The Magician's Tower (23 page)

He flexed his arm, as if this might prove his identity.

“I recognize your eyes,” Oona said. “You are very good, Mr. Pancake. Exceptional. But the one thing you cannot change about yourself is your eyes; I noticed that very thing about you yesterday, during our meeting in the lobby, when you imitated my uncle. You looked just like him … all except for the eyes. But it wasn't until I saw you in the dark tonight, without the rest of your miraculous face to distract me, that I realized I had seen those eyes before. I am speaking, of course, of Madame Romania from Romania's eyes, whose face was hidden behind that ragged cloth. That, combined with the smell of mint, which you seem to be so fond of chewing, gave you away.”

For a long moment, the stagehand only stood there, his face enshrouded in shadow, and yet Oona could see those eyes first round in surprise, and then begin to shake back and forth in obvious disbelief.

At last he said: “That's incredible. In all my years as a performer, never once has anyone seen through my disguise.”

He sat on the floor, and hung his head forward.

“And now, Mr. Pancake,” Oona said, “I must ask you why you masqueraded yourself as a gypsy woman and told me that dreadful lie about the Punchbowl Oracle?”

Albert Pancake did not look up, but only continued to sit in the darkened wings of the theater. The sounds of the audience drifted in through the stage wings.

“I was hired to do it,” Mr. Pancake said in a small voice. “I was told exactly what to do: the portrayal of the gypsy woman, the punchbowl, and, most specifically, to say the line, ‘You are not responsible for the burden you hold.' I was to convince you of the bowl's existence and then discover its theft while in your presence. If I accepted the job, I would receive a large sum of money. More money than I could resist for such a simple job, really.”

“Who put you up to it?” Oona demanded. “Tell me the truth and I will promise not to tell the police.”

Mr. Pancake suddenly looked up. “The police? What did I do wrong? I simply impersonated an old woman and told some fortunes. There are no laws against it.”

Oona thought this over for a moment. It was true. No laws had been broken. None that she could think of, anyway. And indeed, she realized that if anyone deserved punishment, it was herself, for being so gullible in the first place. She should have known better, should have listened to both Deacon and her uncle. But the idea of being
relieved of her guilt had overridden her clearheadedness.

“Who hired you to distract me with this wild-goose chase, Mr. Pancake?” Oona demanded, unable to hide her anger. She leaned forward, peering down at the sitting man in the same menacing manner he had done to her only minutes before. “Whoever put you up to it most likely wished for me to focus my energies on this hopeless mystery instead of on the contest,” she said. “Let me guess. Was it Isadora Iree?”

Mr. Pancake shook his head.

“No?” Oona said. “Then perhaps it was her mother, Madame Iree?”

Again the Master of Ten Thousand Faces shook his head.

“Who then? Roderick?” she asked. “Or maybe …”

She trailed off, the realization coming to her slowly. She slapped her forehead. “Why did I not see it immediately? Sir Baltimore. He hired you to distract me with the story, the same story that he read time and time again to his daughter from her book of obscure faerie tales. Deacon, do you remember Adler Iree saying that Sir Baltimore had bet a substantial amount of money on the contest?”

Deacon clacked his beak before saying: “Sir Baltimore knew that you were the most able-minded challenger. He hired Mr. Pancake to distract you with all this poppycock
of magic bowls so that his son, Roderick, could take the lead.”

Mr. Pancake pushed himself up from the floor and sighed deeply. “Well, it would seem you have figured everything out for yourself, and so, if you are quite done—”

He made as if to move past Oona toward the stage.

“Just a moment,” Oona said, stepping in front of him. “I haven't figured out everything. For instance, the ring.”

Mr. Pancake's brow rose, and Oona could tell that he knew precisely what ring she was speaking of. “You mean the dressmaker's ring?” he said. “You found it, did you? Baltimore said you would be clever. Well, seeing as the cat is out of the bag, I'll tell you. The ring was my doing, but not completely my idea.”

“How so?” Oona asked.

“Well, the dressmaker—Madame Iree—came into my caravan early on during the party and wished to have her palm read. It was not the first time I had played the role of Madame Romania from Romania, and I am quite good at telling fortunes.”

Oona folded her arms. “
False
fortunes.”

Mr. Pancake shrugged, raising his hands in a what-can-I-say gesture. “False is my game, Miss Crate. So anyway, I asked Madame Iree to close her eyes … and … well, let's just say that the ring slipped from her finger.”
Mr. Pancake wiggled his own fingers, as if to show how easily a ring might slip off by itself. Oona shook her head, disbelieving. Mr. Pancake had clearly stolen it. “At any rate,” he continued, with a clearing of his throat, “once she had departed, I dropped the ring through the caravan's trapdoor.”

Oona nodded, a look of both understanding and annoyance crossing her face. “So you took the ring and dropped it beneath the caravan to leave a false trail … in case any one, such as myself, should go looking around for clues.”

Mr. Pancake shrugged. “It was all Baltimore's idea. He suggested that I plant some evidence. Told me to take something from one of the guests and leave it somewhere that was not too obvious. Something that would keep you busy looking in the wrong direction. I thought that was going a bit overboard, but he seemed to be under the impression that you would be curious enough to find it. He said that if you were anything like your father, that you would stop at nothing to solve such a mystery. He was banking on it.”

“And he was right,” Oona said, not without a pinch of pride.

“Now, if you will excuse me,” Mr. Pancake said rather hurriedly, “my audience awaits.”

