Academy of Magic Collection

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Academy of Magic Collection Page 16

by Angelique S Anderson et al.


  Jess choked on a sob. Stay away, Winnie. Keep Rase away from me.

  Rase wouldn’t think to ask Winnie, would he? Had he even noticed Winnie?

  God. She hoped not. Someday, her parents would come looking for her. Someday, Winnie would tell Blackfox, show him the location, and the message. She’d solve the disappearance.

  The sensation of flames burned across her skin. Not in the comforting way her own magic worked, but like she’d been dipped in grease. Jess trembled, biting back the shriek.

  Rase had taken up with the talkers: Freya, Roger, and Kumiko. They had to stay safe. She didn’t care for anyone as much as she cared for Rase. Nobody needed to get hurt for her.

  A needle stabbed her forearm, and Jess bit back a sob. “What do you want from me?”

  The man on the throne cackled. “Who am I? Perhapssss, you should ask your mother who I am and how she abandoned me to the dark.” He paused. “But, while you wait, you can call me Edward.”

  Jess fought against the pain by picturing the cat in the dumpster. “Edward? How do you know my mother?”

  “Has she told you nothing about the forbidden realms or what they contain? What reached out and sucked me in? The darkness coiled around my soul. The dragon summons me to its side. How the great beast wishes to come to this realm. It calls me day and night.” His monologue slowly turned to the sing-song story a child tells while playing. “Has she told you?” he repeated.

  Jess squinted at the madman on the throne. “What are you talking about?”

  He giggled. “Your mother went where even Blackfox didn’t dare to tread.”

  How did Edward know that name?

  Jess yanked on her hands, trying to pull her wrists out of the restraints. She had to get to her magic. Why couldn’t she reach the magic energy that flowed around them?

  Another imaginary wave of fry oil splashed over her, and she screamed.

  “It’s all in your head,” Edward sang to her. He jumped to his feet. “They used to tell me that every day… until I escaped.”

  Nearby, the taller witch escorted the shorter to Edward’s side. “Sire, we’ve removed all the magic blocks we can. Besides the Fae cuffs, any remaining block is of the girl’s own making.”

  Jess tugged on her arms. Fae cuffs. Maybe the metal inhibited her magic the way the Repressor tree slab had. She didn’t rest against a slab of the stuff. They were only bracelets. Maybe she could overcome the metal.

  He paused, drumming his fingers over the armrests of his throne. “Her own making?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  He stroked their cheeks. “You may go, my dears. Please bring me any news of her parents. Her mother must return me to the dragon’s realm.”

  The two hurried out.

  Jess reached for her magic, but the metal on her wrists heated. She repeated the attempt, but she convulsed.

  “Is your attempt working?” Edward asked. “The Fae cuffs do their job well.”

  Jess ignored his question. “My mother won’t return you to the dragon.”

  He considered Jess. “She’ll have no choice. If she won’t, you will die. She won’t let that happen.”

  Mama. Daddy. Stay away. Rase and Winnie needed to do the same. They should stay at the Academy. Jess chewed her bottom lip. She, herself, should have remained. She had jumped off into a world she knew nothing about.

  “Who taught you to use your magic, I wonder,” Edward said, moving across the decking.

  She grimaced. “Me. I taught myself.”

  Edward shook his head. “No, no, I’m sure you didn’t. Unattended, children injure themselves and those around them. Children do not teach themselves magic. Your mother believed that as much as anyone. She would never allow you to learn on your own.”

  Jess scoffed at the lunatic. “You do not know her. Magic is against the rules. I’m not allowed to practice my talents.”

  Edward made a face. “Was it Colonel Blackfox, Professor Timefix,” he spun toward her. “Chef Mee?”

  She yanked her body one way and then the other, only stopping when black spots filled her vision. She stopped. “How do you know about them?” she panted.

  Edward folded his arms and returned to the blackened throne. “They’ve been teaching magical students for a long time, and they’ve failed a great many more than they’ve helped.”

  Topside, someone squealed, and Edward’s eyes widened. He wagged his eyebrows. “Perhaps we have news.”

