The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard
Author: Sarah Prineas
Date: 2014-09-16 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Magic; Short Stories; Young Adult; Middle Grade; Fiction; dragons; Adventure; Childrens; Mystery
Description: In this short-story follow-up to The Magic Thief: Home, Verent is sent to Wellmet to learn from a great and powerful wizard, and when he arrives he comes face-to-face with Conn. While he isn’t exactly what Verent expected, Conn may be exactly what he needs. The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard by Sarah Prineas has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Rights: Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Prineas

Dedication

Dedicated to
Bre Kenney,
the best reader ever

Contents

Dedication

The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard

Excerpt from The Magic Thief: Home

Back Ads

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard

To: The Senior Wizard Connwaer

Heartsease House, Wellmet

To my respected Colleague:

As a fellow Wizard I write to you, Connwaer, having heard of your great wizardly Deeds and having read your Disquisition on the draconic Nature of Magic. For our great City of Danivelle has been suffering from an alarming and perhaps even dangerous magical Condition, of which none of the senior Wizards in the City can discover a Cause nor a Cure.

We grow most Desperate and implore you to assist us in this Matter. Thus, Connwaer, we Wizards of Danivelle send to you one of my most junior Apprentices, Verent, who can most easily be spared at this terrible Time. Verent is a rather bumbling and not-at-all promising Apprentice, so you must treat him not as a proper Wizard, but simply as a simple Messenger. He has been instructed to describe to you our City’s mysterious Affliction and carry back to us your Letter describing what we must do to address the Problem.

Most sincerely, in great Haste and unease of Mind,

From: The Senior Wizard Sans-tête Poulet
Lagrand Place, City of Danivelle

Verent wasn’t sure why he’d been chosen for this mission. As an apprentice in his last year of schooling, he’d been ordered to go to Wellmet, a cold, rough, industrial city of the north, to meet with the wizard Connwaer, one of the great magisters of the age, who had written a revolutionary paper on the true nature of magic. Verent’s master thought that this wizard Connwaer might be able to help their own city, Danivelle, with a particularly sticky magical problem. Verent wanted to think he’d been chosen because he was the only one who could be trusted to complete the mission. But he suspected that wasn’t the reason. He knew his master thought he was a bumbling oaf of an apprentice.

Well, this time he would not make any stupid mistakes. No, this time he would prove his competence. Even if he really was just a messenger boy, he would bring back the solution to his city’s magical problem—he would save the day.

Wellmet itself didn’t make him feel very hopeful, though. As Verent stepped out of the boat that had ferried him from his ship to the dock, he surveyed the wharfs and warehouses of what seemed to be a very rundown, dirty part of the city. It stank of old fish and of . . . unmentionable things. Carefully Verent pulled a scented handkerchief from the pocket of his velvet apprentice’s robe and held it to his nose. He kept his other hand in his other pocket, gripping his coin purse. No doubt there were nasty pickpockets and thieves about.

Wellmet was very different from his own city, Danivelle, with its mighty towers, its wide bridges and clean, tree-lined streets. The magic here was promising, at least. Though Master Poulet had convinced him that he was a poor excuse for an apprentice, Verent was a wizard, and he could feel it, a doubled magic far more powerful than the magic of Danivelle. Powerful and possibly dangerous, just like the great wizard Connwaer. Verent shivered in the chilly wind.

Not to worry. Master Poulet had sent a letter ahead of him. Verent didn’t know what it said, but he knew he was expected. Also he was wearing a brand-new suit, his shoes were polished to a shine, and he was wearing a most elegantly scented cologne. He was determined to make a good impression.

The wizards of Wellmet, he knew, lived on islands in the river. It didn’t take him long to find a man with a boat willing to row him and his trunk of clothing and books and other magical supplies from the filthy docks to Heartsease.

“You’re a big fellow!” the boatman exclaimed, as Verent awkwardly lowered himself into the rowboat.

His size was perfectly obvious, Verent thought, and the man should speak more respectfully. Anyway, he wasn’t particularly large, for a man of Danivelle. It was just these Wellmet people were so small. Underfed, probably, given how poor and rundown the city was.

With a shrug, the boatman finished strapping down Verent’s trunk and settled in at the oars.

“Wizard, are you?” the boatman asked, looking over his shoulder to check their course.

“Yes,” Verent answered, not bothering to explain that he was really just an apprentice. He pulled back his velvet robe to reveal the locus magicalicus pinned to his coat. The stone was polished, as was the style in Danivelle, a hard green rock flecked with red.

“Been lots of wizardly doings here of late,” the boatman went on.

“Yes, I am aware of that.” Verent had heard many stories about the wizard Connwaer’s amazing magical feats. It was enough to make him nervous, the prospect of meeting a wizard of such eminence, such power. “Mind your oars, boatman,” he added crossly.

It didn’t take long before they arrived at Heartsease, the boatman casting worried eyes on the water slopping over the sides of the boat. Both Verent and his trunk were really too much cargo.

“All right and tight,” the boatman said with a relieved grin as Verent hauled himself onto the shore of one of the wizards’ islands. Verent paid the man—with a carefully calculated tip—and surveyed Heartsease. The island itself consisted of a tall, narrow, newly built house, a cobblestoned courtyard littered with building materials, and a huge black tree covered with black leaves. Verent shook his head. No, they weren’t leaves but sinister birds. He squinted. The birds, he realized, were watching him.

Leaving the trunk for one of the wizard Connwaer’s servants to fetch, Verent strode across the courtyard and, ignoring the birds, went up the stairs. After straightening his robe and making sure his hair was lying down flat instead of sticking up, as it tended to do, he knocked at the front door of Heartsease.

After he’d knocked again more loudly and impatiently, and waited a short while, the door was opened by a servant boy three or four years younger than he was, wearing a high-necked black sweater, overlong in the sleeves and unraveling along the bottom edge, brown trousers with a hole in one knee, and red woolen socks. One shoulder of the sweater, Verent noted, was shredded, as if something with sharp claws liked to perch there. A bird, perhaps. The boy’s dark hair needed cutting, and his eyes, which were bright blue and shadowed, as if he didn’t get enough sleep, regarded him questioningly.

“I am here to see the greatest wizard of your city,” Verent announced grandly.

The boy opened the door wider. “C’mon in. You’re Verent? From Danivelle?”

