by S T G Hill
Arabella, Ellie, and Peter all sat on the ratty old sofa while Matilda, her arms clutched tightly to her chest, paced back and forth in front of them.
Ellie kept wanting to zone out. To go back to that quiet place in her mind and just stay there.
“Hey!” Matilda said.
She snapped her fingers and an invisible hand tugged at Ellie’s hair.
The sudden sharp pain pulled Ellie back. “He wasn’t dead.”
“What? When you left him behind? I knew I should have followed you guys through that portal!” Matilda said. She stopped pacing and pushed her hands against her face. “Do you think he’s okay?”
“I don’t think Belt will do anything to him. Not right away, at least,” Arabella said.
Her eyes stayed far away for another few moments, then focused. She looked at Ellie, really looked. “You’re a mess. I can’t imagine how I look!”
Ellie barely thought about her own clothes, or how her body ached. “It’s fine.”
“No, no. I’ll fix this. I can fix this,” Arabella said. She stood up and closed her eyes to center herself.
She cleaned Ellie first, a warm wave of magic washing down Ellie’s body as Arabella waved her hands.
She did the same thing to herself, the dust vanishing and the tears in her coat mending themselves. “Better.”
“Amazing! Good work! Mind just snapping your fingers and getting Thorn back here?” Matilda shouted.
When she did, the whole house trembled. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, and the bare light bulbs illuminating the space flickered.’
“You know we can’t,” Arabella said.
“And I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this one, but I’m guessing you guys didn’t get the horn, either?” Matilda’s face went red and puffy, and pooled tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.
“It was a trap,” Ellie stood up, “Simon never even had the horn. It was some sort of curse box. A spell attacked Arabella as soon as she opened it. That’s when Belt and Caspian showed up.”
Matilda threw her hands up and those tears tumbled down from her puffy eyes. She barked a sharp laugh, “Guess that’s it then! Belt’s won! Gee, never saw that one coming. Thanks a lot, ab, this sure has been fun!”
Ellie wanted to say something. She even experienced that initial tingle of spite that urged her to shoot back with something, anything.
But she’s right, Ellie thought. She sank back down onto the couch.
“There’s really no other way to get this horn thing?” Peter said, “No, like, spell you can cast to clear the thing out of Ellie’s head?”
Ellie looked up to Arabella, “Can you try? Please? Maybe it will work this time.”
Now Arabella clutched herself. She shook her head, “It won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” Ellie said, feeling the embers of her anger stirring again.
“Why don’t you at least try?” Matilda kept swiping her hand beneath her eyes, making them even redder than before.
“I would if I thought there was even the tiniest chance… But Ellie, if Aurelius Cassiodorian couldn’t do it, even with the Staff of Tiresias, there’s no way I’ll be able to. No way at all.”
Peter took Ellie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“So the only way to get this thing out of my head is using a unicorn horn,” Ellie didn’t ask, she simply declared, running through the facts out loud instead of in her head, “And the only person for certain we know has access to one is Darius Belt. The one person we can’t go to for one.”
“Arabella? What is it?” Peter said.
Everyone quieted down, even Matilda, who stopped her pacing. Ellie looked and saw what Peter noticed right away.
Arabella wore a distant expression that was also sad.
She knows something, Ellie thought. “Arabella?”
“What?” Matilda said, “This boring you?”
Arabella lifted her eyes up to Matilda, “No, never. It’s just that I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I hoped that we’d be able to get the horn fragment from Simon and that would be that.”
“Why would you hope that?” Peter noticed the tone of Arabella’s voice, ever the cop’s son.
Arabella took in a deep breath, and Ellie noticed that she fidgeted, plucking at the way her trench coat fell across her thighs.
She’d never known Arabella to fidget.
“There’s someone else that has a fragment of unicorn horn. Well, someone who should still have one,” Arabella said.
Matilda went livid. “You knew this and didn’t tell us? You could have stopped this whole thing before it started? You could have kept Thorn from getting captured by Belt?”
Ellie’s usual response to Matilda was immediate disagreement. So it came as something of a shock to her when she found herself agreeing with Matilda.
Arabella flinched as though Matilda slapped her. Which, Ellie supposed, she had. In a way.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Arabella said, “If I thought this way stood a better chance, I would have suggested it over going to Simon.”
Matilda sent the coffee table tumbling with an angry swipe of her hand. The way cleared, she planted herself in front of Arabella.
She’s on the verge of tears, Ellie thought when she saw the stormy expression that clouded Matilda’s face.
“Then simplify it for me,” Matilda gritted her teeth, and when the final word escaped her mouth she pressed her lips into a single tight line.
Arabella forced herself to meet Matilda’s enraged glare. Tears rimmed Sourcewell’s Kinesist Prime. “My sister has one. A horn fragment.”
Peter jumped off the couch, grinning wide. “Where is she? We’ll go over and grab it!”
“Peter…” Ellie said, “It’s not that simple.”
“What? Why not?” Peter asked, his excited energy bleeding away.
Ellie knew that Arabella had a sister, and that something had happened to her. Something serious. Something bad.
