by Lucia Ashta
My eyes moved back and forth in their sockets, searching for my brother. I needed to see his face one last time.
He was struggling to break free of Arianne’s hold, but Gustave had joined his twin in restraining him. His lips stretched open in a cry when I met his eyes. Whatever he saw terrified him. I could tell. So I did the only thing left in my power to do that might help my brother.
I closed my eyes... perhaps for the final time.
The squeezing pressure around me became unbearable. It built into a formidable force I’d never break free from.
Then... it popped.
Chapter 3
I actually wished to die.
But then the pressure began to ease, and the ringing started to lessen, and I thought it might be worth surviving after all.
I blinked my eyes open as the pain receded, and saw Nando struggling to break free of Gustave and Arianne’s hold. In a second, he was at my side again, grabbing at my hand.
When he picked my hand up and patted and squeezed it, I knew I’d be all right. I just had to tolerate a bit more of the pain as it ran its course through me. Now that it was on its way out, I could wait; I would endure.
The ringing melded with Nando’s words until his speech managed to break through. “Isa. Isa. ¿Estás bien?”
Though I still didn’t understand what was going on or what had happened to me, I was certain I wasn’t all right. But as the pain receded, I believed I might be someday. I attempted to nod to assure my brother, but that proved a bad idea even before I moved my head in any real sense. So again I forced my aching cheeks into a smile. I had no doubt it was a hideous one, but I hoped it would be enough to afford Nando some comfort—it was all I had.
My smile didn’t do much of the job I’d hoped it would because Nando only drew closer. His knees poked my thighs as he leaned over my torso, peering into my eyes.
Ordinarily I’d be telling him to back off and give a girl some space. But after fearing I’d lost him forever, the view of his handsome face was perfect.
“Will she be all right?” Nando asked, but he wasn’t speaking to me anymore, even if his attention was pinned on my face.
Mordecai’s face popped up next to Nando’s. The ends of the old man’s beard dragged against my chest, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen something quite like what she just went through.”
Wow. Well, that definitely didn’t sound like good news. Mordecai must have witnessed a lot in his extended lifetime. What the heck happened to me? What did I do wrong?
“Come on. Sit back. Give her some space.” I couldn’t see Arianne, but I’d recognize her accented voice anywhere.
Neither Nando nor Mordecai moved, their concerned eyes pinned on my face and motionless body. I thought I might be able to move it now, but the thought of it wasn’t pleasant.
“Darlings, come, now. Allow her some room.”
Mordecai was the first to respond to her pleas. Nando finally did, but with reluctance scrawled across his face so clearly it was as if he’d written it there in pen.
He didn’t go far. He didn’t remove his legs from my side, but he did straighten his torso so he knelt upright.
I sucked in a long, filling breath once I had some space. My body ached as I did so, but I felt a sense of expansion travel through me as I inhaled fully again. I mustn’t forget to breathe. The pain had been so bad, it was a miracle I’d remembered to breathe at all.
Arianne’s head popped up instead of Mordecai’s, though she was careful to give me more room than he had. “Are you all right, darling?” she cooed, and I understood why the firedrakes loved her so much. “You’ve been through a lot. Are you feeling better now?”
My instinct was to nod as I started to speak, but I hurried to still my head after moving it. I swallowed, still tasting nausea creeping up the back of my throat. “I’m a bit... better.” The words felt thicker than they should as they moved across my tongue, but I was reasonably certain she’d understand me. “The ringing... is less.”
Arianne exchanged a glance with someone behind her—Mordecai, I guessed—before looking back at me. “Ringing, you say?”
“Yes.” I swallowed again. My throat felt like it was made of dry wood. “Really loud ringing.”
“Is it continuing to lessen, darling?”
I had to stop and listen for a few moments. “Yes, it’s getting better.” My relief was so great that I was totally overwhelmed by it.
