He shook Madison awake. She blinked at him, then floundered a bit, trying to sit up. Gripping her wrist, he pulled her upright. “We’ve run aground somewhere. They probably know I’m here, but I doubt they know about you.”
Seph slid out of the raft into knee-deep water and helped Madison out after him. They waded toward shore, pushing the raft ahead of them. Seph was covered in bruises, cuts, and scrapes.
They shoved the raft high on the beach, so it was out of the water and they were satisfied it wouldn’t float away. He put a large rock in its center to anchor it. It would have made a good shelter, but a bright yellow raft was just too conspicuous.
Dense forest crowded the beach on three sides. The sand was spattered with flotsam from the storm, pockmarked from the rain, empty of footprints. Seph shivered. The air was chilly, and he was soaked through. It had nearly stopped raining.
“Come on.” Seph was anxious to get off the open beach.
The late-summer woods were dark and clogged with underbrush. Water cascaded down on them from above as they fought their way through it. Seph plowed forward, squinting into the gloom on either side. He finally found a place where two trees had sagged together, forming a sort of cave that was reasonably dry and half filled with leaves. Not the best, but just then he couldn’t be choosy.
“Why don’t you stay here,” he said to Madison. “If you burrow down into the leaves it might be warmer.”
She swiped her hair back. “I think it’s better if we stay together. I could help you.”
“If they’re looking for me it’s better if we split up. I’m going to try to find out where we are and what’s going on, and then I’ll come back for you. If I don’t come by sunup, try to find a house or a police station.” Hopefully, someone other than Leicester or the alumni. It was the only plan he could come up with.
Frowning, she reached up and picked leaves from the tangle of his hair. “If you don’t come back, Witch Boy, I’m coming after you.” Then she crawled back into the shadows between the great trees.
Reasoning that those hunting him would most likely target the beach where they’d landed, Seph walked east, away from the beach. An overgrown path followed the shoreline. It was easier going on the trail than through the tangle of trees and briars and poison ivy. The humid air had cleared in the wake of the storm, and it had cooled considerably. Clouds sailed east, driven by a brisk wind, and a few stars pricked the western sky. The birds were beginning their predawn chorus.
He had walked nearly a mile when he came upon a ramshackle dock and padlocked, boarded-up cottage. He judged that it would make a better shelter for a cold, wet person than a hollow between two trees. Not only that, the padlock looked flimsy. Seph stooped and pried up a stone from the walkway.
A slight sound behind him alerted him to danger. Then a nervous voice, mangling the language of magic. He turned, still in a crouch, so as to make a smaller target, and threw. The stone struck Peter Conroy in the forehead, shattering his glasses and putting an immediate end to the charm. Seph tackled him around the knees, and they rolled down the slope into the water. They wrestled in the shallows, spouting charms and counters until Seph got Peter in a headlock and held his head under water long enough to lay an immobilization charm on him. Then he gripped Peter by the shoulders and dragged him up onto the beach, not an easy task since Peter probably outweighed him by half.
Peter was agitated, wheezing, red in the face. “Inhaler!” he gasped. Seph dug in Peter’s jacket pocket, found the inhaler and gave him a puff. The wheezing subsided and Peter no longer looked as if he were asphyxiating, though he still looked terrified.
“Please don’t tell Dr. Leicester,” he begged. Despite the chilly air, sweat pebbled his forehead and ran down his face.
“I won’t say anything if you tell me what’s going on,” Seph said. “Where are we?”
“I . . . I . . . S-s-Second Sister. We’re on Second Sister.”
Seph sat back on his heels. “Second Sister? Isn’t that the island where the Interguild Conference is being held?”
Peter nodded miserably. “Dr. Leicester wanted us to bring you before they all got here.”
“You brought me? How’d you do that? I thought wizards can’t control the weather.”
“Usually, they can’t. But Dr. Leicester, he uses us, he links us, and with all of us together, he can do whatever he wants.”
