The Gray Tower Trilogy: Books 1-3

by Alesha Escobar

“Yes.” I nodded and quickly ran my fingers through my hair, trying to appear somewhat presentable—well, as presentable as one could be as she stood outside her friend’s flat in a bathrobe.

  “Come in.” She pulled the door open further and gasped. “Is that a cut on your neck? What happened?”

  “Hey, you know those pebbles you brought back from Dover Beach?” I turned to face her and didn’t bother taking a seat on the sofa.

  “Y-yes...let me take a look at that.” She approached and swept my hair to the side. “Why didn’t you heal yourself?”

  “It’s just a little cut...”

  She ran over to her first aid kit in the kitchen and pulled out a band-aid. “I feel silly giving this to you, but...”

  “Thanks.” I let her place the band-aid over the tiny wound. “Praskovya paid me a little visit.”

  “What? Where is she?”

  “Don’t worry, Joshua arrested her. It looks like your brother finally did something useful.”

  “Half brother,” she said with a smirk. She went over to her bookshelf and grabbed a silver and turquoise jewelry box. She flipped the lid open and counted ten large pebbles.

  “Great, I’ll need just nine of them.” I took the box from her, and gave her a peck on the cheek. She still looked confused and worried.

  “Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

  I started to shake my head and tell her “no,” but it occurred to me that it would benefit me to have her be there. I would need Jane to pull me out of the Locus Circle if I couldn’t do it myself. “Actually, yes. Come with me.”

  For a moment she seemed to have regretted her offer. “Oh...well...all right.”

  After assuring Jane that I planned to fix my broken window as soon as possible, she finally started helping me set up the Locus Circle. She carefully placed seven of the pebbles in a large circle around me as I sat on the floor with my legs crossed. She followed up with a line of amber dust tracing the outside of the Circle.

  “This had better be worth it,” I muttered, as she crushed petals from a single gilded rose and followed the same outline of the amber dust. I had bought the rose from Penn a few months back and wanted to save it for the right spell. Amber repelled fear, and gilded roses fortified one’s mystical energy, acting as a good luck charm.

  “When do you want me to start it?” She held the last two stones in each hand and faced me. She would have to place the eighth stone in front of me to complete the Locus Circle and send me into the recesses of my mind. The ninth stone would bring me back.

  “At my word. Just pull me out if you see me in distress. It won’t affect you.”

  Her eyes widened. “What should I look for?”

  “Screaming, vomiting, passing out...”

  “Are you sure you need to do this?”

  “Yes.” But it didn’t mean that I had to like it.

  “Be careful.”

  I felt a knot in my stomach. “Okay, do it now.”

  As soon as she completed the circle with the eighth stone, a bright light illuminated the inner circle, and everything else around me faded. When the light slowly dimmed to gray, I knew I had entered the dreamlike state of the memory palace.

  A door that looked wrought of iron stood in front of me. I took a deep breath and opened it, and to my surprise, I walked into my childhood bedroom. I stood there and watched my ten year-old-self climbing my tall bookcase, with no shoes or socks on, my eyes focused on a large white box at the very top. Several stuffed animals littered the floor to cushion any possible fall.

  When young Isabella slipped, I rushed forward and shouted a warning, but she neither heard nor saw me. Luckily, she didn’t fall, but kept climbing up the sturdy bookcase until she reached the white box. Hanging on with one hand, she used the other to grab a hairpin from the base of her ponytail and shoved it into the keyhole on the white box. Just then, my father opened the door and came in. Young Isabella faltered and fell down into the protective cushion of her toys. She immediately jumped to her feet and held my father’s gaze.

  “Daddy, hi.”

  “Isabella,” his voice sounded stern, but his eyes showed kindness. “You’re supposed to be writing standards like your mother told you.”

  “I did!” She ran over to her desk and grabbed a few sheets of paper. She handed them to my father. “I wrote it five hundred times, like she asked. And I wrote an extra two hundred just in case I did something else bad later on.”

