Page 29 of Magic for Nothing

Eight

“Trust the mice. They may lead you weird, and they may lead you stupid, but they’ll never lead you wrong.”

—Frances Brown

In a bedroom at Penton Hall, still trying not to freak out

CHLOE WAS ASLEEP: I was absolutely sure of that. The best actress in the world couldn’t have snored that loudly, or that consistently, or continued doing it even after I’d started flicking balls of wadded-up paper at her face. The mystery of why there’d been an open bed in her room was answered. Anyone with any status whatsoever around here would demand a new roommate after their first night with her, for the sake of ever sleeping again.

I rolled out of bed and onto the floor, trusting the rug to cushion my fall. It did an admirable job: I landed with barely a thud. Chloe continued snoring without a hitch. As white noise generators went, I couldn’t have asked for better. I already knew that there were no cameras on the room—that had been confirmed when Chloe stripped for bed without hesitation or making any effort to cover herself, something I couldn’t imagine her doing if she knew there was a chance her grandfather might see the footage—and now I was confident that even if there were microphones, they wouldn’t be particularly sensitive. They couldn’t be.

When I got out of here, I was going to leave Chloe a note suggesting she look into some sort of sleep study. There was clearly something wrong with her breathing.

Sticking my head under the edge of the bed, I whispered as loudly as I dared, “Professor Xavier is a jerk.”

Mindy popped out from behind my suitcase and ran to sit primly in front of my face, curling her tail around her paws. Her ears were up and her whiskers were tilted forward; she looked smug, inasmuch as it was possible for a mouse to look smug.

She wasn’t alone.

The mouse next to her was slightly larger, its brindled fur spotted with white. It had a downy black feather and a bone bead on a string around its neck, but was otherwise naked. That was unusual for an Aeslin mouse, or at least for the ones at home: most of them wore so much in the way of regalia that they could be mistaken for taxidermied toys. This mouse had his—definitely his; remember, naked—ears flat and his eyes cast down in a gesture of respect. Which meant he wasn’t just a field mouse she’d slapped a necklace onto.

I blinked. Mindy preened, clearly waiting for me to be the first to speak.

“You . . . found a friend,” I said finally. “Who’s your friend?”

“Priestess, I present to you a representative of the Lost Catechisms,” said Mindy, her whiskers pushing even farther forward. “His are the descendants of those who remained behind when the Patient Priestess and the God of Uncommon Sense were forced to leave the Obedient Priestess and the God of Bitter Honesty behind as they struck out across the Great Water. For did not the Patient Priestess say, ‘Charles, I know you’ll never forgive us, but please believe me when I say I love you. Ask the mice. They remember’?”

“Wait.” I would have shaken my head, but that wasn’t exactly easy, considering I was on the floor. “Wait just a second. Are you saying there are Aeslin mice here? Like, here-here? At the Covenant?”

“Yes, Priestess,” said Mindy patiently.

“Whoa,” I breathed.

It’s a matter of family record that my great-great-grandparents had been forced to leave their two elder children behind when they left the Covenant: Charles and Ada Healy had been under the age of consent, and the Covenant hadn’t been willing to let them go. The thought that a branch of the family colony might have chosen to stay, even knowing how much danger they were putting themselves in, had never crossed my mind. But of course they would have stayed. Of course. Where there were members of our family, there were Aeslin mice.

I focused on Mindy. “Did you—did the colony—know about this when they sent you with me? That there might be other Aeslin here?”

“We suspected, Priestess,” she said, with a quick, almost human nod. They’d picked up the gesture from us, along with so much else about the way they lived. “Those who chose to stay and chronicle the lives of the Obedient Priestess and the God of Bitter Honesty knew they might never have a close relationship with their gods, for they were to be raised Outside the Family, by those who Did Not Understand. But still, we had a duty, and Duty Must Be Fulfilled.”

The strange mouse glanced at me, head still bowed, like he was trying to assess my reaction.

I held very still, largely because my first response was the strong desire to leave the room, find any distant cousins I had in the building, and punch them until my knuckles hurt. Aeslin mice put their faith in us, in every sense of the phrase, and all they ask in return is protection, the occasional plate of cheese and cake, and the security of knowing their gods love them. The mice who’d chosen to stay with Charles and Ada—them and their descendants—had given up those things for the cold comfort of doing what they saw as their duty to the family. They had been neglected. They had been ignored. And it wasn’t fair.

“What’s your name?” I asked finally, in a soft voice.

The strange mouse made a chittering noise and twitched his tail in a complex pattern, accompanied by a half-swivel of one ear and a systematic bristling of his whiskers. It took about as much time to perform as my own name would take to say: Aeslin are nothing if not efficient.

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t have the anatomy to say that—I’m sorry—so I’m going to have to give you a nickname if I’m going to identify you. Is that acceptable?”

The mouse puffed up like I’d offered him a medal and a pony. “To be so named, to be so nicked, would be the greatest of honors.” He hesitated before adding, shyly, “Priestess.”

And there came the urge to punch the world again. I kept my voice gentle, and said, “Then I’m going to call you ‘Mork.’ Are you okay with that?”

He puffed up further. “It is an Honor, Priestess!” he squeaked loudly.

Too loudly. Chloe’s snoring broke, becoming confused snuffling. I looked over my shoulder. She rolled over and went back to snoring. I returned my attention to the mice.

“You have to be quiet,” I said. Mindy was glaring at Mork. I shook my head. “Go easy on him, he’s just excited. Mindy, what’s the goal here? I can’t smuggle a whole colony home.”