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C
HAPTER

7

M
y cousin Embre had worse memories of the former Underlord Crowe's house than I did, so when he'd taken over as Underlord he decided to leave the pit and ruins of the old Dusk House to rot, and a street away had built a new Dusk House of sand-colored stone, all on one level so he could get 'round it in his wheeled chair. His legs didn't work because Crowe had had minions break them when he'd been Underlord and he'd wanted Embre out of the way, even though Embre's true name, Embre-wing, was a black bird name, and he was Crowe's own son.

I walked up to the double-wide front door. No guards were posted, but somebody was watching, because the door opened before I could knock. Pip flew up and landed on my shoulder, and a silent minion brought us down a wide, slate-paved hallway to Embre's office.

He was there, sitting in his wheeled chair beside a warm fire and small table with a tea tray set on it. Seeing me, he frowned. “A bit worse for wear, aren't you, cousin?” he asked.

“I'm all right,” I said, wiping the rain off my sore face with my sleeve.

Embre's aunt, the old pyrotechnist Sparks, sat opposite him, holding a teacup in her three-fingered hand. She wore her usual gray, scorch-marked dress, and her ash-colored hair was cut short. “Whatcher, wizard boy,” she said to me with a grin.

I grinned back at her. I was just as interested in pyrotechnics as she was.

“Magic's been tricksy lately,” she said.

“I noticed,” I said. Hmmm. As a pyrotechnist, Sparks collected slowsilver, and made blackpowder and other things that would explode if you combined them. Because they'd once been dragons, the magics loved anything that had to do with smoke or fire, and explosions like the ones Sparks did drew their attention and got them all roiled up. That would not be a very good thing for the city right now. “Sparks,” I said slowly. “It'd be a good idea to not do any pyrotechnics for a while.”

“Figured,” Sparks agreed. “Been experimenting with tea lately, instead.”

Pip dropped off my shoulder and flew across the room, landing on the arm of Sparks's chair.

“Want a sip of my blackpowder blend, do you?” Sparks said to the dragon. She held out her cup.

Pip stuck its snout into the cup and took a drink of her new tea. It looked up at Sparks, breathed out a puff of smoke, then took another gulp.

Sparks gave a gap-toothed grin, then set her cup on the table and got to her feet. “All right then?” she said to Embre.

He nodded. “Go ahead. I'll give the ducal magister some tea if he wants it.”

“Righty-o!” Sparks said, and bustled out of the room, leaving me and Embre to talk.

“
Would
the ducal magister like some tea?” Embre asked, picking up the teapot.

“I'm not the ducal magister, and I don't want any tea,” I said. “I want to do some magic.”

Embre raised his eyebrows. “And you had to come here to do it?”

I nodded. “Rowan and Nevery moved me into the Dawn Palace.”

“I know,” Embre said. “The duchess wrote me a note about it. She said you were attacked outside Heartsease. Go on. What does doing magic have to do with that?”

Right. “I was thinking about the fluff-beaters who attacked me. It could've been Crowe.”

Embre's face went paper-white. “D'you think Crowe's come back?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It's how he does things, though.” I held up my fist.

He nodded. Crowe had been sent into exile for his crimes. But people had come back from exile before, and maybe Crowe had, too.

Embre frowned down at his hands. “I've had this feeling that something's wrong in the city,” he said quietly. “Rowan's felt it, too; she mentioned it in her note. It might be because we've got two magics here and they've yet to be properly settled, but I'm not certain that's it.” He looked up at me. “Maybe it's because Crowe's returned.”

“Maybe,” I said. “The anstriker spell will tell us if he has or not.”

I pulled the small table into the middle of the room, where I put the tea tray on the floor, then took the rag-wrapped scrying globes out of my knapsack. Pip stuck its nose into the knapsack and snuffled around, its tail twitching.

Embre leaned forward in his wheeled chair so he could see what I was doing.

I unwrapped the smaller of the scrying globes. It was a glass ball about the size of a fist, but perfectly round. I gave it a polish and set it on the table. Its surface swirled with rainbow colors, so it looked like a soap bubble.

“I'm going to need some slowsilver,” I said to Embre.

