by Lucia Ashta
Brave placed Gertrude and Marie next to me, while he positioned himself next to Nando, hands sparking like the air before a lightning storm. Walt hurried over to Marie’s side, and though I didn’t think he knew much magic, he faced the portal as if he’d take on anything that emerged to protect his sister.
The air in the parlor grew thick with waiting. Sir Lancelot flew back to the windowsill while the clock ticked like an accompaniment to the popping sounds of the portal. I presumed that the pygmy owl resumed his watch to ensure we weren’t attacked from more than one direction—not good.
Even Priscilla crooked one eyebrow in what would look like indifference on anyone else’s face, but on her inexpressive one, I thought she might actually be worried. The firedrakes, who were apparently humans, alternated between looking at me and the portal, as if they wanted to make a dash to join my side, but were concerned about getting caught in the midst of whatever was about to happen.
The portal finally finished materializing, eating up an armchair and side table, which were blessedly unoccupied, before spitting out a hellhound.
Marie, Clara, and I gasped as the hellhound knocked into the side of a round table, then dropped to the rug beneath it like a stone. The beast didn’t move. I wasn’t even sure its chest was rising.
Really not good. My stomach sank, but I made no move to assist the hellhound. No matter how hurt the creature might be, that was something I’d leave to the experts. I didn’t think I’d ever forget how fierce the hounds were when they wanted to be.
A particularly loud pop spit out a second hound, this one alert but limping. The animal offered us only a glance sufficient to determine we were no danger before limping over to its fallen friend, nudging at it with its nose.
Oh. Anxiety rolled through me. This was so sad, and the portal wasn’t finished yet. It spun so rapidly it’d make you dizzy if you watched it for too long.
From the center of an array of orange and red-toned flashes of light, Wizard Meedles emerged, his thick beard singed, his clothes burned in parts. He stumbled out of the portal without any of the strength I’d observed in him before. He didn’t even bother to look at any of us before crumbling at the side of the fallen animal.
“Marcus!” Arianne said. She and Gustave rushed to his side, careful to avoid the opening to the portal. “Are you all right?” she asked, but her eyes were on the unmoving animal at his knees.
“He’s dead.” Marcus’ usually booming voice was broken. It cracked and tore at my heart, as if I could actually feel the wizard’s pain at the loss of one of his hounds.
“Oh, cher, I’m so very sorry.” She knelt next to the small giant of a man, while Gustave did the same on the other side, clapping a hand to the wizard’s back.
“I’m sorry, Marcus,” Gustave said, and the wizard simply nodded.
The limping hound curled next to the dead one, and Wizard Meedles placed his hands on both of them, eyes hooded.
When the portal pushed out his seven other hounds, they moved right to his side, crowding around him as tightly as they could.
I was glad I hadn’t moved to help. After Arianne’s previous display with the hounds, I didn’t imagine she would be nervous, and Gustave shared her affinity for magical creatures, though his skills seemed to run more with dragons than any other animal. But the hounds, despite being distressed and in mourning, were still terrifying hellhounds, who could sniff out dark magic and apparently navigate the underworld. No matter what anyone said, I was keeping a healthy distance, thank you very much.
The portal, large enough to send Wizard Meedles through without crouching, began to narrow when Count Vabu stepped out of it. The instant he was fully in the parlor, the portal shrank to nothing, then disappeared with a pop so loud that it left my ears ringing.
The static in the air diminished to next to nothing while Count Vabu trailed his eyes across everyone in the room. He took in the scene of Wizard Meedles and the red-haired twins mourning his fallen hellhound, but didn’t pause. He noticed all of our drawn faces but only stopped when he landed on his sister.
If I hadn’t been looking straight at him, I might have missed the twitch of relief that was there one moment, gone the next. With long strides, he wrapped her in an embrace. She stood within his arms, her own hanging limply at her sides. He squeezed, and in two seconds the hug was complete. Neither brother nor sister looked particularly glad to see each other after that, even though I believed they were.
