by Tim Susman
Kip listened to their conversation; apparently he didn’t need to be reading Peter’s journal to disappear from everyone else’s awareness. Coppy said that nobody had talked to him, and he and Emily discussed whether they should try another demonstration.
Don’t bother, he wanted to yell at them. Even if by some miracle Master Odden decided to brave Patris’s displeasure and take on Kip as an apprentice, nobody would take that risk with Coppy. He needed more time, and nobody would give it to him.
The fox sat down and curled his tail around his legs. The white tip rested down against his black-furred ankles, and drew his attention. Magic had given him this appearance; he owed his life to it. The Festival of Calatus, the Acceptance, the calyxes, all of those were reminders to every Calatian that magic was part of their heritage, part of them. Of all the people here at the College, he and Coppy had more right to magic than anything else.
His claws dug into the cover of the book. The give of the leather made him look down, where four indentations remained when he pulled his claws out. Breathing, forcing himself to relax, he flipped the book open.
days when I most despaire here are more frequent. Master Smythe has indeed made his position quite clear on the subject of my apprenticeship. Not a one of my fellow students allows me much chance save for Edwin, who shews sympathy for me when no others can see. I have told him to make no public display, for I would not have him shunned as I am. It is not only by the students that I fear he would lose standing, but he might indeed place his own Selection into peril.
And yet he persists in small acts of kindnesse, as tonight, when he, knowing well that the vile Oliver had trodden hard pon my tayle, brought a water-bottle that did ease the pain.
Kip stared at the book. “Tayle”?
He looked up to see Master Windsor working with Coppy, Emily concentrating on something with great focus and determination. His paws gripped the book, wanting desperately to share this discovery, knowing he would never be able to due to the magic on it. Anytime he mentioned Peter’s name, Coppy and Emily’s attention slid away, and he didn’t dare speak in front of Windsor for fear that that master’s attention would not.
But Peter Cadno was a Calatian. The snippets of the diary Kip had read previously came into focus now and he turned the book back again to look at the front page.
Being the Journal of Peter Cadno, Apprentice to the King’s College of Sorcery, London, England, 1614.
There had been a Calatian apprentice over two hundred years ago, and Kip had never known about him. Nor, in fact, had anyone else. Perhaps the spell of memory on this book was only part of a larger spell, one that someone like Patris had worked to ensure that nobody ever knew there had been a Calatian apprentice. A sorcerer, even?
Kip tapped the book. Perhaps Peter had become a sorcerer, had become embroiled in a fight with another sorcerer due to his heritage. Or perhaps he’d never been Selected.
He could verify that. He flipped forward through the book and found the entry for Selection Day.
May 15, 1615
Today it is difficult for me to write, my paws shake with so much joy. Master Primus did indeed defy Master Fitch and Selected me to be his apprentice.
Kip read through the rest of the entry, where Peter described the scene: a hall full of apprentices, his tail kept curled neatly beneath his robes, the apprehension he felt as his classmates were assigned to the roads, to the army, and still his name was not called. And at the last, his joy in walking up to stand beside Master Primus on the stage, registering the scowls below though his heart soared far above them.
If only he could be sure that the same would be his fate, and Coppy’s. The book felt warm between his fingers. “Emily,” he said.
She looked up from her practice, squinting as though looking through a fog. He glanced at Master Windsor, absorbed in working with Coppy, and then back at Emily, but she had already turned back to her own spells. “Emily,” he said, more insistently.
This time she looked up vaguely and then frowned. “Kip?”
When he didn’t reply, she turned back to her spells again. He would talk to them later, when Master Windsor wasn’t around, and he would put the book aside so they could focus attention on him.
He turned to the last page of the journal, but it was blank. He flipped back until he found the last entry:
January 22, 1620
It is colder here than it ever was at home. Fortunately my fur keeps me warm and I have no need of the thick coats worn by all the masters. Today we undertake the spell I have worked so hard to create. I am of course very worried, but I have worked on it with him and so I am prepared for it. What I fear most is not the loss of my own life, but that such a momentous spell may never be known or remembered. If this fails, I will be
No more appeared after that. Kip stared at the last sentence, specifically the two words written in Greek letters. He’d never seen the words written out, and the letters only approximated the pronunciation, but he was sure those were fox-scent words, and that Peter had been not only a Calatian, but a fox. Writing out those words had to have been a way for him to signal his species to other foxes; anyone else would assume the words were some ancient Greek that they didn’t know. But “styorfa” was
He trailed his fingers across the floor, across the cold stone.
The voice that had echoed in his head when he’d first touched the stone of the Tower had said, “Fox?”
He lifted his head from the book and stared out at Master Windsor instructing Coppy. Was it possible that a spirit could be bound into the very stone of the Tower? And that spirit, if it could still communicate with people, could protect the Tower against an attack that had felled lesser buildings? Spiritual magic remained a distant mystery to Kip, but he could think of no reason why that would not be possible.
