by Sarah Noffke
Inside the prism, shadows danced. Sometimes a form came close to the surface, its features crisp, then faded again. How many ghosts were trapped in there? It was hard to tell.
Liv glanced at the container on the other machine. It wasn’t even half full. She wasn’t sure how much magic was stored in it, but she couldn’t chance it getting into the wrong hands. She tugged at the cylinder, trying to work it free. She heard the Zonk tinkering with the other machine.
The cylinder was stuck in tight, making Liv’s fingers cramp from the effort of trying to get it loose. She jerked, and when it finally came free, she stumbled back with the container in tow. The force sent her straight into the prism; she couldn’t stop the momentum. She was going to fall directly into it. The sucking feeling took her over. There was no way to resist it.
And then something lurched out of the shadows: a lion the size of a pony. It rammed into her with its paws, knocking her the other way as it leapt over the prism and disappeared.
“Pl-Pl-Pl…” Liv stuttered, suddenly disoriented. She couldn’t process what had happened since everything had occurred so fast. She would have thought she’d imagined the whole thing but then Liv looked down and saw the rip in her shirt, the giant lion’s claw marks on her shoulder, and the blood oozing down her arm.
Chapter Forty
The men Rory had thrown had fled, which was the smart thing to do with the tunnels collapsing, but he needed to be on the other side of a mound of rubble. He couldn’t chance teleporting again. It was because he had done that in the first place that he was in this position, putting Liv in danger. Not Plato, though. That lynx, wherever he was, would live out his nine lives or however many he had left. But Liv—she could still be crushed. A magician could live a few hundred years, but it was never guaranteed. Nothing was, Rory had found.
He hesitated, gazing at the heap of rocks. Magic would be the easiest way to clear it, but that was also the cause of the problem. Rory knew it would take more time, but he set to work clearing the tunnel by hand. That felt like the right approach, and feelings were as good as gold to him. Logic was the downfall of most men because it took the most important factor out of the equation: emotion.
Liv dropped the canister, and it rolled away. Her attention was stolen by the wound on her arm. It didn’t hurt yet, but she knew that was only due to shock.
To her surprise, the Zonk quit what it was doing and raced over to her, that strange green substance suddenly in its hands.
“I’m okay,” Liv said as it tried to get closer, shoving the glowing green stuff in her direction.
“Hurt. Hurt. Hurt,” it sang. “I fix.”
Liv nodded. What else was she supposed to say as the room shook from a strange earthquake and then also spun from her lightheadedness.
She was incredibly grateful that Plato or whatever that was had saved her from falling into the prism, and she was only a little miffed that the creature had mauled her arm in the process. She looked away as the Zonk worked, not able to stand the sight of her ripped flesh a moment longer.
Running footsteps stole Liv’s attention, and she looked up as a man in a dark green suit, the tails hanging past his knees, ran into the room. He wore a bowler hat, and his expression was full of fury.
Valentino halted as he looked around. He stared first at the prism, pale and dark, the foreboding figures lurking at the surfaces. Then he glanced at Liv, undeniable rage simmering in his eyes.
“You,” he said, the one word carrying with it conviction and resentment. “How dare you come into my area and try to stop things? Who do you think you are?”
Liv waved the Zonk away, straightening up. “I’m Liv Beaufont, a Warrior for the House of Seven and your worst damn nightmare.”
Valentino laughed, a splintered sound carrying no joy. “You’re nothing but an untrained magician with no respect for authority.”
How did he know that? Liv wondered.
“Like I said, your worst nightmare,” Liv repeated.
From the pocket of his long jacket, Valentino pulled out another canister, this one filled to the brim with the bluish liquid. “I was told not to kill you, but I’m known for not being a very good listener.”
“Who told you not to kill me?” she questioned.
Another laugh. “People more powerful than you or me.” Valentino looked at the canister smugly. “Well, they used to be. Do you know that with what I’m holding right now, I have power you can’t even contemplate?”
Liv rolled her eyes. “Come on, give me some credit. I wasn’t born yesterday. And also, why do you have to sound so villainous? Like, seriously? You sound like every bad guy who ever met his demise because of greed and deceit.”
Liv rose from the ground suddenly and was flung into the machine behind her by a force unlike anything she’d ever experienced. There had been no warning. Valentino didn’t flick his wrist or mutter a spell or even twitch. He simply looked at her and she was thrown several feet.
Her head rammed into the machine hard. She thought the ground rumbled under her again, but realized that it was only parts falling around her. The earthquake appeared to have stopped for the moment.
Liv rolled to the side as Valentino floated through the air, landing at her feet. She looked up at the man, not knowing how to proceed. Before she could even consider her options, he yanked her up so she was standing like a statue. Although she tried to move her hands, they felt like they were tied to her body.
“Let me go,” Liv said through tight lips.
“Gladly,” Valentino answered, and she rose off the ground, hovering just above the prism. “Adding you to this batch will get me to my goal much quicker than using ghosts. It’s actually quite nice that you showed up when you did.”
Liv half expected the giant lion to jump out of the shadows again to push her out of the way. She tensed, not looking forward to the sharp nails slicing through her arms again.
