Stolen Magic(52)

He’ll kill her! Elodie thought. “Don’t do—”

Ursa-bee cried, “Johan, you—”

“Johan-bee,” Master Uwald said silkily, “remember? We talked about this. Ludda-bee speaks harshly sometimes, but you rise—”

“I tell the truth!” Ludda-bee said. “Everyone needs to hear the truth.”

Johan-bee lowered the bow.

“Now help me.” Ludda-bee picked up one end of another trestle. “Stop playing the fool.”

“I’m guarding to keep people from leaving.”

Ludda-bee opened her mouth for a rejoinder, which might have gotten her shot, but Master Robbie spoke first.

“Master Uwald”—he’d reverted to the term he found more congenial—“if you leave, I won’t go with you when you return. High Brunka Marya told me I could live here.”

Master Uwald shook his head as if unsure of what he’d heard. “Who . . . what?”

“If you stay now, I’ll go with you later.”

“Son, Marya wants to imprison me, all of us.”

Ah. That’s the crux of it, Elodie thought. He isn’t a thief. He just can’t bear losing his freedom.

The bees finished setting up the table and placing the benches. Deeter-bee lumbered to the end of a bench and sat. Ludda-bee stumped into the kitchen.

Elodie thought, I’m not nearly as brilliant as IT, but maybe the others would deduce along with me. “Er . . . Master Uwald . . .”

“Yes?”

“Everyone . . .” This would be the end of appearing dull witted, but she hadn’t made much of a show of that anyway. “Masteress Meenore flew off in search of information, leaving me to continue unraveling the mystery, with Master Robbie’s help.”

He nodded. “Mistress Elodie is ITs assistant. IT pays her.”

“The dragon thought you might help?” Master Uwald asked, sounding proud.

“IT said I have an ‘original mind.’”

“I’ll wager you do.”

“They’re children!” Master Tuomo cried.

In the voice of a mansioner narrator, Albin intoned, “‘The foolishness of age, the wisdom of youth.’”

“Nonsense!”

Elodie went on as if Master Tuomo hadn’t spoken. “IT may have been delayed.” Injured or killed! “In the meanwhile, ITs method is to deduce and induce and—”

“Use common sense!”

Elodie nodded at Master Robbie. “Yes. But IT asks for others’ opinions, too, especially when IT’s thinking hard. IT liked Master Robbie’s idea. That’s why—”

“What idea, son?”

“That the thief might have made a replica of the Replica, and the actual Replica might have been stolen before High Brunka Marya showed it to us the first time.”

“Ingenious!” Master Uwald clapped his hands.

“But then,” Master Tuomo said, “Zertrum could have done its worst while we were still on it, or days ago.”

Elodie didn’t want Master Uwald to lose his enthusiasm. “Correct or not, it was clever. Masteress Meenore explained ITs thinking thus far to both of us. If we tell you, maybe all of us can determine what happened.”

“Please stay, Grand.”

Ludda-bee returned with a loaded tray. “I’m not laying out a full meal in the middle of the night.” She put the tray down. “You’ll have to make do with this.”

No one moved.

Ludda-bee rang her bell and didn’t stop ringing. People started toward the table. Elodie crouched to tie her bootlaces and delay sitting. Finally the clangor ceased. She stood and saw that almost everyone, including Master Uwald, was seated. Relief coursed through her. Only Johan-bee at the door and Mistress Sirka on the floor with the high brunka didn’t join them. Johan-bee closed the door with a creak and a thud.

Ludda-bee occupied the stool at the head of the table, farthest into the room, closest to the high brunka. The other stool stood empty. Elodie, feeling presumptuous, took it. She wanted to be able to see everyone, and she could, excepting Johan-bee at his post behind her.

Albin sat at her right and a bee she hadn’t met was at her left, until Master Robbie squirmed out of his place between Master Uwald and Ursa-bee and came around the table, where he squeezed onto the bench at her left.

Across from Master Uwald and Albin, Master Tuomo and Goodman Dror were on either side of Deeter-bee. The other places were filled by the bees who’d been searching the Oase beyond the great hall.

“I’ll stay for the meal,” Master Uwald said. “It would be foolish to leave hungry. Son, will that satisfy you?”

Master Robbie nodded.

Eat slowly, everyone! Elodie thought.

There seemed to be as many dishes as ever. No pottage, but a sausage-and-bean stew, along with poppy-seed rolls, spiced apples, long yellow beans, the eternal beets, and honey wafers.

Ludda-bee told Johan-bee to sit. When he told her twice and roared at her once that he wouldn’t, she filled a bowl and brought it to him. He put down his bow to eat.

“Well, girl?” Master Tuomo demanded.

Elodie tried to quell the flutter in her stomach. “Deeter-bee, would you tell everyone where the Replica was hidden?”