She flung herself into his arms, and he hugged her tightly. Then he gripped her shoulders and held her out at arm’s length, as if he had to make sure who she really was. Shaking his head, he hugged her again.
“Praise Dedi,” he murmured. “You’re alive!”
Emma’s cheeks burned. Derren regained his composure and pushed Emma away again, keeping one hand on her arm. “I heard about the attack. Mordo and the others—I’m sorry. How did you get out? How did you find me? And Alex? Where’s Alex? Don’t tell me—”
“Alex is okay. At least I think so,” Emma said quickly. “Pimawa got us away from Uncle Mordo’s and here, to the city.” Emma scowled at Savachia. “That’s when he kidnapped me.”
Savachia picked up an empty bedpan and examined it closely, as if he found it fascinating.
Derren let go of Emma and turned to glower at Savachia. “Agglar’s turning up the heat. He’s using the Tower guard as his personal army. And you decide to add abduction to your résumé? You have to stop taking risks!”
Savachia shrugged. “Explain that to them,” he said, nodding at the theater full of people, who appeared poor and frightened and desperate. “I’m the only one financing this place.”
Emma looked at the boy, startled. That was what he was doing with all the stuff he’d stolen? Giving it to Derren and his allies to help the people here?
Derren shook his head, exasperated, but didn’t argue further. “Go get something to eat. Put that”—Derren wagged a finger at Savachia’s bulging pockets—“with the rest.”
Savachia emptied the contents of his pockets into the bedpan. Several patients turned their heads as coins and jewelry and something that looked like an Easter egg covered with silver filigree clattered into the metal receptacle.
“I did my job. You put it away,” Savachia said, turning on his heel. He sauntered backstage.
Derren sighed. “He’s a good kid, if you get past all the bravado,” he said, almost as if in apology.
Emma nodded. She dug a hand into her pocket, pulled out the coins and silver bracelet she’d snagged from Savachia earlier, and dumped them into the bedpan too.
Derren raised his eyebrows but didn’t question her about why her pockets were full of stolen goods. “Where’s Alex?” he asked instead.
Ever since Savachia had fallen out of the sky to grab hold of her, Emma’s life had been so bewildering that she’d hardly had time to think about her brother. Now she remembered those grim-faced guards in gray uniforms who’d descended on the Grubians’ carriage.
“Those guards took him to the Tower,” she said, and panic gripped her. Years ago, her parents had vanished. Now Uncle Mordo was gone too. She could not bear it if Alex were taken away as well. “We have to go find him!” she told Derren.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down,” said Derren. “We can’t just run off and storm the Tower.”
“But—but—Alex!” Emma stammered. “We have to—”
“There are some things you should know first,” Derren told her. He sighed and looked away from her, running a hand through his hair. “Trust me, Emma. And now, come with me.”
He led her through the dark, cramped backstage area, opened a door, and took her up a narrow, filthy staircase. At the top, another door opened, and Emma found herself on the theater’s balcony.
“So are you a doctor or something?” asked Emma, looking down at the stage with its rows of cots. The boy Derren had been helping wasn’t the only one who was injured, she could see. Others looked sick, sleeping restlessly as if feverish.
Derren shook his head and chuckled, but without much humor. “No. It would come in handy, but there isn’t a doctor alive that could save the Conjurian. Look down there. Tell me what you see.”
Emma leaned over the railing, staring down. Injured people. Sick people. A mother sat on an upturned crate, trying to quiet a fussy baby. A toddler wearing nothing but a ragged shirt wandered up and down the aisles, as if looking for someone he could not find. People were sleeping on piles of rags, hunched over tiny stoves as if they could not get warm, or just sitting against the walls as if they could not think of a thing to do.
“It looks like…well…” Emma hesitated, not wanting to be rude.
“This is the death of a people. What’s left of a once-proud society of magicians,” said Derren grimly.
Three small children, two boys and a girl a year or so older, ran up behind him. They tugged on his shirt, holding out a scrap of paper. Derren took it and folded the paper into a butterfly. The butterfly fluttered above Derren’s graceful hands, rested briefly on Emma’s nose, and darted off. The kids, squealing joyfully, chased after it.
“That was amazing,” Emma breathed. “That was magic. Actual magic!”
It was not that she didn’t feel sorry for the people in the theater below. It was not that she couldn’t see the pain and misery and hopelessness spread out before her.
But at the same time, her heart was beating quickly with something that, she had to admit, was pure joy.
Magic was real.
Emma had always known it.
She had never told anybody, definitely not Alex, but she had always believed that one day she’d step into a wardrobe and out into a snowy wood lit by a lamppost. Or that an owl would drop a letter down her chimney, telling her she’d been accepted into a school for witches and wizards. Or that a tornado would sweep her up and drop her, house and all, at the start of a yellow brick road.
Now it had happened at last. And if the magical world she’d come to was in trouble—well, that was part of the story too, wasn’t it? It always was.
Derren managed a weary smile. Of course, magic wasn’t as exciting to him as it was to Emma. She could understand that. But it didn’t quench her delight.
