by Kristen Pham
Sanguina nodded. “I want Henry secure in a cell right away. Then I’ll talk to Zunya about what to do with the little brat. We always work him over together.”
Venu moved aside to let them past.
“Come along,” Sanguina snapped, pulling at Valerie’s bound hands.
They walked over the threshold, and the door slammed shut, leaving them temporarily blinded by the darkness. More than anything, Valerie wished she could call for Pathos for a little light, but it wasn’t time yet.
“We’ll take her to the isolation cell,” Venu said.
“The dungeon will be adequate,” Sanguina replied.
Valerie’s eyes began to adjust. There were tiny lights that cast an eerie glow over Venu, and the other Fractus she could see were guarding the threshold.
“No,” Venu said with more confidence now that the rest of Reaper’s army safely surrounded him. “There is no reason to object to extra caution, given how valuable the boy is to our master.”
“Very well,” Sanguina said in clipped tones, and led Valerie roughly down the hall ahead of Venu.
“Don’t panic. I will return to release the lock once the guards are taken care of,” Sanguina whispered urgently.
“Where are you taking me?” Valerie asked, unable to restrain the fear creeping into her voice and turning the Laurel Circle cold.
Sanguina didn’t reply. They had reached a tall door, which Venu shoved open. Inside was nothing but a trunk. It was too dim to make out much about it other than the huge lock sealing it shut.
Venu hauled the lid open. “In you go,” he said. Valerie shook her head, her terror overpowering her logic.
“Do it or I’ll make you,” Sanguina said, but gave Valerie’s hand a brief squeeze.
Somehow, Valerie forced herself to put one foot in the trunk, and then the other. Rough hands forced her to her knees, and the lid slammed shut. After that, her reason left her and she began to scream.
The memory bubbled up in her mind, no matter how hard Valerie tried to force it away. Curled up in this dark, tiny space, her fear was unleashed. She had been nine years old when the new foster family had taken her in. The first time she had seen her foster father’s face, with his cruel eyes and calloused hands, she had known that he enjoyed others’ fear. She made up her mind then never to show him any.
Maybe that had been the wrong decision, because as soon as he realized that he couldn’t frighten her, he had been determined to break her. If she spilled her milk or walked too loudly or for no reason at all, he would lock her in the upstairs closet for hours—even overnight. There was no light, and sometimes she wondered if she really existed.
But somehow through it all, she had held herself together, and he was always infuriated to find her eyes still defiant after leaving her alone for hours in the darkness. That was when he rigged up an even smaller space under a sink where she had to curl up to fit. It was dark and dank and smelled of mold. Her stomach would cramp from hunger, and her mind would play tricks on her, so she’d see things that weren’t really there, like cockroaches and snakes that would try to climb in her nose and ears.
But the torture came to an end when Valerie saw him planning to put one of the new foster kids, a little boy, into the closet one day. Something in her snapped, and her magic was unleashed. Even though her foster father was twice her size, she had beaten him bloody and fled. After that, she had lived on the streets for months until she was picked up by Child Services when she was getting food at a shelter.
All of the screams that Valerie had swallowed all those years ago welled up inside her, ready to choke her to death. She couldn’t think of anything except getting out of this place, and she clawed at her cage until blood ran down her hands from her broken fingernails.
The box was filled with a horrible sound that was coming from her own mouth, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. She beat her fists against the walls of the trunk, until she finally collapsed. Her mind was slipping away, ready to release her into sweet unconsciousness, when her hand brushed an object that must have fallen out of her pocket—Thai’s charm.
Without meaning to, Valerie was with him in an instant. He was writing at his desk, concentrating hard and biting his lip. When he saw her, he leaped out of his chair, which fell to the ground behind him. He didn’t even notice.
His hands hovered near her, helpless to touch her or comfort her. She didn’t care about anything he had done. The sight of his face restored the piece of herself that had been slipping away, drowned by fear.
“It’s okay. This is part of the plan,” she said, more as a reminder to herself than as an explanation to Thai.
“Tell me how I can help you,” he said gently, though she could see murder in his eyes for whoever had done this to her. Some part of him still cared.
