The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  My knuckles are shaking where I’m gripping his shirt. “Please.” It’s the only word I haven’t said. I can’t imagine that in five minutes I could be gone from him forever.

  Do I have to marry Jaicom?

  The question ambushes me out of place and unawares. Zadicayn brings me so much joy, so much freedom, something my soul needs to feed upon to live. But what would I lose from what I would gain marrying Zadicayn? He has no job to earn money to take care of his needs, let alone mine… children. It is too risky trying to get a job with the threat of discover by the church or the three families. He would likely have to get his needs taken care of in the Fae Realm, which is still alright.

  But what about my family? To be married to this wizard would mean permanent exile, completely closed off from everyone but the Fae. I swallow hard. My heart tells me one thing. My needs another. It doesn’t help that I’m losing control trying not to be attracted to the wizard, but he offers me something I need more than a stable job and money. But I can’t get over permanent separation from my family. To love equally in poor exile or to lie equally in rich comfort. The sad thing? I don’t know which is wrong. Even though I know which one I have to choose.

  My fingers ache when I unclaw them from his shirt and step back. His shirt sports two wrinkled clumps. “Please… don’t…” I want to tell him I love him in the way I cannot, trying to force that word to mean something mutual with no attachments that good friends might give each other. But the way my heart is beating I know I will never be able to use that word out loud to him in that mutual way because that is not what I feel.

  Maybe I should leave and never see him again. After all, my future can’t have him in it anyway. I dare even keep the hairbrush he gave me. I’m going to marry Jaicom Whaerin and continue this game of status and propriety and nowhere in that leaves room for a wizard and the Fae Realm or even a hairbrush with a pegasus carved into the ivory.

  “I’m sorry. It’s your choice. It’s whatever you think is best.” I choke on the words. I won’t look at him.

  Silence stretches between us. A bird shuffles around in its nest somewhere in the rafters.

  “Brine,” he drops my name like a weight, “Ye art betrothed. To what purpose dost ye hath in coming back here anymore?”

  Is he saying he doesn’t want me back? Those words cause me to blood-let right now. But that’s not it. His obvious show that he liked me up to and including the Ball slaps me with the reality that I’m hurting him. My presence to him only tempts him with something he can’t have.

  My failure to answer his question becomes my answer. He reaches for me and with gentle pressure he guides me out of the Grand Hall. I keep my arms around me all the way to the Fae Gate. Maybe this is why God never lets us know in advance the day and time loved ones are going to die. Because we would only use that as a countdown, trying to make up a lifetime of memory in mere moments.

  He opens the gate.

  “Mayest I reclaim my coat from thee?”

  I consider running through the gate with it so he will have to follow me. But he would just come back to his castle. I take it off and it’s like I’m removing my skin, removing my memory, removing my freedom.

  “For now, I shalt nary lock meself in the vault.” All the air in my lungs punches out of me. “Nor speaketh the spell. I shalt do thee the eternal justice to thy torment and thinketh upon other options.”

  I can’t stop myself this time. I throw my arms around his neck and pull him in tight.

  “Thank you for being my friend,” I whisper to his neck.

  He returns the embrace. “And ye.”

  I don’t know which one of us let go first. I don’t think too deeply that this is the last time I’ll see him, so I pretend that it’s not, that this is merely a, “see you later.” It’s easier to swallow, but I’m able to do it. I have to do this. There is no room in my life for Zadicayn so why stretch out the torture for both of us?

  I’m only able to walk through the Fae Gate under the assurance that he is not going to speak that spell and lock himself in the vault. And I still turn around at the end to see him standing there watching me before the gate closes shut.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ZADICAYN

  She should have just left me in the vault. Or a boy should have been the one to release me because it’s not fair on her that I have anchored my sanity to her presence. I can only hope she hasn’t seen to what depth that has reached.

