“I won’t—”
Kurke appeared in the alcove, mere steps from Master Wendyn. His bloodless fingers clutched an ebony-handled dagger, and stuffed under the other arm was a sheaf of papers.
“I’ve brought some reading for you, Garrick. Thought you might find it interesting before I send you to the underworld.”
Master Wendyn let loose the spell he’d been weaving. It crashed into Kurke, bounced off his still-intact shield spell, and then—to my astonishment—broke through it. Something— another pummeling spell?—knocked Kurke back. He crashed into the window seat and tumbled to the floor, the dagger knocked loose from his limp fingers. The master followed it up with a quick freezing spell while papers fluttered to the ground.
“Mullins.” He didn’t take his eyes from Kurke. “Freezing spell. Now.”
Why Kurke needed to be held by two freezing spells was beyond my comprehension, but I performed it without protest. Master Wendyn moved closer, kicking the dagger away from Kurke’s hand.
He retrieved the papers, which had scattered about the floor. His ruffled white shirt showed signs of perspiration. “What is this, Matt? A file? I realize today is your father’s Time and tomorrow your mother’s and the next your sister’s. But I think you’re letting the sorrow of the day affect you for the worse.”
One of Kurke’s fingers moved. Master Wendyn straightened and cast another freezing spell.
“Again, Mullins.” He waved at me, and I cast another freezing spell.
Now I understand. As Kurke dismantled the spells, we cast them again. Even my freezing spell—which was sure to be weaker than the master’s—was of some use in this situation, because it slowed Kurke down at least a little.
“What do you think he’s done with Ivan?” I stepped past Kurke and turned the handle to the alcove’s little door, which led out to the balcony. Outside, I looked to the ground below, almost afraid to. What if I saw Ivan’s broken body lying down there? But there was nothing, just snow and more snow.
“Wherever he is, we’ll find him.” The master’s voice drifted out the door, and I went back inside, away from the cold. He was leaning against the desk, looking over the papers clutched in his hands. I crowded next to him, trying to read over his shoulder. He gave me an annoyed glance. “Do you mind?”
“What’s it say?”
He moved away. “It’s a file from the vault. Not meant for your eyes.”
“Yours either,” I pointed out.
“Yes, well, one of us has to look at it.”
I made a face.
For a moment all was quiet, and then the master cursed.
“What? What is it?”
He looked up. “Freezing spell. Now.”
We both sent our freezing spells at Kurke again.
“It’s a file from the vault kept on Nox.”
Nox. I knew that name. “His father?”
“Yes. By the Council.”
“Does it say—”
He put the papers down. “They didn’t die in a buggy accident.” His voice was quiet, and he looked at Kurke, frozen on the floor as he was, and then to me. “I need you to go to my study, Mullins. I left my knapsack on the desk there. Bring it.”
“This is not the time to worry about a little perspiration on your silk shirt.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t care about the shirts; just bring the bag. And then it might be best if you left. Grandfather and I can handle Matt. Go hide somewhere for a day. Then come back, and we’ll find Ivan together, if he hasn’t turned up yet.”
There was a part of me that was so tempted by those words. A part of me I despised.
I wasn’t my father. I wouldn’t run off into the night at the first hint of trouble. “Your grandfather is incoherent. You need a conscious person’s help. You need me.”
“It’ll be safer for all of us if you’re not here.”
“Safer how?”
Movement from the ground behind us. “Freezing spell—” Master Wendyn said, but that was all he got out. A blinding blast of magic hit him in the back, and he crumpled where he stood.
I whirled and sent a freezing spell toward Kurke. He was on his feet, and my spell froze him mid-stride. I looked around for a weapon.
No, what I needed was a trammel. I needed the trammel from the master’s study.
Three steps were all I took, and then Kurke moved again, tossing a spell at me that threw me backward into the wall. I slithered to the ground, head spinning and blackness before my eyes.
