“None of this is real!” Meg shouted. “It was a scam for kids. We paid you the money. Years ago. It’s over!”
The Watchmaker shouted, his thunderous voice drowning Meg out.
“My queen,” he said. “Did you not tell us that these four were the last of the original Reserves and, without question, the best of them?”
The queen locked eyes with the Watchmaker, her face hard as stone.
“Did you not beg us to save them should they need it, for they would be the only ones capable of saving our kingdom?”
I shifted uncomfortably, knowing where this was going.
“I saw it too,” the seer said distantly.
“Who are these people the witch has brought to your island?” the Watchmaker shouted.
“Defenders,” the queen said adamantly, but she was kneading her hands again.
“Defenders?” the Watchmaker echoed. “Perhaps once, but now?” He looked over Clay. “Tell me, boy, are you as good at fighting as you are at working up your hair? And you, girl. Do you shrivel at the sight of a witch, or every time a bird swoops by overhead?”
“Calm yourself, Watchmaker,” the queen requested. “I intended to intimidate our enemy by making claims of our last defenders’ skills and abilities. While they were exaggerations, they are no less true, nor do they undermine the people who stand beside you. These four came to Dembroch after all. They intend to help.”
My friends and I exchanged nervous glances.
“You see!” the Watchmaker exclaimed. “They quibble and quiver like little children. Their chins are soft and guts are round. They have no better chance of saving Dembroch than an iceberg surviving summer.”
“Mind your tongue,” the queen said, never once raising her voice. “I have every confidence in our four last defenders. I ask you to trust them as I have.”
The Watchmaker grumbled and backed up to stand guard at the end of the corridor. Queen Coralee returned her glassy eyes to us.
“Now, please,” she said to us, begging Meg to accept the truth. “You must understand. The isles have always held magic within them, but they became concentrated into flames. There were six throughout the kingdom. But, as each of the flames died, so did the magic. To stop Sorgana, as the mage predicted, we must reignite these flames, thereby restoring the magic. And the way to do it is in the book I sent you four long ago.”
For the first time since arriving on Dembroch, I realized I had a way to help. The book, The Knights and Dames of Dembroch, was in my satchel.
I reached into it to pull out the book.
“Not here,” the queen implored, pushing my hand back into my bag. “It holds secrets the witch should never know. I sent it to you for that reason. Therefore, you must find a quiet place, read of the origin of the isles’ magic, and act on it. Only with the knowledge within this book and the mercy of time can you follow the mage’s musings and save the kingdom.”
“Can’t you just tell us?” Meg asked, sounding irritated.
“There is much to know, and it is quite complicated,” the queen said. “It will take some time.”
“I have such a place to offer, yes, yes,” the librarian offered.
“Excellent,” the queen said. She reached out again and took our hands. “Now, my knights and dames. I must ask you… Will you save Dembroch?” She blushed. “I know you are no longer defenders in name and your titles were renounced. I was forced by the witch to do such a heinous thing in her first attempts to end the magic. Because of that, you have no responsibility to aid this kingdom. But my faith in you has never wavered. You have kept the book safe all this time, even after you lost your titles. And you continued to write letters.”
Meg shot me a look, mouthing the word, “Letters?”
The queen continued: “Those writings and those of your youth attested to your pure hearts, aspiring ambition, and strong spirits. From those letters, I came to know the bold women and men who would someday stand before me, and I knew in my heart that you would never abandon your responsibilities. But this is no ordinary request. It is rife with more danger and burden than ever before. You are the last of your disbanded order. The challenges ahead are grim. To aid Dembroch may be to forfeit your life. Therefore, I must ask you. Will you reclaim your old duties? Will you save the Timeless Kingdom of Dembroch?”
“Yes!” is what we should have said. It’s what I wanted to say. But none of us spoke. Something the queen had said had caught my attention and sent my head spinning.
Our hesitation was brief but telling.
“I see,” the queen said, releasing our hands and taking a step back. “Watchmaker?”
