“How d’you figure they’ll think it was me?” I interrupted.
Nimble’s smirk widened. “I thought of it myself. It is well known that you are interested in pyrotechnics, and that you are the only wizard in the city who can touch a locus magicalicus and survive. Thus I have created pyrotechnic devices that are set off with locus magicalicus stones.” He raised the bag he was carrying and shook it. I heard the rattling sound of stones on metal—he had the stolen locus stones in a little tourmalifine cage. Sure as sure he had tourmalifine tongs in there, too, so he could handle the stones without actually touching them. “Crowe’s men put the devices in place yesterday,” Nimble went on. “Tonight he and I will set the locus stone fuses. The devices will destroy the Dawn Palace and Dusk House and various other strategic sites when they explode.”
Wait. Explosions? Pyrotechnics?
My stomach lurched. “You can’t do that,” I said.
“Oh, and who is going to stop us?” Nimble said, scoffing at me in my cage.
I gripped the wires, their cold burning into my fingers. “No, I mean you really can’t. I just settled the magics. Pyrotechnic explosions will set them off again.” The magics were so huge and so different from us that they didn’t even notice most of what we people did, unless a wizard got their attention with a locus stone and said a spell in the magic language. But, maybe because they’d once been fire-breathing dragons, the magics noticed pyrotechnics. With huge explosions going off all around, the magics might be unsettled enough to clash and roil again the way they had when Arhionvar had first come to Wellmet, when fire and rocks had rained down on the city, and winds had ravaged along every street. Crowe and Nimble were taking a huge risk with their pyrotechnic devices.
“Oh, you and your nonsense about magical beings,” Nimble scoffed. “The magic is simply a resource to be used.” Turning to leave, his foot nudged the keystone, pushing it closer to the cage. He stalked off.
“Nimble, you can’t use pyrotechnics!” I shouted after him. My heart pounded. “You could destroy the city!”
At the doorway, Nimble paused. “Truly, I am glad we did not hang you when we had the chance. You’ve been so much more useful to us alive. But not for long.” His smirk-smile turned even nastier. “Soon you will be more useful to us dead.” Then he went out of the attic and I heard his footsteps as he trotted down the stairs.
Off he went, to set his pyrotechnic devices. This was way worse than I’d thought. I had to get out.
Quickly I crouched down and poked my fingers through the wires, reaching for the keystone. Nimble had kicked it closer, but not close enough. “Drats, drats, drats!” I stood up. “Pip!” I shouted again.
This time, Pip answered. I heard a scrabbling at one of the low windows, and then one of the glass panes shattered and Pip poked its snout in and looked around, checking for chimney swifts, I guessed. Then it squeezed in the window and crawled down the wall and across the floor toward me.
“Pip!” I gasped. “I need you to get me out of here.” The dragon could pick up the keystone and use it to open the cage.
Pip stopped next to the stone and fixed me with one of its red glare-stares.
“The stone,” I said, crouching down and poking my fingers through the wires, pointing at the stone. “See the keystone right there?”
Pip blinked.
I said it again in the dragon language so it could understand better. Tallennar take keystone, open cage? I asked it. To anyone listening, it would’ve sounded like I’d just said a magical spell.
Pip leaned over and picked up the keystone in its mouth.
“Oh, please don’t swallow it,” I whispered.
Holding the stone, Pip edged closer to the cage. It put a claw-paw on the tourmalifine wires. Sparks flared up, snap-crackling, and Pip flinched away, dropping the stone.
Oh, no. I’d forgotten. Pip’s scales were made of slowsilver, so when the dragon touched the tourmalifine wires, it got hurt.
I gulped down a knot of desperation. “You don’t have to do it, Pip.”
Ignoring me, Pip picked up the stone again and, with sparks dash-flashing all around it, scrambled up the side of the cage and held the keystone against the corner. As the cage cracked open, Pip dropped the stone and fell to the floor in a shower of sparks, panting.
I shoved open the cage door and went to crouch next to Pip. “You all right?” I asked.
As an answer, Pip spat out a glimmering glob of light that charred the wooden floorboards it touched, then climbed up my arm to cling to my shoulder. I turned my head and lay my face against Pip’s warm scales. “Thanks for coming back,” I whispered.
