We found the gutterboy after not too long. He was wearing my coat, leaning against an alley wall not too far from Sark Square.
When he saw me and Rowan, he twitched like he might run away, and I got ready to chase him, but he stayed put, his hands in his coat pockets.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” Rowan said.
He stared at us with his scared, watery blue eyes. “You can’t have the coat back,” he said to me.
“I don’t want it back,” I said. That wasn’t completely true—I wasn’t sure Nevery would give me another coat, but I wasn’t going to take it back from the gutterboy, either. “You hungry?” I asked, knowing that he was.
He nodded.
I turned to Rowan. “Can I have three copper locks?”
She nodded and fished out her purse string, and handed me the coins.
“Watch him,” I said and, keeping an eye out for minions, went over to a stall in Sark Square, used Rowan’s money to buy food for us, and came back. I handed him and Rowan a sausage in a biscuit.
He took an enormous bite. Rowan nibbled at hers and then put it in her pocket. I leaned against the wall beside the gutterboy and ate some of my own. “My name’s Conn,” I said.
He glanced aside at me, chewing. “Yah, I know. Connwaer, the black bird. I’m Dee.” He took another bite.
“Tell me about the Shadows,” I said.
Dee gulped, and coughed as a bit of food went down the wrong way. “Shadows?” he gasped.
I nodded. “You told us to be careful of the Shadows,” I said. “And you weren’t talking about the minions, either.”
“Minions?” he said.
Right. I’d forgotten how stupid this gutterboy was. “The men who used to be the Underlord’s men, the ones you told where to find us yesterday. Not them.”
“I didn’t tell them where to find you,” he said quickly.
He was lying. “I don’t care if you did,” I said. “The Shadows?”
He eyed me for a second, to see if I was going to beat the fluff out of him, which I wasn’t. Then he took another bite of sausage and biscuit and chewed it noisily. “They’re bad,” he said.
Yes, I’d gotten that much. “D’you know what they do?”
“They”—he pointed into the shadowy alley—“they hide in dark places.”
“They come out only at night?” Rowan asked.
Dee nodded. “Never in the day.”
“Have they hurt anybody?”
“Yah,” Dee said. “The men that used to be the Underlord’s men? They’re worried about ’em. If the Shadows touch you, you turn to stone and then you die. They tried to get an old croak sleeping in an alley outside a smokehole. He fought ’em off with a knife, and they bled black smoke and disappeared.”
That did sound like magic, not minions. “Anything else?”
He shrugged, ate the last of his sausage and biscuit, and licked his fingers. “No. That’s all. Where they go, they turn things to stone.”
Rowan gave me a sideways glance, her eyebrows raised.
Hmmm. Rowan gave Dee a couple of coppers for the information and he skiffed off.
“So it is these lurkers, these Shadows, who are responsible for the attacks,” Rowan said. “Captain Kerrn wasn’t sure.”
I wasn’t sure Nevery knew about them, either.
We headed toward the top of the hill where the Underlord’s mansion, Dusk House, had once stood. I looked over my shoulder. A shadow flitted away into an alley.
Not a Shadow. Dee. The minions had put him onto us, sure as sure.
I hadn’t been to Dusk House since Nevery and I had snuck in and I’d helped the magic break out of the terrible device Crowe and Pettivox had built.
“Is this it?” Rowan asked.
I nodded. Before us were the broken and rusting iron gates, and the raggedy edges of the pit where the mansion had been. The ground around it was covered with chunks of brick and stone and twisted bits of metal. Thinking about the house that had once stood there made me shiver. It’d been a hard place to get away from, but the magic had destroyed it and now it was gone forever.
From behind us, I heard sneaking footsteps, crunch crinch…crunch on the gravelly ground. He wasn’t very good at this.
“Hello, Dee,” I said, without turning ’round.
Rowan turned to look. “Oh!”
Dee came up, blinking his scared, watery eyes, stealing quick glances at Rowan. “What’re you doing?” he asked.
I wasn’t about to tell him; he’d report straight back to the minions. I shrugged.