“Where is the canister?” Valentino asked, his attention suddenly on the machine he’d just thrown her into. “What did you do with it?”
“I released all the magic,” Liv lied.
He gave her a skeptical sideways look. “It doesn’t matter.” A moment later an empty canister appeared where the other one had been. “I think you have enough magic to nearly fill this one all the way, and then… Well, I’ll be unstoppable.”
“Not if the House locks your magic,” Liv fired at him.
This seemed to stall Valentino for a moment. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. On second thought, I shouldn’t harm you.”
He shook her rapidly before setting Liv down dangerously close to the prism. “Yes, on second thought, I think we can help each other.”
Something fell out of Liv’s pocket as her feet touched the ground, but she was too preoccupied with the Zonk who was following her to try to repair her new injuries to notice.
“I’m not in the business of helping men like you,” Liv stated, barely allowed to move her jaw because Valentino had her mostly paralyzed.
He smiled, dragging in a breath. “Oh, but that’s the thing; you don’t have a choice.” He slipped the cylinder of magic into the inside pocket of his jacket. “You, Liv Beaufont, are going to report to the House that you destroyed my area trying to stop my operation. Although I got away, you wrecked all the canisters that I had. Is that understood?”
Liv knew that was wrong. At her core, she knew she hadn’t done what Valentino had said or destroyed the magic. However, she found herself nodding. “That’s right,” she heard someone say, and realized it was her voice.
“Good,” Valentino said. “Now, what happened to the canisters of magic?”
“They were all destroyed,” Liv stated in a robotic voice. In her head, she was screaming, “No, that’s wrong,” but it didn’t reach her lips.
“And now, I think we should ensure the proof is real.” Valentino swiped his hand through the air like a ringmaster opening a show at the circus and the conduit machine cracked, steam issuing
from it.
Liv watched but her thoughts muddied. The longer she stood motionless, the harder it was for her to sort reality from the false memories. Maybe all the canisters had been destroyed, although for some reason that felt wrong.
Valentino pointed to the machine closest to them and it exploded, sending sparks all over the place. They hit the floor by Liv’s feet, but she remained frozen. Fire broke out from the various machines, taking over the space. Liv knew she needed to run. She needed to get to clean air, but she stood paralyzed.
The Zonk squealed, zipping down to her legs which had been hit by sparks and assaulted when she flew through the air. It was trying to fix her, but it was useless. Her real issue couldn’t be fixed, namely that she didn’t remember what had happened. Valentino had gotten away, but he was still standing in front of her.
The Zonk let out a high-pitched screech and flew straight up to the ceiling before fleeing. Liv couldn’t understand why it had abandoned her until she looked down and saw the ball of wax that must have dropped from her pocket. It had broken open, and hordes of black beetles were crawling out of it. She didn’t think much of it until she noticed that they were growing as they progressed across the floor, brandishing their menacing pincers in the air as they made a terrible hissing sound.
As Valentino pointed at the prism, he noticed the shimvens—the man-eating bugs. “What the hell?”
He sent spells at the horde, turning them over and destroying one after another.
Liv suddenly realized she could move. Her fingers flexed, and she backed up several feet.
Valentino caught this movement from his peripheral vision and she was suddenly zooming through the room, then she hit the back wall. “I’m not done with you yet. You’ll leave here and report back to the House of Seven, but not until I say. We must make this look like you really botched everything.”
Liv slumped, her shoulder felt like it had been dislocated. She grabbed it with her other hand and jerked, trying to put it back into place. A scream ripped from her mouth, and she thought she’d pass out from the pain. Instead, she fell to her side, her cheek pressed hard into the concrete.
And she saw it.
The blue canister. It was only half full, but still… Inches from her face, hidden behind broken equipment, was the other canister. That made no sense to her, because they had both been destroyed—or that was what she remembered, anyway.
Liv reached for the partially full canister as she pushed herself up. Valentino’s hand was extended toward the prism, his focus on destroying it, when Liv drew the energy out of the canister. She wasn’t sure how it would work, but the task came naturally to her, as if she were using it as a wand or staff. Possession of the cylinder of magic gave her access to it. She felt the magic pulse through every fiber of her being, overwhelming her synapses.
“No!” Liv yelled, her voice seeming to shake the entire room.
Valentino looked up in alarm, his eyes darting to the canister in Liv’s grasp. She held her hand out toward him, but he was quick, throwing up an invisible shield. Liv could feel the fight between their magics. As she sought to overpower Valentino, he did the same, his force challenging her on every level.
Liv grunted as sweat poured down her forehead. She inched back, Valentino’s magic pushing her away.
The room was quickly filling with fire. She should either run or extinguish it. She had to use her magic for good, but she needed every ounce to combat the magician in front of her.
He was forced back several feet, colliding with the wall.
Liv didn’t know how this would end, since it seemed impossible that either of them could win. He wasn’t a match for her, not anymore, but she wasn’t quite powerful enough with only half the canister of magic to fuel her efforts.
The veins in Valentino’s head looked close to bursting as her power pushed him to the side a few more inches.
