Guardian Academy 2: Prisoner Of Magic (The Mystery Of The Four Corners)

by Maria Amor

  “They consulted on the issue,” Odan said. He made a face. “They spoke with Bernadette and Alistair, and said that the plan was progressing well with their son.” Dylan’s eyes widened at the news.

  “How? Did they say?”

  “They didn’t,” Odan told him apologetically. “But they’re sensitive to timing right now. They were discussing the need to move all of you to a new location, to prevent any of the rest of you from sickening.”

  “They’d have to do that while we were unconscious, or something like that,” Dylan said, thinking about the situation. “The air-aligned kids would be really good at finding themselves if they were alert for the transfer.”

  “That’s what they were saying,” Odan agreed. “Or…” he looked down.

  “Or they could just kill us,” Dylan finished for him. “Remove any threat to the bond between Julia and their son.” He shuddered at the coldness of it. “Who are they?”

  “I have only seen them a few times,” Odan said. “Today I finally learned their names. Jonathan and Seraphina Andrews.” Dylan frowned; the names were familiar to him, but he couldn’t say why. They were the ones with a hold on Bernadette and Alistair, getting those two involved in monitoring the situation with him and the other five kidnap victims.

  It occurred to him that the whole scheme was even more convoluted than he’d originally thought, involving some earth-aligned Guardians and creatures and some fire-aligned. Why are they always the ones stirring up trouble together? He knew it probably wasn’t true—but it seemed that way.

  “We need to escape,” Dylan told the elf. “You understand that, right?”

  “If we—the other servants and I—are known to have helped you...if the punishment for the people in charge doesn’t come quickly enough…” he looked well and truly frightened, and Dylan reached out to the man with his mind, using what little water-aligned energy he had in the oppressive, warded room to connect to the elf’s emotional state.

  “You don’t want us to die, right?” Dylan saw Odan’s fear starting to shift into regret.

  “No, of course not,” Odan said. “We believe in Julia, we want her to take her rightful place—there needs to be a strong presence in the council, among the elemental rulers. Ewan Crofts is a good man, but he will not be strong enough to hold his seat forever.”

  “And of course, you’ve come to like us a bit,” Dylan suggested; he knew that it was sneaky, and that if he told any of the professors what he had been doing, they would likely chastise him for it, but Ruth’s lessons on using his water-aligned energy to manipulate others’ emotions had come in handy in the few, limited moments that he’d had outside of the warded areas in the little prison-inside-the-house.

  “Of course,” Odan said. “I respect you a great deal; Ruth Arlen did well to choose you to protect her granddaughter.”

  “Not so well,” Dylan said glumly. “I got kidnapped when she needed me the most.”

  “That is to lay at the feet of the people of your school,” Odan said firmly. “No one should have been able to take you—and the five others—from Sandrine so easily.”

  “Thanks for that,” Dylan said. “I need you to help me and the others escape now. Before they can decide to move us or kill us.” Odan pressed his lips together and started to shake his head, but Dylan pressed as hard as his limited energy would allow on the other man’s unconscious mind, washing away his defenses as best as he could.

  “These—the wards…” Odan hesitated again but Dylan didn’t have it in him to push any harder. “I could get tools—to you and the others—to help dismantle the wards. And then you could regain some of your energy.”

  “That was what I was thinking,” Dylan said. “Is there anything more that you can do?” Odan considered.

  “There are a few, limited things,” he said. “We can’t be seen to obviously help you, but we could…” he chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “There is a thing we could do, but you would need to be able to take advantage of it almost immediately.”

  “What would you do?” Odan looked around the room, as if paranoid that they might be being monitored after all.

  “This is a nexus-point for earth-aligned creatures,” Odan said. “Your presence here is supposed to be a secret. If many earth-aligned creatures started to come…” he shrugged. “It would create a distraction, and you and your friends could probably do the same, with your abilities partially restored with your energy.”

  “I need you to do something else, too,” Dylan said. “I need you to find a way to help me know where we are. And then…” he looked around the room; Odan’s paranoia was infectious. “We’re going to need for you and the other servants to help us get Eliza out. She won’t be able to dismantle any of the wards. Could you...maybe...leave her door unlocked? Or leave a key where we could find it?” Odan considered.

  “It’s still going to be a fight to get out,” Odan told him. “You’ll have to find your own way out, and we’ll have to at least appear as though we’re trying to prevent you—you understand this, right?” Dylan nodded.

  “I know,” he said. “You have to look after yourselves, too.”

  “We want no part in your deaths, if it comes to that,” Odan said. “We want no part in harming you. But we will have to act quickly. I will have to find a way to tell the other captives here with you what is needed.”

  “If you can just get us into the sitting room together at different points, we can spread the news,” Dylan told the elf. “But if you can get me tools, to start dismantling the wards in here, that would help.”

  “You will have to be very careful,” Odan said. “I would say that it’s best to dismantle them in the bathroom first. Or underneath your bed. The monitoring systems in here are not able to watch you in those places.”

  “But you think that it’s possible?”

