by J. B. Markes
“A commoner protecting a mage against magic in the magic city?” I shook my head.
“A commoner with the King’s ear. If the killer revealed himself, the inspector would have to be dealt with in similar fashion. The King would never stand for one of his own falling victim in the line of duty. The magic school would be overrun with king’s men.”
“I’m not comfortable with this,” I said. “I have no love for Miss Sinclair, but—”
“It’s temporary,” he said. “With a little luck, we’ll get to the bottom of this before the killer even knows we’re onto him—or her.” He grabbed my elbows and turned me to face him. “Now I must also warn you, Miss Ives, that you yourself are not without risk in this matter. With life and death on the line, and blood already spilled at the highest office of the wizarding world, we should be exceedingly vigilant as we proceed.”
In those days, I was still unaccustomed to the many aspects of Gustobald Pitch. Oftentimes, he seemed a madman; at other times, a genius. The rest of the time, his frequent ups and downs made him appear abnormal in a state of rest. To this day, I’m unsure if the befuddled wizard persona wasn’t all just an act to deceive his enemies into dropping their guards. He was the most difficult man to understand.
“I understand,” I said.
“I knew you would.” Gustobald’s knowing grin filled me with such confidence that I quickly forgot my recent troubles and was ready for more. “Mathis remains in the archives because someone is protecting him—or keeping him from running. It is our task to determine who that is. And so we’re off to find out what we can from the trace of poison remaining within that tumbler. The killer was nice enough to leave us the clue; we might as well follow up on it, don’t you agree?”
Chapter 11
In my days at the academy, the Tower of Creation was located due south of the Tower of Hands, where Eastwalk meets Old Flint Street. It was the smallest school of the Academy Magus, both in surface area and enrollment. While rudimentary knowledge of fabricating magical items—particularly brewing and scribing—was a required skill for any self-respecting mage, few devoted their time and energy to becoming an artificer. As such, the establishment always seemed more of a temporary workshop than an actual school.
The alchemist’s lab was on the second floor of the tower and was well-stocked with tools of the trade. From alembics and aludels to sand baths and show globes, it was an impressive collection, and any wizard of apprentice rank or above was permitted access to the lab’s equipment by appointment and demonstration of promising research. I never had much patience for bureaucracy, personally, so I made do with the ample facilities within the Tower of Hands.
It was hot in the lab that day with two fires burning, neither of which was tended. The tables were littered with bottles and tubing. An orange-robe was cleaning up the general disorder under the watchful eye of the lab’s apprentice. The young man perked up at our entrance, laying his quill on the table and standing up from his cataloging.
He took a moment to straighten the straps on his leather apron and removed the safety goggles that hung carelessly about his neck. When Gustobald and I approached, the alchemist passed a hand through his short brown hair a few times and gave his best smile. There was a smudge of ink on the tip of his slender nose, which gave me sufficient cause to smile in return.
“Harper Lazrus,” he said, with a slight bow and a lengthy stare. “I’m the apprentice of the Tower of Creation, and would be happy to assist you in any way that I can.”
Harper was a handsome boy, gaunt and gallant, with eyes like sparkling champagne. He was olive-skinned like the people of the western continent, but had no trace of an accent. Had he been a member of any other school and not a mere alchemist, the girls would have been driven to duels over him. And why not? My own recent duel had been over nothing more than one of Regina’s petty insults. So much time wasted, opportunities lost.
“I require the use of this lab’s facilities,” Gustobald said. “And perhaps a bit of your expertise, as well.”
“Unfortunately, the lab is unavailable today,” Harper said, wiping an ink-stained finger across his jaw. “It will remain booked until the end of the month if you should like to make an appointment.”
“We can’t wait another week, boy. We’re on a mission of justice!”
Mr. Lazrus smiled in spite of himself, leaning backward slightly to evaluate Gustobald’s bizarre exclamation. “I’m sorry, Mr.—”
“Pitch.”
