“I know,” Jasper said. “But it’s probably better if you don’t say anything.”
“This is it,” Byron said, his voice echoing in the cavernous room across the gently fluttering waters of the pool. “This is the map of the three realms. Pandora’s Box. The Way of Paths.”
Maya rose out of the water, holding the Way of Paths out to him. She kept it in her magical realm when Byron wasn’t using it. Since she promised Sam she would protect the map, we could trust her with the map, at least. She glanced around at the old people and I swear she was checking out the old men.
The map seemed like it was almost floating as Byron took it from her. I knew the stones that formed the map were heavy, but not in Byron’s hands.
“This side of the map is Sinistral,” Byron said. “And all of you are here, in this tiny pinprick of light on the edge.” He tapped a spot with the tip of his claw.
“We’re on the map?”
“Yes.” Byron nodded at a lady who still had natural red hair despite her pale, wrinkled face. “You are all Sinistral wizards, and I can find you on the map. But I can also do this…” He traced a line with his claw, dragging it across the stone to the tip of the pyramid where the three stones met.
Strong magic moved into the room, the way sunlight moves into a room when clouds pass by outside. Nothing changed visually, but we all felt it, a shift in the atmosphere.
“See that? You are now standing between worlds right at this moment. If you moved into the magical world, you could go anywhere,” Byron said. “And now that I’ve shown you this path, you will never lose it again.”
“So you’re saying that we can return to Etherium?” Hepzibah asked.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Jasper muttered.
“And I could even take Al with me?” She patted her husband’s chest as he put his arm around her.
“Al, you have demon blood, I sense,” Byron said.
“That’s right. My father was a scavenger demon. Nothing special. My mother was an Ethereal witch but I was marked Sinistral from birth so she gave me up for adoption. She didn’t want me hanging around her neck, I guess.”
“That’s just the sort of story we hoped to change,” Billie said. “That’s why I never had a father around either.”
“All that happened is that when we opened up the magical worlds, the familiars were also able to move around for the first time,” I said. “So some of them abandoned their wizards. I don’t see Bevan asking to abandon me, and I don’t think your familiars will abandon you either. We’re family. But if they’re slaves instead of family, they should be able to escape.”
“So we could go to Etherium right at this very moment?” Zuzana asked. “And bring our familiars as well? Even if we’ve slept with many demons?”
“Um…sure, yeah. However!” I waved a hand. “The council is obviously pretty upset, so they might…you know. Kill you. Arrest you, at least.”
“Did Sam know about this?”
“Yes,” Graham said. “He left the task to me because I was the grandson of one of his best friends.”
“And Sam never had a child although he wanted one so much…,” Hepzibah said.
“That was a sacrifice he was willing to make,” Byron said.
“So you’ve done all this right here in our backyard,” Isaac said. “And I guess we’ll have ourselves a whole lot of trouble because of it.”
We heard screams outside.
“The council must have sent another wave to fight us,” I said. “So there’s your trouble. I’m going to help Bevan. If you think it’s wrong to banish wizards to Sinistral just because they did something the council doesn’t like, then follow me. Otherwise, stay safe down here until it’s over.” I didn’t wait around. No time for arguments. I was worried about Bevan, and I’d never worried about Bevan before, but the magical world was changing under my feet in ways I didn’t expect. I didn’t think this would impact me, but now I was questioning whether I should have a familiar at all. My brother’s familiar had died for him. This was something I never forgot. It was a shock to me because we all used to play together when we were really little.
And then Billie’s familiar died for her, too…
I dashed out the front door and my guys were right behind me, or in Jake’s case, almost at my feet like he was my hunting wolf.
I didn’t like what I saw. The familiars were all cowering back in animal form. They seemed so small.
And our opponent? Once again, it was my favorite cousin, with a couple more guard warlocks at his side. None of them were physically intimidating the way my men were, but when it came to magic, sometimes the scrawny wizards were the toughest opponents. Piers had always devoted himself to his studies..
