Mage's Apprentice (Mages of New York Book 1)

by Sean Fletcher

  “You are mine!” the ghoul shrieked.

  Move!

  Ugh…If I have to…

  Aspen rolled backwards as the ghoul sprang. She raised her knife and felt the tip sink into its stomach. It shuddered once then went still. Aspen gagged as its rancid final breath washed over her. She was pretty sure all her nose hairs had shriveled up. She shoved the ghoul off and moved unsteadily to her feet. The wide eyes of the clerk peeked out from behind the register.

  “My bad,” Aspen said, then stepped over the ghoul’s body and back outside.

  If only she could have framed Hugo’s expression of disbelief.

  “You should be dead!” he bellowed.

  “Surprise!” Aspen said.

  Before Hugo could try to remedy her not-deadness, Isak summoned a blast of magic that barely missed Hugo’s head. The other ghouls were incapacitated around him, sizzling lines of smoking magic rising from their bodies.

  Hugo raised his arms and part of the ground in front of him rose up. Isak twisted his fist toward the earth and plunged down. The ground fell back in place.

  “Just a tip,” he said, “don’t try to use earth magic against a druid.”

  “Then I’ll have to use something you’re not so adept at!” Hugo growled.

  He swept his arms to either side of him. The ground rumbled. Sprays of water burst from the cracks in the concrete like geysers and gathered into a solid wave at his back. Aspen sprinted toward him as fast as her sore body would allow, desperate to get a fatal hit in before he was finished. If he brought that wave down…

  Hugo thrust his arms forward. A wall of muddy water hurtled toward them, knocking aside electrical poles and mailboxes. Isak intercepted Aspen, spinning in front of her, one arm pulling her close so that his body covered hers, the other trying to summon a spell that might ward off the impending wave.

  Aspen knew it wouldn’t be enough. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Let me stop you right there.”

  The wave split right down the middle, breaking into smaller rivers of muddy water that coursed harmlessly into the gutters.

  Lucien stood before them, facing Hugo. He lowered his hand.

  “This doesn’t concern you, Mage!” Hugo snarled.

  Lucien brushed his robes back. Somehow he still managed to look elegant and unflustered, which both irked and impressed Aspen. Where had he been earlier?

  “You’re attacking apprentices belonging to Mages of the Council. Aspen is mine. I’d say that does concern me.”

  Hugo laughed. “Your apprentice? Her? Surely there were other pieces of trash lingering in the street you could use.” He held up a hand. His fingers crackled with the promise of a flaming inferno. “I’ve come to collect my due on her. Now step aside!”

  Lucien smiled. “By all means, you want to try your luck, go ahead. You wouldn’t be the first of whom it was their last mistake.”

  Hugo paused. Lucien’s easy smile didn’t waver.

  “Splitting your attack was easy. Just imagine what I could do to your body.”

  “This isn’t over,” Hugo promised.

  “I disagree. I’d say it’s very, very over.”

  Hugo thrust a finger at Aspen. “You have no idea who she is. What she’s done—”

  “I know all I need to. I believe you were leaving?” The air around Lucien crackled dangerously. “Now.”

  Hugo cast them all a final, dark look before backing away and escaping down another street. It wasn’t until he’d left that Aspen recalled what she’d thought about Hugo earlier.

  “We have to stop him!” Aspen said. “He’s the one who’s been stealing the magic!”

  Lucien looked to where Hugo had fled. “Hugo? You think he did this?”

  “Yes!”

  Lucien shook his head. “I can see why you’d think that, but Hugo’s nothing but a street thug. He wouldn’t have the ambition to try something like this.”

  “But—”

  “This is bigger than Hugo,” Lucien said, in a tone that told her he wouldn’t take any more argument. “And we’re going to find out just how much.”

  His eyes fell to her shoulder. Aspen glanced down and realized Isak still had his arm wrapped around her. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled away.

  “Come with me,” Lucien said.

  Lucien attacked Isak the moment they were home.

