“Say something. I want to hear your true voice.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” My voice had returned to its regular soft huskiness.
He cursed, and the trammel clunked against the desk as he pushed to his feet. “I knew it. I knew you sounded different on the testing dais, but I put it down to nerves.” He pushed fingers into his hair and paced behind the desk. “I’m a fool. Of epic proportions.”
Guilt crept in as I watched him. My lies had brought my confident, unshakable master to this. I should apologize, but was an apology enough? It seemed such a paltry nothing when faced with all the lies I had told. Still, it was all I had.
I opened my mouth. “I’m sor—”
He turned his angry glare in my direction. “Don’t say it. I know you don’t mean it, and you’ll regret it. Deception defense is quite painful.”
Hurt flooded me that he thought I wasn’t sincere, but I forged ahead anyway. “I am sorry. I’ll admit that when I began this charade, I was only thinking of myself. All I knew was I wanted to be a master wizard. For my brother. Gavin never got his chance at wizardry, or even life. I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to anyone else.”
He shook his head. “The Council doesn’t care about your motives. When they find out, you’ll be Punished just like Ingerman.”
A desert spell headache had begun, and I rubbed at the ache in my forehead. “I know. I knew the risks from the beginning.”
“And you still did it? Are you a fool?”
I shrugged. There seemed nothing more to be said.
“What about Master Hapthwaite? Did he know you’re a girl?”
I didn’t like his expression, the suspicion mingled with disgust. “Of course he didn’t. He would have—” I broke off, because I didn’t want to say it. Master Hapthwaite would have turned me in to the Council if he’d known. But I didn’t want to put voice to those words and remind the master that was just what he should do.
But he had caught on anyway. “He would have turned you in, am I right? Just as I should.” He fell into his chair, head in his hands.
The words of the oblivion were beyond my reach, knocked loose by the unexpectedness of the situation. But I wasn’t foolhardy enough to attempt such a spell while he was this angry. At my first chance, I had to escape from this house and flee, or risk the Punishment.
We sat there in silence for what seemed an eternity. Nothing I said could make this right, and I knew it. At last the master raised his head and stared at me. “I must be a fool too.” His voice no longer held anger, just weariness. “A stupid fool.”
Well, at least he’d stopped shouting. Perhaps now was a good time to beg for mercy. My lips felt like rubber, but I forced them to move. “Please,” I said, and I hated the pleading I heard in my voice. “I know I have no place asking anything, but I’m asking just the same. Please let me leave here before you tell the Council. Give me a day or two head start before you turn me in.”
He shook his head, and my stomach sank to my toes. “Mullins,” he said, pushing to his feet to walk closer to the window. Quiet suffused his tone, and the half of his face I could see was bathed in brilliant white light from the sun reflecting off the snow outside. “What makes you think I'll turn you in at all?”
It was the last thing I expected him to say. “Wh—what?” I squeak. “But why wouldn’t you?”
He walked fully into the light, as though reaching for its warmth. “Do you realize how much of a fool I would look? We make up a small community, master wizards. Word would get out. I would be a laughingstock.”
His self-serving reasoning surprised me. “So you won’t tell?”
“I’ve said as much.” Irritation laced his tone. “I won’t bother asking the same of you, as I’ve seen how you value promises.”
The words stung. I responded hotly, “That’s not fair. I’ve been honest in every way,
except—”
“Except the most basic thing you could have lied about. And if you lied about this, what other secrets are you keeping?”
I opened my mouth and realized I couldn’t claim there was nothing else. I had pledged to kill his grandfather.
“I see.” He turned his head at my silence, to look me full in the face. “You have nothing to say to that, so I can only assume there are so many lies you’ve told that you don’t even know where to begin.”
Just as we were establishing a real friendship, I had lost it. I didn’t know if it mattered that I had his trust, in the grand scheme of my web of lies, but losing it hurt. “I will never tell anyone I am a girl. All I want is to become a master wizard.”