Deep in its chest, the little dragon purred.
All right, then.
I got to my feet. Now that I was out of the tourmalifine cage, I could feel all around me the strong, stony Arhionvar magic and the softer, old Wellmet magic. They were still settled from the talking-to I’d given them, Arhionvar over the Sunrise, the old magic over the Twilight, meeting here on the wizards’ islands in the middle of the river. But the magics felt as if the slightest push would set them roiling and swirling against each other. Pyrotechnic devices exploding all over the city—that wouldn’t be a slight push, it’d be disaster. I raced down the stairs, looking for Nimble.
The house was empty.
CHAPTER
26
Outside Nimble’s house, the day was ending. Pip dropped to the cobblestones in the courtyard and glared at the flames and shadows cast by the setting sun.
“There he is,” I heard Nevery’s gravelly voice say, and then he swept-stepped around a corner of the house, Benet behind him gripping a truncheon. Nevery looked me up and down. “You’re all right, my lad?”
I took a shivery breath. The last time I’d seen him . . .
“Nevery, I’m very sorry about stealing your locus stone,” I said.
“Hmm, yes,” he said. “I expect you are. Crowe tricked you into it, did he?”
I nodded. He had, curse him.
“It’s all right, my lad,” Nevery said, and rested a hand on my shoulder.
I would make it all right. When I got his locus stone back.
“Anybody after you?” Benet put in, pointing at the house.
I shook my head. “They’ve all gone.”
“Good,” Nevery said. “Well done, little Pip.” Nevery nodded at Pip, who was crouched at my feet. “Your dragon led us to you, Connwaer. We would have been here sooner, but—”
“Never mind that, Nevery,” I interrupted. Quickly I told him what I knew, that Nimble had hidden his sneaky locus-stone pyrotechnic devices in the Dawn Palace and Dusk House, and in other places, too. Nevery raised his eyebrows when he heard that Nimble—another magister—was involved in Crowe’s plot, but he nodded at me to continue. “He’s using the locus stones as fuses,” I explained, and told him that Nimble had left not long ago to set the fuses. Crowe also had a houseful of minions and his chimney swifts to make trouble. He planned to blow up Rowan in the Dawn Palace and Embre in Dusk House and take over the city. “We have to hurry,” I finished. Night was coming, and that’s when Crowe would make his move.
While I explained, Benet led us to the dock where he’d tied the boat he and Nevery had rowed across in, from Heartsease.
“Wait,” I said, thinking of something that could save us time. “I have to look for something.”
“Boy—” Nevery began.
“I’ll come right back,” I promised, and with Pip flying behind, I raced across the cobbles to Nimble’s house, then up the stairs to the floor just below the attic. When I’d been in the cage, I’d heard Nimble shouting at people, Crowe’s minions and swifts probably, and it’d sounded like it’d come from there. “Lothfalas,” I said, for some light, and tried doorknobs. Four rooms were empty except for tumbled blankets and pillows and smelly socks and some other junk. Clear as clear, more than just a few chimney swifts had been sleeping in these rooms. Crowe must have snuck more minions into the city
, too, and they’d been hiding out here.
The fifth room was locked. This had to be it, Nimble’s workroom. “Pip,” I called, and the dragon came closer, bringing the hazy glow of the lothfalas light with it. I got out my lockpick wires and—quick hands—picked the lock.
What I was hoping to find was a map of Wellmet, maybe with the locations of the hidden pyrotechnic-locus-stone devices conveniently marked on it.
Nimble’s workroom had a long table in it, and a desk piled with papers, and books piled on the floor in teetering stacks, and leaky boxes and bulging bags and vials with labels on them that said things like saltpeter and tourmalifine powder and sulfur.
This was where Nimble had been doing his experiments, where he’d made the tourmalifine cages, and where he’d been working out how to make locus-stone pyrotechnic devices.
Moving as fast as I could without bumping something, I went to the desk and looked through the papers. No map. Then to a sloppy pile of papers on the floor next to the desk. No map there, either.
Drats, I didn’t have time for this!
I tiptoed to the worktable and shuffled through the papers strewn across it. Nothing.
