The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3)

by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

  “Give her faerielike powers,” Deacon finished.

  “I’ll bet that’s why she applied for the housemaid position in the first place,” Oona said. “She’s been here only a month. I’ll bet she knew that she and her husband were going to try to steal the carbuncle before she even applied. It was planned the whole time, but the Pendulum House library was so disorganized.” Oona looked to Samuligan, who raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “That is to say, so seemingly disorganized that it took her a month to find what she was looking for. But now she’s found it.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” said the Wizard.

  “But it’s likely,” Oona said. “Why else would she steal the book? We must go to Mrs. Carlyle’s home and confront her, this instant . . . before she gets a chance to use the spell.”

  “Hold on, Oona,” her uncle said. “If what you are hypothesizing is true, then this is a matter for the police.”

  “That is correct,” said Inspector White, though to Oona’s ears he sounded less than fully confident.

  Oona crossed her arms. “But she has stolen a magical artifact and a magical book, which together could be disastrously dangerous. I think that puts it in our magical jurisdiction.”

  “You mean to say my jurisdiction, Oona, not yours,” her uncle said, his tone quite stern. “You are not the Wizard yet, and I will decide what actions we take.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s nearly noon now, and we have your final battle test in the cemetery to attend to. We mustn’t start too late, because as we know, the cemetery is no place to be after sunset. Oh, and you’ll be needing this, once more.”

  He pulled Oswald’s wand from his pocket and handed it to Oona. She looked at it in her own hand for a moment and then shook her head.

  “But, Uncle, surely—”

  The Wizard held up his hand. “That is my final word on this, Oona. We’ll leave it to Inspector White to track her down.”

  Inspector White stuck his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and puffed out his chest, as if he could not have been prouder. “You can count on me. Constable Mormont and I will track them down. In fact, I know just where to begin.”

  “Where is that?” Oona asked skeptically.

  “Oh, we have our ways, Miss Crate. Never fear . . . Inspector White is on the case.”

  Oona could only shake her head. Her insides twisted with anxiety. Surely, the inspector would do something stupid and the Carlyles would get away. But it seemed she had no choice.

  ***

  The cemetery was located at the southernmost end of the street, close to the Glass Gates. A six-mile journey from Pendulum House, the carriage ride was a long one. It gave Oona time to brood.

  She couldn’t believe how stupid she had been for befriending the very person who was responsible for her father’s death. The maid had seemed so caring and interested in Oona’s life, and yet it seemed now that it had been a masterful act, every conversation a complete fraud. Oona felt foolish for having shared her hopes and dreams with someone she had thought a friend. A true female companion.

  Oona wondered if Mrs. Carlyle’s interest in the women’s rights movement had been a sham as well. The thought reminded her of what day it was.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she said, looking at her uncle, who sat beside her in the carriage. “It’s voting day.”

  The Wizard’s beard wiggled and swayed with every bump in the street. He nodded. “It is. I voted early this morning at the central Dark Street precinct. I wanted to beat the crowds. But look, you can see some of the action for yourself. We’re coming up on City Hall.”

  Oona peered out the window and saw a line of people stretching down the street that led to the front entrance of City Hall, a reddish, square-shaped building that had always looked to Oona as if someone had dropped an enormous brick from the sky. It was the only building on Dark Street that had perfectly straight walls, with Roman columns out front and a pair of carved stone griffons guarding the entrance.

  The line of people stretched up the street for as far as Oona could see.

  “They’re all voting?” Oona asked.

  “The publicity in yesterday’s paper seems to have caused a larger-than-usual turnout,” the Wizard said.

  “You mean this isn’t normal?”

  The Wizard shook his head, but it was Deacon who answered from his perch on the windowsill. “Council elections are held every two years, and in the past ten years, the average number of voters in each election has totaled fewer than one thousand.”

  “Is that all?” Oona asked, flabbergasted. “But there are tens of thousands of people living on Dark Street.”

