“Nobody important,” I lied.
“Cool, can I come?” she asked. I knew she was still trying to get information out of me. “I haven’t gone out for brunch in ages.”
“Sure,” I said with a casual shrug.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Crew left right after you last night.”
“Okay . . .” I muttered, adding a casual laugh. “Does that mean something?”
“Mari, if you’re going on a date with Crew Wrathshore, you have to tell me!” she demanded, stomping her foot as she had done in her many childhood tantrums.
“It’s not a date—”
“Ha! It is Crew!” she exclaimed, jumping in excitement.
“Dammit,” I groaned. “How do you always get it out of me?”
“Tell me everything.” She flopped down onto the bed. “And wear the tan boots with the studs up the sides.”
I sighed as I walked to the closet and got the boots she had suggested. “There’s not much to tell, Iris. We worked on some classroom stuff last night that he insisted on and we are working on it again today.”
“After your date.”
“It’s not a date,” I repeated.
“Whatever,” she shook her head and flopped on her back. “He asked me like five questions about you, in the span of three songs last night, so I bet he thinks it’s a date.”
My stomach flipped. One of the reasons I didn’t want to think of it as a date was because I would get nervous. If I just continued to tell myself it was nothing— just professional—then I wouldn’t have to worry about being awkward or screwing it all up with one stupid remark, or making a fool of myself in some other way.
“I haven’t seen you get this gussied up for a Sunday brunch since graduation, so I think somewhere inside your head you think it’s a date, too,” she added. She sat up on my bed and looked me up and down again. “Do you want my leather jacket?”
* * *
Ten minutes before ten o’clock, I walked out the main doors of Shadow Lane, in Iris’s leather jacket, to see Crew already waiting for me by a car.
“You’re early,” I remarked.
“I knew you would be, and it would be rude to make you wait,” he declared.
“Is this your car?” I asked.
“This? Oh, no, this is a Sentry Force car,” he replied. “Layni just got back from a meeting with the NYC office. I’m not driving into Manhattan, though. You and I will be teleporting.”
“You can’t just teleport into Manhattan,” I giggled. “Someone will notice. There are people everywhere. Literally everywhere. And security and—”
“Yeah, but there’s at least one place I know of where no one is going to pay attention to people coming and going.” He grabbed my hand and his grin widened to a gleaming smile.
The familiar flash of the teleport spell filled my eyes and I squinted against it, feeling the rush of air against my body for a split second while we made the magical transit. Then my feet were back on the ground and the flash was gone, replaced with a grayish-blue sky and mid-morning light.
I looked around and it only took me a second to realize where we were. New York City was all around me, below me, all its buildings blending together, its people and taxis looking miniscule, its vastness spanning the horizon. Everyone was staring out over the rails, just like me.
We were on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
“I don’t know if you’ve been before,” he said as he stepped up to the railing next to me.
“I have, but it’s been a while,” I said with a nod.
For several minutes we just stood in silence, appreciating the view.
Then everything went wrong . . .
CHAPTER 8
Crew's face went tight, and lines of concern were suddenly etched into his forehead. I heard a buzzing noise from his pocket and when he pulled out his cell phone, the screen flashed red.
"Shit," he rasped under his breath.
"What is it?" I asked, my heart suddenly chilled with fear.
"We have to go back—I’m sorry, it's the school," he explained, grabbing my hand in preparation for another teleport. "There are Sentries."
"Sentries? Multiple?!" Panic invaded my voice, making it quiver and break.
"Marigold, whatever you do," Crew said seriously, squeezing my hand, "stay with me. No matter what."
I nodded and bit my lip. With a whoosh and a flash we were back at Shadow Lane, in my classroom.
Crew dropped my hand and rushed to the nearest of the large windows that lined the curved wall of the tower.
"How did they even find us?" I asked, following him and peering out the window as best I could from behind his broad frame. "Shadow Lane is cloaked to the entire world."
When someone wanted to come to Shadow Lane as a student, faculty member or guest, they received an invitation. The invitation would have an incantation inscribed on it, which, when recited, would give the reciter a 'mark'—an invisible magic stamp on their skin—that allowed them to locate and enter the campus. Most magical academies used this method, especially the ones that were situated in the middle of large metropolitan areas, such as we were in New York City.
"I have no idea," he sighed, then clicked his tongue and shook his head. "It seems like every time we learn something and catch up, they jump ahead of us all over again." He growled and jabbed a finger at the glass. "There! There's one—right outside the greenhouse."
He grabbed my hand again and within a second we were outside in the greyish light, behind a wall of rose bushes. Crew crouched low as he moved forward toward the Sentry's back and positioned me behind him. I followed as stealthily as possible, although I was sure everyone in the world could hear my pounding heart and heaving breaths.
Almost as quickly as we had teleported, Crew thrusted his arms out in front of him and released a spray of some form of energy I had never seen before. It didn't look like lightning, but it was blue and bright and crackled as it wrapped itself around the Sentry's core.
