UnTwisted

by Elise Allen

  “Indeed it was,” Katya said, beaming. “And you are a Mage to be reckoned with!”

  Sara frowned, remembering something more. “I heard something too,” she said. “When I saw the lightning. A chime. Just one note…” Sara shivered because she suddenly knew where she’d heard that note before. “Did you hear it?”

  “We didn’t hear anything,” Primka said. “Just that little flash of blue lightning, that’s it.”

  “But we’re on the outside,” Katya said. “You would have picked up much more than us. Do you think there was another magical signature?”

  Sara did. She’d heard Zinka’s magical signature. That one clear chime. But now that she was away from that strange, magical realm, she wasn’t sure if it was real. If Katya and Primka only saw the lightning, maybe that was all there was. Maybe the chime was just in Sara’s head—her old suspicions making her imagine things that weren’t there.

  “I don’t think so,” Sara said. “The blue lightning. That’s what I’m sure of. It was everywhere.”

  Katya slung an arm around her. “You did good, Sara. I’m proud of you.”

  “Is someone bragging on my girl?” the king’s voice murmured groggily. “’Cause if so, count me in.”

  “Dad?” Sara whipped around. Both her parents were blinking hard, scrunching and stretching their faces as if the muscles were brand-new.

  “Dad! Mom!” Sara cried. “You’re back!”

  She threw herself on their bed like she had when she and Flissa were little and wrapped one arm around each of them. “You were cursed!” she said. “Lots of people were cursed! Then I…” Sara gasped and reeled back. She stared at her hands as if they were glowing precious gems. “I cured you!”

  The bedroom door opened, and Rouen entered, his craggy face lit up with a smile. “Our boy’s awake and he’s fine. The curse is wearing off.”

  Sara’s mouth opened wider. She was stunned by her power. “I cured everyone!”

  Katya laughed and put a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, now. The strongest Mage in the universe can’t remove a curse from more than one person at a time. You diagnosed the curse, and you did it just before it wore off.”

  Sara couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. “You sure I didn’t cure it?”

  Primka swatted her with a wing and tsked. “Someone’s getting big for her britches.”

  Katya laughed. “You didn’t cure anything, but I’ll tell you this: If not for you, the curse would’ve been gone before we ever got the magical signature. Be happy about that.”

  “I’m happy about it,” her dad said proudly. “We saw and heard everything.”

  “That’s true,” her mom agreed. “It was a terrible curse. I was awake and aware, but I couldn’t move; I was trapped inside my own body.”

  “It hit every Genpo in the palace,” Katya said, then with a meaningful glance to Rouen she added, “and at least one outside the palace too.”

  Sara knew she was talking about Galric, and she tried not to sound overly anxious as she asked Rouen, “Is Galric still in the parlor?”

  “He is,” Rouen said. “Nitpick’s with him, but I’m sure he’d welcome your company.”

  “Go,” Sara’s dad said. He gave her a hug and spoke to Rouen over her shoulder. “We need a full debriefing, then we should assemble the General Council.”

  “Agreed,” her mom said. She wrapped her arms around Sara and squeezed. “We’re very proud of you.”

  “Love you both,” Sara said as she squeezed her back, then climbed off the bed. She managed to walk calmly out of the room…then flew through the hall and down the stairs. The palace buzzed even louder than before, and Sara saw all the Genpos back on their feet, most of them walking gingerly, or stumbling with their arms around someone else’s shoulders. Sara didn’t stop running until she made it into the parlor.

  Galric was still on the couch. He was sitting up now, stretching his arms, and working his mouth while Nitpick purred and rubbed up against him.

  “Hey!” Sara said. Her heart was beating faster, which she chalked up to the run.

  He smiled. “Hey.”

  “You okay?”

  “Kinda,” he said. He tilted his neck from side to side, and Sara heard it crack. “I sorta feel like someone grabbed my ankles, spun me around their head, then threw me across a jousting field. Into a really thick tree trunk.”

  “Pretty close,” Sara said. “You fell down a hill and crashed into a thornbush.”

  “And you rescued me,” he said.

  “I did.”