“Gustobald Pitch?” Mr. Lazrus controlled his tone of voice well. I could almost believe he was comfortable speaking to a necromancer.
“The very same,” Gustobald said, standing a little taller. “Go ahead, apprentice. Tell me exactly what you expected.”
“I’m not sure,” Harper said. “You look rather normal to me. No offense.”
“I’m Isabel Ives,” I said, reaching out to offer him my hand. He shook it gently for a moment before recoiling in horror and wiping his hand on his apron. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended.
“Sorry,” he said, noticing my confusion. “It’s not you. It’s me. Dirty hands.”
“Well and good,” Gustobald interrupted, “but I don’t have time—”
“Gustobald,” I said with a heavy tone and a pleading glance. “Why don’t you take a look around the lab and see if it suits your needs. Perhaps we will make an appointment after all, if we must.”
“Hum.” Gustobald wandered off, mumbling to himself. Harper almost seemed more nervous in Gustobald’s absence. I stepped closer and turned my back to the nearby initiate, who was busy wiping down the glassware.
“Forgive him,” I said, changing to a whisper. “He’s a good man, but he lacks people skills.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” Harper said. “How long—Are you his—”
“Apprentice?” I laughed and pointed to the starburst on my breast, and he rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said.
“It’s all right. I know this must seem unusual, but it’s an unusual situation. That mission of justice he mentioned. It really is a shame—Master Bartleby’s death.”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Wait, what?”
“Gustobald and I have been tasked with the investigation,” I said.
“Seriously? They put him in charge of—”
“More or less. You see, the thing is—we need a substance identified. We think it’s the very poison that claimed the Archseer’s life. So we’re here to help, but we also need help. We need someone trained in all of this to give his expert opinion. It really would mean a lot to me—to us. To everyone.”
“Yeah, well, the lab’s been assigned to Master Roland this entire month, so—”
“The summoner? He’s a good man, I hear. Do you think he would mind? The lab is empty right now, anyway.”
“By rights, the lab is his,” Harper said, averting his gaze, and I let out my most disappointed sigh. “But, I suppose if it’s for a good cause.”
“Great! You won’t regret it.”
“And we’d have to be quick,” he added.
“I promise,” I said with one finger over my heart to avoid taking out my wand. “You have no idea what this means to me, Mr. Lazrus.”
“You can call me Harper,” he said, shooting a cautious glance over to the necromancer. “Let’s go see to Mr. Pitch before he breaks something.”
Gustobald had already cleared a workspace and tasked the initiate with cleaning the nearby equipment. The young boy was staring at Harper with a troubled expression, but the apprentice gave him a nod to continue. While the boy finished his duties, Gustobald removed the poisoned glass and placed it on the clean counter.
“How much do you know about poisons, Mr. Lazrus?” Gustobald asked as Harper bent down for a closer inspection. “I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty myself.”
“Enough to know you don’t have a big enough sample make a qualitative analysis,” the alchemist replied. He spoke
a command word and then waved his hand deftly above the glass and took a sniff. “It’s poison. That much is certain. As for the type, I’d need something more than a trace sample of liquor-diluted swill.”
“We don’t have the bottle it came from,” I said.
“That indeed makes things difficult, especially since whichever process we use will end up destroying what evidence we do have. If we choose the wrong test, we’ll lose our sample and be worse off than we started. If we had some idea of what poison we’re looking for, it would help. Presumably, it was ingested, which narrows the field slightly, but—” Harper shook his head discouragingly. “The liquor may have been used to mask the flavor or odor, but again, too little to go on.”
At the smell of burning herb, I turned to Gustobald, who had retreated into his pipe. He was slowly pacing the floor, letting his gaze wander from station to station as if the answer he was seeking could be found lying among the odds and ends.
“So that’s it, then?” I asked.
“I’d need more information or more time.”
“What’s going on here?” An unfamiliar voice called from the entrance. I turned to see two tall men in master’s robes staring us down. “Harper, what are these people doing in my lab?”