“So you’ve said. Do you think the Council will accept that excuse when faced with all the lies you’ve told them?”
I swallowed, hating that he was right. “No,” I said in a tiny voice. I scratched my nose.
He wiped a hand across his eyes. “Does anyone else know?”
“Uh...well, Orly.”
“That librarian’s daughter? Oh, I see now. All this time I thought you were flirting, you were just sharing your secrets. I suppose that means Edie knows too.”
“Edie doesn’t know anything,” I said stoutly. “I never shared any secrets. Orly guessed.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Anyone else?”
I pressed my lips together and tried to think. “Mmm...I don’t think I’ve ever said as much to Ivan, but I’m pretty sure he knows.”
“So Orly and Ivan. An oblivion spell would take care of both of them.”
My mouth opened. “That’s not necessary. Orly’s known for several years and hasn’t told anyone. And Ivan’s no danger to me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You want them to know?”
There had been something nice in knowing my secret was safe with Orly and Ivan, in knowing that I had two people on my side, come what may. For so long I had been on my own, and now I didn’t have to be. I squared my shoulders. “Yes, I do. I trust them both.”
He shook his head, as though he couldn’t understand my reasoning. “Fine. That’s everyone that knows?”
Here it was, my chance to come clean. “Well,” I said carefully. “There’s also...” But it was no use. I could feel that blasted forgetfulness hovering, waiting to hammer down on me if I so much as tried to say Matt.
“Yes?” Master Wendyn tapped his foot. “There’s also who?”
“M—” I started, and blank fog descended on my brain. I blinked and blinked and looked around me. The master stood before me, a shrewd look on his face. We were in his study. My eyes felt dry and scratchy, and an unutterable weariness rested along my tense shoulders.
I rubbed at my nose.
“Well?” Master Wendyn folded his arms. “Is there anyone else who knows or isn’t there?”
Bits of our conversation came back to me. I’d tried, once again, to tell him about Kurke. But I couldn’t force the words out. I’d need to try a different tack.
“Master Wendyn, who do you consider your closest friend?”
He frowned. “No games. I’ve had enough of those from you.”
“This isn’t a game, I promise. Just answer me who is your closest friend.” Confidence surged within me. I knew how he’d answer this question: Matthias Kurke. And then I’d tell him he’d just answered his own question.
His jaw tightened, and all at once he turned and kicked viciously at the desk leg. Books and paper scattered across it and onto the floor. “Blast it all, Mullins, stop treating this apprenticeship like a game. Fine, you want to know who my closest friend is? At this point in our apprenticeship, it should have been you. But come to find out you’re just a liar with an agenda.”
“But—”
“No.” He held up a hand and didn’t look at me, as he moved behind the desk straightening things that had tumbled with his kick. “We’ll discuss this no further. You will continue your training, at least until I figure a way out of this mess. That’s the only concession I’m willing t
o make for today. Now I’d like to be alone.” He didn’t look up, not even once, and from the formidable frown on his face I knew he needed time to cool off.
I stood there for a moment. We’d lost something in our relationship, and I felt it keenly in that moment. I opened my mouth to say something—what?—but there was nothing to say. I closed my mouth and left the room.
In the hallway, I leaned my head against the closed door and breathed out. I should be relieved. I was still an apprentice, at least for now.
But somehow it didn’t feel like a victory.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In the week that followed, Master Wendyn kept to himself and avoided mealtime and the library. He didn’t even bother leaving me any instructions, such as spells to work on or books to read to prepare myself for the fourth and fifth trials. It was as though, despite his words, he thought of himself as without an apprentice.
For a time I tried to study and wander around the library whenever I got bored, looking over Ivan’s shoulder at his drawings. It got quiet there in the library, with only an occasional hand-conversation to interrupt. At one point I looked out the window and saw Edie and Edwin near the stables, conversing in the chilly air. Small puffs of steam come from each of their mouths as they talked, and Edwin put a hand to Edie’s arm. Their relationship had deepened since I first introduced them, and as an added bonus, Edie had been far less smothering of late.
