Seven Sorcerers Read Online Free PDF Page A

after you next, once he’d dropped Toby off.’
    Nin stopped dead. ‘Toby?’ she demanded. ‘What about Toby?’
    Jonas paused, turning to face her. By now, Nin’s eyes were adjusting to the dark and she realised that there was light after all. The stars were brilliant in a sky of inky velvet and a wedge of moon touched the landscape with silver. Her eyes fixed on something that rose against the northern horizon like a distant wall of hazy white.
    ‘Sorry,’ Jonas said ruefully. ‘Couldn’t help him. Can’t take them on, you see, they’re too powerful. I was just watching to see if either of you managed to get away. As you did.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘We’ll shelter in the woods till dawn. The Drift isn’t a good place to be out in at night.’
    Nin started towards him then stopped, unsure of what to do. ‘My mum will worry.’
    Jonas watched her for a moment. ‘No, she won’t,’ he said gently. ‘She won’t even wonder where you are.’
    For the first time since all this horribleness began Nin felt her eyes fill with tears. Jonas set off again, making his way down the grassy slope of the hill towards the darker shadow of the trees.
    Still crying, Nin followed him. There was nothing else she could do.

    She got the tears under control on the trip down the hill. Although she stumbled often, she was grateful for the dark. At least he couldn’t see her face.
    At last, they reached a small copse and groped their way under the trees. The shape that was Jonas sat down with his back to a broad trunk, so Nin settled next to him. She felt safer in the copse because the gentle rustle of leaves and the twitter of the odd night bird did a lot to cover the unnatural silence that didn’t belong to the Dunforth Hill she knew. Fortunately, the leaves also covered up the skyline with its rounded silhouettes of trees instead of the usual hard-edged ones of roofs and chimneys.
    ‘So,’ she said firmly. ‘Why have all the lights gone? And what wood is this?’
    ‘This is the Drift,’ said Jonas patiently. ‘The lights have gone because it’s another world and not many people live here. The wood doesn’t have a name, there are too many woods in the Drift to give them all names.’
    Nin was silent. There were so many questions tumbling around in her head, all trying to get out at once, that they were stuck in a kind of mental traffic jam.
    ‘Anyway,’ said Jonas conversationally, while she tried to get a grip, ‘how did you do it? Get away fromSkerridge, I mean. No kid has ever managed that before.’
    ‘That THING stole my brother,’ Nin burst out, before she realised she was going to say anything at all. ‘It stole Toby and everyone forgot about him except me.’ She paused, remembering the dark shape under the stairs, the silent breathing in the shadows. ‘Then, I knew it had come back for me, so I stayed up all night and waited for it.’
    Jonas watched her intently; she could feel his gaze in the darkness, like a cool touch on her face.
    ‘Skerridge must’ve left your memory behind when he took Toby. That’s not like him, I can tell you. It’s part of their magic.’ Jonas sounded sad. ‘To steal your loved ones’ memory, so that everyone else forgets too. If you hadn’t been so close to Toby, your memory of him would have faded with the night.’
    ‘Like everyone’s memory of me will be gone too,’ said Nin flatly. It wasn’t a question and Jonas knew it. ‘Although,’ she looked over at his shadowy shape. ‘If you were watching me before … well,
you
still remember me?’
    ‘I’m already stolen, already on the outside, see. The memory spell wouldn’t find me because in a way I don’t exist.’
    ‘And that’s why you don’t have a home, because you got stolen too?’
    ‘Yep. Mind you, it was Polpp who snatched me, not Skerridge.’
    ‘Why did you look out for me?’
    His gaze slipped away from her face then, she felt it go.
    ‘Like I said, I knew there was a BM around so I