The Wizard Heir

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Seph and his escorts entered the admin. building and climbed the open staircase to the third floor. They took him directly to Gregory Leicester’s office and pushed him forward.

  Leicester was standing at his magnificent window, his hands clasped behind him, watching the sun come up over the water. John Hughes was seated at Leicester’s PC, frantically typing in commands. Hughes was one of the alumni, a stocky man in his twenties with a receding hairline. He functioned as the systems administrator for the school.

  It was the e-mail, then.

  Warren cleared his throat nervously. “Here’s Joseph.”

  Leicester did not look back at them, but turned instead to Hughes. “Well?”

  Hughes half turned around in his chair and shook his head. “A number of them have already been opened. They were sent out on Sunday night. No response.” He glanced at Seph, then looked away.

  “I see.” Leicester sighed, and stared out to sea again for a moment, then turned to face the trio in the doorway. “So, Joseph. It appears you have made a mistake.”

  Seph remembered Jason’s advice. Be stupid and be scared. He tried to play stupid. “Already?” He lifted his shoulders slightly. “I just got out of bed.”

  Leicester’s hand came up and forward. The blow came so quickly, Seph had no time to react. A fistlike concussion of air struck him full in the face and threw him back against the door, his feet literally leaving the ground. His head slammed hard against the doorframe before he slid to the floor. His right eye swam with tears and he tasted blood in his mouth where his lip was cut. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and it came away covered in blood.

  He looked up to see that Leicester hadn’t moved from his position by the window. Warren and Bruce had split off to either side, out of the target area.

  Leicester thrust his hand toward him again. The next blow caught Seph just under the ribcage, throwing him back into the wall and driving all the breath out of him. He rolled over, trying to scramble out of the way, but the third hit him square in the back. Each felt like a sledgehammer against flesh and bone. Seph doubled up on the floor, making as small a target as possible. After two more blows, he wondered if Leicester intended to beat him to death.

  He struggled to pull the air back into his lungs. It hurt to breathe, and he suspected his ribs might be broken. Leicester crossed the space between them and spoke to Seph on the floor from his terrible height.

  “Who do you think I am? A high school principal?” he spat the words out derisively. “Did you think you were going to get a bloody detention?” His voice grew louder with each sentence.

  Despite the pain, Seph managed to push himself into a half-sitting position, leaning against the wall. He shook his head, trying to clear it, flinging blood in a small arc. His lip was swelling, and the entire right side of his face felt numb, which was probably a blessing. His legs tingled, and he wondered if his spinal cord had been bruised by the blow to his back. “Why can’t you just let me go?” he whispered.

  “No one leaves the Havens until I’m ready. You should know that by now.”

  Seph knew he should just keep quiet, but he couldn’t help himself. “Jason Haley left,” he said.

  “Ah, yes. Jason Haley has indeed left the Havens.” Leicester smiled. “Did you think I’d let him out alive?”

  It was one of those times when the body seems to act without the counsel or approval of the conscious mind. Seph McCauley bunched his quivering legs under him and launched himself at Gregory Leicester. He hit him hard, in the midsection. It was very much like hitting a concrete wall, but Seph was able to land at least two good punches before Leicester pinned his arms to his side with one massive arm and wrapped the other around his neck, cutting off his air supply. He increased the pressure until black spots appeared before Seph’s eyes, then relaxed it enough to keep Seph from passing out completely.

  As soon as Seph had enough air to do so, he launched into one of the attack charms he and Jason had memorized in the library. But he was cut off mid sentence by blinding pain like a current that flamed through his body and left him limp and trembling when it was finally over.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Leicester.

  But Seph was reckless with anger. “You’d better kill me,” he gasped, “because if you don’t, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Leicester was speaking into his ear. “Why would I kill you, Joseph, when I have so many other options?” He laughed softly. “You think you’ve had dreams? I can give you a nightmare that will last a week. Why, I can give you a nightmare that will last the rest of your life. We call it going insane.

