by Diane Farr
Amber uncoiled from her seat and rose up like a striking cobra. “Raised by sticks? How does that help?” she spat. “All the more proof she is not one of us, and never will be.”
Rune rose again too. “And I would remind the Council,” he said drily, “that Amber Carrick is not an impartial witness.”
“Hear, hear,” said Nedra—and a couple of other voices, too. I couldn’t make out who had spoken.
Amber’s hiss of fury was silenced by the frail old man. All he did was lift his hand, but she subsided. “All will be granted the right to speak,” he said mildly. “Hers are not the only words we shall take with a grain of salt.”
Rune flushed, and I realized the dig had been aimed at him.
Did they think he, like Amber, was not impartial? Did they think he was on my side?
Was he on my side?
I stared at Rune with painful intensity, trying desperately to read his mind—or, failing that, his expression. I could not be certain of either. My turbulent emotions and the uncertain firelight thwarted me.
“I will, naturally, abide by the decision of the Council,” said Rune stiffly.
“As will Amber,” snapped a reedy, wheezy voice belonging to an old woman whose face I could not make out. My view of her was blocked by Pearl, but she sounded ancient of days. I remembered that Amber’s 102-year-old great-grandmother was on the Council, and my heart sank further. Wasn’t Amber’s grandfather on the Council too? I didn’t have a prayer.
But Rune was still standing, which seemed to mean he had the floor. “This is a weighty matter,” he said. “The Council would do well to hear from everyone who desires to speak. But not all of us are present. I appeal to your sense of justice. Is that fair?”
“Forty-nine are present,” said another of the Council members. “That is the rule.”
“Is it?” asked Rune. “Or is the rule that all be present? In the past, forty-nine meant all. At the moment, however, it does not. Which is, if you’ll excuse my saying so, the whole point of this proceeding.”
He sat. I suddenly realized that I’d been holding my breath, and let it out in a tiny gasp. He meant Lance, of course. He could mean no one else. Lance was the only one not here—and I had no idea why.
“We will confer,” said Pearl. A hush fell as the Council went into a huddle. I had to remind myself to breathe, breathe, and try my best to wear a calm expression while my fate hung in the balance. Would they send for Lance?
If they did, would he come?
And what would it mean for me?
I remembered the fear I had of him, not that long ago. I remembered the words mortal enemy repeating in my terrified brain like a chant. Why, then, was I on pins and needles, hoping against hope that Lance—of all people—would be allowed to speak?
Because Rune had asked for it. Not Amber. Rune.
And although he’d given me no reason to believe this, the Council seemed to think Rune was on my side. Or would be, if he could be.
Which might mean that Lance was on my side.
Hope is a dangerous thing to feel. It’s also agonizing.
It seemed a long, long time before the Council returned to their places. But when they did, the deep, bell-like voice tolled again: Lance Donovan. Lance Donovan. Lance Donovan. Come into the court.
Chapter 18
I was expecting Lance to stroll out of the woods, or maybe skatch to the edge of the campfire ring when he heard the summons. Instead, seven spellspinners disappeared from the back row of the gathering. I blinked, confused for a moment by what seemed an inexplicable occurrence. Then the seven reappeared near the Council, on the opposite side from where I was positioned. They were standing in a tight circle, facing something—or someone—in the center. Then they fell back a step or two. Exchanged glances. Skatched back to their former places, returning to the back row.
They had fetched him.
When the circle of spellspinners surrounding him broke apart and vanished, Lance stood there alone. He staggered and fell, emitting a sound somewhere between a groan and a hiss. It’s not fun to be forcibly skatched.
I stared at him in shock. He was wearing that gorgeous bad-boy suit he’d worn to the Homecoming dance—or what was left of it. The tie was gone. The jacket was open. He was covered in dust. One of the trouser legs had a jagged rip across the calf. His hair was matted, his face was grimy.
I almost fell over, myself, as the realization slammed into me: Lance was their prisoner, too!
