The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) (3 page)

“What is the meaning of this?” Inspector White demanded as Oona was forcefully pulled from her hiding place and shoved into the circle of stones.

She stumbled into the center, where her foot seemed to get tangled in something and she fell to the floor. She was not hurt, though the shock of the fall startled her. She looked quickly at her feet to find what had caused her fall. It was the rope that had been used to tie up the night watchman.

“I . . . I can explain,” she stammered, and reached for the rope to untangle her feet.

The inspector’s nostrils flared. “You can explain yourself right into a police dungeon, Miss Crate!”

“Inspector, I was only trying to—” But her words stopped abruptly as her eyes came to rest on the knot that had been used on the rope. Her eyes went wide with astonishment, and her mouth went dry.

“No more excuses, Miss Crate!” the inspector shouted at her. “I have told you for the last time . . .”

But Oona was hardly listening. Every bit of her consciousness was focused on the peculiar knot that had been used to tie up the night watchman. It was an extraordinary knot. Beautiful, in fact. It looked like a rose.

She pulled it closer, running her thumb over its petal-like complexity, marveling at its perfection. Indeed, she might have said that she had never seen anything like it . . . and yet she
had
seen it before, not in real life, but as a sketch in an old police report—a report that Oona had read countless times over the past three years. It was a famous knot in the world of criminals, and there were only two people whom Oona knew for sure were capable of tying it.

She pushed herself to her feet and held the knotted rope in front of her, surprised that Inspector White had not recognized it straightaway—but then again, Inspector White probably did not study old case files. Currently, the inspector was rambling on about putting her in a jail cell for her own good.

“Hey, look at what she’s got there,” said one of the police constables.

The inspector gave the man a nasty look for interrupting him, but then another of the constables put in: “Oh. How could we have missed that?”

“Missed what?” the inspector said incredulously.

“The Rose Knot,” said the first constable.

The inspector cast several confused looks at his constables before stating: “Ah . . . of course. The Rose Knot.”

It was clear to Oona that the inspector did not understand the significance.

“The only two people known to tie a knot like this,” Oona said, “are the infamous Rose Thieves. This is their signature.”

The second constable scratched thoughtfully at his balding head. “But the Rose Thieves have not struck for years.”

Oona’s heart felt as if it were making its way up into her throat. “Not for over three years. They disappeared from the criminal world the very day that they . . . killed my father.” Her voice shook slightly, and her fingers gripped the rope in a pale fist. The sudden burst of emotion threatened to explode.

Deacon shivered on her shoulder. “It would seem they have returned.”

The Critic

Oona quickly ascended the stairs that rose along the side wall of the museum entryway to the library. Deacon clung precariously to her shoulder as she bound up the steps, her mind racing. And yet it was difficult for her to follow any one thought before a sting of anger would obliterate it completely.

The knowledge that her father’s killers had never been brought to justice had angered her for years.

“You know, you are lucky that the inspector let you go,” Deacon said. “I thought for sure he was going to arrest you this time.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Oona snapped at him, and then immediately felt guilty for it. “What more can you tell me of the Faerie Carbuncle, Deacon; this magical gemstone that was stolen?”

“There is not much to tell,” Deacon said. “It is more of a legend than anything else. The magical powers it is purported to have given to its wearers are only accessed by a spell that has been long forgotten. Perhaps there is a mention of it in more obscure magical texts, but as you know, the
Encyclopedia Arcanna
is mostly an historical reference and has no mention of actual spell work. I can tell you, however, that as far as anyone actually receiving faerielike powers from the stone, it has not happened in over six hundred years. That’s over a hundred years before Oswald the Great closed the Glass Gates. Some historians believe that the written spell was lost in Faerie, and has since been forgotten.”

“Should we then assume that the thieves stole it simply for its value as a gemstone?” Oona asked.

“Unless the thieves know something that historians don’t,” Deacon said, “it is probably safe to assume.”

Oona let out a heavy breath as they reached the top landing. She did not like the fact that the thieves had stolen such a potentially powerful object, despite the lost spell.

“But for the moment,” Deacon added, “there is nothing we can do about it, and I really think you should return to the Pendulum House library and learn all you can about this battle test.”

Oona experienced a twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew Deacon was right, and yet still she felt compelled to pursue the investigation first and foremost.

She pushed through the library door. “There will be time to research the battle test later. But first we need to do a little research here, in the
public
library.”

“But I’ve told you, the best books on magic reside at Pendulum House.”

Oona shook her head. “It’s not books on magic I’m looking for.”

