A Dangerous Magic Read online

  First American edition published in 2017 by Carolrhoda Lab™

  Original edition first published by Random House Children’s Publishers UK, a division of The Random House Group Ltd

  Copyright © Donald Hounam, 2015

  The author has asserted his moral rights

  All rights reserved.

  Carolrhoda Lab™ is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All US rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Carolrhoda Lab™

  An imprint of Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover and interior images: © iStockphoto.com/arkady2013 (copper basin); © iStockphoto.com/irontrybex (blue flame); © Viktoriia Kulish/Dreamstime.com (smoke); © iStockphoto.com/THEPALMER (grunge paper).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10.5/15.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hounam, Donald, author.

  Title: A dangerous magic / by Donald Hounam.

  Other titles: Gifted

  Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, [2017] | First published by Corgi in 2015 under the title Gifted. | Summary: Fifteen-year-old forensic sorcerer Frank Sampson is called upon when the Bishop of Oxford is murdered, but is hampered by the bishop’s beautiful niece, Kazia, a difficult colleague, Marvo, and abundant rules.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016033206 (print) | LCCN 2016055736 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512432329 (th : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512448580 (eb pdf)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Wizards—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H67 Dan 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.H67 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033206

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-41789-23738-12/9/2016

  9781512467321 ePub

  9781512467338 ePub

  9781512467345 mobi

  For Cecily

  Chapter One

  Fortitude

  I’ve been up all night, while the cat’s still fresh, and I’m wrecked.

  It’s a couple of hours till the sun rises over Oxford—or, as I prefer to call it, Doughnut City. So far, I’ve washed the dead animal in exorcised water, fumigated it in rosemary smoke, held it up to the four points of the compass, and rattled through all the formulas of purification. I’ve got the whiskers in a bowl and the skin neatly folded up in a bucket on the floor.

  I hinge back the rib cage and gaze down at the liver, lungs, heart, and the rest, all stuffed in like dirty laundry in a bag. I feel queasy and kind of guilty . . .

  But dead is dead, and I need the parts. I can use the teeth for a couple of defensive spells; the eyes and whiskers will cook up for elementals; and a few rather unpleasant Presences of my acquaintance are partial to dried cat’s liver.

  My studio used to be a chapel and it’s got these thick stone walls, so it’s like the outside world doesn’t exist. The fire up at the east end, where the altar used to be, has burned down to a dull glow. I’ve got all sorts of muck all over my gloves and the side of my nose is itching like mad. As I rub my cheek against my shoulder, the lamps flicker spookily, like something is passing through . . .

  I play around with dead people all the time, up at the mortuary, so the cat really shouldn’t bother me. But it’s creeping me out, just lying there with its mouth open, its eyes closed, and its guts glistening. It doesn’t look at all happy and I feel like I ought to apologize. I glance up at my magic watch, hanging from a hook out of harm’s way. Nearly four thirty. Just get it done, Frank. I fumble for my tweezers . . .

  And there’s this sharp click behind me.

  I nearly jump out of my skin. I look around, heart pounding, and see that my door has locked itself and the inside surface is rippling like the wind churning up the surface of a lake.

  Which means trouble.

  I can hear voices coming through this hole I’ve hacked in the wall between my studio and the corridor. Call me paranoid, but I don’t like surprises. The termites—they’re these monks who feed me and keep an eye on me and beat me up when they’re stuck for entertainment—well, I don’t trust them. And this is a particularly toxic termite: a voice I’ve come to know and love.

  “Have you ever met a sorcerer before?”

  “Oh yeah.” A girl’s voice. What’s going on?

  “They’re difficult.” Brother Thomas: my least favorite termite. Always manages to wind me up. The door doesn’t think much of him either. I can see the wood bristling now, like the hairs along a dog’s back.

  “Personally, I’d burn the lot of them.” He knocks hard on the door. It makes this low, dangerous growling noise.

  It’s not just the five quid—the going rate for a dead cat around the back streets of Doughnut City—it’s the hours I spent purifying and dismantling the corpse. And now I’ll just have to dump it along with all the bits I wanted.

  I slam a cover over it: disassembled animals can create a bad first impression. I drape a cloth over the bucket containing the skin. I look around. The place reeks a bit, so I throw a few sprigs of rosemary into the brazier. I chuck a couple of books into the safety of the cabinet and run around turning down the lamps. I grab a pair of underpants hanging over the back of a chair. If they weren’t dirty before, they’re dirty now: I wipe the blood off my hands and toss the pants in the laundry basket. I pull on a shirt. I’m neat and presentable. Maybe they’ll go away.

  “Brother Tobias!”

  “Get lost, parrot-face!” I yell.

  The door handle rattles.

  Just so you know to avoid them, the termites are Agrippine monks, a small order established in 1747 to keep a lid on sorcerers like me, living out in the big bad world. I’ve been with them for more than a year but they’re still a mystery to me. This arse knows about the door—he’s got the scars to prove it. Like, maybe he’s stupid, but is he deaf too? Can’t he hear it growling? He starts hammering. There’s a vicious snarling noise. Even on this side, the surface of the door bulges and twists.