The mountain of a man lumbered back into the room. There was a devilish smile on his face.
“Tell me, my last knights and dames,” the queen said, “where is your childlike faith? What time do your watches read? Surely not midnight. Your conviction is surely not gone. You will not abandon your kingdom in its most desperate time of need.”
She looked to each of us, searching for an answer, silently pleading for help, appealing to the humanity within us that she thought was still there. The Watchmaker loomed over us.
“I can’t,” Jenn finally said.
“Lady Jennifer, you must!” the queen implored.
“Why can’t any of you do it?” Jenn asked, looking to our rescuers.
“We are trying,” Page Trey said, looking younger and more scared by the minute. “But we four can only do so much.”
“My aides have already been tasked with objectives to help save Dembroch as elucidated by the mage,” the queen agreed, “but the magic is a matter of its own. You four—” she pointed to my friends and I “—are inextricably tied to the magic, and only you four can restore it. Now please, look within yourselves. Will you not help this kingdom?”
“I would if I could,” Clay said, his voice full of bluster, his tone cavalier. “But…this is a lot for a few ex-knights and dames to handle. We’re only four people. We have no experience with this stuff.”
The queen’s wrinkled brow furrowing with confusion. Then, terribly, she looked to me.
“And you, Sir Nicholas?”
I should have agreed to help, should have been the first one, but red flags were popping up into my head. The queen made it sound like the witch had taken control of the realm, then the queen had sent the book…but we’d received the book long ago, right before the order had been dissolved. Sorgana had just broken out a week ago or so. Maybe the mail system was to blame, or the kingdom’s time magic, but I sensed the queen wasn’t telling the full truth.
And then there was the matter of my letters. I’d seen one of my letters on the witch’s person and, after the battle, lying on the floor of the throne room. And the queen had just mentioned the same letters. She’d received them and, worse, read them. And she’d never responded to us. Not once.
My blood boiled. How could the queen ask us to help her when she had denied us these twenty years? I couldn’t even begin to put my thoughts into words.
“What’s in it for us?” Meg interjected when I didn’t say anything.
The Watchmaker shot Meg a look. Page Trey raised an eyebrow. The librarian clucked his tongue.
“Lady Meghan,” the queen said, scowling at her. “I am surprised at you. What of the people? The kingdom? Your duty?”
Meg crossed her arms.
“I have no duty to help you,” she said. “You took my titles, whether that witch forced you or not. I don’t have to do anything. But if we’re talking a reward…”
I ogled at my sister. Where did she get the nerve?
“I see,” the queen mused. She paced her cell, rubbing her hands again. “My sirs and ladies, do you know the rich history of Dembroch’s defenders? While protecting this kingdom, they have also served the world beyond for millennia. From the Knights Templar to the Ghost Army, the Principality of Sealand to the unified safeguard of the Arx, from the Monuments Men to the Order of Holy Sepulcher. Our history is ste
eped in a rich beauty and a steadfast devotion to good. But one comes to mind at this moment: the Hibernians. Protestors sought to burn down churches in early New York City. Our order of defenders came to their aid and kept the church safe for decades. At last, when the protestors had given up and the Hibernians had succeeded, we left the church’s safety to the parishioners. And do you know what happened? A few nights later, a clumsy Hibernian priest knocked over a candle and burnt the whole place down.”
She glared at us, her face pressed against the bars and temper growing.
“Do you see the irony?” she asked, her tongue sharp. “Like the old church of your world beyond, Dembroch has stood the test of time and refused to yield to any aggressors. But what has broken our kingdom? What has ended our magic? Not the witch, nor any antagonizers seeking our shores for ill will. Rather, we have fallen from within.” The queen frowned deeply. “My knights and dames, you disappoint me. You are no better than the Hibernians. You have gone the way of Solomon before you even stepped foot on our shores.”
There it was again, that name that the seer had mentioned. I didn’t know what it meant, but it clearly wasn’t a compliment.