“I am he,” Verent said with what he hoped was a dignified nod. The boy led him down a short hallway and into a study with two wide windows letting in plenty of late-afternoon light, sturdy, comfortable chairs, a thickly carpeted floor, and a fireplace at the opposite end where a bright fire burned. Against the walls were shelves crammed full of books and magical devices. Verent didn’t see anything that looked like a grimoire—a wizard’s spellbook. Before the fire sat a white-and-tabby cat, which regarded him solemnly and then turned its head away. Everything, except the cat, was overlain with a collection of books, papers, dirty teacups, half-empty bottles of ink and what looked like slowsilver, and magical paraphernalia, bits of machinery, and boxes of screws and rusty gears.

Untidy, Verent thought. He swept his robe from his shoulders and held it out for the servant boy to take. “Here,” he prompted.

The boy stared blankly at the robe for a moment, then took it and tossed it over the back of a chair. “D’you want some tea?” he asked.

A Wellmet ritual, Verent was beginning to think. He’d been offered tea on the ship, as well, and at the docks when he’d gone into a shop to hire a boat. “Yes. I thank you,” Verent said. The climate here was cold and damp; maybe they needed frequent doses of hot tea to fortify themselves. Careful not to bump anything, he cleared room on a side table and set down his hat and gloves and, moving a few books from a chair to the floor, sat down. “If you please, will you tell me about him?” he asked.

The boy had crossed to the hearth. Pulling his sleeve over his hand for a pot holder, he took a steaming kettle off a trivet and carried it to the table, where he poured boiling water into a teapot. “Tell you about who?” the boy asked, replacing the lid of the pot.

The boy must be stupid, Verent thought. “I speak of the greatest wizard of our time, of course. What is he like?”

“Oh.” The boy returned to the hearth, where he crouched and set down the kettle. He seemed to be considering the question. “Well, some people are afraid of him.”

Verent swallowed. He shouldn’t be surprised, considering what he’d heard about the great wizard. Even Master Poulet spoke of Connwaer in awed tones. Connwaer, it was said, had singlehandedly defeated a plot to hold hostage Wellmet’s supply of magic. The villains, Verent had heard, had created a terrible device that, without Connwaer’s magical expertise, might have destroyed the practice of magic in Wellmet and beyond. Then, it was told, Connwaer had foiled an attempt by another magical being to feed on the magic of Wellmet and had bound both magics to the city, thus revealing the connection between magic and dragons. Now wizards across all the cities were debating his discoveries. Meeting the wizard responsible for such deeds made Verent nervous. “You’re afraid of him, you say?”

“Well, I’m not,” the boy answered. He went to the table and inspected a dirty teacup, which he polished with the hem of his sweater, then filled with hot tea from the pot. “But people who don’t know him are. He’s tall and stern, that’s one thing. And he’s got that old gray-bearded croakety-croak look, you know?”

“No, I do not,” Verent said stiffly. How impertinent. His own master, Senior Wizard Poulet, was very strict and stern, and he had a gray beard.

The boy grinned. “And he shouts a lot because he’s impatient. Sugar?” He held up a sugar bowl.

Verent nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Benet’s at the market. There isn’t any milk until he gets back.” The boy carried him a steaming cup—no saucer, Verent noted.

Carefully taking the tea, Verent nodded his thanks.

“But he loves doing magic, and talking about it, and he’s really very kind,” the boy said, filling his own cup and then sitting cross-legged on the hearthstone. The cat uncurled itself and climbed into his lap. “Be careful, Lady,” the boy said to the cat, “or I’ll spill tea on you.” With one hand he held the teacup; with the other he stroked the cat.

Verent took a sip of his own watery tea. “He is kind to you, then? Do you like serving him?”

“I’m not his servant,” the boy said flatly.

“Oh,” Verent said. “I beg your pardon.” The boy’s accent was lower class. It was a reasonable mistake.

The boy shrugged. “It’s all right. I used to be his apprentice.”

Oh, so the boy was a magical practitioner. But used to be, he had said. Most likely, Verent thought, he had failed his exams. He didn’t seem very bright.

The door burst open. Verent turned to see a girl with long braided blond hair, wearing an apprentice’s gray robe over a neat dress, poke her head into the room. “Aletho!” she said, excited. “And dimmertil, almost. Are you coming up?”

The boy put down his cup, set aside the cat, and got to his feet. “As soon as Pip gets back, Bre. Keep an eye on it.”

“Right-o,” the girl said cheerfully, and left.

Odd, Verent thought.

The boy had crossed to the table, where he rummaged in a box of springs and bits of metal parts. “D’you want to see what we’re working on?”

“Ah, no,” Verent answered. “I will wait here for the wizard Connwaer.”

The boy turned from the table, his eyes wide. “Oh. You think you’re waiting for Connwaer?”

“Yes, of course,” Verent answered. How rude. The boy ought to be calling him “sir”—Verent was an apprentice, after all, as his robe and shiny locus stone made clear—and then there was the girl apprentice popping in and out of the room like that. Really, the wizard ought to keep his people in better order.

“Drats,” the boy said. “Greatest wizard, you said. I thought your master’s letter must have been meant for Nevery instead. I’m Conn.”

The room spun around Verent, and he set down his teacup with shaking hands. This scruffy, scrawny boy in the holey sweater was the greatest wizard of the age? No, not possible. “You are Connwaer?” he asked.

The boy nodded.

Verent shook his head. “You can’t be. You’re lying.”

“I don’t lie about things like that,” the boy said.

“You expect me to believe that you wrote the disquisition on the draconic nature of magic?” Verent said in a choked voice.

“Yes,” Connwaer said. “Nevery helped, but the ideas in it are all mine.”

Verent pointed with a shaking finger. “I came all this way, and you are supposed to help us?”

Connwaer shrugged. “If I can.”

There was a knock on the door, and a huge, fierce-looking man stepped into the room, his bulk filling the doorway. “Magister Nevery should be done meeting with Duchess Rowan,” he said. “They’re expecting you at the Dawn Palace for dinner.”

Connwaer shot the big man a grin. “Think they’re serving biscuits, Benet?”

The man called Benet snorted. “Don’t be late, you.” He went out, closing the door behind him.

“Probably not,” Connwaer said to Verent, who could only stare blankly back at him.

Then the wizard . . . the boy . . . the whatever-he-was Connwaer went to one of the windows, opened it, and leaned out to shout one word, “Pip!” Seeing Verent’s confusion, he added over his shoulder, “My locus stone. It’s been out hunting pigeons all afternoon.” As if that explained it. “Pip!” he called a second time.

