Found (5 page)

B
enet came to Sparks’s house to fetch the materials for Nevery. That night he came back for me, rowing me across to the academicos. I scrambled out of the boat and waited for Benet to climb out onto the dock.

“Not staying for this part,” Benet said.

I didn’t blame him; the last time I’d done pyrotechnics,
Benet had gotten his skull cracked open.

“Be careful, you,” he said gruffly.

“I’ll try,” I said. But if I was too careful, I’d never find my locus magicalicus.

With an oar, Benet pushed off from the dock and floated into the darkness.

I turned to look at the academicos. It was a shadow against the lighter night, a big central building with four square, spired towers at its corners, and four-story wings flanking a slate-paved courtyard. Only a few wizards and magisters had rooms here, so it was mostly dark; two lights shone from windows on the ground floor, where the school’s master, Brumbee, lived.

I headed across the courtyard toward one of the side entrances. Then I stopped. Strange shadows like dark lumps were clustered on the windowsills and on the wide stairs leading up to the double front doors. The shadows shifted and rustled like leaves blowing in the wind.

Not leaves. They were black birds, the magic’s
watchers. Waiting to see what would happen when I did the spell, maybe. One of them swooped down from a windowsill, circled ’round my head, and flapped back to perch with the other birds.

I went on across the courtyard, picked a lock to get in a side door, and went cat-footed up the dark stairs to the room Nevery’d told me to go to. Not his own room, just in case, but the workroom of a wizard who’d died a long time ago.

I knocked softly on the door. After a few moments, it cracked open and Nevery peered out. Without speaking, he opened the door wider to let me in, then closed the door.

“Were you seen?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“You have the rust?”

I pulled the paper packet out of my pocket to show him. My hands were shaking just a little.

Nevery studied me. “You’re very quiet, boy, even for you. Nervous?”

I nodded. I had a lump of worry stuck in my
throat, stopping my voice. What if this didn’t work? What would we do then?

“Hmph. I need some time before we begin.” Turning away, Nevery went to the table and peered down at his grimoire, muttering. He’d recopied the finding spell and the directions and had to read it over again before we started.

I looked around the room. It was more like a study than a workroom. Werelight glowed from lanterns set on the table. Books and papers were piled against a wood-paneled wall, and some more furniture was pushed into a corner and covered with bedsheets. Dusty velvet curtains were pulled across the windows. Nevery’d nailed up rugs and blankets on the walls, to muffle any sounds, I figured.

On the table were the things we needed to work the finding spell. At one end stood a polished dock pendulum, gleaming in the werelight; next to it was a saucer of sparking blackpowder emulsion, a couple of glass stirring rods, some clean rags, two mortars with crystal pestles, a metal bowl full of
crushed rock salt, a brass trivet, a fat candle with three wicks, and stoppered vials of measured atriomated water, viperic acid, and mineral spirits.

“You’ve read over the notes I sent you, boy?” Nevery asked, glancing up from his grimoire.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, Nevery.”

“Getting the timing right is absolutely crucial in a stoichiometric spell,” he said.

Yes, I knew that. Nevery’s notes, written on one long, narrow roll of paper and sent with one of the black birds, had listed everything we had to do, step by step, before I said the finding spell. One thing I was good at was reading something once and then remembering it. I wasn’t going to forget anything.

Nevery nodded toward the door. “Put that on.”

My ragged, scorch-marked, gray-wool apprentice robe hung on a hook beside the door. I put the robe on over my black sweater, then went back to the table. My breath fizzed a little as it went down into my chest. If this worked, I would find my locus magicalicus
tonight
.

“Fifty-three flakes of the magnetic rust, Connwaer,” Nevery said, still looking at his grimoire. “In a mortar. Wipe it out first.”

I rolled up the sleeves of my robe, then cracked open the wax-sealed paper. The rust was greeny-black, the tiny flakes clinging together in a crease of the paper. I pulled over a mortar and wiped it out with one of the clean rags, then fished in the collar of my shirt for a lockpick wire.

