A Muddle of Magic

by Alexandra Rushe

  “What is it, Raven? What’s wrong?”

  Mauric rose out of the grass at their feet. “Say the word, cuz. We can take them, you and I.”

  “Mauric.” Raine’s hand went to her throat. “You scared me silly. Why are you lurking in the grass?”

  Mauric’s blue eyes were hard. “I’m here to offer Raven my sword, if he will have it.”

  “You would kill these men, bror, for doing their jobs?” Raven shook his head. “See to Raine, if you would ease my mind.”

  “No, by gods, Raven, I won’t—”

  “ʼTis done, Mauric.” A muscle twitched in Raven’s cheek. “Do as I ask.”

  Mauric swore and took Raine by the arm. “Come, lass. We should leave.”

  She jerked away from him, her chest heaving. “Not until someone tells me what the hell’s going on.”

  “Get her out of here, Mauric, or so help me—”

  “Stop talking around me, Reaven Gorne,” Raine said. “I’m right here.”

  “I killed Blederak.”

  “What?” Raine said. “No, you didn’t.”

  “ʼTis true, lass.” Mauric laid his hand on Raine’s shoulder. “There are witnesses.”

  “So what?” Raine said. “Blederak murdered all those Shads.”

  Raven was white around the mouth. “Blederak could have killed a thousand Shads, and ʼtwould have mattered not. I killed Blederak and am foresworn. There will be a trial. If I am found guilty, the sentence is death.”

  “No,” Raine said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it. The rowan—”

  “My father’s hands are tied,” Raven said. “There is no greater crime in Finlara than violating Finn’s Oath. ʼTis a vow every Finlar makes when they come of age, to protect the creatures of Udom. If my father pardons me, it will give Hedda the chance to seize the throne.”

  He rolled his shoulders and strode to meet the warriors. A man stepped forward to relieve him of his weapons, and Raven was marched away. Taller than the rest and dark of hair, he stood out among the Finlars.

  Heartbroken, Raine watched him leave.

  Mauric put his arm around her. “Come, lass.”

  They followed the soldiers across the meadow to the cluster of tents. Gertie stood at the edge of camp. As Raven was marched past, she tipped her head and let out a howl, a shuddering cry of pain and loss. She rounded on the rowan. The king stood nearby, his face like stone. He listened to Gertie without apparent emotion, then motioned to the guards. Raven was escorted to a tent isolated from the others and ushered inside. The flap closed, and the guards took their places around the makeshift prison.

  Gertie snarled something at the rowan and sprang away. She loped across the lea and into the woods and was gone.

  Raine wiped her tears away. “What now? What happens next?”

  “Tomorrow, we return to the Citadel,” Mauric said, “and Raven will be placed in the dungeon to await trial.”

  “The dungeon?” Wild laughter bubbled up inside Raine. “I asked for sanctuary because I was terrified the rowan would clap me in irons. Instead, Raven is the one imprisoned.”

  Mauric squeezed her shoulder. “ʼTis not your doing, lass.”

  “Isn’t it?” Raine swallowed. “H-how long before the trial?”

  “A fortnight, at most. They’ll want it done before the ledderad.” Mauric clenched his fists. “He should have made a run for it. Hidden in the hills and made his way across the mountains to Sethlar. It was his only chance.”

  Raine threw him a scornful look. “Raven wouldn’t run, any more than you would. Kron offered him sanctuary, and he turned it down, the noble idiot.”

  She chewed the tip of her finger.

  “You’ve got that look, lass.” Mauric eyed her warily. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m going to figure a way out of this mess, Mauric,” Raine said, “and you’re going to help me.”

  Chapter 27

  The Trial Begins

  Raine sneezed and shoved the musty scroll away. She wasn’t getting anywhere, but quitting wasn’t an option, not with Raven’s life at stake. Shoving a wayward curl behind her ear, she grabbed another scroll from the pile, and unrolled it.

