Ivan started and opened his eyes, taking in the two of us. He rubbed the sleep from his lids with one filthy hand. Did I imagine there was a flicker of recognition when his eyes lit on me?
“What were you doing out here in the middle of the night, anyway?” I asked Oscar.
He looked at me with surprise. “It’s the best time to scry and seek, of course. Scrying at night is excellent practice.” He helped Ivan to his feet.
“Well, don’t expect me to join you, even if you are my master,” I grumbled.
Oscar turned back and blinked at me several times. “What did you just say?”
***
The journey back to the manor house was swift. Oscar stormed through the brush and stomped over detritus, single-minded in his purpose of returning to the house. I caught hold of Ivan’s hand and dragged him behind in my haste to follow. Oscar whacked any branches unlucky enough to hang in our path with his mallet.
“I’m sorry...I...did you...was it something I said?” I huffed and puffed.
But Oscar said only one thing. “Miranda’s cutlass! Who does he think he is?”
The cow took off at a gallop when it saw us coming. We were barely across the threshold of the house when Oscar bellowed, “Garrick! Garrick Wendyn, I’d like a word! Where are you? Where is he?” Oscar demanded, as he rounded a corner and came face to face with Mrs. Pitts.
“I—in his study,” she stuttered, and Oscar pushed past her, muttering and swinging his mallet.
Mrs. Pitts stared after him before turning to us, and then she became all huffs and sniffs and harrumphs when she saw that Ivan was back. “Filthier than ever. I suppose I must have another bath drawn. And you’ve missed supper.”
There was shouting coming from the study at the end of the hall. We all pretended we didn’t hear it.
“You will scrub this time, believe you me,” Mrs. Pitts warned Ivan, and his hand tightened in mine. I tried to slide my fingers from his grip, but he was clinging as though I was his lifeline in a vast ocean.
“You, underwizard!” Oscar shouted from the end of the hall. Only his head stuck out of the doorway to the study, that ridiculous hat with the floppy brim still on his head. “Get down here. You are going to explain all this.” He turned to say something inaudible over his shoulder, and then bellowed at me, “NOW!”
I extracted my hand from Ivan’s. He gave a strangled grunt before Mrs. Pitts dragged him off.
I hurried toward the study. The sound grew as I approached, angry words falling louder and faster, a rainstorm of rage.
“...mean to tell me you assumed? That because I have more free time than I once had, of course I’d want an apprentice?”
The younger Master Wendyn stood facing the window, his back to the room. His hands clasped behind his back.
“I left your father’s house for this very reason, and now you want to treat me the same way?” Oscar continued. “As though I’m a child who can’t make his own decisions? Let me tell you, Garrick, I won’t stand for it. I will happily evict my tenants and return to Hampstone.”
Master Wendyn continued to stare out the window.
“You.” Oscar turned. “What’s your excuse? What makes you think you can just declare yourself someone’s apprentice?”
My mouth opened. “We...swore an oath,” I said stupidly, at long last.
Oscar thumped his mallet against the desk, and a sheet of parchment on top—the oath?—went up in flames.
“That’s the value of your oath. You can’t swear on another’s behalf, underwizard. And you of all people should know that, Garrick. You did your Postulate on oaths, or have you forgotten that year of studying and preparing and defending yourself to the Council? Or is it that you didn’t care?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Master Wendyn said to the window. “And if you don’t calm down, you will damage Forthwind.”
Oscar dropped the mallet on the desk. “Ridiculous? Am I? You’re the one who brought this boy here, most likely with promises of being apprenticed. What are you going to do about that now?”
Master Wendyn turned from the window. “It isn’t my problem; it’s yours. I brought him here for you.”
Oscar’s face was by now a shade of purple. “You know my age. I may not even be alive by the end of his apprenticeship. You’ll have to make this right.”
“Don’t make this my problem, Grandfather.”
