Burglars and Bluestockings


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Julie Berry
 Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks
 Cover and internal artwork © 2023 Sourcebooks
 Cover and internal artwork by Chloe Bristol
 Internal design by Danielle McNaughton/Sourcebooks
 Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
 The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
 Published by Sourcebooks Young Readers, an imprint of Sourcebooks
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 Contents
 Front Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Epilogue
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 Author Bio
 Back Cover
 
 
 For Gabriel, Frederick, and Abigail Salisbury, that magical trio.
 
 
 Chapter 1
 I liked the world better when magic was my little secret.
 When I first found Mermeros, the djinni, in a sardine tin in a rubbish pail, for one shining moment I had him all to myself. A djinni of my very own! Me, a schoolgirl, of no particular family, no special pedigree, no notable fortune. Just a bank clerk’s youngest daughter, finding all that power—power I might use any which way I liked, with nobody’s permission required.
 Imagine it. All those wishes! Three massive wishes containing infinite possibilities. Just think what I might do: Sail the seven seas. Circle the globe in an aeronaut’s balloon. Sled the Alps. Tour Mayan temples, photograph Mount Fuji, watch the sun set over New Zealand, or hear my echo call back to me from far rim of the American Grand Canyon. (Does it do that? Only one way to find out.) And then, back home, before my trunks were even unpacked, form a cricket league for girls—for girls!—all over the British Isles and lead my own team to a championship. After that, perhaps, when I was grown-up, good and ready, I’d settle down to a cozy little cottage somewhere, with several dogs, a pony or two, rooms full of books, and all the toasted, buttered muffins I can eat.
 Was that so much to ask?
 Evidently it was.
 The shining moment didn’t last. No sooner had I met Mermeros—that sour-tempered old fish of a djinni—when he first came spiraling odorously out of his sardine tin, than others caught sight of him, too, and before you could say “Bob’s your uncle,” they wanted him for themselves. That rascal orphan, Tommy—who has since become one of my best chums, but who made my life a galloping ruckus until we decided to stop being rivals for Mermeros—he got in on the action, trying to nab the sardine tin. A nasty girl from my boarding school saw Mermeros, too.
 The ruthless tactics of her greedy tycoon of a father to steal my wish-granting djinni made Tommy’s antics look like a Sunday school picnic. Yet he was nothing compared to the fiend who followed after him—a so-called “professor” specializing in magic—the rubbish kind, not what’s real. This repellent person actually kidnapped Tommy’s newly adoptive father to get his hands on Mermeros. Treated him shamefully. Tied him to a chair for days! It took police, friends, relatives, and a pair of flying carpetbags to put a stop to his foul plot and bring Tommy’s dad, Mr. Poindexter, safely home, Mermeros and sardine tin and all.
 Just to be firm on this point, I did say “flying carpetbags.” And here’s the dreadful bit: everyone saw them. Everyone involved in our little escapade, at any rate, and goodness knows how many other Londoners besides. They were eyewitnesses to magic. There was no more hiding the truth. The secret was out. Pandora’s box had opened. The djinni, as the saying goes, was well and truly out of the bottle. Or in this case, the tin.
 If my adventures had taught me nothing else, they’d taught me this: where magic went, danger followed.
 And there I was, the eye of the storm, the yolk of the egg, the nucleus of the cell.
 Magic, Mermeros, and me, Maeve Merritt. A recipe for mayhem.
 ***
 In the days since we’d brought Mr. Poindexter and Tommy safely home from that kidnapping fiend, “Professor” Fustian, there’d been a great deal of talk—private talk—of magic and Mermeros, and what to do about him, at the Bromleys’ home in Grosvenor Square.
 I should pause to explain. My best friend, Alice Bromley, whose parents had died when she was young, lived with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Bromley. I’d lived with the Bromley family ever since Alice and I left Miss Salamanca’s School for Upright Young Ladies. We’d been roommates there at the time when I first discovered Mermeros. Alice had left when her grandparents no longer found the school suitable.
 I left when the school no longer found me suitable.
 I was expelled. Evicted. Chucked out on my ear. I despised the place, so I didn’t terribly mind, but still, one has one’s pride. Just when I thought I was doomed to another grim boarding school or, worse, a life of dreariness at home with my mother and sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Bromley invited me to live at their elegant London townhome as Alice’s companion and classmate in the private schooling arrangement they were establishing for her under the tutelage of Mr. Abernathy, a scholar gentleman from Oxford. I