by S T G Hill
Thorn cracked his knuckles and glanced around the stacks, "Ellie, you're the single most important part of the Resistance. Your business is our business."
"Or I would be if I had my magic. Or told you where the Gem of Orlyon is," Ellie said.
If anything, the shot of hot anger running through her chest woke her up.
Thorn shifted in his chair, "To put it bluntly, yes. You have no idea—"
Ellie jumped to her feet, the legs of her chair squealing against the polished marble, "Of course I have an idea! You're the one who doesn't understand. Do you want to know what Belt wants with me? Do you want to know what he did to me after the Trial?"
As though sensing her irritation, the history text on the table shivered, its paging flipping madly.
Thorn stayed seated. "I would like that very much."
She told him about being taken. About her futile attempts to beat Belt. About what Caspian did to her. Then she told him what Belt told her in the amplification chamber.
"I... I can still feel those straps holding my wrists and ankles."
"So Belt needs you to balance magic in the world again?" Thorn chewed on the information, his brow wrinkling in thought.
Ellie threw up her hands, "Apparently!"
"And you have no idea who freed you?"
"I told you, they had one of those weird masks on," Ellie said.
"And you really have no idea where the Gem is?" Thorn watched her steadily. He seemed calm, but he squeezed one hand with the other so hard his knuckles went white.
Ellie paused. The darkness in her mind whispered. No. Again, not a word. More a barely-grasped impression. It reminded her of when you listened to the radio in an area where two stations occupied the same frequency, overlapping each other.
She wanted to tell him, but a prickling at the back of her neck warned against it. "No. I don't. I'm sorry." She glared at him with her puffy eyes.
"Okay," Thorn got up and turned away. His chair spun around and placed itself back against the table, "I'm sorry about your nightmares. If anyone can help with those, it's Cassiodorian."
Ellie thought she wanted him to leave. But now that he was, she found that she didn't. "Thorn, wait."
He paused without turning back around.
"I saw Sybil," Ellie said, "But there's still so many I don't know about. What happened to the others? The Primes? ...Arabella?"
Sourcewell felt so strange with its skeleton crew. But especially so with the absence of Arabella Thrace.
"I went over to the kinesinomy workshop, but it was empty," Ellie said.
Thorn looked back over his shoulder, "The Primes are all powerful sorcerers. Stonebridge is manning the defenses against Errant attacks. Shaffir…" Thorn trailed off.
"And Arabella?" Ellie leaned against the table, its smooth top cool against her palms. Her fingertips pushed against it.
"She's with us. Part of the Resistance."
"Can I see her?" Ellie said.
Thorn shook his head, "She's not here."
"Where is she?"
"It's safer for everyone if as few people know that as possible. You need to focus on getting your powers back. When that happens, we'll finally have the power to go on the offensive," Thorn started walking away again.
Again, she got the sense that things weren’t so safe as Thorn and Cassiodorian let on.
But if Sourcewell isn’t safe, where is?
"I'm sorry, Thorn. I didn't ask for any of this happen!" Ellie said.
Thorn paused again, about to turn the corner, "I know that. But Ellie, maybe it's time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself and take some responsibility..." his jaw worked, and he glanced at her, "Because we can't win this one without you."
Thorn left. Ellie sank back down onto her chair. Contradictory thoughts and feelings swirled about in her mind and in her stomach.
Then some motion caught her eye. She looked. A white-haired guy perused a section of a shelf farther down.
Funny, she hadn't noticed him before. Still, he paid her no attention. Why would he? To him, she looked nothing like Ellie Ashwood.
Her eyes rebelled with a stinging sensation when she tried to read more of the book, so she decided to go and lie awake in her bed as long as she could.
Chapter 18
Ellie woke up and rolled onto her side. The air was still and quiet around her.
Like the air just before a big storm, she caught herself thinking.
Like a breath, held in for a moment before it got unleashed as a scream.
She sat up and looked down at the mess she'd made of the bed. Her blanket had been kicked down into a tumbled roll. Her sheets came up at three corners.
A horrible taste lingered in her mouth, and her eyes ached.
She'd dreamed that same dream again. That one with the Williamsons getting back up. Getting back up and blaming her.
The knocking at her chamber door that woke her sounded again.
"One sec!" Ellie sprang off the bed and went for her clothes, stumbling about as she pulled on jeans and a shirt.
When she opened the door, Cassiodorian waited on the other side. He looked as well put together as ever, with his crisp robe and his well-trimmed beard.
Still, that haggardness hung over him like it did everyone else she met.
"The dream again?" he said.
Ellie shifted past him into the hallway, hoping to avoid the subject. "What sort of training are we going to try to today? Are you going to have Thorn try and attack me this time?"
Her stomach growled.
"I think that first something to eat is in order," Cassiodorian said. "Right after this."
"What?" Ellie started.
Then a swirl of magical rushed over her, stirring the air in little eddies. The sweat from her nightmares disappeared. Her hair felt freshly washed. The wrinkles in her shirt vanished.
"I do miss some things about magic," Ellie said. Though she'd never quite gotten the hang of that particular spell.
