The Magic Thief

by Sarah Prineas

  The one I’d elbowed wiped blood from his nose, pushed me aside, and, pulling a knife from his belt, slashed at Benet’s arm. Benet grunted in pain. Panting, we backed away from the three minions left; two of the ones Benet had bashed were just getting to their feet, and another lay on the ground, moaning. The snowy ground was spattered with droplets of blood.

  “Get ’em,” one of the minions said grimly, wiping blood from his face, and they were on us again.

  Benet swung his truncheon, connecting with a crack crack crack. His other fist was a hammer, and the minions were nails. A minion stumbled past me, blood fountaining from his nose. Another fell to the ground, groaning. But still, the others kept coming.

  I only knew one other spell, and I didn’t want to use it. But I had no choice. Darting behind Benet, I clenched my hand around my locus magicalicus, chanting the embero. Tumbriltumbrilulartambe…One of the minions came after me and I dodged him, slipping in the snow, still reciting the spell. Then a cudgel whooshed through the air before me, missing Benet and striking me a crashing blow on my chest. I gasped for breath, fell to my knees, and continued the spell. Please, magic, I thought, still pant-chanting. Don’t turn Benet into a bear, because he hates it. And not Keeston, either. Just the minions, please.

  With the last of my breath, I finished the spell—lilotarkolilotar-kennan!

  With a crackle of blue sparks, the embero spell exploded across the alleyway, flinging me back against a brick wall, then to the icy cobblestones. As the spell struck, the air cracked apart where the minions had stood, then slammed back together with a muffled boom. Blue sparks danced in a whirlwind. Four clubs and a knife clattered to the ground.

  Where the minions had stood were three rats with scaly, naked tails, a rooster, a black snake, and a little hairy man with a long tail, shivering and looking dazedly around. One of the rats snarled and leaped at Benet’s foot; he kicked it and it squealed and skittered off down the alley. The others followed.

  Across the alley Benet, himself unchanged, leaned against the wall, holding his ribs with one arm, the other arm dangling at his side. Blood dripped from his fingertips onto the snow. Keeston stood gripping his locus stone with both hands, staring at the black snake, which was slithering after the other animals.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, climbing to my feet, aching in my bones. “It’s the only spell I know.”

  “It’ll do,” Benet said. He nodded in the direction the rats and other animals had gone. “More where they came from.”

  We needed to go, to get out of the Twilight. Benet, wincing, glanced at the slash on his arm, then gripped it with his other hand to stop the blood. “Come on,” he growled.

  We headed down the hill, the wind behind us, to the Night Bridge, then down the steps to the secret tunnel to the islands. I tried to walk carefully, because my ribs ached with every step; my face throbbed where a minion had hit me. Finally we reached the first gate, where I pulled out my locus stone and spoke the opening spell. The gate flash-crashed open; Benet shoved his booted foot in the way to stop the gate slamming closed again.

  Keeston’s eyes grew wider as we blasted through the rest of the gates to Heartsease. When we went through the last gate, I said to him, “Run and tell Nevery we’re coming,” and without even hesitating he dashed away.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Benet paused. His face looked green, and blood seeped between his fingers. I waited with him until he nodded, and we went up the stairs.

  * * *

  Was writing up conclusions about magical decay.

  Heard door downstairs slam open; secretary dashed up the stairs into study, eyes wide, panting. Said they’d been attacked in the Twilight.

  As they came up stairs, boy looked well enough, but Benet’s arm wounded, dripping blood; had his hand on boy’s shoulder, steadying himself.

  Cleaned and bandaged nasty gash on Benet’s arm, checked egg-sized bump on the side of his head. He shook me off, pointed at the boy.

  —He got clubbed, Benet said.—Ribs.

  Boy protested, but got him to take off his sweater and shirt. Had nasty, seeping bruise the size of a saucer, but rib bones not cracked or broken. While he got dressed again, brewed tea, added painkilling herbs and gave them each a cup.

