by E. G. Foley
Dame Oriel shook her head, tsk-tsking. “Ignoring your punishments. Fighting with other children. You seem to have been in quite a troublemaking mood yesterday, Jacob.”
Sir Peter nodded. “We heard about your altercation with Ogden Trumbull yesterday afternoon, as well. How you used your telekinesis to turn the poor creature upside-down.”
“Poor creature?” he exclaimed. In the nick of time, he stopped himself from telling them what Og had done to Archie. Recalling the whole euthanasia conversation, however, he kept his mouth shut. He was no fan of Troll Boy, but he didn’t want to be responsible for getting the brute killed.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, striving for patience. “I really don’t understand what all this is about.”
Finally, they came to the heart of it.
Lord Badgerton enunciated every word with scathing precision: “Did you or did you not steal the royal standard?”
Jake blinked. “Wait, what?”
“The Queen’s flag, boy!” The rodent-man jabbed an angry finger in the direction of the palace. “The one flying over Merlin Hall—at least until yesterday! Today it’s somehow disappeared! But I don’t suppose you would know anything about that?”
“N-no, I-I don’t!” he stammered at this news. “Sorry—why would I?”
“Cheeky!” Dame Oriel huffed.
“Now, Jake,” Sir Peter said in a rather more soothing tone, “I’m sure you and your companions are young enough to find this kind of prank most entertaining, but we cannot have Her Majesty treated with this kind of disrespect, not at Merlin Hall. It shows the entire magical community in a very unflattering light. You realize our continued safety as the Queen’s loyal subjects rests on her royal favor. And this could be taken as a pretty serious insult.”
“What Sir Peter is trying to say,” Dame Oriel continued, “is that we need you to return the royal flag immediately before the Queen finds out.”
“Or face the consequences,” Lord Badgerton said.
Jake stared at them in open-mouthed shock.
“Jake?” Henry murmured.
“You really think I did this? I don’t know anything about it!” he burst out when he’d recovered from his astonishment, feeling wronged in the extreme. “Why the devil would you all automatically jump to blaming me?”
“Let’s just say your reputation precedes you,” Lord Badgerton answered with a sneer.
So. It was all because of his past as a thief. Jake was so offended he could hardly speak.
Henry turned to him. “Jake, if you had anything to do with this—”
“Henry! It never even occurred to me to steal the Queen’s stupid flag! Why would I do such a thing? I only stole in the old days so I could eat! Besides, I like Her Majesty! She’s my godmother, anyway!”
“All the more reason for you to think that you could get away with it, hmm?” Lord Badgerton prompted.
Jake looked around at him and the others in disbelief. They were really serious about this. He strove for calm, even as crushing disappointment flooded him. He struggled to make them understand, appealing to the Old Yew.
“Your Leafiness, Elders, I promise on my honor that I had nothing to do with this. But I assure you, I will find out who did—and make you eat your words!” he burst out angrily, red-faced and quite unable to contain himself.
“Jake!” Henry scolded him, aghast.
But he wasn’t listening, outraged at their unjust accusation, not to mention his tutor’s willingness to believe them. Livid, he pivoted and stormed out of the Yew Court, and the towering green walls of the magical labyrinth receded to form a straight corridor before him.
Apparently, the maze was as happy to get rid of him as he was to escape. He stalked out, too angry to care that his rude response had probably just ruined his chances of ever becoming a Lightrider.
They were never going to choose him, anyway. So this was what they really thought of him. And it hurt like the blazes. They would never let him live down his past as a thief.
But he’d show them.
He’d find out who had stolen the Queen’s flag, and when he got it back, why, he’d shove it down their throats!
Even better, he had a feeling he knew just where to start—and as it turned out, he didn’t have to look far. As luck would have it, Maddox St. Trinian was the first person he saw when he stepped out of the maze. Aye, the Guardian lad had probably planned it that way. So he could gloat.
