The Magic Thief (3 page)

O
n the morning of my second day as Nevery's apprentice, I woke up wrapped in my blanket, snug before the coal fire. My eye hurt a little from the day before, when Benet had thumped me, but it wasn't too bad. I could still see out of it.

Except for me, the room was empty. I wriggled out of the blanket and headed for the door. Benet and Nevery were probably in the chophouse eating all the bacon. I headed downstairs.

Nevery and Benet were just gathering up their things. Oh, no. Had I missed breakfast? I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

The wizard gave me one of his keen looks. Benet ignored me.

“All right, boy,” Nevery said, sitting down again. “Eat quickly. I'll have another cup of tea.” Then he spoke to Benet. “Pack up the things, and we'll leave straightaway.” Benet nodded and went off up the stairs.

The chophouse keeper brought stale biscuits from the day before, and some other things. I made a sandwich out of biscuit, jam, and cheese, and took a big bite.

Nevery poured himself more tea. Then he poured me a mug, too, and I took a drink, washing down my bite.

“Where we going?” I asked, and ate more biscuit sandwich.

He didn't answer right away. He was holding a piece of paper, a letter, which he tapped a few times on the tabletop. Then, “Heartsease.”

I opened my mouth to ask what that was, but he waved me silent. “Just eat, boy. I'll answer your cursed questions before you ask them.” He drank his tea. “Heartsease is a large mansion on its own island in the river. It is my home, but no one has lived in it for twenty years.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question.

“Don't ask why it's been empty that long,” he said. “I ran into some trouble here in Wellmet some time ago, let that be enough.”

That was enough, for now. I nodded and took another bite of my breakfast.

“You may not have noticed,” he went on, “but this city is facing a crisis. The level of magic has been dropping. Only ebbing, for years, but lately, I am told, the level has dropped more precipitously.
If it is not stopped, Wellmet will fall into decay.”

“What're we going to do about it?” I asked.

He raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “We?
I
am going to demand leadership of Magisters Hall so I can research the problem and then deal with it.” Nevery studied me for a moment. “It could be dangerous.”

Well, I'd already figured that out. The magisters were unchancy enough, and he was dealing with Underlord Crowe, too.

He went on to explain how the balance of power worked in Wellmet. I knew it already but listened and ate while he explained. He got it mostly right. As I see it, the duchess, with help from her elected council, rules the city; she lives in the Dawn Palace on the east side of the river, what people call the Sunrise. Most of the fancy neighborhoods, rich people, and fine shops are over there. Wizards keep it spelled and looking nice. You look like me, you don't go there in the daytime unless you want to spend some time in
one of the duchess's fancy jail cells.

Then there is the Twilight, on the west side of the river. It's much smaller than the Sunrise because it's squeezed in where the river bends. In the Twilight are the mills and factories and warehouses. The Twilight is run by the Underlord. Crowe likes power and money, and he has minions to enforce his orders. He'd kill his own family to get what he wanted. Every thief, bagman, pickpocket, smokehole tavern owner—everyone—pays part of their takings to the Underlord. Kind of like taxes, except that the duchess's tax collectors don't bash you with clubs if you can't pay.

And in the middle of the river that winds through Wellmet are a chain of islands, and these are ruled by the magisters—the wizards.

Most of the time, three powers—magisters, duchess, Underlord—balance one another. All in all, not a bad system. If you live on the Sunrise side of the river.

Nevery was still talking, explaining Wellmet politics, while I finished my biscuit sandwich. I nodded to show him I was listening. As long as he kept talking, I could keep eating. I eyed the biscuits. Maybe one with butter this time. Mmm, and pickle. Sadly, there wasn't any bacon left.

“Are you paying attention, boy?”

I looked up from my plate. Nevery frowned, like he was about to turn me into a toad. I held my breath.

But then Benet came stomping down the stairs with his arms full of baggage. The wizard got to his feet, picked up his cane, and put on his wide-brimmed hat. He said to Benet, “Give a few of those to the boy to carry and come along.”

I grabbed my buttered biscuit and went to the stairs to get the baggage from Benet. Ignoring me, he dropped two bags to the floor and followed Nevery from the room.

I looked at the bags: one for each hand. That left no hand for my biscuit. The chophouse door
slammed—Nevery and Benet wouldn't wait for me, sure as sure. I took a big bite and shoved the rest of the biscuit into my pocket, picked up the bags—what did he have in there, rocks?—and ran out to the street.

Chewing, bag-dragging, I raced after Nevery and Benet. They turned a corner, and I had to run to catch up, headlong down Strangle Street, the bags bumping against my legs. It felt as though there was a big hand at my back, pushing me to catch up. With me panting after, we hurried through the Twilight. The air stank of open sewers and coal smoke and, as we got closer to the river, of dead fish and mud.

Nevery followed Shirttail Street down the hill until we got to the river, which might have a real name, but mostly people just called it
the river
. Here was the Night Bridge, which led over the river to the Sunrise, the duchess's part of the city.

The Night Bridge had houses built on it that looked like fat ladies hitching up their skirts as
they crossed a brook. The brook, of course, was the river, and it roared beneath the ladies' skirts as it rushed along.