It’s so weird to be fighting Piers when I’m still thinking of how he was in high school, I thought. He was just a little older than me.
Piers was bringing up the rear, which is where an asshole like him belonged, and he pointed his wand toward us. “Charge them!” he said. “Get the demon! Get the map!”
Someone must have tipped Piers off that Byron could cut off magic to certain realms, because he hedged his bets with a mix of Ethereal and Sinistral warlocks, who attacked us with a wave of magic. Billie and I threw up a defense but it was hardly even necessary as the new force of familiars ran to the front to cast defensive spells—or take the blows.
“I don’t like this,” I said. “Bevan! They keep getting hurt.”
“I know!” he said. “I told them not to sacrifice themselves but it’s wired into us, you know.”
“Jenny!” one man snapped at the little female toad, who had made it through the first attack unharmed somehow. “You’re here! What are you doing protecting someone else? Come to my side at once! You know you belong at home!”
“No! No!” cried a petite girl with long brown hair. “I won’t come to you.”
“You have to come to me. What the hell is happening? Come to me now, you useless toad! You know what will happen if you don’t come home!” He was freaking out, and I had never heard anyone really consider their familiars as ‘coming home’ in the first place. Familiars had their own home in the magical world. He must be very possessive.
“Hey!” I cried, throwing an arm in front of the familiar. “She’s trying to escape you because apparently you’re an asshole!”
“She’s my familiar,” he said. “She knows what her job is.” He tried to zap her and I barely managed to block him. The familiar seemed too scared to fight back. She was shivering with the effort of trying to resist her warlock’s demands.
“I have to go to him,” she said. “He’ll kill you if I don’t. I’m sorry.” She looked at all of us. “Thank you for being so kind.”
Graham lunged for her to stop her. “Don’t go back to him!” he said. She poofed into toad form, eluding Graham’s hands, and hopped to the warlock bro. As soon as she got close, he zapped her to the ground.
“I can never trust you again,” he said.
Even some of his fellow Sinistral guards gasped with horror at this. One of the guys cuffed his head. “You don’t hurt your own familiar! That’ll warrant disciplinary action.”
“Jenny!” Bevan gasped, and he didn’t seem sure of what to do. His job was protecting me, not another familiar. I looked at him anxiously. I felt for him, but I didn’t want him to get himself killed.
“She disobeyed me,” the man replied coldly and Piers held up a hand at the men who tried to scold him.
“Don’t hurt them,” I said. “Please don’t hurt them.” We needed their help, but I couldn’t stand this anymore.
“Helena,” Piers said, his voice so indifferent that it was like we weren’t even related. “You wiped my memory before so I wouldn’t know what you were up to, as if there was any chance I wouldn’t find out. So you opened up magic to everyone. Good for you. Now demons can charge into Etherium and rampage, the armies of hell storming the gates of heaven. But we can protect ourselves ag
ainst it. We can fight back. Is that what you thought? I wonder if you anticipated that you would also end the grand tradition of the close bonds of love and friendship between a wizard and a familiar. I wonder if you knew that when the demons come for you, you won’t have any aid you can call upon. You are ending our entire way of life.”
“Piers, why would demons come for me? I’m not afraid of them. I just saw into the past, the last time the worlds were joined, and somehow, Ethereal wizards managed to exist without getting wiped out by demons. I know there are some evil beings in Sinistral, but I’m starting to think there are some pretty evil beings in Etherium too. And you just might be one of them.”
“Evil! Me, evil? The hypocrite speaks!” he said. “You are the one who is destroying everything. I am defending our people. At least, what used to be your people, but will always be mine.”
“My first political debate went so much like this,” Graham murmured.
“Now, what? Are these your people now, Helena? A bunch of doddering, untalented dark wizards?” He gestured wildly behind me and I noticed that none of the neighbors had stayed put in the basement but were grouped in the front courtyard peering out at us.
