I’d been just like that before I’d picked Nevery’s pocket and become a wizard.
“D’you know how to read, any of you?” I asked.
One of them shook her head, the others just stared.
When we were finished, Sootle came back and brought me to the door. Taking out a purse string, he pulled off a couple of copper lock coins, which he handed to me. “Go to a swagshop, Pip, and get yourself some proper charboy clothes. Black.” He narrowed his dark eyes. Was he smiling? “So the soot won’t show.” He shoved me out the door. “Be back by midday.”
Right. I skiffed off. I’d get the charboy clothes, but I had some other things to do first.
Nevery was not happy to see me. It was still early morning when I snuck into Heartsease, and he hadn’t had his tea yet.
Leaving Pip-cat outside to hunt pigeons, I went into the study. From his chair, Nevery glared at me. “When was the last time you had a wash?”
I was filthy, true. I was very glad to see him, too. “I went up a chimney, Nevery.”
“Hmph,” he said. “I suppose you enjoyed that, my lad.”
I grinned at him. Sure as sure, it’d been better than any Dawn Palace meeting.
Nevery opened his mouth to scold me some more when Benet came in, carrying a tray with tea things on it. Seeing me, he stopped and set the tray down on the table with a thump. “You’ll need another cup,” he growled.
I remembered the errand Sootle had sent me on. “Benet, can I have my black sweater back?”
Benet grunted and went out.
Nevery poured me a cup of tea and I fetched it and went to sit on the hearth. Benet brought another teacup and saucer and my black sweater, then went out, making sure I got more glare before he left.
I took off the tattered vest and pulled the sweater on over my head. There, now I felt more like myself.
The tea was good and hot. I blew on it to cool it and took a sip. Lady-the-cat came in and, purring, climbed onto my lap. I sighed, happy to be home.
I knew, though, that this wouldn’t actually be my home again until I figured out what I was, me the gutterboy-wizard-apprentice-ducal-magister-magical-thief.
“Well?” Nevery asked impatiently, pouring out his own tea and adding honey. “What have you been up to, Connwaer?”
Right. “I found out who’s been stealing the locus stones.” While petting Lady, I told him about the chimney swifts and how they could go down a chimney, steal a stone, and climb back out again, easy.
“Chimney swifts?” Nevery asked, when I finished.
I nodded.
“Swifts,” he muttered. He got to his feet and went to the bookshelf, then pulled out a book and glanced through the pages. “Ah.” He set the book on the table. “Come here and look at this.”
I set Lady aside and went to the table. It was a book about birds. Nevery’s finger tapped the page, showing me where to look. The page said, Chimney Swift, known to nest in chimneys and on rooftops.
Then a picture of a black bird with sleek wings and a forked tail. I stared at it and my stomach turned cold. “A swift is a kind of black bird?”
Nevery sat in his chair again. “You didn’t know?”
No, I didn’t.
“Black birds, Conn,” he said. “The chimney swifts could have something to do with Crowe.”
Could they? My name, Connwaer, meant a kind of black bird, and so did Embre’s—he was really Embre-wing, a black bird with a bright orange spot on its wings. My mother’s name had been Black Maggie, or Magpie. We had those names because we were part of the same family. So was Crowe.
“Boy, I’ve had this feeling”—Nevery shook his head—“a feeling that some kind of plot is taking shape around us. I think it’s possible that Crowe has returned out of exile.”
Just the thought of that made fright shiver through me. Then I considered it. “No, Nevery,” I said. “It’s not him. Embre and I thought maybe Crowe sent those men who beat the fluff out of me, so I did the anstriker spell to look for him. Crowe’s not in Wellmet.”
“The anstriker spell, hmm? You’re sure? The spell worked, even with the magics in such disorder?”
I nodded. “Those two fluff-beaters who came after me weren’t swifts, either. It’s all right, Nevery.”
“It is not all right, boy.” Nevery frowned at me. “I don’t like this sneaking around.”
Oh, he was going to like this even less. “That’s not exactly what I’m doing,” I admitted. “I’ve joined the chimney swifts. Their leader has taken me on as his charboy.”