“You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with here. I faced down the ambassador to Belanok without batting an eyelash. You’ll not bully me into compliance.”
“You need an occupation.”
“As do you. All you ever do is mope around and feel sorry for yourself these days.”
Master Wendyn scowled in my direction. “You may go, underwizard.”
“No, stay,” Oscar ordered me. “This concerns you.”
“I said go.”
“What’s come over you, Garrick? Ever since Cailyn—”
“Get out!” Wendyn thundered in my direction, and I hurried out the door. It slammed behind me, propelled by the force of hastily wrought magic.
I could still hear their raised voices through the door, and I wasted several minutes eavesdropping, though I learned nothing new. Oscar proclaimed his belief that his grandson was lazy, while the grandson told Oscar his brain had become unmoored. And most definitely, neither had an interest in becoming my master.
The oath forged mere hours ago was dissolved. I was masterless once again.
***
Colored sunlight filtered through the stained glass as I ascended the staircase. The sun was on its way down.
The door to Ivan’s room stood open, and I stopped to peer in. He was collapsed in the middle of the room, crying with snorts and gulps. A robe several sizes too large enveloped him, and his hair dripped water. He looked like a drowned cat. A sobbing drowned cat. Two manservants were busy cleaning up the remains of the bath. Peck passed me, carrying a bucket of filthy water.
“Here are your clothes, you ungrateful wretch,” Mrs. Pitts said. “Clothes.” She stood next to the bed and patted the clothes laid out on the mattress. “To wear.”
Ivan didn’t move. He continued to sob, his wet hair and tears dripping down his face.
“Oh, great Hepzibah’s fiddle, this is ridiculous. Help me, Donovan.” She gestured for the manservant and strode to Ivan’s side. He shied away, but she grabbed hold of his arm. “Clothes!” she shouted again, as though she could force him to understand by sheer volume. Donovan grabbed his other arm, and the two of them wrestled Ivan toward the bed. I imagined that getting him to bathe used much the same process.
But all at once it was too much. Too much meddling in my life, Ivan’s life, too much being pushed around. I understood the look of helplessness on Ivan’s face, because it was just how I felt about my apprenticeship. And I'd had enough. I stomped into the room and pulled Ivan out of their grasp.
“That is enough,” I said, and my teeth might have been bared, I was so angry. “He doesn’t understand. What right have you to treat him this way?”
“How dare you,” Mrs. Pitts sputtered and reached for Ivan again.
I knocked her hand away. “No. You are not needed here any longer. I will see he sleeps in the bed. I will see he bathes. I will see he dresses. You are never to so much as think about pushing him about in any way again, do you understand? Now GET OUT.”
My voice had risen, and even though I knew I was yelling at the wrong person, that I should yell at those two meddling master wizards downstairs, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Mrs. Pitts backed off a step. Her neck was stiff, head high as she glowered down at me. “Well,” she sniffed. “The master will regret taking you in, sooner rather than later, I’m certain. I wish you luck. Don’t expect my help again.” She motioned for Donovan, and the two left with a firm click of the door.
Ivan watched me, the tears still glittering on his cheeks. I had a hold of his wrist, and with a sigh, I released it and step
back. He skittered to the side of the room and huddled in a corner.
Ah, friar’s bones. Back to this again. At least he didn’t seem to be crying any longer.
I sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. “It’s been one day. One. Only yesterday I was an apprenticed underwizard. Today everything is in question. How can it all be gone?”
My nose caught a whiff of something. I realized there was a tray of food next to the table and that I was hungry.
“Have you eaten, Ivan?” I asked, getting up. Here I went talking to him again. But there was a part of me that just felt certain, though he’d never responded, that he could hear me.
The soup bowl was half empty, and the roll had teeth marks in it. “Of course you have. You have no problem eating when you’re hungry. I saw the way you stuffed yourself last night.” I helped myself to a piece of bread and ham.