It took several minutes for me to gain control of myself again. I opened my eyes and watched Kurke clamp a trammel around Master Wendyn’s neck. He must have had another one in that little knapsack he’d been poking around in. The master’s head lolled sideways, eyelids fluttering, and he sagged back to the ground in a heap when Kurke released him. Then Kurke tossed the key in the air and hit it with a spell that exploded it.
My ears rang with the noise, and nausea rose in my throat. Friar’s bones, I wasn’t concussed, was I? I blinked and tried to clear my blurry vision. Must help Master Wendyn.
I opened my eyes again. Kurke bound the master’s hands and feet. I was still trying to push myself up off the ground when Kurke dragged Master Wendyn across the floor to the middle of the room. Then he muttered a spell that sounded familiar—oh yes, that was a revealing spell—and a wizard door shimmered into existence just in front of him. He turned the handle, pushed it open, and dragged the master inside, wherever inside was.
Kurke emerged and slammed the door with a bang of finality. It shimmered into nothing.
Wherever he’d sent Master Wendyn, there was no way for him to get back. He was bound, trammeled, and who knows how hurt.
“Why—where—” I stuttered, unable to even form a coherent sentence.
“On your feet.” Kurke ran a hand over his face, as though that was all it took to compose himself.
When I didn’t comply as fast as he would like, he pointed a finger in my direction, and magic yanked me to my feet and rushed me toward him. He took hold of me by the front of my shirt and pulled me closer, too close, his face inches from mine. I could see the stubble on his chin. The bruise forming beneath the stubble on his chin. The spittle on his lips as he hissed at me.
“If you ever dare to defy me again—” He pulled back and slapped me across the face, so hard my teeth rattled in my head. “I thought I’d let you live once we’re done with this, Avery. Don’t make me change my mind.”
But I’d had enough. The terror he’d inflicted, not just tonight but over months, was too much for me. “Do it then,” I told him. “I will defy you again, so you might as well just kill me now. I won’t help you do this.”
My words must have surprised him, because for a moment he stared at me, blinked, and then his face relaxed into a smile. “If that’s what you want, then that’s your choice, I suppose. But you’re wrong. You will help me. In fact, you’ll have the privilege of performing the killing spell, Avery.”
He tossed his head back and laughed.
And laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Where’s Ivan? And what’ve you done with Master Wendyn?”
Kurke wiped his eyes. “They’re gone. If we’re lucky, never to return.”
The words brought a heaviness with them. “You’re mad.” I didn’t mean to say the words; they sort of slipped out. “You really are. You’re insane.”
He let go of my shirt and stepped away to straighten his mussed robes. “Why do you always say that as though it’s a bad thing? Mad just means I’m willing to do what is necessary without feeling bad about it.” He ran his hands over his hair as though it was important to make sure one looked presentable before one killed an entire bloodline. “Oscar’s life has been far longer than it should have been. Much longer than my own father had.” The words were a hiss.
From the bed, Oscar made a sputtering noise. “Wasss...going on?”
Four steps and Kurk
e slapped his face. “Wake up, old man.”
Oscar attempted to open his eyes, but they slid closed again a moment later.
“Oscar should have died on Garrick’s natalis, that day in the library. But you outwitted me with that little boy, using him to manipulate me. I realized later it was the wrong day for it to happen, anyway. It had to happen during my family’s Time in order for it to mean something.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s the poetic side of me.”
“It’s a little extreme to want to kill the entire family, isn’t it? Even little Vito and the other children? They’ve nothing to do with this.”
“They’ll grow up to be big Wendyns one day, and they’ll leave their rotten imprint on the world, same as Oscar. I’m doing you a favor.”
“And what about that family in Hutterland?”
“So you figured that out, did you?” There was no mistaking the pride in his voice.
“Oscar did.”
“Good. I’m glad it was him. Their patriarch wronged me once. Don’t worry—they got what they deserved. Come help me.” He retrieved his knapsack and dug within. After pulling out a few more lengths of rope, another trammel, a small cup, and another knife, he set them in a neat row on Oscar’s desk.