I was on my knees digging through a box of junk next to the desk when I heard a heavy step, step, step in the hallway, and Benet pushed his way in.
“Come on, you,” he growled.
I carefully set a jumble of tourmalifine wires on the floor. “Just stay over there by the door, Benet,” I said. “The room’s full of pyrotechnic materials.”
Benet had a very good reason for not liking pyrotechnics; he’d been hurt by them the first time I’d accidentally blown up Heartsease. He went still, and when he spoke, his lips hardly moved. “We can’t leave Master Nevery waiting. He’s been worried.”
“I know,” I said. I’d seen him through Pip’s eyes, though Benet didn’t know that. And I thought Nevery was more annoyed with me than worried.
“Ask him to tell you,” Benet said.
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“He knows,” Benet said, and I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t going to say any more. “You coming?”
I nodded and pulled a rag-wrapped bundle out of the box. Tourmalifine tongs. They weren’t as good as a map, but they’d be useful for defusing Nimble’s pyrotechnic devices, if the devices worked the way I guessed they did. Keeping the tongs close to me so I didn’t knock over a vial of slowsilver and blow us both up, I got to my feet and edged out of the room. Benet and I hurried down the dark stairs and, followed by Pip, out to the boat where Nevery was not very patiently waiting.
The question was where to go first. The sun was going down behind the steep streets of the Twilight, and flames of light streaked the sky. Darkness was spreading from the east, over the Sunrise part of the city.
Nimble was out there setting the fuses in his pyrotechnic devices. I had to stop him, and I had to keep the devices he’d already set from exploding. But where had he started?
“Come along, boy,” Nevery growled from the boat.
I shook my head, still standing on the dock, gripping the tongs. Embre was at Dusk House; Rowan was at the Dawn Palace. They were both in danger; I had to get them both to safety. But where first?
I knew what I had to do. Ask for help.
That decided, I jumped into the boat; Pip flapped in after me. “We have to go to the mudflats on the Twilight side. And we have to hurry.”
A nod from Nevery, and Benet pushed the boat into the river’s current, gripped the oars, and started rowing.
“What’s your plan, boy?” Nevery asked, grabbing the side of the boat as a wave sloshed against it.
“Nevery, I can stop some of Nimble’s devices from blowing up by taking out the locus stone fuses,” I explained. Because unlike anybody else in the city, I could touch a locus stone and not be killed. I held out the tongs and Nevery took them.
He looked them over, frowning. “What are they made of?” he asked. Even in the dim light, the metal the tongs were made from had a greeny sheen.
As the dark bulk of Nimble’s house on its island receded behind us, I told Nevery how Nimble had used tourmalifine wires to hide Crowe—and me—from the anstriker spell, and how he’d made these tongs so he could pick up the locus stones. “Because tourmalifine repels magic. D’you see, Nevery?”
“Yes, I see,” he answered. “Very clever. I can use these tongs to defuse some of the pyrotechnic devices, by taking out the locus stones, is that what you’re thinking?”
I nodded. “You’ll have to be very careful, Nevery.”
He gave me one of his keen-gleam looks. “Really, boy.”
Really. But Nevery knew how to pick locks. I’d taught him myself. He had steady hands, and he could defuse a device without getting himself blown up.
“Do you know where Nimble’s hidden the devices?” Nevery asked.
I didn’t know, but I could guess. There would be one device for each magister’s locus stone that had been stolen by the chimney swifts. Not counting me, there were six magisters all together: Nevery, Sandera, Trammel, Brumbee, Periwinkle, and Nimble. My stone was in Pip, and Nimble wouldn’t have put his own stone into one of the devices. Five stolen locus stones; that meant five explosive devices. Sure as sure there were devices hidden in the Dawn Palace and Dusk House. That left three more devices. Where had Nimble put them?
“Just get the one in Dusk House,” I told Nevery. I would worry about the rest of them. Then I told him a little more about how I guessed Nimble had made the pyrotechnic devices and what Nevery would have to do to defuse them, and how dangerous they’d be to the magics if they went off, and by the time we got to the mudflats, the last of the sunset flames were dying in the sky. Benet beached the boat.
