Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial) Read Online Free PDF Page A

at three-thirty,” Selma Ingwiersen said. “It’s nine-thirty. What the hell have you been doing?”
    “Working.” Ingrid walked down the hall to the kitchen and opened up the freezer. “It’s impossible for me to get anything done here lately.”
    “Oh, and I suppose that’s my fault?”
    Ingrid was silent as she tore open a turkey dinner and put it in the salamander box — she refused to call it a MagicWave Oven. She filled a glass of water from the tap and drank it, never raising her eyes from the sink.
    “How was your class? Did you show them The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ? You always do that on the first day, don’t you?”
    “Everybody does.” This was true, or as close to true as to hardly matter. Demon conjuration had ended the Second World War, sure, but it hadn’t ended war; it had just changed it in ways that people who hadn’t seen it didn’t want to acknowledge. Watching Mickey Mouse hack a walking broom to splinters and having the splinters grow into a thousand walking brooms was a neat but pointed metaphor about unforeseen consequences.
    “The dangers of conjuration,” said Selma. “The folly of those who think they can play God with the universe. I think you could come up with another way to teach your students about that, couldn’t you? Perhaps an anecdote from your own life.”
    The salamander growled to let Ingrid know that her dinner was hot, so she lifted it out and started eating it over the sink.
    “I miss food.” Selma’s voice was no longer harsh; she sounded as if she were holding back tears. “I miss beer. I miss so many things, Ingrid.”
    “I’m going to fix this, I promise.” Ingrid turned. “I just need to—”
    “Don’t look at me!” Selma shouted, and a whirlwind burst through the kitchen, blowing a family portrait off the wall, flipping the dish rack off the counter, and pinning Ingrid against the sink. She ducked her head and covered her eyes with one hand, waiting for Selma’s anger to crest and fade. Something shattered against the floor, shards skittering over Ingrid’s shoes. The salamander keened in alarm.
    When the wind stopped Ingrid uncovered her eyes but kept her gaze turned downward. She scraped the remains of her dinner from her clothes and the cabinets and fed them and the package to the salamander. It crackled at her, mollified.
    “I’m sorry, Ingrid.” Selma’s voice was so calm that Ingrid nearly believed her. “I’m really unhappy.”
    “I know you are, honey. So am I.”
    “Well, you should be. This is all your fault.”
    That wasn’t entirely true, but Ingrid knew there was no point in arguing about it.
    Six months ago, Selma had been at a mall in Minneapolis when someone had set off a Heartstopper. A Heartstopper was more or less exactly what it sounded like: an attack of unknown origin and mysterious mechanism that stopped the hearts of every living being within two hundred yards. It didn’t damage the heart or anything else, and it left the bodies in a suspended state where they did not decay, but they were essentially dead. Magic and medicine had, so far, completely failed to revive any of the Heartstopper victims.
    The attacks had come at irregular intervals, seven of them in the last twenty-six months: Halifax, Taipei, Cozumel, Kiev, Addis Ababa, Minneapolis, and — just last week — Toledo, Spain. Ingrid had followed the investigations as closely as she could since the attack in Minneapolis, but her primary concern wasn’t with the cause but with the cure.
    She took out her keys. “No no no,” Selma said. “Don’t go down there.”
    Ingrid ignored her and unlocked the door to the cellar.
    “I hate you!” Selma shouted. “I wish you were the one that was dead!”
    “Believe me,” Ingrid whispered, “so do I.”
    She locked the door behind her, although she knew Selma wouldn’t follow her. That was the problem, in a nutshell. She had managed to retrieve her sister’s soul from the ether, but for reasons Ingrid