by John Corwin
The voices grew clearer. Though I couldn't hear what they were saying, I recognized them at once. The Goodleighs were here!
Thankful for the cover of the bundled newspapers and magazines, I crept forward on hands and knees a little way before peeking over them. The downstairs light was on. I saw Felicity and Marcus—the days of me calling them Mr. and Mrs. Goodleigh were over. The pair stared with disdain at the mess on the stairwell.
"I doubt anyone lives here now," Felicity said. "This sty isn't fit for pigs."
Marcus sniffed the air. "Must and mold." He turned to her. "Doubtful the children came here even if they had the means."
"Levi, no doubt, had magical means of transportation." Felicity peered around the room. "If the children found it—"
"If they found it, why would they come here?" Marcus propped his chin on a fist. "No doubt Levi divined Ambria's lineage and came after her."
Ambria? Why would they think she had anything to do with Levi's appearance?
"She must have enlisted Conrad's help to kill him."
Marcus dropped his arm and shook his head. "I find it hard to believe that frail boy could have killed him."
"A shovel to the back of the head is cowardly but effective." She pursed her lips. "Perhaps if we brought Brickle, he could sniff around this place and determine the truth."
Marcus seemed to consider it. "That's a capital idea, Felicity. If anyone can track those rascals it would be him."
"I don't intend to let that valuable girl slip through our fingers." Felicity kicked over a stack of papers. "It's probably only a matter of time before Conrad kills her."
"I doubt the boy would do that. He prefers killing foster parents." Marcus turned for the door. "Let's return home and arrange for Brickle to visit this derelict."
Felicity stepped toward the kitchen. Her lips curled up with disgust as she brushed against a newspaper stack. She vanished down the hallway beneath us and called back to her husband. "The basement door is blocked."
"Are you even certain it's the basement door?" Marcus asked.
"It's the most logical place." She grunted. "People keep their secrets locked up inside basements. I'd like to have a look before we leave."
He sighed. "Let's have Brickle move the rubbish out of the way while he's here. We'll come back and look."
There was a loud thud, like someone kicking at something. "I'd just as soon burn this place to the ground."
"Let's go. It's late, and I don't want to get caught by a roving gang of vampires."
I heard a click and looked down the hall from me. Ambria poked her head out of the doorway, eyes bleary. She opened her mouth to speak.
I hastily put a finger to my lips and shook my head.
Her forehead pinched.
Waving my hand frantically and pointing at the floor, I motioned her to get down. Marcus spoke in an admonishing tone to his wife. Drowsiness fled from Ambria's eyes as recognition ignited fear. She quickly dropped to her knees and eased shut the bedroom door behind her.
The Goodleighs broke into an argument about entering the basement. Felicity finally won.
"This is a foolish waste of time," her husband growled. Several grunts and thuds later, a door clicked open.
"A closet?" Felicity's voice rose.
"Yes, a closet." Marcus's voice dripped with anger. "Let's go."
"Perhaps it's that door," she said.
I heard a squeak and a scuffle. Marcus dragged his wife down the path between the newspapers, ignoring her rude remarks as she resisted. They vanished outside, and the door slammed shut behind them.
Ambria's eyes froze wide with terror and her face blanched pale as a ghost's. For the eternal space of several minutes, we said nothing, neither of us hardly daring to breathe in case the wicked pair returned.
I finally broke the silence. "I don't think it's safe to stay here after tonight."
She crawled over to me and gripped my arm painfully tight. "How did they find us?" A large tear formed in the corner of her eye and trickled down the side of her nose.
I bit my lower lip and thought about it. The Goodleighs had found Levi Rax's body after my poor attempt to conceal it. They seemed to recognize the man, most likely because of his infamous father, Cyphanis. The only part of the conversation I hadn't understood was why they thought Ambria could be the reason for his appearance at the farm.
"When I scanned Levi's face, I didn't have time to hide his body again." I winced as her fingernails dug into my skin. "They knew who he was and probably looked up the address."