The queen wasn’t finished. “It is no wonder the magic has died,” she said, not meanly, but matter-of-factly. “You four are no more than dead men walking. The death of the mage is on your hands, as are any further catastrophes that should burden this withering kingdom built on the backs of such foolish men and women.”
“I guess there’s no obligation to help you then,” Meg spat, turning to walk away.
The Watchmaker was still right behind us, blocking Meg’s way.
“Consider your life to be your obligation,” he growled. “If you fail, you die. We all will.”
A thick hand fell on my shoulder. The Watchmaker grabbed onto Meg too and pushed us toward the other prison cells. We ran into Jenn and Clay, and though we were four fully grown adults, we started skidding forward.
“The choice is yours,” the Watchmaker told us. “Help your queen and kingdom or spend the last of your days in these cells. And believe me, if you do not help us, your stay here will be painfully, unmercifully short.”
Jenn and Clay started stammering.
“You can’t—” Meg argued.
“He can,” the librarian said. “The Watchmaker and all Civium act under the queen’s authority. If you refuse to accept your old responsibilities, you are trespassing visitors to our kingdom. And we dictate the comings and goings of such aliens. The choice is yours. You shall either aid us or die with us.”
The Watchmaker pushed again, stronger. I dug my feet into the ground. The queen was biting her lip but doing nothing to stop this.
“Okay!” I shouted finally. “I’ll help!”
Jenn and Clay echoed my agreement with quiet, desperate voices. It was not a hard choice, but it was not exactly one made from the bottom of my heart.
“Fine,” Meg said.
The Watchmaker grunted in acceptance. He released my shoulder. I felt uneasy, yet again realizing that my childhood fantasies of Dembroch had been tragically naïve. Sure, the witch had deceived us and tried to kill us, but the queen and her aides, the ones who I assumed would be friendly and helpful and welcoming, had just pressganged us into service.
The queen gave a curt nod, her wrinkled face tightened and stern. “It is settled then. You will save this kingdom, and should you survive, you shall be sent home happy and healthy, never to return. Farewell, my last defenders. God speed.”
Everyone else seemed to breathe a sigh of relief—the tenseness was over, as was our meeting with the queen. But not me. I alone stood frozen, struck by what the queen had just said. Had anyone else heard it? She’d exiled us. If we just so happened to save the kingdom and not die in the process, we would be banished from Dembroch and never be allowed to return. This was my first and last trip to the kingdom.
No one seemed to notice or care. Queen Coralee nodded to her Civium and they guided us away. The meaning was clear: we had our orders and it was time to go. But I wanted to stay. There were so many questions I still had, so many things I needed to say, whether it was a conversation or an argument.
I glanced back as I was dragged along. The queen was lost in her own thoughts, but as I watched, she nodded curtly to herself, looked up, and locked eyes with me. Deep within the wrinkled visage of the witch, the queen’s eyes flashed with a strange expression of hope and apology. She was hoping for the best and, despite blackmailing us and feeling bad about it, was sticking to her guns. In that moment, I realized I had to do the same. I’d made my choice, no matter how coerced, and I had to commit if I were to survive.
At the very least, I figured, out of the available options—imprisonment, death, or exile—my friends and I had chosen the one that offered a slim chance of life after Dembroch.
CHAPTER 13:
The Birth of the Isles’ Magic
“Sir Nicholas,” Sir Rignot said. “Your book, please.”
The Watchmaker and Page Trey were no longer with us. They had left to complete their own errands—Page Trey had even asked Meg to accompany him to the Gate Grounds, which she’d ever so impolitely declined—despite the librarian and seer begging them to stay. Now, my friends and I stood with the seer and librarian in the library fit for the thirstiest bookworms. Books and scrolls filled the room from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. The rich smell of vanilla and old pages wafted through the air.
Sir Rignot held out a hand for my book. In the other, he held a vial of gold liquid.
“What’s that?” Jenn asked.
“Magic,” the librarian replied simply.
Meg raised an eyebrow.
“I thought the magic was gone,” I said.