  My father smiled. “Very good, then. But that doesn’t mean you should try to get your dolls out of the box until mother says you can.”

  She pulled a face. “I said I was sorry.”

  My father approached and cupped her chin in his hand. “You do know that what you did wasn’t...normal?”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “I’m quite sure big brothers don’t instantaneously suffer from purple blisters on their faces.”

  “I told Johnnie to stop teasing me.”

  “Well,” he grabbed her hand, “I’m going to teach you how to control it. First, you’ll have to be tested, like I was when I was a boy.”

  My mother’s voice carried from the end of the hall. “Carson...Carson!”

  When my father and young Isabella stepped out into the hallway, the room pulsated like an underwater vibration, and I followed behind. They both stood there and eyed my mother who, despite her beautiful face, could look rather scary when angry. She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped toward us.

  “Carson, what are they doing out there?”

  “I told you, I have to take her for testing.”

  My mother’s lip quivered. “But I asked you to give her some time.”

  “It’s been two years. That’s more than enough.”

  She looked over her shoulder as if expecting whoever “they” were, to come barging in and grab me. “But...she’s just a girl.”

  “It’s just testing, Mary. I went through it as well when I was her age.”

  She rushed toward us, almost knocking over the blue vase sitting on a stand in the hallway. She grabbed young Isabella’s free hand. “I already have to sit here worrying about whether or not you’re going to make it home to us. Now you want to get our daughter involved with the Order?”

  My father’s expression looked apologetic, but he never let go of young Isabella’s hand. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”

  She pressed one hand against my father’s chest to stay him, and kept her grip on young Isabella with her other. “Johnnie came out normal,” she said in a half-whisper, “why can’t she?”

  That question stung me, and the look on my face as a little girl proved that it must’ve hurt me then. Father Gabriel called his powers a “gift from God,” but seeing this memory unfold showed me why my mother always treated my abilities like a curse. She had never opposed my decision to enter the Order, but I could always tell that she didn’t approve.

  My father regarded her with a tender look. “We have to go. I promise we’ll return soon.”

  “Wait!” my mother shrieked when my father started down the hall again. She grabbed the young Isabella’s wrist and tried to pull the girl toward her. My father simply uttered a Word, and my mother let her slide out of her grasp.

  “I’m sorry, Isabella,” he said when he saw tears running down her tiny cheeks. He scooped her into his arms and headed toward the living room.

  “Bring her back!”

  My father dodged sideways and avoided the vase my mother threw at his head. He pivoted with an amazing degree of swiftness, caught the vase, and placed it on another stand in the living room.

  “Calm down, Mary. You could’ve hit Isabella.”

  She shadowed us into the living room. “If you take her to them, then don’t come back. Do you understand? I can’t do this anymore.”

  The entire house pulsated this time, but only I noticed or felt it. My father and young Isabella headed toward the door, and she raised her hand in a half-wave at Johnnie, who sat on the sofa
pretending to read a book. I couldn’t tell if my brother’s tears were those of anger or sadness.

  My father instructed young Isabella to get inside the car that waited at the curb. An invisible force drew me behind her like a magnet. Wherever she went, I would have to follow. She wiped the tears from her eyes and walked through the front yard. She approached and opened the wooden gate. I stood next to her as she threw one last look in the direction of the house, where my mother stood in the doorway with my father, in a loving embrace.

  When young Isabella saw it, the tension around her mouth eased. However, from my vantage point, it looked like he had placed my mother under an enchantment. I didn’t like that. Let her scream and cry and throw vases at his head all she wanted, but who was he to manipulate her like that?

  I turned and followed young Isabella to the car, and the back door opened for her. She crawled inside and sat down next to Veit Heilwig. He smiled down at her and said nothing, but the driver did turn around to speak with her.

  “Good evening, Isabella. My name is Serafino Pedraic.”

  A third person sat in the passenger seat, but neither she nor I could see who he was. My father slid in next to her and closed the door. She looked up at him with complete trust, a trust that would now be plagued with suspicion and doubt.