He nodded, and while I unwrapped the other globe, he rolled his wheeled chair to the door, opened it, and gave an order to a minion waiting outside, then wheeled back over to the table. “What do they do?” Embre asked, pointing at the fist-sized globe.

“Escry,” I said. That wasn't a very good answer, so I added, “This one can see all of Wellmet.” The second globe was the size of Pip, when the dragon was curled up and sleeping. I flicked it with my fingernail. It made a chiming hum. “This bigger one can see the parts of the Peninsular Duchies nearest Wellmet.” If it didn't crack under the spell, which the grimoire said could happen.

Embre gave a sharp nod. “We'll be able to see if Crowe is here, then?”

I nodded. If Crowe was in Wellmet or nearby, we could be sure as sure that he'd sent those men to beat the fluff out of me and try to kidnap me, and I figured we'd know who was responsible for the locus stone thefts, too. Pushing Pip aside, I dug a set of nested metal bowls out of the knapsack and put them on the table.

The minion came in then with a glass beaker half full of slowsilver, which he set on the table. Embre sent him out again.

Carefully I set out the metal bowls and poured a bit of slowsilver in each. Then, holding them with the wormsilk cloth so I wouldn't smudge them with fingerprints, I set each scrying globe in its puddle of slowsilver. The spell could be done with water in the bowls, but using slowsilver made it stronger and gave a clearer picture, the grimoire said. That made sense—the slowsilver had once been a dragon's scales, before the dragon turned into a magical being, so the slowsilver attracted the magic's attention.

“
Tallennar
,” I said, Pip's true name.

Pip popped its head out of the knapsack, then crawled up to my shoulder. I rested my hand on the dragon's back, on the smooth place between its wings. Before starting the spell, I glanced across at Embre.

“You'd better go out for this part,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Why, Cousin?” he asked.

Because spells didn't always work the way they were supposed to when I did them, was why, and the two-magics problem could make it even worse. “It might be dangerous,” I said.

“I'll take my chances,” Embre said. “Get on with it.”

All right.

I moved the smaller scrying globe in its dish to the edge of the table so Embre could see. Keeping one hand on Pip, I touched the globe with the tips of my fingers and started the anstriker spell. As I spoke the spellwords, the surface of the globe swirled with rainbow colors, like oil on water. The inside of the globe darkened until it was the shadowy black of a Twilight alleyway.

Under my fingers, the globe tingled. The darkness inside it brightened slowly, revealing a view of the city, but small, a tiny version of Wellmet shaped to the curve of the glass globe. We saw the narrow, steep streets, the tumbledown houses, and the factories of the Twilight with tiny wisps of smoke coming from their chimneys. Then the river twisting through the city like a little brown snake, and then the bright Sunrise on the other side.

I glanced up at Embre. “Ready?”

He nodded. He leaned forward to see, gripping the arms of his chair.

Because Crowe was a true name, as soon as I said it out loud, the globe would escry for him.

I took a deep breath. “
Crowe
,” I whispered.

A tiny spell-spark flared up inside the globe. It started its search at the Dawn Palace and raced downhill from there, through the wide streets and stone houses and parks of the Sunrise. At a street near the river, the spark slowed down, as if sniffing out some faint scent, but then it went on, zooming over the bridge and into the Twilight, racing along the river and the mudflats, through the factories, through the Deeps and the Steeps. Embre and I leaned close, watching the streets and houses flicker past. We saw the old Dusk House pit, and then the new Dusk House. The spark flared, shadows swirled, and the inside of the globe turned black.

Embre grabbed my sleeve, his hand like a claw. “Well?”

I lifted my fingers from the globe. “The spell slowed down in the Sunrise, did you see?”

He nodded, still staring at the globe. “Does that mean he's there?”

I wasn't sure. “I don't think so,” I said slowly. “The spark would've stopped and flared up if he was, and there's no way to hide from the anstriker spell.” No way that I knew of, anyway.

“Good,” Embre said. “Now be sure he's not coming here or lurking somewhere outside the city.”

I pushed aside the smaller globe and pulled the larger globe in its bowl of slowsilver to the edge of the table. I did the thing with the anstriker spell and the true name.

