by Kristen Pham
“I will,” he said. With that, he and Dulcea headed to one of the rollercoasters that led to Elsinore. Valerie hoped he wasn’t prone to motion sickness.
“I’ll walk you to the Knights’ Guild,” Cyrus said.
They walked through the winding streets in companionable silence.
“So when’s the next party here? I still can’t believe I missed the last one.”
Cyrus laughed. “There’s nothing for a few months, but in the summer, there’s a bash that several guilds band together to throw. It’s fun, with a play from the Actors’ Guild, and the entire Cooking Guild brings out the latest edible creations. But nothing beats the fireworks you missed. You’ll have to wait till next year—no going back to Earth this time.”
“It’s a promise. Though hopefully, a couple more people will be with us by then,” she said, thinking that maybe Thai and Tan would be separated and able to come to the Globe in another year.
The friendly light in Cyrus’s eyes dimmed a little. “So you and Thai are hooking up now, huh?”
“So what if we are? You don’t sound happy for me.”
“He’s not right for you, Val.”
“What do you mean?”
“Right now, with the whole Tan thing, he’s out of his element. He’s not a superstar like he was before all this started. But once he and Tan separate, he’ll go back to being the guy who gets the girl, is awarded the scholarship, wins the big game. What if he wants to leave all the magic and craziness behind him?”
“You mean, what if I’m not enough for him.”
“That’s not what I meant. He’d be lucky to be with you. But he has a family on Earth, a life. You didn’t have much to leave behind, and you still had to think about it before you came. It’s going to be that much harder for Thai to say good-bye. I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”
She was shaken by his words. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about protecting my heart.”
“We’re here,” he said, stopping in front of the Guild of the Knights of Light.
She noticed the arch at the entrance, surprised that they had already arrived. “Thanks for walking me.”
“Val…”
“It’s okay. See you later,” she said, walking underneath the arch to the outdoor part of the building. Suddenly weak, she sat down on a bench and watched the Knights training. She put her hand to her chest. Her heart was pounding. Something about Cyrus’s words rang true. What she had with Thai was too good to last.
“That ring was much more gold when I saw you last,” Gideon said, surprising her by sitting next to her on the bench.
The Laurel Circle was cold and dark on her thumb. “I can’t seem to keep the fear away for long. I used to have nothing to lose, but now there’s so much.”
“You cannot always help the circumstances, but your reaction is entirely within your control. Fear is part of the air we breathe, but with the right mindset, expelling it can be as easy as exhaling.”
“I hope you’re right. I want to start my training again right away. I don’t have much magic right now, but it gives me an opportunity to practice my skills without it.”
“I am glad to hear you think of it that way. You may not always have your magic, but you will have your wits and your self-control.”
“Has there been any luck finding Jet?”
“No. Chrome is scouring the forest where he was last seen, but it seems to me that it is an exercise to keep him from panic. No more will be learned there. We need a fresh perspective.”
A little fairy buzzed over to them, and she saw that it was Kellen, the Grand Master of the Guild. “You’re back, excellent. We need our top recruits. But don’t expect any preferential treatment from me. No ma’am. You’re just one of the newbies here.”
“Yes, sir, of course,” she said, and he flew away.
Gideon shook his head. “Despite how it may seem, he has talked of little else other than your return. He hopes you will officially join our guild.”
She nodded. “I’m ready to commit. I think I’ve always belonged here.”
“Then let’s begin,” he said.
He led her to a class forming beneath the arch, and she guessed from their ages that they were new recruits. She was older than most of them, but there were a boy and girl around her age.
“Are you going to train to be the next Kellen?” the girl, who had short blonde hair and stood several feet taller than she, asked.
“Or Azra?” a young fairy buzzed by her ear.
“You think you’re better than us?” the boy who was her age asked gruffly. He had red hair and assumed a defensive stance, as if he was ready for her to insult him before she had even opened her mouth.
“No, I—”
Perhaps today’s exercises would best be completed silently,” Gideon interrupted. She smiled at him gratefully.
Gideon led them through several martial arts forms, and she grew calm as she found her natural rhythm. The Laurel Circle warmed up a little. Afterward, they each practiced with their chosen weapons, and Gideon led them through a series of defensive moves. She was surprised at how heavy Pathos felt without her magic aiding her. She promised herself that she would dedicate some time to building her physical strength.
After practice, she headed back to the dorm, sweaty but more at peace than she had been in a long time. This was what she was meant to do. Hadn’t she yearned to protect people like the knights in the legend of King Arthur? She had thought she would be on the police force when she was on Earth, but being a part of the Guild of the Knights of Light was even better.
She saw the gray form of a lean wolf crossing The Horseshoe and heading toward her.
“Chrome, I’m so sorry about Jet,” she said when he reached her side.
Images of Jet flickered through her mind, as Chrome communicated that he had left over two weeks ago on a special assignment in Dunsinane, and that he couldn’t find his mate’s scent anywhere. The images were overlaid with his grief and panic, like viewing a scene through a colored lens. Chrome was convinced that Jet had been captured by someone powerful.
