He didn’t look up from the clock. “Garrick? Yes. My hearing
is nearly perfect.”
“Good. Do I need to remind you how important it is that
you…” I glanced around and thought better of bringing up this
topic without a privacy spell in place. I cast one and then said
again, “Do I need to remind you how important it is that you
don’t mention my gender?”
Papa did look up at me now, a scornful expression on his
face. “Of course I’ll keep your secret. Do you think I’m a fool?
I’ve figured out that much, at least.”
I frowned and debated whether I should say more. I’d been I frowned and debated whether I should say more. I’d beenBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 185
trying to go easier on him lately, considering how my last harsh statement had driven him to drink. Maybe it was possible I’d been too hard on him in the past. “No, I don’t think you’re a fool. I’m just reminding you.”
“Well, I remembered. That’s one thing I’m not likely to forget.”
“Good. And thank you.”
He studied me. “Is it just my imagination, or have you been nicer to me lately?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned to go.
“Well, it’s been nice,” Papa said behind me.
“Hmph,” I said, and walked away.
“Does it have something to do with your monthly cycle?” he called after me.
***
Later that evening, I arrived in my wizard robes, as formal dinners required. Master Wendyn was already there, in his own robes, while Ivan was seated, looking preened and combed within an inch of his life. I wondered who’d taken that task upon themselves. Papa followed me in, and we took our seats just as Mrs. Pitts ushered in the guest of honor—not Valerie. It was the bespectacled wizard I’d seen Master Wendyn conversing with during my last trial.
“I’d like to present Master Phineas Beaumont,” Master Wendyn said.
My stomach sank, even as I rose to my feet and greeted the man. There was no question what this dinner was about. A formal introduction to Ivan in the hopes of forming an apprenticeship.
The dinner progressed. Master Wendyn drew Ivan into conversation a few times, and he seemed blissfully unaware of the purpose of the visit. Master Wendyn asked him about various spells he’d been working on, and Ivan described the weather spells he’d focused his study on for the past few months—with the help of my reluctant translating.
“How interesting,” Beaumont said, sitting forward. “Will you show us one, Ivan?”
Embarrassed, Ivan ducked his head. Then, after a moment, he complied, pulling in a bank of fog that drifted lazily over the table.
I frowned, hating everything about this. Why was Master Wendyn so determined to ruin everything? All I wanted was to have everything remain as it was.
“That’s splendid, Ivan!” Beaumont said. “How would one say ‘splendid’ in your little hand language?”
Ivan shrugged, then gestured wonderful at the man. I supposed that was the closest word we had. Beaumont copied the gesture.
“My underwizard and Ivan developed the language together. Isn’t that right, Mullins?” Master Wendyn looked my way, clearly trying to draw me into the conversation. I’d done my best not to trying to draw me into the conversation. I’d done my best not toBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 187
be pulled into it thus far, and I wasn’t about to jump in now. I grunted in response. The hand gesture language was Ivan and my own private communicating method, not this stranger’s. It wasn’t any of his business or of the master’s.
Beaumont cleared his throat. “And how are you enjoying your apprenticeship, Underwizard Mullins?”
“Just fine,” I mumbled.
“What he means to say is that he’s well on his way to becoming the future PMW,” Papa inserted, clearly bored with the direction the conversation had taken. “That’s how smart my Avery is. Smart as a whip. Or—smarter than a whip. Whips aren’t particularly smart, you know. I’ve never understood that phrase.”
I darted a surprised look his way. Since when did Papa brag about me?
“Anyway, once Avery becomes PMW, he’s going to build me a house in each of the three kingdoms with a wizard door connecting each. We’ll live in opulence and only eat Waltney cakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And maybe, occasionally, thick cuts of meat.” He looked at me with triumph. “Purely because he loves me.”
I rolled my eyes.
The master, apparently aware that we’d gotten off topic, attempted to steer us back on course. “I brought Master Beaumont here for a reason, Ivan.”
Friar’s bones, he really was going to do it. I sagged backward in my chair, frowning fiercely.
“He’s looking for an apprentice, and I thought you might be a good fit.”
Ivan’s brows shot up. He looked to Beaumont as if for confirmation, and the man nodded. Then he looked to me.
I shrugged.
Ivan shook his head. No. Don’t want to be an apprentice.
I translated, and Master Beaumont’s brow quirked in concern. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, lvan, think carefully about your answer,” Master Wendyn inserted. “You may not get another chance.”
Ivan’s glance sought out my own again, and seemed to find reassurance there. He straightened his shoulders. Sure. No master.
The conversation went round and round for a few minutes, Master Wendyn wanting to know if Ivan was certain and Master Beaumont telling him not to push the boy and Papa exclaiming over the deliciousness of the chocolate pudding Cat had served for dessert.
But Ivan remained unmoved, though he looked my way several times for reassurance, and Master Wendyn eventually seemed to catch on. His gaze narrowed as he looked my way.
“Well, I don’t suppose I can change your mind, if you’re that set on it,” Beaumont said at last. “I admit I am that set on it,” Beaumont said at last. “I admit I amBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 189
disappointed.”
