Five days.
I came back late to Heartsease, dirty, cold, and hungry, slinking from the secret tunnel and across the dark courtyard, trying not to wake the birds in the black tree. I didn’t want to hear them scold. The mansion stood tall, a ragged shadow against the night, except for the warm golden glow of the windows.
I went inside and climbed wearily up to the kitchen, tired down to my bones. Benet was there. His knitting, a snarl of black yarn, sat on the table. Nevery had gotten him a stove, so he was busy setting it up, angling the stovepipe so it would carry the smoke out a window. He’d knocked out a pane and stood on a chair, trying to plug the gaps between the window frame and the pipe so the cold air couldn’t come in. Lady sat watching him, her tail curled over her paws, and a bright fire burned in the hearth.
Benet glanced at me as I came in. “Anything?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Huh,” he grunted, and turned back to the window.
I sat down, folded my arms on the table, and put my head down to rest, just for a moment.
I woke up with a crick in my neck and Benet poking my arm. He pointed at the ceiling. “Tea.”
Right. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was late. Nevery would be wanting tea.
Benet handed me the tray. There were two cups on it, a teapot, and a plate of bread and butter. I looked blankly at it. “He’s not going to have time to drink tea with me, Benet,” I said.
“It’s not for you,” Benet said gruffly.
Not for me. Who, then?
“He’s taken on a secretary,” Benet said. “Student from the academicos. To help him with the reading and writing.”
A secretary, right.
I trudged up the stairs to the study and went in with the tea tray. Nevery was there with his new secretary.
Keeston.
I stopped inside the door, frozen. Keeston and Nevery were sitting at the table surrounded by books and papers. A fire burned in the hearth. Very companionable and cozy.
Keeston looked up from his work and gave me a nasty smile. “Your servant has brought tea, Magister Nevery,” he said.
I thawed out enough to go in and carefully pushed aside a few books to put the tray on the table. “I’m not his servant.” Crawler toady.
Nevery looked up. I didn’t expect him to add anything, but he did. “He is my apprentice, Keeston.”
“Yes, of course, Magister,” Keeston said quickly, turning a little pale.
I turned to leave.
“Wait, boy,” Nevery said. I turned back. He pointed at Keeston. “Go down and tell Benet we’ll need more tea later. It’s going to be a late night.”
“Yes, Magister,” Keeston said, scrambling to his feet and hurrying from the room.
As the door closed behind him, Nevery turned his gaze on me. “Well?”
“He’s Pettivox’s,” I said. And I was certain, now that I’d seen him again in the Twilight, where he had no business going, that Pettivox was working for the Underlord.
“We’ve spoken of this before, boy. Pettivox is a magister, as I am, and he has done well to offer me his apprentice’s services.” Nevery scowled. “We are working together to solve the crisis facing the city.”
“The Underlord has something to do with it,” I said.
Nevery gave me an exasperated look. “This has nothing to do with Underlord Crowe.”
I had a feeling that it did have something to do with Crowe, and with his underground workshop, and with Pettivox. But Nevery didn’t want to hear about it. And I was too tired to argue. Couldn’t seem to think straight about anything.
“Now, boy,” he said, pointing at the door. “You’re obviously exhausted. Go to bed.”
To bed, right. I stumbled toward the door. Paused. “Just be careful what you tell Keeston.”
“I am not a fool, boy,” Nevery said. “Keeston is useful to me.”
And I was not, he was saying. Drats.
I went to bed.
Four days left.
Still nothing.
I decided to stop off at the academicos to see if Brumbee had some maps of the city. I was just about finished with the Twilight and was going to have to face crossing the river to search the Sunrise, the duchess’s part of the city.
I used the keystone to pass through the tunnel gates. The air was cold and damp, the walls dripping with slime, the floors covered with a shallow film of water. Slippery. Like being on the inside of a snake.
As I reached the academicos gate, I saw a dark, hunched figure; somebody was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs leading up.