This time the globe showed a dragon's-eye view of the lands around Wellmet and beyond, a long, wide stretch of ocean-edged land with tiny cities and trade roads and vast green forests and rivers that glinted like silver threads, and mountains that scraped against the inside of the glass. The spell-spark began at the dark spot that was Wellmet and circled outward, slowly at first, like a bee circling a flower. The spell-spark grew larger, and flew faster, a ball of sparks whooshing past the desert and the city of Desh, then swirling over a carpet of forest and darting among tall mountain peaks, burning more and more brightly.

For just a second Dusk House faded away and I felt the two magics overhead, shifting like two huge, impatient dragons, tied together, yet straining against each other. I strained just as hard to hold on to the spell.

It slipped away. Under my fingers, the surface of the glass globe buzzed like a thousand angry wasps. The sparks burst into flame; the flames expanded until they filled the entire globe. The glass grew warm, then sizzling hot.

I jerked my hand away from the globe and leaped back. The rainbow glass darkened to molten red and the slowsilver in the metal dish bubbled and boiled. Flames crackled on the inside curve of the globe. Then, right in its center, a new, white-bright light blossomed and expanded.

As I shouted a warning, Embre pushed his wheeled chair away from the table, covering his head. I threw myself to the floor. A sharp crack and crash, and the scrying globe exploded, shards of burning glass shooting like arrows through the air, shattering against the walls and ceiling. Sparks swarmed around the room. A thick cloud of gray-black smoke billowed up and swirled. Pip crouched on the table, blinking.

From out in the hallway came the sound of running feet, and then two minions flung open the door and rushed into the room. Their feet crunched on the shattered glass. “Underlord, are you all right?” one of them asked.

Embre had ended up across the room against the wall. He coughed and waved smoke away from his face. Blood seeped from a thin cut on his cheek. “I'm fine,” he said sharply. “Thanks for coming so quickly. Go wait outside.”

The minions nodded and went out.

The room fell silent. The smoke drifted up to the ceiling and hung there. Overhead, the magics settled again, but I could still feel their uneasiness. I got up from the floor.

Embre coughed again. “So,” he said, after another silent moment. “He's not here.”

I shook my head. Crowe wasn't in Wellmet, and he wasn't anywhere near the city, either.

Embre let out his breath and rested his head on his hand, which was shaking. He'd been a lot more worried about Crowe than I'd realized.

“You all right?” I asked, stepping closer.

“Yes.” He wiped the blood off his face. “Ow.”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

He looked at the smear of blood on his hand, then gave me a shaky grin. “Well, Cousin, I am the Underlord, but I'm also a pyrotechnist. I've seen explosions before.”

True, he had.

“And you did warn me,” he said.

Yes. I had.

“I'm glad Crowe's not here,” he added.

A shudder of dread crept up my back, thinking of Crowe. “So am I.”

C
HAPTER

8

A
fter collecting as much of the slowsilver as I could coax back into a glass beaker and then wrapping the scrying globe in its wormsilk cloth, I said good-bye to Embre and left.

At the front door of Dusk House, Sparks was waiting for me.

Pip, seeing her, twitched its tail. “No more blackpowder tea for you, Pip,” I said.

Sparks grinned at me and Pip; then she edged closer. “Got a bit of information you might like to know, eh?”

Information? “What?” I asked.

“One of them magister wizards has been asking 'round the Twilight for pyrotechnic materials.”

That was strange. The magisters hated pyrotechnics; once they'd banished me from the city and almost hanged me as punishment for doing pyrotechnic spells. And now that we had two magics in the city, the risks of setting off explosions were even bigger. “Who was it?”

“Dunno what his name was. Scrawny.” Sparks pointed at her head. “Big ears.”

Magister Nimble, it sounded like. That didn't make sense at all; Nimble hated me, and pyrotechnics, more than any of the other magisters.
And
he'd had his locus stone stolen, he'd said. Strange. But there wasn't anything I could do about it now. “If you hear anything else, tell me, all right?”

“Righty-o!” Sparks said, grinning.

I said good-bye to her and stepped out the front door of Dusk House and stopped. We'd spent the afternoon on the anstriker spell, and now it was night.

