She then continued down the hallway until she reached the door to the dining hall. She crouched next to it and listened in on the conversation. They were still discussing the plan. They went over how many people to take, where the secret entrance to the castle was, and when they would likely be arriving.
Slowly, Cordelia inched forward so she could see inside the room. They all sat around the table, eating and drinking and laughing while they discussed the mission. Adie, Brendan, Celene, Gilbert, Eugene Kristoff, and Anapos. As her gaze passed over Anapos, Cordelia’s throat clenched like it was trying to strangle her.
Anapos looked different. Cordelia couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but she definitely was not imagining things. There was an aura of darkness emanating from her new friend. Something that had not been there before. It almost looked like Cordelia was getting a glimpse into a black soul. And she knew instantly that it was the talisman around her neck—showing her the truth, like Denver said it could do in his Journal.
Cordelia backed away suddenly and ran back to Adie’s room. She replaced the talisman where she found it and then did the same thing with the Journal. Cordelia knew now that she didn’t need those things in order to help out. She now had a real and valiant reason to follow them in the morning. There was something deceitful about Anapos. She couldn’t tell them now, of course. If she did that, they would know she had spied on them, and then who knows what Brendan and Eugene would do; they might even lock her up. No, telling them now wasn’t an option. Instead, she would follow them in the morning to keep an eye on Anapos. And then save the day in the moment of truth, in that moment when Anapos was about to betray them.
A healthy mind might have realized the many flaws of her plan, the inherent danger of hiding what she’d discovered. But Cordelia’s mind was far from healthy in that moment. Days of losing control, of being pushed aside, of losing her sense of purpose had worn her down. That, and a lack of food, water, and sleep had completely robbed Cordelia of her normally sound judgment. In her own mind, what she was doing was the best thing for her family.
When the rest of them departed the next morning before sunrise for Castle Corroway, Cordelia would follow. Because she had the one thing she cherished above all else in that moment: knowledge that nobody else possessed.
The first time Brendan had travelled from Tinz to Castle Corroway, it had been in the back of a dirty horse-drawn cart, tied up with his two sisters. They had been prisoners of Slayne and his terrible band of Savage Warriors. The journey had lasted two long days in cramped squalor. And the Savage Warriors had taken their time, stopping often to pointlessly slaughter animals, pillage small farms, and get drunk at wayfarer taverns.
This trip, however, felt much different. For one thing, his sisters were not with him. Cordelia was back in Tinz and Eleanor was already at the castle. And this time the band traveled by horseback at a steady gallop nearly the whole way. It took just four hours compared to the two slogging, terrible days the first time around.
The rescue party consisted of Brendan, Celene, Gilbert, Anapos, and Adie, who had insisted that she get to see this through.
“I’ve been through so much the past few days,” she had said when Brendan protested. “I’ll be darned if y’all are just going to leave me behind now.”
Brendan hadn’t had a good counterargument.
Eugene Kristoff was leading a much larger army several hours behind them, in case things went poorly. Which, the old man had said, they likely would. Eugene fully expected a large-scale battle to break out by the end of the day. Brendan could only hope he was wrong, or that they’d at least get to Eleanor and the last Worldkeeper before it happened.
The five infiltrators dismounted their horses near the edge of the thick forest surrounding Castle Corroway. Celene led them to the hidden entrance of the outer wall surrounding the castle. The sun had only risen part of the way past the mountains to the east, casting much of the royal grounds in relative darkness.
Celene finished breaking into the sewer drainage tunnel, and in a matter of minutes, they had successfully entered the castle through a series of hidden underground passages. They emerged in the castle’s wine cellar to find a startled guard just waking from a nap.
Celene had a sling out before Brendan even fully realized what was happening. A small rock sailed across the room in an instant. There was a soft thump, and the guard slumped down to the stone floor with a huge lump already developing on his forehead.
“You beefed him,” Adie said in shock.
