Chapter 7
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
The Templar wielded a bizarre-looking staff that appeared to be made of blue wood. He pointed it at us, and weird magic light shot out of the tip. I tackled Nevada to the ground. The blast just barely missed us. It crashed into the pool table, and the pool table disappeared.
“What the…” Nevada stared in horror at where the pool table had stood just moments ago.
I kicked my foot in its direction. It met only empty air. The pool table wasn’t invisible. It wasn’t there at all. The Templar had sent it into another dimension.
He pointed his staff at me. “You’re next.”
I didn’t wait for him to attack. I hummed, my voice casting a spell on his metal helmet. The helmet crumbled to pieces, pouring down his body like raindrops.
Relieved of his helmet, I could finally see his face. It was a young face, not much older than the oldest Knights at the Castle. He had dark, flowing hair. It bounced when he moved, the tips brushing against his jawbone. His eyes glowed like molten honey.
“Cute trick.” The Templar gave me a derisive sneer.
I didn’t recognize his face, but I could tell from his voice that he was the same Templar who’d attacked me twice before.
“How did you get past the Castle’s defensive wards?”
He chuckled. “That wasn’t a problem.”
So much for all the new, powerful wards around the Castle. They hadn’t deterred Conner or the Templar.
“How did you get to our realm?” I said. “There’s no travel through the Spirit Trees to Gaia right now.”
His grin widened. “I’m disappointed. I thought you were smarter than that.”
I could have punched myself when I realized what he was hinting at. There were some people who could indeed travel to Gaia through the Spirit Trees right now.
“The members of the Court,” I said.
“And their entourages.”
I met that smug twinkle in his eyes and felt sick. So he was part of one of those entourages. That meant someone on the Many Realms Court was a member of the Order of Kings. Someone on the Court was kidnapping Apprentices. But who? Was it Duchess Dellondré as Ren suspected? Or someone else?
“Who on the Many Realms Court belongs to the Order of Kings?” I asked the Templar.
“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” He lifted his staff again.
Nevada and I ducked behind a sofa. The Templar’s laughter bounced off the walls.
“You can’t hide from me, Savannah Winters,” he taunted me. “You should have figured that out by now.”
The sofa disappeared.
The Templar stared down at us, a sinister smile twisting his lips. “Got you.”
He aimed his staff at my head. I used telekinesis to flick his weapon away. It shot clear across the room, well out of his reach.
“So you’re not stupid after all. Good. I was afraid this was going to be boring.”
The Templar pulled out a set of throwing stars. I did not want to know what they were enchanted to do. I had to keep him talking, keep his attention on me, so Nevada could get away. I gave her a subtle nudge with my foot, a silent signal for her to get out of here.
But I kept my gaze firmly locked on to the Templar. “Why are you after me?”
He grunted in amusement. “You actually think you’re in any position to interrogate me? That’s cute.”
I pulled Ren’s truth serum out of my bag. I was going to get answers out of him, one way or another.
His gaze fell on the small bottle in my hand. “What’s this?” He waved his hand, and the bottle shattered. He laughed. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
I stared down in horror at the shattered glass and spilled potion on the floor. What was I supposed to do now? That truth serum was my whole plan. Well, half of my plan, actually. Conner and Kato were the other half. They were supposed to be here to help me.
Nevada still hadn’t made her escape. What was she waiting for?
You need to go, I told her.
I spoke into her mind, just as Kato had once done to me. Somehow, I just understood the spell. Because my magic was still connected to his and Conner’s, I realized. I could tap into their magic.
Get out of here, Nevada. I’ll hold him off.
I could hear Nevada’s thoughts too.
No! I’m not going to leave you alone with that monster!
Go. He’s only here for me.
I am not leaving you, Savi.
Nevada sang a few notes, and water shot out of the sink, punching the Templar hard in the chest. He spread his legs wider and dug in, holding steady against the torrent of water.
Nevada turned off the stream. She changed her song, and the water on the Templar’s armor turned to ice.
He slammed his hands together, and the frost shattered. He gave Nevada a bored look. “Charming.”
“What do you want with me?” I demanded.
“Me? Nothing. I think you’re a whiny, annoying little girl. I don’t want anything with you. But my employer does.”
His employer was someone in the Court. But who? He’d already refused to answer that question, so I tried another.
“Why does your employer want me?”
“Do you know what makes a good mercenary, little girl? Someone who just does the job without asking any questions. I don’t know why my employer wants you, and I don’t care.”
“Ok, so you broke into the Castle. Now what? How do you expect to escape?”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“The Knights,” I said, defiant.
“Knights?” he laughed. “Do you see any Knights anywhere? No. And why? Because they’re all busy chasing shadows in the Magic Emporium. And the few Knights who remained here are busy with some shadows of their own.”
I looked at the TV screen. There were a lot of explosions. And a lot of people dressed in techno armor. But when the Knights attacked them, the spells went right through them.
“This is all a trick!” I realized.
“Just some magical illusions and a few well-positioned explosives.” He hovered his hand over his gauntlet. “Like this.”
On screen, I saw an explosion go off as Knights came around a corner.
He laughed. “Many thanks to the greedy, disaster-chasing press for all the cameras at the scene. I couldn’t have done it without them.” He set off another explosion on some Knights.
“Stop it!”
“You might want to work on your enchantment, sweetheart, because that wasn’t very convincing.”
