Ring. Sister. Piano (Book 4 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twelve: Oh Dear

Mari Lloyd was still sitting composedly behind her desk. You could almost believe she hadn't moved since the previous evening.

Where Ellini had dressed up, Miss Lloyd had dressed down. She was wearing a dressing-gown over her night clothes, as though she had scarcely considered this contest worth staying out of bed for. Her hair was hanging loose – although 'hanging' implied more gravity than it really had. It was drifting loose, like bright red seaweed.

She had placed a chess set on the desk between them, in what Ellini suspected was a satirical gesture – a reminder that this was hardly a cool, logical battle of wits.

Ellini didn't mind. It would be good to have something to fix her eyes on besides Mari Lloyd's scornful, sunshine face. And it was a lovely chess set: ivory and mahogany, with gilt inlay. Her head was so full of the Brothers Grimm that she imagined the pieces as parts of the stories she'd been reading that day. That rook was Rapunzel's tower – that knight was the severed horse's head which had revealed the Goose Girl's identity when she herself had been unable to speak out.

Mari Lloyd saw her looking at the board, and mistook her curiosity for professional interest. "Do you play, Miss Syal?"

"No," said Ellini, with a nervous smile. "My father and sister did, though. I used to sit with them and make up stories about their game. Each piece was a character, even the pawns. Sometimes they got so involved that they tried not to capture the pieces they'd become attached to. They said it added an extra challenge to the game."

"That's sweet," said Miss Lloyd, although she didn't seem to have been listening.

Ellini was relieved. She couldn't imagine why she'd said that. It was the first time she'd mentioned her father in six years, and she never spoke about Sita. 'Sita' was too painful a word to hold in her mouth. She felt as though she was unravelling.

Well, unravel into the story, she told herself. That way, no-one will notice.

Mari Lloyd clapped her hands together briskly. "Well? How do we begin this transformation combat? Should we cut our palms open and shake hands? Or will saliva be sufficient?"

Ellini gave her a wan smile. "There's no need to be scornful, madam. You're the one who routinely casts spells on your friends and acquaintances. As you well know, having read everything I've read, we simply curtsy to each other and promise to take the consequences."

Mari Lloyd got up and bobbed her a swift, contemptuous curtsy. "At my school, we bow," she said, sitting down again. "It's so much more dignified."

Ellini sank into an extra-deep curtsy just to infuriate her. She suddenly realized that Miss Lloyd hated magic – that she burned at the indignity of muttering incantations and reciting the names of demons. She would have expected this from a scientist, but Miss Lloyd was a classical scholar.

"There are plenty of sorceresses in ancient Greek literature," she said, following this train of thought. "Myrrha strikes me as rather like Circe. Turning men into beasts."

"She only made their outsides match their inside," said Miss Lloyd.

"Are women not also animals? Mr Darwin seems to think we are."

In fact, Darwin and his fellow scientists seldom mentioned females, except as objects of desire. They were thought to be pleasantly immune to desire themselves. Ellini wondered that no woman had thought to correct them there. Unless it was just her – unless it was her own demonic heritage and questionable morals that made her want men.

"We're less beastly animals," said Mari Lloyd.

"Less obvious ones, perhaps."

And suddenly, Ellini did feel like a beast – one that had scented blood. Mari Lloyd hated magic. She could win this.