The Scofflaw Magician (The Artifactor Book 3)

by Honor Raconteur

  Sevana took advantage to move, trying to put some serious distance between them. Out. She had to get out now. Whatever he had done had somehow blocked the others from chasing after them and she couldn’t expect help from that quarter. But if she could get out back, to where the Fae were waiting, then she’d be able to come out of this relatively intact. Baby was right on her heels, still guarding her back, making unhappy chuffing sounds even as he ran. Well, no doubt the mountain lion would like to attack their prey head on, but this wasn’t the sort of enemy you could face and come out alive.

  His healing took a bare minute, far too short of a time, and then he was chasing after her in earnest. Sevana swore to herself in a near litany. Why was he chasing after her, anyway? The artifact that he so wanted was the other direction. Or had she so annoyed him that he now wanted her dead first? Curses, it might be that. She had a talent for making people irate with her.

  Big was still trying to help her, bless him, by sloping the ground and leading her forward. Sevana lit the tip of her wand in a dull glow, needing the light now no matter what consequence it had. If she could just connect to one of the booby-trapped tunnels—there! He was expecting them now, he’d be on the lookout and would likely dodge them, but it wouldn’t save him any if she activated them.

  It wasn’t possible for her to rush headlong, after all the traps wouldn’t recognize friend from foe, so she had to slow down to avoid bumbling into them herself. “Baby, stick close.” The cat tightened their distance to where his cheek was against her thigh. When she decreased her speed, the magician closed the distance between them. Sevana rounded a corner as fast as she dared, spun like a dancer, and shot a quick spark at the trap embedded into the wall.

  The trap went off perfectly, hitting him squarely in the side and making him falter. Sevana saw him go down on one knee but curse it, he didn’t go down entirely. In three seconds he was back up and stumbling into a jog, still coming after her.

  Was this man a machine?!

  Panic threatened to clog her throat as she ran forward, eyes frantically searching for the next trap. Any other human being, hit with as many spells as he had been, and with a sword striking him in the shoulder like that, would be down and out. She certainly would have been! But here he was, not only still conscious and moving, but flinging spells at her! The only thing that saved Sevana was that it was beastly hard to aim spells properly at a moving target while the caster was also moving. The odds of actually hitting something were not unlike being hit by a meteorite.

  “Baby, go get the Fae!” she commanded. When the cat hesitated, she pleaded in near panic, “Now, before he catches up with us!”

  The cat didn’t like it, not one bit, but he too must have realized they were out of their league. With a bound, he shot ahead of her, disappearing completely into the darkness beyond. Sevana sent a prayer after him that he would be able to get help back to her before her luck ran out.

  Frustrated, no doubt running low on magic as she herself was, the man did the one thing that he knew would work. He aimed ahead of her, toward the ceiling. “KLAK NE FOLE!”

  The rock burst apart, raining down on her, and Sevana was going too fast to be able to stop and backpedal the other direction. Swearing aloud, she threw up a shield and knew that even as she said the spell, she wouldn’t be able to react in time.

  An avalanche of rock hit her squarely. The first two boulders broke her arms, raised above her head, and gave her a stinging blow to the forehead. A scream of pain burst from her mouth as her nerves overloaded and she was crushed into the ground.

  “SEVANA!”

  She dimly registered the twin howls of pain and anguish. Aran and Master? Ah, they must have finally found a way to catch up. Figured they would come in too late to help her fend the man off. It was that stupid drinking game that had done it, she bet. Hard to run and fight with your stomach tied up in knots. Of course she couldn’t tell them off because right now just breathing hurt like agony. When the rocks fell, it had done so in a way that created a small cavity around her head and torso, but she knew both arms were broken and she had a bad feeling that her knee was also broken. It felt like her body was on fire with pain.