“And your blood is even stronger than mine!” he continued. “You’re a royal, a Hapsburg—what a waste! The level of shame and shock you and your sick brother have brought to your poor parents and sisters…”
“Shut up! I’m ashamed of you,” I said. “You killed Harris’ familiar and you injured two of my mates. I’ve never done anything to you.”
“Oh, and these are all your ‘mates’?” Piers said sarcastically. “You’re sick too.”
Jake growled and started to lunge for Piers and I gave him the tiniest zap. “Not yet, Jake. Although I appreciate it. But this is a family matter.”
“Do you want to fight me?” Piers narrowed his eyes. “You never even finished university, Helena. And you’re just a woman. I have had a lifetime of training to dispatch my enemies. Right now, I don’t name you as an enemy yet—but take one more step, and all bets are off. I took an oath to defend Etherium, and you know you will lose against me.”
I knew he was right, and it was so maddening. When it came to a one on one, he had the power. But we had the maps. We had control of the magical world, and he and his stupid council had lost. In the grander scheme of things, he must know he had lost.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said, although I wished I could. “I really don’t care about the council. But they also can’t scare me now. I’m proud of what I’ve done. You can’t banish me from Etherium anymore. And if Bevan wants to be free, he can be free.”
“Good for you,” he said. “But it isn’t going to work like that here.” He reached beneath his cloak, and there was a satchel hanging heavily at his waist. He lifted a tablet out, carved from a slab of stone, etched with archaic letters.
“This freedom you think you gained? Well, it won’t last long. This is one of the original covenants that bound familiars to our side.”
“What?” I cried. “I’ve never heard of that!”
“Neither had I, but these are the reasons for keeping dusty old archives. In times of need, you find whatever you’re looking for. I command you to return to my side, Chester,” he said.
Chester let out a little cry as he hurried toward Piers, clearly unable to stop himself. Piers roughly grabbed the little sugar glider.
“Turn human,” he said. “Turn human right now.”
“Piers, stop! What are you doing? You don’t have to take it out on him!” I said.
Chester turned into a scrawny blonde young man. Unlike Bevan who didn’t resemble me that much, Chester looked a lot like a more delicate version of Piers.
Piers struck his face, backhanded, and then thrust the tip of his wand into Chester’s stomach and zapped him. He staggered back, tears running down his cheeks .
“Now, change back,” Piers said. “And I’ll take you home.”
“You can’t take him,” Bevan said.
Chester changed back into a sugar glider and Piers scooped him up and dropped him into the satchel. Bevan suddenly charged out front and zapped Piers back. I saw only terrible outcomes to this. My cousin’s fury was plain on his scarred face and I knew he would kill Bevan in a heartbeat.
“Guard!” I cried, putting up a protection on Bevan a split second before Piers retaliated with a death blow. Bevan was struck down.
“Don’t be stupid. Split the map. Or get your affairs in order,” Piers said, and then he vanished into thin air.
I dropped to my knees, checking Bevan for a pulse for the second time in too few days. But he was alive and breathing. Then I noticed that he was holding in one hand the body of Jenny. In the darkness and commotion, I hadn’t seen him pick her up.
“Oh, no…”
“I’ll try to help him,” Jasper said, putting a hand on Bevan’s forehead and letting magic flow.
Bevan groaned, opening his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said, hanging Jasper the toad. “Help her first. Please.”
“I think she’s too far gone,” Jasper said. “Some of them are probably going to…be lost.”
“Try,” Bevan said, and Jasper and my familiar put their hands around her together.
After a tense moment, Jasper put Jenny back into Bevan’s hands. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Bevan held her gently, avoiding her eyes. This was our first time facing a real fight. Bevan had only known a very low-key life, but he was rising to the occasion. “I’m going to take her home and see what I can do,” he said. “As long as she’s still breathing…”
“Thank you, Jasper,” I said, intensely grateful for his calming presence. “Maybe you don’t want to be the ‘good’ brother, but it’s not a bad thing.”
