Shadow Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 4)

by Ella Summers

  Sera set her hand on his arm. “Will you?”

  Kai ground his teeth. “If need be,” he bit out.

  Logan frowned. “Drachenburg, you of all people should realize that we don’t make deals with the enemy.”

  “Riley is my friend too.” Kai’s knuckles cracked as he opened and closed his fists—repeatedly. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about helping Daemon either.

  A smile lit up Daemon’s face.

  “I wouldn’t smile just yet,” Kai warned him. “Your pardon is contingent on Riley’s safe return.”

  “It won’t be a problem,” Daemon said breezily. “I know how Nightstar thinks. I can find him. But then you will go get him back, and leave me out of it. I’m not going anywhere near Nightstar. He’s even crazier than all of you.”

  The door swung open, and Lara stepped into the living room. Her red hair was disheveled, her eyes alight with manic magic.

  “Excellent,” she said with savage delight. “Point me right to Nightstar.”

  18

  The Spell of Entrapment

  Light rain pattered on Alex’s hood, unseasonal—and unwelcome. She and Logan stood outside the Museum of Magic History, a pretty self-celebrating monument to the world’s oldest magic dynasties. Naturally, the museum was funded by those same rich magic families. The one-hundred-dollar entrance fee to the museum was only there to make you feel like you were paying for something truly extraordinary. It wasn’t even a drop in the bucket of the cost required to run the museum.

  “I wonder if Kai’s family is featured in the museum,” Alex commented to Logan.

  “They are. In fact, they have a very prominent section.”

  “How do you know?” She smirked at him. “I didn’t take you for someone who liked to visit this museum to gaze upon the magic dynasties with admiration.”

  “No.” His face was blank, but Alex could tell he really appreciated her joke. “I visited the Drachenburgs’ section to steal one of their books.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed the book for a bit.”

  “Did you return it?” Alex asked.

  “That would have been difficult considering that I needed the book in order to sell it.”

  Alex snorted.

  “You guys do realize that we’re all listening, don’t you?” Sera said in Alex’s earpiece.

  Oops, Alex mouthed silently to Logan, then said to Sera, “I guess we’ll just pass the rest of our wait in silence.”

  “You do that,” Kai said gruffly.

  Alex bottled a laugh. She’d have preferred to let it out. She was really aching for a good laugh. Things had been awfully gloomy ever since Nightstar’s mages had taken Riley.

  True to his word, Daemon had given them a very long list of spots to check out, places Nightstar had used as a base in the past, or places that were of special significance to Nightstar. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found Nightstar at any of them.

  They had encountered more of Nightstar’s mages—or the Convictionites’ mages. Actually, Alex wasn’t sure whose mages they were. The only thing she was sure of was that they were the enemy. Anyone who stood between her and someone she loved was the enemy.

  We’ll get Riley back, her dragon Nova told her.

  Yes. I don’t intend to let the mages escape this time, replied Alex.

  They’d fought so many of Nightstar’s mages over the past few days, and Alex was getting better at it. Like many crazy-powerful beings, their weakness was ego. Their overconfidence allowed Alex to get in close.

  Just not close enough. Every time she’d nearly had the mages, they’d escaped through a teleportation glyph.

  Alex was so tired of it all. So frustrated. She didn’t feel any closer to rescuing Riley than when they’d started. Nightstar was like a ghost.

  He’s no ghost, Alex. He’s just a man, Nova reminded her.

  A man who leaves no trace, Alex replied. We can’t find him anywhere. But we are finding his mages. Now we just need to trap one of them before they escape. That will bring us one step closer to Nightstar…and to Riley.

  The spell we found in that old Dragon Born magic book in Makani’s library, the Spell of Entrapment, Nova said. It’s gruesome, Alex. Even for us.

  I know, replied Alex. But it’s all that we’ve got. It’s our only chance of freezing one of those mages long enough to capture them.

  You haven’t told Sera about the spell, Nova said.

