The Wizard Heir

  Finally, he shrugged, not at all gracious in defeat. “Very well. Wait in the outer office a moment. I need to speak to Joseph in private.”

  She didn’t want to go. Seph could tell. And he didn’t want her to go, either. But she went, looking back over her shoulder as if it might be the last time she saw him.

  Leicester pointed at Seph and muttered the counter-charm. Seph stirred in his chair and tried unsuccessfully to get to his feet. The headmaster grasped him by the front of his sweatshirt and dragged him upright so their faces were inches apart.

  “So, Joseph, you’re going back to your father. I hope you’ll have a wonderful reunion. Just remember one thing—if even a whisper of what’s going on here reaches any member of the Council, whether it’s traceable back to you or not, I will make it my mission in life to track down every member of your miserable family and every friend you ever had down to the most ephemeral romantic fling, and I will kill them in the most excruciating way possible. And when I’m done with them, I will come after you, and we will resume where we left off.”

  Seph looked back at him and said, “Can I go now?” And thought, You come after me and I’ll be ready next time.

  Leicester let go of him and took a step back. Keeping his back straight, feeling Leicester’s hostile glare on the back of his neck, Seph limped into the outer office, where Linda Downey was waiting. Though he towered over her, she slid her hand under his elbow to support him. Magic flowed into him, powerful stuff that made his head spin, though somehow different from what he was used to.

  Leicester and the alumni had followed him out. He seemed to be trying to place Linda within his scheme of things. “I assume that you are Ravenstock’s latest . . . lover?”

  “Assistant,” she said, steering Seph toward the door.

  Seph looked back at Leicester, burning an image for later use. Somehow, I’ll make you pay, he thought. For Sam, whoever he was and might have been. For Trevor. And for Jason, most of all.

  He shuffled painfully to the door, with Linda’s hand at his elbow, and then out the door and to the stairs. They managed to navigate the stairs, and hobbled out the front door.

  The BMW waited in the parking lot. Linda opened the passenger door for Seph, helped him in, closed it behind him, and climbed in behind the wheel. Though she seemed calm, her hand was shaking and it took two tries to fit the key into the ignition.

  Seph pressed himself back into the seat. Linda Downey drove fast and aggressively, ramming through the gears, jouncing down the dirt road at a reckless speed, reminding Seph of each and every injury. He looked over at her. There were spots of high color on her cheeks, and her eyes were alternately revealed and concealed in the shifting light under the trees. This was his father’s girlfriend?

  Seph tried to get comfortable, still unable to believe that he was finally leaving the Havens. “So we’re heading for Portland?” He could hardly force the words between his swollen lips. His tongue explored a jagged spot where a tooth had broken off.

  She nodded. “It’s the fastest way out of Maine. But first we need to find you a doctor.” She looked over at him, biting her lip. “The nearest hospital is probably in Portland.”

  Linda’s scrutiny made Seph uncomfortable. “I’m all right. Really. It looks worse than it is. I’d rather not have to answer any questions.”

  “Seph, I’m so sorry. I had no idea what was going on.” Her voice broke. “And when we received your e-mail, I . . .”

  “Who is Ravenstock?”

  “Never mind him. He’s no one you’re related to.”

  He wasn’t surprised, somehow, but he was a little disappointed. He erased Ravenstock from his mental file, the place where he kept the clues to who he was. “Weren’t you taking a chance in there?”

  “I didn’t have much choice. I had to hope you looked like someone on the Council.”

  “Thank you . . . for coming . . . when you did,” he said. “They were going to kill me. Or worse.”

  She glanced over at him. “Why?”

  “I think he likes it. Hurting people, I mean.” Leicester’s threat was fresh in his mind. He wasn’t going to say much until he found out who and what she was.

  Linda cleared her throat. “I don’t really know how much you know . . . about the magical guilds.” She looked straight ahead, as if embarrassed. As if she were about to deliver “The Talk.”

