by K. M. Shea
Angelique tapped her fingers on her satchel as she watched Snow White approach the Seven Warriors with a confidence brought on by the comradery Angelique had seen in the group since the attack by the constructs.
She’ll be a wonderful queen. She’s intelligent and loyal, and she’ll put her subjects before herself. But she needs to understand that her difficulties—her stutter and problems with public speaking—do not make her less worthy.
She shrugged a little. That’s a lesson she must learn for herself. But I’ll stand by her when that time comes. Angelique tilted her head. I’m not sure I would have seen the issue or understood that Snow White needs support before Quinn offered to help me, and before Elle and Gabrielle joined us.
The harsh caw of a crow broke Angelique’s musings. She glanced up and saw the massive black bird circling above them.
She narrowed her eyes at the bird, but it didn’t have even a brush of magic on it—it must have been a normal bird.
“A loud, normal bird,” Angelique muttered as it settled on a wooden fence post a horse length away from her.
It rotated its body so it faced her, then cawed at her with enough force to make Angelique squeeze one eye shut.
Puzzled by its odd conduct, Angelique ruffled her cloak and pulled up one of her sagging boots.
The crow violently flapped its wings, then hopped off the fence and approached her.
“It seems you’ve gained an admirer,” Marzell called across the clearing as he adjusted his horse’s saddle.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Angelique took a large step to the side.
The crow followed her.
“Really?” Wendal casually inspected the sharpened edge of a dagger. “Because it seems to be quite intent on you.”
“Hahah, don’t be silly!” Angelique forced herself to laugh. “I’m sure it’s just looking for food. Watch—shoo!” Angelique flapped her hand at the strangely behaving bird.
This did nothing to dissuade the crow; it merely hopped closer—inspiring Angelique to back up. “It must be diseased,” she said.
Angelique never would have thought a crow could caw indignantly, but somehow it did.
All of the warriors paused to watch Angelique and the crow—Oswald and Rupert had even stopped arguing so they could watch the crow chase her around the cleared lawn.
“Perhaps it senses my magic powers—however small they are,” Angelique finally suggested.
Fritz tilted his head. “Do herb wizards usually attract animals?”
Angelique laughed and got ready to lie through her teeth. Unfortunately, Snow White proved to be a lamentable source of magic knowledge.
“Not that I know of,” she said.
The crow flapped its wings again, launching itself at Angelique so it landed on her boot, where it promptly held a leg out.
Chapter 22
With the bird this close, Angelique could see the tiny roll of paper secured to the bird’s leg.
Who in the wide green world am I acquainted with enough that they would send me letters but are also capable of taming animals? If this is a summons from the Council, I’m going to ask Pegasus to crash through the roof of their precious Hallowed Hall.
When Angelique did nothing, the crow cawed and waved its little leg at her again.
Whoever it is, I’m going to give them a piece of my mind for endangering my disguise.
With Snow White and the Seven Warriors closely watching her, Angelique desperately grabbed one of the herbs hanging from her satchel and yanked it free.
“I see what it is. This bird clearly needs the healing magic of herbs,” Angelique announced.
When the crow cawed in disagreement, Angelique booted it off the toe of her shoe.
“Yes, that must be it.” Angelique ripped leaves off the herb and crouched down.
The now-disgruntled crow approached her—again holding its leg out.
“See? It has wounded its leg.” Angelique managed to pull the message off the crow’s leg with one hand, and sprinkled fragrant herb leaves over the bird’s head with her other hand—hopefully disguising the message transfer. “Don’t worry, crow. Your leg pain will be healed now.”
“Don’t you typically have to make herbs into a salve or some such thing in order for them to work?” Snow White asked.
Angelique was saved from answering when the crow sneezed—a high-pitched, nasally sound that was most shocking given that Angelique didn’t even know crows could sneeze—and then flew off.
Angelique slipped the tiny scroll of paper into her boot and stood up. “There, you see? It just needed a little bit of herb magic.” She planted her hands at her hips and stared the warriors down. “Now, are we ready to leave yet?”
“We don’t even have half of the horses saddled,” Rupert pointed out.
“Then why are you all standing around and gaping at me like landed fish?” Angelique demanded.
Rupert shook his head at her but returned to brushing a horse while the other warriors also returned to their tasks.
Angelique retreated to the cottage door, scratching her calf as she discreetly grabbed the tiny scroll. She pretended to fiddle with her satchel as she unrolled it, holding it flat against the bag as she read it. She was surprised to see that it was from Emerys.
Angelique,
Quinn and I have returned to Alabaster Forest.
Wedding preparations have begun in earnest. The banquet promises to be a bore, but Alastryn has assured me numerous times Quinn will be a vision in her gown. I have yet to find a weapon I find to be precious enough to give her as a wedding gift—
The short message continued in a similar vein, consisting of Emerys reporting his feelings about his upcoming nuptials.
Angelique scanned it three times to make certain she wasn’t missing a hidden code or veiled message, but no. The King of the Elves was so besotted, he had sent a trained bird with a message about his wedding.
I should suggest to Prince Severin that Emerys shares his love and devotion to meetings when I next speak to him, Angelique thought with no small amount of spite.