“You.” Jake narrowed his eyes as he homed in on Maddox, who was chatting with Archie and Dani on the lawn. “Get away from my friends, you traitor!” he yelled, striding toward them.
Maddox looked over at him curiously. “What’s your problem?”
“You are.” Well aware of how dangerous Maddox could be, Jake knocked him down by telekinesis when he was still several feet away.
Dani and Archie cried out in shock as Maddox went flying off his feet and landed flat on his back in the grass, as if an invisible giant had kicked him.
Jake smiled coldly. Rage flooded Maddox’s face. He started to perform some acrobatic trick for jumping to his feet, but Jake anticipated that, having seen Derek’s group practicing such moves. He used his powers to hold Maddox pinned down and immobilized; that way, he could get some answers.
“You set me up,” he accused him, moving closer to loom over him.
“What are you talking about?” Maddox asked through gritted teeth.
“What’s that old Guardian saying you quoted for me yesterday? ‘You hit me, I strike back twice as hard?’ Well, you got me. Nice try, St. Trinian. But it isn’t going to work. Now where’d you hide the flag?”
“Jake, what is going on?” Archie cried, finally finding his tongue. “Let Maddox up!”
“Not until he tells me where he put the Queen’s flag!”
“The Queen’s flag?” Dani echoed.
“He stole it, knowing I’d be the one they’d all blame!”
She furrowed her brow and looked at Maddox, then him. “But why would he want to do that?”
“To get me back for yesterday,” Jake said bitterly. “I embarrassed him in front of Isabelle, and now, true to Guardian form, he’s hit back twice as hard by ruining my chances of ever becoming a Lightrider!”
She drew in her breath. “Oh, Jake…”
“How could you do this to me?” he shouted in the older boy’s face. “This is taking it too far!”
“I have no idea what you are talking about!” Maddox boomed back.
“Yes, you do. Throwing dragon dirt on you was just a prank, but this was my whole future and now you’ve ruined it!”
Maddox shook his head, looking baffled, which only made Jake seethe more. He grabbed him by his lapel. “Don’t play innocent with me. I know it was you. Who else could it be? We all saw your Assessment. We all know how well you can climb. Not just anyone could do it, climbing up onto the palace roof and stealing the Queen’s flag right off the flagpole. Oh, but for a mighty Guardian like Maddox St. Trinian, it would be easy! Wouldn’t it?” he yelled in his face.
Henry suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back. “Let him go!” Jake hadn’t even noticed the tutor coming out of the maze, so absorbed he had been with his foe. “You are not helping your own cause here!”
“He’s the one behind this, Henry, I just know it!”
“Don’t be absurd.” The moment Jake’s telekinetic hold was broken, Maddox jumped to his feet. “How dare you accuse me of such dishonor? I’ll break you in half.”
“Whoa!” Dani stepped into his path, her hands up, as Maddox moved toward Jake.
“Get out of my way, little girl. This is between me and the thief.”
At that comment, Henry had to hold Jake back, too. “Let me at him!”
“I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding,” Archie attempted in his most tactful tone.
“Guardians don’t steal!” Maddox bellowed, pointing at Jake. “That’s your expertise!”
“Well, par
don me!” Jake flung back. “But have you ever tried starving? Being homeless? No? Then don’t preach to me about how virtuous you are, you pompous arse!”
“Insult me again, and I’ll give you a thrashing you’ll never forget.”
“Oh, I’m terrified,” Jake drawled.
“Both of you, that’s enough!” Henry ordered. “Maddox, must I send for Guardian Stone?”
“I’m leaving,” he growled, and then he stalked off, bristling with anger.
“What the deuce is going on?” Archie exclaimed.
Jake was stone-cold silent, his chest heaving with the aftermath of rage.
Dani looked at him, then grimaced at Henry. “I take it they didn’t call him down to the Yew Court to give him a spot in the Lightrider program.”
“Not exactly.” Henry quickly explained to the other two what had just transpired in the maze. Jake was still too furious to recount the tale himself.
