The Cost of Magic

by S T G Hill

  There were other things it couldn’t fix, either. She went back inside.

  Chapter 35

  The study was a small, cozy room at the back of the house. It held a desk with a lamp, a worn if comfy executive chair, and bookcases lined the walls.

  The door stood ajar, so Ellie went in without knocking. That pleasant, mingled smell of wooden bookshelves, paper, and binding glue that permeated libraries and studies the world over wreathed the air.

  Arabella Thrace had also abandoned the trench coat that seemed to be the uniform of the Resistance. Now she wore a pair of gray slacks and a blouse that just screamed to Ellie: high school teacher.

  Arabella stood facing a bookcase. She ran an index finger slowly up and down the spines of the books on the shelf.

  A thin, glowing streamer of magic trailed from her touch.

  “It’s not what I expected,” Arabella said just as Ellie began wondering how to get her attention.

  “The books?” Ellie asked.

  Arabella dropped her hand from the bookcase, but still didn’t turn around. “The nil world. My family has always been blessed with the talent for magic, I don’t think I ever told you that.

  “I knew I’d be going to a magical academy ever since I was capable of knowing anything. I graduated, well, let’s just leave it at a long time ago. But studies and business and teaching always kept me close to magic. I never really got the chance to see the other side of the coin.

  “Did you know that Magister Cassiodorian is… was… Sourcewell’s first and only Magister?”

  And now he’s dead, Ellie thought.

  “Did your sister go to Sourcewell, too?” Ellie asked.

  Arabella shook her head, “She never got the chance. But she didn’t keep to the same path as I did… Ellie, what was Darius Belt trying to do to you in his laboratory?”

  She turned around and Ellie saw the puffiness under her eyes, the redness in her cheeks, the way the blood vessels spider-webbed around her irises.

  She wanted to go to Arabella, to hug her and hold her and tell her again that she was sorry. But she hesitated.

  She didn’t know what she would do if Arabella shied away from her, or looked at her with eyes full of accusation.

  She didn’t think she could take that. Not from Arabella.

  Arabella noticed Ellie’s distress. She took a deep and steadying breath and then ran her hand smoothly over her face. The dark circles beneath her eyes disappeared, as did the redness and the bloodshot veins.

  “I’m sorry,” Arabella said, “I just didn’t know he was… gone, until we saw that statue in the main hall. Please, tell me what happened.”

  Ellie left out her conversations with Belt. Arabella didn’t need to know about Chauncy, or about what magic could or couldn’t do.

  She told her about the Gem. She also told her about needing to commune with the Gem, and about the shattered remains of the unicorn horn that Belt used on her.

  “That’s it? You just need to… tell it to get out of your head?” Arabella said, leaning against Grant’s desk.

  “I guess,” Ellie said, shivering when she recalled the sudden clarity of the Gem’s voice in her thoughts.

  You need to choose… it had said. She thought it meant choose to have it leave her mind.

  “But why? Why would he need it out of you?” Arabella said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Ellie said. She’d had a lot of time the previous night, staring up at the stucco ceiling of the Pitarelli living room.

  Ellie went over to the window directly behind the desk and chair and peered out.

  As was usual for so much of New York, the window peered out into a private courtyard. This one wasn’t full of split open garbage bags, but instead a well-tended garden.

  “The Gem is protecting me,” Ellie said.

  Arabella stood beside her, also looking out onto the garden. “It wouldn’t let you fall. Back in London.”

  “Yeah… sorry about that. I just couldn’t think of any other way to make him stop and get all of us out of there.”

  Arabella put her hand on Ellie’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “Well, it worked.”

  “Belt doesn’t just want the Gem out of me, he needs it out of me,” Ellie said, “I don’t get fully how it’s working, but if my life is in true and immediate danger it… intervenes. So he could strap me to that chair and hurt me, but so long as the Gem didn’t believe I was about to die, it doesn’t do anything.”