What was that thing? Ellie didn’t know. Every time her sister came up, Arabella grew quiet and reserved.
Ellie had never wanted to push the issue, even though it piqued her curiosity.
But now they needed to know.
“What’s the matter?” Ellie scooted closer to Arabella, “Do you think she might not have it anymore?”
Arabella pinched at the bridge of her nose. “There’s a good chance. But there’s also a good chance she still does.”
“So what is it? What made you think going to Simon the Polymancer was a better idea than going to your own sister?”
Matilda said nothing, instead jutting her jaw out and staring.
Arabella nodded, coming to some internal decision.
“It seemed like a better idea,” Arabella started, “Because my sister is an Errant.”
Matilda opened her mouth to say something, but instead clicked her jaw shut. Ellie looked away, trying to process the news.
Peter shifted his gaze between the three of them. “What’s an Errant?”
Chapter 45
Ellie left Matilda and Arabella on their own for a moment before describing briefly to Peter what an Errant was, explaining their non-affiliation with any of the major sorcerous academies or organizations.
And, most importantly, their addiction to magic.
“So that stuff’s addictive? Like tobacco?” Peter said.
It took nothing for Ellie to recall the incredible feeling of large amounts of magic flowing through her body. The sweet tingle of it, verging on painful.
That feeling, that certainty that she could do anything she wanted. “Yes, it is,” she said.
“Magical junkies. I never woulda guessed,” he said.
From the corner of her eye, Ellie saw Arabella lower her face into her hands. “Peter!” Ellie said.
Then Peter realized his mistake as well. “Sorry, Arabella.”
Arabella raised her face from her hands and offered Peter a smile. “It’s okay. I�
��m not upset with you. I’m only upset with myself.”
“Good,” Matilda still stood directly in front of Arabella like some immoveable blonde object.
“So why did you think we shouldn’t go to her first?” Peter asked.
Ellie gave him an annoyed glance, but inside thanked him for the question.
“For one,” Arabella said, “The Errants are under Belt’s control. They’re addicted to magic, and as we saw Belt has magical artifacts and power to spare. He’s been feeding their addiction. Using it to twist them to his control for who knows how long now.”
“Sounds like the dealers my dad talks about,” Peter said, “Get ‘em hooked and they’ll do anything you want for another fix… Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay, you’re right,” Arabella held her hand out to him. He took it after a moment.
Their skin glowed where it touched, and Peter’s worry lines disappeared from his forehead.
“You’re right,” she repeated herself, “He can feed their need and get them to do his bidding in return. But like I said, there’s a good chance she won’t even have the fragment anymore.”
“Why give something like that to someone like that anyway?” Matilda growled, “It’s like handing a pyromaniac a can of gas and a zippo.”
Arabella released Peter’s hand and stood up in front of Matilda. She was taller than the girl. She tried to put her hands on Matilda’s shoulders.
Matilda jerked back. “Don’t you dare. You’re not taking my anger away from me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Arabella said, “You deserve answers. You all deserve answers. It may seem foolish in hindsight, but lots of things do. People are willing to do strange things for the ones they love. Out of character things. Crazy things…” she looked at Matilda, “Angry things.”
Little flowers of blush returned to Matilda’s formerly livid cheeks, but she didn’t look away.
Arabella swept her eyes over the three of them, “My sister got addicted to magic before she finished her schooling. My family and I recognized the early signs and we tried everything we could to help. I ransacked as many libraries as I could to find anything that might help her. I can’t tell you the name of the scroll or the author now, but I can give you the gist of what it said. Unicorn horns provide clarity. I thought that with some clarity, my sister could see the hole she’d dug for herself. And at first it seemed to work. It worked until it didn’t. She ran away years and years ago… she probably traded the fragment away for her next fix, or used it up herself somehow…”
“Where did you get it from?” Ellie wanted to help, “We can just go there!”
Arabella shook her head, “I convinced my family to part with much of our wealth for it. And the dealer had only the single piece. Belt wasn’t lying when he told you how rare these things are.”
“So Simon seemed like a safer bet to you,” Ellie said.
Arabella nodded, “Yes. At least I knew—thought I knew—that he wasn’t working with Belt. I’m sorry, Matilda, you’re right. It’s my fault that Belt has Thorn.”
Matilda finally looked away when Arabella met her eye. “You better not forget it,” she mumbled.
Then she ran upstairs.
Ellie started to follow. Then Arabella touched her on the shoulder, “Let her go.”
“So are you going to reach out to your sister?” Ellie said, not sure if she should feel sympathy for Arabella’s plight, anger at her withholding that information, or both.
“Ellie, she probably doesn’t even have it anymore,” Arabella said.
“But she might,” Ellie replied.
“Ellie…”
“She might,” Ellie said.
She refused to give up hope. Because this felt very much like her last hope.
It didn’t help that it also felt rather like she wandered through the desert, dehydrated and dying, and that this felt like seeing the telltale shimmer of water on the horizon.
It didn’t help because Ellie knew that heat-shimmer often turned out to be nothing but a mirage.
A mirage she wanted to rush to. And by rushing, using up the small reserve of energy that she had left. That they all had left.