The door burst open. The same girl apprentice stood in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt again, Conn,” she said. “Aletho’s just going off. You’re going to miss it if you don’t come at once.”

Connwaer closed the window. “Oh. Keeston is around here someplace. In the library, I think. Run the rest of the experiment yourself and talk to him if you get into trouble.”

“Are you sure?” the girl asked.

Connwaer nodded.

“Righty-o, I’ll give it a go!” she said, and left, slamming the door behind her.

Verent gathered his gloves and hat into his lap. This was simply intolerable; he’d traveled all this way for nothing. Master Poulet was going to be furious.

“I have to meet Nevery,” Connwaer said. He rubbed his eyes as if weary. “Have you read Prattshaw’s treatise?”

Verent blinked. “No, I have not.”

“Right.” Connwaer went to the door, where he took a tattered gray apprentice’s robe from a hook and put it on.

Hah. That was proof the boy was not a proper wizard. “If you were a senior wizard, you’d have a finer robe,” Verent challenged.

Connwaer looked down at himself. Then he looked up, studying Verent, who sat up straight in his chair, feeling proud of his own neat suit, his shined shoes, the gleaming locus stone pinned to his coat.

“D’you think the magics care what kind of robe I’m wearing? Or if my sweater has a hole in it?” Connwaer asked. Without waiting for Verent to answer, he went on. “Read the Prattshaw for tomorrow. You’ll have to know a bit more about pyrotechnics before I can help you.”

But—pyrotechnics meant blowing things up. That was illegal in Danivelle!

Before Verent could protest, Connwaer had opened the door and called up a set of stairs, “Kees!”

After a moment, Verent heard a door open and another voice answer, “What?”

The boy stepped out into the hallway. “Can you look after Verent? The visitor from Danivelle? I have to meet Nevery.”

“Yes, of course,” the other voice said.

As Connwaer turned to face Verent, another wizard clattered down a set of stairs and joined him in the doorway, a tall boy with neatly combed blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a brown-and-black-checked robe. His accent was reassuringly upper-class, Verent noted. “This is Keeston,” Connwaer said. “He’ll look after you, and Benet’ll find you a place to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” He turned to leave, then paused to address Keeston. “D’you have a copy of Prattshaw for him? And the Jaspers, too, if you didn’t lend it to anybody.”

“I’ve got copies he can use,” Keeston said. Then he pointed at Connwaer’s feet. “Shoes?”

Connwaer looked down at his red fuzzy socks. “Drats.” Then he darted back into the study and grabbed a pair of scuffed boots from under the worktable.

“Off you go,” Keeston said.

With a wave, Connwaer left.

There was an awkward silence.

Verent stood up from his chair. “Actually—Keeston, is it? I do not think I shall be staying.”

Keeston raised his eyebrows. “No? You’ll at least have to stay the night, won’t you? It’s too late to get a boat now.”

Verent paused in pulling on his gloves. One night wouldn’t hurt. “Very well,” he said. “My trunk will have to be fetched from the shore.”

“Benet will help you with that later,” Keeston said. “Now, come with me and I’ll show you what we’re working on. I expect you’ll find it interesting.”

With a shrug, Verent followed him into the hallway and then up a plain stone stairway. As they climbed, Keeston pointed out doors. “That’s Nevery’s room, and the library. Conn’s is at the top. We use it for a workroom.”

They reached the top of the stairs and went in. Connwaer’s room had a bed and bookshelf crammed into one corner; the rest of it was used for magical work. The girl with the blond braids looked up from a sturdy table as they entered.

“Aletho’s gone off, Kees,” Bre said. “It’s hopeless without him.”

“I know,” Keeston said. “This is Verent. From Danivelle. Sent to get help with a magical problem from the great wizard Connwaer. But he doesn’t want to stay. He thinks, what?” He glanced at Verent for confirmation. “That Conn is too young?”

Verent nodded. “Indeed.”

“Too young to know anything,” Keeston said. “He was expecting somebody with a gray beard. And what else? Too scruffy?”

“Too short?” Bre added.

“He’s taller than you are,” Keeston shot back.

“He has the wrong accent,” Bre said. “Lower-class.”

Verent nodded. All those things were true. The students were looking at each other, grinning.

“What did he ask you to read?” Bre asked.

“Pyrotechnics,” Verent said disdainfully.

“Prattshaw,” Keeston added. “And the Jaspers treatise.”

The girl groaned. “You’d better read it.”

“Carefully,” Keeston added.

“Memorize it,” Bre said.

Verent looked down his nose at them. “Oh, is he going to test my knowledge of the text? He is years younger than I am. I am an apprentice at the finest academicos in Danivelle. I have been taught by the best teachers in the Peninsular city-states. Surely I am a more qualified wizard than he is.” He didn’t add that he’d barely passed his own exams, and that Master Poulet regularly berated him for his clumsiness. They didn’t need to know about that.

“Oh, you’re in for trouble,” Bre said.

“Indeed?” Verent asked.

Bre nodded. “He’s read an amazingly lot of books, and he remembers everything.”

“An amazingly lot?” Keeston repeated, eyebrows raised.

Bre stuck her tongue out at him.

Grinning, Keeston hoisted himself onto one of the high stools at the table. “Conn has some very strange ideas about magic. It makes the city’s magisters furious. You should hear the shouting at their meetings.”

Bre asked, “Did he ask you to join him in the morning?”

Verent nodded.

“Be ready before sunrise, then,” she said. “I don’t think he ever sleeps. He certainly works us hard when we’re here.”

The wizard Connwaer sounded precocious and awful, Verent thought. “You must hate him very much,” he said. He hated most of his strict teachers at the Danivelle academicos.

The other two stared at him. “No, not at all,” Keeston said.

“He studies things the other wizards are afraid to even think about,” Bre said. “I’m not his apprentice, and neither is Kees, but he helps us with magical experiments that our regular teachers would never allow.”

Keeston shrugged. “You’ll see, if you decide to stay.”

If? Verent shook his head but kept his thoughts to himself. As soon as he could arrange it, he was leaving this dirty, uncivilized place and going back to Danivelle. Yes, it would mean he’d failed his mission, but that’s what his master was expecting, wasn’t it?

