When that inquiry proved a dead end, Rachel searched the same journals for the term masterword. She found hundreds of references, at least seventy-six of which also mentioned bindings. Unsure how to proceed, she gazed out the window, dreaming of bravery, of sacrifice, or of Gaius.
By the fourth Thursday of the school year, two weeks after the meeting with Von Dread, she had mentally reread each of her grandfather’s journals three times. If he had written down the masterword to the binding holding Azrael, Rachel feared it had not been in one of the volumes he left in his tower library.
Maybe Nastasia was right.
Maybe there was nothing they could do to help.
• • •
Her next class was true history. Mr. Gideon gave a fascinating lecture on the origins of the Seven Arts. Rachel listened raptly, until he began explaining for the third time—for the benefit of those who still had not grasped it—that alchemy came from ancient China, while enchantment came from Scandinavia, where it had been taught to humans by the elves. Rachel who, by the age of four, had been able to recite from what part of the world each of the Seven Arts came, again found it impossible to pay attention.
Bored, her thoughts drifted to her friends and their romances. Siggy and Valerie seemed to be doing well. Joy mooned after Sigfried in an embarrassing way. Lots of boys stared at the astonishingly lovely Nastasia, but she did not seem to notice. Watching the princess’s obliviousness reminded Rachel of her fortress notion. As she pictured the princess and Von Dread standing side-by-side, like twin icebergs, it occurred to her that she herself might have a great deal to offer a prince.
After all, the Griffins were of noble blood—noble enough for her family to be of interest to Ivan, Prince of Magical Australia. How useful it might be for a head of state to have a wife who could mingle graciously at some formal affair and then repeat back to him every word of every nobleman and diplomat she passed. True, she was very young, but Von Dread seemed like the calculating type who might decide a young girl had qualities he desired in a wife and choose to wait for her.
As she gazed out over the commons, she pictured him standing with his arms folded, curtly informing her that he had decided to make her his wife. In her daydream, she gazed back at him coolly, explaining that she preferred his lieutenant, Mr. Valiant. She pictured Dread staring down at her, his face impassive. He leaned toward her, lifted her chin, and kissed her. His mouth claimed hers. His lips left a trail of fire down her cheek and throat. His arm supported her back. His other hand slid around her front, caressing her…
Rachel made a tiny noise of alarm.
Where had that come from?
She pressed her palms against the heat of her flushed face. Never in her life had she imagined such things! She certainly did not want to imagine them between her and Dread! She tried to picture Gaius embracing her in such a fashion. This only made her more uncomfortable.
She was not ready for that.
She did not even want to think about it.
Straightening up, Rachel returned her attention to Mr. Gideon’s description of how conjuring was discovered by the natives of Australia and New Zealand.
From now on, she promised herself, no daydreaming about anyone but Gaius!
• • •
Checking her mail after lunch, Rachel found three letters and a package. The first letter was from her father. Rachel’s fingers trembled as she opened it. She had heard from her mother regularly, but this was the first written correspondence from her father. She hoped it might be news of an impending engagement between Ivan and Laurel but feared it would contain a command to break things off with her boyfriend.
There was no mention of Gaius, or of Ivan and Laurel. Instead, the letter contained a brief denial of her request for a wand, explaining that fulgurator’s wands were only needed for dueling. He went on to say that she would, upon graduation, receive a ring of mastery, in which spells could be stored. For now, however, she should concentrate on practicing these spells, not storing them.
Sighing, Rachel quickly tossed off a reply explaining that she understood that wands were for duelists and that she had joined a dueling club. It seemed unfair that Sigfried now had a wand—picked out by her—but she did not. She wondered if Siggy would lend her the money to buy one but decided against asking him after she remembered how Lucky had named each of their coins. Besides, how could she pay him back?
The other two letters were from her sister Sandra. Both were dated well before they had been posted. The first read:
Dear Rachel,
It is so nice to hear from you. I was worried when Father told me your friends had been attacked. PLEASE be careful. If you see something strange, tell a tutor.
