Jinx's Magic Read online

  Reven’s willful stupidity was making Jinx’s stomach hurt. “The trees are people.”

  Reven shrugged. “You say you can talk to them. But nobody else can. Don’t you think that’s a bit strange?”

  “Nobody else listens! And it’s not just the trees. The Urwald is a—a thing. A whole living thing that we’re all part of.”

  “If you say so. What it isn’t, good Jinx, is a nation. And that means it’s waiting to be taken over by anyone clever enough to try. Surely even you can see that.”

  “And what about Elfwyn?”

  “While I hesitate to say ‘mind your own business’—”

  “Mind your own business,” said Elfwyn, stepping out of the shadows.

  “You shouldn’t spy on people!” Jinx was relieved to see her anyway.

  “Speaking of spying,” said Elfwyn. “You shouldn’t—” She stopped.

  There was a sound of hoofbeats. Elfwyn grabbed Jinx and Reven and hauled them into the shadow of a house.

  Two men on horseback clomped down the street. There was just enough moonlight to see their green palace-guard uniforms.

  “They can’t get far,” a guard said. “Foreign spies. Three of ’em.”

  “Hope we find ’em first.” The horsemen passed by. “The king’s offered a bag of gold to anyone who captures them alive. They’ll dance in red-hot iron shoes for sure.”

  Their voices faded away.

  “But they just let us go!” said Jinx.

  “Lord Badgertoe and Sir Thrip did,” said Reven. “But someone must have told the king.”

  They hurried through the sleeping city, down winding, stair-stepped streets to the river. They ran until they were out of breath, then they stopped under an enormous, spreading oak. Jinx climbed up onto one of the branches and wrapped himself in the tree’s aliveness. Reven told Elfwyn what had happened after she left, while tactfully avoiding the subject of why she’d left.

  Jinx resolutely refused to fill in the parts Reven couldn’t say because of his curse, but neither Elfwyn nor Reven even noticed he was doing it. Jinx leaned up against the tree trunk and felt neglected and put-upon.

  Abruptly the scene around him changed. He saw a whole forest of trees, spread out along both sides of the riverbank. But when he leaned forward for a closer look, the forest vanished.

  Weird.

  “That Dame Franca creature was on the king’s side after all,” said Elfwyn. “Just like Witch Seymour said she might be.”

  “Indeed not, my lady. She didn’t summon the king. She summoned Sir Thrip and Lord Badgertoe.”

  “Well, that’s just as bad. They attacked you. Why didn’t Jinx do magic?”

  “He did set Lord Badgertoe’s sleeve on fire,” said Reven. “As I mentioned.”

  Elfwyn looked up at Jinx. “Why didn’t you set all their clothes on fire? You could have. Remember back at Bonesocket? You set the air on fire.”

  “I was using the Bonemaster’s power when I did that,” said Jinx.

  “But don’t you have any of your own?”

  “Not a whole lot, since you mention it,” said Jinx.

  “I thought wizards had their own power,” said Elfwyn.

  “Yeah, well, here’s an interesting thing: I’m not a wizard.”

  “Then you shouldn’t try to do magic at all,” said Elfwyn. “Because in this country you could get executed for it.”

  “No problem,” said Jinx. “I’m going home anyway.”

  “You can’t!” said Elfwyn. “We have to stay and help Reven.”

  “I don’t have to,” said Jinx. “And neither do you. You said you wanted to learn magic, and to find out how to lose your curse.”

  “I have to do this first.” Elfwyn stood up so that her eyes were almost level with Jinx’s—the branch he was sitting on was low. “If I don’t stay, there’ll be nobody to say who Reven is.”

  “So? Big deal. It’s nothing to us whether he becomes king or not. It won’t stop people from cutting down the Urwald.”

  “They can’t cut down the Urwald,” said Elfwyn. “It’s too big.”

  “They’re cutting down trees.” Jinx stood up on the tree branch and glared down at her. “Real living trees. You’re an Urwalder. Don’t you care?”

  He could feel the oak tree’s power coming up through his feet. It wasn’t as much power as that of the Urwald itself, not even close, but this was a grand old tree and it had a lot of lifeforce.

