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C
HAPTER

30

I
stayed very, very still. The edge of the box dug into my chest. My arms felt stretched tight, and the ropes tying me to the handles bit into my wrists. I took shallow breaths so my breathing wouldn't shake the box. Overhead, I felt the magics roiling together as they reacted to the other explosions. The air felt thick and heavy like the moment right before lightning and thunder strike at the same time. As soon as Heartsease exploded, the magics would whirl out of control. They would take the whole city with them, and I wouldn't be there to settle them again. Even if I was there, it might be too late.

Inside the box, the slowsilver had to be snailing out of the saucers toward the pile of tourmalifine crystals, drawn by the magic in Nevery's locus stone.

How much time did I have left? A quarter of an hour? A few minutes?

I rested my forehead against the wooden lid of the box. It was too late for anything. “Don't come, Nevery,” I whispered. If he came now, he'd only arrive in time to be caught in the explosion. A crazy laugh trembled in my throat. Oh, wouldn't Nevery be annoyed when I blew up Heartsease again?

Then I heard a thump from downstairs.

I held my breath.

Another thump, and a rush of heavy footsteps on the stairs, and somebody threw the study door open.

Nevery strode into the room, Pip clinging to his shoulder. Seeing me lashed to the box, he froze. “The fuse is set?”

“It's going to go off any second,” I said. “You'd better get out of here.”

Nevery snorted. “I don't think so, boy.” Swiftly, he went to the shelves beside the table and found a penknife. Kneeling beside the box, he sawed at the rope tying my wrist to the handle. “I saw Crowe and his people getting into a boat outside,” Nevery muttered to me. “But I didn't expect to find you here, my lad.”

“You should have,” I muttered.

“Hah,” Nevery answered, and kept working on the ropes.

Pip dropped off Nevery's shoulder to the floor. The dragon edged closer to the box and sniffed at it.

“Don't bump the box,” I whispered.

“Shh,” Nevery said, and sawed through the last strand of rope. “Now the other hand.” He got to his feet and made a wide circle around the box, then cut me free of the other handle.

I sat back and took a deep, trembling breath. Pip swarmed up me to cling to my shoulder, panting.

“Now, get out,” Nevery ordered.

What? “But I have to defuse the device,” I said, getting shakily to my feet.

“No.” Nevery pointed at the door. “It is my locus stone. I will do it.”

But I was the one who'd stolen his stone! “No, Nevery!”

“Do as you're told for once, boy,” he growled.

As an answer, I reached out and lifted the lid off the box.

Inside the box, silver-bright snails were flowing all over the blackpowder, coming closer and closer to the tourmalifine as they were drawn to the locus stone. Nevery stepped up beside me to see. We only had a second, maybe two.

We both started reaching for the stone. My hand trembled; Nevery's was steady. “You do it,” I whispered.

Nevery didn't answer. Quick hands, steady hands, he reached into the box and plucked his locus stone from its nest of tourmalifine crystals.

At the same moment, attracted by the slowsilver, and by the magic in the stone, Pip leaped off my shoulder and into the box.

“Pip,
no
!” I shouted.

And then the world exploded.

C
HAPTER

31

T
he roar of the explosion slammed into me and flung me out into the night. I tumbled through the darkness, and Pip flew next to me, tossed like a leaf in the wind. I saw Nevery, too, spinning away, surrounded by sparks and flames.

“
Nevery!
” I shouted, and reached out for him, but he was gone.

All around me, Heartsease burst apart, bricks and chunks of wood and rooftiles and arrows of glass zinging past me and spiraling out into the night. A chimney sailed past, still trailing smoke, followed by the wooden table from Nevery's study, tumbling end over end. There went all the books from my room, flapping their pages like wings. And all around me, the magics whirled out of control, sweeping in wider and wider circles, sending wind and sparks lashing around the island.

Farther off, a rowboat plunged away, riding the whirlwind, and I saw Nimble, Sootle, and Crowe crouched, clinging to the sides of the boat.

Pip flashed past again, and I reached out and snatched the little dragon from the wind's grasp and pulled it to me.