Vampires. They need to work on their emoting skills.
Face impassive, shoulders straight, Count Vabu stood at Priscilla’s side. I wondered if he realized that the others would view her with suspicion, and if he felt the need to protect her from them. Of course, I couldn’t be sure either way. Brother and sister, so similar with their dark eyes, straight, dark hair, and tall, rigid posture, gave nothing away.
“What happened?” Mordecai asked, snapping us all out of our daze.
“That nasty piece of work Miranda killed one of my hounds, and badly injured another.” The gentle giant of a man looked murderous, and I realized that just because he looked kind didn’t mean he wouldn’t do whatever was needed to take down the SMS, especially when he apparently possessed the skills to do it.
I’d have to remember not to underestimate anyone at the academy. I shouldn’t underestimate myself either.
“I’m going to make her pay for what she did,” Wizard Meedles promised, pinning Mordecai down with a fury intended for the sorceress. “No one messes with my hounds like this.” And lives, that was the bit Wizard Meedles wasn’t saying with his words, but with every other part of his body. The man looked like you could break wood on his rigid limbs.
Marcelo let his hands fall from their defensive posture at his sides and said, “We’ll take out Miranda.”
“That’s right, my son,” Mordecai said. “We’ll take her out and end this. She’s messed with the wrong magicians.”
“Precisely,” Wizard Meedles ground out. “And she’ll learn to regret it.”
“Marcus?”
Wizard Meedles turned to the uncommonly soft voice coming from Madame Pimlish. He started, as if he’d forgotten all about her, before his features, the ones I thought might never soften again, did.
Madame Pimlish looked a mess. Even the flowers on her dress seemed to be drooping. “I’m so sorry I left you with that woman. I never wanted to.” Her voice grew thick. She was about to start crying, her upturned nose already pink from her distress.
“I know you didn’t want to, Prudence. I never thought you did. You had no choice. You did what you had to, what I wanted you to do.”
“Now one of your hounds is dead.”
“Not only one of my hounds, but the father to pups this female here will soon birth.” He smiled sadly at the limping hound, who’d circled her body around her fallen mate. “Now the poor sweet girl will have to raise them without his help.” He rubbed her fur, and for the first time I noticed that her abdomen was swollen.
“The bitch is pregnant?” Arianne asked. “I didn’t think that happened with hellhounds anymore. Not since the Magical Council forbade their breeding.”
“And spelled the breed so they couldn’t procreate.” Wizard Meedles was bitter. I wasn’t sure I blamed him. Then again... they were hellhounds. “But I’m resourceful when I want to be.”
“It would seem so.” Arianne’s words were filled with awe... and excitement. No matter how dire the situation, she was looking forward to hellhound pups.
“How did you get away from Miranda?” Madame Pimlish asked, interrupting their admiration for the hellhound breed. “It doesn’t sound like you killed her, but did you injure her? Or take out any of the others?”
“Vlad eliminated two of the sorcerers with her. She managed to get away with that limp-haired nasty one while Vlad portaled us away.”
“How did you find him?” I asked Count Vabu, no longer concerned with what my place within the academy might or might not be. When we fo
ught for our lives on a regular basis, I figured we could dispense with formalities. “I was looking for you. I was calling for you. Didn’t you hear me?”
“I’m sorry, Isa.” And it looked as if Count Vabu really did lament dragging me into Miranda’s war zone when I so clearly wasn’t prepared for it. “I had no idea that you’d go there with me. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do that. I didn’t suspect for a second that, once I disconnected from your memories, you’d still come with me. I wasn’t even in your mind anymore when I portaled out of here for Timout.”
“But I went just the same.”
“Yes.” It was said both as fact and in recognition of my unexpected accomplishment.
“If you knew I was there, why didn’t you come find me? I needed your help.”