  “I know all about it,” he said, rechecking the rearview mirror for the fifteenth time. “Weir, Anaweir, wizards and spells. If that’s what you mean.”

  He’d surprised her. “Who told you? Was it Leicester?”

  He shook his head. “My foster mother told me a lit-tle. The rest, I learned here.” He thought of Jason, and his breath came ragged when he drew it in. He closed his eyes, trying to remember how it had felt when he’d smashed into Leicester. Wishing he’d managed to get off a charm.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Seph said. “Perfect.” He looked sideways at her. “So you’re a wizard?”

  She shook her head. “No. Enchanter.” She delivered the word quickly, as if unsure of his reaction.

  An enchanter! Jason had been fascinated by enchanters, but said he’d never met one. Seph remembered something Jason had said, and before he could think, he had blurted it out. “Is it true an enchanter can bewitch any wizard, no matter how powerful?” Then he clapped his mouth shut. Not a question to be asking someone he’d just met.

  “Well. I suppose that depends on the enchanter, and the wizard, and how careful he or she is about being bewitched. Of course, as a general rule, wizards are more powerful than enchanters. But if I come on a wizard unawares . . .” She let go of the wheel and flexed her fingers like a cat unsheathing its claws.

  “But who are you? Do you really work for Sloane’s?”

  “No. They work for me. What I said in there was true. I’m your guardian.”

  Something told him she wasn’t being completely honest. It was as if she were translucent, and every so often the light would shine through, illuminating her, revealing shards of the truth, like gold glittering in the sand.

  “Did . . . do you know my parents?” He wasn’t sure what tense to use.

  “I knew them. Years ago,” she said.

  Another lie. He sat up straighter. Linda Downey knew the truth about him, he was sure of it. He would find a way to get it from her, no matter how awful it was.

  “If you’re my guardian, how come I’ve never heard of you?”

  “I became your guardian after your parents died. I . . . I travel a lot and I wanted something stable for you. So Genevieve LeClerc agreed to foster you.”

  “But who were my parents?” Seph persisted. “What were their names? Where did they live? How did they die? Do I have other family?” It was a cascade of questions, the questions of a lifetime.

  She ran her tongue over her lips. “Surely Genevieve told you all that. Your father . . . was a software engineer. There was a fire.”

  “Don’t give me that fairy tale. I’m just a made-up person. My birth record is a fake. There is no news story about a fire. No Social Security death records. I’m not stupid.”

  “No one ever said you were.” She kept her eyes on the road, as if it would be dangerous to look at him. “The truth is, I can’t tell you what you want to know. So don’t ask me any more.” Her tone was sharp, her knuckles white against the steering wheel. There was a brief, strained silence. Then she went on.

  “I placed you with Genevieve when you were a baby, because I knew she would take good care of you. You liked it there, didn’t you?” The question came in a rush, a plea for reassurance.

  “I liked it there.” Seph looked out the window. “I loved Genevieve.”

  “I guess I haven’t done so well the past two years. You see ...my nephew was in trouble, and ...well ... I got distracted. There’s been a lot going on. Houghton assured me that you were doing well. Until he called me about the e-mail.” Her voic
e trailed away.

  “Where are we headed, anyway?”

  “A town called Trinity. It’s in Ohio, on Lake Erie. A college town.”

  “Trinity, Ohio.” Jason had mentioned that name. An image surfaced. Barns and silos. From the forest primeval to the Midwestern farm. He tried not to make a face. It hurt to make a face.

  Anywhere is better than where I came from, he told himself. Just then he wanted to burrow into the Midwest, to pull the farmland of Ohio over himself like a blanket.

  “Why Trinity?” he asked. “Is there another school there?”

  “My sister lives there. Plus, it was designated as a sanctuary after the tournament at Raven’s Ghyll.”

  Right. Jason had said something about a sanctuary, “in Ohio, of all places.”