“We’re going to find him. I have an idea that might work. Henry is developing his powers, and some of them are psychic. I’m going to see if he can sense Jet’s mind. After all, he found my mind even when it was a universe away.”
Chrome brushed her leg with his body, and she understood that he was thanking her. Next, images of faces filled her mind, the people that Chrome was suspicious of spying for the Fractus and being a part of Jet’s disappearance.
Jet’s mission had been top secret, and only a few of the Grand Masters knew the details. Capturing such a powerful Conjuror as Jet would take knowledge, planning, and power. Whoever captured him had to have connections inside Arden who had given information about his whereabouts, strengths, and vulnerabilities. She didn’t recognize most of Chrome’s suspects, but she saw Sanguina as well as Oberon, the current groundskeeper on the Globe who used to be one of the Fractus.
“It can’t be him. He left the Fractus for love, and someone capable of that doesn’t turn evil overnight,” she said, remembering the story of the woman who had turned the powerful Conjuror from a path of pride and obsession.
Despite her reminder of Oberon’s past, she could sense Chrome’s deep suspicion. He sent her images of Oberon when he was still with the Fractus, casting lightning from his hands from high on a mountain, then towering over Chrome and hitting him in the skull and knocking him unconscious.
The last image he sent was of Oberon with Sanguina. Sanguina was younger, and the two stood together, laughing. She was shaken by what she had seen.
“They were friends?” she asked. Several more images flicked through her mind of the two of them, sometimes with a third woman with tan skin and dark hair tied back in a tight ponytail. This was Oberon’s love, Adelita. Valerie recognized her by the sword she carried—Pathos. Adelita had been the last person to wield it before Va
lerie. She touched it absently, checking that it was still at her side where it belonged.
“I see what you mean. Thank you for sharing this with me.” He brushed her side again, and then turned and headed into the woods.
Chapter 10
The next few weeks went by quickly. Valerie communicated with Henry every day through an enchanted mirror that hung in Dulcea’s room. Kanti was unchanged, and Henry was pale, but he still had hope in his eyes. Valerie trained intensively with the Knights, and her magic slowly began to return, like a puddle in the core of her being. She couldn’t get used to being stopped on the streets by people who wanted to meet her, but at the Knights’ Guild, they were beginning to adjust to her and she wasn’t constantly in the spotlight.
Every night she visited Thai, and even though she couldn’t touch him, it was the best part of her day.
“What you’ve got to do is interview Chrome’s suspects,” he suggested one night. “You’re really intuitive when it comes to understanding people. Maybe interacting with them will give you some clues.”
She shuddered a little. “My biggest suspect is Sanguina. But I don’t want to go near her.”
“I don’t get it. Why are Azra and the other Guild Masters even letting her live in Arden?”
“She used to be very powerful in the Guardians of the Boundary Guild—they’re the ones who defend the barrier between Earth and the Globe,” she explained. “Supposedly she’s being very useful in helping to block any Fractus who are projecting to Earth. But I think the real reason is that everyone feels guilty for abandoning her after Zunya turned her into a vampyre. And now that she’s back to her old self, they want to let bygones be bygones.”
“Never mind that she mentally tortured a kid!” Thai said indignantly.
“Don’t get me started.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t you talk to Midnight and see what she thinks?” Midnight was the Grand Master of the Guardians of the Boundary, and the Conjuror who had coached Thai through his adjustment to magic.
“Don’t you think it would be a little weird, showing up and asking her twenty questions?”
“It’s a heck of a lot safer than talking to Sanguina. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She could send me back to Earth,” she joked.
“And would that be so bad?” he said, and his eyes locked on hers and turned her brain to mush.
“No,” she whispered softly. “I think I could live with that.” He touched the air next to her face, and she could swear she felt warmth on her cheek. She drew in a breath.
“Night,” he said, finally breaking his gaze.
She returned to the Globe, but her head was still in the clouds.
She decided to take Thai’s advice. The next day, she and Cyrus left the dorm to find Midnight.
“It’s good to be on another adventure with you,” he said with a mischievous wiggle of his eyebrows.
“This is serious!” she insisted, but she couldn’t help sharing his excitement.
They exchanged theories about who the spy could be as they walked to the sweeping building that housed the Guardians of the Boundary. Once they were there, she was struck again by the magnificent structure, which reached up to the sky like a white cathedral. Inside was just as she remembered it, with muted light through stained glass exuding peace.
Cyrus led her up an elegant, winding staircase to a dark wood door engraved with a crest of two crossed swords. He knocked in a strange rhythm—knock, knock, KNOCK, knock knock.
“It’s a code,” he explained with a smile. “Midnight always makes time to see the kids from the Society of Imaginary Friends who visit to tell her about Sightings of Fractus on Earth, but sometimes she doesn’t answer for anyone else. She gave us the knock so she’d know it’s important.”
Midnight opened the door to an elegant office with a huge wooden desk, a blazing fire in a stone hearth, and a globe of Earth that was spinning slowly. Magic had made cloud patterns appear to be floating across Earth, like an image from space.
