Chapter XXIX. Ellery
XXIX
ELLERY
WINTER
The Gallamere skyline glittered through the frost-coated window in Glynn’s office.
Opera music crooned faintly from the record player, punctuated by the slam of the door as Sharpe stalked out.
Seong had departed an hour ago to take Hanna home to rest. Ellery, Domenic, and Glynn slumped in their seats, exhausted and shell-shocked. It was one in the morning.
“I still don’t like the idea of going to Nordmere just because that monster showed it to you,” Domenic muttered. “It has to be a trap.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Ellery said. Although Maltherius, much like Syarthis, had failed to breach her mind, it had managed to force the painfully familiar image of Nordmere’s alban on her. She’d sworn she’d never go back.
Ellery fiddled with the blue stone Maltherius had dropped after it died. Unlike the sharp, staticky chill of Decibel’s, this one felt clammy, like a cold sweat.
“At least if we get ambushed up North,” she continued, “we’ll have a chance to kill Kythion.”
Domenic forlornly studied the enchanted calendar on the wall. The previous day’s date with its notation of Ravfiri’s vigil had dimmed. “Even if destiny will eventually ask us to take out the Dire Three, that’s not the piece we’ve got now. We’re supposed to be finding Summer’s traitor.”
“And once you do, your next piece might well be your last,” Glynn reminded them.
He sounded more somber than celebratory, although after Maltherius had knocked him unconscious in the vigil chamber while it attacked his students, Ellery didn’t blame him.
“Barrow’s right. Your job is still to focus on the prophecy first.”
“I never said I disagreed,” Ellery mumbled tiredly. “But for once, I think Sharpe had a point when he said Maltherius and the traitor could be connected. That’s why Hanna’s going to Nordmere with us, why…”
Suddenly, the stone in her hand pulsed. Once, then twice, until the sensation reverberated up her arm in a steady rhythm.
Fissures spread across its frozen surface.
Ellery gaped as light beamed through them, brighter and brighter until it flooded the office in an eerie blue.
Domenic shouted in alarm and drew Valmordion, while Glynn hastily pointed Aetherium.
But rather than explode into shrapnel or somehow resurrect Maltherius, the stone transformed.
Its icy shell crumbled away until Ellery clutched a large silver aspen pod.
“What just happened?” Domenic choked. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” she said hastily, examining it. “I wasn’t doing any magic, I swear, just talking. And then it turned into…”
A seed.
All three of them fell silent as the gravity of the situation took hold. Hope unfurled in Ellery, surprised, wondrous, precious hope.
“This is proof,” she exclaimed. “I mean, Maltherius is Syarthis’s counterpart, and Syarthis is made of aspen wood, isn’t it? So if this seed found the right wielder, then I bet they really could turn it into a wand. A Winter wand. Just like I did with Iskarius.”
“What?” Domenic shook his head. “No. No, we can’t.”
Ellery startled. “What do you mean, we can’t?”
“Ellery, please, think,” Glynn urged. “You still don’t know how you made Iskarius, nor do you know how you turned Maltherius’s … well, whatever it is, into a seed. The stakes are too high to play around with things we don’t understand.”
“But we’re so close to understanding it,” Ellery said. “I can feel it. I just need to think. Glynn, do you still have Decibel’s stone stored here?”
Glynn hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally, and flicked Aetherium. A filing cabinet opened, and a box lifted out and landed on his desk. Ellery set the aspen pod down and lifted Decibel’s stone.
“I was talking when Maltherius’s seed started to change,” she said, thinking aloud. “But I’ve spoken while holding these things before, and it didn’t have any effect. So what was different? What did I … Oh.” Her breath hitched. “I said its name.”
“All right,” Domenic said slowly. “But even if that’s what triggered it, we don’t know this one’s name. Not its real name, anyway.”
Ellery huffed in frustration and replayed the moments before Maltherius’s seed had transformed. How it had thumped in her hand.
Like a heartbeat.
Ellery drew Iskarius and focused, just as she had in the Barren four weeks ago. She shut her eyes. Decibel’s staticky cold prickled against her palm, and she exhaled, trying to listen.
Faintly, she found a rhythm. Ellery fed her own magic into the stone—no, the heart—until it thudded steadily in her hand, until a name crackled in her mind.
“Eledrium,” she said, like a command.
When she opened her eyes, a silver pinecone rested in her palm.
