by Deva Fagan
“You see?” He smiled. “You’ve already saved countless lives, Antonia. Now you have the chance to save even more. I have it on good authority that an imperial armada is on its way here with orders to destroy the Black Drake by any means necessary, and to apprehend and execute all the traitors.”
“Execute?” I croaked. “Moppe can’t be a traitor, not if she’s actually Meda’s heir!”
“Based on the say-so of some traitorous pirate? That’s hardly proof.” He made a tsking noise. “Perhaps, if we could end this now, obtain the crown, and persuade the Liberationists to surrender, then I might be able to call for mercy. But the moment Regian blood spills, this becomes war. And that moment is dangerously close.”
He was right about that. I felt it, the tide of the future surging in, perilous and unrelenting. But that didn’t mean I trusted the man.
I had to find out what his plan was. Most of all, I had to get to Moppe. Together, we could fix this. I was sure of that.
I used every trick Mother had ever taught me to control my expression. “There must be something we can do,” I said carefully.
Porcelain clinked as Benedict set down his cup. “There is. We simply need to convince your friend to relinquish the crown. So,” he said. “Will you help me?”
A muscle in my jaw twitched. I turned away to hide it, pretending to push back a loose lock of hair. “And what will happen to Moppe?”
“She’s a child,” Benedict said, waving his hand dismissively. “If she yields and gives up her claim to Medasia, then all will be forgiven.”
It was a false promise, yet it gave me courage. There was hope. Those brief, tantalizing dreams I’d shared with Moppe could still come true.
The scent of paper and ink teased my nose, as if I already sat curled in a corner of the Grand Library, bent over a grimoire. I could almost feel the weight of the heavy silken stole of mastery being laid across my shoulders as cheers rippled up from the crowd at my graduation. I turned to grin at Moppe, and—
I blinked, tugging myself free of the bewitching dream. I just had to play along a little longer, use Benedict to get myself to Caphos Lighthouse. Moppe and I could fix this. Together. We’d stopped the Devastation. We could stop this. Dragging in a steadying breath, I set the words on my tongue as if they were an incantation.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
The thick air hung damp and gray as we arrived at the causeway. To the west I could see the fuzzy, pale disk of the veiled sun begin to sink toward the horizon. The plaintive cry of the foghorn echoed over the sea. I knew the drone was meant to warn nearby ships, but somehow it felt much more personal right now. I could be making a terrible mistake. Benedict was dangerous. He could petrify me if he suspected I wasn’t wholly on his side.
“Are you prepared?” asked Benedict, as we advanced along the stone bridge out over the sea.
I forced myself to breathe, slow and deep. Soon this would all be over. But the drum of fear had settled into my bones. Not just fear of what Benedict could do, but fear of the drake itself. I had a plan, but no guarantee it would work.
If it didn’t—if blood spilled and war broke out—I could lose everything. I shivered, thinking of the streets of Port Meda clotted with wounded soldiers. The brilliant blue skies shrouded by the smoke of cannons. What would become of Moppe? And Betrys? Even my indomitable mother might fall, her reputation ruined by my failure. And deep inside, something else might break. This kindling ember of faith that I had the power to change things—I had to keep it burning.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
We’d reached the end of the causeway, where it opened up onto the craggy island that held the Lighthouse itself. Benedict halted in the shadows of one of the stony outcroppings. “Excellent. I won’t risk going farther. Best she see only you. She knows you. Trusts you.”
That’s what I was counting on. I forced myself to meet his slippery grin with my own false smile. Then I continued on, toward the Lighthouse.
“You’re doing the right thing, Antonia,” Benedict called after me.
Yes. I was. I knew it, deep in my bones, with every step that brought me closer to my friend. To the only person I could trust right now to do the right thing. I loved and feared my mother. I admired and respected Master Betrys. But that wasn’t enough right now. I needed the person who had seen me at my worst. Who had forgiven me once already. Who knew my shames and fears and had shown me hers in turn. The person who’d nearly died with me, more than once. I needed Moppe.