  Sera…well, she wouldn’t understand.

  No, she wouldn’t. And you’re right, said Nova. This might be our only chance against the mages. You can’t hesitate.

  Oh, I won’t hesitate. Don’t you worry about that, Nova.

  Logan nudged Alex, and she glanced down at her watch. It was time to move in.

  Their target wasn’t the well-lit, high-profile Museum of Magic History. It was the small office building across the street. It was so humble, so unassuming, that it was nearly invisible. It blended into the grander, newer office buildings on either side of it.

  They stuck to the shadows, their feet gliding over the wet asphalt, a driveway around back that was only large enough for a single car. Hardly the large-scale hideaway required to house an evil army.

  They stopped, Alex waiting while Logan disabled the alarms and worked his own special kind of magic on the door’s lock.

  The door clicked open, and they snuck inside. They dashed across the dark room on silent steps, passing rows of empty desks with chairs stacked on top of them.

  They came to an intersection of two hallways. Logan pointed to the left one. Alex nodded. She’d seen it too, a flash of movement coming from further down the passageway.

  They ran down that hall, Alex concentrating on moving as quickly and silently as Logan.

  There was another flash—a flash of magic, not movement. Alex barely dodged out of the path of the spell in time. It whistled past her ear, crashing into the desk behind her. There it exploded into a supernova of splintered wood. Chairs crashed down to the hard, concrete floor.

  Alex caught a glimpse of the mage’s face. She was young, no older than twenty. Madness burned in her eyes, which were as black as her hair was white. A superior smirk twisted her lips.

  The mage was going to make a run for it. She was sure she’d get away. Because they always got away.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Alex shouted. “Not this time!”

  A ribbon of magic burst out of Alex’s hands. Ancient and powerful, the shimmering scarlet whip lashed out at the mage like a river of blood. The amusement in the mage’s eyes died. She was turning away, trying to throw herself out of the spell’s path, when it slammed hard into her back. But instead of the collision hurling her across the room, it trapped her in place. The scarlet ribbon split open like a pair of monstrous jaws and swallowed the mage whole.

  Trapped inside the magic prison, the mage hammered her fists against the translucent second skin that now surrounded her like a glob of gelatin. The spell sizzled every time and everywhere she hit it, but it didn’t release her. It wasn’t even showing any signs of weakening.

  “Cool,” Alex whistled.

  She walked toward the trapped mage, reaching out with her magic senses. Her magic caught on the edge of the mage’s glyph. Alex waved her hand over the hidden glyph, and it became visible. She destroyed it with Magic Breaker.

  She continued to search the space around the mage. There had to be another teleportation glyph around here somewhere. Nightstar’s mages always cast two, in case they needed a backup escape route.

  “Aha! Got you!”

  And then Alex obliterated that glyph too.

  By now, the mage wasn’t just pounding against her scarlet prison. She was shouting too. The spell did a decent job of blocking out sound. Alex couldn’t understand a word she was saying.

  She stepped up to the mage, waving her hand. The spell peeled away from her prisoner’s head, but it stopped at her neck, leaving the rest of her body trapped.

  Alex sm
iled at her. “You were saying?”

  “You foul, unholy abomination of magic,” the mage snarled. “When I get out of this spell—”

  “Well, then, be my guest.” Alex unfolded her arms. “Free yourself.”

  The mage hissed at her.

  “That’s what I thought,” Alex chuckled. “You can’t free yourself. And I won’t free you either—at least not until you tell me exactly where Nightstar is holding my brother.”

  The mage pressed her lips firmly together and tilted up her nose at Alex.

  “Fine. Don’t say anything.” She allowed a savage smile to curl her lips. “I like it better this way anyway.”

  Alex walked a tight circle around the mage, stretching out her hands. The Spell of Entrapment had drained much of the mage’s magic. Alex could feel it. Much, but not all.

