shape something in one hand. She couldn’t tell what it was, only that there was a brilliant glow of magic around it, and he seemed to be tossing it like a child’s ball.
The monster shrieked, surged up from the floor, and launched itself at Nelle. With a squeak of terror, she raised her pot and crouched, squeezing her eyes shut. A flash of light burst through the dark behind her eyelids. She heard a squawk of surprise followed by a sticky-sounding thud.
Cringing, uncertain what she would see, Nelle peered out from behind the pot, first toward where the bird-thing had been, then swiveling her gaze to the wall.
“What in the bullspitting boggarts?” she cried, lowering the pot and staring. “Is that slime?”
Wings outspread, its head turned to one side, the monster, looking more pathetic than fierce, was firmly glued to the stone wall. Green ooze clung to its feathers and slid in slow, unctuous trickles to puddle on the floor. The muscles in its bird wings strained to pull free, but the goo kept it fastened in place.
Nelle turned to the mage. He rose, straightening his robes and assuming an air of great magisterial poise, his face impassive. Holding up the book, he cast Nelle a quick glance just before he shut it with a snap.
“It would seem, Miss Beck,” he said in a cold, forbidding tone, “you managed to select one of the books from my earliest student days. Not, I might add, spells for which I received official instruction. These were . . . extracurricular experiments.”
She blinked at him. “So that’s a book of what? Joke spells?” She snorted, her face breaking into a grin. “How old were you exactly? Nine?”
Silveri coughed and looked down at the book, turning it in his fingers. “I was twelve years of age when I first began to create viable spells. Three years into my official training.”
“Well. That explains a few things.” Nelle fought the urge to laugh out loud. It wouldn’t be fair to the poor mage who valued his dignity so highly.
Instead, she turned her attention to the monster-bird stuck to the wall. It had ceased struggling for the moment. Its eyes rolled wildly in its head, darting from her to the mage to the wyvern cowering under the table, and back again. Again she was struck by how dreadfully human that face was. It had a beak, large, curved, and cruel; but its eyes, framed by exposed pink skin, weren’t at all birdlike, and tufty feathers formed startlingly expressive eyebrows. On closer inspection its torso looked distinctly manly, with impressive pectoral and abdominal muscles on full display. Feathered wings sprouted from the shoulders where arms should be, and the legs were distinctly avian, complete with great scaly toes and black talons. It would be an imposing specimen if it weren’t covered in slimy ooze.
Nelle drew a step closer, her lip curling at the stink rising from the mage’s awful spell. Apparently his twelve-year-old imagination had been ripe for all sorts of foulness. “Boggarts!” she said, waving a hand before her face. “I hope it evaporates when the spell wears out, cuz I’m not cleaning that mess up.”
“No fear, Miss Beck,” Silveri said. He moved to the armoire and crouched to search through the stacks of books within. “I wouldn’t get too close if I were you. My skills at the time of that spell’s invention were not altogether trustworthy. It may give out at any moment or react in ways I cannot predict.”
Nelle took several hurried steps back and raised her pot again, ready to catch any stray slime-blobs that might suddenly hurtle her way. The bird-thing started at her hasty movements and strained again at its bindings, but for now at least, the spell held.
“Did you say it’s a harpy?” Nelle asked, continuing to back away until she stood nearer to the mage.
“No.” Silveri sat back on his heels, paging through a book. Satisfied with its contents, he stood and, still paging, moved toward the monster.
“Well, what is it then?”
He cast her a quick, distracted look. “A harpen, Miss Beck.” He spoke as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. During the very few days she had known him, Nelle had come to hate that tone of his.
“Fine, I’ll bite,” she growled after an overly long silence. “What’s the difference?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I should think it obvious.”
“Oh, you should, should you?”
The corner of his mouth tilted, the ugly scars on his cheek puckering slightly.