Captain Kerrn decided that the first dose of phlister hadn’t worked. I told her it had, but she didn’t believe me. So they gave me another.
This time they tied my feet together, so I got a bloody lip and wet down the front of my sweater again, but nobody got kicked.
Then Kerrn and the bristle-bearded guard, whose name was Farn, took turns asking me questions. The same questions, over and over, for hours.
I told them the truth, and they continued to not believe me.
I didn’t mind about any of it. I’d found my locus magicalicus. “I really am a wizard,” I told them, and soon Nevery would come and explain everything, I’d get my locus stone, and I’d go home to Heartsease. I’d go to the academicos, Brumbee would be plumply pleased, Lady would purr, Benet would bake biscuits, and Rowan and I would be friends again.
“I don’t want to hear any more about the damn biscuits,” Farn said to the captain. “We’re not going to get anything else out of him, Captain. We’d better bring in this Magister Nevery.”
Kerrn nodded. “Get the lockpicks out of his collar, Farn, and stay with him just in case.” She stalked out of the cell, slamming the door behind her.
At first the guard was close-mouthed, but after I told him how to find the wires sewn inside my shirt collar, he got more talkative. When I asked how long I’d been there, he told me a day and a half. He said that yes, there was a height requirement for palace guards. He also said that the punishment for attempting to kill the duchess was death by hanging, but I explained that I hadn’t, in fact, tried to kill the duchess, so I wasn’t worried. He said I should be.
After a while, I was starting to feel stretched very thin. I hadn’t eaten in days, or slept.
I found myself talking about Benet’s biscuits again.
“All right!” Farn said. “I’ll get you something to eat.” He stood up and went to the door. “Anything to get you to stop talking.”
And out he went. As soon as the door closed behind him, I brought my chained hands from behind my back, under my legs, and up to the front where I could get a better look at the manacles. The lock was a simple twisted plunger; I had just the thing for it. I felt down the seams of my trousers to where I’d hidden another set of lockpick wires. After bending them into the right shapes, I picked the manacle lock and had my hands free. Then I untied my feet.
Getting up from my chair, I went to the door and listened. No one on the outside, it sounded like. The door gave me no more trouble than the manacles had, just a quick-snick, and the lock clicked over. Time to go get my locus magicalicus. Its call had grown more insistent; it knew I was nearby, and it wanted me to come and fetch it.
I cracked open the door and peered out.
The guard Farn stood in the room outside with a tray of food and a jug of water, looking over his shoulder at Captain Kerrn, who was entering the room through an arched door. And behind her came Benet and—
“Hello, Nevery!” I said, pushing the door wide and stepping out of my cell.
Nevery gave me an exasperated look—I knew it well—but before he could say anything, Farn dropped the tray with a crash and Captain Kerrn strode across the room, grabbed me by the collar, dragged me back into the cell, and chained my hands in front of me. Then she threw me into the chair and stood glaring down at me.
Nevery came to the doorway. Benet loomed up behind him, also glaring. Not at me, for a change, but at Kerrn.
“I knew you’d come, Nevery,” I said. I started to get up from the chair, but Kerrn shoved me back again.
“Sit down,” she growled.
I grinned at Nevery. “They said you wouldn’t come, but I told them you would. ‘My master will come and get me,’ I said.”
“Oh, so I’m your master now, am I, boy?” He spoke to Kerrn. “He is my apprentice, Captain. Release him.”
“Nevery, they arrested me because I tried to steal a jewel from the duchess’s necklace—”
“Be quiet, boy.” Nevery pointed at the chains on my hands. “Go on,” he ordered the captain. “Take them off.”
Kerrn shook her head. “Not without an order from the duchess.”
“—Nevery,” I interrupted. “I don’t think you should let me out of here, because if you do, I’ll try to steal it again. I know I shouldn’t, but that’s what I’ll do, sure as sure.”
“What’s the matter with you, boy?” Nevery asked. He studied me, frowning. “You’re chattering.”
“Phlister,” said Captain Kerrn.