Oh, no. Rowan was expecting me for dinner.

The streets were dark and empty, and my hurrying footsteps sounded loud on the wet cobblestones. Pip dropped off my shoulder and flew ahead, pausing to perch on shop signs and on piles of trash in the street, then flying ahead again. As I turned a corner onto a street that would lead me to the Night Bridge, I caught a glimpse, out of the corner of my eye, of shadowy figures. Following me.

My heart jolted with fright. The kidnappers! I looked around for Pip. “
Tallennar!
” I whispered. A rustle of wings and Pip was there, scrambling up my leg and onto my shoulder, where it crouched, lashing its tail. I stared into the street behind me.

Two dark shapes loomed up. I flinched back and got ready to run and shout my new dazzler spell at the same time.

“No harm, Blackbird,” one of the shapes said, a deep, gravelly voice.

I let out my breath. Not the men who'd beaten the fluff out of me, then. Fist. One of Embre's men. And beside him, his partner, Hand.

“What d'you want?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Fist said. Beside him, Hand nodded.

“What're you doing, then?” I asked.

“Underlord told us to keep an eye on you, little bird,” Fist said. “When you're in the Twilight. You see the men what did that”—he pointed at my face—“and you give us the nod, right? We want a word with 'em.” He held up his fist to show what kind of word it would be.

Embre had sent his men to watch me? To protect me when I was in the Twilight?

Curse it. More fuss and worry. More
looking after
.

 

With Pip clinging to my coat with its claws, I stepped off the Night Bridge and into the Sunrise part of the city. Captain Kerrn was there. Scowling, she stepped in front of me. Behind her, the wide street, lit by werelights, led up the hill. Kerrn reached out to grab me by the front of the sweater so she could slam me against a wall and growl at me, but then she jerked her hand back and rested it on her sword pommel.

“Where have you been?” She bit off her words and spat them out. Angry.

I shrugged. I was coming off the bridge; clear as clear I'd been in the Twilight.

When she saw I wasn't going to answer, she whirled and started stalking up the street. “You have missed dinner with the duchess. And another locus magicalicus has been stolen.”

Oh, no. Not another one. I'd lost my locus stone once; I knew what a horrible, empty, desperate thing that was. I hurried a little to catch up with her. “Whose stone?”

“One belonging to another magister. Sandera. Taken from her workroom.”

Big trouble, then. Kerrn probably thought that's what I'd been off doing during the afternoon, stealing Sandera's locus stone.

We headed up the street, passing the tall stone houses and shops and the werelights, which cast pink light across the stone pavements.

“Tell me what is going on,” Kerrn said suddenly. “You can trust me.”

I blinked. I trusted her to toss me into a prison cell if she thought I belonged there. “I didn't steal the locus stones, Kerrn,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I do not mean the thefts. You were attacked. You are in trouble of some kind. Your safety has been entrusted to me. You must tell me what is going on.”

“I don't know what's going on,” I said. She wouldn't believe that, sure as sure. Maybe I could drink truth-telling phlister and tell her and
then
she'd believe me.

She stopped and pointed at my bruised face. “I will not allow you to be hurt again.”

Wait. She was worried about me getting the fluff beaten out of myself? “I'm being careful,” I said.

“
Careful?
Is that what you call it?” She leaned closer. “I will make sure you are more careful.” She glared down at me, then whirled and headed up the street.

So Kerrn was looking after me, too. Drats.

 

As we came into the Dawn Palace, there were more guards than usual at the front doors, and Kerrn had a couple of quick, brisk words with them. Then she “accompanied” me to the ducal magister's rooms and left me there with two guards at the door. Pip prowled the shadowy edges of the room, its tail twitching, then came over and nosed at the window. I opened it and the dragon flew out. It didn't like the Dawn Palace, either. And it probably wanted to hunt for pigeons. After closing the window, I shoved aside a couple of fringed, lumpy-laced pillows and sat on the window seat and looked out at the night. What I really needed to do was go out again so I could walk through the city and sense what was going on with the magics. But I was tired and I wouldn't get past Kerrn's guards, not tonight.

