Home Read online

  Rowan nodded. “Do as Conn says, Kerrn; get everybody out.”

  Kerrn was already issuing orders; her guards were hustling the other people out of the room. More guards came rushing in, and Kerrn sent them to search the rest of the palace.

  “Hurry!” I said, pulling Rowan toward the door.

  “Yes, all right,” she said, and strode along beside me. She’d already started thinking it through. “Crowe is making his move tonight,” she said, as we hurried down the hallway to the main doors. “He’ll start with the Twilight. Is Embre all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “There’s a device at Dusk House, too. Nevery’s gone to get Embre out.”

  Rowan’s face went very pale. “Oh, no.”

  As we stepped outside, with a view over the river to the Twilight, a blinding burst of light exploded from one of the wizards’ islands. Then another flash, white-bright against the night. Sparks blasted into the darkness. A roar of sound rolled over us.

  One of the pyrotechnic devices had gone off.

  Rowan gasped. People streamed past us, fleeing the Dawn Palace, some of them screaming, others babbling with fright.

  Somebody bumped into me and Rowan, and then Kerrn was there.

  “Captain,” Rowan said, as Kerrn hustled her farther away from the building, “ready what guards we have. We must defend the city.”

  I stood on the steps, trying to see above people’s heads. In the distance, sparks were still flying up from the island, and a glowing cloud of smoke billowed up; flames flickered. It was Nimble’s house that had exploded, I realized. A cold feeling gathered in my stomach. I was supposed to be in there—if I hadn’t gotten out of the cage I’d have been blown to bits.

  On my shoulder, Pip leaned toward the explosion, quivering with excitement. Smoke trickled up from its tiny nostrils. Overhead, I felt the huge magic of Arhionvar shift as it reacted to the pyrotechnics. It held its place over the Sunrise. But its hold was precarious. We couldn’t risk another explosion.

  “Come away, Ducal Magister,” Kerrn said. She stood two steps below me. A few last people and guards hurried past us, fleeing.

  I shook my head. “Wait,” I said. I knew where Nimble had hidden the pyrotechnic device. He wanted me to seem guilty; he must’ve snuck in and put it in the ducal magister’s rooms. “I have to defuse the device,” I said.

  Kerrn shook her head. “You cannot risk your life for a building,” she said sharply.

  It wasn’t the Dawn Palace I was worried about. For one thing, if the device exploded it’d take a magister’s locus stone with it. Nevery’s stone, maybe. I couldn’t let that happen. For another, I couldn’t let another explosion trouble the magics. “Keep everybody away,” I told her. Just in case. Then I turned and raced back into the palace.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Nimble hadn’t even bothered to hide the pyrotechnic device. It was sitting on the patterned carpet in the ducal magister’s room, a plain wooden box with handles and a lid on it, small enough that I could have heaved it up and carried it in my arms.

  But I didn’t want to do that.

  Krrrr, Pip said into my ear. Hurry, it meant.

  I crept across the room and knelt next to the box. The oil-painted magisters on the walls frowned down at me. “Lothfalas,” I whispered, and Pip breathed out a glowing ball of sparks that hovered overhead. Carefully—steady hands—I lifted the top off the box and peered inside.

  It was as I’d suspected. The box was packed with blackpowder explosives. On top of the blackpowder, glowing bright green against the black, was a heap of tourmalifine crystals with a locus magicalicus sitting on it. Brumbee’s round, brown locus stone; it looked like a hen’s egg in a green nest. Near the heap of tourmalifine was a saucer full of slowsilver, shimmering like a liquid mirror in the dim light. That was the fuse. The idea was, the slowsilver would be attracted to the locus stone, so it would creep out of the dish toward the stone in its pile of tourmalifine. When slowsilver and tourmalifine mingled, they exploded. That smaller explosion would set off the huge blackpowder explosion.

  The slowsilver had already crept partway out of the saucer; slowly it oozed toward the pile of tourmalifine crystals. Only a finger’s width separated them. When the slowsilver touched the tourmalifine—BOOM!

  Taking a deep breath, I stilled my hands and reached into the box. Pip climbed up to perch on my head to watch, clinging to my hair.