“It makes people tell the truth all the time,” I said.
“Hmph,” Nevery said. “You were given phlister? That would seem to be redundant.”
“What d’you mean?” I asked.
“I mean that you tell the truth already.”
“No I don’t, Nevery. I lie to you all the time.”
“Be quiet, boy.” He turned and spoke to Benet, behind him. “Go see what’s taking Brumbee so long.”
“Yes, Master,” Benet said. He paused and looked me over. “You all right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m very glad to see you, Benet.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Nevery. “Just go.”
“Nevery,” I said. “I have lied to you.”
“Oh, really,” Nevery said. “Name once, boy. Maybe thinking about that will keep you quiet for a while.” He pointed at the door and said to Benet, “Go!”
Benet left. After a quick glance at me, Nevery leaned on his cane and stared at the floor, and Captain Kerrn moved to stand blocking the door. I tried to count the number of times that I had lied to Nevery.
And I couldn’t think of a single instance. In the Twilight I had been a thief, which basically meant liar. But ever since meeting Nevery, though there were some things I hadn’t told him about, I had never lied to him because I hadn’t needed to lie about anything.
As I was about to explain this to Nevery, Benet returned, Brumbee trailing behind him, looking worried.
“Hello, Brumbee!” I said.
“Yes, hello, Conn,” Brumbee said. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. We’ve been very worried about you.” He turned his attention to Nevery. “The duchess requires that we all appear before her. I tried to explain about the”—he lowered his voice so only Nevery and I could hear—“about what Conn claims is his locus magicalicus, but I’m not sure she believed me.” He shot me a worried look. “Nevery, I’m not sure I believe it. No wizard has ever possessed a locus stone of that size and quality.”
Nevery shrugged. “If the duchess wants it proven, then it shall be proven.”
Oh, so Nevery had figured out about my locus magicalicus. I didn’t have to explain. I opened my mouth to say more about my locus stone, but Nevery interrupted.
“Be quiet, boy, if you can.” He gestured to Brumbee. “We’ll speak to the duchess, and you”—he pointed at Captain Kerrn, who scowled back at him—“will bring the boy up in a few minutes. Wait outside the door until you are called. Let us go.”
And he swept-stepped from the room, his cane going tap tap on the stone floor. Brumbee and Benet followed him.
After they’d gone, Captain Kerrn practiced her glare on me, and Farn joined her at it, standing in the doorway with his arms folded.
I ignored them. Which wasn’t hard, because my locus magicalicus was telling me very strongly that it didn’t want to wait much longer for me to find it. Before, I’d wondered what the call of my locus stone would sound like. It wasn’t like a call at all. More like a kind of intense pull, a deep drumming hum in the heavier bones of my legs and in my skull, and a light and tingling buzz in the small bones of my fingers and toes.
Sitting still in the chair was very difficult.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to sit for very long.
“It has been long enough,” Captain Kerrn said. “Bring him, Farn.”
I jumped up and Farn grabbed me by the back of my sweater and shoved me out, following Kerrn. I would have gone myself, because the pull from my locus
stone was getting stronger, and we were going in the right direction. They brought me to a double door with a green-coated guard standing in front of it. The call from my locus stone was making my whole body vibrate. “Can you hear that?” I asked Farn, who still had a grip on my sweater. He scowled and didn’t answer.
One of the double doors swung open and Brumbee stuck his head out. “You may bring him in now,” he said, and opened the door wider.
Farn and I followed Captain Kerrn into the room, an office, it looked like, crowded with chairs and tables with lace doilies on them and trees in pots; the captain nodded to the duchess, who sat in a chair carved of dark wood behind a wide, polished desk piled with books and papers. Rowan stood beside the duchess’s desk. Nevery was there, too, leaning on his cane and looking annoyed, and Benet and Brumbee, along with a few more tall palace guards. Farn shoved me before the duchess and kicked the back of my leg to make me kneel. From the stone floor, I looked up at her. She leaned across the desk and stared down her nose at me, pale and icy cold and very beautiful.
