The Magician's Tower Read Online Free PDF

you say?”
    The Wizard frowned. “You have barely touched your breakfast, Oona.” He folded his paper and placed it on the table. “You should eat something. You’ll need the energy.”
    â€œI’m … not so hungry,” Oona said.
    â€œWell, maybe you’d like something else,” he turned to the faerie servant. “Perhaps she would prefer a meat pie, Samuligan.”
    Samuligan nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said, and a smile appeared on his face like a sickly crescent moon. Before Oona could protest, a guttural sound emanated from the back of Samuligan’s throat. The muffin all at once disappeared from her plate, only to be replaced with a large, thick-crusted pie, steam seeping from the slits in its top.
    â€œThat was unnecessary,” Oona said, feeling the tingle of goose bumps on her arms from having been so close to the faerie servant’s magic. “As I said, I’m simply not hungry.”
    The Wizard sniffed at the pie before shrugging and sliding the plate over in front of himself. “You aren’t still obsessing about that gypsy woman you told me about last night, are you?” he asked, jabbing in his fork andtaking a bite. Steam erupted from the pie, momentarily obscuring his face.
    Samuligan snapped his fingers and the steam took on the semblance of an enormous toadlike mask. Oona raised an eyebrow at him, not finding the joke as funny as the faerie had intended it to be. She knew he was only trying to cheer her up in his strange fashion, but at the moment Oona was too preoccupied with the memory of the curious events of the previous night to be entertained by the magic.
    Samuligan on the other hand seemed quite amused with himself. The faerie threw back his head and barked with laughter, causing the Wizard’s teacup to explode and startling Deacon into the air.
    â€œOh, now, Samuligan, look what you’ve done,” said the Wizard, who had been drenched with tea and dribbled some of his pie down his beard.
    True to form, Samuligan reached into his pocket and pulled out an entire mop, which he proceeded to use to clean up the spillage.
    â€œIs that what you are brooding about?” the Wizard asked Oona as Samuligan dabbed at his beard with the mop head. The Wizard swatted it away. “That business with the missing crystal ball?”
    â€œIt wasn’t a crystal ball,” Oona said irritably. “It was called the Punchbowl Oracle.”
    â€œShe’s been up nearly all night, obsessing over its disappearance,” Deacon said, landing back on the candelabrum.
    Oona shot him a reproachful glance. It was true, she had been up most of the night attempting to piece together some picture of what had happened, but the last thing she wanted was to explain to her uncle precisely
why
she was so concerned about the punchbowl’s disappearance—namely, Madame Romania from Romania’s claim that she, Oona, was not responsible for some burden. A secret that only the Punchbowl Oracle had the power to reveal.
    If there was a chance—even the faintest glimmer of a possibility—that Oona had not been responsible for her mother’s and sister’s deaths, then she absolutely had to find out, and that meant that she needed to discover what had happened to the bowl.
    Her uncle, like Deacon, would no doubt tell Oona that such fortune-tellers were nothing but frauds who told a person exactly what he or she wanted to hear in order to make easy money.
    But Madame Romania from Romania had asked for no money, and after the punchbowl’s disappearance, Oona had listened intently as the woman explained how going to the police was out of the question.
    â€œGypsies are not to be getting very much along with the police,” Madame Romania from Romania had assuredOona, before noisily blowing her nose into her ragged sleeve and falling into a sobbing fit of grief.
    This in mind, Oona reasoned that if she did