by Leigh Evans
My stomach squeezed. “No.”
“When he dies, you will feel a crack in your heart, a sudden, inexplicable pain. Shortly after that his citadel will fall, and when it does so, it will tear a wound in the trunk of your tree that will be irreparable. Within hours, your cyreath will drop to the ground, and you will complete your own fade.” He ran agitated hands through his hair. “I need more time. Two days to travel to the castle. A few hours more to destroy the book.”
Lexi goes, and—oh, too bad, so sad—I follow?
My mind spun then sharpened into a needle, silver bright. I jabbed its tip into the concept of my brother and me sharing fates, stared at that for a second with eroding disbelief, then—oh Goddess, the prick of a sharp needle stings so terribly …
“Trowbridge,” I whispered.
“Who?” he asked testily.
“My mate.”
He shrugged. “Yes, your lupine mate will die, as well.”
Despair, a lead weight in my chest. “You could have saved yourself the termination speech. I’ve got it—okay? Lexi and I are toast. Trowbridge, too.” I couldn’t bear to look at him, or at Mad-one who was watching me with something akin to “what bug is this” interest, or at the purple-blue northern lights curling around Lexi’s side of the black walnut, so I dropped my gaze.
The old wizard’s soul ball glowed in my arms, his frustration as orange as the sun sinking angrily below the horizon. Ugly.
Don’t cry.
I lifted my head to give him a cold stare. “Will you let me go home so I can tell my mate and brother the good news? Or are you going to make me stay here, holding your cyreath, until a new mystwalker shows up? Because if that’s your plan, I should warn you that it won’t go well.”
“A mage can have only one nalera,” he said with exquisite resentment. “Whether or not my cyreath joins yours, the agreement is sealed. We are bound—sharing fates, strengths, and enemies—until your final fade.”
That made me happy in a bitter kind of way. Given Lexi’s prospects, our association would be short-lived. I gave him my worst smile. “Wow, Karma got a two-for-one.”
* * *
Four minutes ago (at least by my reckoning), the Old Mage had tapped the air and conjured up a chair. Now he sat slumped in it, worrying his chin. Six more leaves had dropped in that space of time.
“What did you need two days for?” I asked Mr. Mage.
“To save my world and yours from catastrophe,” he said with a total lack of irony. When I rolled my eyes, his mouth pulled down. “It would be a conceit to pretend I am other than what I am. Mages are born but rarely, great ones even less frequently.”
“And yet, the Great One managed to blow it.” I flexed my fingers against a cramp. “Got himself forced into the Big Sleep.”
He gave me a slit-eyed glance. “I had a daughter. Impetuous, and very often, foolish. She gave birth to a—”
“A half-breed like me.”
“Elorna sought to hide his heritage before he reached the cusp of manhood as she greatly feared what would happen once his beast obeyed the moon’s call.” The Old Mage thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the curved armrest of his chair. “It was an interesting problem, but once I turned my attention to it, I did succeed in divining an elixir that allowed him to hide himself among us.”
“Good job,” I said dryly. “That potion destroyed my brother and led you right back here.”
“It was an error in judgment,” he admitted, looking, for a moment, honestly regretful. “And in the eyes of my Maker, but one of my crimes.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” I rolled my neck, hoping to relieve the bite of pain nibbling between my shoulder blades.
He stared moodily at his outstretched foot. Scuffed toes, soft brown leather. One little brass buckle. “The first mage of the Court bade me to be wary of vanity and undue curiosity, but within six winters of his fade, I’d meddled with things best left to the stars. And to my eternal remorse, I recorded the results of my experiments, hoping to share my knowledge.”
Bullshit. You wrote your Book of Spells to serve as a record of your brilliance.
He flicked me a look of dislike. “The day my sentence was handed to me, I fully understood the true measure of my vanity. I’d left the written sum of my knowledge to a mage who was unprepared, both in spirit and training, to receive it.”
“Enter the Black Mage.”
