by Lucia Ashta
Nando and Sir Lancelot exchanged a look while I got myself together. “What do you think, Sir Lancelot?” Nando asked. “I don’t think we can just let him get away, do you? I mean, he seems like he’ll only seek out another master to follow, one who’ll undoubtedly have the worst of intentions.”
“That’s guaranteed. However, I’ve met many sorcerers like Sinter over the centuries. There’s no need to bother looking for him. He’ll be long gone by now. That kind of man only follows those he considers stronger than him out of a sense of self-preservation. When he realized the duke’s defeat was imminent, he fled and didn’t look back, I’m certain. The cowards always do.” Sir Lancelot sat a bit taller and tilted his chin upward just enough to make himself look like the brave soldier.
“You were certainly brave, Sir Lancelot,” I said, unable to help myself. “You stood up to our enemies as if you were a hundred times your size.”
I hadn’t exactly seen him stand up to anyone, but I got my gist across, and was rewarded by a grin he struggled to subdue. After all, he hadn’t cowered, not in any serious way, and for a creature capable of being squashed by an errant footfall, it was impressive.
“Why, thank you, Lady Isa. Your compliment is kind. You’ve made me blush.” Beneath the plumes, perhaps.... “I do my best to make my mother proud. I’ve always figured she continues looking over me, bless her kind heart.”
“I’m sure she does,” I said as the reigning expert on the spirit world, at least until Albacus joined us.
“How exactly should we go about getting back to Acquaine?” Nando asked. “We have no idea where we are, but maybe Maurisse has some horses here. We could ride until we figure out the way home.”
Ah, so to Nando the Academy was home too. That made me happy.
“Can Lady Isa not portal us there?” Sir Lancelot asked. “She’s portaled before.”
“It’s out of the question. You heard what the magicians said back at the academy. Until she learns how to properly balance out her magic, it’s too dangerous. It almost killed her last time, you saw her.”
“Right you are. Forgive me, it was just that the idea of returning home sooner rather than later holds a certain grand appeal.”
“That it does,” I said, already wondering if I might be able to portal us there. I was drained, sure, but I was composing myself quickly. I’d used an incredible amount of power, and yet it hadn’t knocked me out as it had when I’d accidentally portaled. I was stronger in my magic, even if entirely by chance. I suspected I’d be able to manage portaling this time with greater ease.... “I could try it.”
“No, Isa, no,” Nando said. “You could barely stand just moments ago. It’s out of the question. We’ll find horses and we’ll make our way back. Even if it takes us days, so what? We’re alive and relatively unharmed. Considering what we went through, that’s a blessing.”
I smiled, and this time the extent of our blessings shone through. “You’re right.” I could have lost Nando, yet I hadn’t. “We’re blessed and I don’t mind a few days of travel.”
“Good. Are you ready to stand?”
“Give me just a few minutes to rest, and then I’ll be ready.”
“Take your time.”
But right then a ball of light intruded into our dungeon, swirling, growing, and sparking. I scrambled backward to get out of the way, eyes round as saucers, wondering if I was strong enough to call on my magic again already.
Nando leapt to his feet and quickly passed Sir Lancelot on to me. My brother drew his sword and bent his knees in a perfect fighter’s stance.
The ball of light expanded, seeming to consume the energy of the space.
Chapter 6
I’d seen enough of them by now to realize that someone was opening a portal to connect to this dungeon space. The light quickly expanded from a ball of energy I could hold in both hands to a swirling, spinning circle large enough for a person to walk through. I redirected my apprehension from what-the-heck-is-coming-after-us-now to concern over who would be walking through that portal.
It could be anyone, though that was unlikely. How many people could guess where we were? Besides, Maurisse had threatened our friends with our lives to get them to fall into his trap. Though he’d also said that he’d covered his portaling tracks so well that it’d take our friends at least a day to find us, if they found us at all.
It’d only been a few hours since he took us, though it felt like much longer. It probably wasn’t our friends.
I clutched Sir Lancelot to my chest and pulled my knees toward him, trying to shield him from whatever would come through. “It’s all right,” I whispered to him, though it was clear I needed soothing more than he did. “Nando won’t let anyone hurt us.”
“I know, Lady Isa,” Sir Lancelot said. “The brave Sir Nando will do all he can.” And with that he implied that whatever he managed to do might not be enough.
The sparking lights spun around the circle so rapidly that the portal suggested itself as a solid mass. The lights were so bright that they overpowered the wisp o’ light, which hovered near Sir Lancelot and me, as if it too understood enough to be cautious of whatever was about to descend upon us.
I sighed and steeled myself. I hadn’t recovered enough to call on my magic so soon, but I would if I had to. Of course I would. To protect Nando and the little owl I’d do anything.
I pinned alert eyes on the portal and took deep breaths in preparation. It seemed as if Lady Luck owed us some ease after all the terror we’d survived.
That reminded me, I was supposed to be imagining the best result. That would be Arianne’s counsel. Create with your thoughts and the images you hold in your mind. I’d even had this proven to me... but I was tired. I was so dang tired that I wanted things to be easy, without having to work for them. Was that really too much to ask?
