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Edward recovered well enough, and after a brief lecture about how summoning alone is dangerous (and an even briefer lecture about coping notes) we all went back to our lives.

Edward did come by to invite me to dinner a few times after that. When we went out, we never talked about magic, alchemy, or the incubus. We talked about theatre, or how his job was going. He had graduated that year, and was now a lawyer for a rising firm in London. One of the few times we talked of it, he was giving me the books and supplies he had purchased. While he still considered both Henry and I friends, he would no longer take part in the experiments. Magic had lost its' appeal for him.

I will admit that I consistered giving it up as well, but whenever my mind was troubled, I turned back to the books. Their twists and turns, double talk and cryptography distracted me and left me feeling as though I accomplished something just in the reading. And since reading about casting magic is as satisfying as reading a cookbook, I would try an odd spell every now and again.
One to enhance the memory of a terribly sweet actress who had the worst time memorizing her lines. One to find my keys. Once a spell to get out of a hideous dinner with a sponsor of the theatre. Fortunately, I had never liked that restaurant anyway; but for the record, I do not recommend summoning rats to get out of a dinner engagement. I couldn't eat out for a week, they kept showing up.

But Edward- he got married the next year, the daughter of his mother's best friend, and they had a child on the way when I spoke to him last; so it couldn't have been that bad.
But still he was a sad, sad man.


I also attended his funeral. I was sick with a cough at the time, but I could hardly not attend, as I might have been the last person but his murderer to see him.
We had gone out to dinner, and discussed mainly books, popular fiction more than anything else. Perhaps we had drunk too much wine with dinner, as both of us were quite numb by the time we left. Edward offered to escort me home, as I lived in a rougher neighborhood than he did. He engaged a cab and dropped me off at the door of my lodging. Since I suffered a sudden coughing fit, he even helped me inside.
As he turned to go, I had an incredible feeling of feyness, and begged him to stay.
At that he gave me a look that reminded me of the one the incubus had given me. I was shocked by the resemblance to silence as he answered.
"It's too late, Zander."
Then he left, I presumed to the waiting cab.

Three days later, he turned up dead, in an entirely different part of London than either of us lived in. He had been murdered. I was only cleared because I had to be taken to a doctor the day he discovered to be missing, hideously ill.
I had not, as I stated, recovered by the time his funeral came around, but I was well enough to walk again, and nothing could have kept me away.

Henry was there as well, along with a few others from our circle. Though we stood together for long moments after everyone else had left, no one said anything. They kindly kept me in the middle as whenever Edwards bride caught a glimpse of me, she would glare in a manner that had she possessed magic, likely would have killed me. At last we drifted away.

No one offered to escort me home, despite my recent illness.
Henry did send me in his hansom, though.