by Erin Bowman
“Find the elixir. It’s a small request.”
“If it’s such a small request, get it yourself!” Piper yelled.
“I will not waste time conversing with someone so emotional. Now go help the others.” Sophia waved a hand dismissively.
Not knowing what else to do, Piper stood and walked in a daze toward the exit. Just before the double doors, Sophia called out to her. “Have you found your affinity yet?”
Piper glanced over her shoulder. “I thought Grandma was the one who helped with affinities.”
“Some find their affinity on their own.”
Piper’s locket warmed against her chest. “I haven’t found anything,” she answered.
Sophia turned to the Persian, stroking the cat’s long white fur. “Like I said, worthless.”
Chapter Sixteen The Magi’s Guide to the Origin of Affinities
Piper didn’t help with dinner prep. She didn’t eat anything either.
She fled straight to her room and cried into her pillow until her eyes were puffy and red. Her mother was even more awful than she’d realized, and the tears came freely, as though she were drawing them from a bottomless well. Despite how endless her grief felt, the tears did, in fact, slow, and Piper was left replaying her conversation with her mother, coming back to one detail time and again.
Assuming her mother wanted the elixir for herself, it didn’t make sense that she was still hiding Teddy’s current situation from the other children. With Grandma Mallory out of the way, Sophia could have given them the key and sent them after Teddy to complete the trials, but she’d hidden the key instead. Why?
Piper touched her locket through her shirt. She was missing something. The pieces were all there, but they didn’t line up properly.
She wished she could speak with her grandmother and ask her what happened. She was so easy to talk to—she had a way of making Piper feel at ease. Just a few weeks ago, they’d eaten a birthday lunch together to celebrate Piper having turned twelve. Melena had sipped on a cup of tea while Piper devoured a slice of cheesecake topped with Snickers pieces, fudge, and whipped cream.
“That’s not cheesecake, dear. It’s a monstrosity,” Melena teased.
Piper frowned mid-bite and pulled the fork from her mouth, making sure to lick the tines clean. “What?”
“Cheesecake doesn’t need novelty candy bars on top of it. It’s perfect plain, though I would tolerate a strawberry or cherry glaze.”
“Grandma, it’s delicious,” Piper insisted. “And it’s my birthday, which means whatever dessert I pick is perfect.”
“Touché,” she replied with a smile. “So nothing is new, truly? A whole year since I’ve seen you and you have nothing exciting to report?” Her eyes worked over Piper, as if she thought she might find a secret scrawled across her skin.
Piper considered sharing how Bridget had pulled away this past year. First by not asking how Atticus was doing, then by inviting new friends to sit with them at lunch, then by always being busy with these new friends, until Piper found herself out of the circle altogether, eating lunch alone, and wondering how a friend she’d known since kindergarten could abandon her in a matter of weeks. But Piper’s grandma didn’t want to be bored with those details.
“Nothing is new. Dad’s still sick, Mom’s still avoiding me, and school is still … school. But at least summer vacation starts in a few weeks.”
“Don’t you fret about your mother,” Melena said. “It’s her loss, running away like that. If you ever need to talk to someone about … anything, you know where to find me.”
“Thanks, Grandma. But I’ve got Dad to talk to.”
“I know you do, dear.” She reached across the table and patted the back of Piper’s hand. “But I’m here too.”
And now, when new and strange things were actually happening, when Piper really did need her grandma, Melena M. Mallory was missing. There wasn’t a single adult she could turn to. Her own mother was terrible, and her father and Aunt Eva were currently unreachable—not that either of them would be able to help with quests for elixirs or mastering affinities.
Julius can help, Piper thought. Julius and Camilla and Kenji.
If she trained with them tomorrow, perhaps she could get some answers. Teddy—and the garden’s second trial—would have to wait.
* * *
Later, when the moon shone down on the balcony, Piper woke to a knock on her door.
