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  “Kerrn, we don’t have time for this,” I said. “Arhionvar is coming. You know what that means—you were in Desh, and in the sorcerer-king’s fortress. I need to talk to Nevery and the other magisters, and to the duchess.”

  Kerrn shook her head. “I ask.”

  All right. I climbed onto the table and sat with my legs crossed.

  Kerrn scowled. “What was that lizard?”

  Lizard? Oh, Pip, she meant. “It’s a dragon.”

  “It was thought that no dragons were left in the world.”

  I shrugged. She’d seen the flame dragon well enough, when it’d landed in the courtyard.

  The lantern flickered, reflecting bits of light from the water seeping down one of the cell walls.

  “You are a thief,” Kerrn said quietly. “And a danger to the city.”

  Maybe I was a thief. But I felt the city’s magic around me, warm, with a tingle of fright in it. “I’m a wizard, too, Kerrn,” I said.

  Kerrn folded her arms and leaned back against the chair. “If you are a wizard, then where is your locus magicalicus?”

  “Pip ate it,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “The dragon,” I explained. “The dragon is my locus magicalicus.”

  “A dragon cannot be a locus magicalicus.”

  “Well, it is,” I said. It really was. Unless Pip could cough up the stone, which it would’ve done before now if it could, and unless I was willing to cut open the dragon to get at my stone, which I wasn’t, then Pip really was my locus magicalicus.

  “You are not a wizard,” Kerrn said.

  “I was always a wizard,” I said.

  She shook her head. “You cannot be a wizard without a locus magicalicus.”

  I knew what she was thinking. Gutterboy. And thief. “Kerrn, if you lost your sword, would you still be a guard?”

  She didn’t answer. But she frowned, like she was thinking about it.

  Then Farn came in with the food. Water, bean soup, and a piece of bread without any butter on it. With one last glare, Kerrn turned and walked out with Farn, slamming the door shut.

  After eating, I fell asleep at the table with my head on my arms.

  A hand on my shoulder woke me up.

  “It is time,” Kerrn said.

  I blinked and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, stiff from sleeping at the table. Time for what? For breakfast, I hoped. And then Nevery and I would have to convince the duchess and the magisters that Arhionvar was coming. I needed to find Pip, too. The faint call of my locus magicalicus pulled at me from off in the direction of the river.

  Kerrn and Farn led me up the stairs and into the hallways of the Dawn Palace. We came to a double door; Kerrn opened it and poked her head in. “Are you ready?” she asked somebody inside.

  “Wait a moment,” said a voice. It sounded like Nimble.

  Kerrn closed the door and stood beside me with her hands clasped behind her back.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Hearing room,” Kerrn said, staring at the closed door.

  Good. I could tell what I knew, and whoever was in there would hear it. I straightened my black sweater and with my fingers combed the hair out of my eyes. They were more likely to listen if I didn’t look too scruffy.

  “Is Nevery coming?” I asked.

  Kerrn shook her head. “He is not. He was arrested last night and imprisoned. He is likely to be exiled from the city.”

  Well, once they heard what I’d learned about Arhionvar, they’d know we needed Nevery to stay here. And if I knew Nevery, he wasn’t in the cell they’d put him in. I’d taught him how to pick a lock and get himself out.

  The hearing room doors opened and we went in.

  The room was long and had a polished stone floor that sent the sound of our footsteps echoing off the walls. The ceiling was high, held up by stone pillars carved like tree trunks, for Rowan’s family, I guessed, the Forestals.

  At the other end was a wide table, where the magisters sat staring as we crossed the room.

  Another clump of chairs was set off to the side; some city councilors and rich merchants and other wizards sat there. As we came closer, they shot quick glances at us, whispering. More palace guards stood along the walls. The duchess wasn’t there. I didn’t see Rowan, either. A little twist of worry tightened in my stomach. Rowan needed to be here.

  With a hand on my shoulder, Kerrn stopped me before the magisters’ table. The magisters examined me.

