Chris Moriarty - The Inquisitor's Apprentice

“Don’t worry about it,” Peyton told her — and Sacha noted bitterly that she rated his nicest smile. Inquisitor Wolf’s been busy with cases all morning and wasn’t ready to talk to you anyway. Have a seat.”

The girl cleared her throat delicately and looked at the only chair in the room — the one Sacha was sitting in. Sacha leapt to his feet as if someone had lit a fire under him.

“Thank you,” the girl said. But she didn’t sound thankful. She sounded like she thought giving up his chair for a lady was the rock-bottom least a civilized male could do — but still probably more than you could expect from someone like Sacha.

To his surprise she shook his hand before sitting down. “I’m Lily Astral.”

Lily Astral? Sacha’s chin almost hit the floor.

Her pale eyebrows rose in amusement. “According to the rules of polite society, I think you’re supposed to tell me your name now.”

“Uh … Sacha Kessler?”

She peered at him curiously. “The walking witch detector?”

“I guess.” Why did everyone here seem to know all about him? And why did they all give him the same look he was seeing in Lily Astral’s big blue eyes? The one that made him feel like he belonged in a Coney Island freak show.

“You guess?” Lily astral asked. “Don’t you know? And how do you see witches, anyway?”

“I just do. I can’t describe it. People look different when they’re doing magic.”

The blue eyes narrowed. “But only when they’re doing magic?”

“Well … yeah.”

“And the rest of the time they just look normal?”

he nodded reluctantly.

“Then you can’t really see witches at all, can you? You can only see magic.” She sat down, crossing her prim little white-stockinged ankles. “That doesn’t sound nearly as impressive.”

Right then and there, Sacha decided that he hated Lily Astral.

But just as he was beginning to list to himself all the reasons why, the door to the inner office burst open and Inquisitor Wolf appeared.

THE FIRST THING Sacha noticed about Maximillian Wolf was the first thing everyone noticed: nothing.

In a city like New York, charm was cheap. Any shopgirl or salesman could buy a little glamour to help win the next sale or just get that extra edge it took to get ahead, and most did. It wasn’t exactly legal, but it worked. And New Yorkers were too ambitious to turn down anything that worked.

But Inquisitor Wolf didn’t seem to think he needed that kind of help. In fact, he seemed to go to great lengths to be as unglamorous and unmagical as possible. His long, lanky legs were encased in baggy trousers that had never seen the inside of a tailor’s shop, let alone a fitting spell. His jacket hung off his bony shoulders like a scarecrow’s sack. His hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed for weeks. His spectacles were covered with smudges and fingerprints. And his dishwater-gray eyes wore a sleepy, absentminded look that seemed to say Wolf was still waiting for the day to bring him something worth waking up for.

As far as Sacha could tell, the only remotely interesting thing about Maximillian Wolf was the extraordinary collection of food stains on his tie.

“Er … hmmm,” Wolf said, looking at Sacha and Lily as if he was trying to find a polite way of asking them what they were doing there.

“Your new apprentices,” Payton prompted.

“I thought they were supposed to start next week.”

“This is next week.”

“Did I miss another weekend? What was I doing? ”

“Working. What else?”

“I don’t even know why I ask anymore,” Wolf sighed. He thumbed through the case files on Payton’s desk, slid one out of the middle of the pile, and drifted back into his office looking like he was well on his way to forgetting about his new apprentices all over again.

“Don’t just stand there!” Payton urged, shooing them across the room and through Wolf’s door. “Go in!”

Wolf looked surprised to see them, but he waved vaguely toward the two straight-backed wooden chairs in front of his desk. Then he wiped his glasses on his tie, opened the case file, and settled in to read it as serenely as if the two of them weren’t going through agonies waiting for him to say something.

Sacha and Lily stared at each other. Lily gave a little shrug as if to say she didn’t know what was going on either.

Then they waited.

And waited.

Sacha didn’t dare watch Wolf, so he examined the office instead. It wasn’t much bigger than the front room where Payton sat — and it was even messier. Every flat surface was covered with papers, books, and food. The papers were piled so high that they spilled over onto the floor in shaggy white drifts. The food looked like it must have been inedible (at least by Sacha’s mother’s standards) even when it was still fresh. And most of the books looked like they’d been read in the bathtub.

But the strangest thing in the room was a muddy heap of black wool on the floor next to Wolf’s desk. At first Sacha thought it was a dog. Then he realized it was just Wolf’s overcoat. He must have shucked it off onto the floor, mud and all, when he got to work that morning.

“So,” Wolf asked, his eyes still on his file, “do you two have names?”

Sacha and Lily stared at each other again, neither one wanting to speak first.

“I’m Lily astral,” Lily said finally.

Now Wolf did look up, blinking in astonishment. “Good heavens, a girl,” he murmured. “And Maleficia Astral’s daughter too. What on earth am I supposed to do with you?”

Lily blushed furiously and muttered something about just wanting a fair chance, no matter who her mother was.

“Fair?” Wolf asked, still in the same tone of mild amusement. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Astral, you appear to be under a serious misapprehension about the nature of the Inquisitors Division. Not to mention life in general. I fear that severe disappointment lurks in your future.”

By this time Lily’s face was so red that Sacha almost felt sorry for her.

But then Wolf turned his attention to Sacha, and he forgot all about Lily’s problems.

“And I suppose you would be … um…” Wolf glanced back at the file on his desk. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it there.

“Sacha Kessler.”

“Right. Kessler.” Wolf’s oddly colorless eyes settled on Sacha. “Why do I think I know that name? You don’t have any relatives who would have come to the attention of the police before? No wonderworking rabbis or practical Kabbalists or revolutionary rabble-rousers?”

“Oh, no! Nothing like that! We’re complete and utter nobodies!”

That was Sacha’s first lie. He regretted it bitterly the minute the words were out of his mouth. And he would have regretted it even more if he’d known how other more lies he’d end up piling on top of it.

He had the oddest feeling that Wolf knew it was a lie, too. Not that he said so. He just went all bland and mild and absentminded. But as the seconds ticked by, Sacha’s skin began to itch and he had to bite his tongue to keep from blurting out a confession just to fill the awkward silence.

Just when Sacha was sure he couldn’t stand it anymore, Wolf turned back to Lily Astral. “There are two sorts of girls in this world,” he told her. “Girls who like to stare at omnibus accidents, and girls who don’t. Which kind are you?”

Lily blinked in surprise. “I–I suppose I’m the staring kind.”