by Lucia Ashta
Who says you don’t? I had no idea where the thought came from, as I hadn’t been focusing on anything of the sort. But still, it was there, and it startled me. It was one thing to believe in myself, it was another to hope to take on every power I came across. The ones I’d already discovered were disconcerting enough.
“Now.” Brave gave Nicholas a sidelong glance. “Is everyone ready?”
“No,” Walt and I said at the same time, making me smile.
Marie said, “Not even a little.”
Angelica chuckled and added, “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for something like this.”
Brave grinned, making him look so handsome with his angular face, piercing blue eyes, and black hair that I entirely understood why Gertrude was captivated by him, no matter how much she tried to pretend she wasn’t.
“Sounds about right,” Brave said as he nudged Nicholas out of the way and prepared to pull the door open toward us. He pressed a finger to his lips and looked over his shoulder to remind us to keep quiet. “Sir Lancelot, you’re my eyes and ears.” He whispered in preparation for whatever waited for us inside.
“I won’t fail you,” the owl whispered back.
Brave faced the door and waited. I couldn’t tell what the delay was about until I noticed the deep breaths shifting his shoulders up and down.
Then he pulled the door inward and shoved Nicholas inside ahead of him. He held the door open with his hip, signaled to Walt that he should hold the door, and pulled Gertrude by the hand inside with him.
Angelica, Simon, and Marie went next, and Walt followed once Nando caught the door.
Nando pressed a kiss to my forehead and whispered, “Te quiero, Isa.” Before I could respond or worry about why he was telling me he loved me, I found myself inside and Nando pulling the door shut softly behind us.
We were immediately plunged into a deep and ominous darkness, far too still and quiet for what was supposed to be going on inside.
Every fine hair on my body stood on end in anticipation.
And then a single scream cleaved the silence in half.
“Nooooo!”
Chapter 7
My heart started beating erratically, marring the sense of stagnant silence I’d experienced before. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t recognize the voice that shouted after we entered the castle, it was that I recognized the voice immediately and realized its owner would never yell out like that unless we’d committed a very serious—and very terrible—misstep.
Nando shoved me behind his body, as if he could physically protect me from whatever mess we’d waded into. But he must have realized he and I were far out of our element, and that was probably the reason why his hand trembled ever so slightly when he pushed me out of harm’s way.
But the reality was that we couldn’t tell from which direction danger might arrive, nor what it might look like once it did.
He and I might still be novices in the magical arts, despite our constant wish to actually make it through a regular class one day. I had, however, learned one thing about magic with perfect certainty: When magic was involved, nearly everything was possible. Heck, I’d come back from the dead just yesterday—and that was only one of a thousand possibilities I’d never imagined.
“It’s Wizard Meedles,” Nando whispered to me, though I wasn’t sure why he bothered. I’d recognize the wizard’s booming voice anywhere, and especially in a pitch dark castle that seemed cavernous and claustrophobic all at once.
“Where’d his voice come from?” Even though Brave was whispering, I managed to register his question over the whooshing of my pulse running through my head. I had to calm down or I was going to make myself pass out. Wouldn’t that be a good story! We rode in to rescue our teachers, and I missed out on all of it because I fainted before anything had the chance to happen. Yeah, I wasn’t going to let that occur. I’d rather face down whatever danger awaited us than be laughed at later. I didn’t think any of my friends at the academy would laugh, but Nicholas would, and I was too stubborn to give him the pleasure.
I forced myself to breathe deeply so as to calm down and better connect to my surroundings.
After Sir Lancelot had apparently listened for the appropriate amount of time, he answered Brave. “I hear sounds coming from below us.”
I gulped. Below? I didn’t want to go below. I wanted to grab everyone we came to rescue, turn tail, and head the heck out of here.
“So we go down,” Brave said.
But... down where? Sure, I couldn’t really see much of anything, but I especially couldn’t make out any darker areas, such that might indicate a stairwell.
“Why’s it so dark?” I whispered to Nando. Castles like this were usually well lit, either with torches or electric lights if their owners had invested in the upgrades.
“I’m sure it’s intentional.”
Yeah, that’s what was worrying me. I’d bet anything it was done on purpose.
“Come on,” Brave called back along the line. “This way.”
“This way?” I squeaked to my brother. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Really? I can see pretty well.”
“What? You can?” It made no sense that he would. I had perfect vision, and I could barely make out my hand in front of my face.
“Sure. You can’t?”
“Not a thing,” I said to his back as I brought up the end of the train heading downward.
“It’s not super bright in here by any means, but you should be able to see well enough to figure out where you’re going.”
Something strange was going on, that was for sure. I just couldn’t figure out what.
I let it go as advancing required all my focus. I shuffled my feet to avoid tripping, as I suspected everyone—save my brother—was doing, if the sound up ahead was any indication. The floor was rough stone, as I would have expected in an old castle like this one, and stepping was all the challenge I could handle. The floor wasn’t smooth, ensuring my progress wasn’t either.
“Turn back!”
