by N. M. Howell
He pulled away.
“Do you hear that?”
Raina took a deep breath, gathering her senses. Muted, as if stuffed with cotton, came the clamor of bells. “What is that?”
“Trouble.” Jax rose, climbing up on the back of the bench to scan the campus.
“What is it?”
Jax ignored her, jumping to the ground. “Not again. Damn it.”
He raced toward the fountain. Raina ran to catch up.
“Stay back, Rainara!” Jax whirled on her. “Stay down!”
Like hell. She ran after him, past the fountain, down a footpath to the campus.
At the same time, the roar of an engine rattled the trees. Raina saw an old, nondescript van veer off Terrace Drive, tires screaming with the turn. It raced at Jax, nearly running him down. With an unintelligible curse, Jax leapt back, nearly falling with his effort.
The van sped off toward the gates of the museum. Jax jumped to his feet, limping but still moving faster than Raina. Ahead, the van screeched to a halt at the broad steps.
Dark Fae in security uniforms leapt to the walls surrounding the school. Racing along the narrow ledges, they converged on the opening and the idling van. As she and Jax neared, Raina saw that the plates of the vehicle were obscured by mud or paint. The rear doors flew open.
Raina half-expected to hear the report of guns. Instead, intense, faceted red light swarmed the vehicle in painful highlights. She recognized the spell, a Panoply Rubicund—the red armor of magical defense.
While it meant that the Dark Fae converging on top of the wall could not attack the van, it also meant the men in the van could not launch offensive Frey Spells. Raina thought it was a standoff. Until one of the guards on the wall shouted and pointed.
“They’re coming out the main doors!” The man made a gesture with both fists. Solid green light formed before him, a perfect globe of energy. Others on the wall followed his lead, each forming an identical Targe Viridescent—a defensive shield. Apparently, whoever was coming out of the school was magically armed to the teeth.
Until now, Raina had never realized how much Dark Fae fray spells looked like human martial arts. Each man made the exact same motions. She watched as the guards thrust their left arms out, bent at the elbow, fists becoming flat, palms in. Right arms went straight up in fists. They were preparing offensive spells as well.
Fireworks blasted the doors open. Pelts Sonorous and Strafes Plangent sparked and rebounded with showers of fire, the explosions shaking the ground.
“That’s Bright Fae magic!” Jax shouted at her. “Take cover, Rainara, for the gods’ sakes!”
Could it be? Raina ran closer, shielding her eyes from the glare as Targes Viridescent took the brunt and intensified to solid greenish light as bright as welding torches.
She understood the strategy of both sides even before the Light Fae emerged from the building. They would wear Panoplies Rubicund of a vibration sympathetic with the one surrounding the van. It would allow them access even while protecting them from offensive Frey Spells. Two lines of armored men would surround several offensive casters, protecting them while allowing an attack.
The Dark Fae took to the higher ground, hoping to get an angle on the attackers. It was the strategy that led to the taming and breeding of nithedrakes and wyverns. While the offensive Light Fae were protected from all sides, they were vulnerable from above.
The raiders in the school couldn’t be Light Fae, despite the mastery of supernatural bombardment. Without magic flowing from the portal, they would have withered like flowers without the sun. She knew that the raiders from before were human, Light Fae sympathizers like Derek. But how did they cast Light Fae spells?
Three guards fell off the walls, the exploding Fray magic overwhelming their shields. Jax stood on the other side of the van, shouting orders.
“All of you, Stroke Flaxen! Knock their armor down before they reach the van!”
Out charged the invaders, red, gem-like energy surrounding the two lines of four men on the outside. The line inside consisted only of two men. They picked out the guards closest to the gate, the ones with the best angle. Each man cast a spell. From the first in line, she detected nothing. The second emitted a shriek that climbed in pitch and volume. A shaft of pure white light flashed like lightning, crashing with a splash of energy into the man on the left side of the gate. The Dark Fae’s Targe Viridescent collapsed under the Impale Strident. With a scream, the Dark Fae fell from the wall.