Liv stood her ground but didn’t know how much longer it would last, and then from somewhere she heard a voice she recognized. “Don’t push. Pull,” it said.
Of course, Liv thought and immediately changed the direction of her magic, yanking Valentino toward her. His eyes bulged at the realization of what was about to happen. He rose into the air and his feet grazed the ground as he sped forward, sucked straight into the prism in a blur. It had happened fast and was over fast. Liv couldn’t believe any of it had been real.
She looked around at the fire and smoke. The prism was a prison one could enter but not escape. The room was wrecked, but she was alive.
Light shone from the prism suddenly, glowing brighter by the second. It was like staring at the sun. Liv knew instinctively that the prism was overly full, holding both the ghost magic and now Valentino’s, and there was no way to release the power. Liv had stopped Valentino, but she couldn’t prevent what was going to happen next. The prism was about to explode, and there was no escaping it.
Chapter Forty-One
Rory threw the last large rock out of the way, making an opening that was big enough for him to fit through. Magic would have cleared the tunnel faster, but clearing the rubble by hand had been safer.
On the other side, a light so bright Rory couldn’t stand to look at it shone from the room ahead. He shielded his eyes as he charged. “Liv!” he yelled, speeding toward her.
When he reached the entrance to the room, it was hard to make out what was happening. Two large machines were totally destroyed. In the center of the space, a prism the size of a car glowed brightly, vibrating intensely like a volcano about to erupt. And on the far side of the room was Liv, her face red and a blue canister of magic in her hands.
“Come on,” Rory yelled.
“I can’t,” she screamed, her voice nearly drowned out by the fires circling her.
Rory understood at once. She was stuck, and by the looks of it, injured. Liv raised her hands to quell the fires streaming from the prism and machines, but her efforts were futile; the fire would disappear for seconds and then reignite. The magic in the prism couldn’t be contained, and it would soon erupt.
“Fly over here,” Rory suggested.
Liv hovered a few inches off the ground but fell back down with a thud. Flying took practice and was not easy to pull off when everything around seemed close to exploding.
Rory knew what he must do in that instant, and he didn’t hesitate. He strode straight into the fire that surrounded Liv.
Her mouth was gaping open when he crossed the space and snatched her up like a ragdoll. Gently he tossed her onto his back, and she grabbed him around the neck as he charged back the way he’d come.
Liv kept her feet high as they traversed the fire.
The prism hovered a few inches off the ground, and it sounded like glass was shattering inside it over and over. They didn’t have much time, or maybe none at all.
Rory had never imagined dying like this. He wouldn’t survive the explosion; nothing in the tunnels would. Everything above the surface would feel the repercussions too.
He ran, holding Liv high on his back, careful to pick the path that had the fewest flames.
When they had made it to the other side of the room, Liv slid to the ground, landing on her feet. She streaked around Rory as the noise became deafening. The floor was like lava, melting their shoes as they walked, and the air was thick with smoke. The prism was seconds away from detonating and unleashing all the magic it had stored.
Liv closed her eyes and opened a portal at the entrance to the room. The archway shone with pale light, the blues and greens not quite intense enough.
“Come on, Liv,” Rory encouraged, his voice booming. “You’ve got to believe in yourself. Confidence is the key to portal magic.”
She held her hand out in front of her and yelled, voice full of guttural desires. The portal intensified, now looking like an actual door, not an indistinct image.
Rory grabbed Liv by the shoulder and pushed her through the portal, stepping through after her, unconcerned with where they were
going. As he crossed the threshold, the prism exploded, sending magic everywhere like shards of glass.
On the other side, he was unsurprised to find Liv doubled over next to John’s Repair shop and Plato sitting casually next to her, licking his paw.
Chapter Forty-Two
“You realize that you put yourself and many mortals in danger,” Adler said, looking down at Liv from the bench.
She rolled her shoulder back and forth several times. Hester Devries had helped Liv when she’d shown up at the house, her arm still badly injured. She’d also treated the other cuts and bruises she’d incurred while fighting Valentino. Apparently, the magician had a unique brand of healing magic, which was rare and ran in families although it often skipped several generations.
Hester had been impressed when she’d seen the bandage of sorts the Zonk had put on Liv’s shoulder to try to heal the scratches. “It used a substance known as smoglite, which is incredibly versatile,” Hester had explained as Trudy had brought Liv a new black t-shirt and jeans.
“I thought you might like this,” Trudy had said, giving Liv the clothes since hers were mostly burned and in shreds.
Liv looked at the clothes and Trudy, wondering if they were her way of saying, “I accept you as you are.”
Liv thanked her as she hissed from a sudden stinging sensation wrapping around her arm.
“I’m sorry,” Hester stated. “There’s no way to lessen the pain. I’m pulling the poison out of the wound.”
“Poison?” Liv questioned.
“Oh, yes, lynxes have a powerful poison that renders their opponent’s unable to move,” Hester explained.
Liv remembered trying to fly or even traverse the fires. It had felt impossible. If Rory hadn’t shown up…well, she’d be dead. Even the portal would have been impossible if she hadn’t drawn from the canister of magic, which was now in the care of the Councilors, who had taken it when she had shown up alone, bleeding, and exhausted.