"How did they get in?"
I shrugged. "Probably magic."
"Where will we go?" She asked in a frantic voice.
I pried at her fingers. "You're hurting me."
Ambria flinched as if suddenly realizing how tightly she held me. "I'm sorry, Conrad, but I'm scared."
Her fingernails left little indentations in my skin. I rubbed my arm and thought about what I'd heard the Goodleighs say. "Have you ever seen Levi before?"
Her forehead wrinkled. "No. Then again, all I saw was his awful-looking corpse."
Taking one last glance at the door, I decided the Goodleighs were gone for the night and stood. "Come with me." I entered my bedroom, Ambria close on my heels. I picked up the phone. "Project a current image of Levi Rax." An image of the deranged man flickered in the air. "Take a good look."
She tilted her head one way then the other. "I've never seen him before."
"The Goodleighs seemed to think Levi was there for you and not me."
"I have no idea why."
An obvious solution came to mind. "Phone, search documents for Ambria."
"Two documents found," the phone replied and listed them.
The first document was about Ambria's sale. The second was labeled Ambria Prospectus. Both had been downloaded from the Goodleigh's tablet.
"What's a prospectus?" Ambria said.
I shrugged. "It has the word prospect in it, so maybe it's about why someone would want to buy you."
Her lips stretched into a grimace. "That's awful. I can't believe they would sell children."
I opened the file. The first line identified her as Prospect 257. The next line made us gasp with astonishment.
Chapter 16
Prospect Name: Ambria Rax.
"That's not my name!" Ambria wailed.
I read the next paragraph entitled, Prospect Outlook, aloud. "As the daughter of the powerful Arcane, Cyphanis Rax and his wife, Kara Beckinsale, Ambria has the potential to be a formidable Arcane when she comes of age. Both of her parents had pure and powerful Arcane lineages and both were of above average intelligence. Her older brother, Levi, has proven himself quite capable at Arcane University. We suspect Ambria will also prove powerful with the proper training.
"In addition, Cyphanis demonstrated he was a ruthless and clever manipulator, willing to do whatever it took to move to the top. Ambria's temperament has shown she will be much the same as him in that regard. This makes her the perfect candidate for assassin or gladiator training, though her flexibility will allow her to fit many roles."
"Gladiator? Assassin?" Ambria's lips curled with disgust. "They wrote about me like I'm a sheep for sale on the market."
"Probably because that's all we are to them." Out of curiosity, I found and displayed my prospectus.
"Yours looks just as rosy as mine." Ambria took it upon herself to recite it. "The name Victus Edison is almost pedigree enough for his son, Conrad. A renowned scientist, Victus was an innovator of new technologies and the first novice at Science Academy to build a battle bot that won the Grand Melee.
"His wife, Delectra Moore, was the perfect Arcane complement to Victus's scientific genius. A descendant of the great Ezzek Moore, her magical resume is simply too long to list. Together, they were the pair that overthrew the Conclave and ruled the Overworld.
"Given time and maturity, we're certain Conrad will live up to his parents' reputation. He will be as adept with scie
nce as with magic and provide the buyer with a powerful asset. Pairing him with the optimal mate will give the owner control over a bloodline that could win them the world."
I shook my head slowly. "I think they overestimated my abilities."
Ambria patted my shoulder. "I'm glad neither of us matches our descriptions." She laughed.
I didn't see much humor in the situation. "What's funny?"
"Well, I was so certain my parents were good people." She sighed. "I suppose my parents were just as bad as yours and Max's.
"My parents were the worst of the lot." I closed the holographic document and put the phone on a dresser. "Cyphanis might have been ruthless, but from what Max told us, he used politics to get what he wanted. My parents killed anyone who got in their way."
Ambria slumped to the floor. Tears welled in her eyes and she broke into sobs. "Oh, Conrad, this is awful. We can't live here anymore, our dead parents were evil, and we'll probably be hunted by the Goodleighs for years." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "What are we to do?"