“
Tallennar!
” I shouted, but I couldn't hear my own voice; the wind roared too loudly in my ears. A slate from the new roof grazed my ribs; a shard of glass cut a line of pain along one hand; I ducked as Nevery's favorite chair blundered past. I shoved Pip under my sweater for protection and looked wildly around for Nevery. He was tumbling farther and farther away.

I had my locus stone. No, I had two because I had Brumbee's stone in my pocket. And I had the power of a pyrotechnic explosion, and I could use it to demand the magics' attention. I had to do this before it was too late.

The magics rushed 'round the island again, making a towering vortex of sparks and thunderclouds and lightning, gathering up all the splinters and bricks and ruin of Heartsease, spinning and wobbling like they were going to fly apart and shatter into a million pieces.

Gripping Brumbee's locus magicalicus, and clutching Pip, I shouted, as loud as I could in the dragon language, “
STOP
.”

I didn't really expect the magics to listen, but slowly, like an avalanche coming to rest, the magics' wild whirling slowed, steadied. I could feel all of their power and attention fixed on me. They were upset and wild; they needed somebody to help them, or they would destroy the city.

“
Stop
,” I told the magics again, and they spun down to a frozen silence. My feet thumped to the ground and I wobbled for a second and then found myself standing on the smooth-swept cobblestones of Heartsease island. The house was gone, and so was the black tree and all its birds. Beyond the island was only darkness. Above me, the magics waited, pressing down on me. So heavy.

I took a steadying breath. Pip crawled out from under my sweater and perched on my shoulder. I gripped Brumbee's locus magicalicus.

I gazed up into the tangled magics. The last time I'd tried this, the magics had almost taken me away. But I had to do it. The magics loomed like a towering storm, alive with thunder and lightning ready to strike. Slowly I spoke the words that would settle them again. It was like untangling one of Benet's snarls of wool—black strands all woven together, but once I got one strand unsnarled, another one would swirl into a new wild tangle. I shouted the spell louder, but my voice sounded tiny, disappearing in the huge rushing roar of the magics' winds. The magics grew heavier and heavier, bearing down on me. I pushed back, and the effort had me panting and seeing double and stumbling over the spellwords. On my shoulder, Pip drooped. The tendrils of magic wrapped around me, tighter and tighter. It was like trying to keep a huge boulder from falling off the edge of a cliff. It was about to go over, and take me with it. I fell to my knees.

I couldn't do this on my own. I needed help.

“Nevery!” I gasped. He was out there somewhere, caught up in the roiling magic overhead. “Magics,” I ordered. “I need Nevery.” I said it again, with all my strength, in the magic language. The magics knew him and his locus stone—they had to be able to bring him back.

A rushing sound, and “I am here, boy,” Nevery's gravelly voice said from behind me. I jerked around and there he was, his hair and beard tangled, his feet settling onto the ground as if the magics had just set him there with a giant, invisible hand. “This is most interesting,” he said, looking around.

“I need your help!” I panted.

“Ah.” He bent and helped me to my feet. I swayed, and he put his hand on my shoulder, steadying me.

“Ready?” I asked, catching my breath.

“Yes, boy,” Nevery said calmly, and held up his locus magicalicus.

I took a deep breath and spoke to the magics again, and Nevery spoke with me. Our voices boomed out together, and this time the magics listened. I untangled one bit of the magic and Nevery held it while I unsnarled another bit, and after a long, tiring time we had Arhionvar looming over the Sunrise and the old Wellmet magic spread like a warm blanket over the Twilight. There was a feeling like a deep sigh after a storm, and the magics clicked into place. There, settled. The city would be all right, at least for now.

And then, just as quickly as he'd come, Nevery was gone from my side—the magics whirled him off, and he disappeared into the blackness.

“
No!
” I shouted.

They always wanted something in return, the magics. They'd taken my first locus stone, and they'd taken Heartsease, and they'd taken me, once. But they could
not
have Nevery.

“Give Nevery back!” I ordered the magics. “You can have Crowe instead. And Nimble and Sootle, too. But you have to give Nevery back!”

It was as if Arhionvar turned its huge, stony, uncaring back on me, ignoring my demand.

“Give him back!” I shouted. My voice sounded desperate and full of tears.

On its side of the river, the old Wellmet magic twinkled softly. Then, like the tide coming in, it washed up against Arhionvar's strength. I held my breath. “Please, magics,” I whispered. “I helped you. Now I need your help.”