He sighed. “I guess you’re right. Especially since Jake wasn’t able to bust out any cool moves.”
Jake growled.
“He says he’s going to get his clothes and change,” Jasper said.
Jake growled again.
“And that he did do some cool moves. Whatever, bro.”
“Ugh,” Bevan said. “I’m sorry. You had to protect me. That’s all backwards. That guy…is scum.” As he sat up, he was careful about how he held Jenny. “And if Chester was forced back to Piers, then…those covenants…”
All the familiars could be summoned back to their masters. It felt like the council was already figuring out how to use this magic to their own advantage, and nothing we did would ever make a difference.
“Fuck,” Jasper said.
Bevan clamored to his feet, holding the little toad, and stalked a few paces away from me to be alone. I saw his back shaking a little.
Jake came over, still wrestling a t-shirt over his head. “Fuck that guy! What the hell do we do against the council?”
“You get a whole lot of old Sinistral wizards to cast a protection spell, that’s what.” Al spoke behind us. “You kids just need to face the facts. You’re not warriors. That’s pretty obvious. Werewolves? No offense, but wolf bites just aren’t the threat to society that they used to be. Vampires, ditto.”
“Excuse me!” Gaston said. “Vampires have the power to enchant.”
“Well, that guy isn’t the type you can enchant, trust me. He’s too far gone in his own ego. Incubi? Same deal. You got this demon here with the unicorn horn…”
“I do have a substantial power,” Byron said. “I can move a wizard’s spirit to a different realm and block them from using the magic they’re most skilled at using. However, it is a concern. I blocked Piers from using Ethereal magic but he immediately tapped into Sinistral magic instead. So with a high level wizard, it doesn’t always help.”
“Oh, like Piers is skilled at tapping into dark magic all of a sudden?” I said. “What a surprise.”
“Our neighborhood association has been operating for fifty years,” Hepzibah said. “And there are two things we’re good at. Gardening magic, and keeping out th
e rabble. This street can cast a protection spell like nobody’s business.”
“It’s true,” Zuzana said. “He can find out just how ‘doddering’ and ‘untalented’ we are the hard way.”
“That would protect us,” Graham said. “But how long would it last? And what about this covenant Piers was talking about and these refugee familiars? At some point it seems to me there would be a reckoning.”
“Oh, there will be,” Isaac said. “But you people aren’t going to be the ones to do it. You opened the gates or made the maps or whatever you call it. Your work is done. Leave the rest to the old folks. We’re going to call up our friends and get all the Sinistral wizard community together to defend the map, and you don’t have to do nothing. Got it?”
“We want to do something!” Jake said. “We aren’t here just to sit on our asses!”
“You did what you needed to do here, seems to me,” Hepzibah said. “You got all the parts in place like Sam wanted. Now it’s on all of us who have been exiled from Etherium to make sure we keep our foot in the door. Just let us protect you and enjoy your house.”
“What about the familiars?” Jake asked.
“First things first. We’ll take care of it. The council is going to get together a whole army, so unless you have some trick up your sleeve to take care of it yourselves, you’re going to have to let us help.”
I saw Bevan’s anger and grief and I hated to admit she was right. I feared they wouldn’t do anything to help the familiars. But at least for the moment, we would have to accept the help.
At least, to buy us time.
Chapter Sixteen
Helena
The entire neighborhood got together and cast a protective barrier on the town to block out all the wizards who might cause us trouble.
We just kept working. It felt weird when so much was going on, but normal life continued, no matter what else happened. We still had to eat, so we still had to work. We got the upstairs cleared out and then moved on to the grotto. This was a hard space to work with, just because it was unconventional. It was also cave-like, the only windows being the wall of glass that faced the backyard, and the rock walls swallowed all the light.
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