L.O.S.T. Trilogy Box Set

by R. S. Collins

  Beside me, the Keeper began to sway.

  “Don’t forget my instructions,” I said to her through clenched teeth.

  Her response was a guttural purr.

  “Resist!” I snapped my fingers at Bren, and the noise echoed like cannon fire.

  He startled, and for a moment, his eyes met mine.

  “Resist,” I said again. “Focus on something else. Reclaim your thoughts, and realize the danger all around you.”

  “What danger?” Bren sounded drugged and harsh. “You’re such a buzz-kill, Jazz. Chill out.”

  My fingers flexed. Chill out. That could be arranged. I wondered how he would feel about being encased in a glacier.

  The Keeper gnashed her teeth and whistled to the klatch, and they doubled their efforts to persuade Bren to drop to his knees.

  With a final cutting glance at me, Bren sank to the ground. He closed his eyes as the beautiful witches stroked his shoulders, loosening him up, lulling him into a dreadful stupor.

  I almost yelled that he was not trying, but remembered how angry such comments made him. Pressuring Bren would not help. I tugged at my hair. What would make a difference?

  Anything?

  He was completely vulnerable now, arms to his side, head back, lost in the klatch caresses.

  A rustle of fabric told me the Keeper had moved before I saw her streak toward Bren’s exposed flesh.

  “Cease!” I commanded, spreading my hands wide.

  Just as the day when I first brought Bren to Shallym, everything froze. Not even the air moved. The villagers, the ocean—everything was still, except Bren. He was swaying back and forth, even as the Keeper stood immobile before him, arms spread wide.

  I eased between the Keeper and Bren. “Open your eyes.”

  Bren kept swaying.

  The urge to slap him was powerful, but I contained myself. “Open your eyes, Bren, and gaze at your fate.”

  With a grunt, Bren did as I asked—and yelled. He fell backward, away from the statuesque klatch witches, pointing at the robed Keeper, at her true face, now revealed for him in the moment just before she would have eaten him whole.

  All of her false beauty had been erased. Her purplish skin was warty and pocked, and her hideous head had grown three sizes to accommodate her sharp-toothed maw.

  “What is it?” Bren yelled, scooting farther out of the klatchKoven circle. “Looks like a monster eggplant or something!”

  He got to his feet as I shook my head. “She would have been your doom had I allowed it. And she might be again.” I pointed to the Keeper’s rows of fangs. “Nire could have her under sway, or a hundred like her.”

  “No way.” Bren dusted off his clothes. “Anyway, I was just playing. I wasn’t really going to let her near me.”

  My cheeks instantly burned. “Lying is an unbecoming trait, even to soothe your dignity.”

  “Well, what did you expect?” Rather than stand in front of the Keeper, Bren headed toward me—though he made a wide arc around the klatch—and stopped near my shoulder. “You didn’t give me a clue about them, or how I was supposed to handle this. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Do you think Nire will be fair?” My tone was cool, even to me. “Do you think Nire will hand you battle plans and encourage you to focus? I offered assistance. You didn’t even try, Bren.”

  “Don’t say that.” He kicked dirt all over my shoes, and I stiffened. The urge to clean it off was so strong it nearly overwhelmed me. “I’ve told you all I’m telling you—I try. I just can’t.”

  “Owl dung.” I turned to face him, and we were almost nose to nose. “I’ve seen you make effort and fail, and I’ve seen you fail to bother. This was the latter.”

  Bren’s hair flopped into his eyes even as he tried to brush it to the side. “You don’t know that.”

  I placed my hand against his chest and pushed him back a step. “This time, you failed to try. I’m not stupid, Bren. There’s a difference between inability and inactivity.”

  “Whatever.” His face was turning red. “You sprung this on me.”

  “Nire will spring things on you, too.” I nodded toward the Keeper. “This, and worse. Will you simply not bother if the Shadowmaster acts unfairly?”

  Bren’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up.”

  “I won’t.”

  “God, I swear!” He kicked dirt again, this time missing me. “You get more like my father every day.”