“I apologize for wasting your time,” Master Wendyn said in
a low voice.
“Not at all. It’s been a nice visit, if nothing else,”
Beaumont said graciously.
“Yes,” the master said, frowning in my direction. “It
certainly had the potential to be.”
I had a feeling I was in trouble.
#
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My next trial was mastery over fear, and unlike most
trials, it did not involve learning how to cast any one spell.
Rather, it was more a test of my mettle, my ability to face the
things that scared me most. I spent some time creating a list of
things I was frightened of—poisonous spiders, rabid dogs, the
Council, being Punished—and tried to plan how I would react when
forced to face these fears during my next trial.
Papa entered the library shortly after breakfast. “What’re
you doing?” he asked, staring at me in confusion, as though he’d
never seen a studying wizard before.
“What do you think? I’m studying. And practicing spells.” “Oh. Just looks like you’re staring aimlessly into space.” “What’re you doing in here? You can’t read, remember?” Papa glanced around the room. “ Looking for Ivan. Is he
around?” He strolled through the room, glancing between tables around?” He strolled through the room, glancing between tablesBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 190
and cheers, peering into the dark corners of the room as though he imagined he’d find Ivan crouched and hiding, as he used to do in the old days.
“He’s not in here,” I said shortly. “What do you need him for, anyway? Why are you two suddenly spending time together?”
“Oh, we like each other a great deal, Ivan and me. We’r
e the best of friends.”
I watched him suspiciously. He looked far too suspicious for my liking. “I’m sure you are, but as I said, he’s not here.”
“Oh. Well, then.” He looked around the room once more, then turned to go.
My curiosity mounted as he moved across the room, and on a whim I cast a mind-reading spell as he went.
Girl needs a dose of humility, if you ask me. You’d think she’d never made a mistake in her life. Thinks she’s free from folly or error, and that’s certainly not true.
I sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”
Papa turned back to look at me, blinking. “What? I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, but you were thinking something. I don’t believe I’m perfect, but you’re one to talk. You never admit you’re wrong.”
His brow crinkled. “Were you listening in on my thoughts? Can you do that?”
“Of course I can,” I responded loftily. “You need to learn more about magic.”
A frown moved across his face. “What right do you have to spy on my thoughts?”
“I wasn’t spying. I was just…curious.” I lapsed into silence as I realized spying was what I’d been doing, plain and simple. How could I justify that?
“Yes, well, fine. If you want to listen in on my thoughts, then maybe you won’t hear very good things about yourself. Especially since you’re about the least thankful daughter a man could ever have.”
My mouth hung open at the injustice of this statement. “The least thankful?! I’ve taken you in and fixed your injuries, even though you’re the most stubborn, pigheaded old man….”
“You see what I mean? You’re constantly criticizing me. Yes, I wasn’t a perfect father, but I tried. And you’ve done your best to only remember the worst things about me.”
“If there were any good things, they were crowded out by the abundance of terrible.”
“Well, there were some. We didn’t only have bad times, you know.”
“If we did, it was no thanks to you. You didn’t care a whit about us.”
His face screwed up in fury. “You said that before, and it’s not true. I did care about my family. I do still. Perhaps I didn’t make the best choices, but I did what I had to to keep the desperation at bay while your mother faded away. And then the desperation at bay while your mother faded away. And thenBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 192
the loneliness, once she was gone. I’m not perfect, Avery. I’m a stupid, fearful man.” “You got the stupid part right,” I muttered. “Fine. Let’s set aside the drink for a minute. What about the life of crime you started me on? How can you justify that?”
“Come on. You’re being oversensitive about that. It was a living, wasn’t it?”
“A dishonest one!”
He stepped closer to me. “And what was I to do? Crops failed multiple years in a row. Farmers all over Waltney were desperate, and yet the nobility and merchant class had plenty. It was the poorest who suffered the most. That was us.”
“I never noticed that we suffered all that much.”
“If you didn’t, that was thanks to me. A squash stolen here, a loaf of bread there. I took what I had to to keep us fed.”
I thought for a minute about the past. Papa often had come home with an offering of some sort, which Mama would greet with troubled looks. I probably shouldn’t complain too loudly, seeing as how I was the beneficiary of his stealing. Me and Gavin and Mama might have starved, but instead we had lived…so that they could die of other illnesses. “Well, I suppose I’m expected to thank you, then, for saving our lives. Too bad you couldn’t save Mama and Gavin from the illnesses that ultimately took them.”
“Not for lack of trying,” Papa said rather bitterly.
But now I sat up straighter, pushed to the very limit. “Liar! You never did a thing to save either one of them. I was the one who went to Master Norwood’s house and begged the housekeeper to let me speak with him. I was the one who scraped together all the money you hadn’t spent on drink to pay him. I was the one who looked after Mama and Gavin. What did you ever do except for drink all the spare money away?”
Papa became very still, and he stared at me so long that I grew uncomfortable. “You really don’t know me at all, do you,” he said at last. “You believe the absolute worst, no matter what I do.”