“Remind me…remind me who I am,” she said, too distraught to be embarrassed by her words.
“You are Valerie Diaz, and you are a living, blazing contradiction. A warrior and a giver of life, the strongest and most vulnerable person I know. But you are unbreakable.”
“Unbreakable…”she echoed him.
“And you are loved,” he said, his eyes burning with repressed emotion.
“I am loved,” she said, and she gave him a fierce smile. “I will survive this.”
She let her mind return to the Globe, even though she was back in her horrible dark box.
“Pathos,” she whispered, and her sword was in her hand. It glowed, infused by Cyrus with enough light to last for years.
She wedged her weapon into the crack where the trunk was sealed shut and used all her strength to pull it down. But the power of Pathos and her own magic were not enough. The trunk remained sealed. To keep herself from slipping back under a tidal wave of terror, she counted her own heartbeats.
Not too many passed before she heard soft footsteps enter the room. The lid was wrenched open and Sanguina pulled her out. “You okay?”
A rush of gratitude and relief made Valerie’s knees shake as she stood up. She had to fight the urge to throw her arms around Sanguina, the woman who had once terrorized her and her brother. She forced herself to take a shuddering breath and let her mind return to the mission at hand.
“I’m fine,” Valerie said, but she saw Sanguina notice her fingernails, which were broken and bloody from trying to claw out of that horrible box. Valerie quickly shoved her hands in her pockets, glad that no one other than Thai had witnessed her breakdown. “Is everything going according to plan?”
Sanguina nodded. “So far, yes. The Empaths’ distraction outside called away several dozen Fractus, and I was able to sneak back here while they were distracted.”
“Let’s move,” Valerie said, and sheathed Pathos. The light would attract too much attention if she held it in front of her as she wanted to, but she also couldn’t bring herself to send it back to the callbox.
Valerie raced through the halls toward the throne room, which was where Sanguina guessed that Darling’s hair and the scrying tool would be kept. Unfortunately, Reaper hadn’t trusted Sanguina with the exact location.
Inside the room, the sight of the blood red throne brought back a taste of the panicked adrenaline that had coursed through her when Valerie fought Sanguina here. She shook off the memory and began her search.
“There are hidden cabinets built into the walls,” Sanguina said, pulling a lever next to the throne that made a stone in the floor swing aside. Valerie knelt beside the hole and felt around. She pulled out something soft. It was an ancient piece of cloth with a very old, inaccurate map of Earth on it.
She touched it gently with her finger and immediately zoomed in on rolling hills. “This must be what Reaper uses to scry with!”
Sanguina nodded. “There aren’t many of these left on the Globe. Let’s try to get it out of here unharmed.”
Valerie carefully wrapped it up and handed it to a surprised Sanguina.
“You trust me with this?” Sanguina asked.
&nb
sp; Valerie nodded without meeting her eyes. She wasn’t sure that she’d be able to hang on to her anger for the ex-vampyre after being rescued from that horrible box by her.
“Let’s keep searching,” Valerie said, and they ran their hands over the walls and the sparse furniture, looking for any cracks or buttons.
“What’s this?” Venu’s hoarse voice interrupted their search.
Valerie spun around, and Venu’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re not Henry. You’re that girl—Henry’s sister!”
He leaped toward her in one graceful jump, catching her off guard and tackling her to the floor. In the corner of her eye, Valerie saw that Sanguina was fending off two slender, shadowy figures. But she didn’t have a chance to give it much of a thought as Venu’s poisoned hands reached for her throat.
Her magic surged up inside her, and she wrapped her leg around his and flipped him on his back. A bead of poison dropped from his finger toward her face, but she was so focused that it seemed like it was falling in slow motion. Moving faster than she ever had before, she rolled away from Venu and his poison fell harmlessly in her hair, sizzling as it evaporated.
Venu grunted and flipped onto his stomach in a move that was more frog-like than human. But Valerie’s magic had never made her more graceful or swift. Her mental training with Gideon allowed her to block out everything but her fight, and she directed her full focus and fury at Venu.
