“No, no, it is nothing sinister, or dangerous. Our gatherings are merely ... frowned upon.”
“By whom?”
“All of them. The king. The Magic-Workers. They prefer to keep their business ... quiet.”
Well, that was reassuring, all right.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”
“Here,” he said, folding the little paper and holding it out. I started to open it, but he flapped his hands at me urgently and hissed, “Hide it! Hide it!”
I wondered if he was slightly unhinged. Maybe I’d open the paper back at the House and find nothing but a meaningless scrawl. Still, it was the best chance I had, so I tucked it away in my pocket.
Idly, I cast my eye over his wares and saw a little seal and picked it up, so that I would look like nothing more than a customer should the magic-workers glance my way.
The wood was smooth in my hand, and the design looked like an amateurishly drawn carrion bird—a crow, perhaps, or a raven. It reminded me of the dishes in the sorcerer’s House, and of him. It appealed to me. A memento, for when I left, then—if I were ever able to leave.
“I’ll take this,” I said, and waited as the scribe wrapped it in waxed paper. He tapped the side of his nose, as if to remind me of our shared secret, and I left.
I did feel better, though, having written to Da. Sending that letter to him was almost like reaching out my hand to him and feeling his larger, rougher one take it. I felt warmed and strengthened.
I walked back to the magic-workers, who stopped speaking abruptly when I turned up. The sorceress parted her lips for a moment as if to say more, then seemed to think better of it.
“I will call upon you soon, Sylvester,” she said. She twitched the reins again, and her expressionless servant picked up the rickshaw shafts.
“Come,” said Sylvester abruptly as she moved away. He turned on his heel and started back toward the House. Again, I had to trot to keep up with him.
I imagined the letter I had written to Da, nestled in that leather bag and waiting for the mail coach that would take it all the way back to our village. It took a piece of my heart with it as surely as the sorcerer did.
10
When we returned, I felt despair settle on me like rain as the black House engulfed me once more. After having been outside, I was more aware than ever how alien the place was, how alienhewas.
Thehein question spoke not a word to me upon entering, just strode off down the long corridor, muttering to himself and rifling through the herbs in his pockets. Cornelius appeared and wound himself around my ankles, purring. I gave him an absent-minded pat.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. I might have a way to find my heart. I’m not sure yet. I have to go and talk to someone tonight about it.”
“Be careful,” said Cornelius, giving me a gentle nip on my ankle.
I was in the middle of cleaning the kitchen, ready to prepare the evening meal, when I heard it—a sound like a great wind. Then the floor started to shake beneath my feet. I grasped the stove to keep my balance.
“What’s going on?” I shouted to Cornelius above the noise. He had flattened himself beneath a cabinet, and all I could see were two glowing yellow eyes.
“I don’t know,” he mewed.
I made my way on unsteady feet to the kitchen door and looked out into the passage. The whole House trembled, and a greenish light flickered from one end of it. I raced toward the light and noise, my feet scrambling for purchase on the black floor.
Cornelius had more sense, hiding from the commotion rather than running toward it. But any sense I had fled with the thought that the sorcerer might be in danger. What I planned to do about it, gods only knew, but I ran until I reached the doorway to his room of cabinets and bookshelves, from which the green light and terrible banshee wind emanated.
Sylvester was spread-eagled on the wooden table, gripping the edges as if either holding something down, or keeping himself from blowing away. All his discarded papers spiraled around him in a whirlwind, and some detached part of me observed that I would probably be cleaning up the mess later.
“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” I shouted above the roaring and screeching.
“Get out!” he yelled. I didn’t take it personally, though, because I could see the strain on his face. The greenish light was coming from beneath him, as if he were holding closed the trapdoor to hell. I struggled forward into the room, clutching at my skirt as it swirled around me.
“A spell,” he panted. “Gone awry.”