Still, the next morning Verent found himself wide-awake before sunrise in a bed that was too short for him and creaked every time he turned over, so he got up and finished reading the pyrotechnics book. Then he dressed in his finest suit, polished his locus stone, neatly combed his hair, and buffed his shoes.

D’you think the magics care what kind of robe I’m wearing? the boy had said the day before.

The magics probably didn’t care, Verent had to admit. Still, he needed to look his best. If he looked presentable, maybe they wouldn’t notice how clumsy and stupid he was. Ready, he went down to the kitchen where he’d had dinner the night before with the surly manservant, Benet.

They’d had biscuits. He’d eaten six of them, with butter and jam.

As he hesitated in the kitchen doorway, Benet, at the stove, gave him a glare; at the table, an old, gray-bearded man looked up and narrowed his eyes. “Verent, is it? I am Nevery.”

“Ah. Uh. Good morning, sir,” Verent stammered. Collecting himself, he gave a careful bow. Unlike Connwaer, Nevery looked like a proper wizard.

Nevery nodded at the other chair. “Sit.”

Verent sat. The kitchen was warm and smelled deliciously of bacon frying. Verent’s stomach gave a hungry rumble.

The servant, Benet, set a cup of steaming tea before him with a clatter.

“Thank you,” Verent said, but Benet ignored him.

“Hmph,” Nevery said, and went back to his book.

Verent sipped his tea and then dared to speak. “Um, Senior Wizard Nevery,” he began. “Sir, I have come all the way from Danivelle for help with a magical problem that is troubling my city. I am wondering if perhaps you could—”

“No, I could not,” Nevery interrupted. “Benet,” he said sharply. “Has the boy been down yet?”

“No, sir,” the servant answered. He turned from the stove and set a tray on the table; on the tray was a teacup and teapot, a basket of muffins wrapped in a napkin to keep them warm, a plate of fragrant crispy bacon, and another plate of hot fried eggs. “Here,” he said. “Breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Verent said, feeling brighter. The big man could bake; he knew that much. If the muffins were as delicious as his biscuits . . .

“It’s not for you,” Benet growled, turning away.

Nevery nodded at the tray. “Bring it up to Conn. Top floor.”

Verent was used to taking orders from his own master. “Yes, sir!” he said, lurching to his feet, bumping the table, earning another glare from the old wizard when tea slopped from his cup. Quickly he picked up the tray and left the kitchen, climbing four floors to the top of the house, where Keeston had shown him the wizard Connwaer’s workroom the night before. Balancing the tray with one hand, he knocked at the door.

There was no answer.

Verent leaned in and put his ear against the door. He heard nothing.

Hah. The so-called wizard Connwaer was probably sound asleep in his bed. Time to catch him lazing the morning away. Seizing the knob, Verent flung open the door and strode into the room.

The boy, wearing the same holey black sweater he’d had on the day before, sat with his back to the door, staring at something on the tabletop. “Shhh,” he whispered.

Verent froze. The air smelled of acrid smoke and of something sharp and metallic. Some sort of experiment. From his late-night reading of the Prattshaw treatise, he knew enough to guess that it had something to do with pyrotechnics.

At the table, Connwaer bent to peer into a mortar. He seemed to be counting under his breath, and he held a glass rod ready, as if to stir whatever he was cooking. The room felt thick with magic. A stuffed toy dragon about the size of a kitten, with green scales and glittering glass eyes, rested on the tabletop. Next to it was a saucer of what looked like slowsilver and a glass vial of green crystals.

Verent held his breath. Despite his best intentions, he was curious. Still holding the breakfast tray, he edged closer to the table. Peering over Connwaer’s shoulder, Verent saw a mortar full of a bubbling thick green liquid. “What are you doing?” he whispered.

As he spoke, the stuffed dragon on the table moved, turning its head to fix Verent with a flame-bright eye. Startled, Verent bumped the table; the mortar wobbled and burped out a puff of black smoke streaked with purple that rolled up to the ceiling and burst into a shower of blue and red sparks.

Verent gasped and staggered back but managed to keep the muffin basket and teapot and plates of bacon and fried eggs from spilling off the tray. An eye-wateringly foul smell filled the room. Coughing, the wizard Connwaer went to the window and opened it, and then returned to the table, where he checked the now-empty mortar. Then he looked at the ceiling, which was slightly scorched.

“Well, that could’ve been worse,” he muttered, and turned to face Verent.

Verent stared as the dragon climbed up Connwaer’s arm to perch on his shoulder, wrapping its tail around the boy’s neck like a scarf. “What—” Verent stuttered. “What is—” He pointed.

“Pip,” Connwaer explained. “My locus magicalicus.”

“Ah—I—ah . . .”

“Dragon,” the boy added, with a grin.

“I—I see,” Verent got out. None of the stories he’d heard about the wizard Connwaer had mentioned that his locus stone was a live dragon, of all things.

“Breakfast?” Connwaer asked.

“Yes, of course,” Verent said quickly. With a clatter, he shoved the mortar and the glass vials out of the way and set the breakfast tray on the table. Then he turned to leave.

“Wait,” the boy wizard interrupted. “Benet sent enough for both of us. And I want to talk to you about the magical problem in Danivelle. It sounds interesting.”

Slowly Verent approached the table again. He brushed down the front of his fine coat and straightened his collar, and then heaved himself onto one of the high stools, trying not to bump the table again. Connwaer nudged the baby dragon so that it hopped from his shoulder to the tabletop; then he poured Verent a cup of tea and fetched himself a dirty teacup from the clutter on the tabletop, cleaning it on the hem of his sweater before pouring his own tea.

The tiny dragon inspected the breakfast tray. A wisp of smoke drifted up from its nostrils.

“You hungry, Pip?” the wizard Connwaer asked. He scooped a fried egg onto a plate and set it out for the baby dragon. It put its front paws on the edge of the plate and slurped up the egg.

“Senior Wizard Connwaer,” Verent began, keeping an eye on the dragon. It was small, but it looked dangerous. “I don’t—”

“Just Conn,” the boy interrupted. “Did you read the Prattshaw?”

Verent blinked. “Yes, I did. Pyrotechnics is against the law in Danivelle.”

“It’s against the law here, too,” Conn said. “Sort of. Have a muffin.” He took a piece of bacon and held it up. “D’you want bacon, Pip?” he asked.

The dragon looked up from its plate, egg yolk dripping from its snout. It gave its scaled tail a twitch.