Silence for a long, dark moment.

Then a stone fell out of the sky and landed next to my foot. I flinched aside, then glanced at it. A brick.

Wait. A brick?

I blinked, and across the cobblestones from me, with a deafening
whumph
, the black-branched tree slammed out of the sky and back into the courtyard, its roots plunging into the ground. The cobblestones flowed out in a wave around the tree, knocking me to my knees again.

Bricks rained down all around me, piling themselves into walls. Wood arrowed out of the sky and arranged itself as floors. The chimney dropped into place, and the roof landed like a jaunty hat on top of it all. Windows slotted themselves into the walls, their glass flying in tinkling shards, then melting back into the frames. Books flew in the doorways and onto the shelves, and then the doors themselves bumped into place.

My feet settled onto the floor in Nevery's study. The wooden table thunked down next to me, and a last book found itself a place on the shelf. I reached out and touched the bricks of the fireplace. They felt solid and real.

“And Nevery, too?” I asked the magics.

Nothing, just silence. Tears started up in my eyes. I leaned my head against the cold bricks of the fireplace.

Please, magics. Please. Just give Nevery back and everything will be all right.

Then I heard a gruff cough and, “I am here, my lad.”

I turned, and there he was, standing in the doorway. His beard looked a little singed, and he held to the doorframe to keep himself on his feet.

“Nevery?” I whispered.

He rubbed a sooty hand across his eyes, then smiled. “Yes, I believe so, boy.”

C
HAPTER

32

R
owan decided that the city needed a ceremony, with medals and speeches. We were in her office, me leaning against the wall by the door, Nevery sitting in one of the comfortable chairs, Rowan behind her desk, and Embre beside her in his wheeled chair. Pip was out hunting pigeons. Rowan had sent Miss Dimity away so we wouldn't be interrupted.

Everybody in Wellmet knew bad things had been going on. They'd heard about the locus stone thieves, and the gangs in the Twilight and the Sunrise, and about the chimney swifts and Crowe coming back. All the city's people had felt the explosions and heard the fighting in the streets; they'd seen the ruins of Nimble's house and the Night Bridge, and they'd been frightened.

“A ceremony is a way of showing everybody that we're all right,” Rowan said. “We tell the story about what happened, and then none of the magisters can blame you”—she pointed at me—“for stealing their locus stones, and my councilors can't whisper that you”—she smiled at Embre—“were secretly working with Crowe, or something stupid like that. Do you understand?”

Yes, I understood.

“I think,” Embre said, “that at the ceremony I'll tell the part of the story about the duchess's bravery.”

Rowan shot him one of her down-the-nose looks. “What
are
you talking about?”

“That chimney swift would've killed me during the fight at Dusk House,” Embre said, giving her a sharp grin. “You saved my life, Ro. Don't think I didn't notice.”

She blinked. “I did, didn't I?” she said. She looked down at the desk as pink crept up into her cheeks.

I'd already explained to Rowan and Embre how, after Nevery and I had settled the magics, I'd gone back out to the courtyard to look at Heartsease, to be sure it was back to normal. On the cobblestones I'd found Crowe's clicker-ticker device, smashed into pieces. The magics had taken Crowe, that meant, and Nimble and Sootle, too, and with them gone forever, the city would be all right.

Now the Night Bridge was being rebuilt. Sandera and Trammel, the magisters whose stones had been destroyed in Nimble's pyrotechnic devices, were planning to leave the city, to travel and maybe look for new locus stones, though they weren't happy about it. With Rowan and Embre's new friendship, or whatever it was that had her blushing whenever he was around, and the two magics settled on each side of the river, the city was more stable than it'd ever been.

Except for me. I was still out of place. I still wasn't sure what I was.

For the two days since Crowe and Nimble had been defeated, I'd been staying in the ducal magister's rooms in the Dawn Palace. The servants were still afraid of me and Pip, and the rooms were still too grand, and the food was cold, and guards waited outside my doors anytime I wanted to go somewhere.

“What about you, Conn?” Rowan asked, interrupting my dark thoughts.

“What about me, what?” I asked back.

She gave me her sly, down-the-nose look. “At the ceremony, how shall we honor the ducal magister?”

