Chapter 3
THE LAWS OF MAGIC
The guards left me and Seriana alone in the cold, stone cell.
“Fenris has always been a ruthless, amoral boy,” the Vampire Queen said.
“Ruthless to the point of psychotic?”
“Sadly, yes. That’s why I named his younger sister Lyssa to be my heir. Fenris is far too ambitious, and his brother Wyxl has no ambition at all.” She sat down on the floor, sighing. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“How long do vampires live?” I asked her.
She looked up at me, her eyes tired and wary. “Why do you ask?”
“Fenris is centuries old, right? But he doesn’t look old. And neither do you.”
She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall.
“No one really knows how long vampires live. We don’t die of old age.
But, after many centuries, we feel like we’ve been stretched thin, like there’s hardly anything left of us.
I had planned to retire soon from the Court and from ruling my kingdom, so I could finally enjoy life before I lose my edge.
” She rested her head against one of her hands. “Politics is very tiring.”
“I can imagine,” I replied. “What will you do with all your free time after you retire?”
“If we survive—and if we get out of here—I plan to live out the rest of my days sunbathing on a tropical island, sipping fruity drinks and getting massages from handsome young Metamorphs.”
I smiled. “Vampires aren’t at all as I’d imagined.”
“In what way?”
“On Gaia, we have a lot of stories about vampires. There are a few recurring themes. Vampires suck blood. They have pasty skin and sharp fangs. Holy water burns them. And, last but not least, they go up in flames when sunlight touches their skin.”
Her eyes drew together. “Humans have some very bizarre, very naive ideas about magic.”
“Yeah, we’re new at this whole magic thing, but we’re learning fast.”
Seriana lifted her hand to her mouth, suppressing a titter. “You misunderstand, my dear. I said ‘humans’. Not you. You are not human at all. And it’s clear that you never have been.”
My mouth fell open. I tried to think of something to say to dissuade her from that line of reasoning, but I couldn’t think of a single thing.
Serene and still, Seriana watched me as I struggled with an inconvenient identity crisis. “Be thankful my foolish son is too blinded by his avarice and warmongering to have noticed.”
I just barely managed a choked: “How?”
“As you have been too polite to point out directly, I am old. I’ve been around and seen a lot of magic express itself in many different ways.
I understand far more about the laws of magic than Fenris does.
And here’s what I think.” Seriana motioned me forward.
She waited until I was sitting beside her on the floor before she continued.
“I’ve read about the Blending. And from what I understand, each person attracts one of the six types of spirits.
The spirit that blends with a person gives them one specific kind of magic.
So, for example, a red spirit bestows Sorcerer magic, and a purple spirit bestows Elf magic. With me so far?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re different,” she said. “I think all six types of spirits were attracted to you at the Blending.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t interrupt,” she chided me. “It is possible, and it did happen. The question is why it happened. I cannot answer that question. Neither can Fenris, by the way. For all our experience and power, magic is still a mystery to us. The spirits are still a mystery to us. We don’t know how or why it works.
It takes a wise person to admit their own ignorance.
” She let out a heavy sigh. “Fenris is not a wise person, Savannah. He’s impulsive and arrogant and is driven by a severe inferiority complex.
He needs to prove that he’s better than everyone, and that’s why he stubbornly refuses to admit any weakness or inadequacy on his part.
He’s dabbling in magic he does not understand, and that’s blinded him.
He’s seeing this all backwards, so he’s approaching his experiment backwards. ”
“What do you mean?”
“I think all spirits are attracted to Polymages, but the spirits don’t make the Polymage. They only make you stronger.”
I considered her reasoning, and it made sense. I’d had magic before the Blending. It wasn’t a fact I shared with most people, but it was the truth. I’d always been a Polymage. The question was why.
I didn’t have the answer to that mystery, and I might never figure it out.
“So the drugs Fenris is giving the Apprentices…”
“Are attracting the spirits to them,” Seriana said. “But no one but a Polymage can handle that amount of magic. So, inevitably, after the spirits have bombarded the Apprentices with magic for long enough, the Apprentices’ bodies will overload and shut down. And then they will die.”
Ice cut down my spine. I had to get Kylie and the other Apprentices out of here before that happened. Or was it already too late?
“We need to reverse the process. We need to extract the magic Fenris has shoved into them,” I said. “There must be a way.”
“Perhaps. But even if there is a way, we can’t do anything as long as we’re trapped in this cell.”
“Then we need to escape.”
“Yes.” A hard smile cut across Seriana’s mouth. A battle smile. “If we escape, I can meet with the Court and shut down this whole operation. They will send soldiers to free all of Fenris’s victims.”
“No, we need to get them out with us. We can’t leave them here to suffer like this. And we can’t take the risk that Fenris will move his whole operation elsewhere, somewhere that we can’t find them.”
“Savannah, it will be difficult enough to get the two of us out of here. But to rescue all of Fenris’s prisoners…” She drew in a deep breath, then exhaled tightly. “It’s simply impossible. You saw the state most of them were in. They don’t want to leave.”
“What if they did?”
“Did what?”
“What if they wanted to leave?”
“Even then, it’s just too complicated getting them all out. They’re so far away, past many twists and turns, past many guards. We have no way to talk to them or get to them. And no way out of here.”
“Actually, I think I know someone who can help us.”
“Who?”
I smiled at her. “Ever heard of the Zodiac Order?”