  The only warning Aspen got was the bright flash of magic. There was the sound of a gong as two spells collided.

  She uncovered her eyes to find Lucien baring down on Isak with a solid sword of red magic. Isak had just barely managed to block his attack with a luminescent shield thrown up in front of him.

  “Go!” Lucien said. “I want you gone!”

  “I’m—not—here—to fight you!” With a massive shove, Isak threw off Lucien’s sword. Lucien whipped his hand back, summoning another blazing ball of magic.

  “Stop!” Aspen threw herself between them, hands out to either side. She stared daggers at Lucien. “He’s on our side! Or did you forget he was just fighting Hugo with me?”

  Lucien looked as though he was still going to throw the magic—consequences be damned—before turning and hurling it into the sky where it dispelled with a loud bang. Isak let out a sigh of relief behind her.

  “Ask me why I have a hard time believing that,” Lucien said. “Believing that Xavier’s apprentice would want to help you out?” His eyes narrowed on her, filled with unspoken implication that only she knew. “Xavier, who you were so keen to hate before now.”

  “And I still do,” Aspen said.

  “Xavier—” Isak started, but Aspen cut him off with a sharp look.

  “We’ve discovered something else,” Aspen said.

  “And I’m sure that something was enough to bring you two together?”

  “Look, I’m not saying it makes sense, but he has helped me. And if I can work with the guy who was just trying to kill me because I think it could help, the least you can do is try.”

  “And what’s to say he won’t still try to kill you?” Lucien said.

  Aspen looked at Isak. He’d crossed his arms and glowered at Lucien. His eyes flickered to hers. She couldn’t read anything there.

  “I’m…not sure. But I trust him. For now, let’s just…like you said, we’ve got bigger things to deal with.”

  “Agreed,” Isak said.

  “Butt out,” Lucien said. He looked at Aspen. “You trust him enough for this?”

  Was it bad to say she wasn’t sure? Somewhere over the last two days, her trust in Isak had turned from trusting that he’d try to stab her in the back, into trusting him to have her back in stopping whatever was intent on destroying the city.

  “I’m still alive so far. And we’ll need his help. Believe me.”

  “If you betray us, I will kill you,” Lucien said to Isak. “And believe me when I say you’ll have no chance against me.”

  “Duly noted,” Isak said.

  “Then both of you come with me. I’ve discovered something too.”

  Lucien took them to the private courtyard in the back of the house, across the bridge to the small island with the black marble ball perched on the pedestal in the center. The entire way there, Aspen was determined to argue her point about Hugo. For his part, Lucien seemed equally determined not to hear anything about it, cutting her off with a sharp slice of his hand every time she brought it up.

  “Caretaker!” Lucien barked, when Aspen tried for the last time.

  With a slight rustle of air, Caretaker appeared beside them, making Isak jump with a “What the—”

  “Lucien,” Caretaker said. “How can I assist you?”

  “We’re taking a little trip. Please make sure everything’s secured and prepped. And tell Tana—”

  “I’m here!”

  Tana leapt from the top of the nearby roof and landed without a sound in the grass beside them. She brushed her stringy hair away from her eyes and wrinkled her nose at Isak. “I heard your
fight. What’s he doing here?”

  “An excellent question,” Lucien said, giving Aspen a look.

  “We’re not talking about this again,” Aspen said, exasperated.

  Caretaker raised his head where he’d had it bowed. He opened his eyes. “The rest of the house is secure. Our place will remain until we return.” Without another word he took a step back and simply melted into the background, like just another part of the house’s décor.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Isak said, eying the black marble ball Lucien had laid a hand on. “Does the Council know you have that?”

  “Are you going to tattle on me?” Lucien said. “And I use it strictly within regulations.”

  “With you, I seriously doubt that.”

  “You two might want to sit down,” Lucien said to Aspen and Tana. “This might make you a little sick. You can stay standing,” he added to Isak.

