“Agent Darling,” Rachel interrupted urgently.
They both looked at her. Rachel thought furiously. She did not want them to discover that she could resist the Spell of True Recitation. Searching for a distraction, she pored over what she had learned during the last two weeks,. Something she knew now that she had not known when they questioned her a week ago. Something that would not get her into greater trouble.
Three pieces of random information suddenly snapped together. A galvanizing shock ran up her spine.
“Sakura Suzuki!” Rachel’s eyes grew wide. “Her family was murdered, right?”
“I’m not sure we should be discussing this,” began Agent MacDannan.
Agent Darling held up his hand. “Wait, Scarlett. I want to hear what Rachel’s getting at.”
“But they weren’t killed by the Terrible Five?”
“That’s correct. Miss Suzuki’s family was murdered a decade after the Terrible Years.”
“They were killed by a smoky-winged man, right?” Rachel drew a ragged breath, her voice soft with apologetic sorrow. “Just like the creature that killed your family, Agent Darling.”
“Wha—what?” cried James Darling, startled.
“Mr. Fisher said the thing that murdered your family had wings of smoke. Is that true?”
He nodded wordlessly, his face white. “I…have not thought about that in years.”
“Agent Darling,” Rachel wet her extremely dry lips, “could there be a connection between the smoky-winged man and the ritual Dr. Mordeau was involved in? Could it be that your family was not killed by the Terrible Five? Could it be that, like Sakura Suzuki and Misty Lark, you are the member who witnessed your family’s deaths and survived?”
James Darling became entirely rigid. He blinked rapidly. “I…ah…” Twice, he tried to speak. Failing, he looked to Agent MacDannan, his eyes pleading for help.
“That’s enough, Miss Griffin,” Agent MacDannan spoke hurriedly, looking at him with concern. “You are dismissed.”
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Yeti vs. Wookiees
Opening the disenchantment chamber door, Rachel came face to face with Sigfried, Gaius, and Vladimir Von Dread. All three of the young men had their wands drawn and aimed at her. Joy, Valerie, and Salome crowded behind them. Lucky the Dragon swooped overhead, head drawn back, ready to blast. Payback the Norwegian Elk Hound barked.
Von Dread’s wand vanished up his sleeve the instant Rachel appeared in the doorway. The other two held theirs steady. Rachel wondered if she had made it sufficiently clear to Sigfried that he had to fill his wand before he could use it.
“Um…hello?” she said.
“Rach! You’re all right!” Gaius drawled, giving her a grin so absolutely adorable that her legs felt wobbly. He slid his wand into his pocket. “Sigfried here seemed to think you were in some kind of trouble.”
“She was abducted by our dread enemies, the grown-ups!” announced Siggy.
“I’m okay,” Rachel gazed up at the group, some of whom towered above her. “I…”
She bit her lip, not wanting to blurt out her discovery about the intriguing side effects of her new Elf Rune in front of people who did not know her secret.
“They made me answer some questions, but I am okay.”
“What occurred, Miss Griffin?” Von Dread gazed down at her, his dark eyes cool and imperious.
“I turned in the whip that killed Enoch Smithwyck,” explained Rachel. “The Agents didn’t believe me when I explained that I had forgotten that I had it.” Having a perfect memory did her no good, if she did not think to use it. “They thought someone geased me into hiding the murder weapon. So they de-geased me.”
She lowered her voice. “Then I asked Agent Darling if the smoky-winged thing that killed his family was the same one that killed Sakura Suzuki’s family, and if so, was this related to the ritual that destroys families in front of one member? The ritual—though I didn’t add this—that sucks people here from other dimensions.” She glanced briefly over her shoulder at where Darling and MacDannan were talking, huddled close together. “Now, I think the Agents are a bit stunned.”
Von Dread blinked and murmured, “I hardly blame them.”
Gaius grinned. “Sounds like you’ve found out quite a bit.”
“I have a whole list of information to share with your people. We are on for tonight, right? After the main Knight’s meeting?”
“Certainly.” Von Dread bowed slightly. “I look forward to it.”
