Free Stolen Magic by Gail Carson Levine Page A

find the Replica. IT’s as clever as a ratcatcher.”
    â€œI am assuredly cleverer than that. Thief, you may confess now and save me the trouble of smoking you out, so to speak.” Enh enh enh.
    Elodie scanned the bees and guests. If she had stolen the Replica and had never encountered a dragon before, her knees would have buckled. But everyone remained upright, looking equally terrified.
    IT grinned, showing ITs teeth, which were pointy as spikes.
    The high brunka said, “IT wishes to speak with some of my bees first. Um . . . Ursa, take the first turn. I expect you—bees and guests—to be frank with IT, as open as children.”
    Elodie thought the high brunka didn’t know many children.
    â€œShare everything, even your suspicions, no matter how absurd you think they are.”
    Ursa-bee, as it turned out, was the bee Elodie had noticed weeping with her fist in her mouth when the high brunka had announced the theft. She was a woman of middle height, neither thin nor fat, probably in her mid-twenties, with a high forehead, thin nose, and recedingchin. Her pale green eyes contrasted with her dark skin. She crept forward, her hands clasped prayerfully.
    â€œEveryone else, in the pairs I named, can help with the search. Give the masteress and Ursa a wide berth for their private conversation. I’ll be watching and listening.” She drew a stool from the pallet corner into the center of the great hall.
    While Ursa approached IT with slow steps, Master Robbie grabbed Elodie’s hand. “I’ll show you what else is missing, and what’s still there.”
    His hand was gloved, as hers were. How bold of him to take her hand!
    â€œWait!” She pulled free and tried to catch ITs eye to see if she should go or stay and listen to the interviews, but IT stared fixedly at Ursa-bee. “All right. Show me.”
    And, she thought, tell me what you know about everyone.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    I Ts smoke rose in white spirals. People to frighten, a puzzle to untangle—bliss. Begin with an accusation: “You are from Zertrum, are you not?”
    Ursa-bee shook her head so hard her cap trembled.
    â€œFrom where then?”
    She swallowed several times. “From Dew.”
    â€œThis Dew is hard upon Zertrum? In the shadow of the volcano?”
    â€œN-no! It’s the north harbor village, Sir—M-Mistress—Masteress.”
    â€œYes, Masteress . That is the correct appellation. You despise being a bee?”
    â€œNo!” Vehemence seemed to give her courage. “Anywhere else I’d be just a maid of all work. Here I dust, mop, help with the laundering, sweep up the old rushes, putdown the new, as a maid would, but I also take my turn guarding the Replica.”
    â€œYou regard your fellow bees highly?”
    She smiled, revealing small and uneven teeth. “Certainly! They’re bees. They want to help Lahnt. Some come from rich families and could have been anything. Dror was offered the choice of soldier or bee, and he chose bee.”
    Which might merely mean, IT thought, he preferred not to die. “In the while since Master Robbie arrived, have you guarded the Replica?”
    â€œThree times, Masteress.”
    Now to the heart of it. “Did anything out of the ordinary occur?”
    She turned to see where the high brunka was, still on her stool, too far away for a human to hear but doubtless an easy listening distance for a brunka. The bee’s fear had come back. “We didn’t t-tell Marya because all seemed well.”
    â€œTell her what?”
    â€œYesterday morning, after six, soon after Marya left her bed, late into our watch, Johan went to the garderobe, as he often does before the end of a watch. He’s always very slow there. Everyone teases him, but I rarely do, because he suffers so. When he’d been gone a minute or two, I heard weeping from the next corridor, the most piteous weeping. I tried not to move but I