The Magician's Sons

Chapter 37

It was early evening. Copernicus was sitting in Bob's room pondering life and everything that had happened to him. He never could get over the fact that his heart was empty, that he had a longing for something he couldn't obtain.

That day, he let his mind dream about what could have been. If his mother and father hadn't died, he would have had a pretty little home with flowers bordering a clean-swept walkway and several rooms glowing with bright wallpaper. There would have been a small pianoforte in the parlor where his mother would have sat and played. There would have been a cozy armchair by the fire where his father would have sat and read aloud to them.

Thinking those fanciful thoughts, the boy yearned to hold and gaze upon the one and only object his parents had bequeathed him. So he grabbed his jacket, which had been stored in Bob's closet for safe keeping, and reached into the popped seam.

He happened to be all alone at that moment. Bob had paused his cooking in the kitchen to fetch some water from the pump outside, and the boys were still asleep upstairs. As far as he knew, Mordechai and Ebony had left the house earlier on business which they wouldn't speak about openly. But he didn't realize that the couple had already returned.

Outside, Ebony dropped lithely out of the hackney and looked up at her husband with a smile. "So, it is Mr. and Mrs. Leary now, is it?" she whispered in jest. "My darling crafter of lies, I don't know how you can have such an endless imagination. But don't you find this a bit...well, needless? Not to mention inconvenient."

Mordechai flashed her a questioning frown. "What do you mean?"

The woman let out a sigh of discontentment. "You promised me that, when we moved away from this rotting old house, we would be settling down in a more respectable location, Anthony," she reminded him a little sharply. "You gave me your word that as soon as your little sewer rats made you your fortune, we would leave the vile ragamuffins behind and own an estate! What became of that plan, dearest?"

Mordechai's grip on her hand grew almost painfully tight in his anxiety. "You don't understand, do you?" he quavered with fear. "You don't seem to realize what has happened to me. I was cursed by a gypsy witch—"

"Hang the gypsy witch! What do I care for her? I will curse all of her curses and make them null. Anthony, really! Who would have thought you were so superstitious!"

"Who would have thought that you would be so unsupportive of your husband in his worst calamity?" Mordechai retorted fiercely. "Like it or not, Mrs. Leary, you are going to trust me and follow me wherever I go! That was the bargain we made when you became my wife!" His voice faltered as they reached the door, and he took a shaky breath, changing his tone to one of earnest entreaty. "Ebony, have mercy upon me!" he begged. "Be kind to me lest I die! Help me find Zirolli before fate leaves you a widow! You must believe me, darling."

The woman looked up at him, struggling between love and fear toward her husband. She couldn't believe him. She knew that the man was half insane, and she didn't know how to help him.

"I will try," she said at last. Then she walked into her shabby mansion and hid herself in her room.

Ebony's tone had been unconvincing, and it left Mordechai feeling slightly angry. But what could he expect when fate had turned against him? He was sure that nothing he did would turn out to his fortune. He had tried to murder Blair, but at that moment, he had lost his luck. Now the boy was alive and able to witness against him. He had accidentally murdered Gibbs, endangering himself once again. Then, feeling sure that Copernicus had heard his incriminating words, he had tried to murder the boy twice. But, somehow, the child lived on.