The Stolen Chapters

by James Riley

  Wait. He did have another clue. The police were working with a Holmes, maybe Doyle. And that meant there was definitely a place he could go to find out more.

  And he really should rescue Owen. It wouldn’t do to leave his friend locked up, even if Owen had unwisely given himself up. And who else knew the boring, unmagical, nonfictional world like Owen?

  With new purpose, Kiel set out for the police station, shaking his head at the idea of having to jog the whole way. Magic was just so much easier for getting around!

  Kiel had been without magic before, of course. Both before he’d met the Magister, and then when the Magister had made him forget all of his magic after they’d met Bethany, and his master had gone off the deep end.

  But he’d gotten the magic back . . . somehow. Somewhere in the fog, there was a memory of what he’d done.

  Kiel slowly breathed in and tried to think of something, anything that’d help him remember.

  Bethany’s face came to mind, and he smiled in spite of himself.

  Then Bethany’s face morphed into Charm’s, and he gasped out loud as the memory slammed into his head like a hammer.

  MISSING CHAPTER 1

  Two months ago . . .

  “So I’m not real,” Kiel Gnomenfoot said quietly, staring at his hands.

  “What makes you think that?” the Magister asked, the hints of a smile playing over his face.

  “I’m made of science, Magi,” Kiel said, shaking his head. “Dr. Verity formed me from that unnatural—”

  “Science is about as natural as you could possibly get,” Charm said, her robotic eye narrowing in irritation. Kiel glared at her, and she turned away guiltily. “But, um, I understand your point,” she finished.

  “He made me!” Kiel said, shouting now. “I was never meant to exist. All I am is a clown—”

  “Clone,” Charm pointed out.

  “Of the man who’s currently trying to destroy Magisteria.” Kiel sighed. “And Magisteria isn’t even my world, is it? If I’m a clown—”

  “Clone.”

  “Then I’m actually Quanterian.” Kiel grabbed his apprentice spell book, his face contorted in anger, and threw it across the room.

  The spell book froze as soon as it left his hand, then turned in midair to glare at its owner. Kiel ignored it, dropping to the floor to sit cross-legged with his head in his hands.

  “I’m not even real,” he said again.

  The Magister circled around Kiel, then kneeled in front of the boy and pulled Kiel’s chin up to look his apprentice in the eye. “You assume that real is something anyone would want to be.”

  Kiel gave his master a sad look. “Magi, now isn’t the greatest time for a lesson.”

  “What is magic if not forcing unreality to become real?” the Magister asked. “So Dr. Verity recreated himself, giving us you. Do you want to destroy Magisteria?”

  Kiel shrugged. “Only sometimes. When people annoy me.”

  “And what could be more real than that!” the Magister said, clapping Kiel on the shoulder.

  Kiel snorted, then shook his head. “I can’t be him, Magi. I can’t! What if I turn out just like he did? What if I’m destined for evil? And look at him! That’s what I’m going to look like when I’m older?”

  “Ugh,” Charm groaned, and Kiel could almost feel her rolling her eyes.

  “You will be whatever you decide to be,” the Magister told Kiel gently. “The idea of destiny is something we made up to justify whatever we wanted to do. You are no more destined to become Dr. Verity than I am to turn Alphonse into a dog.”

  Alphonse, Kiel’s cat, stopped licking his wings for a moment to look at the Magister, then shrugged and returned to his important bathing.

  “I’m not sure any of this is helping,” Kiel pointed out as he pushed to his feet. “But I suppose I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. Charm can’t get the last three keys by herself—”

  “Actually—”

  “Even if she’s far too proud to admit how much help she needs,” Kiel continued. “I’ll just have to soldier on and hope that my natural talent and intelligence is enough to keep me from turning into Dr. Verity.”

  The Magister smiled. “I have the utmost faith in your . . . talent and intelligence.”

  “Of course you do,” Kiel said, shrugging. “We all do.”

  Charm clenched her fists and slowly took several deep breaths. “If we don’t leave now, I swear I will ray gun you.”