Ivan got up and crept closer to take the last piece of bread. He backed off a few paces and munched on it.
“We should get you dressed.” I eyed the oversized robe coming off one skinny pale shoulder. “That thing could fall off at any moment, and I don’t much want to see you naked.”
There were sleep clothes laid out on the bed, pants and a long shirt. I put down my half-eaten bread and held them up. “You need to put these on. You can do it by yourself, can’t you?” I didn't know what he could and couldn’t do by himself, but I wasn’t about to volunteer to dress him. I did that for Gavin during his last days when he was sick and weak as a kitten, but I wasn’t prepared to do it for a stranger.
Ivan finished the bread. Then, with deliberate movements, his eyes on me the whole time, he took my half-finished piece of bread from the tray and finished that off too.
“Fine. You can have my bread. But in return, you have to get yourself dressed. Understand?” I held the clothes up again.
Ivan finished the bread and backed off to his corner.
I carried the clothes to him and set them on the floor. “You must know how to wear clothes. You weren’t naked in Bramford.”
He looked up at me, which I thought was a fine beginning. I returned to the bed.
“Once you’re dressed, this is where you’re supposed to sleep. The bed.” I sat on the bed and then laid down. “Like this, see?” A glance at Ivan showed he hadn't moved and was no longer even looking in my direction.
I stared at the ceiling and sighed. I wondered if he could even hear me. And if he heard me, could he understand? Would any of this even matter tomorrow? Tomorrow I would have to leave to find a new master.
During my first round of master-hunting, I showed up on Master Hapthwaite’s doorstep and was refused entrance. But I begged and pleaded and cajoled until he at last agreed to give me one chance at becoming a master wizard.
If I could make my way to his doorstep again, could I persuade him to give me another chance?
I blinked drowsily at the rafters and thought of Master Hapthwaite. Of course I could.
CHAPTER FIVE
I woke in the night and realized that I was in Ivan’s bed. It was stupid to lie down on it last night. Climbing into any man’s bed invited risk, fool or not. Under normal circumstances, I never would have, but losing my master—twice over now—seemed to have affected my better judgment.
I was reluctant to leave the warmth of the bedclothes, but I pushed myself up and surveyed the room in the darkness. Where was Ivan?
My eyes settled on him, still in the corner where I left him, his head lolling to the side in sleep. I got up and crept closer. The robe pooled around his feet, discarded in favor of the sleep clothes. He had dressed himself.
Moonlight from the window touched his hair and highlighted his face. It was a mass of bruises, purple mingled with green and yellow and brown. He could be the survivor of some great and terrible war. He also looked far too innocent.
My chest gave a strange pang I couldn’t decipher, and something burned behind my eyes. If I could produce tears, I might just be blubbering like Papa when he came home drunk and remorseful. Disgusted at my reaction, I pulled the quilt from the bed and arranged it around him so he wouldn’t get cold. But this was more out of concern for myself, since if he got cold, he’d wake and maybe try to climb out the window. Then he’d either fall and break his neck, or else I’d have to find him in the forest again. I was about to leave, when movement at the window caught my eye. I stepped closer to investigate.
Oscar was out in the meadow again with his mallet—Forthwind. What kind of man named a stick? As I watched, he traipsed through the moonlight and then disappeared into shadow near the forest.
When did the man sleep?
I gave a sniff of disgust—to think I was nearly apprenticed to the lunatic—and I headed to my room.
***
It was two years since I lost the ability to cry.
To be clear, I didn’t so much lose the ability as curse myself with a spell I didn’t know how to remove. It was my fault for reading a book Master Hapthwaite warned me not to. It was where all my knowledge of advanced magic came from—time manipulation, shape-shifting, fighting, and killing magic. Those were all big magics that underwizards were forbidden to try without permission from their master. I used a spell called Dry as Desert, a liquid-stopping spell useful for things such as bleeding wounds and leaky roofs. It seemed to be less advanced magic than the others in the book, although still above my abilities.
