The Magic Thief

by Sarah Prineas

  The next was a slim shard of bluish crystal. I touched it and caught a glimpse of a young girl with blond hair and a quick, shy smile, who turned and flitted away, out of my vision.

  Sitting on the moldy carpet of the workroom, I examined every one of the stones. Some were empty, as if every drop of magic had been poured out of them like water. Some made the tips of my fingers tingle, and some gave a single warm throb and went still and quiet again, as if falling back to sleep.

  The last stone was wrapped in a scrap of yellowed wormsilk tied up with a frayed ribbon. When I picked up the little package to unwrap it, it felt light, as if nothing was inside, though I could feel the smoothness of stone beneath the silk. Carefully, I untied the ribbon and the stone rolled out of the cloth and into my palm.

  As it dropped into my hand, a cold wave of sickness rolled out from it, washing through me, making my stomach turn over and dark spots dance before my eyes. The stone shoved me, away. Dropping it, I scrambled backward until I crouched in the doorway, shivering.

  It lay there on the floor. I gripped the doorframe and caught my breath. From where I was, the stone looked like a polished gemstone, about the size of a baby’s fist. I crept closer to see it better, kneeling to look it over, but not touching it. The stone was deep purple, like a black eye, but as I looked closer I saw that it was covered with fractures that went right through it. Really, it was more cracks than stone. I’d have to tell Nevery about it.

  Leaving it on the floor, I put the other stones back into the chest, keeping the book out to show to Nevery. As I was closing the lid of the chest, I caught, out of the corner of my eye, something moving in the room.

  I whirled around to look—thinking the bruise-colored stone had decided to attack me again.

  But it wasn’t the stone. It was a cat.

  She sat just inside the doorway, looking at me with yellow-green eyes. Her face and tail were striped with dark gray and black and the rest of her was white, as if somebody had held her by her tabby ears and tail and dipped her in bleach. She looked sleek and well fed.

  The tip of her tail twitched. I knelt down beside her and gave her a scratch in the soft fur between her ears. She gave me a purr and rubbed her little face against my hand.

  “D’you want to come with me, Miss?” I asked.

  I fetched the cracked-leather book, which I put in my coat pocket, along with the strange melted-metal machine, and headed to the window. The cat followed me up onto the windowsill, where I crouched, looking out.

  Outside, the rain had started, a chill downpour, a gray curtain across the courtyard. I jumped down, my boots squelching as I hit the ground, and the cat went primly down the vine.

  “Well done, Lady,” I said. “D’you want me to carry you so you don’t get wet?” I bent down and picked her up, sheltering her under my coat.

  I ran across the courtyard, pelted by the rain, splashing through puddles. Near the storeroom door stood a huge, wet pile of firewood; Benet must have chopped it. I ran past that and into the storeroom.

  Dripping wet, I went up to the kitchen. Benet was there, at the table, cutting up a chicken with a long knife.

  He paused as I came in. “He’s looking for you,” he said, pointing with the knife at the ceiling.

  I nodded and put the cat down. She sneezed and stalked away from me. Maybe she thought the rain was my fault. “Her name is Lady,” I said. “She’s very good at catching mice.”

  Benet grunted. “And he isn’t happy.”

  No, I wouldn’t expect him to be.

  Slowly I went up the stairs to the study. As I came in the door, Nevery looked up from a book, then stood up. He slammed the book down on the tabletop. I froze with my hand on the doorknob.

  “I gave you an assignment, boy,” he growled, “to read the fifth chapter, and you disobeyed.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. Well, I hadn’t. Not really.

  “Have you read this?” He pointed at the red leather book, which was still sitting open on the table.

  “No,” I said.

  Nevery looked like mingled slowsilver and tourmalifine. “You haven’t read it.”

  I took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to like this. “Nevery, I don’t know how to read.”

  The wizard stared at me. Shook his head. Muttered something under his breath. Then he asked, “You’ve had no schooling at all?”

  I stared back at him. I’d grown up in the Twilight, he knew that. Where would I have had schooling?