My lower lip trembled so I pressed my mouth into a tight line to keep it under control. Anger smoldered deep in my heart. Ambria and I had been brought into this world by bad people. We'd been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Goodleighs for most of our lives. We had very little experience with the outside world. The home of the man I'd killed was supposed to have been our sanctuary. Instead, it would soon be visited by Brickle.
We could leave, but if Brickle brought his hounds, he'd discover in no time that we'd been here. That would only renew the hunt. Queens Gate would no longer be safe. My fists tightened. I imagined taking a knife and plunging it into Brickle's heart. Watching him fall to the floor and bleed until his last breath rattled from his chest.
Do it! Kill him!
I sucked in a harsh breath and the image fled.
"What are you thinking, Conrad?" Ambria looked at me with red eyes.
"About what to do next."
"Perhaps Max can help us hide that we were here," she said. "I'll bet he knows a spell that could cover our tracks. Maybe we could stay at his uncle's for a while."
I didn't want to stay at his grumpy old uncle's house. I wanted to stay right here. That was when I realized this situation might actually be much better than we thought. We'd wanted to save the other orphans by raiding the orphanage. As discussed, it would mean fighting against Brickle, his hounds, and the Goodleighs, not to mention the other staff. But if Brickle came alone with only one hound, we might be able to capture him.
"Do you still want to free the other orphans?" I asked.
Ambria nodded. "Of course." She stood and regarded me with confusion. "What does that have to do with this?"
"We'll capture Brickle. With him out of the way, it makes the task easier."
"What?" Her voice rose an octave. "Are you mental? We'd need an army to take him down." She looked me over. "Conrad, you're thin as a stick. How do you think you could capture a big brute?"
"We make a trap." Ideas brewed in my head. "We need to search this place thoroughly. If there is a basement, it might be the perfect place to trap and imprison him."
Ambria pressed a hand to her cheek. "You are mental!"
I shook my head. "No, I'm not. If this plan is going to work, we need to start preparing tonight."
She stared at me with big round eyes for several seconds. Finally, she drew in a breath and huffed. "Well, let's hope this plan of yours doesn't get us all killed."
I felt a smile on my face.
A wry smile lit hers as well. "Why are we smiling, Conrad?"
"Because we've decided enough is enough." I squeezed her shoulder. "We're fighting back." I didn't know how much time we had before Brickle arrived. He might be here first thing in the morning, or later in the afternoon. Since it took several hours to make the trip from Queens Gate to the orphanage even on a flying carpet, I felt I could safely assume we had three or four hours at minimum. Since Brickle would probably have to wait until the Goodleighs arrived back at the orphanage before he could leave, we might have double that time.
"I'm so tired, Conrad." Ambria yawned. "I was wide awake and frightened to death when the Goodleighs were here."
"That was an adrenalin rush." I fought off a yawn. "It's normal to feel tired after being so scared."
"Do you think it's safe to sleep?" Her dark hair framed large concerned eyes.
I nodded even though I didn't think sleeping was in our best interests. Brickle could be here by morning. The best thing to do was stay up all night and prepare our defenses, but Ambria looked so tired, I kept those thoughts to myself. "Why don't you get some sleep?" I told Ambria. "I'll make sure everything is locked up tight."
She nodded groggily. "Thank you, Conrad." She went back into her room and closed the door.
I looked at the mess on the stairwell and finally decided the only way downstairs was by sliding down the wooden rail. I straddled it and used both hands to brake my descent. After reaching the bottom, I went to the closet Felicity had opened. Dozens of robes hung beneath a shelf with a stack of twigs and branches on top.
Strange place to keep firewood.
I looked closer and realized the twigs were actually broken and cracked wands and staffs. I tugged a bundle of papers to the doorway and stepped onto it so I could see the shelf better.
Wand and staff breakage seemed very common judging from the number of those discarded. I picked up a couple of wands that looked whole and realized they had cracks running lengthwise or splintered ends. Some wands were gnarled and crooked while others had once been perfectly straight and polished until some accident landed them in the trash heap. All of them bore strange symbols etched into the wood.