Conn added the bacon to its plate. Then he climbed onto a stool. “Your master wrote in his letter that you’re having magical troubles in Danivelle. What’s been happening, exactly?”

Verent hesitated. To answer was to admit that this extremely strange boy might actually be able to help him, and Danivelle. Maybe he should stay silent. But he’d come all this way . . .

While he thought, he ate a muffin—a particularly delicious muffin—and then dusted the crumbs from his fingers. When he’d washed it down with a long drink of tea, he started describing what had been happening in Danivelle for the past few months. The odd gaps in the city’s magic—random werelights going dark, a street corner where all magic-powered vehicles rolled to a stop, certain rooms in certain houses where no magic could be found. “As if, in these small areas, the magic has disappeared,” Verent concluded. “Then, after a while, it returns again, and disappears somewhere else.”

Conn was listening intently. He set down a half-eaten muffin. “How big are the dead spots, d’you think?” he asked.

Verent shrugged. “Oddly, they are all about the same size. A few feet across, perhaps.”

“In random places around the city?”

“As I said,” Verent said. It was highly unlikely that this boy wizard would be able to help.

“I think I know what the problem is,” Conn said. “You know how the magic of any city was once a dragon, right?”

“Yes, I have read the disquisition on the draconic nature of magic,” Verent answered. The one this boy claimed to have written.

“Well, dragons are living creatures like any others, and they can have the usual sorts of problems that living creatures have.”

“What is your point?” Verent asked, growing impatient.

Conn grinned. “You have fleas.”

Verent frowned. The very idea! He took a bath every single day! “I do not!”

“Not you,” Conn said. “The magic of your city.”

On the table, the baby dragon eyed Verent and then, deliberately, lifted a hind leg to scratch its ear. Verent’s own ear suddenly felt itchy, and he forced himself not to scratch it. “Fleas?” he asked.

“Well, not fleas, exactly,” Conn said. “It’s a kind of magical thing like a flea that sucks small amounts of magic out of the magical being of your city.”

Verent leaned forward, his breakfast forgotten. “Like a kind of parasite, you mean?”

“Right,” Conn said, with a nod.

Verent shook his head. “It sounds serious. Could these parasites drain all the magic from Danivelle?”

“Not any more than a couple of fleas could drain all the blood from a dog. They’re just a nuisance. We should be able to figure out something to help.”

“We’ll do experiments with pyrotechnics?” Verent asked, feeling a surprising jolt of excitement. His master would scold him for such interest, but he couldn’t help it.

Conn grinned at him, his eyes sparkling. “Yes, pyrotechnics. But,” he said, looking around his workroom, “not in here.”

After Conn had handed him an armful of supplies to carry, Verent followed him down the stairs and out to the courtyard that lay before Heartsease. The cobblestones were slick with rain and dotted here and there with muddy puddles. It smelled of murky river and of baking biscuits from Benet’s kitchen.

“That’s the Sunrise over there,” Conn said, pointing with his chin, as his arms were full of bottles and a sack. The tiny dragon clung to the boy’s shoulder, further shredding his knitted sweater with its claws.

Verent saw, on the east bank of the river, a set of neatly laid-out city streets leading to a fine palace on a hilltop.

“And the Twilight over there,” Conn added.

Ah. A much smaller and darker part of the city, on the other bank of the river. That was where his ship had landed. “The Twilight is full of thieves and other riffraff, I suppose,” Verent said with a sniff.

For some reason, that made Conn smile. “And pickpockets, sure as sure,” he said. He looked up at the tree that spread its black branches over their heads and set down the things he was carrying. “This is a good place.” The little dragon hopped to the cobblestones and cocked its head, watching.

Being extra careful not to drop anything, Verent set down the wooden box he was carrying. Then he laid one of his scented handkerchiefs on the cobblestones and knelt on it—to protect his trousers from the damp and mud. “Why must we do the experiment out here?” he asked.

Connwaer was pulling vials and bottles from the box. “Oh, well.” He paused. “I blew up Heartsease.”

“Blew it up?” Verent repeated, aghast.

“More than once,” Conn said, with a wry shrug.

“That’s terrible,” Verent said. The doubts were rising again. A proper wizard would never take such dangerous risks, would he?

The boy’s keen blue eyes were studying him again. “D’you think wizards never make mistakes, Verent?”

Verent blinked. “I wouldn’t think— I mean . . .”

“Your master never makes any mistakes at all?” the boy went on.

Verent thought of stern, gray-bearded Senior Wizard Poulet, who scolded every time Verent put a foot wrong. “No,” he said bleakly. “I don’t think he does.”

“Well, then he doesn’t ever do anything interesting,” Conn muttered.

“My master is a very great wizard,” Verent said stiffly. Trusting this young scamp with the health of his city—it was not a good idea. He knew what Master Poulet would say: This was a terrible idea, and Verent was being an incompetent fool—as usual—for going along with it.

“Hold this,” Conn said, and handed him a glass vial. Verent inspected it. Inside the vial was some kind of black liquid, or extremely fine powder, and the slightest movement sent it swirling into smoky eddies. “And this,” Conn said, handing him another vial that was icy cold to the touch but filled with what looked like purple sand.

“Right,” Conn said, sitting back on his heels and surveying the pyrotechnic materials he’d set out on the cobblestones. “This could be interesting.”

What did he mean, exactly, by interesting? “I’m—I’m not sure—”

“Don’t worry,” Conn reassured him. “We’ll be careful.”

Careful, was it? From a boy who’d blown up his own house more than once? Still, even though he knew his master would not approve, Verent watched with growing interest as Conn assembled the pyrotechnic spell, trying to follow the boy’s explanation of what he was doing. They wanted a small explosion, he said, precisely controlled, just enough to get the parasite’s attention, and then a banishing word—but not enough to alarm Danivelle’s magic in any way. It was all highly esoteric and difficult to follow. Verent pulled a small notebook and pencil from the pocket of his apprentice’s robe and started jotting down hurried notes, his handwriting worse than usual. Hopefully he’d be able to make sense of it later. “You put the shadowbane in next?” he asked.

“No!” Conn said, and gave Verent a wide-eyed look. “That would be, well, not a very good idea.” With scarcely a pause for breath, he rattled off a paragraph of explanation that was, Verent realized, straight from the Prattshaw book on pyrotechnics. The other wizard Keeston was right—he really did have it memorized. “And don’t worry,” Conn added quickly. “I’ll write it all down for you.” He paused. “Or maybe Keeston will do it.”

