Welcome to Charming, where swirling petticoats, the language of flowers, and old-fashioned duels are only the beginning of what is lying underneath…
After a magical attempt on her life in 1877, Queen Victoria launched a crusade against magic that, while tidied up by the Ministry of Magic, saw the Wizarding community exiled to Hogsmeade, previously little more than a crossroad near the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In the years that have passed since, Hogsmeade has suffered plagues, fires, and Victorian hypocrisy but is still standing firm.
Thethe year is now 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
Vendors had a system — they were supposed to come in, ring the bell, let someone check the contents of their shipment, and then leave once it was verified. Vendors had a system, but that didn't mean they always followed it — and Deck had just finished printing invitations to some party and come away from the press, running a rag over his hands to catch the ink, when he saw the abandoned package next to the bell. He used a penknife to open it, and swore.
Deck tucked the box under his arm and padded back over to the press. "Tess?" he said. Miss Tess, when he was talking to other people — Tess, when it was just the two of them. "The vendor sent the wrong size parchment again."
He hated bringing her bad news; he looked rueful, in the doorway.
The start of the season was a double-edged sword. There was an inevitable boom to business: place cards, menus, party invitations, dance and calling cards galore. The downside was that all the orders came with strict deadlines, and the impatient sort of clientele who could ruin them if something came late or amiss. So Tess hadn’t slept for more than three or four hours a night for the past week, still running up the print schedule when she closed her eyes – and when Tess didn’t sleep she got cranky. (Crankier than usual cranky.)
She was sorting out a finished order, tying the cards up in carefully-counted stacks and putting them into neat packets to be posted, when Declan came over to her table in the press room. She had an inkling without turning, just from the way he said Tess?, that it was bad news rather than good. She sucked in a breath and stood up, beckoning for the box.
“If it’s bigger I’ll trim it down to size,” Tess said immediately, which was a pain but she would grit her teeth and do it, because they needed that parchment shipment yesterday. “If it’s too small...” she trailed off with a grimace, annoyed at herself, because an alternative plan hadn’t arrived yet in her mind, no matter how hard she thought about it. If it was too small, then that order was screwed.
"Bigger," Declan answered, almost immediately — it was an easier problem than smaller. He wished he'd come up with the solution on his own, because then he could have just told Tess about the problem when he was starting in on the solution. But that was why she was the manager, and Declan was just her assistant.
"I can help with it," he said, to make up for his lapse. "It'll get done faster."
But the vendor... did they have any other paper options?
That was at least a relief, because if worst came to worst she had an improvised solution to save things – her nerves could stop fraying any further for the next hour or two – but Declan still sounded terribly contrite. It wasn’t his fault that the vendor had sent the wrong size shipment. (Or – had she ordered the wrong size paper? Tess’ blood ran cold at the possibility.)
“Who accepted the parcel, anyway?” Tess asked, with a swift look his way. It shouldn’t have been accepted, if the order had been sent wrong. But if it was Declan she would forgive him, because he would be sorry; if it had been Fabian, she half expected he had shrugged the task of messenger off on Declan to avoid the fight. (The irony that Declan was the fighter amongst them, and still the best intermediary, was not lost on her.)
Declan grimaced. ''That's the other thing,'' he said. He was trying to sound more steady than fretful, but he could not undo the knot between his eyebrows. She was really going to hate this, and he knew it. ''No one accepted it — I don't think they even rang the bell.'' He didn't think. Someone could have nodded for it, but it wasn't Declan — and since Fabian had not signed it out in the log book, Declan didn't think it was him.
She had been ready to rage at someone (Fabian, she had hoped) but now the people she needed to rage at were not even here. Declan looked worried, so she had tried to temper her expression at don’t think they even rang the bell, but her shoulders had gone up before she could help herself. “Bloody —” she hissed, stopping there before she could carry on with a building tirade – because she could control herself, she was tired but this was fine, and it was certainly not Declan’s shit to take.
She abandoned her task and moved across the room to flit through the order ledger, to double check that the package contents had not been her own mistake. Thank Merlin, it hadn’t. Still, Tess slammed the book shut, her relief short lived. “I’ll – have to talk to them, then,” she said curtly, kneading her forehead with a palm and already grinding her teeth. She would need to make sure they waived the cost, and resupplied the order, and learned to deliver it correctly in future – but that also meant she would have make certain the supplier would listen to her.
Declan was trying not to look too nervous as he watched Tess; he hated when things were broken and he could not help her. The Whitby girls created in him an instinct to fix things, and also he was worried that Tess' jaw would start chronically hurting if she kept grinding her teeth like that.