She pushed herself upright, disoriented. The clock on her nightstand read 10:36 p.m. As she staggered from bed, the knocking sound came again, only not from the main door, as she’d first assumed, but the door she shared with Julius’s room.
Piper cracked it open. “What?” she asked, bleary-eyed.
“We’re having a meeting,” Julius said.
“About what?”
Julius grabbed her wrist and towed her across the threshold. Kenji and Camilla were sitting on Julius’s bed with a book spread between them, arguing about something.
“That book Kenji was reading in the library today?” Julius began. “It’s an ancient magi text, full of old myths and superstitions, half of which are bogus. I mean, it claims that if you steal a magi’s amplifier, they’ll be powerless, but that’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“No. Give me your necklace.”
Piper handed it over and Julius made a look like, Go on, try now. Piper’s hand moved to her chest subconsciously. She faltered a moment, feeling naked without the locket. But when she searched deep inside herself, she could still sense her affinity. Pulling it into the world was like swimming while wearing clothing—clumsy, incredibly difficult—and the fact that she was still recovering from all her practice earlier didn’t help. But after several attempts, Julius confirmed that she’d managed to make herself flicker.
“You’d be able to do it fully with enough practice.” Julius returned her locket. “It’s like I said earlier: the amplifier doesn’t give or take away your power. The affinity is always in you. I mean, Teddy and Camilla were tapping into their affinities before they even picked an amplifier. But Kenji’s still stuck on the final chapter.” He rolled his eyes. “Won’t stop theorizing for a second. Is convinced we need to involve the cops.”
“Why? What’s it say? And why am I the last to know?” Piper looked over the room, catching Camilla’s eye.
“ ’Cause you skirted dinner duties,” the other girl said. “No one likes a flake who doesn’t pull her weight.”
“Honestly, it was just because you’re still really new here, and when Kenji started jumping to our rooms to gather us, he naturally woke us first,” Julius corrected.
“Aw, come on, Julius. Let me have some fun.” Camilla smirked.
“Will someone please just tell me what’s going on?” Piper demanded.
Kenji stood on the bed, the leather-bound book in question clasped possessively to his chest. “The Magi’s Guide to the Origin of Affinities claims that …” He put a finger to the page and read aloud: “ ‘When a magi kills another of their kind, he or she will assume any and all affinities the deceased party once possessed.’ ”
Piper shuddered. Teddy had said something just like that when they’d met. He’d claimed that Sophia had told him to hide because Melena wanted to kill him and absorb his time-bending affinity. Piper had thought it was just another one of her mother’s lies and tricks, but maybe this book proved otherwise.
“It’s not true,” Julius argued. “A magi’s affinity is unique to them. You can’t randomly absorb someone else’s affinity.”
“Not randomly,” Kenji said with a raised finger. “By killing them. Also, Mrs. Mallory said that the High Order of Magi is made up of some of the most powerful magi in the world, and that many of them have more than one affinity.”
“Sure, but you can’t steal them through murder,” Julius insisted. “We’ve covered all this in our studies. That’s not how affinities work.”
“Says the novice who didn’t kno
w he had an affinity until coming to Mallory Estate,” Kenji grumbled. “We only know what Mrs. Mallory and Mrs. Peavey have taught us. This book could totally be accurate.”
“It’s ancient,” Julius pointed out. “Definitely outdated.”
But Kenji wasn’t listening. “I’ve been right about Teddy all along. He’s dead! Mrs. Mallory, too! Mrs. Peavey killed them and absorbed their affinities.”
“Teddy’s not dead,” Piper said dismissively.
“You don’t know that,” Kenji argued.
But Piper did. She’d just seen Teddy that morning. Of course, she couldn’t admit it without revealing that she’d found a way into the garden and had been hiding it from everyone.
Kenji went on. “For all we know, Mrs. Peavey can now bend time and … what was Mrs. Mallory’s affinity again?”
“No clue,” Camilla said. “Not for her or Mrs. Peavey. They’ve never told us.” She paused, eyes widening. “Maybe because they didn’t want to give anyone a reason to try to steal it.”