Arianne seemed to understand what was happening to me, though I had no idea how she might. “She’ll be just fine, everyone.” She spoke to those behind her, crowding around us, but her eyes never left me. “She needs some time, that’s all. What she went through was a lot for her body. She’ll need to recover slowly.”
To me, she spoke more softly. “Do you think you can sit up a little?”
“No.” My reply was instant. I wasn’t stirring until everything had stopped ringing and moving.
“It will probably make you feel a bit better.”
Will it? Not moving seemed better.
“Nando, darling, perhaps if you sit behind her and allow her to lean into you?”
“Of course.” Nando moved behind me before I’d acquiesced.
A fresh surge of desperation rose within me. I don’t want to move! I’ll be sick if I do.
Again, Arianne interpreted what I was thinking without any hints from me. “I know it doesn’t feel like it will help, only that it will make it all worse. But you’ll feel better once you sit up a bit, I promise.”
I appreciated her promise, but I still didn’t believe her. “No, I don’t want to move. Please.”
“If you’re hearing ringing, are things also spinning?”
“Yes! I can’t move. It will get worse, please.”
She looked to me, to Nando, then back at the others, before saying, “All right. We’ll wait a few moments before moving you.”
A few moments? How about a few days?
While I continued to panic at the thought of impending movement, Arianne drew closer. She sat on the ground next to me—something ladies of the manor never did—and addressed the others. “Now that the worst of it has passed, tell us what happened.”
But neither Nando, nor Marie, nor Walt said anything.
“Come on. Don’t be shy. It’s not the time for it. Step forward and update us, while we still have time.”
Still have time for what? I didn’t want to know. The SMS was always one step ahead of us.
But I understood why neither of my companions on the portal journey wanted to tell the tale. We’d been tricked. Duped. Made fools of. And it had nearly cost us our lives.
When I flashed back to that dungeon with wicked Miranda, I remembered her plans. Arianne was right. We had to tell her while we had time.
“They have a potion,” I said in a frail voice.
“A potion? What kind of potion?” The voice was snappy and intense, Marcelo’s.
Marie stepped forward, and the onlookers formed a sort of rough circle around her, one that encompassed me, with Nando at my back. Finally, I could see everyone, including the creatures, who were now quiet and attentive.
“We stepped through a portal that opened here on the estate,” Marie said. “It led us into the dungeon of an SMS witch, one they called Miranda.”
Madame Pimlish gasped at the name, but Arianne only pursed her lips in determined lines. Both women knew who she was: bad news.
“Who is Miranda?” Clara asked.
“A sorceress without conscience,” Mordecai said. Clara’s features settled into determination too. She looked so much like her grandmother just then.
“Keep going, child,” Mordecai told Marie.
She nodded. Loose blonde strands, usually pulled back, slid across her forehead. “She created some kind of potion that she said she was going to use to take out this place.”
“The school?” Arianne asked.
“Yes, the entire estate.”
“Easy,” Gustave said, moving to stand behind his twin. “We’ll stop her.”
How? I wanted to ask. How on earth were we going to stop her when we didn’t even know where she was?
“She was planning on testing the potion on us,” Marie said. “That’s when we managed to escape.”
Marie looked at me then, and I flinched thinking I’d find blame there. I’d botched our escape pretty splendidly as I’d nearly killed us all. But the doe-eyed blonde didn’t look like she was accusing me of a single thing. “Isa opened a portal when none of us could. If she hadn’t....”
Walt stepped forward. “We’d be dead, that’s for sure.”
“Tell us more so we can get her,” Arianne nearly growled, at total discrepancy with her feminine dress and mannerisms.
“First, there’s something else you should know.” Walt turned to Count Vabu. It was perfect that he should be the one to deliver the news. After all, he was only at Acquaine because he’d followed his sister here to protect her. He understood the loyalty of siblings, and the desire to keep them safe above all. Nando would have done the same for me, I was sure of it.
