“Angelina here saved me!” Tristan said, pointing to Angelina.
“Thank you so much, young lady!” Melvil said.
Angelina’s face turned pink. “You’re welcome, sir.”
“She also killed Tareth,” Tristan said.
Melvil’s eyes widened. “How?” he asked.
“When I was a Faeblood Wraith, I was under his control. I could sense all his thoughts and feelings. I learned that he could be killed by being exposed to his greatest weakness. His is not knowing all forms of magic. I accidentally attacked Angelina, and as I was draining her magic from her, one of her memories came up,” Tristan said. He turned to Angelina. “You finish telling them how you did it.”
Angelina said, “When I was living in my home world, I performed illusion magic for children’s birthday parties. No one has magical abilities in my world. People perform tricks to make people think they actually could make something disappear, saw a person in half, and things like that. A memory of myself performing a disappearing money trick at a child’s birthday party came up while Tristan was eating my magic, and it temporarily broke Tareth’s hold over him. He told me that if I performed one of my illusion magic tricks in front of Tareth, it would kill him because he didn’t know anything about illusion magic, and not knowing all forms of magic was his greatest weakness. So that’s what I did.”
Riordan said, “He turned to dust, and here are his remains. We thought they’d be safe hidden in the library. That way, someone can’t try to resurrect him or something.” He held up the jar of Tareth’s ashes.
Tristan turned to Angelina and said, “I think you have proven yourself worthy of inheriting some magical objects.”
Melvil’s eyes widened. He grinned and said, “She certainly has proven herself, hasn’t she?” Tristan grinned and nodded.
“What magical objects?” Angelina asked, curious.
“Some that were left to the Knowledge Sorcerers by another Nature Sorceress named Violet Hawk. She died of old age a few months ago and willed her things to go to the Knowledge Sorcerers to give a worthy Nature Sorcerer or Sorceress,” Tristan said.
“She’s the one we got the Blue Morpho powder from,” Riordan said.
Angelina was flattered. “I would love to,” she breathed. “Wait, Willow’s horse needs to have her horse disguise removed from her.”
“Horse disguise?” Melvil asked.
“She and Jinx Lightning are not horses. They were hoping there was a cure for their condition in the library.”
“Well, firepants soot can cure that too, since it is a disguise. Not all the creatures who had to hide were fairies!” Riordan said. He pulled out the firepants soot and doused Jinx Lightning and Starfire in it.
All of a sudden, Starfire grew a pink horn in the middle of her forehead, and Jinx Lightning grew a silver horn in the middle of his forehead! “I can talk now!” Starfire said.
Willow’s mouth hung open in shock. “Starfire . . . you’re a unicorn, and you can talk!” Willow gasped.
“Absolutely! My mother and father told me all the stories of unicorns when they were alive!” Starfire said.
They all walked through the library. Celestia looked around in total amazement at the thousands of books that lined the walls and shelves of the library. “How many books do you have here?” Celestia asked.
“2,309,502 books and 4,500,609 newspapers,” Melvil replied. Angelina, Christabel, Celestia, and Willow were absolutely shocked at the exact number of books and written material in there.
They wound through the library, and Tristan took them inside a room. Inside that room were hundreds of doors, each of which presumedly containing content from deceased sorcerers. They climbed several floors up and came to a door with Violet Hawk’s name on it. They opened the door and walked inside.
Willow lit her hand up so they could see their way around. Angelina was thrilled to see at least a hundred spell books and many more bottles of potion sitting on shelves and tables, just waiting for her to use them. “Where am I going to put all of this?” she asked, laughing happily.
“In your castle, where else?” Willow asked.
“I . . . I don’t have a castle,” Angelina replied.
“Where else are you going to live? We have to have somewhere to live together while we work to bring down Desdemona and Ambrosia! And . . . it doesn’t look as if Ethermoor Castle is occupied at the moment! The people need a ruler too, and you are the only one here aside from Christabel who knows anything about governing!” Willow said.
Christabel asked, “Why can’t I govern in the meantime before we pursue this president thing that Angelina talked about?”
“You can!” Angelina said.
“How are we going to get all of this stuff out of here?” Willow asked. She remembered the spell Tareth taught her to shrink things, but she didn’t want to use any of his spells.
“Here. I’ll teach you my shrinking spell,” Riordan said. He got a suitcase out from under one of the tables. “You say, ‘shrink down to near-invisible, and in my suitcase, you will go.’”
“I’ve never cast a spell in my life,” Angelina said.
“Just stick your hand out in front of yourself and recite the spell.”
Angelina stuck her hand out in front of her and said, “Shrink down to near-invisible, and in my suitcase, you will go.” All the books flew off the shelves, and the collection shrank down to the size of a deck of cards. The books stacked themselves neatly in the suitcase.
Then all of the potion bottles shrank down and formed little soft cushions around themselves so that they wouldn’t get broken in the suitcase. When everything was in there, the case shut itself and locked. The scrying crystal that Melvil had given to Damian flew off the shelf it sat on and into Angelina’s pocket.
She took the crystal out of her pocket and asked, “What is this?”
“Oh, that is a crystal ball. It will show you anything and anyone you would like to see,” Melvil replied.
She put the crystal ball back in her pocket.
Angelina couldn’t wait to get back to the castle and really take time to look at the things in the suitcase. They walked out of the room and into the library.
