“I still want to try to do this.” To be honest, I didn’t know where this inquiry would lead. If it turned out that everyone was right about my mother, I wanted to find out on my own terms, and I wanted to control the way the Council discovered the secrets my mother had died to protect. “Everything else says she got the idea from the beginning. ‘If you want to find the truth, look to the beginning.’ I don’t understand that. The beginning of what?”
“Probably the beginning of her study. Your family might know more,” Alex said.
“It says the key to making the talismans from a sustainable source is found at the beginning. It also says that’s where she’s hidden her magic. What the fuck does that mean? Have I not jumped through enough hoops for her?”
Nicole moved from the table to sit next to me on the bed. “It’s okay, you’ll figure it out. It’s just going to take time. Think of it as an epic quest line. We’re not in the starting area anymore.”
I laughed at the comparison to Wizards and Fae. Nicole was right; patience had never been a strong point of mine. “I don’t have time to be patient. I need to figure this out by tomorrow, otherwise I might not get another opportunity.”
I refocused on the task at hand and split the notes up into two distinct piles. One set of notes outlined her thoughts on creating talismans while the other was concerned with where she had hidden the talismans she created. “So what do you think is more important, finding out how she made the talismans or finding where she hid them?”
“Well, if someone knew how to make a talisman, then it wouldn’t really matter where she hid the other ones—you could just make more,” Nicole said.
“Good point. I wish she’d given us more information about what the source is. Maybe she found a source of magic on Earth, and that would explain why she spent so much time here. There’s no other reason for it. I’m sure there are places in Elustria where she could’ve hidden.”
“She couldn’t have hidden out for long,” Millhook said. “The Council would’ve been down her neck wherever she was.”
“Well, hiding out on Earth didn’t help her at all. The Council followed her here as easily as they would’ve followed her anywhere in Elustria. That makes me think the source has to be somewhere on Earth.”
“Maybe it is,” Alex said. “There are certain things on Earth that are supernatural that we don’t have in Elustria, like vampires.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think vampires are exactly magical. When I was with Casper, he seemed to believe vampirism was caused by a virus that spread through blood contact.”
“Okay, but there’ve been magical myths and legends throughout human history,” Alex said.
“You mean like angels and fairies and stuff?”
“Nah, all that stuff comes from Elustria,” Millhook said. “Angels and fairies come through from Elustria. I don’t know what the hell a vampire is, but that other stuff, that’s all Elustrian in origin.”
“I gotta get out of here, clear my head.” I set down the pages I held. “We’ve read through all of this, and I need time to process it all.”
“Then we’ll all go,” Alex said as he stood from the bed.
“Honestly, I should be alone right now.” I could see the hurt in his eyes, but he didn’t let it seep into his tone.
“Fine, but at least take Millhook so he can port you if something happens.”
“All right. Come on, Millhook.”
“Sure, that’s what I am, a taxi service for mages in trouble.” Despite his protests, he started toward the door.
“Hey, maybe you can ask the Council for payment when we get back,” I suggested.
“They’re too cheap to pay me well on the jobs they do hire me for. I won’t see so much as a gold speck for all this, but I do it anyway.”
“Of course you do, because you’re a giant softy.”
“Only when it comes to protecting fools who are too foolish to protect themselves.”
I looked back to Alex and Nicole. “I won’t be gone long. I just need to get out of this room.”
Out on the street, I looked around, deciding whether to go right or left, and remembered the line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn’t care where I was going, so it didn’t matter which way I went. I took a left and tried to enjoy the scenery of Vienna. This was not how I’d expected my first experience of Europe to be.
Surprisingly, Millhook kept quiet, allowing me time alone with my thoughts. I didn’t see how I could figure anything out from what my mother had written. At this point, I admitted that I was staying more out of dread of facing the Council. I also didn’t relish what leaving would mean for my friendship with Nicole. When I got back to the hotel, I had to be ready to say goodbye to her and accept my future at the Council’s hands.
Chapter 27
Walking through Vienna, I lost all track of time. It was so easy to believe that by walking I could leave it all behind. As long as I was away from Alex and Nicole, I could pretend that none of this was happening.
With a start, I realized I had no idea where we were.
“Millhook, do you think you can find the way back?”
“Of course I can.”
“We better start heading that way. Alex and Nicole will get worried soon.”
“Oh, I think they’ve been worried this whole time, but I take your meaning.”
We turned around and started back the way we had come. Having figured out nothing on my walk, I dreaded returning. There was little chance I’d be able to come up with anything before tomorrow. Perhaps Alex was right, and it was time to return. I was only delaying the inevitable.
After a few blocks, a familiar face caught my eye on the other side of the street. Analise from the Armory was walking down the sidewalk toward me. I tingled all over as panic set in. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to get a hold of myself. I’d been going nonstop with little rest. It was entirely possible I was seeing things.
When I opened my eyes again, she was nowhere to be found, but I saw a girl with similar features where Analise would’ve been.
“What’s wrong?” Millhook asked.
I continued to watch the girl as she walked past us. “It’s nothing. I thought I saw someone I know. Can we take the long way back?”
