In the end, my anger at what Levesque was trying to do to us outweighed my apprehension about facing her without Malcolm’s help. “Good luck!” I called back to him as Cordelia and I hurried to the academy’s main entrance.
“I’m a dragon!” Malcolm shouted back. “We don’t need luck!”
Cordelia and I pushed through the huge doors and slammed them shut behind us. The front hall of Warrengate was exactly as I remembered it—vaulted ceiling, roaring hearth, uncomfortable furniture scattered about the place. Pictures of screaming people lined the walls; enchanters who’d been trapped inside paintings as a punishment. There was a long table across one side of the room with various refreshments arranged on it—bread, cheese, meats, and a steaming teapot. A lighted candelabra stood in the center of the table.
“Are we ready?” I asked Cordelia.
“Probably not.”
“You’re scared too, aren’t you?”
She gave a wry smile and nodded.
“The thing we need to do,” I suggested, “is get really, really angry.”
Her face brightened. “Yes. That’s the ticket. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Right. After all, Levesque did throw my brother in a dungeon.”
“And my cousin.”
“It was also indirectly her fault that I got turned into a Beast.”
“Which means my constant guilt about that is her fault as well. Also, she had my boyfriend murdered. And forced my mentor to do it.”
“Because of her, we spent God knows how long trapped in a time-loop nightmare. And all our friends got hurt, or abandoned, or repeatedly murdered, or turned evil—”
Cordelia slammed her fist into her hand. “Right, then. I’m angry. You?”
I mimicked the motion. “Oh, yes.”
“I think we’re ready, don’t you?”
“Definitely.”
“Halt!”
We spun around to see a line of guards approaching us. They were of multiple different species—three humans, four orcs, a centaur, and a minotaur. They were wearing jet-black armor emblazoned with glowing red runes. The one who had spoken was a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a unique insignia on his chest-plate. “By the order of Madame Levesque, Lady Protectress of the Council of Scions, I place you under arrest!”
Cordelia’s fingers burned with red light. So did her eyes, which usually meant she was gearing up for some particularly impressive magic. “No. You don’t.”
She spread her arms, and a huge swarm of red runes exploded from her. They flew to nearly every object in the room—the furniture, the clock above the fireplace, the teapot and candelabra on the table, the suits of armor along the walls, even a hat tree by the doors. Every single item shuddered to life and began moving in an eerily human manner.
Cordelia pointed to the row of guards. “CHARGE!”
The guards were too bewildered by Cordelia’s choice of spell to prepare for the assault. I think they’d been expecting her to lob fireballs at them or try to turn them into newts. Most likely, they had a defense for that sort of thing. They weren’t ready for tables trampling them, or chairs kicking them, or candelabras trying to set fire to their eyebrows. The orcs snarled, the centaur bugled, the minotaur bellowed, and the humans cursed, but they weren’t able to do a lot more than that. The most they could do was try to beat back their attackers while we sauntered coolly past them.
“Aren’t you going to let me do anything?” I asked, a little disappointed.
She patted my arm. “Save it for whatever Levesque throws at us. And speaking of throwing…”
The guard who’d tried to arrest us had broken away from the melee and now lumbered toward us. “Stop!”
“Shan’t!” The refreshment table was passing by Cordelia as she spoke, galloping toward an orc. She snatched up a dinner roll from one of the plates and threw it at the guard’s helmet.
Under ordinary circumstances, this missile wouldn’t have had much effect. But runes flickered around it as it flew, and it slammed into the guard’s head with the force of a rock rather than a mere piece of bread. He grunted in surprise and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
I barely stopped myself from blurting out to Cordelia that I loved her again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Present Imperfect
When we’d visited Warrengate before, the door to Malcolm’s office had borne a stern warning to unwanted guests, and had opened on a magical portal to a volcanic cavern deep beneath the earth. Now, the door merely read, “Headmistress Cassandra Levesque,” with no warning. Apparently her name was enough.