I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t understand why they would spellbind Lance. Me, I understood. From their perspective, it was necessary—to hold me while they deliberated and decided what to do. But Lance? They had no reason to bind Lance.
Did they?
A possible reason occurred to me. I nearly gasped aloud as it hit home.
What if they knew he would help me if he could?
They would bind him, to make sure he couldn’t.
I felt my world shifting to make room for this new reality: Lance Donovan, risking everything in an attempt to save me. I’d been so sure that Lance would never lift a finger to help anybody unless it served him somehow, that I had a hard time believing the truth staring me in the face.
My mind flashed back to those last few seconds in Cherry Glen, when I reached for Lance. I had heard him thinking, I can’t let them do this to you.
Others had heard him, too. They’d had access to each other’s thoughts and feelings while they joined forces to make that binding spell. Even I, the target of the spell, had been able to sense the seven distinct personalities bearing down on me. They must have heard him loud and clear.
And just as Amber had warned him it would, siding with me had painted a great big bull’s eye on his back.
So many emotions raced through me, I could hardly think straight. It didn’t make sense to feel relief, because I was in just as bad a spot as I had been before. My life could end tonight. Or I might leave this place still a prisoner, facing the rest of my days locked in Spellhaven, powerless. But I did feel relief. My heart soared with it. Because I was not alone.
If I died tonight, Lance would avenge me. If I were imprisoned, he would not rest until he set me free. I knew it in my very bones.
But I suppose the others knew it too. Not good.
He got slowly to his feet, shoulders hunched, jaw set in a grim line. He looked as if he’d like to take a piece out of whoever brought him here. His head was slightly lowered, like a moose ready to charge…or an animal in pain.
“Lance Donovan,” said the old man. “Do you know why you are here?”
“No,” he said shortly, glaring at the Council. “Hell no.”
I saw a few grins, quickly smothered, among the crowd. Lance’s defiance was better received than mine had been. But then, they all knew him. He was one of them. No wonder he got more sympathy.
“You are hereby given a chance to speak, should you choose to do so.”
He looked wary. I didn’t blame him. He was thinking they would use his words to trap him, and I agreed; the risk was high. He straightened and looked at each Council member, one at a time, studying them. Then he looked around, past the fire, at the other spellspinners—his kinsmen. His friends.
And I understood, watching his gaze travel slowly from face to face and picking up just the bare edges of what he was feeling, that none of them were really his friends. Not the way I understood friendship. And none of them were family—not the way I understood family.
And having spent some time in my world, Lance now thought of family and friendship the way I did. He knew what the spellspinners were missing…what they had abandoned, to keep their powers intact and protect their race. And he, like I, wondered if it were worth it.
He, like I, hoped to find a third way. To have it all.
And he, like I, had just spent ten days in a tube cell for this heresy.
Which had not cured him of his apostasy, needless to say. In fact—predictably—it had pushed him closer to my way of thinking.
So imprisoning Lance had not been a smart move.
Rune rose again. “If you feel inclined to defend Zara, Lance, now would be a good time.”
Lance’s gaze sharpened as he looked at Rune. “This is nuts,” he said. He looked around the group again. “What are you punishing her for? Existing?”
I heard Rune thinking, That’s about the size of it. But he sat down without saying it aloud, and I’m not sure if anyone other than Lance and me heard him.
And then, finally, Lance looked at me.
The sight of what my tube cell had done to me—even though my condition was probably about the same as his—shocked him. I felt his anger rise as he took in my dust-grimed dress, tangled hair and streaked face. Plus, he immediately picked up that I’d been badly frightened. That sent his anger higher. I saw his eyes pulse with green fire. Once. Just once. Then he regained control.
Let me in, his mind whispered to mine.
I’d been blocking so many, so hard, for so long, I hadn’t realized I was blocking Lance as well.
I saw no point in keeping that up. Not here. Not now. I let him in.
As soon as I knocked down the gate in my mind, knowledge poured into me. No words were necessary. The first thing I saw was that Lance was now an even bigger rebel than I was. They had taken his power stone by force and held him prisoner, which had—naturally—turned him against them. That had been their first mistake.
