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  Ordinary. There was something about the ordinary that was powerfully attractive to him. He wanted to go to Arcanum and explore it during the day, to eat its food, walk in its shops and markets, be among its people and hear them speaking and laughing and crying. This was a yearning that he had felt often in his life, and yet he had always buried it deep in his heart, knowing that it could never be. The few friends he had on the island were to be his only real companions.

  Now all of that had begun to change. It was both thrilling and terrifying, because that change had already twice endangered his life.

  Across the ocean in Arcanum, dark powers were at work—struggle and conflict and competition that most of the citizens of that city, of the nation, would never understand or bear witness to. Leander and Lord Nicodemus had tried to explain it to Timothy that night at his father’s mansion when he had first been attacked. It had been so foreign to him, difficult for him to understand that beneath the veneer of peace and openness presented to the public by the Parliament, there was a deeper relationship comprised of ancient grudges and feuds. The guilds were constantly at odds, making and breaking alliances, each striving for dominance in Parliament.

  Thus the need for assassins, for lies, and for spies.

  Though he had been taken in by the Order of Alhazred and the Grandmaster had vowed to protect him, Timothy did not feel as though he was actually a part of the order. How could he be? He was the un-magician, after all. But Leander was a part of the order as well, and Lord Nicodemus had befriended him, offered him sanctuary, such as it was. They were, he believed, his one chance at survival in this world.

  But the others, they’re going to keep coming after me, he thought. I can’t stop them. Nicodemus had made it clear that the other guilds had reason to fear him, that Timothy was capable of discovering their secrets, of hurting them politically. He would never have considered doing such a thing, but his attackers did not know that. He wanted to fight back, to defend himself. And there’s only one way to do that. If they’re attacking me, I have to attack them. I have to be exactly what they’re so worried I’ll become.

  Still, despite all Nicodemus had done for him, Timothy could not feel entirely comfortable in the Grandmaster’s home. Not when Ivar was still confined to the stables deep within the fortress. If Timothy was going to stay at SkyHaven and train to be an agent of the order, he would have to speak with Nicodemus about Ivar’s treatment. He did not like resting in a comfortable bed while one of his only friends slept with the animals.

  A loud rap at the door interrupted his musings. With difficulty Timothy tore his gaze away from the churning ocean.

  “Enter!” he called.

  With a soft crackling noise the door swung inward, and a pair of the Grandmaster’s aides appeared. They wore cloaks of green with gold stitching, but beneath these, Timothy could see they wore dark-colored breeches similar to his own pants. He wondered what this signified. Most of the mages wore robes whose various colors seemed to represent their families or guilds or a certain magical discipline. With their cloaks, these two looked almost like guards or soldiers, and he wondered if that was the intended effect, and if that had anything to do with the fact that some of the other guild masters were visiting today to assess Timothy.

  Then Nicodemus entered the room and all other thoughts were brushed aside. It was impossible of course, but the Grandmaster seemed taller, larger than Timothy had ever noticed before. He wore golden robes similar to those Timothy had seen him in before, but these were shot through with green stitching, the arrangement the precise opposite of the gold-on-green of his aides’ cloaks.

  The Grandmaster stroked his mustache, brow furrowed with worries that Timothy could only begin to guess at.

  “Good morning, Lord Nicodemus,” he said, standing up straight and raising his chin, trying to be as respectful as he could. In the few days he had been here, he had tried his best to learn manners and protocol from those around him.

  “That remains to be seen,” said the Grandmaster. He narrowed his gaze and studied Timothy. “You have not yet dressed for the day.”

  Uncomfortably the boy glanced down at his night-clothes, then over at Edgar and Sheridan. They were still asleep. He himself was still in his pajamas. Dawn had come and gone perhaps three quarters of an hour earlier. He had not imagined that the guild masters would arrive this early.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Timothy said. “I can change quickly. I need only a few minutes.”

  Nicodemus shot a quick glance at the snoring Edgar, beak under his wing, and at the still and silent form of Sheridan. “A few minutes are all you have. The other guild masters are waiting. Yurick and Faulkner will bring you to the aerie when you’re ready.”

