by Tim Susman
“Ridiculous,” Patris said. “Not know how to get rid of magic? You were able to summon it and not dismiss it?”
Argent interposed himself. “It sounds completely reasonable to me,” he said. “Penfold, come back and finish your application, and let’s hear no more about this.”
“Reasonable?” Patris’s voice rose again, this time directed at Argent. “If you think I will have this unpredictable danger in my College—”
“Sir,” Argent said, “May I remind you that not ten minutes ago you informed me that I would bear full responsibility for the applications of these candidates? I choose to continue the process.”
“Waste of your time,” Patris said, but his voice lowered. “Someone who can’t dismiss magic? Who can’t control a basic levitation spell?”
“Yes.” Argent’s smile grew just a little. “And who has learned that spell on his own. Would you not say that that is someone most in need of our instruction?”
He met Patris’s glare, held it until the older man said, “It is your time to waste.” And then Patris drew himself up and his voice lowered, became iron-rigid as he turned his glare on Kip. “He will never be a sorcerer in this college.”
Kip started forward, but Emily held onto his arm. He wanted to complain, to tell Patris how unfair this was, but he kept his muzzle shut. Though his father remained silent, he recalled the older fox’s frequently spoken advice: let actions speak more than words. Very well. He would prove Patris wrong.
The Head seemed to be daring Kip to challenge him, and when the fox remained quiet, sneered and turned back to Argent. “When Adamson gets here, send Blacktalon to me. I will greet him myself.”
Argent bowed, and as Patris left, the younger sorcerer beckoned Kip and Emily. Coppy and Max waited a little way along the path for them.
“What was that little display about?” Max’s ears were back and there was a low growl in his voice. “You worked hard to prepare and then jeopardized it all in a moment?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Kip said in a low voice, Patris’s comment still ringing in his ears. “The Tower—something happened when I touched it.”
“Why touch it at all?”
“To be fair,” Coppy said, “Who’d think harm could come from touching the stone of the tower? An’ Kip has been in love with it for months.”
Kip rounded on the otter, but before he could comment, the words had the intended effect on his father. “Years, actually.” The older fox’s expression softened. “I don’t suppose you could have thought any harm would come from it. So what did happen?”
Without mentioning the voice, Kip told the story again. He hesitated before mentioning the raven at the top, worried what Master Argent might think, but the young sorcerer was deep in conversation with Emily a few feet ahead of them, and he did not have a fox’s ears. So Kip added the conversation he’d had with the raven. “I thought it might be Brightbeak—Master Vendis’s.”
“Perhaps.” His father rubbed his whiskers. “I don’t know why Master Vendis would be watching and not come down.”
“Being a calyx is different from being a student,” Coppy said. “Maybe that’s it.”
Max’s ears folded down. “Yes,” he said. “It is different.”
He met Kip’s eyes, and Kip wanted to say something about how it was equally important, but his father forestalled him. “There are many calyxes and no Calatian sorcerers,” he said. “You have a chance to change that. Remember the words of Mr. Adams.”
“Which ones?” Coppy interposed himself. “You two are always going on about that fellow.”
Kip raised his ears. “‘That the only limits on anyone’s ambition should be those of their God-given talents, not those imposed by any accident of birth.’”
“He said that about Calatians?” The otter’s eyes widened.
“He was talking about men born in the Colonies not being able to hold offices in England.” Kip saw his father’s smile and went on. “But Adams writes very carefully. Those words were surely meant not only for Colonial men, but also for Calatians and even, we believe, slaves in the South. He has to talk carefully because of all those who don’t believe in allowing people that kind of opportunity. Many of whom are here,” he added with a look at the tent into which Patris had disappeared.
Before his father could reply, Coppy laughed. “Ah, folks are always worried ’bout change. Some of the fellas back on the Isle, they didn’t want me to come to America. ‘Runnin’ away,’ they said, ‘why not stay here where you know what your life is?’ ‘Well,’ I told them, ‘it’s because I know what my life is.’ And look at me now. Got a chance to become a friend to the first Calatian sorcerer.”