Before he made it back to his feet, she kicked him in the stomach, sending him sprawling across the room. She followed up with a punch to his jaw, choosing to hold back some of her power so the blow didn’t kill him. But he slumped to the ground, and she knew it would be a long time before he recovered. For once, she didn’t have any guilt about soundly beating her enemy. If anything, she had shown mercy by leaving him alive after what he had done to Henry and Thai.
Sanguina’s attackers lay at her feet. “We have to move to the next part of our plan. There’s no time left to search.”
Valerie nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”
Sanguina didn’t question her, and she left the throne room. Alone, Valerie forced herself to take a breath and clear her mind. She remembered Gideon’s instructions and put all of her emotions in a box in her mind to process later. Pathos hummed at her side, and she drew it from its sheath.
Like a magnetic pull, her blade drew her to a stone in the wall directly behind the throne. She didn’t think and instead let instinct guide her. Pathos slid into a crack in the wall like a key fitting into a lock. The stone shifted aside, and behind it was a dark space that was filled with cobwebs.
She reached in and touched a smooth orb. At her touch, it lit up, turning all of the cracks in the walls of the throne room blue. Then, just as quickly, the light dimmed to a faint glow and the stone slid closed, shutting the orb behind it. Valerie tried to use Pathos to open it again, but it wouldn’t budge.
She smacked the wall in frustration, not daring to take any more time searching for Darling’s hair or any other clues the throne room might hold.
Chapter 39
Valerie hurried to catch up to Sanguina, her magic lending her legs a speed she had never known she possessed. She caught a glimpse of Sanguina’s red hair, and they went to a part of the castle Valerie had never seen. The farther they went, the more the walls around them flickered. Doors appeared and vanished, and even more terrifyingly, when she looked down at herself she could see that she and Sanguina flickered too.
“Hurry. If we’re caught in a part of the castle as it disappears, we will go with it—no one knows where,” Sanguina said with urgency. At last, she stopped and knelt on the ground by a trapdoor. She shut her eyes in relief. “It’s still here.”
Valerie threw the trapdoor open and Gideon, followed by his six Knights and Peach, poured in silently.
“Any trouble?” Gideon asked, eyeing her closely.
“None that we couldn’t handle.”
“Maybe we’ll get out of here without much trouble,” said one of the Knights, a redheaded man named Hoel who was constantly biting his fingernails.
Valerie didn’t reply, but she gave what she hoped was an encouraging nod. Hoel was a little green at the sight of the flickering walls around him.
“Come,” Valerie said. She knew she had Sanguina to guide her, but she didn’t need it. Instinct and memory reminded Valerie of the route to the dungeon.
She and most of the Knights had crossed the threshold and were already heading down the staircase to the dungeon when a voice from the darkness made her stomach clench.
“The prodigal daughter has returned,” Zunya said. Valerie turned and saw that he had grabbed Sanguina’s arm. Sanguina winced and pulled her arm roughly out of his grasp. Valerie knew from experience how intensely painful Zunya’s touch was, but Sanguina must be somehow protected from it, like she was with Venu’s poison, or she would be writhing on the ground.
“I was doing Reaper’s bidding; you know that.”
“I heard you brought our favorite little plaything with you.”
Valerie and the Knights tried to melt into the shadows, and she hoped that somehow Zunya hadn’t seen them.
“Come, and I’ll show you,” Sanguina said, trying to lead him to the isolation chamber.
Zunya raised an eyebrow. “I should probably do something about the intruders you’ve helped slip past our gates first.”
Without any further warning, he reached out and tackled the nearest Knight, Galahad, to the ground. Galahad briefly screamed at the contact, and then went silent. The rest of the Knights drew their weapons to rush Zunya, and the hall blazed with light. Zunya shaded his eyes, and Valerie saw that behind him were fifteen men—boys, really.
Their eyes were completely white, and she could see black stitches across their necks, like they had been clumsily opened and sewn back together. With a sickening twist in her stomach, she realized that they were familiar—it was Jack’s former troop of boys who robbed people of their magic.
“Don’t kill them!” Valerie shouted to the Knights.
“You!” Zunya shouted.