Midnight saw her staring and explained, “It’s a true reflection of Earth at this exact time. I can zoom in anywhere and view what’s happening in a specific location.”
“That is so cool,” she said, shaking her head.
Midnight smiled, and Valerie noticed that she had cut her purple hair short. It made her look younger, though her violet eyes still had the ageless quality to them that she remembered.
“I hope you’re here to join us as a recruit,” Midnight said.
Valerie shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I apprenticed to the Guild of the Knights of Light. I love what you do here, but somehow I think that’s where I belong.”
Midnight nodded her head briskly and hid the disappointment that flashed through her eyes. “So what brings you here?”
Valerie was uncomfortable. Cyrus must have sensed her hesitation, because he jumped in. “We’re worried about Sanguina. We’ve heard there might be a spy in one of the guilds, and there’s every reason to think it could be her.”
Midnight nodded thoughtfully and gestured to several elegant chairs by the fire that were upholstered in rich red velvet. They all sat down, and she said, “I can understand your concern, given what she put you and your brother though.”
Valerie was surprised that Midnight knew her history so well.
“Azra explained the situation to me after you vanished from the Black Castle,” she said. “I had guessed as much already, because one of the few loopholes to return to Earth is for blood to call blood.”
When blood calls blood, answer its thrumming call…Valerie knew the words of the prophecy she had received when she had first come to the Globe, but she had never considered that the Guardians might also know that a way existed for someone to return to Earth.
“But you don’t think Sanguina’s the spy?” Cyrus said impatiently.
“I do not, but all of the Grand Masters are still very careful about what we reveal to her.”
“Did she know about Jet’s mission?” Valerie asked.
“Not as far as I know. No one in this guild informed her. Sanguina seems to be genuinely trying to piece her life back together. I once thought she would be my successor as the next Guardians’ Grand Master when I retire, but of course, that can no longer be. However, she has been helpful to me.”
“How so?”
“We are trying to find a way to create a second shield that would protect Earth from anyone on the Globe who tries to return in case the original seal is breached. It is a complicated puzzle, and she is helping us to find a solution. It is the only way to protect the humans from the threat that is coming.”
An image of Zaki’s blood in the hot spring suddenly flashed through Valerie’s mind, and tears stung her eyes. The Fractus were capable of anything.
Midnight lay her hand on top of Valerie’s. “We will protect the humans. I swear it,” she said.
“Thank you,” Valerie said, unable to choke out anything more.
On the way down the stairs outside of the guild, she turned to Cyrus. “I guess that’s one person we can check off our list of suspects.”
“Sanguina.”
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean she’s here,” Cyrus said, and he stepped in front of her protectively.
But Valerie pushed past him. Without even registering a conscious thought, Pathos was in her hand. Sanguina caught sight of her and started to draw her own weapon from the sheath at her side, but then stopped and released it.
“Sorry,” she said. “Old habits.” Her voice didn’t have the same screech to it that Valerie remembered from her nightmares. She even appeared different, a little older with fine wrinkles around her eyes, but the network of purple veins in her skin had faded. She didn’t look like a monster anymore, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still one in every way that mattered.
Valerie marched past her, determined not to let her enemy see how shaken she was. But she was only a step away when
Sanguina’s hand touched her arm. Her magic surged up within her, and she grabbed Sanguina’s wrist and hurtled her over her shoulder. She landed on her back, groaning.
“Remind me never to sneak up on you. I should have known. You’re just like—” she hesitated. “There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for a long time now. Alone.”
“No way,” Cyrus said, his usually warm blue eyes icy.
“There’s nothing you can’t say in front of Cyrus. He’s my best friend.”
She nodded. “You might want to sit down for this.”
“I’d rather stand.”
Sanguina shook her head in exasperation, but she had a little smile on her face. “How could I have missed it?” she said to herself. Then her face turned serious. “Right before you saved my life, I realized—”
“Ahem,” a little cough came from a nearby bush.
“What the heck?” Cyrus said. He looked behind the shrub and then dragged out Chern, who was beet red.
“G-goodness me, so s-sorry.”
Sanguina turned pale. “We can continue this later,” she said, and then disappeared through the silver doors of the Guardians’ Guild. Valerie shrugged, unsure if she wanted there to be a “later.”
“Were you listening?” Cyrus asked Chern indignantly.
He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I didn’t mean to—I try to avoid that freak. Very dangerous. When I heard you talking to her, I didn’t want to cross her path.” His hands began to tremble.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Valerie said, seeing his obvious agitation.
“I’m glad I found you,” he said. “Something has been worrying me. I saw Darling a few days ago, and he seemed sick. I tried to help him, but he scampered away. I don’t know how to find him, but I’m afraid something might be wrong after visiting Earth. That was certainly strange.”
“Yes, it was,” she said, unaccountably uncomfortable as she remembered that he had witnessed Darling healing Ming. “What makes you think he isn’t well?”
“It was just an impression. He wasn’t his usual happy self.”
Cyrus shrugged, and she could see that he thought it was probably just Chern’s paranoia at work. But she owed so much to Darling; she had to follow up on the warning.
