by Lucia Ashta
And so was the mouse that had crept right next to us without my noticing, even in my studying sweeps of the area.
The mouse was small but swift, and it was running as if it had to outrun death—I supposed it truly did. Despite Sir Lancelot’s abundance of sophistication, he was still a predator, though a very small one. He was, of course, bigger than the mouse, and owls eat mice.
The mouse scurried toward the flower beds. If it managed to lodge itself beneath them, I presumed he’d be safe, even from an owl.
Sir Lancelot flapped his wings a couple of times while the mouse covered the open ground. Then he dove while the mouse ran as fast as its legs would carry him toward the hedge.
It leapt the last few feet, but Sir Lancelot caught him.
“Oh thank goodness,” Arianne exclaimed, and I was extremely certain I was missing something much bigger than the mouse or even the pygmy owl.
“Thank you, Sir Lancelot. Bring him here, but don’t put him down yet.”
With a squirming mouse in his otherwise sophisticated beak, Sir Lancelot flew toward the center of our circle. As if it would be far too impolite to land on Brave’s shoulder again with struggling prey in his mouth, the owl landed on the grass.
Immediately, Arianne crouched to see him better. “Well, well, well. You just won’t leave us alone for one second, will you?”
I looked to Nando, who was already looking at me. Who’s she talking to?
“We tell you we want nothing to do with you, that we won’t harm you if you’ll simply leave us alone. But will you? No, of course not. You insist on trying to spread your misguided dark magic to the world.”
She stood. “I’ll have none of it.” She nearly roared it, and I startled at the intensity rolling off the slender woman.
“Are you ready, Sir Lancelot?”
The owl nodded.
“On three. One.”
I had no idea what was going on!
“Two.”
Sir Lancelot craned his neck forward.
“Three.”
He tossed the mouse into the air while Arianne’s hands moved forward, her lips mumbling rapidly.
Before the mouse hit the ground, she hurled a spell at it.
In a flash of light, the mouse became a man.
Chapter 6
Sir Lancelot coughed, spit, and made faces. “That was totally horrible.” He coughed some more. “Disgusting.” He grimaced. “Wretched.”
But I wasn’t looking at Sir Lancelot. I couldn’t take my eyes from the entirely ordinary-looking man, who stood in the center of our circle. No, not a man, I corrected, a sorcerer, a dark one.
Arianne didn’t take her eyes from him as the firedrakes tightened our ranks around him. She didn’t have to say a word to the creatures, who were in sync with her. “Gertrude,” she said, her attention on the sorcerer in our midst, “please transform and make sure that if he escapes, you catch him.”
“With pleasure.” Her voice was guttural, as if she were already a feline. In a flash, she was suddenly a tabby cat, pacing the circle like a predator with its prey, trapped.
Is every magician capable of becoming an animal? I wondered. I felt as if I’d never be able to trust my eyes again.
Nando’s hand was at his sword, and Brave looked ready to pounce as well. I just stared, wishing there was something I knew to do to help.
“You dare to infiltrate our estate?” Arianne said, her voice menacing. “You dare to threaten our students?” She advanced on him with small, measured steps.
The sorcerer hadn’t considered he’d be caught, secure it would seem in his disguise as a small mouse. It was written all over his face, the one he tried to harden into an uncaring expression, and failed miserably. He was frightened of Arianne. The signs of it were subtle, but I believed they were there.
Arianne did look fearsome, her confident and intense features entirely out of place on the body of a lady of high society. Her dress and demeanor indicated that she should have little better to do than to plan her next social engagement.
Hands outstretched, as if she could cast an invisible net around the intruder in a second, she continued to advance on him, the loyal firedrakes closing in on him as she did.
The man’s eyes glittered with apprehension.
Arianne tilted her head back and shouted to the sky. “Vladimir! Join us!”
We were hundreds of feet from the manor, and if Count Vabu was indeed with Gustave, then he’d be on the side of the house farthest from where we stood, tacking on another several hundred feet that separated us. He wouldn’t hear.