Valerie drew Pathos, since she had already blown her cover. “You and me. That’s the fight you really want, isn’t it?”
Her words were too late. The boys were armed with pathetic weapons like pickaxes and knives, but one opened his mouth and a hollow sound came from him. Valerie’s magic slipped away. Zunya had somehow turned the boys into weaker versions of himself, so they didn’t need a cone to rob Conjurors of their powers.
She frantically reached out with her mind for Henry, to see if he and the other two Empaths could do anything to confuse Zunya and his gang. But she could sense nothing and fear swept through her. Even when he had blocked her from his mind, she had taken it for granted that she could sense her brother’s presence.
She didn’t have time to analyze the possibilities. Gideon was pushing her aside, down the stairwell that led toward the dungeons.
“His power won’t have the same effect on me, Alex, or Gawain,” he said hurriedly. “We have all renounced our magic, so there is less for him to take.”
“I won’t leave you,” Valerie said resolutely. She quickly disarmed one of the boys who approached her, flicking his axe to the ground and elbowing him in the head. He collapsed, and knelt by his crumpled body, fighting a bone-deep guilt. The boys needed to be rescued, not hurt.
“We can handle this. Take the rest and get Darling and Oberon. That’s our top priority, by your own orders.” Gideon then rushed at Zunya, and Valerie had the satisfaction of seeing a flicker of surprise as Zunya raised his own weapon—a gleaming machete. He had relied on robbing Conjurors of their magic and strength so often that she hoped he was rusty when it came to real hand-to-hand combat. The light of Valerie’s and her comrades’ weapons was clearly weakening him enough to make him vulnerable to an attack from a Master Knight.
Gideon’s sword flashed, and Zunya squinted against the brightness of the blade. Gideon missed h
is enemy by a hair’s breadth, and his sword nicked the wall, setting off a shower of sparks.
As much as it seemed like a betrayal to leave Gideon now, he was clearly better equipped to fight Zunya than she was. If, as the leader, Valerie couldn’t follow her own plan, it would dissolve into chaos.
Alex and Gawain let out battle cries as Valerie and the rest of the group raced down the stairs toward the dungeon in a blaze of light. They weren’t even halfway down when Valerie crashed into an invisible wall and fell to the ground, hitting her head on the stone step.
“Peach!” she yelled. “Invisible guys!”
A hand pulled her up by her hair, and Valerie lashed out blindly. Her magic hadn’t been completely taken by Zunya, but it seemed buried inside of her, not giving her the advantage that it usually did. She was never more thankful than at that moment that she had trained without her magic, because she used her logic to judge the distance that her attacker’s face was from where he held her and lashed out with a swift uppercut to his jaw. Something crunched, and he dropped her with a howl of pain.
Immediately, a beautiful song filled the air. Valerie, Sanguina, and the other three Knights all flattened themselves against the walls and stuffed earplugs in their ears. It wasn’t fancy, but it did the trick. They were immune to Peach’s hypnotizing song, under which the princess wove the urge to be perfectly still and bathe in the sound.
Peach’s fists were clenched at her sides, and Valerie knew that she must be absolutely terrified. This horrible castle was about as far as you could get from the ice palace where she had grown up in luxury. But she sang on, and gave Valerie a nod to let her know that the men were under her spell.
“Now!” Valerie yelled, and she, Sanguina, and the three Knights who were with her began lashing out.
Valerie shut her eyes and sheathed Pathos, not wanting to inadvertently kill one of her enemies. As she and the Knights erupted into motion, it seemed to break Peach’s spell. But the advantage was theirs. Sanguina was at the base of the stairs, so the Fractus were surrounded.
Valerie summoned her remaining magic and let it guide her arms and legs. She heard a crunch like breaking glass and a scream as she kicked in a knee of one of her attackers. Beside her, she saw that Hoel and the other two Knights, Lyonesse and Olwain, had also sheathed their weapons and were fighting hand-to-hand. All three had fighting powers, like she did, and she was glad that, in the heat of the moment, they were still following her plan to not let anyone die on this mission if it were possible—even their enemies.
