The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

party at all. At one stall, a short, stout man was telling a story to a group of small children. At another, she saw people tending to the wounded: a man with a bleeding hand, a boy with a broken arm, an old woman with a whiplash across her eyes. Clearly there was trouble in the city of Clarel.

At last she found the tunnel that led to the river. There were two people guarding the entrance, and she halted, wondering what to say to them. It wasn’t completely clear whether she was a prisoner in the Undercroft. She observed them for a while, trying to see what protocol she should follow, and realized they were only questioning people who entered the Undercroft. They didn’t seem to be too worried about who was leaving.

She took a deep breath and then sauntered casually toward them.

“Take care out there,” said one of the guards. “We’re hearing bad reports.”

“I will,” said Georgette, nodding pleasantly as she entered the tunnel.

It seemed almost no time at all before she was standing by the edge of the river, blinking in the sunshine. She scrambled up to the street and walked until the Undercroft entrance was out of sight. She searched along the river for the Furrier’s Bridge. That must be it, over there.

She breathed in and out, trying to stop the trembling in her legs. She didn’t know whether she was more frightened or excited.

Excited, she thought. That’s what I am.

Princess Georgette was out in the city of Clarel. And for the first time in her whole life, she was out by herself.

A TERSE NOTE FROM THE PALACE ABOUT THE disappearance of the princess arrived just after Cardinal Lamir’s breakfast. He threw his plate across the dining room and swept to his office in a state of frigid rage. The sight of Milan Ariosto waiting for him in the corridor did nothing to abate it.

Ariosto was paler than usual, and his expression was wary. He took note of the cardinal’s blackened eye but had no visible reaction. Of course Ariosto would know that a witch had escaped their clutches and, worse, knocked the cardinal out. Normally he would have betrayed at least a twitch of secret amusement.

“Well?” Lamir snapped as he locked the chamber door behind them. “Out with it. I know already that it’s not good tidings.”

“Yes, my lord.” Ariosto nervously licked his lips, another bad sign. “It seems that your translator has gone missing.”

“My translator?” For a second the cardinal didn’t know who Ariosto meant.

“Sibelius d’Artan, my lord.”

“What do you mean, he’s gone missing? He gave you the slip? I told you to keep him under surveillance.”

“We did as you ordered, my lord. We had a guard outside his chamber here, and of course all the usual security in the office. There is no sign of him anywhere this morning.”

“You mean that he’s vanished into thin air?”

“It seems so, my lord.”

“But the man’s a fool. How could he possibly have got past the assassins?”

“I agree that he’s a fool, my lord.” Ariosto licked his lips again. His mouth was very dry. “Nevertheless, he is certainly absent.”

There was a long, pregnant silence. Ariosto stared at his shoes, awaiting the cardinal’s punishment. There was no point defending himself. Losing track of a surveillance target was unforgivable. It had never happened before under Ariosto’s command. Not once.

The cardinal drew in a long, audible breath, and then spoke in an alarmingly even tone. “Tell me exactly what you know,” he said.

“Yes, my lord.” Ariosto’s voice was drained of all expression. “D’Artan was last seen when an orderly brought him a late supper at a quarter to midnight. All seemed normal. This morning at the prime bell the lamp was still burning. The guard assumed that he was working, or that he had perhaps fallen asleep. By the terce bell, he began to be worried. He knocked on the door to see if d’Artan wanted to break his fast and received no response. He then entered the room and found it empty.”

“Who was the guard?”

Ariosto decided to evade the answer. “One of my best men.”

“And the document d’Artan was investigating?”

“There is no sign of it either, my lord.”

Ariosto could feel the cardinal containing his rage.

“So. How did this d’Artan escape?”

“We presume he left by way of the window. It was found open.”

“I thought I told you to put d’Artan in an office that offered no chance of climbing out.”

“He was in one of the fifth-floor chambers. Even an assassin would be seriously challenged to climb down.”

“Are there bars on the window?”

Ariosto swallowed. “No, my lord. They didn’t appear to be necessary.”

“And you checked the ground below?”

“Naturally we considered that he might have taken his own life,” said Ariosto. “There is no sign of a corpse, nor of any violence.”

“Then it is definitely witchcraft. Again! In the center of the Office for Witchcraft Extermination!”

There was a long silence. Ariosto could feel the pressure building in the room. Shadows coalesced in the corners as if demonic shapes were forming there. He could almost hear them shifting in the darkness, slavering, unsheathing their claws. His throat tightened, but he couldn’t tell if that was the cardinal’s doing or his own fear.

He was ten years old again, back in the orphanage.

The worst thing that could happen to an orphan was to be called to the cardinal’s office on Visiting Day. Orphans who committed the worst transgressions were put on the List. Every week there would be three or four terrified boys standing in the corridor outside the office, waiting for judgment. Some boys never came out of that room, and nobody ever knew what happened to them.

Ariosto had only been in that queue once. Once was more than enough. It occurred to him, as he stood with downcast eyes in front of the cardinal, that his whole life had been formed around his desire never to stand in that corridor again. And yet, here he was . . .

“Let me