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C
HAPTER

23

M
y Pip-ears heard Benet slam the door to Heartsease and hurry across the cobbled courtyard.

Nevery's tea and biscuits got cold while he paced. He hadn't gotten the message from the mudlark Den, that was clear as clear. He didn't know what I was up to, or that I needed his help, and he had no way to find me.

I'm sorry, Nevery
, I wanted to say. For stealing his locus magicalicus. I knew how empty he was feeling without his locus stone and his connection to the magics. Knowing he was angry with me made me feel even more shivery cold.

After a while Nevery fetched his grimoire down from a shelf and put it on his worktable; then he brought out a scrying globe and polished it with a scrap of wormsilk cloth while he read something from the book.

What was he doing? It
looked
like he was getting things ready for the anstriker spell. But he didn't have a locus stone, so he couldn't do any magic. Even if he had his stone the spell wouldn't work, not with me shut into the tourmalifine cage.

Carefully Nevery set down the globe and found a shallow bowl. From a shelf he took a glass vial of mirror-bright slowsilver and poured it into the bowl. He checked the grimoire again and then went to the door to listen.

They weren't coming yet. Pip's ears didn't hear anything.

“Curse it, Brumbee,” Nevery muttered. “Hurry up.” He paced across the floor and then back again.

After some more pacing, Pip's ears heard three people hurrying across the courtyard. Nevery heard them when the door to Heartsease opened.

He met them at the top of the stairs. Magister Brumbee, puffing and red-faced, and looking desperately worried. With him and Benet was his apprentice, Keeston, who was wearing his wizard's robe over a nightgown. Keeston's blond hair stuck up on one side of his head and was flat on the other, and he still had sleep lines from his pillow on his face.

Brumbee caught his breath. “My goodness, Nevery!” he said. “It's the middle of the night!”

“It's important,” Nevery said. “My locus stone has been stolen.”

Brumbee gasped. “Oh, no. But surely you took precautions.”

“I thought I did,” Nevery growled. I knew what he was thinking—he hadn't been expecting me to pick his pocket again. He went to the table and picked up the other two notes he'd written and brought them to Benet, by the door. “Take these now, Benet,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Benet said, and left again.

Nevery pointed to Brumbee's apprentice. “You, Keeston. You've got your locus magicalicus?”

Keeston blinked and stood up straighter. “Yes, sir, I do.”

Yes, he did. Because Pip had stolen it back from the chimney swifts. Now I realized the swifts must have taken Keeston's stone first as a kind of test, to see if their tourmalifine tongs and cages would work. Thanks to Pip, Keeston was able to draw out his locus stone, which he wore on a gold chain around his neck. To Pip, the stone blazed, and the flames around Keeston burned a little brighter than those around Nevery or Brumbee.

“Good.” Nevery pointed to his grimoire. “Come here and take a look at this.” Keeston stepped to the table.

“This is all so simply awful,” Brumbee said, wringing his hands. “We still don't know who is stealing the locus magicalicii
or
what they want with them. All the magisters' stones, Nevery! Every single one!”

Nevery turned and studied Brumbee. “Not
all
, Brumbee,” he said. “Conn is a magister, and his stone has not been stolen.”

“Of course!” Brumbee said. “Conn. But don't you think that's, well, suspicious?”

“No, I do not,” Nevery said. He pointed at the table. “There's tea and biscuits,” he said, and went back to the grimoire.

“Oh,” Brumbee said. He went to the other table, poured himself a cup of tea, and sank into a chair. He sipped at the tea and made a face. “It's cold!”

At the worktable, Nevery and Keeston ignored him. “Do you see?” Nevery was saying.

Keeston gripped his locus stone. “Y-yes, sir. The anstriker spell. You're sure the magics are settled enough, sir?”

“They are, yes,” Nevery said. “Can you do it?”

Keeston gulped. “I've, um, never done a spell this difficult before. Who are we escrying for?”

Nevery glanced aside at Brumbee and lowered his voice. “For Conn.”

“All right.” Keeston studied Nevery's grimoire for a few minutes. Nevery paced impatiently while Brumbee took nervous bites of a biscuit.

“Ready?” Nevery asked Keeston, coming to a turn in his pacing.

Keeston looked up from the grimoire. “I think so, sir. The spell is far too difficult to memorize, but I think I can read it from the page.”

Inside my cage, I snorted. The anstriker wasn't
that
difficult.

“Good lad,” Nevery said, and set the scrying globe in the bowl of slowsilver. Brumbee heaved himself out of the chair and crossed to the worktable to watch.

Keeston held his locus stone in one hand and rested the fingers of his other hand on the scrying globe. He started the spell, speaking slowly, reading from the grimoire. At the end he added my true name—Connwaer.