“I didn’t realize you were there, not at first. I transformed into my bat right away and was closing in on Miranda’s dungeon when I finally heard you calling me.”
I wasn’t sure the timing added up right, and wondered if maybe he’d delayed in responding to my call. If he’d been that close to finding his sister, he might have kept going, trying to reach her.
The look on his face told me I’d never find out. He said, “I turned back to find you, and that’s when I came across Marcus fighting off Miranda.”
“Thank goodness Vlad arrived when he did,” Wizard Meedles said. “My hounds were tearing into Miranda and her sorcerers. And as good as my hounds gave, they were receiving.”
“So are Miranda and the sorcerer who got away with her wounded?” Marcelo asked.
“Most definitely,” Wizard Meedles said, his mouth stretching into a sordid grin from within his singed beard. “And now that my hounds have scented her, they’ll find her again.”
“Then we’re going SMS hunting,” Mordecai said. “We’re going to put an end to this before they cause any more harm.” The wizened wizard didn’t look happy about it, but rather resolved to do what needed to be done. “We warned and warned them. We tried to be reasonable. But they wouldn’t listen, and now they’ve hurt our hounds and our dragon, and they still have my brother.”
Mordecai flared his nostrils and made sweeping eye contact with all of us, even with Sir Lancelot, who perched at the windowsill. “They’ve messed with the wrong magicians. We’re taking them down, and we’re doing it now.”
So much for an academy for learning the magical arts. I had the distinct feeling my learning experience at the Magical Arts Academy was about to transform into something none of us anticipated.
Chapter 4
I thought I’d seen the magicians of the academy on task before, determined to eliminate the threat the Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy posed. Apparently, I’d been wrong.
Since Wizard Meedles and Count Vabu returned from their confrontation with Miranda, there’d barely been a moment of stillness. Seemingly overnight, we’d transformed from a burgeoning academy for the study of magic into an army—a very mismatched one.
But the magicians who’d been recruited to be our teachers and protectors were working hard to ensure that by the time we met Miranda again, we’d be ready for her.
“Lady Isadora, Lord Nando,” Sir Lancelot called out, catching us on our way out of the hastily converted weapons room, which housed both common weapons and many magical ones I had no notion how to use. Count Vabu had been assigned to instruct all the students on the basic use of most weapons, but Nando was helping me train with the more common ones during any spare time we had.
Unlike my brother, weapon handling didn’t come easily to me. He kept telling me to feel the weapon as an extension of my hand. No matter how many times he said it, I still couldn’t.
“I’m so glad I found you,” the pygmy owl said. “I’ve been searching everywhere you were supposed to be.” He let that last bit hang in the air somewhat accusingly, but neither Nando nor I cared. We wouldn’t apologize for doing whatever we could to prepare for an upcoming war.
“Might I land on your shoulder, Lady Isadora? I’ve grown tired from searching the manor high and low looking for you.”
I again ignored his accusation, brushed my hair away from one shoulder, and bent my head to the other side. “Please feel free, Sir Lancelot. You’ve been working so hard to keep us safe lately that I’m happy to do whatever I can to help, even if it’s just allowing you a place to stop.” It was a bit much, surely, given that Sir Lancelot was a bird, and his body was made for flying. But I’d grown fond of the little owl, and I knew just what to say to please him.
“Why thank you so very much, Lady Isadora. You’re too kind.” He landed abruptly on my shoulder; I worked hard to swallow the wince that arrived with the digging of his talons.
As soon as he was stable, the pressure from his talons abated, and the little owl was all polite gentleman again. “I have been working very hard, it’s true. But then, I suppose we all have been, haven’t we?”
“We certainly have,” Nando said from my owl-less side. “Do you think it will be sufficient in the end, Sir Lancelot? Do you have any experience facing down a force like the one we’re up against?”
The pygmy bird seemed to have experience about almost everything, and if he hadn’t done it himself, he’d heard of someone who had. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the solemnity that weighed down his little body when he answered.
