Chapter One: They say technology will appear indistinguishable from magic one day, but it’s my hope magic will one day appear indistinguishable from technology. That’s the only way I can practice it these days. I am a wizard, my name is Macon Fry.
I dropped the dried herbs into boiling water. They softened, surrendering to the water and releasing the soft smell of wet grass. It nearly masked the mold that permeated the dank of my shop.
An actual love potion follows nearly the same recipe as one that causes insanity. But then, love and insanity are about as related as one can get. I ought to know. But I was only making snake oil. It was very popular among young gentlemen who wanted to increase their chances under the mistletoe this year. Over in the states, I could have given them the real thing. Here in London, the real thing was outlawed.
That was hard on business.
There was a moratorium on magic, and the Council kept a vigilant eye to enforce it. As the world’s supply of magic waned, and sadly it had, some said it was forced to hide in the shadows, an industrialist-versus-magic conspiracy. But I think it moved there on its own accord. The neverworld is full of recluses.
If you want to know about me, other than being a wizard, I’m just your average Joe. Average height, average weight. Nothing remarkable. I run an apothecary shop with a reputation for dabbling in the occult. Most people believe I am a charlatan, and I prefer it that way.
I closed the drawstring on the herbs and returned the rest of the dried leaves to the drawer. No point making too large a batch. Christmas would be over in two days, and only the most determined lovelorn would venture past the militant protestors congregated on Fleet Street outside my shop.
That’s right. Business wasn’t bad enough already. Now people wouldn’t come into the shop because those helium heads out there filled their minds with the notion that my business was a pernicious influence upon the impressionable young men of London.
If they had wanted pernicious influence, they should have gone after the gentlemen who publish those penny dreadfuls.
We both give the public what they want, but the publishers use giant printing presses and consume miles of paper. I use a shovel and dig roots from the forest. So the publishers attract the praise of the industrialist tycoons, and I attract the scorn of the aforementioned helium heads, the bored offspring of the industrialists, each one born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Being sole proprietor of an apothecary shop is honest work, even if it doesn’t always feel like a smart choice for a profession. And it wasn’t as though I was actually practicing magic. If I had been, I wouldn’t have had these problems.
Hadn’t they heard of a little thing called modern medicine? It’s not magic. It’s science.
Besides, I had already sold my magic wand to pay last year’s rent.
The door to the street opened. The booing and hissing of the helium heads out there nearly drowned out the shopkeeper bell.
Max awoke and spread his wings in confusion. Max is a raven that lives in my shop. He was a wizard a few centuries ago but has been a raven so long that he has forgotten he was ever human. I was assigned by the council to take care of him, their idea of a retirement plan for wizards.
Max bolted out the open door, presumably to take his morning constitutional. I was thankful he preferred doing that outside. Some last vestige of being human, I suppose.
I didn’t bother looking up. It would either be my landlord’s attorney, Mr. Smyth, looking for rent, or a snake oil customer. I wasn’t feeling great about seeing either right then.
A child’s voice broke through the din. “You don’t have to appear so unhappy to see me.”
Had I looked up, I would have appeared even more unhappy.
It was Puck, or at least, that’s what I called him.