  The witches rushed down the stairs, coming to a halt beside Edward. The tallest elbowed the shorter and vice versa. The short one tipped up on her toes and whispered into Edward’s ears.

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he shivered. “What delicious news.”

  The tall one leaned down and whispered something else.

  “They’re on the way?” Edward asked.

  The women nodded.

  From somewhere beneath the throne, Edward retrieved a bell. He rang it three times. A satyr descended the stairs. “We must prepare,” Edward called.

  The satyr bobbed his head. “Yes, sire. I’ll send in the dwarves.” Then he hurried back to the top of the stairs.

  A moment later, hunch-back dwarves marched down the stairs and across the decking, tripping over one another to reach the small door at the end. The first one to reach the handle let out a jubilant yell.

  From the blackened throne, the spindly man slowly clapped. “Good show,” he said. “You win the bones of our last guest. If you survive,” he added.

  As though it hadn’t heard the last three words, the dwarf danced in place, wiping its gigantic tongue over and over its lips. Slobber dripped from the corner of its mouth and splatted on the decking. “Huh-yup. Huh-yup.”

  “Release my pet,” Edward commanded.

  Using the metal pull-ring, the dwarf tugged on the small door, but it wouldn’t budge. The second time, it moved, but only slightly. The dwarf stroked his beard and turned to examine the rusted hinges on the other side. While the dwarf’s attention remained on the hinges, a long, hairy leg dipped out into the hold and back into the darkness.

  Jess gasped, but the dwarf couldn’t hear. It noticed nothing. Not a soul in the hold breathed.

  The dwarf turned back to the now-empty entrance and braced its foot against the wall. He pulled as hard as he could. With a long squeak, the hinges gave way, and the barricade burst open.

  The dwarf spun around, his arms raised high. He danced a clumsy jig. “Huh-yup. Huh-yup.”

  The other dwarves pressed into the farthest corner, several already whimpering. They waved the other dwarf back to their side, but he didn’t come.

  The ship vibrated. As one, the remaining dwarves gasped, and the jubilant fellow spun slowly back toward the opening. He whimpered, and his knees quaked.

  Jess took a breath. What were they all waiting for? What would come out of the hole? No one moved.

  The ghastly being on the throne sat, leaning forward, enraptured by what was to come. His witches stopped their work. A bevy of clicking steps reverberated through the ship. Jess’s stomach lurched, and she heaved, spewing another round of watery bile across her front.

  A spider, as large as a small car, burst out of the darkness and scooped the dwarf into its pedipalps, rolling it over and over. But instead of a normal spider mouth, a bear’s jaw snapped and snarled.

  Taking its prey in its forelegs, it raised it over its snapping mouth. Sharp teeth worked in its jaw.

  “Heeeeeelllp,” the dwarf yelled, but his cry stopped abruptly as the bear-spider ripped his head from his body.

  Jess gulped. She squeezed her eyes closed as the carnage went on. Hot tears streaked her face. What would become of her?

  Something brushed against her arm, and her eyes popped open. Twelve eyes glinted in the light from the chandelier, leaning over her. Pedipalps worked in front of a toothy jaw, slicking blood and dwarf-gore from its teeth and casting the slop aside.

  She had to do something. Anything. She probed the en
ergy in the room, searching for the spider-bear’s psyche. Maybe she could get it to calm down. Like the gryphon. She sorted through each mind in the room. The terrified dwarves were on one side of the extreme, Edward on the other, but nothing else registered.

  Edward’s mouth twisted. “Trying to speak to the beastie, are you?”

  Jess glanced from the bear-spider to Edward and back again.

  Edward feigned sadness. “You won’t find it. Do you know why?”

  Jess shook her head.

  “You aren’t evil enough.” Edward tossed back his head, and his laughter echoed through the ship.

  The spider-bear leaned over her, straddling her. Saliva dripped from its teeth. Its pedipalps roved over her, already tasting her the way a fly tasted everything it touched.

  “Not yet, pet,” Edward soothed the beast. “You’ll have a happy family meal soon, my love.”