He turned on his heel and strode toward the outer door. Joy and Valerie hurried out of his way. When he came to Salome, she stood her ground, swaying provocatively.
“I’m not afraid of you, Von Dread. You don’t scare me, the way you scare everyone else. You won’t see me scurrying,” she wiggled her fingers, making scurrying gestures, “out of your way, like all your other little minions.”
“That is fine, Miss Iscariot,” Von Dread stated, his arms crossed. He reminded Rachel of a basalt fortress, vast and immovable. “It is not my intention to frighten you.”
Salome stepped back, suddenly nervous. Von Dread strode past her and departed.
“So, you’re okay?” Joy asked Rachel.
“I’m just dandy,” nodded Rachel. The influence of the spell still prompted her to speak the exact truth. She ignored it. “Um, Gaius…how did you and Mr. Von Dread come to be here?”
“Mr. Smith fetched us,” Gaius waved a hand at Sigfried, “for which I am grateful.”
“Thank you, Siggy!” Rachel smiled at her friend.
“Von Dread’s brilliant! I figured if anyone could stop evil proctors, it would be him. They can’t shoot him without starting a war, right? He’s almost hardcore enough to be a dragon.”
“Siggy was about to rush the chamber and attack the Agents,” Joy giggled. “He’s crazy!”
Rachel looked up at Sigfried, his hair curling around his head like golden flames. He was unusually tall for a fourteen-year-old boy, as tall as Gaius, who was two years his senior. Rachel only came to Siggy’s shoulder, so she had to incline her head upwards to smile into his eyes.
Touched by the length he was willing to go on her behalf, she laid her hand on his arm. “Thank you.”
He shrugged her off. “Friends stick together. Have to. Once the grownups smell weakness, they pick you off one at a time. Remember to hide food where they cannot find it!”
“We’ll burn off someone’s face for a friend any day,” Lucky chimed in. Siggy nodded seriously. The boy and the white-furry lizard had exactly the same expression.
Rachel struggled not to laugh. With as much dignity as she could muster, she answered, “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Smith and Lucky.”
“So, we’re done here, right?” Gaius asked, looking from Sigfried to Rachel. “I’m not up to anything. Would you like to spend some time together?”
“More than anything in the world!” Rachel blurted out, before she could remember to keep the truth magic from speaking for her.
• • •
“Okay, hold on tight!” cried Rachel.
Her steeplechaser soared into the sky. Rachel leaned forward, Gaius’s arms tight around her waist. The wind streamed through their hair. The crisp scent of autumn leaves filled their nostrils. The speed of their flight made her slightly giddy, as did the warmth of his body pressed against her back. It was not exactly a hug, but it made her heart beat very quickly.
To the west rose Storm King, bright reds and yellows dotting its slopes, where the maples and birches stood among the evergreens and sheer cliffs. To the north, patches of gold and scarlet decorated the island as well, except where Stony Tor rose, bare and lifeless. Closer at hand, the campus lay beneath them. As always, the roof of the main hall beckoned to her.
Rachel flew to Roanoke Hall and up over the roof. Two dozen turrets, some round and some square, and four of the domed bell towers, as well as myriad gables and chimneys, surrounded the central belfry and the domed o
bservatory where the planetarium was housed. Quick as a finch, she darted in and among the turrets, buttresses, and spires, even threading her way between the narrow pillars supporting the cupolas above the bells.
She flew very fast, zipping through impossibly small spaces, diving directly at the walls, and swerving only at the last possible moment. She flew close enough to feel the heat of the late afternoon sun baked into the stone of the walls. Gaius did not scream, but he did hold very tightly. Rachel could feel the rapidness of his breathing on her neck.
A slow victorious grin spread across her face. There was something about scaring boys with her broom jockey skills that made Rachel very happy.
Eventually, she slowed. In the middle of the roof was a low flat area between two of the many towers. Rachel landed there. Gaius climbed from the broom and sat down rapidly. His expression was calm, but when she slowed down her memory and recalled the moment between when he left the steeplechaser and when he settled himself against one of the slanting roofs, his legs were shaking.