Rowan looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
Oh, all right. “We’re looking for slowsilver,” I said.
Dee blinked. “What’s slowsilver?”
“It’s a contrafusive,” I said, “when it’s combined with tourmalifine.” It was late afternoon and the sun was setting beyond the Twilight. The tumbledown buildings on the steep streets looked like rotted teeth taking a bite out of the light. I took a few steps to the edge of the pit and looked down. Walls hacked out of the stone, a floor far below, scattered with blocks of stone and mortared bricks, and in the corners and cracks, gathering darkness. The shadows looked darker than shadows should, and creepy. Because the prisoning device had been built down there, I reckoned. The magic wouldn’t come anywhere near this pit. I didn’t want to come anywhere near it either, but I needed the slowsilver.
“Wizards use slowsilver to do magic,” Rowan said to Dee. “It’s hard to find, so we’re looking for some here, in the pit.”
Except that we weren’t going to look now; it would be dark soon. “We’d better go,” I said to Rowan.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” Dee asked.
“Maybe,” I said.
“To look for slowsilver?” he asked.
I shrugged. Sure as sure, he’d run and tell the minions that I was coming back, and I didn’t need them lying in wait for me when I did.
Rowan glanced at the setting sun. “Captain Kerrn will worry if I’m not home soon.”
Leaving Dee, we headed for the Night Bridge and the entrance to tunnels leading to the wizards’ islands, walking fast to get there before dark. I kept looking over my shoulder because it felt like we were being followed, but Dee had gotten more careful; I didn’t catch a glimpse of him.
Rowan and I went through the tunnels, me opening the gates with my keystone, then I left her at the academicos gate and ran back to Heartsease. I was going to be late for supper!
Home from meeting. Benet said boy and duchess’s daughter off somewhere. Growing dark. Worried, curse the boy. These dark lurkers apparently active at night.
Finally, boy came into kitchen, coatless, breathless from running. Should have known boy wouldn’t miss supper. Benet had made chicken pie in pot, gravy, carrots, onions. Boy ate seconds, then thirds.
—Well, boy? What have you been up to today?
Boy shrugged.
Benet snorted, handed me teacup.—He was asking yesterday, sir, about Shadows.
Shadows, is it? As good a name as any for these dark lurkers. So the boy has stumbled into it. Magisters trying to keep it quiet, avoid alarming city, but boy very keen. Told him to report. He has found, in Twilight:
Ex-Underlord Crowe’s former henchmen nervous
People wary
Shadows seen
“They turn people to stone”
“They bleed black smoke”
Note to self: Must discover whether Twilight has new Underlord, invite to meeting.
CHAPTER 8
After talking to Nevery about what I’d been up to without really telling him anything, I went down to the kitchen.
Benet set aside his knitting and got to his feet. “Water,” he said. So he could clean the dishes.
I fetched the bucket and went down the narrow stairs to the storeroom door, then outside. Night had fallen. I crossed the cobble-courtyard to the well. Heartsease loomed up behind me, a ragged shadow against the night s
ky. Beyond the island, the river rushed quietly past, and beyond that, the lights of the Sunrise part of the city twinkled like diamonds against black velvet. The people who lived there were rich and could spend money on lights. The Twilight was dark at night.
Before me, the tree was another dark shadow. I wondered if the black bird was up in its branches, sleeping with its head under its wing.
At the well, I set aside the well cover and dropped its bucket down on its rope. Splash, way down in the deeps, and I pulled the bucket up again and poured the water into my own bucket.
As I straightened up, I heard a whisper of wind sliding over the cobblestones. A black rag of shadow hurtled past me; I ducked and turned, water from the bucket slopping down my leg, and saw the bird from the tree, claws out, flapping in the face of a piece of night darker than dark.
It wasn’t a man at all, just a man-shaped shadow, swirling and ink black. Where its head would be was a glow of an eye—one blazing eye like a purple-black flame, staring at me.
A Shadow!