“You could be a sorcerer too.” Kip put a paw on his friend’s broad shoulder. Coppy was solid where he was light, thick muscle and bone where the fox was spindly and fragile.
“Got no talent for it. Not like you. Never set accidental fires or learned to throw rocks.”
“Saul didn’t show a talent either, but he was accepted and learned a little magic.” Now that he had a chance to relax, Kip found it hard not to think about his old friend who’d been an apprentice here.
His father and Coppy looked away from his eyes, but the otter looked up again after a moment. “It might be possible, true. But yer father needs help at the store, and you won’t need me up here.” His large paw reached out to hold Kip’s wrist, fingers circling it easily. “Nobody up here going to break your arms.”
“I think Patris might have a go at them.” Kip patted Coppy’s paw. “Anyway, I’ll miss you.”
The otter released Kip’s arm as they approached the tent, his thick tail swinging from side to side. “You can come see me weekends, and don’t worry about Patris. You survived a whole childhood with Farley. Worst Patris can do is throw you out.”
He said this as they walked into the tent behind Argent and Emily, and Master Argent did hear that remark. “You may be speaking facetiously, but in fact, Master Patris could not deny you admission by himself. All thirteen Masters will vote on the candidates.”
“Surely the Head of the College bears additional weight?” Max stood to one side of the tent, letting the three candidates approach the desk.
“As does the Head of Admissions.” Master Argent smiled. “You candidates will be tested by myself and two other Masters over the next three days. Our reports will be presented the following day, and that night we will vote on which candidates to admit.”
“On Saturday, then?” Emily asked, and only then did Kip notice that she was fiddling with the front of her blouse.
“Yes.” Master Argent sat and looked up at them. “Now, shall we complete these forms?”
Kip wanted badly to ask him what spell it was that allowed the ink to flow through the paper without pen or inkwell, but he felt he had used up what leeway he had, so he spoke only to answer the questions Argent asked, and while Emily answered her questions, he let his mind race back to the incident at the Tower.
One, the voice. Two, the magic. Had he really heard a voice in his head? It seemed unlikely. His father had been a calyx for years, for as long as Kip could remember, and he had never spoken of sorcerers putting words directly into his head. Master Vendis and the other sorcerers had come down the hill to the town in person, at least until the attacks. Thereafter, they had sent ravens. If they could talk directly into the heads of their calyxes, would that not be a more efficient means of summoning?
Perhaps it worked only when they were close by. But no, then Master Patris would simply have spoken into Master Argent’s head. He would have had no need to still the air around Kip and the others.
Then could it have been a demon? A spirit unbound? His ignorance of the possibilities of the world weighed on him like iron chains which rattled with his frustration.
And the flood of magic, what of that? Kip had called magic into himself enough times to be practiced at it, but it did not yet come instinctively, much less unbidden. It reminded him of his
first dive into the deep water of the quarry, falling through air and then plunging through water, deeper and deeper. The feeling had been terrifying, but also seductively thrilling.
That, too, might be a known phenomenon. He had to learn more.
Beside those two mysteries, the meeting with the raven on the roof felt pedestrian. A sorcerer spoke through his raven; someone had been watching him and wanted to talk and could be found in the tower. Kip could explain that easily and therefore felt less urgency in pursuing it. If he were admitted, he would have time to explore all these questions, and so that was where he needed to focus his attention now.
When Master Argent had finished the papers, he stood. “If you’ll take your bags, Blacktalon will show you to the candidates’ quarters on the other side of the Tower. When he returns,” he added, for the raven had left his perch during the application and flown out a sheltered gap at the top of the tent. “The large tent next along the path here is the dining tent, and testing will take place there, here, and in the practice tent beside your quarters. I will see you tomorrow morning here for the beginning of the tests.”