Oh, not this again. “Ro, I am not the ducal magister,” I said.

Ignoring my comment, Rowan glanced at Embre. “I think he should be awarded a medal.”

Embre nodded. “A big, shiny one. And he'll have to give a speech, too.”

I stared at them.

“Oh, yes,” Rowan said, very solemnly. “A speech. A long one.”

“I am
not
—” I started, and then Nevery gave a bark of laughter.

Rowan and Embre were laughing, too.

Oh.

Still smiling, Ro got up from behind her desk and came around to give me a hug. Then she stepped back and leaned against her desk. “What reward
do
you want, Conn?” Embre wheeled around to face me, too. Nevery, in his chair, was watching me and pulling at the end of his beard.

What did I want? Not medals and speeches, sure as sure. “Ro?” I asked.

“Connwaer,” she said. Her lips twitched as if she was going to start laughing again.

“Well, Ro . . .” I tried again. Heartsease was my home, not the grand, damp, lonely Dawn Palace rooms.

Embre and Rowan exchanged a sparkling glance. “Oh, this must be important,” Embre said.

I shot him a glare. Be quiet, Embre. Right. I took a deep breath. “Ro, I'm not a gutterboy, I know that. I can't live by myself in the Twilight anymore.”

“Would you even want to?” she asked, quirking her eyebrows at me.

“No, not exactly,” I answered. “I just . . . I don't . . .”

“It's hard for you to let anybody look after you, is that it?” my cousin Embre asked. “Because you looked after yourself for such a long time.”

I nodded. “Yes, that's it.” I took a deep breath. “And I can't live in the Dawn Palace. I'm not a gutterboy, but I'm not the ducal magister, either. I don't want any reward except to go home.” I glanced over at Nevery, who nodded. “Back to Heartsease.”

“Hm,” Rowan said. “I'll consider it, Conn. On two conditions.” She held up a finger. “One, you have to accept a reward.” She reached behind her and picked up a clinking bag from her desk, and held it out. More money, to go with the other bag she'd given me.

“Some of that is from me,” Embre put in. “You saved the Twilight part of the city too. Will you take it?”

I nodded, and Rowan handed me the bag of money. It was heavy. “What's the other thing?” I asked.

“The second condition,” Rowan said, holding up two fingers. “Is this. If you're not the ducal magister, you'll have to decide what you are.” She looked suddenly serious. “It's for the good of the city.”

I nodded.

Rowan went on. “You are very powerful, Conn, and your power affects all of us. You don't fit properly into any category, and it makes a lot of people nervous, especially the magisters. We need to know what you are. Do you see what I'm talking about?”

I knew she was right. “Can I have some time to think about it?” I asked.

“You can,” Rowan said. “And yes, you can do your thinking in Heartsease.”

My heart lifted. I grinned at her. “Thanks, Ro.”

She grinned back, and suddenly she didn't seem duchessly at all. “You're welcome, Conn.”

“Hmph,” Nevery said gruffly, getting to his feet. “That's settled, then. Come along, boy. Let's go home.”

 

After supper, we sat in the study drinking tea, Benet with his chair tilted back against the wall, knitting something with blue yarn, Nevery reading in a chair pulled up to the fireplace, and me sitting on the hearthstone. Lady-the-cat curled up next to me, purring. Pip sat on my shoulder with its tail around my neck like a scarf, asleep.

Suddenly, with a startling thump, Benet tipped all four legs of his chair back onto the floor. “More tea?” he asked, getting to his feet and setting his snarl of knitting on the table.

“Yes,” Nevery said, still reading.

Instead of going down to the kitchen, Benet waited until Nevery looked up from his book. “Tell him now, sir,” Benet said, pointing at me. Without waiting for Nevery to answer, he went out, and I heard the sound of his footsteps thumping down the stairs.

Oh, right. Benet had said that Nevery had something to tell me.

“Well, boy,” Nevery said, and then fell silent.

“Well, Nevery?” I asked. It couldn't be that important, not if he'd waited this long, whatever it was.

Nevery set his book aside and got up from his chair. Then he paced across the room to the table and back again. He folded his arms and looked down at me, where I sat on the hearthstone with Lady-the-cat and Pip. “Here it is, boy,” he said gruffly. “I made a mistake sending you away from Heartsease. I missed you while you were gone, and I was worried when you ran away to the Twilight. The thing is . . .” He frowned, but I could see that he wasn't angry, it was something else. “It's this, boy. This is your home. You know that.”

