34. Rat In A Maze #3
I activated the talisman the instant I felt it fully recharge, and mouthed the spell to drop the ordinary invisibility shield.
My physical vision swam back into focus.
I looked around where I crouched, fighting to adjust to the dark.
I saw no one in my area of the school grounds.
Behind me, Malcroix Mansion swam into brighter, more chaotic view as my eyes cleared.
The second floor was on fire, in what looked like the area of Frumpy’s.
Windows had blown out in the heat, and curtains waved outside in the wind, consumed by flames.
I swallowed when I saw that Forsooth’s tower was also on fire, only the flames there were green and blue, twisting with magic through a window that billowed with black smoke.
I firmed my jaw, and began to run across the field, moving as quickly and quietly as I could. I would still head for the Eyrie.
Wings would be useful, whatever I decided.
If that decision fell in favor of a mad rescue attempt at my husband’s ancestral home, I’d need a better place to phase. If I went to The Eyrie, I’d have options. If I couldn’t phase the less suicidal way by running into walls, I could always jump off the platform.
I was still running when a shadowy form appeared in front of me.
It wasn’t there, then it was, standing in the shadow of a tall English oak, a dark outline that glowed faintly with magic.
Something about it looked almost familiar.
I skidded to a stop on the grass, activating my magic as I stared.
My heart thudding violently in my chest, my breath came harder.
I held up my hands, still unable to see who it was.
Because of Alaric’s talisman, I couldn’t see my arms or hands either, or the magic I flooded down from my primal to my fingertips.
The form walked out of the tree’s shadow, into the moonlight and the faint orange tint from the fires burning in the mansion.
I stared at it, half in bewilderment, half in a mind-numbing relief.
I deactivated the talisman at once.
“Bones!” I said, relief filling my voice. “Eye of Ra, I thought for sure your father locked you in the dungeon for this, if only to keep you from warning me…”
I trailed off at his silence.
I’d been moving towards him, moving fast through the tall grass, but now my steps faltered. I was near enough to feel it now, to feel what was wrong with him, with all of this, but it was already a few seconds too late.
His hand came up, and a ball of purple and red magic left his hand.
There was no time to block it, or even to step aside.
It slammed full-power into my chest, and knocked me on my back.
I lied there, panting, unable to move. For a long-feeling few seconds, I could only stare upwards, at the stars and the moon shining over the field, illuminating the dark shape of the Eyrie in the distance.
Then a face blocked that view.
It still looked like Bones, but it didn’t feel like him. The cruel twist in his mouth also wasn’t his, or the particular flavor of triumph in his eyes.
The face began to morph and bubble as I watched.
I blinked, still fighting to breathe, my body spasming under the magic. It hurt so badly I fought not to scream, my bones, nerves, and joints still not fully recovered from the lightning spells from a few days before.
I stared up at the mage’s cheekbones altered, the scars moved, the hair went from white to black and receded in length until it was cropped close to a larger head.
The sorcerer who stood over me lost height and gained age, and as I stared up at him, it took another second of blinks and pained gasps to realize I knew him.
It was my professor, Rafe Quicksilver.
The same mage who’d taught me to fly, who’d taught me offensive and defensive magic for months, who we’d all believed to be a founding member of Golden Sun, had just hit me with a spell that fried my magical aura.
I couldn’t feel my primal. I couldn’t move.
I could scarcely feel my heart beating in my chest.
There was only one reason he would have done this.
He was one of them. He was Malefic’s.
The thought crashed into me, even as everything else clicked into place. We’d known there was a mole. Bones had warned me, although I doubted even he had known the identity of the person feeding his father information.
Quicksilver had been in the inner circle. He’d known everything.
Bones always seemed to suspect Blackstone, at least from what I could tell.
Even if he’d gotten the wrong person, he’d been right about his father having ears and eyes inside those meetings, and inside Forsooth’s office.
There’d never been any information gap between us and them. We’d never really had any secrets.
Malefic had been in the inner circle all along.
As he saw everything falling together behind my eyes, Quicksilver smiled.
It was the last thing I saw before he bent down and lifted me up.
He picked me up like I weighed no more than a doll, throwing me over his shoulder in one smooth movement. I couldn’t fight him.
I could only hang there, gasping, unable to move.