  A long, gratifying silence. Then his voice, a trembling whisper: “You talk to him.”

  Hers: “This is Detective Constable Marvell an’ I don’t need this shit!”

  Oh hell, not her again! Shouldn’t have ignored the scryer. I tell the door to open. Which it does, with all the trimmings: sinister creak, flickering lamps, and an icy draft across the floor.

  She’s come dressed as a deck chair. Red duffle coat with one toggle missing, blue jeans, a yellow bag over her shoulder. She’s about my age: dead skinny, with curly black hair and pale skin, and that weird darting gaze that all tatties have.

  Yeah, Marvell’s a tatty. They’re almost as rare as sorcerers, and the jacks—the police—grab most of them because . . . well, because they’re special. Sharp. Sometimes it’s like the world is this open book that they can just breeze through while everyone else is still blinking at the cover and scratching their heads.1

  While her eyes flicker around the studio, Brother Thomas’s fat, self-satisfied gob looms over her shoulder, his bald skull shining greasily in the gaslight. He’s sucking one finger, so the door must have taken a chunk out of him.

  She steps
inside, still checking the joint out. It’s not what you’d call welcoming. Gray stone. No windows, unless you count a tiny circle of stained glass high on the west wall, above the stove.

  She cranes her neck to stare up at the stone ribbing across the ceiling. Her gaze flashes over my stuff: shelves of books, cabinets of metal and glass instruments, a wire cage with a couple of white rats scuffling around inside it. Brother Thomas tries to follow her in. Shifty little weasel: he’s never actually gotten inside and it bugs the hell out of him. He manages one step before the door slams in his face.

  She jumps, but she doesn’t turn to look. She stands there, working hard at staying cool, looking me up and down. “You’re up early.”

  “What do you want?” I’m not going to pretend I’m pleased to see her.

  “A bit of light wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I like it like this. Helps me think.”

  “Dark teenage thoughts, I bet.” She sniffs. “What died?” She pulls a flat, round silver case out of her bag and waves it at me. “I scried you. Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Coz I saw it was you.” Her face twitches and I realize I’ve upset her, which is good. “Never even heard it, if you really wanna know. I was busy.”

  Her name’s Magdalena Marvell. Really. We’ve never actually worked together; but I did something incredibly stupid a few weeks back—took an eyeball from a corpse in the mortuary, if you must know. It was for a good cause, OK? And nobody would have cared, if she hadn’t gone and snitched on me.

  She’s staring up at a tinted photograph of an elderly Japanese gent dressed like a Christmas tree: his holiness Pope Innocent XVII. Finally she mumbles, “Wasn’t my fault.”

  “Ah. I thought maybe you’d come to apologize. You got me in a load of shit.”

  She just looks at me. After a bit I start to think, is my fly open? Is there toothpaste around my mouth?

  “So, what are you doing here?” I ask.

  She’s gazing down at the floor, at the smeared remains of a chalk circle scattered with symbols. The smoke from the rosemary in the brazier wafts around her as she turns and walks her fingertips along the bench that runs down the center of the nave: over charts, around glass jars, flasks and vials, paper packets, bunches of herbs, balances, knives, a mortar and pestle—your standard Junior Sorcerer’s kit. She peers across at the blackboard behind the door, covered with scrawled code that even I can’t make sense of anymore, but which could still get me roasted in front of a large, appreciative crowd.

  “Clue,” she says. “It’s not a social visit.”

  Like I said, it’s been a long night and I’m slow to catch on. I just stand there with my mouth open until she folds her arms and says:

  “You’re still the junior forensic sorcerer, yeah?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “So are you coming?”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  I’m on the floor, scrabbling around under the bed.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “My boots.”

  “There’s a pair by the door.”

  I know there is, but I need a few moments to get my thoughts straight. It’s like this every time a new job comes up. I love the buzz, but I’m already making this list in my head of all the things that can go wrong . . .

  Marvell’s back at the bench, turning up the lamp. She picks up a notebook that I forgot to hide. I grab it and toss it into a corner. That’s the trouble with tatties—they can’t leave anything alone. She’s reaching for the cover over the cat . . .

  “Pick a card.” I grab a pack of tarot cards and shuffle them. “Any card.”

  I fan them out. She hesitates, then takes one.

  “Remember it.”

  She’s peering at the design on the face. “What is it?”

  Unless my card-sharping skills have deserted me, it’s La Force—Strength or Fortitude—a woman holding a lion’s jaws open.

  “Just remember what it looks like. You can do that, can’t you? Put it back.” I shuffle the cards, riffle them dramatically . . . and chuck them in the fire. “So let’s go.” I grab a woolen hat from the antlers of a stag’s skull.

  “Why’d the monk call you Brother Tobias? Your name’s Frank—”

  That’s me: Frank Sampson. “The termites use my monastic name. Just stick to Frank.”

  “How old are you, Frank? Fifteen?”

  “Nearly sixteen. And you, Magdalena?”