“Exactly!” Kenji exclaimed. “Look, something bad happened to Teddy, I know it, and I’m sick of us not doing anything about it. I even confronted Mrs. Peavey about it yesterday, and she just threatened me with basement duty! And no one’s seen or heard from Mrs. Mallory since she left to run errands. Since when does running errands take more than a week?”
“My mom said she was seeing to business. Something about research out of state,” Piper said, remembering what Sophia had said that very first night at dinner.
“That must be it,” Julius said. “She had some errands to see to before starting her research, and now she’s traveling for work. That’s way more likely than Mrs. Peavey killing her.”
“It’s true,” Camilla agreed. “Mrs. Peavey’s been acting strange, and she hasn’t been the nicest lately, but a straight-up murderer?” She gave Kenji a knowing look. “I don’t buy it. She’s taken us in. She wants to adopt us.”
“I still think we should involve the cops,” Kenji said. “It’s like you guys don’t even care that Teddy’s gone.” He slumped onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the book.
Piper bit her lip. Despite everything, she didn’t want to go to the cops. There was no way she’d be able to get the elixir for her father once they were involved. Of course, none of the children would get the adoption they craved if she found the elixir and gave it to her father. As soon as her mother realized the elixir was gone, she’d probably call foster services and offload the kids as quickly as possible. But Piper would make sure her father saw to things. That would be better than having Sophia Peavey as a mother. They’d thank Piper for it in the end.
“Of course we care that Teddy’s missing, but, Kenji, we’ve been through this already,” Julius said, dragging a hand through his dark hair. “We can’t call the cops because every phone we have access to is dead. We can’t go to the neighbors because the closest one is a half mile away, and the Persian would find us before we even hit the end of the estate drive. And we can’t e-mail anyone, because the Wi-Fi is protected and no one can crack it.”
“Hello? I can teleport,” Kenji reminded him.
“Only to places you’ve been before, locations you can visualize,” Camilla pointed out.
“Okay, then I’ll teleport to someone who can help—at a courtroom or old foster house.”
Julius balked. “And you think they’ll believe you? They’ll probably just send you back here, where you’ll get punished for running away and exposing magi to hollows, and then you’re—”
“Stuck with a killer foster parent!” Kenji finished.
“Calm down,” Julius said. “Mrs. Peavey isn’t a killer. That book’s just got you worked up. It was written over three hundred years ago. I’m telling you, it’s outdated.”
“Then where is Teddy? Huh?” Kenji demanded. “Where’s Mrs. Mallory?”
“Them being missing and a book claiming killing a magi gives you their powers does not mean Teddy and Mrs. Mallory were killed by Mrs. Peavey,” Julius insisted.
“I think I can get us some answers,” Piper said before the argument could escalate further.
Camilla raised a brow. “How?”
“By sneaking into my grandmother’s office. Maybe she has a calendar or itinerary book and there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she’s been gone so long. Or maybe there are updated books on magi abilities there and we can forget about The Magi’s Guide to the Origin of Affinities.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kenji said. “No one can sneak into Mrs. Mallory’s office. The Persian will catch you.”
“I can,” Piper said. “My affinity is invisibility.”
Kenji stared.
“I figured it out the other day. Julius has been helping me.”
“Wow!” Kenji said. “Well, go! Right now. What are you waiting for?” The boy waved a hand at the door.
“No way. Piper doesn’t try until tomorrow,” Julius said.
“Who died and put you in charge?” Camilla grumbled.
“I have always been in charge because I’m the only one who actually bothers to think things through!” Julius whisper-yelled. “If Piper goes now, even invisible, the Persian might hear her. It’s too risky.”
“I’m also pretty drained,” Piper admitted. “I practiced a lot today.”
