by Sarah Noffke
“Any luck with getting to Turbinger?” Rory asked, referring to his grandfather’s sword.
Liv deflated slightly. “No, not yet. I’ve been asking around, but I haven’t found out anything that will help me get closer.”
“Might I suggest that you simply try to get closer and find out exactly what obstacles await you?”
Liv lowered her chin and regarded him from hooded eyes. “That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Are you going to bail me out if I get thrown in jail?”
Rory turned and trudged out the door. “Nope. You’re a magician. I expect you to figure out how to get yourself out.”
Chapter Thirteen
Before Liv had magic, breaking into a museum to steal a sword as tall as she was would have sounded impossible. However, with magic, many things seemed doable. Rory couldn’t get to the sword for whatever reason, but that shouldn’t mean that Liv couldn’t.
She breezed past tourists looking at ancient artifacts, head down and eyes scanning her surroundings. Once again, the room with Turbinger was empty when she came to it. Stopping at the entry, Liv looked around. There was nothing besides the sword in the area, which was weird, because all the other rooms she’d passed had held statues or the remains of prehistoric animals or humans.
Liv took a step into the room, and for a moment she felt as if something wrapped around her. A forcefield? She dismissed this idea, thinking her imagination was getting the better of her.
She was accosted by the sword’s sheer beauty once she stood in front of it. Before, she’d been so distracted by Rory and his mysterious nature that she’d been unable to fully appreciate the craftsmanship. It was obvious to her that the sword held a great deal of magic, but she wasn’t sure why she was positive about that.
Holding her hands a few inches from the glass, Liv began to mutter different incantations, ones she’d only learned an hour ago. When Rory had told her to read the book he’d given her, she’d gone home and opened it randomly, surprised to find hundreds of pages devoted to magicians’ spellwork. That seemed strange to her since she had thought the book provided information on other species like gnomes and trolls and whatever else. The more Liv flipped through the book, the more she realized that it was a vast encyclopedia of information on all things magical. That was when she glanced at the cover and something sunk in: she was a mysterious creature. All her life, she’d thought of other magical species as “creatures” and her own as “magicians.” People who had powers. But they were all creatures full of mystery and magic.
Not only had Liv not expected to learn much about her kind in a book written by a giant, but she was surprised to find incantations that rolled off her tongue more fluidly than ones she’d learned years ago in the House of Seven. The incantations written by Bermuda Laurens were clean and easy to speak, sounding natural to Liv.
Her fingers tingled as the first incantation rolled out of her mouth, and for a few seconds, Liv expected for the case to open and the sword to rise into the air. When it didn’t, she tried a second incantation, and then a third. All of them were about opening up or breaking into locked objects.
Liv let her fingers drop to the glass case and immediately felt a shock ripple through her hands. She jumped back, eyeing the case with irritation as the jolts continued to pour through her arms and up her shoulders.
“Miss, is everything alright?” a voice called from behind her.
Liv spun around to find a security guard peeking into the room.
“It’s fine,” Liv said, dropping her still-aching arms to her sides.
The guard looked at her and the sword display, uncertainty written on his face. Dismissing his concerns, he strode over, his attention fully on the sword.
“It’s quite the beauty, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping up next to her.
“Yeah. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Liv stated.
He nodded. “Apparently, you’re not the only one, since they don’t know much about the object.” The guard pointed to the placard beside the sword, which had little information on it.
“I wonder how much it weighs?” Liv mused aloud, mostly to herself.
“That’s a good question,” the guard stated.
“Does it take multiple people to lift it when they open the case?” Liv asked.
The guard’s face scrunched in confusion. “Open the case? I’ve never seen them do that.”
“Oh, but surely they have to at some point.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure why they would. There’s really no reason to.”
“What about for cleaning or maintenance?” Liv didn’t know where her questions were going, but she hoped that something she could use would come out of them.
“Nah, that glass is sealed so that no air can get in and nothing can get out.” The guard knocked on the surface of the case and smiled. “It’s impenetrable.”
Liv expected the guard to retract from a shock, and when he didn’t, she kept her face neutral with an effort. “Yes, it seems as though it’s quite strong.”
“Well, when you’re done here,” the guard pointed over his shoulder, “you should check out the mummies in the next room over. They are quite creepy.”
Liv waved, subtly dismissing the man. “I’ll definitely do that. Thanks.”
After he was gone, Liv extended her hand again, letting it hover an inch above the glass. Maybe the shock she had received before had just been a result of too much built-up static electricity. Maybe it had been the incantations trying to work. She couldn’t be sure what had caused it, but she didn’t think it would happen twice.
Allowing her hand to drop, her fingertips had been in contact with the case for less than a second when a mind-numbing shock knocked her back several feet. Liv landed on her backside and slammed against the wall. The incident set off the alarms, making red lights strobe overhead. The sirens blared, seeking to wake Liv up from the daze the electric shock had sent through her body. She tried to stand, but her limbs were uncooperative.