I am doing well. I have been working for the Wisecraft, doing some financial research. It is extremely boring. I wish I had worked on more interesting subjects when I selected college courses! Remember my words, little sister!
As to your second question…Are you kissing petrified boys? Are boys petrifying and kissing you?? I am not sure either is a good idea, but the second sounds rather inappropriate. I think if you kissed a petrified boy, on purpose, then yes, it does count. I wouldn’t count a kiss stolen while I was petrified, though.
If you are kissing a boy, I should be informed of who it is! Also, you may want to avoid telling Father about kissing anyone. Just a suggestion.
Much love,
Sandra
As she read the first part of the letter, a lump formed in Rachel’s throat. She tried to swallow it away but failed. She felt terrible for her sister. Bright, quick-minded Sandra stuck behind a desk bored to tears? So unfair! Her sister was so talented, so clever!
Rachel comforted herself with the thought that Sandra would not stay behind a desk for long. The Wisecraft would recognize her talents and promote her any day now.
The second was short and looked as if it had been rapidly scrawled.
Dear Rachel,
Father and I just left the Wisecraft building in New York, after being stuck inside for six days. It was not a pleasant experience at all. I have spoken with Father, and I would like to come visit you, if you would not mind. I will not, though, if you think a visit from your big sister would be embarrassing.
Please let me know.
Much love,
Sandra
Rachel gawked. Sandra and Father had been caught in the lockdown? No wonder she had not heard from Father sooner. By the time he was released from the Wisecraft Building, he had probably forgotten all about unimportant things, such as his youngest daughter’s new boyfriend.
What had Father and Sandra been doing in New York? Had they been in terrible danger? Rachel took several deep breaths, assuring herself that they were okay. Then, she wrote:
Dear Sandra,
I would LOVE to have you visit. How could you even imagine that I wouldn’t want to see you and introduce you to my friends?
Love,
Rachel
PS: Unless you’re coming to yell about my boyfriend, in which case it’s okay if you don’t.
Rachel marked the letters with her post seal and slipped them in the outgoing mail slot. Then, she opened the package. Inside were the first of the calling cards she had ordered for Sigfried—six green talking glasses with gilt frames. An enclosed note explained that the second six of the dozen ordered would arrive two per week for the next six weeks. Squealing with delight, she ran off in search of Sigfried.
• • •
After class, Rachel and her friends gathered in the music room, in the cellar of Dare Hall. Sigfried handed out mirrors to Nastasia, Valerie, Zoë, Joy, and Rachel. An instruction pamphlet, written in six languages, included the cantrip for bonding card to owner. The group performed this cantrip and then tried calling one another. When a name was spoken, the green glass turned clear. It then showed an image of whatever was in front of the card of the person called.
Their group sat on the left side of the music room, in the comfy armchairs tha
t formed a semi-circle in front of the large hearth. The fire had been dead when they arrived, but Lucky breathed it back to life. Now, the sweet smell of burning cedar perfumed the air.
Behind them, on the stage in the middle of the vast chamber, musicians practiced. The band, known as the Ginger Snaps, consisted mainly of a bevy of red-headed MacDannans, along with their cousins and a few friends. The impish Oonagh MacDannan alternated between directing the group and playing her tuba. Rachel wondered if Oonagh planned to become a rock star, like her father. A number of Enchanters had become sensations in the Unwary world, but she had never heard of a popular mundane musician who played the tuba.
Glancing that way, Rachel could not help noticing that one of the musicians was John Darling. On the outside, she smiled and chatted with her friends, playing with her new calling card. Inside, she seethed. Since that beastly boy had humiliated her in the dining hall, her long-standing crush had turned into hatred. Part of her mind listened to her friends. The other part plotted and re-plotted young Mr. Darling’s abject humiliation.
Joy sat curled up in a comfy armchair holding her card. “Nastasia. Oh! I can see you!”
Rachel said the princess’s name and could see Nastasia in her mirror as well. The calling cards allowed for conference calls.
Joy bounced up and down. “So…what should I ask? I know! Have any visions lately?”