“There you go,” Julius said, looking relieved to have more support for his argument. “Piper needs to rest up, recharge. She can train with us tomorrow and this weekend, and when we’re making dinner on Monday and there’s plenty of noise to cover creaky floorboards, then she can go. Sound good?” Julius looked to Piper.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to poke around her grandmother’s office. After her conversation with her mother in the library, she trusted Sophia Peavey less than ever. If anything, Piper was anxious to see what the office might turn up.
The problem was that when it came down to it, Piper wouldn’t have to stay here. She’d find the elixir, her father would get better, and she’d go home. But for everyone else … Mallory Estate was their home, and they wanted to stay here—together.
What if the answers she found in her grandmother’s office weren’t good ones? What if Piper confirmed that Sophia wanted the elixir for herself—that she’d done something terrible to Melena and she didn’t care about her foster children at all?
“Well, Piper?” Julius said.
“Will you do it?” Camilla asked.
“Please?” Kenji begged.
Three pairs of eyes looked to Piper, eager, hopeful.
She nodded.
Chapter Seventeen Rivals Team Up
Piper spent Friday morning in the sitting room on the first floor.
The upholstered chairs were pushed aside, clearing a large space for the children to train. Portraits of the Mallory family hung on the walls, as if they were overseeing the lesson. Piper recognized only her mother and grandmother. There was another woman who bore a striking resemblance to Melena—perhaps Piper’s great-grandmother; she’d never met her—but after that, the hairstyles and wardrobes of the subjects turned historic. One portrait showed a man with a curling handlebar mustache and wire-frame glasses who reminded Piper of a field doctor she’d seen in her schoolbooks on the Civil War.
Julius rapped his spyglass against a chair to get their attention, and Practical Application of Affinities began.
The lesson was composed mainly of mental exercises, where Piper had to envision her affinity amid different stimuli (low lighting, loud stomping, Kenji singing out of tune), followed by summoning sprints, where the children filled and emptied their amplifiers at various intervals to help improve their endurance.
All the while, the sitting room’s door was kept tightly shut, the curtains drawn, and Piper spoke no louder than a whisper. (Everyone had agreed that if Piper was to sneak into her grandmother’s office soon, it was best that neither the Persian nor Sophia know that she could become invisible.)
At the end of class, Pi
per was exhausted, but with additional practice over the weekend, progress came quickly. By Sunday evening, she could draw out her affinity with relative ease, channeling it through her locket and wrapping it around her body in a matter of seconds. Her endurance, however, was a different story. After dropping her invisibility, she always felt drained and needed to rest for a few hours before she could successfully summon it again. Julius promised this would get easier with practice. “It’s like lifting weights,” he explained. “Right now, you can do one rep, no problem. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to do two, four, six reps before you need a break.”
When Monday rolled around, Piper woke early and poked her head into the hall. She’d put off visiting Teddy for too long, and with Magi History lessons keeping the kids and Sophia busy for the morning, this was a perfect opportunity to pay him a visit. Later, if anyone asked where she’d been, she’d say she spent the morning walking every inch of the garden invisible—to see if she could trigger an entrance in that form. She’d have answers tonight after searching her grandmother’s office, and she could fill the others in on what was going on then. But for now, secrecy remained the only option. Which meant getting to the garden unseen.
After confirming that the coast was clear, Piper grabbed her backpack and stepped into the hall. The instant she shut her door, she heard the Persian meowing from out of view. Near the stairs, if she had to guess.
She reached into her core and found her affinity with ease. An evening of rest had done her wonders. With a sharp focus, she channeled her affinity into her locket and then around her, vanishing a heartbeat before the Persian slunk into the hall. Its yellow eyes searched the shadows, gleaming.
Holding her breath, Piper took a step forward. The soft blanket of invisibility held. All that formal training in the sitting room was paying off.
She continued on, moving soundlessly down the hall and leaving plenty of space between her and the cat. It looked toward her just once, when a floorboard creaked underfoot, but then resumed its march down the hall. The Persian lay before Piper’s room and flicked its tail, watching the door.
