Magical Arts Academy: Omnibus 2

by Lucia Ashta

  Dead people had to know better than that, right?

  “He has long gray hair with tons of braids and beads at the bottom of them, a really long, bushy beard, and he wears a robe.” While not his family name, his appearance was unique—well, beyond looking much like his brother Mordecai. Before meeting the brothers, I’d never seen anyone like them before.

  “I know him!” a voice called.

  “I do too.”

  “I’ve seen him.”

  “Great,” I said. “That’s fantastic.” And I meant it.

  Maybe something good would come of this uncomfortable situation. I couldn’t shake the desire to be rid of them all, but if they helped me find Albacus, it’d be worth a bit of discomfort.

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked.

  A portly woman stepped forward. “Oh yes, I know everything that happens here.” She spoke with self-importance. She was coiffed and primped and dressed to impress. Undoubtedly, she’d believed herself important when she was alive. “You see, I am the great Lady Gosselin.”

  “The late Lady Gosselin,” a stiff-looking man said from three ghosts away from her.

  The great Lady Gosselin waved his comment away. “Why do you need to find the Lord of Irele?”

  “Uh, to return him to his brother, who misses him.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the most important part. I wasn’t expecting to be questioned. But then, I hadn’t imagined a single part of this.

  She tilted her face upward and looked down her nose at me while she decided. “I suppose that’s a noble cause.”

  “Her cause doesn’t need to be noble. You just need to answer her.” The same man spoke, throwing her a well-honed irritated look. I hoped those two weren’t slotted to share eternity together. From the looks of things, they’d try to kill each other all over again.

  “Nothing comes for free, not even in the spirit world, you should know that by now.”

  “How could I not? You remind us of it at every chance?”

  I wondered what went on here that would create this kind of dynamic, but I didn’t dare ask. I had the feeling it would be like pulling at the end of a big, messy, tangled ball of thread, and I had neither the time nor the patience for that.

  Instead, I tried to bypass their drama. I ignored the dozens of faces peering curiously at me and addressed the imperious lady, figuring that was the fastest way to the information I needed. “Lady Gosselin, I’d be most grateful if you’d tell me where he is so I can be on my way.”

  She gave me a haughty look and waited, for what, I had no idea. I bit down my impatience and tried again. “You see, his return is incredibly important.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “His brother wants him returned.”

  “So you’ve already said, young lady. That’s important, but not incredibly so.”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to get into the real reasons. It would take too long, and as strange as it was, I didn’t trust any of them. They might be dead, but obviously they weren’t beyond passing information. The Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy had agents everywhere. Maybe even here.

  “Don’t you evade me, young lady. I know that look.”

  “Yeah, that’s because we all give it to you all the time.”

  Lady Gosselin gave the tall, thin man a scathing look that promised repercussions later. He didn’t seem to care, and I took a moment to be thankful I wouldn’t be around for whatever would come to pass between them—later, once I was long gone.

  The other ghosts regarded the thin man warily and took miniscule steps away from him, just enough to signal that he was on his own if he kept prodding the wild beast that was Lady Gosselin.

  “Give me the true reason, and I’ll consider telling you where he is.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her what she wanted and get it over with, but ended up saying, “Why? Why won’t you just tell me and help me out? It doesn’t seem as if you have anything better to do.” Why hadn’t these spirits moved on, anyway?

  “My dear,” Lady Gosselin began, making it obvious she didn’t actually hold anyone but herself dear. “I deal in power. I always have. We’re all dead. Riches mean nothing in this world, but knowledge does. Knowledge is power, and I will wield all of it available to me.”

  She was completely unapologetic about what I was beginning to regard as her greed.

  “Why do you need to wield power, as you say?”

  She brought two perfectly manicured hands to her hips, jeweled rings managing to shine even in the spirit world. I was certain she’d used this gesture many times while she was alive and working to get her way. She tsked me. “Girls like you will never understand.”

  Oh? I didn’t like to be told what I will and won’t do, not even when dead, and especially not by someone like her. My nostrils flared and my jaw clenched as I struggled within myself. Engaging her would just delay things, and possibly even compromise my ability to find Albacus.

  It would feel good to tell her exactly what I was beginning to think of her, but my ultimate goal was to get out of here. Once I left, I’d never see her again, and that one thought was the one that forced a measured reaction on me.

  I offered the rail of a man, the only one who spoke up to her, a look that said, You have my sympathy. Keep up the good work of standing up to her. Then, aloud, I said, “What do I need to do to get you to tell me where he is?”

  “Simple.” She flicked a bedazzled hand off to the side then reached up to pat her perfect hair. “Just tell me the whole story of why you want to find him. If I’m satisfied you’ve told me the truth, then I’ll help you. As long as I agree with your reason in wanting to find him, of course.”

  “Of course.” I smiled at her tightly.

  “I have all the time in the world, as do they. But do you?”

  I opened my mouth to ask her why they had all the time in the world, why they hadn’t passed through the light that had whisked Sibylle away, then stopped. I debated deflecting her request and trying to either find another way to locate Albacus or trick her into giving him up.