He took her to the dining hall, which was almost completely empty except for the two of them. Their charmed trays floated along behind them and then settled in on the table in front of them when they sat.
"Thorn won't be joining us today, no. Nor will Matilda or any of the others," Cassiodorian said.
Ellie ran her spoon in slow circles through her steaming bowl of porridge. "Why? What happened?"
She thought of her conversation with Thorn and wondered if she'd done or said something to make him leave.
"Resistance business. Foiling an attack of some sort. Thorn has turned out to be quite the strategist," Cassiodorian picked up a cube of cantaloupe from his plate and frowned at it. Then he popped it into his mouth. After he swallowed, he smiled. "You know, Miss Ashwood, I have lived a long life and I don't believe I've ever had one of those before. Always something new to experience."
They didn't dally in the cafeteria. Without all the students there, the big room echoed with empty voices.
The quiet magic that cleared the tables and cleaned the trays seemed more ghostly than usual. Ellie didn't like the prickling, haunted feeling she got sitting there.
The air itself set her skin pebbling with goosebumps. She hated not feeling safe in this place.
Part of her even wished that whatever awful thing was going to happen soon, just so they could get it over with.
She didn’t think her nerves could take all this waiting much longer. And it wasn’t like they were getting anything else productive done.
Her magic was still gone, wasn’t it?
"Will it ever get back to what it used to be? The school, I mean," Ellie said.
Cassiodorian glanced around the open space, stroking gently at his beard all the while. "I know that it will. Come, we won't unlock your magic sitting here, will we?"
If it ever comes back, Ellie thought. She didn't feel optimistic about it.
She didn't feel optimistic about much, these days.
They got up to go. “Are you
sure things are safe here? It feels different. Like we’re being watched all the time.”
Aurelius paused and looked at her, “It is different here. I agree. And not in a good way. But that is one of the things we are fighting to get back. Don’t worry, Miss Ashwood, I check your charm regularly and it has not been breached. You are safe.”
They weren’t safe, not at all. But they didn’t know that.
***
When they returned to the training room, Ellie sighed when she found it empty.
She thought if he tried to make her boil an egg from the inside out again she might actually go crazy.
Instead, the room darkened to just a circle of light in the middle, big enough for them to stand in with some space between them, which is what Cassiodorian had her do.
"Sometimes," Cassiodorian said, "Great magic calls to great magic. Perhaps that is the case here."
Ellie swallowed, "Are you going to cast a spell on me?"
Cassiodorian quirked an eyebrow, "I am flattered that you think my magic in some way equals yours. But no. Here, take this."
He held out the Staff of Tiresias. Ellie's mouth went dry. "Are you sure? I mean, after I touched the Gem nothing good happened."
"That is a judgment that should remain reserved. Remember, magic is not just some underlying force; it is a living thing with a mind of its own. Even Darius Belt doesn't presume to know its will, nor do I, and nor should you. Now, take it, please."
"What's going to happen?" Ellie reached tentatively, her fingers curling uncertainly.
"Do you think I can see the future? I kid. I can see it. Many possible futures, at least."
Ellie's hand came up short. "What do you see about this?"
"Many possibilities," he said, hefting the staff, "But none of which will come to fruition unless you take it. Perfectly safe, I assure you."
Ellie's spine tingled. The darkness in the back of her mind shifted. Before she could convince herself not to, she took the staff.
She didn't know what she expected when she took it. A flash of insight? The raw and crackling sensation of pure magic?
"It's warm," Ellie said. It was also lighter than she expected.
Having discovered that she wasn't about to spontaneously combust by touching it, she took it with both hands.
As with Cassiodorian himself, the staff stood taller than she was. The air around it vibrated a little, much as when Ira had tried to read her back in Prospect Park.
"Close your eyes and listen to my voice," Cassiodorian told her.
She did as he asked.
"What do you feel?" he asked.
Ellie frowned. "It's humming."
"Is it humming, or is it speaking?" he said.
It speaks to you? she remembered Darius Belt's shock when she told him that, right before she touched the gem.
"I... I don't know. I can't tell. Maybe?" she furrowed her brow harder, really concentrating. The staff grew warmer against her palms.
"The Staff of Tiresias is, perhaps, the most powerful magical reliquary still in existence. Excepting, I suppose, the Gem of Orlyon. If any power can draw out yours, it is this. Now, call upon it. Answer its question."
Ellie's whole body went rigid. Her shoulders ached.
Yes. Give me the power. Yes.
The pressure behind her thoughts grew, as though something else pressed against it. Pressed against and tried to break.
But that force that lurked behind her mind's eye didn't relent. It pressed back.
"Magister!" she said before her breath caught in her throat.
She saw it, then.
A great city, alien yet somehow utterly human. Spires that towered into the heavens. Some great creature winged its way along in the sky, and Ellie realized it was a dragon.
Then she saw him. The man, like no other man she'd seen before. And yet...
He turned his eyes towards her and she thought she recognized those eyes. She knew those eyes. And that face, somehow. But the more she tried to focus on that face, the more it became hazy.
It felt as though she looked out from someone else's eyes. And that this person also knew the man they both saw.