“Wait here,” Nevery said to him as we climbed out.
My bare feet sank deep into the smelly mud; I slopped through it with Nevery beside me steadying himself by gripping my shoulder. Pip flew ahead. We pushed through tall reeds to the path that led along the mudflats.
“Nevery, you won’t get to Dusk House without help,” I said, hurrying down the path. Crowe had been the Underlord before, and he had to hate Embre more than anyone; it made sense that he’d start his attacks in the Twilight. That part of the city would be crawling with Crowe’s minions and the chimney swifts, and Nevery didn’t have a locus stone to defend himself with.
As we came to the mudlarks’ shack, Pip flew up and perched on my shoulder. Smoke was trickling from the shack’s tin stovepipe. We were in luck; they were there.
Before I could knock on the door, it opened, and Den stepped out. Jo stood behind him, her face pale.
“What d’you want now, wizard boy?” Den asked, his narrow eyes flicking quick glances over me and Pip, and then over Nevery.
“You know Crowe’s come back,” I answered. Then I quickly explained how Crowe was making his move to take over the city tonight. “Nevery has to get to Dusk House,” I went on. “So he can save Underlord Embre and start fighting Crowe on this side of the river.”
Den hesitated, as if he was deciding.
Then, from behind, Jo poked him. “It’s the gutterboy-wizard asking,” she whispered. “He was like us, Den.”
“All right, we’ll help,” Den said. “We’ll fight Crowe and any of his minions he’s brought back with him.” He gave a sudden fierce grin. “Crowe’s a bad lot. He used to send men to beat the fluff out of us mudlarks when we didn’t pay him off. We don’t want him running the city again.” He poked his head into the shack. “Come on, you kids!” he shouted to the other mudlarks hiding there.
As the kids came blinking out of the dark shack into the last of the daylight, I stepped away, ready to head for Benet so he could row me over to the Sunrise. I could almost feel the sun pulling the darkness across the sky as it sank away. I had to get to Rowan at the Dawn Palace soon.
Nevery stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “From what you tell me, Connwaer, Nimble’s devices are extremely dangerous.”
I wouldn’t tell him I’d be careful. He knew I couldn’t be; not now, with the city and the magics in such terrible danger. “I’ll have Pip with me,” I said. On my shoulder, Pip gave a low growl. “I have to hurry, Nevery.”
He let me go. “As do I,” he said. “Go.”
I went.
CHAPTER
27
The guards at the front doors of the Dawn Palace tried to stop me as I sprinted up the steps.
I could hardly blame them. I looked like a gutterboy—barefoot, wearing rags and my black sweater, covered with mud and soot-smudges, panting from racing up the hill from the river. “I’m a wizard,” I shouted at them. On my shoulder, Pip arched its back, snorting out sparks and smoke, lashing its tail. “Out of my way!”
They got out of my way. I shoved open the double doors and raced inside. Rowan. I had to find her.
Striding down the echoing hallway came Captain Kerrn, two palace guards behind her. She snapped out an order to the guards and they advanced on me.
“No, Kerrn!” I shouted, skidding to a stop. Oh, please listen. “Rowan’s in danger.”
She held up a hand, and the guards paused.
“Where is she?” I panted.
“This way,” Kerrn said briskly. She led me down a hallway, pointing at a door at its end. I charged ahead of her and flung open the door.
Inside was a table with a few of the city councilors, palace guards, Miss Dimity, and Brumbee standing around it; Rowan stood at its head. On the table was a map of the city. They all looked up as I burst into the room; Miss Dimity gave a little shriek.
“Ro!” I shouted. “You have to get out of here.”
Rowan took off her golden spectacles and raised her eyebrows. The others at the table were exclaiming, and the guards put their hands on their sword pommels and scowled.
“What is it, Conn?” Rowan asked, crossing the room to me.
Kerrn shoved me around to face her. “Yes, what?” Her ice-chip eyes were fierce.
“Get everybody out,” I said. “Out of the Dawn Palace.” They both stared. Drats; I had to explain again. I caught my breath. “Nimble’s been working with Crowe. He’s set an explosive device in the palace. It could go off anytime.”