The Broken World

by Lindsey Klingele

  Mathilde said nothing, but only cocked her head, as if seeing Cedric in a new light.

  “Are you from the other world? Did you come through a portal?”

  Mathilde laughed then, a loud, barking noise.

  “From the Old World? No, goodness, no. Though I can imagine why you’d think so.” She got up suddenly to get the pot from the fire. As she spoke, she poured the boiling water into tea cups and mixed it with herbs Cedric couldn’t identify. “Like I said, those wraths kept me prisoner here for years. And they weren’t exactly much to talk to. But they didn’t act on their own—not smart enough by far—and their leader used to visit me often. With only one person to talk to for so long, I suppose I picked up a few of his conversational tics. Even when he wasn’t around, I took to talking to him in my head . . . do you think that’s crazy?”

  Cedric wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Ah, well,” Mathilde continued. “If I am crazy, at least I came about it honestly. And as much as I hate the man who kept me here, I came to rely on our little chats together, the real ones and the imaginary.”

  Mathilde set a cup in front of Cedric, and he reached for it.

  “It was Malquin, wasn’t it?” he asked. He heard the steel in his own voice as he said Malquin’s name. His hand closed tightly around the handle of the teacup, making it rattle against the table.

  “Malquin,” Mathilde scoffed, then made a face is if the word tasted bad on her tongue. “He gave himself that name. I always thought it was a bit of a mouthful.”

  Suddenly, Cedric set his cup down against the table so quickly that some hot water splashed over the edge and burned his hand. He barely noticed.

  “Hold on,” he said, sitting up straight, some of his anger fading as another memory came forward. “Malquin told Liv all about you, the old crone he found out in the woods who explained to him why he couldn’t get back to his home world—”

  “Crone?” Mathilde said, sputtering. “Well, that does sting a bit.”

  “Sorry, I only meant . . . that is who you are! I hadn’t really thought about that piece of Malquin’s story before now—I just . . .”

  “Forgot?” Mathilde waved a hand. “That’s all right. Everyone forgot about me. That’s how John was able to keep me secreted away here for so long.”

  “But why keep you prisoner?” Cedric asked, leaning forward now. “What exactly did you tell him?”

  “Much more than I should have,” Mathilde said with a sigh, leaning back in her chair. “I don’t know how he found me. Over the years, people like me have grown fewer and fewer in Caelum. I might even be the only one left.”

  “People like you?”

  “People who remember how this world really came to be, and why. Hundreds of years ago, everyone knew the truth. But over the centuries, the information faded out, first becoming a story, and then a legend, and then mostly forgotten altogether. Either those in power wanted to deny the truth for some political purpose, or the people of Caelum forgot it on their own. Or some combination of both.”

  Cedric shook his head slightly. “The truth?”

  “What do you know of our realm’s origin? Our history?”

  “I know what my tutors taught me,” Cedric started. “They said that the Old World had turned into a hell dimension, and we came here to escape it. Of course, I heard a different version on Earth. That we were banished here along with the wraths.”

  “A lie and a partial truth,” Mathilde said, taking a sip of her tea. “In reality, the men in the Old World who banished us here didn’t just send us through a portal to another world. They created that world.”

  Cedric didn’t fully understand at first. “You mean . . .”

  “All this—” Mathilde waved her hand toward the window and the trees beyond, “didn’t even exist yet. But the Old World wanted us gone, or at least a sect of people in it did.”

  “The Knights of Valere,” Cedric interrupted.

  Mathilde rolled her eyes. “Knights of Valere. Malquin. Who allows these men to pick such ludicrous names? Knights of Pompousness, more like. Knights of Need a Good Butt Kicking.”

  “But you said they created Caelum?” Cedric said, getting impatient. “How could they create a whole world?”