  He framed her face with his hands and said, “Don’t be afraid.”

  Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She let out a soft gasp as she fainted. This was probably the first of several memory enchantments. As the car took off and I stood at the curb, I wondered why my father had buried this memory—besides the fact that it made him look like a nicer version of Leto Priya. The atmosphere around me pulsated, then my vision blurred and suddenly everything turned gray. I felt like I was falling.

  When I opened my eyes, I was back at the house, except this time I stood in the backyard. Young Isabella carried a long red ribbon and ran in a large circle as a Labrador puppy chased her. My father and Veit, with beer bottles in hand and barbecue aprons on, watched us from the porch.

  My mother emerged from the house with a petite woman at her side. “We’re going to pick up Johnnie’s cake from the bakery,” she said.

  The petite woman bent over Veit and planted a kiss on his lips. “Do you need anything while we’re out, dear?”

  Veit stroked her light brown hair and smiled. “I’m fine.”

  Johnnie came out. “Mom! Are you ready?”

  “Yes, let’s go.” She put on her gloves.

  “Happy birthday, Jonathan.” Veit handed him a beer.

  “Veit,” my mother shook her head and snatched the beer out of Johnnie’s grasp, “we don’t drink at sixteen over here.”

  “When will you be back?” My father grabbed the beer from my mother.

  “We shouldn’t be more than an hour. Come on, Rosa. I want to show you this beautiful dress I saw yesterday down at the shop.” She gave my father a parting kiss and steered Johnnie toward the house. Rosa followed.

  “Do you want to get started with the barbecue?” Veit asked.

  “Be my guest.”

  Veit drew a fire symbol in the air, and the pit lit up. Young Isabella paused to watch, the Labrador seized the ribbon in between its teeth and took off with it.

  “Did you do that with your powers?” she asked.

  Veit nodded. “You can do the same, too.”

  The puppy came back around and nipped at her heels. She squealed and started up the chase again. I moved in her direction to follow, but, oddly, something forced me toward my father and Veit. They were in the middle of a conversation.

  “...and we’ve secured everything, Carson. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you...going to tell them goodbye?”

  He shook his head. “Robert’s going to phone me tonight, make it seem like I have an assignment with the Army.”

  Veit nodded. “You won’t be able to see your family again. The Masters will dog your every step, and you’ll have no rest.”

  “It has to be this way.”

  Veit smiled and watched young Isabella. “There has to be a reason for this, don’t you think? And, no one made us infallible. Neither the Masters nor the Three can answer that question—what if they are wrong?”

  My father drew in a deep breath. “I apologize for getting you involved.”

  “I knew the risks. We all did. Serafino and Jerome may have their reasons, but I’m doing this because you’re my friend.”

  “What if we’re wrong?” My father gazed at him and awaited an answer.

  “Stop weighing yourself down with so many ‘what-ifs.’ Besides, don’t you think it’s a sign from God? Imagine, after a hundred years, the fourth Drifter arrives, the only female one.”

  No. This was wrong. What was this?

  Young Isabella broke out into a long scream that resonated throughout the backyard. The puppy yowled and ran in the direction of the tool shed, and my father and Veit followed.

  My father swung the door open, and with a stunned expression, he saw her crouched in the middle of the tool shed, blazing like a torch. When he saw that the flames didn’t consume her, he called to her and held out his hand.

  Something inside me made me want to extend my hand as well, though I knew no one could see or feel me. Just as all three of our hands were poised to meet, a black hole surfaced in the upper right corner of the shed. It grew larger and began to swirl like a mist, until I saw a familiar pair of eerie red eyes peek out from the center.

  I jumped back when the corpse-like Black Wolf weaseled its way through the black hole and came slithering toward me like a snake. “Jane! Pull me out, now!”

  I called out for Jane again, and suddenly a strong hand on my shoulder guided me out of my nightmare. I went flying through gray space again. The bright light of the Locus Circle blinded me, and then I felt an immense pressure on my chest. I took a deep breath, and when my vision returned, I saw that I was back in my flat. I lay halfway outside the broken Circle, and Jane sat on the floor with her arms wrapped around me.

