“—just a pinch!” Conn shouted.
But it was too late. The purple crystals hit the pyrotechnic materials, and an enormous flash and a percussive boom rolled out along with a wave of heat that scorched up Verent’s nattily suited front, singeing off his eyebrows and the front of his neatly combed hair, then flinging him back onto the muddy cobblestones. A tight column of smoke and flame beamed from the silver bowl, cutting a narrow swath through the black branches of the tree. Beside him, Conn covered his face with his arm while his dragon clung to his hair with its claws.
Blinking the smoke and flame from his eyes, Verent saw Conn shouting magical spellwords, and abruptly the roaring of the explosion stopped, and the smoke and flame died back into the bowl as if Conn had put a magical lid on it. A sudden silence fell.
Coughing, Verent got to his feet. He felt bruised all over. His face felt red and scorched. His eyelashes had been singed off, too. His suit and robe were covered, front and back, with ashes and mud puddle. He checked and—yes, his hair was sticking up straight on his head.
Oh, what a fool he was! If he’d done such a careless thing at home in Danivelle, Master Poulet would be shouting at him, telling him he’d never be a proper wizard and threatening to take away his locus magicalicus. He knew, because he’d made mistakes before. Not as bad as this mistake, but bad enough. Steeling himself, expecting the worst, he faced the wizard Connwaer.
Instead of shouting and scorn, Conn was getting to his feet, rubbing a bit of ash from his face. He looked up at the column of broken branches over the silver bowl. His dragon locus stone hopped from the top of his head to the shredded shoulder of his knitted sweater. “Mind the claws,” Conn said absently, and crouched to examine the silver bowl.
“I’m—I’m very sorry about that,” Verent stammered.
Without answering, Conn picked up the bowl and tilted it, as if trying to see something better. “That’s strange,” he said.
Verent felt a twist of dread. Connwaer was going to write his master a letter, complaining about his clumsiness, his ineptness, his basic wizardly incompetence. How was he going to explain the failure of his mission?
Suddenly Conn leaped to his feet, still holding the bowl. “That should not have happened.”
“I know,” Verent said miserably. “I can only offer my most abject apology, and—”
“No,” Conn interrupted, with a flashing grin. “I mean it’s brilliant, Verent. The residue here. See?” He held up the bowl and tilted it.
Leaning closer, Verent peered into it. Sure enough, inside the curve of the bowl was a thin sheen of glistening dust.
“It shouldn’t be there,” Conn explained. “I think you’ve discovered a completely new pyrotechnic material.”
“I—I have?” Verent stuttered. “Will it work to stop the magical fleas in Danivelle?”
Conn shrugged. “The spell will work for that, I think. But this is different, and it’s a lot more interesting.”
Verent was starting to realize what Conn meant by interesting. “You mean dangerous?”
Conn’s eyes gleamed. “Maybe. We’ll have to do some more experiments to find out.”
We, he had said. “You want me to join you?” Verent asked hesitantly.
“Of course I do,” Conn answered. “It was your discovery.” He crouched to set the bowl on the ground, and his dragon leaped from his shoulder to sniff at it. “Don’t eat that, Pip,” he warned. He glanced up at Verent. “All right?”
Verent’s heart pounded. Did he dare? Should he agree to help Conn with his experiments? Or would that be a mistake? He knew what Master Poulet would say: Don’t be any more of an idiot than you already are, Verent.
Conn got to his feet. “Let’s have lunch and we can talk it over. I’ll write out the experiment for you, but I have to warn you. My handwriting’s terrible.” He gave a wry grin. “Nevery’s always complaining about it.”
“My handwriting is terrible too,” Verent confessed, falling into step with Conn as they crossed the courtyard to Heartsease. “Master Poulet scolds me most harshly about it.”
“Oh, I’ll bet he does,” Connwaer muttered, and he frowned down at the cobblestones as they walked. Then, suddenly, he stopped. “Look, Verent. Wizards make mistakes all the time,” he said. “Sometimes I make really huge ones that I feel terrible about after.” He glanced at Heartsease—the building he’d blown up more than once, he’d said. “But some of the things I’ve done turned out to not be mistakes at all. D’you know what I mean?”
