Whispered Magics Read Online Free PDF Page A

and I said, “We wish Pat would see magic.”
    Then we turned to face Pat, not knowing what—if anything—to
expect.
    For a moment, nothing happened.
    Then Pat’s head came up, and she looked at us. It was a long
look, an odd look, as if she saw something else besides us. I felt a weird
tingling in my bones, and around the edges of my vision light flickered, like
tiny stars, but I didn’t dare move. Turn my head, even.
    For a long time we all just stood there, and then Pat got up.
    And she smiled.
    It wasn’t a big grin, like Nikki’s best, or a giggly smile,
like Lissa when she’s feeling silly. It was a little one, but it glowed in her
eyes and her cheeks and her forehead—it made her all bright.
    She picked up her books and came down the hill, still smiling.
    I looked down at my empty hands—the talisman had disappeared.
But it didn’t matter, I realized as I stooped to pick up my backpack. It didn’t
matter because we’d each gotten a gift after all. We’d given Pat her glass
slipper, and the look in her face gave it right back again.
    “C’mon,” I said, laughing as I looked at the others. “Let’s
go, or we’ll be late for the ball.”

The Princess, the Page, and the Master Cook’s Son
    Kimet opened her eyes. Her dream vanished in the strong
morning light slanting through the row of tiny attic windows. It was so cozy in
her warm nest of blankets with the sun on her cheek—
    The sun! She threw off her blankets and reached for her
livery.
    It was the first time she had ever woken up to sunlight in the
dismal attic where the pages slept. Her shoulders hunched, braced against the
anticipated sting of Steward Greb’s stick as she yanked her tunic straight and
fumbled her sash into place.
    She dashed out of her cloth-hung cubicle, glanced into the
sleeping spaces directly opposite hers, and stopped when she realized that she
was not alone. Blanket-covered bumps in the three she could peer into meant at
least three of the other pages stuck on extra duty late the night before, when
the Queen decided to have a midnight supper, were still asleep. Such a thing
had never happened before.
    “Sun’s up!” she cried, not wanting anyone else getting into
trouble.
    Tousle-haired girls popped their faces out of the cubicles,
and heavy eyes widened to round-eyed surprise and dismay when they saw one
another.
    “It’s late!”
    “Why weren’t we called, Kimet?”
    “Is this a Greb trick, Kimet?”
    “I don’t know,” she said in a low voice, peering fearfully
down the ladder. “But I do know I was supposed to be on duty in the Queen’s
chamber at sunup.”
    At the word Queen, all the faces blanched. Kimet scrambled down the ladder, leaving shrill,
anxious voices behind her, everyone asking questions that no one listened to.
    She hesitated at the narrow door used by the servants. This
route was long, dark, and often crowded, and being only a page and not yet
under an order, she’d have to give way to everyone else pushing slow carts of
dishes or bed-linens, dashing with royal messages, or bringing up silver trays
with steaming food from the kitchens. Besides,
if the Queen’s spies see that I’m late, they’ll blab to Steward Greb. She
tiptoed away, and up to the carved door opening onto the upper landing of the
royals’ Residence. You weren’t supposed to use that door unless you had to
deliver something directly beyond it, then you had to come right back.
    It would mean a terrible beating if she were caught wandering
the royals’ halls, unless she could convince someone she had an errand. On the
other hand the royals’ hallway was less than half the length of the servants’
as it did not have to wind around and up and down and behind all the huge
rooms, and it was never crowded.
    The stick if caught here, the stick if caught late—but if she
used this shortcut and wasn’t seen, she might avoid both punishments.
    Yes. Worth a try.
    She opened the door and sped soundlessly down the marble