Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

get the kid out of a shackle, out of a guarded wagon, and away from the train in the middle of open countryside, it was the best idea we’d been able to come up with. In fact, it was the only idea we’d been able to come up with. I gave it a fifty-fifty chance. If Michael had been willing and able to produce some magic for us, those odds would go up significantly. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
    * * *
    “Three months ago, in Rickerston, you calmed that drunk right down,” I told him. We huddled in our bedrolls, out under the stars since sleeping under a wagon was no warmer. “One minute he was going to beat the crap out of you, the next he was calm as…as a cow being milked.”
    “I see you’ve never milked a cow,” Michael murmured. Nobleman’s son or not, he was raised on a country estate. “I don’t control this, Fisk. I can’t turn it on and off like a tap!”
    “You might, if you’d practice.”
    It was an old argument between us. Whether magic comes from nature or from the two gods’ grace is a question scholars have written tomes about. The undisputed fact is that some plants and animals, and even some humans who are so simple as to be close to the gods or nature, have the ability to make real magic. Magic usually enhances a trait that is normal for that species, not just beyond the ordinary, but beyond the possible. When a normal rabbit freezes, its mottled brown coat blends so well with the surroundings that it’s hard to see. When a magica rabbit freezes, it becomes invisible. As in, you can put your hand behind it and still see how many fingers you’re holding up. Magica wood is almost as strong as iron, but still light and flexible. Magica herbs will heal you more quickly than anything else can. A magica horse can jump over an oxcart—not from the side, but lengthwise, from the tail of the cart to the nose of the startled ox.
    Yet it’s hard for humans to use magica creatures and plants. If they’re harvested without the proper rites and sacrifice, ill luck will dog, or sometimes destroy, anyone who tries to use the magica item until the sacrifice is paid. A truth that generally weighs on the “gods” side of the argument.
    But due to the schemes and potions of one Lady Ceciel—who felt free to use an unredeemed man in her quest to give humans magic, whether that man wanted it or not—Michael, alone of all normal humans, has not just Gifts but the ability to work magic.
    And I think that he could learn to use it at will—instead of having it well up out of nowhere and do completely unexpected things—if he wasn’t so scared by its freakishness that he refused to study his strange ability.
    “It only worked because the man was drunk,” Michael insisted. “It was…it felt like the magic came forth, and poured itself into my animal handling Gift. And that never works on people unless they’re drunk, or their wits are otherwise disabled. It couldn’t calm someone who was alert and suspicious.”
    “He isn’t supposed to be suspicious,” I said. “The whole point is to keep them from associating us with the boy’s escape. You don’t need to convince him to walk off a cliff, just make him sleepy or distracted, so he won’t notice when Will climbs out of the cart.”
    It was too dark to see Michael’s expression, but I could feel him resisting.
    “Just practice it for a few days, while I practice picking pockets,” I said. “I’m rusty at that, too. And you can’t say this cause is less worthy than the last time you did it.”
    There was a long silence, then he sighed.
    “I’ll try. But don’t count on it, Fisk.”
    “We won’t,” I promised. Though in truth I was, for without that we were going to need a spectacular diversion. I could just imagine what Jack would have said about that… Come to think of it, when we first met he’d been using me for a diversion.
    * * *
    I’d made my exit from the spicer’s shop I’d just robbed, and been surprised by a guard dog that I