“Then what?”

Oona sighed, as if the answer should be self-evident. “We need to find books on knots. Now, where to begin?”

She peered around the enormous room, unsure of where to start. As the outside of the building suggested, the new library was cone shaped on the inside, with level upon level of rising balconies that supported countless shelves of books. Unlike the Pendulum House library, the books here appeared to be shelved in an expertly ordered fashion. The bottom floor consisted of various chairs and tables topped with dim reading lights.

Oona approached the reference desk. Her face grew warm as the boy behind the counter looked up from his book cart and grinned. The odd assortment of symbols tattooed on his cheeks and around his eyes pulled tight.

“Ah, hello, Miss Crate,” said Adler Iree in his lilting Irish brogue. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Oona smiled back. Despite having told him many times to call her Oona—not to mention the fact that he had kissed her at Oswald Park . . . on the lips—he still insisted upon calling her Miss Crate. She wondered if it was his way of telling her that the kiss had not meant all that much. After all, it had been four whole months since that first kiss, and she had not received a second.

Of course, Adler had been extremely busy with his studies at the Magicians Legal Alliance—the guild and school for the practitioners of magical law. He was taking a full course load, and on top of that—as part of the alliance’s community outreach program—he was now volunteering at the library as a part-time “book-shelving expert.” With Oona’s own apprentice duties, the two of them had had little time to see each other over the past months, and when they did, they were never alone.

But still, she had hoped that he would ask her to be his girlfriend. Many girls Oona’s age had steady boyfriends—such as Adler’s own sister Isadora Iree, who took every opportunity to remind people who her handsome boyfriend was—and Oona was beginning to wonder if Adler was simply against the idea.

“Hello, Adler,” she said, hoping he would pick up on her use of his first name.

He moved closer to the desk and squinted at her. “Everything all right?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yes . . . I mean, no. I mean . . .” And she told him all about the crime scene downstairs and the connection with her father.

He tilted his top hat back and leaned on the desk. “And no one knows who the Rose Thieves are?”

“Not a clue,” Oona said. “I’ve looked through my father’s personal file on them countless times, and there are no names. Just that they were known associates of Red Martin. But of course, I’ve known they were working for him ever since Red Martin admitted to me that he was the one who paid to have my father murdered. The Rose Thieves staged a robbery, and when my father showed up to apprehend them, they shot him dead and then tied a ribbon in the shape of a rose around the gun and left it at the scene of the crime. That was their signature. They would break into a rich household, steal a prized possession like a painting or jewelry, and leave behind a bit of ribbon tied like a rose.”

Adler frowned. “How do you know the robbery that your father was investigating was staged?”

“Two reasons. The thieves were perfectionists, brilliant and arrogant, leaving behind their signature knot wherever they struck. It was one of the reasons my father wanted to catch them so badly. They were never seen coming or going from the crime scene. But the police received a tip that someone saw two masked figures crawling in through a second-story window in broad daylight. The supposed thieves made sure they were seen. My father must have thought it was just an ordinary burglary. And the second reason I know the robbery was a setup is because the apartment was vacant. There was no one living there and nothing to steal. The thieves made sure they were seen breaking in, and then waited there. They shot both my father and the constable he had with him the instant they came through the door, and then left the gun with the ribbon tied to it in the center of the empty room. Many people heard the shots, but no one saw the murderers flee.”

Deacon put in: “And there have been no Rose Knots left on the street since.”

“Not until today,” Oona said.

Adler walked around the desk, scratching absently at his cheek, where Oona just now realized he had a fresh symbol tattooed. This one looked a bit like a squiggle set inside of a triangle, and she realized that he must have completed a new course of study at the alliance. Many of the alliance’s older members had completed so many courses that their faces were completely covered in multicolored tattoos. She hoped Adler did not become so ambitious.

“So I need to find books about knot tying,” she said.

Adler nodded understandingly. “To see if you can’t find some clue about that Rose Knot that leads you to the thieves?”

Oona nodded, excited that they were following the same train of thought. “I had never seen the actual knot until today, except as an illustration, but I’ll bet we can find something about it in a book that—”

Deacon cleared his throat.

Oona sighed. “Ah, but as Deacon keeps reminding me, I do have other obligations today.”

“And don’t you have obligations as well, Mr. Iree?” a new voice interrupted. “Such as putting away books?”

The voice was bright, and girlish, and sweet. They turned to find a young woman of about eighteen years old watching them from behind the reference desk. Her pretty, slender face was framed by straight red hair that parted down the middle and fell freely down her shoulders.

