The Scofflaw Magician (The Artifactor Book 3)

by Honor Raconteur

  Master laughed outright at this, not at all bothered by her tone. “Certainly, sweetling. Ah, how does this look?”

  Sevana peered into the bucket. “Time to add in the ash. Not quite as much as the rest of it.”

  “How much less?”

  “A cupful.”

  Master grabbed one of her measuring cups off the shelf nearby, measuring it all out carefully. “This much?”

  “Half a cup more.” Sevana eyed the mixture, calculations flashing through her head. She had watched two batches of ink being made while up north, and the memory of it served her well now, as she knew what to look for.

  Master poured the last bit in, capped the bottle again, and went back to stirring. The ash did not want to easily mix in with the gooey substance in the bucket. It was a real struggle for Master to get anything to move. With gritted teeth, he stuck with it, and slowly things started to absorb and blend together.

  “While we’re waiting on these things to percolate, I vote that we run some calculations and figure out how to piggy-back on the existing portation spell.” Sevana lifted up two of the top journals, scanning the open pages, but couldn’t figure out at a glance which one had the information she needed. “You took notes on it somewhere?”

  “Bottom left journal,” Master directed between his teeth. A vein was popping in his forehead as he strained to mix it. “Sweetling, is it supposed to be this hard?”

  “To the Fae, it’s not. You’re just weak.”

  “Love you too.”

  Sevana chortled at the sarcasm. Master was fun to tease. Picking up the correct journal, she scanned through the chicken scratch that passed as handwriting until she found what she wanted. Putting her back to the table, she started to read in earnest. Yes, alright, with these numbers she rather saw what Master meant. This might not be as complicated as it first sounded.

  “How’s this?” Master asked.

  Moving the book to her side, she bent over the bucket. “Looks perfect. Cover that with something and let it sit. We’ll have to wait for Aran to come back before we can start the other half.”

  “Do you want to call the Sa Kaon king and queen before or after we run the numbers?”

  Oh, right, they did need to update their clients. “After,” she decided after a moment’s thought. “Let’s make sure that we can really do this before talking to them.”

  Hopefully she hadn’t missed anything and it would work as she expected it to.Otherwise, they’d have to come up with something else, and Sevana frankly didn’t know what else to try at this point.

  They ran the calculations and ran them again, triple-checking their work. The only thing they weren’t sure about was if the portation spell really would extend properly to the mirror. It wasn’t designed to do so, and they could alter the original spell only so much before it would start warping. Sevana had a sixth sense that it would be this part, more than anything else, that would cause them trouble.

  When Aran arrived, she promptly waylaid him at the door with a needle and a glass vial. “Aran. I need blood.”

  He eyed the needle in her hand with misgiving. “There are other people you can ask…?”

  “Your name came up,” she disagreed pleasantly. Sevana wasn’t in the least inclined to go hunt someone else down, not when he was handy.

  “Why does that keep happening?”

  “I’m assuming one of your ancestors did something unforgiveable to a nice old lady in the deep woods,” Sevana responded, trying to look thoughtful instead of giving into the urge to cackle evilly. “That was a mistake. But if you decide to go on a quest to break your curse, let me know.”

  He arched an eyebrow at that. “You’ll go with me?”

  “Heavens no, sounds dangerous.” She grinned at him. “But I’ll write.”

  Resigned, he rolled up a shirt sleeve. “Wrist please.”

  “Your cooperation is appreciated.” Sevana angled his wrist closer to her, stuck him without even a word of warning, then tipped the limb so that the blood would drip into the vial.

  “I don’t even get a one, two, three?” Aran complained.

  “I was hovering over your arm with a needle in my hand. If that’s not warning enough for you, I don’t know what is.” Satisfied she had her six drops, she dropped the needle into the vial before reaching for a handkerchief in her pocket. She pressed it against the pinprick wound on his wrist for a moment before taking it back.

  Aran blinked down at his skin. “It’s healed.”