  Nevery sat down again. “Well then, boy. I don’t have time to teach you to read. You’ll have to go to the academicos.”

  To school?

  Nevery lowered his eyebrows. “Don’t argue, boy.”

  No, I wasn’t going to argue. I was going to school.

  CHAPTER 11

  I gave Nevery the book I’d found in the other workroom and told him about the chest full of stones. I also showed him the little melted-metal device.

  He turned it over in his hands, poking at its springs and frozen cogwheels.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Magic capacitor,” he said, setting the device on the table.

  “What’s a capacitor?”

  He shot me an impatient look from under his eyebrows and picked up the device again. “See this bit, here?” He flicked at a finger-wide tube that opened like a grinning mouth. “Intake valve. Ambient magic is sucked in, there.” He poked at a plump metal bulge. “And stored here. Slowsilver restrains the magic. A wizard can then examine and test the stored magic before releasing it again, through this valve, here.” He poked at a little flywheel, then handed the device to me.

  It was heavier than it looked. I didn’t like it.

  “You’re cursed nosy, boy,” Nevery said. After growling at me a bit more for going into the other part of the mansion, Nevery handed out his punishment for what he called nosiness and I called ordinary curiosity: he made me carry the pile of wood Benet had chopped into the storeroom, where it would be out of the rain and easier to fetch in the mornings when Benet needed wood for the kitchen fire.

  When I finished that, I went back into the study. Nevery sat in his chair, reading the book with the wingèd hourglass on the cover.

  “I’m all done with the wood,” I said. While I’d worked, the rain had continued, so my clothes were wet, and I was cold and a little tired. I edged closer to the hearth, where a fire burned merrily.

  He didn’t look up from the book. “Good. Now go and find something else to do.”

  “Actually, Nevery,” I said, holding my chilled hands before the flames, “I wanted to talk to you about the stones.”

  He closed the book with a snap. “The stones you found in the workroom.”

  I nodded and sat down, cross-legged, on the hearth. “They’re locus magicalicus stones, aren’t they?” I said.

  “Of course they are,” Nevery said. He paused for a moment. “The wizards who possessed them are all long dead.” He held up the book. “This is my family chronicle. Their names and the descriptions of the stones are recorded here.”

  “Oh,” I said. I stared into the fire. So the scowling, bearded man in the rough rock and the shy girl in the sliver of blue crystal were gone.

  Nevery gave me his keen-gleam look. “Well, boy? I suppose, given your nosiness, you examined the stones.”

  “Yes.” I sighed. “I liked the gray lady best.”

  “The gray lady,” Nevery repeated.

  “The one in the flat river stone. She had a good smile.”

  Nevery leaned forward in his chair and grabbed me by the chin, turning my face toward him. “Are you lying to me, boy?” he asked fiercely.

  I blinked and tried to pull away, but he held me tightly.

  “Are you?” he repeated.

  “No!” I said.

  He let me go and sat back in his chair, glaring down at me.

  I scrabbled away, just out of his reach.

  “You didn’t read about the stones and their bearers i
n the book, did you?”

  “No, Nevery,” I answered. “I saw them when I touched the stones.”

  “Hmph,” Nevery said. “Did you. Very interesting. Tell me about them.”

  All right. I told him about every one of the stones, and what I’d felt or seen when touching each one. He interrupted me a few times to consult the book, then nodded and told me to continue. I told him about the bruise-purple jewel stone, how it had attacked me.

  “I’m not at all surprised,” Nevery said, “given what it was. My great-great-aunt Alwae’s jewel stone. You were lucky it didn’t do worse.”

  I’d finished telling about the stones. We sat in silence for a while, me looking at the fire, him paging through the book.

  Nevery cleared his throat. “As you have probably gathered, the locus magicalicus reflects the nature of its bearer. A weak wizard has a soft stone, easily broken, and will go to great lengths to protect it. The stone of a strong-willed wizard is hard.”