  In the end, it was a good look at the other ghosts who surrounded us that convinced me. Their broken expressions told me that the easiest way was just to give the Lady Gosselin exactly what she wanted.

  I had no desire to, but I did want to find Albacus and return to life, so I took in a deep breath, and went for broke.

  I intended to tell her just enough to buy her information, but in the end, I gave her more than that.

  Somewhere along the way of my story, I realized that they were each lost in their own way, just as Sibylle had been. They wanted to pass through the light, but they were waiting for it to appear for them. Their jobs here weren’t yet complete.

  Maybe in helping me turn the tides of the war of magic, which would perhaps spare the lives of uncountable innocents, they’d earn their transport.

  Or maybe, like with Sibylle, it was nothing external to them, no need to deserve or be ready beyond what was already within them.

  Either way, once I started recounting the twists that had deposited me here, in the spirit world, looking for a wizard to help us fight the SMS, their faces softened and became entirely human. Even Lady Gosselin looked almost kind.

  I told them everything I believed safe to tell them, clutched my lifeline, and waited for Lady Gosselin’s response, knowing all too well that time had ticked away while I spoke, and time wasn’t on my side.

  I just hoped these spirits were. Because this was my only chance at finding Albacus.

  There was no time for another attempt.

  Chapter 6

  I’d anticipated some kind of reaction from the ghosts. Even so, the way they reacted was wholly unexpected.

  “Oh, those sniveling toads!” the great Lady Gosselin said, working herself into a fury. “Who do they think they are lording over the magical world? And the non-magical world too! They must have lost their bloody minds.”

  I blinked at her, unsure what to say to the
raging ghost, who clearly had been aware of the existence of magic—and not just the rumors, the real thing.

  “Can you believe it, Steven?”

  When the tall, thin man who’d been pinning her in his glare when I first met up with them revealed himself to be Steven, a ghost the Lady Gosselin deigned herself to speak to, I was shocked. “I can believe it,” he said. “I saw it coming. Didn’t I tell you I thought something like this would happen?”

  “I suppose you did, but I still can barely believe it. It’s madness.”

  Well, there was one point I could definitely agree with. It was totally madness, and worse, somehow I’d gotten roped in the middle of it—literally. I clung to my lifeline and studied the ghosts surrounding me. Even those quiet ones, clearly intimidated by Lady Gosselin, were upset at my explanation, and I’d kept lots of things to myself. There wasn’t enough time to recount how many occasions the Sorcerers had infiltrated the academy’s defenses. How many times we’d neared a place from which we couldn’t return.

  Case in point, I was dead because I’d intervened in one of the Sorcerers’ dark spells. Curiously, no one had asked how I’d died.

  “I know Lord Albacus of Irele,” the Lady Gosselin was saying, “and you definitely need him on your side in this war.”

  “You don’t actually know Albacus,” Steven said, while the rest of the ghosts observed their banter like it was a tennis match, and it wasn’t their place to intervene. “You know of Albacus, and that’s a very different thing.”

  “Not in this instance, it isn’t. I know everything there is to know about his reputation. I certainly know enough to understand how incredibly important it is that this girl find him.”

  “My name is Isadora,” I said, and she dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

  “We have to help her.”

  I arched my eyebrows at that. The Lady Gosselin had suddenly gone from I to we.

  Lady Gosselin continued. “There’s no better wizard than Lord Albacus of Irele, beyond his brother Lord Mordecai, of course.”

  So she does know them! Or of them at the very least.

  “We’ll help her, won’t we, Steven?”

  Steven didn’t answer right away. Opposite in every way to Lady Gosselin, he studied me with piercing eyes that made me want to squirm at his attention.

  He was tall and thin, where Lady Gosselin was curvaceous, almost plump. Whereas she was bedecked with every advantage of fashion, he was dressed simply. His clothes were cut elegantly but designed not to draw the eye.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  He took his time to answer, during which even the other ghosts seemed impatient for his reply. “I’m debating how much help to give you.”

  “Oh, good,” Lady Gosselin said, sounding strangely relieved. “So what are we going to do?”

  The lady, who’s made it so evident she’s in charge, is asking him?

  “We’re going with her,” Steven said. “All of us. We’re going to help her recover Albacus.”

  Lady Gosselin smiled, transforming the imperious expression, which appeared permanent on her face, into a pleasant one. “How wonderful! This is just what I needed, a little adventure to pass the time. It’s been far too long since we gave those pesky sorcerers trouble.”

  “Wait.” I was in a hurry, sure, but I wasn’t certain I understood. I directed my questions to Lady Gosselin. “So you and Steven are, uh, were magicians?”

  “Of course.” She patted her hair as if to make sure it was still perfectly in place. Since nothing changed about the spirits, I guessed it was a habit from when she was alive. “No one could keep a secret as great as the existence of magic, not from me.” She seemed very pleased with herself. “And Steven already knew about magic when I met him.”

  “Oh? You and Steven knew each other when you were, ah, alive?”

  “Of course we did, silly girl. He’s my husband.”

  My jaw actually started to fall open before I had the awareness to clamp my lips shut. Her husband? I definitely hadn’t seen that revelation coming. “I see,” I finally sputtered. “And, um, all the rest of you?” There had to be at least two dozens of them.

