The Magic Thief

  After washing and dressing in my attic room, I picked up the empty water bucket and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  Keeston was there. He was sitting at the table watching Benet fry bacon and potatoes on the stove. He’d put his feet up on one of the other chairs and had a book propped on his knees, and he had butter on his fingers from the biscuit he was eating.

  I went in and put the empty bucket by the door.

  “Shouldn’t you fetch more water?” Keeston asked.

  I looked at Benet.

  “Kettle’s full,” Benet said.

  I sat down on the floor beside the fireplace, and Lady climbed into my lap, purring.

  “So you decided to come back,” Keeston said. He closed his book and set it on the table amid a scattering of biscuit crumbs.

  “I always wanted to,” I said.

  “I hear you’ve been going to the Twilight,” Keeston said.

  Now where had he heard that? From Pettivox? Drats. Sure as sure, Keeston was spying for his master. Which meant everything he heard was going straight to the Underlord.

  So I didn’t say anything to Keeston, just shrugged.

  Benet clattered a pan on the stove. When I looked up, he glared at me, then jerked his chin at Keeston.

  He wanted me to tell about my locus magicalicus. I wanted to show it off to Keeston, make his eyes bulge out with surprise and envy. But it might be better, I reckoned, if he didn’t know about it. Because then Crowe wouldn’t know about it.

  “I went to the Twilight,” I said, “because I was looking for my locus stone.”

  “And did you find it?” Keeston asked. “Bring me a plate of that bacon you’re cooking,” he said to Benet.

  I nodded.

  Keeston blinked, then recovered his sneer. “A common pebble, I suppose.” He fingered his own locus magicalicus, the shard of shiny black rock he’d hung from a gold chain around his neck, just as his master did. “Something you found on the roadside.”

  I shrugged, not yes, not no.

  Benet slammed the pan on the stovetop, then dished out three plates of potatoes and bacon, handed one to me where I sat by the fire, thumped one down before Keeston, and sat down with the third at the table.

  Keeston picked up a fork from the plate and took a bite. Then he spit it out with a curse. “Ow! It’s hot!” He shot Benet an accusing look.

  Benet ignored him.

  Setting down his fork, Keeston looked over at where I sat before the fire. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing you found your little locus pebble. It may not be very powerful, but at least you’ll be of some use to your master.”

  I nodded and fished a bit of bacon from my plate. After blowing on it to cool it, I offered it to Lady. She sniffed at it, then uncurled herself from my lap and padded away, so I ate it.

  When I looked up, I realized that Nevery was standing in the doorway. “Well, boy,” he said mildly. “Eating all the bacon, are you?”

  “Most of it,” Benet growled.

  At the table, Keeston sat up straight and alert. “Are you ready to begin working, Magister Nevery?”

  Nevery looked thoughtfully at him. Under his gaze, Keeston drooped. “I have business at Magisters Hall,” Nevery said after a moment. “You will stay here and continue collating and numbering my notes.” He switched his attention to me. I was eating fast, because I knew Nevery was not going to wait around, and I liked bacon almost as much as I liked biscuits. “And you, boy,” he said. “When you’ve finished eating all the bacon on the island, fetch your books. We’re going to the academicos.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Nevery and I left the house. “You didn’t tell Keeston about your locus magicalicus,” he said. He held onto his hat with one hand and steadied himself with his cane as we slipped and slid across the snowy courtyard, buffeted by an icy wind.

  I shook my head and pulled my scarf down to answer him. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  “Because you still suspect Pettivox.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, boy, you do cling tightly to an idea once it enters your head.”

  So did he.

  We went down the tunnel stairs, out of the wind. Nevery paced on, me beside him, until we reached the Heartsease gate. In the faint light from the mouth of the tunnel behind us, I could see the carving in the stone beneath our feet: the wingèd hourglass.

  Nevery shot me one of his keen-gleam looks. “You’ve seen me open the gates before, boy. Do you remember the opening spells?”

