Magic Can Be Murder by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

bespelled, shivered.
    It was Kirwyn's hair.
    Kirwyn had left the kitchen window and was walking—in the dark—around the outside of the house. His steps were careful and precise, more so than he would need simply to avoid bumping into obstacles. He seemed to be trying to move without a sound. Dodging from shadow to shadow, he made his way toward the front of the house. He stopped once, crouched and silent, and waited while someone on the nearby street passed.
    Well, at least he wasn't trying to sneak up on Brinna.
    In fact, Nola saw he was heading toward the door that led into his father's shop.
    Kirwyn waited until the street was empty, then he knocked against the door.
    No answer.
    Kirwyn stepped to the side of the shop and rapped his knuckles against the closed shutter.
    Innis's voice came, very faintly, through the wood of the wall and the water of the spell. "Shop is closed. Come back tomorrow."
    "This is important," Kirwyn hissed through the crack of the shutter. He went back to the door and knocked again.
    The silversmith flung the door open. "What is it?" he said, and—before Kirwyn could answer—"You!" in a tone of surprise that indicated he hadn't recognized his son's voice through the urgent whispering at the shutter.
    Light spilled onto the street. With one hand up to urge quiet, Kirwyn motioned with his other hand for his father to back into the shop. Innis, who had not seen Kirwyn's stealthy movements nor how he had waited until the street was empty, stepped backward. Kirwyn followed and hastily closed the door behind him.
    Doesn't he see?
Nola wondered of lnnis.
Can't he tell something is wrong?
    In the room beyond the basin, Nola saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. Her mother reached forward, and Nola caught hold of her wrist before she could upset the basin.
    Her mother began a high-pitched moan, though Nola knew she hadn't been rough enough to cause her mother harm.
    "Stop it," Nola begged urgently. She let go, and her mother cradled her arm, rocking back and forth. The whining moan became a strangled-sounding hum—a lullaby to calm the baby in her forefinger.
    Nola looked away from her mother and back to the basin.
    On the shelf behind the silversmith's workbench were several silver cups, ornaments, a knife handle, buckles. The back door leading to the silversmith's bedroom was open. On one of the tables was a small but high-edged wooden tray on which were other silver items. By chance or design, Kirwyn had caught lnnis in the process of putting valuables away for the night, locking them in the more secure inner room.
    "What
is
it, Kirwyn?" lnnis demanded.
    "I found myself locked out," Kirwyn said, "and Brinna and Alan already to bed. I didn't want to disturb them."
    "So you disturb me, instead?" lnnis turned away in disgust and picked up the tray he had obviously set down to answer the summons at the door. Over his shoulder he added, "And if the servants are abed at this hour, they obviously are not kept busy enough."
    Instead of following his father into the inner room, Kirwyn went to the largest of the silversmith's several anvils. His hand hovered over the tools beside it, then he selected a hammer, the biggest of them, a tool apparently meant for the earliest, roughest work.
    Nola's mother, standing the length of the room away from Nola and the basin, became more frantic in her humming.
    Turn around!
Nola mentally warned the silversmith. But, of course, nothing she did on this side of the water could affect the scene she viewed. Nola wished she had let her mother tip out the water.
She
wanted to tip out the water, but in her horror she couldn't move. She didn't want to see what was coming, what she knew was coming.
Turn around! Turn around!
    Innis didn't turn around.
    Kirwyn followed his father into the bedroom. There was a second door that led to the rest of the house, but this was closed. The silversmith had his back turned. He crouched down to lift a section of boards from the floor and