by Lucia Ashta
The Clara that looked on the fire now wasn’t the one that unconditionally loved it, accepting every part of it as perfect. And so, without my guidance, it had reverted to instinct, to what it was made to do.
It would consume the study and everything in it. It would then grow to encompass the whole castle. It would even burn the merpeople’s water dominion beneath the castle. It would find a way to spread to the surrounding forest, burning as it descended the steep mountain.
From my shocked stupor, I saw Albacus arrive seconds before his brother. They appeared out of nowhere next to Marcelo, on the other side of the room from me. They were yelling, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The roar blocked out every other sound, making it a sensory experience unlike any other.
The flames were painting the plastered walls an undulating orange, yellow, red, and blue. I felt the heat with every pore across my body, my skin breathing in the essence of fire like an exotic perfume.
It shook me until I experienced nothing but the fire. I knew already that if I touched the flames I’d feel them and learn how little heat it took to char human skin. If I opened my mouth, I’d taste fire, the exquisite smoky scent carrying on the air until it landed and settled on my tongue.
The brothers spared me only a brief glance. They didn’t need more to take in what had happened. Not even Marcelo looked at me any longer, and Sir Lancelot had forgotten all about me in his chaotic laps around the room.
The brothers flung their arms wide and emitted bursts of light, waves of magic meant to shock whatever they hit into submission. The blue light hit the fire and then circled around, covering every single flicking flame, until all was covered.
It worked.
At least, it appeared to work at first.
The brothers’ power tamed the fire, and the flames began to die down. They retreated. They cowered.
But I knew the fire wasn’t finished yet.
Even if I couldn’t control it, it was still a part of me. It didn’t matter whether I denied it or even that I wasn’t able to find its roots within me in that moment.
I held my breath, and I waited.
I watched.
Across the way, I locked eyes with Marcelo. He seemed to understand. Warily, he tensed and stared at what appeared to be the dying fire.
The fire seemed ready to go to death peacefully. It was deceiving.
It had only sucked in breath. And it wasn’t the breath of the dying. It was the breath of the strong, of the living, staking its claim in this world.
The fire roared back as strongly as it had burned before. And it was the first time—but it wouldn’t be the last—that I saw terror shadow Mordecai’s eyes. It lasted only a moment, but I saw it before he pushed it down and hid it deep within.
I understood what it meant. The brothers, with their advanced magic, didn’t know how to contain the fire either.
Did that mean we’d all die here, a terrible end to an advanced experiment the initiate was unprepared for? Or would the brothers leave as they’d come? Would they be able to take Marcelo and Sir Lancelot with them? Would they be able to take me?
While I panicked, the magicians across the expanse of increasingly diminishing safe space were deep in staccato bursts of conversation. Whatever their decision, they made it, and all three of them stepped toward me. Their movements were fast. There was no time to waste now.
Once they reached me, their voices sounded foreign against the roar of the fire.
“It’s only you who can control the fire,” Mordecai said, talking fast.
“But I can’t! I’ve tried,” I said, devastated at the news.
“You can, and you must, or we’ll all die,” Albacus said.
None of us would be able to leave this inferno, with or without magic. How could that be? How could this be the end for us?
They stood in a circle around me. Albacus and Mordecai flanked me, holding each of my hands. They connected to Marcelo across from me, and the circle was complete.
“We know you can do this,” Albacus said. “You have it in you. You’re a powerful magician. Step into that power and find the way.”
I stared back at the old man. He loomed next to me, big, powerful, strong, and I believed him.
“Do it now,” Marcelo said. It was the image of his bright blue eyes, glowing with resolve, that I took with me into the space inside of me, where the fire had sprung from, and to which I must make it return.
Chapter 22
I did it!
I was somewhat shocked that I’d been able to return the fire to its source inside me, but I had. Once I decided the place where it had lived was welcoming, I knew—I really knew—that I could do it.
I was the one who prevented my magic from controlling the fire after I’d let it loose. It was the part of me that flickered and climbed and burned and roared along with the fire that didn’t want to go back to a secret place where no one suspected it existed.
But the fire wouldn’t be a secret anymore. I proved it lived within me.
I’d never ignore it again.
It was my magic.
I was a witch. No matter what ran through the Count and Countess of Norland’s veins, I was distinct from them. I didn’t know what they were, but I knew what I was.
Behind closed eyes, I’d reined in the fire. It obeyed happily, content once more to do its mistress’ bidding.
The flames slid down the walls of charred and peeling plaster, slunk back across the edges of the floor, piecing themselves together, loyal to every one of its parts, and entered me in a reverse scenario of their release.
A ringing silence was all that was left.
With sparkling eyes, I looked at the three magicians who encircled me. The panicked witch had burned off like the dross of the fire. The empowered witch these three magicians needed was what remained.