  “By accident, obviously,” Mathilde said with a dismissive gesture. “Even back then, with all the magic that existed in the Old World, those men couldn’t have intentionally lit a fart on fire. They knew magic could be manipulated by those who believed in it, but it still took hundreds of them to figure out how to do something so small as open a portal. And of course they did it wrong.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “They meant to send the wraths out of their world, and they didn’t care where to. They stumbled on the means to open a portal, not knowing where it went—or if it went anywhere at all. But when they went through the motions of actually opening that portal, for the very first time, they had no idea what changes were taking place in their own world. How it was shedding itself of magic, bit by bit.”

  “I know that part; one of the Knights, a professor, told me that. The Quelling Theory”—Cedric waved his hand—“never mind. What happened next?”

  “Those Knights and their scholars and mages opened the portal, expecting it to suck the wraths through, but it went ahead and took a good chunk of the Old World’s magic right along with it instead. Which—ha! They didn’t see that coming. But all that magic had to go somewhere. And there was nowhere for it to go, so it created a new home for itself.”

  “Caelum,” Cedric whispered.

  “Built brand-new out of magic and thin air. And just in time for our arrival, too.”

  Cedric sat back in his chair, stunned by this revelation. He wished there was something a little stronger in the mug in front of him.

  “But that doesn’t explain what is happening now,” he finally said. “Or why Malquin kept you here.”

  Mathilde looked out the window, her expression suddenly solemn. “This world was created by magic, and it lived on magic. Even if you couldn’t see it or feel it every day, it was here. The portals stayed closed for hundreds of years, and there was balance. Until John.

  “He came through, ripping a hole between worlds. A hole that stayed open on this side, where magic still existed. And then, a few years later, you and your royal crew went through that same hole, ripping it bigger. Then another portal opened, and another. What did you think would happen when you tore open the wall between the worlds?”

  Mathilde’s voice became accusatory, but Cedric had no answer for her.

  “Magic is seeping back through,” she continued. “From our world to the Old One. But magic doesn’t exist in an infinite amount. There’s only so much of it. And when it leaves here, it takes a piece of our world with it.”

  “What do you mean by that? How could it take a piece of Caelum?”

  “The trees, you idiot,” Mathilde replied, exasperated. “Look at the trees. They’re losing the force that created them. They’re losing life. And if magic continues to seep out of here . . .”

  “Oh,” Cedric said, slowly realizing. His eyes went large.

  “‘Oh’ is right,” Mathilde said. “I know I’m partially to blame. When John found me and began asking questions about the relationship between the two worlds, I admit he flattered my pride a bit. So few people knew or believed the truth anymore, and just to be able to talk about it, to explain about the Old World and the new . . . I know now I shouldn’t have told him why he was having such a hard time opening a portal back to Earth. I shouldn’t have told him anything . . . but I did. And here we are. If I’d known what he planned to do with that information, or that he would lock me up here to keep me stopping him in any way, I’d have killed him the moment he walked in my house.” Mathilde looked away for a moment, her eyes thoughtful. “Not that hard to poison tea.”

  Cedric warily eyed the cup of liquid cooling on the table before him.

  “A joke!” Mathilde said. “Mostly.”<
br />
  Cedric forced a thin smile, but still left the tea where it was. “So he knew?” he asked. “He knew what would happen by opening a giant portal between Earth and Caelum, but he sought to do it anyway?”

  “He did,” Mathilde said. “Though he handily kept that information from the wraths he promised victory to. They thought if they helped John, he would hand them Caelum on a silver platter. I tried to warn them that by then the platter would be tarnished and bent if not completely ruined, but they never believed me. And now here we are.”

  “So what can we do?” Cedric asked.

  In response, Mathilde shook her head sadly, and shrugged.

  “That’s it?” Cedric jumped up from his chair then, looking down at Mathilde as she sat at the table. “Our world is about to be destroyed, and you have no idea how to stop it?”

  Mathilde made a tch-ing noise. “Destroyed? You’re just as dramatic as John, you know that? I never said the worlds would be destroyed. Damaged? Yes. Possibly even beyond repair. But even I don’t know what will happen if all magic leaves Caelum and goes back to the Old World. This hasn’t exactly happened before.”