Oh, but he’s a vampire. Who knew what kind of skills a vampire had? I swallowed hard, and it wasn’t because of the cornered threat in our midst, it was because of the one our teachers had invited into our fold as a respected guest.
“What was your purpose here?” Arianne pinned the sorcerer in her glare. “What did you think you’d accomplish? Surely you didn’t think we were foolish enough not to notice you traipsing around our grounds.”
From the look on his face, that was exactly what the sorcerer had thought.
She chuckled a laugh without joy, a frightening sound that made my skin shiver. “You did. Don’t you sorcerers know the first rule of combat? Know your enemy.” She grinned, and she reminded me of her granddaughter when she was a cat. “Or else your enemy will pounce on you.”
She stood two feet from the sorcerer when I started to fear for her safety. Surely the mouse-man wouldn’t be so stupid as to come in here without at least one other trick in his arsenal.
But he didn’t move. His stare trained on the red-haired woman in front of him.
“Well,” she said. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
He didn’t look as if he was going to say a thing when I heard the faint flapping of wings. Startled, I turned in time to see a small bat fly into the open space next to me, and transform into a man, whose feet landed on the ground in one smooth, seamless motion.
My jaw grew slack even though I’d witnessed Count Vabu’s transformation once before. It was just an incredible thing to watch. I’d now seen other magicians transform from cats, pigs, and mice. None of them, however, oozed the elegance while doing it quite like Count Vabu.
He didn’t skip a beat from the moment he last flapped his wings at my side to the time he strode forward to join Arianne.
When Nando saw him move into the center of the circle, he jumped. “Where the heck did he come from?”
I knew my brother well enough to know that he’d lost control of himself. His actions were almost always restrained and measured.
Nando’s cheeks were flushed as he realized he’d exclaimed out loud, but I didn’t blame him. I’d been thinking the exact same thing. I reached out and held his hand in silent support. Now wasn’t the time to talk things over.
“Count Vladimir Vabu?” the sorcerer asked. His voice shook a little at the start before he visibly regained control.
Count Vabu stood next to Arianne. “Yes, and I see that my reputation precedes me. Good, that will save us time. You can get directly to answering my questions.”
He turned to Arianne. “How did you find him?”
“He was a mouse, attempting to eavesdrop on my lesson. Sir Lancelot caught him, and I forced his transformation.”
“Then we should have Madame Pimlish join us as well.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Arianne said, while I wondered what the whiny witch could contribute to the situation. The only thing I envisioned she’d do is create drama.
“Shall I go retrieve her, Milady?” Sir Lancelot, finally finished with his disgusted routine, asked.
“Please. That will be most helpful. And tell her to hurry. He’s fighting me, trying to transform.”
With that, Sir Lancelot took off, flying too close to the sorcerer for my comfort. For a terrifying moment, I feared he was going to reach out to capture one of the owl’s wings. When he didn’t, I was left wondering at the magici
ans in the center of our circle. I saw no signs that the sorcerer and Arianne were in some kind of invisible fight.
He stared at her. Arms outstretched, she stared at him.
“If you try anything, you’ll regret you did,” Count Vabu said. “I promise you that.”
The sorcerer’s eyes flicked to Count Vabu. He seemed to consider his threat, decide he meant what he said and had the power to cause his regret, and then his features relaxed.
Ah! So there was the sign that he’d been attempting some sort of unseen magic. His face had been unusually tense, a fact I’d attributed to his capture.
Now that I understood what I was looking for, I expected the same telltale relaxation in Arianne, but it never arrived. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Count Vabu took a step closer to the sorcerer, careful not to block Arianne’s view of him. I wondered if it was necessary to have visual contact to perform whatever spell she seemed to be holding him with.
Our protector sniffed the air around our prisoner, injecting grace and strength into the action. I didn’t like that he was supposedly a vampire, but I had to admit to myself that I did feel safer with him around. He exuded a certain je ne sais quoi that put me at ease. I would have thought the presence of a vampire would have the opposite effect on me.