Gaius gestured for her to join him. Eagerly, she stowed the steeplechaser against a spire and scooted beside him. He moved closer, until she could feel the warmth of his shoulder. She sat entirely motionless, too happy to breathe.
“Your friend Sigfried is mad as a hatter!” Gaius gestured with the hand that she was not leaning against. “He was going to attack the Agents. Just like that! Without waiting to see what’d happened to you. He was about to blast open the doors and charge in when you appeared.”
“He is a bit rambunctious,” Rachel admitted, brushing away a stray hair that was tickling her cheek. Sigfried was crazy, true, but this description of his loyalty warmed her deep inside.
“Rambunctious isn’t the word I had in mind,” Gaius said in his casual British drawl. “Maybe barmy? Lunatic? So…tell me about this spell. It kills families and brings people from other worlds? Is that how I came to be here? A family was killed in front of some innocent kid’s eyes?” He blanched and raised a hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me now. Tell me at our meeting tonight. If you tell me now, I just have to remember it to tell Vlad.”
“Okay. I’ve been dying to tell you, but,” she paused, thinking, “well, it’s quite grim. I’ll tell you both at the same time, tonight.”
“It’s a date,” he grinned lazily.
Rachel ducked her head, blushing.
To the west, the sun was setting. Fiery bands of cherry and purple stretched out from behind Storm King Mountain. Looking up, she stared at the colors in the darkening sky and wished she had the courage to lean against him, to put her hand on his arm, or, most of all, to put her arms around him…but she didn’t.
Sighing, she said slowly, “I should explain about Sigfried.”
“You can try,” he quipped, amused, “but I’m not sure even you are that glib.”
Rachel elbowed him lightly. “True, Siggy’s famous, handsome, and rich…but remember, it’s only been the case for a very short time. Until he fought that dragon, a few months ago, he was a lonely, scared boy with no family. He lived in a horrid orphanage where his good looks got him nowhere with the nuns and the other boys, and all his problems were solved by fighting.
“Suddenly, he discovers magic. He comes to school. He finds a girlfriend and someone…” Rachel’s voice gave out. With some effort, she continued. “Horrid things happened to her. And the Agents—for obvious reasons—won’t let Siggy go kill the monster responsible.
“So, he is frightened and frustrated, and he doesn’t know whom to attack. Of course, he wants to assault proctors.” Rachel face began to burn. She looked down at her hands, where she smoothed her robes across her lap. “Think how you’d feel if someone did to me what happened to Valerie. And there was nothing you could do about it.”
“What happened to Valerie?” Gaius asked, pulling his mortarboard cap out of his pocket, where he had put it for safekeeping during the broom ride, and placing it back on his head. “The attack that first day, you mean?”
“No!” Rachel blanched. She had assumed Von Dread would have found out and shared it with him. “Dr. Mordeau…she gave Valerie to Jonah Strega, using the geas. She let him…” Rachel made some gestures with her hands as she searched for words to express the unspeakable. “Let him do…everything.”
Gaius grew pale. He jumped up and paced back and forth, chewing on his thumbnail. When he moved away, Rachel was startled to discover she was trembling. She watched her hands shake and then quickly stuck them underneath her. Seeing his distress, she did not wish to draw attention to her own.
“No. No. No!” When he finally spoke, his voice was frantic. “I saw her! Talking to Strega. They were near our dormitory. I almost said something, because I knew what he was like. I even almost mentioned it to you. I just…I should have talked to her…” He looked utterly crestfallen.
“You did tell me,” she replied mournfully, using her mother’s dissembling techniques to hold her voice steady. “But I thought I knew why. Valerie was interviewing people to find out more about Mortimer Egg. I even gave her your warning, but she insisted she had never spoken to Strega…and I didn’t yet know if I could trust you. So I didn’t know what to think.
“The point is…” she charged on, not wanting to dwell on her uncertainty about him. “You see why Sigfried is so angry.”
“Yes. I understand,” replied Gaius, his voice low and grim. “He must be furious.”
He sat back down next to Rachel. Putting an arm around her shoulder, he pulled her close, sighing. Rachel’s heart sang with joy. It was not quite a hug, but he was holding her. Cautiously, heart beating rapidly, she rested her head on his shoulder and laid a hand on his chest. He did not object.