  “But it cannot be good,” Cedric said. “We have to do something.”

  “I agree very much,” Mathilde replied. “But I’ve told you all I know, and my fighting days are long behind me. I’m afraid the work of fixing this damage will fall to you, King.”

  Coming from Mathilde’s lips, the word felt like a slap. She was right. He should know what to do next. His father would. But his father wasn’t here. He stood up straighter and kept his eyes locked on Mathilde’s.

  “There must be something else you know, some idea of how we can stop this . . .”

  “I know about the past, not the future. We’re all in new territory here.” But then she cocked her head, her eyebrows knitting together for a moment. “Though, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that in order to stop magic from leaking out of Caelum like a sieve, you’d want to stop up the holes.”

  “You mean close the portals. Really close them, for good.”

  Mathilde shrugged. “Just a guess.”

  “But how do we do that?”

  “Well, how did they open in the first place?”

  Liv.

  And finally Cedric knew, with a blinding clarity, what his next step would be. Fortunately, it was the step he’d secretly been wanting to make for months.

  “I have to go back to the other world. To LA.”

  Mathilde was silent for a beat, and then she nodded. “That sounds sensible to me.”

  And then Cedric felt something he hadn’t experienced in months—a lightness. Some of the tension left his shoulders, and he realized that for the first time in a long time, he had something to look forward to.

  The only tricky part would be explaining it to Kat. He’d need Mathilde’s help for that.

  “Will you come with me? Back to the castle?”

  Mathilde smiled, and Cedric thought she looked lighter, too. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  DESPICABLE ME

  Liv wrapped her fingers around the handle of the knife. She clenched her teeth and squeezed the handle hard before plunging it down toward Merek’s chest.

  He batted her hand away in one easy swipe of his arm, then shook his head.

  “Are you doing this poorly on purpose?”

  “Obviously not,” Liv said, her voice tight.

  “So are you naturally terrible at coordinating your movements? Or just at following directions?”

  Instead of sniping out a reply, Liv closed her eyes and breathed in deep through her nose. In, out. In, out. There was the smell of the ocean, of salt and seaweed and fish. She and Merek were standing across from each other on the back porch of the Malibu house, and sand was blowing across her bare toes. She tried to focus on the feel of it.

  “Liv? What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to go to a Zen place,” Liv replied through still-gritted teeth. “Because every time you talk I want to stab you.”

  “Good,” Merek replied. “That is sort of the point of this whole exercise, after all.”

  Liv’s eyes popped open. “You want me to actually try to stab you?”

  Merek looked at her, incredulous. “Is that not what we have been doing for two hours? Did Cedric teach you nothing in Caelum?”

  Liv tried to ignore how her heart pulsed a little harder at even the mention of Cedric’s name. Instead, she took another deep breath.

  “We were a little preoccupied at the time.”

  “Yes, I bet.”

  Liv threw her hands up in frustration. It had been her idea to spend the evening practicing her poor knife-fighting skills with Merek. It had seemed better than obsessing, again, over the discovery they’d made in the Ralphs’s parking lot that afternoon and wondering about what it could mean for a Knight to turn into a sort of wrath and then die—right in front of her.

  Liv quickly adjusted her hold on the knife, accidentally whizzing it past Merek’s ear. He had to lean away quickly to avoid the blade.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Do not apologize—that is the closest you have come to actually striking me all morning.”

  “Well, I don’t want to really hurt you—most of the time—I just want to practice the basics of all this knife stuff. I need to know how to protect myself from the wraths and—well, whatever else might be out there.”

  “Then maybe we should start with the most basic rule of all, one so obvious, I did not think it needed to be stated. Liv, when you are fighting with a weapon, you cannot just go through the motions. You have to mean to strike your opponent.”

  “But what if I really hurt you?”

  Merek gave her an irritating smile. “Trust me, you will not.”

