by Brian Olsen
Mr. Liefer tries to sit up on the cot. His hands are wrapped in bandages, so he pushes himself up on his elbows. “Was it the king? Do you need my help?”
“It’s all right.” Alisha brushes herself off. “Rest, Mr. Liefer.”
“Don’t coddle me, Alisa! Tell me what’s happening.”
Something’s wrong.
I can’t figure it out. Something’s wrong. Something’s bugging me. Shoot.
Alisa starts to explain to the Liefers where we’ve been, but I tune her out. Nate and Zane notice the way I’m looking around the room.
“What?” Nate asks.
“Why did he do that?” I walk around the room, looking for…I don’t know what. “What was the point?”
“With the mermaids?” Zane asks.
I nod. “He knew what we were planning. He told us, at the hotel. And he believed it would work if we had Kenny. So he knew letting them out wouldn’t weaken the Moment.”
“A test?” Nate suggests. “To see if we had cast the spell yet? And if it worked?”
“Not much of a test. The mermaids weren’t out long enough for the Moment to suck them into their artifact if our spell hadn’t worked. He didn’t wait, he used the book to send them back after just a few minutes.”
Nate shrugs. “Maybe he was messing with us. He likes to do that.”
“No.” I rest against the wall near the hallway. “I mean, yeah, he likes messing with people, but only up close and personal. Something big like this he wouldn’t do without a reason.”
“It couldn’t be about us,” Zane points out. “Pretty much all of us were there, and he didn’t attack.”
“Yeah…” Oh, crap. I see it. I see what’s wrong. What’s missing. “The gargoyle.”
“The what?” Nate looks around. “Oh. Yeah. Kenny?”
The room grows silent as Nate calls out. Kenny’s sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest, his head bowed between them, but he looks up at the sound of his name. “Yeah?”
“Did you move the gargoyle?”
He shakes his head.
“Mrs. Liefer?” I say. “Did you?”
“The what?” She looks around. “No. How could I? It was very heavy.”
Mr. Montgomery points. “There.” He’s standing in the center of the room, with a clear view down the hall into the next. “It’s in the other room. It wasn’t there when we left.”
I step into the entranceway so I can see. The gargoyle is on the floor in the other room, near the table.
Alisa stands next to me. Most everybody else bunches in behind.
“Kenny, Liefers,” Alisa says, “you’re sure none of you moved it?”
“Positive,” Mr. Liefer answers.
“Were you all in the room with it the whole time we were gone?”
Mrs. Liefer thinks for a moment. “Ronald drifted off and I took Kenny upstairs to get him something to eat. I wasn’t paying attention to the gargoyle. I honestly couldn’t tell you if it was here when we got back.”
“You went upstairs?” Mrs. Green asks. “Did anyone see you?”
“Just Jerry. There wasn’t anyone else in the museum. We were careful.”
Jerry is Mrs. Green’s only employee at the museum. She told him she had hired some people to organize the basement, to explain away any noises he heard. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he hadn’t experienced the Moment so they took the risk that Jasmine wouldn’t think to snoop in his dreams. Mrs. Green said she trusted him, but still…
“Hold on.” Alisa steps into the hall. “Nobody go near it.”
She climbs the stairs. The door at the top opens and closes.
Mrs. Wollard sniffs. “Someone new has been here. Someone I haven’t been properly introduced to.”
Mr. Green thrums his fingers on the wall. “Why would Jerry come downstairs and move a heavy gargoyle from one room to another?”
“He wouldn’t,” Mrs. Green answers.
“He couldn’t,” I say. “Without waking Mr. Liefer? In the amount of time we were gone? No way.” I nudge Zane. “Be ready.”
He mutters to me, “I’ve got one gargoyle-sized shadow straightjacket all cued up.”
“I am also preparing,” Ihsan says. “If it is alive and tries to get away, I can trap it.”
The upstairs door opens and closes again, and Alisa comes back. She stays in the center of the hall, halfway between the two rooms. “Jerry says he hasn’t been down here in weeks, and he’s telling the truth. Logomancers, with me, please. Everybody else, hang back.”