  “It will be easier for you than it would be for the others,” Odan said. “The others’ rooms are purely warded with earth-aligned materials—no fire, because they would be able to interact with that, and no water.” He sighed. “But if you were to dismantle the earth-aligned materials first, that would make it easier for you.”

  “Once I’m able to get my energy back, the fire-aligned defenses won’t be as strong,” Dylan surmised.

  “Water defeats fire, unless there’s an overwhelming amount of fire, bolstered with earth,” Odan agreed. “I’ll bring you the tools in the morning but again—you must be very, very careful.”

  “And make sure that all of us get chances to meet up—even if it has to be in twos,” Dylan reminded the elf. “That way, we can all know what to do, all work together.” Odan nodded.

  “I will do that for you,” Odan said. “Please do not let me get caught helping you with this.”

  “We’ll keep it secret,” Dylan reassured the man. “I know the others will be willing to help out in that regard, they’ll agree. We need to get out of here.”

  “I must go now,” Odan said. “But I will bring you the tools in the morning, with a note telling you how to do what needs to be done. Destroy the note once you understand the directions.”

  “I can do that,” Dylan said. Odan turned to leave, and Dylan felt a rush of adrenaline. He had hope for the first time in months—and he was also deeply afraid of what would happen if they got caught. Worry about the important things. Focus on getting out of here.

  He took a deep breath and lay back in his bed; the name that Odan had given him for the people who were in charge tugged at his mind, but he couldn’t entirely say why. Dylan would ponder it for a long time before he fell asleep without a resolution.

  CHAPTER 18

  Julia struggled not to fidget for the last few minutes of class before she would be released to go to lunch; she and Blake had agreed that they would meet up at the lunch bell and intercept one of the potential sources to find out about where Dylan and Julia’s other friends were being held. She knew—objectively—that there was a good chance that neither of the peop
le they planned to accost would have the information they needed, but she also knew that they would have to know something.

  If they couldn’t tell her specifically who was behind the abductions, maybe they could tell her who had come to them, and they could follow the trail backwards, to the actual source, and hopefully find her friends.

  Their first target would be Harris Egan, the school’s head of security. Julia and Blake had planned their attack together; Egan would have to do a check of the school’s perimeter and defenses before he left to report to the council, and they would intercept him outside of his office. Julia could feel her whole body tingling with the energy she’d held back during her classes throughout the day until that point.

  She’d made sure to eat a heavier-than-usual breakfast so that she wouldn’t suffer from missing lunch, but she already seemed to have burned through it; or maybe the pangs in her stomach came from her anxiety that the plan would go off without a hitch.

  Halpern had told her—when Julia had gone, as requested, to the admin offices alone, one day before—that it would be a bad idea to try and use her abilities to get information from either of the two men responsible on the school’s end for the passcodes and other details.

  “I want you to be really careful about this, Julia,” Halpern had said. “Guthrie may be a lame duck at this point, but she is not going to refuse to punish you just because Dylan is missing, if you get caught.”

  But they didn’t have almost any other alternative, at least that Julia could see. They needed information, and the only people who might have the information they needed were unlikely to want to admit it. And if they didn’t want to admit it, they would probably want to go to whoever they worked for right afterward. Egan first, she and Blake had agreed.

  If he doesn’t work out, we’ll go after Oriel. And if neither Egan nor Oriel pans out, we need to meet with the members of the council. Blake had been nearly positive that one of the two men would have at least some of the answers they needed.

  The bell rang, and Julia bolted from the class as if she had someone chasing her, as if she were trying to escape the school itself; she was nearly breathless by the time she spotted Blake waiting for her at the entrance to the administration building, and Julia wondered if he’d somehow managed to skip the end of his class in order to make it there first.

  Magda, a few of her still-present air-aligned friends, had a strange kind of distrust towards Blake, Julia had noticed—at least in the past week or so that they’d been putting their plan together. He’s made you blind...you’re better on your own. But she wasn’t. Julia knew that she couldn’t do what she needed to do on her own, and Blake had worked so hard to gain her trust; she had to work with someone, didn’t she? And Dylan wasn’t there.

  “Ready?” The rest of the students who had the same lunch period as Julia and Blake started to filter out of the buildings, and Julia nodded in response to Blake’s question. The sooner they were in the building, and headed towards Egan’s office, the better.

  She followed Blake into the admin building for the school and then, when he glanced at her—unsure of where they were going—she took the lead, heading in the direction of Egan’s office. She’d used the spell she’d learned in class a few days before, creating an “avatar” of herself and using it—carefully—to explore the school after hours, when there weren’t as many people around patrolling the halls for students who tried to go where they shouldn’t. Julia had found Egan’s office buried in the bowels of the admin building, and had made a note of it.

  They both hurried past the offices in the front of the administration building, and Julia turned a corner, headed to where the more sensitive roles were: accounting, files, guidance, and security. She felt her heart beating faster as she approached the office her avatar had found, and glanced back to see Blake following her. You can do this. You know how to do this. She took a deep breath; she had tried consciously not to use her compulsion ability ever since she’d known—for sure—that she had it, and now she was about to bring it to bear on a total stranger.

