The Magic Thief (6 page)

B
ack at Heartsease, Nevery changed me into a boy, and I told him what the magisters had said. That they were worried about the ebbing magic crisis, that the wizard Pettivox wanted the job of leading them, but that the magisters knew Nevery was in Wellmet, that they wanted him to lead them instead. “All
you have to do is ask,” I told him.

“I can draw my own conclusions, boy,” Nevery said sharply. He got up from his chair and paced across the room, then back again. “And they all agreed not to support Pettivox?” he asked.

I nodded. “Sandera said he was power hungry.”

“Pettivox is a decent wizard. But he's a terrible leader. Hmmm. Things must be worse than I thought for them to offer it to me so readily. I wonder if I was too hasty, going to the Underlord.” He put his hands behind his back and paced some more, muttering into his beard.

Coming to a turn in his pacing, he noticed that I was still there. “Well, go on out, boy.” He gestured for me to leave the room.

I took two steps toward the door. Then stopped. “Nevery?” I asked.

He paused in his pacing and scowled. “What, boy?”

“I was just wondering when I'm going to learn tricks like that.”

“Tricks? What are you talking about?”

“Well, Nevery, I am your apprentice. I'm supposed to learn the embero spell, right? I've got all of it except for the end, and I need the rest.”

Nevery shook his head, and his scowl deepened. “Don't be stupid, boy. You are not my apprentice. I took you on as a servant, nothing more.”

Not his apprentice? I stared at him. Something strange was happening to my stomach, like the bottom was falling out of it and a giant black pit opening up. Not his apprentice, after all. His servant.

I wasn't sure I could be a servant, not even for Nevery.

Without saying anything, Nevery got up and went to the table, fetched his grimoire, and sat down again. He opened the book and marked a spot on the open page. He cleared his throat. “All right, boy. Tell me the embero spell.”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “It goes
tumbriltumbrilulartambefranjevaneekhouten
franjelickavanfranjelocar
”—I paused to take a breath—“
franjelilfraajellumiolendilarterkolil
—”

“
Tark
olil,” Nevery corrected, looking up from the book.

“Right,
tarkolil
,” I said, “
lilotarkolilotar-kennan
…” I stopped. “That's all, then everything goes black.”

There was a long silence. Finally, Nevery nodded and closed the grimoire. “The spell won't effect unless the magic is focused and released with a locus magicalicus. But that's all of it, boy.”

Oh. Well, it didn't matter now.

Might as well get it over with. “I wouldn't be a very good servant, Nevery. So…so thanks for turning me into a cat. And showing me Heartsease.” I stared down at my feet so I wouldn't have to look at him. I turned to leave the study.

“Wait,” Nevery said. I stopped with my back to him. “You'd rather go back to thieving on the streets of the Twilight than serve me?” He sounded angry.

I thought about it. I was a good thief, and an even better lockpick. Most of the time I did all right. Most of the time I managed to avoid being noticed by the Underlord and his minions. But sometimes, no matter how hard I scrambled, things got bad. I'd go hungry for a few days, or the weather would get cold and I wouldn't have a copper lock for a corner in a crowded cellar to sleep in, or I'd have to fight off a stray misery eel, or somebody would steal my shoes.

Working for Nevery would be easier. I wouldn't mind sweeping and polishing scrying globes and fetching water if I were his apprentice. But I couldn't do it as his servant. Not even if it meant going back to the Twilight.

I shook my head and headed for the door.

“Wait,” he said again. I stopped, but I still didn't turn around. “All right.” He sighed. “Maybe I do need an apprentice.”

Suddenly everything looked a lot brighter. I turned back to him.

“All well then, boy?” Nevery asked.

Outside, at that moment, the sun came out and shone straight in the window, and a beam of light splashed me right in the face. I blinked, dazzled. The room was flooded with afternoon sunlight, thick as honey, but brighter, sweeter. Dust motes danced in the air like tiny stars. I realized that I was grinning. “All right, Nevery,” I answered.

“Yes, all right, boy,” Nevery said gruffly. “Go and get yourself some dinner.”

I
'd never been into Nevery's workroom before. It was where he prepared his magics. He'd had Benet rip down the tattered wallpaper and whitewash the walls, and he kept were lights burning in a crystal candelabra hanging from the ceiling, so it was bright in there, and clean, but not tidy. In the center of the room was a high table covered with
alembics and copper coils, dirty teacups, scrying globes, bits of silk cloth, and papers. And in the middle of the table, a jumble of brown-paper-wrapped parcels.