My plan had worked.
When I could distract Ivan from drawing, I asked him how his unknotting spell was coming. He pulled out the bit of rope—at least he was carrying it around—and stared at the knot in concentration. It didn’t move.
“You’ll get it,” I encouraged. “Just keep trying.”
Maybe, he gestured. Look this.
He retrieved his drawing pad and flipped through the pages, drawings of cows in the meadow, snow in the forest, the library shelves. At last he stopped on a drawing of a boy with bound hands. It resembled Ivan.
“But...why did you draw this?”
You look, he gestured. He held a hand over the drawing. After a moment of clear concentration, he stopped and looked at me, as though he expected a reaction.
“What? What do you want me to—” But I broke off when I glimpsed the sketch again. The picture of Ivan no longer had bound hands. He stood unbound, loose rope dangling from his fingers.
“What in the—” I said.
Ivan grinned.
I didn’t know how he did it or what it meant, but I made him show it to me three more times. Just think spell, he told me when I demanded how he was doing it. Think spell and hands untie.
“The unknotting spell?” I clarified, just to be certain. He nodded.
But I tried it and couldn’t reproduce his results.
It might be the oddest thing I’d ever seen. I would ask Master Wendyn about it when I got a chance. If he ever spoke to me again.
With Ivan absorbed in his drawing, the master angry at me, and no trials to prepare for now that Orly had shown me the secret to unlocking my magic, I made my way to my room to find an occupation. I found it when I glimpsed Orly’s blood magic book on my desk.
She’d be expecting it returned soon, so I should use it while I could.
I flipped through a few pages of the book before I remembered that I needed a Belanokian dictionary. Tomorrow would be a trial day. If I could get away from the master long enough, perhaps I could borrow a dictionary from the library. But how would I smuggle it home?
Don’t borrow trouble. I’d worry about that when the time came.
When I left my room at noon to go downstairs for the meal, I encountered Edie dusting knickknacks halfheartedly. She brightened when she saw me.
“Avery. I need to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“It’s—it’s about us,” she said in a hushed voice, looking around as though afraid of being overheard.
I didn’t like the sound of that word ‘us.’ Maybe she wasn’t going to say what I thought.
“All right. What do you mean, ‘us’?”
Her face sank into a frown, eyes large and mournful and beautiful. I thought she might cry.
“I’ve found someone else,” she said all at once, in a loud whisper. “Someone wonderful. I didn’t mean to. It sort of...happened.”
Relief rushed me. “Oh. That’s—that’s—” But I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say: That’s wonderful! And: Thank the heavens! Instead, I inserted into the silence, “I’m glad you’re happy, Edie.”
She put a hand to my arm. “You’re a good friend, Avery Mullins. I’ll never forget you.”
I had to own I’d never forget her either. She turned and hurried away, her dusting brush swinging from one hand as though she’d just shed a giant weight from her shoulders.
I certainly felt as though I had.
***
“Have you seen Master Wendyn?” I asked Ivan at breakfast the next morning.
In study. Ivan barely looked up from his heavily buttered biscuit.
“I hope he’s eaten something in there. It’s a trial day. Do you think he’s forgotten?”
Ivan shrugged.
I knocked on the door to the master’s study fifteen minutes later.
“What do you want?” Through the door, the master’s voice didn’t sound inviting. Nevertheless, I took it as an invitation to enter, turning the knob and pushing the heavy door open. The master sat at his desk in one of his foppish shirts, lace tangled at his throat and sleeves pushed up to his elbows, looking as casually handsome as usual. He didn’t look at me.
“Er,” I said, standing there in the doorway. “It’s a trial day. I’m taking the fourth and fifth trials. Have you forgotten?”
“No. Go ahead.” He waved at the tapestry without looking at me. His eyes fixed on the paper upon which he scrawled.