  “And how are you going to stop them by going home?” said Elfwyn. “It’s better if you stay here and—”

  “What, try to change Reven’s mind? He hardly has a mind,” said Jinx, getting really angry. “He’s using both of us, and I’m sick of it, even if you aren’t.”

  Reven’s eyebrows drew together like swords and there was a green flash of real anger, with no calculating squares at all. He took a step toward Jinx.

  Jinx drew on the tree’s power and set the ground in front of Reven on fire. The ground was a mush of dried grass, broken sticks, and dead leaves, and it burned nicely. Reven hopped back, alarmed.

  “Put that out, Jinx!” said Elfwyn.

  Jinx didn’t feel like putting it out. He turned the fire a dark angry purple to let Reven know how he felt, and he let the flames climb higher and higher.

  “When the guards see that—” said Reven.

  “Which they can hardly help doing—” added Elfwyn.

  “They’ll be down here, and arrest you,” said Reven. “Which is fine with me.”

  “They’ll arrest all of us,” said Elfwyn.

  “No, because we’re leaving,” said Reven, taking her hand.

  “Someone’s coming!” said Elfwyn.

  Jinx sucked the fire into himself. He jumped down from the tree branch.

  The three of them scrambled down the riverbank and crouched among the high reeds. Jinx felt cold water soaking his knees.

  There were loud clanks, men walking with swords and shields. Beams of lantern light danced across the ground as footsteps came toward them.

  Elfwyn’s elbow dug into Jinx’s ribs and she mouthed concealment spell at him.

  Oh. Right.

  Jinx drew on the fire he had inside him now and turned it into the strongest concealment spell he could manage. He grabbed hold of Elfwyn’s arm and then Reven’s. He concentrated hard. We’re not here, we’re not here.

  The trouble was, he didn’t have nearly as much power as he would’ve had in the Urwald. He didn’t know if his spell was working.

  The light from one of the guards’ lanterns illuminated Elfwyn’s face. She had a smear of mud running down from under her eye to her chin.

  The guards looked at her, and through her. Then they walked past. They squatted at the water’s edge, looking about for footprints or something; Jinx didn’t know. Finally their leader called to them and they turned and tromped back up to the tree.

  And stayed there. Jinx could sense the distant clouds of their thoughts, muddling along redly and brownly.

  Elfwyn jerked her head to the side and mouthed let’s go.

  Carefully, slowly, Jinx took a step along the path beside the river, then another. Elfwyn and Reven started moving too, as silently as possible. Every time one of them accidentally made a noise Jinx’s heart jumped, and they all froze and listened.

  They could hear the men talking beneath the tree.

  “Supposed to be some sort of trouble from abroad,” said one of them. “Spies from Bragwood, I heard.”

  “Just an excuse to attack Bragwood,” said another man. “Looking for one, ain’t they?”

  “Those flames were purple.”

  “So you think Bragwooders can make purple flames?”

  “They can if they’re hiring magicians.”

  “Them, employ magicians? Hah. Now I’ve heard we—”

  “Be careful what you say.”

  The voices were fading now, as Jinx and his companions moved farther away, but he heard one of the men say something about


  “—red-hot iron shoes—”

  Out of earshot, they hurried along the path.

  9

  A Rather Disturbing Spell

  The path beside the river met a wagon track, and they walked along it in the darkness. Jinx sensed the Urwald’s lifeforce ahead of him. Nobody was cutting trees now, but Jinx still found he knew where it was happening as easily as he knew where his own feet were.

  “We can’t go back to our camp,” said Elfwyn. “Those awful lord-sir-whatsit-things know where it is.”

  “I’m not worried about them,” said Reven.

  “I am,” said Jinx. “Because when someone sticks a knife in my neck, I get worried. I’m funny like that.”

  “So which way—” Elfwyn began.

  “South,” said Jinx. “You’re both coming to see the treecutting with your own eyes. Then you can tell me that there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “I never said there was nothing wrong with it,” said Elfwyn. “I just said—”

  “You said the Urwald was too big to cut down.”

  “Well, it is.”

