Stolen Magic(36)

“What game did you play with Master Uwald?”

“Dice. I think he let me win because he wanted to help us. He could have just given me the money, but that would have meant going against the wishes of the high brunka. And he loves to play. After I won, he wanted me to wager my silver against him. Come, it’s too cold by the door.” He took her hand and led her toward the fireplace. “High Brunka Marya is making us all sleep in the great hall. When the Replica is found, we should mansion this scene and all the events of the Second Theft, and you can portray her.”

“Shh! She’s listening!”

“No matter. Who doesn’t like to be a heroine?”

The heroine needed information. Elodie went to Master Robbie, who was sitting on a pallet next to Master Uwald.

“Master Robbie . . .” Elodie walked away and hoped he would follow.

She heard Master Uwald say, “Go, but not for long. You need your sleep.”

When they reached High Brunka Marya, she said, “Tell me about your conversation with Masteress Meenore.”

Elodie whispered, “IT isn’t sure who the thief is. If not for Master Tuomo’s sons, IT would suspect him above all, because Master Robbie will inherit Nockess Farm.” She nodded at him. “IT says Master Tuomo could have bought the location of the Replica.”

“From a bee, lamb?”

Master Robbie didn’t hesitate. “Or from a brunka.”

The high brunka puffed up her cheeks and let out a long sigh. “Will IT question us again tomorrow?”

Elodie explained that IT had gone to Zertrum.

“Something has befallen His Lordship? He may not have warned Arnulf?” She gripped her stool as if she might fall off. Tiny rainbows flared from her hands.

“The trouble may not have happened until after that.” Let His Lordship be safe, Elodie thought.

The rainbows stopped, but the colors still stained the high brunka’s knuckles.

Master Robbie said, “Masteress Meenore asked us to tell you what IT learned.” He explained ITs theory that a thief had been in the storage room while Ursa-bee and Johan-bee made sure the Replica was still safe.

Elodie added, “IT thinks two thieves were probably in league with each other.”

“Two could be so evil?”

Elodie described the way IT supposed they did it. “Someone has the handkerchief that weeps, or has hidden it.”

“Masteress Meenore said to warn you,” Master Robbie said, and Elodie thought he was enjoying the importance of his information, “that the thief—or thieves—is alarmed. IT said most alarmed and that frightened people can be deadly.”

“Deadly here in the Oase,” Elodie added, in case the high brunka didn’t understand.

“Deadly here,” High Brunka Marya repeated in a flat voice.

Don’t lose yourself in sadness, Elodie thought. We need you! “IT wanted us to ask you if anything was discovered among the bees’ things.”

“Nothing, as I expected.” She blew on her fingertips, and the colors faded. “Go to sleep, kidlings. I have bees searching through the night.”

In a few minutes they were all bedded down, Elodie’s pallet next to Albin’s. Master Tuomo sat up amid his bedding, but everyone else lay flat, breathing quietly, as people do when they’re still awake. A snore came from the bees’ hearth.

High Brunka Marya lay on a pallet, too, hers near the Oase entrance, the coldest spot in the great hall.

Though she’d slept little in the last three days, Elodie’s mind busied her with ideas and worries. How had Master Uwald arranged to lose at dice, which was all luck?

Her thoughts wandered back to the stable and her performance as a weeping handkerchief and the ideas that she summoned to bring on the sadness. Above all, she cared most about His Lordship and now IT, who had both flown into the greatest danger.

She tried to cheer herself by making up a dragon ditty:



There once was an IT who sang Ta da dum

And searched for an ogre called Jonty Um.

Because of a theft they’d flown far away;

Their friend could hardly bear her dismay.

She wept and never got over them.



No help in poetry. She tugged her mind to Potluck Farm, where her mother and father lay in their bedroom loft, and her father’s pet goat and the family cat, Belliss, curled up below by the still-warm fireplace. Comforted enough to sleep, she fell into dreams of her masteress and His Lordship floundering in a river of molten rock.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT



Masteress Meenore flew above an owl that soared over the Fluce River. Both were hunting, and IT had found ITs prey. IT swooped lower, extending a talon.

The owl twisted and veered away.

IT grinned. Another swoop, another miss, and finally success. IT held the bird out, inches from ITs snout.

“Bird, if you are His Lordship, shape-shift! Now!”

The owl remained an owl. IT roasted the bird in the air and, still flying, devoured it, savoring the crunch of the bones and beak, the tickle of the feathers descending along ITs gullet.

Owl, IT thought, symbol of wisdom, how fitting that you should be conjoined with my brilliance. If only you’d known, your last emotion would have been gratitude. Enh enh enh.

ITs thoughts turned darker. I take my precious self into danger for an ogre I esteem but do not love and for mountain folk I do not know, most of whom I would most certainly disdain. I leave at risk the only human I care deeply for. If a crisis comes to her . . . if she is attacked . . . if she is—I will not think it—I will be leagues away. I am unlikely to return in time to recover this Replica, and I will not be paid my fee. Folly. Folly. Folly.