  Liv gritted her teeth again and lunged. Merek jumped backward quickly, narrowly missing the knifepoint. Liv hadn’t hit him, but at least she’d wiped the smile off his face.

  “Well,” Merek said, swallowing hard. “That was a bit better.”

  Liv heard a door slam in the distance. Her head automatically perked up at the sound. “He’s back.”

  She left the silver-bladed knife—one they’d “borrowed” from an antique store—on the porch railing and walked along the side of the house, Merek tailing her. She saw Joe coming up the driveway, carrying a shovel in his hand.

  Joe’s somber eyes lifted to meet hers. “It’s done.”

  Liv didn’t know how to respond. She and Merek had both offered to go with Joe to bury the Knight-turned-wrath, but he’d insisted on doing it alone. “I can’t spare you much these days,” Joe had said with a heavy sigh, “but let me spare you this.”

  And she’d let him, feeling a little guilty at how relieved she was that she wouldn’t have to look at the dead man’s face for another second. But now that Joe was back, there was one thing they couldn’t put off any longer.

  “Joe, we have to talk about this.”

  Joe leaned the shovel up against the side of the house and nodded. “You’re right. Dinner?”

  But back inside the house around the Ratners’ giant dining table, he went quiet. The cavernous rooms were lit only by the orange glow coming in through the windows and the kerosene lamps they’d arranged around the house. In the dining room, they ate cans of creamed corn under the framed black-and-white photos of Daisy’s smiling movie-star parents.

  “You guys didn’t leave the house while I was gone, did you?” Joe asked, washing a bite of creamed corn down with the orange-flavored sparkling water Liv had taken from the store the day before.

  “No,” Peter responded. “These two have been in the back, fake-fighting with each other since you left.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow. “Being careful, I hope?”

  “Yes,” Liv responded. “Not that I’m getting better, though. Self-defense classes are one thing, but knife fights?”

  “If you feel uncomfortable holding a weapon, then maybe it’s a sign you shouldn’t be holdi
ng one,” Joe responded in his most levelheaded social-worker voice.

  “It’s not like I have much of a choice,” Liv muttered.

  “She should be able to defend herself. If Shannon had had the same training . . .” Merek trailed off and looked away, as he often did whenever Shannon came up. “She might still be here.”

  “I’m glad she’s not,” Liv replied.

  Merek’s eyes flashed. “I disagree.”

  “I just mean, I’m glad she’s safe. Shannon’s with her parents, far away, which is exactly where she should be. Meanwhile, we should be focusing on the person—the wrath—the whatever-it-was—that hurt her.” She turned to Joe. “You saw his face, Joe.”

  Joe nodded, pushing his creamed corn away. “He was definitely a wrath. But what killed him . . . I have no idea. His whole body looked to be falling apart somehow.”

  “I care less about what killed him and more about how he became a wrath in the first place,” Liv said.

  “The two might be connected,” Joe replied.

  No one at the table spoke as they let that cheerful thought sink in.

  “But what does this mean?” Peter finally asked. “People can become wraths now? Does this prove what we’ve thought all along—that the wraths are behind all those Knights being murdered?”

  “Which means Malquin’s behind it,” Liv said.

  “We don’t know anything for sure,” Joe put in.

  “That’s the same thing we’ve been saying for two months,” Liv said, throwing her fork down on the table a little too forcefully. The clattering noise bounced around the dimly lit dining room.

  “I was thinking,” Joe said, keeping his gentle eyes on Liv, “maybe we should take a break for a few days.”

  Liv blinked, not sure if she’d heard correctly. “A break?”

  “Give us all a chance to relax for a bit, catch our breath.”

  “But . . . but this is exactly the time when we shouldn’t take a break. Not only are we still looking for this Martin guy—who may or may not already be killed or driven off by wraths—but now we know something even worse is going on. The wraths are up to something, Joe! This is when we try harder, not catch a breath.”