The miniature owl ceased his flying, descending to my shoulder in the exhaustion that follows panic. But even in his tiredness, he looked dignified, standing with a magician and her newfound power.
I looked deeply into three pairs of eyes with a head held high. I sunk my elf shoes heavily onto the stone ground.
I was here, and I was here to stay.
Chapter 23
“Well, I’ll be…” Albacus said.
Mordecai said nothing, passing up a rare opportunity to tell his brother he’d been right and Albacus wrong. I was a witch of incredible power. It hadn’t been the runes, but Mordecai’s own wizard sense, that made him certain of it.
Now it had transformed into an undeniable truth.
Marcelo stared at me. They all stared at me.
This time, I didn’t shy away from them.
“I didn’t imagine that you’d be able to create fire on your own. I was wholly unprepared for what happened,” Marcelo said.
“What do you mean? You told me to do it. You told me to create fire on my own, without drawing on already visible fire to do it.”
“Yes, I did. But I didn’t think you’d actually be able to do it.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because I can’t do what you did.”
“What? You asked me to do something that you can’t do?”
“Yes, I did, because I wondered if perhaps you could. And you can.”
“That much is quite clear,” said Sir Lancelot, his feathers still ruffled from fright. He smoothed them down with his beak, craning his neck at inhuman angles.
I surveyed the damage to the study. It was awful. Plaster was already falling in big, charred chunks to the floor, where it broke further. The stone floor and ceiling were scarred with black, but otherwise undamaged. Still, it wasn’t the structure of the study that concerned me the most; I imagined the brothers could repair it.
It was all the rest of it that I regretted more. The bookcases that lined the study walls, ordinarily cramped with books and a variety of magical odds and ends, were a poor sight. The books were burned beyond repair, some disintegrated entirely into
ashes, others charred so that the words spelled out with so much care and attention over centuries were lost to illegibility.
I didn’t think any of this could be repaired. There were too many individual objects to go through. “I’m so sorry,” I told the brothers. “I didn’t know this would happen.” Anger flared within me that Marcelo would allow me to cause all this harm. Why did he tell me to create fire for the first time inside a study cramped with flammable parchments?
“Can you fix it?” I asked the three magicians in front of me.
For the first time, Albacus and Mordecai looked around. While I’d surveyed the damage, they’d studied me. Now they took in what had happened to their home.
Albacus spoke first. “We can repair a lot of it. The walls and the ceiling and floor are easy enough. We can right the bookshelves; we should be able to help the wood return to its natural state.”
“It’s the books and magical objects that will be more difficult,” Mordecai said. “We’ll only be able to fix those which want to work with us. I’d imagine some magical books and enchanted objects will be gone forever.”
My heart sunk at the ruefulness I heard in his voice. “I’m so very sorry. I truly am.”
“Child, don’t concern yourself with it at all,” Albacus said convincingly. “It’s much more important that you learn magic than we preserve the many belongings that pertain to this household. Books won’t save our lives.”
“Perhaps we should all study together though. In case we’re needed again. If we’d arrived sooner, we might have been able to prevent some of the damage,” Mordecai said.
“I don’t think it would have made much of a difference, brother. Did you not notice that our efforts were insufficient to rein in the fire? Only the girl was able to.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right,” Mordecai said, begrudging the admission. “I still think it would be a good idea if we were all together. Who knows what will happen when she tries to create any of the other elements?”
A wave of anxiety rushed through me so quickly that it was gone before I could send it away.
“Then we shall all work in our study, don’t you think, Mordecai?” Albacus said.
“I think we must. There’s work that we can only do there. We’re all set up for it.”
“No time to waste then,” Albacus said and turned to go, expecting Marcelo and I to follow him.
“Aren’t you going to fix some of the damage to this room?” I asked the brothers’ backs.
Neither of them paused or turned. “Child, there are more pressing things to take care of now. The room will be here when we return to it,” Albacus said.
Mordecai said nothing, but I noticed that he swooped down to pick up the silver brush Marcelo used to summon them to the study. He gave it a longing look and then put it within the folds of his robe.
There was nothing for me to grab from the study. I kept nothing of mine in there to begin with.
All too mindful of the perils the castle concealed, I fell into step with Marcelo. Sir Lancelot clutched my shoulder.
Chapter 24
This time Sylvia didn’t startle when we entered the brothers’ studio. She was again perched in the alcove above the entryway. Her tail hung casually down so that we had to dodge it. I got a close look at it for a few seconds, enough to admire its stunning opalescence. I turned my gaze up toward her head as soon as we entered. Her half open eyes sparked in recognition, but she didn’t move otherwise.
Little else was the same in the study as I’d seen it last. The brothers had even moved some of the large furniture to make space for whatever it was they were working on in the middle of the room.
I couldn’t tell what they were doing exactly. There were scrap parts of everything—metal, wood, stone, cloth, glass, porcelain, leather—strewn across the large rug that covered the floor in the center of the room. The objects had no apparent order to them or any obvious link between them.