  “Now, the question is whether we need to keep you around in case someone responds to your message. I think not. You won’t be in any condition to talk to them anyway. You threatened to kill yourself, Joseph, and I think you’re going to succeed. You’ll cease to exist as far as Sloane’s is concerned. Think of it. We’ll have you all to ourselves. A wizard’s lifetime. No more paperwork, no pesky correspondence going back and forth.” He touched Seph’s damaged face, running his thumb down his chinline. “No need to keep you pretty in case someone comes to call.”

  Leicester tightened his grip and spoke a charm. The flames raked through Seph again, and he screamed, all of his muscles seizing with the pain of it. He couldn’t say how long it went on, but Leicester suddenly released his hold on him, and Seph dropped to the floor like a rag doll, whimpering, desperately sucking in air.

  “At last, perhaps, you begin to understand. You see how restrained I’ve been. Now the gloves come off. I won’t make the same mistake I made with Jason. You’re going to beg for the chance to give me what I want. I promise to take my time. We’ll learn so much, you and I, about your capabilities. You’ve been a tough little bastard. Now we’ll find out just how tough you are.”

  Seph lay with his face against the varnished hardwood, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his heart pounding in his ears. His skin was slick with sweat, and he was shivering. He could think of only one way out of his predicament. He had to find a way to make Leicester kill him.

  Gradually, he became aware of a commotion in the outer suite of offices. Raised voices, like an argument. Seph turned his head slightly so he could see. Leicester turned toward the door. Peter Conroy slipped into the office and spoke, quietly and urgently, to Leicester. Leicester listened, with his eyes on Seph. He nodded, said a few words, and Conroy left again.

  Leicester lifted an upholstered chair like it weighed nothing and set it in front of the door. Then he slid his hands under Seph’s arms and hauled him into it. Seph bit his lip to keep from crying out. He tried to retreat into the chair, to curl himself around his many hurts like an injured animal. But the headmaster gripped his chin hard and lifted his head so Seph had no choice but to look him in the eyes.

  “It appears there’s been a response to your message. Sloane’s has sent someone to inquire after you.” Leicester dropped his hot hands onto Seph’s shoulders. Power roared into him again, different from before, power that drove the strength from his muscles and bones, leaving him totally conscious but helpless—too weak to hold up his head. An immobilization charm. He couldn’t speak or move a muscle.

  Leicester arranged Seph’s body in the chair, making no attempt to be gentle. He raked Seph’s curls back out of his eyes and looked down at him, apparently satisfied. “Now you can listen while I send her away.” He paused. “And when I return, I promise I will make you wish you’d never been born.” Then he was gone, the three alumni following him.

  So Sloane’s had sent a woman. Seph had hoped they would send someone he knew, Denis Houghton, even. He didn’t know any female associates of the firm. Seph swallowed down his despair. These wizards could outfox or overpower any lawyer. He didn’t want to have to hear it.

  The group outside must have moved closer to the door, or perhaps Leicester engineered it so, because suddenly the voices came through clearly. First a woman’s voice. “We received his message at our of
fices Sunday night. I’m not leaving without talking to him.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible just now,” Leicester replied.

  “What do you mean?” the woman demanded.

  “Joseph has disappeared. No one has seen him since supper last night. He left this in his room.” There was a brief silence, as if the woman were reading something.

  “This doesn’t sound like him. How do you know he wrote it?”

  “It was in his room, Miss . . .”

  “Downey,” the woman said.

  “Are you a relative?” Leicester asked, like a coroner seeking the next of kin.

  “I am the boy’s legal guardian,” the woman said. “That’s all you need to know. I fail to understand how you could lose my ward overnight.”

  “One of the boats is missing,” Leicester said. “He might have taken it out last night.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” the woman replied. “Seph has never been fond of the ocean.”

  There was something oddly compelling about her voice. It was like a song that you can’t let go of. Seph was struck by the use of his private name, her confidence in her knowledge of him. She claimed to be his guardian. But Denis Houghton was his guardian. Downey? He’d never even heard her name before.