  “Insulting me is a convenient way to make me angry, so that I’ll cease telling you the truth.” I glared at Bren. My heart was racing. “It won’t work. Did you ever stop to think your father had reasons to be angry with you?”

  “Aww, man!” Bren let his head roll backward. “Did you ever stop to think that I failed him so many times I stopped trying?”

  The bare honesty of Bren’s angry confession stunned me. For one long, horrible moment, I felt like I was talking to a mirror, a twin, some dark aspect of myself that I refused to allow to the surface.

  How many times had I wanted to give up trying to please my mother? And even now, how many times a day did the same thought cross my mind?

  Even as I stared into the full might and bluster of Bren’s arrogance, I stopped seeing it, as if some clever witch had cast a spell banishing my blindness to Bren’s true heart. He seemed whole to me all of a sudden, and older, and more burdened. My anger yet boiled, but it took on a desperate, frightened feeling, as if I were suddenly fighting only for Bren’s life and survival.

  My hand flew to my throat, and I tried to measure my next words carefully. “I understand and accept that you have problems with learning and attention. But you need to understand that those problems don’t give you license to offer half-efforts and lies. You’re—you’re much better than that.”

  At this, Bren’s face became the color of a rising sun. “What do you know about it, Jazz? You’ve been so busy doing everything Mommy told you to do, you turned into a total pain. Nobody likes you. Not me, and not them.” He gestured to the klatch and the village. “And why should they? All of us—we’re nothing but pieces on your little chessboard.”

  His words sliced me like a sword, and my head spun with the effort of holding back my tears and my spells. “Mind your tongue.”

  “Fine!” Bren snatched a handful of dirt and flung it in my direction. The filth struck me full in the face and scattered down my clothing. My breath caught in my throat, only to explode in a scream of rage.

  In a single blast of my fingers, I removed the dirt and knocked Bren to his backside. The dirt that had been on me pelted him like brown rain.

  “And when you’re mad,” he said, standing, letting the dirt fall to the ground, “anything goes. Isn’t that right?”

  My teeth were clenched so tightly I could scarcely speak. “You provoked me.”

  “So?” Bren’s tone was mocking. “You think Nire won’t provoke you?”

  I whirled away from him and spelled the klatchKoven and Keeper back to Shallym. To appease the Keeper, I transferred a small squirrel with them, so she would not go completely hungry. Without looking at Bren, I shouted, “Resume!”

  The keening scream of the Keeper snaked up Shadowbridge Hill. She was no doubt enraged. “Go inside,” I told Bren as I summoned a branch. “She might return. Rol will help you.”

  Bren snorted. “Let her come back. I don’t care.”

  Tears flowing, I mounted the live oak’s gift, hiding my face from Bren. “As you wish. You’ll make a fine dinner.”

  As I rose from the ground, I heard his bellow of rage. And then, “Wait, would you? I didn’t—I’m—oh, never mind.” Then, more distant, “I’m not the only one with problems around here, Jazz! And you can’t keep running away every time I don’t do what you want.”

  His voice faded as I flew away, winnowed to almost nothing, and still his next words seemed as loud as thunder in my heart. “Sooner or later, we have to be our own sanctuary. You and me. Safe together, or we’ll never beat Nire.”

 
; High above him, I hesitated, feeling the air press against my aching jaws. The urge to turn back swelled, but equally strong was the urge to fly until I didn’t feel nervous and hurt and frustrated any longer. If he had made some effort—any effort—to focus on something besides the klatch, he might have triumphed. Such strong magic!

  But he failed.

  I failed.

  When I glanced down. Bren was staring at the ground. For a moment, I hoped he might say something to suggest he understood what happened, or why I did what I did.

  Instead, as I drifted toward the Path’s barrier, I heard an emphatic “whatever.”

  ***

  Chapter Nineteen

  Pressing my nose against the cool glass, I stared out my bedroom window. The early morning sky was the same odd color of blue as my mom’s eyes. Homesickness settled inside, like someone had put a sandbag on my chest. I missed Mom and Todd, and I had to admit, I missed Dad, too.

  Yet, even as I thought about my family, I wondered at how Shadowbridge Manor had begun to feel like home in just the two weeks or so that I had been here. It was like I belonged in Jazz’s world. Kind of like I had come home. When all this was over with, and we had defeated Nire, it was going to be tough to leave.