Nevery led the way onto the dark roadway between the tall houses. Halfway across the bridge, he turned down a narrow passageway between buildings.

Still lugging the bags, I followed Nevery and Benet down a covered stairway. I figured we'd come to the river, but we didn't; the stairs kept going down, ending at an arched stone tunnel.

Which led, I realized, to the magisters' islands in the middle of the river. A secret way! The tunnel was dark and smelled damp and fishy, like the river, and the stone-slabbed floor was wet and cold under my bare feet. Nevery held up his locus magicalicus and whispered a word, and his hand, holding the stone, burst into blue flame. I followed Nevery's flaming hand, which made shadows stalk along the arched stone walls. His cane made a muffled
tap tap
as we went along. After a
short while we came to an iron gate that stretched across the passageway. Nevery spoke a few quiet, echoey words. The locus magicalicus sparked white for a moment, extended a finger of flame to the lock, and the gate clicked open.

One of these days, I decided, I would get myself a locus stone.

Nevery, Benet, and I went through, and the gate clicked closed behind me.

On we went through the twisty tunnels, until we came at last down a long, dripping passageway to another gate. Nevery raised the locus magicalicus. In the flickery blue light, I saw that this gate was rust-dusty and had cobwebs hanging from it. Something was chiseled in the stone under our feet; I could feel wet runes with my toes.

Nevery muttered a word. A key spell, like before, to open the gate. The locus stone sent out its finger of white light to the lock.

Nothing happened.

Nevery frowned and repeated the word again. Nothing.

My arms were tired. With a sigh, I dropped the bags onto the floor and sat on one of them.

“Be careful with those bags, boy,” Nevery said, not looking at me, but at the gate.

Right. But the bags hadn't been careful of me, had they? I opened one up and peered inside. Books. No wonder.

At the gate, Nevery knelt, looking closely at the keyhole.

I happened to be very good at picking locks. Well-known for it, actually. But the gate's keyhole was a funny shape, and I figured this kind of lock wouldn't open for me until I'd had more proper wizard training, so I didn't say anything. Nevery placed the locus magicalicus right up against the lock and shouted the opening spell.

An arrow of greeny-blue light shot from the keyhole, knocked the stone from his hand, and burst into a shower of sparks that fell to the floor and sizzled in the puddles. With a long drone-groan, the gate opened, scraping across the stone floor.

“Come along,” Nevery said, after picking up his locus magicalicus.
Tap tap
, off he went down the passageway, Benet right behind him. I heaved up the bags and followed. The gate groaned closed after us.

The tunnel went on until we met a long stairway leading up. Nevery led us to the top, where he pushed a pile of browny-gray brambles out of the way and climbed out into the wintry gray light. Benet stopped at the top of the stairs, blocking me, so I squeezed around him to have a look.

Heartsease. It might once have been a grand, wide mansion house with rows of sparkling windows and columns out front, but that was a long, long time ago. Now it was a pile of soot-stained stone with dark, crack-paned windows, and a gaping hole that looked like somebody had taken a huge rock and dropped it right in the middle of the house where the double-wide doorway should be.

Two parts of the building were still standing, one on either side of the big bite taken out of the
middle. Each one was four stories tall with a row of tiny windows just under the gap-tiled roof; chimneys stuck out the top like a row of snaggled teeth.

I loved it at first sight.

From the look on Nevery's face, he loved it, too, though I doubted he'd admit it. Benet just looked blank.

A courtyard lay before the house, filled with brambles and young trees sprouting right up through the cobbles. In the middle of the courtyard stood a huge, black-branched tree, but instead of leaves, the tree was crowded with coal-black birds. They perched, silent and still, along the branches, watching us with bright, yellow eyes. I had the feeling they'd been sitting there for a long time, waiting for something.

Nevery set off across the courtyard toward one of the parts of the mansion house left standing. As we approached the tree, the birds stirred and cackled quietly, talking about us. Nevery ignored them.

At the house, we were faced with an arched door hanging off its hinges. Nevery gave it a push with his hand and it creaked open. Within was a large, dark room stacked with dusty boxes and barrels and old broken furniture.

Nevery stood in the doorway, looking it over. “Very well then,” he said. “We'll start with this part of the house, Benet. My study first, then the rest of it. We'll have to clear all this out of here.” He glanced at me. “Make yourself useful, boy.” He held out his hand. “And give me the books.”

Gladly. I handed over the bags and Nevery picked his way across the room to a narrow stairway and went up, brushing cobwebs out of the way with his cane, each footstep raising a little puff of dust.

Leaving me with Benet. The muscle heaved up his luggage and started after Nevery. I followed, but at the bottom of the stairs Benet stopped and turned to me. I edged back out of his reach.

He pointed at the junk-filled room. “Clean it.”

Well, I certainly wasn't going to argue with Benet. Following Nevery, he went up the stairs.

I looked over the jumble of junk in the room. Might as well get started. Boxes first, and then I'd haul the old chairs and tables and things outside, see what could be used and what was past saving.

I pulled the rotting wooden cover off one of the boxes and realized at once why Nevery had wanted me, his apprentice, to do this particular job.