The rust stuck itself to everything. With an end of the wire I teased out a greenish flake, then tapped it from the wire into the mortar.
One
.

Nevery closed his grimoire. He came to the table and used his locus stone to light the three wicks of the candle, then he moved the trivet over the flames and set his mortar on it. “Almost ready, boy?” he asked.

I nodded.
Forty-nine
,
fifty
…

“Good,” Nevery said. He leaned across the table and drew the dock pendulum up to its calibration. He glanced at me and raised his eyebrows.

Fifty-three
. “Ready,” I said, and my voice cracked.

“Begin,” he said, and let the pendulum fall.

While Nevery measured and mixed the aqueous solution, I dissolved the magnetic rust in a threefold concentration of viperic acid, mixing with a glass rod. While it bubbled, I took out the rod and cleaned it off and waited.

“Count two,” Nevery said, watching the pendulum. It ticked over twice. “Now.”

Quickly I added a fizzing drop of mineral spirit. A puff of blue smoke swirled from the surface of the mixture in my mortar.

Nevery stirred his mortar, watching the pendulum. “The atriomated water should be boiled off in five,” Nevery said. “Be careful, boy; the smoke is poisonous.”

I nodded, watching the pendulum. Ten more counts and my mixture would turn to metal jelly.

“Has it turned blue?” Nevery asked.

I leaned over to peer at my mixture. Yes, it was
turning blue-green around the edges, and starting to bubble.

“Stir it,” Nevery said.

Right. I cleaned off a pestle and poked the jelly; it bubbled up, and I poked it down again. Bubble-poke, bubble-poke.

Nevery lifted his mortar off the trivet, set it into the bowl of rock salt, and started to stir it. “Is your solution ready?” he asked, watching the pendulum.

Almost. The jelly crackled; in a few swing-tocks of the pendulum it would dissolve into a red powder in the bottom of the mortar.

But it didn’t. Instead, the pestle cracked in my hand and a thick cloud of choke-black smoke billowed up from the mortar. It went into my lungs like a breath full of feathers; I backed away from the table, coughing. More smoke billowed up and spread out over the ceiling like a thick layer of clouds on a rainy day. Nevery, coughing and holding his arm over his face, jerked aside the curtain and flung the window open.

As a damp breeze blew in from outside, the smoke swirled around below the ceiling and grew thicker, then clumps of sizzling black soot started falling like black snowflakes. A soot-flake landed on my hand, and it burned like a hot ember. More soot-flakes drifted down.

Still coughing, I scrambled under the table. Nevery crawled in after me.

“You all right, boy?” Nevery asked.

I caught my breath. “Yes”—I coughed again—“Nevery.” I coughed the last of the black feathers out of my lungs, then we sat watching the soot-flakes pile up on the slate floor, sizzle, and then cool.

“One of your reagents must have been tainted,” Nevery said, frowning. “The rust, perhaps, though that doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps one of the stirring rods.”

Tainted? Oh. How could I have been so stupid? “Nevery, I counted out the magnetic rust with a lockpick wire.” And I hadn’t cleaned it first.

“Curse it,” Nevery muttered.

“Can we try again?” I asked.

“Strict stoichiometric control, boy,” Nevery said. Brushing soot-flakes out of the way, he crawled out from under the table and got to his feet. “It means exact measurements, exact timing, and absolutely pure materials.”

Coughing up the smoke, I’d coughed up the knot of worry in my throat. “And stoichiometry means patience, right?” I said. That’s what he’d told me, anyway. I crawled out and stood up. The soot covered everything in the room like a fall of new snow, except black.

“Yes, boy,” Nevery said, looking at me and pulling at the end of his beard. “Patience. Something I never needed until you became my apprentice.” He turned to survey the room. “Well, it’s not too late, and we have enough materials. We can clean everything and try again.”