A cup of tea appeared on the edge of the table, a tiny hand sliding back below eye level, and Pete started.

"Thank you, Nora," said Mosswood. "And another of the same for Miss Caldecott. Sugar?"

"No sugar," Pete said, regarding the small earthy-colored creature with an arched eyebrow.

"Brownies," said Mosswood when Nora had scuttled away. "Not very intelligent, but love menial tasks. Useful for housework, if you need someone to come in."

"I'm here about Jack," Pete said, putting her palms flat on the table.

"Oh, I doubt that." Mosswood blew on his pipe and smoke sprouted as the tobacco lit of its own volition. "You are here about what's happening to you, my dear. Jack is merely a side effect of all this."

"I don't—" Pete started.

"How much has Jack told you about this? The Black? The magic that he works?"

Pete sighed. "Not much, and before tonight I didn't want to know. I'd convinced myself a long time ago that all this"—and here she gestured at the pub, the music, and brownies scuttling under tables—"wasn't real. But tonight…"

"Tonight was different," Mosswood said, examining her with a penetrating gaze. For all of his well-groomed shab-biness, the patched coat and sleek beard, Mosswood's eyes were inhuman, black and flat like stones. "Tell me."

"I… Jack and I were trying to get rid of a demon—that's a long story, entirely separate—and I touched him, really touched him because I was scared, and all this power just… appeared."

Mosswood scratched his beard and sucked on his pipe. "More power than the irredeemable Mr. Winter usually commands. Impressive."

"What's so impressive about that?" Pete said.

"Mages, in the great order of the Black, are candle dames," Mosswood said. "Jack Winter is an acetylene torch turned on full. Do you see?"

"I just want to know what happened when I touched him," said Pete.

"Afraid of it, are you?" Mosswood nodded. "Bright girl."

"I'm not afraid of anything," Pete snapped. "If it was just my life, I wouldn't be here. There's an innocent child at stake and I need to know that Jack is telling me the truth, when he decides to tell me anything. Whatever happened could affect my ability to help her. Or anyone."

"Jack Winter telling the truth," Mosswood mused. "There's something I'd like to see."

"Listen," Pete said. "I'm not stupid. I know something happened that wasn't meant to the first time Jack and I tried magic together. I don't think mages make a habit of working rituals that leave them on Death's doorstep. And now, the same thing almost blew his flat to smithereens earlier tonight."

"It is not a thing," said Mosswood. "Magic is not an object."

Pete dropped her eyes at the rebuke, wishing she'd never come. Being in the Black made her feel as if she were half in and half out of icy water, displaced and distracted.

Mosswood finally sighed. "I can only venture a guess, you understand…"

"Anything," said Pete with relief. "Wild speculation, baseless rumor… I've already spent over a decade thinking I'm crazy for believing any of this."

"Many thousands of years ago," said Mosswood, "there was a class of magicians, used by the old gods to speak for them… druids, priestesses of the Morrigan, a class of the Celt's battle shamans… you see?"

Pete nodded. The brownie set a cup of strong hot tea at her elbow, and she sipped reflexively. The way Mosswood spoke, it was easy to imagine sitting at the foot of the great standing stones, watching hooded figures dance in the starlight.

"The term 'magician' is a fallacy, really," said Mosswood. "They were called 'Weirs,' in the old tongues. Shapers of magic."

"Weir." Pete tasted the word, swallowed it down with her next swig of tea. "And what did the Weirs do, Mr. Mosswood?"

"Just Mosswood," he said again. "Weirs are odd and frightening, Miss Caldecott, because…" He sighed and sucked his pipe. "I fear I am doing you a disservice by saying this, but… Weirs escape classification. They do not tend toward magic the same way mages and sorcerers do. They are transformers, amplifiers, able to perceive the truth in dreaming, and if they are connected to a mage or sorcerer, terrible, terrible things have happened."

"What sort of things?" Pete drained her mug to the bottom, bitter tea leaves touching her tongue.

"Well," said Mosswood, "you don't think the Hindenburg explosion was really an accident, do you? Or Three Mile Island? Or the Tunguska meteor?"

Pete sat back, rubbing her arms. The cozy pub had become freezing cold. "So if I am… a Weir, and I've connected with Jack…"

Mosswood blew a ring of smoke, his eyes murky. "Then may whatever god you believe in watch over you both. Someone of Jack's abilities, amplified by a Weir, would be like a storm sweeping from the netherworld to flatten everything outside the Black."

"Weirs amplify mage's talents?" Pete felt her heartbeat slow in numb anticipation.

"Of course," said Mosswood mildly. "Why do you think virgin girls were so popular with magicians in the old times? It wasn't for their conversation."

A low shudder started in Pete's stomach and worked its way toward becoming a clear thought. She saw Jack, in his torn T-shirt and black jeans, jackboots and metal bracelets gleaming in the candlelight. Standing across the circle from her, inside the dark still tomb. Reaching out, to take her by the hand.

Afraid, luv? Don't be. I'm here, after all.

Pete stood up, knocking her chair away with a clatter. "I—I have to go. I'm sorry, Mosswood. Thank you…" She turned and managed to navigate out of the pub and back down the alley, fingers closing around the cold lumpy metal of the gate and pushing it aside. A black border closed around her vision and finally the street in front of her disappeared completely and all Pete saw as she spiraled down was Jack, Jack and his devil's grin.

Pete shoved open the door to Jack's flat so that it hit the wall with a crack. She jumped at the same time as he did, startled to actually find him slouched on his sofa. A haze of pungent blue-green smoke drifted around him.

"Who the fuck is that?" demanded the woman on the other end of the sofa. She was rail skinny, a thatch of grown-out blond hair that still held purple dye in the tips sticking out wildly around her narrow pixie face.

"Hattie, this is Pete," Jack said. His posture instantly drew tight as he caught Pete's expression.

" 'S a bloody odd name, ain't it?" Hattie said, taking another draw on her Thai stick.

For Pete's part, she drew in a breath, letting the pot-smoke smell wash over her, and then said, very softly, "Jack, I need to speak with you."

He stood, and Hattie made an unsteady move to follow. "Alone." Pete pinned Hattie with a glare, and the spindly girl sank back down into her seat.

"What's wrong, luv?" Jack said when Pete pulled him into the hallway and slammed the flat's door.

"How long have you known?" Pete said. Jack blinked once. His eyes were clear—he wasn't stoned, had just been playing at it. Pete found herself startled again at how quickly Jack could shuck and don different skins.

"Known what, Pete?" he asked in a credible display of innocence, but Pete knew better.

"I've been trying to figure it out, the whole walk home—did you know before that day in the tomb, or did you only figure it out when that thing came out at us and went straight for my heart instead of doing what you wanted?"