloom?”

  Veronica sighed. “He’s all right. But that’s irrelevant. The Bloom family wants something.”

  “We want something, too. We want to stay here and pay our dues. They were nice to us because they think we can grow the crops they want.”

  Veronica held her tongue for the time being. There was no point talking about her suspicions until she found what happened to the spellbook, and there might be different ways of solving the money problem. Maybe she should talk to the landlord herself, because her parents were probably too easily intimidated by the sight of a big house and riches.

  First, she needed to solve the mystery of the spellbook.

  Chapter Ten

  True to his word, Augustus Fairweather had the potion ready for her the next morning.

  It stood on the bench just inside the door.

  It came in a long-necked crystal bottle with a dainty stopper and was tinged deceptively pretty pink.

  “That’s it?” she said. It didn’t look terribly impressive.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about the colour. It’s meant to be orange, but it appears I ran out of saffron. Anyway, it’s just a colour and no one from the Pure Magic Department is going to get upset about it because I’m not selling it. It is just a colour. I don’t make this very often.”

  Yes, Veronica now remembered the colour schemes for officially approved potions that the Magic Department in the city dictated. Orange potions were those that were only allowed to be used by authorised individuals.

  The seriousness of what she was about to do hit her.

  A truth potion was not a frivolous thing. Using it could have serious consequences.

  He picked up the bottle with his old and gnarled hands and moved it around so that the fluid swirled inside. It was syrupy and left a residue on the glass. “Anyway, when you take the stopper off, you will see it’s hollow inside. It’s a cap. You pour the potion in and mix it in a glass of water. It tastes rather foul. In all the years I’ve studied potions, no one has been able to do something about the taste of this one. Never mind the pretty colour, it tastes like you’re drinking week-old bathwater.” He chuckled. “Once your subject has drunk the potion, you need to wait a minute or so for it to start working, and then your subject will start talking randomly. You can try to ask them questions, but it’s best to do that before they drink, because people under the influence of the potion will have an incredible urge to keep talking and talking, and they may not listen, even if you get a word in. It’s also important that you realise that the true function of the potion is to compel people to give answers, not necessarily the truth. They will tell the truth, but if you press your subject too much, they might start making things up if they don’t have anything to say. So overall, it’s best to just let them talk. That way, no one will say that you forced them into giving fanciful answers. The potion takes about twenty minutes to lose its effectiveness. Once it does so, your subjects may be confused. You may need to give them a little time to recover. It can also be that the subject gets angry, and for that reason, let them recover in isolation in a room by themselves.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She took the bottle—it was surprisingly heavy—and made for the door.

  Mr. Fairweather called her back. “Oh, and Miss Mayflower, do be sure that you have witnesses when you make people drink the potion, so that they can afterwards not claim that you treated them unfairly. This is also quite a common side effect of the potion.”

  “I will. I have a plan.”

  Of course, Veronica already knew about the potion’s effects from her study at the Academy, but she didn’t say anything, and was already glad that she didn’t have to have a reason to subject him to this treatment. Drinking his own potions. That would be outrageous.

  The people born into money and into magical families had such expectations of society. It was all right to subject everyone to magical spying, but dare question their sacred right to be immune from this treatment and watch the sparks fly. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

  The principal had made two rooms available to her for the interview. This was where in the past year that Veronica had been at the school, teacher-parent evenings would be held.

  Parents would gather to listen to teachers—one from each department—talk about the things the school would teach in the current term. Parents could then go into the next room to talk to teachers about their child in particular.

  When she came to the room, a couple of spellcraft department teachers already sat on the chairs that someone—probably Barnaby—had placed around the perimeter of the room.

  “Good morning,” Veronica said.

  They were a couple of junior teachers.

  Veronica had decided she would start with her strongest suspects first and she had even thought about reasons for this order other than her suspicions.

  “Barnaby, if you could go first. I understand you have a lot of work to do today.”

  “That’s right, Miss. The carpenters are coming to build extra nest boxes for the messenger fairies, and I’ll have to get them done in the morning because there’ll be lessons in the rooms on the other side of the wall in the afternoon.”

  Veronica took the potion bottle out of her bag and set it on the desk in the middle of the room. The teachers looked at it, many with expressions of apprehension. In the time she had set up, Jasper had also arrived. He sat to the side of the room next to one of the windows.

  “Barnaby, I’m going to ask you to sit here, and when you have taken the potion, I want you to tell me about the things you did on the day the spellbook went missing.”

  “Certainly, Miss. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  With sweaty hands, Veronica poured out the potion into the glass and added the water, and then gave the glass to Barnaby, who drank it, and pulled a face.