  “Pip, your tail is in my eyes,” I whispered. The dragon shifted so I could see, but still leaned toward the box.

  Carefully, so carefully, I touched Brumbee’s locus stone. It felt cool and smooth, and I could feel the magic in it, too, a prickling in the tips of my fingers. With steady hands I eased the stone from its nest of tourmalifine crystals, then held it over each flowing bit of slowsilver, slowly coaxing it back into the saucer. When every silver-bright snail was inside, I put Brumbee’s locus stone down on the floor, then reached in and, careful not to spill a drop, lifted out the saucer of slowsilver and set it down outside the box.

  I sat back and let out a shivery breath. There, I’d done it. The device was defused.

  Pip started to hop down, going after the locus stone, but I snatched away the stone and put it in my pocket, grabbed Pip and stood, my legs shaking, then set off running through the echoing passages of the Dawn Palace and out the front doors.

  The courtyard outside was deserted. I stood with Pip in my arms on the steps and looked out over the city. Night had fallen. In the dark distance where the river ran through the middle of the city, sparks and orange smoke still drifted up from the island where Nimble’s house had stood. Pip squirmed in my hands, so I let it go, and it dropped to the ground and glared up at me. The dragon was a magical creature; it had wanted that locus stone for itself.

  “Sorry, Pip,” I said, and started down the palace steps.

  Rowan, followed by Kerrn and Miss Dimity and a few more palace guards, hurried to meet me at the bottom. Rowan had gotten a sword from somewhere; she wore it belted over her green dress. “Conn!” she shouted. “Did you—”

  “Yes,” I answered. I’d defused the device, I meant.

  “What now?” Rowan asked. Beside her, Kerrn gripped her sword.

  “My dear duchess,” Miss Dimity said, bulging her eyes at Rowan’s sword. “I really don’t think you should—”

  “Quiet,” Rowan said, holding up her hand. “No interruptions.”

  Miss Dimity looked as if she’d swallowed a frog.

  I glanced toward the Twilight. No smoke, no fire. So Dusk House hadn’t exploded. Yet. “Nevery’s defusing the pyrotechnic device at Dusk House.”

  Rowan gave a brisk nod. “Captain Kerrn’s guards are reporting that Crowe’s minions have been pouring into the Twilight. The first explosion was a signal to them, apparently.” She looked over her shoulder at the billows of smoke and sparks still coming from the island. “We have things under control in the Sunrise.” She turned back to me. “I need to help Embre.”

  Yes, she did. I told her and Kerrn where to find Benet, who was waiting at the riverbank with the boat.

  “Benet’s there?” Kerrn asked, brightening.

  “Yes,” I answered. “He can row you over to the Twilight to join the fight.”

  “Good,” Rowan said. “You’re coming with us, Conn?”

  “No. I think I know where Crowe has planted one of the other pyrotechnic bombs. I have to go defuse it.” I turned to hurry away.

  Rowan took my arm, stopping me, and she didn’t look quite so duchessly. “Listen, Conn,” she whispered quickly. “I’m sorry about making you the ducal magister, and then trying to make you stay safe inside. We all decided we knew what was best for you, even though you kept saying you didn’t want it.” She gave me a wry smile. “You don’t talk a lot, you know, so when you do, we ought to listen.”

  “It’s all right, Ro,” I said. Because suddenly, it was.

  “Friends again?” she asked.

 
“Friends always,” I said. “And I have to go.”

  She nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but I answered for her. “I can’t be careful, Ro—you know that. It’s for the magics—and the city.”

  She gave me a grim nod. “Yes, Conn, I know. Now go.”

  I figured Crowe was trying to destroy the centers of power in Wellmet. If he wanted to strike at the wizards, he’d plant a pyrotechnic device at Magisters Hall, on one of the islands in the river.

  With Pip clinging to my shoulder, I started down the wide streets of the Sunrise, heading for the Night Bridge. A few guard patrols were out, but the streets were mostly quiet and the houses were locked up tight. Everything was happening across the river.