  When Alex was facing the mage once more, she hit her with a blast of Magic Breaker to neutralize whatever magic she had left. She followed that up with a heavy dose of Mind Breaker. There really was no such thing as overkill when dealing with cultists.

  “Now let’s see what we can find out,” Alex said.

  Images flashed through her head. She saw her brother being held. She saw him being hurt when he fought back and tried to get away. They were hurting Riley. They were hurting her little brother!

  Anger boiled inside of Alex. She pushed the mage harder. She was going to get Riley out of there. She was going to end this, no matter what it took.

  The flashes came faster. But Alex didn’t see the place where they were holding Riley.

  She sank her Mind Breaker magic deeper into the mage.

  She saw Nightstar. He was meeting with his mages, commanding them. He was outlining his plan.

  Alex strained to make out his words. It all sounded so far away, so long ago.

  “All the supernaturals fighting, it’s because of Nightstar,” Alex said. “Lauren Valentine. Silvio Bullet. All those stories on TV. Even the wedding crasher. It all happened because Nightstar wanted it to happen. He’s trying to disrupt the supernatural world.”

  “How is he influencing them?” Logan asked her.

  “I don’t know how. I only know why…” Alex tried to sort through the barrage of images. “Nightstar is working with the Convictionites to weaken us, to make us fight one another.”

  The mage lifted her head and laughed weakly. “You know nothing. You are so small, so limited. And this is all so much bigger than you, Alexandria Dering. The day will come. It’s been centuries in the making.”

  “What day?” Alex demanded. “What is going to happen?”

  But the mage said nothing more.

  Alex tried to push her spell deeper into the mage’s mind. The mage started to convulse.

  That was when Sera ran into the room.

  “Stop, Alex!” she shouted. “Don’t kill her. We need to question her.”

  Alex glanced briefly at her sister, then returned her attention to her enemy. “That’s what I’m doing: questioning her.”

  “We need to question her in a safe place, away from all of this.” Sera’s voice was eerily calm. “Some place where we aren’t exposed. And we need to do it with reason, not emotion. Emotion makes you angry.”

  Alex spun around. “Of course I’m angry! They took our brother! They’re torturing him, Sera!”

  “Killing this mage won’t help Riley.” Sera approached her slowly, cautiously, like Alex was a big bomb about to go off. “We need to know what she knows. That’s why we don’t bring Lara with us anymore. The first time we brought her, she killed a mage without even bothering to ask questions.”

  “I am not Lara.”

  “Please, Alex.” Sera sounded desperate. “Stop.”

  Alex frowned. She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to scrape all the answers out of the mage’s mind. She could do it too. She had the power. And she wanted to use it.

  “Fine.” Alex released the mage from her Mind Breaker spell.

  “Thank you,” Sera said as the mage slumped over.

  “I hope you’re right about this, Sera.”

  She set her hand gently on Alex’s arm. “We’ll get Riley back.”

  Alex started to unravel the entrapment spell that held the mage.

  “Whoa, what the hell is that?” Callum gasped as he ran into the room.

  “A spell that actually works,” Alex told him.

  Kai and the commandos moved forward and grabbed the prisoner off the ground. She’d completely collapsed from the effects of Alex breaking her magic. They dragged the mage out.

  Alex lingered for a while longer in the room.

  “Alex?” Logan said.

  The others had all already left.

  “Just before I released the mage’s mind, I saw something,” Alex told him. “It’s not the Convictionites using Nightstar. It’s Nightstar using the Convictionites.”

  “To what end?” Logan asked. “What does Nightstar want?”

  But Alex only shook her head. She didn’t know.

  19

  New Alex

  “I want to find Riley. I need to find him, to help him be free of Nightstar,” Alex expressed her frustration to Logan over dinner at their house. “But instead of making any progress toward saving Riley, we’re just chasing Nightstar’s tail. And, now, the most promising lead we have was taken out of my hands.”

  Logan set down his water glass. “You wish you’d continued searching the mage’s mind.”

