The Magician's Tower Read Online Free PDF Page A

from Romania stood that way for what might have been ten long seconds before finally taking in a sob-filled breath and exclaiming: “The Punchbowl Oracle! It is gone! It has been stolen!”

T he dining hall was the longest room in Pendulum House. It stretched nearly a hundred feet from the room’s entrance to the servant’s door on the other side. The wall to the left displayed a mural depicting a dramatic scene of Oswald the Great, his wand in hand, scarlet light streaming from its tip as he aimed it at the enormous Glass Gates.
    Oona sat at the farthest end of the long table, staring absently at her breakfast. Her uncle sat at the head of the table, reading the morning edition of
The Dark Street Tribune
. Its bold headline read: “Tower Contest Begins Today.” Beneath the fold of the paper, a smaller headline read: “Enchanted Objects Continue to Plague Street.”
    The Wizard shook his head. “According to this article, there have been two cases of pixiewood poisoning this week. Horrible stuff. Turns the skin green for weeks, and in some cases the victims start to sprout branches like a tree. What the paper doesn’t know, however, is that there have actually been four total cases that I have dealt with in the past month. And at least I have a cure for the poison, but it seems there have also been reports of throttler’s silk turning up in the garment district. It’s a faerie silk known to slowly strangle its wearer.” The Wizard shuddered. “The thing is, all of these objects come from only one place: Faerie. Certainly no Wizard ever made such abhorrent things. Nevertheless, they’re giving my enchantment shop a bad name. People are becoming more and more afraid of magic. No doubt I will be called out to deal with the silk. It will need to be destroyed.”
    The Wizard glanced around the table, but no one seemed to be paying the slightest attention.
    Deacon was perched on the arm of a candelabrum, while Samuligan stood at the corner of the table, perfectly still and thin as a whip. Bewitched into a lifetime of service nearly five hundred years ago—and as far as Oona knew, the only living faerie this side of the Glass Gates—Samuligan stood six and a half feet tall, his smart butler’s attire hanging from bony shoulders. Pointed ears and a hooked nose gave the faerie an unmistakably nonhuman air, yet it was hisbrilliant eyes that proved to be his most striking feature. They were haunting, mischievous eyes that often remained hidden beneath the shadowy brim of his cowboy hat.
    â€œHave the witches received their ration of turlock root this month, Samuligan?” the Wizard asked.
    â€œThey have,” replied the faerie servant in his sly, hushed voice. “I delivered it to the police dungeons last week. They remain as young as ever.”
    The Wizard nodded. “Their time served for the theft of the magical mind daggers is almost up, is it not?”
    â€œTwo more weeks of imprisonment,” Deacon replied. “Then they may return to Witch Hill. It is a short amount of time when you consider that the girls are over five hundred years old. Will you continue to provide them with turlock root once they have been released?”
    â€œI gave my word that I would,” the Wizard said. “It was the witches’ testimony that convinced the jury that Red Martin was involved in my attack. For that I agreed to provide them with enough root to keep them alive … though perhaps we will limit their consumption, so that they will age normally, like everyone else.”
    â€œEveryone?” Samuligan asked.
    The Wizard looked up at the faerie servant and chuckled. “Well, like every human, anyway. Immortality does not suit us human beings like it does you faeries, Samuligan. What do you think, Oona?”
    Oona, who was inattentively picking at the crumbly muffin on her plate, looked up. “I’m sorry, Uncle. What did