There was a knock on the door. Go away, whoever you are.

The door opened. Rowan.

She said something to the guard outside and came in.

Just inside the door, she stopped and looked around at the ducal magister's room, frowning. “This is not what I was expecting.” She shook her head. “Curse it.”

Then she went to one of the tall wooden chairs beside the hearth, shoved it around so it faced the window seat where I was sitting, and sat down. She wrinkled her nose. “Connwaer, you smell like smoke.”

I raised my arm and sniffed at my sweater-sleeve. I did smell like smoke. From the anstriker spell gone wrong. She didn't want to hear about that, though. “I was doing some magic,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“I am a wizard,” I reminded her.

“Mmm. It's cold in here,” she said, rubbing her arms. “The servants should have built a fire.”

They should have, but they wouldn't come into my rooms. They were afraid of Pip, I guessed. My stomach gave an empty growl.

“You didn't get anything to eat, did you?” Rowan said. “I'll send the servants with dinner.”

I could definitely eat dinner. Maybe they'd bring hot biscuits and chicken pie like Benet baked. “Thanks,” I said.

She smiled. “You're very welcome.” Her smile faded. “I'm very sorry about the rooms. I know you don't like them. I told Miss Dimity to be sure they would be warm and comfortable for you, but she misunderstood. I should have seen to it myself.”

“You didn't have time,” I muttered.

“That's right.” She sighed. “I know this is hard for you, Conn, but you'll get used to it here, and you'll find that being the ducal magister isn't so bad if you just give it a chance.”

It didn't matter if I gave it a chance, and it didn't matter if Rowan made the ducal magister's rooms more comfortable. I didn't belong here. Suddenly I felt a wave of homesickness for Nevery and Benet and the cozy study at Heartsease. I curled up and put my arms around my knees.

Rowan sighed again and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired. “At dinner we talked about the theft of the locus magicalicus stones,” she said at last.

I was glad I'd missed that, anyway.

“Neither one of them has turned up yet, as Keeston's stolen stone did. As you can imagine, the magisters are in an uproar.”

“They're good at uproar,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose they are.” Rowan got up from the uncomfortable chair and sat down on the window seat next to me. She looked beautiful in her green dress, with her hair braided and pinned up on top of her head. “Conn, they're pushing me very hard to arrest you for this latest theft. Where have you been all afternoon? What magic were you doing? Why did you miss dinner?”

I scowled at her. “Ro, I don't need all this
looking after.
”

“I'm not so sure about that, my lad,” she said. “I'm worried. There's something strange going on. Not only the locus stone thefts. It's a feeling, as if there's a . . .” She shook her head. “I don't know. Something wrong. Maybe that doesn't make any sense.”

I stayed quiet. I had thieves and kidnappers to deal with, and the two-magics problem; I couldn't do anything about this other
something wrong
.

“I'm not the only one who feels it. Kerrn has the guard on high alert. She's on edge about it.”

If Kerrn had any more edge, she'd cut herself.

Rowan gave a brisk nod. “With all of that, and those attackers on the loose, and the magisters insisting that you be arrested for thievery, it really is a good thing you're living here under my protection, instead of at Heartsease. You'll be safer as long as you stay in the Dawn Palace.”

By
safer
she meant Kerrn and her guards following me around all the time. “But Ro, there's things I have to do.”

“You have to be more careful,” she said.

“I
am
careful.”

She gave me an exasperated look. “Conn, today you tricked your guard and went into the Twilight alone, where you apparently did a magical spell that left you smelling like smoke. You are
not
careful.” She folded her arms. “You are the ducal magister now. You simply must learn to act like it.”

There she was, shoving me into the ducal magister box again. “Ro, I never agreed to that,” I reminded her.

She stood up. “All right. Fine. Any moment now Miss Dimity is going to pop in here to remind me that I'd better go to bed because I have an early meeting in the morning. So good night, Connwaer.” She headed for the door, then paused and pulled a heavy-looking bag out of her pocket and tossed it on the table. It made a jingling sound when it landed. “Oh, and here,” she said crossly. “It's your pay for serving as ducal magister.”

Then she left, slamming the door behind her.