I kicked the door open to reveal a boring, ordinary office. It was quite large, but not remotely the size of Malcolm’s cave. The walls were bare of any decoration, and the furniture was spartan. An enormous desk made of dark wood took up a large portion of the room.
Levesque rose from behind the desk. Her face was pale, though I got the impression this was from anger, not fear. “What,” she spat, “are you doing here?”
I grinned. “Hello there. We’re back. Job done, evil fairy godmother defeated. You’re welcome.”
“I imagine you weren’t expecting us to succeed,” said Cordelia. “That’ll teach you to underestimate us.”
“It’s impossible!” Levesque spluttered. “No one can escape from…from…” She lapsed into bewildered silence.
“Ah.” I chuckled. “Having trouble remembering, aren’t you?”
“Time. Something’s wrong with time. History’s changed somehow.” She gave us an accusing glare. “You changed it.”
“We fixed it,” I said. “It’s Cinderella’s fairy godmother who fiddled with it. You remember her; you told us all about her earlier today.” I scratched my head. “It was earlier today, right?”
“Technically, yes,” said Cordelia. “Though after what we’ve been through, it feels like longer. After the castle was destroyed, it appears everyone caught up in its magic got…spat out back into the times and places where they first disappeared.”
I guffawed. “Spat out?”
“It’s been a long day. Literally. Don’t expect me to be poetic.”
“All I know,” said Levesque, “is that I sent you away somewhere, never expecting to see you again, and now you’re back barging into my school!”
“Taking it over, actually,” I corrected. “And it’s Malcolm’s school, not yours.”
Levesque slammed a fist onto her desk. “I should have killed you when I first captured you.”
“Probably,” said Cordelia. “But you were never able to resist over-complicating things.”
“Oh,” I said, “and that plan of yours to invade Neverica? All off, I’m afraid. Not happening.”
She was astounded. “How could you possibly know about that?”
“No need to trouble yourself with the details,” said Cordelia. “They’ll give you a headache, trust me.”
“You’re not getting away with this,” said Levesque. “You honestly think you two can challenge the Council of Scions?”
“We seven, actually, not we two,” I said. “And one of us is a dragon. The gang’s all here.”
“Even Malcolm isn’t powerful to stand against the full strength of the Council,” said Levesque. “He should know that.”
“I got the impression he didn’t care,” said Cordelia. “He wants to go down swinging—or, in his case, incinerating.”
“If you’ve been foolish enough to attack Warrengate, the rest of the Council will already have been notified. Everyone is on high alert because of the time distortions. I’ve cast spells to warn the whole Council if a sudden crisis happens at any of our strongholds.” Levesque’s mouth twisted into a grim smile. “You’re not going to survive this.”
“Thank you for your opinion,” said Cordelia. Fast as lightning, she flung a spell at the desk. It burst into charred pieces of wood, leaving no barrier between us and Levesque.
Levesque was only taken aback for an instant. She stepped
across the remains of her desk and rushed toward Cordelia with an angry snarl. I tried to head her off, but she made a quick motion with her hand in my direction, and chains appeared out of thin air, wrapping around my body and binding my limbs. I fell facedown on the carpet with a thud.
“Stay out of this, you hairy oaf,” she snapped.
Cordelia aimed a series of runes at Levesque, but she responded with her own spell. Her magic and Cordelia’s met in mid-air. They both stood with their hands raised, each trying to push back the other’s power. Cordelia’s red runes hammered against the blue symbols cast by Levesque, but the older woman’s magic slowly began to extinguish hers.
“Face it, Cordelia,” sneered Levesque. “I’m better than you.”
“I know,” Cordelia grunted. “That’s why I’m cheating.”
She lowered her right hand, and the runes around it vanished. Then she balled it into an ordinary, non-magical fist, and swung it up against Levesque’s jaw. The other enchantress’s runes died in an instant, and she crumpled to the floor.
Cordelia rubbed her hand. “That was for Thomas, you miserable old bat.”
“Nicely done,” I wheezed, as the chains around me pulled tighter. “Erm, I don’t suppose you could—”
“Oh, right, sorry.” She waved her hand, and the chains vanished. “Are you okay?”
