Life didn’t give her very many choices, she thought bitterly. It was no more than a mile to her home, and most of it would be along two major avenues, Grand Street and Midway Street; it would only be the last two blocks that would take her into the real depths of the city. One of those blocks was along Wall Street, beside Wall Street Field, where all the thieves and beggars lived. That was not safe at night. But what choice did she have?
She shuddered and set out on her way, thinking as she walked how pleasant it would be to be a wizard, and to be able to go fearlessly wherever one pleased, always knowing that magic protected one. Or to be rich or powerful and have guards—but that had its drawbacks, of course; the guards would find out your secrets, would always know where you had been, and when.
No, magic was better. If she were a wizard, like the one whose house she had been in...
She frowned. Would he know someone had been in the house? She hadn’t taken anything, hadn’t even broken anything—the lock on the alley door had a few scratches, and a few things might be out of place, but she hadn’t taken anything, and really, it had been that weird little green creature that had disturbed the papers and so forth.
Even if the wizard knew she had been there, he probably wouldn’t bother to do anything about it.
As long, that is, as he didn’t realize she’d been spying on him while he taught his apprentice about the athame thing. That was obviously a deep, dark Wizards’ Guild secret; if anyone found out she had heard so much about it she was probably as good as dead.
Which meant that so far, no one had found out. And even with his magic, how could the wizard find out? She hadn’t left any evidence, and he wouldn’t know what questions to ask.
She wished she had heard even more, of course; she had heard a little about what an athame could do and the instructions for preparing to perform the ritual to work the spell to create an athame, but not much more than that. It was obviously a long, complicated procedure to make an athame, and she didn’t really know just what one was.
It had to be a magic knife of some kind, obviously a powerful and important one, but beyond that she really wasn’t very clear on what it was for. The wizard had described several side effects, little extras, but she’d come in too late to hear the more basic parts.
If she had one with her, though, she was sure she would feel much, much safer on Wall Street. It was a shame she hadn’t heard all of the instructions for making one. She had only heard the beginning. To get the rest she would have to go back the next night.
She stopped abruptly and stood motionless for a long moment, there in the middle of Grand Street, about four blocks west of Wizard Street. The new-risen lesser moon glowed pink above her, tinting the shadows, while a few late torches and lit windows spilled a brighter light across her path, but nothing moved, and the night was eerily silent.
If she went back the next night, she could hear the rest.
And if she learned the procedure, or ceremony, or spell, or whatever it was, she could make herself an athame.
And why not go back?
Oh, certainly there was some risk involved; she might be spotted at any time. But the reward would be worth the risk, wouldn’t it?
She threw a glance back over her shoulder, then started running onward, back toward home.
She made it without incident, other than dodging around drunkards and cripples on Wall Street and briefly glimpsing a party of slavers in the distance, their nets held loose and ready.
She got home safely. And all the way, she was planning.
And the next night, when darkness had fallen, she again crept into the alley behind the wizard’s house, listening intently, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. This time, though, she carried a small shuttered lantern that she had appropriated from a neighbor in Northangle. Entering on a whim was all very well, but it was better to be prepared.
If she found any sign at all that her earlier visit had been detected, she promised herself that she would turn and flee.
The lock was just as she remembered; she opened one lantern-shutter enough to get a look at it and saw no scratches or other marks from her previous entry. Unlocking it again took only a moment.
The mudroom beyond was just as she remembered, and, as she glanced around, she realized that she had, in fact, stolen something—the candle she had burned for light. In a household as rich as this, though, she was reasonably confident that the loss of a single candle would go unnoticed.
The dining salon was also undisturbed; when she shined her lantern about, however, the teapot raided in its cabinet and turned away in annoyance.
The plant in the parlor was still waving; the mantel where the little creature had sat was empty.
A few things had been moved around in the workroom, but she assumed that was just a result of normal use. Nothing seemed to be any more seriously disarrayed than before.
At the entrance to the cellars she encountered her first real obstacle: the door was locked.
She put her ear to it and listened intently and heard the wizard’s voice. He was beginning the night’s lesson—his voice had that droning, lecturing tone to it.
Frantically, she set to work on the lock, and discovered, to her relief, that it was no better than the one on the alley door. Really, it was disgraceful the way the wizard was so careless about these things! If she ever became a rich and powerful wizard, she would make sure that she had better locks than these. Relying entirely on magic couldn’t be wise.
And she hadn’t even seen any sign of magic; really, the wizard appeared to be relying entirely on his reputation, and that was just plain foolish.
The door swung open, and she slipped through, closing it carefully behind her, making sure it neither latched nor locked. With the lantern shuttered tight she crept down, step by step, to the landing.
And just as the night before, there sat the wizard and his apprentice, facing each other across the center of that rug. The wizard was holding a silver dagger and discussing the qualities important in a knife—not magical qualities, but basics like balance, sharpening, and what metals would hold an edge. Tabaea placed her lantern to one side and settled down, stretched out on her belly with her chin on her hands, to listen.
It was scarcely ten minutes later that the wizard finished his disquisition on blades and began explaining the purification rituals that would prepare a knife for athamezation. Tabaea watched, fascinated. Night after night, she crept in and watched. Until finally, there came the night, after studying this one ritual, this one spell, for over a month, when the apprentice— her name, Tabaea had learned, was Lirrin—at last attempted to perform it herself.
Tabaea returned for the conclusion of the ceremony, the grand finale in which the apprentice would trap a part of her own soul in the enchanted dagger that the wizards called an athame. She settled down, once again, on her belly and lay on the stone landing, staring down at the two figures below.
Lirrin had been at it for more than twenty-three hours, Tabaea knew, without food or rest. Her master, Serem the Wise, had sat by her side, watching and calling what advice he could the entire time.