The Midnight Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

matter of sunhats, his lack of intellect, and his general inadequacy. After a full year under the Professor’s tutelage, and three before that as a mildly troublesome Merlin undergraduate, Gray knew better than to protest that he had neither asked to work in the garden (or, for that matter, to be here at all) nor claimed any horticultural expertise whatever. Instead he assumed an attentive and chastened expression perfected during his second university term, murmured “Yes, sir” and “No, indeed, sir” at the appropriate moments, and waited patiently for the torrent to abate. While so doing, he calculated the likely distance from Callender Hall to the home of his sister Jenny, and whether he might soon expect a letter from her in answer to his own.
    He once or twice felt, as he had yesterday at dinner, the familiar little prickling sensation that meant someone was using magick nearby, and pondered what the Professor might be at, deciding eventually that the source must be an ambient spell—a protection, an amplification . . .
    For a moment, then, he went cold with fear: What if there should be some sort of listening-spell in place here? Sophie’s guileless derision of yesterday, which he had thought safe enough because they were out of doors, might well have consequences she could not have foreseen. With this in mind—his attentive expression never wavering—Gray summoned what magick he could to cast his inner eye and ear on his surroundings. Certainly there was
something
there, but if a listening-spell, it was none that he had ever encountered before.
    â€œRemember where you might now find yourself, boy,” said the Professor, reaching his peroration at last, “were it not for my intervention.”
    Sent down in disgrace,
thought Gray,
or dead in the street like poor Arzhur Gautier—or safe in my rooms at Merlin, had your bully-boys left me out of their gods-accursèd schemes to begin with.
    â€œY-yes, sir,” he said aloud. “I th-thank you, sir.” He gazed down at his toes, lest his face betray him.
    The Professor had stalked away to resequester himself in his study, and Gray was arming himself for a renewed assault on the hated rhododendron bed, when Sophie emerged from the shrubbery, carrying a sunhat even larger and more tattered than her own. This, with a diffident smile, she presented to Gray. “I found this hat for you,” she said.
    Gray took it, rather startled, and turned it over in his hands. “I thank you,” he said. “That was k-kind.” Absentmindedly murmuring a mending-spell, he traced a finger along a rent in the hat’s crown, knitting the edges back together. He was pleased to discover that the effort this required was much less than it would have been a fortnight ago, in the aftermath of his accident with the Professor’s wards at Merlin.
    Sophie seemed disproportionately impressed. “How clever!” she said, scratching the bridge of her nose. “Could you mend mine, also? That is, if . . .”
    â€œOf course.” Gray reached for it. Sophie watched, apparently fascinated by this simple trick, as he repaired each hole and rent. When he handed the hat back to her, she admired it for a moment, turning it this way and that, before putting it back on her head.
    â€œI do wish I had magick,” she said.
    â€œHave you not?” Gray looked up, surprised. He felt rather light-headed now, and knew too late that he had overreached. “B-but—”
    â€œNot a flicker,” she said wistfully. “The Professor tested all of us when we were small, he says. People do think it odd that two talented parents should have
three
talentless children; but there it is.”
    â€œThen your mother—”
    â€œHer talent was a minor one, by all accounts. And of course, being female, she had little training, for she was not a healer. And then . . .” There was