Those with magic, all except Kenny and Mr. Liefer, move forward to join Alisa. Nate and I, of course, follow, and Mr. Montgomery is close behind.
Mrs. Wollard sniffs again. “That is not stone.”
“Yes, I’m starting to guess what it is,” Alisa says. “Mr. Ambrose, let’s hit it together. On three—”
“Wait! Wait!” The gargoyle spreads its arms wide. “Don’t hit me!”
The grotesque statue blurs. The wings retract, the gray color fades, and the hunched posture straightens out and grows. In an instant, the gargoyle is gone, and Mr. Finlay, our former biology teacher, stands in its place.
He smiles meekly. “I surrender.”
“Zane.”
At Alisa’s command, Zane gestures. Shadow bonds form around Finlay’ torso, holding him tight and pinning his arms to his sides.
“Ooh!” Finlay laughs. “That’s cold!”
“What did you do?” Alisa asks. “Tell me the truth!”
Finlay’s face contorts. “I…I…I…I’d rather…not…”
Mr. Montgomery whispers, “I thought you couldn’t lie to Alisa.”
“She’s not detecting lies,” I whisper back. “She’s forcing him to speak. And logomancers can resist magic used directly against them like that. To a point.”
“She’ll break through.” Nate smacks his fist into his palm. “She’s tough, and Finlay’s a wimp.”
“Tell me!” Alisa shouts. “Truth!”
“I…I…I waited.” He bites his lip, but then continues like the words are being dragged out of him. “I waited for my chance. Left the room so I could…so I could… They came back downstairs before I could get back to my original position.”
“So you could what?” Alisa asks.
He grits his teeth and shakes his head violently.
Mr. Ambrose says, “So he could contact the Common King. It must be.”
“And did you?” Alisa asks. “Did you contact the Common King? Truth!”
“Nnnn…nnnn…no!” Finlay shouts. His head falls forward and he lets out a long moan.
I let my shoulders relax. I hadn’t noticed, but I had gotten so tense they were up by my ears. I return to those who stayed back to relay the news. “It’s Mr. Finlay. Mrs. Liefer and Kenny came down before he could give us away.”
Mrs. Liefer lets out a breath. “We were alone with him? That’s terrifying.”
“Zane,” Alisa says, “keep him locked tight. Ihsan, if he changes shape, stick him in a prison. Everybody else, back.”
As the rest return to the cot room, I say to Alisa, “You know what this means?”
She shakes her head. “A lot, but I’m still thinking it through.”
“Finlay was waiting in that conference room when we arrived at the hotel,” I say. “He was already a gargoyle. Which means—”
“Which means they knew we were coming. Did the king know I had a link with Tannyl inside the necklace that I could track?”
“Jasmine might have guessed,” I say.
Liefer manages to sit up fully, his legs over the edge of the cot. “And he had Dante drop the hiding spell on the hotel to be sure. I suspected as much when I teleported into the Pillmans’ room so easily. It was a trap, to find where we’re hiding.”
“And the mermaids,” I say. “A diversion. To get us out of here, so Finlay could call him without being found out.”
“But why?” Andy rights the chair I fell over and sits on it.
“Why give up all his artifacts just to find us? Seems like a big risk.”
“To put a spy in our ranks?” Alisa suggests. “Find out our plans?”
“Maybe,” I say. “But the Common King already knew our plans.”
“So he knows our plans,” Nate says, “and we knows his plans. Who needs spies?”
“But do we know his plans?” I ask.
Alisa frowns. “What do you mean? He wants to break the Moment so he can be king again. We know that.”
“Do we?”
“Of course.” She brushes back an errant braid. “Finlay must have been a back-up, in case any of us got away. Since his initial plan was to capture us at the hotel.”
“Was it?”
Lily shoots me a dark look. “He didn’t want us to get away.”
“Are we sure about that?”
“Chris.” Alisa puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re scaring the hell out of me. If he doesn’t want to break the Moment, what else could he want?”
“Nothing,” Mr. Ambrose answers. “He confirmed as much when he confronted us in the hotel.”