  “Find something?” Mauric said, dropping into a chair across from her.

  “Nothing except…”

  He leaned across the library table. “Except what?”

  Raine straightened and rubbed her aching neck. “The Oath’s not binding on anyone but Finlars, right? Raven’s half troll.”

  “Won’t work,” Mauric said, dashing her hopes. “Raven said the words, and the oath is binding. Besides, he’s half Finlar, too.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I’m starting to panic.”

  She’d been holed up in the ancient tower that housed the rowan’s library for days, searching for a way to save Raven.

  “Don’t give up, lass. You’ve got to keep looking.”

  Sadek, the Esmallan adept the rowan had hired to manage the library more than a hundred years earlier, bustled up. A dried wisp of a man, Sadek resembled one of the tomes on the shelves.

  “What’s this?” he said, clucking in disapproval at the manuscripts piled on the table and heaped about Raine’s chair. “When I gave you permission to do research, young lady, I expected a regard for library rules. I asked you to replace scrolls immediately after you’re done with them.”

  Lifting the yellow wizard stone on his chest, Sadek flicked a bony finger and sent a heap of scrolls flying onto the shelves.

  Raine made a grab for the parchments on the table. “Hey, I haven’t looked at these yet.”

  “Library rules.” The librarian pointed a long fingernail at Raine, and the scrolls began to wriggle.

  She clutched the scrolls to her breasts, but it was like holding on to an armful of eels.

  Mauric slammed his fist on the table. “Have done, you old prune. The lady ain’t looked at those, yet.”

  Sadek stiffened. “You are in this library at my sufferance, Lord Lindar. The last time you were here, you broke a window.”

  “I was ten years old.”

  Sadek’s chin quivered. “Not that time, ruffian, although I thank you for the information. I’ve always suspected ʼtwas your doing but could not prove it. I refer to the incident last cycle, when you went out a window to avoid a jealous husband.”

  “Did I?” Mauric chuckled. “What was her name?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Sadek said, looking down his thin nose at him. “I am a librarian, not a census taker. ʼTwould take a team of clerks to record your peccadilloes, you young lift skirt.”

  Mauric raised his brows at Raine. “Methinks he sounds jealous.”

  “I am not jealous,” Sadek shouted, forgetting his own rules about quiet in the stacks. “I am outraged that you used my library for a tryst.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice,” Mauric said. “This is a library, not an alehouse.”

  “Out.” Raising a shaking finger, Sadek pointed to the door. “Get out.”

  “I can’t leave the lady, Sadek. Rowan’s orders.”

  “Then take her with you.”

  Mauric got to his feet. The young warrior towered over the wizened old man. “Keep your beard on. We’re going.” He winked at Raine. “Meet you at the bottom.”

  Turning, he took three running strides and leapt through a window.

  “Mauric,” Raine shrieked, dropping the scrolls she held and leaping to her feet.

  She ran to the window, heedless of the broken glass, and leaned out. Mauric grinned and waved at her from the tall fir growing beside the library spire.

  “You idiot,” Raine said, glaring at him. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nay.”

  “
Good, because when I get my hands on you, you will be.”

  She turned from the window to meet Sadek’s baleful glare.

  “That young man is a menace,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” Raine took the old man’s thin hand in hers. “It’s worry that’s making him reckless. The trial starts tomorrow, you know, and I haven’t found a thing to help the roark.”

  “Humph,” Sadek said, unappeased. “Lord Lindar has ever been wild. Still, I’m sorry about Raven. He’s a nice enough lad.”

  Raine coughed. “Yes, he is.” Sadek was more than two thousand years old, according to Bree. To a man of such years, Raven probably did seem a boy. “I’ll speak to Mauric about the window. I’m sure he’ll be happy to pay for it.”

  “Don’t bother.” Sadek waved his hand and repaired the window. “It’s the principle of the thing, you know. Young people have no respect.” He frowned. “The roark confessed to killing the rock troll?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then, unless you can prove the monster attacked him first, Raven is doomed.”