“Curse it!” Nevery slammed his fist on the table. His teacup jumped in its saucer and then tipped over, spilling tea across the tabletop. “Curse it,” he muttered again, and blotted up spilled tea with his sleeve. “This is too dangerous. You’ve identified the thieves; now it’s time to send in the palace guard to deal with them.”
That was a terrible idea. “But Nevery, I haven’t found out anything yet. I don’t know how they’re stealing locus stones without the stones killing them, and I don’t know why they’re stealing the stones in the first place.” Captain Kerrn’s guards wouldn’t find that out, either. They’d just go stomping around in their boots making a lot of noise, and most likely the swifts would get away and the stolen locus stones would be lost. “I need to be a charboy for a little longer, just until I find out what the swifts are up to.”
Nevery frowned at me from under his bushy eyebrows. After a long moment he righted his cup, poured himself more tea, and stirred in some honey. Tink-tink-tink went the spoon on the side of the cup. “Another locus stone went missing last night, boy,” he said. “Sandera’s—again. The thefts are a serious problem, some sort of attack on the magisters of the city.” He set down the spoon. “Conn, I do see the necessity in pursuing this. But you must be more careful.”
“Nevery, I am—”
“No.” Nevery pointed at me. “You’re not.” He sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. All of a sudden he looked weary and gray. What was making him look so old? “And the two-magic problem is getting worse,” he added.
I nodded. “You can feel it, too?”
He snorted. “Every wizard in the city can feel it, Connwaer. The thieves have stolen these locus stones at the time when the city most needs its wizards. The magisters have prohibited the use of magic by all the wizards in the city—with the magics this unsettled, spells may effect in more and more dangerous ways.” He lowered his eyebrows. “You know how bad things could get, my lad.”
I did. If the magics stayed like this for much longer, it’d mean worse than just a few spells gone wrong.
“The magisters blame you for all of this, of course,” Nevery said.
I knew that. “Don’t worry, Nevery,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll go out now and talk to the magics and see if I can help them.” It’s what I’d been meaning to do, until the chimney swifts had distracted me. It had to be me because none of the other wizards—except Nevery—truly understood that the magics were actual beings, not just power that was there to be used, and none of them had quite realized that their magical spells were actually the magics’ language—that by saying a spell we were talking to the magics.
“Will you, indeed?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “Then I will go with you.”
I knew better than to argue. Once Nevery made up his mind to do something, he’d do it.
We could do it right here, at Heartsease island. Now that I thought about it, Heartsease was in between the Sunrise and the Twilight—the best place for dealing with the magics, really.
Outside, the cobbled courtyard was clotted with white, smoky fog mixed with the yellowish mist that crept up from the river and hung low to the ground. Nevery swept-stepped across the courtyard, and the fog swirled out of his way and closed in again behind us.
I reached out and tugged on Nevery’s sleeve. “Over here,” I said, and pointed past the tall, bare-branched tree. We came to the edge of the courtyard, climbed over a low
tumble of rocks, and stood on the muddy bank of the river. The water was smooth under the fog, and lapping quietly against the shore; farther out it flowed swiftly and silently past. In the dim light I caught glimpses of the Twilight shore; I could see cranes poking out above the fog and the dark hulls of a couple of ships at anchor.
Nevery stepped up beside me, looking out at the foggy river. “Explain how we’re going to do this talking to the magics, boy,” he said, “and tell me, too, what you’re planning to talk to them about.”
I hadn’t had time to think it through. “Well, Nevery,” I said slowly, figuring it out as I talked. “When Arhionvar came here to Wellmet, we could have banished it, but instead we let it stay.”
“We, is it?” Nevery said, but he was pulling at the end of his beard, so I knew he wasn’t really angry.
“Well, I did,” I admitted. “What I did was, I used slowsilver to tie both magics to the city. The problem is that the Arhionvar magic is sort of young and strong and way more powerful than our old, tired Wellmet magic.”
He nodded; he knew that as well as I did.