Then, as if he were pulling on a lasso, Crew whipped his arm back and wrenched the core out of its metallic middle. The Sentry immediately lost its power and buckled over a bit, before it ceased to move entirely.
The core hit the dirt ground of the garden and rolled toward us. It looked just like a glowing orb but felt like a raging fire as it neared. Crew spun around to me, his face wild and fervid.
"Your jacket," was all he said, and then he held out his hand urgently.
I pulled it off without hesitation and handed it to him. He whispered a spell, then swiftly wrapped the leather jacket around the core and swept the bundle up in his arms.
"Let's go," he said, grabbing my hand yet again and whisking me off once more.
* * *
The great hall, where just the morning before my father had discussed the threats facing the magic community and this school, was filled with what looked like almost the entire student body. My father and several teachers stalked the perimeter of the room, their mouths and hands moving as they mumbled protective incantations. I looked at the faces of the younger students, huddled together in fear, and I knew exactly how they felt.
“Marigold!” my father exclaimed when he saw us come in. He rushed over and grabbed me in a tight hug. “Iris said you went out—I was so worried.”
“I’m fine—” I replied.
“Where’s Layni?” Crew demanded; his tone almost agitated.
Forrest looked around the room. “She was just on the opposite side of the hall.” He shrugged. “She must have gone outside.”
Crew cursed under his breath and started toward the doors that led to the grounds, dragging me behind him, his hand still clasped around mine.
“Sweetheart,” my father piped up as we walked away, his voice tinged with concern, “don’t you think you should stay in here?”
“She’ll be safe with me,” Crew called back as we crossed the hall, past the students, many of whom stared at him with awe and rever
ence.
At our quick pace we were back outside on the grounds in about thirty seconds. Two Sentries were on either side of the main doors to the great hall, attempting to close in, from about a hundred yards away. Layni was trying to slow the one on the left, and two men in black, whom I had never seen before, were holding back the one on the right.
“Listen to me very closely,” Crew said, turning to me after he had taken in the scene in front of us. “These two are larger, which means they have larger cores. It will take too much energy to overload them, and they will be much harder to destroy.”
“We have to get this core to Layni, but we’re also going to need at least three of us on each of these Sentries to destroy their cores.”
“What do we do?” I asked.
I jumped as a set of hands landed on my shoulders from behind.
“Yeah, what’s the plan?” came Iris’s voice.
“You two watch football?” he asked.
“Ew, no,” I said.
“Yep!” Iris said at the same time.
“Okay, we’re doing a handoff to Layni,” he explained, “and then as soon as she has the core, we all attack the left Sentry: one to melt the steel and two to blast the core. Get your best fire spells ready.”
I nodded.
“Let’s do it,” Iris said with a high-pitched excitement evident in her voice.
“Marigold,” Crew said, as he tightened the jacket around the core and handed it to me, “you’re the quarterback.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I muttered.
“It means you’re the most important player on the team,” he stated with a grin. “Get the football to Layni and tell her this is the scout’s core. She’ll take it from there.”
The three of us exchanged a round of glances and I clutched the wrapped-up core as tightly as I could. Crew nodded at both of us, then turned and dashed toward the Sentry, on the left, hurling bolt after magic bolt at the towering metal monstrosity as he went.
Iris and I took off sprinting and she began to cast as she ran. I felt a chill of ice brush past my skin as I pulled in front of her and her spells whizzed past me from behind. Echoing clangs filled the air and frost coated the impact points, as they hit the Sentry in front of us.
Iris aimed her frost bolts at the hip joints, covering enough of one side to freeze the leg and torso together. This slowed the Sentry down as it had to exert more strength to break the ice just to lift its leg.
“Yes, Iris!” Crew exclaimed.
I looked over and saw he had been doing the same on the Sentry’s left knee. We were nearing Layni. My lungs twanged with each sharp inhale and my legs burned, but I pushed myself into an even faster sprint.
“Mari!” Iris shrieked.
I swiveled my head to the right to look at her but didn’t let up my pace. As soon as I did, I saw it—a ray of light swooping down toward us from the other Sentry.
She flopped down on her stomach in the grass, so flat to the ground it was almost hard to see her small frame. I was so close to Layni . . . I didn’t want to stop. Legs in front of me, I dropped toward the ground and slid the last few yards to Layni who was crouched over to avoid the laser-like ray.
“It’s the scout core,” I rasped through heaving breaths, when she looked up at me.
“Roger that,” she said with a nod. Scooping up the jacket from my arms, she started to run back in the other direction.
“Great job, quarterback!” Crew shouted as he stopped next to me and helped me up from the grass. “You can run! Now, hit this asshole with some heat, would you?”
I raised my hands and aimed them at the torso, ready to fire off a flame spray.
“Why is the other Sentry coming this way?” Iris wailed as she ran up on my other side. Both Crew and I looked to our right and, sure enough, the other Sentry had entirely abandoned its course toward the school.
“Kevin! Rufus!” Crew shouted at the men in black athletic gear. They must have been the Sentry Force members that Layni had met with earlier in the morning. “What the hell is going on?”
