Chapter Text
Elizabeth Lawton was already having a horrible day when Cecil Mottershead decided to show up at her favourite café, Spirited Grounds. First of all, the two utter idiots at the counter insisted on paying in exact change for their tea orders, which made Elizabeth roll her eyes in frustration. It had been a long night and an even longer morning, and Elizabeth had been looking forward to a nice cuppa before she went back to the Fittes dorms.
One of the two boys in front of her seemed to be just as frustrated as she was. “C’mon, Lockwood,” the shorter one grumbled impatiently, “just give her a fiver and be done with it.” Elizabeth frequented this specific café so often precisely because of the cheap drink options; while she had recently been given a group of her own to supervise, the going salary for Fittes agents wasn’t quite enough for her to afford to dine out more than once a week. However strapped for cash as she was, though, it seemed that these two were faring even worse. Elizabeth couldn’t remember the last time she had to scrounge around for change just to afford a simple tea, but the taller of the two, who was dressed in a nice-looking if not slightly too tight suit, was frantically digging through his pockets. She vaguely recognized the name. Lockwood & Co was the smallest agency in London, and if her fellow supervisor Quill Kipps was to be believed, one of the worst.
She snorted to herself. Nobody was as bad as Bunchurch. This noise caused the shorter one to turn and glare at her. Elizabeth recognized him right away: George Karim, the bloke who got unceremoniously fired just six months in and, if the rumours were true, had stolen one of Marissa Fittes’ prized Sources. Not that that was common knowledge or anything. If she wanted to keep her job, Elizabeth had to keep her mouth shut and eyes forward. She gave an apologetic smile to Karim, who gave her another look before he sighed and took out a wrinkled 5 pound note and slammed it on the counter. “I’ve got it,” he muttered to the poor barista trying to get through the early afternoon rush.
“Don’t you just hate independent agencies?” A new voice startled Elizabeth, but she knew who it was immediately.
She groaned. “What are you doing here, Cecil? This is halfway across town from you lot.” Cecil Mottershead and her had been enemies ever since her first case with Fittes had gone awry, all thanks to him and his squad of arseholes over at Rotwell.
“Someone told me you liked to come here after a long case, and well, I wanted to try it out for myself.” Cecil sidled up next to Elizabeth, earning him a chorus of tuts from those behind them in the queue. “It just so happens that I had a long case myself, no thanks to these two.” He gestured towards Lockwood and Karim, who were now seated at a table in the corner. Karim was drawing something on a napkin, while Lockwood was ripping empty sugar packets apart.
“Eliza? What do you want?” She had forgotten that she was next in the queue, and Elizabeth hurried to the barista and ordered a mug of Earl Grey. “Make that a pot, please,” Cecil interrupted before Elizabeth could order a slice of cake as well, “and two slices of the lemon loaf.” He held up a card.
“How many times have I told you not to call me Eliza?” Elizabeth hissed in his ear as he walked over to a booth. “And why did you pay for me?”
“Please, Eliza,” Cecil responded with that infuriating grin of his, “we both know that Fittes doesn’t pay you nearly enough for what you can do. Have a seat. I’ll go get our tea once it’s ready.”
“Thanks,” she grumbled as she slid into the booth. How did he know this was her favourite place to sit? And how did he know she only ordered a slice of lemon cake after rough cases? She tried her best to ignore the exasperating young man sat across from her, but unfortunately, he didn’t seem keen on leaving her to stew in peace.
“Bad night?”
Elizabeth nodded. “No thanks to you lot, though.” Her group had been tasked with clearing out a floor of council estate flats in the East End, and all three of their Talents were needed throughout the night. Elizabeth was a Seer, and a damn good one at that, if Cecil’s numerous compliments to her held any weight. Her associates were Donovan, a researcher with a good sense of Touch, Amanda, who had both Touch and Sight, and Diane, a bubbly Listener. They had been working together for about two years now, and Elizabeth knew that this was the beginning of the end. She had just recently turned eighteen, and the rest were almost seventeen.
