The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas Page B

next chapter.” Then she leaned over to speak softly to me. “And you, Conn, will forget everything you know about the embero, if you know what’s good for you.”
    â€œThe book is wrong,” I whispered back.
    Periwinkle glanced up at the ceiling, blew out a breath, and looked back down again. “Of course it is. The book is intentionally in error. Our students would have no good reason to use the embero, which is a particularly dangerous spell.So it was written down with a mistake in it, just so students don’t effect it by accident and turn themselves into toads.”
    Right, I got it. But I didn’t have to like it. “That’s a stupid thing to do with the magic. Why teach them spells they can’t use?”
    â€œHush,” Periwinkle said, pointing at my book. “Keep quiet and read.”
    Frowning, I opened my book and started reading.
    Rowan came in late, then, and slid onto a seat beside me. “What did I miss?” she whispered. She was out of breath.
    â€œToads,” I said quietly. “Where’ve you been?”
    She shrugged and opened her spelltext. “Affairs of state, my lad.”
    Ha-ha. I showed her the page we were on and went back to piecing together the larpenti spell, for turning water into other liquids. I wondered where the mistake in the spell was, and if Nevery would teach me the real larpenti spell.
    After class was over, I said good-bye to Rowan, slung my bag full of books over my shoulder, and headed for the stairs to the secret tunnels to wait for Nevery. I was thinking about where I was going to look next for my locus magicalicus when Keeston and three of his friends, a boy and two girls, appeared in front of me.
    I started to walk around them, but they moved to block my way to the stairs.
    â€œMagister Nevery is your master, is he?” Keeston asked.
    Nothing wrong with that question. I nodded.
    â€œBut you don’t have a locus magicalicus. So you can’t be sure you’re really a wizard, can you?”
    I knew for sure that I was a wizard, but I didn’t have to prove it to Keeston. I shrugged.
    Keeston stepped closer. “ Can you?”
    â€œI’ll find a locus stone.” Eventually.
    Keeston stepped closer. “My master says he’d have you beaten, sneak thief, if you were his apprentice.”
    I put my bag down, to keep my hands free. Only one way this kind of conversation was likely to lead. “What for, footlicker?” I asked.
    â€œFor disrespect, among other things,” Keeston sneered.
    That didn’t make sense. “But I respect Nevery.”
    â€œSee, right there?” Keeston glanced aside to his three gray-robed friends, and they nodded. He looked back at me. “You called your master—” He couldn’t bring himself to say Nevery’s name.
    The other apprentices were frightened of Nevery. I saw how they quivered like jelly on a plate whenever he was around. I’d heard them tell stories among themselves; they’d heard them from their masters, I reckoned. Like that twenty years ago Nevery had been banished from Wellmet for attempting to kill the duchess, which I didn’t believe, and for trying to burn down the Dawn Palace, which, knowing Nevery, could be true.
    At any rate, Keeston was still worked up about it. “You call your master by his right name,” he said.
    I nodded.
    â€œYou should call him ‘Master.’”
    I nodded again. “Yes, he told me that, too. But we agreed that if I taught him to pick locks, I could call him Nevery.”
    Keeston drew himself up and spoke triumphantly. “See there?” His friends, lined up like little dolls in a shop window, nodded again. “Right there. My master would have you beaten for that, gutterboy.”
    â€œLike he beats you, crawler?” I asked.
    And then he went for me.
    I wasn’t expecting it yet, so he got in one punch, right in my face.
    Keeston was