by Lucia Ashta
“I told you not to follow me,” he said.
“And I don’t care.” Gertrude slid off her mount as if she was born on a horse’s back. She handed Brave her reins and stared Nicholas down. “You don’t go in there alone.”
“You don’t tell me what to do!”
“Knock it off already. We’re finished with your nonsense. You shut it, and you behave as if you’re actually part of the team.” Gertrude sounded downright dangerous, and Nicholas had the good sense to appear cowered.
“You keep your trap shut and you follow Brave’s lead. Once we enter, we act in unison, like a team, one with an actual chance of doing something helpful instead of just getting us all killed. We keep our eyes and ears open, and our mouths closed. That goes for all of you.”
Gertrude scanned the rest of us, all in different stages of dismounting and tying up our horses. Even Sir Lancelot nodded back at her from where he was trying to settle back on Brave’s shoulder.
“We can’t count on our approach being a surprise.” She glared at Nicholas, although I wasn’t entirely sure that was his fault. The approach to the castle was purposefully bare and exposed. It was a designed strategic advantage. “So once we get in there, we assume we’re targets. We coordinate our skills to get the others out of there in one piece, and do the same for ourselves.”
Then she gave the floor over to Brave. “Do you have anything else you want to add?”
“No, that’s good. We stick together, we act together, and we get everyone out alive.”
I nodded. That sounded really, really good. All of us alive and well? It was all I was hoping for now. I didn’t care whether or not we freed Albacus any more. The price was clearly too high to pay to rescue someone who was already dead. Mordecai would find another way to get him, mostly because he’d never give up on his brother.
“Nando, you bring up the rear and keep Isa next to you,” Brave said.
“I will.” Nando pulled his sword from its sheath, the telltale shling sound sending an ominous shiver running through my body.
“Walt, I want you to keep an eye on Marie, Angelica, and Simon. Call out if something attacks them and you can’t handle it.”
“Got it,” Walt said, placing a protective hand on his sister even as he cast a glance at me. I couldn’t help but notice how Brave had said that something and not someone might attack.
“Sir Lancelot, you know what to do. If there’s anything you see or hear that we need to know about, you tell me right away. I’m counting on you.”
The little owl saluted as if he were in the armed forces. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you down, Lord Brave. You can count on me.”
“Good. Thank you. Gertie, you stick yourself to my side like glue. You got that?”
She rolled her eyes, but ultimately said, “I got it.”
“I mean it.”
“I got it!”
He smiled at her irritation, making me wonder once more at the nature of their relationship. “All right. Everyone ready?”
“What about me?” Nicholas interjected, one hand wrapped around the door handle, the other around the hilt of his sword.
“What about you?”
“You gave everyone a job but me.”
Brave met Nicholas’ eyes with unwavering determination. “You made it clear we weren’t to be bothered with you. We’ll do our best to defend you. Other than that, you’re on your own.”
“That doesn’t seem right.” The sneering façade actually dropped from Nicholas’ face for a moment, and he seemed almost... regretful.
“No, it doesn’t seem right. Not in the least.” But Brave was apparently finished with Nicholas. He took in the rest of us. “We’re going to have to improvise and call on powers you probably haven’t had much chance to hone. The academy hasn’t exactly been the school we imagined it would be, though I suppose we should have known better, huh, Gertie?”
“Definitely,” she said. “We haven’t had peace and quiet since Clara left our home in Norland.”
“Marie, Walt, Isa, Nando, Angelica, just do your best. Simon, wait until everyone’s clear of the castle to blow it to smithereens.”
“Will do.” Simon grinned and I wondered at the adolescent who seemed entirely too excited to be making fortresses explode. But then again, maybe I’d feel the same way if I had the power to make things go kaboom.
Who says you don’t? I had no idea where the thought came from, as I hadn’t been focusing on anything of the sort. But still, it was there, and it startled me. It was one thing to believe in myself, it was another to hope to take on every power I came across. The ones I’d already discovered were disconcerting enough.
“Now.” Brave gave Nicholas a sidelong glance. “Is everyone ready?”
“No,” Walt and I said at the same time, making me smile.
Marie said, “Not even a little.”
Angelica chuckled and added, “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for something like this.”
Brave grinned, making him look so handsome with his angular face, piercing blue eyes, and black hair that I entirely understood why Gertrude was captivated by him, no matter how much she tried to pretend she wasn’t.
“Sounds about right,” Brave said as he nudged Nicholas out of the way and prepared to pull the door open toward us. He pressed a finger to his lips and looked over his shoulder to remind us to keep quiet. “Sir Lancelot, you’re my eyes and ears.” He whispered in preparation for whatever waited for us inside.
“I won’t fail you,” the owl whispered back.
Brave faced the door and waited. I couldn’t tell what the delay was about until I noticed the deep breaths shifting his shoulders up and down.
Then he pulled the door inward and shoved Nicholas inside ahead of him. He held the door open with his hip, signaled to Walt that he should hold the door, and pulled Gertrude by the hand inside with him.