  I guess she hasn’t, otherwise her reasons for banning me from vaulting myself would have been quite different. She seems to be the type that would throw herself down for someone else despite the consequences to her. Like what she did to that gypsy with the monkey who kidnapped her. Like she did for the dragon who loved her rubs. If she knew how hungry I am for her, I would have had to carry her through the Fae Gate and spell her to sleep so I could run back through before she could stop me.

  Nice guys finished last. Wrong. Guys with jobs who don’t have people trying to kill you or who would take you away from your family finish first. I may not be last, but I am not first, either.

  I fling my coat over me, pressing my face into the tall collar where her imprint of honeysuckle lingers. I don’t like honeysuckle, but it is her scent. A full day of her wearing it appears to have been long enough.

  The raw ache in my heart accompanies stiff fingers as I draw the pattern on the Fae door to change the sequence that will allow someone to walk through. So Brine can’t come back. It’s a bitter feeling, but medicine to cure sickness never does tastes well.

  I finish the new sequence but now I’m looking at the rock wall and questioning what to do with myself. In truth, I’m not ready to vault myself, as selfish as that is and the cost of the world is waiting on me to pay. I need a longer reprieve. Forgive me, Human Realm. I shall not fail thee, but I need just a moment longer. And maybe, maybe there is another way.

  I’m not ready to go back into my castle where lingers the smell of rosemary. I’m still determined to clean it up and make it new again but my nerves are such that I’ll just break things that frustrate me. But maybe that is what I need right now. To break things, to drown out this endless chanting in my head about what my future is going to look like.

  I finger the pattern on the door again, opening the Fae Gate and walk through. On the other side I am stopped by a sheer wall of piled lumber, trees and mud that had slid in to fill the canyon road just like Brine had described to me. This is where the Fae Gate was tuned to when she used it to enter the vale.

  This gate is the main one, anyway. The road beneath the dam leads right to it with an area close by where people could park horses and carriages when they were invited for parties. The whole village used to show up.

  I dismiss the aching nostalgia with a flick of my wrist, sending the log I have suspended in the air – and my thoughts – sailing away from me.

  I shan’t sleep for a while but throwing logs into a pile to burn later is comfort enough, inviting the thrill to break and burn things to sooth me.

  Once I memorize how to personalize the relocation spell to each tree and rock, it goes by quickly. It would be easier just to send fire on it all, but that would attract too much attention and people would investigate. So I burn them in small batches, relocating the smoke away from the direction of Valemorren. The road is in a tight canyon that curves like a river but it is always better to do everything possible to avoid detection.

  It is good that Brine is marrying a Whaerin. She would work on my behalf from the inside.

  Spell. Lift. Relocate. Drop.

  She rescued me from a pit of madness and agony. I’m selfish, wanting more.

  Spell. Lift. Relocate. Drop.

  She won’t die by the Faewraith because I will find a way to live forever.

  Spell. Lift –

  The dam of trees shifts across the space vacant of the log I had mistakenly lifted. Log after log tumble down so I dart back until I am clear. Foolish. Pay attention. />
  My weary bones remind me I am only mortal, but the coming sunrise reminds me of a stony tomb with no escape.

  Squeezing to the forefront of my thoughts come Brine’s telling of her kidnap. I don’t consider myself the kind of person who’s freakishly attuned to small details, but that telling with the one surrounding her cousin’s odd death won’t leave me alone. And she is traveling alone to Bristol on Wednesday. I’m certain my worries are only powered by my inability to rein in my over-dramatic emotions, but that line is starting to become more clear, and for this instance I don’t know as to which side of that line my suspicion stands.

  I better make sure just in case. It will also help in defining that line more clearly for the next time I over-react. Brine doesn’t even have to know.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  BRINELLA

  I should go check on the Fae Gate to make sure I can still get through. I only haven’t done so yet because of Zadicayn’s question I have failed to answer: to what purpose?