Rowan. She got stiffly to her feet, arms folded, looking impatient. “What are you up to, young Connwaer?”
I wondered how long she’d been sitting there. A while, maybe; she looked cold. “Hello, Rowan.”
“Yes, hello and all that,” she said crossly. “I’ve waited for you every morning, and you never come. You’ve stopped coming to school, have you?”
I nodded. “I need to talk to Brumbee.”
“About coming back to the academicos?”
“No,” I said, stepping around her. “About finding my locus stone.”
She stepped to the side, blocking me. “Yes, Magister Brumbee told me about that. And you’re almost out of time, are you?”
Hearing her saying it out loud like that made my stomach leap up and wrestle with my throat for a minute.
I must have turned pale, because she went on, hurriedly, “Surely it’s not more important than going to school.”
“It is,” I said.
She put her hands on her hips and glared. “You’re being stupid, Conn. You’ll find your locus magicalicus eventually. Until you do, just work for Magister Nevery.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? It seems the obvious solution.”
I just couldn’t do it. I shook my head.
“Very well,” Rowan said. In the dim light, her red hair looked like a banked fire and her eyes flashed with annoyance. She spun on her heel and stalked away, up the stairs.
* * *
Have found precedent for city’s loss of magic. Secretary came across crumbling old text in academicos library. Account of destruction of Arhionvar, lost city of the Fierce Mountains.
According to text, Arhionvar was thriving crossroads of trade on potent magical node, when suddenly, magic drained from city. Without lifeblood of magic, Arhionvar died. Text speculates that death of Arhionvar not a natural phenomenon. Troubling.
Have not yet felt sense of urgency, but suspect we should be more alarmed. Possible boy’s ideas have some merit: loss of magic in Wellmet could be human-caused problem. Wouldn’t blame Underlord for such a thing, as boy is so quick to do, because Crowe is not a wizard, and because Crowe would not benefit if magic were lost. But must think further on it.
Secretary proving useful. Organized. Neat handwriting. Follows orders. Doesn’t plague me with questions.
* * *
CHAPTER 19
Today was the last day.
In the kitchen, Benet greeted me with a glare. “Listen, you. Stop messing about,” he growled. “Find the stone and be done with it.”
I didn’t answer, just grabbed the bucket and went out for water. When I got back, I left the bucket by the hearth and went down to fetch more wood for the fire. By that time, Benet had breakfast ready for Nevery and Keeston; two cups, a steaming teapot, and a basket of muffins. He pointed to the stairs, and I took it up. They weren’t in the study, so I went up to the workroom. Knocked.
“Breakfast, Nevery,” I said.
After a long moment, he answered, his voice sharp. “Leave it outside the door, boy, and go away.”
I put down the tray. Then I leaned my forehead against the door. Maybe he’d lost count of the days. Right. He probably didn’t remember that this was the last day. I wanted to talk to him before I left. But I couldn’t go in there while he and Keeston were working on some experiment that couldn’t be interrupted.
I went back do
wnstairs to the kitchen.
Lady was there, purring before the fire. I crouched beside her to get warm before heading out to search. What I really wanted to do was go back to bed. I was tired. I was starting to believe that I wasn’t going to find a locus magicalicus. Maybe I wasn’t a wizard after all.
“Here, you,” Benet said, interrupting my dark thoughts. I looked up. He was elbow deep in bread dough; he raised a floury finger to point at the table.
I went over to see. A black, high-collared woolen sweater. Warm looking. Benet had knitted it.
“See if it fits,” he said.
I took off my coat and put on the sweater. It was too big; the sleeves hung down over my hands. But it was warm. I put my coat on over it, and my scarf.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Hmph,” Benet grunted. “Take a biscuit with you.”
“Thanks,” I said again. I took a biscuit and some cheese and shoved them into my coat pocket. “I’ll be back later,” I said, and left.
I’d be back when I found my locus magicalicus, is what I meant. And if I didn’t find it, maybe I wouldn’t come back at all.