  Arabella’s fingers tightened into Ellie’s shoulder, “So that means that whatever he’s planning, it’s going to kill you. Doesn’t it?”

  “He said it’s the cost of the spell. My life, I mean.”

  Such a small price, a single life, Belt had said. It was a small price if it wasn’t your own life, Ellie thought.

  Arabella shook her head and then sat down on the edge of Grant’s desk. “Thorn says we need the Gem to beat Belt.”

  “It’s strong enough. I can feel it,” Ellie said.

  “But if we take it out of you, it won’t protect you anymore,” Arabella frowned at the awful balance of the situation.

  Ellie didn’t like seeing her upset. She’d upset her so much, Ellie knew. “Well, I mean, I’ll have my magic back.”

  Arabella nodded. Ellie’s magic was considerable. She’d used it to win the Trial, after all. Used it to best Caspian and Thorn in magical duels.

  “And it’s enough to beat Belt?” Arabella said.

  Ellie looked back out the window at the garden below. Someone had planted tomatoes, which hung like little red bulbs from the supporting posts and lines. Her breath fogged against the pane.

  “Maybe,” Ellie said.

  Maybe, because she could also remember her own confrontation with Belt. Her power pitted directly against his, just after he brought her to that strange sanctuary of his.

  She’d summoned a truly monstrous Minotaur, far larger than the one she’d face at the end of the Trial, sure it would stamp him flat.

  And Darius Belt had merely waved his hand and the Minotaur disappeared in a cloud of heat and dispelled magic.

  Ellie flinched at the recollection.

  I know more about magic than you could learn in a thousand lifetimes! Belt had told her.

  “Ellie? You okay?” Arabella rose from the desk, concern etched on her face.

  “Yeah, just a bad memory. I still think getting the Gem out of my head is our best shot. We’ll have it and my magic to use against Belt. I don’t suppose you have a spare unicorn horn kicking around?”

  Arabella surprised Ellie by hugging her again. She smoothed one hand down the back of Ellie’s head over and over.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. This is too much. We’re asking too much of you. But I can’t see any other way… Not after what Belt did to London. If he wins this fight, if he gets what he wants, there’s no telling what he won’t do. Or what the people who follow him will do.

  “We’re safe now. For a little while at least. Go back to the others. I’ll think of something.”

  They parted and Ellie left the office, closing the door on Arabella, who leaned against one of the bookcases and stared out the window without really seeing anything.

  Chapter 36

  Grant took Peter to school.

  “Just because magic is real doesn’t mean you have to stop learning,” the cop told his son, who had been protesting strenuously, trying to bargain and stay home.

  “It’s okay,” Ellie told him, “You should go. We’ll be safe.”

  Matilda, who’d been watching from the kitchen door, puckered her lips and mimed making out.

  Grant and Peter left, leaving the brownstone to the sorcerers for a little while.

  Ellie didn’t want to disturb Arabella, and she definitely didn’t want to talk to Matilda, who spent her downtime standing in front of the full length mirror in the hall giving herself a different hairstyle and color every few moments.

  And she also avoided the TV. Every
thing that wasn’t a rerun was some new report of the London Cataclysm.

  So instead she wandered, trailing her fingers along the walls or the edges of the wainscoting.

  Until she heard some commotion from a door just off the living room. It stood ajar, and when she pulled it back she saw the stairs going down into the basement.

  She heard it again. A dull thud. She also felt it, a vibration deep in her chest.

  Ellie took the stairs down. The walls in the basement were bare brick, the floor paved. A battered washer and dryer set sat beside a large sink, and the whole area smelled vaguely of the Tide detergent that sat on top of the washer.

  Thorn, still dressed in his blue trench coat, stood in the middle of a small rec area that had a ratty sofa, a coffee table, and one of those big old TVs in a wooden frame.

  They were all pushed back to make room.

  Ellie stood still at the bottom of the stairs and watched for a moment.

  Thorn’s shoulders heaved, and the white light from the bare bulbs hanging down from the low ceiling shone on the sweat beading on his forehead.