With a sigh of relief, Verent put his notebook away.

“Ready?” Conn asked, and held up the vial full of purple crystals. “D’you want to add the last ingredient?” He pointed to a silver bowl on the cobblestones, where the rest of the pyrotechnic materials bubbled and smoked.

Verent blinked. “Well, I suppose . . .” He was only pretending to hesitate, though. This really was interesting, and he did want to try it. Master Poulet would never trust him to complete a spell like this.

“Good,” Conn said, handing him the vial. “Just a—”

As he spoke, Verent tipped the vial, emptying a stream of scintillant crystals into the silver bowl.

“—just a pinch!” Conn shouted.

But it was too late. The purple crystals hit the pyrotechnic materials, and an enormous flash and a percussive boom rolled out along with a wave of heat that scorched up Verent’s nattily suited front, singeing off his eyebrows and the front of his neatly combed hair, then flinging him back onto the muddy cobblestones. A tight column of smoke and flame beamed from the silver bowl, cutting a narrow swath through the black branches of the tree. Beside him, Conn covered his face with his arm while his dragon clung to his hair with its claws.

Blinking the smoke and flame from his eyes, Verent saw Conn shouting magical spellwords, and abruptly the roaring of the explosion stopped, and the smoke and flame died back into the bowl as if Conn had put a magical lid on it. A sudden silence fell.

Coughing, Verent got to his feet. He felt bruised all over. His face felt red and scorched. His eyelashes had been singed off, too. His suit and robe were covered, front and back, with ashes and mud puddle. He checked and—yes, his hair was sticking up straight on his head.

Oh, what a fool he was! If he’d done such a careless thing at home in Danivelle, Master Poulet would be shouting at him, telling him he’d never be a proper wizard and threatening to take away his locus magicalicus. He knew, because he’d made mistakes before. Not as bad as this mistake, but bad enough. Steeling himself, expecting the worst, he faced the wizard Connwaer.

Instead of shouting and scorn, Conn was getting to his feet, rubbing a bit of ash from his face. He looked up at the column of broken branches over the silver bowl. His dragon locus stone hopped from the top of his head to the shredded shoulder of his knitted sweater. “Mind the claws,” Conn said absently, and crouched to examine the silver bowl.

“I’m—I’m very sorry about that,” Verent stammered.

Without answering, Conn picked up the bowl and tilted it, as if trying to see something better. “That’s strange,” he said.

Verent felt a twist of dread. Connwaer was going to write his master a letter, complaining about his clumsiness, his ineptness, his basic wizardly incompetence. How was he going to explain the failure of his mission?

Suddenly Conn leaped to his feet, still holding the bowl. “That should not have happened.”

“I know,” Verent said miserably. “I can only offer my most abject apology, and—”

“No,” Conn interrupted, with a flashing grin. “I mean it’s brilliant, Verent. The residue here. See?” He held up the bowl and tilted it.

Leaning closer, Verent peered into it. Sure enough, inside the curve of the bowl was a thin sheen of glistening dust.

“It shouldn’t be there,” Conn explained. “I think you’ve discovered a completely new pyrotechnic material.”

“I—I have?” Verent stuttered. “Will it work to stop the magical fleas in Danivelle?”

Conn shrugged. “The spell will work for that, I think. But this is different, and it’s a lot more interesting.”

Verent was starting to realize what Conn meant by interesting. “You mean dangerous?”

Conn’s eyes gleamed. “Maybe. We’ll have to do some more experiments to find out.”

We, he had said. “You want me to join you?” Verent asked hesitantly.

“Of course I do,” Conn answered. “It was your discovery.” He crouched to set the bowl on the ground, and his dragon leaped from his shoulder to sniff at it. “Don’t eat that, Pip,” he warned. He glanced up at Verent. “All right?”

Verent’s heart pounded. Did he dare? Should he agree to help Conn with his experiments? Or would that be a mistake? He knew what Master Poulet would say: Don’t be any more of an idiot than you already are, Verent.

Conn got to his feet. “Let’s have lunch and we can talk it over. I’ll write out the experiment for you, but I have to warn you. My handwriting’s terrible.” He gave a wry grin. “Nevery’s always complaining about it.”

“My handwriting is terrible too,” Verent confessed, falling into step with Conn as they crossed the courtyard to Heartsease. “Master Poulet scolds me most harshly about it.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he does,” Connwaer muttered, and he frowned down at the cobblestones as they walked. Then, suddenly, he stopped. “Look, Verent. Wizards make mistakes all the time,” he said. “Sometimes I make really huge ones that I feel terrible about after.” He glanced at Heartsease—the building he’d blown up more than once, he’d said. “But some of the things I’ve done turned out to not be mistakes at all. D’you know what I mean?”

Before, Verent would not have understood what Conn was asking. But the pyrotechnic explosion had rattled something loose in his brain. Maybe . . . maybe you couldn’t tell a proper wizard by his fancy robe or by his age or by how long or how gray his beard was. Maybe a wizard couldn’t be too careful; a wizard needed to try things that were interesting and maybe dangerous, and sometimes that meant making mistakes.

Oh, how Master Poulet would scold if he could see Verent now. He’d call him an oaf and say that Verent was just about to make the biggest mistake of his entire life.

But he didn’t care. “Yes, Conn,” Verent answered at last. “I do know what you mean. And . . . and I do want to help you with your pyrotechnic experiments.” He couldn’t wait to go back to Danivelle and tell stern Senior Wizard Poulet and the other graybeards that Danivelle’s problem was that its magic had fleas. And that they’d have to do pyrotechnics to get rid of them.

Conn nodded. “Good.” They turned to continue across the courtyard. As they walked, the little dragon swooped past them, then banked and, with a flutter of its golden wings, landed on Conn’s shoulder, clinging with its sharp claws.

“You . . .” Verent began. “If you put a leather patch on your sweater, it wouldn’t be shredded by the dragon’s claws.”

Conn blinked, and then shot Verent a quick grin. “You mean I’d look more like a proper wizard and less like a pickpocket from the Twilight? Is that what you’re saying?”

Verent started to nod, and then he stopped. “Well, no. Maybe a wizard could look a lot like a thief.”

For some reason, that made Conn burst out laughing. The dragon on his shoulder lashed its tail.

