"It just seems pointless, that's all," he said in a small voice.

"Pointless it is not," Ms. Lutyens replied. "Let me see your work. Well, it's not bad, Nathaniel, not bad at all, but look—do you not think that this cupola is rather bigger than the original? See here? And you've left a hole in this stem—that's rather a bad mistake."

"It's only a small mistake. The rest's okay, isn't it?"

"That's not the issue. If you were copying out a pentacle and you left a hole in it, what would happen? It would cost you your life. You don't want to die just yet, do you, Nathaniel?"

"No."

"Well, then. You simply mustn't make mistakes. They'll have you, otherwise." Ms. Lutyens sat back in her chair. "By rights, I should get you to start again with this."

"Ms. Lutyens!"

"Mr. Underwood would expect no less." She paused, pondering. "But from your cry of anguish I suppose it would be useless to expect you to do any better the second time around. We will stop for today. Why don't you go out into the garden? You look like you could do with some fresh air."

For Nathaniel, the garden of the house was a place of temporary solitude and retreat. No lessons took place there. It had no unpleasant memories. It was long and thin and surrounded by a high wall of red brick. Climbing roses grew against this in the summer, and six apple trees shed white blossom over the lawn. Two rhododendron bushes sprawled widthwise halfway down the garden—beyond them was a sheltered area largely concealed from the many gaping windows of the house. Here the grass grew long and wet. A horse chestnut tree in a neighboring garden towered above, and a stone seat, green with lichen, rested in the shadows of the high wall. Beside the seat was a marble statue of a man holding a fork of lightning in his hand. He wore a Victorian—style jacket and had a gigantic pair of sideburns that protruded from his cheeks like the pincers of a beetle. The statue was weather worn and coated with a thin mantle of moss, but still gave an impression of great energy and power. Nathaniel was fascinated by it and had even gone so far as to ask Mrs. Underwood who it was, but she had only smiled.

"Ask your master," she said. "He knows everything."

But Nathaniel had not dared ask.

This restful spot, with its solitude, its stone seat, and its statue of an unknown magician, was where Nathaniel came whenever he needed to compose himself before a lesson with his cold, forbidding master.

Between the ages of six and eight, Nathaniel visited his master only once a week. These occasions, on Friday afternoons, were subjects of great ritual. After lunch, Nathaniel had to go upstairs to wash and change his shirt. Then, at precisely two—thirty, he presented himself at the door of his master's reading room on the first floor. He would knock three times, at which a voice would call on him to enter.

His master reclined in a wicker chair in front of a window overlooking the street. His face was often in shadow. Light from the window spilled round him in a nebulous haze. As Nathaniel entered, a long thin hand would gesture toward the cushions piled high on the Oriental couch on the opposite wall. Nathaniel would take a cushion and place it on the floor. Then he sat, heart pounding, straining to catch every nuance of his master's voice, terrified of missing a thing.

In the early years, the magician usually contented himself with questioning the boy about his studies, inviting him to discuss vectors, algebra, or the principles of probability, asking him to describe briefly the history of Prague or recount, in French, the key events of the Crusades. The replies satisfied him almost always—Nathaniel was a very quick learner.

On rare occasions, the master would motion the boy to be silent in the middle of an answer and would himself speak about the objectives and limitations of magic.

"A magician," he said, "is a wielder of power. A magician exerts his will and effects change. He can do it from selfish motives or virtuous ones. The results of his actions can be good or evil, but the only bad magician is an incompetent one. What is the definition of incompetence, boy?"

Nathaniel twitched on his cushion. "Loss of control."

"Correct. Providing the magician remains in control of the forces he has set to work, he remains—what does he remain?"

Nathaniel rocked back and forth. "Er…"

"The three S's boy, the three S's. Use your head."

"Safe, secret, strong, sir."

"Correct. What is the great secret?"

"Spirits, sir."

"Demons, boy. Call 'em what they are. What must one never forget?"

"Demons are very wicked and will hurt you if they can, sir." His voice shook as he said this.

"Good, good. What an excellent memory you have, to be sure. Be careful how you pronounce your words—I fancy your tongue tripped over itself there. Mispronouncing a syllable at the wrong time may give a demon just the opportunity it has been seeking."

"Yes, sir."

"So, demons are the great secret. Common people know of their existence and know that we can commune with them—that is why they fear us so! But they do not realize the full truth, which is that all our power derives from demons. Without their aid we are nothing but cheap conjurors and charlatans. Our single great ability is to summon them and bend them to our will. If we do it correctly they must obey us. If we make but the slightest error, they fall upon us and tear us to shreds. It is a fine line that we walk, boy. How old are you now?"

"Eight, sir. Nine next week."

"Nine? Good. Then next week we shall start your magical studies proper. Mr. Purcell is busy giving you a sufficient grounding in the basic knowledge. Henceforward we shall meet twice weekly, and I shall start introducing you to the central tenets of our order. However, for today we shall finish with your reciting the Hebrew alphabet and its first dozen numbers. Proceed."

Under the eyes of his master and his tutors, Nathaniel's education progressed rapidly. He delighted in reporting his daily achievements to Mrs. Underwood and basking in the warmth of her praise. In the evenings, he would gaze out of his window toward the distant yellow glow that marked the tower of the Parliament buildings, and dream of the day when he would go there as a magician, as one of the ministers of the noble government.

Two days after his ninth birthday, his master appeared in the kitchen while he was eating breakfast.

"Leave that and come with me," the magician said.

Nathaniel followed him along the hall and into the room that served as his master's library. Mr. Underwood stood next to a broad bookcase filled with volumes of every size and color, ranging from heavy leather—bound lexicons of great antiquity to battered yellow paperbacks with mystic signs scrawled on the spines.

"This is your reading matter for the next three years," his master said, tapping the top of the case. "By the time you're twelve, you must have familiarized yourself with everything it contains. The books are written in Middle English, Latin, Czech, and Hebrew for the most part, although you'll find some Coptic works on the Egyptian rituals of the dead too. There's a Coptic dictionary to help you with those. It's up to you to read through all this; I haven't time to coddle you. Mr. Purcell will keep your languages up to speed. Understand?"

"Yes, sir. Sir?"

"What, boy?"

"When I've read through all this, sir, will I know everything I need? To be a magician, I mean, sir. It seems such an awful lot."

His master snorted; his eyebrows ascended to the skies.

"Look behind you," he said.

Nathaniel turned. Behind the door was a bookcase that climbed from floor to ceiling; it overflowed with hundreds of books, each one fatter and more dusty than the last, the sort of books that, one could tell without even opening them, were printed in minute script in double columns on every page. Nathaniel gave a small gulp.