  “That tastes disgusting.“

  “Unfortunately, yes, Mr. Fairweather said he can’t do anything about that.”

  Barnaby put the glass down, and then they waited.

  No one spoke. People watched him intently.

  He remained silent, and Veronica waited, heart thudding, for his flood of words that would reveal all. Barnaby was a very talkative person and for him to become so weirdly silent was… strange. His eyes were unfocused.

  “Barnaby?” she prompted. “Tell us about the day the spellbook went missing?”

  He finally started. “Well, the plumbers were coming to fix the gutter, so I arrived at school early, and I got all the ladders out, and made sure there was no rubbish around the tower that could get in their way, and then I asked for Mrs. Wild to prepare some tea for the fellow and some lunch, and like a good lady, she did. She is a good lady, and she may not know this, but her big bosom is the best part of her. They’re soft and jiggly, and I wish she’d wear low dresses a bit more often so I can peek between them.”

  Several people in the room chuckled uneasily.

  “Anyway, I couldn’t hang around the kitchen for too long because the plumbers arrived. It was old Fergus and his apprentice. He said it was shocking how he was having trouble finding good jobs, and how glad he was to get the school. They all like the school jobs because they can charge at least one and a half times more than they would private clients.”

  Mrs. Everhart raised her eyebrows at this.

  Veronica hadn’t noticed her come in.

  Barnaby continued. “I showed him what needed to be done. While we were walking around the tower, Fergus told me all about his brother, who had gone to the city and had to come back, because work was so poor, and he and his woman split up because he caught her screwing some other guy. Mind you, they had two children and because she had the other guy, the brother wanted to get out of paying for them. The wife said it was Fergus’ brother who first left her. It was a nasty fight, but because he was family, Fergus had to help him. That’s what you do for family, right?”

  He looked around the room, but few people were looking back at him. No one had truly asked for such a personal account of details. No one was really interested in the personal life of the plumber, either.

  “Anyway, so Fergus says he helps his brother. He collects all his stuff and moves him into a spare room and what do you know, a few days later, his wife walks in on his screwing some pixie chick out of a bar in town. So what is he supposed to do? It’s his own brother. His brother’s wife was probably right.”

  “Barnaby, what about what happened at the school?” Veronica asked.

  Her ears were glowing.

  Did men really talk about scandalous things in those words?

  “Nothing happened at the school. They were plumbers. I let them in. They did the job.”

  “What about the spellcraft tower?”

  “That’s where the leaking gutter was. There was a lot of leaves in it. I’ve asked many times can I climb up there to take them out, but that gnome of a spellcraft teacher is always way too precious about his darling students. They might just get distracted, or, heaven forbid, see a sliver of my belly when they look out the window from underneath and see up my shirt. See?” He lifted the hem of his shirt with both hands, showing ample pale and hairy skin across a generous belly. “That’s too scandalous for the students.”

  “Barnaby, that’s enough,” Mrs. Everhart said. “I think it’s time for the next interview. If you will just take yourself off to the next room to come to your senses.”

  Jasper got up, took Barnaby’s arm and ushered him nextdoor.

  On his way past one of the younger female teachers, Barnaby said in a low voice, but loud enough for everyone to hear, “Nice tits.”

  The teacher gasped.

  “Barnaby!” Mrs. Everhart’s face was red. She turned to Veronica. “Miss Mayflower, have you learned anything from this?”

  Veronica’s cheeks grew hot.

  “Well, he hasn’t talked about the key or about being inside the spellcraft tower, so I’ve learned that it was unlikely that he has anything to do with the spellbook.”

  “If he speaks the truth.”

  “Mr. Fairweather made the truth potion…”

  Mrs. Everhart’s nostrils flared. She looked like she would very much want to, but couldn’t, dispute a senior teacher’s abilities.

  “Anyway, who’s next?”

  “Uhm, Mr. Bloom.” But he had gone into the room with Barnaby, whose voice drifted through the door.

  It was Mr. Stone who rose to his feet. “I’ll take it. Let’s have this nonsense over and done with so I can go back to my students.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Veronica’s heart sank.

  She had planned to interview Mr. Stone as one of the last. He was in the room only because he had access to the key and was in the spellcraft department and she didn’t want to single out Jasper.

  But he was a senior teacher, and Veronica could do nothing about his wish to go next.

  “All right. Sit here.”

  She tried her hardest to make her voice sound lighthearted.

  She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He didn’t want to cooperate with her. He only wanted to get back at her or vent his spleen about other teachers.

  By the way he glared at Mrs. Everhart and she glared back at him, Veronica wondered if Mrs. Everhart had really passed the investigation to her because she thought Veronica was capable. At least part of the reason must have been because she knew this investigation would open up a lot of old arguments.

 

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