“Yes,” I said quietly.

Nevery sighed. “So apparently I must tell you the rest. It's this. You're as dear to me, Conn, as any son to his father.”

I stared up at him. My lips moved as I whispered what he'd just said.

. . . as any son to his father.

“Yes, boy,” Nevery said.

It hadn't been easy for him to say. It wasn't easy for me to say, either, because I wasn't used to it. But I said it. “I love you too, Nevery.”

He smiled. “All well, boy?”

“Yes, Nevery,” I said, grinning back at him. “All well.”

“Good.” He sat down again in his chair and picked up his book.

And that was that. We were settled, just like the city's magics.

After a while, Benet came in with the tea tray. He looked us over, then nodded and set the tray on the table with a clatter.

I got up and poured myself another cup of tea, then sat cross-legged on the hearthstone and set myself to thinking about Rowan's condition. If I wasn't the ducal magister, what was I, exactly? It made me remember when I'd first met Nevery, when I'd picked his pocket because the night was cold and empty and I hadn't had anything to eat since the day before. Back then I'd been just like the gutterkids and mudlarks and charkids. Now I had plenty to eat, and shelves full of books, and people who cared about me—who
loved
me, like father to son. And bags of money I didn't know what to do with.

“Nevery,” I said. “D'you think I could—” I set down my teacup, thinking.

“What, boy?” Nevery said, looking up from his book.

“You know when I was a gutterboy?” I asked.

Nevery shook his head. “You never talk about that time.”

I shrugged. “There's nothing to talk about. It was boring, mostly. I never thought about anything interesting.” I glanced over at him. He was watching me with his keen-gleam eyes. “That's the thing, Nevery,” I went on. “I was just a stupid gutterboy. I didn't even know how to read.”

“You never had the opportunity to learn,” Nevery said quietly.

No, I hadn't. “I would've wanted to,” I said. I thought about it some more. The gutterkids and mudlarks and charkids. All they thought about was mudlarking or thieving or sweeping chimneys, and finding a warm place to sleep and enough to eat. None of them knew how to read. “Nevery, d'you think I could use the money I got from Rowan and Embre to help the gutterkids learn how to read?”

“You'd like to open a school?” Nevery leaned back in his chair, pulling on the end of his beard.

Hmmm. Maybe I did. I gazed into the fire. I didn't like people looking after me, and the mudlarks and the charkids and the other gutterkids in the Twilight were maybe the same way. They were used to being on their own. They didn't want anybody telling them what to do. But sometimes being looked after wasn't a bad thing. The gutterkids might come to a school to learn to read. They could have something to eat there, too, biscuits, maybe; that'd make them come, sure as sure. And they'd get warm now and then. I nodded. Yes, I wanted to start a school in the Twilight.

“It is a very good idea, Conn,” Nevery said.

We sat for a few moments, watching the fire flicker in the fireplace and listening to the
click-click
of Benet's knitting needles.

“D'you know, Nevery,” I said, realizing something. “I think I know what I am.”

Nevery looked up from his book and raised his eyebrows.

“A wizard is nothing like a fine gentleman,” I told him.

“Oh, indeed, boy?” he said with a snort.

Indeed, Nevery! I wasn't a fancy speech-giving, meeting-attending, fine-gentleman wizard. The city didn't need a ducal magister like that, and neither did the magics. And I wasn't a ragged gutterboy, either. I was Nevery's boy, and I was friends with the duchess and the Underlord. Hmm. “The same way Rowan and Embre put the city first,” I said, “I put the magics first.”

Nevery nodded. “Yes, that is true.”

I laughed. Oh, this was perfect. “Nevery, I'm supposed to look after the magics!”

I would be a new kind of ducal magister—the magics' magister. I would talk to the magics and protect them, and learn everything I could about them. I would help the old Wellmet magic settle into its place over the Twilight, and the stronger Arhionvar magic stay over the Sunrise. To do that I had to live in the middle of Wellmet, between the Sunrise and the Twilight, and that meant I would always stay right here in Heartsease with Nevery. The very center of the city.

Home.