“Helzekiel,” he corrected. “When my student reads the last page in my Book of Spells he will have the power to destroy worlds. And I very much fear that my Maker shall not grant me forgiveness when he does.”
My shoulders began to throb in earnest; the weight of his soul ball, aching and heavy.
The wizard cast me a frown of irritation. “You shrug your shoulders, but it is very much your problem, too. Once the horror is unleashed, its misery will bleed into your world. Portals will drip with it.”
I scanned the darkening sky. There were no birds in this world. “As far as I can see there’s only one portal.”
“There are more. You have seen very little of Threall.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mad-one nod in agreement.
So, Aunt Lou and Trowbridge hadn’t been wrong, there were indeed more portals. And soon—too soon—some very nasty Fae shit would begin dripping into a small fairy pond in Creemore. Then maybe the wind would carry it a few hundred feet to the Alpha of Creemore’s house, where Trowbridge stood in the hall talking to Harry, and Cordelia puttered in the laundry room, and Biggs muttered in the … Oh Goddess … Merry and Ralph waited there, too.
None of them knowing that Armageddon was one drip away.
He shook his head. “I’d hoped that I’d been offered an opportunity for absolution. That my Maker had sent me one who would aid me in the destruction of the Book of Spells. But with my death, the wards I set to shield those pages will disintegrate and Helzekiel will learn the secrets held within the book. Now my soul shall never reach the Arcadian fields.”
Well, boo-fucking-hoo. The old guy looked so aggrieved, sitting there in his slick silk robes—this arrogant mage who’d messed with the sun and produced the potion that was the key to everything in my life going up in flames.
“Hate to break it to you but that’s a done deal,” I said. “Dust to dust, right? You might have missed it what with all the drama, but your citadel is toast. Your wards are gone. By now, your boy Helzekiel is thumbing his way through your Book of Spells.”
“My wards will hold until the death of my cyreath,” he corrected, adjusting his sleeve. “Until that moment, they are invincible.”
“Well, here’s a newsflash for you, Old Mage—they were invincible to everyone but a Stronghold. Lexi’s peeled half of your wards right off the page. Not only that … he told me that your hide spells were thinning—he could read right through some of them with his naked eye.”
The old man turned sharply in his chair, his brow furrowed. “Your brother can see through magic?”
“He can steal it, too.”
The wizard’s eyes brightened like a kid with a bottle rocket and a pack of matches.
“Her twin is capable of seeing magic?” For a second I really thought he was going to rock in glee, but all he did was to observe in a tone of restrained awe, “Verily, it is a sign from my Maker. Salvation is at hand. How else could I choose a mystwalker with such a twin? Fate has been instructed to place us together so that I can undo—”
“Verily,” I said. “You’re dumber than a box of rocks if you’re contemplating placing your trust in Karma. She’s a vengeful—”
“What you call Karma is merely the stars seeking balance.”
“She’s still a bitch.”
The Old Mage got out of his chair to stare upward at Lexi’s citadel. “To save the world, I must save this creature’s life.” He fingered his lower lip thoughtfully. “How to cure him of the incurable?” Frowning, he spread his fingers then waved his hand crosswise through the air. The wi
nd stirred, parting the greenery, and I caught a brief glimpse of my brother’s amethyst-hued cyreath.
Mad-one drifted over to his shoulder.
“The cravings must be teased from his mind and body,” he told her absently. “An almost impossible task, but it can be done.”
The Mystwalker arched her neck then rose in the air until she was near level with the light streaming from the tree.
Stop looking at my twin like that, whackjob.
He turned to pace, his wizard robes snapping at his ankles. “It will require the most powerful magic in its most concentrated form to do so. Fortunately—” The old man stilled, mid-step, “Eureka!” written all over his face.
Hope started blipping in my chest as he lifted his chin to study the sky.
From where we were, deep inside the forest, the portal to Merenwyn was a distant coil above ragged treetops—a genie’s tail streaking up into the sky. I’ve already thought of that, Mr. Mage. First we’d have to get him past the Black Mage’s archers. Then we’d have to find him some juice to tide him over until we got to the Pool of Life—
“Bathing in the water will not lead to his cure,” the mage said brusquely. “It would only increase his lust for sun potion.”