His friends paled when they heard the news.
“Oh, no…”
They looked at the roof of Merlin Hall, confirming that the flagpole indeed stood bare.
“We have to find it! Right away!” Dani said anxiously.
“Well, I don’t think Maddox had anything to do with this,” Archie declared.
Dani nodded. “I agree. Guardians are honest to a fault.”
Jake scowled and dropped his gaze to the ground. He hated to admit it, but in hindsight, recalling Maddox’s shocked reaction to the charge, he believed him, too.
He heaved a sigh. “So where does that leave me?”
“Well, obviously, it must have been somebody else,” Archie said in a calm, reasonable tone.
“But who?” Jake cried, feeling rather sick to his stomach. There were hundreds of people at the Gathering. Where would he even begin to find out who was really responsible for the misdeed that had been, naturally, blamed on him? He dragged his hand through his hair.
Dani patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jake. We’ll clear your name. We’ll find the flag, unmask whoever took it, and prove it wasn’t you.”
“How?”
“I could turn wolf and try to track the flag down by scent,” Henry offered, looking apologetic for having doubted him.
“Thanks, Henry,” he mumbled. “No hard feelings.”
“I’ll go fetch my sister!” Archie said. “Isabelle could use her empath powers to try to sense the guilty party, while I start a proper investigation. I might even be able to scrounge up a dusting kit for taking fingerprints.”
“And I’ll go talk to Gladwin,” Dani chimed in. “She has the Queen’s ear. She can let Her Majesty know that you had nothing to do with this, in case anybody tries to say you did. You don’t want your royal godmother getting angry at you, after all. Oh—and maybe Gladwin can help us search for the flag, too! A fairy can cover a lot of ground faster than we can.”
“All well and good, but what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” Jake asked, too upset over the whole debacle to think straight.
“Why don’t you go and talk to a few of the castle ghosts and interview them,” Dani suggested. “You always say the ghosts that haunt a place tend to see everything that goes on, remember?”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” he muttered.
She shrugged. “We’ve got to start somewhere. Don’t worry, Jake.” Her smile of reassurance helped to calm him down. “Somebody out there has this thing, and we’re going to find it. No matter what.” She nodded at Archie, indicating they all were behind him. “We’re your friends, and we’re not going to let them take your dream away from you.”
He stared at her for a second. “Thanks, carrot.”
She nodded. “C’mon, Arch.”
Then they parted ways to pursue their separate tasks.
As Jake strode back into Merlin Hall, he tried to focus on figuring out where to find the ghosts from his Assessment. Whether they would cooperate was another matter. Cheery, larger-than-life Constanzio, King of the Tenors, seemed the best one to start with, but Merlin Hall was huge. If I were an opera ghost, where would I haunt?
“Excuse me, isn’t there a theatre somewhere in here?” he asked a gnome in the entrance hall.
The wizened, knee-high fellow pointed him down the corridor past the art gallery.
Jake nodded. “Thanks.”
As he strode down the hallway, he couldn’t help feeling like everyone was looking at him, thinking, Stop, thief! But he realized he was probably being absurd. It was just his embarrassment coloring his perception of everyone and everything. Anxious to prove his innocence, he hurried on, down the seemingly endless stone corridor before him.
He passed the main entrance to the art gallery and wove through the streams of people coming and going from the dining hall and pausing to chat with friends. The farther he went down the corridor, the more the stream of guests thinned out to a trickle.
He passed a worried man checking his fob watch, as if he were late to breakfast with someone, and a dwarf couple arguing as they trudged toward the dining hall.
The hallway stretched ahead, completely deserted now.
As he neared the second doorway that marked the far end of the art gallery, he heard a clamor coming from inside it and paused.
There was a thudding bang and a shrill cry of pain, followed by a nasty cackle of laughter.
“Wake up, little witch! Dear me, looks like you’re going to miss breakfast!”
“Ow! Let me go!” someone pleaded.
