Other people were noticing it, too, and the noise level began to drop.
Floating toward us was what looked like light sea mist, aside from the fact it carried debris from the trees. It clung to the still-dewy ground, barely rising fifteen feet. And with the wind that dragged it along came magic. Cold, moist magic.
I looked at the prince. The prince looked at me. Edmund glared at both of us. Before anybody could say anything, an arm had wrapped itself around my shoulders and was guiding me toward the exit of the paddock. I tried to shake it off, but Edmund anticipated it this time and had a stronger grip. The prince, on the other hand, compliantly trotted along beside Richard.
I threw myself up against his barriers and he didn’t hesitate to let me in. This time there were no scenic hills, just a vast, black space filled with boxes. I focused on shutting down our line of communication so that neither Athan would hear, and then exploded.
“You’re kidding me, right? You’re just going to run away and leave everybody unprotected?”
“What can we do? That is magic and it’s not any of us. They are in the area, Autumn! It’s not safe!”
“Your Highness, I am a guardian of this school. Are you?”
I tilted my head and examined him across the front of Edmund. I was treated with his wide-eyed communicative expression before he tilted his head and relented.
“Okay, okay, I get it. Just please don’t do anything stupid.”
I wasn’t going to make a promise. “On three.”
When I got to two, I slumped as though my knees had buckled from beneath me, ducking under Edmund’s arm. He dropped down to try and snatch me, but I was gone and his hand only closed around air. People were screaming now, and I dived between them, knowing it would lessen the chances of either Athan casting a spell. The prince did the same; when we reached the fence, he leaped up and grabbed its top, hoisting himself up and dropping over the other side, out of the paddock. I jumped up and landed on the edge, joining him on the ground. All the gates in and out of the courts had already slammed shut on us—Edmund was trying to trap us inside.
Up until that point, the cloud had moved only as fast as the wind could carry it. I had counted on that to be able to skirt its perimeter, because there was no way I was throwing myself, or the prince, into it—I had no idea what it was, or what kind of magic had created it. Even so, it was what it concealed that I was more worried about. Yet as we stepped onto the grass, it suddenly hurtled toward us, and before I could even scream or scramble back, it had swallowed me up whole.
I felt skin brush my hand and heard somebody yell my name, but that was it. All I could feel was dampness and all I could see was white. I did a half-turn and looked back; I should not have been more than a few meters from the courts and took a few steps in that direction. After twenty, it was evident I was going the wrong way.
I went left. I went right. I tried straight on, sure I must be headed in the direction of the school, or the banks, or something solid and recognizable, but hit nothing. The inevitable pounding of panic in my chest began. I started running but only succeeded in stirring the mist around my feet, which left me unsure of whether I was even treading on grass any longer. When I went to crouch to see, I felt dizzy and couldn’t understand why my hand wasn’t hitting the ground.
There were no consciousnesses, not even those of the humans, within my reach, and a dull, faraway thought in the mist somewhere considered the possibility that the prince had left the dimension, or was dead, because consciousnesses did not just go that quickly. They did not just snuff out. They faded.
“Your Highness?” I whispered. The sound was completely lost. “Edmund?” I whirled around, grabbing fistfuls of moist air, which mingled with the tears that were now falling down my face. “Fallon?” There was still no answer.
“Fallon!” I screamed out of desperation, closing my eyes because the dark was better than the blankness. “Fallon!”
Then came a reply. But it wasn’t in Sagean. It wasn’t even in a Canadian accent. It was stunted and artificial. And it made my blood run cold.
“She is here. Find her.”
Fire sprang to life in the palms of my hands, and I briefly put up a shield around myself but then let it fade again as the mist around me steamed and evaporated away because of the heat. Abruptly, my dull thoughts sharpened and my heart rate slowed as grass behind and in front of me came into view. I quenched the fire and didn’t attempt to shield again, shocked at how foolishly close I had come to being found—igniting that sort of energy was like turning myself into a beacon.