But that didn’t stop me.
After my third time taking the first trial, I was a mess, standing there in the Wizard’s Conclave great room packed tight with underwizards and masters. When the proctor announced I had passed, I couldn’t help it. I forgot I was supposed to be a boy, forgot I was stoic and strong and silent, forgot everything but that I had passed. At last. Tears of relief poured down my cheeks.
I was nothing but mortified that I was in tears, certain that everyone present would see at once I was a girl. So I stood there frozen, willing the tears back into my head, while underwizards gathered around to congratulate me.
The panic of the moment lent me unintended power. Without even thinking, I clasped my hands together and whispered words I had read in the prohibited book only a few days earlier. In the next breath, the tears rolled back into my head, and I smiled and thanked those around me, my face dry as dust.
That was the last time I cried, and mostly I was glad of it. But every once in a while, when I got to thinking about Mama or Gavin, I got an ache behind my eyes, and I wished I knew how to reverse the magic.
***
I receive word the next morning to come to the study.
Master Wendyn was concerned about my welfare, he told me. He said it with his back to me in his usual style, speaking to the windows that looked out over the meadow. It was the same view I saw from my bedroom. His profile, when he turned his head to catch my response, seemed more annoyed than concerned.
“If you’re worried I won’t find another master,you needn’t concern yourself.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I will.”
He turned to face me, his brows pushing downward in a scowl. “You seem uncommonly certain, which means you’re either conceited or naïve.”
“Neither. I’m stubborn.”
“If tenacity were the only thing that mattered, half the street magicians in Faronna would be master wizards by now.”
I shrugged. “It may not get me all the way, but the rest I’ll make up for with hard work.”
“I see. And if stubbornness and hard work are not enough?”
“It will be enough.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“It will be.” My voice was growing tense, and I forced myself to relax. I was calm. I was in control.
“You’re thinking of going back to Hapthwaite, aren’t you?”
The question made me defensive. “And if I am? It’s not as though you have any say in what I do.”
He shook h
is head. “A piece of advice, underwizard. If you’re as dedicated to this road as you say, you would do well to stay far, far away from that baboon of a master wizard.”
“His name,” I said with mounting irritation, “is Master Hapthwaite. And he’s not as bad as you make him out to be. He was a good master.”
He frowned. “Were I you, I’d count myself lucky that I was out from under his control. There are plenty of fine wizards out there. If you’re truly devoted, you won’t have difficulty finding another master. I’ll give you a week to do so.”
And with that, he waved me from the room.
***
I took several days composing a letter for Master Hapthwaite, the perfect letter which I proofread and reworded and rewrote a hundred times at least. In sum, I apologized for my momentary lapse in judgment in Bramford and promised it would never happen again if only he’d give me another chance. I peppered it liberally with flowery words of flattery. When it was just right, I prepared to send it off the next day with one of the servants.
The next morning, I descended the staircase for breakfast and saw that Mrs. Pitts was at the front entrance, holding a low conversation with an unknown someone behind the half-closed door.
“...won’t be staying. Master’s discharged him.” She caught sight of me, and her frown deepened. “Here he is. You can talk to him yourself.” She opened the door wider, and my mouth fell open.
Callum stood there, Master Hapthwaite’s footman.
My heart jumped into my throat as I realized he’d come here for me. Master Hapthwaite wanted me back!
And then my eyes fell to the ground where my traveling trunk, which held all my belongings, lay at Callum’s feet.
“I’ve brought your trunk, sir.” He gestured.
My heart finished falling back to its usual position in my chest, and I reined in my disappointment. Master didn’t want me back.
Yet.
I gathered myself. “Thank you, Callum. If you’ll wait just a moment, I have a letter for the master.” I turned and dashed up the stairs. The letter was on my desk, just where I left it. But before I grab it, a new thought occurred to me, and I stopped.
Tethered by Blood Page 4