  Not a mark on secretary, from what I could see.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 29

  “Benet,” I said the next day.

  “Keep still,” Benet said. He was cutting my hair with scissors. I sat on a stool in the middle of the kitchen, and Keeston was at the table with a pile of papers Nevery had set him to reading.

  “What d’you think happened in the fight?” I asked. I thought I knew, but I wanted to see if Benet thought so, too.

  “Got the fluff beat out of us,” Benet said. “You did magic, we got out of there.”

  I nodded.

  “Keep still, you,” Benet said again. He snipped for a while.

  “Not too short,” I said. Snip snip snip. “Benet, I think those minions were after me.”

  “Hmph,” Benet said. “Think so?”

  “Do you think so?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  From the table, Keeston looked up from his papers. “I think they were after you, too, um, Conn.”

  Benet growled. He was still angry that Keeston hadn’t helped us fight off the minions.

  Keeston trembled under Benet’s glare. “T-two of them went after Benet. Four tried to grab you, Conn, and they ignored me.”

  I nodded. That’s how I remembered it, too.

  And I remembered, with a little jolt, that Keeston was probably reporting everything he saw and heard to his master, Pettivox. Drats. I had been starting to like Keeston.

  Well, I’d just have to watch what I said around him.

  So the minions had been after me; even Keeston agreed. Nevery wouldn’t believe it. But the attack was one more reason to be sure as sure of two things. One, that Pettivox had told Crowe about my locus magicalicus, and two, that Crowe thought I was a threat to his plans, whatever they were, and was trying harder than he ever had before to pick me up off the streets.

  I had to find out what they were up to. And now that I knew the Underlord’s minions were looking for me, I’d have to be very careful every time I left Heartsease.

  “It’s a little lopsided,” Keeston said.

  Benet and I turned to stare at him.

  He pointed at me. “The haircut. It’s longer on the left side than the right.”

  Benet growled at him and he flinched and went back to his papers.

  Then Benet cut the left side shorter.

  Later that day, I was reading in Nevery’s study, books piled on the table all around me. Nevery had told me to read a treatise about some lost city, but I couldn’t be bothered. I wanted to find out if any other wizards had written about magic spells.

  Keeston sat at the other end of the table, collating more of Nevery’s notes. Nevery himself was at Magisters Hall preparing to present his conclusions about the magical decay—I wasn’t sure what he would tell them.

  The air outside was perishing cold. The tall windows were covered with ice crystals and the wind howled around the outside of the mansion. Despite Keeston’s company, I felt desolate and empty inside. The magic had faded; I couldn’t feel its warm presence anywhere. I kept shivering and wrapping myself in more blankets.

  Hearing Benet come up the stairs, I looked up from my book. He came into the room, followed by Rowan.

  “Hello, Ro,” I said.

  Keeston jumped to his feet. “Lady Rowan!”

  “Hello, Keeston, Conn.” She took off her coat and student’s robe and her scarf and went to the fire to warm her hands. “I had a few guards row me over. The river is freezing,” she said. “I don’t know how much colder it can get.”

  She hadn’t come to talk about the weather. I closed my book, shed my blankets, and got carefully to my feet. I was still sore from getting bashed in the ribs and had a bruise on the side of my fa
ce. She raised her eyebrows. “I suppose you’re going to tell me what happened to you.”

  “D’you want to see the attic?” I said.

  “Oh, more than anything,” she said brightly. Keeston made a move, as if he might come with us, but she said, “I’m sorry to have interrupted your work, Keeston. Do continue. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  We went out together and up the stairs to the fourth floor, then scrambled up the ladder to the attic.

  “Your room?” Rowan asked.

  I nodded and handed her a blanket. I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat on the floor with my back against the wall, where she joined me.

  “So?” she asked.

  “Benet and I were attacked in the Twilight,” I said. “We’re all right.”

  “Indeed.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Something’s going on,” she muttered.

  “What?” I asked.