The fog was breaking up. Ragged sheets of haze rose from the sea like pale gray flames. I could see the rocky base of the Caphos Lighthouse. Or rather, I could see the creature coiled atop it.
The drake had twisted himself around the base of the lighthouse. As I drew closer, I heard his familiar hiss, scraping like metal chains over stone.
“But it is not safe, glorious queen.”
“If you don’t let me out of this infernal tower, I swear I’ll transfigure you into a worm!”
“You ordered me to keep you safe above all else,” the drake replied, sounding slightly hurt. “I am only following your command.”
“This wasn’t what I meant!” she exploded. “How many times do I need to explain it?”
“I will not fail my duty again,” said the drake. “I am bound to serve the crown.”
I had crept close enough now that I could see Moppe. She stood along the balcony that wrapped around the lighthouse, which put her eye-to-enormous-eye with the drake.
“I order you to take me back to the Victory,” she said, in a voice ragged with frustration. “And look, I’m wearing the crown.” She jabbed a finger at the pearly circlet perched on her black curls. “So obey my command! Please?”
The drake shivered his coils, the tremor running all the way to the very tip of his tail. He shook his head, as if she’d just told him that one plus one was three. “It is not safe. You will fall ill of the spotted fever!”
“There is no spotted fever! That was a trick!”
“There were spots.” His massive head wove closer to her, with ominous certainty. “I saw them. I have very good eyesight.”
“So you’re keeping me safe, even from my own orders?” Moppe demanded.
His jaws curved into something that might have been a smile if his teeth had not been so very, very sharp. “Of course. You mortals are very delicate and prone to self-destruction.”
I could hear Moppe’s groan even from my hiding spot behind a boulder. The creature’s devotion was charming. It did, however, present a problem if my plan wasn’t enough to lure him away. I brushed off my trousers and stepped out from my hiding place.
Moppe saw me first. Her brows arched in surprise, but she smiled. It caught me like an arrow in my chest.
“Queen Agamopa!” I called out as I jogged forward. “Thank goodness you’re alive!”
The drake gave a mighty growl, coiling so protectively around the lighthouse that the ancient stones creaked. “Stay back! I will not allow harm to befall my liege!”
It took all my courage not to quail as the monster’s ravenous jaws snapped above my head. Small pale fragments of bone pattered on the stones around me. That horrible skull leered down at me, still impaled on the drake’s tooth, a foreshadowing of my own fate if the creature realized what I was doing.
I set my fists on my hips, doing my best to match his fury. “Look at her!” Under my breath, I murmured the polka-dot spell.
The drake snapped his jaws closed and tilted his head in befuddlement. He gave a nervous rumble, turning his craggy snout toward the tower. Then a snort of horror. “My queen? You have the spotted fever!”
My spell had worked rather nicely, I had to admit. The bright crimson spots stood out ominously against Moppe’s dusky olive cheeks, ears, neck, even her hands.
“Quickly,” I cried. “You must find her the cure! Isn’t that right, glorious queen?”
“Er, yes,” Moppe sai
d, thankfully catching on to my scheme. “Go now! Find the cure. Or else I will perish!” She swooned dramatically against the balcony. Honestly, I thought she was rather overdoing it, but it was clearly working. The spiny ridges along the drake’s head quivered with dismay.
“Tell me what I must do!” the creature demanded. “What is the cure?”
Moppe froze, looking down to me with wide, desperate eyes.
“Chocolate!” I shouted. “It’s well known that a cup of hot chocolate every day will ward off the deadly spotted fever.”
“Where can I find this chocolate?”
Oops. I hadn’t quite thought this part through. “Ah. Well, there’s a shop right on the harbor called the Bee and Bonnet. But you mustn’t attack it or knock it down. Just ask the woman who works there to make you a pot. And don’t hurt anyone! Right, Queen Agamopa?”
“Yes,” she called down quickly. “Ask nicely. Don’t break anything. Or eat anyone!”
The drake bobbed his head eagerly. “It will be done, Mighty Majesty, with the utmost haste! Do not die until I return!”