  Jinx remembered how he had seen the Urwald when he had flown above it—a sea of green treetops going on forever. But not really forever. Here, they were now beyond the edge.

  “Can we stop?” Reven asked after a while. “Or do we have to walk all night?”

  Jinx was getting tired too. “We can stop.”

  Elfwyn waited until Reven had gone off to look for firewood. Then she turned on Jinx. “You shouldn’t read people’s minds without their permission. And by the way you’re completely wrong. But you still shouldn’t do it.”

  “I can’t help it! And anyway it’s not reading minds. It’s just seeing colors.” He had to get her to understand about Reven. “You’re thinking pink fluffy thoughts at him, and he’s thinking these blue and green squares that are—”

  “What color are your thoughts, Jinx?” Elfwyn demanded.

  “They’re not any—”

  “Of course they are! Who ever heard of a person with no color to their thoughts!” Elfwyn’s voice shook. “You only see other people’s thoughts through the color of yours, did you ever think of that!”

  “You don’t understand what I’m talking about at all,” said Jinx, and went to help Reven.

  The others fell asleep, but Jinx lay on his back staring up at the stars. He just couldn’t get used to the idea that there were so many of them, a vast dome of sparkling lights, pink and blue and gold.

  He was worried about leaving Reven, who he was beginning to realize was more dangerous outside the Urwald than in it. Reven was becoming Raymond, the King of Nowhere, a king with some very wrongheaded ideas about the Urwald.

  Jinx ought to stay and keep an eye on him. But Simon expected Jinx back soon. If he didn’t go back, Simon was likely to come looking for him, and probably not in a very good mood. That could be unpleasant. Besides, Jinx was worried about the Bonemaster.

  Jinx got up quietly and crept away from the fire. He leaned his back against a sycamore tree, closed his eyes, and thought. He jammed his hands into his pockets, and touched the aviot that Simon had given him.

  Oh. Yes. That might work.

  But where could he put it that Reven wouldn’t find it?

  Jinx approached cautiously—Reven was a light sleeper. Drawing on the fire for power, Jinx levitated one of Reven’s boots. Then he silently grabbed it out of the air and retreated to the sycamore.

  He used his knife to pry the heel off the boot. He cut a tiny hole, slipped the gold bird inside, and jammed the heel back on.

  At least he would be able to keep an eye on Reven.

  It began to rain. The road was muddy and slippery, and soon after sunrise the treecutting started again. Jinx could see the dark mass of the Urwald rising a mile or so to the east, and that was close enough for the pain of the treecutting to reach him.

  Elfwyn and Reven were walking ahead of Jinx, but not so far ahead that he couldn’t hear them talking.

  “This ability of Jinx’s to read minds,” Reven said. “Did he regain it when he got his life back?”

  Jinx winced.

  But Elfwyn surprised him. “Jinx can’t read minds.”

  “What can he do, then?” Jinx could tell from Reven’s voice—and from Elfwyn’s pink fluffy thoughts—that he was smiling sweetly at her. “You know what I mean.”

  “He can do magic,” said Elfwyn. “You’ve seen him.”

  She’s doing it again, Jinx thought. She’s managing her curse.

  A puff of frustration from Reven. But his voice still had the smile. “Can Jinx see what I’m thinking?”

  “No.”

  “Then what can he see?” said Reven.

  “The sky,” said Elfwyn. “The—”

  “What can he see when he looks at what I’m thinking?”

  It was too direct, and Elfwyn had no defense. “Colors, I think,” she said miserably.

  “Why don’t you ask me?” Jinx demanded.

  Reven turned around and smiled. “I beg your pardon. I had the impression you didn’t like to discuss it.”

  The road skirted the edge of the forest, two deep tracks worn by wagon wheels. Twice, wagons creaked past them laden with the corpses of slaughtered trees.

  They smelled the carnage before they saw it. The air was thick with the blood of murdered trees. Jinx could hear the screaming, too—louder and louder the closer they got.

  They came over a rise and saw the horror stretched below them.

  It was vast. It went on for miles. The smell of sap was overpowering.

  “Jinx, slow down!” Elfwyn called.