Smiling widely, Verent looked down at himself. His new suit was muddy and scorched, and the hem of his robe was torn, and his shoes had lost their shine. He sniffed at his sleeve; it smelled like smoke. “You know, Conn, I am never going to be a proper wizard,” he admitted. “But I am going to be a wizard that makes excellent mistakes.” Then he started laughing too.

And he and his friend, the not-at-all-proper wizard Conn, went into Heartsease and had biscuits and tea for lunch.

Excerpt from The Magic Thief: Home

See how Conn grew to become a great and powerful wizard in the Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas. In The Magic Thief, Conn goes from gutterboy to wizard’s apprentice, and his talents only grow in The Magic Thief: Lost and The Magic Thief: Found. But can Conn ever escape his past life as a thief?

Read a sneak peek of The Magic Thief: Home, the fourth book in the thrilling series, now!

Chapter 1

A thief is nothing like a fine gentleman.

A wizard isn’t, either.

“I know who I am, Ro,” I said. “And I’m not somebody who goes to meetings.”

But there I was in a meeting room, even though I didn’t want to be. At least it was mostly empty, just Rowan and me. The room had shiny marble floors, tree-shaped pillars against the walls, and high, arched windows. One of the windows had a stained-glass tree built into it, and when the light from outside came through it, the room turned green. Sitting at the end of the table, with the green light shining over her and making her look a little green herself, was Rowan, my best friend, who happened to be the duchess of our city, Wellmet. She wore a green velvet dress and had her red hair in a braid down her back; she also had on her gold spectacles and an impatient look.

“I know you know who you are,” Rowan said crossly. “You are the same Conn you ever were. And,” she went on, “I need you to attend this meeting. It’s important.” She got to her feet and came over to me, where I stood by the door. “All right?”

Before I could say no, a polite little knock interrupted us.

“What is it?” Rowan called.

The door opened and a tall, paper-thin woman edged into the room. She had on a green dress like Rowan’s, but with neat white cuffs and collar, and had her gray hair scraped back into a tight bun. Her mouth was scraped into a tight smile. “Duchess,” she said in a scrapy voice, “I am so exceedingly sorry to intrude, but it is past time for the meeting to begin. You know how important it is to be punctual.”

Rowan sighed. “Yes, all right, I know.” She nodded at the woman. “Conn, this is Miss Dimity, my new secretary.” She pointed at me. “Miss Dimity, Conn is . . . um . . . a rather special wizard.”

Miss Dimity looked me up and down, and her eyes bulged, as if she didn’t like what she was seeing. She sniffed and turned to Rowan. “Duchess? May I show them in?”

Rowan said yes, and her councilors and advisors—and a couple of magisters—trooped in. Most of them frowned when they saw me and went to settle in their places at the long table.

“Hello, cousin,” said Embre, the Underlord who ran the Twilight part of the city, as he rolled past me in his wheeled chair. He was a thin young man a bit older than Rowan, dressed in black trousers and coat that matched his black hair.

Rowan, looking duchessly, went to sit at the head of the table.

The chair at her right was empty. She pointed at it—my seat.

Kerrn, the captain of the palace guards, was taking her place at the other end of the table, and she gave me a sharp glance with her ice-chip blue-gray eyes. I knew what she was thinking: I have got my eye on you, thief.

Nevery had come in, too, and was smiling and pulling on the end of his beard.

“Won’t you sit down?” Rowan said, watching me carefully.

“Ro—” I started.

“Conn,” Rowan hissed through gritted teeth. “Sit down.”

Oh, all right. I walked ’round the table to the empty chair. Whispers followed me. Why has the duchess invited him? The gutterboy? What’s Nevery’s cursed apprentice doing here?

“Well, boy?” Nevery whispered to me as I slid into my chair.

“Why does she want me here?” I whispered back.

“Hmm,” he said, no answer. “You ought to have your locus magicalicus with you. Where is it?”

Pip, he meant. I shrugged. The dragon Pip was about the size of a kitten, but much more fierce. Its true name was Tallennar, but when I wasn’t doing magic I called it Pip for a nickname. When I had found my second locus magicalicus stone, Pip had swallowed it, and the stone was still inside it—so now I needed Pip with me if I wanted to do any magic. It was probably off hunting pigeons. It liked to eat them whole, spitting out the feathers.

Beside me, Rowan cleared her throat. “I have called this meeting today for two reasons. One is because, as we are all aware, we now have two magics—magical beings, I should say—settled in our city, a change that I am certain will affect us all in some way. As Magister Brumbee has informed me, there is no precedent for such a thing. Isn’t that right, Brumbee?”

“Ah, yes.” Brumbee, a plump wizard sitting down the table from me, nodded. “The two, ah, magics. We do not know yet how they will work together, or indeed, even if they will. A concern, indeed.”

On the other side of the table, Magister Trammel leaned forward, scowling. “The two magics are converging over the hospital on the medicos island, and our healing spells are effecting in unexpected ways. Look at this.” He pointed at the man sitting next to him. An old, mournful-faced man, wearing a tall black hat. “Just this morning we treated this man for a headache, and look!” Trammel reached over and took off the man’s hat. Where his hair should have been, a crop of flowers sprang up, bright yellow and white. The old man nodded sadly, and the flowers bobbed on their long stems.

“Daisies!” Trammel complained. “Sprouting from his head! It’s terrible!” He shot me an angry glance.

Another magister, the bat-faced, bat-eared Nimble, spoke up in his whiny voice. “We all know who to blame, too, don’t we?”

I slouched lower in my seat. The city had two magics because I was the one who had given the Arhionvar magic a place here, instead of banishing it forever. The magisters blamed me for the upset that occurred when Arhionvar had first arrived: There had been whirlwinds and flaming rocks raining down from the sky, and parts of the Twilight had been burned down or blown away, and the magics still hadn’t worked themselves out. They were two huge creatures yoked together, but they were pulling in different directions. I could feel how upset they were—any wizard could feel it if he or she paid attention. It was like an uneasiness in the air, like that moment right before lightning strikes in the middle of a towering thunderstorm.

Was this why Ro wanted me at the meeting? So I could listen to the magisters growling about the problem of having two magics in Wellmet?

Brumbee nodded. “The magics are entangled in some way over the academicos, too. Or perhaps entangled is not the right word. Overlapping? Linked in some way?” He leaned over to glance at Trammel, down at the other end of the table. “What do you think, Trammel?”

“Completely and incomprehensibly ruined, I should say,” Trammel answered sharply.