  As she watched, Thorn took a few deep breaths and then reached out. In front of him, a faceless adversary coalesced into being. A hooded figure with glowing hands.

  It was tall and spectral and brought to Ellie’s mind Darius Belt.

  This figure raised its glowing hands and stuck out at Thorn, who dodged the first two punches.

  The third one landed against a summoned shield that Thorn called up just a moment before impact.

  Ellie heard and felt that thud again.

  But then the figure attacked with its other hand while it kept Thorn’s shield engaged.

  Ellie gasped. Thorn glanced back at the sound.

  “Ellie?” he started.

  The attacking fist caught him square on the cheek with a dull, fleshy noise.

  “Oh!” Ellie rushed for him just as he staggered.

  When he did, the spectral figure vanished and he slumped down on the couch, one hand pressed against his face, his lips in a tight line.

  “I’m sorry I distracted you! Are you okay?” Ellie pulled up short of actually touching him.

  Things still just didn’t feel right between them.

  Besides, she still wasn’t certain she could forgive him for starting something up with Matilda of all people.

  “I’m fine,’ he pulled his hand away from his face and Ellie sucked in a sympathetic breath at the lovely shiner starting just below his left eye.

  “Training. Or I was. I didn’t think anyone would disturb me down here.”

  “Arabella and Matilda aren’t training,” Ellie said, “They’re resting up after…”

  “After that massive screw-up in London?” Thorn finished. He held his hand up to his face. Little glowing tracers reached out from his palm and stroked along his rising bruise.

  He winced at their touch, but didn’t pull back. A few moments later, the bruise went down until the only evidence that he’d stopped a punch with his face was a slight redness in the area.

  Ellie couldn’t meet his eyes, instead focusing on a laundry hamper in the corner, the sleeve of one of Grant’s dark cop shirts hanging over the edge.

  “Thank you. For rescuing me, I mean. I’m sorry about Ira and Moira and—“

  “Save it,” Thorn said, “We need you. We need what’s in your head and your magic. All that matters is beating Belt.”

  Ellie took a breath, trying to stop the little trembles running down her arms and legs and through her spine and stomach. Pressure pushed at the back of her eyes.

  She turned away, knowing that she’d get no sympathy from Thorn. “I’ll leave you alone.”

  She set foot on the first riser and grasped onto the rail when Thorn spoke.

  “They all really think I killed Cassiodorian, don’t they?”

  Ellie stopped and looked towards him, “It’s a lie Belt told. He did something, cast some spell, to make them believe it.”

  A humorless smile twisted one side of Thorn’s mouth, and it reminded Ellie instantly of the smile Darius Belt gave Cassiodorian just before Caspian took her to the laboratory.

  “I saw you, that’s what Farazon said. Belt’s a powerful prognosticator. They can call up images from the past. He must’ve brought up a recollection of the crime. One that he altered to make it look like I did it.”

  Ellie squeezed the railing, “But it’s a lie. Everyone here knows it isn’t true…”

  “But everyone else believes it!” Thorn waved one arm angrily, and a gust of power knocked the old sofa on its back so that they could see the exposed springs beneath it.

  Thorn continued, “Everyone in the Council thinks I killed Cassiodorian. Everyone thinks he’s right! And we need you and what’s in your head—of course we do—so we got you back. But Moira’s dead. Ira probably, too. We haven’t heard from any of the other squadrons that came with us… No, I didn’t kill Cassiodorian. But I did lead that rescue. Everything that happened then is on me. All on me.”

  Thorn’s face scrunched up, and he pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. His whole body shook.

  Then his legs stopped supporting him and he crumpled to the floor.

  Part of Ellie thought she should just go back upstairs and close the door behind her. Leave Thorn to work through his feelings on his own. That that was probably what he wanted.

  But the more sensible part of her knew that what Thorn wanted and what Thorn needed weren’t the same thing, at least not in this.

