Illusionarium (23 page)

E
DITORS
:

Martha Mihalick

Julie Romeis Sanders

Sarah Cloots

A
GENTS
:

Edward Necarsulmer IV

Christa Heschke

S
PECIAL THANKS TO
:

Lisa Hale

Joe Fowler

Renee Wilson

Tim Hinton

Jason Kim

Kevin Keele

Travis Deming

Brent Melling

Alan Rex

Chris Melling

Grace Rex

Taylor Todd

&, of course, the Fam—Mom, Dad, Missy,

Peter, Sar, and all the rest of you, you crazy ol' sonuvaguns.

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epicreads.com

HEATHER DIXON
is the author of the acclaimed
Entwined
. By day, she is a storyboard animator and artist. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
www.story-monster.blogspot.com

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Entwined

Illusionarium

Cover art © 2015 by Nathalia Suellen

Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc'h

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

ILLUSIONARIUM
. Copyright © 2015 by Heather Dixon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.epicreads.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dixon, Heather, (date)

Illusionarium / by Heather Dixon.

pages cm

“Greenwillow Books.”

Summary: As apprentice to his father, the second-best medical scientist in the empire, Jonathan leads a quiet life in a remote aerial city until the king arrives, calling on them to find the cure to a plague that has struck the capital city and put the queen's life at risk, but the newly discovered chemical, fantillium, that may help will also put at risk all that Jonathan holds dear.

EPub Edition © April 2015 ISBN 9780062311870

ISBN 978-0-06-200105-4 (hardback)

[1. Plague—Fiction. 2. Medicine—Research—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Apprentices—Fiction. 5. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 6. Hallucinations and illusions—Fiction. 7. Fantasy.] I. Title.

PZ7.D64433Ill 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014041136

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1

FIRST EDITION

Greenwillow Books

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

www.harpercollins.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

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Rosedale 0632

Auckland, New Zealand

www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF, UK

www.harpercollins.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

195 Broadway

New York, NY 10007

www.harpercollins.com

¹
Besides me, of course.

²
polarage \
pol-a-raj\
n: A mirage found in polar regions, when the cold air warps and forms floating icebergs and billowing shapes that could be mistaken for airships*

*but only by drunken airmen

³
My father enjoyed bartering with passing trade ships for their most unusual pieces of furniture, collected from all around the world. As a result, our row house and observatory were both filled with strange, mismatched furniture. It drove my mother to distraction.

⁴
A great-great-great grandfather clock, possibly.

⁵
More icing than roll. The proper kind of sweet roll.

⁶
See what I mean? Charming.

⁷
Really*

*No, really.

⁸
He had actually started to cry.

⁹
Hannah would have known this. Also, she could probably list off all the queens and dukes who had lost their heads there, in consecutive order, or, quite possibly, alphabetically by either a) surname or b) title. Our long winters on Fata were, indeed, joyous.

¹⁰
Or, at least, I really hoped he was.

¹¹
Blast!

¹²
More food for me.

¹³
Divinity had become a lot less pretty since the illusion.

¹⁴
Please. Your mother doesn't count.

¹⁵
I suddenly realized what Divinity reminded me of. One of those female insects that, after they mated, would bite off the male's head and lay their eggs in his body so that when larvae hatched and burst through his headless body's abdomen, they would eat his entrails.

¹⁶
He really did drool it.

¹⁷
Absolutely
fascinating
, how everything split, sorting out how the veins and the nerves and the muscles grew apart—yes, it wasn't
quite
bone in the new fingertip but there was definitely cartilage. . . .

¹⁸
With
far
too much relish.

¹⁹
ASAYAW = “As Soon As You Are Willing”*

*Which is the Arthurisian way of saying, “We're Dying! DYING, I SAY!”

²⁰
We'd also been curious as to how he'd gotten a masked guard uniform. He grimly answered that with a “Don't ask.”

²¹
Surprise, surprise.

²²
Which would sever his limbs from his body on impact, causing Death by Unmitigated Joy.

²³
Niiiiiice
.

²⁴
Which really wasn't fair, being dead and all.

²⁵
Liar.

²⁶
Fata Morgana's shipped foods had given me a vast knowledge of all things dried.

²⁷
Or smack him across the head. I couldn't decide.

²⁸
I had the sense to illusion it
unlocked
.

²⁹
I was
really
looking forward to this.*

*I'd taken to marking my hands with pen and ink, drawing out the muscles and veins beneath the skin and labeling them with such intricacy that it almost looked like I had contracted the Venen myself. It was a marvelous diversion.

³⁰
Thanks, Hannah.

³¹
The little snuggler.