“You smell dark.” Count Vabu borrowed some of Sir Lancelot’s previous disgust. “Your energy is foul and rank. You reek of decay.”
I discretely sniffed the air but smelled nothing more than crisp air and the perfume of nearby flowers. I heard Nando sniff quietly too. When I looked at him, he shrugged. Apparently we had a very long way to go in learning this magic stuff. We couldn’t even detect what seemed to so greatly offend Count Vabu.
The sorcerer bristled at Count Vabu’s words, but said nothing. When he stood taller and pulled his shoulders back, his actions spoke for him. He hadn’t liked what the protector said.
“For capable sorcerers,” Count Vabu said, “it boggles the mind that you don’t understand the damage you cause to your own magic with your actions. When you infect your magic with darkness, you give up the power of good.” He shook his head as if he were personally disappointed in the sorcerer. Not a strand of his dark hair, combed back against his skull, fell out of place.
Then something drew my attention away from Count Vabu and the captive. Count Vabu also looked to locate what had attracted the sorcerer’s attention. But Arianne didn’t move her gaze from the sorcerer, and neither did Brave or the firedrakes.
I was glad to see the magicians who protected us were smart enough not to fall for distractions.
And what a distraction it was, coming our way.
Sir Lancelot flew in loops overhead, so as not to outpace the pig-witch who ran below him. The pig, pink and plump, ran as fast as she could, her orange ringlets bouncing with every one of her strides, as if the pig wore human hair.
I noticed that the pig wore a strand of pearls. They bounced against her plump chest as she bounded toward us.
The sorcerer stared with an astonishment that probably matched my own. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to seeing my teacher as a pig.
Even Count Vabu trailed her approach. Her expression was fierce, especially for a pig, and her beady eyes shone with an intelligence I hadn’t noticed before—probably because of all her whining.
When she neared us, the firedrakes parted to make way for her to enter the circle, while Sir Lancelot moved to land on Brave’s shoulder.
Her legs moved faster than I’d ever seen a pig’s legs move before, then she skidded to a stop, panting.
The previously stoic sorcerer burst into laughter. “The great Count Vladimir Vabu and the Lady Arianne of Acquaine don’t dare battle me on their own, they call on a pig.” He laughed again. “A pig! A precious little pig with a wig and pearls. I suppose her curly tail is a magnificent weapon.”
I took a small step back as I noticed the rage that colored the pig’s face. I tugged on Nando’s hand and drew him backward with me. I didn’t know what was coming, but I did know how enraged Madame Pimlish had been when Count Vabu, as a bat, had gotten tangled in her hair. He’d been polite and reasonably well-mannered, considering the circumstances, and she’d thrown a terrible fit.
This sorcerer was belittling her, and I had no doubt he was about to pay the price, he just hadn’t realized it yet.
He laughed again when he seemed to notice the coloring of her pig face. “Oh, have I angered the little piggy wiggie? Oh no, what shall I do now?”
Maybe this sorcerer wasn’t smart after all. Even Count Vabu took a step backward to clear the way for Madame Pimlish to have at the sorcerer.
In a flash of shimmering light and fury, the pig transformed into Madame Pimlish, complete with her dress with its large-flower print and lacy edge, and the string of fat river pearls at her neck. She simmered with fury. This time Nando drew another step back.
In four swift steps Madame Pimlish crossed the clearing and got right in the sorcerer’s face. She didn’t seem to care that she was obstructing Arianne’s view. She huffed and fumed in the sorcerer’s face for several seconds before the man had the sense to look cowered.
“You!” she screeched. She trembled with rage. “You despicable filth. No one says those things to me and lives.”
“Madame Pimlish, you can’t kill him,” Arianne said. “We need information. We need to better understand the Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy.”
“She’s right,” Count Vabu said in tones of a person trying to talk a suicidal jumper from the edge of a cliff. “We need to learn more of our enemy so we can better repel their attacks.”