I froze. Everyone up ahead of me froze. Even Sir Lancelot didn’t say a peep as Wizard Meedles’ voice thundered toward us again.
I waited for Brave or Gertrude or whoever was going to make the call to decide what we were going to do. In the meantime, my heart rate, which I’d managed to more or less control, accelerated again.
“What do we do?” Brave spoke with urgency up in front of our train, but so softly that it was obvious he was only consulting Gertrude and perhaps Sir Lancelot, who’d been on his shoulder last I managed to see.
“We can’t turn back now,” Gertrude said.
“But if Marcus just told us to, then we probably should. He wouldn’t say it unless there were good reasons.”
“That’s what worries me. If there’s good reason for a wizard like Marcus to warn us away, then whatever is going on is bad.”
Brave sighed louder than he’d been speaking. “I don’t like leaving them any more than you do, but I think it’s what we have to do. You’re all under my responsibility. I can’t allow any harm to come to you on my watch.”
“But you have no problem letting the rest of them die?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s exactly what might happen if we leave now.”
“Or we could go down there, not end up helping a thing, and get all of us killed... or worse.”
What could be worse than getting killed for goodness’ sake? I was ninety-nine-percent certain it was better not to find out.
“We won’t know whether we can help them or not until we get down there,” Gertrude said.
“And by then it will be too late. Do you think Marcus would be calling out in such a way unless he feared we were heading into a trap or something like that?”
Gertrude didn’t answer. Wizard Meedles didn’t seem the sort to overreact. If he’d warned us away, it must be bad.
“It’s a terrible situation, and don’t think for a moment I’
m not as torn up about it as you are, but we have to leave. Killing ourselves won’t help a thing.”
“This is my family we’re talking about. The family I left behind in Norland doesn’t count. The one I have in this castle is it for me.”
“And you think it’s any different for me?” Brave snapped. “My father raised me to hate everyone except him, even though he was the only one who deserved it. I never met my mother. My uncle is all I have of her now. All the rest of them, they’re everything to me. And you... well, I’m not going to lose you just because you’re stubborn.”
“Stubborn?” Gertrude whisper screamed.
Sir Lancelot cleared his throat. Ahem. “Lady Gertrude, Lord Brave, forgive me for intervening, but I think it’s called for here. We’re in a precarious situation, and from Wizard Meedles’ warning, every moment we delay might be our last.”
Well, when he put it that way... I really panicked.
“It’s time to leave. You can continue this argument once we’re back in the safety of the cave, if you’ll allow the audacity of my suggestion.”
“I’m not leaving,” Gertrude said, addressing Brave instead of the owl.
Brave huffed. “Gertie, this isn’t the time for your attitude.”
“No, it most definitely isn’t.” It sounded like she started walking... away from the door and in the direction I assumed would eventually lead us downward.
“Gertie!” Brave whisper called out after her.
She didn’t answer.
It sounded like he ran after her, stumbled, caught his fall, and ran into her. Umph. Their breath rushed out of them.
“Let me be,” she started to say, but he stopped her. I imagined him reaching out to hold onto her arm as he’d done before. “You win, all right? If you want to keep going, I’ll go with you. But I owe a duty to everyone else with us, not just you.”
“You don’t owe me a duty.”
“I do, no matter how one sided it might be.”
“I—”
“Gertie, shush. Let’s escort the others out, and then I’ll go with you to rescue everyone else—I hope.”
“I can keep going and you can catch up. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”
“I don’t think we do either, but that doesn’t change what you’re going to do. You’re going to stop being hard headed for just a second of your life, and you’re going to come with me as I get everyone else out. Then I’ll go with you. Ah-ah. No arguing. Not anymore. I’m keeping you safe. Now, the sooner you let this go, the sooner we get down there—to the voice warning us away.”
I fully expected Gertrude to continue arguing, but she didn’t. Her footfalls drew closer.
“All right, everyone,” Brave said, a little louder, but hopefully not loud enough to carry beyond our assembled party. “You’re leaving.”
“I’m not,” Angelica said. “My parents are in there.”
“And I’m certain they wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”
“I won’t let them die.”
“Neither will I, I promise. If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it, regardless of the cost to my life.”
I believed him, and it seemed Angelica did too. I felt her turn to face the direction we’d come from.
“All the hero, that one,” Nicholas muttered bitterly. Every single one of us ignored him. If we’d been fed up with his antics when we weren’t in immediate danger, we had no patience for them now.
I turned and started shuffling toward the door. I wouldn’t have been sure I was heading toward it except that I was pretty certain walls lined us on both sides.
It took longer than I thought it would, given how little we’d advanced. But I guessed I must be close, and placed my hands in front of my face to avoid slamming into the doors. Just in time. I knocked into the wood with my wrists so loudly that a fresh burst of panic sprang to life.
Get me out of here, I thought, secure in the fact that no one could eavesdrop on my cowardly thoughts.
The rear door of the castle was a double-doored massive situation. I placed a palm flat on either panel, since I couldn’t remember which side Brave had pulled open, and pushed.