“Sure.”
I thought about asking Millhook to port us, but that was an overreaction. Two people magically disappearing would bring too much attention. I was being paranoid, nothing more. Besides, it was becoming increasingly apparent that we needed to return to Elustria. I had every intention of telling Alex it was time to leave as soon as we got back to the hotel. We would need Millhook to have all his energy to create a portal and adjust Nicole’s memory.
Millhook had a superior inner compass to anyone I’d ever met. He expertly navigated us around the city as if he’d been raised there. I took my time absorbing the sights of the city knowing I would leave it soon. I never saw Analise again, but I was glad for the false alarm. It allowed me to see more of the city I might never revisit. Sure there were plenty of places to explore in Elustria, but I’d miss all the parts of Earth that I had planned to see someday.
As I turned the corner to follow Millhook into an empty alleyway, Sibelius appeared in front of me, cutting me off from Millhook.
“How fortuitous to run into you like this,” Sibelius said. “I wondered if you might have thought of any more questions for me. Perhaps you want to reconsider searching for the talismans with me.”
I clasped my talisman in my hand and took a step backward. Sibelius bound Millhook with a spell that froze him in place.
My mind raced. What was the right thing to do? My instinct was to run and scream or fight him. Neither option seemed wise. The same fevered madness consumed his eyes. The safest choice would be to play along, lull him into a sense of security so I could make my move.
“Actually, I do have a question for you. My mother’s notes mention the source repeatedly, but I have no idea what she’s talkin
g about, do you?”
A wicked smile curved Sibelius’s lips and a menacing gleam entered his eyes. “Oh yes, the source. I was surprised you hadn’t figured that out yet, given everything you know. You have all the pieces, all you have to do is assemble them. A pity your mother’s intelligence didn’t pass down to you. I suppose you took after your foolish father in that regard. Have you figured it out yet?”
My mind went through all the possibilities we had discussed at the hotel, but nothing he said made one of them seem more likely.
“Dear old Marty. Meglana wanted to be more powerful than a sorceress. The natural conclusion was to steal their magic, bottle it up for our use. It’s your father’s magic that possesses the talisman you wear. The amber was my idea. Amber retains memory. I postulated that by using it, the memory of the source might confer to the mage. I’m curious to find out if it worked.”
He paused, expecting an answer from me, but I was too confused to answer. Instead, I posed a question of my own. “So what’s all this about preserving the source? She said only one method was successful.”
“Ah, yes. Meglana wanted more power, not just for herself, but for all mages. So she thought about this from all angles. We felt confident that we could drain magic from a sorcerer, but she knew if it killed the sorcerer the Council would never approve of that. So she did a lot of experimenting. She drained Marty of his magic slowly and developed potions to try to keep him alive as a human. When it became clear that wasn’t working, she got pregnant with you. It’s a little theory we had had about the offspring of mages and sorcerers. You can’t produce magical offspring yourself, so you’re already halfway to being human. If you produce humans, you might be able to become human. You were an experiment.
“After you were born, she drained the rest of your father’s magic, killing him. Then she stripped you of your spark and put that into the talisman as well, making it stronger and proving that pidges can be stripped of their magic and still survive. The Council might not be willing to kill sorcerers for their magic, but there’s no harm in stripping pidges of their magic and letting them live as humans, especially since they wouldn’t have been able to produce magical children anyway.”
My stomach lurched, and I felt certain that had I eaten any of the food Nicole had brought, I would be puking. “She used me? And my father?”
A vicious laugh came from Sibelius’s lips. “Yes, in addition to being incredibly intelligent, Meglana was a master at using people. You’re in good company. I was in love with Meglana; that’s why I shared all of my knowledge with her. Together we could’ve been great. She promised me she was leaving me for Marty to pursue our shared interest, that she would come back to me when the experiment was complete. For years, the only time I heard from her was when she needed to consult with me. When she had it all figured out, I never heard from her again.
“So you can see why I don’t understand this loyalty you have toward her. You should want to find her other talismans as much as I do, to see what it was all for, to see what your father’s death bought. She must have killed more sorcerers, perhaps even had more children. At one time we even speculated about putting the magic of multiple sorcerers into one talisman. Something like that would be more powerful than anything in the world. Your talisman alone, having Marty’s magic and yours in it, is the most powerful I’ve ever seen.
“Make this right, Kat. Let’s find what else she did in her pursuit of power.”
What I wanted more than anything was to have Alex beside me. Together, we could fight Sibelius off, but in my current state I was too emotional and confused to think of a defense, much less an effective offense. Only one viable option remained. “You’re right. I have her notes at the hotel. They’re gibberish to me, but you’ll probably be able to make sense of them. What you’ve already told me makes them much more clear.”
Sibelius visibly relaxed. I wanted to grab Millhook. He would know to teleport us as soon as we made physical contact, but I worried that Sibelius would attack us before we could get away. Instead, I turned around and led Sibelius into the busy thoroughfare where he might hesitate before performing magic in front of so many humans and where there were enough distractions that we had a chance to get away unscathed.