  Presently, they pulled up even with City Hall, where the line of voters entered the building. Something struck the carriage so forcefully that Oona was flung out of her seat. Deacon let out a sharp cry and took to the air as the entire riding compartment tipped sideways and slammed down in the middle of the street.

  Oona landed on top of her uncle with a crunching sound.

  She took in a startled breath, shaking her head and blinking confusedly. “Uncle Alexander?” Oona asked wearily. “Are you all right?”

  No response.

  Outside the carriage, along with the shouts of people, she thought she heard the sounds of barking dogs. Oona scrambled to her left, just now realizing that the carriage was lying on its side. She looked at the Wizard and saw that the large sleeve of his robe was covering his face. He wasn’t moving.

  “Uncle?” she asked again, and she could hear the panic in her own voice. She pulled the sleeve of his robe away and exposed his face. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his head and into his beard. His eyes were closed, and she could not tell if he was breathing. Her panic swelled like some monstrous creature inside of her, and she thought for a moment that she might faint.

  And then a voice spoke from above her. “I don’t think you’ll be needing this.”

  Oona looked up and her heart leapt into her throat. It was Mrs. Carlyle, who reached down through the open window and groped for something. Oona didn’t know what the woman was trying to get at, but a sense of fierce rage like she had never experienced before dropped over her.

  “You did this,” Oona said, and she leapt at the woman’s arm, her fingers like claws.

  But Mrs. Carlyle raised a hand in a halting gesture, and Oona froze in midmotion. She couldn’t move. She’d been somehow paralyzed. Outside the carriage, the sound of snarling dogs continued to fill the street, and for the first time Oona wondered where Samuligan was.

  “I’ll just be taking this and be on my way,” the maid said, and snapped her fingers. Something from near where Oona had landed flew into Mrs. Carlyle’s hand. Still dazed from the crash, it took Oona an instant to focus on what it was. And then she saw it: Oswald’s wand.

  “Thanks so much for letting me know that you use this during your tests. As you know, my boss, Red Martin, has been wanting it for some time,” Mrs. Carlyle said, and Oona could see a red gem hanging from a fine gold chain around her neck. The carbuncle! Clearly, the maid had found the spell she needed to activate the gem’s magic, and she now wielded extraordinary powers.

  “Samuligan!” Oona shouted, surprised that she could speak at all. It seemed that whatever enchantment Mrs. Carlyle had used to freeze Oona in place had failed to paralyze her mouth.

  Mrs. Carlyle looked up and over her shoulder toward something outside the carriage. “I believe your faerie servant has his hands full at the moment. You know, I never did like him.”

  “Profundus mag—” Oona began, in an attempt to link her magic with Pendulum House, but Mrs. Carlyle pinched her fingers together and the motion caused Oona’s lips to clamp shut. Even more extraordinary was that her thought of the word was frozen as well. She was unable even to think the spell.

  “Ah, ah, ah. No spells from you, missy,” Mrs. Carlyle said admonishingly. She considered Oona for a moment. “It’s too bad you’re such a powerful magician, Miss Crate; o
therwise, I might be able to let you live. But knowing you, you’ll try to come after me, just like your father.” She aimed the wand at Oona. “That wouldn’t be—”

  But this time it was Mrs. Carlyle who was cut short. She cried out in pain as black wings fluttered wildly above her head and Deacon dug his talons into the maid’s hair. The maid opened her hand in an attempt to grab at the bird, in the process releasing Oona from the silencing spell.

  “Profundus magicus!” Oona cried, and just as it had in her battle tests, the incantation linked her own magic with the vast stores of magic in Pendulum House.

  “Kraken-mooris!” The words came to her of their own accord, an ancient spell that wound itself around her own body and then quickly expanded outward, exploding Mrs. Carlyle’s paralyzing spell in a burst of blue and white light. Oona was free.

  “Get off me, bird!” Mrs. Carlyle howled from the side of the carriage, and raised Oswald’s wand over her head. Oona witnessed another flash of light—this one a bolt of lightning that shot from the tip of the wand—which came within centimeters of hitting one of Deacon’s wildly flapping wings. He must have felt the closeness of it because he abruptly untangled himself from the maid’s hair and took to the sky, cawing his low raven’s cry before turning in the air and diving straight for the woman’s head. She raised the wand for a second attack, but she was too slow and was forced to duck away from the raven’s snapping beak.