“Did he?”
Alisa shakes me. “Stop asking rhetorical questions and say what you’re thinking already!”
I put my hands up. “Sorry! I’m trying to remember exactly what he said in the hallway. He knew you can detect lies, but that doesn’t mean he told the whole truth.” I realize something. My blood runs cold. “Finlay knows that, too.”
“But we’re good, right?” Nate asks. “He said he didn’t contact them.”
Alisa takes a step backwards, towards the hall. “No.” She smacks her forehead. “No, he said he didn’t contact the Common King.”
Kenny stands up. “You can’t contact the Common King. He doesn’t have a phone. He smashed it.”
“I can hear you!” Finlay yells. “And that’s right, the Common King doesn’t have a phone.” He laughs. “But the Nightmare Queen does!”
“Zane!” Alisa shouts. “Portal!”
Zane and Ihsan come running down the hall to us. Zane has his hands already out. “To where?”
“Any—”
The ceiling explodes. I drop to my knees and cover my head with my arms at the deafening boom. A wave of heat blasts me from above, flattening me to the floor. Dirt and small pieces of wood and stone rain down but nothing larger. Everyone’s screaming. I’m screaming.
The ceiling is gone. Burning rubble floats in the air above us. All that’s left of the museum’s upper floors. The sun shines down through the gaps.
The huge chunks of rubble part, revealing the Common King floating above us, with Shonda and Jasmine hovering behind.
The king spreads his arms wide. “I believe you have some things that belong to me?”
The screaming stops. I look around. Nobody’s hurt. Mrs. Deng and Lily cling to each other.
I’m wrong about the screaming having stopped. People are screaming above us. From the town.
“Zuh…” Alisa coughs. “Zane…”
“No running.” The king flicks his fingers.
Light flashes and Zane smacks his fingers over his eyes, screaming. Blinded. Behind me, Liefer cries out, too. Both our teleporters taken out in a half-second.
Ihsan looks up at the sky. “Imprison.”
The Common King jerks, like someone tried to pull him off-balance. He frowns. “Someone’s trying to move me.” He floats a little further down, navigating between the burning timber. “One of the new faces, I assume? The old woman? No.” He points at Ihsan. “You, little man?” Flames flicker around his finger.
Ihsan’s mouth opens and closes. Mrs. Wollard reaches for him.
The Common King smiles. The flame goes out and he wags his finger at Ihsan. “Don’t try that again, or you and I shall have words. Understand?”
Ihsan swallows. “Yes.”
“Good. Now. My things. Oh, don’t get up. I’ll fetch them.”
Down the hall, from the other room, the magical artifacts float into the air. Nearer to us, the larger ones we didn’t move, like Yasu’s screen, fly up as well.
Alisa smacks her hand to her chest, then lowers her head to cover the motion. Her necklace strains against her blouse, but she keeps it in place.
The artifacts fly past the Common King and gather behind him, near his allies.
“Is that all of them?” he asks.
Jasmine shrugs. “We didn’t bring an inventory.”
Shonda examines the floating pile of artifacts. “It looks about right, but I couldn’t swear there wasn’t something missing.”
He scratches his head. “It’s enough, I suppose.”
“It won’t work!” Alisa shouts. “We’ve strengthened the Moment. You can never break it.”
“Hm?” He turns back to us. “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood for banter today. So much to do and I’m eager to get started. Finlay? Are you down there?”
“Here, Your Majesty!” Finlay’s shadow bonds must have disappeared when Zane was startled, because he flies up to join his king. He’s flying under his own power, shifted into some weird bird-man hybrid.
“Well done, Finlay,” the king says.
Finlay does loops around him. “Oh, thank you, Your Majesty, thank you!”
“That’ll do. Get clear, now.”
“Mr. Ambrose,” I whisper. “Can’t you disrupt his magic?”
“I doubt it,” he replies. “And even if I could, it’s all that’s keeping two stories of burning museum from dropping on our heads.”
The king, his allies, and the artifacts all drift backwards until they’re no longer directly above us, although they’re high enough up that we can still see them through the open ceiling.