Excited, he flipped back through the journal. The College had been founded in 1618, and indeed, when he found the entries from 1617, he found references to a sea voyage, to a “new world.” Peter talked of walking with Lord Primus “up a hill,” and though he didn’t refer to the college by name, he did refer to the small window of peace he would have before more students arrived.
Peter, a fox-Calatian who had been accepted as a sorcerer, had walked these very stones. And then had been…killed? His spirit bound to the White Tower? And then he had been forgotten so completely that not even his journal could be read by any but another fox.
If Kip became a sorcerer, then he could find out why that was. And could those same forces erase Kip and Coppy? He closed the book with a firm slap that did not even stir the attention of anyone else in the room. They would not, he vowed. He would die first.
15
Trial By Fire
All the way down the hill in the early morning fog, Kip kicked at the earth and brooded over the unfairness of being punished, when he was the one who’d been injured. And yet it was no worse than he’d been used to down in the town when he’d ventured out of the Calatian neighborhood, and the punishment was not so severe. Patris’s threat to expel him was. He was going to have to keep a tight rein on his temper at least until the Selection, and probably beyond. A branch caught his foot, and for practice he picked it up and set it alight, then extinguished and relit the flame.
The information from Peter’s journal rattled around in his head as well. In the light of morning, the idea that a fox had been made a sorcerer and then bound as a ghost felt far less reasonable. Ghosts, Kip knew, did not exist; at least, that was what everyone had told him. And yet, how else to explain the journal? He wanted to ask someone about it, but if he told them that a ghost was protecting the Tower, they might think he was taking leave of h
is senses, which could mean the difference between being a sorcerer and being a bricklayer. Moreover, whatever or whoever had spoken to him from the Tower clearly chose to remain silent most of the time, and maybe being hidden was part of its defense. He didn’t want to destroy that secrecy without understanding it better.
Movement stirred inside the Inn, but Kip stayed outside, tail swishing, still restless, so he took a short detour to see if his parents were awake yet. He felt the need to complain to them about his treatment and simply to see them again; his father had not written him since the last attack, and while he understood the lack of communication and had himself been quite busy, he now found that he wanted to breathe in their scent, hear their voices and reassuring words.
Half-Moon Street hummed with activity, the fog already dissipated here. Mr. Scort had loaves out, their familiar smell sweet on the morning air. Horses and mules clopped from door to door, some carrying carts, others saddlebags full for selling or empty for shopping. Kip hadn’t missed their thick animal smell up at the college, and here he dodged around one and came to his father’s store.
The door should have stood open at this time of the morning, breathing flower and spice into the street, but the shop was dark and the wooden door firmly shut. A small piece of paper had been fastened to the door, and his fur prickled as he made out the letters on it. “Penfold’s Perfumes will be closed indefinitely. Thank you for your patronage. We hope to return one day.”
He ran around to the back of the house, whose silence now felt unnatural, and came to the back gate of the garden. Impatient, he vaulted the gate, ran to the back door, and grabbed at the handle, only to find it latched. He rapped sharply on the wood and then pressed his ear to it.
Voices and then movement inside. He stepped back and waited, and when his mother answered the door, he threw his arms around her. “Mom!” he cried, and nuzzled her. “What happened? Why’s the shop closed?”
“Oh.” She stepped back and kissed his nose. “We were going to wait—”
Kip couldn’t keep from interrupting. “What happened to the parlor?” The pictures had all been taken down from the walls, and the shelves were clear of the small ornaments he’d grown up with. The bookcase stood mostly empty, and the whole room smelled
“We’re going to Georgia. Just for a short time. Your father received an offer…we have family there, relatives of mine, and there’s no perfume shop. The owners of the last one fled after the attack. We’ve been offered a house, but we haven’t made any decisions yet…”
“What about Master Vendis? He said his relationship with Dad was too important for him to Select me as an apprentice!”
“Yes, well.” His mother turned her muzzle toward the kitchen, and in the silence, Kip caught the noises of someone coming down the stairs. His mother lowered her voice. “They’re rebuilding the sorcerer’s school. There’s a Master Huxley in charge there, and he thought it would be good to have an experienced calyx to help that side of the school rebuild. Not that he’ll be doing much of that work anymore. One in the family is enough.”
“I’m not going to be a calyx, Mom. I…” Kip exhaled, staring around the room again. This felt like a bad dream, but he couldn’t deny the reality of it. “You were going to leave without telling me?”
His father walked into the kitchen, then out to join them in the parlor. “Of course not,” he said, ears flicking back. “We’re sending most of the luggage down tomorrow, and we’ll be leaving in a week.”
“You’re sending luggage. So you’ve already decided to live there!”
“We wanted to wait until after your Selection so our decision doesn’t influence you.” His father came over to put a paw on his arm. “What you’re doing is important, and our situation doesn’t mean you should abandon your pursuit.”