  “Why a sanctuary?” “There’s a lot going on,” she said again, as if that explained anything.

  “Are there any wizards in Trinity?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, I know of at least two, and there are probably more. Why do you ask?”

  “I need more training.”

  She nodded. “I suppose your lack of training is my fault. Genevieve was . . . was wonderful, but not very approving of wizards.” She nodded again, as if confirming some unspoken thought. “Yes, I imagine we can find someone in Trinity to train you.”

  “Good.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, but he could still feel the pressure of her gaze.

  “If you feel up to it, why don’t you tell me what happened at the Havens.”

  He kept his eyes closed. “I really don’t feel up to it.”

  She fell silent. She had secrets, so did he. Gregory Leicester’s threat lingered in the back of his mind. It might be that the only person to tell this story to would be the Dragon. Someone powerful enough to put it to use.

  Linda Downey had saved his life, and for that he was grateful. If she wanted more than that, she’d have to earn his trust.

  Late that evening, Gregory Leicester sat at the end of the dock, leaning against the cold metal of the boatlift. Not even the loveliness of the spring evening could soothe him. He was drinking Courvoisier again, and more than usual.

  The boy had made a fool of him. First he’d broken into his office and sent the e-mails. Then he had actually dared to attack him. And he’d walked away with hardly a scratch. Not a good lesson for the alumni who were there to see it.

  He consoled himself with the anticipation of the summer to come. There would be a meeting of the Council the next week. He wondered if he could use the information about Ravenstock’s bastard to direct his vote on the constitutional issue.

  Once the other students were gone, he’d need time to work with the alumni. In truth, he could do without the distraction of trying to break the boy, and then train him. Even with the loss of his two latest prospects, he had fifteen wizards linked to him. That should be plenty, assuming the Dragon and the others could be kept in the dark a little longer.

  He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, feeling better. The cell phone at his belt buzzed and he considered ignoring it. But the number had been given only to a chosen few. So he pulled it from its clip. “Leicester.”

  It was Claude D’Orsay. His voice was tight with excitement, unusual for the reserved Master of the Games. “You have a student by the name of Joseph McCauley.” It wasn’t a question.

  Joseph McCauley again. “What about him?” Leicester drained his glass. “I’m coming to Maine tomorrow. Confine him until I arrive.” “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you know who the boy is?” Oh, that. Leicester snorted. “I heard about it today. He’s Jeremy Ravenstock’s bastard. Apparently, Ravenstock’s trying to keep it a secret. Not very successfully, I’m afraid.”

  “Ravenstock? Not unless Ravenstock is the Dragon, which is absurd. We both know the Dragon’s true identity. We think the boy’s his son.”

  For a long moment, Leicester could say nothing at all. “Are you sure?”

  “We found his name in some files at the Dragon’s hideout in London when we raided it a few months ago. We searched all of our databases, Social Security records, and so on, but it took a while to find him. The boy was born in Canada. The birth certificate is a phony. His parents never existed. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to hide who he really is.”

  It had definitely not been a good day for Gregory Leicester, and now the cognac was no longer working. Joseph McCauley’s face was before him again, and he saw the resemblance immediately. It was unmistakable. The imprint of the devil was clearly on his offspring. It confirmed both the father as the Dragon and the son as his blood. “He’s gone, Claude,” he whispered, unable to believe it himself.

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

  “He left this morning. His guardian picked him up.”

  “His guardian? Who?”

  “A lawyer named Linda Downey. She said she was representing Ravenstock. The boy acted like he’d never laid eyes on her before.”

  “Linda Downey,” D’Orsay repeated. “I remember her. She was at the tournament last summer. An enchanter.”

  “An enchanter!” The glass shattered in Leicester’s hand and he stared down at the blood that ran across his palm. It was suddenly clear to him why she had been so hard to resist.

  D’Orsay was still going on about Linda Downey. “She was unforgettable. Bewitching, really. I wonder what her connection is to the Dragon.” He was quiet for a moment. “So she charmed you into giving up the boy?”