He had a suggestion, but he wasn't sure he wanted to give it. He worked his hands in front of him, nervous, and finally said, "Cousin Archer?"
She let out a sigh at his suggestion, and jerked her chin in a not-quite-shake, not-quite-nod, although she had been thinking it too. (She would probably have a better shot at palling up with them before she impressed their fuck-up on them and made any threats – she could just picture leaving their office, haunted by the wake of faint laughter she would probably leave if she went as Tess, Ned Whitby’s flailing daughter.)
Now that she’d checked the ledger, she returned and sank back onto her working-stool to think about it. Never mind that she didn’t have time for this. It would have to be done. “Shame I can’t send you to knock their heads together.” A joke, only: Declan was the best assistant printer she could hope for, but threatening their suppliers with a fistfight felt, sadly, like too tall an order.
Declan grinned, crooked, at her suggestion. "If I catch them next time I'll try it," he jested — and never mind that he had never hit someone outside of a boxing ring in his life. If he was going to do that for anyone, he would do it for Tess.
He considered her, on her stool. "Do you want a tea?" Declan asked. "Or — anything, really." He wouldn't stop her from having ale in the middle of the day, if it was what she needed.
She smiled at his pretend-acquiescence, because somehow even that made her feel a little bit less on the edge. Well-meaning though his question was, tea would probably not take the edge off – so Tess had already started to shake her head before she stopped, and looked sidelong and slyly at him. “What I need, this very minute, is a shot of that firewhiskey of Fabian’s. If you know where he keeps it.” Now Tess peered at him, very seriously imploring. She didn’t know where he stashed it, because Fabian would have never admitted to keeping any in the printshop at all – and Tess would never have drunk it, if he were currently here to witness it.
And she would only have one shot of it, regardless. Any more than that would be dangerous if she intended to get back to work afterwards; bad practice, and a bad example. But one – if Declan would indulge her, and keep a secret – would make her feel a little less homicidal.
Declan's mouth twisted in a wry smile — he knew where her sisters kept their liquor, too, but she had very specifically asked for Fabian's. "Give me a minute," he said, and vanished behind the printing press to raise one of the floorboards. He took out Fabian's fire whiskey, a bottle of The Good Stuff — (the mid stuff, really, but whatever) — and carefully put the floorboard back.
He reappeared in front of Tess with the bottle in hand. "Do you have glasses? Or are we taking a swig?"
October 4, 2024 – 10:42 PM
Last modified: October 13, 2024 – 1:06 PM by Tess Whitby.
She glanced away as Declan moved, as if to feign ignorance of where he had produced it from behind the press – this might be half for her own sake, the better to resist temptation later. She was never sure that she could trust her own self-control. One day sooner or later, she was sure she would snap, or veer into some downward spiral, watch everything just fall apart.
So she gave him a wan smile and took the bottle, opening the stopper and taking a pointed swig in answer. “Plausible deniability,” Tess joked. No glasses, less evidence. She grimaced as it went down, and passed Declan back the firewhiskey with a sigh, thinking he deserved it more than she did. “Sorry I’m a nightmare.”
Declan took the bottle from her and took his own swig, matching the length of her dragging sip. He screwed the lid back on. He nudged Tess with his elbow. "You're not a nightmare," he said. She wasn't — they would be able to figure this out, even if it took a while.
She leaned towards him and into the nudge, doing her best to resist leaning her head on his shoulder (which was also not in his job description). And trying to resist snatching the bottle again as he put the lid back on, for that matter.
“Either I’m a nightmare, or you’re a saint,” she challenged, in a tone that would brook no argument; though she was smiling, too. “You choose.”
Declan wasn't always comfortable being complimented — (as it were) — and wrinkled his nose at Tess. He knew better than to argue with her when she had that tone.
But he did find it in him to jest with, "Where's my halo, then?"
Tess grinned again. Most people stoked her anger, if anything – one wrong word from a stranger, or Fabian, or even her sisters sometimes, could set her in a simmering rage for the rest of the day. But Declan, never: it was difficult to keep the anger rolling when he was there as a buffer, with his easy presence and his gentle eyes.
“Hang on,” she said, squinting as an artist might, indulging herself mostly to make him suffer; she reached up overhead to adjust the pages from their last print job hanging to dry on the lines above their heads, and then put a hand to his shoulder to twist his stance slightly, so that the sunlight from the window hit the papers from behind and lit up the white behind his head with an almost-glow. “Okay, I see it. It’s a little rectangular,” she joked, releasing his shoulder, “but it’s there.”