“And how do you suggest we do that? Your damn hex is affecting us, too!” That accent was a regional one from the southwest of England. I tried to place the direction the sounds were coming from, but they came from everywhere.
There was no reply, and I wondered if they had moved away from me; either way, I stood stock-still, hardly daring to move in case I made a sound. In contrast, my mind was attempting to scour away the haze to find something, anything, from my lessons on hexes, because I knew what this cloud was, I just couldn’t name it and I couldn’t defend against it, because my mind was still too sluggish.
“Giles!”
“Abria?”
“Giles, where are you?”
“I don’t know! I’m injured, the Athan are here!”
The accents were mingling into one now, though I thought I heard something Eastern European. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think. The mist was seeping into the air I was inhaling again, and though I filled my lungs with shallow breaths, I could feel my heartbeat pulsing erratically and my eyes falling shut.
“Fallon! Where are you?” The cry was out of my mouth though I had never chosen to say anything, because my mouth was working independently of my head. The mist had spoken for me, because it drew them closer to where I was frozen.
“Autumn! Are you hurt?”
“Fallon! It’s the Extermino! They’re near me!”
“Autumn? Are you there? Say something!”
He couldn’t hear me, yet I could continue to hear his yelps for me, or Edmund, or Richard. None were returned.
“Galdur! I hear the girl. She must be near. Galdur?”
“Edmund!” The accent was Canadian, and I finally opened my eyes to the mist with the hope the sound brought.
“Alya, we can’t fight it! Alya, do you understand? Don’t fight it!” It was Edmund, speaking in Sagean, and it gave me the strength to light a fire, no more than the size of a flame on the end of a matchstick, to hold in front of my nose and mouth. I let it burn for a few seconds, took a long gulp of clean air, and then extinguished it.
“Edmund, I can’t hear you!” said the same woman, and it was shortly followed by Richard, as calm and controlled as his counterpart, repeating the other man’s instructions. The Athan’s message must have spread, because before I was even close to needing another mouthful of air, there were several screams.
“Galdur’s dead!” the man with the local accent yelled. “Sif, Tomas, help me out here! Abria, stay with Giles!”
I very quickly lit a second flame and took another gulp of fresh air, unable to judge distance from the voices but unnerved by the movement of the mist in front of me. I relied on no sense, element, magic, or consciousness, but I could tell someone was close—very close.
Again, I did not dare shield, and absurdly chose to rely on the mist to act as my first line of defense—it was clear the Extermino were no better off trapped within their own hex than we were. My hand, instead, clasped around the dagger below my skirt.
He appeared out of nowhere, closer than seemed logically possible; I even saw his stunned expression as he trod on one of my feet. There was no time to comprehend another plan, and so I chose the curse I knew would keep me safest.
“Mortalitis Sev!” Die willingly.
The magic released itself as soon as I uttered the first syllable and had racked his body by the time I uttered the last. He slumped forward into me and I too
k the opportunity to plunge my knife into his stomach and twist as I heaved him back, cradling him as much as my strength would allow so the knife could do its work. I had never cast a death curse—it wasn’t ever taught—and knew only the theory. I couldn’t be sure it had worked. I wanted him dead; I wanted him dead so I could take revenge for the innocent human life the Extermino had taken weeks before on the harbor.
When he was on the ground, I rolled his eyelids down, asked fate to carry him on whichever path it wished after death, and then just looked at him. In death, my grandmother’s auburn scars had glowed brighter, and for a very long time, I had thought she was maybe asleep. Sleeping on the floor of the parlor, and then sleeping in her glass casket as she lay in state, and then sleeping as she was interred in the Athenean cathedral. Whoever had killed her had been taught the death curse. They had done a perfect job. I had botched it on him. His gray Extermino scars were shriveling up, because blood was flowing freely from his stomach where I had extracted my dagger.
Somebody else was coming and I got ready again. I will do it better this time. I will make you proud, Grandmother. But I didn’t do it again, because when that person appeared, I knew I could not kill him.