It raised a shadow-arm and swept the bird away from its face. Another whisper of wind and a second one was coming ’round the side of the well, a thing made of smoke and shadow, moving smoothly as if it glided on oiled wheels. Black smoke swirled around it. It swooped at me and its long, shadowy fingers brushed against my arm. I flinched away. Its touch made my arm go numb and heavy, like stone. The smoke flowed over me—no, not smoke but black dust, drier than dead bones.
The Shadow reached again and I whirled around and swung the bucket, which went right through the middle of it, sending rags of shadow swirling. The other one came at me, and I swung the bucket again and let go so that it sent a plume of water flying through the air. The water turned to stone as it struck the Shadow, and fell to the ground with a thud. They came at me again, gliding over the cobbles, their purple-black eyes flaring. I stumbled back toward the house, tripping over a loose stone.
Behind me, the storeroom door opened.
“Benet!” I shouted, scrambling away. “Shadows!”
I heard a crash, then Benet bulled his way past a Shadow, grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, jerked me to my feet, and pushed me toward the lighted doorway.
“Get Nevery!” he shouted as he turned back, and with a stick of firewood swung at one of the Shadows.
A third Shadow lunged out of the darkness.
“Go!” Benet shouted, and swung the stick again.
I whirled and ran for Heartsease.
Storeroom, narrow stairs, through the kitchen, up the broad stairs to the third floor, and I burst through Nevery’s study door.
He was at the table reading, and he looked up as I came in.
“Shadows!” I panted. “Benet’s fighting them!”
Nevery leaped to his feet. “Where, boy?” he asked, pulling his locus magicalicus from his pocket.
“Courtyard!”
I raced to keep up with Nevery as he strode down the stairs and swept out the storeroom door. Holding up his locus stone, he shouted a few spellwords and then, his voice a booming roar, “Lothfalas!”
A wave of light crashed out from his locus stone, washing brightness into every corner of the courtyard. Twinkling blue sparks raced along the branches of the big tree and showered down onto the cobbles.
Across the courtyard, three dark figures were crouching over Benet, who lay still on the ground; as the light washed over them, they flinched back, then reeled away, disappearing with a flutter of black dust down the steps to the tunnel.
Nevery shouted another spellword and a wind leaped out of the air and chased the Shadows, whooshing down the tunnel after them.
Blinking the brights from my eyes, I started across the cobbles to Benet.
He was stone-still.
“Quick, lad,” Nevery said as he came up, shoving his locus stone into his pocket, plunging us into darkness. “Get his feet.”
Nevery heaved up Benet’s shoulders and I picked up each of his heavy legs, and we trundled him into the storeroom and up to the kitchen.
“Fetch blankets,” Nevery ordered, “and my grimoire.” I set down Benet’s legs and ran for my room, grabbed the two blankets off my bed, then stopped to pull two more blankets from a wooden chest on the stairway landing. I brought them down to Nevery, then raced back up to his study for the grimoire. His spell book was fat, held closed with a lock because it was bursting with paper markers and dried leaves and interesting bits of maps.
Nevery snatched the grimoire from my hands and spelled it open. “Let me see,” he muttered. Then he found the page he was looking for. Glancing at a spell in the book, he laid his locus stone against Benet’s forehead and muttered spellwords.
I caught a look at Benet’s face. It was gray, and his lips were darker gray, and he was still as stone. He was stone. Nevery kept saying the spell, and I laid blankets over Benet.
Then I crouched beside Nevery. “Will he be all right?” I asked. I wasn’t sure Benet was even breathing. I picked up his hand. It was stiff and heavy.
“I don’t know, lad,” Nevery said softly. “I used a spell that animates stone. It is meant to make statues dance, for entertainment. I do not know if it will work for this purpose.” He rested his hand on Benet’s forehead.
Benet lay still for hours. I brought up wood from the storeroom and we built up the fire. Nevery sat in a chair and I stayed next to Benet, holding his stone hand.
“They were not human,” Nevery said, looking up from his book.
The Shadows, he meant. No, they hadn’t been.
“Creatures of magic,” Nevery said.
