Jinx's Magic

by Sage Blackwood

  “Well she is sort of—”

  “—she’s actually married to the wizard you work for, and he’s the evil wizard Simon Magus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you can really do magic?”

  “Kind of.” Not much, with no trees around.

  “Can I see some?”

  Jinx hesitated. “It’s against the law.”

  “So is helping you sneak into the prison.”

  Good point. Jinx set one of the stray socks on the floor on fire. Wendell jumped, and stared. An unpleasant smell of burnt wool filled the room. It might attract attention, Jinx realized, and he drew the flame out of existence.

  “Wow,” said Wendell. “Can everyone in the Urwald do that?”

  “No,” said Jinx. “Just magicians.”

  “I want to go to the Urwald,” said Wendell. Then his face fell. “But I have to stay in the Hutch.” He shrugged this problem away. “Okay. The first thing we have to do, we’re going to have to teach you to act like a scholar.”

  “Okay,” said Jinx.

  “Maybe Satya can help,” said Wendell, brightening.

  Jinx hesitated. “Or not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I kind of—” Jinx stopped, then plunged on. “Don’t really want to trust her with all this, okay? It’s sort of secret.”

  “Obviously. But we can trust Satya.”

  Jinx needed Wendell’s help. He was going to have to accept Satya’s as well. “Don’t tell her the whole story, then. Don’t tell her about Simon or the magic. And don’t tell her where I come from.”

  “Think autocratic,” said Satya. “Think superior. Think imperious.”

  They were practicing in an upstairs room at the Twisted Branch. There were lots of upstairs rooms, full of people doing things—in one, some people were playing music on instruments made of wood; in another, they were arguing loudly in a language Jinx hadn’t heard before.

  It had been hard to get Satya to come along, because she really was afraid to go out in the city. But she was enjoying Jinx’s acting lessons immensely.

  Jinx walked up to Wendell, who was pretending to be a prison guard—

  “Don’t walk, stride,” said Satya.

  Jinx strode up to Wendell—

  “Halt, you!” said Wendell. “No one enters here.”

  “Let me in,” said Jinx. “I’m from the Temple—”

  “Don’t say ‘let me in,’” said Satya. “That’s like you’re asking him for something. Don’t ask him, tell him.”

  “I think you should call me ‘fellow,’” said Wendell. “When Professor Night goes into the marketplace, he always calls the worker bees ‘fellow.’ Except the women he calls ‘woman.’”

  “Right. Think like Professor Night,” said Satya. “He’s the Third Truth—No one has ever been wrong since the world began. He hasn’t.”

  “And tilt your head back more,” said Wendell. “Not like you have to look up at me ’cause you’re shor—not as tall—but like you have to look up so you can look down.”

  “I can never remember all of that!” said Jinx.

  “It’s acting,” said Satya, flipping her hair. “When you’re acting you don’t remember stuff, you become it. Don’t pretend to be an arrogant scholar. Be one.”

  Be one. Right. Jinx tried again. He filled his head with rightness and Night-ness. He had never been wrong. It was unimaginable that he could be. Whole worlds didn’t exist if he said they didn’t. He strode across the room to Wendell, resisted the urge to push him in the chest, and glared up at him as if he was surprised Wendell dared to exist. “Out of my way, fellow!”

  Wendell and Satya looked at each other and nodded.

  “That was much better,” said Wendell.

  “Only I think you should say ‘stand aside,’” said Satya. “It sounds more scholarly.”

  “Not all scholars are like that,” said Jinx, thinking of Omar and of Sophie.

  “No, of course not,” said Satya. “But you’re going to be. Because your life depends on it.”

  Wendell led Jinx through Crocodile Bottom to the riverbank.

  “Not too close,” Wendell warned. “Sometimes the crocodiles come up and drag people in.”

  They looked across to the marshes opposite. A high, bald hill rose in the middle of the marshes, and a fifty-foot-high curtain wall surrounded the hilltop. Jinx could see guards in watchtowers.

  “There’s no door,” he said.