Before, Verent would not have understood what Conn was asking. But the pyrotechnic explosion had rattled something loose in his brain. Maybe . . . maybe you couldn’t tell a proper wizard by his fancy robe or by his age or by how long or how gray his beard was. Maybe a wizard couldn’t be too careful; a wizard needed to try things that were interesting and maybe dangerous, and sometimes that meant making mistakes.
Oh, how Master Poulet would scold if he could see Verent now. He’d call him an oaf and say that Verent was just about to make the biggest mistake of his entire life.
But he didn’t care. “Yes, Conn,” Verent answered at last. “I do know what you mean. And . . . and I do want to help you with your pyrotechnic experiments.” He couldn’t wait to go back to Danivelle and tell stern Senior Wizard Poulet and the other graybeards that Danivelle’s problem was that its magic had fleas. And that they’d have to do pyrotechnics to get rid of them.
Conn nodded. “Good.” They turned to continue across the courtyard. As they walked, the little dragon swooped past them, then banked and, with a flutter of its golden wings, landed on Conn’s shoulder, clinging with its sharp claws.
“You . . .” Verent began. “If you put a leather patch on your sweater, it wouldn’t be shredded by the dragon’s claws.”
Conn blinked, and then shot Verent a quick grin. “You mean I’d look more like a proper wizard and less like a pickpocket from the Twilight? Is that what you’re saying?”
Verent started to nod, and then he stopped. “Well, no. Maybe a wizard could look a lot like a thief.”
For some reason, that made Conn burst out laughing. The dragon on his shoulder lashed its tail.
Smiling widely, Verent looked down at himself. His new suit was muddy and scorched, and the hem of his robe was torn, and his shoes had lost their shine. He sniffed at his sleeve; it smelled like smoke. “You know, Conn, I am never going to be a proper wizard,” he admitted. “But I am going to be a wizard that makes excellent mistakes.” Then he started laughing too.
And he and his friend, the not-at-all-proper wizard Conn, went into Heartsease and had biscuits and tea for lunch.
Excerpt from The Magic Thief: Home
See how Conn grew to become a great and powerful wizard in the Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas. In The Magic Thief, Conn goes from gutterboy to wizard’s apprentice, and his talents only grow in The Magic Thief: Lost and The Magic Thief: Found. But can Conn ever escape his past life as a thief?
Read a sneak peek of The Magic Thief: Home, the fourth book in the thrilling series, now!
Chapter 1
A thief is nothing like a fine gentleman.
A wizard isn’t, either.
“I know who I am, Ro,” I said. “And I’m not somebody who goes to meetings.”
But there I was in a meeting room, even though I didn’t want to be. At least it was mostly empty, just Rowan and me. The room had shiny marble floors, tree-shaped pillars against the walls, and high, arched windows. One of the windows had a stained-glass tree built into it, and when the light from outside came through it, the room turned green. Sitting at the end of the table, with the green light shining over her and making her look a little green herself, was Rowan, my best friend, who happened to be the duchess of our city, Wellmet. She wore a green velvet dress and had her red hair in a braid down her back; she also had on her gold spectacles and an impatient look.
“I know you know who you are,” Rowan said crossly. “You are the same
Conn you ever were. And,” she went on, “I need you to attend this meeting. It’s important.” She got to her feet and came over to me, where I stood by the door. “All right?”
Before I could say no, a polite little knock interrupted us.
“What is it?” Rowan called.
The door opened and a tall, paper-thin woman edged into the room. She had on a green dress like Rowan’s, but with neat white cuffs and collar, and had her gray hair scraped back into a tight bun. Her mouth was scraped into a tight smile. “Duchess,” she said in a scrapy voice, “I am so exceedingly sorry to intrude, but it is past time for the meeting to begin. You know how important it is to be punctual.”
Rowan sighed. “Yes, all right, I know.” She nodded at the woman. “Conn, this is Miss Dimity, my new secretary.” She pointed at me. “Miss Dimity, Conn is . . . um . . . a rather special wizard.”