  If we did beat Nire.

  It had been about a week since the klatch witches had almost had me for an afternoon snack, and I still had a hollow feeling in my gut over the whole mess. I felt pretty crappy about the way I had treated Jazz, throwing dirt on her like a five-year-old. But she had made me so angry. Just like my dad, she knew all the right buttons to push.

  Pulling at the lacing of my tunic, I sighed as Jazz walked down the manor’s steps and to the end of the dirt path. I wondered if she knew that I watched her every morning before I headed downstairs to breakfast.

  She opened her message box, took out the notes, and tilted her head, listening to her Shadowhispers. Since our conversations always seemed to go nowhere, I probably should have started leaving her notes in the stupid box. Maybe then she would have listened to me.

  Jazz nodded at the box as she tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear. Something inside me twisted, an ache I couldn’t name. Well, maybe I could. Despite her tricking me into being there in the first place, our arguing, her being on my case like my dad, and everything having to be perfect—I cared about her, and I cared what she thought about me.

  Why?

  And if it mattered that much, why couldn’t I tell her that I was learning magic and getting better at it every day? She and Rol still thought I was a failure at everything but swordplay. Rol had all but given up, focusing on drilling me over and over at driving my blade into the earth.

  “In Nire’s Sanctuary,” he kept saying. “The earth will be different. Not earth, just space under spell. Everything Nire does and has is false, boy. Unreal and unnatural. Remember that.”

  And then he would frown and look like he ate something bad. “Nire does not have even a natural Sanctuary, or we would have discovered it by now. No. Nire lives in some foul lair, stitched to the Path by filthy magic. You will have to use all of your strength, all of your cunning and belief in yourself—and your belief in what is right and in the power of magic—to destroy it. Drive hard. Drive to split that putrid spell-ground.”

  I had been practicing that. Driving my sword into the earth over and over. Once or twice, I’d even made a small earthquake in the training yard. It was pretty cool, though I couldn’t really control it.

  But at my hideaway, I was getting good at controlling objects, illusions, and even levitating my own body. My hearing was getting sharper, and if I’d wanted to be nosy, I could listen in on those Shadowhispers.

  Down below the mansion, Jazz stilled as if she had heard my thoughts, but I knew she couldn’t. I had become an expert at blocking her out. In fact, I was pretty sure if she tried to turn me into an octopus or feed me to a bunch of carnivorous witches, I’d be able to block the spells and hypnosis, or whatever.

  As I imagined myself levitating a klatchKoven, Jazz lifted her head and looked straight up at my window, and her golden gaze met mine. I couldn’t tear my eyes from hers. I wanted to be close to her, hold her, get in that zone again where we could talk for hours. But how?

  Clenching my jaw, I forced myself away from the window. I grabbed my sword belt off the chest at the foot of my bed and strapped it on. The weapon felt good against my thigh as I strode out of the room and jogged downstairs. Warm smells of fresh baked biscuits and sausage made my stomach grumble.

  Rol was eating breakfast when I reached the dining room. “Fair morning,” he grunted.

  “Backatcha.” I plopped into my chair, shoveled piles of scrambled eggs and sausages onto my plate, and slathered butter and honey on a couple of biscuits. Acaw was an awesome cook, and there was always more than enough food.

  Jazz came in a couple minutes later. She and I did a good job of ignoring each other while we ate, yet I’d catch her studying me from under her lashes every now and then. And she noticed me glancing at her, too.

  When Rol finished, he nodded to Jazz and got up to leave. In a hurry to keep up with him, I gulped some milk, pushed my chair back, and grabbed what was left of my biscuit.

  Just as I crammed the hunk into my mouth, Jazz said, “You won’t be training with Rol this morning. You’ll spend the day with me.”

  I choked on the biscuit, and Rol paused behind me to slap my back, almost pitching my face into my plate.

  Before I had totally recovered, Rol bowed himself out the door and said, “I shall be in the smithy if you have need of me.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking to Jazz, or me but I had half a mind to follow him.