I noticed labels affixed to many of the magical instruments, the handwriting too messy to read, or faded from time. Those I could read bore names. It was only after reading several of the names that I began to suspect the true origin of these wands. These people are dead. I wondered if Levi had killed them.
A notebook lay to the left of the stack. I'd paid it no heed at first, but its proximity to the wands drew my attention. I opened it and found a title above a list:
BOOK OF THE DEAD
Those killed by the Overlord will forever be remembered
I shivered and dropped the book.
This closet is full of bones.
In a fit of rage, I swiped the shelf clean of the wands and watched them clatter to the floor. A wooden box the color of cinnamon landed on my foot, though not hard enough to cause pain or injury. When I flipped open the top, I found red satin cloth enfolding two unblemished wands. I inspected the labels on the handles: Mother, Father.
These must have belonged to Cyphanis and Kara. Kara's ebony wand bore a straight polished handle before curling into a three-ring spiral and ending with straight tip. Cyphanis's pure white wand ran perfectly straight from end to end. Magical runes etched in gold lettering decorated both wands.
I decided to take the wands. Perhaps Max or Ambria could make use of them. As I folded the satin cloth, I noticed something scrawled in faded ink on the back and spread it out.
Betwixt and between shall the entrance be seen.
The rest of the sentence was too faded to read.
The entrance to what? I didn't have time to solve the mystery so I bundled the wands into the cloth and stuffed them into my back pocket.
Since the closet held nothing else of immediate interest, I navigated my way down the crowded hall to the kitchen. It looked nothing like the kitchens I'd seen, aside from a sink. There was no stove, no oven, and no refrigerator. I opened the pantry door. Small black shapes squeaked and raced past my feet. I yelped and jumped back from the wave of rats.
I'd seen plenty of rats in the houses where I'd lived. One set of foster parents had made me crawl around a narrow space beneath their house to place rodent traps. A family of poisonous spiders beneath the house hitchhiked on my clothing, probably as I pulled myself through their webs. Whe
n I climbed out from under the house, the spiders had leapt from my clothes and bitten my temporary parents, killing them within minutes.
While I didn't particularly like rats or spiders, I'd learned that both had a knack for getting into places, no matter how secure. As the last rat scurried away, I followed it through the kitchen and into a utility room of sorts where piles of robes, shirts, and pants lay atop a table.
The rat ran beneath it and vanished into the wall. I stopped and stared at the dead end. There were no cracks in the baseboards, nor holes in the wall. Moving the ironing board to the side offered me no better of a view. Pressing my hands to the wall yielded no other clues. I knocked on the wall. It felt just as solid and sounded no hollower than the other sections I tested.
Another rodent scuttled between my feet. When it reached the wall, it seemed to squeeze beneath it despite the miniscule seam between baseboard and floor. Running my fingers along the seam, they detected a much wider crack than what I saw. In other words, my eyes were lying to me, much like they had at the hidden lift that took us to Queens Gate.
Illusion.
The thought came from my mysterious reservoir of information. I accepted this hint as fact, but it brought me no closer to seeing what the illusion concealed. I suddenly remembered the writing on the cloth. Since the cryptic message had been with the two wands, the logical conclusion meant peering between the wands would reveal a hidden entrance.
A bit smug with myself, I pulled the wands from my back pocket and held them up vertically, one in each hand. Looking between them revealed nothing. Frowning, I switched the wands around. Still nothing. Holding them horizontally didn't help either.
"Betwixt and between shall the entrance be seen," I chanted, thinking perhaps it was a spell.
I went from feeling smug to insecure about my intelligence. I was so stupid before, I'm probably just average now with delusions of grandeur. I shoved the wands back in my pocket and knelt next to the wall. I felt all along the invisible crack. My fingers caught on something metal just a few inches from where the rats had vanished. I pressed against it but it didn't budge. A firm pull dislodged the metal with a click. The wall flickered and subtly changed.