  She went to him, sitting down beside him. Then she got over herself and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Don’t,” he said, but he didn’t push her away. He still clutched at his face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ellie said. This close, she could smell his sweat and feel the way he shuddered, “I’ve been so busy beating myself up, I didn’t even think of how you must be feeling. It’s just, nothing ever seems to faze you. But I guess things do, don’t they? You’re only human, after all. Not some emotionless cyborg on a mission to save the world.”

  Thorn steadied himself with a couple more breaths. “You think of me as a cyborg?”

  Ellie took her arms off him and crossed them over her chest. “Must stop all fun. Must only be serious,” she did in her best robot voice.

  Thorn chuckled while he swiped one hand over his eyes. “There’ll be time for fun after we stop Belt.”

  “With Matilda?” Ellie flourished incredulously with her hands, “Matilda?”

  Thorn’s smile widened, “She’s not so bad underneath her mask of meanness. She was there. For the Resistance, and for me. The Trial changed her, Ellie.”

  Ellie thought about Matilda making fun of her on the brownstone’s stoop, or just a few minutes earlier before Grant and Peter left. “She seems pretty much the same to me.”

  Thorn leaned back against his hands, relaxing some more, “Well she isn’t the same. When Belt lost you, after he decided to go all-in and start his war, Matilda was the first one to join up with me.”

  “She believes in you,” Ellie said, “They all do.”

  It was true, Ellie knew. They all looked up to Thorn, all looked to him for what to do. Even Arabella.

  “You had Magister Cassiodorian’s full trust,” she said.

  Thorn’s eyes closed and the smile dropped from his lips, “And now Cassiodorian’s dead. And so many others. Ellie, I don’t think I’m the right one to do this, to lead everyone.”

  “I know all about second guessing yourself,” Ellie said, “My last foster parent, Mr. Fichtner, he blamed everything bad that happened to him on me so much I started to believe him. But Thorn, then you came along and showed me Sourcewell and everything changed. Some bad things have happened, yeah, but good things, too. You guys rescued me. And you saw Belt in London. He was livid. You and your plan worked so well that he totally freaked out. Also, I don’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate so you’re stuck with the job.”

  Thorn blew out
his cheeks, “Comforting.”

  “You’re welcome. Hey, I can’t stop wondering, you guys set a distraction for Belt and when he found us he mentioned something about fighting a dragon?”

  “Not a real dragon, well, sort of,” Thorn said, “I knew we needed something big to hold him off for a while, so we found a dragonbone phylactery. Luckily it still had the juice to summon up the soul of the dragon inside it. Long enough to put up a fight.”

  Ellie thought of the shelves in Belt’s sanctuary, loaded with magical artifacts. “Where do you even find something like that?”

  “There’s a sorcerer who deals in old artifacts like that.”

  Ellie frowned, “What does something like that even cost?”

  Thorn turned to her, “For us? Nothing. We convinced him to make a… donation to the cause of the Resistance.”

  “You robbed him,” Ellie put in.

  Thorn sighed and nodded, “We did. We also didn’t have a choice. He wanted more than we could get together, and we needed something fast. Besides, it’s not like he’s left with nothing. Guy had a hoard of treasures and artifacts to make Belt himself blush.”

  The realization slapped Ellie so hard that she shook her head.

  “What? What is it?” Thorn noticed her excitement.

  Ellie pushed up to her feet, unable to sit still. “This guy, you think maybe he might have a unicorn horn? Or even just a piece of one?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. But why would we want one of those?”

  Her mind swam with the possibilities. The pressure at the back of her thoughts built, as though the Gem sensed her excitement and came forward in its curiosity.

  She offered Thorn her hands. He looked at them, then at her, then took them. She barely registered the effort required to haul him to his feet. “Come on, we have to talk to Arabella.”

  “Ellie! Wait up! Tell me what’s going on!” Thorn chased her up the stairs.

  Chapter 37

  Ellie was so excited that she almost didn’t stop at the door to the study. She drew up so sharply that she almost crashed right into it.