“Oh, dear,” Brumbee said. “Ruined is too strong a word, I think. Yet I cannot quite know what to expect whenever I take out my locus magicalicus to do a spell. The apprentice students find it most alarming.”

I nodded.

Rowan saw. “You have something to add, Conn?”

Not really. “No,” I said. But I’d start working to figure it out as soon as I could. The magisters were sort of right. I’d given the Arhionvar magic a place here, with the old Wellmet magic, and so the two-magic problem was my responsibility. But the two magics were very different from each other. The Wellmet magic was much older, and it felt warm and comforting, but it was weak, too. The Arhionvar magic wasn’t evil, it was just much stronger; it felt like a mountain, cold and stony, but it could be like a solid, protecting wall, too. It’d been alone for a long time, searching for a city so it wouldn’t be alone anymore. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to do to get them both settled here in Wellmet.

Nevery gave me one of his keen-gleam looks.

I know, Nevery. But if I said anything, the magisters would just get angry—angrier—and that wouldn’t help anything.

Rowan sighed. “I repeat. I am sure you know more about the magics than anyone here, Conn. You have something to add?”

I sat up straighter. All right. “You know that the magics aren’t just”—I shrugged—“not just clouds of magic floating around. They’re beings that were once dragons.”

“Not everyone agrees with that radical notion,” Nimble whiningly interrupted.

“It doesn’t matter if you agree with it or not,” I shot back. “That’s what they are. The magics are huge and powerful. They’re drawn to the city because there are people here, and it means they’re not alone, and they do want what’s best for us, but they can’t understand us. We’re tiny to them, so tiny they can hardly perceive us individually. Only a wizard with a locus stone can speak to them so that they’ll hear.” I looked around the table. Most of them were staring and it was clear as clear that they weren’t really understanding.

Nevery, though, was nodding. “Go on, Connwaer,” he ordered.

“Right, well, we can’t control them. I don’t know what it means that we have two magics now. They might be twice as powerful. They might work together, or they might not. Everything about the magics could stay the same, or it could change.”

Nimble whined about that, and Trammel banged his fist, and Brumbee said, “Oh, dear,” and then they argued about the magic problem for a long time, with nothing decided except to form a committee to talk about it some more, and two subcommittees for what they called related issues.

This was why I didn’t go to meetings.

“And now,” said Rowan at last, “the second reason I called today’s meeting.” She smiled brightly, but she wasn’t fooling me. She was nervous. “I’m pleased to inform you all that I am hereby naming Connwaer”—she pointed at me—“the new ducal magister.”

I sat up straight in my chair. What?

“What!” shouted Trammel, leaping to his feet. “That gutterboy?”

“Unthinkable!” shouted Nimble from across the table, and the councilors and advisors exclaimed and shook their heads.

“Oh, dear.” Magister Brumbee wrung his hands and looked worriedly ’round the table. “Oh, dear me.”

My cousin Embre was grinning across at me, his black eyes sparkling. Rowan sat there looking duchessly, waiting for the bubbling and boiling to die down.

Beside me, Nevery was smiling.

“You knew she was going to do this,” I accused.

His smile broadened. “It’s a very great honor, boy,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise.

A very great honor, he called it? Not likely. The ducal magister was the most powerful wizard in the city. That wasn’t so bad, but the ducal magister had to wear fancy clothes and go to lots of boring meetings, and he had to live in gold-encrusted rooms in the Dawn Palace instead of at home where he belonged.

If I was the ducal magister, the other wizards would always look at me funny; they’d never trust me—as far as they were concerned, I was either a gutterboy thief or I was the dangerously radical wizard they blamed for the two-magic problem.

At the head of the table, Rowan raised her hand, and after a few moments the people around the table quieted down. “I can see there is some concern—” she began, and the hubbub boiled up again.

Right at that moment, I heard a tap-tap-tap at one of the tall windows. Pip, back from hunting pigeons, wanting to come in out of the rain.

I got up and opened the window. In a whirl of golden wings and emerald-green scales, Pip tumbled into the room, shedding raindrops. Catching the air with its wings, it flapped to the table and landed in the middle of it, lashing its tail.

All of the magisters and councilors and advisors stopped talking and stared.

Then, its claws leaving scratches on the shiny tabletop, Pip crawled over to my place. It fixed me with an ember-bright red eye, opened its mouth, and dropped something on the table in front of me.

A shiny black shard of rock on a golden chain.

“Is that—” Brumbee said, craning his neck to look.

“A locus stone!” exclaimed Trammel.

Brumbee peered more closely at it. “My goodness! That’s the locus stone of my apprentice, Keeston. It went missing last night!”

I recognized it, too. Without thinking, I reached out and picked it up.

The other wizards at the table gasped; Brumbee ducked behind his raised arms. Beside me, Nevery snatched up his cane and leaped to his feet.

The stone and its length of chain lay in my hand. I felt a buzz from it, a tingling that ran up my finger bones and itched in the bones of my arm.

I shouldn’t have been able to touch someone else’s stone at all. True, I’d stolen Nevery’s locus stone when I’d been a pickpocket gutterboy, and the stone hadn’t killed me, but that’d been strange enough that he’d taken me on as his apprentice afterward. Anybody else in the city would die if they touched a wizard’s locus magicalicus. Even a wizard would die if he or she touched another wizard’s locus stone.

That meant if this stone had gone missing, only one person in the city could have taken it.

The other magisters knew this. They were all staring at me, and Captain Kerrn at the other end of the table was glaring, and it was clear as clear what they were thinking.

Thief.

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About the Author

SARAH PRINEAS lives in the midst of the corn in rural Iowa and can usually be found writing fantasy novels on a stealthy silver MacBook Air called Dash. Prineas’s Magic Thief series introduced readers to the irascible wizard Nevery and his gutterboy apprentice, Connwaer. Sarah holds a PhD in English literature and recently taught honors seminars on fantasy and science fiction literature at the University of Iowa. She has an amazing dragon action-figure collection and occasionally bakes biscuits (although she says hers never seem to turn out as tasty as Benet’s do in The Magic Thief). She is also the author of Winterling, Summerkin, and Moonkind.

Sarah is married to John Prineas, a physics professor, which comes in handy when she’s writing about magic. They are the parents of Maud and Theo. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Copyright

Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Prineas

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

EPub Edition © 2014

ISBN: 978-0-06-229023-6

EPUB Edition JULY 2014 ISBN 9780062290236

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