  There was a flash of magic so strong that it felt like a comet had just blazed through Big. She knew the feeling of that magic well. Aran had just unleashed one amazing attack. It hit squarely, too, judging from the sound of agony that screeched into the air. Something meaty hit the wall hard and then there was another thunk as it slid to the ground.

  The rocks around her melted away—literally melted and shifted like liquid metal, flowing away from her body. It lifted a lot of the pressure off her joints which made things better and worse all at once.

  Aran skidded to a stop next to her on his knees, hands hovering over her without touching, as if he didn’t know where he could. “Sevana.”

  “Neat trick,” she gasped out. Ouch, seriously, if breathing hurt, then trying to speak was agony. She forged forward regardless, eyes focusing and un-focusing in turn. “Did you get him?”

  “He’s dead, he’s not getting up again, shhh. Stop talking, it hurts to talk, so don’t talk.”

  She didn’t need him to tell her that. Still… “Baby.”

  “I hear him, he’s whining on the other side of the rock about not being able to get through, but he’s fine. We’re all fine. Shhh.”

  Master was right behind Aran, still standing, weaving a spell into the air so that glowing lines came down and softly enveloped her from head to toe. Grimly, he finished the spell before instructing, “Aran, go ahead of us and clear the path. We need to get her into her bed before I have any chance of healing her.”

  The Fae didn’t pause before jumping to his feet and going ahead, destroying every trap as he went.

  Master’s eyes were drawn with worry but he gave her a game smile. “Hold on, sweetling. We’ll heal you.”

  Sevana knew a lie when she heard one. There were things wrong inside of her, terribly wrong, and even with all of the magic in the world they wouldn’t be able to repair the damage her body sustained quickly enough. She had minutes left on life, they needed hours to do all of the spell work, and even though she was in so much pain, her mind could do the math well enough.

  She wouldn’t survive this fight.

  “Master—” she started, wanting to give him her final words. Not that she had any doubts that he wouldn’t take care of things after she was dead, but there were a few messages she’d like to leave behind.

  “Shh, save your strength, sweetling.” Master lifted his wand, drawing the levitation spell into place so that she hovered in the air.

  Just that movement, as gentle as it was, was too much for her body to handle. The pain overloaded her nerves and the world went black.

  What followed next was strangely surreal, almost dreamlike, as Sevana floated in and out of consciousness. She was aware that something soft and familiar was under her, so they must have gotten her to her bed, and Aran and Master and Morgan were all having a heated argument over her even as her clothes were cut away and healing charms were placed on her body.

  “—can’t do that,” Master said vehemently. “The consequences are—”

  “So it’s better that she dies?” Aran snarled back, his tone black with rage. Wow, she hadn’t known that her gentle Fae companion could get that angry.

  “I’m with Aran on this one, Master,” Morgan put in. “Not that it won’t cause complications later, but at least she’ll be alive to complain about those complications.”

  What in mercy’s name were they talking about, anyway? She faded out before she could try to force herself to ask. Thinking was hard, just listening was hard, and she couldn’t seem to do it for more than a few seconds before her mind was pulled back into blackness.

  The next time she came more awake, it was like clawing her way through layers and layers of cotton stifling her. But she forced her way through and found that this time, being awake didn’t hurt as much. Tha
t internal injury she had felt before didn’t seem as bad, and while her knee and arms were still bound, the pain was nothing more than a dull throb. Heavens, what had Master and Aran done, that she was still alive and half-healed like this?

  Whatever magic they’d used encouraged her to sleep, and she fell back into dreams before she could follow that thought through. This happened several times, almost like a routine, and then one day she properly woke up. Sevana opened her eyes with the feeling that she had been sleeping a very long time, days at least. She was propped up on her side, pillows in front of and behind her, with another pillow supporting up her bad knee. It was a comfortable position, but just the fact that she wasn’t on her back told her that she had been asleep so long that they’d been forced to rotate her to avoid bed sores. Just how long…?