Disgruntled, she crumpled the message up and dropped it in her bag. A tiny part of her—one she pushed deep down because she’d be mortified to ever admit it—was warmed at Emerys’ letter.
It was the kind of letter one would send to a friend.
Angelique cleared her throat, forcibly set aside the possible rush of affection that had wormed into her chest, and studied the warriors.
No one seemed to notice the deadly focus she’d studied her “herbs” with—they were all still too busy with preparations.
Angelique relaxed and leaned against the cottage wall, reaching up to break an icicle that dripped water off of the roof’s overhang.
It seems I have a bit of time, and we’ll be leaving the forest for the rest of the day for this meeting. Perhaps I ought to take this time to set off a tracking spell for Evariste.
It was potentially dangerous. Her magic would flood the area, letting any magic user nearby know that Angelique—apprentice to Lord Enchanter Evariste and scourge of the Chosen—was around.
But it was a calculated risk. Due to all of her practice, she could snap a tracking spell off fast and quick. The residual feeling of her magic wouldn’t be strong enough to ooze past Luster Forest’s borders, and the Seven Warriors had previously confirmed that they were the forest’s only residents.
I haven’t attempted a tracking spell for Evariste in months—years probably. I gave up after I found out he was in a mirror. But obviously, they moved him north to Mullberg. Perhaps his location isn’t as warded as his previous one?
It was very unlikely.
In fact, it was downright stupid of Angelique to even hope it was so.
But she was starting to feel antsy about the halt in her search—even if, by helping Snow White with Faina, she was also most likely following her best lead to Evariste.
I’ll risk it. We’re going to leave, so even if a Chosen mage
happens to be in the area and is sent to investigate, it will turn up nothing. I’ll just make sure to set the spell off away from the cottage.
Angelique tossed her icicle to the ground and wiped her wet hands off on her oversized tunic. “I’ll be right back,” she announced. “I’m going to go pick some herbs to replace what I’ve used up.”
Oswald squinted at her. “Are any herbs even growing? There’s still slush and snow on the ground.”
Angelique yawned in a show of false casualness. “Any slumbering herbs will bud for an herb wizard.” She lumbered toward the forest and grinned at Snow White as she passed her. “I’ll be back shortly.”
A few short hops took her through the natural barrier the trees provided, and she was free from observation. She whistled a jaunty song she’d once heard Stil sing, then trailed off when she thought she’d gone far enough to be out of hearing range and started jogging.
She squelched her way through the forest, her boots squishing on the slush-covered ground.
When she’d jogged for about ten minutes, Angelique slowed to a walk and marched in a circle as she let her magical senses stretch out around her.
Her core magic unfolded, rising up like a saber pulling free of its scabbard. It only took her potent powers a minute of rolling through the forest to assure her that—in terms of magic—she was well and truly alone.
“No mages around—at least none that are actively using magic. But I think it’s safe enough to assume there aren’t any here.” She stretched her hands above her head, trying to limber up her muscles as she mentally paged through the various tracking spells she could try.
She’d become uncommonly good at them, given how desperately she’d tried every tracking spell she came across when Evariste had first been taken.
I had great luck with that one tracking spell from Stil—it was how I discovered Evariste was in a mirror. But besides using it that one time with the bracelet Evariste gave me during my first days as his apprentice, I never got it to work again, so that one is out.
Angelique squinted up at the bare trees that swayed above her head and listened to the wind whistle through a nearby pine tree. Perhaps I ought to attempt the standard tracking spell I first tried? I need something fast. I don’t think travel preparations will take much longer, and I still need to get back.
She snapped off a nod and crouched down, mentally picturing the chains she’d need to shape and mold her magic into and the way the written symbols of magic would fit together to create those chains.
She forcibly held her magic back as she mentally traced out every minute detail of the symbol.
A year prior, she would have had to let her magic slowly build. But thanks to Puss’s drills and all of her practice under Quinn’s careful eyes, Angelique knew she could create the spell in an instant if she did a little preparation.
While holding the mental image of the spell, Angelique released her hold on her magic.
It slammed through her with an icy eagerness that made her gasp and stagger a step.
Her magic ignored her reaction and surged through the spell she’d pictured, tracing out symbols that glowed so bright, they seemed to burn the air.
Angelique took just enough time to double check the structure of the spell (the last thing she needed to do was have it explode on her because she had made it wrong), gave it a jolt of power to send it off, racing through the woods, then cut off contact with her magic.
The entire process took approximately ten seconds. Mentally picturing the spell had taken an additional minute or two, but it was still a vast improvement in time!
At least I have continued to improve in all of this. A frantic, desperate sort of improvement, but I won’t complain.
Angelique spread her fingers wide, pleasantly stretching them, then turned around and trudged back in the direction of the cottage.
I can safely start the walk back. My tracking spells never find anything anyway.
Her satchel thumped her hip as she marched through the trees, only vaguely noting her connection with the tracking spell as it chugged across Mullberg.
She was nearly back to the cottage when she felt the spell abruptly speed up, as if it was honing in on a target. She paused mid-step—her arm wrapped around a tree trunk as she wobbled precariously.