  I nodded.

  “Then open it.” Nevery pointed with his cane at the gate.

  I dug the locus magicalicus out of my pocket. In the dimness of the tunnel, it glowed, shreds of greenish light leaking out from between my fingers. I raised it and called out the opening word: “Sessamay!”

  A beam of white-bright light exploded from my locus stone and, trailing green sparks, crashed into the lock. The gate burst open, leaping back on its hinges, rebounding with a clang from the tunnel wall, and slamming shut. Bluish sparks ran twinkling up and down the bars and the lock spat out a few glowing embers.

  The tunnel fell silent as the echoes faded away. Nevery shook his head. “Hmph,” he said. “Try again.”

  I took a deep breath, told the magic to behave itself, and spoke the opening spell. As before, the bright lights, the crashing, the sparks, but this time, Nevery stuck his knob-headed cane through the opening before the gate could slam shut again.

  We blasted through all the gates along the tunnel to the academicos. At the stairs, Nevery leaned on his cane and looked down at me. “Now, boy. Go to school. I have a meeting to attend at Magisters Hall.”

  Right. He swept away, the tap tap of his cane on the stone floor echoing down the tunnel. I went up the stairs to the academicos.

  Rowan was waiting for me at the top, wrapped in a warm black coat with her gray student’s robe peeking out from underneath it. Her head was swathed in a gray-and-green-striped woolen scarf, and the tip of her nose was red.

  “G’morning, Ro,” I said.

  She nodded and fell into step beside me. The freezing wind blew fiercely across the academicos courtyard; beyond the island, chunks of ice bobbed by on the surface of the rushing black water of the river. We put our heads down and pushed on; my hands and face felt frozen solid by the time we reached the entryway of the academicos and went in.

  The gallery was crowded with gray-robed students, gathered here instead of out in the freezing courtyard, waiting for the first class of the morning to begin. A few of them glanced our way, then returned to their chattering conversations.

  Rowan was unwrapping her scarf. “Do you have it with you?” she asked quietly.

  My locus magicalicus, she meant. I nodded.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  Leave it to Rowan to get right to the point. “Not tell anyone,” I said.

  She nodded and unbuttoned her coat.

  “Is she very angry?” I asked. “Your mother?”

  Rowan looked away. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

  Around us, the groups of students started to break up and leave the gallery; the first class was about to begin. A student bumped into Rowan and apologized. We couldn’t talk here.

  Rowan shrugged and we walked together to the apprentices’ classroom, where Periwinkle taught us a spell for lighting candles. I figured I’d be able to use it if I ever needed to turn a candle into a smoldering puddle of wax.

  When we came out of the classroom, a worried Brumbee was waiting. The duchess, he said, had sent for me.

  “I’ve contacted Nevery, but he is busy at Magisters Hall and asked me to pass on to you a few words of advice. The first one I’m not sure I understand. He says to tell you that the duchess is like a puzzle lock.”

  Tricky, Nevery meant. Be careful, and don’t trust her. I slipped my hand into my coat pocket, just to check on my locus magicalicus, though I knew it was there.

  “His secon
d, ah, request is that you don’t do any magic. And next, don’t tell her anything.”

  “I don’t know anything, Brumbee.”

  “Ah, well, perhaps Nevery thinks you do.” He wrung his hands. “And last, he said to come home to Heartsease when she’s finished with you.”

  It sounded like he thought the duchess was going to eat me for dinner.

  * * *

  Arrived at Magisters Hall, went in to meeting. Pettivox not present. Just as well, as man annoys me to no end. Magisters asked about my research on magical decay.

  Told them about possible precedent, the lost mountain city of Arhionvar.—We have found textual evidence, I said.—The loss of magic in Arhionvar was precipitous; the city was abandoned in a matter of weeks.

  Told them that when I have completed my gauge, I should be able to report further on the situation and what, exactly, we might do about it.

  Much work to do before then.

