Page 53 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

He thought of that dark, dank basement where Silas Hogwood had pinned him to a bench—

Shaking, refusing the memory, Owein was making his way into the dining room when he heard the front door snick shut. Very quietly. Was Merritt also trying not to wake Baptiste? But Baptiste was four rooms away and snoring, and if his own snores didn’t wake him up, the front door wouldn’t, either.

Owein padded into the reception hall and saw the backside of a man in a light-brown suit. Kind of a mousy brown, or the brown of the inside of a cattail after he’d chewed it up. He didn’t know this man. Not by sight, and not by smell. He smelled like hickory, paper, and sweat.

The man turned and spied him, looking a little surprised. “Of course there’s a dog,” he said. His voice was a little funny, but in a good way. Like it was full of big bubbles. He stepped back and patted his trouser pockets, then his coat pockets. Pulled out a morsel of something and tossed it Owein’s way.

Owein bolted after it. It was something meaty, but he’d lapped it up before he could identify what. Chewed it with his back teeth and swallowed. Yum.

The man was heading upstairs.

Owein tilted his head. Where was Merritt?

Approaching the door, Owein broke the order of the wood, resulting in it melting enough for him to stick his head through. He scanned the island. No sign of anyone else, except—

Whimbrel!

He darted forward to chase it, then planted his paws.

Wait, no. Man. Follow the man. Maybe?

After retreating into the house, Owein returned the door to normal and shook from head to tail, dispelling the foggy feeling inching into his brain. The man was already upstairs, but Owein could smell him. He tromped up after, sniffing. He’d gone to the left, into Beth’s room.

Owein barked at him.What are you doing?he tried to say.Who are you?

But the man couldn’t hear him the way Merritt could. He opened a couple of drawers, frowned, and returned to the hallway. Owein barked again.

“Shush.” The man’s tone grated. The dog side of him cowed, but Owein alsoshushedit and followed the stranger, sniffing. What was in that bag he was carrying?

The man went to the room at the end of the hall—the sitting room. Beth had never let Owein on the furniture, but he’d been sitting on it a lot lately. Waiting in the doorway, he watched the man snoop around, then pull a potato—no, a rock—from his bag and slip it into the edge of the unlit fireplace.

Owein’s ears raised. He trotted over. The man tried to kick him, but Owein was too fast. The man hurried back into the hallway, and Owein went to the rock, smelling it. It smelled like a rock and a little bit like the man. There was a letter on it, but not one of the letters he knew. A magical symbol of some sort? Hulda had hung stuff with magical symbols all over him when he’d been a house, but none like this.

Owein got a weird feeling in his stomach, and he didn’t think it was from the treat. Who was this man? Why was he here without the others? And why had he entered so cautiously, making the front door snick?

Owein followed him. Found him in the library, replacing a book. Was there another rock behind there?

He should tell Merritt, but Merritt wasn’t home.

Oh well.

Owein sat in the doorway and barked at the man. The man frowned and grumbled, “Mutt.”

So Owein made the floorboards expand and swallow his left foot.

The man stumbled, dropping his bag. It made athudbecause it was full of rocks, and one of them fell out. The man jerked his leg, trying to get it free, but Owein had already shrunk the planks and stopped his spell. The floor was hard again, and Owein’s body was trying to grow a second tail in retaliation for the magic.

“What on earth?” The man knelt and scratched at the floorboards. Owein trotted over and made the man’s suit jacket bright orange, just because he could. It made his toes itch, but it was such a little spell he didn’t mutate.

The man went wide eyed behind his glasses as Owein jogged to the window on the far wall. It wasn’t as easy as a dog, but he bared his teeth and made the walls shift inward, blocking out the window so the man couldn’t escape that way, if he managed to break free. That made his shoulder blades sharpen, but the mutation would go away soon enough.

“What are you?” The man flailed harder now. “Release me!”

No,Owein said, not that the man could hear. He bolted for the door, feeling the stranger’s fingertips graze his fur as he passed, like he was trying to grab him. Owein didn’t like that.

He went out into the hallway and closed the door with his mouth, leaving spit on the knob. Then he melted a little hole into the wood so he could watch the man.

Sitting like a good dog, Owein guarded the library and waited for Merritt to come home.

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