“Okay,” Ellery said excitedly. “It’s Ravfiri’s counterpart. And they’re both made of pine.” She set Eledrium’s seed down, then summoned one of Glynn’s spare notebooks. Ellery dictated through Iskarius, each word appearing on the chart as soon as she’d thought it.
Magical Specialty
NDC Nickname
True Name
Summer Counterpart
Enchantment
Decibel
Eledrium
Ravfiri
Nature
Thundersnow
Kythion
Targath
Corporeal
Cadaver
Maltherius
Syarthis
“This is what we’ll show the rest of the Council,” she declared. “It’s clear, it’s straightforward, and when we pair it with the seeds, they’ll have no choice but to take us seriously.”
“The Council still won’t go for it.” Domenic had pocketed Valmordion and slouched against the wall, his arms crossed. “They think Winter wands are too dangerous.”
“They’d be no more dangerous than the wands half of them are wielding,” she argued.
“You know it’s not the same.”
“With the right magicians, it could be.” Ellery turned away from Glynn and strode toward Domenic. “I don’t get it, Dom. What’s so wrong with this idea?”
Domenic straightened and raked his hands through his hair. “Nothing is wrong with it! I agree with you—I always agree with you. But we just lost Ravfiri. Maltherius invaded the Citadel. This isn’t the time to take risks.”
“Isn’t it? If we don’t do anything, we’ll never figure this out. We can’t just leave it alone. It’s too major. Too important—”
“They won’t go for this,” he repeated.
“We don’t have to do everything the Council says,” Ellery snapped.
“You didn’t care what they thought when you climbed into my dorm room and convinced me I was a Chosen One.
Or when you summoned everyone to your house, or when we went off-script during the press conference, or, I don’t know, when we were making out right before Kythion showed up! ”
Domenic’s eyes bulged, and he shot a horrified look toward Glynn. Ellery whipped around to face her mentor, flushing. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
Glynn slid off his glasses and pinched his brow. Ellery decided she’d already gone too far to care and glared back at Domenic.
“I-I know all that. But El, we might be the strongest magicians in the country, but there are other strong magicians too.” Domenic’s tone was fervent, desperate.
The horrors of the day lingered in his stare.
“It’s thanks to Hanna that Kumar’s alive.
And you saw Peak take on Kythion. We need the Council.
And after losing more territory, after today, would you really rather we figure out the prophecy without their help?
Would you rather face the cataclysm alone? ”
Ellery swallowed. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you pushing so hard? Why can’t you let this go?”
“Because it could change everything!” Ellery’s voice cracked, and a longing poured from her that she’d scarcely admitted to herself.
“Because if Maltherius and Eledrium can become wands, then that might just be the beginning. What if we could double Alderland’s power?
Its magicians? What if every ghast was gone, and there was nothing left to fight? ”
“Our only choice is to fight. We’re in the middle of a war.”
“But the prophecy said we’d restore balance to the land. What if this is what that means? What if this is how the war ends?”
Domenic tilted his head back and heaved out a groan. “I promise, I hear you. But that’s a lot of ifs.”
Ellery backed away from him. “You asked me if you’d rather we face the cataclysm alone? Well, I’m already alone. And if there were other Winter magicians, if I was the first of a kind instead of the fucked-up exception everyone else thinks I am, then that could all change.”
Maybe it was a selfish thought. But it was too tantalizing to push away.
Domenic’s expression collapsed into something anguished. He reached for her shoulder. “I’m sorry, El, but—”
Ellery pushed him away. “I don’t need you to apologize. I need you to be on my side.”
“I’m … I’m just trying to protect you.”
“Don’t,” Ellery said coldly.
Domenic’s hand quivered as it fell. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he muttered. Then he flung open the door and left.
Glynn didn’t even wait for it to click shut. “Ellery?” he asked tightly. “A word?”
Ellery turned, already braced. “Do you really think now is a good time to lecture me?”
“Apparently, a lecture is warranted. How long have you been romantically involved with Domenic Barrow?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over now, anyway.”
“If that’s what over looks like, I shudder to think of what it looked like when it wasn’t. Oh wait, I don’t have to. You already painted me such a vivid picture. I mean, goodness, were you truly carrying on at the NDC compound? I expected better of you.”
His disappointment was a palpable, awful weight. After the countless times Ellery had stood in this office and smiled and strived to be perfect, she felt an overwhelming urge to apologize.
“I know you did,” she said. “But we were careful, I swear.”