by Rain Oxford
He was missing his left eye. Without a word, the wizard turned back to the buffet, filled up his plate, and walked away.
A few minutes later, I sat down in the seat furthest from the door, because my usual seat was taken. Apparently, these wizards had the same preferences for being able to make a quick exit. Jason sat beside me, my mother sat beside him, and Kyle started to sit across from me until Henry cleared his throat. Kyle sat beside my mother instead. Henry, Scott, and Darwin sat across from me, none of them with food.
“Did you make it okay?” I asked.
Henry glared at Darwin, who completely ignored the silent remark. “Elizabeth is sleeping upstairs. We didn’t want to wake her.”
“How did you know I was in here?”
He shrugged. “We just knew. So, what’s our next move?”
“We need to continue trying to stop the shadow walkers.”
“Have you thought any more about the shadow man’s deal?”
“I have, and then Langril popped up in my dream and warned me that I couldn’t let the shadow man bring the keys together because…”
“Because what?” Darwin asked.
“I don’t know. I woke up.”
“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?” my mother asked.
“No.” I stood up.
“Where are we going?” Darwin asked, standing.
“To talk to someone else I don’t trust. Henry, you got this?” I asked. He nodded that he would watch over my mother and Jason.
Darwin and I went down to the underground tunnels to find Heather. Since her return from Dothra, she chose to stay away from the other students for a few semesters, since everyone knew of her gruesome death. I still didn’t know what to think. She was technically a soul with a magically constructed body, not a zombie or ghost, but her demeanor was not demonic, so I didn’t like calling her a demon. That didn’t mean I trusted her.
I paused outside her bedroom door when I heard the sound of arguing. I put my finger up to indicate for Darwin to be quiet and he nodded. Although I couldn’t hear what was being said, I recognized the voices. A few seconds later, the door opened and Vincent frowned at me.
“Spying on people is not polite.”
“Maybe not, but it is a big part of my job.”
He nodded. “When you’re done here, I would like to talk to you.”
“Okay. See you later.” When he was out of sight, I knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Darwin and I entered to see that Heather was reading a black book on her bed. She was dressed in a light blue sundress that would barely reach her knees when she stood. Despite the nice weather outside, it was much cooler underground. I had to redirect my thoughts a few times. “What was that all about?” I asked.
She looked a little irritated. “Just a disagreement over what to do about my father. It’s not like either of us have a choice anyway; you have the key. How is the shadow hunting going?”
“Well, not great. Maybe you can help clear something up. I had a vision of Langril, who said the shadow man can hear us when we say his name.”
She sat up and set her book aside. “Well, that does make sense.”
“How is it possible?”
“I don’t know. I knew next to nothing about Dothra, the keys, or the shadow walkers until I was killed. However, I did a lot of work with Astrid, and I did a lot of snooping around before she took over. I believe the secrets behind the Shadow Master and my father’s history lies in the castle of Dothra.”
“Well, it’s not like we can just go to the castle.”
“I know. Maybe you can have a vision that shows you something.” She stood up, picked up her book, and held it out to me. “Can you return this for me? I can’t really risk walking around up there.”
The book cover was black leather with a silver embossed, foreign title and a silver edge to the paper. I took it carefully, just in case it was as old as it looked. “Where does it need to be returned to?”
“My father’s secret library. I was planning on staying in his room this summer until the school turned into a sanctuary for the most suspicious and close-minded wizards in the world.”
“Yeah, we’ll return it.”
* * *
We made it back to the dorms and up to our room without being intercepted by anyone. The room was exactly how we left it; boring white walls, dark gray carpet, three beds suspended over three desks with attached dressers, and a closet. My mother, Elizabeth, and Henry were sitting in the chairs, and Jason and Scott were playing with kinetic sand in a bucket.
“How did it go?” Henry asked.
“Not very helpful. Grab your lock picking kit. Let’s go return a book to the library.” He frowned, but reached under his desk for his bag without asking any questions and pulled out a leather case. “Darwin, if anything happens, you know what to do.”
“Scream like a girl. I can do it.”
Henry left the room and I shut the door behind him. “Why do you need help taking a book back to the library?” he asked after glancing around to make sure we were alone.
“How do you know I don’t just want to chat?”
“Because Darwin is the one who always wants to talk.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We’re going to return a book to Langril’s secret library.”
“Now that sounds more like what we do.”
We arrived at the professor’s room and Henry got to work on the door lock. It only took him a couple of seconds. “Do the professors stay at the school during the summer break?” I whispered.
“It depends on if they have families,” he said quietly. We went inside and shut the door. “Addison says Hunt has a hard time finding professors who have spouses working at the school, do not plan on having a family, or are willing to spend eight months out of the year away from their families. You know, you can unlock doors with magic.”