  They smiled at each other for a little too long, then she twirled the diamond stud in her ear. “I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time, though. I totally rescued you in the Twists a bunch too.”

  “Really?” he said. “’Cause I’m pretty sure it was Flissa who did most of the rescuing. I kinda remember you almost getting devoured by a plant.”

  “A big, giant, person-eating plant that happened to look like a really comfy chair!”

  “Sara?!” Flissa thundered into the room and grabbed Sara’s shoulders. Her eyes were wild. “Sara—I have to talk to Mother and Father. It’s terrible. The girls’ dorm…the Genpos were cursed! It has to be a curse. They all went stiff and collapsed. And their eyes…”

  Galric rose to his feet. “It happened at school too?” He winced and put a hand on his stomach, then plopped back down. “Nope, still queasy.”

  “‘Too’?” Flissa echoed. “It happened here?”

  Sara nodded. “To all the Genpos. Galric and Mom and Dad—”

  “Are they okay?” Flissa cut her off. “Where are they?”

  “Up in their room with Rouen and Katya and Primka. They—”

  “I have to go see them,” Flissa said. She ran two steps toward the door, then turned back and reached out to Sara. “Come with me?”

  Flissa looked scared, and in her head Sara whisked back to the day their mom was cursed by Mitzi. She and Flissa had held hands as they walked down the Residence hall, terrified to see what the curse had done to her. Sara could assure Flissa that their mom was fine and seeing her wouldn’t be a problem, but she didn’t want to. Maybe it was selfish of her, but Flissa hadn’t reached out to her in ages; it felt too good to stop her from doing it now.

  Sara promised Galric she’d catch up with him later, then took Flissa’s hand. Together, the sisters ran out of the room.

  Flissa hadn’t realized how much she’d actually missed her sister until they were hand in hand, flying up the stairs. Their clasped fingers felt like a lifeline and gave her the strength to face whatever she might find in her parents’ room.

  What she found was her mother, her father, Katya, and Rouen, fielding a slew of bubblegrams, with more flying in through the open window every moment. Her mother was just sending a bubblegram of her own when she saw the girls enter the room. She quickly dropped her message milk vial and ran to them.

  “You’re here!” she said as she hugged Flissa tight. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “I told you she’d be all right, Latonya,” Flissa’s father said gently. “She’s a Mage. The curse hit the whole kingdom, but only the Genpos were affected.” He put his arm around Flissa and lowered his head to hers. “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

  “So it did hit the whole kingdom,” Flissa said. “Not just here and the school?”

  “We’re getting reports from everywhere,” Rouen said, “from both victims and witnesses.” As if to make his point, a bubblegram floated in and popped in front of him, delivering another report. Rouen put up a finger to excuse himself as he gave it his full attention.

  Katya, meanwhile, was unscrewing her message milk to send a bubblegram of her own. “From what we’re hearing,” she said as she tapped the excess milk off the wand, “the curse came all at once, and struck every single Genpo.”

  “All of them?” Sara asked. “In all of Kaloon?”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” their mother said. “But it al
so sounds like it wore off around the same time as well. We sent Primka to find out, and we have other scouts making sure.”

  “Do we know who did it?” Flissa asked. “Was there a magical signature?”

  Her parents smiled so wide Flissa thought their faces might crack, which seemed like an odd reaction to the question. “Was there?” she prodded.

  “There was indeed,” said Flissa’s dad, his mustache tips pointing straight up, “and your sister is the Mage who found it.”

  “You did?” Flissa wheeled to Sara, who blushed and smiled.

  “Katya told me what to do, but, um…yeah, I did it.”

  “Pfft,” Katya huffed. “None of this ‘Katya told me’ nonsense. You did it. Blue lightning bolts, that’s the signature. Right, Sara?”

  “Right,” Sara said, but she shifted uncomfortably and wouldn’t look Katya in the eye. Flissa could tell there was more to the story that Sara wasn’t saying.

  “Blue lightning,” Rouen reiterated. “Now we just need to find the Mage attached to it.”

  “Can one Mage be strong enough to attack the whole kingdom?” Flissa asked. “It sounds like it would take a bunch of Mages combining their power.”