  With a flutter of his cloak hem, the Grandmaster turned to take his leave, but he paused just outside the door.

  “Timothy?”

  The boy stood up even straighter. “Yes, sir?”

  His face was thin and severe and often Nicodemus could appear cruel. But he softened now, and there was an almost fatherly air about him. His eyes were gentle as he gazed at the boy.

  “You were impressive last night. I’d no idea the Asura had trained you for hand-to-hand combat. With that and your capacity for invention, I think you are going to make a remarkable spy.”

  Lord Nicodemus said this last in a hushed voice, obviously unused to giving compliments. Then his features hardened again. “Unfortunately only seven guild masters have answered my summons. Some have stayed away because they abhor you, others because they do not like the idea that you are a part of the Order of Alhazred, but not all of them wish to do you harm. What we must discover, then, is who our enemies are. Do not assume that those who have stayed away are against you, nor that those who have answered my summons and gathered here today are your friends.”

  Timothy nodded, anxious and confused. How did he become the nexus for so much bitterness and suspicion? The answer, when it came to him, unnerved him: Simply by being born.

  The Grandmaster disappeared into the corridor and his aides, Faulkner and Yurick—though Timothy could not tell one from the other—retreated beyond the door to give him privacy while he dressed.

  * * *

  Of the seven guild masters who had answered the summons of Lord Nicodemus, only three piqued Timothy’s interest. He knew he ought to be curious about all of them, particularly in light of Nicodemus’s warnings that any of them might be an enemy or a friend, but four of them seemed almost interchangeable. Two of these were men and two were women, and all of them had varying flesh tones. Yet despite their robes, and their high offices, and the responsibilities they held, there was something, dare he say it, ordinary about them. Certainly they dressed in sorcerous finery appropriate to their status, but each was middle aged and not physically remarkable. He had expected all of them to have a certain presence and austerity, the way Nicodemus did. And, truth be told, he had expected a certain exotic quality to these powerful men and women.

  Had only those four been in attendance he would have been sorely disappointed. Fortunately for Timothy—though he was aware it might not be to his good fortune—the other three guild masters who had answered the summons were more in line with his expectations.

  Lord Foxheart, Grandmaster of the Malleus Guild, was no larger than Timothy himself and completely bald, right down to a lack of eyebrows. He had the blackest eyes Timothy had ever seen, and too-sharp teeth that made the boy shiver every time the man opened his mouth to speak.

  Mistress Belladonna, Grandmaster of the Order of Strychnos, was a tall, elegant woman whose skin was the earthy red hue of the sand on the Island of Patience. Timothy found himself mesmerized by her—he had seen precious few women up close since being brought to this world—but she did not favor him with the slightest of smiles, only watched him with one brow arched warily.

  Finally there was the mage Timothy wished most to avoid looking at. Lord Romulus was a massive man—if he even was a man. The mage was gigantic, no
less than nine feet tall and perhaps more. Grandmaster of the mysterious Legion Nocturne, he wore a gleaming silver helmet that covered his entire head, save for an opening in the shape of a cross that revealed his eyes, nose, and mouth. The helmet had been fashioned from magic of course, not in some crude forge the way Timothy had taught himself to work metal. And yet it did not have the smoothness that so many magical creations had. The metal was rough and a pair of spikes jutted from it, making it appear as though Lord Romulus had sprouted horns.

  For just a moment Timothy wondered if the gigantic mage truly did have horns, and the helmet had been fashioned to cover them along with the rest of his head. The giant mage wore a chest plate of the same metal, though it shimmered with color, imbued with an enchantment. Over his shoulders was thrown a cloak that had been made from the pelt of an enormous, furred animal. The way the fur had been cut, it was obvious that whatever the dead creature had been, it had not been killed by magic. The cloak was a trophy of some sort, and the idea chilled Timothy while at the same time intriguing him, as it indicated that there were, at least, some mages who were not completely disinclined to work with their hands rather than with spells and charms and curses.