Miss Dimity looked me up and down, and her eyes bulged, as if she didn’t like what she was seeing. She sniffed and turned to Rowan. “Duchess? May I show them in?”
Rowan said yes, and her councilors and advisors—and a couple of magisters—trooped in. Most of them frowned when they saw me and went to settle in their places at the long table.
“Hello, cousin,” said Embre, the Underlord who ran the Twilight part of the city, as he rolled past me in his wheeled chair. He was a thin young man a bit older than Rowan, dressed in black trousers and coat that matched his black hair.
Rowan, looking duchessly, went to sit at the head of the table.
The chair at her right was empty. She pointed at it—my seat.
Kerrn, the captain of the palace guards, was taking her place at the other end of the table, and she gave me a sharp glance with her ice-chip blue-gray eyes. I knew what she was thinking: I have got my eye on you, thief.
Nevery had come in, too, and was smiling and pulling on the end of his beard.
“Won’t you sit down?” Rowan said, watching me carefully.
“Ro—” I started.
“Conn,” Rowan hissed through gritted teeth. “Sit down.”
Oh, all right. I walked ’round the table to the empty chair. Whispers followed me. Why has the duchess invited him? The gutterboy? What’s Nevery’s cursed apprentice doing here?
“Well, boy?” Nevery whispered to me as I slid into my chair.
“Why does she want me here?” I whispered back.
“Hmm,” he said, no answer. “You ought to have your locus magicalicus with you. Where is it?”
Pip, he meant. I shrugged. The dragon Pip was about the size of a kitten, but much more fierce. Its true name was Tallennar, but when I wasn’t doing magic I called it Pip for a nickname. When I had found my second locus magicalicus stone, Pip had swallowed it, and the stone was still inside it—so now I needed Pip with me if I wanted to do any magic. It was probably off hunting pigeons. It liked to eat them whole, spitting out the feathers.
Beside me, Rowan cleared her throat. “I have called this meeting today for two reasons. One is because, as we are all aware, we now have two magics—magical beings, I should say—settled in our city, a change that I am certain will affect us all in some way. As Magister Brumbee has informed me, there is no precedent for such a thing. Isn’t that right, Brumbee?”
“Ah, yes.” Brumbee, a plump wizard sitting down the table from me, nodded. “The two, ah, magics. We do not know yet how they will work together, or indeed, even if they will. A concern, indeed.”
On the other side of the table, Magister Trammel leaned forward, scowling. “The two magics are converging over the hospital on the medicos island, and our healing spells are effecting in unexpected ways. Look at this.” He pointed at the man sitting next to him. An old, mournful-faced man, wearing a tall black hat. “Just this morning we treated this man for a headache, and look!” Trammel reached over and took off the man’s hat. Where his hair should have been, a crop of flowers sprang up, bright yellow and white. The old man nodded sadly, and the flowers bobbed on their long stems.
“Daisies!” Trammel complained. “Sprouting from his head! It’s terrible!” He shot me an angry glance.
Another magister, the bat-faced, bat-eared Nimble, spoke up in his whiny voice. “We all know who to blame, too, don’t we?”
I slouched lower in my seat. The city had two magics because I was the one who had given the Arhionvar magic a place here, instead of banishing it forever. The magisters blamed me for the upset that occurred when Arhionvar had first arrived: There had been whirlwinds and flaming rocks raining down from the sky, and parts of the Twilight had been burned down or blown away, and the magics still hadn’t worked themselves out. They were two huge creatures yoked together, but they were pulling in different directions. I could feel how upset they were—any wizard could feel it if he or she paid attention. It was like an uneasiness in the air, like that moment right before lightning strikes in the middle of a towering thunderstorm.
Was this why Ro wanted me at the meeting? So I could listen to the magisters growling about the problem of having two magics in Wellmet?
Brumbee nodded. “The magics are entangled in some way over the academicos, too. Or perhaps entangled is not the right word. Overlapping? Linked in some way?” He leaned over to glance at Trammel, down at the other end of the table. “What do you think, Trammel?”
