The Threads of Magic, Alison Croggon [uplifting novels txt] 📗

were molded in a relief design of dragons studded with amethysts, and in the middle of the lid was engraved a coat of arms featuring a bird with a woman’s face and another dragon embellished with red gems.

“That’s a coat of arms, the sign of the noble,” said Pip. “As clear as clear.”

Slowly, as if she hardly dared to touch it, El reached out and stroked the lid with the tip of her finger. The metal felt smooth and soft and cool.

“What’s inside it, Pip?” she whispered at last. “It must be something very valuable, to have a box like that.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Let’s look.”

They caught each other’s eyes, suddenly frightened, although they didn’t know why. They stared at the box a while longer. It didn’t have a lock, just a little silver catch — shaped like a tiny claw — under the lid.

Very carefully, Pip tried to spring the catch with his grimy fingernail. It wouldn’t budge.

“Let me have a go,” said El. She was fascinated now, leaning so close her hair brushed Pip’s cheek.

“No, it’s mine.” He held it possessively against his chest.

El pouted but didn’t argue. Pip examined the box more closely. Maybe it had rusted shut. But silver didn’t rust . . . He took out his knife from his belt and slid the tip under the catch, but again it wouldn’t move.

“Maybe it’s soldered,” he said.

“You’ll have to break it.”

Pip struggled with the catch a little more, breathing noisily through his nose, and then tried pushing the knife under the lid and prying it open. That didn’t work either. At last he sat back, staring at the casket in frustration.

“I can’t see why it won’t open,” he said, shaking it. There was definitely something inside. He held the casket up in front of his eyes and addressed it directly. “Why won’t you let me in?”

Pip’s hands prickled, like an attack of pins and needles, and he let out a soft curse. El looked at him inquiringly.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just my hands went all funny. Probably just because I’m tired.”

The pins and needles were getting worse, and he put the box down to shake out his fingers. This was frustrating. What was the point of a treasure if you couldn’t see what it was?

“Maybe if you ask it more politely,” El said.

“It’s a box.”

“It can’t hurt. Being nice, I mean.”

Pip shrugged and picked it up. The pins and needles got worse when he held the box, but he tried to ignore them. He stroked the lid gently, as if it were a frightened kitten. “All right then. Please, box, let me open you up.”

There was a tiny snick, and Pip’s and El’s eyes met.

“It heard you!” said El.

“I probably loosened something before,” said Pip. His chest was tight with excitement. He eased the lid open slowly to prolong the moment of anticipation, and they peered inside.

For a few moments both of them were silent with bafflement. Nestled on a bed of red velvet was something that looked like a rough black stone, about the size of a small apple.

“It’s nothing, really,” said El, her voice thick with disappointment.

Pip was disappointed too, but he didn’t want to believe that his find was of no worth. He took out the object and turned it around in his hands.

“It must be precious,” he said. “Why would they put it in a box like this if it wasn’t precious?”

He tested its weight in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t heavy and felt like leather, he thought, but hard, like leather gets when it’s dry and cracked, almost as hard as stone . . .

Suddenly he started, almost dropping the thing, and put it back in the box as if it burned his fingers. He slammed the lid down shut, breathing hard.

“What is it, Pip?” El looked into his face, which had gone as white as paper. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

He had thought he knew what the object was. It looked like a very old, very shriveled-up heart, like the lambs’ hearts he had seen at the butcher’s, only smaller, and black and hard with age. There were the thick veins at the top, chopped all roughly, and the shape of it, the different muscles smooth against one another . . . a lamb’s heart, he thought, or a child’s. And as those thoughts went through his head, he had felt it squirm in his hands, as if the heart was beating. As if it had come alive.

“YOU LOST THE STONE HEART.”

The statement was said in a flat, unemotional voice, but in such a way that Sibelius d’Artan began to tremble. He licked his lips and looked around the room in a panic. It was illuminated by a single gold candelabra that cast more shadows than light. The richly decorated walls had several dark alcoves, each of which, Sibelius suddenly thought, might hold an assassin. He tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry.

“I said, you lost the Stone Heart.”

Sibelius fell to his knees in terror. “Your Eminence,” he gabbled. “Forgive me. It was no fault of ours. The most lamentable intersection of events conspired to —”

“Silence, you fool!”

Cardinal Lamir, the most powerful man in the Holy Church of Clarel, looked down thoughtfully at the figure trembling before him. The price of incompetence was death. He would ensure that Sibelius’s was most interesting.

“Let me reprise. Disguised as commoners, you and your companion were skulking through the poor quarters at twilight when you were surprised by a pair of thugs. Having fought them off, you found that the box was missing. It’s possible that you dropped it, but it could be that someone picked your pocket.”

Not daring to speak, Sibelius nodded. In dressing as a commoner and eschewing an armed guard, Sibelius had followed the cardinal’s precise instructions. But Sibelius knew that reminding the cardinal that the error was in fact his own would do nothing to deflect his wrath.

“Having searched the area, you return