The remainder of the guards chanted with one voice, right hand fingers splaying and turning. Pale yellow embers hailed down to crackle against the red armor. The collective Panoply Rubicund lost its sharp edges, melting like translucent wax. Still, the men moved fast. There was a chance they could make the van.
With an echoing crack, the first raider’s spell slammed into the guard on the right of the gate. His shield erupted in shards of flaming power. Raina knew the Bludgeon Typhonic would have crushed the guard’s bones without a raised shield. Still, the unconscious fall from the wall would do that as well.
Raina wanted to join the fight, to aid the Light Fae, or human sympathizers, or whoever they were. But the days of casting a Panoply Rubicund to bolster their armor were long gone. She could only stay back and watch, hiding behind a corner, shielded from view.
The raiders made the gate, with the guards above having no angle of attack, and casting their spell to disintegrate the magic armor took all their attention. Too late, she understood Jax’ plan. He jumped from behind the van, directly in front of the charging marauders’ path.
Legs wide, arms held before him, angled at the rushing men, a sound like a thunder crack boomed from Jax. The remainder of the red armor blew away. It was the fiercest Slash Bellow Raina had ever experienced. A sonic blade passed through the first men in line. While the two outside raiders shrugged the attack off with their dissolving armor, the man in the middle fell to his knees with a scream.
Panoply destroyed, the guards above struck with offensive spells. Still, the raiders ran on, piling into the van as the last of the red armor vanished. Intense flashes and deafening blasts rocked the academy, the park.
Only one raider remained, the other one on the offensive. He cast an Impale Strident—directly at Jax.
Jax crossed his arms, going down on one knee, hands palms-out as if in surrender. Raina knew he wasn’t giving up. When two overlapping blue oval planes appeared, she knew he had cast the last-ditch effort of Fray Spells, the Adargo Dire.
Rarely could such a hastily cast shield spell do much. In this case, it didn’t. The Impale Strident bowed and cracked the adargo’s planes, and Jax flew across the narrow path to crash, unconscious, on the grass beyond.
The van burned rubber, the last caster staggering under the attack from above. He was pulled in by waiting hands and the vehicle swerved and squealed away. On the pedestal, the man Jax had taken down rose to his knees. Sweating and panting, he flung pointless, ineffective spells at the remaining guards. They scaled the walls and rushed him, with three casting a Snare Torrid. The attacker shrieked as he tried to pull it off, the invisible strands of the net burned, growing hotter as he struggled.
Raina ran to Jax’ side. Spitting grass and dirt, dark skin further darkened by bruises, he rolled to his knees. A line of split skin ran down the center of his face, blood dripping down his dewy skin. Black blood. A reminder of who he was. Of what he was.
Groaning, he stood. “I told you to take cover,” he said, and marched up the pedestal steps to the captured man.
Raina followed. Only six guards remained conscious, and these surrounded the man on the ground. While he tried to remain still, any pressure against the net sizzled back with heat. The raider lay face down, curled in a fetal position. The back of his black shirt rode up, revealing the glowing lines of a Bright Fae glyph.
Jax stalked around the man, fists clenched, breathing hard. His eyes went dark, features drawn like a predator’s around his bared teeth.
“Light Fae scum!”
To her shock, Jax kicked the helpless man in the kidney, right on top of the tattoo.
“Jax!”
Fury in his gaze shut her down.
Jax grabbed the half-conscious man by the shirt, lifting him. The enchanted snare only acted on the victim it was cast upon. With his other hand, Jax removed the mask.
“Human!” Jax spat on the ground. “Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer, Raina saw, because he was unconscious.
Her heart sunk at the sight of him. Of course, he was human. How could they have been Light Fae? She knew it to be impossible yet hope had still sparked within her. She steeled herself against the disappointment.
“Who are you?” Jax bellowed, shaking the man. His motions became so violent, one of the guards stepped in.
With an hand on Jax’ shoulder, he whispered something. Jax took a shuddering breath and looked up. His vision panned back and forth, finally stopping on Raina.