“No, he’s not dead,” Celene said, pointing at the man’s chest, still rising slowly with his breaths. “But he’ll probably wake up with a terrible headache.”
“Right,” Brendan said, eyeing the guard’s massive forehead welt uneasily, as Celene picked up the stone and put it back in her satchel. “Where to now?”
Celene consulted a map of Castle Corroway that Resistance spies had drawn.
“Queen Daphne’s chambers are five floors up,” she said.
Brendan nodded, and the group crept up a narrow set of stone steps. They stayed quiet as they stealthily navigated the cold and dark castle. There were very few people around, either due to the early hour or preparations for the invasion of San Francisco.
They had only made it up to the third floor of the castle, when Celene suddenly stopped dead in her tracks at the end of a long hallway. Brendan pushed past her to see what she was gawking at.
It was Eleanor, standing right there in front of them.
Eleanor’s panicked eyes found Brendan’s and then she smiled. Before he even realized what was happening, she ran forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. The shirt on her back was matted with sweat and she was trembling.
“I’m so glad you came!” Eleanor sobbed. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Brendan was so relieved he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down his face—his usual self-consciousness completely pushed aside by the joy of seeing Eleanor alive and well again. Deep down he’d always known she would never knowingly help the Wind Witch. Sure, they’d all made their mistakes in the past. But none of them would ever actually follow through in helping the Wind Witch, at least not on purpose.
“What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not . . . I mean, sort of, but . . . not really,” Eleanor said. She was a frantic mess, barely able to string her words together. “The Wind Witch . . . she tricked me into coming with her. I almost fell for everything she said . . . but then I saw the sorts of horrible things she’s doing here and the awful plans she’s making and I came to my senses and escaped.”
“What is she planning?” Brendan asked.
“To send an army of Denver Kristoff’s most evil and dangerous creatures into San Francisco!”
“So it’s what we’ve always feared,” he said, thinking about the sort of devastation those awful alien-piloted robots alone could unleash on downtown. “How can we stop her?”
“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “I just want to get out of here before she finds out I escaped!”
Brendan looked at Celene.
“Let’s get back to Eugene and the main army,” Celene said. “He’ll know what to do.”
Brendan nodded.
“Did you and Cordelia find your Worldkeepers?” Eleanor asked.
“Yes,” he said, patting the Invictum, which was in an awkwardly large sheath attached to his belt. “It’s a diamond knife called the Invictum. Did you find yours?”
“Yes . . . well, sort of,” Eleanor said, glancing at Gilbert. “I’ll explain later! We need to go now!”
“This way!” Celene said.
They started to follow Celene, but Eleanor stopped them.
“No!” she said. “They know you’re coming. Cordelia spied on you last night and the Wind Witch saw part of it. They know you’re all here. Come on, this way will be safer!”
“Cordelia spied on us?” Brendan asked, shocked that his older, suppo
sedly smarter, sister could do something so careless and dangerous.
“She isn’t herself right now,” Eleanor said. “She’s not thinking clearly!”
Celene, Gilbert, Anapos, Adie, and Brendan followed Eleanor as she led them down a short corridor and then into a curved stairwell. They started descending, step after step, around and around in a spiral. Brendan was actually getting dizzy after the thirtieth or fortieth step.
Finally, at the bottom, they reached a solid wrought-iron door with a huge handle. Eleanor grabbed it, but it wouldn’t budge. Celene and Anapos tried to open it together, but it didn’t even so much as groan from the pressure.
“It’s not moving,” Celene said. “There’s no way we can cut through iron with our swords. It’s a dead end.”
“Let’s go back up,” Anapos suggested.
“We can’t!” Adie shouted from the back of the group. “I hear footsteps . . . someone else is coming down!”
“We’re trapped!” Anapos shouted. “You led us into a trap, little girl!”
“No,” Eleanor said. “There has to be a way to cut through the door! What about that, Bren?” She pointed at the Invictum. “Remember, the Journal said it was sharper than anything in the world!”
