Crisanta Knight: The Liar, The Witch, & The Wormhole

re you ready to have your mind blown?” I asked Alex as he sat on the tree swing.

“Selling it pretty hard there, aren’t you?” he asked in return. “I saw you almost decapitate Sooz with a flying knife. How do you expect to top that?”

I walked about thirty feet away from him, then paused—mentally preparing for the scope of what I intended to do. I stepped back another three feet to give myself a touch more space, then knelt and placed my hand on the brick path that led to the hunting shed.

Since my return home I’d been keeping busy. Sometimes this involved work; other times it involved leisure, like giving Pietro lessons on how to fly Lucky. But the activity that captured the greatest amount of my attention was coming out here every day to practice my magic and take lessons with Liza via Mark Two. Without the distraction of school or magic hunters or even friends, I’d been able to fully dedicate no less than six hours a day to the endeavor. As a result, I was amazed at how drastically my strength and control over my powers had increased in just seven days. It was enough now that I actually felt comfortable having an audience, which was a pretty big deal for me.

In all the time I’d been training with Liza, I had never practiced in front of others. Not even my friends. I’d been too self-conscious, worried that I might not have sufficient control over my magic and end up looking foolish . . . like I had at dinner the other night.

Today, though, I was so confident in myself, and the work I’d put into my progress, that I felt like showing someone I trusted. That someone was Alex. I’d clued him in on my secret activities and had invited him to come and see what I could do firsthand.

I pressed my fingers firmly onto the brick path. With a steady exhale, I cleared my mind of emotion and concentrated my magic the way I’d been practicing. The glow crept out of me and seeped into the first brick before spreading to the other bricks in the path ahead. There were about a hundred of them, and they all vibrated for a second (as if experiencing a private earthquake) before yanking themselves from the ground and flying around me like a flock of geese circling the eye of a storm.

“Can I make them do anything else?” I scoffed. “Keep your eyes peeled, bro. Here comes the good part.”

You’ve been practicing this split-focus, telepathic deal with your powers with Liza all week. If she says you’re finally ready to start letting yourself off the leash in that regard, then you totally are.

I began to command the bricks to work together to form new shapes. First I had them reconfigure themselves into a large wall. Then I began firing a few at a target board I’d nailed to a tree a couple of days ago. As the bricks hit the mark spot-on, I redirected another aspect of my focus to the remaining mass.

At once, the bricks worked together to construct a levitating staircase, which I began to climb. Higher and higher I rose as it kept growing—the steps I’d already used moving to the front of the line to build new ones for me to escalate even farther.

I’d managed to rise a solid twenty feet above the ground while still maintaining control over the firing bricks. It was impressive, and I was ecstatic at the scope of the feat. But I started to feel tired. I was experiencing the warning signs of Magic Exhaustion. My control over the bricks was beginning to falter and my mental reflexes became less sharp. It was growing harder to breathe and stay upright.

I should’ve taken this as my cue to immediately lower myself to the ground. However, I was so close to thirty feet (the record I’d been trying to break for the last three days, which I measured with specific markers I’d carved into a tree) that I refused to yield. If I just held my concentration a bit longer . . .

A bead of sweat ran down my forehead and my hand quivered as the glow it emanated flickered on and off.

Alas, it seemed that was as far as I could push myself today. My glow disappeared all at once. The firing bricks I’d temporarily given life to fell, including the ones beneath my feet. I yelped with panic as I plummeted to the ground.

“Platform! Platform!” I commanded desperately as I flailed. I was able to will a final wisp of magic out of me and a half-dozen bricks levitated under my feet like a piece of floating floor just in time.

I landed on the makeshift platform with a light thud. It descended the last twenty feet with me crouched upon it. When I reached ground level the bricks returned to normal like the others. My magic was exhausted. It would take about a day for my powers to recharge.

I stood wearily, grasping my head. It felt like lead, as did my bones. My skin felt thin and floppy like plastic wrap.

“You okay?” Alex asked. He’d come to my side and grabbed my arm to keep me from tipping over.

“My limits for today,” I corrected as I he and I went to sit down on the swing. “I’ve been pushing myself every day this week. You’d be surprised at how far I’ve already come. With more practice, I could—”

“Get yourself killed,” Alex interjected. “You almost fell thirty feet. If you hadn’t gotten control at the last second, you would’ve cracked your skull.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I always come through in a clutch then, huh?” I joked.

“Alex, come on,” I sighed. “Look, there’s a reason you’re the only person I told that I was practicing out here. I thought you’d be supportive. Or at a minimum, not be an over-concerned nark and try to stop me from pursuing this.”

“All right, all right. Do what you want. Just watch it, okay? I don’t want to come out here one day and find my sister splattered on the floor like roadkill.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Have it at the forefront of your mind next time you’re practicing. Then maybe you won’t get cocky and push yourself before you’re ready.”

“Yeah, yeah. If you’re done lecturing, didn’t you say you had a surprise for me too?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Fast healer, you know. Now seriously, what’s the big surprise that required me to wear our kingdom’s colors today?” I gestured down at my light gray leggings and the powder blue, long-sleeved dress and silver belt that I wore.