I rubbed my arms, trying to get the blood circulating through them again. “I’ll live. What now? If the other Council members are on their way, I don’t know how much more we can do.”
“I still like our original concept of using her as a bargaining chip.” Cordelia poked the unconscious Levesque with the toe of her shoe.
“Yeah, that might work on the dungeon guards, but how can we be sure it’ll work on the rest of the Council? They might be willing to sacrifice her life in order to take us down.”
“Let’s hope they’re not that committed.” Cordelia motioned to the prostrate woman. “Bring her.”
“But how are we going to find Crispin and Molly?” I asked, as I hoisted Levesque over my shoulder.
“They’ll probably be in the same area where Levesque had us imprisoned before,” said Cordelia. “It’s a part of the hospital wing where they used to keep experimental subjects, before Malcolm took over and closed it down.”
The words “experimental subjects” filled me with dread. I knew that from Crispin’s point of view, we’d only been separated for a short time…but still, I hoped we weren’t too late to save him from whatever that future Crispin had suffered.
Our destination lay at the far end of the hospital wing, beyond a door that looked as if it had been plastered over at one time and then uncovered. We found ourselves back in the dark hallway where my cell had been. This time, I paid attention to the labels on the doors.
“Jekyll,” I read. “Hook…Moriarty…Harker…not in alphabetical order, clearly…Liddell…Frankenstein…”
“Over here!” Cordelia had run ahead, and now pointed to two of the doors. “Beaumont and Beasley. Right next to each other.”
“Crispin!” I deposited Levesque on the floor like a sack of coals and hurried to the door marked “Beasley.” Cordelia was already calling Molly’s name and magically dismantling the lock. I slammed my body into Crispin’s door. “Can you hear me?”
There was a long, horrible moment of silence.
“CRISPIN!”
“All right, all right!” The sound of his voice nearly caused me to collapse with relief. “Calm down! I was taking a nap.”
“I’m coming in! Stand back from the door!” I smashed into it again. Cordelia had succeeded in opening Molly’s cell, but I was in too much of a hurry to wait for her to magically free Crispin.
“Wait!” he said. “Look, before you come in, there’s something I need to explain—or at least try to—”
The door splintered and fell apart. I bounded into the room and threw my arms around my brother. “It’s okay,” I whispered, tears starting in my eyes. “I’ve got you.”
“Ugghk—yeah, I noticed that.” He pounded on my back. “Could you maybe stop hugging me before I suffocate?”
Reluctantly, I loosened my grip. “I am so sorry I couldn’t stop them from taking you, and I am never, ever again letting you out of my—what happened to your hair?”
Mid-sentence, I’d finally realized what Crispin had been trying to tell me.
His hair was white. Not just one lock, all of it.
“What did Levesque do to you?” I snarled.
“Nothing! I’ve been locked up, but that’s all. All of a sudden, this—happened. I only knew it because I saw my reflection in the window.” He indicated the glass on the inside of the bars. “She said something about wanting to do experiments with us, but she never actually got a chance to do that. Molly and I have been talking back and forth through the wall, trying to figure it out, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Did you try to use your powers?” asked Cordelia. “Did you do any magic that could have made your hair change all the way?”
“I can’t do any magic! See?” He pointed to his neck. I hadn’t noticed the metal collar there before. It was dull grey, and carved with runes.
I reached up to pull it apart. It took some effort, but at last the metal gave way with a shower of blue sparks.
Crispin rubbed his neck. “Thanks.”
Cordelia, meanwhile, was removing a similar collar from Molly. As soon as hers was gone, she ran into the cell and embraced Crispin. She touched his hair and smiled. “I think it looks very handsome.”
He grinned. “Really?”
I couldn’t stop staring at both of them. Faces were flashing through my mind. The White Rabbit, Lara, Alice…
“Do you remember anything?” I asked Crispin.
“Remember what?”