Walt took a couple of steps forward. “I’m very sorry, Count Vabu, but your sister was there.” He took a deep breath and stood tall, taking the responsibility for something that didn’t begin to be his fault. “Miranda was trying to kill her, and we left her behind.”
Walt waited, as if he’d already accepted that he’d take on Count Vabu’s wrath at his sister’s abandonment to such a terrible fate, and I learned something new about Walt. He might be impudent and fiery, and he didn’t think enough before he spoke, but he was courageous and bound to do what he believed was right.
But Count Vabu surprised all of us, from the looks of the myriad faces that circled me. “I see,” he said. Not a single emotion marred his face. “Which sister?”
I’d had no knowledge that he had more than one, of course, but the response was still... odd.
Walt tilted his chin upward, as if still waiting for some kind of reaction. “Priscilla.”
“I see,” the Count said again.
Nando placed his hands on my shoulders then, as if he couldn’t fathom the Count’s reaction to the loss of his sister.
I wanted to blurt out, Don’t you care that Miranda probably killed your sister? I wanted to shake the cool, composed vampire until he displayed some signs of emotion.
“We’ll find out what happened to her,” Arianne said. “We’ll get her back.” She stared at Count Vabu so intensely that I realized we were surely missing something. Arianne was reacting as if the vampire were furious instead of standing there, cool as a crisp cucumber.
That’s when I saw it. The tiniest flicker of fire behind the vamp’s irises, nearly as dark as his pupils. Oh, the man is enraged. He was terrified for his sister and furious at the situation. But he was a vampire, and as I was beginning to learn, vampires did everything just a little bit differently.
Chapter 4
I lay draped over the chaise lounge in the parlor, the one Madame Pimlish usually occupied after whatever ordeal she most recently considered harrowing. I melted into the damask upholstery, sinking heavily into it, my muscles limp as old vegetables. I wouldn’t be recovered enough to go anywhere anytime soon, and that was fine by me. I didn’t want to go anywhere.
After Marcelo had floated me inside—one of the strangest experiences of my life—I’d managed to convince all of them, even Nando, to enjoy their luncheon and leave me to rest alone.
The silence had been glorious, especially as the ringing in my ears was only just beginning to settle down.
When I started hearing the sounds of voices reaching nearer, I groaned. I wasn’t ready to join in what was almost certainly an intense debate about what to do next. Since I’d arrived here, that was mostly what they discussed: how to extricate us from the current threatening situation and how to ensure our longterm survival. Just thinking about all the unknowns exhausted me.
Maybe I should ask Nando to take me to the girls’ room. No, I didn’t think I could walk that far. Maybe Marcelo could float me again.
The tone of the voices was sharp as I began to make out words. “Any of you would do the same. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for Albacus,” Mordecai said, his voice strong. I groaned again. No. I wasn’t ready for this.
“And I’m not trying to talk him out of it,” Arianne said. “I’m simply suggesting prudence. Vladimir could get hurt just portaling all over the place, hoping to find her. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. It’s bad enough that the SMS reached into our own estate and pulled out our students. We’re fortunate they survived. If Isa hadn’t figured out how to portal them out of there, they’d be dead. The poor darling still isn’t recovered.”
“He’s a grown man, a skilled wizard, and a vampire on top of it. He should be allowed to do as he wishes.”
“I’m not standing in his way,” Arianne snapped. Her voice wasn’t harsh, but her tone was firm. I’d never heard her lose her cool before. “I’m merely looking out for him, and suggesting that there might be another path that will also lead him to recover his sister, and not put him in such grave danger.”
Mordecai’s voice didn’t arrive for a few beats. I suspected Arianne was important enough to him that he didn’t want to argue with her. “Look,” he said, his voice measured. “We can’t stand in Vlad’s way when his sister is in peril. He’s aware of the risks. And I’m certain I’d face down those kinds of risks all day long if it meant I had a chance at saving Albacus.”