  Even if Zadicayn has not locked me out forever, when I get married I will have to lock myself out forever, so what difference will it make to do it now? I can’t find any benefit to see Zadicayn, and I can’t even say why that hurts so badly.

  My Middle Ages boy who has shown me the gateway to other worlds within my own.

  I’ve made a remarkable recovery from my “illness”, says my mother, and only when I look at her like I have no idea what she is talking about, it takes me longer than it should to remember I had pretended to be sick after I helped start the Whaerin lumber house on fire. Apparently that happened yesterday morning. Being in the Fae Realm for two days has screwed with my sense of time. This is why I try not to tell lies.

  “Yes,” I perk.

  “Well then your father will purchase your train ticket when he comes back from work. I’ve got some items I’d like for you to deliver to Grandma Frondaren as well. I’ll leave them right here.”

  Wednesday morning arrives with the click of a lock and Varseena bustling is as if she had unlocked the door herself. Apparently my complaining of cold baths was heard because I find three bed warmers slid under the tub to coach the water to be a bit more inviting.

  I don’t dare look in the corner while to see if my boots and yellow dress are still there where I shoved them. They have to be, otherwise God’s Second Coming would have happened early as a mercy to me had my mother found them.

  Honeysuckle is a much milder scent than rose but I don’t like it any better because of what it symbolizes.

  With bags packed and too many farewells for just a two day stay in Bristol, I’m sent outside where rain is showering on the coach. My father is waiting next to.

  “Gotten used to being betrothed yet?” my father asks with genuine pleasure once we sit inside.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to being married.”

  “You will. Just not right away. Give it a few months.”

  “A few months?”

  He shrugs. “But then I suppose such things are harder for men to get used to than women. Women dream of being mothers as soon as they are old enough to hold dolls.”

  “I’m nervous,” I admit. I’m desperate to tell someone who will sympathize with me, maybe even offer up a better solution to one’s future than marriage. “I just can’t see myself being so… held down.”

  He removes his hat and thrashes his hair a few times. “True, you will be giving up some pleasures but you will receive pleasures in return. You give and you get.”

  His response is directly south from his usual north. Of course he’s changed to be in favor of my getting married. Because I’m marrying a Whaerin. Status. I hate it. I blame Durain to the point where I want to dig up his grave and throttle him now because he’s set me on a path of ruin to where I crave the freedom I cannot have.

  The coach bumbles to a stop and my father exits, taking my hand to assist me down, my dress brushing the tops of his shoes as it sways. Taking my luggage in hand, we hustle inside the station to get out of the rain. I still have ten minutes before the train arrives, so he sets my bags down near a cluster of women also waiting and reaches for a hug, which I provide.

  “Have fun, sweetie.” He kisses the side of my bonnet and departs.

  I sit down next to my bag, folding my hands in my lap. Men in long coats and buttoned vests stand in clusters with each other while women layered in petticoats chatter busily. I’m not the only female traveling alone. Another girl about Crisy’s age seems content in her own corner while a lone man is leaned back in his bench, one leg popped over his knee and holding a newspaper which shrouds his face. Something featuring London blares over the front page. I catch him looking at me with one eye out the side but as soon as he sees I’ve noticed he hides himself again.

  The train’s whistle hollers its arrival and everyone gains their feet as station boys in red coats and hats swarm in to pick up luggage. The train hisses to a stop and I’m assisted in finding my booth. The station boy loads my luggage inside and I follow, sliding both the inside and outside doors closed, locking both.

  The two hour ride comes with a complimentary glass of punch and toast with marmalade. It comes by an hour into the ride and I nibble and sip as I stare out to the country side zipping by.

  “A train? What tis that?”

  What is it indeed to someone from the Middle Ages who didn’t even have toilets back then? Describing a train must be like what if feels to describe the color blue to a blind person.

  A solid knock on my door summons me to my feet, though the refreshments have already been brought so I can’t fathom who would be needing my attention. I turn the lock and open the sliding door into the hallway to a man standing there with his head down.