“I most certainly have faced down a force much like this one. I’d like to tell you that we’ll certainly be prepared for whatever might come at us, but I won’t make empty assurances.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The gregarious owl was forecasting gloom. Well, maybe not exactly, but I’d expected him to be uplifting!
“Dark sorcerers fight unfairly, and they make weapons of emotions and situations they have no right to.”
“I see,” Nando said, his face blank. But I knew my brother. His mind would already be processing different possible scenarios and how he might manage to keep me safe through all of them.
“And it’s my experience that dark sorcerers rarely quit before their death. The darkness takes over their hearts until there’s nothing left of them but morbid determination to extinguish all the light in magic.”
I chuckled awkwardly at my immense discomfort. “Thanks for delivering the good news.”
“Good news? How do you interpret that as good news?” the owl asked.
“It was a joke,” I said lamely.
“Well I’m glad you can find humor in the situation that I cannot.” The owl held his head high and pointed a wing forward. “I came to get you for a meeting in the dining hall. Lord Mordecai has summoned all of us for some announcements.”
Nando led the way, and I followed, trying to fix the misunderstanding. “I don’t find humor in the situation. Not at all. I laugh at times when I feel uncomfortable.”
“How incredibly peculiar.”
I opened my mouth to continue explaining myself, and in the end, shut it. For days now, I’d been weighed down by the feeling that nothing I said would make a difference in my life. Instead, I changed tactics. I’d learned that Sir Lancelot always liked to talk, and he was a remarkable source of information—one not to be wasted just because I felt like sulking.
“This enemy you’ve faced before, was it the SMS?” I asked.
“No, nothing so organized or large, but certainly just as unrelenting. You’ve perhaps heard mention of Count Washur since you’ve been here.”
“We have,” I said, and noticed Nando was listening closely while he wove our way across the manor toward the dining hall.
“He amassed a small army, and it wasn’t just him, there were other dark sorcerers involved, but since we’re almost to the dining hall, I’ll just say that he didn’t stop until we killed him.”
I gulped. “I see.”
“And not until after he’d killed Lord Albacus and led to the death of many others.”
I emitted an odd strangled sound.
The double doors of the dining room stood open at
the end of the hall. “So basically you’re saying we’re doomed?” I said morosely.
“Not in the least.” Sir Lancelot actually sounded surprised that I should draw this conclusion from what he’d said. “Most of us are still here, aren’t we? And many of us in this manor were the ones to face down Count Washur and his evil sorcerers.”
The little owl flew from my shoulder to hover in front of my face for a few flaps of his wings. “Don’t you know? Goodness very often wins. The lightness of heart and magic imbues the fight with something the darkness can never have. We definitely have a chance of winning. History has proven it. And the right is on our side.”
The owl twitched his beak in what might have been a grim owl smile, then flew through the open doors to seek out the windowsill to resume his watch.
I met Nando’s wide eyes with my own, and searched for something to say—to reassure him or seek reassurance. I came up with nothing. Apparently he did too, because we entered the dining hall in complete silence, brooding on our odds in the fight that we might or might not win.
Chapter 5
Nearly everyone was gathered in the dining hall; we were the last to arrive. The only ones I noticed missing were the many firedrakes, who now considered Acquaine their home, and the dragon Humbert, who was still on the mend. Sylvia and Mathieu, however, rarely left Mordecai and Arianne’s sides now that the danger to us was imminent.
In the same way, Wizard Meedles’ hellhounds seemed always to be underfoot. Even the hound with her swollen belly followed him around everywhere.
Both magician and beast were doing their best to prepare for whatever would soon come.
The anticipation hung heavily in the air, suggesting that not all of us in this room might survive the next few days, weeks, or months. I had no idea how long this conflict might last, and it was clear that the magicians didn’t either.
“Nice of you to join us,” Mordecai said to Nando and me with a scowl. “Please take a seat in a hurry.”