  “Blederak didn’t attack him first.”

  “Then there’s no help for him,” Sadek said. “Finn’s Oath is absolute. A pity, that. Death by basilisk is not a pretty thing.”

  “Don’t say that,” Raine shouted. “There has to be a way. I just haven’t found it.”

  Pushing past the old man, she fled the library and pounded down the tower steps. Mauric was waiting for her outside, one shoulder propped against the wall.

  “Sadek is right,” she said, scowling at him. “You’re a menace. You should be locked up.”

  “Whist, lass, don’t flay me. I heard you shouting. What did old Sad Sack say to irk you?”

  “He thinks there’s no hope for Raven, but he’s wrong.”

  Spinning on her heel, she walked away.

  Mauric followed. “If I were a wizard, I’d have a more interesting power than sorting books.”

  “If you were a wizard, I can guess what your power would be,” Raine muttered without slowing.

  “Darling girl, I’m adept at that, already.”

  “So I hear.”

  “Someone’s been talking about me, have they?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “Ouch. I think it’s time to change the subject.”

  “Really? Do you think you can?”

  “You’re a cruel lass, Raine Stewart,” Mauric said. “Where are we going?”

  “To see Raven. Maybe there’s something he’s forgotten. Some little detail that will help.”

  “They won’t let you see him. The queen’s guards are at the door.”

  “They won’t be a problem.”

  “You want me to kill them?”

  “Certainly not,” Raine said. “I’m going to shapeshift.”

  “Aw, Rainey. Let me stick ʼem with a sword, instead.”

  “No, Mauric. Go away if you can’t handle a little magic.”

  That silenced him, and Raine hurried on to the north wing, where the dungeon was located. She surveyed the entrance from behind a tree. There were guards, a lot of them wearing the Korek crest, a silver boar on a blue and black background.

  “Here we go,” Raine said, clasping her wizard stone.

  The wizard stone pulsed against her palm, and Raine felt a stretching, pulling sensation.

  “What do you think?” she squeaked, gazing up at the startled warrior.

  “Your tail’s crooked.”

  “Thanks,” Raine said. “I know.”

  She scuttled across the dungeon yard and crouched in the tall grass near the door. One of the guards murmured something to another man and went inside. Darting after him, Raine slipped through the door as it swung shut. She paused, quivering, in the dimly lit passageway. The corridor was dank and musty, and her sensitive mouse nose twitched at the smell. She was trying to decide which way to go when she heard a cool, familiar voice.

  She crept closer and poked her head around a corner.

  “You gave orders to turn them away, Malryn?” Hedda said, addressing a nobleman in a fine cloak and polished boots.

  “And paid them, Your Majesty,” Malryn said in his sneering drawl. “No wizards allowed. The guards know what to do.”

  “That’s what you said the last time. I paid those men a princely sum, and the bitch escaped.”

  “We did not count on the king’s bastard and Lord Lindar. They make a formidable team,” Malryn said. “ʼTis unfortunate, but there will be another opportunity. Lady Raine’s friends will lower their guard, sooner or later, and then we will strike.”

  Trembling with outrage, Raine huddled closer to the wall. Hedda was behind the attack at the gate? Gathering her nerve, she peeked around the corner again and saw the queen and Malryn locked in a heated embrace.

  They broke apart.

  Hedda tidied her hair and handed Malryn a clinking pouch. “For your…services, Lord Korek,” she said in a seductive purr.

  Turning, the queen swept up the passageway. She brushed past without noticing the mouse in the dark. Malryn examined the contents of the pouch. Satisfied, he strode up the corridor toward the dungeon entrance. Raine settled down to wait. Soon, a guard with a key approached with a plate of food. He turned the key in the gate and stepped through. Raine scurried after him, following the man into the lower levels of the prison. Adding to Raine’s nervousness was the distinct odor of cat. The guard opened a fourth gate and stopped at a cell. Opening a slot in the bottom of the thick, wooden door, he slid the plate of food through the opening.