The grief in Mordecai’s tone was evident, and Arianne’s attitude changed. “Fine. I won’t make any more suggestions. Just promise me you’ll be careful, Vladimir. You’ll be going straight into the hornet’s next... assuming you can find it.”
The realization that Count Vabu must be right there with them, and not saying a word, shocked me. Vampires were even more unusual than I realized. If Nando were in danger, I’d be making my argument—and getting the heck out of here—no matter who was trying to talk me out of it.
Count Vabu, Mordecai, and Arianne entered the parlor, but they didn’t look to me immediately. Arianne had resorted to pleading with the vampire with her eyes, and Mordecai watched her with a look of adoration for a moment before he seemed to remember I was there and cleared his throat.
“How are you feeling, Isa?” he asked, making his way to me.
“Like wild horses trampled me a few dozen times.”
He barked in laughter. “That bad, huh?”
“Definitely that bad.” I tried to push up to sitting, failed, but still managed to tilt myself upward to better see the old wizard. Good. Improvement. I’ll take it. “What happened to me, Mordecai? Count Vabu didn’t seem affected at all when he portaled to the school. Neither did Madame Pimlish. Why did portaling affect me like this?”
Mordecai scooted farther down the chaise and leaned backward (squashing my feet) with a loud sigh. “Those are very good questions.” He played with the braids of his beard while he considered my questions; the beads at their ends tinkled as they met, sounding like wind chimes.
Gustave, Marcelo, and Clara entered the room then, and he looked to them, as if my questions had been forgotten. When Marie and Walt came in, and then Nando, who immediately rushed to my side, I was sure I’d never get the answers I needed. So many questions were piling up, unanswered, and each day I accumulated more.
Wizard Meedles walked in the door without his hellhounds—thankfully!—and Sir Lancelot flew straight toward the windowsill to keep watch, when Nando reached my side. He knelt in front of me. “¿Cómo estás, Isa?” His voice was gentle, his brown eyes brimming with concern.
I pushed myself up a little more in an attempt to ease his worry. “I’m a bit better. Resting helped.”
“Good. Do you want me to get you some food? Do you think you could eat?”
I smiled and squeezed his arm. “Not yet. Grac
ias.”
His eyes didn’t lose any of their tension.
“Really, I’m better.”
“Hmph” was all he said, and I guessed my appearance wasn’t convincing.
Mordecai looked my way then, and I jumped at the chance. “Do you know why this happened to me? Why portaling hit me this hard?”
The room immediately quieted. From what I’d gathered, what happened to me wasn’t common. They must all be curious.
“I’ve been giving it some thought, child, and I think I know why this happened to you.” He paused, and impatience reared in me. I wasn’t feeling well, and that just made me more irritable than usual.
“And?” I prompted sooner than it was polite to do so. But I saw no objection in the old wizard’s eyes, just understanding.
“It was your first instance of performing any kind of magic, am I right?”
Uh, obviously. I swallowed my huff. “Yes.”
“Well, I think your magic just hasn’t had the chance to regulate itself yet. It hasn’t figured out how to hold back when not as much is needed. You haven’t yet learned how to balance your magic.”
“Is that something someone will teach me?” This was an academy for the learning of magic, after all, even if there hadn’t been much opportunity for lessons thus far.
“We’ll have to teach you,” Gustave said from across the room. “If not you’ll kill yourself.”
“Gustave!” Arianne reprimanded her twin.
“Quoi? It’s true, is it not?”
“Oui, but a bit more subtlety please.”
“She needs to know. What she did was dangerous. She got lucky. We got lucky she didn’t kill herself.”
All this talk of me dying was freaking Nando out. I squeezed his arm again and said, “The danger is over now, right? As long as someone teaches me how to... regulate my magic or whatever, before I do more of it, I’ll be fine.” When no one answered straightaway, I said, “Right?”
Clara and Marcelo shared a look, but Arianne was the one to say, “Correct.” She sounded three-quarters of the way convinced.