  “Sixteen.” That’s peak for a tatty. She’s got ten years or so before she burns out. “An’ if you call me that again, I’ll kill you.”

  I pull on my black leather jerkin and pick up my case. The door opens.

  “What about my card?” she says, looking back at the fire. I just shrug and wave her out into the corridor. No sign of the wounded termite; just the gaslight flickering in the draft.

  “Don’t you want a coat?”

  I ignore her. She mutters, “Your funeral.” The door closes. She watches me set it: a touch, a couple of words. When I turn away, she can’t resist stepping back to push it. A section of the door transforms itself into the head of a wolf, snapping and snarling at her. She jumps away, shaking. The wood settles back.

  “Simplest spell in the world,” I say. “I could give you one for your place.”

  “Yeah, my mum’d love that. A key’s fine. You gotta tell anyone you’re going out?”

  Bloody cheek! I’m not a prisoner.

  I open the outside door and stand at the top of the steps. It’s cold and pitch-black. The moon set exactly fifty-seven minutes ago.

  How do I know that? I’m a sorcerer, OK? I just know stuff like that. So anyway, there’s no sign of dawn yet. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The termites were out late last night throwing manure around the vegetable garden and it’s pretty ripe—but it makes a welcome change from decomposing cat.

  I gasp as a sharp elbow digs into my side. Marvell barges past and heads off along the path.

  “So where are we going?” I call as she disappears into the darkness.

  “Osney. The Bishop’s Palace.”

  “Who’s dead?” I can’t see her. I just follow the sound of her feet crunching on the gravel. I hear the whisper of her coat brushing against the hedge; the smell of lavender fills the air.

  “Who says anyone’s dead?”

  “They don’t drag me out for stolen bicycles.”

  “Prob’ly coz they know you stole ’em.”

  I can just make out the monastery chapel now, silhouetted against the dirty brown glow of Doughnut City. Marvell is just this dark shape, bobbing up and down ahead of me. I’m waiting for her to crash into the low wall, just ahead where the path twists. But she makes the turn like she’s lived here all her life and whizzes off up a flight of steps.

  “All they told me, someone’s dead,” she says. “At the Bishop’s Palace. Dunno who.”

  She’s struggling with a heavy door. I step up to help her, but she pushes me away and throws herself at the black wood. The door bangs back and our feet echo on the stone floor of a corridor that brings us out into the cloister running around the front quadrangle. Water splashes in the fountain.

  “Are you spotting it?” I ask.

  That’s what the jacks use tatties for: to spot stuff that the rest of the CID—the Criminal Investigation Department—are too blind, stupid, or lazy to notice. Until they—that’s the tatties—go blind themselves.

  “What do you think?”

  “Who’s the grown-up?”

  “Caxton.”

  “Oh, great!”

  We’re at the porter’s lodge. A hatch opens, and this kid a couple of years older than me, with buck teeth and tonsured, carroty red hair, stares suspiciously out.

  “Brother Andrew!” I call. “Unleash me on an unsuspecting world.”

  He’s not blessed with a sense of humor. “Where are you going?” he whines.

  “None of your business.”
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  “Who’s she?”

  “None of your business,” Marvell says. Against my better judgment, I’m in danger of beginning to dislike her less than I probably should. “Open the door, you little squirt.”

  Andrew whizzes out and fumbles with a ring of heavy iron keys. The locks scrape. The door creaks open. Marvell steps out into the big wide world.

  I put one foot over the threshold . . . and freeze.

  There’s a single lamp post almost opposite, and a van, painted in blue city police livery, standing beneath it. One of the horses shifts in its harness and I hear a series of soft, splattering thuds. Steam rises from a small pile of dung.

  I peer into the shadows along the narrow street. Yesterday was the feast day of Saint Cyprian of Antioch, and since he’s the patron saint of sorcerers, there was a crowd of protesters out here, yelling for me to come outside and face the music.

  I didn’t let them bother me, just climbed in and out over the back wall. They seem to have gone, anyway, leaving just a scrawled message on the wall opposite: “Rot in hell!”

  “You comin’ or not?” Marvell hisses back at me.

  Course I’m coming. It’s only a matter of time before I get bored with harming domestic animals and start in on myself again.

  Final look up and down the street. All quiet. I step out and as the door slams behind me I realize that although a leather jerkin makes an effective style statement, it won’t keep out the arctic wind.

  “Told you!” Marvell crows as I pull my hat down over my ears.

  As we cross the road, the driver, perched on the box in front of the van, extends his hand toward me, the middle and ring fingers tucked under the thumb, the index and little fingers pointing toward my eyes.

  I’m used to ignoring superstitious crap like this. I mean, it’s not like it works or anything—

  Except that this time he’s got lucky because there’s the thunder of hoof-beats behind me and a hansom cab comes screaming around the corner.

  Unbelievably, Marvell stops dead in the middle of the road and sticks her hand up like a traffic jack. The cabbie hauls on his reins but can’t stop the horse. I take a run and knock her out of the way, just in time. We go flying under the police van’s team and her elbow hits the cobblestones with a crack.