Jinx's Magic (21 page)

25

The Prison

S
omeone grabbed Jinx's arm. Jinx grabbed the grabber, dragged him to the ground, and fell on top of him.

Oops.
Not
a him.

“Hey! Let go of me!” cried Satya.

Jinx let go. “You attacked me.”

“I was just trying to talk to you.” Satya picked herself up and brushed herself off. “You can't go to Simon's house. They're watching it.”

“How—”

“They've always watched it off and on,” said Satya.

“Actually, I was going to ask how you knew—”

“Simon? I remember him from when I was little,” said Satya.

“You're in the Mistletoe Alliance, aren't you?”

“Hush! Don't say that name. You never know who's listening.”

“Has the Mistletoe Alliance been following me?” said Jinx. “And knocking me with sticks and throwing sacks over my head and stuff? Because—”

“A press gang grabbed you, and the preceptors snatched you away from them. The Company couldn't care less about you—”

“Who's the . . . never mind,” said Jinx.

“But we have to protect Simon's house,” said Satya.

“Because you keep your books in there?” Jinx guessed.

“The preceptors' spies watch it.”

“And you do too,” said Jinx, bitterly. “And you locked me out of it.”

“
I
didn't. But it had to be done. They've never been certain that house has anything to do with us—”

“But Simon owns it, doesn't he?” It felt weird to be asking a Samaran about Simon.

“Yes, but it's not really there, or something. Something to do with magic,” she said dismissively. “The preceptors think a different house is there, which belongs to Sophie's aunt. But of course, with you going there all the time—”

“Three times, total,” said Jinx.

“—that's how they made the connection between you and Sophie. You can't go back to the Temple either.”

“Well, duh,” said Jinx. “I just escaped from the Preceptress. About Sophie, listen: Can you help me get her out of prison tonight?”

“No.” Hard blue thoughts. “I can't risk my mission.”

“She's going to die tomorrow if I don't get her out tonight.”

“Sophie knew the risks,” said Satya.

“The risks of what? Being married to Simon?”

“No,” said Satya, scornfully. “Of being in the Company.”

“But Sophie's not in the Mi— the Company,” said Jinx.

“Of course she is,” said Satya.

Jinx remembered something Professor Night had said. “She's in it because of Simon?”

“No, Simon's in it because of her,” said Satya. “She's been in it since she was younger than I am.”

Jinx felt hurt that Sophie had never told him.

“Then why haven't you guys tried to get her out?” he asked.

“We can't. The cause is bigger than she is,” said Satya. “We'll all die in it eventually.”

“Don't you care?” said Jinx.

“Of course I care,” said Satya. “That's what I just got done telling you. We can't risk showing the Temple that the Company still exists.”

Jinx couldn't imagine believing in something so much you would die for it. Could he?

He thought about Reven, and the Bonemaster. Would Jinx be willing to die to save the Urwald? He didn't know.

“Look, I'm not in your stu— your Company, and I'm going to go in and get her out of there,” he said. “Will you help?”

“No.”

“You won't have to risk your mission. Nobody will even see you. Here's what I want to do.”

Satya listened. “You know enough KnIP to make a hole in the prison wall?”

“A small hole,” said Jinx. “But with your knowledge to draw on, and Wendell's—”

“You're involving Wendell? What if he's seen? He'll never be able to go back to the Hutch.”

“I don't think he'll cry too hard over that,” said Jinx.

“No, I suppose not,” said Satya.

“Will you help? Please?”

A long, purple-and-blue struggle twisted and turned around Satya's head.

“As long as no one sees me,” she said at last. “And as long as I can go back to the Temple right afterward.”

“Actually, I'll need you to watch Simon's house,” said Jinx. “Or the Company should watch it, I guess, because you'll need to come down to the river and tell us when it's safe to go there.”

“You're hiding Sophie in her own house? But that's not safe at all!”

“I can get her from there to a safe place very easily,” said Jinx. “Trust me on that. All I need is for the Mi— the Company to help her get to the house.”