  “Never mind how she did it. How was I supposed to know who he was?” But looking back, he had trouble remembering how she’d persuaded him to relinquish something he wanted to keep so badly.

  So young. So powerful. So resistant to persuasion. He should have suspected from the beginning that the boy was a spy. But why would the Dragon have risked his son in such a scheme when he had gone to so much trouble to hide his identity?

  “I think we can assume that by now the Dragon knows all about the Havens,” D’Orsay said. “You’re going to have to vacate.”

  “I’ll reinforce the perimeter. We were leaving soon, anyway. There’s no reason to change our plans. The boy declined to link to me, so he doesn’t know much. And if we can find him, we can use him to lure the Dragon out of hiding.”

  “Did they say where they were going?” D’Orsay asked.

  “No.” Probably not Portland, Maine. “Where is she from?”

  “I don’t know where she lives, but I could find out. She has some connection with the Sanctuary that was established after that disaster at the tournament last spring. Some little town in the Midwest. It might be a place to start.”

  “Let me look for them. I’ll try to intercept them before they get into the Sanctuary.” Leicester had his own, personal reasons for doing so. “I have video of Joseph, and I may have some still pictures. I’ll e-mail them to you.”

  And so it was agreed.

  Chapter Ten

  The Weirweb

  Seph alternately watched the scenery and dozed in the brief, intensive catnaps that had become his custom at the Havens. He was like an animal for whom a moment of inattention could be the difference between life and death.

  Linda watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

  They followed the long circle of I-95 around Boston before taking the turnpike west across Massachusetts.

  They stopped at one of the plazas on the turnpike where the restless traveling public can buy whatever they need. He picked out two Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirts and a Blue Jays sweatshirt, two pairs of sweatpants, underwear, and a toothbrush. The sum total of his possessions at the moment. He changed his ruined shirt and carefully cleaned the blood from his face in the washroom, his skin stinging from the nasty dispenser soap. They left the highway at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, just across the border from New York. Linda drove into the hills, high above the town to an inn she knew. They ate dinner in a small dining room overlooking a tumbling stream, and took two rooms under
the name of O’Herron, because she happened to have identification in that name. He didn’t question that, nor did he bother to call Denis Houghton to verify Linda Downey’s story. There didn’t seem to be any point.

  Seph didn’t use the portal stone when he climbed between the sheets that night. He was apprehensive, though, wondering if Gregory Leicester could still reach out to him over the distance between them. He slept restlessly, but his dreams were the natural kind.

  The next morning, they left before the sun rose, while the inn was still clothed in the shadows of the mountains. They struck out across the state line into the long corridor of New York State, crossed the Hudson, and joined the New York Thruway near Albany.

  Linda could tell from the way Seph moved that he was stiff and sore. He kept his elbows down, close to his sides, as if guarding his midsection. His lip was cracked and swollen, and the entire right side of his face was bruised. He didn’t complain, though, and shook off Linda’s questions.

  Linda liked being able to look over at him after so many years of watching him from a distance. She studied the dark curls, which were longer than usual, and ungelled; the eyebrows that would be heavy when he grew to be a man, the bones of his face as the light changed. He needed healing, she knew, but she didn’t know the remedy for what ailed him. She would ask Nick Snowbeard about it when they reached Trinity.

  She wondered how she could keep the gathering darkness away from him. The Sanctuary would be safer than anywhere else, but it might also bring him to the attention of those who had overlooked him up to now.

  Hastings would know the news from the Wizard Council, but she would have to be careful with him, what she asked and how she asked it.

  Leander Hastings didn’t need to know about Seph McCauley.

  They left I-90 west of Cleveland. By now it was after seven, and Seph’s stomach was reminding him that they hadn’t eaten lunch. Linda glanced over at him. “We’re close,” she said. “Do you want to stop and eat, or wait till we get to town?”