“Completely and incomprehensibly ruined, I should say,” Trammel answered sharply.
“Oh, dear,” Brumbee said. “Ruined is too strong a word, I think. Yet I cannot quite know what to expect whenever I take out my locus magicalicus to do a spell. The apprentice students find it most alarming.”
I nodded.
Rowan saw. “You have something to add, Conn?”
Not really. “No,” I said. But I’d start working to figure it out as soon as I could. The magisters were sort of right. I’d given the Arhionvar magic a place here, with the old Wellmet magic, and so the two-magic problem was my responsibility. But the two magics were very different from each other. The Wellmet magic was much older, and it felt warm and comforting, but it was weak, too. The Arhionvar magic wasn’t evil, it was just much stronger; it felt like a mountain, cold and stony, but it could be like a solid, protecting wall, too. It’d been alone for a long time, searching for a city so it wouldn’t be alone anymore. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to do to get them both settled here in Wellmet.
Nevery gave me one of his keen-gleam looks.
I know, Nevery. But if I said anything, the magisters would just get angry—angrier—and that wouldn’t help anything.
Rowan sighed. “I repeat. I am sure you know more about the magics than anyone here, Conn. You have something to add?”
I sat up straighter. All right. “You know that the magics aren’t just”—I shrugged—“not just clouds of magic floating around. They’re beings that were once dragons.”
“Not everyone agrees with that radical notion,” Nimble whiningly interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter if you agree with it or not,” I shot back. “That’s what they are. The magics are huge and powerful. They’re drawn to the city because there are people here, and it means they’re not alone, and they do want what’s best for us, but they can’t understand us. We’re tiny to them, so tiny they can hardly perceive us individually. Only a wizard with a locus stone can speak to them so that they’ll hear.” I looked around the table. Most of them were staring and it was clear as clear that they weren’t really understanding.
Nevery, though, was nodding. “Go on, Connwaer,” he ordered.
“Right, well, we can’t control them. I don’t know what it means that we have two magics now. They might be twice as powerful. They might work together, or they might not. Everything about the magics could stay the same, or it could change.”
Nimble whined about that, and Trammel banged his fist, and Brumbee said, “Oh, dear,” and then they argued about the magic problem for a long time, with nothing decided except to form a committee to talk about it some more, and two
subcommittees for what they called related issues.
This was why I didn’t go to meetings.
“And now,” said Rowan at last, “the second reason I called today’s meeting.” She smiled brightly, but she wasn’t fooling me. She was nervous. “I’m pleased to inform you all that I am hereby naming Connwaer”—she pointed at me—“the new ducal magister.”
I sat up straight in my chair. What?
“What!” shouted Trammel, leaping to his feet. “That gutterboy?”
“Unthinkable!” shouted Nimble from across the table, and the councilors and advisors exclaimed and shook their heads.
“Oh, dear.” Magister Brumbee wrung his hands and looked worriedly ’round the table. “Oh, dear me.”
My cousin Embre was grinning across at me, his black eyes sparkling. Rowan sat there looking duchessly, waiting for the bubbling and boiling to die down.
Beside me, Nevery was smiling.
“You knew she was going to do this,” I accused.
His smile broadened. “It’s a very great honor, boy,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise.
A very great honor, he called it? Not likely. The ducal magister was the most powerful wizard in the city. That wasn’t so bad, but the ducal magister had to wear fancy clothes and go to lots of boring meetings, and he had to live in gold-encrusted rooms in the Dawn Palace instead of at home where he belonged.
If I was the ducal magister, the other wizards would always look at me funny; they’d never trust me—as far as they were concerned, I was either a gutterboy thief or I was the dangerously radical wizard they blamed for the two-magic problem.
At the head of the table, Rowan raised her hand, and after a few moments the people around the table quieted down. “I can see there is some concern—” she began, and the hubbub boiled up again.
Right at that moment, I heard a tap-tap-tap at one of the tall windows. Pip, back from hunting pigeons, wanting to come in out of the rain.