by Ariel Hunter
My magic was caged, and I had just tried to fire it anyway, like ripping my own bones out of my body.
I realized suddenly that Trent was laughing.
It was a creepy collection of all the melodies within him. The sparking scintillate of the red ropes the other magicians were weaving entwined with his laughter as it echoed off the cave walls. I tried to focus on the soothing sound of the waves just outside. So close to our escape. Focus on the harmony, that peaceful sanctuary that the water always was for me. Find that soul-centering calm.
I breathed in deeply and found that it did help. At least for a moment.
I stood back up, shakily.
Trent’s laughter stopped abruptly, and he nodded to the other magicians.
I grabbed my dad as their red magic snaked out from their hands and wrapped around us, sizzling as it burned our skin. Zilla had tucked himself into the bone corset style mesh area of the centerpiece of my dress, and I was thankful he was safely hiding, but I hoped none of the ropes would sear into his scales.
“So, you’re the Collector. I feel like I should have seen this coming,” I said through clenched teeth as the ropes entangled us. How had the Council not known? How had he been their star Knight warlock for so many centuries? “I sensed there was something off about you.”
Trent smiled as he walked closer, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Very few women refuse me, Marnie. Usually it is my charm that they find irresistible. Or my tales of bravery for the witching world.”
“Tales that I’m beginning to think aren’t even yours.” I couldn’t resist being snarky, even though the hooded warlocks tightened the red magical ropes into my skin as I finished my snotty remark.
Trent stiffened.
“Let’s take them to the transfusion room. I don’t want to wait.” Trent breezed past us, back toward the cages we had just escaped. The magicians held us prone in the air, floating before them, confined in their red vines.
Panic rushed through me as we were led away from the waves, the open air, our near escape. How the fuck were we supposed to get out of this now?
I shook away the despair creeping around my throat and tried to breathe even, long, slow breaths. Don’t get hypoxic. Don’t get hypoxic. Think rationally.
It was bizarre, floating through the air. I tried to catch my dad’s attention, but he had closed his eyes and his face was blank of all emotion, even when the ropes tightened. They would incite so much pain that I yelped involuntarily. Maybe he was accustomed to being treated like this, but I certainly wasn’t.
We headed back through the mist, the red glow of our binds lighting up the gray cloud. Just as we walked under one set of cages, we turned to the left, heading deeper into the mountain through a dark tunnel I hadn’t noticed when we were escaping. As we floated into the tunnel, dim lights flickered on and we left the mist behind.
Zilla wiggled inside my dress and I took heart that he was with me. Maybe he could help engineer my escape again.
Though, I wasn’t sure there would be anything as simple as pushing a button now that Trent had me.
“Gairm thugam solas,” I whispered again, a single tear leaking down my cheek when no answer came. It was worth a shot, right?
I really regretted not taking my moments with him to see what we could have become. If I found a way out of here, I was taking everything back. The witch council, the Collector, and the world be damned.
Bright light made me squint as we entered a fully arrayed tile and metal-lined laboratory. In the center of the room was a chair that didn’t look too dissimilar from the kind that was used to execute prisoners, just crossed with a few medical devices. There were straps on the arms, legs, neck, and torso. At the top was a helmet device with suction cups attached to it and tubes that came out of it. At the end of each of the suction cups were long needles.
There were twelve ten-foot tall, clear glass tanks arrayed around the room and inside many of them was a swirling mass of magic in different colors. One of them contained a swelling of orange that grew more riotous as we entered.
That had to be my dad’s magic.
Trent busied himself at a side table, shuffling a few ointments around. “Put her in the chair.”
I squirmed immediately, kicking and punching against the red vines, but roared with pain as the binds tightened. Two of the magicians grabbed me, forcing me into the chair, strapping me tightly to the seat. The strap that went around my neck was so tight I gagged.
I looked down at the little lump that was Zilla and prayed he stayed still.
The warlocks backed off from me, dropping the red binds since I was bound so tightly. I struggled, making the chair bounce around, but there was nothing I could do. I was trapped.
“The more you struggle, the harder it will be to take the magic out of you,” Trent said. “Which will make it more painful for you . . .”
My dad’s eyes were glued to the orange tank. The magician who had him bound set him roughly down in the corner and stood nearby to keep him tethered. My dad reached his hand up toward the tank that held his power, but the warlock yanked on the bind around his arm and he yelled out, collapsing back in on himself as the magic burned into his skin.
“You know, we could have done this in such a nicer way, Marnie. You could have become my student; I could have shown you exactly who I am. You would have seen the value of all that I do. Your uncle did, all those centuries ago. You could have too, and then maybe there might have been use for you beyond your pink magic.” Trent was pooling two oils together as he was speaking. It had a highly potent smell and reminded me of whiskey. Where was a flask when you needed it?
I choked back a cough from the restraints as Trent walked nearer to me.
“You just had to choose Callan. Even when there was no other option but me or caging, you still chose him.” Trent’s eyes flared angrily.
“You sure seem to have a bone to pick with him.”