“You mean you'll take her to the Urwald?”

Jinx was surprised. “You know about the Urwald?” Suddenly Jinx remembered Sophie saying “
They don't like me coming here
.” She must have meant the Mistletoe Alliance, not the preceptors.

“Of course.”

“Well, can the Mi— can those guys at least guard the house till we get there?”

Purple-blue whirring thoughts from Satya—worry, uncertainty, and, always, a silver coil of fear.

“I guess it's the least we can do for her,” she said at last.

“Just about exactly,” said Jinx.

 

Jinx waited in a tree beside the river. The tree murmured about the current tickling its roots, and Jinx wondered if Satya was ever going to show up. Maybe she'd changed her mind.

Silently, a boat drifted under the overhanging branches. Satya looked all around.

Jinx lowered himself from the tree into the boat. The boat rocked and Satya gave an exasperated sigh.

“That's not how you get in a boat. Just keep your hands inside.” She steered expertly away from the bank.

Jinx did. He remembered the crocodiles.

He looked at Satya. “Flipping your hair is part of your Satya act, right? You don't do it away from the Temple. What's your real name?”

“Satya is my real name,” she said, dripping ice.

“And making friends with two guys from Angara makes you look less suspicious, right? Because no one would ever suspect Angarans of being in the Mi—”

“
Company
.” A little blue twinge of guilt. “Wendell is a very nice person, for your information. Anyone would want to be friends with him. And I knew you weren't Angaran. You're not good at deception.”

“I am too!” said Jinx. “I got into the prison, didn't I?”

“They probably let you get in,” said Satya. “You're a terrible liar, you know. That's why I trusted you. The preceptors would never have a spy who was such a lousy liar.”

Jinx thought of Elfwyn and wondered if he'd caught being a lousy liar from her. Except that Elfwyn was actually a pretty good liar, as long as no one asked her a question.

When they reached the other side, Satya paddled up a small inlet among overhanging trees—and crocodiles, Jinx didn't doubt. The boat clunked against wood. Satya climbed out.

“There's a dock here,” she said.

“Are there crocodiles on it?” said Jinx.

“Of course not,” said Satya.

Jinx didn't see why it was an of-course-not, but he climbed out. Satya tied up, and they headed for the prison.

He thought about how Satya had found the Eldritch Tome for him in the library, hidden in the cover of a different book. And Sophie had told him how to find the KnIP books, disguised as something else.

“Does the Mi— the Company hide books in the Temple libraries?” he asked.

“Hush.”

Wendell was waiting for them. Jinx recognized the little red-orange blurp of happiness at seeing Satya.

“Okay, what I need you to do is—” Jinx started.

“Speak Herwa,” Satya said.

Jinx switched to Herwa. “I'm going to make a hole in the prison wall—”

Surprise from Wendell.

“—and I need to use your knowledge to do it. Then Wendell and I will go in, so that I can use Wendell's knowledge if I need to make any more holes, and we'll get Sophie, come out this way, run down to—”

“Don't say the place,” said Satya.

“—to meet Satya,” Jinx told Wendell. “Okay?”

“No problem,” said Wendell.

But there was a problem.

It wasn't using Wendell's and Satya's knowledge—that came easily, and with three golden spheres' worth of power Jinx was able to dig his way quickly through the six-foot-thick wall of the prison, making a person-sized hole.

The problem was, he was the only one who could see it.

“It's right here!” he said.

“I can't see it,” said Wendell.

“Me neither,” said Satya.

“Look.” Jinx stuck his hand into the hole, then his arm, all the way to the shoulder.

“At what? You're hitting your hand against solid stone.” Satya reached out and touched the opening, and her hand stopped as if it had hit a wall.

Jinx remembered that before he had
known
there was a door to Samara in Simon's house, it had felt like solid stone to him.

Well, it didn't matter about Satya. She wasn't going in anyway. But Wendell had to get through.