  Ah. Nevery’s stone, I remembered, was very hard and smooth, polished, almost like a mirror. And very, very dangerous. Its ice and wind had almost killed me after I’d stolen it from Nevery’s pocket.

  He paused and glanced at me. “Are you listening, boy?”

  I nodded, and he continued.

  “Sometimes a wizard’s stone is no more than a common pebble picked up from the side of the road. Sometimes it is a fine jewel like Alwae’s stone, but such a stone appears only very rarely and with dire consequences. The locus magicalicus, after the wizard has possessed it for some time, can take on aspects of its bearer. And after the wizard’s death, the stone remains imbued with his or her nature.”

  “Can a stone ever be destroyed?” I asked.

  “Hmmm. It could, yes. If the wizard attempted magic greater than the stone could bear. In that case, the wizard would certainly die as well.”

  It was all very interesting, and he was telling me these things because I really was his apprentice now. We sat quietly for a little while. Lady came in and, after sniffing at Nevery’s foot, climbed into my lap. I stroked her and stared at the fire, leaning against the side of Nevery’s chair. The room was warm, and the chill I’d gotten from shifting the wood had been all baked out by the fire. All I needed now was some dinner, but I couldn’t be bothered to move to get it. Lady purred.

  “What’s this?” Nevery said, closing the locus stone book.

  What? I looked up, blinking. Had I fallen asleep? Lady climbed off my lap and stretched.

  Nevery pointed at her.

  “A cat,” I said.

  “I can see that,” Nevery said. “What is it doing here?”

  “She lives here,” I said. He frowned, so before he could decide he didn’t want Lady around, I said, “Benet said we need her for the mice.”

  “Hmmm. Perhaps we do.” He set the book aside and got to his feet. “Well, boy. You will have to find yourself a locus magicalicus. The sooner the better. And tomorrow we go to the academicos.”

  * * *

  Boy has interesting ability. Very sensitive to locus magicalicii. Can read stones. Saw my mother in her stone; called her the gray lady.

  No response yet from magisters to my letter. No doubt they are debating the wording of the first sentence—and having accomplished so much, will go on to discuss what to have for supper.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 12

  Nevery decided to take me to the academicos the next afternoon because he’d heard the magisters were meeting later in the evening.

  “They won’t be expecting me already,” he said, picking up his cane and jamming his wide-brimmed hat onto his head. “Best to keep them on their toes. Come along, boy.”

  He swept out of the mansion and, me following, went across the puddled courtyard, then down the stairs to the tunnel and the gate. Without hesitating, he raised his locus magicalicus and spoke the opening spell. After a sputter and spark, the gate swung open and he strode through it, me running to keep up.

  “Nevery,” I said, wanting to ask him about how to find a locus stone and also about going to school. They were going to teach me to read, of course, but what else?

  “Listen, boy,” Nevery said, pausing to give me one of his keen-gleam looks, then striding on.

  I nodded to show him I was listening.

  “You must call me ‘Master,’ not ‘Nevery.’”

  I didn’t get it. Nevery was his name, wasn’t it? “Why?” I asked.

  “It’s a sign of respect, boy.”

  “I respect you,” I said. It was true; I did.

  He shook his head. “It shows that you respect that I possess knowledge, experience, and abilities that you do not, boy. That I am your master.”

  I thought about that while Nevery opened one of the gates. “But I possess knowledge, experience, and abilities that you do not, Nevery.” And at least I didn’t call him old man the way he called me boy.

  “Perhaps. But I am your teacher,” Nevery said.

  “Well,” I said, running a few steps to catch up with him, “I could teach you what I know, if you like.”

  “Could you indeed?” He shot me another look. “What, for example?”

  “Like picking pockets and locks, learning the secret ways in the city, walking in the shadows. It’s worth knowing.”

  He looked like he was about to answer, then he closed his mouth and strode on, his cane going tap tap tap on the damp cobblestones of the tunnel. He let us through another gate, polished and more ornate than all the other gates. “Hrm,” he said. “This is the academicos gate. Come along.”

