A thunderous crash came from her left. Instinctively she threw up a shield—and saved herself from shards of flying glass and the brick that been thrown into her room.
She stared at the brick a moment before stealing to the side of the window. She could just make out two figures behind the house. Her mind had been so much occupied with things not remotely related to school that she had trouble understanding what she was seeing. The prince was bleeding to his death out there, and here Trumper and Hogg wanted petty vengeance.
The next brick shattered the prince’s window. Soon everyone would come running, including Mrs. Hancock. The last thing Iolanthe wanted, on the night the prince had gone to the Citadel to make mischief, was to have him reported as missing from school at the exact same time.
She stunned Trumper and Hogg, who promptly wilted into the grass. Next she applied a levitation spell. When her elemental magic proved insufficient at moving boulders, she sometimes cheated with the help of levitation spells. As a result, her authority over stone remained debatable, but now she could effortlessly suspend two beefy senior boys three feet aboveground and maneuver them into the coppice at the edge of the small meadow.
With a few kicks, she redistributed the glass shards, which had fallen on the floor in a straight line against her shield, into a more irregular pattern. The Crucible in hand, she ran out of her room just as doors began to open up and down the corridor.
“Did you hear that?” startled boys asked one another. “What happened?” “Anyone else hear breaking glass?”
She turned on the lights in the prince’s room and mussed up his cot. Unfortunately, the Crucible was clean as a whistle, with not another drop of blood to give. She picked up a piece of glass shard, cut the pad of her left index finger, and squeezed a few drops of blood on the prince’s sheets. Then she smeared a streak of blood on her own face, shoved the Crucible into the waistband of her trousers—she had yet to change into her nightshirt—and set a spell to keep it in place.
Next, with the door wide open, she bellowed at the top of her voice, “Faster, Titus. Catch those filthy bastards!”
As she’d hoped, Mrs. Dawlish’s boys came running.
Helgira’s knife sliced through Titus’s left arm. The pain stunned him.
“Where is Mathi? Give this man some medical attention.” Helgira caressed him lightly under his chin. “Notice I spared you your wand arm.”
Titus swallowed. “My lady is magnanimous.”
She was already walking away. “I want to see Kopla, Numsu, and Yeri. The rest of you ready the bastion for battle.”
He stared at the furious reddening of his sleeve. He had not thought this through. What would happen to the blood he shed when he used the Crucible as a portal?
Mathi, a plump, middle-aged woman, came forward and pulled Titus to his feet. His hand clamped over the gash in his arm, he followed her to a small room with bitter-smelling poultices cooking over a slow fire. A cot lay in the corner. Unevenly sized jars of herbs lined the shelves.
The moment Mathi turned her back, Titus rendered her unconscious. He caught her with his good arm and laid her down on the cot. Mathi was probably the best healer for miles around, but he still did not want her primitive medicine.
Teeth clenched, he cleaned his wound. Then he took out the remedies and emergency aids he had brought with him, and poured two different vials on his wound and a packet of granules down his throat.
His wound began to close. He threw a battery of spells at his tunic to clean and deodorize it. It would not do to arrive at the Citadel looking and smelling like a massacre.
When he was more presentable, he set a keep-away spell on the dispensary’s door and set out for Helgira’s prayer alcove.
He asked his way toward Helgira’s quarters, using her promise to give him a woman as an excuse. Good-natured winks accompanied his progress for much of the way. Helgira’s handmaidens, however, refused to let him into her personal chambers. So he pulled out his wand and fought his way in.
The prayer alcove was located in Helgira’s bedchamber. He had just crossed the threshold when Helgira crashed in on his heels. There were two alcoves in the bedchamber, both curtained. He had no time to find out which was the prayer alcove, but leaped across her bed to the one that had the more elaborate curtain, muttering the password as he hurtled toward it.
If he chose wrong, he would smash into a three-foot-thick wall and die at the hands of a woman who had Fairfax’s face.
He did not smash into a three-foot-thick wall.