Adler cleared his throat and turned to Oona. “Ah, Miss Crate, may I introduce you to Miss Mary Shusher, the assistant librarian.”

Oona smiled graciously. “How do you do?”

Mary Shusher raised both eyebrows in surprise. “You didn’t tell me you knew the Wizard’s apprentice, Adler.” She extended her hand to Oona, and they shook. “I’ve read all about you. In the paper. About your exploits. You’re the one who finally completed the Magician’s Tower.”

Oona’s face flushed. The fact that she was a celebrity on the street was something she had never gotten used to.

“So, is it true?” Mary asked before Oona could respond. “Are you a genuine Natural Magician?” Oona opened her mouth to reply, but Mary did not wait for an answer. “That’s incredibly rare. Only one born in every hundred years, or something like that. It is said that you have the same natural abilities as a faerie, and that you can do all sorts of magic without having to study.”

Deacon responded before Oona could open her mouth. “While Learned Magicians, such as the Wizard, must study for decades to learn their craft, a Natural Magician, such as Miss Crate, has active faerie blood in her veins. Like a faerie, Natural Magicians are born with incredible magical abilities. But
unlike
a faerie, they are not born with the instincts to control the magic they possess. They must be trained.”

Mary Shusher leaned eagerly over the counter and asked: “Can we see some magic.”

Oona hesitated. Magic was not something that she took lightly. Despite her extraordinary powers, she rarely used a spell if there was an alternative, and using magic to impress someone was the last thing she wished to do. After all, that was precisely what she had been doing three years ago—trying to impress her mother—when she had cast
Lux lucis admiratio
.

One moment she had been a happy ten-year-old wielding her makeshift magic wand (a fallen twig she’d found in the park) and watching the Lights of Wonder light up the sky, and the next instant the spell was flying violently out of control. The lights crashed into the great fig tree with such force that it simultaneously burst into flames and crashed to the ground, crushing her mother and baby sister beneath its massive trunk and changing Oona’s life forever.

All of that from one spell, a complex and powerful spell, yes, but it was a stark reminder that magic such as she possessed was not to be taken lightly. Causing a distraction in the museum entryway was one thing—at least then she was trying to accomplish something important, like eavesdropping on an investigation. But doing magic for no good reason . . . or to show off . . . she was soundly against it.

Seeming to read Oona’s reticence, Mary Shusher said sweetly: “Oh, please. Just something small, like levitating this book.” She eagerly placed a reference book on the counter, a clothbound volume entitled
Butterflies of the World.
“Just flip its pages open or something, without touching it.”

Oona looked from the book to Adler. He grinned.

“Only if you want to,” he said, though she could tell by the way his eyes widened that he was eager to see her perform. She recalled that he had only seen her do magic twice before, and that both times he had been quite impressed.

She considered the book for a moment.

It would not be hard to do, flip it open, even levitate it from across the room. It was a simple enough conductor spell that required nothing more than a wand—or, in Oona’s case, her magnifying glass—to focus and aim the energy.

She removed the magnifying glass from her pocket—her father’s gold-rimmed magnifying glass, her dearest possession in the world—and aimed it at the book.

“Alum,”
she said.

The book rose several inches off the countertop and flipped open. It spun around on a cushion of air, as if turned by unseen fingers. It was an easy spell, one her uncle encouraged her to use, and one that he himself used to levitate teacups and glasses during his many parties at Pendulum House.

The thought of her uncle reminded her of the battle test she was supposed to be preparing for. Something much more demanding was waiting for her at three o’clock, she was pretty sure of that, and the thought caused her concentration to waiver. The book tumbled in the air, as if the invisible fingers had gone suddenly clumsy. She tightened her grip on the magnifying glass, meaning to refocus her energy, but the book thumped back to the countertop with a crack that echoed around the library.

Adler grinned ear to ear. “That was most excellent, so it was!”

Even Deacon—who had seen her do much more complicated spells, but was always keen on her use of magic—flapped his wings excitedly. “Bravo!”

But when Oona looked to Mary Shusher, the assistant librarian’s mouth turned to a frown. She seemed to be pleased and unpleased at the same moment.

“Well, it started out all right,” Mary said encouragingly. “The spinning about was a nice touch, but then it got all wibbly-wobbly. It seemed to me as if your heart was just not in it.”

Oona blinked several times in surprise. “My . . . my heart?”

“That’s when the entire spell simply failed,” Mary continued sweetly. “You might consider letting the book ease back down slowly next time, for a more refined finish. All in all, I give it three and a half stars.”