The man pushed Oona aside and sauntered through
the swaths of long, black fabric and onto the stage. The auditorium filled with the sound of applause. He grinned broadly, waving to the audience as he began: “Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome one and all …”

Oona stared after him, unable to listen, thinking instead about what she had just learned. It all made a perfect kind of sense … and yet …

“And yet, that still does not explain how Isadora is getting all of the answers to the challenges,” she said, and could not help but feel a sort of anticlimactic sense of accomplishment at having solved one mystery, only to be confronted straightaway by yet another.

Gloomily, Oona made her way back through the darkened corridor to the front of the theater. They found Samuligan waiting for them at the curb. The carriage ride home was a cold one. The temperature outside had dropped considerably, and with a glance through the window toward the sky, Oona wondered if they were in store for some rain.

“Fitting,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” said Deacon.

Oona only shook her head despondently as the carriage rolled past Oswald Park. A dampness filled the air, and the park appeared dark and abandoned. The shadowy form of the tower could be seen jutting from the center of the park like a crooked finger that pointed to some hidden
message in the sky. But the sky was black, its meaning obscured by the swirl of accumulating clouds.

As the tower disappeared from view, Oona leaned heavily against the window and sighed. The mystery was a blur, and it irked her to no end. Try as she might, she simply could not understand how Isadora was doing it.

O
n the following day, the Wizard escorted Oona to the park. “Wouldn't want to miss the final challenge,” he said. “In all the years the contest has existed, no one has managed to beat the final task.”

Oona nodded, her gaze fixed out the carriage window, focusing on nothing in particular as they rolled down the nearly deserted street. The sky was gray, and rain beat on the roof, coming down in heavy sheets. There was a chill in the air, and yet Oona hardly noticed her own discomfort.

It was one needling thought that absorbed her, one exasperating question that blocked out her surroundings like a thick curtain. How was Isadora Iree getting the answers to the clues ahead of time? It was simply
infuriating. Half the night she had pondered the question and had been unable to find a satisfactory answer.

“There is simply not enough information,” Oona said.

“What was that?” the Wizard asked.

“Hmm?” said Oona. “Oh, nothing.”

“Is something bothering you, my dear?” the Wizard asked. “I would think you might be excited to have gotten as far as you have in the competition. But you look as if you've lost your best friend.”

Oona nodded, but said nothing. She, of course, had lost something. Something precious indeed. She'd lost the hope that her mother and sister had died for some reason other than her own magical incompetence.

She thought of Sir Baltimore, and how he had set the whole thing up, how clever he had been to have the gypsy woman hint that Oona was not responsible for the burden she held. Now that she thought about it, the words could have applied to most anyone, and most anything. Sir Baltimore knew of the accident in Oona's past—it was common knowledge, after all—and so he had created the perfect phrase to capture her attention: “You are not responsible for the burden you hold!”

How vague and enticing the promise had been. And then the hint that only the punchbowl could tell the truth of the matter. Despite the fact that her uncle had assured her on countless occasions that she should not blame
herself for what had happened, she had always known that those were just words to comfort her. It had been she who had conjured the Lights of Wonder, and she alone who had lost control.

But then came the gypsy's prediction, and she'd found tremendous hope in the idea that the punchbowl might show her the truth; let her see what happened with her own eyes.

Now that possibility was gone.

The carriage creaked to a stop. Samuligan hopped down from the driver's seat and opened the compartment door. Oona stepped down to find that, regardless of the heavy downpour, she remained perfectly dry, as if an invisible umbrella were protecting her and Deacon. The Wizard stepped from the compartment and glanced at the magical canopy, nodding approvingly.

“Excellent idea,” he told Samuligan. “No sense getting drenched.”

“I thought you would approve,” said Samuligan, and the four of them made their way to the center of the park, where the rain pounded against the tower's uneven sides, making it look more unsteady than ever. Toward the top, the tower swayed in the high wind like a living thing.

At the front of the stage stood a scattering of spectators, though nowhere as many as on the first or even second day of the contest. The rain had kept them all
home, though there were a few familiar faces at the foot of the stage. Madame Iree and Headmistress Duvet stood together, huddled beneath their enormous umbrellas.

Several feet away, Adler Iree stood, hands in pockets, no umbrella to speak of, looking highly amused. Why he would wish to stand in the soaking rain like that was beyond Oona. Boys could be so strange sometimes. Yet he gave her a thumbs-up gesture as she took to the stage, and she felt her heart skip a beat. It was the first positive feeling she'd felt all morning. But that burst of delight was quickly smashed when she caught sight of Roderick Rutherford and his father.

Oona forced herself to look away, fearing that she might march straight across the stage and slap Sir Baltimore in the face. But she appeased herself with the thought that Roderick had not made it to the final challenge. It was now down to just Oona and Isadora—Isadora, who was presently holding an umbrella and standing beside a large hand-painted sign. The architect was nowhere to be seen.

Oona moved to Isadora's side, reading the sign:

Oona and Isadora looked at the rickety elevator and then at each other.

“Ready to lose?” Isadora asked.

“Easy,” Deacon whispered in Oona's ear.

Oona cracked a smile. “I will see you when I return, Deacon.”

Deacon dipped his head before flying from her shoulder to wait beside the Wizard and Samuligan. Oona and Isadora stepped into the elevator cage and were immediately hoisted into the air. As they rose, Samuligan's invisible umbrella disappeared, leaving Oona open to the rain.

Isadora let out a sharp laugh, but a moment later, a strong wind gusted, tearing Isadora's umbrella from her hand. The umbrella folded itself and fell earthbound through the bars of the elevator cage. A bark of laughter could be heard coming from below, and Oona recognized it instantly to be Samuligan's sharp chortle.