“Yes, but your skills are the safer bet.” The room was exactly like I remembered it; a plain bed, a wooden desk, and a bookshelf full of books. Henry and I moved the bookshelf carefully and managed to avoid dropping any of the books. Behind the bookshelf was a section of wall that slid open to reveal a smaller room. Every inch was crammed full of books and papers. “I wonder if there are any books here that can tell us about the shadow walkers.” I didn’t realize I was doing it until I grasped a candle stick from its holder on the desk. When I did, the door slid closed behind us, leaving us in absolute darkness.
Henry sighed.
“Sorry.” I pulled out my lighter and flicked it on before lighting the candle and holding it up. “If I put it back, that should open the…” I trailed off when I turned to him and saw a painting on the door.
He turned to see what I was staring at. “That’s not Quintessence,” he said.
“No, but I’ve seen it before.” It was a painting of a dark, enormous castle. “It’s the Dothra castle.” I was following my instincts as I reached forth and felt along the edge of the painting. When I touched a small trigger, I pushed it, and the painting swung free of a safe. “Are you kidding?”
“That was all you,” Henry said.
“Actually, I think some of it was Heather. She said that the answer was in the castle of Dothra. Can you get that open?”
He scoffed. “In my sleep.”
I really saw a lot of progress in Henry since he got his son back. Although he was still formal and reserved most of the time, he was learning to express himself and was no longer going nuts on the full moon.
In less than a minute, Henry stepped away from the safe and it popped open easily. Inside were two things; a small book and a red foam ball.
“How did the ball get in here? The last time I saw it was after he disappeared. Either Heather put it in here, or it was important enough that the first thing he did after the shadow man escaped was hide it.”
“But it’s just a ball.”
I stuck it in my pocket. I would have tried to use it to induce a visio
n, but I had already done that before. Instead, I grabbed the book, closed the safe, and returned the candle. The door slid open. I blew out the candle and we returned to Langril’s bedroom.
I flipped through the book to find that the words on the pages were handwritten. I didn’t recognize the small, sharp penmanship or the language. “Maybe Darwin can read this. If not, maybe I can get something through a vision.”
We returned to our room, which was way too crowded. “How about we split up the party?” Darwin suggested, obviously thinking the same as me. “Henry, you and Kitten take another room on this floor. Kyle and Dev’s Mom, pick a room, Elizabeth and Jason, take another room.”
“What if the shadow man comes?” Jason asked.
“He can’t get into the school,” Henry said.
“Well, we’re hoping,” Darwin amended.
“That’s not helping.” I held out the book. “Can you read this?”
He flipped through it and sighed. “It’s in that language from Heinrich Baldauf’s journal. It has no identifiable roots in any human language.”
“Which means?”
“It could take me weeks to decipher it.” Then he grinned. “Which means it could be the most fun I’ve had all year.”
“We don’t have weeks. Everyone out except Henry and Darwin.”
“Why?” Kyle asked.
“Because I don’t like doing my thing in front of other people.”
“Henry and Darwin aren’t other people?”
“Nope.” Without any more argument, everyone except for Henry and Darwin headed out to pick their rooms. I sat in my chair, took the book, and slipped my vision ring on.
* * *
The vision did not come easily. At first, I just felt sick, but when I pushed past the sensation and focused my mind on the book, I felt something just beyond my reach. Normally, my visions involved revisiting someone’s memories or constructing part of the image in my mind. This was more difficult, since I had no idea what to expect.
Darkness formed and receded before I realized what was happening. I found myself in one of the empty classrooms of the university. Without control of my motion, since I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes, I turned and peeked through the crack of a door. Vincent was just stepping out of Hunt’s office.
At least, I thought it was Vincent until his face changed into one that was half person, half not. His skin was grayish and his eyes changed from Vincent’s unusual one blue, one purple, to a sinister yellow. I was seeing when Krechea disguised himself as Vincent to bring the four keys together. It was Langril’s eyes I was looking through.
I heard a strange whispering sound right before Krechea took a small crystal out of his pocket. “Tell me you’re not helping Krechea. Tell me honestly that you’re not trying to set Krechea free and I’ll let you go.” It was my own voice that was whispering eerily across the hall.
“You are asking for death by saying his name. I’m only doing what it takes to survive. That’s all I ever wanted. Gale wanted power, so I had to give it to him until his death. You ruined that for me. You’re the reason I have to help the Shadow Master.”
And that was Felicity. Krechea overheard my conversation with Felicity because I said his name.
Everything went black for a moment before blue fire lit in a circle around me. The walls were now dirt and Langril stood in front of me. “Well, you got here faster than I expected. If you decided to work with me, your instincts with my power could make us truly unmatched.”
“My instincts aren’t on the market. What’s going on here?”
“I never told you why I changed my name, did I?”
“From Leara Kingling to Keigan Langril? I figured you didn’t want anyone to recognize you.”
He shrugged. “I have a forgettable face. You and Astrid know that first hand. No, the reason I changed it was for an experiment. I experimented with the power of names. After a few mistakes, I learned to break the power of my true name.”
“How?”
