Adapt Or Be Crushed (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 9)

by Sarah Noffke

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Sophia shot a disintegrating spell at the giant right away, but he was too fast. He yanked up his sword arm and held up the metal shield in his other arm. The spell ricocheted off the shield.

  Of course, the sword and shield were the real deal on the statue, Sophia thought bitterly.

  The giant, who was taller than any she’d ever met, lumbered in her direction. He wore traditional giant attire and reminded her of Hiker, who was often in clothes reminiscent of Vikings.

  Easily over seven feet tall, the giant’s strides brought him in Sophia’s direction quickly and made her stumble backward to keep her distance from him. He moved so fast that it was impossible to throw another disintegrating spell at him, and she worried that he’d deflect it again and waste her use of magic.

  She felt like David facing Goliath again, like when she battled the leviathan in the Mediterranean Sea. Sophia took that moment to wonder why it was that she couldn’t pick fights with anyone her size. It always had to be beasts that towered over her and had the advantage.

  The angry giant had backed Sophia up against a large oak tree, but she didn’t realize it until her spine collided with it. The only good thing about hitting the dead end was the tree’s low branches obscured the giant’s line of sight and made him use the sword to cut down the limbs.

  Like he was a tree trimming service, the giant made quick work of the gnarly branches and sent them to the dirt below. Many tumbled down in front of and beside Sophia and blocked her path. She nearly tripped while trying to get over the thick limbs and around to the other side of the tree.

  The giant swung his sword at her, but she dove through a thicket of fallen leaves and twigs just in time. The blade cut into the trunk of the tree and immediately got stuck.

  Sophia instantly brought up Inexorabilis as the giant tugged on his sword’s hilt and tried to free his weapon. His strength had disadvantaged him and made his assault cut deep into the wood. Sophia thought he would have released the sword if he could, but it was part of him and melded into his stone hand like the shield.

  After charging her blade with a combat spell, Sophia brought it around as quickly and with as much force as she could muster, straight into the giant’s side. He howled from the assault and jerked backward. Unfortunately, the motion was enough to yank the sword from the trunk. The attack was also enough to enrage the already mad giant.

  He barreled in Sophia’s direction. She ran backward, not watching where she was going. Nothing she ran into could be worse than being bowled over by the stone giant.

  The giant lowered his shoulders and ran at her. Sophia had no choice but to dart to the side and jump behind another tree trunk. She momentarily disappeared from view but swung around the other side as the giant pursued her. For a moment, the two ran around the large tree like a silly game of cat and mouse, with Sophia the tiny creature trying to escape the towering feline’s claws.

  Sophia knew this strategy wouldn’t last long, so she pushed herself to move faster until she caught up with and was directly behind the giant since the low branches again made his pursuits more difficult. With a clear shot at his back, Sophia lifted her hand and pointed at the giant, then shot him with a disintegrating spell.

  He froze, threw up his hand with the sword, and knocked the shield hard into the tree. Then, as if he’d never existed at all, he evaporated from view and settled on the ground in a large pile of dust. The metal sword and shield clanged to the dirt as they fell into the giant’s remains, where they suddenly appeared a lot less intimidating lying next to a green patch of grass.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  After assessing that no other statues were charging after Sophia or anyone else on the grounds of Happily Ever College, she doubled over and pulled in large gulps of oxygen. Sophia’s adrenaline had spiked when she arrived at the fairy godmother institute, and she hadn’t taken a proper breath since.

  With the threats eliminated, she took a moment to rest as her hands shook and her brow dripped with sweat.

  “We can’t thank you enough for coming to our rescue,” Willow suddenly said at Sophia’s side. She nearly jumped from the woman’s abrupt presence, still on guard from being attacked by angry statues.

  “I didn’t know I was coming to your rescue,” Sophia admitted. “I arrived at Mae Ling’s request.”

  “Which I sent right before the attack started,” Mae Ling stated, also unexpectedly right beside Sophia although the dragonrider hadn’t seen her approach. “It all happened so fast.”

  Willow nodded, her hair hardly out of place from her recent battle. Her skin glistened with a faint bit of sweat on the bridge of her nose and cheeks. “Yes, we barely had enough time to get the students to safety.”

  “What happened here?” Sophia looked around the grounds where statues had been disintegrated, frozen, or broken into large pieces. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any more ready to fight them.

  “I’m not sure.” Willow looked around too with a perplexed expression on her face. “As you’ve just learned, the attack was sudden, and we’re still reeling from the events.”

  “So the statues all over the grounds simply came alive and attacked you all?” Sophia asked.

  Mae Ling nodded, seemingly in a daze. “It’s a very uncharacteristic thing to happen here at the college. Everything is almost always so peaceful.”

  Sophia knew this was true about the grounds of Happily Ever After College. The weather was always ideal—not too hot or too cool, with a gentle breeze. The students were mostly in good spirits and the food exceptional, consisting only of dessert. It seemed like the happiest place on Earth, which begged the question of why the statues would all come alive and try to murder them.

  “Has anything new happened here recently?” Sophia questioned. “New students? Procedures? Magic? Anything that we can correlate to this issue?”

