Page 10 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
“Why?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.
“This one isn’t fast enough. Thereissomeone following, and they’re gaining on us. Brace yourself for impact, Sylvia. Hopefully my magic will engage like the last time we were run off the road, but in case it doesn’t…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. We all knew an impact with another vehicle could be fatal.
CHAPTER 3
Alex turned the steering wheel sharply, and the Vauxhall careened around a corner, narrowly missing a motorbus that had stopped to pick up passengers. If I hadn’t been gripping the door, I would have slid across the seat to the other side.
“He’s still with us!” Gabe shouted.
I dared a glance behind us. The bus driver shook his fist, while the driver of a vehicle we cut off bellowed something I couldn’t hear. A black motorcar sped along in our wake. At this distance, and with his cap pulled low, I couldn’t make out the face of the driver hunched over the steering wheel.
“Hold on!” Alex’s instruction was unnecessary. I was already holding on as tightly as I could, to both the door and my hat.
The Vauxhall sped around another corner then immediately turned again. Alex must have known the two turns were close together, but I was quite lost. We were in a part of London I’d never visited.
“He missed the turn,” Gabe said. “Good driving.”
Alex continued at speed. He made more turns, taking us through busy streets and quiet ones, wide thoroughfares lined with shops and narrow residential lanes edged with neat rowhouses. We left a trail of angry drivers behind us, but it wasn’t until Gabe told him to slow down that Alex finally eased his foot off the pedal.
“We lost him,” Gabe said. “Let’s take Sylvia back to the library.”
Alex’s gloved hands readjusted their grip on the wheel. “If he knows you at all, he’ll know to find you there. He’ll be waiting.”
“Then so be it. I can’t run forever.”
I expected Alex to disagree, but he simply continued to drive, albeit at a more sedate pace.
We were now in an area I recognized as the location of Hobson and Son, the boot-making factory owned by the family of Gabe’s former fiancée, Ivy. Driving down the street wasn’t the wisest choice for Alex to make. The traffic slowed as we passed the ever-present protestors on the pavement. Former soldiers on crutches or in wheelchairs held placards accusing the Hobsons of greed and demanding an apology and compensation for the boots that failed under the muddy, soggy conditions of the Front. While the majority of boots made at the factory had held up well for the duration of the war, a batch had fallen apart.Allarmy-issued boots should have been strengthened by a leather magician’s spell, as stipulated in the company’s contract with the military, but it seemed that one batch had missed out.
According to the family, both Mr. Hobson and his son, Bertie, were leather magicians, but we’d begun to doubt if Ivy’s brother was a magician at all. We’d discovered he’d spent some time at a private clinic that used to treat the artless children of magicians in an attempt to draw the magic out of them. The treatments failed, of course, since artless were born artless. No medical intervention could change that.
Ivy refused to believe that Bertie was artless, and their parents continued to claim he was a magician. They blamed the soldiers for the failure of their boots, putting out statement afterstatement that they contained magic like all the others. They’d even tried to coerce Gabe, as the son of a powerful magician, to endorse their statements. His refusal had created a rift between him and the Hobsons that was partly responsible for him ending his relationship with Ivy, although Ivy had never quite accepted it was over.
The Hobsons’ denial of responsibility had continued even after the recent death of Mr. Hobson. I’d thought the protestors might back down once the head of the company could no longer be held accountable, but their continued presence outside the factory proved they were as determined as ever.
Gabe’s head turned as we passed the protestors, keeping his gaze on them. Once they were behind us, he turned again to speak to me in the back seat. “I called on Bertie at the factory yesterday. At least, I tried to. His mother was there and wouldn’t let me see him.”
“Did you want to tell him to come clean about his artlessness?”
He nodded. “It would be best coming from him rather than me.”
“Will you tell Jakes if he doesn’t?”
Mr. Jakes had shown an interest in Gabe’s unnatural ability to remain unscathed during the war, as well as in the failed Hobson boots. Although we suspected Bertie’s artlessness was to blame for the failed batch of boots, we’d not informed Jakes. Gabe was giving Bertie every opportunity to do the right thing himself.
But if the Hobsons continued to deny responsibility, and Jakes found out that they knew the boots failed because they never received the required magic, then they risked the full legal weight of the government descending on them.
Gabe rubbed his jaw. “I’ll keep trying to speak privately to Bertie. He needs to understand the consequences of doing nothing.”
It sounded easy enough in theory, but getting through Mrs. Hobson to her son would be difficult. She would protect him and the family with all her might.
“You’re being too reasonable, Gabe,” Alex chided. “The Hobsons don’t deserve it. They told a journalist that ridiculous story about you healing yourself magically.” It wasn’t the only story the newspapers had published about Gabe’s incredible feat of survival. One had even speculated something close to the truth.
“They also met with Thurlow,” Alex added, almost reluctantly. His reluctance stemmed from his concern that Gabe’s obsession with the corrupt bookmaker who’d tried to have us run off the road was consuming him, clouding his judgment.
I didn’t quite agree that it was an obsession. A genuine fear, yes, and that fear was justified. Thurlow was ruthless, and he had Gabe in his sights. Witnessing the base criminal meet with two very upright women in Mrs. Hobson and Ivy was not only an unusual sight, it was also baffling. How did they know one another? More importantly, why had they met?
