Spectred Isle (Green Men Book 1)

by K.J. Charles

Major as a man liable to end up with ancient masonry falling on his head, a peculiar remark that had rung a vague bell at the time.

While examining the front of St. Wulfram’s Church at Abbeville, then under extensive repair, Mr. Karswell was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone falling from the scaffold erected round the north-western tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no workman on the scaffold at that moment.

we have club dumas & the raven cycle here

You could never tell with Camlet Moat, that was the problem. The well would go dry for months at a time; sometimes Randolph couldn’t find the bridge for hours.

The Moat had its own ways, and he was terrifyingly aware how little he knew of them, but it had let Lazenby in and offered him healing.

that's so soft i'm weak

Or, at least, he thought it had. He’d had a strong impulse to come to the Moat in the first place, and an equally strong one to give Lazenby the water, but he lacked any understanding of why. He couldn’t even swear, now, that he’d wanted to test the man entirely on the Moat’s behalf, given the relief he’d felt when Lazenby had found the water good.

Of course he could still be a puppet, or a blunderer:

could easily be a villain who suited the Moat’s obscure purposes.

the last and by far the worst-informed Walker of Camlet Moat,

166 Fetter Lane. It was a tall, thin house with a profoundly odd atmosphere, thanks to two centuries’ occupation by occultists.

Karswell

Miss...

Simon Fe...

Robert Ca...

Barney and Isaacs each had a room on the top floor, for which Sam had provided reinforced locks and bolts on the outside of the doors, as if that would do any good.

How are you?” “Tolerable. Yourself?” “Mustn’t grumble.” “I don’t know why not,” Randolph said. “There’s nothing I’d rather do.

It wasn’t a huge room; occult libraries rarely were.

“I gave it to him.” “Did you. And if there had been a repeat of the incident with Dennis Whetstone—” “Nasty piece of work, Dennis. I always thought so.” “I couldn’t agree more, but he lost half his tongue.” “If someone buggers around at Camlet Moat, they can take the consequences,”

“If your upper lip got any stiffer you wouldn’t be able to speak.

With most of Britain’s senior occultists dead in the War Beneath the War, Whitehall had taken control of much, and wanted all.

The Glyde family held royal warrants, the first signed by Queen Elizabeth on the advice of Dr. John Dee, and reported to the monarch alone, not that anyone had asked them to do so since Charles II.

he knew what standing heroically alone and clinging to your principles in the face of overwhelming force looked like. It looked like his father’s last stand at Ypres, attempting to hold back hell, dead within three minutes.

I admit that nobody’s leaping out at me.

the well seems to have chosen saul

“An undiagnosed prophet? Instincts he doesn’t understand?”

“Possibly. Or it might be simple coincidence.” “Uncle Simon had very strong views on coincidence,” Sam said. “Mind you, Uncle Robert said it was the driving force of literature and indeed humanity, so there you are.”

the Remnant to introduce me as the Keeper of the Words, heir to England’s occult aristocracy,

Miss Kay

theodosia kay

‘You should beware of arrogance, young man.’ My father asked if that was a divination, and she said, ‘No, just his face.’”

He considered Mr. Feximal as little more than a tradesman, and the German war machine as an insult to the occult craft.”

“Oh, but mechanised, dear boy,” Randolph drawled. “The occult ought to be the preserve of gentlemen, you see. Hand-crafted, with all incantations said in the right accent, and only the most elevated spirits to be dealt with.”

the finest artisanal occultism

a rapier is a more gentlemanly weapon than a Sten gun.

The difference is, when our opponents started using Sten guns, I was happy to sacrifice centuries of Glyde tradition on the altar of survival.

They were listed as missing in action after Passchendaele.”

twenty-three

23 keeps showing up

boites de nuit,

nightclubs

He’d have grown old with his best friend and considered himself blessed,

Theresa was gone, and there was no lifelong companionship to be had with another man. Except, on Sam’s word, there was. Twenty-three years.

“It wasn’t up to me to mind. Uncle Simon and Uncle Robert belonged together, and it was nobody else’s business. And Jo isn’t quite usual either, come to that. I can’t see why it should have mattered a damn to me or anyone.

the Shadow Ministry blackmailed them into service in the War,”

my heart

He and Uncle Simon had made sure Jo wasn’t installed as HQ’s private crystal ball, you see, so Whitehall took its revenge by sending them to the trenches instead.”

Military discipline had saved them before.

the forces we handle are not temporal, bureaucratic, or at man’s disposal.”

I have been bred to my knowledge.

“My father was sixty, and volunteered,” Randolph added. “We’re acquainted with sacrifice for the common good in this house. You may spare us your lectures.”

The point is that you are offering support and structure and simplicity and all these wonderful ways of taking work and responsibility off our shoulders in exchange for us accepting your authority. That’s what’s going on here, isn’t it? Bringing us under central command. You don’t want arcanists and occultists carrying on in our several ways. You want us reporting to you, and believing we ought to report to you, because it’s more efficient, more practical, more modern.”

I don’t consider efficiency the sole and only good.”

“Whitehall’s tried to bring occultists into line before. Last time, someone ended up being eaten by eels.”

oooooo, i want that story

take my own responsibility, and I will not obey orders that run counter to my judgement.

You want my name, and Jo Caldwell’s gifts, and Captain Barnaby and Mr. Isaacs as weapons.

“The trick will doubtless be to avoid the guillotine.” “I’m afraid it’s firing squads these days, that’s progress for you.

supercilious,