“I don’t like any of you higher level magicians.” His eyes flashed. “You all think you’re so much better than the rest of us. Such elitist bullshit. Never giving the most passionate magicians a chance. For instance, I would never have had a chance with you, Marnie, if I hadn’t become me. No one would have even mentioned me in the same breath as Callan or you if I hadn’t manifested myself.”
“Manifest yourself?” I didn’t understand. He smiled at me. “Holy fuck.” Clarity hit. “You’re not actually a gold, are you?”
“I was born a green.” He raised his chin up as he said this. “The level you all deem as the lowest rank. Hardly give attention to. Viewed as barely more than human and treated with little more respect than a dog. But I haven’t had to use green magic in many centuries. I discovered how to do magical transfusion a long time ago. Took my time, gathered other greens who could help me take down my first blue. Took on his power. Then purples. Then reds. Then oranges, most recently your dad in the last two decades. The lower magics I have here,” he pointed to the tanks, “keeps me stocked up on magical abilities so I can keep my gold appearance flowing when I need to.” He pointed to the biggest tank where gold wisps blew about. There were so few golds in the world at a time. Only one or two was born every hundred years. Yet Trent, he’d made himself one. Blended the other magics together until they were strong enough to make strands of gold.
I stared at him in disgust. “You’ve been killing other witches and warlocks to steal their magic.”
“Yes, but you know who I am. You know all the amazing missions Trent Brecker has done. And there are many more still classified by the Council. I couldn’t have done them, couldn’t have become who I am, without collecting power from others. Some of us are born special, and some of us have to break a few eggs.” He shrugged as if murder of innocents didn’t matter.
I jerked up against the binds and spit at him. “And now me? Now pink is your next power?”
Trent laughed as the spit fell at his feet. “Oh, you still don’t understand. I’m banking o
n being able to tear out the white from you. That’s the most powerful. If merging your magic within me makes me a white or even a black magician—I can finally end the council. I would be unstoppable with your power. I could flatten a few gold warlocks with one blow with just the might of your white power at my command. And yet, you so dismissively decided to cage it. You don’t even know the value of what you have. Callan is an idiot to have let you go through with it.”
He shook the oils he had been mixing in the little jar, picked up a cotton swab and came closer to me. He brushed my hair back from my forehead and started swabbing some oil mixture on my temples. They were the same areas where my dad had bruises.
Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . how do I get out of here?
I tried to jerk my head away from him, but he pressed his palm into my forehead and forced me to stay still as he lowered the helmet halo over my head.
“Thankfully, the caging the Council did just means your magic is nicely in one spot for me to access with this machine.” He tapped on the helmet so it quivered against my skin. The metal was a cool band against me, the oil he had placed as a lubricant against it trailing down my cheeks. “It should be easier to find it, go in and suction it out. It will flow quickly. So, thanks for that.”
Trent wheeled one of the empty tanks over close to me and started hooking in the suction tubes to it.
My dad was still sprawled on the floor, staring brokenly from me to his thrashing orange magic in its tank.
Goddamnit, dad, do something. Where’s Zilla? Can he do something?
Even as I thought it, the little agama’s head peeked up out of my dress, his tongue flicking at me. He moved around so he was just sitting beside my dress, blending in with the folds of the chiffon.
“All right, Marnie, I know you’re not ready for this, because no one is. It’s incredibly painful. I mean, I imagine having your magic caged was painful, but I’m now going to tear it forcibly out of you.” Trent looked at me, cocking his head to the side. He ran his finger under my chin. I grit my teeth, glaring at him, and jerked my head away the best I could.
“My magic isn’t easy to control. I don’t know what you think you will get out of it, but it’s just dangerous. Why do you think I finally decided to cage it?”
“That’s just it,” Trent said. “I think you’re too weak-minded to know how to use it properly. You haven’t got the strength of will I do.”
I wanted to spit at him again, but his insults about my mental fortitude seemed a small slight compared to holding me hostage, potentially for the rest of my immortal life . . .
He turned to the warlocks standing nearby. “Start the machine.”
One of them walked to a control panel and started pressing buttons. My chest was heaving with the denial of what was about to happen. I strained against the binds. I have to get out. I have to get out.
“Stop struggling,” he snapped. “It will make the magic anchor inside you. It will hurt more to tear it out. Just ask him.” Trent sounded bored as he pointed his finger at my poor dad and the anger that raged inside me at seeing my father on the ground in such a way took the place of the despair.
The machines were buzzing, whirring, the halo on my head was steadily tightening. The suction cups had mounted to my skin. The needles were starting to prick.
Trent strode to a stop in front of me, then placed his hands on my bare knees. He licked his lips, his eyes lighting up with an insane eagerness that made me want to vomit.
“This will really be so wonderful. And just think, you’ll never have to be separate from your dad again. That is, if he lives much longer—” Trent looked back toward my dad as the needles pierced into my temple and I grit my teeth against the scream. The suction began and I could feel the pull beginning, something deep inside me coming out.
I can’t let it. I have to stop it.
The needles sank into my skin and I looked to the side, seeing pink curls of magic starting to fill the tubes that led to the tank. Anger surged inside me.