I wish he’d stop listening to my internal thoughts.
“And I’d wish you would stop thinking,” he snapped a tad peevishly. “Your endless chatter is an insufferable irritation.”
Yeah? Can you read my thoughts now?
His eyes narrowed into squinty slits.
Chapter Twenty-six
I counted a slow and deliberate twelve “Mississippis” (which bugged the crap out of him in the most satisfying way) then asked, “Why won’t the Pool of Life heal him?”
“Because sun potion was derived from the elements found within its sacred waters,” he answered with forced patience. “Bathing in it will only inflame his cravings—precisely as one sip of spirits inevitably leads to a flagon of mead. His beast requires a different source of healing. One that must be derived from elemental magic.”
Quite impervious to the way I’d stiffened at the B-word, he gazed at the portal with proud-papa pride. “Your twin will find healing in my passages.”
“Your passages?”
“The portals are my creation,” he said. “Perhaps my greatest achievement.”
His creation, huh?
Bile rose in my throat. “So what did you tell those first few portal travelers? Psst, buddy, you want to see a door to another world? Go ahead, step right through it. Don’t you fret, you won’t end up in a dead end.” Disgust laced my tone. “What were they? Fuel? Did their magic feed your portals?”
“They are immaterial. What is important is that each of my portals has a…” He paused to choose a word carefully. “A resting place. Created as a forethought for the possibility a mage might need—”
“A hiding spot.”
Somewhat peevishly, he said, “Your brother will find healing there.”
I gazed at the passage to Merenwyn for a moment, faint hope stirring despite my massive misgivings. Was there really a dead end that didn’t lead to purgatory? One with a little cabinet fixed to that wall—inside that a small bottle of magic with a DRINK ME label? One sprint through the portal and he’ll be healed?
“Not a sprint. It will take many days,” said the mage. “He must remain there until such time as the demon is exorcised from his body and soul.”
Days in that windy chute? Listening to those voices calling from the walls? Being buffeted by those winds? Did I have the courage? The stamina?
He’ll be healed.
“You cannot lead him through the passages,” he said, studying Lexi’s cyreath.
“I beg your pardon?”
He turned to fix me with a penetrating gaze. “The addiction has woven itself around him so deeply that it has become a living fiend inside him which knows only that it wants to live. It knows you well, and will use every wile against you, playing on your fears and weaknesses.” The Old Mage’s eyes were hazel. Neither blue nor green. “Your brother’s demon must not recognize the hand that wields the sword, else he will anticipate each feint and thrust. He must be attacked not from the outside, but from within.”
From within?
A chill ran down my spine as comprehension rolled over me.
“You don’t want my body anymore—you want Lexi’s,” I whispered, appalled. “You want to be inside his mind, not mine. Controlling his every move. Telling him where to go, what to say. Using his lips to form your words. Giving his body commands that he must perform. Sit. Stand. Eat. Talk. Shit.”
A quick death would be better than that.
“It’s too late,” I told him. “You’ve chosen your nalera.”
“Nay,” said Mad-one, moving toward the tall grass. “You share one root. It will suffice.”
“One root but two trees!” I said. “Two!”
The Old Mage spread his hands, clearly perplexed by all the fuss. “Your brother’s skills and physical strengths are far better suited for the task ahead.”
I got a mental flash of Lexi creeping into that room with its arched window, and bottle-lined shelves, and a lectern on which sat one big, fat leather-bound book.
He’d be blamed for its destruction, unless—
“You ripe bastard,” I hissed. “You’ve figured out how to have your cake and eat it, too, haven’t you? You’ll use Lexi to destroy your damn book, but when all is said and done, you’ll stay in my brother’s body and become the fourth mage to the Court.”