Angelica, Simon, and Marie went next, and Walt followed once Nando caught the door.
Nando pressed a kiss to my forehead and whispered, “Te quiero, Isa.” Before I could respond or worry about why he was telling me he loved me, I found myself inside and Nando pulling the door shut softly behind us.
We were immediately plunged into a deep and ominous darkness, far too still and quiet for what was supposed to be going on inside.
Every fine hair on my body stood on end in anticipation.
And then a single scream cleaved the silence in half.
“Nooooo!”
Chapter 7
My heart started beating erratically, marring the sense of stagnant silence I’d experienced before. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t recognize the voice that shouted after we entered the castle, it was that I recognized the voice immediately and realized its owner would never yell out like that unless we’d committed a very serious—and very terrible—misstep.
Nando shoved me behind his body, as if he could physically protect me from whatever mess we’d waded into. But he must have realized he and I were far out of our element, and that was probably the reason why his hand trembled ever so slightly when he pushed me out of harm’s way.
But the reality was that we couldn’t tell from which direction danger might arrive, nor what it might look like once it did.
He and I might still be novices in the magical arts, despite our constant wish to actually make it through a regular class one day. I had, however, learned one thing about magic with perfect certainty: When magic was involved, nearly everything was possible. Heck, I’d come back from the dead just yesterday—and that was only one of a thousand possibilities I’d never imagined.
“It’s Wizard Meedles,” Nando whispered to me, though I wasn’t sure why he bothered. I’d recognize the wizard’s booming voice anywhere, and especially in a pitch dark castle that seemed cavernous and claustrophobic all at once.
“Where’d his voice come from?” Even though Brave was whispering, I managed to register his question over the whooshing of my pulse running t
hrough my head. I had to calm down or I was going to make myself pass out. Wouldn’t that be a good story! We rode in to rescue our teachers, and I missed out on all of it because I fainted before anything had the chance to happen. Yeah, I wasn’t going to let that occur. I’d rather face down whatever danger awaited us than be laughed at later. I didn’t think any of my friends at the academy would laugh, but Nicholas would, and I was too stubborn to give him the pleasure.
I forced myself to breathe deeply so as to calm down and better connect to my surroundings.
After Sir Lancelot had apparently listened for the appropriate amount of time, he answered Brave. “I hear sounds coming from below us.”
I gulped. Below? I didn’t want to go below. I wanted to grab everyone we came to rescue, turn tail, and head the heck out of here.
“So we go down,” Brave said.
But... down where? Sure, I couldn’t really see much of anything, but I especially couldn’t make out any darker areas, such that might indicate a stairwell.
“Why’s it so dark?” I whispered to Nando. Castles like this were usually well lit, either with torches or electric lights if their owners had invested in the upgrades.
“I’m sure it’s intentional.”
Yeah, that’s what was worrying me. I’d bet anything it was done on purpose.
“Come on,” Brave called back along the line. “This way.”
“This way?” I squeaked to my brother. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Really? I can see pretty well.”
“What? You can?” It made no sense that he would. I had perfect vision, and I could barely make out my hand in front of my face.
“Sure. You can’t?”
“Not a thing,” I said to his back as I brought up the end of the train heading downward.
“It’s not super bright in here by any means, but you should be able to see well enough to figure out where you’re going.”
Something strange was going on, that was for sure. I just couldn’t figure out what.
I let it go as advancing required all my focus. I shuffled my feet to avoid tripping, as I suspected everyone—save my brother—was doing, if the sound up ahead was any indication. The floor was rough stone, as I would have expected in an old castle like this one, and stepping was all the challenge I could handle. The floor wasn’t smooth, ensuring my progress wasn’t either.
“Turn back!”
I froze. Everyone up ahead of me froze. Even Sir Lancelot didn’t say a peep as Wizard Meedles’ voice thundered toward us again.
I waited for Brave or Gertrude or whoever was going to make the call to decide what we were going to do. In the meantime, my heart rate, which I’d managed to more or less control, accelerated again.
“What do we do?” Brave spoke with urgency up in front of our train, but so softly that it was obvious he was only consulting Gertrude and perhaps Sir Lancelot, who’d been on his shoulder last I managed to see.
“We can’t turn back now,” Gertrude said.
“But if Marcus just told us to, then we probably should. He wouldn’t say it unless there were good reasons.”
“That’s what worries me. If there’s good reason for a wizard like Marcus to warn us away, then whatever is going on is bad.”
Brave sighed louder than he’d been speaking. “I don’t like leaving them any more than you do, but I think it’s what we have to do. You’re all under my responsibility. I can’t allow any harm to come to you on my watch.”
“But you have no problem letting the rest of them die?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s exactly what might happen if we leave now.”
“Or we could go down there, not end up helping a thing, and get all of us killed... or worse.”
What could be worse than getting killed for goodness’ sake? I was ninety-nine-percent certain it was better not to find out.
“We won’t know whether we can help them or not until we get down there,” Gertrude said.