Nastasia sat regally on a wooden rocking chair, her Tasmanian tiger resting its head in her lap. She addressed her card. Her voice issued from the card in Rachel’s hand, as well as from Joy’s card.
“Not visions such as the one that predicted the death of Mr. Von Dread and his cronies,” said Nastasia, “but I now believe that our roommate, Astrid Hollywell, is from the same world as William Locke, and Naomi Coils. The first time I touched each of them I saw the same event, though from different perspectives—a scientific experiment gone awry. An explosion in the middle of what looked like a sideways tornado. Miss Hollywell thought it might be something called a wormhole.”
“Wow!” Rachel and Joy murmured.
Siggy scowled. “Wish I could see that. Collisions. Super-explosions! Wicked!”
“Other than that,” Nastasia spoke with the mirror close to her face; her blue eyes looked huge in the square of Rachel’s card, “my only adventure has been that I spoke to Kitten’s familiar. I asked him to visit the girls whose families died and those harmed by Dr. Mordeau.”
“What a fantastic idea!” Rachel cried. To her embarrassment, she had to fight down a burst of envy. She wished she had been the one to think of that. “Do you think it helped?”
“He came to see me.” Valerie experimented with speaking into her card. She held it so far away that it did not pick up her voice properly. “He did not speak. But I held him, and he purred. It was very comforting! Like one of those vibrating pillows that smell like pine needles my grandmother used to have…only comfier.”
“He truly is a Comfort Lion,” murmured Rachel.
“He helped my girlfriend? Good,” Siggy made a grand gesture. “I’ll spare him!”
“Spare him from what?” Valerie’s lips twitched with amusement.
“From being my dragon’s lunch, of course,” Siggy replied. “Lucky! Next time you go feral, eat some other familiar. Not the tiny lion.”
“You got it, Boss.”
Valerie sat on the blue and purple braided rag rug playing with the lenses for her camera. Raising her card, she spoke into it: “Okay, next question. Princess, have you seen those red lines in any new visions? The ones that made you bleed when they pressed against you?”
“No. The E…” Nastasia paused mid-word. She looked tremendously distressed. A dark, petulant storm brooded upon her features. “No. I haven’t. Excuse me.” She shut the textbook that had been open in her lap, picked it up, and quietly left the room.
“Wait! Princess! Where are you going?” Joy looked after her, puzzled. “Can I come?”
The princess looked flustered. “I plan to…use the facilities.”
Joy perked up. “Girls go to the bathroom in pairs. My father says it’s a law of nature.”
The princess’s face grew pink. “Please, do not disturb yourself.” She departed.
“These walky-talky mirrors are wicked!” Sigfried exclaimed. He hung upside down off his chair, making kissy-faces at Valerie through the calling card. Valerie smirked back at him. “No payment plan. No battery to run out. Even better than the cell phones of the Unscary!”
“Unwary! The word is Unwary! By Hecate, can’t you remember anything?” Joy waved her arms in exasperation. Rising to her feet, she stomped off, slamming the door on her way up the stairs. This noise caused the musicians across the room to jump.
“Well, I am not scared of them, so to me they are Unscary…” said Siggy, throwing a brown apple core he brought out from the pocket of his robe to Lucky, who swallowed it in a single gulp. How long the apple core had been in his pocket was anyone’s guess.
Rachel and Valerie watched Joy depart. They glanced at each other and shrugged.
Zoë sat sideways with her feet on the armchair next to her, feeding bits of beef jerky to her quoll. Her head tilted back, she held her calling card above her and spoke into it, addressing Sigfried, who looked at her in his own card. “Sigfried, you need to talk to Joy. She’s got to get over her crush on you. Otherwise she’ll constantly be getting annoyed and stomping away.”
“Are you daft?” Siggy gawked at Zoë as if she had sprouted a second head while singing God Save the Queen. “You don’t walk up to a girl and say, ‘Don’t have a crush on me, please.’”