I gazed at him, noting the softened jawline, the drooping eyelids and fatty pouches beneath them. “No one is going to recognize you for the old wizard they condemned to the Sleep of Forever, are they? How could they? You’ll look and sound like Lexi. Goddess, the Black Mage will never see you coming.”
“I need the use of your brother for naught but two days.” Two blotches of outraged virtue rouged his cheeks. “I seek only to stop that which—”
“Save it,” I said. “I’ve lived with a Fae. I know all about lies of omission.”
Outraged virtue dissolved into simple outrage.
Here comes the pain, I thought, steeling myself.
But before his hot knife dug into my brain again, Mad-one dropped a bomb. “A cyreath can be parted from a nalera’s,” she said. “There is a very narrow window of opportunity—a few days, no more—but one does exist.”
“You forget Simeon,” the Old Mage threatened—his tone low and mean.
“I have never forgotten Simeon,” she said fiercely. “But on this day you have lost your body in Merenwyn. You cannot rise from your Sleep Before Death. He is finally safe.”
The mage made a quick flat sideways chop with his gnarled hand.
I saw no magic. But Mad-one suddenly gasped and pressed two knuckles against her left temple.
A small miscalculation on his part.
Whatever pain he’d sent her way was inferior to the venom that she’d kept hidden in her heart. Face twisted in pain, she said in a reckless rush, “Make him prostrate himself on his knees. Force him to pledge to his Maker that before the waning of the next full moon, his cyreath will be torn free from your brother’s.”
“Cease with your treason!” he shouted.
“There is no treason in this!” she screamed back.
He stabbed her again. Not with a real knife but with the hot blade of his anger. She buckled over with a keening cry, palms pressed hard to either temple. Grass swayed and snatched at her trailing hem.
“Our mage has deep fears over the quality of his life beyond this one,” she said between ragged gasps of agony. “He will not break a sacred vow to his Maker, not if he is forced to mouth the words. That is but one of my mage’s weaknesses—he believes that his Maker still listens.”
“You dare!” he shouted, rising to his feet, his hand lifted like he had a spear and a clear shot at a target.
“Kill me, master, if you dare!” she shrieked. “But
forget not who will place your cyreath in the boughs of his citadel!”
He stilled—no, the old guy froze.
“You need me,” she said hoarsely. “You need me.”
* * *
The wizard gazed at her for another beat. Then he lowered his invisible spear and stiffly walked back to his chair. To my amazement, he sat. Crossed his legs and strove for cultivated calm. But he watched her from beneath brows set in a winged flare of repressed fury, with his fingers steepled and his toe tapping like an angry cat’s tail.
A thin ribbon of bright blood snaked down from her ear. She painfully righted herself and used the edge of her embellished sleeve to wipe her neck. With a slanted glance toward the angry wizard, she said, “I bid you, Hedi of Creemore, to perceive the opportunity if you have the wit to seize it.”
Always with the compliments. “Go on.”
Gold and green lights played over her taut face. “Our mage will not allow his cyreath to be melded to your brother’s before all battle risks are reduced. There could be no site more suited to our mage’s strengths than one of his portals—that is where the war will begin. Their very walls are permeated with his magic. Therein lies the fulcrum to your opportunity. Use it well, mystwalker. For you will never have another chance to negotiate with our mage.”
“You lost me at fulcrum,” I said flatly.
She sank to terra firma, then shoved her hair back over her shoulder with more impatience than finesse. “The magic heals. The moment your brother steps through the gates, he will regain strength. And that is our mage’s conundrum—he needs your brother to be weak and the timing perfect for his attack—”
“Attack?” I repeated, my voice raw. “How badly will this hurt Lexi?”
“Would knowing the answer change your decision? If so, we are doomed, for only the brave and the quick will survive this test. Think beyond the moment, mystwalker.”
Think beyond the moment? Just how well did that bitch know me? She expected me to deduce his plan? Sniff out the old bastard’s motives? Figure out the side exit to all this disaster? Good luck. My head hurt—threats hovered over me like a cloud of hungry gnats.