“All right, are you ready to have your mind blown?” Alex reached into his back pocket and pulled out two rectangular-shaped pieces of brightly colored parchment. He handed me one and I held it up to the sunlight.

“Twenty-Three Skidd Finals / Game Five: Midveil Patriots

vs. Tunderly Giants

Saturday, March 21st @ 3:00 p.m.”

“Shut up!” I punched him in the arm. “You got us tickets to a Twenty-Three Skidd finals match?”

“I did, and I got us outfield seats. But if we’re going to make the game, we have to move. Come on.”

“Wait.” I bit my lip. “There’s no way Mom and Dad are gonna let me go. The reason Lady Agnue sent me here was for protection. They’re not going to let me leave the grounds, let alone go to a massive public event with thousands of people and huge security challenges.”

“Oh, young one,” Alex said mockingly, “what makes you think we’re doing this above board?” He gestured toward the shed.

There was a bucket of old coins near the wishing well and I picked out two for us to throw in. It was a silly tradition, but we’d been doing it since we were little and I cherished anything Alex and I shared.

“Let’s do this,” I said as I jogged back to him. I held out his coin, but much to my surprise he didn’t take it. I tilted my head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just . . . aren’t we getting too old for the wishing well thing?”

“Well, I do,” he said coldly. “Throw one in if you want, but I’m not going to. We only started doing it because we were wishing for a way out of the castle right before we found this tunnel. To keep throwing coins and making wishes for the sake of that one moment is stupid.”

Without further explanation, Alex entered the shed, leaving me standing there holding two coins and feeling idiotic.

All I could do was sigh and throw both coins into the well. One wish for my brother—that he’d get over whatever weirdness had possessed him so we could enjoy our day together. And one wish for me—that in my absence my friends were finally safe, and that when we were reunited in three weeks I would have enough control over my magic to keep them that way no matter what obstacles we faced in the future.

I glanced at my hands. The palms pulsed like I’d recently touched something hot and nearly gotten burned. I clenched them into fists with resolve. I had to keep pushing myself. I would become better, stronger, and more powerful. I had to.

I followed Alex into the shed. It was musty inside and smelled of aged venison. Various saddles, stirrups, and holsters were racked on the wall on the left while specially made crossbows, archer bows, and precision bows were racked on the right. Interspersed among them were mounted stuffed heads from previous kills, which I tried my best not to look at as I pursued Alex to the meat storage lockers along the back wall.

Lockers one and two were much bigger. As such, they were the ones used to temporarily store meat in the weeks after my brothers and father’s trips. They had been cleaned and modernized with the latest in icebox and electrical cooling apparatuses over the years, unlike the third locker, which had been broken for a long time.

This third fridge had rusted handles and seriously yellowed edges. Like the other two much sleeker fridges, it appeared bolted to the floor and back wall. But Alex and I knew better. My brother opened the door. A gust of rancid wind hit us like a tidal wave. We simultaneously scrunched our noses.

The racks inside were empty (except for the mold clinging to the rims and a couple of boxes of baking soda on the bottom rack). Alex reached out for the box closest to the right and moved it aside. Behind the box was an old thermometer.

Alex rotated it a quarter turn to the left then to the right 360 degrees then to the left again all the way around. A large sound like a deadbolt moving emanated from the fridge. We stepped away and watched as the fridge jittered then laboriously moved to the side, revealing the trapdoor beneath.

Alex and I climbed twelve feet down a ladder before our boots hit solid ground. Using the light that shone through the trapdoor for guidance, Alex removed a matchbook from his pocket and lit a couple of portable candelabras mounted on the wall. He handed me one and pulled a lever that triggered the fridge up top to slide back into place.

Now the only light came from the candelabras that he and I were holding. Alex in front, me loyally behind, the two of us began our descent beneath the earth.

It would have been eerie had we not made the trip so many times. The walls were curved and bluish gray. We ducked beneath straggling roots and thick cobwebs. A metal track ran along the bottom in a straight route.

Once upon a time this tunnel must’ve been a part of an elaborate mining operation. I didn’t know how long ago it had been put out of commission. But given that all other tunnels connecting to this route were buried, and no one else in the city seemed to know of its existence, I assumed that it had been centuries ago. All that remained was this one passage.

The tunnel ahead, like the tunnel behind, plunged into inky blackness. Neither Alex nor I hesitated though. The place brought back too many memories of our shared adventures for me to feel anything less than content as we forged on.

The journey to the exit would take about fifteen minutes on foot. Halfway there, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to ask Alex about something that had been swirling in the corners of my mind since last week.

Even in the dim light I could see his muscles tense. I walked a bit faster to keep pace with him and try to read his expression. He didn’t look directly at me. He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but rapidly closed it again.

My heart sank. He had been keeping the truth from me. I just couldn’t understand why. So what if he was dating some trick? It wasn’t exactly a universe-altering development. Why hadn’t he told me?

I didn’t ask him this, of course. The fact that he hadn’t said anything to me on his own made me realize that our dynamic had changed. I thought about what had happened with the wishing well a few minutes ago. I didn’t want to do anything that might distance us further, so instead of drilling him with accusatory questions, I tried for some more basic, benign ones.