  Bat-faced Nimble sat in the center chair looking red-nosed and cranky. After giving me a good glare, he glanced down at some papers piled on the table before him. Also at the table was Brumbee, looking worried, and Trammel, sharp and sour as always, and Periwinkle, and the keen Sandera, all the magisters of the city. Except for Nevery.

  I glanced over at the clump of chairs. Argent was there, dressed up in his fanciest clothes. “Hello, Argent,” I said, my voice echoey and loud in the silence.

  Argent didn’t answer, just gave me a wide-eyed look. Not his usual down-the-nose sneer. The last time I’d seen him, he’d tied me to a tree. Maybe he’d thought I was dead. He probably wished I was.

  At the table, Nimble cleared his throat. “We shall begin.” He nodded at Kerrn. “Captain, we’ll need phlister for the prisoner.”

  The prisoner. That was me. “I don’t need any phlister,” I said.

  “We want the truth,” Nimble said. “Get phlister.”

  “I won’t lie,” I said.

  “If I might interrupt,” Brumbee said, from the row of magisters, “I—ah—have never known Conn to lie; he has always been truthful. Rather alarmingly so, I should say.”

  “Oh, very well,” Nimble said, wiping his red nose with a handkerchief. “We can dispense with the phlister.” He turned to me again. “Who do you name to speak for you?”

  “I can speak for myself,” I said. Nobody knew as much about Arhionvar as I did; it didn’t make sense to have somebody else speak for me.

  At the table, Brumbee whispered something to Periwinkle, who shook her head.

  Nimble sniffed. “Very well. We will begin. Do you, Connwaer, admit to collecting pyrotechnic materials, including”—he took a piece of paper from the table and glanced at it—“magnetic rust, atriomated water, and blackpowder?” He handed the list back. “Possession of which is against the law of the city?”

  Oh, so they wanted to talk about the pyrotechnics first, and then we’d get to Arhionvar. “Yes,” I said.

  “So noted,” Nimble said with a nod. “You admit to breaking into the academicos in order to use a room there to conduct a pyrotechnic experiment?”

  “Yes,” I said. No point in denying it; Brumbee had seen me.

  “So noted,” Nimble said in his dry, high voice.

  He was about to say more when the double doors at the other end of the room burst open and crashed against the walls. I whirled ’round to see. Roaring, Benet bulled into the hearing room. He had a guard hanging on each arm and another leaping on him from behind.

  He flung one of the guards off and pulled his truncheon out of his belt and slammed it into another guard’s face; she went down with blood spraying from her nose. Benet caught sight of me and headed across the room.

  The magisters at the table jumped up, shouting.

  “Guards!” Kerrn ordered.

  The guards stationed around the hearing room were already moving, drawing their swords.

  “No!” I shouted, starting toward Benet. Farn grabbed my arm and held it tight. “Kerrn, no!”

  Kerrn glanced at me.

  “No swords!” I said to her.

  She gave me a quick nod and, shouting orders at her guards, ran across the room.

  Benet gave a roar that echoed off the walls and swung his truncheon, but two more guards grabbed his arm and another snaked an arm around his neck.

  “Benet!” I shouted.

  He shook his head like a bear, sending a guard flying, and caught sight of me. “Get ou
t of here, you!” he bellowed.

  Then the rest of the guards were on him. They wrestled him to the floor, two to each arm and leg, and he was dragged out, struggling. Other guards helped up the guard with the broken nose and took her out, leaving only a patch of blood on the stone floor.

  Kerrn closed the door, shutting out the sound of guards fighting with Benet in the hall.

  Farn let me go; my arm hurt where he’d been holding me. My breath came fast. Benet wanted me out of here. He’d come in just to tell me that, and gotten himself into trouble for it. What was going on, exactly?

  At the magisters’ table, Nimble cleared his throat. “Well. Thank you for dealing with that disturbance, Captain.”

  Kerrn, coming to stand beside me again, nodded.

  Nimble glanced down at his notes.

  My hands were shaking. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling shivery cold.

  “Ah,” Nimble said. “We left off here. Did you do the pyrotechnic spell?”

  They already knew I’d done it. I nodded.

  “Answer aloud,” Nimble said.

  “Yes.” My voice shook. “I did the finding spell.”