  “It’s around the other side,” said Wendell. “The road winds around, so they can see anybody that’s coming a long time before they get there.”

  “Oh,” said Jinx.

  “You realize we’re not going to be able to break your friend out of there, or anything like that?” said Wendell.

  Jinx thought of Sophie, locked inside those stark stone walls. “We have to.”

  In the intervals of being taught by Wendell and Satya how to act like a scholar, Jinx searched for the Eldritch Tome and worked on learning Qunthk. He searched in vain for anything at all about Listeners, or about KnIP. Rather to his surprise, he had Satya to help him. She was a lot slower at learning Qunthk than he was—she worried too much about the rules of it—but she was very good at libraries. She seemed to be able to zip right through the streets and alleys and come up with the book she wanted every time.

  She plopped down next to Jinx with a stack of books. She peered over at the Qunthk book he was reading.

  “What’s that word there?” she said, pointing.

  “‘Roots,’” said Jinx.

  “How did you know that?”

  “‘Roots’ is the only word that makes sense there,” said Jinx.

  “But it’s talking about a human sacrifice,” said Satya. “This spell you’re reading about requires a human sacrifice!”

  “The roots are instead of the sacrifice.” When Simon had done the bottle spell on Jinx, he hadn’t sacrificed anybody.

  “What are they the roots of?”

  “A tree, I think,” said Jinx.

  “But that’s weird,” said Satya.

  “What?”

  “Well, if it’s that easy, if all it takes is roots, then why would anybody bother sacrificing humans? I mean, I’m assuming the humans object.”

  “Well, you know—the roots might object, too.”

  “How could roots object?”

  “Trust me. They could,” said Jinx.

  He remembered the roots Simon had used for the bottle spell, and how they had smelled of betrayal.

  “What is it that you’re looking for, exactly?” said Satya. “You’re always searching the shelves.”

  She wasn’t suspicious. She was eager, a kind of red glow. . . . Satya liked books a lot. And she knew the library better than he did.

  “Something about KnIP,” said Jinx. “There’s nothing about—”

  Silver coils of fear. “Zhinx, don’t ask about that. Please don’t ask about that.”

  “But I need—”

  “You haven’t asked the librarians, have you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Please don’t.”

  Jinx wanted to ask her what she was afraid of, and what she knew. But he didn’t want to touch her fear—it was so strong it was scaring him.

  “All right,” he said.

  “If there’s anything else you’re looking for—”

  “A book,” said Jinx. “There’s a book that these books mention. But I can’t find it.”

  “What’s it called?”

  Could he trust her? There was definitely something odd about Satya. But Jinx needed the Eldritch Tome.

  He told her the title in Qunthk.

  “What’s that even mean?”

  “The Eldritch Tome.”

  No particular reaction showed in her thoughts.

  “But I’ve already looked at all the books in Qunthk,” said Jinx. “It’s not there.”

  “There are a lot of ways to hide books in a library. If it’s here,
I’ll find it.” She dropped her voice. “After all, knowledge should be free to everyone. Right?”

  Where had Jinx heard that before? Suddenly he had a feeling he’d been wrong to trust Satya.

  But he nodded and said, “Right. Thanks.”

  Autocratic. Superior. Imperious. Jinx tried to be all of that. But walking around with his nose in the air just made him trip over his feet.

  “It’s more like you’re thinking as if your nose is in the air,” said Wendell. “The only time the Preceptress ever looked at me, she had this expression like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”

  So Jinx tried to look at Wendell like he was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Satya and Wendell burst out laughing. He probably wasn’t doing it right.

  But ready or not, Jinx couldn’t put off going to the prison any longer. He was worried about those wheels of justice that Professor Night had mentioned—there was no telling when they might start turning quickly. It was time to go.

  Walking alone through Crocodile Bottom, Jinx found it a lot less friendly than usual. It was because he was wearing his Temple robe. Children stared. Adults scowled, and a boy about Jinx’s age actually spat at his feet. Jinx turned, ready to fight, and the boy fled down an alley.