  Next to her, Sara exploded in a coughing fit. Their mother came and patted her back until she got it under control.

  “Sorry,” she choked. “I’m okay.”

  “It could be a group of Mages,” Katya admitted, “or it could be just one…but only if the Mage had help.”

  Flissa frowned. “Right, so…a bunch of Mages.” But even as she said it, she remembered. “Or a blinzer stone!”

  “Exactly,” said Rouen. “Exactly what we’ve been thinking.”

  “A blinzer stone…” Sara said. “We talked about those the first day of Magic Lab, right?”

  “Yes,” Flissa said. “They’re stones from the Twists that magnify magic.”

  “So one Mage could curse the whole kingdom on their own,” Sara said, “as long as they had a blinzer stone.”

  Flissa was sure Sara was skirting around something, but she was just as sure that Sara didn’t want to say it in this room.

  “Of course as I understand it, the stones might not truly exist,” their mother said. “But it’s on our list of possibilities.”

  Rouen, Katya, and their father had all turned back to deal with bubblegrams, and another one was floating in and beelining for their mother. She spoke quickly to get her words out before it popped. “Sorry, girls, we need to deal with this. We’ll let you know what we find out.”

  Flissa and Sara left the room. Flissa’s head was spinning with ideas, and she was dying to unravel them with Sara, but they hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms lately. Would Sara even want to talk to her?

  She was relieved when Sara took her hand and pulled her into their room. She shut the door.

  “We need to talk,” she said. “About everything—like a million different things—but the first thing you have to know is I gave up on the Zinka-and-Amala-out-to-get-Genpos thing. I know you told me, and Amala told me, and everyone told me, but I didn’t listen, ’cause you were right, and I was only hung up on it because I was totally jealous and I’m the worst sister in the world—”

  “You’re not,” Flissa said, but Sara was talking so fast, Flissa wasn’t sure she heard her speak.

  “But we looked into it—me and Galric and Krystal—we looked really hard, but there wasn’t anything—no evidence against Zinka or Amala. Nothing. Like, if anything, we found evidence that they’re both amazing and really want Kaloonification to be a thing. I was gonna tell you all that the night of the game, but you put up the magic wall and I—”

  “I’m sorry,” Flissa said. She hadn’t even realized Sara was trying to reach out and make things better that night. She’d been so sure she didn’t want to hear what Sara had to say, she hadn’t given her a chance.

  Sara waved off her concerns. “It’s fine, not the point, just saying all this to let you know—and you can ask Galric or Krystal, they’ll tell you the same thing—we were done. Not suspecting them at all.”

  “I understand,” Flissa said, “and I’m so sorry I didn’t give you the chance to—”

  Sara shook her head and sliced a hand through the air, stopping her short. “Not looking for an apology. Here’s why I’m telling you all this. Yes, because I want you to know, but also…”

  Sara looked around the room. She specifically gazed up at Primka’s entry-holes as if making sure the song-bird wouldn’t soar in. Even after that check, she leaned closer to Flissa and lowered her voice to just above a whisper.

  “When I was in there, when I doing the magic thing to search for the curse’s magical signature, I did see blue lightning. Lots of it. It was big, bright, and really loud.” Sara took a deep breath, as if girding herself for what came next. “But I also heard something. It was softer, a lot softer than the lightning, but I heard it. A single chime.”

  She locked eyes with Flissa, as if waiting for the meaning to sink in, but Flissa understood right away.

  Zinka’s magical signature was a single chime.

  Sara must have seen it in her face that she knew, because she hurried to continue. “I didn’t say anything to anyone. Even though I saw tons and tons of blue lightning, Katya said she only saw the littlest bit. And she didn’t hear the chime at all. So I thought maybe it was in my head and I was still jealous or something, but, Flissa…I’m so sorry…I really, really believe I heard it.”

  Flissa let this sink in and mix with everything else she knew. Something about it made sense in a strange way, but she wasn’t sure how to put the pieces together.