His scars were gray. He was a Sagean Extermino. There was no doubt about that. But his shaggy hair; the heavy, deep Devonshire accent I had repeatedly heard; the expression of his I recognized from when he had asked what was wrong with working in a café . . . they were human. They were very, very human.
“Nathan?” I breathed.
The man didn’t look up or show any sign of recognition. But he didn’t attack me, either. Instead, he busied himself with his work, slipping his arms under the man’s legs and neck, hoisting the corpse up. The whole time he eyed my dagger, though he didn’t seem too concerned about it.
When he stood up, he met my eyes. It was brief, it was silent, but I knew he was answering. It was a mournful moment, yet it had nothing to do with the dead body in his arms. He didn’t show any sign of affection toward his dead comrade.
Nathan is an Extermino.
I felt the pull of raw energy hurtling toward us and had to step forward as it tugged on the magic in my blood. The borders between dimensions were open, and Nathan was about to cross them. Succumbing, the pair disappeared. I followed him in my mind. He would arrive almost instantaneously in another dimension, and then he would cross back to this one, ending up in Iceland, or wherever the Extermino had chosen to base him. Dimension-hopping. Not outlawed, but frowned upon. The thin veils of energy that hung between the parallel worlds were under enough tension just from people crossing from one dimension to another in the same location; they didn’t need to be modes of transportation between different places, too.
That was all so clear in my mind. What I had just seen wasn’t. The thought of what it meant, irrelevant. Perhaps it was the mist.
I can’t think. I don’t want to think.
Like the instinct that had told me the two men were approaching, an instinct told me I was now safe—until I felt an intense burning, growing ever hotter. I knew what to do, and what was coming. Casting a flame between my palms, I burned away the surrounding mist to create a cushion of air, protecting myself as fire ripped away at the hex, leaving everything else untouched.
The roar subsided, and the fire was dragged away to my left at Edmund’s will as he directed it with his fingers from the other side of the field. I blinked a few times. The scene he had cleared for us was not what I had been expecting. Edmund, whose voice had seemed so sharp and so clear, was standing just outside of the tennis courts, as though he had barely moved. The prince, who had seemed distant, was only about fifteen feet to my left. The other Athan had disappeared. I was pinned in a corner at the apex of two banks, and was, in fact, standing halfway up one of them. Taking in my feet, which sloped with the bank, a wave of dizziness hit me. I dropped down and crossed my legs, waiting to be collected, as I didn’t feel capable of anything else.
As soon as he had completed his task, Edmund rushed over and was with us in a second. He charmed into his hands a glass with a rubber-lined lid and clamps, and scooped up the last few wisps of the mist that he had left floating near us. Screwing and clamping the glass shut, he burned away the remainder.
“What was that?” the prince asked, shakily walking over and dropping down at the foot of the bank below me. He looked as exhausted and disoriented as I was.
“You learned about block hexes at your Sagean schools, didn’t you?” Edmund asked. We both nodded. “Well, that was one, mixed with some sort of air-and-water hex. But we are trained against those. It shouldn’t faze us. That, therefore, was something new. And we need to find out what.”
The prince’s head dropped into his hands, and his hands onto his bent knees. “We’re in so much trouble, aren’t we?”
Edmund, eyeing me rather than his young royal charge, narrowed his eyes. “As soon as I know it’s safe, I am going to make you wish you had never been born.”
I shrugged my shoulders, beginning to slide down the bank without getting up. “Guarding young human life is one of the main clauses of the Terra Treaties, so I don’t—miarba!”
I dived for my leg, clutching the outer part of my thigh just above my knee as something ripped through the skin. It was like being cut open by a very, very large thorn. When I looked down to the ground, I realized that was almost exactly what had happened, because lying in the long tufts of grass was a stake. It was a dumpy thing, no more than a foot long, and tapered from the thickness of my fist to a shard that looked like it could be snapped off. It couldn’t. My heavily bleeding leg was proof of that.
Edmund was at my side the moment I gasped in pain. The prince ran up, too. They both swore when they saw the cause of my injury.