  Willow frowned as she thought. “I don’t recall anything. Professor Ling, can you?”

  The fairy godmother was still trying to catch her breath. “Not a thing. All is normal here.” She sighed heavily and added, “Well, I had to cancel my monthly trip to the Great Library and therefore wasn’t able to update the curriculum, but that’s such a minor thing. It wouldn’t be related.”

  “Oh, yeah. No one can get to the Great Library currently,” Sophia stated. “Not until the location is set once more.”

  Willow nodded. “Then our portal will work again.”

  Sophia’s eyes widened. “Wait, you have a portal to the Great Library?”

  “Well, naturally,” Willow answered. “Fairy Godmother College is one of the few places with one because our curriculum relies on having direct access to the library at all times.”

  “This portal,” Sophia nearly stammered. “Where is it?”

  “It’s in the garden, of course,” Willow stated, confusion written on her face.

  “The garden that used to be filled with statues?” Sophia questioned.

  “Yes.” Willow’s muddled look deepened.

  “Of course,” Sophia muttered, mostly to herself. “It’s got to be the portal.”

  “Can you please explain what’s going on?” Willow’s voice was full of authority.

  Sophia hurried toward the garden, having passed it many times on her way to find Mae Ling. The fairy godmothers followed her. “With the Great Library’s location not fixed yet, there’s a problem with the portals.”

  “Well, I’d say,” Mae Ling related. “When I tried to make the monthly trip, I opened the portal to find the door suspended in the middle of outer space. There were stars all around and distant planets that I didn’t recognize. I don’t think it was our current galaxy.”

  Sophia nodded, thinking that sounded about right. “Yes, and I think that with the portal location bouncing around, some strange magic probably seeped through. That would be enough to curse the statues and make them come alive.”

  “Portal magic is very volatile,” Willow offered.
She moved surprisingly fast although she wore pink heels that matched her skirt and button-up blouse.

  “Yes,” Sophia agreed. “At the Castle, we had strangers come through the portal leading to the Great Library. They went into their closets and it put them at the Castle, so we had a different experience but still very perplexing. It took us a while to figure it out.”

  “And to fix the problem?” Mae Ling asked. “What did you do?”

  “We had to close the portal.” Sophia was surprised that her all-knowing fairy godmother didn’t already see this about her.

  As if she’d read her mind, Mae Ling stated, “I don’t know everything about you, Sophia. Only that which you need my help with and even then, things aren’t automatic and take time for me to see, like your problem with the sheep that you came to me about.”

  “Which is why I’m here,” Sophia stated. “However, let me close your portal first because who knows what the magic seeping through into the college could do next if it turned the statues evil and made them come alive.”

  The English garden alongside the main building looked quite bare without the usual stone sculptures gracing the space. Many of the rose bushes had been trampled, probably when the statues marched out of the garden and went after the students and professors.

  Sophia was going to ask where the portal to the Great Library was, but then noticed an arched lattice arbor in the middle of the space and knew right away that had to be it.

  “Are the students allowed access to the portal?” she asked the fairy godmothers.

  Both shook their heads. “Only with special permission. They know not to pass through the arbor.”

  Sophia nodded, grateful she didn’t have to worry about one of the college’s students floating around somewhere in space in another galaxy.

  “My magical reserves are pretty low after taking down that giant,” Sophia admitted.

  “An impressive feat,” Mae Ling stated proudly.

  “We will loan you ours,” Willow said confidentially and threaded her fingers through Sophia’s at once.

  On the other side of her, Mae Ling did the same thing.

  Sophia nodded and directed her attention to the arbor in the middle of the garden. She hadn’t been the one to close the portal at the Castle and had been grateful that Quiet took care of that detail. She was especially glad for that when she started the spell that she thought would seal the portal shut at Happily Ever After College. It was complex and incredibly draining. After a few seconds, Sophia felt her reserves deplete and slumped, thinking she might pass out from the effort.

  However, Mae Ling squeezed her hand, and she remembered that she wasn’t alone. The magic from the two fairy godmothers pooled into Sophia. She welcomed it, then funneled the energy into her spell. It was complete within a minute, and the arbor glowed brightly before dimming completely like a candle being extinguished.

  Sophia let out a breath and forced a smile. “It’s done. The college is safe once more.”

  “Therefore, we must now look after ourselves,” Willow stated with conviction. “Let’s go to the kitchen where we will refill our reserves and discuss next steps.”

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  The huge chunks of chocolate in the ice cream sundae made every bite better than they would have been otherwise. Vanilla and chocolate syrup were excellent on their own, but when piled high onto a chocolate brownie and layered with chunks of dark chocolate and covered in whipped cream, the whole thing went to the next level.

  Sophia was full after finishing only half of the dessert. That earned contemptuous glares from Mae Ling and Willow, who were apparently going to eat all of their sundaes like they were a pile of green beans and spinach.

  “Feeling better yet?” Willow’s tone was speculative, like if Sophia said no, then she’d get her head dunked into the dessert sitting in front of her.