“Master Bentham.” Harper inched closer to me and put his back to the counter. “This is Master Gustobald Pitch and his—associate. They’re here to inquire about reserving the lab—”
“Master Gustobald Pitch?” Bentham asked, working his way around the intervening tables. He had the walk of a king surveying his subjects. “Master Pitch now, is it?”
“Just ‘Gustobald’ is fine,” the necromancer said.
“Indeed,” Bentham said. “There is no smoking here, or in any laboratory in the city, for that matter. Would you compromise Master Roland’s month-long research to feed your base addiction?”
“It’s fine, Hardy,” Master Roland said.
“The hell it is. This is my lab and I’m responsible for keeping it in working order. Trace chemicals in the air is just what I need to pollute my equipment. I expected more from you, Harper. This man doesn’t belong in here.”
Harper tensed both hands into fists at his side. “Master—”
“Not ever!” Bentham shouted. His outburst made me jump, and I slid my hand behind Harper’s back to safeguard the tainted glass. When Harper stepped in front of me and bowed his head, I quickly wrapped it and placed it into my satchel.
“I was mistaken. I apologize,” Harper said. “I was under the impression that the lab belonged to all residents of the Academy Magus.” Master Roland, previously indifferent to the reprimanding, bristled at such insolence from a yellow-robe.
“Bite your tongue, apprentice! You’re on glass for a month.” Master Bentham snapped his fingers at the initiate, as if trying to remember the boy’s name. “Tyler!”
“Master?” The initiate turned white at being drawn into the conflict.
“You will oversee Harper for the coming month. Make sure he doesn’t leave any spots on the boiling flasks.”
“Yes, Master,” Tyler said with an awkward bow, but without so much as a glance in Harper’s direction.
“As for you, necromancer,” Bentham said. “Your request is denied. The lab is unavailable. And if you should ever return in the future, you will find it unavailable. Now, some of us have real research to conduct. Get out!”
Try as I might, I couldn’t remember seeing either of these two wizards at the Council of Masters the previous morning. Luckily, they didn’t seem to recognize me either. Gustobald, normally unflappable in the face of resistance, nodded quietly and walked out of the room. I lingered long enough to give Harper an apologetic look, but was on my way the moment Bentham turned his attention to me. The master alchemist said nothing, but watched me until I was out the door.
I descended the winding staircase at a brisk pace in order to catch up to Gustobald, but when I reached the ground floor he was nowhere in sight. There were only two people working at the tables, and neither looked up when I entered. These mages were scriveners, tasked with the creation of magic-imbued scrolls to be stockpiled in the academy’s vaults and later sold for enormous sums. Although there were many challenges facing the day-to-day operations of the academy, financial difficulty was never one of them.
“Miss Ives.” Harper nearly ran me down at the base of the stairs where I stood. “I’m sorry for Master Bentham.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put you into that position. Now you’re in trouble because of me and it’s all for nothing.”
“Don’t worry about it. Cleaning the glass and scrubbing the floors is nothing I haven’t done before.”
“Still, I feel terrible about it.” I was surprised to see him smiling all the more. An awkward moment passed with us standing in the hallway, saying nothing. “Look. I’d better catch up with Gustobald. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well. If you’d like to leave that glass with me, I’ll see what I can do.”
“What about Master Bentham?” I asked, looking up the staircase, expecting him to swoop down on me at any moment.
“Master Bentham would probably do a better job than I ever could, but I doubt he would help now that he knows who it’s for.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m joking,” he said, and I felt stupid all over again. “What I do in my free time is my own business,” he added in a conspicuous whisper. “And I am an alchemist, after all. Give me a few days at the most, and I’ll get the information you need.”
I laid a trembling hand on my satchel, hesitant to part with such an important piece of evidence. In the end, Harper’s natural charm disarmed me. “I’ll see you in a few days,” I said, handing him the cloth bundle.
“At most,” he replied. “Sooner, if we’re lucky.”
“If we’re lucky,” I said, smiling again in spite of myself.