“Hey! What’s going on in here?” the guard yelled, sprinting back into the room. He looked at Liv, crouched on the ground, and then the case. “Did you try to open it? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Liv argued, sweat beading her forehead as she tried again to get to her feet. The effort was almost too much, making her think that she’d tumble over on her side.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the guard yelled, his eyes anxiously bouncing between Liv and the case. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Liv when she finally made it to a standing position.
Oh no, that won’t do, Liv thought, looking at the nervous guard.
“Just stay where you are until backup arrives,” he ordered, the hand holding his gun shaking.
Blood dripped from Liv’s nose. She wiped it away with her hand, realizing she must look like quite the sight to the mortal before her.
Running footsteps echoed in the corridor behind her; she had to get out of there. But she felt too weak to run, much less use magic.
“I must have passed out and fallen on the case,” Liv explained, rolling back her shoulders and trying to summon new strength. She remembered something she’d read in Bermuda’s book that morning about pulling from the elements. That was how giants’ magic worked. She began to siphon energy, but she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. All she knew was that a moment later she felt a great flood of magical energy pouring through her. Then she reminded herself that she was in the Natural History Museum, where there was probably ancient sources of elemental energy to draw from.
The guard looked at her with uncertainty. “You fell on the case? That was what caused the alarms?”
“I think so,” Liv said, testing her balance. She was feeling steadier with every passing second.
“That doesn’t make any sense. We’ll have to check the cameras,” the guard said, indicating the cameras in the corner.
Oh hell, Liv thought. She had to do more than just get away now.
The footsteps were getting closer.
As quickly as she could manage, which was much faster than anything she’d ever done before, Liv directed her hand at the camera. It exploded, sending sparks and bits of debris out from the corner. She hoped that it erased the feed, which was something she’d been practicing in her spare time at the shop.
Liv shielded her head and spun around, her arm coming down over the guard’s before he realized what was happening. The gun clattered to the ground as she sent her other arm into his midsection, making him double over. The movements weren’t graceful, but they got the job done.
Knowing that she was seconds away from being trapped, Liv ran for the exit. Making a portal wouldn’t work. She hadn’t been able to use portal magic to get into the museum, which meant she couldn’t use it to get out of there.
Three guards with their guns by their sides were hurrying in her direction.
“Stop!” the front one yelled.
That was not going to happen, Liv thought, holding up her hand and sending a blast of arctic wind in their direction, which knocked them back several feet. She still wished she had learned fireball magic, but the wind got the job done.
The sirens overhead were still blaring and many patrons had peeked their heads out of the various rooms, their curious eyes on Liv.
Several were holding up phones, recording her every move. Directing her hand at them, she disabled the phones, deleting the footage. She needed to get out of there.
More guards were on the way; she knew that since the civilians were looking over their shoulders toward the main entrance. So not that way, Liv thought, making a split-second decision and barreling in the opposite direction.
Liv needed a diversion. A way to hold the guards off. The dinosaur bones in the distant atrium caught her eyes. She lifted her hand to bring the bones down in a heap of destruction but hesitated. The only way she could destroy goblins homes was if she knew she was going to put them back together, and the same went for prehistoric dinosaurs.
No, Liv was better than that—or at least she wanted to be.
“Hey, free money!” she yelled, throwing both her hands in the air and muttering an incantation which she knew to be purely a party trick, one she’d seen many in the House of Seven use at parties when she was a child.
From the tall ceiling, crisp dollar bills floated down. The crowd streamed out of their hiding places, most abandoning recording their videos to dash out and snatch up the money before others could get to it.
Liv sprinted down the corridors to the stairs, knowing that was her only hope of getting out of there. She glanced over her shoulder before taking the stairs to the second level. The crowd had spread out, creating a wall impossible for the guards to get around. Not only that, but there would be mass confusion for a while. The museum might not even know exactly what the real disturbance had been since the camera in the giant’s sword room had been destroyed and its footage.
That reminded Liv of something, and when she came to the second level, she pointed to the first floor, making all of the security cameras explode, erasing the recording. Mortals screamed from the disturbance, but their cries were drowned out by laughter and excitement as they shoved dollar bills into their pockets—money that would disappear within the hour.
Liv knew that her options on the second floor were limited. She had to get out of the building. From all directions she heard yelling and stomping as the guards closed in on her, so she made an impromptu decision and thrust her hand in the direction of a bank of tall windows. They all exploded in a cacophony of noise. Liv ducked until the glass shards had settled on the tile floor, then dashed for the windows and jumped through, landing on a nearby roof.
The guards had made it to the second level and were shouting, their guns drawn as they ran over to the shattered windows.
Liv took off, sprinting across the top of the building, realizing that soon she was going to have to climb up higher or jump down lower. Taking the less intimidating option, she rebounded off the roof and caught the edge of the building, but only barely. Her legs dangled down, banging against the brick. Trying to keep her momentum, Liv kicked her legs over the side and managed to pull herself up, like she used to climb out of the pool not using the ladder.