“Why are they all tents?” Emily asked. “Are you going to replace the buildings?”
Master Argent’s smile tightened for the first time since he’d met them. “This year we hope to. But the Tower is large enough for seventeen Masters, with room to spare, and as we are still investigating the attacks, Master Patris feels it would be imprudent to erect any permanent structures until our investigations have concluded.”
The raven returned then, perched at the gap in the roof. When it croaked, Argent said, “Blacktalon, please show Miss Carswell and Penfold to tents one and two.”
“Sir,” Coppy said. “May I stay with Kip a few hours?”
“Of course.” Argent bent his head over his papers.
They exited the tent in time to see the raven wheeling and diving through the air in front of them, water drops spraying from its wings. As they did, Kip’s father touched his arm and pointed at the debris showing around the base of the tent. “They still have not excavated it all,” he said quietly. “New buildings would require a new foundation.”
Kip nodded, staring at the thin gap between grass and tent, and the broken brick and splintered wood. Behind all the mysteries of that day, there lurked the larger one: what had demolished four sturdy buildings and killed over a hundred people in the space of a thunderclap?
3
Victor Adamson
Master Argent’s raven led them to a row of tiny tents, where they dropped their luggage before following the raven through the drizzling rain back to the large dining tent. They hurried through the tent flap, and while Kip brushed rain from his tail, Emily took possession of the table closest to the entrance in the warm, empty tent. She swept her skirt beneath her legs, sat on the long wooden bench, and rested her arms on the table, palms out to invite the others to sit. Kip took a seat opposite her, sweeping his tail to the side much as she’d managed her skirt, and as Max and Coppy joined them, Emily extended a hand to Kip. “So that we may be properly introduced, my name is Emily Carswell, of Boston,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Kip Penfold, of New Cambridge.” Max and Coppy introduced themselves as well, and Emily shook each proffered paw gravely.
“So you were living here during the attack,” she said.
Kip’s eyes flicked down to the floor. He forced them back up to the brazier over Emily’s shoulder where one of the phosphorus elementals lay with only the tip of its tail visible. “Perhaps we could save those stories for a time not so close to a meal.”
“My apologies.” Emily transitioned smoothly into another topic. “It must be terrible keeping your fur dry when it rains,” she said, producing a handkerchief from an inner pocket. “I am only wiping my hand dry of moisture, not of having touched you lovely people,” she announced as she dabbed the droplets from her skin. Her hands, Kip noticed, were not a bright, pale white, nor yet the tanned farmer’s wife’s hands he’d seen around New Cambridge so often, but a dusty pink color, like the hands of the schoolteacher he’d watched from the front row of his schoolhouse for so many years.
“It is challenging,” Max said, “but we learn to adapt and not to worry overmuch about the state of our fur from day to day. It can remain damp beneath the clothes, but if we keep the clothes clean and treat them with oils, they do not grow mildew any more than your clothes would if they remained damp for days on end.”
“Which seems likely.” Emily looked up at the trickles of water running down the tent roof. Like the admissions tent, the dining tent was warm and even a little stuffy from the heat of two braziers, the one behind Emily and the other in the right corner at the back. Both stood well away from the canvas, though as wet as the canvas was, steam still curled in small billows from the walls nearest the heat. Between the braziers, three tall poles supported the roof, and a wooden dowel ran between the three of them. Whether intended for this purpose or not, that was currently serving as the perch for Master Argent’s raven as it shook its feathers clear of water and preened.
“Tell me,” Kip said, “how are you so comfortable with Calatians? I had not thought there were many in Boston.”
“There are enough,” Emily said. “Thomas’s law firm employed a dormouse to do odd jobs, and he and I spoke several times. Then Thomas fired him because he’d been talking to me, and I insisted he hire him back.” Her smile broadened.
“And did he?” Coppy asked.
“Oh, of course.” She laughed. “Thomas gave me anything I asked, eventually.”