I drew on Conner’s magical knowledge, hitting the Templar’s gauntlet with a lightning spell that fried the controls. The Techno Knight’s whole body shook, then he tipped over.
“Convincing enough?” I used the remains of his helmet to form a restraint around him.
“Better,” he chuckled.
The Templar burst free from the restraint. He lifted his hand, and his staff flew into it. “Not another step.” He aimed the staff at Nevada.
She froze.
All this time, the Templar could have summoned his magic staff to him. He was toying with me. The staff turned crimson. An odious spell shot out of it. I didn’t know what it did, but it wasn’t anything good.
I surged forward in a sprint, waving my hand to dissolve the stream of magic. It turned into tiny little beads, and poured down to the ground.
The Templar scoffed at me. “You are so predictable.” Then, before I could blink, he shot off more streams of magic.
Nevada was in danger! I unleashed a wave of energy that dissolved the Templar’s spell.
I tried to teleport to her, but hands grabbed me from behind.
The Templar. He’d distracted me, then snuck up on me.
I struggled, trying to free myself. I wasn’t nearly strong enough.
But I could teleport him far, far away from here, back to where he’d come from.
It wasn’t ideal since I really needed to question him about the missing Apprentices, but what choice did I have?
I wasn’t strong enough to defeat him, and I had to protect Nevada.
“Oh, no, Savannah Winters. That won’t be happening,” the Templar chuckled.
His hold on me tightened. He slapped a woven bracelet around my wrist. My spell bounced back to me, throwing me off my feet.
I froze in the air, suspended. Around me, the Castle disappeared.
I tried to grab it, to hold myself there, but it was slipping away.
Gaia was slipping away. I was being sucked into another realm.
“No,” I choked out.
The Templar’s laughter buzzed in my ears. I shook him off, and we both fell. My back hit hard, cold stone. Groaning, I pushed myself off the ground, away from him.
“Where am I?” I looked around, searching in vain for something—anything—familiar.
I was in a room—no, not just a room. A grand hall. It was easily as large as the Castle’s dining hall, but there were no tables, chairs, or any furniture at all, for that matter. It was hollow. Hollow and empty and cold. I let out a breath, and it froze in the air.
The floors and walls were made of dark stone, rough and uncompromising. Bars covered the measly patchwork of tiny windows, which peppered the walls like bad sores. A crisp draft cut through the hollow hall, nipping at my skin. I shivered, trying to warm myself.
Dark, sinister laughter drew my attention. The Templar was watching me, his face amused.
“Where did you bring me?” I demanded.
“I didn’t bring you anywhere. You did that all by yourself, Savannah Winters.” Triumph flashed in his gold eyes. “Ok, perhaps not all by yourself. I helped a little.”
“You aren’t making any sense.”
“Then let me spell it out for you,” he replied. “I set the trap. I gave the Paragons’ spellbook to Mistress Meeta and told her to give it to you.”
“She sold it to me.”
He grunted in amusement. “And you wouldn’t have been at all suspicious if she’d given it to you for free.”
He had a point. At the time, I’d thought she’d sold the book to us for almost nothing because she was desperate to get rid of it. The Chameleon had been after the book and could track it. By passing the book on to me, she’d changed the Chameleon’s target from her to me.
But that had all been just part of the game, layers upon layers of intrigue piled on to set this trap. And I’d walked right into it.
“Why did you want me to have the spellbook?” I asked.
“The book contains the teleportation spell,” he said.
It was all clicking into place. The teleportation spell was the first spell Mistress Meeta had given me.
“You needed me to teleport us away from Gaia.”
“Inter-realm teleportation is a difficult spell, one that requires someone with uncommonly powerful magic. You have uncommonly powerful magic.”
He’d tricked me into capturing myself. When I’d cast the spell to send him away, he’d grabbed me and… No, just grabbing me wouldn’t have been enough to change my spell to include me too. He’d bound himself to me somehow.
I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist, then at the identical one on his arm. That’s how he’d done it. The two bracelets were linked. What happened to one, happened to the other. And so as long as we each wore one of the bracelets, the spell that affected him also affected me.
My bracelet hissed, expelling magic sparks. I shook it off. It fell to the ground, and the light show sizzled out.
“You’ve figured it out.” He nodded. “Good. It’s so very tedious to explain things to stupid people. You aren’t stupid, Savannah Winters. You’re just not as smart as I am.”
Well, he certainly thought very highly of himself, didn’t he?
“Ok, you planted the Paragons’ spellbook, so I’d learn the teleportation spell, so I could teleport us here,” I said. “But why? Who are you?”
“My name is Zenik, and, as I told you before, I’m a mercenary.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you. I’m a mercenary, remember?” he said impatiently. “It’s my employer who wants you.”
“And who is your employer?”
A familiar, slimy voice echoed through the room, like he was everywhere at once. “Hello, Savannah Winters. So nice of you to join us.”
My ears didn’t believe it, but when I turned to face him, my eyes told me the very same thing.
“No, it can’t be,” I gasped, stumbling back. “You’re dead.”
Fenris’s laugh was as smooth and silky as freshly-whipped cream. “I’m disappointed in you. Have you learned so little about the Many Realms? Not everything is as it appears.”
I gaped at the vampire prince, even as his warriors closed in on me. Fenris. It had always been Fenris. He was the one behind the Apprentice kidnappings.