  “Why haven’t you called the police?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you call us before now?”

  “We’ve only just discovered he was missing,” Leicester said. “We’re conducting a search ourselves. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for hours at a time. He liked to walk alone in the woods.” He was already speaking in the past tense.

  “First you imply he’s gone boating in the dark, now you tell me he’s been walking in the woods all night. Do your students never stay in their beds?”

  The woman was persistent, but it wouldn’t matter. She couldn’t force them to produce him if they claimed he was missing. And Seph knew he would never be found.

  “Why don’t you come down to the cafeteria and have some coffee,” Leicester said. “The search parties will be reporting back here. As soon as there’s any news—”

  “Seph said you wouldn’t allow him to call us. He said you were holding him prisoner here.”

  Seph could almost see Leicester shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know where he gets these ideas,” the headmaster said. “Frankly, Miss Downey, we’ve done our best to work with Joseph. You can tell by the note he left that he’s unstable. In fact, we’ve come to believe that he’s psychotic. Yet we were told none of this when we admitted him.”

  “You make it sound like he’s been a problem since September,” she said. Papers rustled. “I have all his progress reports here, and they suggest nothing of the kind.”

  Soon enough, the dance would be over. They would maneuver the woman out of the office and down to the cafeteria. Then they could tuck him somewhere out of the way, and his chance would be gone. He’d sacrificed so much, perhaps everything, to get Sloane’s to send someone to rescue him.

  I can’t let her leave without seeing me, he told himself. He tried to move, to twitch a finger, but nothing happened. Frustration built up in him, and then something else, more familiar. He focused his attention on the door, concentrating, pushing energy into his extremities. And then it happened. A cascade of blue flame erupted from his fingertips and blew down the door between the offices with a bang like a gunshot.

  There was a brief, stunned silence. “What the bloody hell was that?” the woman cried.

  A clamor of voices erupted. Explanations and protests. Someone appeared in the doorway.

  She was small, with short, layered hair, like silver and gold spun together. She wore a tailored black suit with a very short skirt, and had amazingly long legs for such a small person. When she moved, Seph found it impossible to look away. She seemed to shimmer, sending sparks in every direction. She looked like no lawyer Seph had ever seen.

  “Thank God,” the woman said. He could tell she recognized him immediately. She shook off Leicester and came toward him, the others trailing behind her like the tail of a comet. Warren and Bruce blundered into each other in their eagerness to get near her.

  It was an exquisitely awkward moment, the wizards, the woman, the briefly lost and suddenly found Seph. For his part, Gregory Leicester looked like he might just murder Seph, right then and there, regardless of witnesses and the representative from Sloane’s.

  The woman’s eyes never left Seph’s face. Now that she was closer, he could see that they were deep-blue violet flecked with gold. “Dear God, what have they done to you?” Seph was desperate to reply, but all he could do was stare at her helplessly.

  Gregory Leicester found his voice. “We . . . ah . . . didn’t want you to see him like this. He’s heavily medicated. He’s been uncontrollably self-destructive these past few days.” Leicester looked disconcerted, something Seph had never expected to see.

  She was finally within arm’s length of Seph, but now she looked back at Leicester for the first time. “I see what you mean. He’s given himself a brutal beating. Most unusual.”

  She looked upset, distressed, angry, yet she was not making as much fuss over his appearance as he might have expected. She’s not shocked, he thought. Not even surprised. Like she knows what’s up. And with that came a fragment of hope.

  “Hello, Seph. I’m Linda Downey.”

  Seph kept staring at her, spinning out silent pleas. Find a way to get me out of here. And then the tears washed over the great dam of his eyes and streaked down his face.

  Linda Downey nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if she’d heard, and understood. She leaned in and gave him a light kiss on his forehead and whispered, so only he could hear, “Courage, Seph.” Then she turned back to Leicester and the others.

  “Clearly, this placement has been nothing short of a disaster. I’m taking him back to see his regular therapist. I’m hoping he won’t require hospitalization.”