  She looked up at the sloped ceiling. “My mother meets every day with that nasty magister, Pettivox.”

  I perked up at that. “D’you know what they talk about?”

  Rowan gave me her glinting sideways glance. “Are you asking, Connwaer, if I spy on my own mother?”

  Well, yes. I nodded.

  “Mmm.” She huddled her blanket up around her shoulders. “It’s cold in here. Freezing.”

  It wasn’t so bad. Better since Nevery had asked Benet to put in windowpanes. I waited.

  “I think Pettivox is watching her,” Rowan said. “To see what she’s going to do, or maybe to keep her from doing anything. My mother is not stupid, Conn. She knows something is going on.”

  I nodded.

  “Well?” she said, impatient. “What is it? Somehow I feel certain that you are at the center of it, whatever it is. And I assume it has something to do with your latest black eye.”

  I took a deep breath and thought about it for a minute. I couldn’t be sure her mother wasn’t working with Pettivox and the Underlord. But I knew I could trust Rowan. “Ro, what d’you think the magic is?” I asked. She’d had apprentice classes, so she must have thought about it.

  “Well…” She looked at me, then away. “I’ve always heard that magic is dangerous. I’m studying magic so that I’ll know what kind of regulations are needed for the city to be safe.” She shivered and wrapped herself more tightly in the blanket. “I’ve read Micnu and Carron on magical nodes, of course. I suppose magic is something like what they say it is, a natural force that gathers in one place.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not. Magic is a living being. And Wellmet’s magic, the being”—I shook my head—“it’s in danger.”

  Rowan stared at me, eyes wide.

  I went on quickly. “The magic chose me to find the leaf jewel.” I reached under the blanket and into my pocket and pulled out my locus magicalicus. It glowed spring green in the dust-dim room. “I’m the one who’s supposed to help it.”

  “Help it? This magic being?” Rowan asked. She shook her head.

  “To save it.”

  She shifted a little away from me and looked me over, her eyebrows raised.

  She didn’t believe me. But I might as well tell her the rest of it, anyway. “Nevery thinks the magical level is just ebbing, but I think the Underlord is doing something to the magic. I’ve seen Pettivox at Dusk House and in the Twilight, which means Pettivox is helping Underlord Crowe. I have to figure out what they’re doing and how to stop them.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Rowan said.

  “Yes,” I said. Drats, I didn’t want her to tell me I was being stupid. We sat without talking for a few minutes. The room had gotten so cold that I could see my breath in the air. Outside the frosted-over windows, the sky was darkening.

  “Pettivox asked my mother about you,” she said at last.

  Not surprising. The duchess had probably told him all about the thief who’d stolen the largest jewel from her necklace.

  Rowan gave me a sharp half-grin. “She told him that she asked you to serve as the ducal magister.”

  She had, sort of. I shrugged.

  “Connwaer,” Rowan said, impatient. “My mother, who hates magic, asked you”—she pointed at me—“the very young, former thief, apprentice of her worst enemy, to be her magister. I told you she’s not stupid. She knows something is going on and she knows you’re involved.”

  Oh. Well, good. “D’you believe me about the magical being?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s a—well, it’s typical of you, isn’t it? It’s a very strange idea. I have to think about it.”

  All right.

  “What are you going to do?” Rowan asked.

  I wasn’t sure. But I couldn’t stay here and wait for something to happen. When he got back, I would have to convince Nevery that it was time for us to go out into the city, to find out what was really going on.

  * * *

  Preparing to present findings tonight to magisters. Notes collated, precedents listed, charts drawn up. Yet am uncertain about conclusions. Magic level remains extremely low.

  Find there has been corresponding fall in temperature. Weather worsening. Coldest I’ve ever seen it; river frozen almost all the way across.

  Yet cold weather is not enough to explain such calculated drops in magic level. Not sure the magical decay is natural.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 30

  Despite the new windows, the air in my attic was freezing. An icy draft blew down the chimney and swirled around the room. Even wrapped up in my blankets and all my clothes, I was too cold and empty to sleep. Finally, I took my blankets and went down to sleep in the study, on the hearth.