“Are we leaving?” Jasmine asks.
“Almost done.” He snaps his fingers. “Ah! A promise is a promise. One more to pick up.”
Nate rises into the air with a cry of surprise. I grab for his ankle and just miss. Mr. Montgomery jumps up and gets him around the middle, but then lets go with a scream. His hands are bright red, like they’ve been scalded.
Nate floats higher, coming to a stop next to Jasmine. “What the hell, dude?” he yells.
“Um, yeah.” Jasmine frowns. “I told you, Kirt, I don’t want to kidnap him.”
“You don’t have to keep him,” the king replies. “But I needed to get him clear of the others. I promised you I wouldn’t kill him if I could avoid it.”
Everyone is silent for a moment. The only sounds are the crackling flames above us and the screaming and sirens from the town around us.
“No.” Mrs. Deng hugs Lily to her more tightly. “No, no, no.”
“You can’t!” Alisa shouts. “You said you wouldn’t kill us! You said you wanted to take us prisoner. It was the truth! I know it was the truth!”
“Space!” Mr. Liefer’s eyes stare blindly ahead. Mrs. Liefer wraps her arms around him. “Space!” They don’t go anywhere.
The Common King laughs. “It was the truth! It really was. At the time. But truths change, Alisa. Truths change.” His smile disappears. “I have no use for any of you. Not anymore.”
No, no, no. I grab Zane. He’s still blinded.
“I can’t make a portal,” he says.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
We hold each other.
“Andre?” Andy, speaking quietly into his phone. “It’s me. I love you. I love you.”
Ihsan bumps into us. He’s scrambling towards Kenny.
“Wait,” Jasmine says. “You’re not going to—”
“Your Majesty.” Shonda wears a worried smile. “There’s no need to do anything rash.”
“Oh, I’m not.” He cracks his knuckles. “I am extremely deliberate about this.”
He thrusts his hands forward, palms out. The rubble above us flies out of view, landing with massive crashes somewhere in the town.
The Greens grab their daughter. Alisa says, softly, “No, no, it can’t end like this, it can’t.”
I hug Zane tighter.
The king lowers his hands.
“Sun.”
He raises them again.
The basement erupts with fire.
Twenty-two
Fire fills every square inch of the museum basement. It’s an inferno, a massive pillar of flame towering three stories high, at least. The piles of clothes, the sleeping bags, the boxes of brochures, the stored exhibits, all are incinerated instantly, reduced to invisible ash. Nothing could possibly survive being engulfed in a fire like this.
Except we are surviving. It’s not even warm.
There’s a lot of screaming. It’s terrifying, being in the middle of a huge fire.
“What’s happening?” Zane yells in my ear. It’s hard to hear him over the roar of the flames.
I squeeze him tighter. “We’re all right! We’re all right!”
I have no idea if we’re all right. I don’t know what’s going on. But the flames are passing right through him. I hold out my hand. The same. Like we’re phantoms. Is this an illusion?
I look up. The flames are bright, especially from the inside, but I see shapes where the Common King and his allies float.
I stand, slowly, bringing Zane up with me.
“What’s happening?” he shouts again.
“I need to see.”
“Don’t leave me!”
I guide him towards the edge of the room, nearer the king. I can only see our friends when I’m right on top of them, but nobody is burning. Everyone is as unharmed by the flames as Zane and I are.
I stop when I hit the wall. The once-gray stone is now charred black, but somehow cool to my touch. When I pull my fingers away, there’s no ashy residue on them.
I press my face to the wall and look up. Here at the edge of the blaze I can just about see a sliver of the sky. The Common King is there. Laughing.
Jasmine looks horrified. Shonda’s turned away. Nate’s screaming, reaching down to the fire but unable to move towards us. Finlay flies circles around the museum, cheering.
Jasmine grabs the king’s shoulder. He turns to her with an annoyed look on his face. She says something, but he pulls away to watch the flames again. She grabs him one more time and says something more insistently. He sighs, then nods. He beckons for Finlay, who flies over to join the rest.