The gargoyles I’d seen the brothers begin to animate lined up on one edge of the rug, in a neat row, equidistant from one another. They all crouched in the same position, legs drawn up, their knees bordering monstrous faces.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Albacus said, and the gargoyles began to move, unfurling from their compressed positions.
“And lady!” said one of the gargoyles. I looked to the gargoyles, searching for the one that had corrected Albacus.
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize there was a lady among you.”
“Well, next time look more carefully. It’s obvious that I’m a lady.”
I was looking straight at the female gargoyle now, examining her very carefully, and I noticed nothing that distinguished her from the others.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, madam,” Albacus said, appeasing her.
“Friends,” Mordecai began, “it’s time to practice your flight. We may call on you to fly out to meet our enemy, and you’ve never used your wings before.”
A bustle of excitement ran through the gargoyles. They’d dutifully manned their stations in the castle for over a thousand years. Only once before had one of the magicians animated them, and then it was only for a brief stint of folly. Now, not only were the brothers calling on them to defend the castle, but they were also giving them license to fly.
I had to smile at the obvious enthusiasm that rustled through the creatures. But how would they fly? None of them had wings that I could find and, besides, they were carved from stone.
I watched in amazement, as the gargoyles stretched hidden wings. Spread out fully, their wings were as wide as Sylvia’s, although the gargoyles were much smaller than the firedrake.
One of the creatures fully elongated his wings, fascinated with them, and knocked over the neighbors to either side of him. For a moment, it appeared that all the gargoyles would collapse as the ones next to those that had fallen teeter-tottered before managing to right themselves.
Shouts of “Hey, watch yourself!” and “Pay attention, Narvelle!” came up and down the line of gargoyles. But Narvelle seemed not the least disturbed by the havoc he’d caused. The look on his monstrous face was triumphant, transforming his purposefully gruesome features into friendly ones.
The gargoyles’ lack of coordination on a stable floor convinced me that they’d find flight extremely difficult.
“Are you certain they can do this?” I asked the brothers.
“Of course we can,” responded two of the gargoyles at once.
“We’re sworn defenders of the castle,” said the lady. “We’ll guard it, and those within it, to our deaths.”
Mordecai spoke before I wondered for long whether the animated gargoyles could actually die. “You’ll need to pull your wings in as you squeeze through the window. It’ll be a tight fit, but you’ll make it.”
Mordecai snapped his fingers and the window opposite the entrance flung itself wide open. “Sylvia will show you how.
“Sylvia, please fly out the window and back so our gargoyle friends see how it’s done.” Her obedience was immediate. She uncurled her body from her post, drew her wings wide, and flew above our heads. She gained incredible speed in a short distance. By the time she reached the window, she whipped through it, aiming her head forward and pulling her wings close to her body. Like a cannon ball, she launched through the window.
She spread out her wings and pulled her legs up. She turned and banked in the sky with obvious skill. The iridescence of her wings reflected the early morning sun, catching its rays with each turn of her body. Her tail trailed long behind her. She was a magnificent creature.
“Thank you, Sylvia. Now please return,” Mordecai said so softly that I wasn’t certain Sylvia would hear him.
The creature had impeccable hearing as well. She turned toward the castle the moment Mordecai spoke. She pumped her wings, gaining forward momentum, and then rocketed back through the window, her wings again tight to her body.
It appeared that the tricky part for Sylvi
a wasn’t getting through the window, but coming to a stop in a short distance after. The second she was inside, she spread her wings as wide as they’d go and pumped them up and down until she managed to slow herself. When she safely hovered, she flew back to the alcove and settled into her watchful position.
“Thank you, Sylvia. That was a fine example of flying,” Mordecai told her, and she delighted, every feature of her firedrake face content at her master’s compliment.
“All right, lady and gentlemen,” Albacus said. “It’s time for you to try.”
The gargoyles got up and bumbled through a few minor arguments about which would go first, and there were also a few incidents of lack of coordination—after all, they hadn’t used their legs in centuries. But they brought order to their ranks on their own.
It took a few minutes for the sixteen gargoyles to make it out the window. Only one of them crashed into the window frame before falling heavily on the floor of the study. But even he managed to squeeze through the window on his second try.
The first several gargoyles cleared the window, only to immediately plummet toward the ground. However, they found their wings before they hit the cobblestones of the courtyard below, and they flew back up within sight.
The remaining gargoyles benefited from the confidence of the others. The takeoffs became smoother.
Soon, all the gargoyles were gone, roaming the castle grounds. If anyone were watching the mountaintop of Irele, they would see sixteen peculiar birds flapping their wings up and down ungracefully.
“Sylvia, please fly with them and let us know if anything happens.” The firedrake heeded Mordecai immediately. She flew out into the vast sky, infinitely more graceful than those she sought to follow.