Slick as oil, he unfurled his coils, slithering down into the waves to ripple away in the direction of Port Meda. I just hoped he would follow these commands as faithfully as his charge to protect Moppe. And that Mistress Bonnet would not run screaming in terror.
A drum of footsteps turned me back toward the tower. Moppe burst out from below, jogging to meet me and grinning like a loon. “It worked! I can’t believe it. You saved me!” She charged forward, wrapping her arms around me in a desperate embrace. “Thank you,” she whispered in my ear. “I knew you were a true Medasian. And a true friend.”
“We don’t have much time,” I said. “I came here with Benedict, the imperial envoy. He thinks I’m here to help him get the crown, but he’s up to something. He’s the one who sent those statues after us.”
Moppe pulled back, frowning.
A wave of power shivered through the air. A rich, resonant voice called out something in magespeak, too far away for me to make out clearly. Benedict.
“Antonia, I—” Moppe gave a gasp, the sound cutting off abruptly.
“Moppe?” I took a step closer, waiting for her to say something, to tell me how true friends like us could get through anything, how we’d make peace, make a brighter future for Medasia.
But she only stared, one hand outstretched, as if reaching for me. Skin shading gray. Eyes going wide with fear, then blank as a statue’s.
That’s when I realized what the spell had been.
What Benedict had cast, once I had sent the Black Drake away and distracted Moppe.
Petrify.
21
THE SEA WINDS WHIPPED my hair, slapping it against my face as I stood there confronting the painful truth. She was… gone. I tried to step forward, but my legs wouldn’t move. Horror gripped me tight. Her empty stone eyes held me transfixed.
Petrify was a solitaire.
A spell that could never be undone. She would be trapped in stone forever. Until the waves crushed her body and the wind ground her features away to a smooth nothing.
Would she know? Was her mind still alive, somehow, in there?
Oh gods. What had I done?
I might as well have killed her.
My knees went watery. I stumbled, falling against the gritty earth. I wanted to sink into it. Bury myself away from all of this. Maybe I was still in the Forest of Silent Fears. Maybe this was all just some test, a nightmare I could wake from with the help of a magic goat and a friend’s voice.
But my friend’s voice was silent now. Gone forever, because of me.
A scrape of sound tugged me from my misery. I looked up to find Benedict standing beside Moppe’s stone form.
“Excellent work,” he said, as if I were a child he’d just taught to swing a croquet mallet.
All my horror and guilt and sorrow boiled up at the sight of his hateful smile. “You!” Fury shook my voice. “You used me! You petrified her!”
“I’m afraid it was a necessary price to pay,” he said, plucking the pearly crown from Moppe’s stone curls. “You see, there’s no way I could do this, otherwise.”
He twirled the crown around his finger, then propped it on his own head, giving it a rakish tilt. “Besides,” he said, “she was your rival. Now she’s out of your way. The path is clear, Antonia. Straight to the Schola Magica and beyond. Everything you wanted can be yours.”
The air in my chest huffed out. “I didn’t want this!”
“No? You didn’t want wizardry? Power? Acclaim? For the world to recognize your abilities?”
Curse it all. “Yes,” I admitted, my voice raw and soggy. “But not this way!”
“You’ll thank me, eventually,” he said. “Or if not, then I suppose you never really wanted to succeed. Perhaps you’ve spent too much time with your dear Julien, and she’s already smothered your ambition with her petty ethics and rules. She was the same way when we were at the Schola together. What a waste.” His lip curled. “This is your chance to be someone who matters, Antonia. You can take it, or you can fade away to nothing. Like your ‘friend’ here.”
He tweaked Moppe’s stone nose, smirking.
Boiling warts were too good for him, but at least they were a start.
Just as I prepared to curse the insufferable man, a triumphant hiss interrupted, proclaiming, “I have acquired the chocolate!”
The drake coiled up from the sea. A barrel was tied around his throat, sloshing with promise. As he beheld the scene before him, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He looked between Moppe’s frozen form and Benedict wearing the crown. “Glorious… king?”