What is it doing? It can’t possibly have found—
The tracking spell collided with something. Only, instead of being snuffed out—as it had every previous time Angelique had attempted a tracking spell—it connected.
Cold flooded Angelique’s body. Not the sharp chill of her magic, but a numb, unfeeling cold that coated the back of her throat and wrapped her lungs in a blistering embrace that made it impossible to breathe.
Angelique slumped to her knees, her muscles cramping up and turning immoveable. The sounds of the forest—the puff of the breeze and the chirping songbirds—faded, and her vision blurred, until all she saw was a rusted red color.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t blink. And then she felt power—dark and immense—unfurl.
“Angelique, cut the spell off!” Evariste’s voice was so loud, it made her ears ring. “Dismantle it—now!”
Mentally, Angelique plucked at a chain of the spell. It sagged and caved in on itself.
But as the last sparkle of magic sliced off, the spell fulfilled its purpose:
Glitzern Palace. Juwel. Mullberg.
The knowledge filled Angelique’s mind as the foreign power lost the last of its hold on her. She could finally breathe again with a gasping shudder.
Angelique dug her fingers into the slushy turf, indifferent to the grime and dirt that crusted her fingernails.
“He’s in Glitzern Palace.” It hurt to speak, so her voice came out in little more than a rough whisper. “Evariste is in Glitzern Palace.”
Evariste existed in a sea of pain. The little relief he’d been granted during the mirror’s battle seemed ages ago, but it had given him the moment he needed to bolster himself and survive just a little longer.
He squeezed his eyes shut and laid flat on the ground, the muscles in his body twitching from the pain.
At least I’m not screaming this time. Yet.
A cold sweat beaded at Evariste’s brow, but a dangerous sort of numbness was starting to sink into his extremities. He would have welcomed it—except it didn’t do much to deaden the pain caused by the mirror scraping at his soul.
Abruptly, something bright pierced the rusted haze of the mirror.
Evariste experimentally peeled an eyebrow open, just in time to see the mirror’s surface clear. Outside, silver loops of light chugged across Faina’s room, aimed directly at the mirror.
Is that…magic?
He squinted in the magic’s bright light—trying to get a look at its framework. It felt like it had been years since he’d seen a spell formulated by a Veneno Conclave mage. Seeing the familiar, untwisted symbols of magic was almost a physical relief in itself.
Evariste had just enough time to blink before the spell fearlessly smashed into the mirror. Though the spell looked light and fluffy, the magic behind it was powerful. It was bright, sharp, and overwhelming.
It would have blown Evariste flat if he wasn’t already sitting down. As it was, it rattled the mirror—which snarled in anger.
Evariste, however, laughed.
He recognized that magic, the expertly built strands. Even as it pushed against the mirror’s surface, struggling to breech it, he could feel the electrifying sensation of its power.
Angelique.
After all this time, she hasn’t stopped trying to find me. She hasn’t given up.
Evariste scrambled to his feet, everything around him shuddering as the mirror started to respond to the invasive spell.
“So fearless…so naïve.” The mirror breathed as its awful magic cut into Angelique’s.
The tracking spell resisted—flaring brighter and releasing an explosion of power that would have brought castle staff scurrying
to the room if Queen Faina hadn’t chased them away ages ago.
Inside, the mirror shook—not from Angelique’s magic (it still hadn’t been able to breech the surface), but from the mirror’s rage.
It sent a flood of magic out, rippling around the tracking spell and wrapping its power around it.
Evariste staggered over to the mirror’s surface, pressing his palms against it as he watched the ensuing battle.
Angelique’s magic, strong and pure, continued to press against the mirror with single-minded purpose.
The mirror—with its endless power—twined around the spell, following the line of the magic symbols that connect the spellwork to Angelique.
“No!” Evariste yelled.
He thought he’d experienced the worst pain there was since entering the mirror, but witnessing Angelique’s magic squirm under its power was far worse.
He felt the mirror gnaw at her connection with the spell, find her, and then wrap its choking, sickening magic around her.
He couldn’t see her, but as the mirror sank its claws into her magic, he could feel her. Her heart stuttered and her breath caught as she fought for her very life while her magic relentlessly pushed into the mirror.
“Such power…who is this little mage?”
“Angelique, cut the spell off!” Evariste shouted, a new kind of agony rippling through him. “Dismantle it—now!”
He felt it when she plucked at it, disintegrating the piece that kept the spell anchored to her.
The spell started to collapse. But unexpectedly—and against all odds—Angelique’s magic shimmered and pierced the mirror’s surface, slicing through it like a sword.
It brushed against Evariste, sinking into the skin of his right palm—cool and sharp—before the spell fizzled and died out.
The mirror trembled with rage, shaking so horribly, Evariste fell to his knees.
He gritted his teeth and braced himself for the inescapable agony that awaited him.
His hope—reignited after seeing Angelique’s magic—must have been making him feel things…because he could have sworn he felt the cool, zingy sensation of Angelique’s magic move from his palm where it had touched him up his arm, as if it could burrow its way to his soul.