Improbable Ally (Magical Arts Academy Book 4)

by Lucia Ashta

  “Come, dear. Everything is well. Just step all the way through.” She smiled at me. She loves me. She wants only the best for me.

  I stepped my other foot through just as I deciphered what the calls were saying. “No!” one said. “It’s a trap!” screamed the other.

  Then the portal sucked me through to the other side.

  Chapter 6

  I appeared in what looked and smelled like a cellar. Immediately I sought out the comforting witch, but when I found her, she offered no comfort.

  Her hair was definitively silver, but it was lackluster, and her eyes were a flat blue, as if they barely had any life left to them. Her features seemed odd upon her face, and her lips were pressed into a smile—a wicked one.

  Oh no. The calls of warning I’d heard before I stepped through the portal sank uncomfortably into my gut. No. It’s a trap.

  I sought out Nando. His eyes were big with alarm, and I knew he’d figured it out too. Marie, right next to him, clutched his arm, looking frightened, and Walt’s eyes met mine only for an instant before they continued their frantic roam of the dark, dank room. He looked like a caged animal, ready to pounce and escape.

  The witch gave a satisfied chuckle and walked to the other end of the cellar. “See? I told you they’d be stupid enough to fall for that trick.” She wasn’t talking to us. Her voice no longer reminded me of a sweet dessert. It was more like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Please, oh please help me with my trunks,” she acted out in an exaggerated dramatic voice. “They’re far too heavy for a delicate lady like me.” She laughed again, and two others laughed with her, the sounds just as ugly.

  I peered into the dark corners of the cellar, but made out only the shapes of two other forms. From the size of them, I assumed they were men.

  “She tricked us,” Nando whispered quite unnecessarily. “She isn’t who she said she was.”

  “She didn’t actually say who she was,” Walt said, sounding like he was beating himself up for falling for her ruse. “We followed her blindly into a portal. A portal, for goodness’ sake! What were we thinking?”

  “We weren’t,” Marie said. “That’s the point. She spellbound us.”

  “Yeah, and now we’re going to pay the price of our foolishness.”

  I didn’t exactly feel foolish. Regretful, yes. Frightened, absolutely. But whatever this witch had done had taken over my mind. I hadn’t seen her for how she really was. “Let’s not waste time on regrets. How do we get out of here? We’re not tied or anything.”

  “We’re not tied because they know we can’t go anywhere.”

  “Then we fight them. There are only three of them in this cellar with us.” Nando began to draw his sword from its sheath when Marie stilled his hand.

  “A witch who’s capable of enchanting us to see something that wasn’t real is too strong of an opponent for non-magical fighting. We need magic to beat her.”

  “Magic we don’t have,” Walt said. “I can feel it. She’s powerful, and you and I only know the most basic of magic, and these two don’t know anything.”

  I would’ve bristled at Walt’s description of Nando and me, but it was true. Nando and I had no idea how to defeat an opponent who fought with magic. I probably wouldn’t have been able to defeat them if they hadn’t resorted to magic. I was woefully unqualified to participate in any kind of battle.

  “So what do we do?” Nando asked. “We won’t go down without a fight.”

  “Of course we won’t,” Walt said. “But we play it smart while acting stupid. She already considers us dimwitted, let’s use that to our advantage. We act like none of us knows anything about magic, gather information about the situation, bide our time, and capitalize on whatever opportunity they give us.”

  “All right.” Nando’s shoulders set into a straight line of determination. Marie stopped leaning on my brother.

  We would do this—mostly because we had to. Without understanding what it was this witch and her cohorts wanted of us, I knew it wouldn’t be good.

  I stared into the dark corners of the room as footsteps approached, their faded conversation becoming audible again. “Tie them up, Sinter. We don’t want them getting any fancy ideas about escaping.”

  “With pleasure, Miranda,” Sinter said. His cold voice sent a chill down my body, which I hurried to hide. I knew too little of battle, but I did realize that showing weakness before an enemy wasn’t a good idea, even if we were playing stupid.

  “You shouldn’t have used my name, fool,” the nasty witch said. Then she laughed again, a deep, full-on laugh. “What am I thinking? It doesn’t matter. They won’t be around long enough to tell anyone anything.”

  The two men laughed with her, and I got the impression they were her minions, probably frightened of what she would do to them if they didn’t do her bidding—better to be an ally than an enemy.

  They stepped into the dim light. Sinter had dirty, stringy hair that lay flat against his face, accentuating its hard angles. His body and face were too thin, and shadows marred his face, making him look nearly skeletal.

  But Sinter wasn’t the worst of them. The man who stood next to him was, because he looked entirely normal. If I’d seen him walking along the street, I would have barely glanced at him. His face, hair, and body were unremarkable. He was entirely forgettable, and that frightened me most of all. If he could blend in so well, then I feared I’d never feel safe again, no matter where I was.

  I anticipated Sinter weaving rope around our arms, perhaps even our feet. I shivered at the thought of the slimy man touching me.

  He didn’t. What he did was worse.

  His thin, dry lips started moving so quickly that I couldn’t follow the words, and then Nando slid against the floor to snap against a square support column. A flash of light that looked like a snake, illuminated from the inside, wrapped Nando’s arms and feet around the column.