“True, true,” the librarian said. “The magic of the island is gone. Only stored and preexisting magic remains now.”
“Preexisting?” Jenn echoed.
“Curses and promises linger no matter where you go,” Sir Rignot explained, “prized possessions are conduits and harbor power over an owner’s life such as prolonging life, altering your appearance, and healing wounds, and stored magic always keeps. This right here—” he shook the vial “—is bottled magic. Extracted from the flames’ sparks, then modified for a specific use. In this case, to bring written word to life. Now, Sir Nicholas, if you please, yes, yes, we need to see that book.”
I pulled it from my satchel. The edges were foxed and worn, the pages yellowed. Within were countless tales about Dembroch’s past defenders, though the only story I remembered with any clarity was about the late King Arthur’s fruitless search to break a curse. All of the stories had been written in Latin, but I’d translated all of them over the years and written the English in the margins.
Sir Rignot placed the book on a nearby table and flipped it open to a story near the beginning—The Birth of the Isle’s Magic. Then, he uncorked the vial of golden liquid and poured a few drops on the page. Smoke furled from where it landed, growing and expanding above us. Lightning flickered on its edges.
“Watch and listen, watch and listen,” the librarian said. “The written word can be deceiving, but, yes, yes, together we can see history unfold before our very eyes.”
The cloud began to descend on us. Jenn let out a whimper. Clay stiffened, prepared for the worst. I saw Meg smirk at us all and then my vision was lost in white.
Right when I was about to ask Sir Rignot what was going on, the white smoke gained color and substance, painting a scene around me. The next instant, I was outdoors. Sun beat down on my face, though I couldn’t feel the heat. Grassy meadows stretched as far as the eye could see, rolling into hills. There wasn’t a single building, forest, river, or vineyard in sight. Miniscule, golden sparks floated through the air like pollen. It gave the air an ethereal, almost alien yellow haze. Distantly, I heard the crash of waves.
Though it looked different, I recognized the general shape of the land: it was Dembroch. We stood on the northwest headland before the c
astle had been built or the land had become desolate and dark.
I looked around, searching for the ocean, and yelped—I was standing over it. The ocean crashed on cliffs miles below. I scampered like a cartoon character, trying to push myself through the air to safety. Impossibly, my feet touched ground though I hovered in open space. I raced forward, reaching the grassy ground, and—“Careful, Sir Nicholas,” the seer called after me—ran right into something invisible and very solid. I fell onto it, groaning in pain. I had a strong suspicion I’d run into a table stacked high with books.
“Calm down, calm down,” called the librarian, standing a few feet away with my friends and the seer. “You’re still in the library, Sir Nicholas. Only your mind has travelled somewhere new. Now, now, pay attention, everyone, yes, yes. We must watch and listen, but the magic must be guided. Sir Nicholas?”
“Uh…,” I murmured as I walked slowly back to my friends, careful to avoid any invisible tables or bookstacks.
“Do you remember the tale?” he asked.
It had been years since I’d read it. I would have needed the book, but I could no longer see it.
“Fair enough, fair enough,” the librarian said. “Allow me, allow me.” He cleared his throat and, in a voice becoming a narrator, said, “The isles of Dembroch, first of the Arx, have always been magical. For many millennia, it was home of the mages—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s happening?” Meg interrupted, her voice straining. “What is this?”
Two figures had materialized right in front of us. I recognized their unique appearances instantly: they were mages, human in form, but composed completely of moss. There was a male and a female. The two danced around one another, plucking golden sparks from the air and collecting them in baskets.
At the sight of the male mage, the seer knocked against her heart and bowed her head. This must have been her fallen comrade.
“Be calm, be calm,” Sir Rignot told Meg. “They will not harm you. You have not left the library. You are simply witnessing history. The magic allows us to see what has been written. You must only watch and listen. Now, now, if I may continue, yes, yes, these two mages, husband and wife, mage and his magesty, lived alone on Dembroch for millennia until, one day, vagabond Christians found the island.”
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