  Why was he surprised? “You heal fast.”

  “Not quite that fast,” he disagreed. “It usually takes a few more seconds.”

  A few more seconds, was it. “There’s a minor healing spell on all of my handkerchiefs. It’s more convenient that way, when something happens.” Sevana despised having to hunt down either medications or bandages when she had minor injuries. The handkerchiefs were a neat solution to the problem, as she always had a few of those lying around.

  Rolling his sleeve back down, he asked, “I take it that preparations are going well?”

  “Quite well.” She inclined her head to the workroom, indicating he should follow her in. “We have part of the mixture sitting, and with your blood, I can get the other part started. How did Aranhil take the news?”

  “He was quite pleased with all of our progress. He did state that after this is resolved, he wishes for you to come and visit our territory for several days, examining the wards and shields that we have in place. We want to make sure that our own places are secure from human tampering.”

  Probably wise. Especially since they were in her own backyard. “I’ll plan to do just that.”

  “Master Joles,” Aran greeted with a polite nod of the head as he stepped into the room.

  Master was hunched over the table, feet propped up on a cushion, well ensconced with tea mugs and stacks of papers sprawled in a half-circle. On Aran’s greeting, he looked up from the calculations scrawled out in front of him with an automatic smile. “Arandur. I take it that Sevana leeched you of the blood already.”

  “I asked,” she defended herself.

  “She did,” Aran admitted although with a Look at her that adequately stated his own thoughts on the matter. “Aside from my blood donation, is there anything else I can do to help?”

  Master pointed him to the chair next to him. “Sit, sit. Wait, where’s Baby and Grydon?”

  Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen them either. Pausing in her work, Sevana waited for this answer.

  “They told me they wanted to do a perimeter sweep around the mountain before coming in,” Aran informed them both, taking the seat as indicated. As he spoke, his eyes gravitated to the numbers scrawled out on the papers. “Speaking of which, Sevana, I am under orders from the children. Whenever you come to see us, you have to bring both of them with you.”

  Sevana rolled her eyes heavenward. “Yes, yes, I’ll do that.” Her creatures would probably sulk if she didn’t and then skulk in after her even if she tried to leave them behind. Shaking her head, she went back to carefully measuring out the Fae blood and the spring water into a large glass jar. It was fascinating to watch the reaction. When the blood hit the water, it turned different colors, nothing lasting for more than a second before changing into something else. It finally settled into a transparent blue-black. Relieved that it still looked the same, even though she had twice as much water as the recipe called for, she stuck a glass stopper in it and sat back.

  “Done?” Master checked. “Good, then we can test the wash tomorrow evening.”

  “Perhaps, while we are waiting, we can consider how best to catch the magician responsible for all of this,” Aran suggested. “That was one thing that Aranhil asked me that I could not answer. We need a plan.”

  “For this man especially, we do,” Sevana agreed darkly. She dropped onto the bench next to Master, it being the only other available seat in her workroom. After being on her feet for several hours, sitting was a definite relief. “He�
�s particularly good at disappearing.”

  Master grabbed a journal and flipped towards the back, finding a clean page. “Let’s first detail everything that we know about him.”

  That would be the best way to start. Sevana had told both men things but neither of them knew everything she did. It would help if they were all working with the same knowledge. “First, he has mostly the same magical signature as the previous times.”

  “Previous times?” Aran asked, not following.

  “With the artifact being stolen and Bel’s and Aren’s curses,” she clarified.

  During the course of that long journey up north and back, she’d told him about both events, so he recognized what she was referring to. “Ah. But you said mostly?”

  “It’s him,” Sevana assured both men darkly. “I know it is. But he’s somehow able to change his magical core just enough that it’s never quite the same.”

  Master shifted uneasily. “That’s not safe. Or sane.”

  “Tampering with one’s own core is the height of folly,” Aran agreed. He looked just as perturbed by the thought.