“The Council won’t let this stand. Murdering a former PMW and his family? You’ll never outrun them.”
“You mean we’ll never outrun them. Don’t forget you’ll be performing the spell. I’ll just sort of be your assistant. But how are they going to know it was us? By the time they figure it out, we’ll be gone. There are places we can go that they’ll never find us.”
“If you think I’m going anywhere with you—” I broke off. I was going to say “then you’re mad,” but it seemed redundant at this point.
He eyed me. “There’s a place for you there, Avery. Think about it.”
The offer made my skin crawl. “Have you ever given Oscar a chance to tell his side of the story? There could be a reasonable explanation for all of this.”
The knapsack appeared to have outlived its usefulness. He tossed it to the side and went to retrieve the dagger from the floor where Master Wendyn kicked it. He hefted it in one hand and frowned at me, eyebrows pushing south. “I don’t need to hear his side of the story. I’ve read all about it in the file.”
“Wha—?” I blinked. “You’ve only read about this on paper? When you could hear about it firsthand?”
“I could hear lies about it firsthand, you mean.” He offered me the knife, handle out. “Here. You’re going to do this.”
“I am not.”
He moved toward me, and I retreated. We hadn’t sparred yet, and I wasn’t eager to throw out the first spell and escalate the conflict.
“You’re bleeding, Avery.” Kurke lowered the knife and reached toward me. His hand touched my face, somewhere near my temple. I flinched, surprised to find that the spot was tender. He drew his hand back, showing me blood on the ends of his fingers. “You need to be more careful.”
“I need to be careful? You’re the one who—”
He uttered a spell, blood-stained fingers pointed at me.
I backed off a few steps and cast a shield spell—one I memorized among those first hundred spells from the master. I felt its protection settle around me.
Kurke’s spell built. The magic climbed and weaved and pulled and pushed against the shield I’d erected around myself. It prodded and poked, and I scrambled backward, as though I could get away from it. I had to get away from it.
My back ran into the wall.
I felt the moment my spell fell. Kurke’s magic reached through the barrier and took hold of me in a way I’d never felt before. It felt as though it anchored itself to my insides. To my blood.
This was like the blood oath...only different.
Kurke wiped his fingers on his robes, came closer, and held the knife out to me once again. “Take it, Avery.”
I wouldn’t. I opened my mouth to say so, but the words didn’t come. Instead, my hand reached out and took hold of the ebony handle. It felt foreign and wrong and comfortable and familiar.
“Follow me.” Kurke made his way to Oscar’s side, where he fiddle with Oscar’s left sleeve—made more difficult because Oscar’s hands were bound in front of his body. He loosened it and rolled it above the elbow. I stood next to him, my entire body clenched as I tried to move away from his side or drop the knife or say something or do anything but what he wanted me to do.
But I couldn’t. My body was unable to obey my own commands.
I’d never heard of a spell like this before, one that took away a person’s free will.
Kurke pointed at Oscar’s arm, lying on top of the quilt, bare to the elbow. “Cut him open right here.” He pointed to a spot above the wrist and then walked closer to the desk and picked up the cup. “You can collect the blood in this.”
No.
My lips wouldn’t form the word. I reached a hand out to take the cup.
“I’ll hold him down in case he wakes. Be quick about it.”
I bent to my task. The knife sliced into Oscar’s arm, and blood flowed. I let the knife fall to the floor. Oscar twitched once and then fell back into his slumber. I gathered blood in the cup, until Kurke said, “Very well. That’s enough. Now leave five drops of blood in each corner of the room and recite this incantation each time.” He said the spell, syllables long and unfamiliar. The flavor of the words was Belanokian.
I shouldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this.
My body moved to the first corner of the room, the one nearest the bed. My movements were lurching and uncontrolled as I tried to fight against the spell.
I was doing this.
