Free Lost by Sarah Prineas Page B

said.
    Benet came in with tea. He poured a cup and set it on the table before me. “Manage that?” he asked.
    I nodded and dragged my arm out of the blankets again. The teacup felt hot to my numb fingers. I leaned forward and took a drink, my teeth bumping the edge of the cup. The tea scorched a path down my throat, into my stomach. The stone inside me started to melt.
    Benet sat down, tilted his chair back to lean against the wall, and picked up his knitting.
    Nevery had fetched his magnifying glass from a shelf and leaned over the table, peering at the Shadow’s eye. “Hmmm,” he muttered. “I’ve seen this before, haven’t I?”
    Setting down the glass, he went out of the room, up to his workroom, I guessed. In the silence, Benet’s knitting needles went clickety-ticky-tick . After a few minutes Nevery came back.
    “Look at this, boy.” He set a pot on the table. It was about as big as his hand, made of smooth,red clay, with letters in black, swirling script along the side. “I bought slowsilver in this pot. Hmmm.” He leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. “The same kind of writing, faint and fine, is etched on the eye. Slowsilver. The markings on the stone. I believe I know where the Shadows came from. They came from Desh, the desert city.”
    Desh? Oh, how could I have been so stupid. The magic’s spellword. It had the word Desh in it. The magic had known about the Shadows and where they had come from. But I’d been too stupid to understand it.
     
    In the morning I woke up bundled in blankets, lying on the hearth, with Nevery nudging me with his foot. He added a shovelful of coal to the fire. “Well, boy?”
    I creaked up and leaned against the wall beside the hearth. Even with the blankets and the warm fire, I still felt the ache of cold stone in my bones. “Better, Nevery,” I said. “Is the duchess all right?” In my sleep, I’d dreamed the Shadow raisingthe stone knife, then plunging it down. And I’d dreamed Dee, too, with Shadow dust swirling around him.
    “It is very early morning,” Nevery said. “I haven’t yet received a report from the Dawn Palace.”
    I climbed up to my chair and sat at the table. The Shadow’s eye was gone. In its place was a shiny, hand-sized puddle, as if a bit of night had spilled onto the scratched tabletop. I leaned closer to see.
    Nevery joined me. “Yes, it is odd, isn’t it.” He held out his hand. “Give me a lockpick wire.”
    I reached into my pocket and brought one out and handed it to Nevery. He poked the end of the wire into the puddle. A black-dark bead stuck to the end of the wire; he tapped and it dropped onto the table, formed into a snail, and oozed back into the puddle. It left a sizzling trail of steam behind it.
    “Slowsilver?” I asked.
    Nevery shook his head. “Something else, I think.Darksilver. Certainly it has magical properties.”
    “How’d it make the Shadow come alive?”
    “I suspect it was used to contain a bit of magic, which animated the Shadow and allowed it to carry out its orders.” He sat down. “It is of very great concern.”
    “It’s from Desh?” I asked. I remembered Rowan telling me about Desh. A city built on sand and slowsilver mines, she’d said.
    “Mmm,” Nevery said. “I visited the city of Desh during my years of exile from Wellmet. The city is ruled by a sorcerer-king, Lord Jaggus. A very powerful wizard, though young.” He glanced at me from under his bushy eyebrows. “His locus magicalicus is a large jewel stone.”
    Like mine had been. “D’you think Jaggus sent the Shadows?” I asked. The magic hadn’t said the sorcerer-king’s name, though, so maybe he hadn’t.
    “Possibly. I cannot imagine what he hopes to accomplish if he did. The Shadows are spies, perhaps, and are certainly murderers and assassins.Such aggression from one city toward another city; it makes no sense, and it is almost without precedent. There must be an explanation.” Nevery shook his head. “I