  Jinx stalked on, enduring the scowls.

  There was no bridge across the river. Jinx approached a woman sitting in a canoe at the water’s edge.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Could you please take me across the river?”

  The woman frowned at him from under the brim of her wide straw hat. “Why are you wearing scholar’s robes? You don’t sound like a scholar.”

  Oops. Arrogant! Right. “I am one,” said Jinx, haughtily. “How much to cross the river?”

  “Two snakes.”

  Jinx thought that was a lot, but decided he was too arrogant to argue. He got in and they started across. It was hot in the sun, and he trailed a hand in the cool water.

  The woman reached out her paddle and whacked Jinx’s arm back into the boat. At the same instant a long green snout shot out of the water right where Jinx’s hand had been. Oh right. Crocodiles.

  Jinx was like Reven in the Urwald, not taking the dangers seriously.

  When they reached the other side Jinx paid the woman. He turned and looked up at the prison. It loomed, gray-black and horrifying, and even in the hot sun it made Jinx shiver. If he managed to get inside, he might never be allowed out again.

  But Sophie was in there. So he started up the long, curving road.

  It looped back and forth, overlooked by the guard towers atop the high walls. It was a long, hot walk, and Jinx was thirsty when he got to the top of the hill.

  Now to be imperious, arrogant, and superior.

  There were two guards in gray uniforms standing at the great iron door of the prison. They wore swords and held steel-tipped halberds, which they lowered, crossed, in front of Jinx.

  “Remember,” Satya had said. “People will believe you are who you pretend to be . . . as long as you don’t give them any reason not to believe it.”

  “State your business,” said the taller, older guard.

  “Bring me a drink of water, fellow,” said Jinx.

  The guard looked at Jinx doubtfully.

  “At once!” Jinx rasped.

  The guard turned to the younger man. “Fetch him some water.”

  It worked! Jinx struggled not to let surprise show in his face. A moment later the young guard was handing him a mug of water. The man’s expression was somewhere between dislike and respect.

  Jinx drank it straight down. He gave the empty cup to the guard, remembered in time not to thank him, and said, “I’m here to see a prisoner.”

  “On whose orders?” said the older guard.

  “On whose orders? On the Preceptress Cassandra’s orders, of course. I am not accustomed to having Temple business obstructed by mere guards.”

  The guard bridled, but he was a little afraid, too, a tiny purple puff of fear. Jinx was grateful to Satya and Wendell for the acting lessons.

  “What’s your name, fellow?” Jinx demanded.

  “There’s no need for that, sir,” said the guard hastily. “I just thought you were a bit young, that’s all.” He inserted a key in a lock, and the prison door creaked open.

  And Jinx was inside.

  “Take him to Felix, Seth,” the guard said to a man inside, who was very large and looked like he could easily carry Jinx under his arm. “Temple business.”

  Temple business. The new guard—Seth—nodded at Jinx to follow him, turned sharply on his heel, and led Jinx down a cold, creepy-feeling hallway. Behind him Jinx heard the grate of the key in the lock—he was locked in now, and the only hope he had of ever getting out again was to keep pulling off this act successfully. Arrogant, imperious, superior.

  “What’s this, Seth?” Felix was a roly-poly little man behind a desk, with a face like an annoyed kitten’s, but his thoughts were deep and red and angry. He was a dangerous person, Jinx thought. Much more dangerous than the giant Seth.

  “Temple business,” said Seth.

  “I’m here to see our prisoner,” said Jinx, not giving Felix a chance to speak. “The preceptors sent me.”

  “A little chap like you?” said Felix.

  Jinx looked down his nose at Felix—fortunately, Felix being seated made this easier. “Conduct me to her at once and I’ll forget you said that.”

  “Which prisoner is this we’re talking about?”

  “The woman Sophie,” said Jinx.

  Felix smiled at Jinx, a little, dangerous smile. His thoughts were full of suspicion. “Take him, Seth.”

  Jinx couldn’t believe he’d gotten this far.