Peter left then, talking about helping his dad figure out what to make next for them all. That left Ellie and Arabella alone.
When Arabella sat on the couch again, Ellie stood. She couldn’t explain it. It just seemed right.
Because Ellie had puzzled out something else, too.
“Your sister is a polymancer too,” it wasn’t a question.
Arabella smiled, just a little, as though pleased that Ellie made that deduction. “I did say you reminded me of her. And yes, she is. I often wonder if that was why the horn didn’t help anymore. Polymancers are powerful, Ellie, very powerful. Does all that extra power make for an even stronger addiction?”
Ellie’s chest tightened, her body providing her another skin-tingling sense-memory of all that raw power flooding through every muscle, sinew, and vein. “Maybe.”
“I’m still not sure it was the right thing to share this with you all,” Arabella said.
“We need to get Thorn back. We need my magic back. And for both of those, we need the horn fragment. There’s no other way,” Ellie couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice.
You left him behind! She didn’t say that part out loud.
She didn’t because she knew that Arabella had been right to do that. Otherwise they wouldn’t be having this conversation in the Pitarelli basement.
“She probably doesn’t even have it anymore,” Arabella said, “Besides, the Errants work for Belt, which is the other reason I didn’t want to reach out. For all we know, she could go straight to him. Then we’d be in the exact same situation as with Simon, and I seriously doubt that Belt will leave a stray genie-in-a-bottle out like last time.”
Ellie crossed her arms and hugged herself tight, aware of how much she mirrored Matilda at that moment.
Silence hung, awkward and thick, between them. Ellie hated it.
“You and your sister went to Sourcewell?” Ellie said, simply because she needed to say something.
Arabella shook her head, “No. I mean, I did, but not at first. My family actually comes from Bohemia. That’s in Czechoslovakia, by Germany. There’s another Academy in Prague, it translates from the old tongue as Spellsworn.
“I told you that my sister never finished her schooling. Well, it was a disgrace to my family that she fell prey to the addiction. My parents pulled me from Spellsworn and sent me to Sourcewell, all the way across the Atlantic. As far as they could get me.”
Ellie frowned, “But you don’t have an accent.” She sank down onto the couch without really noticing.
Arabella smiled. Just a small one. “No. I worked hard to get rid of it.”
Ellie sighed. She hated being an orphan. She hated getting passed around between foster families and homes. Passed around like some filthy, smelly stray dog that no one wanted.
But it had spared her all the family drama.
Not that she thought the drama wasn’t worth it. Because it was usually borne from love, she thought.
And then she realized something else.
“You still love your sister, don’t you?” Ellie said.
Arabella frowned and cocked her head, “Yes, of course.”
Ellie scooted closer to her, heart revving up with renewed excitement. And renewed hope.
“It sounds like you two were really close… All that stuff you did for her, finding her the horn fragment, all the research.”
Here Arabella smiled again, “Yes. Close like sisters. Because we were. Are. Ellie, where are you going with this?”
Ellie reached out and put her hands over Arabella’s hoping that the woman could feel some of that hopeful excitement that sent her pulse pattering.
“She still loves you, too. Enough that if you explained everything to her that she won’t go to Belt. That she’ll help us out. I’ll bet you anything
she wants to repay you for what you did for her.”
Arabella’s smile evaporated, but Ellie didn’t need the empathy inherent in kinesinomy to know that Arabella swayed towards her way of thinking.
“Ellie…”
“Just do it.”
They both looked up from the couch to the stairs. Matilda sat midway down on one of the bare risers, her eyes all pink and puffy and her voice congested.
“Do it for what you did to Thorn,” Matilda said.
“Just do it because you know I’m right about this,” Ellie gave Arabella’s fingers a squeeze.
Arabella returned the squeeze. “Okay, I’ll send her a message. I’ll send it right now.”
She stood up. Matilda did as well to let her by.
Then something else occurred to Ellie. “Hey, what’s your sister’s name, anyway?”
Arabella paused on the stairs long enough to look back, “Her name is Marta. Marta Thrace.”
Chapter 46
Darius Belt sat at his desk with his elbows on the desktop and his fingers steepled together.
A tarnished oil lamp sat in front of him on that desk.
As he watched, that lamp trembled. The struggles of the thing within produced a hollow, metallic sound.
He cursed himself for not anticipating such a move from the girl. But then again, his powers of prognostication, formidable by any standard, clouded when he directed them at her.
He tested them at that moment, reaching into the future. Into a deep, dark sea of possibility.
Nothing.
No, almost nothing. What he gleaned pleased him, however. He couldn’t be certain, which irritated him, but he thought the two of them would come face-to-face again. Soon.
He stayed in his own inner sanctum, the series of apartments and offices that he’d originally brought Ellie to after the Trial.
He could have gone back to the Council Headquarters after this latest bout, but wanted to be by himself to ruminate and recover.
And to consider a fitting punishment for the genie.
True, the girl had wished it to stop him. But it had done so with such gusto. Such pure rage and energy, without even trying to restrain itself, or ask the girl to reconsider her ill-considered wish.