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Karigan joined the clerk to help her straighten it Like all the others, the painting was displayed in a any carved with a leafy pattern interspersed with berries A bunchberry floas carved into each corner The portrait was of a distinguished gent with long gray side whiskers and a walrus mustache He was dressed in white robes

“Why should it be fitting that this portrait be off balance?” Karigan asked, as she helped shift it into position It was heavy

“This fellow,” the clerk replied, stepping back toa bit peculiar Maybe it’s because he was so brilliant Some of our masters can be a wee bit eccentric, you know But this fellow?” The clerk shook her head, then whispered as if afraid someone would overhear her, “He collected objects of the arcane sort, or so it’s said He traveled far and wide to find objects of a ical nature It is even said he tried to learn how to use ic”

Aloud she added, “The Guardian of that time, and the trustees, did not like his activities and pretty much drummed him out of Selium”

Shivers trailed down Karigan’s spine “What…as his name?”

“Erasmus Norwood Berry Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry He was a master of many disciplines, which is why he hite, rather than the color of a single discipline, like the e arts”

Karigan knew, had known even before the clerk supplied his nahters, now elderly, living at Seven Chimneys, a fine manor house located in the northern wilds of the Green Cloak

“When was he—?” Karigan started to ask, but the clerk was already halfway down the corridor, off to carry out her task

Karigan turned back to the professor Under all those whiskers, not to mention the impressively bushy eyebrows, it was difficult to see the resehters, except for his blueberry blue eyes Those eyes pierced right into her

“I can’t believe it,” Karigan said So the Berry sisters those two years ago had been real, or the mist of some dream, yet here was the portrait of their father as clear as day on the wall of this Selium corridor: Professor Berry, the master of many disciplines

The sisters had told her of his predilection for collecting arcane objects—Karigan had handled so a telescope that looked into both the past and future She had gazed into it and, sure enough, saw es Miss Bayberry’s words now trickled back to her like a whisper of memory: Remember, child, your future is not made of stone

The sisters also told Karigan how their father possessed no natural talent for ic but had attempted to learn how to use it anyway One experiment had ended badly when he’d accidentally turned all the household servants invisible He was unable to reverse the spell

Liiibraaary… the voice whispered near her ear She peered around the corridor but saw no one Were Seliuhosts? Made sense since this was the library building She gazed hard at the portrait of Professor Berry, and he gazed back at her as only a picture could, un and two-dimensional