Five drops of blood fell to the floor. I said the incantation.
I moved to the next corner, fighting against my body the whole way.
Oscar’s scrying sticks leaned behind the desk. I pushed them aside, and they clattered to the floor. Drip drip drip drip drip. Five drops of scarlet stark against the wood. The incantation, now feeling less foreign, came from my lips.
The trunk was there, next to the bookcase. It was full of Oscar’s dessert box collection. Maybe I could use it as a weapon, unleash the power of strawberry fizzes or something. If I could just—overcome this spell—enough to grab one—
But it was no use. All I did was slow my jerking movements to a crawl, and I still found myself in the next corner of the room, drip drip dripping blood onto the floor behind the table. I uttered the incantation for a third time.
“You’re just making this harder on yourself, Avery.” Kurke’s voice drew me, and my body allowed me to turn my head and look at him—perhaps because his voice was my master now. He had settled in next to Oscar, having righted the chair that Ivan once occupied. He had the knife in his hand, touching the bloody tip as though he enjoyed the slippery feel of Oscar’s blood on his fingers. “You’ll exhaust yourself with all this resisting. How will you enjoy the celebrations after?”
I'd kill him when I got free of this spell. I would rip Matthias Kurke to pieces with the vilest, most inhumane curses I could remember from Hapthwaite’s forbidden book.
Step, step, step. I was moving toward the final corner.
I couldn’t let myself complete the spell. Oscar, Master Wendyn, Cailyn’s baby, Vito, Maud. They’d all be dead.
“Ah, Matthias,” Oscar’s voice wheezed from the bed. From the corner of my vision, I saw him struggle to push himself up on one elbow. My captive body wouldn’t let me turn and look at him. “I understand you’ve decided to kill me? Oh. I'm bleeding.”
At last, he was awake! Was it too late to help me?
“Seems only fitting, since you murdered my family.”
“The term murder’s a bit strong, and it was only your father,” Oscar said. “What does Mullins have to do with it? Whom did he kill?”
“Not important,” Kurke said. “Avery is mine now.”
My feet continued moving. I resisted the whole way, my movements slow and
painful. At last I stood in the final corner.
“I think you underestimate Underwizard Mullins, Matthias. He’s quite resourceful.”
“You mean she.”
Drip.
“Ah. You’re aware of that, are you? Very well. She. For example, she escaped from a freezing spell I cast on her earlier today. I mean, I think it was today. What day is it?”
“That’s enough talking,” Kurke growled.
“Don’t you even want to know what happened to your family that day?”
The freezing spell. Friar’s bones, I was a fool. I hadn’t even examined the lines of this spell to attempt an escape.
Drip, drip.
I could get out of this spell. All I had to do was find a weakness within its structure.
But when I examined the magic tying it together, the spell was different somehow. It seemed to reach right inside of me with its weavings. I pushed against its structure, testing its strength and searching for weaknesses. There was a thinness to it, but it was tight and strong
“I know what happened. It wasn’t a buggy accident, either. How does it feel to be so helpless, Oscar? I imagine this is how my father felt when you murdered him.”
Drip, drip. I couldn’t stop my hand from pouring out the last two drops of blood, even as I worked on the spell’s structure, seeking for the tiniest hole. My mouth formed the words of the incantation.
“Ah. So you retrieved his file from the vault. We weren’t sure if you destroyed it with your explosion or not. The story of the buggy accident was meant to protect you. But I doubt Nox felt helpless before he died. He had me pinned on the floor while I almost bled to death from a knife wound to the gut.”
“Yes, I’m aware of your version of events. Interesting how you went from being incapacitated to killing him in the matter of a few seconds.”
“Nothing interesting about it. It was luck.”
The incantation was coming out of my mouth.
I ripped at the spell holding me captive, desperate to destroy it.
“Yes, let’s call it luck. But I’m more interested in what happened to my mother and Cynthia. That wasn’t in the file.”
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