In the morning, when I came in the door with tea and a plate of biscuits and honey, Nevery was perched on a high stool at the table. He looked up at me and lowered his bushy gray eyebrows into a scowl.

“Knock first, boy,” he said. “You made me spill the slowsilver.”

Sure enough, a few flowing silver balls snailed their way down the table and oozed to the floor.

“I'll get them!” I put down the tea and biscuits, grabbed a glass jar from the high table, and went after the slowsilver.

“Stop!” Nevery roared, leaping up from the stool. I froze. He leaned over and snatched the jar from my hand. “Look, boy.” He showed me the jar. Greenish crystals crusted the inside. “Tourmalifine,” he said. “Slowsilver cannot mingle with tourmalifine.”

I looked at the jar, then at the slowsilver snails on the floor. “Why not?”

“Because when mingled they explode.” He polished a different jar with his sleeve and handed it to me. “Now, pick up the slowsilver. Carefully. It's cursed hard to come by, and I need every drop.”

I went down on my knees under the table and chased the slowsilver around while Nevery sat on his stool drinking tea and eating his breakfast. Slowsilver was tricky, I found, because I couldn't actually pick it up. It squirmed away from my fingers and split into tinier snails. The best way to collect it was to blow on it to get it oozing along, then scoop it up with the glass jar. Of course, then the slowsilver I'd already caught tried to get out again.

I wondered what slowsilver was for, since the white-haired wizard at the Underlord's mansion had wanted more of it.

“Nevery,” I said, coaxing a shiny-bright snail into the jar. “Why can't slowsilver and tourmalifine mingle?”

“I already told you, boy. They explode.”

“Yes, but why?” I caught the last bit of slow-silver and crawled out from under the table. Standing, I put the glass jar on the table, but far away from the jar of tourmalifine. I leaned over to look closely at the slowsilver. It looked like a shiny puddle of mirror, swirling gently, peacefully. “What is it about slowsilver and tourmalifine? When they're alone they don't explode. So why do they when they're together?”

Nevery finished off his tea and put down the cup. He nodded, pulling on the end of his beard. “Yes. It's not a bad question, boy.” He stood up. “Come with me.”

I followed him out of the workroom and down to the study, where he pulled from a shelf a fat book bound in red leather.

“Here.” He put the book into my hands. “Read the fifth chapter, which will answer your question, and then I will test your understanding of it.”

“But—”

Nevery scowled. “One thing you'll have to
learn, boy, if you're to be my apprentice. You don't argue with me. Just do as you're told.” With that, he swept out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I went to the table, sat down, and opened the book. Hmmm. The pages were brittle with age and brown around the edges. The ink was bright, though, and diagrams in different colors decorated almost every page. I closed it and got up to walk around the room for a while.

Clear as clear, Nevery was busy with something in his workroom and didn't want to be bothered.

Well then, I wouldn't interrupt him. Ever since we'd come to Heartsease, I'd been wanting to explore the other part of the mansion.

I left the study and went outside. In the courtyard, the wind was blowing and, overhead, dark gray clouds raced across a lighter gray sky. The clouds were full of rain. Not snow; it wasn't quite cold enough.

Picking my way through the brambles, I went
around the side of the house until I came to a place where I could climb through a window to get inside. The window was about twice my height from the ground, but a thick vine of ivy grew up the wall and around it, so I climbed up that way. The panes were broken. Clinging to the vine with one hand, I reached in, unlatched the window, pushed up the sash, and slid inside.

It was a workroom. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dim light, and saw that rain had gotten in the broken window; the curtains and the carpet were damp and rotten. It smelled of mildew. It had a high table and stools, and walls lined with shelves. On the table were lots of glass jars and alembics, all clouded with dust and spiderwebs.

And some sort of little metal machine about as big as my hand, with cogs and pistons that looked melted, like it had been struck by lightning. I put it in my coat pocket to show to Nevery.

And then I found the interesting things.

At one end of the room was a wooden desk,
fancy and carved. Underneath it was a locked chest, banded with metal, dusty and spiderwebby.

I dragged out the chest from under the desk and used my coat sleeve to wipe it off. The lock looked basic, a simple four-pin double crick-twister. I pulled out my lockpick wires. I knew—
knew
—I should wait for Nevery to open it. But I couldn't wait. I had to know what was in there.

Kneeling before the chest, I bent the wires into the right shapes and slid them into the lock.
Quick fingers
, and the wires clicked right into place and the lock turned over. Easy. Almost like it wanted to be opened. I pulled the wires out of the lock, put them in my pocket, and opened the squeaky lid of the chest.

It was full of rocks.