What the deuce? Jake thought. Instinctively, he put his plan to find the King of the Tenors on hold and went to investigate the commotion.
Sneaking up to the doorway, he peered into the long gallery, with its red walls and white marble floor.
It was empty.
As he recalled from the other night, there were several such long galleries joined together to house the whole collection.
The echoing noises sounded like they were coming from the next chamber, so he advanced in that direction.
The paintings seemed to watch him as he crept across the first gallery, following the sound. With every step, the situation seemed more apparent. Somebody in the next room was clearly under attack.
Whether the Elders ever picked him as a Lightrider or not, he was still honor-bound to help.
“Please! Why must you torment me?”
A girl’s voice. It sounded familiar.
“You know why, my dear. You brought this on yourself.”
Jake peered silently around the corner. He furrowed his brow, shocked to see Nixella Valentine pinned up against the gallery wall, some ten feet off the ground.
She hung there between two paintings like a living work of art, a girl-shaped sculpture on display.
The wand she was so good with had fallen to the floor, out of reach, leaving her defenseless. She was crying, which startled Jake. Not that anyone could blame her, for, much to his shock, three horrid spirits were absorbed in the game of torturing her. What a motley crew of monsters!
Two of them, Jake had seen before. High up on the wall where she hung, the Boneless amoeba creature was floating in front of her, taunting her with its cold (according to Archie) and slimy touch.
But that wasn’t all. On the ground of the gallery, waiting for her to fall down, stood the terrifying spirit he had met the other night in the woods. The Headless Highlander, glowing grayish-blue. He swung his claymore menacingly, like a warrior warming up before a battle. He didn’t need a face to make his feelings clear: He couldn’t wait to chop Nixie up into little bits.
Jake saw that Boneless and Headless were only the henchmen of the third figure there, running the show: a slim, spectral hag with long stringy gray hair, great fangs like a tiger, and a green ghostly glow all around her.
She was the one doing the cackling, and she was holding Nixie on the wall by a green current of energy like a lightning bolt.
Jake stared with a chill down his spine. He had never seen a ghost work magic before.
>
No, this was something else. What on earth are they, he wondered, and why are they doing this to Nixie?
There was no time to ponder his questions. He had to help her—for Archie’s sake, if nothing else. Lord knew the skinny little witch had been nothing but rude to him.
It didn’t matter.
Any boy as bent on being a hero as he could not do otherwise than Jake did at that moment, even though he really had no idea what he was getting into.
Ready to join the fray, he stepped into view around the corner and bellowed at the spirits: “Put her down!”
# # #
Nixie looked over, aghast. No, no, don’t interfere! Meddlesome boy!
“Stop!” she tried to warn him, thinking of her curse, but the young Earl of Griffon paid no mind.
With a wild swing of his hand, he sent the nearest bench flying through the air to smite the Headless Highlander.
But the kilted apparition promptly vanished, leaving the bench to crash into the wall, knocking down a painting. Meanwhile, Boneless began floating in Jake’s direction, swelling in size like a malicious fog trying to engulf him.
Nixie grimaced with impatience as Archie’s bullheaded cousin quickly learned that his telekinesis was of no use against a creature made of cold, slimy mist.
Even when Jake caused a bolt of energy to rend Boneless in two, both halves kept coming. Not that there was much the blob could do to anybody, other than render them disgusted.
The really dangerous one, of course, was Jenny Greenteeth. She hissed as she turned toward the intruder, baring her green, algae-dripping fangs.
“Crikey,” the young would-be hero muttered, dashing and weaving past Boneless.
“And who is this fine young knight come to rescue the damsel in distress?” the hag wheedled.
Jake ignored the question. “Let her go!” He brought up both hands and sent a double shot of telekinetic energy at the hag.
Nixie held her breath.
Even though Jenny Greenteeth was not a fully material being, the energetic blow was enough to make her molecules ripple, unsettled.
Nixie was impressed. Except that the moment the hag’s concentration was broken, she went plummeting to the floor.