A muffled choking noise escaped Rachel’s lips. The mere thought of a boy she fancied confronting her thus, especially if he did not return her affections, sent her into a cold sweat. She snuck a super-quick glance over at the horrid James Darling and blanched.
Zoë raised her voice to be heard over the oom-pah of the tuba. “It’s true. You’re a doofus and will probably hurt her feelings, Siggy. I’ll speak to her, if you want.”
“No, no, talking is no good.” Sigfried stroked his chin, as if pondering deeply, while gazing into his calling card. “I know what you’re thinking. You think I should ask Valerie,” he gestured at his girlfriend. “to go pull her hair, slam her head into a table top, and grind a lit cigarette into her ear? That’s what the older girls did in their dorm at Sister Rahab’s Home For Unwanted Tramps, when they had an argument over a boyfriend.”
“Sister Rahab’s…” Zoë blinked.
Siggy shrugged. “Rahab was the sister institution to Brother Dismas’s Asylum For The Criminally-Inclined And Mentally Meager Waifs And Foundlings, where I grew up. Both were facilities run by the Nuns of Hestia—there wasn’t any Brother around, Dismal or otherwise. Sometimes, on Punishment Day, the two establishments would have assembly together.”
The girls all stared at him, not sure how much of his ravings they should take seriously.
“I do not mean to disappoint you, Zoë,” Siggy continued, “but I must say it is a bad idea. Two reasons. First, Miss Hunt, here, has been in the infirmary, so it might not be a fair fight. Second, Miss O’Keefe’s a member of the Fire-breathing Tutor Hunting and Vigilante Retaliation Club—or whatever we call ourselves. A fight between members might hurt group spirit.
“No, no, talking is no good in a case like this, nor is fighting. I shall ponder this. I shall ponder it and ponder it until my ponderer is sore!” Sigfried ate a linty pancake from his pocket. “I know! An elixir!”
“A…what?” Zoë squawked, spinning so that she sat upright in her armchair.
“Alchemy can solve all problems!” Siggy still spoke into his mirror. “Either I can drink some semi-lethal concoction to give myself a loathsome smell. Or better yet, I can concoct an elixir to alter the delicate chemical balance of Miss O’Keefe’s brain, so she doesn’t have extra love-juice, or whatever it is that causes girls to be so girly. Is there a textbook around here somewhere I could look
at? I will talk with my hero and mentor, Mr. Fisher. I am sure he knows the elements involved in altering a victim’s brain structure and basic personality…” A look of hungry scientific zeal was beginning to form on Sigfried’s features.
“Love-juice?” Valerie poked Sigfried in the ribs. “Siggy, you’re too much!”
“You’re a girl, Miss Hunt.” He asked, in a mock-scholarly tone, “What’s the active chemical involved?”
“Zoë, Joy knows Siggy is my boyfriend,” Valerie replied firmly.
“But we aren’t ruling out the emotion-distortion elixir as Plan B, are we?” Sigfried asked. “I’ve already made up a name: Dragonsmith’s Patented Crush Crusher.” Turning to Rachel, he announced, “When I graduate, I have decided that Smith’s and Lucky’s is not the best name for an alchemy shop. I’ll call it Dragonsmith’s—which will also be the name of my rock band.”
“Sigfried, are you even slightly capable of being serious?” Zoë rolled her eyes. “Joy’s my roommate and my friend. No, you cannot use an elixir on her. Yes, Dragonsmith’s is a good shop name. Now focus. How are you going to deal with this situation?”
“I’ll talk to her,” Valerie tossed a pencil into the air and caught it, spinning it around her fingers until she ended up with it grasped firmly in her hand, as if she were wielding a knife by its hilt. “When I am done, matters will be very clear.”
Sigfried meanwhile looked at Zoë, as if she were from another planet, and not an earth-like planet around a G-type star, either. “Miss Forrest, the idea of talking to her is cuckoo, crazytown, nutso-riffic, bonker-maniacal, super-goofisonic. If that is the way you Wiselings do things, you are stone-cold freakazoids. And not just because you can shoot sparky-sparks while wiggling your fingers.
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 33