  The sudden movement must have unbalanced her because Oona watched as the maid tumbled over the side of the carriage and out of view. With a surprising surge of strength, Oona leapt upward and pulled herself through the open carriage window, where she was finally able to see what was happening outside. She stood atop the carriage.

  To her right, she discovered Samuligan standing in the middle of a circle of vicious wild dogs. A translucent wall of mist—Oona assumed it had been cast by the faerie servant—surrounded Samuligan, and was all that kept the dogs at bay.

  The dogs glowed slightly, as if their coats had been sprinkled with golden dust, and several of them had what appeared to be a set of wicked-looking wings made of bones that grew from their shoulder blades. One of the dogs twisted around just enough for Oona to get a glimpse of its eyes, which glowed red like burning coals.

  Samuligan made a motion—pushing the wall of mist away—and then attempted to leap high over the dogs. To Oona’s horror, several of the glowing hounds rose into the air, flapping their hideous bonelike wings, their jaws snapping and dripping with drool. Samuligan fell quickly back and was forced once again to conjure the wall of mist between the maniacal dogs and himself.

  The line of pedestrians in front of City Hall backed up against the wall but did not disperse. It seemed they were enthralled by the extraordinary display of magic happening in the street.

  “Look out!” Deacon cried.

  Oona whirled around just in time to see Mrs. Carlyle raising Oswald’s wand in Oona’s direction. Oona leapt from the side of the toppled carriage to the street, just managing to avoid a burst of lightning. She hit the ground hard, sending stinging needles through her feet and legs as the lightning bolt struck one of the carriage wheels. The wheel tore free of the carriage and exploded in a fiery burst of chunks and splinters. The smell of singed wood filled the air.

  Oona raised one hand over her head to shield herself from the falling debris while shoving her other hand into her pocket. A second later she was holding her father’s magnifying glass and aiming it in the direction she had last seen Mrs. Carlyle, but the maid was suddenly gone. Oona scanned the seen of the wreckage, but didn’t see her anywhere.

  “Show yourself!” Oona shouted.

  Deacon, who soared high overhead, called down to her: “She’s around the other side of the carriage.” He let out a sharp croak as a bolt of lightning shot toward him, nearly singeing his tail feathers and sending him flying down the street for refuge.

  Oona bolted around the side of the overturned carriage, a devastating question chasing her every step: Was her uncle dead, or just unconscious? There had been no time to check properly. Her throat seemed to tighten as the image of the blood trickling down the side of his head filled her thoughts.

  She came to a stop at the edge of the carriage, fearing that if she stepped around, Mrs. Carlyle would be waiting for her. Her father’s magnifying glass was no match for the accuracy of Oswald’s wand, yet despite the disadvantage, she knew that she had to bring the wicked woman down. Not just because Mrs. Carlyle was responsible for her father’s death, but because, with such incredible powers at the maid’s disposal, Oona didn’t think anyone was safe. She could only hope that her own skills as a magician would be enough to tip the scales in her favor.

  And besides, Oona thought, I’ve got the power of Pendulum House behind me, with or without Oswald’s wand.

  Oona looked to the sky and opened her mouth to call to Deacon, meaning to ask if it was safe to step around the corner, when it occurred to her that she did not need to do this. Instead, she closed her eyes and whispered: “Connect.”

  The instant she shut her eyes, she no longer saw through her own eyes but through those of Deacon. He was soaring back in her direction, high above the line of pedestrians on the sidewalk. From this vantage point she could see everything.

  At first she was only confused, because Mrs. Carlyle was not where Oona expected her to be. But a second later, when Deacon’s eyes focused in on the woman, Oona’s heart hammered hard in her chest. The maid had snuck all the way around the carriage and was coming up behind Oona.