“Raina, I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”
Hurt didn’t begin to describe it. She took a step back, and then another. A crowd of humans had gathered, drawn to the spectacle of Fray Magic. She shouldered he way through and walked out of the park with her head down.
Still, Jax’ words rang in her ears.
“The Fae won’t stand for any more attacks on us,” he addressed the crowd. “First the portal, now the academy. No more! We’ll stand this no more!”
“No more!” Someone in the crowd shouted.
Raina hurried her steps.
“No more!” Another voice shouted.
By the time she reached Terrace Drive, the voices joined in a chant.
“No more! No More!”
Echoing among the chants interlaced the words, “Kill the Light!”
21
Days later, Raina left her last class. Her heart was a cold, sodden weight in her chest. She couldn’t blame Jax. Not really. Light and Dark Fae had been enemies for a very long time. She had no doubt that, not so long ago, she had been filled with the same hate she’d seen in Jax’ face.
At the same time, how could she be with someone like that? Dark Fae cruelty was legendary, but to see it up close sent her into shivers. So far, she’d managed to avoid him. She wouldn’t take his calls at the store. She dropped his class. She ignored him on campus. Raina wanted to keep it that way.
She hated the academy more than even the first time she’d laid eyes on the atrocity. Raina couldn’t leave, no matter how much she wanted to. Not when she was actually getting close to answers. More importantly, dropping out might draw undue attention. Keeping herself disconnected from the Light Fae attacks came only slightly secondary to finding a way to reopen the gate to Oreálle.
Trini caught up with her in the main corridor.
“Okay, Friend, time for the real schooling to start.”
Raina’s depression deepened. “Not today, Trini, okay? I’m just not in the mood.”
The half-fae girl gestured, and Raina found herself turning toward the stairs. “Come on, Trini, cut it out!”
“Listen. Thanks to you, I’ve been able to get a little more information about what’s going on around here. There’s a suite of rooms in the university upstairs that not even I’ve been able to get into. The headmaster, Merit Sharp, is one of the splinter group. I’m sure of it. The ones who brought down the portal. I’ve seen him warding the halls of the north wing upstairs—lethal wards, not the screeching, annoying kind. Dangerous stuff.”
“Why thanks to me?”
“Well.” Trini hesitated as they descended to the basement. “I found out that one of the people who can pass those dangerous wards is Jax.”
Raina didn’t like this. “Meaning?”
“He’s in on it, in some way. I know they’ve been pulling him from his awful lectures, and when they do, he’s up on the university level. I also know that he has meetings on Saturday mornings with Sharp, that ugly-ass nurse Ernella Crick, and a bunch of Dark Fae I’ve never seen before. Lotta suits and sunglasses—that type.”
“What does that prove?”
“Nothing by itself. But the time you went on your first date with Jax, I tossed his room.”
Raina scowled at her. “What?”
“He’s got grimoires in his room, real ancient stuff. I can’t read the old-school glyphs very well, but from what I could understand, these are books of Fray Spells. Not the ground troops version, either—this is heavy duty assault magic. The kind that requires full armor and group-cast spells.”
The night of the portal attack appeared sharply in her mind. Armored Dark Fae, standing together to cast a group spell powerful enough to decimate the portal into dust and rubble. They had done it the same way the guards had cast the Stroke Flaxen together. By itself, such a spell would weaken any magical construction over time. But cast simultaneously by a group, it had melted the armor like butter on a griddle.
Jax had ordered that spell.
She felt sick now at the fact she’d enjoyed herself on their date, despite her knowing deep down what he was. She had slipped, become vulnerable. Everybody wants to be loved, but she hated herself for acting like such a hormonal teenager around him.
“So what are they up to?” Raina finally asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been able to search a few more instructors’ rooms. The ones who are like Jax, employed as both teachers and security. All of them had the old books. Some about battle tactics with nithedrakes and wyverns, decimation tactics. The raid should’ve let me scale the outside wall of the upper level without being seen. But Jax made short work of ten guys. Damn it, you should’ve taken him to the Bronx Zoo, or Coney Island or Rockaway Beach. That’s what all the tourists do on dates.”
