by Eden Reign
She took a deep breath and scrambled down the boulder. There would be no going back. Jackson, Mr. Flacks, and Mr. Stone were depending on her to do her part.
She edged forward and controlled her shield with both hands, bolstering it. The hill dipped, and Coalhaven’s southern boundary came into view. She risked a peek to see if Jackson had succeeded with his wards, but she couldn’t find him.
A flash of movement at the top of the hill sent her heart slamming against her rib cage.
Two figures appeared on the hill, followed by Leah Blazen in her bell-shaped hoop skirts. Soon nine more scattered across the hilltop.
“It’s the halfbreed governess!” Leah shouted over her shoulder to another figure in a skirt, though this one had no hoops. It was Abigail Windham, the little traitor!
Manda thickened her shield, bracing herself. She stood on a hill, surrounded by indigo, the enormous boulders pinning her behind the next set of wards.
She winged a prayer to the Good Waters and hit the second row of wards running.
Heat ricocheted off her shield, nearly scalding her hands, but she was prepared this time, and strengthened her hold. Before she could move another step, fire erupted in front of her, missing her shield by less than an inch. A second water geyser followed, spewing dirt, plants and mud skyward, raining over Manda’s shield. She tried to leap backward, but the ground beneath her had turned into a bog of sand and mud, sucking at her boots like a thirsty monster. She couldn’t move. The water sprayed high and higher. Mud and rocks thudded against her shield, bouncing off and landing nearby. The water in her shield roiled and burbled with the heat of the fire geyser, but those flames were soon extinguished by the larger torrent of water.
The fullmages above her advanced, bearing down toward her stuck position.
Panicked, Manda controlled her shield with one hand, reaching down to unhook her boots with her other, just enough to be able to slide her feet free. It was nearly impossible without her button hook, but she managed to disengage the first few rivets.
Leah Blazen held a fire ball that snapped with heated intensity. Others held the same, some had stones, tree branches, burgeoning bits of hard sod. Abigail Windham and another airmage twisted a nearly invisible, shifting air force between their hands, lifting their arms and hurling their gusts at Manda. Wind shrieked at her shield, buffeting it where she crouched.
Manda let go of her boot and stood, but her shield was nearly wrenched from her grasp as an onslaught of fire followed air. Rocks came next, increasing in size as they hurtled toward her, boulder-sized by the time they arrived.
Her shield wobbled and reverberated with the impacts, but it held. She held.
Her feet finally came free from her stuck boots. She turned and fled to the south, to the trees where temporary safety beckoned.
She couldn’t run fast enough. The fullmages charged across the green, closing the distance.
“Get her,” cried Leah.
“Faster!” shrieked Abigail.
She wouldn’t make it in time. Manda turned when she was still fifty yards from the tree cover, taking her stand. She willed more water into her hands, peeling back her shield a little, and flung an attack through the opening. Her water slammed Leah and Abigail, flattening them to the ground, but others arrived to replace them. Volleys of fire, earth, water, and air bombarded her. Manda’s energy flagged. She struggled even to breathe as she put all her strength into maintaining her shield. But it wavered, turning viscous, no longer the solid steel she needed it to be.
She gathered for one more assault, but the physical exhaustion that arose from doing too much magic in too short a time had consumed most of her power.
The attacks from the fullmages were thick and blinding. Leah and Abigail had risen again. Manda aimed water in their general direction, wilting behind her sagging shield. She could no longer support it.
Just as her shield crashed down, a heavy weight rammed into her and knocked her from her feet. Strong arms wrapped around her, dragging her through the grass, farther from the fullmages and the continuing chaos, behind the line of trees.
Jackson halted, his dark gaze frantic. “How did you—Manda, you’re not even hurt!”
Manda’s eyes widened. “Jackson?” He set her on her feet, and she weakly leaned against one of the trees. “You made it! What about the fullmages?” She risked a glance over her shoulder.
Leah, Abigail, and the others, most of them drenched, stood screaming inside a thin lasso of fire.