  “But that must be what he’s doing. It doesn’t explain why the magical signature is different every time, or how he got past the Fae wards.” Uncertainly, she added, “I thought it would kill a person to do that, though.”

  “It’s supposed to, yes.” Master had a faraway look in his eye. “Every person who’s ever tried it supposedly died and in quite a horrible way, too. But…mercy, I haven’t thought of this story in years.”

  Sevana’s ears perked up. When Master said something like that, it was always a good thing, as he usually remembered something that proved to be vitally important later.

  “When I was still an apprentice, perhaps fifty or so years ago, my master told all of his students a story of one prodigy that went against convention and experimented on his own magical core. The story went that instead of killing himself, he actually succeeded, but in doing so it warped him. His core was never the same after that, shifting and fluctuating unpredictably, and it altered his mind in a terrible way. He was chased out of the magical community and afterwards was hunted as well like a rabid dog. But he was never caught, to my knowledge.” Master looked down from the ceiling before continuing, “It was supposed to be a cautionary tale. Master wanted to impress on us that nothing good came out of changing your magical core. Even if you didn’t die in the process, it warped you so much that you wished it had. I thought it just that—a story.”

  “Every story has a grain of truth in it,” Aran disagreed. For some reason, he was studying Sevana as he said this. “A prodigy, you say? Like Sevana is?”

  “That’s what the story said, at least.”

  “I’m inclined to believe it.” Aran ticked things off on his fingers as he spoke. “You tell me this man has amazing magical prowess, like an Artifactor. You say that he can get around wards and shields, that he’s cunning in doing so. Then you tell me that he’s good at disappearing, as if he were never there to begin with. Would not an Artifactor prodigy, one that has many decades of experience, be able to do all of this?”

  Sevana couldn’t disagree with any part of it. “We’ve often said that it would take an Artifactor’s understanding of magic, elements, and spellwork to do what he does. Master, have we really stumbled across that man?”

  Master rubbed both hands over his face, blowing out his cheeks in a puff of air. “I hope not, sweetling. Chasing a man with no morals who is talented with magic is one thing. Chasing after a man that is insane and a prodigy at magic is another. I’d rather not chase an evil version of you.”

  Sevana grimaced agreement. “I second that.”

  Aran lifted a hand. “Thirded. If that’s the case, we really don’t want to track this man down. A wolf is the most dangerous in its own den, as the saying goes.”

  “It’s better to bait and trap,” Master agreed. “But with what bait?”

  “Knowing that I’ve reversed his spell and released everyone will…not be enough,” Sevana concluded aloud. “I’ve done that before, after all, and he didn’t come after me because of it. So what can we offer?”

  Aran took a look around her workroom, head craning this way and that to see all of it. “Anything that you have here is something that he can create himself. Is it fair to say that?”

  Sevana snorted. “The man can sneak into Fae territory unnoticed. I think it’s fairer to say he has things I want.”

  “Fae territory…” Master drawled out thoughtfully. He sank further into his chair, crossing his legs comfortably at the knee and went back to staring up at the ceiling. Sevana recognized it as his ‘thinking pose’ and held her breath. It was even odds that the next thing he would say would either be stupid or brilliant. “Sweetling, could you track where he went exactly in Fae territory?”

  “More or less. Aran could see his path more clearly than I could. Why?”

  “Where did he go?”

  “The storage room,” Aran answered.

  “Yes, but where in the storage room? What all does it hold?”

  Sevana hadn’t gotten more than that one good look inside, so she looked to Aran for the answer. Whatever was Master building up to, anyway?

  Aran rubbed at his chin before rattling off, “Inventions, prepared items like ink and cloth, specialized items that are waiting for trade, things of that sort.”

  “Did he go anywhere near the other things?”

  “He only wandered down two aisles before finding the ink. After that, he promptly left.”

  Master finally took his eyes off the ceiling. “He only took the ink?”