  “She has trouble admitting her feelings for me,” Kiel whispered to the Magister, who nodded, still smiling. Kiel walked over to stand next to Charm and made an impatient gesture. “Uh, let’s go already.”

  Charm’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to scream at him just as they both disappeared in a flash of light.

  The Magister smiled, dropping into his chair. So Kiel Gnomenfoot had finally learned he was a clone of Dr. Verity. The day the Magister had dreaded for so long had now come, and the boy was taking it about as well as anyone could, finding out that he was the creation of a madman.

  But would the boy take the truth about the Source of Magic quite so well?

  To be continued in Kiel Gnomenfoot and the School for Wizardry, book five of the Kiel Gnomenfoot saga.

  “Magi?” said a soft voice from behind him, and the Magister turned around in his chair to find Kiel looking at him strangely, Charm standing just behind him. Oddly, Charm was giving the Magister a look of almost palpable hatred. Usually those looks were directed more at Kiel than himself.

  “Back so soon, my boy?” the Magister asked.

  “I, uh, forgot my spell book,” Kiel said, and held out a hand toward the still-floating, still-angry apprentice spell book. The book floated over to him in a sulking sort of way, then shrank down to the size of a coin, and Kiel slipped it into a pouch on his belt.

  “I thought you had moved beyond the need for it?” the Magister asked. “You didn’t need it to find the Fourth Key, after all.”

  “Can’t hurt to have a backup,” Kiel said, then slowly took a step back.

  “Kiel,” the Magister said slowly, “I know why you’re here.”

  Kiel froze. “You do?”

  “Because it occurred to you that if you’re a clone, then I have misled you about your parents,” the Magister said.

  Kiel paused. “That’s it. You’re right. But just hearing you admit it, that’s really enough. I should get back to things—”

  “I couldn’t tell you the truth, my boy,” the Magister said, his voice dropping low. “I cannot apologize enough, but you had to find out on your own, when you were ready.”

  “I’m not sure I was ever ready for some truths,” Kiel said.

  The Magister nodded. “I understand, believe me. Truth is a sword with no hilt. We grab for it at our own peril, at times.”

  “The truth, like how you’re secretly planning on destroying Quanterium?” Charm mumbled, and the Magister blinked. He must have misheard her.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked the glaring girl.

  “Nothing,” Kiel said, throwing Charm an annoyed look. “We really should get going. Keys to find, crazy madmen to fight, that sort of thing . . .”

  “Kiel,” the Magister said, and opened his arms. “Please tell me you forgive me.”

  Kiel’s eyes widened slightly, and oddly, he looked up at the ceiling. “Seriously?” he whispered to no one in particular.

  “Of course I am serious,” the Magister responded, a bit confused. He gestured for Kiel to hug him. “Please, my boy. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have deceived you.”

  Kiel gritted his teeth, then stepped forward and hugged the Magister, who smiled and let out a sigh of relief. Kiel quickly pushed back, then stepped away. “Well, gotta go!” he said, and raised a hand into the air.

  “You don’t have your teleport button,” the Magister pointed out.

  “Charm’s got it,” Kiel said as she took his hand.

  “Good luck,
my boy,” the Magister said.

  “Magi,” Kiel said, avoiding his teacher’s eyes, “if you ever find out something that turns your whole life upside down, like I just did, try not to turn crazy and evil. As a favor to me.”

  The Magister smiled. “You have my word.”

  Kiel sighed, then disappeared with Charm from the Magister’s tower, reappearing in the middle of a dark library.

  “I really wanted to hit him,” Charm said. Kiel mumbled some words and the disguise spell faded, revealing Bethany in Charm’s place.

  “Did you see him hug me?!” Kiel shouted at her, his face contorted with disgust. “UGH. I need to bathe.”

  “But he’s the Magister!” Owen said from where he sat on a nearby table. “You love him.”