“It switched direction as soon as it saw you three!” one of them yelled back.
“Well, slow it down!” he ordered.
“We’re trying, Crew!” the other shouted over his shoulder. “It’s like it’s in overdrive now!”
“Oh, shit,” Crew muttered.
“What?” I uttered.
The Sentry in front of us picked up its pace, all Crew and Iris’s frost melted. A sickening screech sounded as it slammed its hands together and created a bolt of pure blue light, just as the other one had done moments before.
We all hit the ground to avoid it. They weren’t great at aiming them, thankfully, as they only seemed to be able to target where our bodies were when they started the ray attacks.
Crew crawled over to me. “It’s Iris.”
“What?” I repeated, this time choking on my own breath and words as my body went ice cold.
“They’re after one of us, and it’s not you or me, since we weren’t here when they attacked,” he said quietly enough so she wouldn’t hear. “It’s her. She’s the target.”
CHAPTER NINE
A thousand thoughts raced through my brain. The ground trembled as both Sentries took giant steps towards us.
Why Iris? Why my little sister? What did they want with her?
“Crew!” Layni called out from behind us. “You’re not going to believe this—”
“We know, Layni!” he yelled as he jumped to his feet. He reached out a hand to help me to mine. “Leave the core and get her inside!” he added.
“Get who inside?” Iris asked as she came closer, crawling to me then scrambling to her feet.
“Listen, Iris—I don’t know how else to say this but—” Crew started, but he was cut off by a deafening blaring noise from both the Sentries.
My ears throbbed in protest at the wailing, screeching alarm. I covered them but that didn’t seem to stop much. Looking up, I watched in horror as their glowing eyes, behind their metal faces, turned red and their heads craned down towards their target.
My sister, I thought with a shiver through my whole body.
“Everybody inside!” Crew shouted, and I could hear the strain in his voice as he competed with the volume of the Sentries’ sirens. “Run!”
“But—” Iris started to protest.
“Now!” Crew demanded. “Sentry Force orders, cadet!”
She closed her open mouth, spun on her heels and dashed toward the building. I turned and followed her, my lungs still aching from the first sprint across the lawn. I willed my burning legs to move as quickly as they could. Crew caught up to me and ran alongside. I caught a brief peripheral glance of his face. Worry and fear had etched itself into every corner and every line.
The ground shook again, then again. They were moving faster. The screech and whine of the laser-like attack sounded and Crew and I both whipped around to see them start moving forward, down in the grass—following the path Iris had just run and heading straight toward her.
I couldn’t think straight and my body filled with ice. My exhausted legs shook and every part of me told me not to do what I was about to do, but it was the only thing I could think of—the only thing that would work . . .
I jumped directly into the path of the light lasers; I stopped dead and crossed my arms over my chest, reciting one of the only combat incantations I was actually good at: “Protegeum!”
“Marigold, no!” Crew barked.
A shimmering, transparent silver shield wrapped around me. Never one for hurling combat spells, I had mastered the art of the magic shield early on in school. It finished its seal around me just as the first beam of light hit.
“Marigold!” Crew shouted again, his voice panicked. “You can’t hold those beams off—”
The shield fizzled as the light tried to penetrate it. But I wasn’t the target, and they knew that. It made its way up my body-shaped shield and prepared to go right
over me. But I had slowed it down, forcing it to work through protective magic.
The second one hit while the first was still on me and I felt a hole open up in the shield. Immediately, I faltered, the familiar dizzy feeling the Sentries gave me taking over and threatening to ruin me. If I fainted now, as I had done before, my shield would drop and their light would hit my soul. Then, I would lose my magic, for sure. With Sentries this large and powerful; and beams this concentrated . . . I would probably die.
Looking behind me, I saw Iris had made it to the terrace. She stopped just outside the doors to watch me, in terror and bewilderment. Layni grabbed her and shoved her through the doors.
She’s safe, for now, I thought with a moment of relief; but I had to keep my focus on the shield—even more focus—as both beams stayed on me and the hole grew larger.
Their target was gone, and now I was in their only way to get it back.
Crew’s body wrapped around me from behind. His chest pressed into my back and shoulders, and his arms snaked around my arms, his hands grabbing my clenched fists.
“What was your plan here?” he asked: his lips at the back of my ear.
I had been focusing so hard on my shield I hadn’t even noticed the alarm noise had stopped as soon as Iris had gone inside the school. I suddenly realized how well I could hear his soft murmur.
A second shield formed around us, sparkling and crystalline and full of energy.
“Honestly, I didn’t have one,” I replied. “Just slow the beams down so Iris could get inside.”
“You would have died,” he said. “Those beams would have killed you.”
“They would have killed her!” I rasped, my throat going tight as my emotions finally kicked in.
“I get it—she’s family,” he murmured. “You love her and you have to protect her. But you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to do that. Let’s be smart about this from now on. Let me help.”
He squeezed my hands and I nodded. “Okay, how do we get out of this?”
Bonded by Fae's Magic Page 4