  Therapist?

  She gestured to Hays and Barber. “You two. Help me get him into my car.”

  They stepped forward obediently. But Leicester shook his head. “The boy stays here,” he said. “As you can see, he’s in no condition to travel.”

  The woman sighed and changed tactics. “Dr. Leicester, I think it’s time we were frank with each other. I do believe you all are wizards and you have this boy under a spell.”

  She might as well have said the law firm of Sloane, Houghton, and Smythe believed in fairies. Seph squinted at her in disbelief. The alumni stirred and muttered, but Leicester seemed unimpressed. “So?” he said, letting the word drop between them like a gauntlet. He was making it clear that what Linda Downey knew, or didn’t know, was irrelevant.

  She shook her head and regarded Leicester with a look of pity. “Do you have any idea who this boy is?”

  Leicester frowned, opened his mouth, and then closed it again, looking from Linda to Seph.

  “Obviously, you don’t.” She put her fingertips under Seph’s chin and tilted his face upward. “Look at him! Look at his eyes, the shape of his nose.”

  Leicester studied Seph, but his scowl said he was clueless as before.

  “I find it hard to believe you can’t spot it.” She cleared her throat. “Joseph McCauley is the natural child of one of your colleagues on the Council of Wizards. A delicate matter, as he is married to someone other than the boy’s mother.” She paused again. “His wife is a powerful wizard and has been unforgiving of such transgressions in the past. The boy has been kept ignorant of his background, for fear the story would come out. But Seph’s father takes a strong interest in his welfare and upbringing. Seph is his only son.”

  She knows who my father is. Despite Leicester and the Alumni, despite his desperate situation, despite everything, Seph waited breathlessly for Linda Downey to say his name.

  Leicester seemed to be rummaging through some kind of mental list. “Who is it?” he demanded. “Tell me. Who’s his father?”

  Linda said nothing.r />
  “You don’t mean . . . Ravenstock?” The wizard’s face transitioned from incredulity to cunning conviction. “It is, isn’t it?”

  She hesitated, then said, “It’s really none of your business. But you’ll find out soon enough if you don’t unbind the boy and let him go. His father flew into Portland yesterday. You can imagine his reaction when I forwarded Seph’s message. If I don’t show up with his son in Portland by this afternoon, his father will take this place apart, stone by stone, until he finds him. No excuse will be good enough to satisfy him. And you can be sure he’ll bring the matter to the Council next week.”

  Leicester clenched and unclenched his fists. “Why didn’t Ravenstock come himself, if he’s so concerned?”

  Ravenstock. Joseph Ravenstock. Hey, I’m Seph Ravenstock.

  Seph tried out the name in his mind.

  “Considering his position, he wishes to keep the matter private. So he sent me as his representative. If he’d expected a problem, I’m sure he would have come himself.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Seph could tell Leicester didn’t want to believe her.

  “I’m the boy’s guardian. I can show you papers, if you like.” She dug in her briefcase, pulled out a wad of papers and handed them to Leicester. He scanned them unhappily and handed them back.

  But Houghton’s my guardian. Isn’t he?

  “Look,” the woman said. “We’re counting on your discretion. Seph’s father doesn’t care about whatever it is you’re doing up here. But his tolerance does not extend to his own son. The boy has been badly beaten, starved, and tortured. If this comes out, it would be natural for the Council to assume that you were targeting his son for a reason. A political reason.”

  “And why should we allow you to leave here, carrying tales?” Leicester asked. He took a step toward her, reaching out to take her wrist. She stepped back, deftly avoiding his hand.

  “I’m expected back with Joseph tonight,” she said calmly. “How would you propose to explain our disappearance?”

  Leicester looked bereft, like his birthday had been canceled. Clearly, he was trying to devise some alternative to letting Seph go. But it was also obvious that the woman’s threats had been effective. He wouldn’t want the Council involved, wouldn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to the Havens. He had to weigh the potential risk of releasing Seph against the damage of certain exposure.