Raina stopped in the basement hall. “Look, Trini, the next time you plan on a diversion with Jax out of the picture, you should probably let me in on it!”
“Whoa, girl, rein in the anger pony! I didn’t tell you because you couldn’t act weird and suspicious if you didn’t know. I’m not blaming you.”
Raina closed her eyes and drew a breath. “Sorry. I’m on edge.”
“Don’t worry. After a couple hours, I’ll dull that edge blunt, Friend.”
Resigned, Raina trailed Trini into the sub-basement and to the abandoned water pump station. “I don’t get it. Why bother with all this full-on devastation magic? The portal’s closed. There’s no one left to fight. It’s not like you can use magic against an army, not with all the steel. Have you found out anything more about that?”
“Nothing. But you don’t prep for something this big without a plan. They must know some way to reopen it. Even if it is to send in the death squads.”
Raina went cold at the words.
“Which is why you need to be prepared as well. For whatever.” Trini led into the pillared darkness of the former Pumping Apparatus Number 4. As had happened the last three days, Raina heard whispered voices and feet retreating into the dim recesses.
Trini caught her expression. “There are always Confraternity members down here. Don’t worry about it.”
They crossed to a spread of mats stolen from the academy gym.
“Okay, let’s keep on with easy Fray Spells. Give me a Static Lunge.”
Raina held her palms an inch apart, and arced her hands across each other from the wrist.
Trini fisted her hips. “That’s what you call a Static Lunge?”
“I can’t do it without magic, Trini. I’ve tried to explain this to you,” Raina said with a grunt.
Trini patted her stomach. “Do it again. Okay. Focus. Give me one in the gut.”
Raina focused. She made the same motion of her palms. Nothing happened, of course. “This is stupid! You can’t do magic by waving your hands. It’s just a thing you do, like shrugging your shoulders when you don’t care. Or rolling your eyes.”
Trini rolled her eyes as Raina said this. Then she frowned. With a deep breath, she ra
ised her hands, bringing the palms an inch apart. When she crossed the palms over each other in opposite arcs, a spark of pink light formed and flew across the mat. When it struck Raina, she was knocked off her feet.
“No fair!” Raina wheezed. “I can’t do your Dark Fae crap!”
“Crap? So why do you hold your hands like that when I ask you to perform a simple Static Lunge?”
“Like I said, it’s like shrugging or rolling your eyes.” Raina dragged herself to her feet. Her stomach hurt, and she felt like crying. Not that she ever would in front of Trini. “You just do it!”
Trini blew her lips like a horse. “Okay, fine. You’re a delicate flower. You get your magic from the portal like a delicate flower gets it from the sun. I’m a toadstool, right? I have to drag my magic out of cow turds and mud. But it’s the same damn magic. It does the same stuff. It makes you want to perform the same gesticulations. Your gesticulations are like, who cares? Where’s the intent? What color is behind your eyes? What sound is behind your ears? Come on, Friend. Dig in a little. Gods and comets, don’t be such a wuss.”
Gritting her teeth, taking a breath, Raina spread her feet into a stance.
“Are your feet wide enough apart?”
Raina looked down at her feet. “I guess.”
“You guess?” Trini made an abrupt motion with her right hand. Raina yelp as she felt her butt spanked.
“Ow!”
“Every time you lose focus, you get an Intent Transitive spank. My father used to do this to me across the room when I misbehaved. The human world frowned on spanking, but Dad is pretty old school. So. Static Lunge. Bring it.” Trini made a come here gesture with the fingers of both hands.
Damn it. Raina concentrated. Was there a color in her eyes when she performed a Static Lunge? She thought hard, and came up with a deep shade of green, the kind you would find in the depths of a forest. And a sound, did she ever hear a sound? Yes, yes she had. Like a single chirp of a robin, but drawn out.