“The castle,” I pressed. I didn’t want to say too much, but I had to know. “The Mythfits?”
“What castle? And what about the Mythfits? I haven’t seen them.”
“Malcolm and Melody?”
“Who’s Melody?” He stepped out into the corridor. “Look, maybe we should talk about all this lat—OH MY GOD, it’s Madame Levesque!”
“Don’t panic,” said Cordelia. “She’s unconscious.”
“Not for long! She’s waking up!” He cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry, I’ll shapeshift into something that’ll stop her. A gryphon should do the trick.” He shut his eyes, and instantly transformed…
…into a white rabbit.
He wiggled his nose in confusion for a moment, then shifted back and laughed nervously. “Well, that was embarrassing. Let’s try again. Maybe I can manage a hippogriff.”
A moment later, he was a rabbit again.
“This is ridiculous!” he said, once he’d gone back to human form. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just like Alan’s leg,” said Cordelia. “Things from the time loop are persisting, even though the timeline has changed. Not everything’s been erased.”
“That’s why all evidence of the castle having existed hasn’t been wiped out,” I said. “You and I still remember everything, and other people recall bits and pieces. Plus, Levesque still sent us to investigate the castle, even if she doesn’t remember what it was now.”
“But why are you and I the only ones that remember all of it?” Cordelia wondered.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
Crispin stared at me in bewilderment. “Could someone please explain to me all this is about?”
I heard a groan from the corridor and left Crispin’s cell to look. Levesque was indeed waking up.
“Should I hit her with something?” asked Molly.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Cordelia.
Molly was disappointed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Cordelia took the collar she’d removed from Molly’s neck and clicked it into place around Levesque’s throat. “There,” she said. “That should keep you fro
m doing something we’ll regret.”
Levesque curled her lip at Cordelia. “You—”
“None of that.” I pulled the woman to her feet and started marching her down the hallway. She tried casting spells at me, but the runes fizzled and died every time. “Let’s go,” I said. “We need to get back to the courtyard and see how Malcolm and the the Mythfits are doing.”
“Oh, are they here?” said Molly. “Lovely.”
“I still don’t understand!” Crispin looked down at his hands. “What happened to my powers? I’m supposed to be a pooka, not a were-rabbit!”
“I’ll look into that later,” said Cordelia. “Right now we need to get safely away from here.”
“There’s nowhere in the Afterlands you can hide!” said Levesque, as we headed down a corridor leading through a dormitory wing and back to the main hall. “You can’t run from the Council forever!”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said brusquely. “Keep moving.”
Levesque chuckled. “It’s already too late. Can’t you hear them? They’re here.”
I tried to ignore the thrumming of engines from somewhere overhead. “Whatever. We’ll manage.”
“Who’s here?” asked Crispin.
“The Council of Scions,” said Cordelia. “Specifically, their fleet of airships, if that noise is anything to go by. They’ve come to rescue Levesque and stop us from taking back Warrengate.”
“Right,” said Crispin slowly. “And do we have a way of escaping them?”
“Not exactly, no,” I admitted.
He fell silent for a moment. We emerged into the main hall and marched toward the huge doors opening on the courtyard. “Are you telling me this is it?” said Crispin.
“I’m not telling you that we’re all about to die, if that’s what you mean.” I pushed the doors open and steered Levesque through them. “We’re hoping to use Madame McNasty here as leverage.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” said Molly.
“Then we may possibly die, yes. Could we cheese the questions for a bit? Things are about to get intense.”
The sight we found outside wasn’t pretty. Malcolm, still in dragon form, had been felled by some kind of huge net that now pinned him to the ground. Blue light sparked along its cords as he struggled in vain to escape. Alan was sprawled on the cobbles, his prosthetic leg twisted and broken. Bryn stood protectively over him in the form of a huge dog, snarling and barking. Gareth was holding Sylvia in his arms. Green blood trickled from a gash on her forehead, and her eyes were closed, but her limbs moved slightly. Water was splashed across a wide area of the cobbles—probably all that was left of Gareth’s nixie.
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