  He led the way up the stairs to the academicos island. The stairs opened onto a wide flagstone-paved courtyard thronging with chattering students and teachers. The school itself was a huge central building with four spired towers that were flanked by four-story wings that reached out like embracing arms.

  As Nevery strode across the courtyard, me hurrying behind him, people stopped and stared and gathered in little groups to point him out as he passed along. He ignored them; knowing Nevery, he didn’t even notice. When we reached the wide steps leading up to the academicos front door, he tap tapped toward the door, then turned aside, seeing someone he recognized.

  Oh, no. I recognized him, too. The fat wizard from Magisters Hall. I felt suddenly afraid that he wasn’t going to want me at his academicos.

  “Brumbee,” Nevery said with a nod.

  Brumbee, who wore the same dark suit under the bright yellow robes I’d seen him in before, looked surprised. “Nevery!”

  “The magisters meet this evening, do they not?” Nevery asked.

  “Yes, we do.” Brumbee blinked. “Perhaps we should go into my chambers to, ah, discuss it?”

  “No,” Nevery said. “I have a few things to do before the meeting.”

  “Oh! Then you’ll be joining us?” Brumbee asked.

  “Yes,” Nevery answered. He pointed at me. “This boy here is my, hrm, apprentice. He needs a place at the academicos.”

  “Your apprentice?” Brumbee asked. “But you’ve never had an apprentice before.”

  Nevery scowled. “Well, I’ve got one now. Can you take him?”

  Brumbee spared me a quick glance, then looked again, more carefully. “Yes. Yes, I think so.”

  “Good,” Nevery said. He looked down at me. “Behave yourself, boy, and see if you can learn a thing or two.” He turned to leave.

  Brumbee reached out and grabbed his sleeve as he turned away. “Nevery!”

  “What?”

  “It’s just…” The fat wizard lowered his voice. “We need you here. Thank you for returning to Wellmet.”

  At that, Nevery looked surprised. Then he grasped Brumbee’s pudgy hand and gave it a brisk shake, and strode off down the steps and away.

  Brumbee watched him go, then turned to me. “Well, well. Nevery’s apprentice, are you?”

  I nodded.

  “Come with me, please.”

  I followed him into a high-ceilinged, echoing gal
lery. A double stair led down from a second floor balcony, and the floors were paved with slippery black stone. We crossed the wide hall, reaching a door, which stood open. Brumbee led the way through.

  “My chambers,” he said. “My office is here, and a workshop and study. Very convenient.” He shut the door. “So we won’t be disturbed.”

  The room was decorated in a darker yellow than Brumbee’s robes, and contained a gleaming, carved wooden desk with a comfortable chair behind it, a few benches and bookshelves against the walls, a dark blue rug spangled with stars on the floor, and a few other chairs. A fat black cat was curled on a chair, and a tabby looked up from its perch on the windowsill. I stood just inside the door, and Brumbee crossed to sit behind his desk.

  “Well then,” he said, folding his fat hands and looking at me. “I believe we have met before. Despite the fact that the embero spell is highly illegal, Nevery used it, I think. You were the cat, were you not?”

  Drats. He was going to throw me out for spying on the magisters. I thought about lying to him, but there was no point. I nodded.

  “Hmmm.” He pointed at one of the chairs. “Would you like to sit down?”

  The chair looked comfortable, but I felt like staying by the door. I knew—knew down in my bones—that I was supposed to be Nevery’s apprentice. But I was afraid that Brumbee was going to punish me for spying on the magisters by sending me away or telling me I was too stupid to come to his school.

  Brumbee was looking through his desk drawers, pulling out paper and pen and ink. He slipped a metal nib onto a pen. “What is your name?”

  “Conn,” I said. That wasn’t my whole name, my true name, but it was enough to start with.

  “All right.” Brumbee dipped his pen in the ink and wrote something down on the paper. Then he looked up at me. “And your age?”

  I didn’t actually know the answer to that question. I shrugged.