“What do you mean, he links you?” Jason had used that term, but Seph wasn’t sure what it meant. “You mean, like what he wanted to do to me at the chapel?”
“It’s a charm. Back at school, I . . . I didn’t even know about wizardry, and I was having these terrible nightmares, and Dr. Leicester said if I would agree to link to him, the nightmares would stop. And they did, only . . . he just takes over, and makes you do terrible things. It’s like being p-possessed.” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry about Trevor. At Christmas, you came to dinner, and we’d just k-killed him, and there you were, and you didn’t know.”
Seph recalled the bizarre Christmas dinner, the relentless drinking. Warren Barber accusing him of being too good to join the rest of them. Martin Hall holding Barber off with his knife, tears running down his face, saying, Hasn’t there been enough bloodshed already?
“Can’t you leave? Or gang up on him?” Seph said.
Peter’s pale eyes swam in tears. “He’s linked to us. All the time, he’s linked to our stones. If we try to resist, it’s like he sets fire to our insides.” Tears spilled over. “I used to think the dreams were bad.”
Seph shuddered, thinking of what might have been. What could still happen. “What’s Leicester planning to do? What does he want with me?”
“I don’t know. But we’re all out looking for you.”
Seph couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, scanning the dark shoreline. “Who’s here?”
“Dr. Leicester. The fourteen of us who are left. Aaron Hanlon died, you know, after . . . uh . . . after he and Warren and Bruce tried to bring you back.”
An image of Hanlon lying on his face in the Vermilion River surfaced. “What else is here on the island?”
Peter blinked in surprise. “The winery, of course. And some abandoned cottages and fishing camps. He owns the whole thing.”
So much for finding help. “How did you get here? Is there a boat?”
“Dr. Leicester has a boat,” Peter said. “There’s a dock at the winery. And some of us flew in.”
“How do I get to the winery from here?”
“You could keep following the shore path. But they’re waiting for you. There’s also a path across the island. They’re probably watching that, too.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Turn yourself in?”
Seph thought of Madison hiding near the beach where they’d landed. He should go back and find her, get her to someplace safe. Wherever that was.
There was the problem of Peter. Leicester might suspect Seph was on the island, but he didn’t know for sure. Seph preferred to keep it that way.
Peter stirred, reading something in Seph’s expression. “Don’t leave me like this. If Dr. Leicester finds me, he’ll know I screwed up.”
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Seph asked.
“Well.” Peter cast about for an idea. “You could kill me.”
In the end, Seph left Peter alive, tied up and hidden in the boarded-up cottage. He knew Leicester and the alumni might search the place, but he couldn’t think what else to do. Eventually, he reasoned, Peter would work himself free.
Seph loped back down the trail toward Madison’s hiding place. They’d find a less-traveled sanctuary closer to the inn, and then maybe they would find a way to steal the boat or call off-island or something.
He found the place where the two trees leaned together, the cavelike hollow between. But the hideout was empty. Madison was gone, leaving only a trampled-down place where her body had lain. He just had time to register that fact when the immobilization charm smas
hed into him.
He went down in the leaves, and a dozen hands grabbed him. They propped him up, and he saw a kaleidoscope of familiar faces: Bruce Hays, Kenyon King, Martin Hall, Wayne Eggars. Then Warren Barber loomed up in his field of vision. He gripped Seph’s shirtfront and jerked him to his feet. Bracing Seph against a tree, he punched him, once, twice, three times. Face, stomach, face again.
Finally Barber released him. Seph hit the ground hard and lay there, his leg bent at an uncomfortable angle, the world spinning. Someone kicked him.
He heard sounds of a struggle, Barber swearing, saying something about Hanlon, and King saying, “Warren! Hey, Warren! Are you crazy? You know Dr. Leicester wants him alive.”
Why did Leicester want him alive? And where was Madison?
He had little time to speculate. They flipped him face down and tied his hands securely behind his back. Many hands hauled him to his feet. Then they were moving down the path in the direction of the inn. They carried him, hands under his arms, holding on to the waist of his jeans. He dangled like a poorly put together puppet in their grip.