  Foxheart, Belladonna, and Romulus. Those were the three who drew his attention. The others were both less interesting and less vocal. In fact they said almost nothing at all, leaving the debate and the inquiries to their more colorful counterparts. Timothy picked up what information he could about the various guilds and their masters merely by observation, but he intended to find out more about these three after the conference was over.

  “What I would like to know is how such a thing could happen,” said Mistress Belladonna, her voice quiet and lilting. Everything she said seemed to arrive at his ear as a whisper meant only for him. “The world is an ocean of magic. You cannot immerse yourself within it without getting wet. You cannot be a part of this world and not be touched by magic.”

  In his high seat, set above the others, Lord Nicodemus tugged at one end of his long mustache, his hawklike features more severe than ever, the blue veins beneath his pale skin giving him the appearance of having been crafted from marbled stone.

  “And yet,” Nicodemus said, inclining his head toward Timothy, “there he sits.”

  A ripple of mutterings went around the room. Several of the guild masters commented, but Timothy found that despite his being the topic of discussion, most of what was said was repetitive and boring. Even with all that was going on in that room, he found himself more fascinated by the chamber itself than with the proceedings.

  Lord Nicodemus called the room the aerie, and Timothy had already decided it was the greatest room he had ever been in. The word “room” was hardly sufficient to describe it. SkyHaven was already a kind of miracle, floating above the ocean. The aerie was the one place in SkyHaven that really took advantage of the beauty inherent in this powerful magic.

  It was a meeting hall, and clearly had been constructed for no other reason than for Lord Nicodemus to impress his guests with an example of how powerful he was. Thus the conference table at the center of the aerie was not so much a table as a ring, with chairs for visitors and dignitaries around its circumference, and nothing within that circle.

  Nothing at all. No table. No floor. No ground at all. Within the circular space was a hole in the base of SkyHaven that was more than thirty feet wide. Daylight seeped into the room from below, reflected off the rolling blue ocean. All around the room were beams and nooks that had been created to provide perfect roosting places, and dozens of seabirds had shown their appreciation by building nests there. Even as the conversation droned on, Timothy watched the birds fluttering and cooing in their nests, flying across the high ceiling of the chamber, then dipping to glide out through the hole in the base of SkyHaven.

  It was beautiful, really, and though Nicodemus could be harsh, the knowledge that the man had built such a chamber in his home gave Timothy hope that the Grandmaster was gentler at heart than he seemed upon the surface. Edgar had accompanied him, but the rook had taken flight only moments after they entered the aerie, disappearing to investigate both the massive chamber and to fly down through the foundation of SkyHaven and soar above the ocean waves. Timothy could not blame him. He wished he could have been anywhere but there. If he could fly, he would have done precisely the same thing as Edgar.

  An image appeared in his mind, an image of wings and rotors and gears. Timothy smiled to himself.

  His reverie was interrupted as Lord Romulus smashed an enormous gloved fist down upon the ring table. Timothy jumped and stared, wide eyed, at the giant mage who was pointing at him.

  “The boy is a blight upon the face of this world!” Romulus snarled, his voice flat and tinny inside his helmet. Yet he was no less terrifying for it. “Why do you think Argus Cade hid him away? He was ashamed, as well he should have been. If an animal is born into your stables lame or filled with the madness, do you not destroy it? Of course you do. And so must this boy be destroyed. You risk the scorn of all the guilds by harboring him, Lord Nicodemus.”

  Murmurs of assent whispered around the ring-shaped table. Lord Foxheart was seated beside Mistress Belladonna, almost directly across from Romulus in the circular space. She whispered something to him, and the sharp-toothed little man—whom Timothy now realized reminded him of the hairless cat Alastor—rapped his knuckles lightly on the table to draw attention.

  “Beg your pardon, Lord Romulus,” Foxheart said, his voice deep and insinuating, “but the Legion Nocturne is well known for its love and respect of ancient ways. You are to be commended for remaining dedicated to the righteousness of a simpler time. But there must be some progress in the world and in a case such as this, when a boy’s life is in question, there is no place for antique ideas.