Sibelius followed, and behind him, Millhook. Not only would performing magic expose him to the humans, it was so crowded that he’d likely injure innocent passersby. I could only hope that these things mattered to him, though it didn’t seem likely given the state he was in.
The flip side of this plan was that I wouldn’t be able to perform much magic either, because I did care about injuring innocents.
I took us to a busy subway entrance where dozens of people were pouring out onto the street. I swerved between them, making my route more convoluted than necessary. Luckily, Millhook seemed to understand my intent, and he zigzagged as well, making his way toward me.
“Stop!” Sibelius shouted.
My talisman warmed to an almost intolerable degree in response to a mounting magical threat. I looked behind me, and a bolt of purple energy left Sibelius’s hand.
Millhook’s outstretched fingers touched mine, and I closed my eyes, hoping that the fae had been faster than the possessed mage.
Chapter 28
Surprised exclamations and familiar voices replaced the cacophony of street sounds.
“Shit!” Nicole sounded scared.
“What happened?” Concern and fear laced Alex’s voice.
When I opened my eyes, Alex and Nicole’s shocked faces floated above me staring at Millhook’s leg. The entire limb was charred black.
“It was Sibelius.” The sight of Millhook’s leg twisted my stomach. I couldn’t form a coherent thought from all feelings storming around inside me. “There was a black and purple bolt. Oh my god, Millhook, I’m so sorry.”
Alex lifted his eyebrows and nodded to Millhook as if asking a question. The imp must’ve understood, because he gave a little nod. Alex shifted into his panther form and licked Millhook’s leg. Nicole yelped in surprise.
“Shifters have healing power,” I explained, though I didn’t see how Alex could make this better. A team of surgeons and months of recovery wouldn’t make much of a dent.
“How did this happen?” The horror in Nicole’s voice made me regret pulling her in to my problems.
Millhook grimaced. To my amazement, it appeared that his leg was getting a little better. I hoped that I wasn’t imagining it. It was nothing like the fast-acting healing I’d seen Alex do in the past. Only when I was convinced the leg was improving did I calm down enough to organize my thoughts.
A part of me wanted to wait until Alex was done, but better to get this part out of the way without having to see the look on his face when I explained how stupid I had been. “We went for a walk quite a ways from here. I had decided that it was probably a good idea to go ahead and return to Elustria. So we headed back for me to tell you, and I thought I saw Analise.”
“Who’s Analise?” Nicole asked.
I moved to the bed and sat. “She’s a mage I met at the Armory with Casper. She’s powerful, and she hates me. When I looked again, she was gone, but there was a girl who looked a lot like her. I’ve been going so long with so little sleep that I figured I was imagining it. I was going to ask Millhook to port us, but I decided it was more important for him to conserve energy to make a portal, especially since it turned out not to be her. To be safe, we took a long route back. If it was her, I didn’t want to lead her to us.
“When we turned into an alley, Sibelius was there. He separated us and told me a lot of stuff about Meglana.” It didn’t feel right to call her “Mother” after what I had heard. “I wanted to get us out of there, so I told him I would work with him. I led him to a busy part of town where I thought it’d be harder for him to do magic, and Millhook ported us here. Just as Millhook reached for me, Sibelius cast a spell. I thought we got away in time, but I guess at least part of his spell hit.”
Alex shifted, and his face looked grim. “That is a powerful curse. It’ll take time to heal. I’ve done the best I can.”
“Thanks, Furball.” Millhook wiggled his leg and a wave of pain washed over his face. “I’m not gonna be able to port us anywhere for a while, much less make a portal.”
“So what do we do?” Nicole asked.
“We’re going to have to stay here and hope that Sibelius and Analise don’t find us before Millhook makes a portal.” Alex lifted Millhook and placed him on the bed. The imp barely protested.
With Millhook taken care of as much as he could be, my mind turned to the task at hand. “Where are all of Meglana’s notes?”
Nicole handed me the satchel from where someone had hung it on the back of a chair. I dumped its contents onto the bed next to Millhook. No one ever needed to have the knowledge these notes contained. If Sibelius got his hands on them, I was sure they would give him the missing link to creating talismans.
My first instinct was to destroy everything, but as long as those extra talismans were out there, Casper, Sibelius, and anyone else who knew about them would continue searching. I felt confident Casper knew as much as Sibelius did. He hadn’t appeared surprised in the least that my amulet contained my spark. Anyone else would’ve been shocked, mortified, but not him because he already suspected. He knew what Meglana had been working on.
If the Directorate searched for the talismans, then someone from the Council, maybe even me, would need to find them first. So I kept the notes that referenced her hiding places for them. One by one I took the other sheets into my hand and disintegrated them. It felt good to not only take action, but also to use my magic.
“What are you doing?” Nicole asked, alarmed.
“I have to destroy these. No one should know what’s in here. No one.” I incinerated the pile, feeling only slightly guilty at the pile of ash on the carpet that housekeeping would have to clean.
Magic Unknown (The Elustria Chronicles: Magic Born Book 2) Page 15