Nothing happened. I huffed and felt Nando’s body right behind me.
I pushed again. When it didn’t budge, I put real strength into it.
Still, it remained closed as if it hadn’t opened in a few centuries instead of a few minutes.
“I can’t open it,” I told Nando over my shoulder.
“Here. Slide out of the way and let me.”
I did, confident my strong brother would get the job done.
I heard him push. Then I heard him grunt.
“Back up a little bit. Give me some space.”
I relayed his message to the others, and we slowly shuffled backward, making room.
Nando ate up all the space we’d given him, then tore at the door in a run, banging into it with the strength of his shoulder and momentum.
But not even a sliver of the sunny outdoors shone in to brighten my mood.
We were truly in terrible trouble.
Chapter 8
“Let me try,” Nicholas said right away, obviously eager to imply he was stronger than Nando.
There wasn’t a chance of it, and although our circumstances were dire, and time was ticking away, I pressed out of Nicholas’ way so his attempt to one-up my brother might fail. If Nando didn’t manage to open the door that had swung open all too easily when we entered, then magic was at play. It had to be. There was no other explanation that made sense.
Even if someone had slid a brace into place from the outside, the door would still budge and strain against the bar preventing it from opening.
Both doors were immovable, however, as if nothing could shake them. That wasn’t normal.
Nicholas pushed at the doors to test them out, then backed right up next to me. “Don’t you worry, Isa. I’ll get that door open and get us out of here.”
Ugh. I didn’t even like him speaking my name, especially not when I suspected he might be winking at me again, even in the dark.
He took off in a sprint toward the doors. I was caught between hoping he’d fail and hoping he’d succeed so we’d manage to escape. In the end, getting out of there took precedence.
I was rooting for him when his body slammed into the wood of the doors with a hollow thud.
There was no rattling of the door in its frame. No clanking of the metal handle or lock.
Just a pained groan before Nicholas remembered he was apparently trying to impress us for some reason and stopped. “It won’t open.”
“No kidding,” Nando said, surprising me that he was letting Nicholas get to him. Me, it was expected, but not Nando.
“It’s not my fault it won’t open. It’s sealed with a spell.”
“No one said it’s your fault, but you could have trusted me to figure out whether the door would open or not.”
I had the feeling trust was something that didn’t come easily to Nicholas. But there wasn’t a chance for him to prove it to me one way or the other, because Gertrude started moving in the opposite direction again. “We have no choice now,” she said.
“No, we don’t.” Brave didn’t sound any happier about the fact than I did.
“How will we get out?” I asked Nando, trying to keep the panic from my voice and failing.
“I’m sure our teachers will know how to break the spell. Remember how capable they are.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how capable they were. Their reputations suggested breaking a spell on a door would be easy for them, and the limited things I’d seen them accomplish since my arrival at the academy were highly impressive. But... if Wizard Meedles was warning us away, it didn’t seem as if our protectors had the upper hand.
“Don’t worry, Isa,” came Simon’s kind voice from up ahead and to my left. “I can blast through most anything.”
“He’s better than dynamite,” Angelica added. “He’s never come up against a
nything he couldn’t break through.”
I thought I heard Nicholas mutter “Always the hero” behind us.
If Simon could blow up anything, then he could get us out of here.
All we had to do was rescue our teachers and protectors... the ones infinitely better equipped to handle the situation than us. My stomach was churning like a stormy ocean as I warred with myself, looking for hope to grasp onto, but finding plenty of reasons to despair instead.
We even had Grand Witch Giselle Tillsdale on our side. And though I didn’t know much about her, everyone else did, and she and Mordecai were considered the best of the best.
I allowed Nando to lead me by the hand, with Nicholas at my back, while I worked to remind myself of all the things working in our favor. Beyond Grand Witch Tillsdale and Mordecai, we had Clara, who by all accounts was extraordinary and able to do what other witches and wizards couldn’t, and Marcelo, who’d been trained by Mordecai and Albacus. We had Arianne and Gustave, who were aces with magical creatures. We had Madame Pimlish, who was sort of a magical creature herself, and Wizard Meedles, who had hellhounds.
I shuffled along, feeling better by the second. I almost managed a tremulous smile as I reminded myself that we also had two vampires on our side, a giant dragon, more than a dozen firedrakes, and an owl who was a flying encyclopedia of magical knowledge.
We even had Delilah and Trevor, who obviously had enough skills to keep their children safe all this time. Well, more or less safe, I supposed, since Miranda had spelled them into the bodies of firedrakes. All right, maybe not Delilah and Trevor, but still, the odds were quickly mounting in our favor.
My heart regained its normal beating rhythm, my palms stopped sweating, and I felt like there was a very real chance we were all going to get out of this alive. Heck, maybe we could even portal out of here. There were several of the staff who could portal, and I might be able to contribute—well, perhaps I shouldn’t; I hadn’t had the chance to regulate my magic, whatever that means, and so the risk of using it was still great.
Things were starting to look up as I shuffled my way behind the train of witches and wizards in the making.