I must have done something to reveal the nature of my thoughts, because Sir Lancelot said, “We’ll be fine, Lady Isa. Just wait and see. The magicians would never forget about us.”
Surely there was nothing forgettable about the owl. “It’s not that I think they would, but Maurisse said they wouldn’t be able to find us for at least a day.”
“And you believed him? The manipulative sorcerer who bent everyone’s ear in whichever direction he wanted?”
Well, when he put it that way....
“Almost certainly he lied to us.” But Sir Lancelot never got to finish what he was about to say.
The bright lights of the portal intensified and spun impossibly faster. With a pop and a few sparks that suggested there was nothing safe about this kind of magic, a foot stepped through the portal. My heart beat ferociously; I was certain Sir Lancelot would feel it thumping through my shirt.
A leg followed the foot, a hip, and finally a chest and a frantic expression plastered across a face that delivered immediate relief.
Nando, who’d stood in the path of anyone who’d emerge, ready to protect us, took a step back and sheathed his sword. Then he reached for the man who’d joined us in the dungeon, and clapped him on the back, showing him a new kind of familiarity. “Man, am I glad to see you,” he told Marcelo.
Every breath I’d held in tension fled my body. Marcelo had come to save us.
“Is everyone safe?” he asked right away.
“Yes,” Nando said.
“And Maurisse?”
“Gone.” That was a kind way of putting it.
“Any immediate threats?”
“None.”
“Good,” Marcelo said, finally unclenching his fists and clapping Nando on the shoulder. “Good news indeed. Now make room.”
“For what?”
“The others.”
What others?
Count Vabu walked through the portal, all alert features and blazing eyes, hands at the ready, to kill Maurisse, I presumed. He scoured the dungeon with piercing black eyes. Legend had it that vampires possessed remarkable eyesight, so it was possible he saw into the corners beyond wh
ere the light of the portal or the wisp o’ light reached. I identified the moment he concluded we were all safe because he frowned. He’d hoped to surprise Maurisse and exact his vengeance.
I couldn’t help but think he should have been relieved we were safe, not disappointed.
Clara came next. She walked through the portal looking beautiful despite hair whipped into a decent imitation of a bird’s nest. Then came Brave, who immediately scouted the dungeon space to ensure it was safe before pulling Gertrude through behind him.
Surely that was a big enough rescue party? But the portal continued to spark like fireworks.
Grand Witch Giselle strolled through the portal next as if she descended into the dungeons of evil masterminds every day. For all I knew, maybe she did. If the events of this day were anything to go by, anything was possible.
Her intelligent eyes whisked across Nando, Sir Lancelot, and me. Then on everyone who’d come through the portal before her. “Where’s Maurisse?” she asked.
Nando opened his mouth to answer, but became distracted as Trevor breezed through the portal and immediately turned to offer his wife a hand. When Delilah was through, she pulled Simon and Angelica across the portal, but no Nicholas yet.
Right away, Delilah was all business, wiping off the dust of portal travel then bringing her hands to her hips and examining Sir Lancelot and me, still huddled on the floor.
Giselle turned back on the portal and spread her arms wide. With muttered words I didn’t catch, she began to bring her hands slowly together until they met in front of her face. In precise imitation of her movements, the portal shrank. When it was little more than a handful of light, she snapped the fingers of both hands and it extinguished.
She spun around to face us again, dusting her hands off as Delilah had. “Ugh. This place is disgusting.” With no more than a lazy wave at the wisp o’ light, it quadrupled in size, throwing off enough light to reveal that she was entirely right about the state of our prison. “What is it with this man and his dungeons. Has he no more creativity than that?”
“That’s precisely what I said, Grand Witch Tillsdale,” Sir Lancelot said, wedging his way awkwardly from the place against my chest where I held him to stand on my knees, blocking my view and my face. I didn’t think the normally punctilious owl even noticed, and who could blame him? This day had been simply too much.
Giselle glanced at him. “Great minds think alike then,” she said, and I thought Sir Lancelot might faint from delight. I actually placed a hand behind him, just in case.
“Thank you, Grand Witch Tillsdale,” he crooned, but Giselle had moved on.
Hands on hips, she took control of the situation. “Why is everyone looking so happy?”
I didn’t think a single one of us looked happy.
“Where’s that ratbag Maurisse? I want to have some words with him.” From the way she said it, it was clear she wanted to have more than words with him, that she’d been looking forward to taking him down nearly as much as the vampire.
Nando looked to me, allowing me to choose how I described what happened. I hesitated, and Giselle jumped right in before I could answer her own question. “To think that fool actually believed he could hide the path of a portal from me.” She threw her head back in raucous laughter. Then she snapped her head back down abruptly, and the laughter ceased, not even a hint of it on her face. “He always did think he was the better magician of the two of us. The idiot. He believed all his minions’ groveling compliments.” She shook her head.
“Idiot,” she repeated. “So, where is he?”
I swallowed and opened my mouth. But Sir Lancelot beat me to it. “He’s dead.”
Giselle blinked at the owl. “Really?”
Everyone’s attention, including Nando’s and mine, were on the owl.
“Conclusively.”