“I think the magical beings are bound together by the magic that I did, and they’re fighting each other at the same time to be the magic of the city. So when a wizard here does a spell, they both try to effect it, and the spell turns out all wrong, or it turns out twice as strong as the wizard expected it to be.”
“Hmm. So how do you plan to fix that problem?”
I nodded. “I wonder if they’d both be happier”—I stopped because I wasn’t sure the magics even felt happiness the way we did—“if they’d feel more settled, I mean, if they each took a different part of the city for themselves. Arhionvar could have the Sunrise and the old Wellmet magic could have the Twilight.”
Nevery glanced sideways at me and pulled his locus magicalicus out of his cloak pocket. “Interesting, and it may work. Show me what to do.”
Nevery didn’t know the spellwords to do this. But his locus magicalicus, joined with mine, would make my voice clearer to the magic. “Pip,” I called.
Pip-cat bounded over from where it’d been poking its whiskers into a pile of riverweed and trash and climbed up to perch on my shoulder. I rested my hand on its paw.
Speaking slowly, I started the spell, saying hello to the magics and reminding them who I was and telling them that Nevery was here with me. In response, the magics gathered around us, making everything turn white-bright with flames and sparks. I smelled the dry, smoky smell of pyrotechnics, and my skin prickled all over. Nevery’s locus magicalicus gave a sudden bright flash.
“The magics know you,” I gasped.
Nevery gave a brisk nod and kept a tight grip on his locus stone.
I spoke a few more spellwords and the magics grew brighter, crackling through my bones and sparking off my skin. Then my ears popped and everything went silent, as if we were floating in a bubble. I blinked. We were still standing near the river, tall, gray-robed Nevery and small, ragged Connwaer with a bright spark of a cat-dragon on his shoulder, but overlaying my vision was the magics’ view. Everything looked tiny, far away, the city a dark, flowing plain, Nevery, Pip, and me blazing like bright stars at the edge of Heartsease island, the other wizards of the city duller sparks. The slowsilver that flowed beneath the river kept the magics attached to this place with a bone-deep pull.
The first time I’d talked to the magics like this, when I’d settled Arhionvar in the city, they didn’t want to let me go, and I hadn’t found myself again for a long time. This time, especially with Nevery with me, I had to be extra careful.
Keeping my hand on Pip’s paw, speaking slowly in the dragon language, I asked the Arhionvar magic if it would be the great wall and power of the Sunrise, and I showed it the river, a barrier that it could not cross. Then I told the Wellmet magic that it could care for the Twilight.
The magics talked back. We couldn’t hear them with our ears; their voices rumbled in our bones, surrounding us with light and sound. They were like the huge shadows of dragons, if shadows were made of pure lightning and thunder. Slowly, with the feeling of enormous stones shifting, Arhionvar gathered itself and settled like a blanket of brilliant stars over the Sunrise. Glowing softly, the Wellmet magic eased gently into its own place over the Twilight.
There. Done. Settled.
I spoke the last words of the spell.
The magics were supposed to let me go, then—that’s what the spell had asked them to do—but they kept their grip on me, swirling around me and pulling me away. They wanted me to be with them. At first, when I was a gutterboy thief, they had wanted me because I’d been alone, like them, and now, I guessed, they noticed me most because I had a dragon locus stone. They wanted me to become part of them, too huge and dragonish and too full of light to see or remember tiny Nevery or Benet or Rowan, or anyone in Wellmet. I gasped for breath against the pressure; my feet lifted off the ground.
Nevery’s hand came down solid on my shoulder, steadying me, and maybe himself, too. His deep voice rang out, speaking sharp, spell-ending words.
The magics clung to me for a breath, then another, then snap—they let me go. The heavy, pressing weight of Arhionvar lifted, and the warmth of the old Wellmet magic seeped away. The bubble of silence around us popped, and we were left standing on the muddy riverbank, cold mist swirling around our ankles.
I lifted my heavy hand off of Pip’s paw, blinked, and found Nevery holding tightly to my shoulder. Pip dropped off my other shoulder and landed splat on the ground. I staggered a bit and Nevery let me go, and I sat down. He leaned heavily on his cane. With a shaking hand, he put his locus magicalicus back into his cloak pocket.