  Note to self: Must remember to speak to boy about dangers of jewel locus stones.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  On the way up the hill to the Dawn Palace, I thought about why the duchess might want to see me.

  Did she think I could help deal with the decay of magic? I wanted to help, but as Nevery would be the first to point out, I had no abilities beyond opening gates, making light, and turning myself into a cat, which I wasn’t even sure I could do yet, though I wanted to try it.

  The next thought turned my stomach cold, as I walked through the front gate before the Dawn Palace, my feet crunching through crusted snow. The duchess disliked Nevery enough to banish him from the city for twenty years. Was she after Nevery, then? Did she think I would tell her something about Nevery’s work?

  I shook my head and paid attention to where I was going. When I’d been here before, it had been night and snow had been sifting down from a sky made pink and soft by flickering werelights. Now the snow-covered drive leading up to the front steps of the Dawn Palace had been trodden into a slippery, icy path. I slithered up the front steps, which had been shoveled and sanded, to the double front doors, where two green-coated, leather-booted guards stood with pikes.

  “That him?” one of the guards said.

  The door handle turned easily, but before I could push the door open and go in, a heavy hand came down on my shoulder.

  “Here, you,” said a guard.

  I looked up. Tall and bearded, but not one of the guards from the cells below the Dawn Palace. “I’m supposed to see the duchess,” I said.

  “I’ll take him,” the guard with the grip on me said to the other. He opened the door and pushed me inside. “Come quietly.” He pulled me along by my arm through the main hall, turning left into a carpeted hallway, then into another, stark stone hallway, one I recognized.

  He wasn’t taking me to the duchess. I tried to squirm out of his hands.

  “Keep still,” the guard said, tightening his grip. “Captain wants to talk to you.”

  I didn’t want to talk to her. Sure as sure, I didn’t.

  The guard pulled me down the hallway to a door banded with metal; he opened the door and pushed me inside.

  Captain Kerrn was there, sitting at a table in what looked like a guards’ common room. Swords and pikes stood in racks against the walls, and a long table with benches ran the length of the room. Other guards, including the bristle-bearded Farn, sat around the table, some playing cards, others cleaning weapons or oiling their boots.

  They all looked up as we came in. When they saw it was me, they all scowled except for Farn, who stood up and went to stand blocking a door in the opposite wall. Kerrn set down a dagger and a whetstone.

  I glanced around the room; the only other way out was through the door we’d come in, and the guard behind me would grab me if I tried to get out that way.

  Kerrn got up from her bench, and her ice-chip eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “The duchess is expecting you, so we will keep this short,” Kerrn said in her funny sounding voice with its sh’s and gargled r’s. “I have heard a report on you since yesterday. You may have fooled the duchess and those wizards, but I know what you are. You come from the Twilight, and you are a well-known pickpocket and thief.”

  “I used to be,” I said, edging away from her. “But I’m not anymore.”

  “You made us look bad,” Kerrn said, “sneaking into the palace, stealing the duchess’s jewel.”

  “You made yourselves look bad, not catching me,” I said.

  Kerrn came around the table, moving fast. I backed toward the door, but before I got there, Kerrn grabbed me by the front of my coat and bent down to snarl into my face. “Listen well, thief. Every guard in the city knows what you are and what you have done.” She gave me a shake that made my teeth rattle. “You put one foot wrong and we will have you.”

  She released me and I staggered back, bumping into the guard who had brought me in. All the guards in the room gave me their best menacing looks.

  I got the message.

  Captain Kerrn turned away. “Take him out of here.”

  The door guard grabbed the back of my coat and hustled me out the door. We quick-walked through the hallways, up the stairs, to the carpeted hallway with the double doors at the end.

  My guard knocked at a door, then opened it. Inside, the duchess was sitting behind her desk with a pile of papers before her. As the guard shoved me in, she looked up, removed a pair of spectacles, and raised her eyebrows.

  The guard bowed and kept hold of the scruff of my neck.