  “Are you mad?” Sara asked. “Please don’t be mad. I’m not making things up, and I’m not looking for Zinka to be the bad guy, I—”

  “Shhh,” Flissa said. “I believe you, I just need a second.” She paced the room, chewing on the end of her braid. She strode four lengths before she started talking. “I’m going to tell you everything I know,” she said, “but don’t jump to any conclusions right away. Promise?”

  “Promise,” Sara said.

  “When the Genpos were cursed, Zinka wasn’t with the rest of us at the sleepover. I saw her leave in the middle of the night, and when we all woke up to everyone screaming, she still wasn’t back.”

  “Where was she?” Sara asked, and Flissa was glad she didn’t sound accusatory; just curious.

  “I think up in her room,” Flissa said. “I don’t know. That’s where she said she was going when she left, and I didn’t follow her to find out. I didn’t see her before I left this morning either.”

  “Wow,” Sara said. “Okay…but even if maybe she was…involved, blue lightning isn’t her magical signature. And the blue lightning was a lot stronger.”

  Flissa’s heart sped up. She had an answer for that, but she didn’t like it. Part of her couldn’t believe she didn’t seize on it right away, but it was too horrible and too impossible.

  Unless it wasn’t.

  “Blue lightning,” Flissa said. “Think about it. Have we ever met someone whose magic signature is blue lightning?”

  Sara thought about it, then frowned and shook her head. “No.”

  “But the blinzer stones amplify powers, right? So maybe the blue lightning is actually the exact same mag-ical signature we’ve seen before, but more powerful, so it’s bigger. So you saw it as blue lightning, but it’s really blue sparks.”

  Flissa stopped pacing and met Sara’s eyes. If she was expecting sudden comprehension, she didn’t find it.

  “Blue sparks?”

  “Blue sparks. Sara, you know this. It hasn’t been that long, and it was not forgettable. When a Magical Animal with all the powers of a Mage takes over your body, you remember it.”

  Now Flissa got the reaction she was looking for. Sara’s eyes became moons and her mouth dropped open.

  “Raya?! The lioness?!”

  “Exactly,” Flissa said.

  Sara shook her head. “No
. That’s not possible. Raya’s in the Twists, and the Twists are all locked up. It can’t be her.”

  Flissa chomped harder on her braid. “There’s a chance Raya’s not in the Twists. There’s a chance she’s at Maldevon Academy. In Zinka’s room.”

  Now Sara just looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

  “Hold up,” she said. “You’re saying Zinka has a lioness in her room? Raya the Lioness. In her room.”

  “Not a lioness,” Flissa said. “A cat. A small orange cat named Teddy. She’s Zinka’s pet. Or at least, Zinka thinks that she is. Zinka showed Loriah and me, but she told us we had to keep it a secret because non-magical animals aren’t allowed at the school. She said the cat was a stray. They found each other when Zinka first moved into the dorms, and they’ve been together ever since. Zinka loves this cat, and she seems normal and even cuddly….”

  Flissa shuddered, thinking about the way she’d held Teddy in her arms. She’d even been tempted to bring her to the common room and keep her in her sleeping bag last night! She shook off her disgust, then continued. “But when Loriah saw the cat she panicked. She was convinced Teddy was Raya.”

  Sara frowned. “Why? Why would she think a cat was Raya?”

  “The eyes,” Flissa said. “You know how Raya had those bright yellow eyes? Teddy’s are exactly the same. Exactly. I was even spooked when Loriah pointed them out to me, but then I thought I was just being ridiculous because Magical Animals can’t change their shape. Even powerful Mages can’t do that. But Loriah didn’t let it go. She was terrified, and you know Loriah. If she gets terrified, she doesn’t normally show it. She was positive Teddy was Raya, and evil, and she told Zinka she was going to turn her in for having a cat. That was the drama that night—Zinka and Loriah got into a huge fight about it.”

  “Did Loriah turn Zinka in?” Sara asked.

  Flissa shook her head. “She didn’t get the chance. The next morning was when you, Zinka, and I found her floating in her room.”

  “The sleep terrors,” Sara said. “Because she was so afraid from seeing Raya…or the small, cuddly cat she thought was Raya.”