  She looked down at the foot of the bed and found that Baby was lounging comfortably, his head on her footboard. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up, tail flicking against the mattress in happiness.

  “Hey, you,” she whispered. After so long of not using her voice, it was rusty, and she had to swallow again to get it to work. “You healed up already?”

  Baby gave her a satisfied purr.

  Well, that was good. Master or Aran must have seen to him. “How long have I been asleep? Who else is here?”

  With a graceful heave, he got to his feet, stretched forward and back, getting the blood flowing, and then hopped to the ground. Sevana watched him leave the room, knowing full well that he was fetching someone that could answer her questions. Silly cat. Had he been with her this whole time?

  Come to think of it…she maneuvered just enough to get an eyeball over the bed and to the floor. Grydon was sitting partially up, looking at her with a wagging tail and a tongue lolling out one side of his mouth. “Have you been here the whole time too?”

  The wolf gave her a speaking look: Crazy human, where else would I be? That kind of look.

  She felt her heart warm.

  Her door clicked open and Aran’s head popped into her room. “Are you properly awake now?”

  “I think I am?” she responded, still feeling a little muddled. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Two weeks.”

  TWO WEEKS?! No, wait, that recovery time wasn’t unexpected considering how badly she had been hurt. The better question was: “Why am I alive?”

  He pushed the doorway all the way open and propped himself just inside, using her door frame as a backrest. “Ah, that. Well, you know that you were too badly injured for human magic to save you?”

  “Mercy yes,” she responded in exasperation, “that’s why I’m surprised to find myself breathing. So? How did you manage this?”

  Aran rubbed at his mouth, hiding half of his face from her, studying her for a long second before he finally said, “I put some of my blood into you.”

  All thought stopped. Sevana’s eyes bugged out of her head, jaw dropping hard enough to go right through her bedframe and hit the floor. “You…what? I’m sorry, what?”

  “You heard me. I put some of my blood into you. The regenerative powers of Fae blood is legendary, you know that. It was the only way to give you the power you needed for your own body to cope long enough to heal. As a nice side benefit, you’ll also heal much faster.”

  “Nice side benefit, he says,” she repeated faintly. Her mind was awhirl with everything she had learned about Fae blood. He’d put that directly into her? Wasn’t that supposed to be a really bad thing to do to an adult magician, even one with as little magical power as she possessed? “And, ah, what other benefits are there going to be?”

  “Well, you’ll live longer than other humans. How much longer we’re not sure,” Aran admitted frankly. “We’ve never done this in living memory, so all we have to go off of is lore, and that’s not really accurate or rich on details.”

  It hadn’t been done in a Fae’s memory. Yes, that wasn’t unnerving or anything. “And?”

  “Your senses should be a little heightened, and of course you’ll forever heal faster, but…other than that we’re not sure,” Aran confessed. “On the bright side, one of our Mothers will stay with you for a week or so now that you’re awake and we’ll be able to get more answers then.”

  Sevana stared at him suspiciously. “Why did I hear a ‘hopefully’ in that?”

  Aran’s mouth quirked. “Hopefully. Like I said, this hasn’t happened within our memory, so we’re not sure.” He looked away, toward the ground. “I’m sorry. I know I should have done this sort of thing with your permission but it was literally between your life and being inconvenienced for the next three or so hundred years, so—”

  She was going to ignore that three or so hundred years part. Just for the sake of her mental health. “No, you made the right decision. If I’d been awake and aware enough to follow the conversation, I would have had you do it.”

  He heaved out a breath of relief. “Sevana, it’s…” He stopped himself short, shaking his head slightly as if he telling himself that now was not the time. There was a look in his eyes she couldn’t decipher, a mixture of emotions playing over his face that she couldn’t quite read, but he said nothing more than, “I’m glad. Your master was not at all happy with the idea. In fact, I had to wait until he left the room before doing it, as he was dead set on stopping me.”

