A Muddle of Magic. Alexandra Rushe

made a sandwich of bread and cheese and carried it back to her cabin. A ghost waited for her there. No, not a ghost—a ghoul, with a shattered face and bulging eyes. He lifted the medallion around his throat and gurgled at Raine. Sea water bubbled from his mouth and puddled on the floor.

      “I won’t forget, Doran,” Raine said, setting the sandwich on the table for later. “I’ll give the medallion to your wife when I reach the Citadel, I promise. Now, shoo. You’re making a mess on the floor.”

      The ghost vanished. Climbing onto the bed, Raine crossed her legs and unrolled a piece of parchment to go over her lesson. She jotted down a few notes with the pen Bree had given her. The harpy quill had come with a pot of never-ending ink, which was handy. Transmutation was challenging, and she’d failed miserably at her first assignment, a bird. She’d wound up with a mouthful of feathers and no wings. Flustered and embarrassed, she’d been the one to suggest a mouse, reasoning that something small and wingless would be easier.

      Wrong. Judging from Bree’s disparaging remarks about her legs and tail, she’d missed the mark.

      She was chewing on the end of her quill, pondering the finer points of a proper mouse derriere, when Mimsie’s ghost appeared. Raine still found her aunt’s youthful appearance disconcerting. The woman who’d raised Raine had been wrinkled and frail, not this pretty, young thing.

      “Trouble coming,” the ghost said in her Southern drawl. “Lock the door. I’ll go for help. This is a fine howdy-do—you in the soup and every man jack and troll aboard this tub drunk as Cooter Brown, and that Raven fellow off galivanting in the woods.”

      Raine dropped her quill, leaving a streak of ink on the parchment in her lap. “Get Bree. He’s sober.”

      But Mimsie was already gone.

      Raine scrambled off the bed and locked the door. Grasping her wizard stone, she retreated to the bed, her heart pounding. She didn’t have long to wait. A black blade slid between the door and the frame. The leather catch lifted, and the door creaked open. A small figure stood in the entrance. He resembled a burnt gingerbread man with a round, tarred head and stubby arms tipped with knives instead of hands. Hard knots moved beneath his rigid flesh in questing lumps.

      He watched her coldly for a moment, his black button eyes unblinking in his mouthless face; then he scuttled across the room and hopped on the foot of the bed. Raine shrieked and scooted up the mattress. The thing pursued her, blades scissoring. She shrieked again and clutched her wizard stone. There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a soft thump.

      Her vision cleared. A nimbus pulsed around her. She’d made a shield. Or, rather, her wizard stone had.

      “Thanks,” she murmured, giving the stone a grateful squeeze.

      She knelt and peered over the edge of the bed. The little man was lying on his back on the floor, his arms and legs whirring mechanically. With a disjointed jerk, he righted himself and hurled his body at the shield. He slammed into the magical buffer and hit the floor with a clatter. Raine yelped and shrank back.

      He rolled to his feet and cocked his head, regarding the barrier that separated them with dead eyes. Spreading his arms, he began to spin like a top. Faster and faster he whirled. The scaraboid lumps beneath his armored skin stretched and detached. Globs of pitch splattered the shield and stuck to the shimmering surface like tar roaches, dissolving the shield. The monster clacked his blades in anticipation and marched toward the bed. He was sharpening his talons, Raine realized with a stab of terror. She had to do something, or the demonic little butcher would gut her like a hog.

      On impulse, she shifted into a mouse. At once, she was assaulted by smells: the lanoline scent of the woolen blankets and the slightly musty odor of the down mattress, the polish on the wooden floor, and the yeasty, rich aroma of the bread crumbs she’d dropped from her sandwich.

      Most of all, she smelled the tarry little man. He smelled of creosote and death and burnt hair. The odor was cloying, especially to the mouse’s sensitive nose.

      Whiskers twitching in affront, she darted off the bed. The doll sprang after her and got between her and the door. Chrrrick, chrrick, he sharpened his knives. Raine squeaked in terror and scampered to the right. The mouse’s sense of smell was keen, but its vision was poor. Thwack. A wickedly sharp blade slammed into the wood floor, missing her tail by inches. She scurried to the left. Behind her, the doll’s blades gave a metallic snick. Her right ear burned, and she squealed in pain. Blood ran into her eyes, blinding her.

      Snip, snip. She heard, rather than saw, the little man closing in. Agitated and mindless with fear, she tried to dart under the bed, but the bed frame met the floor and was bolted down. She was trapped.

      There was a tremendous crash at the door, but Raine did not turn her head. She couldn’t. The mouse’s survival instincts had taken over. Move so much as a muscle, her mousy neurons warned, and the predator would see her.

      Clicking his knives like mandibles, the little man raised his blades to finish her.

      Morven?

      The voice penetrated the mouse’s haze of terror and brought Raine to her senses. The door and freedom were a few feet away, if she could get past the demon doll. Bunching her hind quarters, she jumped, sailing up and over the evil manikin and his slashing blades. Just when she thought she’d made it, a hard, muscular length whipped around her tiny body, plucking her from midair. The snaky tail lowered, and Raine found herself nose to nose with a monster, a fearsome beast with a large, crested head and a tapered snout. The monster’s jaws were parted, revealing long, sharp teeth. Almond-shaped eyes gleamed reddish-gold beneath heavy ridges of bone.

      The dragon nuzzled her curiously, brushing her quivering body with silky red whiskers. Silly Morven. Why are you a mouse?

      “Flame?” Raine chittered. “You’re a dragon?”

      Am I? Flame does not know. Morven said Flame is a—Flame paused and looked down. What is this?

      Still bent on its deadly mission, the maniacal doll was climbing up one of the dragon’s thick, scaled legs, his vacant, unblinking gaze fixed on Raine.

      Raine squealed with fright. “Don’t let it get me. It’s trying to kill me.”

      Do not worry, Morven. Flame will protect you.

      Setting Raine on one hulking shoulder, Flame grasped the scrabbling creature in his claws. The doll’s arms and legs whirred back and forth like a battery-operated toy, its featureless jaws working with frustrated hate.

      It is very ugly, I think, Flame said, examining the squirming creature. Perhaps the ugly attacked Morven because it is hungry? Perhaps the ugly likes mice. Morven should have thought of that.

      “It attacked me before I turned into a mouse. I was trying to escape the ugly.”

      Morven used magic to become a mouse?

      “Yes, it’s something Bree and I’ve been working on. It’s called transmutation.”

      Morven will be a mouse forever?

      “Of course not. I was going over my notes when the nasty little robot—”

      Robot?

      “The ugly. I was doing my lessons when the ugly attacked me.” Raine’s whiskers trembled at the memory. “I didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.”

      Flame is glad Morven will not stay a mouse. Flame is hungry.

      “Flametongue,” Raine piped, much shocked. “You’d eat me?”

      Flame likes mouse very much. Almost as much as rat, and Morven smells delicious.

      Raine thought Flame was teasing, but she couldn’t be sure. Wiser not to tempt him, she decided, and de-mouse. Patting the soft fur of her chest with one paw, she located her wizard stone and closed her eyes. She felt a stretching, pulling sensation. When she opened her eyes, she was perched on Flame’s shoulder.

      No longer hampered by the mouse’s myopia,