  It happened so fast that Walt had only just started to run toward Marie’s side when Sinter snapped him against another load-bearing column. The light rope wove around him and pulled so hard behind him that Walt grunted at the sudden pressure against his arms and legs.

  I took Marie’s hand and squeezed hard. We were next.

  “What about the girls?” Sinter asked. “They look harmless.”

  Miranda arched a single, scrabbly eyebrow at him. She looked nothing like the charming witch we’d followed through the portal. Between all the animals who turned out to be magicians and her, I’d never be able to trust my eyes again.

  “I looked harmless when they followed me through the portal,” she said.

  “Right.” Sinter extended his hands toward Marie and me.

  “But you’re right. These two don’t look like they can do much more than braid their hair, and they probably leave even that for their ladies’ maids.”

  Hmmhm. All I can do is braid my hair? Really? I started to simmer inside.

  “Just tie them together to that last column. They won’t get away.” Miranda sounded so sure of it.

  Then all thoughts snapped from my brain as Sinter’s lips started moving again, and he flung Marie and me against a far column. Umph. My breath rushed from my chest with a painful gasp. In a flash of light I could see only from the corners of my eyes, he bound Marie and me together so tightly that I couldn’t take in a proper deep breath to replenish the one that fled, and my stomach ached already from the pressure against it.

  “It’s too tight,” Marie panted.

  Sinter walked over to us. Even though he spoke to Marie, the stench of his breath made my eyes tear up. “Deal with it,” he said, then spun on his heel and walked back over to the witch—hoping for her praise for a job well done, I thought, though it never arrived.

  “Get the vampire,” she said instead.

  I had to use all my strength and focus to fight my fear. If I didn’t keep my wits about me, I’d never escape. And now we needed to more than before.

  Chapte
r 7

  Somehow I doubted the witch Miranda’s vampire would be much like Count Vabu. Although the count was a vampire, the teachers at the academy trusted him with their lives—and ours. I’d been unsettled since learning he was a vampire, but seeing that everyone else trusted him, my unease had begun to lessen.

  Now, however, all my fears of the vampires townspeople spoke of in whispers in the dark of night came back to haunt me. Hadn’t our situation been bad enough, kidnapped by a wicked witch and her minions? Did she have to bring in a vampire?

  I couldn’t even share a look of desperation with my brother or Marie or Walt, who were all behind me.

  A blanket of pity threatened to settle upon me. I didn’t have to be in this situation. Mordecai’s runes had wanted Nando, not me. Nando might not have magic, but he was brave, a warrior in training who would do himself proud.

  Not me. I was nothing. I had no skills. I was as ordinary as they came.

  Then Marie’s faint whispers reached me. “Don’t despair just yet. We’ll find a way out of here.”

  How did she realize I was despairing? Or maybe it was just the logical reaction given our circumstances. “I don’t see how.”

  “You don’t know Walt. He’s resourceful, and I’ve been told that my magic is strong for someone my age.”

  “Nando’s very brave and skilled with a sword.” I felt I needed to sing his praises. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if us getting out of here was some kind of competition. I didn’t care who got us out of here, or how, I just wanted out—with a deep desperation that had already begun to eat at me.

  “Just wait and look for an opportunity,” Marie said, and I envied the calm in her voice. It seemed I was panicking enough for the both of us. “Take deep breaths,” she added.

  “I can’t. These ropes won’t let me.” Did you still call magic that bound you ‘ropes’? “I can barely take a breath at all.”

  “Try.”

  Darn it, she was right. I needed to calm down. I tried to take a deep breath, but only ended up with a shallow one. It still helped. I pulled in another. And another, until wallowing in self-pity no longer seemed like a good idea. Another, and I started to think maybe Marie was right, and there’d be a chance to take our captors by surprise.

  “Go see what’s taking Batty so long,” the witch said from somewhere behind.

  “Both of us?” Sinter asked. I still hadn’t heard the forgettable wizard say a word.

  “Yeah, both of you.” Her voice was so filled with latent derision that I wondered why the wizards put up with her. It wasn’t like I was ready to feel sorry for Sinter or his cohort, but still, hearing her speak to them as if they were incompetents irritated me.

  The sound of shuffled steps made me suspect they were going up the stairs. Then I heard a door open and close, and we were alone in the dungeon with the witch Miranda.

  “Don’t go getting any grand ideas about escaping,” Miranda told either Walt or Nando. “You can go ahead and wipe those determined, hopeful looks from your faces. No one ever escapes me once I imprison them, and I’ve captured some of the best magicians of our time. Don’t fight the inevitable and you’ll have a better time of it.”

  I expected Nando to say something courageous in our defense. When that didn’t arrive, I expected Walt to retort with something reckless and rallying. But neither of the boys said a thing, and I wondered. Was Miranda so terrifying to look at that they understood the best option was not to anger her? If so, that didn’t bode well for us.

  “Good,” she said. “I was hoping you’d know your place. It’s always so much more fun for me this way.”