The duchess straightened and said something. Nevery’s gravelly voice said something back. I shook my head, trying to hear, but the stone’s call grew louder. I started to get up, but Farn put his hand on my shoulder and held me down. The stone was in the corner, behind one of the duchess’s guards. Somewhere over there. I squirmed, but Farn tightened his grip on me.
Then somebody said something, and he let me go.
Call call call, went my locus stone. I wobbled to my feet. “All right, I’m coming,” I said. I crossed the room, past the staring duchess and Rowan, past Nevery and Brumbee, and ducked around a guard. There, in the corner, behind a table.
I went down on my knees and lifted up the edge of a fringed rug, and there it was. Even in the dark corner, my locus magicalicus glowed against the stone floor, just as I’d remembered it—leaf shaped, leaf green, faceted, and glimmering. When I picked it up, it felt glad, coming home, heavy and solid in my hand.
I got to my feet and turned around, and they were all staring at me. Nevery was trying to hide a smile in his beard.
“I suppose that proves it,” Brumbee said.
Captain Kerrn looked ready to boil over. “It was a trick. Magister Nevery signaled to the thief, told him where the stone was hidden.”
They all turned to the duchess to see what she would say. But she stared across the room at me. Her face was proud and pale, and as she looked me up and down, the curl of her lip told me she didn’t like what she saw. I knew what I must look like to her: tangled hair, bare feet, smudged with coal dust, the jewel from her necklace in my chained hands. A thief.
But then she slowly shook her head. “Magister Nevery did not know where the jewel was hidden. This boy found it himself.”
“And his affinity for the stone is easily proven,” said Nevery. He nodded at me. “Do some magic.”
Magic, right. I’d seen Nevery do the light spell plenty of times, so I held up the stone and called out the spell: “Lothfalas!”
The magic burst forth in a flood, cresting through me and then crashing out, filling the room. My locus stone blazed like lightning frozen in the moment of striking; the bones of my hands glowed red, clenched around the stone. The manacles burst open and exploded into a swarm of sparks. The rest of my body lit up with white-bright flames that flickered and danced, but didn’t burn. The others in the room flinched away, covering their faces.
Nevery took a step toward me, raising his hand to shield his eyes.
I caught my breath. “How do I stop it?” I asked. My voice sounded squeaky and a little bit frightened.
“Just will it to stop, boy,” he said calmly.
Right. I closed my eyes against the flames and light and willed the magic back. And it went.
When I opened my eyes, the brightness had receded; the locus magicalicus was just a leaf-shaped, spring-green jewel in my hand.
The others were blinking the brights from their eyes to stare at me. The duchess looked shaken and Rowan’s eyes were shining.
“Well,” said Brumbee. “That answers that question, doesn’t it, Nevery?”
Nevery was looking at me with an odd smile on his face. “It does, indeed,” he answered. To me, he said, “That was quite a display, boy.”
I gave Nevery a shaky grin. I was a wizard, clear as clear.
* * *
Boy has claimed his locus magicalicus. Quite a remarkable display.
Afterward, Benet and I brought him home. Sat him down on a stool in the kitchen, still chattering, clutching his locus stone, talking to the cat, to Benet, and mostly to me.
Benet brought tea. Asked,—He going to stop soon?
I watched boy.—Wait for it, I said.
The boy ate three biscuits with butter, then jumped up to pace around the room, telling Benet and me that he hadn’t realized that Rowan was the duchess’s daughter, when he stopped dead, as if he’d run into a stone wall. A look of utter surprise and confusion crossed his face.
Benet glanced at me. I nodded.—Catch him.
The boy’s eyes dropped closed and he swayed where he stood. Benet stepped up and caught him as he toppled over.
—Put him to bed, I said.
* * *
CHAPTER 24
In the morning, I woke up as usual in my attic room, snuggled in blankets. The room was freezing. The air went into my lungs like shards of ice and came out again as puffs of white steam. My nose was cold. A layer of ice crystals covered the blankets. If I’d spent a night this cold on the streets of the Twilight, I would have woken up huddled and frozen in a doorway. Or not woken up at all. It was good to be home.