Lights bled through the dripping trees. A hundred yards farther, and he could see a great, hulking mass of stone. It was a huge house, a castle that resembled a large outcropping of the rock itself. Elaborate walkways and gardens surrounded it, illuminated by tiny lights that glittered like stars through the wet foliage.
They brought him in a side entrance, which led into a long corridor paved in stone and lined with elaborate metal wall sconces and slitted windows. The interior was layered in velvets and hand-loomed tapestries depicting hunting scenes. They turned some corners and pushed open a door, ending in a large study lined with bookshelves, a stone fireplace at one end. Oriental rugs covered the floors. A desk and credenza anchored one side of the room, loaded with computer and communications equipment.
“Dr. Leicester?” Hays cleared his throat. “We found him.”
Leicester materialized from the shadows at the perimeter of the room like a predator with perfect camouflage.
He surveyed Seph dispassionately. Seph hung between Hays and Eggars, soaked and slimed with blood, sand, and mud, an anomaly in the elegant room.
“Release the charm and step away.”
Hays disabled the charm and propped Seph up on his feet.
Leicester opened a drawer in the desk and brought out a digital camera. He took several photographs of Seph from different angles, then set the camera down next to the computer. Retrieving a knife from the drawer, he extended it to Eggars, along with a small plastic bag.
“Get me some of his hair. Then cut him free and remove his shirt.”
Eggars carefully lifted a lock of Seph’s hair, sliced it away, and dropped it into the plastic bag. Then he cut Seph’s hands free.
Seph rotated his shoulders and rubbed his chafed wrists.
“I’m sorry, Joseph,” Eggars whispered, not moving his lips.
He and Hays stripped off Seph’s filthy, blood-smeared T-shirt. Leicester held out a larger plastic bag, and they stuffed it in.
“Get him something else to put on,” Leicester said, and Martin Hall left the room.
Seph stood shivering while Leicester opened a small cabinet at one side of the fireplace, chose from the bottles clustered on a sideboard, and poured several inches of amber liquor into a glass.
“Would you like something, Joseph?” he asked, without turning around.
Seph said nothing.
Leicester laughed. “Will you relax? Believe me, I plan on keeping you reasonably intact. For at least a few more days.”
Martin returned with a worn navy sweatshirt and handed it to Seph. He pulled it on.
“Wait outside,” Leicester said. The alumni obediently filed out.
“So,” said the headmaster, in a way that suggested that matters were just as they should be, “welcome to Second Sister.” He paused, anticipating a reaction, and looking disappointed when it didn’t come. “Yes. The site of the Interguild Conference. We’re quite anxious to show it off.”
“Why did you bring me here? I have nothing to do with this.”
“You’ll be staying here a few days, at least until your father comes.”
Father. A percussion began inside Seph’s chest, reverberating into his throat.
Leicester misread his expression. “Really. How long did you expect to keep it a secret?”
“My father is dead.” The old lie came back to him.
Software engineer. Died in a fire....
“He sent you to the Havens to spy on me, yes? And then sent Linda Downey to extricate you when you were about to be exposed.”
“What?” It was just like when he was back in school and he was being accused of things. Except in those days he was always guilty.
“Though I’m surprised the Dragon would put his own son in harm’s way. He must have considerable confidence in your abilities.” Leicester swirled the liquid in his glass. “I often wondered why you were so resistant to persuasion. You and Jason Haley were the only recruits who refused my offer. I should have known you were getting help.”
“You think the Dragon is my father.”
Leicester smiled, returned to the sideboard, refilled his glass.
“Why? What makes you think so?” Seth said.
“We launched an operation against the Dragon’s hideout in London. He escaped, unfortunately, but we found a file on you. Joseph McCauley. Correspondence to and from a law firm, admissions papers from a school in Scotland. Dunham’s Field, I believe it was.”
Dunham’s Field. He’d lasted six months at Dunham’s Field.