“I sequestered them, for now,” Jackson said as his gaze roamed over Manda’s body, as though checking for injuries. “Where are your boots?” He glared at her stockinged feet peeking from her skirts.
“Back there, in a bog.” Manda gasped. She reached for his left arm where his coat had been burned clear off, and his shirt sleeve hung in shreds around red, blistered skin. “Jackson, your arm!”
But Jackson wasn’t listening. He swept Manda into his arms and charged up the driveway. Smoking, activated fire-wards covered the property line to the south, with ashy funnel winds swirling above them, whipping the flames. Jackson must have burst through them without the benefit of a halfmage’s elemental shield and without dismantling them, risking the flames.
She tightened her arms around his neck as he ran, his breath coming in harsh spurts. Behind them, the chaos ceased, but Manda could no longer see the mages.
“They’ll know that I got away,” she said.
“Yes,” Jackson grunted as he careened around the side of the house, plunging into the back garden woods toward the servants’ quarters.
A roiling circle of water twisted on the flagstones below the back verandah. In the center of the water circle stood all of Coalhaven’s croppers. They held hands, gazing wildly at the fast-moving circuit of water. If the water close din on them, they’d be swept up into a maelstrom that would drown them. Men, women. Children. Babes.
“Jackson, the croppers!” she breathed.
Jackson hardly even jarred Manda as he sprinted onward. He didn’t stop until he’d barged into the outermost cabin of the servants’ quarters and slammed the door behind him. He set her down on the bed and sagged against the wall, gripping his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.
Manda’s legs trembled and weakness set in. She gripped the bedpost. “J—Jackson,” she said, her teeth chattering. “What do we d—do now?”
Jackson gulped a few more breaths and sat next to her. Her gaze dropped to his red, burned arm, and she reached for it, pausing when he flinched away.
“Hold still,” she murmured, her calm returning with the familiar task of water-healing. She absorbed the moisture from her soaked dress into her skin, allowing it to build. Carefully, she lifted the tattered edges of his sleeve and gently placed her hands against his raw arm, releasing the cooling liquid from her palms into his flesh, cleansing every abrasion and open wound.
Jackson trembled. His jaw tightened as he gritted his teeth. “Nearly done,” she murmured, at last pulling the balm of water away from his arm. She moved to the cabinets where a box of basic tools were stocked in each cabin. Opening it, she found a pair of scissors. She returned to Jackson, cutting away the remains of his sleeve so it didn’t hang in shreds over his skin.
“Have you seen Mr. Stone or Mr. Flacks?” she asked.
Jackson shook his head, running his other hand through his dark hair. “No, and I’m worried. Those wards were devilish, made of mixed magic. Mine were fire and air combined. How did you get through?”
“I made a shield, like the one I used on Grey’s room, except around my body. It protected me from the wards, more or less. My wards were also mixed, water and fire,” she explained.
Jackson stared. “That halfmage shield is an excellent skill. I wish I could make something similar. Those wards were brutal.” He groaned as he flexed his arm muscles beneath the burn.
Manda sunk slowly to sit next to him again, laying the scissors aside. “At least you made it through�
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“With a burned arm, a battered body, and by the skin of my teeth. I saw you under fire from the fullmages, and I thought surely they would destroy you—twelve fullmages against one little halfmage. I just—ran right through the wards to reach you, facing the full brunt of them. I couldn’t bear—”
“Jackson, you shouldn’t have taken such a risk on my account!”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I guess I didn’t need to be anxious; you pounded them with the strength of twelve fullmages all by yourself.” He laughed softly. “To think I was worried.”
Manda was still horrified, thinking of the risk he’d taken, but there was too much else to consider. “What about Mr. Stone and Mr. Flacks? And the croppers.”
As if on cue, the door burst open, and Mr. Stone swept through the opening. He shut the door swiftly behind him.
Mr. Stone’s impeccable coat looked as crisp as ever, without a trace of any fight or struggle against mixed wards. Even so, he brushed away a tiny speck of dirt from one sleeve and straightened his lapels.