“A slayer’s stake? That . . . that is all we need. Great,” the prince neatly summarized in a dry tone. “The slayers in league with the Extermino. Today has sucked!” He threw his arms up in frustration.
Edmund, ever practical, stooped down to examine the weapon. He cast a spell along its length. “Fallon, if you have finished being a drama queen, the duchess is bleeding.” He looked at me. “The tip isn’t poisoned or enchanted. You’re very lucky; in their hurry to leave, it was probably just dropped rather than planted.”
The prince looked sheepish and offered me his shoulder to hoist myself up on. Once I was up, the pain subsided substantially, and I told them to let me walk on my own. Edmund was anxious to get off the field to the comparative safety of the main school buildings, and moving under my own power was quicker than hopping.
Racing down the steps in Edmund’s wake, I could have groaned aloud as I realized practically the whole school had congregated in the quad. The headmaster had his megaphone out and was attempting to calm the hordes, most of whom were very pale.
As everybody turned to watch us enter, I shuffled to the right to hide behind Edmund’s back. The prince shuffled to the left. Entering the ring of people, Edmund just kept going as I halted beside Tammy and the others, who stared very openly at me. I realized I was probably covered in blood, and not all of it my own. It wasn’t exactly the perfect image to present, considering what had happened.
Edmund marched on toward the English building, only to be halted midstep by a firefighter in the doorway (which still hadn’t been repaired from the night of the storm). The Athan clearly were not in the habit of stopping for other people, because Edmund went to sidestep him. The firefighter mirrored him.
“Sir, you can’t go in there quite yet.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Edmund chirped in an unnaturally agreeable voice. “Out here will do.” Turning around, he clapped his hands together and marched toward a bench. Just before he reached it, he dismissively flicked his hand out to the side. From outside the building came a loud shriek of pain. I glared at him for clearly casting some kind of spell on the firefighter as he rounded on me.
“Pantyhose off.”
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I closed my eyes briefly in exasperation. The prince is right. Today sucks. It cannot possibly get any more embarrassing. Nevertheless, though I had only met him the same day (though apparently not for the first time), I could tell Edmund’s mood was murderous as promised, and dragged my feet over to the bench.
“P-pardon?” the headmaster stuttered, catching the corner of his megaphone, which gave an almighty screech. Mr. Sylaeia was nearby and answered him by simply pointing at my leg. Though my tights were reasonably opaque, they were stained even darker by the blood down my left, unscarred leg.
I slid them down by tugging from below the tear. It was about the most painful way to do it, as the blood had caked to the torn mesh and my skin, but also the only modest way.
Mr. Sylaeia hissed as soon as he saw my flesh. “What did that?”
“This,” the prince said, coming forward with the stake in hand. The teacher’s mouth dropped, but he motioned for the weapon. It was placed on the bench next to us. Edmund patted the closer bench and I climbed up, sitting on the table and resting my feet on the seat.
“I can heal it myself,” I said defiantly.
Everybody’s attention was on Mr. Sylaeia, the prince, and the stake they were examining now as Edmund washed my wound. “I think you have cast enough complex magic for today, young lady,” he muttered, low enough so only I could hear. His gaze flicked up and he met my eyes. I inhaled. He bowed his head.
How did he know about that? He had been on the other side of the field!
He said no more on the subject, and I had to be content to sit and grit my teeth as he worked on the wound, which wasn’t as much of a clean cut as I had originally thought. It was painful, as his magic stitched it together; I could feel every prick of a spark penetrating my skin, and even worse was the knowledge his hands were so far up my leg in front of everybody. I wished he would let me do it myself. Or let the prince do it.
“It belonged to a member of the Pierre clan,” Mr. Sylaeia informed us, very wisely choosing not to use English. “I minored in Sagean and vamperic history,” he then added apologetically, as though he was immediately doubting his own statement. “It’s a long time since I studied it, so I can’t be sure without looking up the crest on the handle.”