Liv was giving herself a moment to feel victorious when she heard the whirring of the blades of a helicopter barreling in her direction. There was shouting behind her, and then gunfire. She was suddenly a fugitive. A criminal, the thing she fought against. And then she remembered who she was: a magician.
Liv dashed forward, putting as much space as she could between her and the forces at her back. When she came to the end of that building, she leapt down to the building below and ran across an orange rooftop. She didn’t know the layout of the building, but glancing up ahead, she saw that the roof came to an abrupt end. However, she had to be careful with her exit or hundreds of mortals would see her getting away. That would be very bad for business.
When she was almost at the end of the roof, Liv changed directions and jumped down to the roof below. The drop was farther than she had anticipated, and she had to roll to displace her momentum. The drop to the next level wasn’t as far.
She could see that guards had already lined up on the ground, facing the building with their guns at the ready. That was fine, because she needed a well-placed distraction. She sent a projection of a figure that looked a lot like her but also not at all, leaping over the edge of the roof to the lawn below. At the exact same time, Liv opened a portal on the rooftop and jumped through, closing it as quickly as she could. She tumbled through it, landing on the boardwalk in Santa Monica in an exhausted heap, grateful to be far from the mayhem that she’d created.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you think anyone saw all that?” Liv asked Plato as she brushed off her clothes and strode down the long corridor to the Chamber of the Tree.
“Just a horde of Asian tourists,” Plato answered. “But they are probably still busy trying to stuff dollar bills into their pockets.”
“Do you think that last trick distracted them enough?”
Plato yawned. “I’m not sure. Time will tell.”
“Hey, and you’re allergic to kittens?” she asked, remembering what Rory had said. “What’s up with that?”
A visible shiver ran down Plato’s back. “They are deceptively cute.”
“So it’s not for some other reason?”
“I’ll be the first to admit that I have certain flaws in my makeup. They don’t always make sense, but we all have them.”
“I think we should discuss this further later,” Liv said, halting in front of the Wall of Reflection. “For now, I’m going to go tell the Council what they want to hear.”
“And the rumor is that I’m the deceptive one,” Plato grumbled, a hint of playfulness in his voice.
“I think you misunderstood,” Liv replied as she took a step forward.
“Oh, and Liv?” Plato called at her back. “The proximity of the white tiger or the black crow to you is important. Pay attention to that.”
“Important how?” Liv asked. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about them.”
“I didn’t, but much like you, I pick up new information all the time.” Plato nodded to the wall. “Go in there now while the Council is distracted.”
Adler looked to be visibly shaking when Liv entered the chamber. “And you took it upon yourself to intervene?”
Trudy DeVries lifted her chin and blinked several times. The white tiger stood only a few feet away from her, its unwavering attention on the Warrior. “The situation wasn’t out of my control, although it was clear that it would soon escalate if I didn’t do something.”
Adler pressed his knobby fingertip into his temple. “Do you recognize the trouble you’ve made for the House with your actions?”
“Sir, if I may,” Stefan stepped off his circle on the ground and moved forward as Liv took her place.
; “You may not,” Adler said harshly, his eyes flicking to Liv briefly. “Ms. DeVries has brought much scrutiny on the House by sympathizing with a nonregistered magician in public.”
“I was simply hearing his case,” Trudy argued. “He was yelling it for the entire pub of magicians to hear. It only seemed diplomatic to remain open to what he said.”
“Even though your orders were to bring him in or force registration on him?” Bianca asked, her gaze narrowed on the woman with short spiky blonde hair.
“It’s different when you’re actually in the field,” Trudy began. “It’s easy for you Councilors to tell us that we must destroy our fellow magicians or force registration on them, but when we’re out there, it isn’t so black and white. They are people who have their own ideas about magic and how it should be ruled.” She threw her arm wide, indicating the outside world. “Out there, others don’t think favorably about being controlled. I fear they will rebel unless we treat them with humility and show that our governance is fair and just.”
Adler laughed, a hollow, achy sound. Bianca and Lorenzo joined him,. “Ms. DeVries, our rule is absolute. With the agreement of all on the Council, a single magician’s magic can be locked, rendering them useless. Do you really think we fear a rebellion? And those who don’t have their magic registered are in direct violation of the charter. The law clearly states how we will deal with them.”
“But just because we can doesn’t mean we should,” Trudy said, a vein on the side of her head throbbing.
“You are out of line!” Adler boomed, nearly standing up. “I won’t tolerate—”
“I think it would be best for everyone if Trudy DeVries took a recess from the Chamber while we review this matter,” Haro stated, his voice calm.
Liv’s eyes flicked to his brother, who was standing a few circles away from her. Akio was focused on the Councilors, his expression blank. Decar, Emilio, and Maria were gone, giving Liv a clear shot at the other Warrior.