  Oh? She had to wonder why. Did Master know something they didn’t? Surely not—what were the odds that he would know something that the Fae did not? Sevana made a mental note to investigate that later. For now, she had more pressing issues. “Am I healed enough to bathe? Get up?”

  “I think so. Hold on.” Aran ducked back out again, almost displacing air he moved so quickly.

  Sevana watched him go in puzzlement. He had acted slightly uncomfortable being in her room. In fact, it was more like he never entered the room properly, just hovered in the doorway. Now why was that? Did Fae have notions of propriety like humans did? It was another question she would have to ask later.

  To her surprise, it was Ailana, Sky’s mother, that came into her room next. She looked exactly the same as their first meeting, with her hair in elaborate braids around her head, ethereal and beautiful, moving as if she were the definition of grace itself. The one thing that had changed was that she was not wearing her usual flowing clothes but in a more sensible shirt, skirt, and apron. Her face lit up in a blinding smile when their eyes connected.

  “You seem clear headed now.”

  “I am,” Sevana agreed. “Or at least, I think I am. Ailana, what are you doing here?”

  “You needed a woman to take care of you and when I heard what had happened, of course I instantly came. Do not worry about Rudhon, his father has him.”

  Rudhon? Oh, right, Sky. She never could seem to remember to call him by his new Fae name.

  Ailana was all business, coming straight to her and helping her to slowly sit up, one arm around her shoulders as a support. “Now, slowly, and if there’s any pain we stop.”

  There was a twinge here and there but it was more stiffness than pain. Sevana got all the way upright with her legs dangling off the bed without even a wince. “I’m good. Bath?”

  “Aran is drawing one for you now. While you are bathing, I’ll fix you some thick broth.”

  Sevana nodded in understanding. After two weeks of not eating, her body wouldn’t know what to do with food, and it would make her sick to eat something solid.

  With Ailana’s capable help, she went and took a nice bath, scrubbing what felt like two layers of skin off. Laying about in bed for two weeks, after being crushed under several pounds of rock, left a girl feeling a little grimy. As she bathed, she asked Big, “Are you alright?”

  Am, the mountain assured her. It strangely sounded like he was purring in contentment.

  He had been hit with several blasting spells and only after two weeks, he was fine again? That didn’t sound right. Confused, she pressed, “All the damage is gone now?”

  Is. Fae fix.

>   Oh-ho. So the Fae had been cleaning up the aftermath while she slept? Well, that was good then; she had less work ahead of her than she’d been dreading. It was good they’d fixed Big first as he had been definitely hurting. Hopefully Master had gone through and disabled all the traps before they’d come in to help. Also hopefully someone had dealt with that evil magician…Sevana’s thoughts ground to a stop.

  Right. The magician was dead. Aran had killed him.

  She sat back and let that soak in for a moment. The magician that had chased her down with such cruel indifference was dead. Sevana had no doubt that Aran’s hand had been forced. She’d hurt that man seriously three times and it had barely slowed him down. Even a Fae would be hard pressed with an opponent like that. To herself, she could admit that she was relieved that something so evil was safely dead. He’d caused enough damage as it was.

  Still, the thought that someone had been killed in her mountain was a little disturbing. Hopefully someone would be able to make sure that the man didn’t become an edimmu later. She did not want a vengeful ghost wandering through Big.

  Stepping out, she toweled off and slipped into a loose, wrap around gown that Ailana must have brought with her. Sevana had to admit it was easier to get into than her usual pants and shirt. It was certainly a welcome thing as just standing up and putting this on took far too much energy.

  Ailana stepped in to do her hair, armed with a brush. Sevana sat where she was pointed to and gratefully let someone else do something with her head. Just washing her hair had worn her arms out. As Ailana combed through it, detangling, Sevana decided to get some answers. “What happened to that man’s corpse?”

  “We burned it clean and buried the ashes. Aran and I held a short memorial service for him so that his spirit does not wander.”