"I know you..." Ellie breathed.
The man saw her. Not the one whose eyes she peered from, but her, Ellie Ashwood.
The Staff of Tiresias shrieked, a high and keening wail more felt than heard.
A great blast of electricity arced from the staff. It struck her in the chest. Her body locked up even as the power of the strike shot her away.
Cassiodorian reached out one hand and the air gelled around her, absorbing her momentum before the wall could stop her much less kindly.
She opened her eyes and blinked. Great pink and purple smears and blobs floated in her vision, the afterimage of the lightning that struck her.
Cassiodorian's spell set her gently on her feet. She took a breath and wrinkled her nose at the sharpness of the ozone.
"Are you all right?" Cassiodorian rushed over to her.
The spot of light in the middle of the room expanded until the shadows retreated fully.
Ellie looked down at the spot on her chest where the staff's lightning struck her. An ugly black circle of singed cotton occupied the spot.
But beneath that, she was fine. Skin unburnt. No marks. "I'm fine. I think. Magister, what happened?"
Cassiodorian's lips pressed together. They both looked over at the staff where it lay on the floor. It seemed fine. Just a long, pale stick.
"It has never reacted like that before. Your power, can you access it?"
She cleared her jumbled thoughts as best she could and tried to work some magic. Any magic.
She turned to Cassiodorian. "No. Nothing. Magister, I saw something. Right before that lightning."
"What is that?" he said.
"A man. A city. Not like any city I've ever seen before. What do you think it was?" Ellie said.
She wished she could just allow him into her thoughts, but that thing in her mind wouldn't allow it.
What she saw was better seen than described.
She tried to lock her mind on the face of the man she’d seen. She couldn’t. It was indistinct, fuzzy.
Cassiodorian went back over to the staff and picked it up from the floor. "Difficult to say. Another world? The past? The future?"
"There's other worlds?" Ellie said.
Aurelius returned the few steps to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "There is an infinity of worlds. Normally they stay on their own plane of existence, however. Come, I don't believe this room will help us anymore this day."
The staircase phased into being, and they took it back up to the library.
"I believe that I may know the nature of your block, however. You know you could have told me what you suspected, Miss Ashwood."
The Staff clicked against the polished floor as they made their way out of the library.
"What do you mean?" Ellie said.
"It is not a block, but a presence. I am right?" he continued before she could answer, "You touched the Gem, but the Gem also touched you. Something I believe Belt would not risk, nor want. And for good reason."
She had but to close her eyes to feel the glassy warmth of the Gem's surface. Her arms broke out in goosebumps. "What's that?"
"The thing blocking your magic is the Gem of Orlyon itself. It is within you," he said.
"Why? How do we get it out?" Ellie said, unable to think of anything but that darkness in the back of her thoughts. The darkness and its whisperings.
"The why of it is impossible to tell, with an object that powerful. It has motives of its own, I imagine. As to its removal... there may be a way. A way to make it relinquish its possession of your body and its arrest of your own powers."
"How?" Ellie asked. She wasn't so certain she wanted her magic back. But she did know she didn't want this thing inside of her mind anymore.
They stepped out into the statue lined courtyard outside the library. Ellie took a deep breath
of the outdoor air.
"I will tell you more when I know more. When I've prepared. As with all great magic, Miss Ashwood, there is a great deal of preparation involved. Now, I believe if you go to Vine Hall you'll find that young Sybil has something to share with you."
Ellie wanted to ask more, but Cassiodorian gave her shoulder a comforting pat and then winked away, the air popping back into place behind him.
***
As before, neither the Magister nor the girl noticed or paid attention to the white-haired man lurking in the stacks.
"She has the Gem," the man murmured to himself, releasing the charm that allowed him to hear what they said. The Gem, but no magic yet.
He wished he could've known what happened down in that room, but his magic couldn't penetrate it. Nor could he find any way to access it himself, much to his irritation.
But that didn't matter anymore.
It wouldn't be long, he knew, before he could return the girl to Darius Belt and return himself to that sorcerer's good graces and favor.
Chapter 19
It took Belt weeks to recover from his encounter with Amenhotep.
He spent that time holed up deep within the inner sanctum of his offices, feeding off the energy of the many magical artifacts collected therein.
But it had been too long, he knew.
His robe hung from skeletal shoulders, and his cheekbones stood out so much they looked as though they would slice through the thin, dry skin on his face at any moment.
His gaunt visage even left the Errant woman who stood in front of his desk uneasy.
"We need more," Marta said, crossing her arms and looking past Belt rather than at him. One of her hands went to a point just below her throat, where a locket or amulet pressed against her shirt. She didn’t seem aware that she was doing it.
She saw the empty table behind his desk, he knew. The one that used to bear up the strongbox that safeguarded the Gem of Orlyon.
His jaw tightened at that remembrance.
"You'll use what you've been given, and you'll get more when I decide that you actually need it," Belt replied.
"You look terrible," Marta shifted her eyes to him, then away again. Her accent was Czech, Belt knew. Bohemian, specifically. "You disappear for so long, then when you come back you appear as this..." she gestured at him.