  Jinx hadn’t realized he’d started running. He ran on. Down below, at the edge of the Urwald, a mass of men was at work, axes swinging. He could hear Elfwyn and Reven catching up to him. He was in a red haze of pain.

  “Jinx, what are you doing?” said Elfwyn. “You can’t stop them! They’ve got axes!”

  “And I’ve got magic.” Jinx was out of breath and it hurt to talk.

  They were close enough now that he could hear the axes chopping into the trees’ flesh. The sound hurt. Everything hurt. The pain of the dying trees almost blinded him. But he could feel strength, too—the lifeforce power of the Urwald filled him as soon as he came within its reach. It spoke.

  The Listener is here, said the trees.

  I’m here, said Jinx. What was he supposed to do, though? The lumberjacks hadn’t even turned around. There were about twenty of them, big tough-looking men with strong arms from swinging axes.

  He’s brought the Terror back with him, said the trees.

  And then Stop them, Listener.

  Jinx climbed onto a tree stump.

  “What are you doing?” said Reven. “Remember what Witch Seymour said—”

  Jinx cupped his hands. “Hey! You! Idiots! Listen up!”

  One lumberjack who had stopped to rest turned around. He grinned and nudged the man standing next to him. One by one the men turned around, axes in hands, and advanced on Jinx.

  “You forgot what Witch Seymour said,” said Elfwyn.

  “Stop right there,” said Jinx.

  The men did, grinning. They hefted their axes.

  Jinx was much too angry to be afraid. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The biggest lumberjack, who was wearing a red tunic and green breeches, said, “Siegfried. Who’re you, brat?”

  “I’m Jinx. You’re to stop cutting trees at once. It’s not allowed. You don’t have permission.”

  “Permission from who?” said Siegfried.

  “From the Urwald.” Jinx could tell from Siegfried’s accent that he was a Keylander. “From us.”

  “Oh!” Siegfried turned and smirked at the man next to him. “We don’t have permission from them!”

  Jinx felt anger building up from his feet to his head. Elfwyn was right—his feelings did have colors. Right now he was at the center of a bright red flame of fury. “Stop laughing!”

 
“It’s better they should laugh at us than kill us,” said Reven under his breath.

  “Shut up,” Jinx told him. He had no time for Reven. Reven was an idiot. The lumberjacks were idiots. And Elfwyn, she was the biggest idiot of all, because she was an Urwalder like him and yet she couldn’t see what was happening.

  “Put down your axes,” said Jinx. “And leave them here. Take your wagons, and go away, and don’t come back.”

  “Ooh, we don’t even get to keep our axes,” said a lumberjack. The other men snickered.

  “Shut up, Eric,” said Siegfried. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “We’ll give this little brat our axes all right.”

  He took a step toward Jinx and raised his ax.

  At the same instant Reven stepped in front of Jinx and raised his. “Stay back!”

  Jinx was so surprised he almost forgot to be angry. Reven was prepared to face down twenty armed men by himself—he really was an idiot. No, not completely by himself, because Elfwyn stepped up beside Reven, and drew—a knife! A knife that looked really useful for slicing cheese with.

  “Get out of the way,” Jinx said to them. “I’m handling this.”

  “And you’re doing so well,” Elfwyn said. She brandished her knife menacingly at the men.

  One of the men shoved Elfwyn roughly out of the way.

  And Jinx lost his temper.

  The red flame of anger burst, filling the air with bright red-green light and a loud roaring noise. Jinx felt the Urwald’s power surging up through his feet and he threw it outward as hard as he could. He didn’t know what kind of spell he was doing. The power was handling all that. Jinx was just the wick that burned with it. The air burned. The sky went dark. Everything went black. There was shouting. Sounds of feet running. A soft thud—that was Jinx, hitting the ground.

  He sat up, painfully. The sky was light again. The flame and anger were gone. Jinx blinked around at the wide field of stumps.

  “What happened?” he said.

  “Supposing you tell us.” Reven’s voice was tight and cold, and there was a silver-blue glimmer of fear.

  Jinx turned to Elfwyn. “What happened?”

  A red shimmer. Elfwyn was afraid of Jinx too. “You did a spell.”