* * *
Secretary Keeston has no initiative, no ideas, no curiosity about magic. Does what he’s told and nothing else.
Sent him to fetch books from academicos library. Need to check calibration for partelet because blasted thing not set correctly.
After secretary had gone out, Benet came in with tea, set down plate of biscuits.
Which reminded me.—Tell the boy when he comes in that I want to speak to him, I said. Wanted to tell him to read the treatise on Arhionvar, and then see what he thought about it.
Benet glared.—Don’t know that he will come back at all, Magister.
Became aware that secretary had come quietly up stairs and was lurking outside door, listening.
—That is all, Benet, I said. As Benet went out, secretary came in.
Annoyed. Don’t like sneaking.
Keeston sat down at the table and took biscuit.—Magister Nevery, I happened to overhear you and your servant talking about your apprentice. You might be interested to know, sir, that Conn hasn’t been attending the academicos for some time. I hear he’s been seen going into the Twilight, which must mean, sir, that he’s gone back to thieving.
—Get out, I said.
—But sir, squeaked Keeston.
—Out! I stood and pointed at the door.
Keeston scurried out.
Curse it, had forgotten date. Stupid, careless. Checked journal, realized today is thirty days since boy’s introduction to magisters. Possible Benet is right, boy will not return to Heartsease.
Curse the boy, anyway. Weather worsening, snow last night, more snow likely. No doubt he is out in the city somewhere, getting himself into trouble.
* * *
CHAPTER 20
After I left Heartsease, using the keystone to pass the gates in the tunnels, I came out onto the Night Bridge and turned east. It was about midday, and, as I came out from the bridge and into the city, the Sunrise was bustling.
The streets were clotted with mud and horse manure, all churned with the snow that had fallen the previous night into a dirty, icy slush. My feet were wet within a few steps, and even with Benet’s sweater under my coat, the wind was biting. I pulled my scarf up over my face—all the better to hide from the city guards, I reckoned—and headed deeper into the Sunrise.
Most of the buildings in this part of the city were built of gray stone, and the streets were paved with black cobbles. Shops lined the roads, their signs jutting out over the street and creaking in the wind. People, bundled to their ears in warm coats, rushed through the streets, but the richest people traveled in carriages or in hansom cabs pulled by high-stepping horses, whose breath steamed in the chilly air.
I decided to start near the river and work my way up, toward the center of the city, the hill the Dawn Palace was built on, where the duchess lived.
I paced streets and alleyways for the rest of the day. As I had before, I tried to keep myself open to the merest hint of a call from my locus magicalicus, but I felt nothing. I wasn’t sure, anyway, how to keep myself open for the call. Was it like listening? Would I just know? Would it be, as Brumbee had said, like getting washed away by a wave of magic?
My feet were numb and my socks wet inside my boots, and an icy wind from the river kept knifing me in the back as I trudged along. As the night drew on and wizards came out to light the werelights along the streets, I found a house with a coal hole leading down to a cellar. I pulled my knife out of my boot and used it to pry open the window. Climbed in and found a dark corner to sleep in.
Except that I didn’t sleep. I lay there all night, shivering and staring at the darkness, trying to make my thoughts stop whirling around. I still had the biscuit and cheese in my pocket, but I couldn’t eat it.
As the light turned gray with morning, I climbed out of the cellar, smudged all over with coal dust. Headed out into the city again.
Trudged. Up one street, down another. The cobbles felt like blocks of ice under my feet. The wind stuck cold fingers down my neck. Overhead, the clouds lowered and snow began to fall, icy pellets like little needles. I felt completely hollow. If somebody had hit me, I would have echoed.
Toward evening, the snowfall grew heavier and I headed up the hill to the center of the city.
I had my head down, scanning the snow-covered cobbles, with my scarf over my face. A big hand came down on my shoulder.
“Here, you.”
I looked up. A guard. I pulled my scarf down, just a little, to speak. “I’m running a message.”