  “I’ve got you,” she said in a steady voice, though her entire body trembled. “Please, don’t ever do that again!”

  “Jane...”

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t tell anyone about this. Not Joshua, not Ian...no one.”

  “What happened?”

  I stared into her frightened eyes. She may not have completely understood what I just did, but I couldn’t risk even a small part of it being communicated to anyone else.

  My mouth felt dry. “Was I on fire?”

  “For a moment, but it went away. There’s not a mark on you...it’s a miracle.” She helped me to my feet and steered me toward my reclining chair. “Poor dear, you’re shaking. Let me fix you some tea.”

  I watched her go into the kitchen, and I wanted to groan. When I thought about what Jane just said, I felt the way my mother did. This gift, this miracle, caused turmoil within my family. It made my father leave us and lead the Gray Tower to believe that he was the one they wanted. Veit, my father, and Serafino Pedraic and whoever Jerome was...they must’ve found a way to mask my true powers with those of an alchemist. However, it had been sixteen years, and each day the façade slowly crumbled. My arms felt numb, I would’ve been screaming and kicking things if Jane weren’t here with me.

  “Here’s your tea.” Jane set the cup down in front of me and ran over to grab my broom. She started sweeping up broken pieces of glass.

  “Thank you.” I took a sip and nearly dropped the teacup.

  “You can stay with me tonight.”

  “Jane, I—”

  “You’re not getting out of this one. You’re coming with me.” She grabbed the dustpan and swept the glass inside. When she threw the broken glass into the trash, she came over to me.

  I mustered a smile for her. “Let me grab some things...and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  She nodded and headed for the door. When she clo
sed it behind her, I stood and went into my bedroom. I took a few articles of clothing and a book to read. I went back into the living room for my knife, and sheathed it before placing it into my robe’s front pocket.

  I shuddered when I felt a cold breeze coming from the broken window. I saw my cream-colored curtain sway in the wind. I went over to the window and carved Earth and Air symbols into the windowsill. The breeze went away, and my invisible barricade sealed off the window.

  As I headed out with my things, including the diary, I wondered if I would lose my powers as an alchemist, and what I would do with the powers of a Drifter. However, first things first—I needed to find a mentalist I could trust who’d be willing to put a seal on my mind. If Leto Priya went prying in there again, he’d discover my unlocked memories and kill me on the spot.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid, or that I stood ready to face this challenge. My father, despite his flaws, bore the burden for me all these years so I wouldn’t have to endure what he did, or worse. Now I had to show that same strength, and learn how to keep fooling the Gray Tower while staying out of the clutches of Octavian and his Black Wolves. I withered at the grim thought that I couldn’t afford to make a single mistake, but I had no choice.

  If I didn’t protect myself and stay a step ahead of my enemies, I was as good as dead.

  Dark Rift

  Book Two

  22

  I carved the alchemical symbol for Fire in the waiting room’s doorframe--a triangle. My head swam from the protective seal Nena had placed on my mind, but I managed to swat her hand away when she reached for the doorknob. I raised my trembling index finger to my lips in a gesture for her to remain quiet, and I charged my Fire symbol with magical energy, feeding it with mental concentration.

  I unlocked the door and swung it open. The Cruenti warlock was gone. He may have worn an expensive black suit and appeared innocuous with his slight frame, but my senses had gone off and screamed for me to run. I breathed a low sigh and decided to obey my instincts. I had rushed into the waiting room, my eyes on the exit just across from me, when something wet splashed onto my forehead. I immediately looked up to see the warlock plastered to the ceiling, salivating and watching me with his electric blue eyes. I swung my knife just in time to slice his chest as he landed on me. I fell into a roll with him and ended up on top. As I drove the blade toward his heart, he sent me flying backward with an invisible force. I crashed against a few folding chairs lined up against the wall and dropped my golden knife. I cursed at Nena in my head for having invited the warlock in.