Chapter 12
It was afternoon by the time I returned to the necromancer’s cottage. A small bit of parchment had been fixed above the door knocker with a bit of gum arabic. The message was addressed to Mr. Gustobald Pitch and, in exceptionally flowery script, read as follows:
YOU ARE HEREBY EVICTED.
YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF SECTIONS THREE AND FIVE OF YOUR RESIDENCY LEASE, WHICH CLEARLY SPECIFY THE LIMITATIONS ON SPECIAL RESEARCH, AS WELL AS CONDUCT DISTURBING THE PEACEFUL STUDY OF PUPILS OF THE ACADEMY MAGUS, RESPECTIVELY.
YOU HAVE ONE WEEK TO VACATE THE PREMISES OR BE FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM ACADEMY GROUNDS.
ALL DISPUTES OF THIS ACTION MAY BE FORWARDED DIRECTLY TO THE ARCHSEER’S OFFICE BEFORE THE TERM OF THIS NOTICE HAS RUN ITS COURSE.
SINCERELY,
THE COUNCIL OF MASTERS
I tore the sheet from the door, resisting the urge to crumple it into a ball and light it up with one of my cantrips. There was no answer when I knocked on the necromancer’s door, but I could smell the smoke from his pipe, so I tried the handle and found the door ajar.
“Gustobald?” I called as I stepped inside the entrance way, but there was still no answer.
After closing the door firmly to make sure the locks engaged, I followed the trail of smoke out of the foyer, through the kitchen, and into the private study in the northwest corner of the cottage. It was dark compared to the other rooms, but a low fire was cracking and popping at the hearth. The place was warm but not stifling. Gustobald lounged lazily in a broken-down armchair, puffing out small white circles that hovered and dissolved overhead. A feeling of comfort washed over me that made me suspect enchantment was at play, but a quick glance back to the paper in my hands brought me back to reality.
I held the notice between two fingers and flicked it noisily. “Gustobald, did you see this?”
“Hum.” He tilted his head up so the brim of his hat no longer obscured his face, but he didn’t look me in the eye, only let his attention drift over and past me. His spirit was in some fa
r-off place; my words made little sense to what lingered behind.
“Gustobald, this is serious. You’re losing your position at the academy.”
“Hum! Position.”
“You have to do something. You can’t just sit there.” I dropped the writ on the short table next to his armchair, but he maintained his indifference. Finally, I took a seat on the edge of the ottoman and waited patiently for his reply. I expected him to be angry, to shout out against the powers that be, as was his usual custom. This wasn’t at all the intimidating master of dark arts I had understood him to be only a week earlier. “So you’re not going to say anything at all?” I asked.
“Tell me more about yourself, girl,” he replied.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He didn’t answer at first, only lounged listlessly, as if listening to the story I wasn’t telling. Finally, he went on without me. “Why did you take up spellcraft?”
“I didn’t choose to,” I said, not really in the mood for idle chitchat. “I was identified at a young age—before I can remember. Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
“That has always been the way of it. Children ripped from their mothers’ arms, all for the good of the academy. Still, the woman must be very proud to have such a fine daughter.”
“I don’t know much about her—or my father, for that matter. I’ve been here since I was four years old. Master Virgil once told me that I came from nothing. My parents weren’t even people of means, let alone mages.”
“I see.”
“I was a complete anomaly. It’s a wonder the seers even found me at all.”
“Oh, they do their job brilliantly,” he puffed. “If it’s in you, they’ll find it. And did you choose to become a mancer?”
“No, it wasn’t a conscious choice either,” I said, leaning back and crossing my arms. “My first cantrip was to light a candle wick and that was my path. It’s not uncommon, I hear, to be assigned to a particular school after showing early promise.”
“The path of least resistance,” Gustobald said, turning back to the fire. “It was the same with me. Believe it or not, I was once the star pupil of the Tower of the Heart, and I followed that course to its end. Transmutation is all about change—until that change no longer conforms to the masters’ predetermined limits.”