I nodded.
Then we were quiet, waiting.
Finally, with the sound of one stone grinding across another, Benet took a deep, shuddery breath. His eyes cracked open, then closed again. He started to shake and shiver as the stone magic wore off, his teeth clickety chattering.
“Tea,” Nevery said.
The kettle had a little water in it, so I added a few sticks to the stove to make the kettle boil, then got out the teapot and leaves. When the tea was ready, I poured out a cup and brought it back to Nevery.
“Hold it for him,” Nevery said, and raised Benet’s head.
I brought the cup to Benet’s gray lips so he could get a sip, then gave him another, and another. He kept shaking and didn’t open his eyes.
“I need to check something,” Nevery said. “Watch him carefully, boy.”
I nodded; I would.
Nevery swept-stepped out of the room, his locus magicalicus flaring into light as he spoke the lothfalas spell.
Benet lay shivering, and I held his hand, which was still heavy as stone.
After a long time, the storeroom door slammed and Nevery came upstairs. First he came to the hearth to check Benet, and then he sat down at the table. “Tea, boy,” he said.
I laid Benet’s hand down and went to the stove, poured tea into a cup, put it on a saucer, and brought it to Nevery.
“Are they gone?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nevery answered. He took a long drink of tea. “Put some honey in this.” He held out the cup.
I added honey and brought it back to him.
Nevery tasted it and nodded. “I’d like to know why the Shadows came here and how they got through the Heartsease gate.”
I shook my head. Then I stopped and thought about it. The creepy feeling I’d had at the Dusk House pit. Maybe it wasn’t because of the device and Pettivox and the Underlord. Maybe it was because the Shadows had been hiding there, watching us.
That meant they could’ve found Heartsease by following me and Rowan back from the Twilight. And it meant the Shadows Nevery had chased off could be heading back to the pit. And if they were hiding in the pit, then they might’ve found—
—Dee.
CHAPTER 9
“I have to be sure he’s all right,” I said. Sure as sure, Dee was stupid enough to stay at the Dusk House pit after dark.
“Who is all right?” Nevery asked.<
br />
“Dee. The gutterboy. We left him at the pit where Dusk House used to be. I think the Shadows are hiding there.”
Nevery lowered his bushy eyebrows. “What were you doing at Dusk House?”
Oh, he was not going to like this. “Well, Nevery, I was looking for slowsilver.”
“Curse it, boy!” Nevery shouted. He glanced over at Benet and lowered his voice. “You are not to do any more pyrotechnic experiments.”
“But what about Dee?” I asked.
Nevery nodded. “I see why you’d want to protect this gutterboy, but if the Shadows are laired in the remains of Dusk House it’s far too dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself, Nevery,” I said.
“I’m sure you can, but these Shadows are creatures of magic and you are not equipped to deal with them. I must alert the magisters; we will deal with it. And I cannot go with you; Benet cannot be left as he is.”
“What if I go in disguise?” I asked. “You could do the embero spell. I’ll be safe enough as a cat. I could make sure Dee’s all right and then come home.”
Nevery set down his teacup. “No.”
“Then I’ll go as I am,” I said, and started for the door.
Nevery stood up and slammed his fist on the table; his teacup jumped in its saucer. “I said no, boy! I will lock you in your room if I have to.”
I turned to face him. “If you do that, Nevery, I’ll pick the lock to get out.” I started for the door again.
“Stop!” Nevery roared. He glared.
I glared back at him.
Then he sat down, as if he was suddenly tired. “Curse it,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Very well. I will cast the embero.”
Nevery fetched his grimoire and opened it to the page with the embero spell written on it in tiny, neat letters. For a while Nevery studied the spell so he could say it smoothly, and I stood before him, jittering a bit with impatience.
The embero spell was very good for sneaking. Nevery had used it on me before, to turn me into a cat for spying on the magisters, and I’d used it myself to sneak into the Underlord’s mansion. The best thing about the embero, though, was that when I turned into my characteristic creature, a cat, I had a quirked tail.
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