The Mage and the Magpie Read Online Free

red where Archibald had poked him. “I’m the prince, Archibald. You can’t talk to me like that.”
    “So you keep telling me, my lord. I am sure I will learn sooner or later.”
    “Make it sooner, then.”
    “Yes, my lord. Speaking of learning, I came to inform you that your father has requested you accompany me on a journey.”
    Hugo sat back, the bored expression returning to his face a little too quickly. “A journey,” he intoned flatly. “Sounds boring. Where are we going?”
    “To look for someone.”
    “The Magemother?”
    Archibald gave him a sharp look. “Have you been spying on the king again, my lord?”
    Hugo shrugged nonchalantly. “Who else would you be looking for?”
    “Will you be joining me, then?”
    Hugo cast his gaze around the room in a distracted manner. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging again. “Maybe.”
    “As you wish, my lord,” Archibald said, bowing curtly and walking away. “If you so desire, you may meet me at the east doors in one hour. And Hugo,” he said, pausing in the doorway, “pack a good coat. I would hate to see that sneeze of yours turn into a cold.”
    He closed the door on the flushing face of the prince of Caraway, and made his way down the hall to the Magemother’s guest quarters. The likelihood of finding any clues there would be small, since it had been thoroughly searched after she went missing, but it seemed proper to start at the beginning.
    The doors to her rooms were locked, but they swung open at the touch of his hand.
    “Hello, Archibald,” her voice said softly. It was not really her. The doors were enchanted to welcome her friends by name, and bar her enemies. He knew it was coming, but her voice still startled him. Her voice often did that to him, startling him out of the present world and into one long past. That was why he had slowly distanced himself from her over the past few years. Now he almost regretted that decision. Perhaps if he had nurtured their friendship instead of pruning it, he would have been able to help her, or at least know where she had gone. She had not been here for months‌—‌not since she disappeared. It had been much longer since he had been here. They had stopped talking many years ago on a day not unlike this one. The memory was still painful to him.
    Archibald advanced through her rooms, his eyes falling on the sight of her possessions slowly becoming dusty without her use and care. To anyone else there would be nothing out of the ordinary; it was like any other empty and unused room. To him, someone who had so many fond memories in this space, it seemed disturbingly lifeless without her.
    He had just decided that his trip to her rooms was a foolhardy idea when his eyes caught sight of something glinting from across the room. It was a small silver bell sitting on the corner of a writing desk. A memory brushed against him like a whisper from the past, and he crossed the room in earnest to pick it up, a sudden memory giving him a gust of hope. He had not seen it for at least twenty years.
    He remembered a sunny day at Fall Hallows, rows and rows of booths, the smell of autumn, and the sound of country dances. She had purchased the little bell from the most unwholesome-looking witch he had ever seen. It wasn’t that she was particularly ugly, it was her outfit that was disturbing; she wore clothes that seemed to be fine leather at first, but upon closer inspection bore a frightening resemblance to human skin. He shivered at the memory. It was not normal practice for the Magemother to associate with such characters. As he recalled, she had also paid more money for the bell than he made in a year. It had seemed outrageous to him at the time; no doubt it was the absurd nature of the purchase that made it stick in his memory.
    “Why would you purchase such a thing from such a person for such an outrageous price?” he had asked her in shock. She had simply smiled at him, held up the bell, rang it