Outside, the wind shrieked around the corner of the house, and the sky, what I could see of it through my windows, was gray.
And my locus magicalicus was lost in the blankets somewhere. I rooted around until I found it. Then, hugging the blankets around me, I sat up, leaned against the wall, and held the stone up to the light. It glowed from within, a shifting, dappled warmth like sunlight shining down through the leaves of tall trees.
No other wizard had ever had a locus magicalicus like this. Most jewel locus stones were smaller, Nevery had told me. Large jewels were dangerous; hadn’t he said that, too? Sure as sure, my locus stone was the most valuable jewel in the city, maybe in all the Peninsular Duchies. Why had it come to me? It didn’t make sense.
Maybe Nevery would know.
Oh, well. Time to get up. Untangling myself from the blankets, I felt a little stiff and sore from the past few days, and the back of my head hurt a little from where the duchess’s guards had bashed me. But nothing too bad, considering.
To my surprise, my coat and black sweater were folded neatly on the floor, my boots and socks lined up beside them. The last time I’d seen them, I’d been sneaking into the Dawn Palace. Shivering, I put them on, put my locus magicalicus into my coat pocket, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Benet wasn’t up yet. I raked up the banked fires in the stove and the fireplace, added wood, then grabbed the bucket and went out to fetch water. I paused on the threshold to wrap my scarf around my face and to pull the sleeves of my coat over my hands.
As I stepped out the door, the wind raced ’round the corner of the house and struck with icy daggers down into my bones, almost knocking me off my feet. Tiny flecks of snow, whipped by the wind, scudded across the courtyard. In the tree, the birds balanced on the branches with their backs to the wind, looking ruffled and annoyed.
Catching my breath, I set off toward the well. The birds caught sight of me. With a sudden cackling and cawing, they leaped from the branches, spattering the ground with their droppings, shedding feathers, which spun away in the wind. In a clackety-rackety black cloud, they raced across the courtyard to where I stood holding the bucket and swirled around me, chattering loudly, brushing me with the soft tips of their wings. I dropped the bucket. They whirled up like a fluttering funnel of black rags, and then flew back to the tree, where they se
ttled onto the branches.
I stood staring at them and they stared back, cackling quietly, fluffing their feathers.
I’d never heard of birds acting like that. Strange. With an eye on their tree, I picked up the bucket, went to the well and fetched water, then went back to the house and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. Benet was there, sitting at the table with his hair standing up in spikes all over his head.
“G’morning,” I said, and carried the bucket to the stove, where I filled the kettle.
Benet glared at me, which made me happy. I took off my coat and started to get the tea ready.
“Can I see it?” Benet asked.
My locus magicalicus, he meant. I went over to my coat, fetched out the jewel, and put it on the table, then went back to the stove to pour hot water into the teapot.
When I brought Benet his cup of tea, he was studying the stone, but not touching it. “It dangerous?” he asked.
I fetched a chair and sat down next to him. I picked up the stone. It felt cool and just a little prickly; if it were a cat, it would have its back arched and its fur on end, but it wouldn’t hiss or scratch. “I don’t think so,” I said. When I’d tried to steal Nevery’s locus magicalicus, it had attacked me, and I figured that if anybody tried to steal mine it would probably kill them. But it wouldn’t hurt Benet.
“Hmph,” Benet grunted. He rubbed his hands through his hair and then took a drink of tea. “Wood,” he said.
Right. I got up, put my locus stone in my pocket, and fetched more wood for the stove and the fireplace. When I’d finished that, Benet had woken up enough to make biscuits, and when those were done I ate three of them with jam and cheese.
Then I took tea and biscuits up to Nevery.
I peeked into the study and he was there, a fat book open on the table before him.
“Breakfast, Nevery,” I said, setting the tray on the table.
He glanced up. Frowned. “Have you washed?”
I grinned at him. “No.”
He pointed at the door.
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