“If I believe the absolute worst, it’s because you delivered the absolute worst time and time again.”
He frowned. “You really need to stop. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you know what your mother died of?”
“Of course. Overwork.”
He moved closer and leaned across the table where I sat, until his face was inches from my own. “Wrong.”
“Oh, and I suppose you know what she did die from then? Fine. What did she die from?”
“If you want to know, I’ll tell you. Though I’ll probably regret it,” he muttered halfway to himself.
I folded my arms. “Go ahead.”
Papa looked at me with those blue eyes too much like my own, and said, “She was cursed.”
I blinked. “What?”
He straightened, rubbing at a spot in the middle of his forehead. “You never knew your mother’s people. Her parents died when she was young, but she had a brother.” He continued speaking, pacing across the room as though he could outrun the tale. “His name was Francis. He was a few years younger than your mother.”
Suspicion built in me, but at the name Francis, I felt it soften. “I—I’ve heard that name before. Mama mentioned him when I was a child. Once, maybe twice.”
“Not more than that, I’ll wager,” Papa said. “It was too much of a sore spot. He peddled spells, some of them of the illegal sort. He knew how to read, see. Dabbled in magic himself too.” He swiveled at the fireplace and pinned me with a look. “I’m sure you’re not about to think too highly of my part in this story, so I’ll just tell you the worst of it. I helped him. Frank and I were quite the pair—and good at what we did. Those were the good years in Circle Glen when you and Gavin were young. We had money then.” He paused. “And then…then it all went bad. It was my fault, what happened to your mother.”
I shook my head. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
Papa didn’t even acknowledge the comment, just went on speaking as though he hadn’t heard me. Maybe he hadn’t. “Frank ran afoul of a dark magician. Tried to bilk him out of some rare texts.” He shrugged. “Frank wasn’t too sharp. I warned him it texts.” He shrugged. “Frank wasn’t too sharp. I warned him itBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 195
was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen. Never would listen to me.” I’d never seen Papa so serious. It almost frightened me. “What happened?” I asked, in spite of myself.
“The magician came in the middle of the night and razed Frank’s place to the ground.”
I made a noise of alarm and Papa waved a hand.
“Oh, Frank got out. But the magician cursed him with an unbreakable curse. You know, the kind that can only be broken by the person who cast it—or by their death.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that I found myself saying, “Oh,” as though I knew what he was talking about. But the truth was I’d never heard of an unbreakable curse before.
“Cursed him to waste away and die within a matter of months. Ida begged me to go reason with the magician. But I knew it wasn’t any use, that it’d only draw the man’s ire on us.”
A sinking feeling filled the pit of my stomach. I scooted my chair back, suddenly unable to stay sitting a moment longer. “She went herself, didn’t she.”
Papa nodded, his head bowed. “Yes,” he said, his voice barely audible. “She did, and the magician cursed her with the same curse as a reward. I didn’t dare confront the man myself, but I sought the help of other magicians and master wizards, even. They all told me it wasn’t any use. They couldn’t remove the curse for me. That man was the only one who could do it. And the curse for me. That man was the only
one who could do it. AndBeckstead / Shadowed by Death / 196
he disappeared shortly after that. Wasn’t anything I could do but watch Ida die.” Sickness filled me. I rose to my feet, then bent over the table, hands pressed against it. “What was his name?”
“Oh, no. You’re not getting that out of me. There’s something of Francis in you, Avery. And a whole lot of your mother. You’d track that man down and do something foolish, or my name’s not Jasper Mullins.”
I bit my lip. It was no matter. For now I felt too sick to bother, but sometime soon I’d get the name out of Papa with the help of a spell. One way or another, somewhere out there was a dark magician who would pay for murdering my mother. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Or Gavin?”
“What was the use in it? You couldn’t do anything about it, any more than I could do about it. It would have just stirred up resentment in you.”
“I already have resentment,” I informed him. “If you’d told me, I might have resented you less.”
He rubbed at his face. “Ah, hindsight. No point in dwelling on it now. What’s done is done.” He looked around and lowered his voice. “Although if you’d known, perhaps you wouldn’t have jumped in quite so quickly to this foolish plan of becoming a master wizard. Not that it doesn’t have its perks.”
“Or maybe I would have been all the more excited about it, so that I could get my revenge.”
Beckstead / Shadowed by Death / 197 His face darkened. “No. No revenge. It’s too dangerous, and don’t want to lose any more of my family. I … I care about you, Avery.”
I blinked and stared at him, unsure of what to say. I certainly didn’t care about him. I was actually pretty certain I despised him. Although this story about Mama had given me something to think about.
An awkward silence built. Just as I cleared my throat to say something—I didn’t know what—Ivan came in.
You looking for me? he gestured to Papa.
Papa immediately perked up. “Ah, there you are. Don’t bother waving your hands at me, boy. I don’t understand it. Let’s go.”
The two of them left the room together, and I watched them go. Then, completely overcome, I sagged into the chair next to the fireplace and sank into thought about Mama and an evil dark magician.
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