  “Perhaps he was limited to how much weight he could carry and safely escape?” Sevana offered. “Or he just didn’t have the time to browse.”

  “Makes sense,” Master allowed. “It could even be a combination of both. Well, regardless, it makes my idea plausible. I don’t think we should bait him with something that we have. I think we should use something we might have, something that he missed in his hurry, and wants.”

  “Something out of the Fae storerooms?” Sevana had to admit that the idea had merit. She could only see one glaring flaw. “But if we say that, wouldn’t he try to go back to the storerooms again? He managed it once, after all.”

  Not done, Master shook his head, his hand making a staying motion. “Arandur, you say that the storeroom holds inventions and specialty items. I assume this is well known in trade circles?”

  “It’s common practice in all of the Fae nations.” A light sparked in Aran’s eyes. “You think we should air it about that Sevana was gifted with a specialty item?”

  “Hardly anyone knows that we have a solution to the problem. Only the royal families in Sa Kao and Beren do and they’re keeping that under wraps for now. They simply know that we’ve found a way to undo the spell and will be able to return their family members soon. I didn’t tell people how.” Master’s expression suggested he was on the verge of grinning in sheer evil glee. “So what if we bandy this story about? ‘Artifactor Sevana Warran went to the Fae for help, found that undoing the spell would be impossible, so the Fae created a specialty item for her that can do…something amazing.’ Nullify magical spells, perhaps. We can fine tune that part later. What’s important is that this is new, it’s one of a kind, and it’s something that our evil Artifactor would dearly like to lay hands on. Now, we know that he’s a master at getting around wards and shields. They probably mean little to him now. Which would he prefer to do, brave Fae territory again or walk into an Artifactor’s home and take what he wants?”

  It was Sevana’s turn to look around her as if she were seeing Big with new eyes. “Bring him here, where we can lay traps and prepare for him? Oh, I like that idea.”

  “Me too,” Aran admitted, also looking around. “Big, you can rearrange tunnels on a moment’s notice, can’t you?”

  Can, the mountain agreed. He sounded happy to be asked to participate.

  “We’ll have my whole natio
n nearby to lend us aid if we need it too.” Aran rubbed a finger in a circular pattern on the table’s surface, as if on another level he was already planning things. “This plan is a sound one, I think. How do we get the message out fast enough?”

  “Kip,” Sevana answered promptly. “This sort of thing is tailor made for him. Master, I think the plan genius. And I think the special doohickey should be exactly that, a device that can nullify human magic. It would be the simplest way for us to release these people after all.”

  “We have to time this right, otherwise it won’t work,” Master cautioned. “Let’s say, after we know that our solution will work, and while we’re freeing people. That’s when one of us should contact Morgan and have him start spreading the story.”

  Yes, that did seem the safest bet. “Then we need to decide now how we’re going to trap this man. And what we’re going to do with him after we have him.”

  Aran’s mouth stretched into a feral smile, body straightening as if he were preparing to leap into motion that very second. “We will take care of that.”

  That smile sent a chill up her spine. Eyeing him sideways, Sevana ventured, “Aranhil has an opinion, I take it?”

  “All of the Fae do.” Aran gave her a challenging stare. “We do not wish to leave him in human hands.”

  “That’s fine,” she assured him, words a little hasty. Fae were scary when mad. “Human magicians won’t be able to hold him for long, anyway. Not with the skills he has. It’s better if you take him.” Although what they would do with him afterwards was another matter.

  Satisfied, Aran stood. “I will go report this to Aranhil so that preparations can be started. Sellion, before I forget, Aranhil has requested a miniature statue so that he can speak to you at will as well.”

  Her Fae king wanted a Caller? She knew good and well that the man could talk to her easily over long distances if he was of the mind to. Was this more of a request from a grown man that couldn’t resist a new toy? Likely. “Fae magic works a little differently. I’ll have to adapt it. Tell him that I’ll come and work on it when this mess is settled. I’ll have to tune it directly to him.”