  “It’s amazing what happens to your relationship when your adopted father tries to kill you,” Kiel said with a shrug. “Plus, if he hadn’t forget-spelled the magic out of my head, I’d never have had to steal my own spell book in the first place.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny still-sulky book, which quickly expanded into a normal-size still-sulky spell book.

  “So you’re sure this book has the spell?” Bethany asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously.

  “Trust me,” Kiel said, winking at her. He tried to open the cover, and the book snapped at him. “Hey!” he shouted. “Bad book! Don’t do that again.” He pointed a finger in warning at the book, and it pouted, then flipped open to the right page. Kiel held the book up for Owen and Bethany to see.

  Illumination of Location, the page said.

  “So who wants to find Bethany’s father, then?” Kiel asked, grinning widely.

  • • •

  The memory hit Kiel hard, and it almost staggered him.

  Just like it did to Owen, who looked around almost in disbelief, his head throbbing. Where had that come from?

  CHAPTER 15

  01:42:56

  Memories weren’t supposed to almost knock you over. Since when did that happen? And why had it hit him so suddenly, out of nowhere? For a second Owen almost lost track of where he was, but the sight of a police officer filling out paperwork at the counter of the police station reminded him quickly enough.

  Someone bumped into him, and Owen looked up to find a burly man who smelled like burned hair staring down at him. Owen quickly backed up into the police officer, who pushed him back toward the man.

  One meaty hand hit Owen’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” the man said politely. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to bump into you.” And with that, he pulled off a beard and tossed it onto the counter, followed by his stinky overcoat.

  As the man peeled off his disguise, he revealed a tailored suit, hair that wasn’t even mussed by a wig, and a face with no smile lines. He patted Owen’s shoulder once, then dropped the rest of the disguise onto the counter and turned to walk away.

  “How’d it go, Inspector?” the officer at the counter shouted.

  The man in the suit jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, and Owen turned to find police officers dragging in what looked to be an entire criminal gang, all dressed in black. “Book ’em,” the man in the suit said. “These boys are going away for a long time.”

  Just then one of the officers yelled, and before Owen knew it, the largest of the criminals broke free and grabbed a gun from an officer’s holster, aiming it right at Owen. “Let me go or the kid gets it!” the man shouted.

  The man in the suit sighed and, almost faster than Owen could see, kicked the criminal in the back of the knees, grabbed the gun from midair, and punched the man in the face. The criminal collapsed to the floor, and the man in the suit handed the gun back to the officer. “Try holding on to this a bit more tightly next time,” he said, then turned and walked away.

  Wow. Apparently, police stations were exactly like every cop movie or TV show Owen had ever seen. Who knew those were so realistic? Right down to the innocent kid getting threatened when a criminal breaks away. It was almost a cliché, it happened so often.

  Like a fictional cliché.

  Owen frowned, something small and annoying tickling his brain. There was something off here. Not by much, just—

  And then a shove in the back derailed his train of thought.

  “Move,” said the police officer who’d arrested Owen, pushing him farther into the police station. In spite of everything that was happening, a familiar feeling of excitement came over Owen. It was like when he and Charm had been under fire on the Scientific Method, Charm’s spaceship. Sure, he was being arrested, but at least it was happening in an awesome way.

  The officer led Owen down one of the quieter hallways and into an empty room with two metal chairs, a table, and one lone light—exactly what Owen expected. He was going to be interrogated! Classic.

  The man shoved Owen into one of the chairs, which faced a long mirror on the wall, then slammed the door as he left, leaving Owen to stare at himself in the mirror. It was probably one-way glass, with people on the other side watching him, right? That was how it worked in movies. The boss watched as the police interrogated the criminal.

  That thought killed the excitement instantly. He was the criminal here, and he was being framed for his mother’s library burning down. The image of the building going up in flames hit him almost as hard as the memory of Kiel returning with his spell book did, and he felt like throwing up. He had to convince the police that he was innocent and get them to find Doyle. If not, Owen would be going to jail, probably for the rest of his life. But, even worse, he’d have to explain this to his mother!