  That’s when I heard muffled sounds as if one or both of the boys were struggling against mouth gags. So that’s why they didn’t answer! The boys were bound and gagged. It was getting worse by the minute, and the vampire hadn’t arrived yet.

  Miranda huffed. “Where are these fools? They should have been down here already.” She was talking to herself. “I guess I should have learned by now, if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself.”

  She stomped off toward the stairs, and I held my breath the entire time until I heard the door to the floor above ours open and close. There was always the chance she might be hiding at the top of the staircase, only pretending to leave, but I doubted it. I couldn’t see her, but the rest of us were positioned facing that direction. I didn’t know whether any of them had a clear view of the landing at the top, but I figured it was a risk worth taking.

  If we were going to get out of here in one piece, we needed a plan. At this point, I wasn’t prepared to be picky. I’d take anything with any kind of chance of freeing us from this cellar.

  “What are we going to do?” I said just loud enough that the boys could hear me from across the room. They wouldn’t be able to answer, but maybe they’d be able to signal something to Marie that would help us. “What kind of magic do you and Walt have?” I asked Marie.

  “Our magic is basic,” she whispered, too softly for the boys to follow. She could see them whereas I couldn’t. She’d obviously judged their situation to be too grave to assist us. That was definitely not good news. “Our parents believe magic is too dangerous and they delayed our learning of it until we came of age at sixteen. I’ve only just turned eighteen, and Walt is a year younger than me. They finally started teaching us some magic, but there were always distractions, so we didn’t learn much. That’s why our parents were so eager for us to join the academy. They figured there’d finally be some skilled magicians willing to take on our education.”

  That explained a lot. “So how basic is ‘basic’? What can you do that might help us get out of here?”

  “I can move things, small things, and also immobilize them. I might be able to immobilize one of the sorcerers if I can catch them by surprise. The element of surprise is really important to anything I do because these sorcerers are far more skilled than I am. The only chance we have is if they don’t expect whatever I manage to conjure.”

  “All right. What else can you do?”

  “I can move water, if it’s already there, I can’t actually create it or anything. I can do the same with fire, though I have a lot less control. Uh, let’s see, what else can I do?”

  “Well, I don’t see any water or fire here, so....”

  “There’s water in these walls.”

  “You can pull the water out of them?” That was amazing.

  “Possibly, with enough time, but I don’t see how that will help us.”

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Especially not if you need to surprise the sorcerers.” I heard noises and hurried. “What else? What about Walt?”

  “Walt won’t be able to do anything as long as his mouth is gagged. He’ll need to be able to speak to cast the spells.” Marie paused. “Oh.”

  “Oh what? That doesn’t sound like a good oh.”

  “It isn’t. It definitely isn’t. I just thought of something.”

  Something bad, obviously.

  “None of us can do magic at all so long as we’re bound,” she said.

  “What? What do you mean?” Panic filled me again.

  “If magicians are bound, so is their magic.”

  “That makes no sense. Why?”

  “I don’t know, that’s just how it is. It’s one of the great secrets of the magical world. No one without magic knows it. Magicians, even dark ones, protect the secret with their lives.”

  “So then why didn’t you think of that before we started considering what you might be able to do?”

  “Because I’ve never been in a predicament like this before,” she snapped. “I’ve never been bound before, in a life-or-death situation.” She paused, and when she spoke again, she sounded terribly tired. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset with you. I’m angry at these sorcerers, not you. And a bit annoyed at myself for not thinking clearly and not knowing what to do.”

  Nando or Walt made some enraged complaining sounds agains
t their restraints.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “We’re in a terrible fix, I understand. I’m doing all I can not to freak out.” I was back to sounding miserable. “So when the witch was discussing whether they should bind us, she actually was talking about binding our magic.”

  “It would seem like it. Shhh, they’re coming.”

  Immediately, I quieted. I could hear them coming too.

  Our enemies approached and we didn’t have a plan—not even a hare-brained one. At this point, I would’ve taken low-chance-of-success and reckless.

  We didn’t even have that. We had nothing.

  Chapter 8

  I was busy hoping the magicians from the academy would find some way to rescue us—even though I doubted they had any idea where we were or who had taken us—when four sets of footsteps descended the stairs.

  “I need you to compel them to tell me the truth,” Miranda the witch said to Batty, I presumed. Compulsion must be one of the vampire’s skills.

  No response came for a few long moments, during which I imagined the worst of this vampire. Then a smooth, slow voice said, “That’s no problem at all.” Batty was a woman! “It should be easy enough.”

  “Good. I want you to get started right away.”

  “Hmm. Who do you want me to start with?” Batty’s voice sounded disinterested, as if she had no stake in this fight.

  “Begin with the boys. They look awfully angry,” Miranda mocked.

  Knowing Nando, I doubted “awfully angry” was enough to describe his fury. He took my protection very seriously, and he seemed to also have adopted Marie as a damsel in distress. He was probably fighting against his restraints with all his strength.

  “Do the boys have magic?” Batty asked, ignoring Miranda’s mockery.

  “I’m not sure.” Miranda sounded as if she were studying Nando and Walt. “But they were at the academy, so it’s a logical assumption. Be careful with them. You don’t need to untie them to compel them, do you?”