Wild and wicked, just like my magic
I willed the magic in the tube to respond to me. It was my magic. It had to listen. It quivered, listening, and then, in a white-hot rush of exquisite pain, the tubes exploded, and pink rain glistened all over my body. Pink still rushed out from the tube and I tried to hold on to it, straining my fingers where they were bound down with the leather straps. The pink rain droplets forged into bullets and I aimed them right for Trent.
Obey me.
The Collector’s eyes were wide as he watched the pink explode and he gathered gold around him to quell the pink bullets aiming for his head. He looked hungrily from the pink smoke swelling around me, the pink he wanted to feel inside himself.
But in that hesitation, Zilla lunged from my lap, sailing into the air, and as he did, a wild pink wind whipped around him, hiding his tiny agama body and then he burst from it, growing steadily in size, roaring and breathing pink fire into Trent’s face.
The warlock yelled, throwing up his hands to shield himself, ducking away from us, but Zilla kicked him in the chest. He was the size of a small dragon, and Trent went flying to the ground, slamming his head into the far set of tanks. He didn’t move as Zilla breathed a scorching bomb of pink clouds onto his back, his clothes igniting. Then my lizard dragon spun, his long tail lashing against the nearest warlock who was whipping up red magic to attack my familiar. The tail knocked him in the head, blood spewing as he crashed against the control panel monitor.
With his monstrous mouth, Zilla seized the binds wrapped around my feet and ripped them free. Then he freed my right hand, gently, with just one of his teeth. I quickly untethered my left and the bind around my neck.
“You could do this the entire time?” I asked him, a little miffed given how he bemoaned visiting Cassandra the one time because the other familiars made fun of him.
The needles had stopped impaling me when the warlock was hit by Zilla’s tail and I carefully pulled them out, sliding out of the helmet halo, smearing the blood and oil away from my eyes before it could obscure my vision.
I whipped all the pink bullets that I had forged from the seat and ground around me and made them pierce every tank in the room, except for the orange container. The released magics spewed from the tiny holes in gushes, then spun through the laboratory, whipping a frenzy in a roaring wind. Then they exploded out through the tunnel, driven to seek out their true hosts in their hanging cages.
Meanwhile, Zilla, polar bear size, had swiped the head of the warlock holding my dad and he was motionless on the floor next to Trent, both of them on fire. I ran to the orange tank of magic and pulled on it as hard as I could.
It rocked to the ground, shattering into millions of glittering pieces.
The magic swelled and then hovered in a cloud around my dad where he was kneeling on the floor. As he stood up, the magic slowly soaked back into his skin. My dad turned in a circle with his arms raised, a new light glowing in his eyes.
Zilla was standing over the final warlock on the ground, one heavy claw raised, ready to slash down into his face, pink wafts of smoke coming from his nostrils.
“Leave him, we gotta go.”
I didn’t know how many other minions the Collector might have, but there would surely be others.
My dad grabbed my hand. “I can teleport us out of here now. I don’t sense any wards.”
“Are you okay?” I searched his eyes. His hand was stronger in mine. He was standing taller. His eyes were brighter, his voice more confident.
“I’ve made it this long. Get your dragon.” He squeezed my hand.
I looked over to Zilla and patted my shoulder as the dragon’s golden eyes, the size of coffee cup saucers gleamed at me. He ran toward us. Both my dad and I backed up a step, but Zilla was shrinking as he ran. Then he exploded into a leap, flying into the air to land on my shoulder, nuzzling into my neck and wrapping his tail around me. Like normal.
I nodded to my dad. “Take us home.”
> Chapter 22
We appeared in the kitchen of my mom’s house, the house my dad hadn’t been in for ten years. There were voices coming from the living room. My dad released my hand and started wringing his own together, looking around at the changes in the kitchen. The different colors of paint on the walls. The lack of family pictures on the refrigerator. The many wine bottles and glasses on the counter.
I started to head to the living room, recognizing the voices of some of the Council and wondering what had happened. How many injured during whatever battle had been going on? Had it been the Collector making that attack? Now, it was most important that the Council immediately trace Trent and apprehend him and all of his followers.
My dad stopped me with a firm grip on my arm. I turned to look at him. His eyes were unsure, his shoulders drooping again. He really did look so small in his dirty robes. His face was battered, the suction and needle marks on his face stark and painful looking.
“It’s been so long . . .”
I placed my hand on his. “She will be so happy to see you, dad. She never accepted that you were dead. She always hoped you would return to us. It will be okay.” I smiled at him as reassuringly as I could, then led him into the living room.
Hiram and Josie were there, with three other Council witches and warlocks. My mom was pacing anxiously. Callan was standing, leaning in a corner, arms crossed. His tux was singed with magical burns, as if he had been in quite a fight. They all looked up as I entered.
“Marnie,” my mom shouted as she ran to embrace me. Callan took two steps toward me, his eyes lighting up with relief. “We were so worried. Wyatt told me he dropped you off here, but then I couldn’t find you when we came home.” My mom wound her hand into my hair and pulled at it gently. I jerked my head back, then noticed that she was holding a tendril and smiling. “Why is it pink?”