  As I swallowed another drink of milk to chase down the biscuit still stuck in my throat, I noticed Jazz staring at my shirt. I set the glass down and saw crumbs all over me, then I met her gaze. She blushed when she realized I had caught her, and I smirked.

  Jazz’s cheeks turned redder yet and she sprang from her chair, looking everywhere but at me and my dirty shirt. “Come,” she ordered and swept out of the room, her chin in the air.

  With a grin, I tossed my napkin onto my plate and followed her out the door.

  We landed beside the ocean, and I jumped off the broomstick and onto the beach, my sword bouncing against my thigh. Angry black cliffs surrounded the small stretch of pebbles and shale. Wind carried smells of fish and brine and the screeches of seagulls circling overhead. Shells of all sizes and shapes were scattered within the kelp along the waterline.

  I picked up a football-sized conch. “Are you going to teach me to fly a broom?”

  She sighed and tossed the smoking live oak branch onto the shale. “When you master moving objects and levitating, you’ll be able to fly as well. It’ll be instinct, a part of you, like walking.”

  “Really?” I ran my thumb along the shiny inside of the conch. Cool. I would practice that the next time I was at my hideout. I was getting bored with what I had been working on.

  Nodding, she folded her arms across her chest and stared at the Atlantic Ocean. By her frown, I had the feeling she was starting to lose hope that I would ever succeed at magic.

  Waves pounded the shore, and the ocean’s roar stirred something inside me. Kind of crazy, I know, but it was like my soul and my magic were in tune with the ocean. With all of nature.

  “Uh, Jazz…” I started to tell her about my practicing, but it was like a force clamped my jaws together. I swore I felt the statue in my pocket wiggle.

  “Yes?” She looked wary and tense, her spine stiff and her shoulders back.

  “Well, I—uh.” I bit the inside of my cheek and waved at the ocean. “So, what are we doing here?”

  Her frown deepened, and I wondered if she suspected I was hiding something from her. Guilt twisted inside like a hot iron from Rol’s forge. I had promised to be upfront, but I still hadn’t told her about the statue, or my magic. Sometimes it even felt like the statue egged me on when Jazz an
d I argued. But that was ridiculous.

  The damp breeze blew a strand of hair across Jazz’s face, and she pushed the hair behind her ear. “Do you remember what I told you about the Path?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged and tossed the conch onto the beach. “It’s like a ribbon through time. And Sanctuaries, they’re like bubbles attached to the ribbon.”

  She gestured to the ocean. “Do you see the Path? Part of the ribbon runs before us.”

  My gaze followed hers, and I squinted, trying to see what she was talking about. “All I see is a whole lot of water.”

  “Look carefully.” Jazz spoke softly as she moved within inches of me, and I wanted to ease my arm around her shoulders, to draw her close and feel her softness against me. “Do you see the golden sheen,” she was saying, “right here at the water’s edge?”

  I started to shake my head, but a shimmer caught my attention. It was like the barrier I had crashed through that day I’d helped Jazz fight off those shadow creatures. The glitter ran along a short section of the beach and into the ocean and beyond, like a tube snaking into the distance. I walked away from her, to where the water lapped the shore and where the shimmer was the closest. I reached out my hand to touch it and felt its smooth surface beneath the pads of my fingers.

  Yes—that same rubbery texture—like the wall at my hideout. It wasn’t an invisible wall that bordered my hideout. It was the Path. I opened my mouth to say something about it to Jazz, then snapped my mouth shut. The statue wiggled in my pocket. Nope. The hideout was my secret.

  Jazz moved beside me, and her cinnamon-and-peaches scent mixed with the salty breeze. “Excellent.” Her voice was soft and approving. “After my father died, I’ve been the only one able to open the Path and travel from one Sanctuary to another. Until you sliced through it that day you—ah—aided me.”

  “That was an accident.” Her nearness was now distracting me, and I backed away. “What makes you think I could do it again?”

  Hurt flickered across her face, and I knew she thought I didn’t want to be near her. Before I could say anything, her queen-of-ice mask slipped into place and her tone hardened. “What makes you think you can’t open the Path? Your fear of failure?”