  Aspen rolled her eyes. Lucien turned his attention to the ball. A soft glow of magic spread from the circumference of his wrist down his fingers where the marble soaked it up. The ball glowed. Lucien began rotating it like a globe, spinning it until the magic conjoined into a single spot on the marble’s face. He pressed his finger firmly at the point.

  The entire house jolted. Aspen barely caught her balance as her entire world slanted to the right. Though nothing immediately around her was moving, she had the sensation that outside the walls the world was flying by at top speed.

  Then it stopped. Aspen’s vision righted itself again. Then came the nausea.

  “I said you should have sat down,” Lucien chided as Aspen bent over, breathing in heavily to try to hold the vomit back. “First time’s rough for everyone.”

  Aspen noticed Isak had gone a little pale. Tana, however, clapped her hands together, not looking the least bit put off.

  “Where this time? Venice? Edinburgh?”

  Lucien brushed past them all. On unsteady feet, Aspen followed the others out to the main courtyard.

  “Prague,” he said, pushing open one of the front gates.

  “Prague…?” Aspen said.

  She stepped outside.

  Instead of steel and glass she found herself staring at history. Stone buttresses and arches, towering steeples and narrow, cobbled streets that would not have been out of place in Ember’s Landing. She had never been outside New York, not in all of her seventeen years. But standing here she could just tell this was like nowhere she’d ever been before, even without knowing why. There was something oddly…European about it, though she couldn’t point out one thing. It was more like there were hundreds of little things, all setting off tiny alarms in her head: Strange, strange, strange.

  It was beautiful, and overwhelming, and incredible and…

  She felt a cool hand on her arm.

  “You stopped breathing there for a second,” Tana said, her eyes briefly flickering to Aspen’s throat. “Did you short circuit or something?”

  “No. It’s…a lot to take in,” Aspen breathed.

  “The city of a hundred spires,” Lucien said.

  And indeed, there were many. Dozens. Maybe even a hundred, looking like hair standing on static end, prickling the sky. The house they’d stepped out of was facing an enormous central square. The houses on either side were washed in cream and light peach in the mid-afternoon sun. To her left, an astrological clock chimed the hour.

  “Why here?” Isak said on Aspen’s other side.

  “Oh. You’re still here,” Lucien said. “Because, as extensive as my collection of information is, it’s nothing compared to the Clementinum library.”

  “But what about the Bond?” Aspen said, hurriedly looking down at her hand like it was going to strangle her that very second. “If we’ve left the city, doesn’t that mean—”

  “Relax,” Lucien said. “You’re with me.” He jerked his head at Isak. “And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s a good thing he’s here too. As long as you two are close-ish to each other, it’s not like you’re running from the assessment. The Bond won’t do anything to you here.”

  “If we’re in Prague, does that mean I can visit—” Tana started.

  “You can see her another time,” Lucien said. “We’ve got a job to do here, remember?”

  Tana’s face fell, but she nodded to Lucien’s back as he took off into the city.

  It didn’t take too long for Aspen’s senses to get adjusted. While the little voice continued to chatter in her head (Strange, strange, odd, strange, unfamiliar, strange) around every corner, the other part of her that had concluded there was no immediate danger began to peek out from its hidey hole and gaze curiously around.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing across the river.

  “Prague castle,” Lucien said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Charles Bridge,” Lucien said.

  “And that?”

  “St. Vitus Cathedral,” Isak said.

  She gave him a dubious look. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve traveled some,” he said indignantly. “And watched the Discovery channel once or twice,” he added under his breath.

  “We can get you a walking tour next time we’re not racing against the destruction of New York,” Lucien said.

  He almost seemed to understand the magnitude of what they were up against better than they did. After they’d explained to him what they’d found (both leaving out the part about visiting Carsisiphus, though Lucien had been a bit suspicious as to where they’d gotten the info about the spell to take down the ward), Lucien had informed them that he’d come to the same conclusion.

  “Someone wants to bring in something,” he said. “You don’t go through all the trouble of taking down the wards unless something’s waiting for them to fall.”

