The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima Read Free Book Online

on in, Jack."
    As usual, the old caretaker's apartment was tidy, though several books lay open on his desk. Only three rooms, and the place was packed with stuff: books, model airplanes, a miniature steam engine that Nick and Jack had built the year before, jars of chemicals and plant extractions. Bunches of drying plants hung from the ceiling, like some exotic upside-down garden. There was a large wooden cabinet that had been a store display, with rows of tiny drawers full of antique hardware and scavenged items. One whole room was devoted to books, layered two deep on shelves from floor to ceiling on every wall. The apartment always smelled of paint and varnish and spices and dust: exotic, like one of the Indian markets down by the university. Nick at home somehow reminded Jack of an old bear denned up for the winter.
    Nick Snowbeard looked up from his solitary dinner. "Sit down, Jack. You're just in time for dessert." Warily, Jack dropped into the offered chair. Nick shuffled around the apartment, clad in his usual attire of flannel shirt and work pants.
    Dessert was chocolate marshmallow ice cream. Jack got partway through his dish before Nick started in on him.
    "So you forgot to take your medicine," Nick said abruptly. "Your mother must have been beside herself." He still seemed unusually hard-edged and intense.
    "I guess." Jack looked away from Nick, toward the window. A shallow tray was laid out on the table. It had been spread with different colors of sand, raked into an intricate design, littered with small metal objects.
    "Why didn't you come home and get it when you remembered?" Nick's voice broke into Jack's reverie.
    "Mr. Penworthy said I'd have to serve a detention after school if I left school to go get it. And I didn't want to miss soccer tryouts."
    Nick shook his head, his exaggerated brows drawing together in a frown. "You should have come home anyway, detention or not. It's a small thing for your mother to ask, your cooperation in taking care of yourself. What you did today could have important consequences.You cannot imagine what it is like to lose a child."
    The old man spoke as if from personal experience. Jack sighed, a frustrated explosion of air.
    "You're an adolescent. You think you're immortal." Nick collected their dishes and set them in the sink, put the teakettle on to heat. "How did tryouts go?"
    Jack told Nick all about the business with Lobeck. By the time Jack finished his story, Nick was frowning again. "Garrett Lobeck went flying through the air? And you didn't touch him?"
    Jack shrugged. "I don't really know what happened. He was pissed about it. I think he was just looking for an excuse for blowing the play."
    "Was he hurt?" Nick persisted.
    Why this sudden interest in Lobeck? "His lip was bleeding. He'll have a fat lip tomorrow. To match his head"Jack added.
    "Do you think he'll make a big deal about it? Tell people he was attacked, and so on?" Snowbeard leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the table in front of him as if he were holding it down. The old man's hands looked smooth and remarkably young for someone his age. Whatever his age was.
    "Who knows? He said I fouled him. Seriously, someone should've hurt him a long time ago."
    Nick smiled thinly. "Don't misunderstand me, Jack. It is not that I object to a little butt-kicking when it's deserved." He stood abruptly and walked to the window, nudging the metal tokens on their bed of sand with his forefinger.
    "What's that?" Jack asked, eager to distract Nick, who seemed intent on interrogating him.
    "Mmmm?This? It's nothing. A charm against evil. Old magic. The eccentricities of an old man." Typical Nick Snowbeard. He could say any outrageous thing that came into his head and get away with it.
    When Nick had things arranged to his satisfaction, he returned to the table. And the topic of Lobeck.
    "Did anyone else see what happened? Was anyone there to watch the tryouts?"
    Jack shook his head. "The goalie was the closest, and I