The other end of the portal was, of course, the prayer alcove in Helgira’s bedchamber—in the Citadel’s copy of the Crucible. Had Titus not been running for his life, he would have remembered to be slower and more cautious.
As it was, he flew out of this prayer alcove into the midst of this Helgira’s bedchamber.
This Helgira lifted her wand.
“Watch your feet!” Iolanthe shouted as Wintervale and Kashkari reached the door.
They caught themselves on the door frame and held on as they were bumped from behind by the arrival of Sutherland, Cooper, and Rogers.
But most of the boys had their slippers on and Cooper, who’d come barefoot, had Rogers toss him a pair of the prince’s shoes and trooped in after the others.
Exclamations of disgust and outrage filled the room.
“My God, there is blood,” cried Rogers.
“They’ve injured him,” Iolanthe said. “And I thought it was bad enough they almost brained me.”
More exclamations of disgust and outrage burst forth. “Bastards!” “We are not going to let anybody get away with something like this!” “Did you see who did it?”
“Trumper and Hogg, of course—the prince went after them already,” she said. “They tried to harass me earlier today, but I gave them a sound thrashing.”
“Hear, hear,” said Cooper.
“I’m not going to stand by and do nothing,” said Kashkari, rolling up his sleeves.
As he did so, the tattoo on the inside of his right arm became fully visible. It was not the letter M, but the symbol ♏, for Scorpio, his birth sign in both western and Vedic astrology.
You will best help him by seeking aid from the faithful and bold. And from the scorpion.
Kashkari opened what was left of the prince’s window and hoisted himself onto the windowsill. His action broke the floodgate. Iolanthe had to fight for her turn to go down the drainpipe. Seven more boys followed, two of them climbing out of their own windows; several didn’t even use the drainpipe, but leaped down to the ground, their long nightshirts billowing like sails—before Mrs. Hancock caught someone still on the windowsill.
“Which way did they go?” asked Cooper.
“That way,” said Iolanthe, pointing at a direction opposite the coppice where she had stowed Trumper and Hogg. “Let’s catch them before they get back to their own house.”
Ignoring Mrs. Hancock’s yells for them to come back, she and the boys broke into a run.
When they were some distance from the house, she stopped everyone and divided all the boys into pairs, ostensibly so that they’d have both a greater chance finding Trumper and Hogg and a lesser chance being discovered by the night watchmen.
Kashkari she paired with herself. When she’d sent the other boys into various directions with instructions to wait behind Trumper and Hogg’s house if they could not be located elsewhere, she tapped Kashkari on the shoulder and headed back toward Mrs. Dawlish’s.
“I thought you said they went in the opposite direction,” said Kashkari.
She prayed hard that the Oracle would once again prove herself right. “Long story. Remember when you said if I ever needed help?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“I need your complete discretion. What you do tonight, you will never repeat to another soul. Do I have your word?”
Kashkari hesitated. “Will I harm anyone?”
“No. And you have my word on it.”
“All right,” said Kashkari. “I trust you.”
And I am putting our lives in your hands. “Listen closely. This is what I need you to do.”
Before this Helgira could pulverize him, Titus sank to one knee. “M’lady, I bear a message from my lord Rumis.”
He had studied Helgira’s story closely before he first set out to battle her. Following his ignominious death at her hand, he had tried to forget all about her. Now, however, certain important details dropped back into his head.
Such as that for years, Helgira had carried on a secret, platonic love affair with the great mage Rumis.
Helgira’s expression softened into amusement. “My lord Rumis has quite the sense of humor then, sending his manservant into my bedchamber unannounced.”
“He has an urgent request and no time to lose.”
“Speak.”
“He asks that m’lady outfit me with a steed and send me on my way.”
Since he had entered this copy of the Crucible via a portal, the same rules applied. He must physically travel to the exit. A wyvern would ensure speed.
Helgira sighed. “Tell your master that although his request makes little sense, I trust him too much to delay you with questions.”