And tonight they’d finally let him near enough to help me escape. That would be mistake number two.
Now I heard words coming from him, loud and clear: Remember that ace we have up our sleeve?
He meant wholesoul. He just wasn’t going to form the word. I remember, I shot back.
We’re gonna play it.
I sensed a flutter of disquiet among the Council and knew that some of them, at least, had heard this exchange. But they didn’t know what it meant. And we were going to throw down that ace before they figured it out.
We’d been weakened. We’d been bound. But we were still Lance and Zara…the most powerful spellspinners born to this generation.
And together, we’d be stronger yet. Stronger than the Council dreamed.
Our eyes locked. We summoned Power. It answered faintly, but it answered. I felt strength and joy singing through my body and knew my eyes were sparkling with violet light. Without a word, I walked past the fire toward Lance. Dimly I heard exclamations from the spellspinners across from us, and a commotion of some sort among the Council. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I was with Lance now. I was whole. I could have walked right through the fire if I’d had to; nothing could touch me.
A faint smile curved his lips. His eyes were lit, glowing green as foxfire. He was gorgeous and powerful. And dangerous—but not to me. Tonight, Lance was a weapon in my hand, and together we would vanquish my enemies.
I reached his side. I took his hand. Instantly, our power doubled.
We turned to face our kinsmen with our connection humming through us at high voltage. Purple and green light—pale, but discernible in the near-dark where we stood—writhed and crackled along our skin.
We must have looked formidable, even in our weakened state. We were only a shadow of what we normally would be, but we were still much stronger than they had bargained for. The Council appeared completely gobsmacked, and the mixture of surprise and confusion gripping the rest of the throng was—I admit—highly satisfying to behold.
I was all prepared to make a speech, but Lance felt my intention and scotched it. I knew what he knew, now, so I agreed with him—reluctantly. There was no time. I’d love to tell them all what I thought, set them straight on a few points. But yeah. Not tonight. We had to get out, and get out fast. We’d surprised them, but they’d regroup soon. And in our present condition, we were no match for them.
I had no plan, naturally. I hadn’t expected any of this. Plus, I didn’t know Spellhaven the way Lance did. But Lance had evidently given this scenario some thought. Go with me, he told me. I knew he meant for me to go with him mentally as well as physically. It was hard to let go. I was out of practice. But I took a deep breath, let go, and slid my mind deeply into his.
It’s hard to explain, but it’s rather like plugging a cord into a socket. The cord is still the cord and the socket’s still the socket, but they’re made to fit each other. And once the pieces connect, juice flows.
Moving as one, we melted into the forest behind us. Lance grabbed the power buzzing along our skin and used it to create a glamour.
This was something he’d never taught me to do, so it was instructive to see it happening from the inside out, as it were. It seamlessly transferred the knowledge into my brain. Now I knew how to create a glamour.
He saw this, and almost laughed. But it didn’t slow him down. What he—or we, I wasn’t sure—had just done would cloak us from the spellspinners while we ran, but we still needed to run.
Away from the campfire, the woods were pitch dark and our eyes were still dazzled from the light. We pelted right off the edge of a sharp little hill, stumbling and sliding in the scree.
We could hear shouts behind us. Some of the spellspinners wanted to get organized before trying to search; others thought there was no time to lose. It was impossible to tell how many had already taken off after us. We heard a voice: “Go in pairs!”—and then we heard them coming. At least one of the pairs had guessed our direction correctly.
No time to stop. We stumbled forward, hands clasped to keep our power strong, tripping on something every third or fourth step. My heart was hammering like a rabbit’s. Glamour or no, they’d hear us crashing through the woods. Sure enough, someone shouted, “This way!” And more feet came running.
We had to hide.