Just then, a sorceress with long curly hair ran up to Riordan. “Your sister Piper sent this paper this morning,” she said as she handed a newspaper to Riordan. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped.
“This can’t be true,” he said.
“What?” Christabel asked. He hid the paper from her as if there was something absolutely terrible written in it that he didn’t want her to see.
“I have to see if there is any truth to it or not. Don’t worry yet,” Riordan said. He had a very alarmed expression on his face. “Everyone, stay here.”
He turned and began to walk away, but stopped abruptly and turned around. “No, Christabel, maybe you really should know what was said about your family.”
Christabel’s face turned white as a ghost. “What is it?” she asked.
Riordan was quiet for a moment. “Come with me. The rest of you stay here.” He and Christabel walked away from the group.
They walked into a hallway where they were alone. Riordan showed her the headline. It read, “Princess Hannah accused of murdering Prince Gregory.”
“My mother would never do anything like that!” Christabel screamed.
Riordan took the firepants soot container out and sprinkled some on the article. The letters rearranged themselves. The words “Mysterious New Palace Servant Murdered Prince Gregory” appeared on the paper.
“We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, okay?” Riordan said quietly, trying to calm Christabel down.
“Tristan said Desdemona was the one who controlled Gregory’s guards and made them attack me!” Christabel whimpered.
“Come with me,” Riordan said. They walked into the hallway and were not at all surprised when they saw all the others huddled around the entrance. Riordan rolled his eyes.
“I su
ppose you all heard everything,” he said.
“Well, we heard some of it, but not everything,” Celestia said. Riordan sighed and showed them the headline, which made the others gasp.
“Desdemona and Ambrosia are trying to sow more discord, I’ll bet,” Willow said.
“Oh, there is a much bigger plan than any of you know! A plan to get all the noble families of Ethermoor to go to war with each other, just as there was the first time Tareth was here,” Tristan said.
“We are going to have to relive the past all over again if we don’t stop him!” Willow mumbled.
“Oh, there’s a lot more than just Tareth at work here. There are his students, and who knows what kind of division the dark fairies who drag people to the Dead Realms will do!” Willow had always heard the stories, but to hear Tristan say it like that gave a whole new level of evil to what had been the true cause of fairy banishment.
“Are the dark fairies back in Ethermoor too?” she asked.
“It’s possible that some have returned, just like other sorcerers and fairies have returned,” Riordan said. He showed the newspaper to the others. “We can’t rest for a second, can we? There’s always something!”
Then, Angelina thought of something. Now that they had a moment of rest, she thought she should tell her parents about what happened to her on the flight. They must be worried sick about her.
“Uh, guys, I think I should tell my parents how I am doing before we go to find out about what’s going on in Gregory’s principality. They probably think I died on the flight,” Angelina said, remembering that she had the world-turner ring.
“Can we go with you? We’d like to meet your family,” Willow said.
“Sure, they’d probably be shocked to meet you,” Angelina said.
She checked her world-turner ring to see if it still had fairy dust in the compartment. It did. Angelina said, “Touch my shoulders, and let’s all join hands so that we can all go to my parents’ house at once.” The others did as she instructed. She turned the ring to the symbol that represented her realm, and shouted, “188 Greenview Avenue. Boston, Massachusetts.” She prayed her parents would be home.
The library became a huge blur, and suddenly, she saw that they were standing in the middle of her parents’ kitchen at home. “Angelina!” she heard her mother yell. Angelina turned and saw her parents jump up from the dining room table. They ran and embraced her, sobbing. “When they said you were not on the flight when it landed, we lost our minds! We filed a missing person’s report and everything! The police have been searching for you!”
“Were all the other passengers on the plane when it landed?” Angelina asked.
“Yes, and the man who was sitting in the seat next to yours said that you just disappeared!” her mother said.
“I have been in Ethermoor. We flew over the Devil’s Triangle at just the right time, and the next thing I knew, I was the only person in the plane, and it crashed into Ethermoor!” Willow’s parents’ mouths hung open in shock upon learning that Ethermoor was a real place. “I was able to come back here by using the world-turner ring that has been passed down through the family.”
“It’s just wonderful to have you back, honey. Who are your friends?” her father asked.
“Oh, that’s just it. I’m not going to be back for a while. I need to go back to Ethermoor and help my new friends defeat evil witches. I promise I will come back and get you to move back to Ethermoor with me.” Angelina pointed to each of her new friends. “This is Willow, Riordan, Celestia, Christabel, and Tristan.”
“Pleased to meet you. My name is Diane, and this is my husband, George,” Angelina’s mother said as she and Angelina’s father shook hands with all her friends.
“Well, we’re happy to know that you are okay. Please tell us what is going on in Ethermoor, okay?” her father asked.
“I will.” Angelina embraced her parents again. Angelina, Christabel, Riordan, Willow, Celestia, and Tristan held hands again. Angelina turned the ring. “The Pyraxia Library!” she shouted.
The room around them became a blur, and then all of a sudden, Angelina could see that they were standing in the library. They said goodbye to Melvil and saddled their horses and unicorns, ready to go back to Ethermoor Castle and plot what they would do next. They passed through the fairy rings. When they got back to the castle, they all walked up to Tareth’s study to see what was left there. To their utter surprise, the room was totally bare. Someone had already taken all his books, and they were now missing.
The Night Sorceresses Page 27