  The duchess rose from behind the desk. “It’s all right, guardsman.” She motioned toward the door. “You may go.”

  “But Your Grace,” the guard protested, “Captain Kerrn ordered me to watch him until he leaves.”

  “Really, guardsman. Go. Call for my advisors to join me shortly.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” the guard said and, with another stiff bow, left the room.

  The duchess sat down again. “Now then. Conn, is it?”

  I nodded. I wondered what she thought of me. A thief, as Kerrn thought? A wizard, as I’d shown her the day before?

  She gestured gracefully toward a chair, a comfortable one before her desk. “Won’t you sit down?”

  I took off my coat and sat down.

  She spent a minute examining me, and I returned the favor. I’d really only seen her a few times before, and then I’d been distracted by the call of my locus magicalicus. I could see her resemblance to Rowan. She was tall and slender and had a pale, thin, beautiful face with lines around the eyes and bracketing her mouth. Her red and gray hair was braided and pinned into a crown atop her head. She wore a dark green dress with a green velvet collar and her family crest—tree and leaf—embroidered on each sleeve. Her long fingers were stained with ink, and she wore her spectacles on a gold chain around her neck.

  Finished looking me over, she leaned back in her chair. “Have you my jewel with you?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Mmm.” She looked down her nose at me. “I see that Nevery has not claimed you.”

  What was she talking about?

  “You do not wear the wingèd hourglass, his family crest,” she said.

  “I’m Nevery’s, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said.

  “I would not be certain of that if I were you,” she said sharply. “You’d be wise to be careful. Nevery is dangerous and is not to be trusted, by anyone.”

  I wondered what she’d do if I told her Nevery had said the same thing about her.

  “Do you know the history of this city, Conn? Does your education go so far?”

  “I have hardly any education at all,” I said.

  “Mmm. Twenty years ago, in a magical pyrotechnic experiment, Nevery blew up parts of Heartsease and the Dawn Palace. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to hear more, but the duchess said, “Ask your master about it.” She leaned back and pulled a tasseled rope set into the wall. “Now, you lo
ok as if you might like some tea.”

  I nodded.

  A moment later, the door behind me opened and a servant entered. “Tea, with biscuits,” the duchess said. The door closed. Her eyes narrowed just a bit. It might have been a smile. “I hear you like biscuits.”

  “I do,” I said. And I was hungry. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. She was Rowan’s mother, after all.

  She leaned her elbows on the desk and rested her chin on her hand. “You interest me, Conn. My daughter claims you as a friend, and she does not make friends easily.”

  The door opened again, and the servant entered on soft feet, bearing a tray of silver tea things and a plate piled high with fluffy biscuits, lightly toasted and dripping with butter. Mmm. The servant put the tray on the duchess’s desk, bowed, and silently left the room.

  The duchess went on talking while she poured a cup of tea and leaned across the desk to hand it to me. “I wonder, Conn, about the significance of the fact that the center jewel from the ducal regalia has turned out to be a locus magicalicus.” From a little pitcher on the tray she added a few drops of milk to her tea. “You agree that it is significant?”

  I nodded, and swallowed down a bite of buttered biscuit. I could guess what she was going to say next. “And you wonder why me.”

  She looked at me over the rim of her cup, her face softened by steam rising from the hot tea. “Indeed. Why did the finest stone in the ducal regalia come to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. And I didn’t. I had to think about it some more.

  I took a quick drink of my tea. And I reminded myself to be careful; as Nevery had warned, the duchess was like a puzzle lock. She seemed kind, giving me tea and biscuits, but it didn’t mean she was actually kind.

  The duchess set down her teacup. “Well, I think the fact that your locus magicalicus came from my regalia is an indication that my family must reconcile itself to magic. Were you aware, Conn, that years ago it was common for the ruling house of Wellmet to have a court magister, a wizard who was given chambers here in the Dawn Palace? Such a wizard would need to have a strong connection with the ducal house.”