by D P Rowell
“Watch room,” Keele said with a slight nod.
“Why would they be watching students train right now?”
“No, kid. Not the Trainee Hall watch rooms, the City Watch Room.”
Ace looked at Keele blankly.
“Follow me,” she said. The frail woman turned right to a smaller hall. One which led to the inner courtyard of the castle. A place of rich grass and brick sidewalks. The night sky was black smoke covering the vast of the city.
At the other end of this courtyard stood a wall with an arched opening, which led to a large tower surrounded by many smaller towers. They jogged along the path and Ace stared at the tower ahead, wondering what their plan was.
“Keele, how do we go about doing this?” he said. “Do you have an idea if it’s George or Sebastian?”
“No idea. We’re just gonna have to do our best to catch them in a lie. The elite will pick up on it. They’re trained.” They reached a wooden door entering the tower and she stopped. “Start thinking about anything you can call them out on but be careful. We don’t know how many there are.”
Ace tilted his head. “Well, it’s a parcel, right?”
Keele nodded. “Has to be. Hard to imagine a witch having control over all the witches in the cellar.”
“Well, then, it can’t be more than one,” Ace said.
Keele shrugged. “Right. You know what I mean. Get to thinking.” She opened the door and began walking up the winding staircase. Ace trailed behind her as a thought crossed his mind.
“We don’t know how many there are?” Why would she say such a thing? He remembered Keele telling him parcels and witches usually stay away from each other, so there wouldn’t be more than one. But . . .
Grudge and Lag. And if the parcel were here, all these witches of his would be close to him.
He slowly crept up the stairs, falling behind. Thoughts wisped through his mind faster than he could control . . . The simulation room . . .
“Keele, wait,” Ace said.
She stopped and looked down at him.
He caught up to her. “During my training, you ran all my simulations, didn’t you?”
She squinted at him. “What? We don’t have time for this, kid.” She turned to walk up the stairs and stopped still like a statue. Ace knew why, for it caused him to stop as well. It all came to him at once. He was right. Keele was the one running his simulations. She was the one trying to turn him against Rio! He caught his breath and stepped back, for black dust had fallen from Keele’s clothes and spilled on the floor. Fear exploded in his heart. He looked at her, preparing to bring the Light to his hands . . . but . . . he . . . . couldn’t. His body went rigid. All his muscles tensed, and Keele eyed him darkly.
Ugh. Keele. What . . . how could you?
He thought he was actually speaking, but soon realized it was only in his head. A force invisibly squeezed him until his squirming stiffened like stone.
Keele! What’s going on? Kee—
Keele stepped forward, her arm extended toward him, and a wicked smile telling of victory. What was happening? How could she hurt him? The stone protected him, didn’t it? He couldn’t react to any of it, for the paralysis had taken every bit of his self-control. He fought it.
Groaning.
Moaning.
Clenching.
Twisting.
Turning.
The only thing he noticed was Keele’s wicked smile. He and the witch conversed in thought.
You’re a sorcerer! He said.
Keele scoffed with dark eyes. No, Ace. You are.
She pulled a hunter’s hand blaster from a pouch in her vest, aimed it at him, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Rio’s Secret
The anti-magic sun fled Keele’s barrel and hit Ace like a truck. The force smashed his back against the wall and he fell the ground. The orange light enveloped him like a fire able to burn but not kill. It ate at his energy, so he fell limp as a noodle, rolling around and crying out as, he horridly realized, a caught witch would do. His skin went pale. His mouth dried. Dark tunnels swallowed his vision. He lay flat on his back, staring at the flickering torchlight against the ceiling.
Keele leaned over, now blocking the ceiling from his line of sight, and laughed mockingly.
“Keele . . .” Ace spoke soft and frail, “how could you?”
Keele pouted at him and leaned close. “It was pretty easy once you gave us the stone, actually.”
Us? Ace thought.
She reached her hand down and grabbed him by his shirt collar. She carried him further up the stairs and through a set of double doors, dragging him behind her. She dragged him through a dark hall, then up a few more stairs which led to a trapdoor. She burst the trapdoor open to the City Watch Room and threw Ace over. He smacked down on the hardwood floor, unable to protect his fall as the anti-magic straight jacket pinned his arms to his side.
The room was a cylinder of glass, overlooking the Gathara skyline covered in a dark smoke. George and Ihana sat in hover chairs, fidgeting with holograms projecting from the large glass window. Sebastian stood behind them, running the operation, and turned when he heard the thump of Ace landing on the ground, then went to help Keele up from the trapdoor.
“I found our mole,” Keele said as Sebastian pulled her to the surface.
Ace tried to speak, but the anti-magic weakened his voice to a whisper. “She’s lying. It’s her. She’s a witch!”
“Good job, Keele!” Sebastian said. “I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find him.”
Ace noticed a horrifying thing on the hologram windows. A webcam. The kind of webcam the elite use when they need to communicate to each other in the field. Behind this webcam were Julie and Tamara Peppercorn tied up in an anti-magic cocoon just like Ace, weakened and pale. But even worse. Just in front of them stood the filthy drake himself.
“Great work, Keele!” Rio said from behind the screen. “Sebastian, I can’t express how sorry I am that I doubted you. I fell for the parcel’s deception. I failed you.”
“We’ve got him now,” Sebastian said. “That’s all that matters.”
“What of the brother?” George said as he turned to face Sebastian and Keele.
“He’s on his way to the cellar as we speak,” Keele said.
Cameron! Ace thought. No!
Sebastian turned to face Ace on the ground. His eyes dark and telling. The Interim Halder stepped slowly toward the boy, then leaned to face him eye to eye. Ace shivered.
“I have to admit, you nearly had me fooled,” Sebastian said. “Marty’s letter . . . your ‘immunity’ with the witches,” he used finger quotes, “Your so-called skill in the simulations. And, being twelve?” Sebastian chuckled lightly and buried his face in his hands in a self-loathing manner. He lifted his head again to face the boy eye to eye. “It was brilliant. You are brilliant. Using the witches in the cellar as your slaves to make them not attack you. Make you seem like you had Marty’s gift. And you almost did it. You almost infiltrated the government Marty Halder established. You almost made the first step toward bringing down the last stand against the council. But you failed. And the council failed.”
Ace tried to refute, but dizziness took him. The tunnels closed further in. He could hardly tell dream from reality. All he could utter were the faint and desperate whispers, “Keele’s the witch. Rio’s the parcel. You have the wrong guy. Save my family, please! Save my family!”
Sebastian leaned an ear to Ace, then stood. “He’s mumbling gibberish. Better get him to the cellar before the anti-magic swallows him whole.”
“But, sir,” Keele interjected, “isn’t he a bit dangerous to be kept alive?”
“Take him to the cellar for now,” Sebastian said as he turned to face Ace, “I’ve got a special punishment for this parcel.”
The rest of their conversation drifted to mumbling and babbling as Ace’s consciousness began to slip from him. But one thought passed through his
mind before the tunnels closed. A thought which likely triggered his passing to darkness. For the truth of it weighed on him as hopelessness and failure. All was lost.
Rio is the parcel. And I gave him the Emerson Stone.
BOOK ONE END
BOOK TWO
THE LAND OF FAES
COMING SOON
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