  In the middle of the night I woke up to Nevery standing over me, nudging me with his foot. It reminded me of my first day as an apprentice—though I hadn’t really become Nevery’s apprentice until later. It seemed like a long time ago.

  Nevery took off his hat and cloak and flung them on a chair. Then he stepped around me and flung a shovelful of coal onto the fire, which snapped and hissed as it flared up.

  I yawned and sat up, my blankets still wrapped around me, and leaned against the wall beside the fireplace. He must have just returned from the meeting at Magisters Hall. From the looks of it, the meeting hadn’t gone well. “What did you tell the magisters?” I asked.

  Nevery paced to his chair and, shoving his hat and cloak out of the way, sat down. “Interesting that you should ask that, boy. If I told you about the meeting, who would you report to?”

  I blinked. “Nobody.” I unwrapped myself from my blankets and climbed stiffly to my feet.

  “I have realized, boy, why you are so keen to convince me that Pettivox is involved with the Underlord.”

  “Because he is involved with the Underlord.”

  Nevery looked angry, his brows drawn, frowning down. “At the meeting, Pettivox told me of something I should have realized before.”

  Oh, no. A feeling of dread started to gather in my stomach.

  “First,” Nevery said, “Pettivox admitted that he has been going to the Twilight. But that is because he is the magister assigned as liaison to the duchess, and the duchess sent him to keep an eye on the Underlord. And he told me something else.”

  The room was silent for a long moment. In the fireplace, little flames licked over the pile of coal; outside, the wind moaned.

  “Your name,” Nevery said, finally. “It is a true name.”

  I nodded. Connwaer. It made me think of black feathers and bright, yellow eyes.

  “Crowe. Also a true name.”

  The feeling of dread spread from my stomach and down my legs and arms, and I started to shake. “Nevery,” I said, and my voice was shaking, too.

  Scowling, Nevery got up from his chair. “Pettivox told me that long ago Crowe identified you, his nephew, as his successor, that you lived in Crowe’s house and were trained by him in spying and sne
aking. Can you deny it?”

  I shook my head. No, I couldn’t.

  Nevery scowled and jabbed his finger toward the door. “Get out. You are no apprentice of mine.”

  “Yes I am,” I said, clenching my fists.

  “Out!” he roared.

  I went out, slamming the door behind me.

  Heading down the dark stairway, I realized that my knees were shaking, so I sat down on a step and put my head in my hands.

  So Nevery had finally realized that the Underlord and I shared a true, family name. That was enough for Pettivox to convince him that I was a liar and spy. I hadn’t been Crowe’s for a long time, but Nevery would never believe that. Meanwhile, Nevery and the other wizards were going to study the situation and wait for the magical levels to improve. But that wasn’t going to happen. I had a feeling that things would get worse very soon.

  Hearing footsteps, I looked up. Somehow, tears had gotten onto my cheeks, so I wiped them quickly away.

  Benet was coming up the stairs, carrying a tray and candle. “What,” he said.

  I shifted aside so he could get past. But he stopped a few steps below me, waiting.

  I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I trusted Benet completely, but he was Nevery’s man.

  “I have to go out for a while,” I said. Nevery wouldn’t believe anything I said, so I would find proof. I could get into the Underlord’s mansion. Crowe and Pettivox were up to something there. If I spied on them, I’d have the proof I needed.

  “Out?” Benet said. “Into the city?”

  I nodded.

  Benet glared. “Don’t be stupid, you.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  Benet shook his head and went on up the stairs.

  When I used my locus stone to go through the tunnel gate, the magic arced into the lock and sputtered, and the gate creaked open and stayed open. No sparks, no crashing and slamming.

  In the dark tunnel, I inspected my locus magicalicus. Its glow seemed dimmer than usual. The magical level must have dropped very low. The night felt empty, and colder than ever. I didn’t have much time.