  If Jess could summon fire, the spider couldn’t devour her. It couldn’t eat fire, right? She knew the spell well enough. She didn’t have to have her grandmother’s notes in front of her to summon it.

  Stretching and straining against the cuffs that burned her skin, she summoned the fire spell. She focused on the heat. The burn. Drawing it ever closer. Her skin blistered beneath the cuffs, but, still, she reached. The spider-bear snapped its mouth while the dwarves moved across the room in slow motion. Her sensations distorted. Flames erupted all over her, burning through the straps.

  “Impossssible,” Edward hissed.

  On the spider legs closest to Jess’s face, thick hairs contorted in the flame, curling in the heat. The fire blazed from hair to hair, and the spider roared so loud Jess nearly lost control of the flames that surrounded her.

  It darted away, but not before two of its eight legs burned. Then two became four. It scurried one way then the other, dragging its abdomen across the floor. Its panic increasing as the blaze spread across its cephalothorax.

  With a roar, the spider-bear launched itself upward. It slammed into the ceiling of the hold then crashed back to the ground. Wood splintered beneath it, and the ship quaked from stem to stern. A puddle formed beneath the hairy beast.

  Jess rolled toward the spider-bear, off the table, and landed on her feet. She ducked behind the contraption, peaking over the surface.

  Dwarves scrambled over one another, crawling out of the burning hold. She slipped the cuffs over a stake that had been hammered into the flooring. She tugged and twisted until the thin metal of the Fae cuffs stretched. She slipped the dampening jewelry over her hands. Sharp points gouged her skin, raising long scratches. She tossed the cuffs aside, slinging drops of blood with the movement.

  “Well, now, I sssssay, that’s enough of that,” Edward said. He waved his hand, and a spindly leg shot out from the collapsed spider. “As though, death alone is enough to stop my beasties. What a foolish child.”

  Too late, Jess spun away, but the sharp end of the spider leg clipped the side of her head. She reeled across the hold, tumbling forward until she landed on the ground in front of Edward on his throne.

  He kicked her in the side, and she groaned, twisting around to protect her vulnerable middle. She crossed her arms in front of her.

  The satyr descended the stairs, his hooves clopping against the wooden decking. He came to a halt beside Jess.

  Studying his cloven hooves, she sighed. She didn’t even have the energy to swipe her arm across the deck to trip her betrayer.

  Far above her, the satyr spoke. “They’ve turned themselves in, sire.”

  “Superb. Bring them in. She’ll have the key,” Edward crowed. He pointed to Jess. “If you please. We don’t want to take her where we’re going. In fact, once we have the key, we’ll end them all.” He cackled.

  The satyr raised his hoof over her head.

  The smell of smoke tickled her nose, and everything went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Burn the Ships

  Standing at the crest of a low hill, Rase stared at the three-masted galleon with the sailed rolled up. A small flag whipped wildly in the breeze that blew in from the elsewhere. A thick rope stretched from the bow of the ship into the water. The asphalt road led directly to the pier beside it and the edge of the bay.

  Straight overhead, the sun warmed them. Rase could have sworn the orb had zig-zagged across the sky. How long had they been there? Time passed differently here.

  “That’s it?” he asked Trylon. “It looks abandoned.” Was Jess in there? Willingly?

  Winnie shielded her eyes, her mouth pinched.

  “It is the only ship in our harbor,” Trylon agreed. “That must be the one.”

  Together, they stepped away, obviously in a hurry to shed the two humans.

  Annoyed by their haste, Rase stepped in front of them. Maybe the stress of their adventure was getting to him.

  “You’re leaving?” He rubbed the back of his neck. Surely, they could be made to care about a helpless, kidnapped girl. “We could really use your help. Jess could use your help. Her parents have been kidnapped.”

  “Our bargain is fulfilled. We must return to our stations.”

  “We do not meddle in human affairs,” Perisphere said.

  “They do not concern us,” Trylon added.

  The gargantuan beasts turned on their haunches and sprinted away without another word.

