“It was Martin’s first wish,” Luna said, echoing my thoughts. “Protection from magic. We’ve been testing it and it works. It works. My curse can’t hurt him!”
I kept staring, trying to make sense of it. I’d seen it once before. Arachne had woven a ribbon to counter Luna’s curse, drawing it in and nullifying it. But it had lasted only a few hours before crumbling to dust and Arachne had admitted to me afterwards that it had taxed her to her limits. If what Luna was telling me was true, this thing could nullify all magic, not just Luna’s, and do it indefinitely. There wasn’t a mage alive who could match that.
I suddenly realised that both Martin and Luna were looking at me, Martin cocky, Luna expectant. “Taking,” I said. “What the monkey’s paw does.”
Luna nodded eagerly. “That was what I thought. It’s what it’s made to do!”
In other words, Martin had just done in one evening what I’d failed to do in five months. “I guess that’s good,” I said after an awkward pause.
“Of course it’s good! Aren’t you happy?”
Luna was looking at me, her eyes bright. Martin still had his arm around her, but she seemed to have forgotten. I shifted uncomfortably. I knew how Luna wanted me to react and it wasn’t what I was feeling. “I hope it works,” I said at last.
“It does work! And if it can do this, think about what else it can do! Maybe it could take my curse away completely!”
Alarm bells went off in my head at that. But Martin shifted. “Come on, Lun.” He pronounced it loon. “We said we weren’t going to try that.”
Luna flinched away from Martin, seeming to remember he was there, before stopping herself. “Listen, we were hoping you could help us,” Martin said. “With figuring out how to use it. I mean, you know as much about this thing as anyone, right?”
“Maybe,” I said slowly.
“Okay, so how many wishes do you get? Three?”
“The man I got it from said five,” I said. I could see Luna listening attentively. “I know one man who used it four times. He disappeared right after.”
“So five,” Martin said.
“What happened to him?” Luna asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The last conversation we had, he was asking how to make the thing do what he wanted.”
“So it was doing what he told it to, right?” Martin said. “He just wasn’t wishing for the right things.”
“Maybe,” I said reluctantly.
“What about after all five?” Luna asked. “Once you’ve finished? Someone else can use it, right?”
“Yes—no! Luna, don’t even think about it!”
Luna’s expression didn’t change; she’d obviously expected my reaction. “Those stories are just to stop people trying it, aren’t they?” Martin said confidently. “They don’t want anyone else getting something this good.”
I looked at Martin in disbelief.
“I want to try it,” Luna said quietly. “If there’s any chance.”
I took a deep breath. “I want to ask you something,” I said once my voice was steady. “You’re hoping if you use it in the right way, the monkey’s paw will give you what you want, right?”
“Yeah,” Martin said. Luna nodded.
“What does it get out of it?”
Both of them stared at me. “What do you mean?” Martin asked.
“It’s what it’s made to do, isn’t it?” Luna said.
“If it were that easy, everybody would be using these things.”
“Unless they didn’t know how to use it right,” Martin pointed out. “People are smarter now.”
I restrained the urge to hit Martin over the head. “Look,” I said. “You don’t need my help to use the monkey’s paw. It wants to be used. Not using it is what’s hard.”
Luna and Martin looked back at me, and I knew I hadn’t convinced them. “I know it’s dangerous,” Luna said at last. “But it’s the best chance I’ve got.”
And that was that. There was some desultory conversation between me and Luna, but Martin’s presence put a damper on it. “I’ve got some new work,” I told Luna. “We’re going to do some investigating. Want to come?”
“When?”
“About an hour. Same place as Friday. I could use some help.”
Luna hesitated. “…I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“Martin and I were going to do some more research.” Luna looked awkward. “Sorry.”
I looked at Luna. She shifted uncomfortably. “You’ve been asking to come on these jobs for months.”
“It’s not that,” Luna said. “It’s just …” She looked at Martin.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Martin glanced at his watch. “We better go.”
I looked between Luna and Martin. Luna avoided my eyes. “Okay, then,” I said at last.
“So yeah, great talking,” Martin said cheerfully, getting up. “Sorry again about the whole Saturday thing. Really appreciate you being so big about it.”
I didn’t answer, looking at Luna. “See you later,” she said at last, and walked to the door. Martin held it open. As the door swung closed I saw him put his arm around her again. And then they were gone.
I sat there for a long time, staring out the window. There was an odd feeling inside me. It had been a long time since I’d felt it, and it took me a while to remember what it was. It was the feeling you get when a relationship that’s been fraying finally breaks.
What do you call an apprentice who doesn’t train and doesn’t join their master on jobs?
You don’t call them an apprentice at all.
I started to get angry. I’d known Luna for more than a year. In all that time I’d helped her whenever I could and hadn’t asked for much in return. And now she was disappearing. I got up and started pacing up and down.
I might have kept doing that a long time, getting more and more pissed off, but a knock snapped me out of it. The help I’d been waiting for had arrived. I took a deep breath, cleared my head, and opened the door.
The boy standing on the doorstep was about average height, with glasses, untidy black hair, and scruffy clothes. He looked like a research assistant and the hand he stuck out was ink-stained. “Hey, Alex,” he said with a grin. “Need some help?”
I found myself smiling back. “Hey Sonder.” I stepped out into the street. “I’ll tell you the story on the way.”
chapter 6
We took the Tube to South London, changing at Bank. I’ve had an aversion to taxis ever since an incident with a fire mage five months back—it’s a lot harder to ambush someone underground. The noise of the train is also handy when you don’t want to be overheard.
I first met Sonder during the business with the fateweaver (the same day Cinder blew that taxi out from underneath me, in fact). Back then he was on probation, having just completed his journeyman tests. Although he was working for the Council, I found myself liking him, and to my surprise the feeling turned out to be mutual. After everything settled down he started dropping by, and kept dropping by even after my brief flurry of publicity faded. He’d helped me out several times since, usually without asking for any particular reward.
For that reason, I made sure he knew about the possible dangers on this one. “So it’s Cinder and Deleo?” Sonder asked.
“Cinder definitely,” I said. “Deleo almost definitely. I haven’t seen her but it’s a safe bet she’s around.”
“Any others?”
“Maybe. I’m hoping you can narrow it down.”
Sonder nodded. “I was wondering what those two were up to.”
It was a pretty calm reaction, but as I’ve learnt, there’s more to Sonder than meets the eye. He looks like a history geek (which, to be fair, he is) but he’s smart and surprisingly cool under pressure. The biggest reason I like him, though, is that he’s honest. If you ask Sonder a question, his first reaction is to tell you the truth. That’s pretty rare among mages.