  At the bridge I slowed to see if any swifts or minions were about. The bridge had houses built on it, and the road ran through the middle of them; in the night it looked like the mouth of a tunnel leading into darkness. Keeping my ears pricked, I padded onto the bridge and, hearing nothing but my own quiet footsteps, hurried to the stairs leading to the secret tunnel that led from the bridge to the magisters’ islands in the river. Down I went, trying not to let my bare feet slide off the slippery steps.

  “Lothfalas,” I said as I entered the tunnel, and greenish light flared around me and Pip. I made for the first gate, said the spell to go through, and raced along the dripping tunnel to the stairs leading up to the island.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I let the lothfalas light go out. No sense in telling Crowe and Nimble I was here in case they were here. The hallway I’d come out in was dark.

  I searched the rest of the building, and it was dark, too, and quiet. I peeked into offices and meeting rooms, cellars and storage rooms, and found no strange boxes full of blackpowder and locus stone fuses.

  Drats. This was taking too long!

  I rushed out the front door of Magisters Hall to the slate-stone courtyard that lay before it. To the west, the Twilight was dark as a bruise, with points of light in the houses and, higher up near Dusk House, brighter smudges—torches. No explosion yet.

  I had to see how Nevery was getting on. Maybe I needed to go there next. I had time, if I made it quick. “Pip,” I whispered. “Go spy on Nevery and then come back here.” I said it again in the dragon language. Then I said “Tallennar” to start the seeing-and-hearing spell again. The spell-spark flared and I saw and heard the world as Pip did.

  Pip leaped from my shoulder into the air. A whirl of sky and stars, and then I saw the dark water of the river rushing underneath as Pip flew across the river, heading for the Twilight. To our right, the rubble of Nimble’s house on its island lit up the sky with a red glow; to the left loomed the dark bulk of the Night Bridge. My Pip-ears could hear, coming from the steep streets of the Twilight, shouts and screams and the sounds of running feet.

  As Pip flew, I felt the Arhionvar magic overhead, pushing toward Nimble’s house, where the last explosion had happened; the softer Wellmet magic felt twitchy, like a horse getting spooked. They felt like they were just about to tip over into chaos.

  Hurry, Pip, I thought.

  Pip shot over the dark streets up to Dusk House. The house was lit up with torches; in their flickering orange light, I caught a quick glimpse of men and women fighting in front of its doors, the flash of knives and clubs swinging, Crowe’s chimney swifts and his minions charging forward, and Embre’s men pushing them back, helped by mudlarks and gutterkids; I saw the mudlark Den pry up a cobblestone from the street and hurl it at Crowe’s men. There was no sign of Crowe, but Embre was in the thick of it, gripping a knife and shouting an order to one of his men while his aunt Sparks tried to push his wheeled chair through the crowd, farther away from Dusk House.

  Then I heard Rowan shout, “Embre!” She drew her sword.

  As Embre heard Rowan and looked toward her, a chimney swift holding a knife lunged at him; with a shout, Rowan leaped between them, her sword flashing in the dim light. Kerrn followed, sword drawn, with Benet beside her, elbowing a minion in the face, then swinging his truncheon. The minions and swifts before them fell back.

  Embre shot a wild glance at Pip as the dragon flew over his head and into the building. Pip darted down one corridor, then dodged into a side door and flew up to the room’s ceiling and clung there. A storage room, it looked like, full of boxes and barrels.

  In one corner, Nevery, who was holding the tourmalifine tongs, and the mudlark Jo were peering into a big wooden box—much bigger than the one Nimble had hidden in the Dawn Palace.

  “Ah,” I heard Nevery say, and he pointed at something in the box.

  Go closer, Pip.

  Pip crawled along the ceiling until it was right over Nevery and Jo and the explosive device. I got a good look at what was inside.

  Oh, no. Get out of there, Nevery! I wanted to shout at him.

  This fuse was much closer to exploding than the one in the Dawn Palace device. As before, a locus magicalicus—Periwinkle’s gray river stone—sat on a pile of tourmalifine crystals. But this time the mirror-bright slowsilver snails had almost reached the tourmalifine. Not a fingernail’s width separated them. Another second, and they would mingle and explode.

  As I watched, Nevery reached in with the tongs, and—

  BOOM!