  “Have you no pity, sir? Is the Legion really so primitive, so barbaric, that you would sentence a child to death for the crime of being different?”

  Foxheart kept his gaze firmly on Romulus, with Lord Nicodemus shifting his attention back and forth between them. Belladonna, however, glanced over at Timothy, a sweet smile blossoming upon her ash-red lips. Timothy could not help but smile back, but he regretted it instantly. Lord Romulus had noticed it, and now the gigantic sorcerer leaped to his feet with a speed that belied his massive size and pounded upon the ring table once again.

  “I would destroy him myself! With my own hands, had I not vowed there would be no violence in Lord Nicodemus’s home.”

  Timothy froze. All of his fascination with the guild masters, and with the aerie and the seabirds who lived within it, was driven from his mind. His mouth was dry and he blinked, staring incredulously at Lord Romulus. The man wanted to kill him. Not to order his execution, but actually to kill Timothy himself, with his own hands.

  “Caw! Caw, caw!” came the shrill call of the rook as Edgar soared up through the round hole in the floor and began to circle the ring table. He fluttered to a landing on the back of Timothy’s chair.

  “Over my dead body,” the bird declared.

  Lord Romulus’s eyes narrowed inside that horned silver helmet and he lowered his head. A snarl came from deep within his chest as he spun on Nicodemus. “What is this, sir, that you would allow a familiar to speak thus to a grandmaster in your home?”

  Now it was Nicodemus who stood, cocking his head slightly to one side and regarding Romulus with a warning glare. “You’ve threatened his master. How would you have him react?”

  All of the guild masters muttered in amazement, some actually letting out epithets of surprise.

  “You cannot be serious,” said Lord Foxheart, staring at the rook.

  Lord Romulus sneered across the gulf, the reflected sunlight gleaming up to glisten upon his helmet. “The boy is not a mage, yet he has a familiar?”

  Edgar cawed loudly. “Hukk! Yep! And I’ll tear your eyeballs out if you get anywhere near my boy.”

  “I’m not sure I believe any of this,” Foxheart said. He shot Romulus a
look. “My esteemed friend of the Legion Nocturne, the Grandmaster of the Malleus Guild asks you to put aside your ire for a moment so that we may ask what ought, perhaps, to have been our first question.” The little man bared his rows of needle teeth. “How do we know this boy truly is an un-magician?”

  Timothy was tired and afraid and saddened. None of this was accomplishing anything. It was all bluster and posturing. If it was true he could not even gauge his allies and enemies by the behavior of these people—the few guild masters who had even answered Nicodemus’s summons—then what purpose did any of it serve? He wanted it to be over.

  “Try me,” he said.

  All of the mages around the ring table turned to stare at him. Behind his head he heard Edgar chuckle softly as the bird settled more comfortably onto the back of the chair.

  “Timothy—,” Nicodemus warned.

  But the boy would not be deterred. He stood and looked defiantly at Foxheart and then at Nicodemus. “Try me,” he said again. “I invite you to use your magic on me. Attack me. Transform me. Levitate me. Silence me. Whatever you like. Try.”

  Mistress Belladonna stared at him. “Young Master Cade, do you really think this is wise?”

  Foxheart grunted. “I don’t think this is appropriate at all,” he said, and he glanced up at Nicodemus. They were all staring at the Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred, waiting to see what his response would be.

  “All right. Do your worst, my friends.”

  Timothy’s heart fluttered like rook’s wings in his chest, but it was too late to take the words back. Still, only one of the guild masters seemed inclined to take him up on his challenge, even with the consent of Lord Nicodemus.

  “Very well,” Romulus agreed. “Thus my concerns are dealt with far more swiftly than I anticipated.” He glared at Timothy. “You are an accident, boy. An unnatural thing. It is no fault of your own, but you cannot be allowed to pollute the magical fabric of this world.”