  Rase watched until they disappeared around a street corner. “Perfect,” he whispered. He sighed and turned to Winnie. “I don’t have any idea what we’re doing, do you?”

  She held up her talkbox. “I could shift and chase after them,” she said.

  Rase shook his head, in case Winnie wasn’t joking. His face itched. How long had it been since he’d slept or bathed or shaved or eaten? The minute Jess was safe, he was going to stuff his face with food.

  He crossed his arms. “What should we do first?”

  Winnie shrugged and held up her talkbox. “The next right thing?”

  Rase frowned. “Is this the next right thing?” The task felt bigger than them, too large a task for two kids from New Haven City with barely any magical ability.

  We have to get down there.” He squinted at the vessel, studying the rear of the ship.

  A thin black cloud seeped from a porthole and curled toward the sky, quickly dissipating. The plume widened. He laid a hand on Winnie’s elbow and nodded toward the bay. “Do you see that?”

  Winnie shielded her eyes once more. She turned to Rase and shrugged.

  “Smoke,” he said. His stomach dropped. “It’s smoke.”

  She whipped back toward the ship.

  Instead of waiting for her response, Rase sprinted down the asphalt toward the ship. I’m coming, Jess. He didn’t wait to see if Winnie followed. He had to be sure Jess wasn’t inside.

  By the time Rase reached the edge of the wooden pier, smoke billowed from the portholes. The curtains in the captain’s quarters burned. He ducked around Winnie, running the length of the vessel and back again. The anchor chain was on the opposite side of the ship. He made another lap.

  His chest heaved. No way in.

  If only they’d brought Freya. She could poof over and let them in.

  “Do you see a gangplank?” he bellowed.

  Winnie shook her head.

  Rase stepped between two wooden bollards, wrapped with years of fraying ropes. He shuffled to the edge of the tall pier. Ten feet down, water lapped at the supports. The decking shifted and he jumped backward from the edge. He couldn’t tell if that was him or his fear of heights. He rubbed his hands together, considering the distance between the pier and the galleon. The ship wasn’t far. He could make it. Right?

  Flames shot up from the deck. Smoke poured over the side.

  He grimaced. He had to make it. For Jess. For her parents. He backed away from the edge. He needed a running start if he was going to make it at all.

  “What are you doing?” Winnie asked. Her eyes widened, and she raised her hands to stop him.

&nbs
p; Rase juked around her and sprinted toward the edge. He flung his arms wide, and launched himself from the pier. He flew toward the gap in the railing, pumping his arms. He slammed into the ship but didn’t catch the edge. Grunting and clawing, he scrambled to catch something, anything to save him.

  He slid several feet before his hands closed around a cable hanging from the railing . Pulling at the slack rope, he kicked at the rounded surface, his tennis shoes slipping against the slick wood as he continued his fall toward the water.

  Rase yelled when the line pulled tight around his hand, crushing the bones in his palm. Using it as leverage, he shimmied up the side, through the balustrade, and threw himself over the edge. He landed on the deck of the ship, panting. He sucked at the air, smoke and all.

  “I don’t know how to swim,” Winnie said, her talkbox voice calm. “May I come aboard?”

  Rase snorted and climbed to his feet. Of all the things to take the time to type… He shoved the gangplank out through the gap and the end landed on the dock beside her.

  She dashed up the narrow bridge, already searching for Jess.

  “Wait here,” he said, running to the captain’s quarters. He threw the doors open. “Jess?” He held his breath to listen. “Are you there?” He moved to the galley entrance. “Jess! Where are you?”

  As he searched, Winnie moved across the deck as though drawn. She stopped at the edge of a large opening in the decking. Winnie’s waved, and her eyes widened. Jumping up and down, she pointed into the hold.

  Rase darted to her side, stopping short of the hole. “Did you hear something?”

  Winnie clasped her hands over her chest and nodded.

  Rase moved to the top of the stairs that led into the hold. Flames engulfed the risers.

  Rase cupped his hand around his mouth. “Jess!”

  Winnie typed into her talkbox, but the roar of the fire covered the sound of her calls.

  “Jess!” he yelled again.

 

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