  At the table, Brumbee put his head in his hands; beside him, Trammel looked angry, and Periwinkle gazed down at the table.

  “And your master, Magister Nevery Flinglas, assisted you?”

  I stared back at Nimble. I wasn’t going to answer that question at all.

  “You refuse to answer?”

  “You’re not asking the right questions,” I said.

  Beside me, Kerrn took a sharp breath. I glanced aside at her. She was thinking of the time I’d been caught stealing my locus stone from the duchess and she’d given me phlister and asked all the wrong questions.

  “Well, he’s not,” I said to her.

  She frowned and shook her head.

  I looked back at Nimble, then along the line of magisters at the table. “You should be asking about Arhionvar.”

  “We have looked into the question of Arhionvar,” Nimble said primly. “Arhionvar was a city far to the south in the Fierce Mountains, but it was destroyed many years ago. There is no other Arhionvar than that.”

  “Yes there is,” I said. “Nimble, there was magic in the city of Arhionvar, wasn’t there? D’you think it just disappeared when the city did? Arhionvar is a magical being, and it is coming. It’ll be here very soon.” I looked around at the other magisters, willing them to understand. “Arhionvar isn’t like our magic. It won’t protect us. We saw what it did to Desh. It’ll do the same thing here, if we let it.”

  “The magic is not some kind of being!” Nimble said loudly.

  “We have to figure out what to do once it gets here,” I said. “Nevery and I have a plan.” They weren’t going to like the part of the plan that had pyrotechnics in it. Or the part where the magic had once been a dragon.

  “Be silent,” Nimble ordered. “Your delusions about magic have no bearing on this trial.”

  Trial? What did he mean, trial?

  “It is quite clear,” Nimble said. “The accused has readily admitted his crimes. I see no reason not to proceed with the execution.”

  With the what? “Kerrn, what is he talking about?” I asked.

  Kerrn glared at me, her gray-blue eyes like ice in her pale face. “You should not have returned to Wellmet.”

  I stared at her. When I spoke, my lips felt stiff. “But I had to come back. Kerrn, what execution is he talking about?”

  “The sentence for return from exile is death by hanging,” she said flatly. “To be carried out immediately.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The guards took me to their commons room. One of them jerked my hands behind my back while the other fetched manacles, then put them on my wrists. Then they shoved me down on a bench to wait.

  I sat, my thoughts whirling. This couldn’t happen. Rowan had told me about the order of execution, but I hadn’t believed they’d actually do it. I had to do something. I jumped to my feet, and the guard shoved me down again.

  I gulped down a sudden surge of fright. Benet had tried to get me out of the hearing room. Where was Nevery? In a cell, or escaped into the city, hiding?

  They were being stupid! If they hanged me, how would Wellmet defend itself against Arhionvar?

  The door opened, and Kerrn strode in but didn’t look at me.

  “You can’t do this, Kerrn,” I said, getting to my feet.

  The guard shoved me down onto the bench.

  “They are ready,” Kerrn said to the guard.

  Rowan. She could help me. “Kerrn, can I talk to the duchess?” Once she heard about the dragons and Arhionvar, and Rowan told her I was telling the truth, she’d have to change her mind about the execution.

  “The duchess is too ill to see anyone,” Kerrn said, still not looking at me.

  Oh. So that’s where Rowan was.

  “Now,” Kerrn ordered.

  The guards hauled me to my feet and, pulling on my arms, dragged me out the door, through the hallways of the palace, and out to the wide front steps.

  In the middle of the Dawn Palace courtyard a gallows tree had been built out of wood, a high platform with steps leading up and a noose hanging down from a beam.

  They must’ve been working on it all night. The hearing hadn’t been a hearing at all; they’d already decided what they were going to do with me.

  A crowd had gathered, thousands of people turning to stare as they saw the guards, with me, coming out of the Dawn Palace. More guards surrounded us and I was pulled down the stairs. They pushed through the silent crowd to the steps leading up to the gallows.

  Nimble was there. “Has he been searched?” he asked, looking me over.

  “Yes, he has,” Kerrn said shortly, from behind me.