“Oh, are you? Let’s see it.” The guard held out a gloved hand.
“It’s in here,” I said, pointing to my head.
“Where you going to?” the guard said, suspicious.
“The Dawn Palace.” Drats. But it was the only place in the Sunrise that I could think of, hollow as I was.
The guard frowned. “They’re not going to let the likes of you in,” he said.
“Still, that’s where I’m going.” Actually, now that we were talking about the Dawn Palace, I realized that I really did want to go there. Up the hill. Yes. A very good place to go.
The guard shrugged, evidently believing me. “Get on with you, then.” He took his hand from my shoulder and I skiffed off up the street.
I hadn’t eaten anything the previous day, not even the biscuit and cheese, which had disintegrated into crumbs in my pocket, and I hadn’t slept during the night and only a few hours the night before, but for some reason I suddenly felt just fine. The worry that had been gnawing at me for the past thirty days took its teeth and went elsewhere. What a relief.
As I went up the hill toward the Dawn Palace, twilight fell and a cloaked wizard with a locus stone went along the street before me making the werelights lining the streets flicker on. The lights gleamed in the growing darkness, making the snowy streets and the gray buildings glow pink. Several carriages passed me as I walked, the horses’ breath steaming in the air, their hooves kicking up clots of muddy slush, the wheels rattling over the cobbles.
At last, at the top of the hill, I reached the Dawn Palace, where the duchess lived and governed the city. The carriages had been heading here, too: the duchess was having a party.
At the front of the Dawn Palace was a low wall about half my height topped with a tall, black-iron fence. I gripped the bars, looking in. The palace was a huge rectangular structure built of stone colored the rosy pink of dawn. All along the front were pillars and frothy carvings; it looked like a cake, frosted and ready to eat. The carriages rolled down the snow-covered drive and pulled up before the front doors, which were reached by going up a broad flight of stairs decorated at the sides with pink stone statues. Werelights flared in sconces at the front, and in their glow I saw fine fur-wrapped ladies and frock-coated gentlemen scurrying from the warm carriages, up the icy steps, and into the warm palace.
My thirty da
ys was up. I would never find my locus magicalicus. I wasn’t Nevery’s apprentice anymore. I would never be a wizard.
Which meant I was a thief.
Where there were fine ladies and gentlemen, I reckoned, there would be fine jewels and gold and pearls. I would have to find a way in and steal some of them.
Also by the front door were guards, outfitted in thick, dark green woolen uniforms and high leather boots; a few more guards stood at the gates at the head of the driveway, and I was starting to attract their attention, hanging around the fence as I was.
So I eased off down the street to find a nearby alley to wait in until later, when the night would be darker.
I leaned against a wall in an alley for a few hours. Fat snowflakes sifted down from the sky and settled on the ground, and every once in a while a blast of wind came along and stirred the snow into a whirling white frenzy. I jittered while I waited, bouncing up and down, talking to myself.
“I’ll go ’round the back,” I told myself. “And peek in the windows. The guards won’t see me. I’ll find somebody wearing jewels. And I’ll steal them when they aren’t looking.”
It seemed like a very good plan.
At last I could wait no longer. It was late, close to midnight, I reckoned, and the party would be in full swing. I crept out of my alley and climbed up the hill to the Dawn Palace.
Away from the front gates, the palace wall got higher and was topped with metal spikes, each spike wearing a little cap of snow. Following the wall around a corner, I found myself in a quiet alley about two paces wide made by the palace wall and a brick building with no windows. A perfect place; no guards in sight. The wall was made of big stone blocks with nice cracks between them. I took off my boots, tied the laces, and hung them around my neck, then climbed up.
At the top of the palace wall, I crouched for a moment, clinging to the spikes, to survey the other side. Blinking snowflakes from my lashes, I saw what looked like a formal garden with snow-covered lumps that were probably hedges and flower beds and winding paths. Across the garden was the side of the palace. All the windows were lit up; it looked like a bright ship sailing on a foamy ocean.
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