  He looks up abruptly and shoves against my shoulders with his palms and I stumble backward. He steps in and closes the door, locking it behind him. Surprisingly only mildly bewildered, I don’t panic until I see the monkey with its tiny top hat climb upon his shoulder.

  I suck in a breath to shout when Jesaro lifts his knobby hands. “There there, everything will be okay. I’ll explain in a minute. This will be real brief and no one else has to know.”

  “Get out!” I shriek, taking a step back.

  Upon my shout he lunges. I see a flash of white cloth which gives me time to suck in breath and hold it as he presses it against my face. He jams his hand against my teeth so hard it hurts. My chest is already buzzing with needed breath as I wrestle to buck him off me.

  He’s strong and it only takes one of his arms to keep me from going anywhere. The monkey is making screeching noises and my vision is blurring because I need to breath.

  Jesaro lets go. A shout and a heavy thud behind me cause me to spin around and back away at the same time. Jesaro is laying on his chest on the floor, one boot cranked above him in the air. Behind Jesaro stands a man wearing a pinstriped fedora, frock coat, blue buttoned waistcoat, and a red amulet around his neck.

  Zadicayn connects gold eyes with me briefly before stepping aside and Jesaro goes zooming out of my booth on his belly.

  I don’t have a cloth pressed against my mouth and nose anymore but I’m still not breathing.

  I hear shouting in the hallway and I next see Jesaro’s body flying passed my open door where he must have collided with someone because the shouting increases and a concussion of thuds declares many somethings dropping to the floor with protest.

  Zadicayn whirls inside my booth and slams the door, locking it. The monkey is left inside, causing a fit. It’s not until the wizard faces me that I find my breath and with it I cover my mouth and scream.

  He swoops over to me and muffles my panic into his chest. I’m breathing too hard. I’m going to hyperventilate.

  “I. Don’t. Know. What’s. Go. Ing. On.” Each syllable gets their own breath. Zadicayn is ushering me to the opposite door.

  “I dost. I shall keep thee safe but ye must trust me.”

  I nod. Out of options and too sca
red to think on my own. Someone’s jostling the handle on the locked door. Zadicayn throws open the back door and I suck in my breath as trees and bushes reach out to snare me as they zip by.

  It’s too big of a miracle to think Zadicayn randomly showed up just in time to save me from Jesaro. I’m dizzy with fear and confusion.

  Zadicayn sticks his head out the door, his frock coat and black ponytail spinning in the wind. He grabs my arm. I feel a pop like displaced air and next I am falling over because wind and deep vibrations through my feet have unsettled my balance. Zadicayn keeps me upright, his stance spread wide, and with a scream I can’t contain, I find I am standing on top. Of. The. Bloody. Train.

  “Tis a’right! Tis a’right!” he’s shouting at me to be heard over my screaming and the wind beating in both our ears. His body rocks back but he hunches forward with me tucked into him to keep us both planted on the roof of the train.

  He appears to be waiting for something. I can’t fathom what. The engine at the fore of the train follows a deep curve in the tracks and I’m displaced with that dreaded pop and I land in a fit of dress and incoherent blubbering. I stop flailing long enough to understand I am on a floor back inside the train. Inside another booth, though it is not my own. And it is occupied by a man and a woman who I think are too surprised to scream.

  “Forgive us,” Zadicayn says. “I be an amateur magician working on my magic tricks.”

  Someone assists me to my feet and because it’s obvious I’m too shaken to walk on my own, I’m also assisted out of the booth where Zadicayn closes the door and practically carries me down the hallway. He slides open the door to an empty booth and pulls me inside, closing and locking it behind him.

  I slump onto the padded bench, my mind spinning and my wits frazzled. The wizard sits across from me. His white shirt is untucked on one side. He looks completely ridiculous wearing the current English fashion after what I’m used to seeing him wear.