I rubbed my hand across my eyes. That’d been close. Too close.
Nevery cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice sounded rusty. “So that’s what happened when we lost you before.”
I nodded. When I’d brought Arhionvar into the city, the magics had taken me and hadn’t given me back for a long time. I shivered, remembering it.
Tendrils of cold crept in with the fog. I picked up Pip, who was shivering, too, and climbed to my feet; then I snuggled Pip up against my woolly black sweater. Might as well test to see that it had worked. “Minnervas,” I whispered, and the spell effected exactly as it was supposed to. The little cat-Pip started to glow with warmth, clinging to the front of my sweater with its claws. I breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Hmph.” Nevery turned and led the way back onto the courtyard. “Well done, my lad,” he said.
I glowed a little from his words, too. “Thanks, Nevery.”
“But you know, Connwaer,” he added over his shoulder. “It is not a bad thing to ask for help now and then.”
He paused and I caught up to him. “What d’you mean?” I asked.
“You don’t have to do everything yourself,” Nevery said. “Ask for help and perhaps you won’t get yourself into so much trouble.”
Duchess Rowan—
It is as we suspected. Conn has disguised himself as a gutterboy and has discovered who has been stealing the locus stones. He has joined the thieves in order to learn why, exactly, they are taking locus magicalicus stones. I fear Conn is putting himself into further danger, but short of having Captain Kerrn lock him up in one of the Dawn Palace cells, there is nothing we can do about it.
Now that Brumbee, Trammel, Nimble, and Sandera’s stones have been stolen, it has become clear that this is a targeted attack against the magisters. The apprentice Keeston’s stone must have been stolen as a trial run by the thieves. Though I am worried for Conn’s safety, he does have a point that, as both a wizard and a former thief, he is the best person to discover what is really going on. I recommend that we do as Underlord Embre suggested, and let Conn get on with it.
Nevery Flinglas
Magister, Heartsease, etc.
CHAPTER
15
That afternoon, Sootle put two bulgy burlap bags into a boat and rowed us over to one of the magisters’
islands. I carried one of the bags and he carried the other, and, followed by Pip, we went ’round the back of the house to the servants’ door, where the housekeeper let us in.
“Right this way,” she said, leading us down a long corridor. “The fires is all out, on account of you swifts coming today. The one in here’s been smoking something terrible.” She led us to a fancy bedroom, and I realized whose house it was. The carpet on the floor was spangled with little blue flowers, and a painting of a family crest—more blue flowers—hung over the fireplace. Periwinkle, one of the magisters, lived here.
Outside, Sootle had told me about the job. “We go in, we sweep the chimneys, we get paid, we leave. When you go up top, check the layout, be sure you can get in the chimney from outside.”
Then he’d handed me a piece of chalk and told me what to do with it.
In Periwinkle’s bedroom, Sootle pulled a wire-bristle brush from one of the bags and handed it to me, checked to see the flue was open, and sent me up the chimney. I was to go up top first, then sweep out the soot on the way down. The soot would fall into the hearth and Sootle would catch it in a canvas cloth he’d spread there.
Up I went. Pip came, too, crawling up the bricks ahead of me, sending ticks of soot down into my face. The chimney grew narrower as I went up, squeezing my shoulders. My knees got sore from pressing against the bricks as I climbed. At last, coughing soot out of my lungs, I reached the top. Something was blocking the way. I reached up and felt twigs and straw—a nest. No wonder the chimney smoked. I pushed it aside and poked my head out. The nest—a swift nest, it must be—was empty, so I let it fall onto the rooftiles. Pip perched next to me on the edge of the chimney. I looked out and saw another seven chimneys poking up from the sloped rooftop. Would I have to sweep them all?
Holding the brush with one hand, I groped in my pocket for the chalk, pulled it out, and reached over the side of the chimney and marked the bricks with an X.
On the way down, I brushed choking clouds of soot off the walls.
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