In his mother’s flattened ears, Kip saw a different opinion, but he didn’t care. “You don’t have to leave. Where do I go—where will Coppy go—” He gestured around with a paw, wildly. “This is my home!”
“You’ll have a new home in Georgia. Master Vendis will be coming to see me on occasion, and if you ask, I’m sure he will bring you.” His father’s paw remained steady on his arm. “Listen, Kip. Most boys your age in this town are married and taking charge of their own acres or their own property. You can survive on your own.”
“Most boys in this town have parents a stone’s throw away,” Kip retorted.
“Most boys in this town haven’t access to translocational magic,” Max said equably. “Once you start learning that, or Coppy does, you can come down and visit whenever you like. It won’t be so far away.”
“It’ll be different. It’ll smell different.” Kip folded his arms. “And what if I don’t get Selected? You act like you know it’s going to happen.” His ears came up. “Do you—did Master Vendis say something?”
Max shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I haven’t asked. But I know you, and I believe in you. If there’s a way, you’ll find it.”
Kip looked around again at the bare walls, the empty shelves, the trunks in the kitchen. “You’ll come see me before you go?”
Both his parents smiled. “We wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” his mother said.
“We’ll come to celebrate your Selection.” His father squeezed his arm.
It wasn’t much, but Kip clung to it and tried to keep his spirits up. He told them of his success with fire, and of Coppy’s progress and the uncertainty around his Selection. He told them about Forrest and his master Jaeger, but Max didn’t know Jaeger and so Kip didn’t mention that Jaeger had spoken to him. Finally, the story of Farley’s attack and Kip’s punishment made his mother gasp and his father’s ears flatten. “It’s to be expected,” Max said with a heavy sigh. “People like Patris are everywhere, and unfortunately often in highly influential places. But you don’t need everyone at the school to be an ally, and you do have at least a few of them.”
“A few,” Kip said.
“Pray God let it be enough.” His mother’s voice shook. “A knife flung at you?”
“I’ve had knives drawn on me before,” Kip said roughly. “Down here, without magic. At least up there I can defend myself.”
“And well, too.” Max squeezed his shoulder. “But you’d best be getting on with your punishment now. Don’t give Patris more cause to find fault.”
“If I quenched a fire in the Great Hall, he’d scold me for getting the carpet wet.” Kip growled and then willed his hackles to go down. “I’ll cope. I wish you’d be closer, but…I understand.”
“Good.” His father hugged him again, and then his mother, and they gave him a piece of bread with honey to send him on his way.
Levitating the day’s stores as he walked up the hill, Kip turned over the visit in his mind. Their business had been suffering for a while, and though neither his parents nor he had brought it up, he knew it was because of his enrolment in the College. Humans bought the expensive perfumes, but Calatians bought basic scents in greater numbers and his father’s shop survived on both trades. It was the Calatians who’d abandoned them, he was sure, angry that he was stepping out of his place, fearful that he would bring ruination on them. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the town, at the streets he knew were mostly Calatian-owned, and wished he could see which ones had driven his family away. If only he could visit them all as he had the Cartwrights…but he hadn’t the time nor the skill to do that. He had the time and skill to light fires, and if threats could have kept his family in their home, he would have used them gladly. But this was not a time for threats. The town already feared what he was doing; making them more fearful would accomplish nothing.
And yet, the feeling of impotence gnawed at him. He had come to the College to learn magic, to unlock doors and solutions to problems, and here was a prob
lem that none of his magic could solve. But his father had said that what he was doing was important, and he had a sense that he was unlocking doors not only for himself, but for others who might follow after. At this moment, though, he took little comfort in that.
He could come back down to the town, announce that he was finished with sorcery, and then perhaps business would return to his father’s shop and his parents could stay. Or was it too late for such a grand gesture? No, it couldn’t be. He could talk to the Morgans, ask them to spread the word to end the unofficial boycott of Penfold’s Perfumes. It might take a little while, but with him working at the store again and perhaps doing odd magic jobs on the side, they could build their family’s reputation and income back up to what they had been.
In front of him, the crate of milk and bread floated, reminding him of what had just a few months ago been so difficult for him and now was so easy he barely had to think about it. What then, if he restored his family to their standing in New Cambridge? Everything would go on as before, as far as everyone was concerned. But not for him. Ahead of him the Tower rose, the great and powerful structure he’d grown up admiring, that had withstood a magical attack by means unknown even to the sorcerers within it. It would no longer be the symbol to Kip of the mysteries to be explored; it would instead represent the potential of all the things he might have had, had he the good fortune to have been born without fur and tail.
No, if he failed his Selection, better to leave New Cambridge altogether, fiancée or no, parents or no. He could go live with his parents in Georgia, at least until the new school got under way. Or Coppy’s Isle of Calatians sounded like a place he might enjoy living, again in the shadow of an academy, but amidst different people in a different town.