“Hello,” he greeted as though he had only arrived for tea. “I rather hoped you would both be here before me. What’s next in our plan?”
Manda stared at the butler, and Jackson openly gaped. “What—how did you get through those wards, Stone?” he asked.
Mr. Stone’s eyes narrowed a touch. “I haven’t seen mixed wards since my days in the tribes. You Arcanans are so particular about keeping the elements separate in every way. But Master Lake and whoever set those earth-wards didn’t know that earth and water make poor mixed wards, especially for an earthmage. I can only attribute that to inexperience. If they had combined earth and air, now, that would have been a challenge. As it was, I only had to deactivate the earth portion of the ward and fight off the water, which pitted my strength against a weak element on the earth-strong northern boundary of the elemental square. When the water-wards activated, I smothered them with boulders. I’m afraid I left the land up there a bit … rockier ... than it used to be. And there was a great deal of mud.” He frowned down at his boots, which, Manda now saw, were coated in wet earth.
“Oh?” Jackson said, his voice full of disbelief and a hint of sarcasm. “You just … deactivated and fought … of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” He sobered quickly. “You make it sound easy, Stone, but I know for a fact those wards were some of the trickiest spellwork I’ve ever encountered. How did you know what to do?”
Mr. Stone shifted his weight from one foot to another, first looking at Jackson, then at Manda, as though for moral support. “Nanu learn about mixed wards, and how to fight them,” he finally said, his gaze boring into Manda, giving her a pleading expression and slight headshake.
She understood. Only tribal princes learned about mixed magic among the Nanu, and Mr. Stone clearly did not wish her to reveal his high rank among his people.
“No Flacks?” Stone went on too brightly. “I expect he got hung up on the mixed wards. I hope he was sensible and returned to Miss Westerly and Grey. Now,” he said, straightening. “How in the Sacred Wells are we going to rescue those croppers?”
Chapter 27
Jackson
Jackson’s arm hurt with a fiery sting, but it did no good to complain about it. Manda’s soothing, watery touch had strengthened him, but as soon as she had removed it, the heat from the wards drove deep into his flesh again.
Jackson eyed the house through the cabin windows. They weren’t very close, but he could still see several of Daniel’s recruits pacing the balcony and the verandah. Two more stalked around the circle of swirling, ballooning water containing the croppers in the clearing below the verandah. Movement in the third story gable windows hinted at enemy presence inside as well. And even from this distance, Jackson recognized the tall, thin form of Daniel Lake as he paced the second-floor balcony. “As soon as Manda came through the eastern wards, they were on her like bloodhounds. But I don’t know if they have any idea where we are now,” he mused.
Mr. Stone raised his head. “Can we use that to our advantage?”
“Possibly. I was thinking about a diversion—”
Stone’s eyes lit. “Ah, yes! And while one of us pulls their attention, the other two go in and try to take down Master Lake. I like it.”
“I don’t like it, because that means all three of us are open to danger and possibly death, but I can’t see what else to do.” Jackson’s mouth tightened, and he leaned against the window sill. “Manda, what if you—”
“I’m going in with you, Jackson.” Her voice was firm, and she did not look at him when she spoke. “Now,” she went on, “If we can come at Daniel from behind, it will make it much easier to free the croppers than a direct approach. If he is watching the croppers from the back of the house—”
“I’ll do it,” Mr. Stone interrupted.
“Do what?” Jackson and Manda asked at the same time.
“Create the diversion. Then I’ll go directly to the croppers while you two deal with Daniel and his men. I’ll see what I can do about the mages controlling that deadly water.”
“Mr. Stone,” Manda warned, “you may face a sustained barrage of the elements, from multiple foes. Are you sure?”
Stone smiled at her, and jealousy spiked straight through Jackson’s innards. “It would be my pleasure, Miss,” the butler said. “I’ll keep them busy, never fear.”