I wondered if Madame Pimlish was even hearing them. Her body actually shook with her rage. She breathed heavily from her up-turned nose onto the sorcerer, who now looked like he’d realized the trouble he was in and wanted nothing more than to poof into a mouse and scurry away.
“We can get information from the next one,” she spat. “I’m going to kill this one. No one offends me like he did and lives. He must pay.”
Count Vabu took a step toward her and placed a careful hand on her shoulder—slowly. “Prudence, his sect is killing innocent magicians.”
“And plenty of people without magic,” Arianne added.
“Trust me. If you let him live, I’ll make him pay for the terrible things he said about you.”
Madame Pimlish’s eyes continued to glitter with her rage. The sorcerer took half a step backward, but when Brave moved closer to him, he didn’t move again.
Madame Pimlish leaned into him, and Count Vabu said, “I promise he’ll pay for his insults.”
For the first time, she seemed to consider backing off. “You’ll make him suffer?” Her anger bore into the sorcerer, who flinched.
“I’ll make him suffer as much as is reasonable.” Count Vabu chose his words carefully, I had no doubt. As fearsome as the staff at the Magical Arts Academy was turning out to be, I didn’t think they were torturers. They weren’t out to hurt and kill, unlike the Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy.
“As much as is reasonable isn’t enough.”
“Prudence.” Count Vabu said her name firmly, to jar her from her fit, I suspected. “I’ll see to it that you’re appropriately avenged, I promise.”
Seconds passed during which I wondered if I was about to witness one of my teachers kill a sorcerer.
Finally, she backed down, but only a small bit. The sorcerer was taller than her by a foot. She opened a large enough gap of space only to better stare up at him. “Fine,” she bit out. “If you punish him as he deserves, I’ll spare him. But I won’t let him cause anyone else harm.”
Before anyone could argue, she swirled her plump arms around her in quick, circling motions. Her thin lips moved without stopping.
I wanted to lean in to attempt to distinguish her words, but I didn’t dare. Her eyes still looked murderous, only just a bit less so.
Count Vabu retreated to join Arianne. Madame Pimlish flung h
er arms around a few times more.
Panic settled across the sorcerer’s face, but it did him no real good. He started to flick his hands here and there and mutter his own spell—apparently deciding Madame Pimlish’s threat was greater than Count Vabu’s—but whatever defense he was trying to scrounge, didn’t work in time.
With a final ferocious glare and a grand sweep of her arms, Madame Pimlish blew through her lips as if she were blowing a bubble. I presumed she was blowing her spell onto the man, because her next movement was to push her hands forward, palms toward him.
A burst of bright light, the orange color of her hair, sped at him in visible undulations.
Then she stepped back, leaving his personal space, with a satisfied smile on her face. Her cheeks were rosy pink and her hands at her hips.
But the sorcerer looked exactly the same, though he’d stopped trying to perform a counter spell, assuming that’s what he’d been doing.
He stood there, looking defeated, but did nothing.
“Hmnh.” The sounds coming from Madame Pimlish were ones of pure satisfaction.
I looked from her to the sorcerer and back, over and again while I waited for something—anything—to happen. Even Gertrude’s cat ceased her restless pacing to watch.
Madame Pimlish looked to Count Vabu, no longer concerned with the sorcerer. “You will make him pay. You promised.”
“I think you made him pay plenty.” When she opened her mouth to complain, he raised a hand to stop her. “But I’m good to my word. I always am. Whatever our differences in the past, you can trust me.”
What were they talking about? Absolutely nothing was happening. I went from concern that Madame Pimlish was about to kill a man to... this. Nothing.
But then the opposite of nothing happened.
With a resigned sigh, the sorcerer shrunk to a third his size in one single leap. He went from being perhaps six feet tall to three, just like that. Like magic.
But that wasn’t the shocking part about it. With all that had happened since I arrived in Acquaine, I didn’t shock quite as easily as before, but what happened next stunned me through and through.