“When we looked into your background, we discovered certain . . . discrepancies.” Leicester sipped at his drink. “You see, we’ve developed considerable scientific capabilities that will make it easier to track the lesser guilds, to ferret them out of their burrows. We’ll come to power in a different world. You left a large quantity of blood behind in my office. We’ve made a DNA match.”
The tempo of Seph’s pulse quickened. “A match with who?”
“Now I suppose we’ll see whether your father feels any sort of obligation toward you.”
“A match with who?”
“Since you and the Dragon have been working together, perhaps you can tell us where to find the others involved in your organization. Those who won’t be attending the conference.”
“Right. Well, you know, I don’t think the Dragon really exists. I think you all use him as an excuse. Someone to blame things on.”
“I had hoped that by now you understood the price of resistance. That you would want to cooperate.” Leicester didn’t look disappointed, though. His expression was that of a man sitting down to a feast.
Leicester set his empty glass on the table and came toward him. Seph took one step back, another, then held his ground, his body tensing with remembered pain. He searched his memory of the lessons with Snowbeard. Countercharms. Focus.
Leicester gripped his shoulders. His lips were moving, speaking the charm, but Seph wasn’t listening. He was shaping the counter. Flames coalesced on Leicester’s fingertips, but when he launched them, Seph gathered them up and sent them roaring back.
Leicester screamed and released him as though he’d been scalded. He managed to throw up a shield—a hardened wall of air—in time to turn Seph’s following volley of flame. Seph assembled his shield, hardened it, pressed against Leicester’s barrier, forced the headmaster back; back to the wall, flat against the wall; pressed harder. They stood face-to-face, the clear shields between them. Leicester’s eyes stretched open in surprise, the white visible around the ball-bearing centers. Sweat rolled down the headmaster’s face, his jaw clenched with effort. His hands came up, palms pressing against the shield, trying to force Seph back. Flame ran in rivulets on both sides, like rainwater down a window, eagerly seeking a way through.
Jason, Seph thought. Jason, Trevor, Jason’s father, and me. How many tortured, how many lives destroyed? The alumni,
once students like him, made into monsters. He pushed harder, trying to squeeze the life out of Leicester, to press him like a grape.
The alumni poured into the room and dragged him back, beating him to the floor with their charms until he lay helpless on the cold stones. They gripped him by the hair, raised his head, and poured a thick, sweet liquid down his throat. It must be Weirsbane, he thought, recognizing it from Mercedes’s array of potions. Disables the Weirstone. He coughed, spat, and rolled his head from side to side, but they managed to get most of it down.
“Why won’t you let me kill him?” he whispered. “What’s wrong with you?”
He heard Leicester’s voice issuing orders. They lifted him, carried him out of the study. Down a narrow stairway, around turns, with scarcely room to manipulate his uncooperative body. The air cooled, smelling of damp stone. Lights flared ahead of them, driving away the dark. They passed through an arched doorway into a small, rough chamber. Now the air smelled of damp and yeast and fermentation. Barrels lined the wall.
It was an old winery. That was it.
They laid him on a table, immobilized him, and disappeared. He lay flat on his back, squinting into the glare of a bare lightbulb in a metal cage. The Weirsbane was taking effect. His thoughts moped about, colliding randomly, to little purpose.
Madison. Where was Madison Moss? No one had mentioned her. Was she dead? Held captive? Or had she escaped? If she’d escaped, where could she go? How big was Second Sister? Would there be places to hide?
Come back to me, Witch Boy. Or I’ll come after you.
He willed her to stay away.
Leicester said the Dragon was his father. And said there was proof. If it was true, why had he never claimed him?
He heard a sound, the door opening and closing, footsteps. Leicester appeared within his field of vision and leaned over him. The headmaster’s left hand was wrapped in gauze midway up to his forearm. Above the wrapping, the skin was angry red and blistered. Seph’s work.
The gray eyes had changed, too. They were no longer flat, opaque, metallic. Now they burned with hate.