  Not to mention that Bethany was missing, and they only had . . . an hour and forty minutes left to find her before, well, something bad happened.

  Why did this all have to be such a stupid mystery? Owen hated mysteries. Why spend an entire book just waiting to find out what had actually happened? It was like the world’s longest magic trick, only usually really lame when you found out how it was done.

  Okay, so exactly like the world’s longest magic trick.

  He’d read a bunch of mysteries, of course. Sherlock Holmes, Encyclopedia Brown, all the ones his mom recommended, but he just couldn’t get into them. Magic was just so much cooler, and involved a lot fewer details and clues and convenient plot devices that revealed exactly what the detective needed to know exactly when they needed to know it.

  But since he was clearly living out a mystery now, he might as well embrace it. Doyle had said he’d planned this mystery by the book, so maybe that was a hint. Owen would just have to treat this like a mystery in a book, and maybe he’d be able to figure out what was going on. So first, he needed to list the questions that needed answering.

  Where is Bethany? No idea. Could be anywhere.

  How did Doyle get out of his book? Bethany had to have done it. Who else could have?

  But why would Bethany take Doyle out of his book? Maybe by accident? But how did you accidentally take a freakishly masked guy out of a book with you? Maybe he grabbed her at the last minute. But how would he have known to grab ahold, anyway?

  And that led to the next question:

  How does Doyle know who we all are? It’s not like Kiel’s books existed in the fictional world. Did they? Did books also exist in the fictional “real” world, the realistic place where all non–fantasy or science-fiction stories took place? Was there a library in the fictional real world with Kiel’s books?

  The idea of a fictional real world just gave Owen an enormous headache, so he moved on. Even if Doyle had Kiel’s books, how did he know Owen’s name? He couldn’t have gotten that from any book. Maybe he’d learned it when Doyle had escaped, somehow? He just couldn’t remember, and that was the most frustrating part.

  Speaking of not remembering:

  Why did Doyle make Kiel remove their memories? What was so important for them to not remember? Maybe where Bethany was? Even so, Doyle had gotten them arrested, so it’s not like he thought they’d be able to run around looking for her
. So what was the whole point? Or to put it differently:

  Why is Doyle doing this? Yeah, seriously. Why?!

  Okay, so those were the questions, none of which had any answers. He did have a guess here or there, but none that helped him. Perfect. This whole detectiving by the book was going so well.

  And this was exactly why Owen hated mysteries.

  Minutes passed, and Owen kept checking the watch Doyle had put on his wrist: 01:38:47. 01:37:19. 01:36:12. Where were the police? Couldn’t they just throw him in jail already and get this over with?

  At least Kiel was out there, a real hero. If anyone could rescue Bethany, even without any magic, it was Kiel Gnomenfoot. After all, he’d been written to do just that kind of thing, hadn’t he? When Owen had tried living Kiel’s life, he’d almost died. But this was what Kiel was made to do, beat the bad guys and rescue the good guys. He’d have Bethany back in no time.

  Or hopefully in 01:35:34. 01:33:29. UGH.

  A knock came at the door, and after a pause it opened, revealing the man in the suit from earlier. The man nodded at Owen, then turned his gaze to the file in his hands. He slowly closed the door, his attention on the file, then sat down in the chair across from Owen.

  “I didn’t do it!” Owen said as soon as the man’s behind hit the seat.

  The suited man’s eyes briefly rose above the file, gave Owen a look, then went back to reading.

  “Listen to me, my friend’s in danger!” Owen said, his voice rising. “There’s this crazy person who kidnapped her, and said that after an hour and a half I’ll never see her again. She might die!”

  Again the man’s eyes flicked up from his file, but this time they stayed locked on Owen’s. “Your friend is this Bethany Sanderson?” the man said.

  “Yes!” Owen shouted, just thankful that someone had been listening. “She’s completely not fake. She goes to my school. She has a library card. How could someone not exist but still have a library card?”