“A bit of entertainment. That is all it is, I’m afraid. It’s all I have to offer—a few beds and bandages and a trick or two to pass the time.” His smile evaporated. “Our power has faded away. For centuries we did real magic but pretended we could not, as long as we were in the Flatworld—the world where you grew up, Emma. We used bits of thread or magnets or hidden mirrors to explain away our powers. We created secrets to hide the one true secret—that magic exists.”
“But why?” Emma asked urgently. “Why not just tell people? Tell everybody?”
Derren shook his head at her. “To avoid the gallows, that’s why! Or the fire! Emma, for centuries magicians were hanged or burned at the stake. You know that.”
Emma remembered Neil and Clive and their puppet show. The little puppets, tossed one by one down the hole in the stage, never to return.
“But that doesn’t happen anymore! Not now!” she protested.
“No, not now. Not often. But the mistrust is still there. And it hardly matters now if magicians want to hide their real abilities, because we have so little left to hide. We became so good at pretending to have no actual magic that we didn’t notice it was declining. But our powers have faded until they are almost gone. No one knows why, and it’s too late to figure it out. What little magic remains is only good for party tricks or turning scraps of paper into lifeless butterflies.”
“But what about…” Emma hesitated. “That guy. The Shadow Conjurer. And those skeleton things he had with him. That looked like real magic to me.”
Derren’s mouth twisted sideways in an odd manner. “Yes. The Shadow Conjurer. No one knows who he is or where his power comes from. Quite mysterious. And of course alarming.” But he didn’t sound particularly anxious.
“What about the Circle?” asked Emma, remembering something Pimawa had said. “Aren’t they in charge? Isn’t it their job to stop somebody like the Shadow Conjurer? And to protect magic?”
Derren lifted an arched eyebrow. “The Circle? My sweet Emma. You sound just like your parents. Co
me.”
Emma followed Derren up a rickety ladder into the rafters, disturbing a flock of striped birds. Balancing along the sagging beams, he led her to a large, round window set into the wall.
Derren leaned against the empty frame, which was several feet taller than him, looking out at the city. Emma joined him.
Below, she could see the square where Savachia had helped her get away from the Tower guards. She could see old buildings, half of them abandoned, with boarded-up windows and doors. She could smell the stench of rotten vegetables, which drifted to her nose along with smoke from chimneys and small fires built on street corners.
“The Circle is concerned with nothing more than holding on to its power. You’ve seen the results,” said Derren. “People used to trust the Tower guards. Now they’re nothing but brutes. Christopher Agglar uses them as his own army. He arrests anyone who questions him. People can be dragged off to prison or have their homes destroyed for pretending to have magical powers, or for not having them anymore, or for any reason at all. Most people are so frightened of the Shadow Conjurer”—his mouth curled with distaste—“that they don’t dare protest.
“Meanwhile, our people are suffering. This world runs on magic, Emma. Without it, we can’t grow enough food. We can’t keep our houses from falling down. And what does the Circle do about all that? Nothing!”
“But…you’re doing something.” Emma looked up at Derren anxiously. The feeling she’d had when she’d first seen him—that everything was going to be all right at last—was starting to drain away.
“All I’m doing is bandaging the wounds I helped to inflict,” Derren said bitterly. “I was a member of the Circle for a long time. I should have stood against Agglar. I should have stopped what he was doing. But it’s too late now.” Derren sighed, looking down at the city, avoiding Emma’s gaze. “And your parents—oh, Emma, they died trying to find the Eye of Dedi, in the hopes that it could save us. And I—I’m partly to blame.”
“They…died?” Emma repeated, so softly she could barely hear herself.
“Emma.” Derren turned to look at her. “You know this. You know it’s true. Your parents are not coming back.”
Emma dropped her eyes and stared out at the dilapidated city. Derren was not the first person to say that her parents were gone forever.
Uncle Mordo. Alex. Everyone had told her the same thing: Mom and Dad had died. It was sad. It was terrible. It was unfair. But it was true.
Emma had never believed it. Because no one had been able to tell her how they’d died. Had their car crashed? Had their airplane fallen out of the sky? Had they gotten sick, somewhere in a distant land, far away from a hospital? No one would say. It seemed that no one knew.
So Emma had not believed it. She’d waited and waited. But her parents had not returned. And now Derren, who’d always been kind to her…who’d made her feel safe in this strange new world…who was trying to help all these poor people…Derren was telling her the thing that she’d refused to hear for so many years.
“They’re gone, Emma,” Derren said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but they’re dead. And I’m…I’m to blame. At least in part. It was my fault, what happened to them.”
Perched on ancient rafters, high above a stage and a city, Emma clutched at the windowsill. She could feel a current of grief tugging at her, ready to pull her into a whirlpool. Ready to spin her down.
She’d fought the sadness for so long, but now, in the magic world she’d always dreamed of, it was about to swallow her up at last.
“Come with me, Emma,” Derren said gently, and started off once more on a zigzag path along the rafters.
Numbly, Emma followed.
Emma felt as if she’d been walking after Derren for days when they arrived at a red door, set at a lopsided angle in the wall between two beams that held up the roof. Once he’d opened the door with a large iron key, Derren stepped to one side. He swept his arm, inviting Emma in.