“Thank you, m’lady.”
“You may rise. I will have a wyvern waiting for you.” Removing a cuff from her wrist, she placed it around his. “And this token from me will grant you safe passage through my lands.”
Titus came to his feet. “Thank you, m’lady. I take my leave of you.”
As he reached the door, she asked, “Is your master well?”
He turned around and bowed. “Very well, m’lady.”
“And his wife, healthy as ever, I suppose?”
Rumis’s wife was said to have outlived both Helgira and Rumis. “Yes, m’lady.”
She looked away. “Go then. May Fortune be at your back.”
Her expression so reminded him of Fairfax’s that he couldn’t help stare one more moment. “My master sends his most fervent regards, m’lady.”
The wyvern was swift—too swift.
In a few minutes Titus would arrive at his destination. And perhaps in a few more minutes, he would use the execution curse on the Inquisitor.
A ruling prince was required to master the execution curse. If he sentenced any subject to death, he was to perform the deed himself, so that he must look the condemned mage in the face as he took the latter’s life.
Titus had never thought he would use the curse. He was a liar, a schemer, and a manipulator, but not a murderer.
Not like his grandfather.
For Fairfax’s safety, he was willing to give up his life. But was he also willing to give up what remained of his soul?
The wyvern landed on the meadow. He pushed aside his agitation to concentrate on what needed to be done. Under normal circumstances, when a mage exited the Crucible, it did not matter whether he had filled his pockets full of objects from the tales. Nothing could be brought out; the slate was wiped clean. But using the Crucible as a portal changed all the rules. The book would not close, so to speak, if he left with something that belonged inside.
He had already decided he would keep Helgira’s cuff on his person. Should he escape the library of the Citadel unscathed, he would need a ready steed, and he could not find a better one than Helgira’s. All he needed to do to keep the wyvern in place and waiting, her groom had informed him, was to take the stake at the end of the long chain attached to the beast’s leg and push the stake into the ground.
The wyvern, however, did not seem to like the spot Titus had selected, on the bank of the stream that bisected the meadow. It bellowed plaintively, its claws clutching at the edges of Titus’s tunic.
“What is the matter? Do you smell something?”
Wyverns had extraordinarily sensitive noses and could smell prey from miles away.
“You cannot be hungry, can you? I thought they fed you fresh meat all the time.”
The wyvern hissed.
“I would not worry. Nothing menacing ever comes to the meadow. Not that I have seen, in any case.”
Then again, he had never before physically inhabited the Crucible and did not know how it behaved in this state. He looked around. Everything was familiar enough, including Sleeping Beauty’s castle on the hill.
Or was it? The castle glowed not with the usual coppery light of torches and lamps, but with something akin to the blue-green luminescence of deep-sea creatures.
This copy of the Crucible had been his grandfather’s. It would seem Prince Gaius had made changes. While one could not alter the underlying thrust of a story—Sleeping Beauty, for example, would never come downstairs on her own and help her rescuer battle the dragons—almost all the incidentals of a story could be modified.
Turning Sleeping Beauty into Fairfax was only the latest of the changes Titus had made in his particular copy of the Crucible. There had not been wyverns in the great hall when the Crucible first came to him. Nor had the pair of dragons that guarded the castle gate been colossus cockatrices.
The changes Prince Gaius had made, however, felt more unsettling. But Titus could not pay much attention—not when he had murder on his mind.
Or ought to, in any case.
“And they lived happily ever after.”
He was now in the Citadel, next to the Citadel’s copy of the Crucible, which sat on a pedestal at the exact center of the dimly lit library. He slipped between the shelves.
The doors opened, and in came Alectus’s voice. “And here we are, the library. Very soft lighting, exactly as Madam Inquisitor requested.”
Titus held his breath.
“It will do,” said the Inquisitor coldly. “You may leave us.”
Who were us?
Titus had hid himself behind the end of a set of shelves. He peered around the edge, but could only see Alectus bowing and scraping on his way out.