Redwood forests are full of gigantic trees with hollowed-out bases. That’s because mature redwoods can survive forest fires and go right on growing, but the fires leave holes behind, some as big as rooms. Quick as thought, Lance ducked into one of these and froze—and of course I was with him, ducking and freezing as he did, lending what power I could to strengthen the glamour so we became one with the tree. They wouldn’t be able to see us or smell us; they’d have to get close enough to hear our breathing before they’d know we were there. But we were breathing pretty hard. At least I was.
It was strange inside the hollowed-out tree. Sounds were muffled, and the scent of the old, charred wood made me afraid I was going to sneeze.
Lance’s arm crept around my waist. He pulled me to him and whispered in my ear, “Just be still. And try not to think in words.”
I nodded. We couldn’t see each other, it was so dark, but we were close enough that he could feel my nod. I blanked my mind and tried to quiet my breathing. The spellspinners were all around us now. I sensed them reaching for us with their powerful magic, trying to pick up our thoughts.
What if they picked up my fear? Blankblankblankblank don’tthink blankblankblank
I had wanted to hide, but now that we were hidden I realized hiding was harder than I thought it would be. It was torture to stay still when every instinct was screaming at me to run. And my mind was racing, too, fighting my efforts to make it shut up.
At least one of the spellspinners had paused. “Hold on,” he said sharply. He sounded like he was maybe twenty feet from us. Another pair of feet crunched in the bracken as someone joined him.
Lance’s arm tightened around me. “Think of water,” he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him.
Water? It made no sense to me, but I obeyed. I pictured a swimming pool. Put my face close to the surface. Watched the light pinch and zoom as it danced across the surface. Water. Water.
I don’t know how much time went by. Maybe a minute, maybe two. My brain calmed. My heart rate slowed. And I guess I confused the spellspinner who thought he had sensed me. I heard him mutter, disgustedly, “Nah. I thought they were around here someplace, but I’ve lost them now.”
His friend—the other pair of feet I’d he
ard—was female. “Great,” she snapped. “This is a wild goose chase, if you ask me.”
“Not if they can’t skatch.”
They left, arguing. Not even bothering to be quiet. But why should they? They weren’t trying to hide.
“Just a little longer,” Lance whispered. “Then we’re outta here.”
I realized that a whisper wouldn’t broadcast our brain waves in the way that shooting our thoughts at each other would. Lance is so clever.
I turned my head so I could aim my words into his ear, speaking so softly that I barely heard myself. “I don’t hear anybody else.”
“Somebody might be smarter than they were. Fake us out.”
I shivered. He was right, of course.
So I thought of water. And waited.
Chapter 19
We traveled in fits and starts. Sometimes we would let the glamour slip, if we thought we were in a really good hiding place, to rest our powers a bit. It was tiring enough to make our way through the woods in the dark with a minimum of noise. Trying to maintain the illusion that we were part of the forest, in case the hunters caught up with us, was exhausting.
For the first couple of hours, we heard them sometimes. Once we almost ran right into Nedra and a man I didn’t recognize; they were moving as stealthily as we were and, unlike some of the others, they weren’t carrying flashlights. So at least some of the spellspinners had figured out that light and noise would tip us off to their whereabouts. Others either hadn’t thought of this or didn’t care. Maybe the more powerful ones were confident they would be able to sense where we were, so figured it didn’t matter if we knew they were coming.
Lance reminded me that they had stripped us of most of our power, so they must think we were as helpless as sticks, out here in the pitch dark woods. But they hadn’t bargained on the effect of wholesoul. Lance and I would never be helpless. Not as long as we had each other.
It was still dangerous work. It would have been dangerous even without trying to elude the spellspinners hunting for us. It was worse for me, in my stupid shoes. We managed not to walk into trees, but we both kept stubbing our toes and tripping over stuff, and I don’t know how many times I turned my ankle—a terrible, sharp pain that usually made me fall and even when it didn’t, paralyzed me momentarily. It was hard not to cry out when it happened. If I’d been a stick, I’d have been done for. But Lance and I united our powers to heal whatever damage I’d done and send the pain away, and each time it happened I got up and went on. I couldn’t take the stupid shoes off because they were all I had to protect me from stones and twigs and whatever else was on the ground.