  “Yes.” Alex frowned. “No.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know! I just know that if I’d only had a little more time with that mage, I could have gotten the answers we need out of her. And I could have done it much better than the Magic Council can.”

  “Your magic isn’t like theirs.” He offered her the bread basket.

  She took a steaming dinner roll off the top. “Yeah, because my magic actually works.” She took a bite of it. “If I could just use what I’ve got: Mind Breaker. And the Spell of Entrapment. Those things worked. The Council doesn’t have magic like that.”

  “The Council fears your magic.” Logan took a roll for himself. “Did you see the look on everyone’s eyes when they came in and saw how you were questioning the mage?”

  “I saw it all right.” She frowned and grabbed the bowl of potatoes. “They think I’ve gone off the deep end. But I haven’t. I just want to save Riley. And I have the magic that can do it. If they’d only let me use it.”

  “While the Magic Council is no longer hunting the Dragon Born, they have not truly accepted you for what you are.” He refilled her water glass. “Nor me for what I am.”

  Alex set her hand over his. “No, they haven’t accepted us. Well, except Sera. They accept Sera.”

  “Your sister is careful not to show people her most powerful magic. She would not have cast the Spell of Entrapment, nor broken the mage’s mind so…abruptly.”

  “Gruesomely, you mean.” She grabbed her fork and poked one of the roasted potatoes on her plate. “I know it for what it is, Logan.” She dipped the potato in ketchup, then ate it. “I saw the horror in their eyes.”

  “So have I, for as long as I can remember. Starting with my own parents,” Logan said quietly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t ever be sorry for who you are, Alex. I’m not.” He smiled warmly at her, a gesture made all the more beautiful by its rarity. “First and foremost, you must always accept yourself.”

  “Pretty wise words.”

  “Born out of practicality.” His stoic facade had returned.

  “I guess we’re one and the same then, you and I.”

  “Not entirely.” He arched his brows at her. “At least I don’t talk to myself.”

  Laughing, she punched him lightly in the arm. “I talk to Nova.”

  “Your dragon is a part of you.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s different than talking to myself. She has a mind of her own.”

  Yes, I most certainly do.

  Alex
could tell her dragon was projecting her thoughts to Logan too.

  “What do you want to do?” Logan said to them both.

  “Save Riley,” Alex said as her dragon projected the same thought.

  Logan nodded.

  “I shouldn’t have let them take the mage away to the Magic Council.” Alex set down her fork, suddenly not hungry at all. “I should have kept her trapped inside my spell until I got the answers I needed to find Riley.”

  The Magic Council has hijacked what is really a family matter. This is supposed to be about Riley’s safe return, Nova said with indignation.

  “But instead the Council has turned it into a self-serving witch hunt to go after the notorious criminal who escaped their custody: Nightstar,” said Logan.

  Nova snorted. Exactly.

  “The old magic dynasties care about their image.” Logan set down his fork as well; maybe this whole thing had wrecked his appetite too. “They need to show that they are in control, that no one escapes them in the end.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Alex muttered.

  She tapped the remote, pumping up the volume on the news report. She glanced at the screen. A voiceover spoke over a montage backdrop that cycled through scenes of destruction. As expected, there were mages going berserk. More dynasties turning against other dynasties. And more supernatural espionage.

  “From what I can tell, the Magic Council is obviously not in control,” Alex commented and looked away from the television screen.

  “Indeed not,” Logan agreed.

  Marek strolled into the kitchen. He hadn’t returned to Zurich after the wedding.

  His eyes swept over the table of abandoned food. “Late night?”

  “You have no idea,” Alex said.

  Marek snatched a roll for himself. “Actually, I do.” He grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and poured himself a glass. Then he glanced at the television screen, where the cycle of destruction was still playing out. “The situation is out of control.”

  Alex sighed. “No kidding.”

  He skewered a bunch of carrots and roasted potatoes on the fork he’d stolen from Alex’s plate. “Heard you captured a mage tonight.”