The walls, lined with books, rose to a slanted ceiling. At the far end was a stone fireplace, with two crooked chairs and a tattered couch beside it.
“Welcome to my home,” said Derren. “Please forgive the chill.” He strode to the fireplace. With one wave of his hand, the logs were engulfed in flames. “I don’t make it up here often these days.”
“This is lovely,” Emma said, automatically polite. She was hardly even aware of the words she’d spoken.
Derren caught her staring at the microwave perched on a beam in the corner.
“Please don’t report me,” he said with a smile. “I need as many time-saving devices as I can smuggle in.”
“Do you prefer sugar or honey in your tea, miss?” said a crackly voice above Emma. With a gasp, she looked up at a red parrot wearing glasses and a bow tie.
“Geller,” said Derren, “how many times have I told you not to startle our guests?”
“Zero, sir,” said Geller. “We never have guests.”
“Just put the kettle on, thank you.”
Geller flew from the shelf and snagged a dented kettle off the stove. The bird swooped past Emma and landed on a spigot over a tin bucket that served as a sink.
“He does make excellent tea.” Derren brushed the dust off a chair and offered the seat to Emma. “Please, sit.”
As soon as she was settled, Derren retrieved a large leather-bound album from the shelves and placed it gently on Emma’s lap. She opened it, and her heart seemed to cave in inside her chest.
She ran her fingers lightly over the pictures. Her hand was trembling.
In one photo, they were the archaeologists she had been told they were.
In another photo, they wore matching green costumes adorned with yellow jewels and orange sequins.
Below that, they were in work clothes, her father standing by a large glass tank. Her mother was sopping wet, presumably from being trapped inside. Frozen in a burst of laughter next to the tank was Derren.
“They were remarkable people,” Derren said gently. He collapsed into the chair across from Emma with a sigh. “I don’t suppose Mordo indulged in any tales of your parents.”
“He told us they were archaeologists. That there had been some kind of accident…that they weren’t coming home,” said Emma. “I—I never believed him.”
Never.
“He did not lie. Your parents were archaeologists,” Derren told her. “They met at grad school and fell in love. Their lives changed forever when a wealthy benefactor recruited them for a very different kind of archaeology. Christopher Agglar enlisted them as agents of MAGE.” Derren paused and took in a deep breath before continuing. “Your parents believed that by exploring the past, by uncovering these artifacts, they could find a way to revive magic.”
Emma touched the tip of her finger to Derren’s laughing face. How different he looked. She could not imagine the man before her laughing like this, as if no sadness existed in the world. “How do you know all this? Did you work for MAGE too?” she asked faintly.
Derren shifted in his seat. “I did, yes. But not as a field agent like your parents. I was a methodologist.” He saw Emma’s puzzled look and answered her question before she could ask it. “We were the ones who invented ways to duplicate magical tricks without using magic. Sleight of hand, trick cabinets, props, and smoke screens. All of that. We invented it all to keep our secrets safe.”
Derren held out his empty hand, then closed it. “In the Flatworld, it hasn’t always been safe to do real magic. If a magician was hauled before the Inquisition or a Puritan judge or an angry king, methodologists like us were brought in to save them.” He opened his hand, revealing a brown egg. “So to prove a magician was not in league with the devil”—he made a motion as if to toss the egg into the air, and it vanished before Emma’s eyes—“the accused simply revealed his secrets.” He turned his hand a
round, exposing the egg dangling from a thin string looped around his thumb. “Secrets to hide secrets.”
Derren rapped the egg on the table, and Emma realized that it was made of wood. Once more he tossed it up, and the egg transformed into a dove that fluttered up toward the ceiling.
“I designed all the effects for your parents’ show. We traveled the world together, performing everywhere—London, Sydney, Paris, Istanbul, Cairo, Tokyo. All the time they were on the track of Conjurian artifacts, recovering them wherever they’d been lost. But the Eye of Dedi was always our main target. We were Indiana Jones with a deck of trick cards.”
Emma lifted her gaze from the old photographs. The Eye of Dedi. Neil and Clive Grubian’s puppet show flashed through her mind. The magical artifact had created this world and trapped Dedi’s magic, but this refuge for magicians wasn’t a refuge any longer.
“They found it, didn’t they?” she whispered.
Derren looked away from her, toward the fire. “Yes,” he said simply. “Or so I was told. I wasn’t with them at the dig site.”
The dove swooped down onto Derren’s shoulder. “I was in my shop, building a new chamber for your mother’s water escape,” he said, still staring into the fire as if he could see something there that was invisible to Emma. “Agglar burst in, in a rage. Not unusual for him, of course. But this time I knew something really was wrong. He said we were shutting down. Henry and Evelynne were gone. And he seized everything—all of your parents’ belongings, all their props, every last thing. He took it all to the Tower. The show was over.”
The dove cooed. Derren covered his face.
“Your tea, Miss Maskelyne,” Geller announced. Using his beak, he pushed a cart between Emma and Derren.
Rise of the Shadow Page 8