“But...aren’t you coming?” I squeaked.
“No.”
He didn’t even care enough to come to my trial. He’d abandoned his responsibility.
But on the bright side, at least I’d be able to visit the library uninhibited.
I hesitated for a moment, waiting for him to say something, anything. Maybe bark at me to take Ivan along or something. When he said nothing, I inserted into the silence, “Well, can you at least tell me if there have been any more cases?”
He looked at me for the first time. “Cases of what?”
“The wasting sickness. Does anyone else need healing?”
“That’s not for you to worry about any longer.”
“But—”
“There haven’t been.” He bent to the paper again.
“Ivan’s drawing in the library.”
He grunted in response.
“Do you want me to take him with me?”
He put his pen down and looked at me. “Do whatever you like, Mullins. Just get out of my study. I have work to do.”
It grated on me that he called me Mullins rather than underwizard. He hadn’t called me by my official title once since he discovered my gender.
I stepped to the tapestry, pushing it aside with one hand. The wizard’s door shimmered beyond, beckoning me to the Conclave. Behind me, the master’s gaze pushed against my back. I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulder. Our eyes met.
“Well? Are you going or not?”
I licked my lips, which suddenly seemed parched, as though all the air had been sucked out of the room in preparation for what I was about to say. “You’ll have to pay attention to me eventually, you know. I’m your apprentice.”
His lips thinned.
I took courage from the fact he hadn’t launched into a lecture. “I am trustworthy,” I said, and though I could tell my voice was too eager, I couldn’t stop myself from pleading my case. “Give me another chance, and I’ll show you. Please, you must.”
His jaw ticked. “The only thing I must do is see you’re no longer my responsibility as soon as possible. Now get out.”
&nbs
p; My stomach sank, and I turned my eyes back to the tapestry. I’d been hurt far worse than this. Words said by my father, master wizards who chased me from their property with various unpleasant spells, or the jailer in Bramford who kicked me in the head. The master’s words shouldn’t hurt me any worse than any of those times, but they did. It felt like a strike to the face, and my throat ached.
I’d grown soft toward Master Wendyn. I’d given him the power to hurt me. When did I do that? And why?
The spell to open the door came through my stiff lips, a bare whisper. I hoped he wasn’t watching as my shaking fingers took hold of the doorknob and turned.
***
It was different waiting for my name to be called without my master by my side. I felt conspicuous, as though everyone was staring. When my name was called, at long last, the proctor stared at me as though I’d grown a second head when I announced my master wasn’t with me.
“He isn’t strictly required to be present, but still...” he trailed off, and what he’d left unspoken was clear. It was unusual.
During the fourth trial, I had to explain all the times I’d experienced humiliation. It was an embarrassingly long list. Then I created a small spring bubbling up from the center of the dais. It was a shame the master wasn’t there to see how well I’d done, and that his joked-about rowboat wasn’t even needed. I passed with minimal discussion from the judges.
During the fifth trial, we discussed mastery over self, and I confessed the times when I’d lost control over my own emotions. Then I reported what a man several rooms away was whispering to himself. This time there were no missteps or out-of-control magic. I felt a singular sense of satisfaction as the test proctor announced that I had passed.
The satisfaction slipped away when I remembered I had arrived back where I began before Master Wendyn stripped me of all my levels. I’d done as he asked and passed all five trials in three months. But with what had happened, would he keep me as his apprentice, or was it too late?
***
Orly’s face broke into a beatific smile when she saw me cross the library’s foyer, and she balanced the stack of books she held on one arm to wave at me. The ache in my throat eased, and I managed a smile back. I headed in her direction, listening to the soft lull of library sounds: the hushed murmur of lowered voices, the whisper of turning pages, the tap of my own footsteps as I crossed the floor. The ordinariness of the noises soothed my mind so I could almost forget the look of repulsion on Master Wendyn’s face when he looked at me. Almost.
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