“Yes, I am your king,” Benedict called out. “And I command you, by the power of this crown, to serve me.”
“But I am sworn to guard the queen from harm.”
Benedict chuckled. “As you can see, Queen Agamopa is perfectly safe. Nothing can harm her now.” He rapped his knuckles against her forehead.
The drake’s coils shifted uneasily.
“And the crown compels you to obey me, is that not true?” asked Benedict.
“He’s a liar!” I shouted. “Don’t listen to him! Moppe is your queen!”
The drake shuddered in mournful agony. “I must do as the crown commands.”
“Excellent. Then I command you to go forth, find the Victory, and destroy it.”
The drake gave a miserable whistle that set gooseflesh over my skin. He struggled for a long moment, before finally dipping his great head. “It will be done.” Then he slithered away into the waves once more.
“You’re just going to kill them all?” I demanded. “Without a trial?”
“I meant what I said, Antonia. You have a promising future. One I’d like to encourage. But you’ll never become a Master Wizard if you get caught up in treason.”
I flinched back. “I don’t care about becoming a Master Wizard!” The words burst out of me, unexpected, but so sharp I knew they were true. My voice twisted higher, pierced by agony. “You murdered my best friend!”
The briefest flash of disappointment crossed Benedict’s face. Then he shrugged. “So be it. You aren’t the girl I thought you were. Unfortunate.”
He swept his hands through the air. I darted back a step, but he only chuckled. “Don’t worry. I have bigger concerns than you, Antonia. And you’ve made it clear you don’t have the will or the power to stop me.”
He gave me one last taunting smile, then stalked down to the frothing waves, murmuring an incantation. Under the flourish of his fingertips, the waves spun up, forming a glittering craft of diamond-bright ice. He leapt out onto the enchanted boat, setting it in motion with another gesture. Without a backward glance he sailed off after the Black Drake, leaving me alone.
* * *
How had it all gone so wrong? To think the greatest struggle I was facing ten days ago was how to enchant a turnip to dance. To think I’d dared ask the Cave of Echoes how to make my dreams c
ome true and expected an answer. Maybe this was it. Maybe Rhema’s strange incantation had set this all in motion, to give me the chance to accept Benedict’s offer.
Maybe the only way I could hope to attend the Schola was by betraying a friend. But I would never trade Moppe’s friendship for that. It was so clear now. Now that she was gone.
I huddled against the cold stones, knees pulled to my chest. None of my magic could help now. There was no cure for petrify. Maybe the gods knew it once, but they were gone. Dead or slumbering, it didn’t matter.
If only I knew the word to unwind time, to go back to that day in the Cave of Echoes. I’d give up the Schola Magica, everything, if it meant I could undo this.
That would be my dream come true.
“Please! Help her!” I screamed, not even knowing to whom I was begging. The gods were gone. Master Betrys was imprisoned. I was alone.
Help her. Help her. Help her.
The words echoed back from the stones around me. Strange that I could hear them over the crash of the waves and the ragged edge of my own breath. Something fluttered in my chest. It wasn’t strong enough to be hope. More like the scratch of a damp match in the darkness, a prayer the light would catch.
What if Rhema had given me the answer I needed? Maybe that was why the word hadn’t worked yet. Because it was waiting for the day when my dreams lay shattered and only one spell could heal them.
I pushed myself upright. Shaky as a newborn foal, I made my way over to Moppe. Salt-tanged air filled my lungs as I spoke Moppe’s name.
I drew another shivering, quivering breath of anticipation, filling it with all the intensity of my will. Free her. Please. Then I spoke the word I’d learned in the Cave of Echoes.
Seabirds circled high. Waves crashed.
And Moppe remained stone.
With a groan, I slumped back. I’d been so sure it would work. But I had failed again. Failed myself, failed Moppe, failed Master Betrys. My memory dredged up that last image of her being dragged away by the goldcoats, her fierce brown gaze transfixing me, expecting the best from me.