  The way he’d said it, with such certainty that supreme badness was on its way, made Aspen’s stomach clench uncomfortably. Not that she particularly cared if a couple of the boroughs went down, she told herself. There were some evil, nasty beings in some of them that would be more than happy to see her dead any day. But, as much as she hated them, they were an undeniable component of the place she called home, even if that place didn’t feel like it sometimes.

  “The Clementinum is just this way,” Lucien said.

  The architecture in this part of the city, like the rest, appeared to have stopped progressing sometime in the fourteenth century. Take out the couple tobacco shops and jewelry stores and Aspen could totally believe she’d stepped back in time into a fairy tale. Even Lucien’s cloak didn’t seem out of place.

  They entered another medieval looking building and Aspen’s breath caught in her throat. The Clementinum library looked as if they’d walked into a painting. Everything was sharp and clear and beautiful. From the frescoes overhead to the globes set between pillars of winding marble supporting the second floor. Aspen had never been much of a reader, but this almost made her believe there were stories here that would fly off the page. It was a glittering palace of literature; a grand hall of knowledge.

  “Lucien!” A sharply dressed woman with a finely styled bun bulging from the back of her head rose from behind the attendant’s desk. She gave Lucien a couple pecks on the cheek.

  “It’s been too long, můj přítel,” she said in a thick Czech accent. “I am sure you have been busy, busy. Tell me, are you well?”

  “For the time being, Adelade,” Lucien said. They exchanged rapid-fire Czech for a minute, apparently catching up on missed pleasantries. Finally, Lucien switched back to English. “I’m sorry if it feels like I’m using you, but I need a favor.”

  Adelade gave him an indulgent smile. “Always with the favors. But who am I to say no to a face like yours? One day perhaps you will visit purely for the joy of it. What can I help you with?”

  “I need access to the Special Collections.”

  Adelade paused. “Of course. I assume your companions…”

  “Are all magical beings, or associated with the magic
al communities. I’ll vouch for them.”

  “Of course, of course. Please.” Adelade indicated for them to follow her, then led them to a spiral staircase at the back end of the library. When they ascended the stairs and crossed the second-floor landing toward the other staircase down, Aspen swore she saw the faintest shimmer of magic in the air before them, like they’d crossed a threshold. Before she could ask about it, Adelade led them down an identical-looking staircase at the other end.

  “Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Adelade asked when they reached the bottom. Aspen’s jaw almost dropped. Somehow, they’d ended up in a completely different library. The overhead light was dimmer, produced by flickering candles held in multi-pronged holders. The books lining the double-stacked shelves smelled mustier, their spines leather-bound and cracking. No one else was here.

  “We need information on ancient beings,” Lucien said. “Old gods, Nephilim, High Fae. Particularly those with an interest in destroying cities.”

  “If only your requests were in the realm of the hypothetical,” Adelade said with a sigh. “You’ll want the Magical Histories and Magical Beings, sections three and four, and six and seven. I can also cross-reference any materials that haven’t been bound yet. We’re always getting in new additions.”

  Lucien opened his palm and summoned a small ball of light that hovered above it. “That’d be great, Adelade. You.” He pointed at Isak with his other hand. “You’re with me.”

  Isak smirked. “How lucky. Aren’t you afraid I might try to club you over the head with a book when you’re not looking?”

  “Just as long as it’s something useful.”

  And, still trading barbs, the two of them vanished into the stacks.

  “Lucien…he’s being serious about these city-destroying beings, isn’t he?” Adelade said.

  “’Fraid so,” Tana said.

  Adelade gave her a smile. “Good to see you again, Tana my dear. You’ve grown so much! And you…” Her gaze landed on Aspen. “Another Mage?”

  “No. I’m nothing. Just—”

  “Lucien’s apprentice,” Tana said.

  Adelade’s eyes grew wide. “Is that so?” she said under her breath. “Then I wish you all the best, můj drahý. Lucien…he’s a special man, but not the easiest to work with.”