“And by then it will be too late. Do you think Marcus would be calling out in such a way unless he feared we were heading into a trap or something like that?”
Gertrude didn’t answer. Wizard Meedles didn’t seem the sort to overreact. If he’d warned us away, it must be bad.
“It’s a terrible situation, and don’t think for a moment I’m not as torn up about it as you are, but we have to leave. Killing ourselves won’t help a thing.”
“This is my family we’re talking about. The family I left behind in Norland doesn’t count. The one I have in this castle is it for me.”
“And you think it’s any different for me?” Brave snapped. “My father raised me to hate everyone except him, even though he was the only one who deserved it. I never met my mother. My uncle is all I have of her now. All the rest of them, they’re everything to me. And you... well, I’m not going to lose you just because you’re stubborn.”
“Stubborn?” Gertrude whisper screamed.
Sir Lancelot cleared his throat. Ahem. “Lady Gertrude, Lord Brave, forgive me for intervening, but I think it’s called for here. We’re in a precarious situation, and from Wizard Meedles’ warning, every moment we delay might be our last.”
Well, when he put it that way... I really panicked.
“It’s time to leave. You can continue this argument once we’re back in the safety of the cave, if you’ll allow the audacity of my suggestion.”
“I’m not leaving,” Gertrude said, addressing Brave instead of the owl.
Brave huffed. “Gertie, this isn’t the time for your attitude.”
“No, it most definitely isn’t.” It sounded like she started walking... away from the door and in the direction I assumed would eventually lead us downward.
“Gertie!” Brave whisper called out after her.
She didn’t answer.
It sounded like he ran after her, stumbled, caught his fall, and ran into her. Umph. Their breath rushed out of them.
“Let me be,” she started to say, but he stopped her. I imagined him reaching out to hold onto her arm as he’d done before. “You win, all right? If you want to keep going, I’ll go with you. But I owe a duty to everyone else with us, not just you.”
“You don’t owe me a duty.”
“I do, no matter how one sided it might be.”
“I—”
“Gertie, shush. Let’s escort the others out, and then I’ll go with you to rescue everyone else—I hope.”
“I can keep going and you can catch up. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”
“I don’t think we do either, but that doesn’t change what you’re going to do. You’re going to stop being hard headed for just a second of your life, and you’re going to come with me as I get everyone else out. Then I’ll go with you. Ah-ah. No arguing. Not anymore. I’m keeping you safe. Now, the sooner you let this go, the sooner we get down there—to the voice warning us away.”
I fully expected Gertrude to continue arguing, but she didn’t. Her footfalls drew closer.
“All right, everyone,” Brave said, a little louder, but hopefully not loud enough to carry beyond our assembled party. “You’re leaving.”
“I’m not,” Angelica said. “My parents are in there.”
“And I’m certain they wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”
“I won’t let them die.”
“Neither will I, I promise. If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it, regardless of the cost to my life.”
I believed him, and it seemed Angelica did too. I felt her turn to face the direction we’d come from.
“All the hero, that one,” Nicholas muttered bitterly. Every single one of us ignored him. If we’d been fed up with his antics when we weren’t in immediate danger, we had no patience for them now.
I turned and started shuffling toward the door. I wouldn’t have been sure I was heading toward it except that I was pretty certain walls lined us on both sides.
It took longe
r than I thought it would, given how little we’d advanced. But I guessed I must be close, and placed my hands in front of my face to avoid slamming into the doors. Just in time. I knocked into the wood with my wrists so loudly that a fresh burst of panic sprang to life.
Get me out of here, I thought, secure in the fact that no one could eavesdrop on my cowardly thoughts.
The rear door of the castle was a double-doored massive situation. I placed a palm flat on either panel, since I couldn’t remember which side Brave had pulled open, and pushed.
Nothing happened. I huffed and felt Nando’s body right behind me.
I pushed again. When it didn’t budge, I put real strength into it.
Still, it remained closed as if it hadn’t opened in a few centuries instead of a few minutes.
“I can’t open it,” I told Nando over my shoulder.
“Here. Slide out of the way and let me.”
I did, confident my strong brother would get the job done.
I heard him push. Then I heard him grunt.
“Back up a little bit. Give me some space.”
I relayed his message to the others, and we slowly shuffled backward, making room.
Nando ate up all the space we’d given him, then tore at the door in a run, banging into it with the strength of his shoulder and momentum.
But not even a sliver of the sunny outdoors shone in to brighten my mood.
We were truly in terrible trouble.
Chapter 8
“Let me try,” Nicholas said right away, obviously eager to imply he was stronger than Nando.
There wasn’t a chance of it, and although our circumstances were dire, and time was ticking away, I pressed out of Nicholas’ way so his attempt to one-up my brother might fail. If Nando didn’t manage to open the door that had swung open all too easily when we entered, then magic was at play. It had to be. There was no other explanation that made sense.
Even if someone had slid a brace into place from the outside, the door would still budge and strain against the bar preventing it from opening.
Both doors were immovable, however, as if nothing could shake them. That wasn’t normal.