  No I hadn’t. I glanced quickly at her as she stepped up beside me, but her face stayed blank, like chiseled stone.

  “Very well,” Nimble said, adjusting the cuffs of his robe. “Take him up.”

  The two guards took me by the arms and, with another guard following, marched me up the wooden steps to the platform where the noose was hanging, with a wooden box below it for standing on.

  At the top of the stairs I stopped, and the guards dragged me to the box and lifted me onto it. I tried to climb down, and the guards stepped to the side and held my arms so I couldn’t move.

  As I struggled against their holding hands, the third guard reached up and grabbed the thick-roped noose. “Lift your chin,” he said. The two guards kept their grip on my arms.

  I put my chin down.

  One of the guards grabbed my hair and jerked my head up. I saw the sky, white and blank as a piece of paper, with smudges of cloud ink on it. Then the rope came down over my head, resting heavy around my neck.

  I caught my breath and scanned the courtyard. The air was cold. I’d been away so long, winter had settled in over the city. Frost lined the black branches of the trees near the front gates of the Dawn Palace. A cluster of black birds sat in the trees and perched on the iron spikes on the walls around the courtyard, looking cold and bedraggled.

  My locus stone called with a low thrumming in my bones; Pip wasn’t far away. Maybe the dragon was hiding in a tree with the birds.

  I heard footsteps on the wooden stairs, and Kerrn, holding a folded piece of paper, joined us on the platform. “Get on with it,” she said gruffly.

  The guard snugged the thick-roped noose ’round my neck, turning the knot so it rested just below my ear. The guards let go of my arms and stepped away.

  I looked out over the crowd filling the courtyard. The people stood silently, watching. A group of scowling minions stood at the back. Along the front, sitting in a row of comfortable chairs, were the magisters and the duchess’s council, but no Rowan, that I could see. At the edge of the crowd I saw a gutterboy waiting for his chance to pick a pocket. If he was smart, he’d wait until the guards pulled away the box I was standing on and people were distracted.

  My b
reath came short. This was happening too fast. They weren’t really going to do it, were they? Nevery would be furious if I let them hang me.

  Kerrn stepped up to the front of the gallows platform and unfolded the list of my crimes; the crackle of the paper sounded loud in the silence. She started to read the words.

  She hadn’t searched me for lockpick wires. She had to know I had them on me. Twice before I’d used lockpicks to escape from the jail cells below the Dawn Palace. If I got the manacles off, I might be able to get down from the gallows and escape into the crowd.

  It was a chance. Carefully, trying not to jingle the manacles, I felt up my shirt sleeve for the lockpick wire sewn into the seam.

  “…and for willful flaunting of the city’s laws proscribing the deployment of pyrotechnic magic…,” Kerrn’s flat voice said.

  I pulled at the lockpick wire, the stitches holding it in place gave way, and it dropped into my hand, a thin strip of metal. The manacles were made with a simple twist plunger lock. With my fingers I bent the wire into the right shape.

  “…and wanton destruction of property both private and public…,” Kerrn went on, her voice starting to shake, still reading my list of crimes. But she was reading very slowly, giving me time.

  I gripped the lockpick wire.

  Quick hands.

  Steady hands.

  With the wire, I probed the lock. There, the plunger. I slotted the wire into place and gripped it tightly to flick it open.

  As I turned the wire, a sudden cold weight settled into me. My fingers slowed, stiffened. The lockpick wire dropped from the lock, falling to the box I was standing on.

  I gasped. At the sound, Kerrn whirled around, then glanced down to see the lockpick wire at my feet. She muttered a curse under her breath.

  “Kerrn, it’s here,” I whispered.

  She stared at me, her hand on her sword.

  “Captain, you must proceed,” Nimble called from the row of chairs in front of the gallows.

  I looked up at the sky. It was flatter and whiter than before, like the lid of a pot pressing down. The air was completely still. I turned to Kerrn, my heart pounding. “Arhionvar is here,” I said, louder this time.

  Kerrn stood still as stone, her mouth half open, about to give the order. A guard bent down and took the corners of the box, ready to pull it away. The rope wrapped tight ’round my neck like a snake.