  Julia saw the man emerge from the office as they approached. Egan had red-gold hair, and dressed in what Julia thought was a fairly overcompensating all-black suit. He turned as he heard them, and Julia saw his bland-looking face and bright blue eyes. There was red-gold stubble on his cheeks, and he looked—like most of the fire-aligned Guardians Julia had met who had anything to do with security or law enforcement—as if he spent every evening in the gym, sweating over barbells.

  “Students aren’t allowed in this part of the building,” Egan said, frowning—almost scowling—at the two of them.

  “We need to talk,” Blake told the man. “With you. About Dylan Kelby.”

  “The investigation into that disappearance is still ongoing,” Egan said, starting to turn away.

  “Mr. Egan!” Julia focused on her energy, sending it into the man as she saw his gaze switch back to her. She pushed her will through the air-aligned energy she propelled in his direction, imagining it almost like a dart, spearing his mind. She felt Egan’s resistance, and then all of a sudden it was gone. “Mr. Egan, you’ll speak with us for just a few moments, please.” Julia had read up on the ability she’d been avoiding in preparation for their big plan, and she knew that it was safer not to ask questions—but instead to make statements. But she could use the receptive state that her ability put him in to interrogate him.

  “Of course,” Egan said, nodding.

  “Let us into your office, please,” Julia said, reinforcing the command with her energy.

  “Certainly,” Egan said. He unlocked and opened the door to his office and gestured for them to follow him inside. It’s so easy...but it’s really off-putting. I could tell him to jump from the roof and he would. The idea chilled her.

  “We need to know some things, and we’re pretty sure you’re the one who can tell us,” Blake said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Egan said. “If it’s about the abductions…”

  “Tell us what you know,” Julia told him, pushing at his mind once more with her energy. It was good that she’d held back; even though she had her full abilities, it took a good bit of strength to mitigate the older Guardian’s will.

  “There were some people who needed access to the campus for the sake of taking some of the kids. The kids were not to be harmed—they would be held safely for the duration. I provided security codes and passwords so that they wouldn’t be stopped.”

  “Who told you to do that?” Blake’s question rode on the compulsion Julia had already placed on the man, but she could sense Egan resisting.

  “Tell us everything,” Julia said. “Everything we need to know, everything you know about the whole plan.”

  “Someone from the council came to me,” Egan said simply. “She offered me fifteen thousand to do it, and threatened to expose me—I got my wife’s cousin to put in the bid for the new security systems, talked him up, and got five thousand from him for it.”

  “Who on the council?” Julia could feel her energy flagging somewhat—this took more out of her than she thought it would; or maybe it was just because it was concentrated effort.

  “Georgia McKay,” Egan said.

  “What else do you know?” Egan shrugged in response to her question.

  “She was working with another fire-aligned family,” he said. “I don’t know where they took the kids, but it was somewhere out in the middle of nowhere—west of here, I think. Near the Canadian border.”

  “Do you know who she was working with?”

  “Bernadette Evans,” Egan told her. “And Alistair Phoenix. I don’t know who they were working with, but there were a bunch of them.”

  “Those are two fire-aligned Guardians,” Blake observed. Julia nodded; she’d heard the last names before—but she didn’t think the families were high-ranking, merely moderately well-off.

  “Anything else—anything you can think of,” she said.

  “Nothing,”
Egan said. Julia considered for a moment; she didn’t want to have to go through this with Oriel if she didn’t have to—maybe there was a way she could get the address out of Egan even if he didn’t know it himself?

  “Contact Georgia McKay,” Julia told Egan, pushing out once again with her will. “Tell her you need to meet with Bernadette and Alistair.” She felt Egan’s resistance to the idea and reinforced the command; but it was starting to take its toll on her. She could feel a headache starting up at her temples, and knew that she couldn’t do more of it until after she’d had a meal, and maybe even a night’s sleep. “Do it.”

  Egan took a cell phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and started going through his contacts. Julia glanced at Blake. “Good idea,” he murmured to her.

  “Georgia, this is Egan,” the Guardian said. “Harris, yes. I need to meet with Bernadette—and Alistair.” He looked at Julia in confusion.

  “Get the address,” Julia murmured, as silently as she could while still making sure Egan could hear her.

  “No—no, I need the address,” Egan said. “Where they are. They’re still at the place, right? With the guests?” Julia rolled her eyes at his euphemisms.

  Egan grabbed a pen off of his desk and began scribbling on a Post-It pad. “Yes. Yes, I have it. Thank you.” He ended the call and turned to Julia, looking confused as to what to do next.

  “Give me the address,” Julia said. Egan tugged the top sheet off of the pad and handed it to her. Julia considered; they needed to be able to get away without Egan remembering anything about what they’d asked him. “Forget the conversation,” she said. “You already completed your rounds, and you came back to your office because you needed to grab something before you left.”

  “Right,” Egan said.

  “If Georgia asks you about the call, it’s between you and the others,” Julia finished. “Wait five minutes and then leave for your car.”

  “I will,” Egan told her. Julia exhaled, feeling her energy flagging, and turned to leave the office, with Blake following in her wake.