Babel

by R.F. Kuang

They run out of charge in a matter of weeks, after which they need to be touched up, as we put it.’ ‘For a fee?’ Robin asked. Professor Playfair nodded, smiling. ‘Something has to pay for your stipends.’ ‘So that’s all it takes to maintain a bar?’ asked Letty. ‘Just having a translator speak the words in the match-pair?’ ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ said Professor Playfair. ‘Sometimes the engravings have to be reinscribed, or the bars have to be refitted—’ ‘How much do you charge for those services, though?’ Letty pressed. ‘A dozen shillings, I’ve heard? Is it really worth so much to perform a little touch-up?’ Professor Playfair’s grin widened. He looked rather like a boy who’d been caught sticking his thumb in a pie. ‘It pays well to perform what the general public thinks of as magic, doesn’t it?’ ‘Then the expense is entirely invented?’ Robin asked. This came out more sharply than he’d intended. But he was thinking, then, of the choleric plague that had swept through London; of how Mrs Piper explained the poor simply could not be helped, for silver-work was so terribly costly. ‘Oh, yes.’ Professor Playfair seemed to find this all very funny. ‘We hold the secrets, and we can set whatever terms we like. That’s the beauty of being cleverer than everyone else.