  “Yes, much better,” Sophia confessed and licked the chocolate from her teeth. The sweetness made her mouth hurt. She couldn’t very well say that to the fairy godmothers without earning annoyed glares though. They would undoubtedly think she wasn’t trying hard enough if sweet treats were painful for her to consume. It was just that Sophia, much like Liv, preferred savory and salty things to replenish her reserves. The fairy godmothers had their way of doing things, and they were smart. They ate sweets to refill theirs, but Sophia could eat more salty chips than chocolate cake, so it was easier for her to eat lots of nachos over desserts.

  It was strange being at the college and having it deserted around them. They sat in the empty kitchen with large industrial containers of ice cream sitting out and sweating on the countertop beside them. The students apparently wouldn’t return to the Happily Ever After College until there had been a full sweep of the grounds to determine there weren’t any other statues alive and hiding somewhere. Fairy godmothers weren’t usually taught combat training. They learned many other useful things, like how to make matches or create happy endings or bring peace to the world, but how to fight evil creatures wasn’t one of them. That was for Warriors of the House of Fourteen or riders of the Dragon Elite. Everyone had a role in the magical world, and some learned to fight while others studied how to create love.

  “So, the exploding sheep,” Sophia finally said when they’d been quiet for a long time other than slurping from their spoons and licking their fingers.

  “It’s the water supply,” Mae Ling revealed and pushed an empty dish of mostly melted ice cream away.

  “At the Gullington?” Sophia asked.

  “In Scotland in general,” Mae Ling corrected. “All of the sheep all over the country have this problem.”

  “I’d heard that, but are we sure the water supply is the problem, and it’s that wide-spread?” Sophia asked.

  Mae Ling nodded. “I’m afraid so. Whoever was behind this contamination wanted to ensure that it affected the Dragon Elite, so they didn’t stop with doing one region, but rather the entire country.”

  “So we know this person or whoever targeted the Dragon Elite?” Sophia questioned. “Do you know who it is?”

  “I don’t,” Mae Ling answered. “But I think we can guess.”

  Sophia thought for a moment before the inevitable dawned on her. “Do you know that it’s Nevin Gooseman? Do your sources or whatever tell you that?”

  Mae Ling glanced sideways at Willow, and they shared an amused look before she shook her head. “We don’t have sources. That’s not how we work. I’m inferring that the person who has the most to gain by taking out your sheep is the one you almost took down.”

  “But we’re not sure that we didn’t,” Sophia argued. “We haven’t seen anything of Nevin since that battle outside the Great Library. He could have been in any of those aircraft that we destroyed as part of the magitech army.”

  “He could also be the one who unleashed enhanced magical creatures for the Dragon Elite to go after in the Mediterranean Sea.” Mae Ling took a long sip of water.

  Sophia’s mouth popped open and stayed that way. She suddenly wondered how she hadn’t seen it before. It now seemed so obvious. But she’d been so busy trying to help Subner and prepare for the upcoming mysterious battle with an unknown evil. Then there had been the leviathan and the simurgh and exploding sheep. But she suddenly felt so dumb.

  She slapped her forehead and nearly knocked herself out from the blow. “Of course, it was Nevin Gooseman all this time. He’s the only one who wants to take us down so badly that he’d go to such extreme measures. This has all been about eliminating the Dragon Elite.”

  “I’m sorry to say that I think you’re right.” Willow ran her finger over the side of her sundae bowl and licked it. “It is the desperate who will go to the most dangerous degrees.”

  “And nothing says danger like killing Scotland’s entire sheep population,” Sophia remarked.

  “Not only that, but exploding sheep will take out dragons, farmers, and civilians alike,” Mae Ling imparted. “Whoever is behind this, whether Ne
vin Gooseman or someone else, has little concern or value for lives whether mortal, magical or otherwise.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Sophia asked. “How do we fix the water supply in all of Scotland? That seems very complex since it comes from multiple sources, including the sky.”

  “It will be,” Mae Ling agreed. “And I don’t have an answer to that.”

  Sophia deflated.

  “However, although I can’t offer you answers, I can offer you places to look,” Mae Ling said hopefully. “Or rather, people to ask.”

  Sophia perked up. “Oh? You know of an expert on sheep or water or whatever? I’ll search them out. Just tell me where to look.”

  “I won’t have to,” Mae Ling began. “Think of the one person you know who has the most knowledge of animals and can maybe share their insights on the monsters you’ve already faced—helping you fill in the gaps on the leviathan and the simurgh.”

  Sophia bolted upright and wondered how this notion hadn’t occurred to her already. “Of course! You’re a genius. How did I not consider this before?”

  Mae Ling smiled at Willow before flashing the look at Sophia. “Sometimes the most obvious resources escape us because we’re too busy trying to escape death. It takes a familiar voice to remind us of what we instinctively knew on our own.”

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Sophia offered to help clean up and check the grounds of Happily Ever After College, but Mae Ling and Willow refused. They urged her to leave at once, stating that what she had to do was more important than anything else. That filled Sophia with a ton of pressure, but she reminded herself that this was a regular old Thursday at this point.

  “Save the world and figure out who is trying to destroy it behind the mask,” Sophia said to herself as she stepped through the portal to a world she had enjoyed many times and hadn’t seen in a short while.