Cecil faked a surprised look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Eliza.”
“Oh, don’t play coy with me, Mottershead. I know it was Rotwell agents who called DEPRAC on us after we accidentally set off a magnesium flare inside.”
His smile faltered for a split second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated in a more serious voice, “but if I did, I would tell you that it wasn’t me or my team.” The barista called out their order, and Cecil hurried over to get the tea tray. Elizabeth took the time to reflect on that night’s – well, morning’s– events. She had been the one to set off the magnesium flare. Her Talent was fading; there was no doubting that. Yet she couldn’t admit it to senior Fittes leadership or even her team yet. Rationally, Elizabeth knew that losing her Talent wasn’t the end of the world. As good as she was, or once was, Elizabeth would immediately be offered an office position or recruiter as soon as she chose to retire. She was only eighteen, though, and the thought of leaving her current job scared her in a way she hadn’t expected.
Elizabeth could’ve spent the whole afternoon spiralling in that café, but Cecil returned quickly, snapping her back into the present. “Here you go, ‘Liza,” he said, preparing her a cup of tea exactly how she liked it: one spoonful of sugar, and, controversially, the milk before the tea. Elizabeth tended to take tea alone just to avoid the judgemental looks from her fellow agents. Cecil didn’t seem to mind, though.
“Thanks,” she said softly, accepting the cup and a slice of lemon loaf. She hoped that he would be too preoccupied with the rituals of tea drinking to ask any prying questions about the magnesium flare mishap, but she was unfortunately out of luck.
“So…” Cecil started, playing with his dessert fork, “who was it, exactly? I mean, I guess I could see it being Amanda. She can be a bit ditzy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cece .” Elizabeth parroted his words back to him, making sure to use the nickname he hated. She only learned it after running into him and his little sister at Satchell’s, and used it when she was particularly pissed off. Like right now. “And I thought you said you didn’t know, either.” God, he was just so maddening!
Cecil leaned back, now fiddling with his teacup. A part of Elizabeth wondered if he was always this restless on cases, too. Boys. Donovan was no better. Had boys always been like this even before the Problem? “Well, er, you know word travels fast among agents,” he replied, “and rumour has it that one of you might have been a bit slow on the uptake whenever the Visitor made its presence known last night. You were working with Kipps’ crew, weren’t you? He’s getting up there in age.” The implication that Kipps was the one with the fading Talent, and therefore, the reason for the magnesium flare overreaction, hung in the air between them.
Elizabeth gripped her fork. Once again, Cecil was spot on with his observations, but if she couldn’t admit to her best friends that she was losing her Talent, there was no way she would admit it to a rival agent. “How dare you–” she started, glaring at the blond boy across from her. “Nobody is losing their Talent on my team. Can’t say the same for yours, can I?” Cecil’s team had recently replaced a young woman named Maia with a younger, more Talented agent named Reyna.
Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “All I’m saying, Eliza, is that maybe it’s time for you to jump ship and come over to where your Talents could actually be useful. I mean, clearing out council estates? Why, that’s a job for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum over there.” He jerked a thumb at Lockwood and Karim, who seemed oblivious to the two agents. He leaned closer. “And unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time before our Talents start to fade. I wouldn’t be lying if I said I wanted the chance to–”
Elizabeth didn’t let him finish his sentence before she dumped the rest of the milk on his stupid, arrogant handsome face. She next took the pot of sugar and dumped the rest of it in his tea, turning into a sludge that not even famed relic woman Flo Bones would dare touch. A bit of an overreaction, yeah, but Elizabeth was smart enough to avoid going for the pot of still-hot tea, even if she so desperately wanted to stain Cecil’s orange Rotwell uniform. She then got out of the booth and stormed out of the café, ignoring Cecil’s protestations as she went.
It was only after she walked two blocks in the direction of the Fittes dormitories that Elizabeth realised what she had just done. She was probably banned from that café for life now. And she hadn’t even finished her lemon loaf!