Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield

“What’s this?”
    Nat barely took the time to look up. “A microscope.”
    The word meant nothing to me. I leaned in for a closer look.
    Now I had his attention. “Careful!” he warned. “It took ages to put it together.”
    “You made it?” I looked at the tubes with new interest. “What does it do?”
    “It lets you look at tiny things. If you get everything lined up properly, a flea looks as big as a lamb.”
    I boggled at this. “But that’s impossible.”
    “No more impossible than your own magic,” Nat flared. “But it takes hard work and patience, not just a few random snatches of song.”
    He shot me a look so full of resentment that I stepped back from the force of it. My resolve to put him at his ease evaporated.
    “You don’t like magic, do you?” I said. No point in beating around the bush.
    “No.”
    “Not even good magic?”
    Nat shrugged. “Scargrave would tell you the Shadowgrims are good magic. And they are—for him. That’s the way magic is, as far as I can tell. It lets a few people run roughshod over the rest of us.”
    “You wish I’d never come, then.”
    He balked. “I didn’t say that.”
    “You hate magic, you as good as said so.”
    “Doesn’t matter if I do, does it? We need your magic. I wish we didn’t, but we do.”
    “So you’ll pinch your nose and put up with me, so long as I’m useful to you?” I grimaced. “How very noble of you.”
    “Well, you’re getting something out of the bargain too.” He crossed his arms. “You need us to keep you safe.”
    “Safe?” I looked back at him indignantly. “That’s a fine thing, coming from you. You’d have strung me up for a spy if it hadn’t been for Dr. Penebrygg.”
    “Nonsense.” Nat was unrepentant. “I was being careful, that’s all. If you had been a spy, and Scargrave found out what we were up to—”
    He broke off and took up his pen again.
    I stepped toward his desk, skirting the coracle and the pile of bones. “What are you up to?”
    “I can’t say.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Not yet. When Dr. Penebrygg comes back—”
    “And when will that be?” I asked. “I thought he was supposed to be here already.”
    “He was.” Nat glanced at the nearest clock. “He’s late. I don’t know why.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “I can’t say,” he said again.
    A sudden fear gripped me. Had Dr. Penebrygg been arrested? Or worse still, was he not the friend he had seemed? “You mean, you don’t know?”
    Nat shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t say.”
    I clenched my fists. First Norrie, now this. No matter where I went, it seemed people were determined to keep secrets from me. “I hate being kept in the dark.”
    “So do I,” Nat said unexpectedly. “I hate it more than anything.”
    Our eyes met, and I felt a spark like the kick of magic or the start of a song.
    Or was that only my imagination? Even as the spark shot down my spine, Nat looked away, and his voice, when he spoke, was as cool as ever. “I’d tell you more if I could, but I can’t. You’ll have to wait until Dr. Penebrygg gets back.”
    “But—”
    “I’ve said all I have to say.” Nat bent back over his work. But something was bothering him. His face was flushed, and I saw his hand go up to loosen his collar.
    I started to speak, then stopped, shocked by what I glimpsed as the collar fell away: a scar across his throat, as white as my own Chantress mark.
    “Hello, hello!” The door burst open, and Penebrygg rushed in, his cheeks pink with exertion and excitement.
    “There you are!” He smiled at me. “We’re to bring you with us when the Invisible College meets today. What do you think of that?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
MOONBRIAR
    “What’s the Invisible College?” I asked.
    “It’s not so much a what, my dear, as a who.” Penebrygg sat down by the hearth, his floppy velvet cap askew. “We are a band of mathematicians, engineers, philosophers, and alchemists who are dedicated to overthrowing