Brendan nodded. It was worth a try. He drew the Invictum from the sheath, careful not to slice off one of Gilbert’s arms in the cramped stairwell. There wasn’t room for him to try and squeeze past everyone, and so he passed the sparkling diamond knife forward toward Eleanor.
She grabbed it; the shining diamond blade gleamed in the reflection of her eyes. A smile spread across her face. Then she turned and jammed the blade into the iron door. It passed through it with ease, as if she were cutting into an avocado wedge instead of solid metal. She sliced through the section containing the lock and the door slowly swung open.
The group rushed through it and into the open air. Brendan and Adie were the last two out the door and they slammed it shut behind them. He spun around . . . and then gasped.
They were standing outside, high atop the tallest tower of Castle Corroway, in spite of just having descended at least a hundred steps!
“How is this possible?” Brendan yelled. “We just went down at least six flights of stairs!”
“It was dark magic,” Celene said, her eyes growing wide. “We’ve been tricked.”
Everyone turned toward Eleanor. She stood near the edge of the vast tower and grinned at them. Then she began laughing. But it wasn’t her usual laugh, there was something menacing behind it now, and something that didn’t sound quite human.
“Eleanor, no,” Brendan whimpered.
Eleanor spread her arms like a bird, the Invictum still gripped in her right hand. Then she floated off the ground and hovered in the air above them, smiling and laughing and looking remarkably like a young version of the Wind Witch.
“Now you’re worried about me?” she spat at Brendan. “You should have thought of that before you left me all alone on that horrible alien planet.”
Before Brendan got a chance to reply, the steel door slammed open as the person following them down (or up) the staircase burst out onto the tower. It was Cordelia. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing: Her little sister was holding a nasty-looking diamond blade while flying and cackling just like . . . the Wind Witch.
“Cordelia!” Brendan shouted. “Are you here to betray us too? Again?”
“The opposite,” Cordelia said. “I’m here to help you.”
“Yeah, and how’s that?” Brendan asked. “By tipping off the Wind Witch to another one of our secret plans?”
“There’s a traitor among you,” Cordelia said.
“Besides you?” Brendan taunted, knowing he was laying it on too thick now. But he couldn’t help it, he still felt so hurt that she’d spied on them the night before and accidentally tipped off the Wind Witch to the whole plan. It was her fault that this whole thing was heading south after all.
“Anapos,” Cordelia said, pointing at her supposed friend.
All eyes turned toward the Atlantisan with shimmering blue skin. She had been mere seconds from shoving Celene over the edge of the tower to certain death. But with Cordelia’s warning, Celene was just able to duck away from Anapos’s outstretched hands.
Anapos hissed at her, then lunged again. This time, Celene was not able to get away, as the lithe Atlantisan grabbed Celene’s short hair with one hand and knocked her dagger away with the other.
Cordelia charged forward and shoved Anapos over the edge of the tower before she could harm Celene.
The stunned group turned and faced Eleanor again, still hovering in the air above them. She didn’t seem upset that Cordelia had just killed her spy. In fact, she was still smiling at them smugly.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Eleanor said. “If you want to kill my great-great-grandmother.”
Behind them Anapos rose up into the air, her blue polished skin cracking like shattered glass. She laughed as she flew over to join Eleanor. They all stared in shock as the pieces of Anapos began to fall away, revealing something far worse inside.
“You fools!” the Wind Witch spat at them. “Without you, I never could have retrieved the Invictum. But not only did you do that for me, you also delivered it right to us!”
Brendan stared in shock at Eleanor and the Wind Witch flying side by side. It was too awful to be true. He felt Cordelia’s hand clasped around his and they both looked up at their little sister in anguish.
“What use is the Invictum for you?” Brendan asked, fighting tears. “You’ve already beaten us. Besides, we don’t even have the third Worldkeeper.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Brendan,” the Wind Witch said. “The third Worldkeeper was with you all along. It’s standing right beside you.”