Giselle shifted her mouth back and forth as she considered. “As little admiration as I have for the sorcerer,” she spit the word that alluded to his darkness, “I don’t deny that he has a certain level of skill. Enough, regrettably, that his death might not be as permanent as we’d hope.”
She called over her shoulder. “Enough with the long face, Vlad. You might still get your chance to kill the flea bag.”
“I would like that,” he said, serious as ever.
“No,” Nando started.
“Trust me, laddie,” Giselle said. “Maurisse has skills you’ve probably never even heard of.”
Well, that was likely. That didn’t change that he was truly and irretrievably dead.
“He’s definitely messed up in the head.” Giselle tapped her temple. “But he still possesses a certain level of intelligence, though I can’t fathom how it survived all his... diplomacy.” Her expression turned to one of disgust. It was no surprise that the witch didn’t appreciate the artificial ways of much of the elite. She’d probably tell the king as much if she ever met him, and I was kind of hoping she hadn’t, or else she was certainly on his enemy-of-the-state list.
“Yes, but—” Nando tried again.
“Just show us to his body.”
“That’s just the point, you see. There is no body.”
She blinked and took a second.
“What do you mean, there’s no body?” Clara was in the middle of asking when Giselle talked right over her. “Certainly there’s a body, even if it’s in pieces,” she said.
Nando shook his head, and Sir Lancelot cleared his throat importantly. Every head swiveled in his direction. “Lady Isadora killed Duke Maurisse, and there isn’t a speck left of him,” he announced, happy both at the news and the attention.
“That’s not... possible,” Giselle said.
And Gertrude said, “It can’t be.”
I hadn’t wanted to talk about what I’d done, but this was worse. “It’s possible, and it’s true,” I said, gathering all the strength I had to keep my voice from breaking. “I killed Maurisse, and there isn’t a piece left of him, no matter how small.”
“Trust her on that,” Sir Lancelot said. “Not even dust of the foul man remains.”
Giselle’s mouth dropped open for a quick second before she snapped it shut. Then she stared at me, and I desperately wanted to squirm as she examined me with renewed interest.
I refused to cower beneath her stare, although I realized that making me uncomfortable wasn’t her intention. There was little couth about the witch, and she apologized about none of her ways.
Looking me straight in the eye, she asked, “So he’s dead dead?”
I nodded.
“You’re one-hundred percent certain?”
“There is no way he’s coming back from what I did to him.”
Giselle stared at me for so long that sweat beaded on my forehead, even though I’d been somewhat chilled earlier. But I refused to look away. For now, my qualms about what I’d done were private, and I wasn’t sure I cared what she thought. She hadn’t been here to save us when Maurisse threatened to kill us. So who was she to criticize me now?
But I didn’t properly understand the witch, a point she made amply clear when she clapped and threw her head back in a true, genuine laugh. “So the wicked wizard is dead? How about that?” She laughed so hard that she wheezed and clutched at her stomach.
No one else laughed, but she didn’t care. She singled Count Vabu out from the crowd. “I guess you won’t get to exact your revenge after all, Vlad.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”
The vampire grumbled.
“Sinter got away,” Nando said.
Giselle’s attention snapped back to us like a hawk who’d honed in on its prey. “Sinter was here?”
“He helped Maurisse take us.”
She arched an eyebrow and told Count Vabu, “Maybe he could be the receiving party of your revenge. Surely he egged Maurisse on, that sleazy sorcerer always did aim for the worst.”
“Maybe” was all the count said.
Giselle shrugged again. “Suit yourself. Surely by now he’s in the win
d. Now, Isa. It is Isa, right?”
I nodded.
“Tell me all about it.”
I groaned inwardly. That was the very last thing I wanted to do.
“Grand Witch Tillsdale?” Nando hedged.
“Yes?”
“Would it not be better to get my sister back to the academy first? The day has been longer than any of us would like, I’m sure, and the amount of magic she used left her spent.” Nando pulled up to his full height. “I’d prefer it if she were allowed to rest before recounting what to her was a traumatic experience.”
“I see.” I had the feeling the grand witch had forgotten what it was like to be a novice witch, or what it felt like to kill someone for the first time. She did what needed to be done without apology. From her behavior since walking through that portal, I assumed that included killing when it was warranted. “Very well. My curiosity can wait until we return to Acquaine.”
“Besides it’d be good to get back to help the others,” Clara said.
“True. That Walt boy was quite injured.”
Walt. My heart squeezed at the thought of him. I wanted to be there when he woke up, assuming he did, which he’d better.
“And we left Nicholas and two ghosts to deal with all those horses.”
Giselle waved the concern away. “Albacus and Malachai are as effective as ghosts as the average magician when he’s alive, they’ll do fine.”
Even though they couldn’t interact with the physical world?
“Nicholas can handle all the horses,” Trevor said, and it was the first time I heard pride for his firstborn son in his voice. Maybe there was more to Nicholas than what I’d seen. I hoped so at least; no one liked a snotty wizard.
I gasped. “Elwin,” I mumbled until I gathered my thoughts. “Maurisse dropped him when he was flying. When he took us, Elwin wasn’t moving. Please tell me he’s all right.”