“I stopped being that person, so the name was no longer mine. I had no name at all, which enabled me to make an astounding number of enemies and a not-too-shabby following. It also resulted in me learning to travel to other worlds temporarily, just long enough to make a deal. We could only appear in dreams and visions at first, but when my followers became soul guards, they were summoned to that world with enough magic to make them a new body. Then it got complicated.”
“Because of Krechea?”
“No, his part came much later. Although we could visit the dreams of the original vampires, fae, and shifters, only the humans had wizards. Perhaps it was because you were all descended from us, but you were our ticket out of Dothra. The thing is, no matter what the terms of the contracts were, the human wizard’s soul would be dragged into Dothra when they died. This vastly increased Dothra’s power and weakened the barriers between our worlds.”
“And that made it easier for you to coerce more humans,” I surmised.
“Yes, but that’s not all. What really complicated the matter, what always complicates the matter, were the children.”
“Please tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.”
“Some of the humans wanted companions. Children were often a result. That weakened the boundaries even more. Unfortunately, not everyone was done with their contract when Krechea took over, so a lot of real relationships were destroyed. But I’m getting off the point. I decided that in order to truly master magic, I needed time to learn human magic. I took a name and the risks that came with it, and became a soul guard. Krechea was ready. That was why I changed my name.”
“Because Krechea found out?”
“Yes, and I had to break its power over me. When he took over, he got most of my books, including those I used to teach my followers.”
“So he learned to break the power of his name as well?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, that isn’t all. The reason I took a name wasn’t only so that I could become a soul guard. I also created a spell so that when one of my followers needed me, they could call my name and I would be summoned to them. Krechea took my spell and modified it. He let people know his name on purpose so that he could spy on them, without letting anyone know that the name held no power over him.”
Chapter 12
The vision ended and I was in my room again with Darwin and Henry. “What did you learn?” Henry asked.
“That the shadow man has heard everything we’ve ever said about him. If we say his name, he can temporarily overhear the conversation.”
“Interesting,” Darwin said.
“What is?”
“I think we can use that. If we have some information, we might be able to throw him off our trail if we change the details.”
“That is possible. We’ll think about that, but right now, I need to go see Vincent.”
Just when I shut my door, a blast of energy shot past me, barely missing me. It only took me a second to assess the situation. On one end of the hall was an elderly wizard and on the other was a middle-aged male fae with dark blue hair. Their duel was more dangerous than those of the students because their goal was to kill each other.
It didn’t occur to me that interfering was dangerous. I reached out instinctively for the closest minds. I recognized Henry and Darwin automatically. There was my mother, Kyle, Elizabeth, and Scott who I also identified easily. Then there were the two strangers. I didn’t give them a chance to counteract my power; I took a firm grip on their minds. “Stop!” I demanded out loud, sending pure force through the connection. “There are children in this hallway! Take it outside.”
They were startled for a moment, but they both surrendered mentally. Without a word, the wizard went upstairs and the fae went down. I rolled my eyes and made my way down the stairs, out the front door, and into the castle. I focused on finding Vincent because that seemed to be the fastest way to find anyone here.
After almost an hour, I gave up and ran right into Remington,
who was carrying a blood-soaked blanket in her arms. “What happened?”
“I have no idea. I found him in my office like this. I was looking for Vincent.” She lifted the edge of the white blanket to show me what was inside.
“Ghost. Who hurt you?” I asked, taking him gently. He let out a soft sound that wasn’t anything like his normal meow. “We need to find Dr. Martin.”
“I already tried him. He left for the children’s school an hour ago. If we can’t find Vincent, there are other wizards and fae here who can do healing magic well.”
“You can’t do it?”
“I’m not the best and familiars are very magic-resistant. I already tried, damn it.”
I didn’t push because I saw the root of her irritation; she was ashamed. She was exceptional at most elemental and illusion magic, but healing wasn’t her strength. Even though I hadn’t done much healing in a long time, I had been able to help Darwin when Flagstone touched his skin and I healed Astrid when we were kids.
I had to give it a try. “We need to lay him down on something.”
“In here,” she said, opening the closest door. It was a classroom. I laid Ghost on one of the desks. “I’ll get some water and towels.” She disappeared quickly.
“Okay, Ghost, can you tell me what happened and how to help you?” I asked. I reached out with my mind for his. He felt so distant and disheartened that I wasn’t sure it was his mind I was sensing at first.
Then he sent a short vision through the mental link. I saw through his eyes as he sat on the desk in my room. The image was black-and-white and very fuzzy, since the cat was mostly blind. When he saw me, the position changed from the desk to Darwin’s bed. I saw a potion he left behind and myself reaching for it. I remembered that. When I tried to grab it, it disappeared. The vision changed to me in the library when Vincent slipped the potion into his robe pocket right before we went to confront Felicity. Then the vision changed to a scene I hadn’t been a part of. I saw Vincent in my room as he slipped the potion bottle behind the books on my bookshelf and a note on my desk. I still saw through Ghost’s eyes, so I knew he was watching from the corner of my desk.