As the spell effected, the spell-spark searched, slowing when it passed over Nimble's house, where I was trapped in my cage, but the scrying globe stayed dark.

“Conn's not in Wellmet?” Keeston asked.

Nevery frowned. “He must be here,” he muttered. He took two quick steps away from the table, then turned and came back. “He's hiding from the spell, curse him.”

I'm not hiding from you
, I wanted to shout.
I want you to find me!

“Do the spell again, Keeston,” Nevery said. “But this time escry for Conn's dragon.”

Now
that
was a good idea.

“Does the dragon have a true name?” Keeston asked.

“Yes,” Nevery said. “Tallennar.”

“
Tallennar
,” Keeston whispered.

To Pip's ears its true name sounded sharp and clear.

Keeston did the anstriker spell again and added “
Tallennar
” at the end. This time the spell-spark swirled over the city and then circled the tiny Heartsease island, landing right on top of the tiny house and flaring up brightly before flickering out.

“How strange!” Brumbee said. “The spell ended right here.”

Nevery straightened, blinking the brights out of his eyes. “Because the dragon is here.” He looked around the room. “Somewhere in Heartsease.” He saw the window. “Or outside.” He swept-stepped across the room. My Pip-eyes saw him, looming larger, and then Pip ducked its head as Nevery flung the window open.

“Ah, there you are,” Nevery said, looking down at Pip, who clung to the bricks outside. To Pip's dragon vision, Nevery looked like a shadow surrounded by the embers of flames that had gone out—because of his missing locus stone. Nevery spoke over his shoulder to Brumbee and Keeston. “Thank you for your help. You may go now.”

“But Nevery!” Brumbee sputtered. “We—”

“Call a magisters meeting for midmorning,” Nevery said. He pointed toward the door.

Still sputtering, Brumbee went out, followed by Keeston.

At the window, Nevery stepped aside. “Well, little Pip. Come in.”

My view of the room changed as Pip crawled up and perched on the windowsill.

Nevery examined Pip. “Hmmm,” he said. “You don't look very well.” He reached out a hand and Pip flinched away. “All right,” Nevery said. He took a step back. “Conn is in trouble, isn't he,” he said quietly.

Yes, Nevery
, I wanted to say.
I need your help.
I had never asked for help before—I'd always done everything on my own—but this was too big for me.

Pip edged closer to him along the windowsill.

Nevery looked out into the night, which was just lightening to gray morning. “Curse it, boy, where are you?” He glanced down at Pip. “Perhaps you can lead me to him, Pip. We'll try—”

Bang,
bang,
bang!

I blinked, and the seeing-and-hearing spell faltered, and I was Conn again, huddled in the corner of the cage with my head down on my knees and the cold from the tourmalifine wires seeping into my bones, feeling sick-shivery with worry.

“What's the matter with him?” a sharp voice said. Sootle. He banged on the cage again.

I lifted my head. “What d'you want?” I asked. My voice sounded rusty.

“Breakfast,” Sootle said. “Stay down there and I'll put it in.”

Right. I watched as he used the keystone to open the cage, slid in a tray with breakfast on it, and closed the door again. Another swift, the woman Floss, was at the window, the one Pip had broken during the night. She held up a plank of wood and laid it across the frame and tapped in a nail to hold it in place.

On the tray was a bowl of porridge with two eggs on it this time, and an apple, and a cup of tea with curls of steam rising off it. I stared at it, stiff and cold and still getting used to seeing as Conn and not as Pip.

Nevery was being smart, trying to get Pip to lead him to me. That might work, if Nevery could get Keeston's help and figure out the right spellwords to use. He might come soon. If he did he'd better get some help from the Dawn Palace guards, maybe Kerrn and Rowan with their swords.

“You all right?” Sootle asked.

I nodded.

“Eat it, then,” he said. With his foot he tapped the side of the cage.

I looked up at him. He hadn't seemed so bad when he'd been the leader of the chimney swifts and I'd been his charboy. I'd even sort of liked him. But all along he'd been working for Crowe—and he was willing to kill for Crowe, too.

“Lied to us about your name, did you?” he said, narrowing his eyes as he stared down at me. “Not Pip at all, but Conn. Not a charboy at all, but a spying little wizard.” His long nose twitched. “As young a scrap as you are, you don't look like a wizard.”

Sure as sure, he thought a wizard should look like the oil paintings back in the ducal magister's rooms. I shrugged.

He frowned. “Eat your breakfast or I'll take it away.”

All right. I uncurled myself from the corner and reached for the cup of tea.

Nevery would come. He'd come soon.