  “Here’s your supper, oath breaker,” the guard said. “May you choke on it.”

  The guard left and Raine dashed across the stone flags and through the narrow slot in the door. Whiskers twitching, she paused beside the untouched plate of food. It was stew, and it smelled rank. She examined the cell, a small square containing a cot with a straw mattress and a waste bucket in one corner. Raven was lying on the cot. Hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. There were no windows. A lone torch sputtered on the wall above the chamber pot.

  Raine shifted to human form and smoothed her skirts. “I must say,” she said, looking around. “I don’t think much of your new place. The sooner we get you out of here, the better.”

  Raven bolted off the cot. “Raine? How the devil did you get in?”

  “Mouse.” Raine tapped the wizard stone on her chest. “Mauric says I still haven’t got the tail right.”

  “Mauric is with you?”

  “Outside. You should have seen his face when I shifted. He is such a Finlar. I heard Hedda and Malryn talking in the corridor. They’ve instituted a no-wizards policy.”

  “They have?” Raven grinned. “It’s not working. You’re my fourth wizard, so far. If the guards were paying proper attention, they’d have noticed a couple of extra cats and a large, hump-backed rat skulking about.”

  “Gertie was the rat?”

  “Aye, and my father’s been to see me, as well. No one can keep him out.”

  “I’d have been here sooner, but I’ve been in the library working on your defense.”

  “I have no defense, Raine,” Raven said. “I killed Blederak. If it’s any comfort, Glory assures me ʼtis not my fate to die on the morrow.” He slumped back onto the cot and stared at his hands. “I wish I had more faith in augury.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He lifted his head. “Discover how much of Finn’s blood runs through my veins, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Finn’s recuperative powers are legendary. Whether they work against petrifaction?” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “We shall see. In the meantime, Mor is concocting a tonic to protect me from the basilisk’s gaze.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I’d almost rather be stonified.”


  “What did Bree suggest?”

  “Oh, he was very helpful. He suggests I blind myself. That way, I can’t look upon the monster. A practical solution, perhaps, but unappealing.”

  “There must be some other way.”

  “I’m afraid not. If Blederak had attacked me first, then I could have killed him without breaking my oath, but that was not the case.”

  “Why did you kill him? Why?”

  “Because he tried to hurt you,” Raven said fiercely. “You were alone and defenseless. ʼTwas more than I could bear.”

  Raine blinked back tears. “Raven, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, only I wasn’t certain that I…”

  She faltered, fearing the curse would prevent her from speaking.

  “Raine? You’re pale. What is it?”

  Raine grasped her wizard stone for comfort. Only one way to find out.

  “You have more of Finn’s blood in you than you think,” she blurted. “A lot more. Half, to be exact.”

  So far, so good, she thought, holding her breath.

  Raven frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “The rowan—your father, Gorne—he’s Finn.”

  The words tripped from Raine’s lips, and she could have whooped for joy. She’d done it. The parameters of the curse didn’t extend to Finn’s secret. The burden she’d carried for weeks lightened a little.

  “How do you know this?” Raven said, his expression stunned. “Was it… Did Kron tell you?”

  “Something like that,” Raine hedged, hesitant to tell him about the mirror and her snooping. “Finn never took the Walk. Gorne and the other rowans are a disguise. Do you see what this means, Raven?”

  Raven got to his feet once more. “Who else knows?”

  “Gertie, I suppose.” Raine pursed her lips in thought. “I should think Gertie has always known.”

  Raven whistled. “And she’s kept his secret all these years?”

  “Yes. When Gertie loves, she loves completely.”

  “I know.” Raven smiled. “Finn the Founder’s blood courses through my veins. Perhaps I owe Glory an apology. Perhaps I won’t die on the morrow, after all.”