  He followed Seth up and down corridors, lengthwise and crosswise, turning left and right. He was sure they passed the same corner at least twice and that Seth was deliberately confusing him. Jinx’s heart was in his throat. Surely Seth was about to grab him, arrest him, and throw him in a cell.

  He tried to focus on remembering where each staircase and barred door and passageway was. The place was a maze. It was also completely windowless and impregnable.

  Finally they came to a long corridor of iron-barred cells.

  “Down here,” said Seth.

  Jinx stopped. “Leave me. I will speak to the woman alone.”

  “How do you expect to find your way out again?” said Seth.

  “You will wait for me. Not here. Down there.” Jinx pointed back the way they had come. “When I am ready to leave, I will summon you. Go!”

  He grabbed the torch out of Seth’s hand, leaving him to stumble away as best he could in the dark. He turned without waiting to see if Seth had obeyed him, and swept down the line of barred cells with his head held high. He walked fast, in a hurry to get away before Seth heard his heart thumping in terror.

  He passed one iron gate after another, and behind each he saw a pile of straw, a bucket, and nobody.

  The whole corridor seemed to be empty. He was beginning to suspect Seth had tricked him. Now Jinx was trapped, walking down a probably dead-end corridor with enemies at his back.

  In the very last cell, there was something that looked like a heap of old clothes in a corner.

  20

  KnIP

  Jinx stood there looking at the heap until it resolved itself into a person—who didn’t notice he was there.

  He stuck the torch into an iron ring in the wall. “Sophie?”

  She looked up, confused—it was Sophie. Her hair was a dull tangle and her eyes, which used to have shooting stars in them, now looked like a clouded-over night.

  “Jinx?” She reached a hand through the bars. “Are you real?”

  Jinx grabbed her hand.

  “You are real,” she said. “I’ve imagined so many strange things, but you’re real.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Jinx. He had this horrible sensation behind his eyes like he was going to cry or something. Sophie looked awful, pasty and
thin and lifeless. It was as if someone had tried to make a fake Sophie out of mud and sticks and had gotten it all wrong.

  “Listen, I don’t know how long I have—” Jinx said, in Urwish.

  “You’re wearing a scholar’s robe.”

  “Yeah, because I’m a scholar. We have to figure out how to get you out of here.”

  “There’s no way out.” All her thoughts were like a thick gray cloud that covered the whole sky.

  “There has to be,” said Jinx.

  “I expect they’ll have a trial for me eventually,” said Sophie.

  And then they’d execute her. “We have to get you out before then.”

  “They might find me innocent.” Her voice sounded gray, too.

  “Do you think that’s what’s going to happen?”

  “No,” said Sophie. The sky was darker than ever. She looked past Jinx, down the hall, as if searching for someone.

  “So tell me what we can do to get you out,” said Jinx, desperately. He’d expected to find Sophie smart and quick and ready to figure it all out and tell him what he needed to do.

  “I don’t know,” said Sophie.

  Her mood was contagious. What was the good of all his planning to get in here when he couldn’t get Sophie out?

  “Is—is Simon all right?” said Sophie, still looking down the hall.

  “Um, he . . .” Jinx fumbled over the question. “He gave me a letter for you.”

  “A letter?” Sophie showed signs of life for the first time. “What does it say?”

  “I don’t know. He told me he’d turn me into a toad if I read it.” Jinx drew the letter out of the inside pocket of his robe.

  Sophie actually smiled. “I suppose he couldn’t come himself.”

  “Well, there’s a price on his head,” said Jinx. And then, realizing that Sophie might not consider that a good enough excuse, “And he doesn’t know you’re in prison. I only just found out myself.”

  Sophie had brightened considerably now. Amid the deep-gray clouds of her mind, Simon was like a glow of sunlight trying to break through. This struck Jinx as a really bizarre way for anybody to feel about Simon.

  For the first time in his life Jinx was embarrassed to be seeing into someone’s mind. “I’ll just walk down the corridor a little bit while you read it.”