“Look, you have to
know
there's a hole here.”

“It's not that I don't believe you,” said Wendell.

“It doesn't matter what you
believe
! You have to
know
it!”

“Keep your voice down,” Satya whispered. “You'll have to go alone.”

She was right. There was no time to waste.

“If I don't come out, get out of here and go somewhere else and—”

“You don't have to tell me,” said Satya.

Jinx nodded to both of them and ducked into the hole.

It was more like a tunnel, really. Jinx had chosen the spot because he thought it was close to one of the passages that Big Seth had taken him through on his last visit. And it did lead into a passage of some kind. But the right one, or not? It seemed to be going crosswise to how he remembered.

Without trees to guide him, Jinx didn't really have much sense of direction.

He stumbled along in the dark, feeling for minds. He came to another passage, and turned, and then another.

Then there were thoughts up ahead. A green knob of suspicion, a few yards away.

A guard! Jinx froze, and stopped breathing. And the green suspicion suddenly moved away.

That seemed wrong to Jinx, and wrong in exactly the wrong way. The guard must have heard Jinx, and be going for help.

Except shouldn't a guard be able to handle an intruder on his own?

Uncertain, Jinx started walking again, as silently as he possibly could.

There was another mind moving toward him, coming up from behind, tracking him. A mind that was mostly an orange blob of worry. Now, why would a guard be worried?

He wouldn't. Jinx stopped and let the orange blob catch up to him.

“How did you get in?” Jinx whispered.

“Shh,” said Wendell.

They came to a staircase and crept up it.

Another mind up ahead—stern red thoughts that reminded Jinx of Felix, the warden. And then that mind, too, got up and walked away.

“They're letting us get in,” Jinx said. “It's a trap.”

Wendell said nothing.

“You should leave,” said Jinx.

“Shh,” said Wendell.

They walked on.

Then there were thoughts just above them—a blue-brown cloud of anxiety, edging into gray despair.

Jinx knew that mind.

He walked faster. Smack into a wall. He groped around for an opening. Now that he'd found Sophie he felt he had to get to her immediately—who knew how early they'd come to take her to the trial?—and the passages weren't cooperating. Finally he found a stairway going up.

A moment later he and Wendell were hurrying down the corridor of empty cells toward Sophie.

“Jinx!” Red joy. Then she frowned. “Who's this?”

“This is Wendell,” said Jinx. “You can trust him. We have to get out of here.”

“Where's Simon?” Sophie demanded.

“Home. He couldn't come. We—”

“What do you mean, he couldn't come?” Building white fury.

Jinx did not have time for this. “Sophie, they know we're in here. We have to go
now
.”

“My trial is tomorrow, and he couldn't come?”

“He didn't know,” said Jinx. “Could you please shut up so I can concentrate?”

“Yes, do, please, Professor,” said Wendell urgently.

Sophie had a very large sphere of knowledge for Jinx to draw on. It was almost easy to remove a bar from her cell, and then another.

“Now you can squeeze through.”

“I'm not
that
thin yet,” said Sophie.

Jinx had never realized before just how exasperating Sophie could be. “I made two bars disappear. These two.”

Sophie pressed against the bars. But it was clear she was meeting cold iron.

“You have to
know
they're not there,” said Jinx. “Just like you do with the door into the Urwald.”

“And to do that, I have to believe you can really do KnIP,” said Sophie.

“You think I'm still seven years old and can't do anything.”

“No, of course I don't think that. But I'm a scholar, I'm supposed to be skeptical.”

“Excuse me,” said Wendell. “There's a—”

“Just a moment, please. I have to concentrate,” said Sophie.

“But—” said Wendell.

Sophie frowned at the bar and, with a great brown push of determination, put her hand through it. A little purple blop of surprise—and she stepped through the bars. “There! That was very clever of you, Jinx.”

“Now let's go,” said Jinx.

He grabbed her arm, turned around, and saw that the corridor down which they had come was in flames.