Jackson didn’t like the many dangers that loomed before them, and he especially didn’t like exposing Manda. “Manda, inside will be even worse than out on the lawn. They’ll be everywhere, and—”
“And you’ll need someone to help you,” Manda said. “Are we agreed? Mr. Stone, you’ll create a diversion and make for the croppers, while Jackson and I will enter the house with the goal of closing in on Daniel Lake?”
Jackson didn’t answer, but Stone squared his shoulders. “May the Good Waters guide you both,” he said. He opened the door of the servants’ quarters and strode out.
Jackson gripped the door’s edge, half-tempted to wrestle the man back. He didn’t feel prepared; there was too much uncertainty, and—
“Jackson?” Manda’s soft fingers slid around his unburnt arm.
Jackson turned to her, his guts heaving. “Maybe it’s not worth it,” he murmured. “We can retreat, go somewhere else. I still have that farm near Chalton—”
But no more words could issue from his mouth. Manda’s lips pressed ardently against his. Her arms clung to his neck. Immediately, he was lost, all danger and urgency gone. All he could feel was Manda, the woman he loved to distraction.
He groaned, wrapping his good arm around her waist, pulling her closer, but she broke the kiss, her hands cradling the sides of his face.
“Jackson,” she whispered. One tear tracked down her cheek. “In case we don’t make it out together, I—I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he murmured, his blood roaring in his ears. She brushed her lips over his once more and then slipped from his arms and out the door. It took him several seconds to move his feet.
She’s made a fool of you, Jackson Coal, he thought as he followed in her footsteps. Strangely enough, the idea didn’t upset him.
Jackson crept around the final cabin of the servants’ quarters. Manda edged past him, but he caught her. “Wait. Stone hasn’t begun his diversion.”
“Can you see him?” Manda whispered.
Jackson shook his head, scanning the darkening gardens. It would be dusk before long, which could be an advantage or a disadvantage.
The magemark on his back itched, feeding off the pain in his skin. When he raised his bare arm to grip the cabin’s siding, he caught glimpses of the mark moving over his exposed shoulder, glowing faintly.
His jaw tightened, and he firmed his resolve. He would settle his scores once and for all.
An oak shifted against the breeze with a creak, and a moment later, it twisted with an ear-splitting crack as its biggest bough snapped from its trunk and catap
ulted at the house. It landed with a crash on the second-floor balcony, crushing three of the fullmages there. The others shouted warnings, scattering like ants.
The fullmages on the verandah pelted into the yard, circling the ring of water that sealed off the croppers. The mages hit a barrage of Mr. Stone’s roots and vines, falling and screaming as the roots crawled over them and bound them against the ground. The trees on either side of Daniel’s henchmen swung their boughs low, catching a couple of fullmages in the stomach, launching them great distances across the grass. Stone darted through the chaos, heading directly for the croppers’ circle.
Jackson glanced at Manda and grinned. “Remind me to give him good references.”
She raised a delicate eyebrow. “If we make it through this, I’ll remind you to give him a promotion and a raise.”
“Touché.” Jackson pointed at the balcony. “There’s his highness, Daniel Lake himself, and Wilcott Blazen cowering behind him in the doorway. Typical.” Both men were staring out through the trees, observing. “Let’s go around and enter at the front. Everyone is back here now.”
The interminable journey around the house stretched Jackson’s nerves as thin and taut as violin strings. The confusion and chaos in the rear of the house did not remit. Occasional crashes sounded, and Jackson jerked with each one as he stepped through the trees. He hoped at least a portion of the house would remain standing when this was all over.
Manda slid through the trees like a sprite, quietly and quickly, there and then not there as she blended with the gloaming shadows. They approached a side garden near the woods, a quaint circle of benches surrounding a bird bath set beneath a latticed archway.
The front of the house appeared empty.
Manda paused, her hand on Jackson’s chest, halting his movement. “Wait,” she whispered.
Jackson eyed the front windows. He could see no trace of movement. “Now is our chance, Manda.”