“Including a divorce,” Kip said.
“Indeed.” Her eyes sparkled. “By that time, although he never would have said it aloud, I believe he was happy to be rid of me.”
“How did you procure a divorce?” Max leaned across the table and lowered his voice.
Emily pushed a sodden hair back from her face and leaned in as well. Kip and Coppy followed suit as she spoke. “It was difficult. Thomas did not particularly care for spending time with his wife, but he did very much care for the status of having one. And he was very busy with his law firm and did not wish to spend another six months in courtship.” She looked around at the three of them. “So I found a young woman who wanted nothing more than to be a lawyer’s wife, to look pretty at parties and say the right things to the right people, to fetch her husband’s newspaper in the morning and mind the servants, and I introduced them.”
“And then he divorced you?” Kip asked.
“No…” Emily drew the word out thoughtfully, took the wet strand of hair, and twirled it between her fingers. “He slept with her, and then I divorced him.”
“What a cad!” Kip exclaimed.
Emily’s smile was appreciative, but also slightly condescending. “I could never have gotten my divorce otherwise. But it was not as easy as I made it sound. My Calatian friend helped.”
“Helped?” Coppy’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Brought the two of ’em together in a romantic spot?”
“Well, passed forged notes proclaiming their passions for each other, but yes. And then let me in on the day they made their assignation so that I might ‘discover’ them. And caught me when I pretended to faint.”
Kip gaped. “You tricked him into infidelity?”
“Oh, don’t give me that look. He never would have divorced me otherwise, and we’re both much happier now, I assure you. My reputation did him no favors, except to excuse his cheating as understandable, and while he did buy me the finest dresses…” She wrung out the sleeve of her dress, dripping water to the wooden floor. “You can see how much I care for that. But enough about me and my past.” She fixed Kip with a demanding gaze. “Tell me how a Calatian comes to apply to the College of Sorcery.”
Kip glanced at his father, unsure how much he could talk about the book, but his father waved a paw. “It’s your story,” he said.
“It starts with you.” Kip looked from h
im to Emily. “Father’s a calyx—a Calatian who helps sorcerers in their rituals.”
“How do you help?”
Before Max could answer Emily’s query, Coppy laughed. “Best of luck gettin’ him to answer that question. ‘Not allowed to talk about it,’ he says.”
“That’s quite right.” Max smiled placidly. “The condition of our help is that we not reveal any of the particulars of it.”
“Are you paid?”
Max glanced at Coppy. “Not in coin,” he said softly.
“There’s plenty of places where we ain’t exactly welcome,” the otter said. “And in London ’specially, we remember the Blackstone. But it’s good having sorcerers need you around, you know?”
“What’s the Blackstone?”
“Old bakery,” Kip said before Coppy could answer. “About two hundred years ago a bunch of Calatians were trapped inside and burned to death.”
“We put up a small marker on the site.” The otter’s smile had faltered, and now came back, a sad memory. “Not me, I mean. Us. The Isle Calatians, fifty years ago. Been there lots of times, some when I was too young to understand it.”
“I never learned that history.” Emily twirled her hair in her fingers again.
“Come to the next Feast of Calatus,” Max urged her. “The celebration in New Cambridge is the largest in the New World.”
“It must be nice having grown up just here.” She looked around at the three of them. “I mean, it’d be like me having grown up with Abigail Adams and Elizabeth Seton and Phyllis Wheatley all in the same neighborhood.”
“There were challenges,” Kip said.
“Oh? What sort of challenges?”
Kip took a breath.
He had just turned ten years old and was walking with Adam, a nine-year-old mouse-Calatian, around the back of the school. They had been discussing the war against Napoleon going on in Europe; many of the New Cantabrigians had gone over to Europe to fight—but none of the Calatians had. Their teacher, Miss Partridge, had explained that the Calatians were helping the war effort by remaining home to help the sorcerers in their magical attacks and the defense of the Colonies.