  “Some of them were magicians, skilled in their own way. Some of them learned about it once they passed on from their bodies. Those of us with magic tend to band together.” She clapped her hands; they didn’t make a sound. “And now we’re all going to help you!”

  She pointed to an ordinary-looking woman to my left. “Mariana there is quite skilled at locating spells. I’d bet she could pinpoint exactly where Lord Albacus is. How long has he been dead?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. A while, I think.”

  “Well, don’t go out of your way to be helpful, dear.”

  I brushed off her comment, and she didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Mariana, do you think you could find him?”

  “I think so,” said the ghost of a woman with long, brown hair and a plain but pleasant face.

  “Wait,” I said, ignoring the irony that I was the one who was in such a hurry, and I was the one to keep halting this train Lady Gosselin was anxious to set barreling down the tracks. “You can do magic once you’re, um, you know, dead?”

  “Poor dear,” Lady Gosselin said. “Clearly no one has taken the time to teach you how to speak properly.”

  No, it’s just that I’ve never had to talk to ghosts before. And speaking with the dead hadn’t exactly been on Mamá’s curriculum for my studies.

  “We can’t perform the same magic as we could before,” she said. “But, as you know, all magic is based in the four elements. Therefore, even though we are, in theory, dead”—I was pretty sure it was more than theory—“the elements are still a part of us.”

  Steven added, “So long as we exist in some form, the elements are within us, which means we can draw on them to perform magic.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You can’t affect the physical world, right? You can’t actually move things in the world of the living or anything like that?”

  “No, we can’t,” Steven said, a somber tilt to his head.

  “But you can still do magic?”

  “Some magic. That which doesn’t require us to manipulate the physical world.”

  “And so Mariana can find Albacus?”

  Mariana smiled kindly at me, taking a step forward, separating herself from the many ghosts that surrounded us. “I believe that I can, so I can.”

  Hunh. That was an interesting way to phrase that.

  “Well?” Lady Gosselin said. “What are you waiting for? Mariana, do the spell. Find Albacus.”

  “Please,” I added. “It would be most helpful.” But Mariana didn’t appear affronted by Lady Gosselin’s bossy nature. I supposed she was well used to it after who knew how long they’d shared the spirit world.

  Oh! I bit my lip, debating how best to ask what I’d just realized. “How long have— Um, Lady Gosselin?”

  “Yes, dear?” She looked at me pitiably, as if I were a bit dim-witted and it wasn’t entirely my fault that I couldn’t speak well.

  “Were you actually acquainted with Albacus while he was alive? I mean, because you already said you didn’t know him, but, well, was he alive while you, ah, were?”

  She tsked and shook her head, but let my stellar lack of ability to express myself eloquently pass this time. I didn’t really care. Even Mamá would cut me some slack given my circumstances.

  For once, Steven beat his wife to the reply. “We did live when he did. Most of us here have. But he’s lived longer than a normal lifespan.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that.” I was disappointed in his answer, without fully understanding why. I didn’t need to know when they’d lived and died. I’d just been... curious, I supposed. Knowing they were contemporaries of Albacus didn’t help at all, especially not when he’d lived more than three centuries before dying.

  You don’t h
ave time to understand things, Isa, I admonished myself. You need to find Albacus and get back to your body immediately. You already wasted time helping Sibylle. I hadn’t really wasted time helping Sibylle, but I had used up some of the precious bit I had.

  “Are you quite finished with your questions?” Lady Gosselin asked. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “I am, in a very great hurry.”

  Lady Gosselin just looked at me, saying without words, Well, then why do you keep delaying Mariana?

  When I didn’t reply, aloud or with my expression, Lady Gosselin folded her arms across her chest and said, “Mariana, proceed.”

  Mariana smiled at me. I realized she didn’t take orders from Lady Gosselin, not in the way the great lady thought, anyway. I was starting to understand that Mariana, and probably many of the other ghosts, went along with the flow because that was easiest and led to less conflict. But the determined expression on Mariana’s face made it clear she was more than capable of standing up to the likes of Lady Gosselin if she had reason to.

  The kind witch spread her arms wide, just as I’d seen the magicians of the academy do many times when they were about to cast a spell. She hovered in the air as comfortably as if she were standing on firm ground, then closed her eyes.

  Right away, her lips began moving. I strained my ears to pick up the words of her spell, but if that was difficult to do with magicians who were very much alive, it was even more difficult when the witch was dead.

  I made out little more than melodious sounds that showed me she was speaking, but I had no chance of learning her spell. Oh well. Maybe once this was all over and I came back to life I could actually sit in on some real classes of magic. One day, I might actually learn spell casting and have use for that spell book Madame Pimlish suggested we carry with us everywhere to jot down our new spells.

  A rustling of the still air around us snapped me from my wandering thoughts. I hadn’t noticed until then how incredibly still the air had been, almost as if it, too, were dead—an impossibility, surely.

  A stout breeze whipped to life now. Had we been alive, it would have been enough to muss Lady Gosselin’s hair. As it was, not a hair drifted out of place.