“You can tell Von Dread, but, please don’t tell anyone else. Valerie is a smashing girl—so brave and smart. She doesn’t need this getting out and demeaning her in other people’s eyes.”
“I suspect Vlad already knows,” Gaius mused. “I’m ninety-three percent certain. He doesn’t give out information if it does not directly affect the fate of the world. He’s a very good person to tell something to in confidence. As long as it’s not: ‘I’m going to destroy the planet’.”
“Luckily, I am devoted to protecting the planet, so we should get along just fine,” giggled Rachel. She held still, concentrating on how firm his chest felt under her palm. She wanted to move her hand across his shoulders, but she was too shy to try it.
“I don’t know much about you,” she said presently. “Can you tell me about yourself? How did you come to Roanoke? How many girlfriends have you had? How did you meet Dread?” Rachel said each of these things in exactly the same tone. She felt proud that she was not jealous of any possible previous girls; however, she was curious.
“I met Vlad when I was a freshman.” Gaius leaned his head back against the slanted tower. “Some of the older kids were…not very kind to me. Because I was an outsider, a farmer boy. Because I was a poor kid, but in Drake.
“Vlad took me under his wing. I started training at dueling, since the other kids seemed to like to bother whomever the older kids didn’t like. Turns out I was good at it. I joined the Knights my second year; Vlad invited me. I have been working with him ever since.”
“Very interesting.” Rachel noticed that he had not said a word about earlier girlfriends. Slid right past it. Gathering her courage, she asked casually, “Have you had other girlfriends?”
“I’ve dated before.”
From his expression, that was all he planned to say. She sighed inwardly. What was the point of being an understanding girlfriend, if she did not get a chance to demonstrate how understanding she was?
“As to how I came to Roanoke,” Gaius leaned back and gestured casually with his free hand, “I was really good at science in Elementary School. I was sure I was going to be a scientist. So much so, that I applied for a summer internship with the research division of Ouroboros Industries—which I only knew as a mundane corporation. Our dishwashe
r was an O.I., as was some of our farm equipment.
“I went to the interview, even though my father had already told me I couldn’t take the position. He needed me on the farm for the summer.”
“And they gave you an aptitude test?”
“You know?”
“That happened to a girl in my class,” Rachel said, remembering shy Astrid Holywell’s explanation of how she came to learn about Roanoke.
Gaius nodded. “After I scored well on the test, Mr. Poole, the librarian here at Roanoke, came to my house. He explained to my father about how the school worked and how my tuition would be paid. I am here under a scholarship awarded by O.I.”
“Congratulations,” Rachel smiled, delighted that her boyfriend was brilliant enough to earn one of Ouroboros Industries’s coveted scholarships. No wonder he had thought he might have liked to be in Dee Hall. It still warmed her to remember that. Their love of all things scholarly was something they had in common.
“Speaking of sorcery and science,” Gaius leaned forward, eyes alight, “I’ve been reading more of the Darius Northwest books you told me about. I’m on my third one: Domovoi, Kikimora, and Other Denizens of the Forest. He’s terrific! He writes like a scientist! His work reminds me of Darwin and the other early biologists.”
“Daring Northwest and Charles Darwin were friends,” said Rachel.
Gaius’s eyebrow twitched. “Don’t tell me Darwin was a sorcerer, too?”
Rachel laughed. “No, but sometimes we sorcerers are friends with mundane folk.” Gaius grinned so widely that Rachel wondered if he still thought of himself as part of the mundane world, rather than as a sorcerer.
“Anyway,” Gaius continued avidly, “Northwest’s really easy to understand. Sometimes when I’m reading Carlton Scotchbriar or Lloyd Lord Fairweather, I feel like they don’t make any sense. All this talk about essences and sympathy and contagion. What does that stuff even mean?
“But Northwest writes in clear, logical terms, laying out his premises and drawing solid conclusions. I’m so glad you introduced me to his work. It’s like finding a bridge between what I understand here at school and what I don’t understand.”
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 30
