Dr. Walid had included a supplemental file recording every person who’d listed their profession as musician and had died over the same period. Definite fact number two: While other musicians dropped dead from “natural causes” with depressing frequency, they didn’t seem to regularly die just after gigs the way the jazzmen did.

Definite fact number three: Cyrus Wilkinson hadn’t even listed his occupation as musician but as an accountant. You never claim to be a freelance or artistic anything unless you want a personal credit rating lower than an Icelandic bank’s. Which led to definite fact number four: My statistical analysis was pretty much worthless.

And yet three jazz musicians a year—I didn’t believe it was a coincidence.

But Nightingale wasn’t going to go for anything that flimsy. And he was still going to expect me to perfect scindere starting the next morning. I shut everything down and turned it all off at the plugs. That’s good for the environment and more important stops all my expensive gear from getting randomly fried by a surge in magic.

I let myself into the Folly through the kitchen. The waning moon lit the atrium through the skylight so I left the lights off as I climbed the stairs to my floor. On the balcony opposite I glimpsed a pale figure silently gliding among the muffled shadows of the west reading room. It was just Molly, restlessly doing whatever it is she restlessly does at night. When I reached my landing the musty carpet smell told me that Toby had once again fallen asleep against my door. The little dog lay on his back, his thin ribs rising and falling under his fur. He snuffled and kicked in his sleep, hind legs pawing the air, indicating at least five hundred milliyaps of background magic. I let myself into my bedroom and carefully closed the door so as not to wake him.

I climbed into bed and before I turned out the side lamp I texted Leslie—WTF DO NOW?

The next morning I got a text back. It read: GO TLK BAND—IDIOT!

Chapter 3 - A Long Drink of the Blues

THE BAND weren’t that hard to find—the Spice of Life had their contact details and they all agreed to meet me at French House on Dean Street, but it had to be in the evening because they all had day jobs. That suited me because I was still behind on my Latin vocab. I trolled over to Soho just after six and found them all waiting for me, propping up a wall peppered with pictures of people who had been famous just at the time my dad hadn’t.