  Oona’s eyes flew open and she whirled around just as several pedestrians cried out warnings. Oona thought she heard Deacon’s own warning from above as she raised her magnifying glass like a shield. In that same instant, Mrs. Carlyle leapt from around the side of the carriage, wand aimed at Oona.

  A sizzling bolt of white light shot from the end of the wand and collided with Oona’s magnifying glass. The glass seemed to expand and glow white-hot all at the same time. And then it exploded in her hand. She stumbled back, blinded by the enormous flash. She only just managed to stay on her feet, but her hand was now empty, the magnifying glass gone, blown into a million fragments all over the street.

  Oona blinked frantically and cringed, expecting a second attack at any moment to finish her off now that she was defenseless. But when her eyes finally cleared, she saw that it was no longer Mrs. Carlyle standing before her but an enormous creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. In its thick, muscle-knotted hands it brandished a hammer that looked as if it might weigh twice Oona’s body weight.

  Oona’s breath caught in her throat.

  It’s a minotaur, she thought, remembering the illustration she had seen in Mortenstine’s Monstrous Conspectus. More than the illustration, however, she remembered telling Mrs. Carlyle about how she, Oona, had once read the Monstrous Conspectus before bed, and then suffered a terrifying dream about the minotaur . . . only there was something off about this beast who stood before her now. It was different than the one she had dreamed about all those years ago, Oona felt sure of it.

  Or perhaps it was not that there was something different about the creature, but that there was something that had changed in Oona. It did not take long for her to figure it out.

  It’s an illusion, she thought, remembering her recent visit to the Faerie Royal Court. It looks real, but it’s not.

  The knowledge, however, did not stop her screaming as the monstrous beast suddenly raised its enormous war hammer above its head and ran at her. But the scream transformed as it exited her mouth, the tone pulling in and refining itself into one continuous note of sublime harmony with each of Oona’s senses. The note carried out long, and powerful, and eerily beautiful. Her tone rattled the nearby windows and caused the hammer to explode in the minotaur’s hand, just as her magnifying glass had exploded in hers.

  And just like that, the illusion was broken. Oona blinked her eyes clear, only to find herself once again starin
g into the face of the woman she had so naively befriended. The minotaur was gone, and Mrs. Carlyle’s face pulled into a mask of rage.

  “Think you’re clever, eh?” the maid taunted.

  “I know I am,” Oona said, and the words came out sounding more confident than she felt.

  The maid looked pityingly at her. “Too clever for your own good, that is. Just like your father. He was another one who couldn’t leave well enough alone. I guess it runs in the family. But I suppose I can put an end to that right now.”

  The maid once again leveled Oswald’s wand, and Oona stepped back against the toppled carriage. Something poked her in the leg . . . something in her pocket.

  “I trusted you,” Oona said.

  Again the maid displayed that look of pity. “Bad idea.”

  Oona inched her hand into her pocket. “You wouldn’t dare kill me in front of all of these people.”

  Now Mrs. Carlyle just looked amused. “Oh, really? You think just because you can break a powerful illusion that these nonmagical people can as well? No, they will see whatever I wish for them to see: a sunny day where nothing extraordinary happened on the street at all. They’ll forget everything they saw here today, and we’ll all live happily ever after. Well, except for you . . . and your uncle. Now that I have this,” she pinched the carbuncle between the fingers of her free hand, “who’s going to challenge me? Certainly not you and your uncle. I’m going to make sure of that.”

  Oona raised an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting about someone.”

  The maid’s mouth pulled into a tight disbelieving line. “And who is that?”

  “Samuligan the Fay,” Oona said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, I think those hellhounds I summoned will take good care of him,” the maid said confidently.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Oona said.

  “Neither would I,” said Samuligan.

  The maid turned abruptly in the direction of the voice, only to discover the faerie servant standing right behind her, his wild grin lighting up his face like a bad dream. Behind him, the hellhounds were all conveniently distracted by a giant leg of lamb that the faerie had conjured and set them fighting over. As the maid had been talking, Oona had watched Samuligan approach on feet as quiet as a breeze.