  I blinked and Nevery in Dusk House disappeared, and I had time to take a quick breath before a wave of wind and burning air slammed me to the slate stones of the Magisters Hall courtyard. Under me, the ground rumbled, and a huge gout of flames and smoke burst into the air, brilliant orange against the night sky. The roaring boom of an explosion rumbled over the city, followed by a hot, smoky wind.

  Overhead, the Arhionvar magic shifted like giant stones getting ready to thunder downhill in an avalanche.

  My heart gave a lurch. Oh, no. Not Dusk House, not Nevery.

  The ground was still shivering as I got to my feet, searching the Twilight for the explosion. But no; this explosion had come from behind me. I whirled to look. Where the dark bulk of the Night Bridge had stood was now a raging ruin of fire, sparks, smoke. From that direction, I heard people screaming and the crackle of flames.

  That was four devices accounted for: the one in Dusk House, the one I’d defused in the Dawn Palace, the one on the bridge, and the first one to go off in Nimble’s house.

  That meant there was just one pyrotechnic device left to find. I could feel time running out as Crowe and Nimble set its fuse. But where was it? Where?

  As I turned, searching the light-spangled darkness that was the Twilight, and then the Sunrise, I saw it. Across the water, the next island after Nimble’s. Lights were moving inside a building that should’ve been dark.

  Crowe and Nimble. They were there, in Heartsease.

  In my home.

  CHAPTER

  29

  I had to stop Crowe and Nimble from blowing up Heartsease, and I couldn’t wait for Pip to get back from Dusk House to do it. And I couldn’t get to Heartsease through the tunnel gates, not without Pip to open the magic locks for me.

  I needed a boat. Quick as sticks, I raced across the courtyard to the docks where rowboats were tied for people who weren’t wizards and didn’t use the secret tunnels. Grabbing the first boat I came to, I untied the rope and shoved out into the dark river water, then dropped the oars into the locks and started rowing toward the lights of Heartsease.

  As I rowed, a storm gathered overhead. Slowly clouds started to turn like a giant wheel over the city, heavy green and black, pressing lower and lower. Behind me, a bolt of wind shrieked past; I turned to look and saw it rip over the water, leaving a froth of white waves in its wake. When the wind reached the Twilight shore, it smashed through a warehouse, and I heard the sound of windows shattering. Another blast of wind followed, and this time fire flared where it hit the shore.

  The magics were reacting to the pyrotechnics—just as I’d warned Nimble. Time was slipping away. If another pyrotechnic device went off, controlling the magics would be like trying to sto
p a tornado by gripping its whirling end. The magics would sweep through the city; there’d be whirlwinds and flaming rocks falling from the sky, and the river would surge out of its banks. I wouldn’t be able to stop it if it got that bad.

  Turning back to the oars, I rowed as hard as I could. The river water grew choppy from the howling wind, and I could feel the magics roiling overhead. Finally the boat bumped up against the black rocks that lined the Heartsease island and I leaped out, then ran past the dark-branched tree and across the cobbled courtyard, keeping an eye out for chimney swifts or minions. The branches of the black tree thrashed in the wind. Most of Heartsease was dark, but lights gleamed from the second floor. Nevery’s study.

  Quick I skiffed up the stairs, then paused at the study door to catch my breath. From outside came the sound of the wind screaming around Heartsease. But no thunder, no lightning—it wasn’t that kind of storm. I had to hurry before it got worse.

  Crowe had to be in there, and Nimble. They probably had swifts with them. Without Pip I didn’t have magic, but I was a good thief. I had quick hands, steady hands, and I could melt into shadows, and I could stop them—if I was careful.

  Holding my breath, I turned the knob and eased open the study door, just a crack big enough to spy through.

  Inside the room, I saw a sliver of bookshelf and wavery light coming from a single candle set on the long, wooden table that Nevery and I liked to work at in the evenings. The rest of the room was dark with shadows.

  I pushed the door open a little wider. There, over by the fireplace. Crowe had his back to me. He was standing next to Nimble, who was bent over a wooden box with iron handles on it, for carrying. Its wooden lid was off. The pyrotechnic device.

  And there—on the table behind Nimble. A glass vial full of mirror-bright slowsilver, gleaming in the dim candlelight.