“You should not have been so solicitous, sire,” said the Inquisitor, her tone so soft and deferential Titus barely recognized it. “I would have handled the Inquisition at the Inquisitory itself.”
“But we both know how sensitive a mind mage is to her surroundings, my dear Fia,” replied an extraordinarily mellifluous male voice. “The Inquisitory still holds too much pain and fear for you.”
“But it is a far safer place for you, my lord High Commander.”
Titus’s knees buckled. My lord High Commander. The man was the Bane.
“I am already overwhelmingly in my lord High Commander’s debt for wresting me from death’s grasp and restoring me to full health. How can I forgive myself exposing my lord High Commander to the likely perils of this place? Hesperia built it—it must be full of traps and snares.”
“Fia, Fia, speak not from fear. Our mages have already inspected the library from top to bottom—sometimes a room is just a room. Now stop worrying about me and concentrate. To think, all these years we’ve misapplied your rare and wonderful talents, using you like a hammer when you are a fine scalpel. We will waste no more time. Tonight we slice past all the layers of magic Haywood had applied to hide his memories. Tomorrow, our young prince.”
Titus shuddered.
“I cannot wait, my lord. And to think, since his mind will be perfectly whole afterward, he won’t even be able to raise a diplomatic ruckus.”
Titus leaned against the shelf, unable to support his own weight.
The doors of the library opened again. “Won’t you care for some refreshments, my Lord High Commander, Madam Inquisitor?” said Lady Callista.
She held the large tray herself, sauntering toward the Bane and the Inquisitor.
“We have only just now enjoyed your bounteous banquet—my compliments to you, Lady Callista, the Citadel has the world’s finest cooks. We might need a little time to recover our appetites.”
The Bane was the ideal guest, honey-tongued and suave, not at all what Titus had expected.
“If only we’d had a little more
notice of my lord High Commander’s visit, we’d have put on a more suitable feast.”
The Bane probably had not arrived until the Inquisitor sent news that she had failed to secure Iolanthe Seabourne with her ambush. Between the two of them, they were determined not to fail again.
“I will set the tray here,” said Lady Callista, “and let my lord High Commander and Madam Inquisitor continue their preparation.”
She withdrew. Not a minute later an Atlantean soldier entered and, two steps inside, knelt. “My lord High Commander, Madam Inquisitor, we have the detainee Horatio Haywood.”
The Oracle had foretold that Haywood would not remain long in Atlantis’s grasp. Did it mean Titus must be the one to whisk him to freedom? But then who would kill the Inquisitor? He could not do both at once.
The blood oath called for him to do his utmost to help Fairfax in her goal of freeing her guardian. He clenched his teeth.
The duration of the time-freeze spell decreased steeply when more than one mage was on the receiving end. What would last three minutes on one person would last only thirty seconds covering three mages. And if he had to cover four mages, he’d have at best ten seconds.
Would that be enough time to drag Horatio Haywood to the Crucible and disappear inside?
Haywood shuffled in with two guards. Four mages to cover. Titus’s wand shook. Did he dare? Would his gallantry get himself caught, and result in Fairfax being yanked out of her bed in the dead of the night?
Titus saw his wand lifting. He could not believe what he was about to do. One. Two. Thr—
Haywood vanished before his eyes.
CHAPTER 24
IOLANTHE HUFFED WITH IMPATIENCE.
Sleeping Beauty’s castle did not look terribly distant from the meadow, but to reach it on foot, even running at full speed, took far too long. And she’d already wasted enough time earlier, looking for a safe spot, worrying about the Crucible possibly bleeding again, before finally realizing that at this hour of the night, the Crucible could bleed a bucket and no one would notice a book lying in long grass.
But as the castle drew nearer, her impatience turned to fear. The thought of facing the wyverns alone turned her lungs weak—and the single moon in the sky was a relentless reminder that this was no make-believe. But she had to have a steed. Either that, or walk an entire day to reach Black Bastion.
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