Brendan looked to his right. Gilbert looked at him, his small frame belying his great power. Fear and uncertainty reflected back from all seven of his unblinking black eyes. It made sense that the alien would have no idea that he apparently was the third Worldkeeper. . . . Before they’d met, he hadn’t even known he was a fictional character.
“But it doesn’t even matter,” the Wind Witch said smugly. “Because I never cared to have all three Worldkeepers, I only wanted the Invictum. But you, the tough guy, somehow managed to get it before me, even after you led me right to it.”
“Wait,” Brendan said. “You were Jumbo!”
The Wind Witch nodded, her ugly smile growing even wider and more menacing and arrogant.
Brendan suddenly felt disgusted with himself that he let Jumbo’s fake admiration flatter him.
“I didn’t know where I’d find the Invictum, and so I tracked all three of you, hoping one of you would lead me right to it,” the Wind Witch said. “But after you escaped the pyramid with it, I formulated a new plan to get my hands on it by using something you love . . . something that is your greatest weakness: your loyalty to your family.”
“Our love for Eleanor is not a weakness!” Cordelia shouted.
“No?” the Wind Witch asked smugly. “Then why did my plan work like a charm? I knew your blind love for Eleanor would lead you directly to me, along with the Invictum. And also a special thanks to you, Cordelia, for helping to make the whole thing even easier.”
Cordelia stood there and shook her head slowly, fighting at the tears stinging her eyes.
“Oh yes,” the Wind Witch said with delight. “You cannot deny the pivotal role you played in me succeeding. The envy and uncertainty you felt led me right to your friends’ little plan.”
“You old troll, it was you!” shouted Cordelia. “You made me betray my own friends and family; you made me spy on them! You got into my head.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear,” the Wind Witch said. “Those feelings which betrayed your family were all your own—I had nothing to do with what you did. I merely used my link to you to benefit from your own errors. You’re really still just a silly teenager, Cordelia. You may think
you’re more mature and smarter and better than all your peers back at school, but in the end, you’re just like them: an insecure little brat who lets her emotions trump her better judgment.”
“No . . . ,” Cordelia said softly, still shaking her head. She wasn’t sure what hurt worse, the reality of what she’d done, or the fact that the Wind Witch was right about everything she was saying.
Cordelia was too hurt in that moment to realize that the Wind Witch hadn’t actually needed Cordelia at all to complete her plan—since she was already there disguised as Anapos. But the Wind Witch didn’t point that out since she was enjoying Cordelia’s pain far too much.
She knew she couldn’t physically harm the Walkers, which is why she’d concocted a more complicated plan to hurt them in the only way she could: the emotional pain and agony of family betrayal. A pain she knew all too well.
“Still, I don’t understand how a simple knife can be so important to you,” Cordelia said, deep down still harboring hope that she could somehow save them.
“My dear, beautiful granddaughter,” the Wind Witch said to Eleanor. “Will you show them the power of this simple knife?”
Eleanor smiled and soared up into the sky even higher. The Invictum in her right hand was no longer the sparkling color of diamonds—it was now glowing red. And it also appeared to be growing, the blade almost twice as long, with the curved U on the end nearly the size of Eleanor’s head.
Finally, Eleanor stopped ascending just short of the lowest clouds in the sky. Her laughter and delight was chilling.
She raised the glowing red blade of the Invictum into the air, with glee in her eyes, and stabbed it into the deep blue sky like it was nothing but a piece of flimsy canvas. She dove back down toward the castle tower, dragging the Invictum across the sky.
Large sections of the sky fell away and dissolved into nothing.
Behind it lay modern-day San Francisco. It was a view of the city from the center of the bay. And it was no optical illusion. A passing tourist ferry headed toward Alcatraz packed with people slowed to a halt in front of them, just on the other side of the hole in the universe.
Clash of the Worlds Page 25