“She’s just someone,” he replied as we turned a corner and began an even steeper descent.

“How descriptive,” I said mockingly. “Sure sounds like something special.”

He gave me a quick smile that looked devious in this light. “Actually, she is. I’ve never felt like this about someone before, Crisa. She’s smart, confident, unafraid of anything, and she pushes me to look at things from a bigger perspective.”

“Not exactly,” he responded. “She just sees a lot of flaws in the way the realm is being run and wants to change things. And you know how older generations like our parents can be with regards to change. They’re afraid of it. They like tradition and keeping things the way they are. They’d think her stance was extremist or something when it’s really just logical. So that’s why I don’t want Mom or Dad or anyone to know about her until the time is right. They wouldn’t approve.”

“But Pietro’s brought home girls that our parents didn’t approve of. Remember that chick with the Griffin-tracking obsession? Or Laura, the girl who only wore slipper-sandals?”

“Yeah, but Pietro’s not next in line to be king. I am. And I want this to be the girl I someday rule with.”

“Whoa, slow your roll there, Jack. How long have you two been dating exactly?”

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “A couple of months! Are you insane? You can’t know you love somebody after a couple of months, let alone know you want to spend the rest of your life with them. Alex, that’s ridiculous.”

“No. It’s not, Crisa. I know it might seem fast, but I’m sure of my feelings.”

“That’s what you said when you first tried banana pancakes and swore they were the greatest breakfast food in the history of time. Then what happened? Three weeks later you tried pumpkin pancakes and changed your allegiance.”

“That’s totally different. You can’t compare breakfast foods to girlfriends.”

“You can if they are both examples of your exaggerated, in-the-moment proclamations of true love,” I argued. “You didn’t know at the time of the banana pancakes that something greater would come along, so you thought they were as good as it gets. The same thing applies here. You’ve never had deep feelings for a girl before, so you’re assuming that what you’re feeling now is as good as it gets.”

“Oh, what do you know?” Alex scoffed. “You’re the last person I should be talking to about this. You’ve never even been into someone that way before.”

“Maybe not,” I countered. “But maybe that’s why I’m the perfect person to talk about it with. My brain is totally objective, unlike yours.”

Alex seemed angry with me. He clearly had not taken kindly to my outspoken counsel. We walked in silence for a while, but eventually I decided to extend an olive branch. I did not like being at odds with him. I had so few true allies in the world—especially in this castle—that I couldn’t afford to lose his support. I also felt the obligation to be there for him just as he had always been there for me over the years. I tried to break the tension with a calmer approach.

“Look, I’m happy you found someone, all right,” I said carefully. “But if she really means that much to you, I think you should introduce her to us. It’s got to be better than all this sneaking around.”

Alex shook his head. “Trust me, Crisa. Mom and Dad would never let me be with this girl no matter how I feel about her. They’re too stuck in their own ways. They would never understand what we envision for Midveil’s future or accept that things around here need to change.”

“Well, if that’s the case then what’s your end game here?” I asked. “You can’t go on keeping your secret girlfriend a secret forever. At some point you’re going to have to choose.”

Alex paused when we reached a split in the tunnel. “I already did,” he said bluntly.

We had arrived at a two-way intersection. He handed me his candelabra and stepped toward the wall in front of us instead of taking one of the routes that extended on either side.

I was not surprised. The tunnel to our right went into the residential part of Midveil’s citadel. The path to the left let out on the outskirts of the city near the base of the mountains. On foot that trek took about twenty minutes. But with the aid of the track and several mining carts that were still operational further down, you could get there in less than five.

Alex pushed a sequence of bricks on the wall in front of us like a code. The wall shifted and I extinguished our candelabras and hung them up before sliding through the newly created gap.

It took a minute to adjust to the brightness of the outside world. We were in an alley full of dumpsters. Alex and I closed the tunnel before heading toward the main street. As we merged with the crowd of the citadel, I was grateful for about the hundredth time this week for the loyalty of my ladies-in-waiting, particularly Minnie.

After the horrid “heels only” discovery in my closet, I had asked Minnie to go into town and pick me up a few pairs of boots. The gray, lace-up pair I wore now came to my knees and allowed for the agility and quick-to-jump-out-of-the-way finesse necessary for a trip across Midveil’s bustling city center.

Today was the first time in a while that I felt like myself again—leggings, boots, comfy dress, and no tiara. Since I’d come home I had been donning far more regal attire than I usually did at school. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter since my mom had restocked my closet with traditional, princess-appropriate dresses while I was away. I didn’t mind. Dressing a little more formally was a small price to pay to keep my mom happy on my short visits home. But Minnie helped me get any non-conventional princess clothing I needed, like the simple dress and pair of leggings I wore today.

After receiving it, I’d put in a follow-up request that she and my ladies-in-waiting create another dress for me—something sturdy, lightweight, and short-sleeved. I would need an outfit for the day my friends and I departed Midveil on our mission to find Paige Tomkins. I couldn’t exactly go on an epic quest in a fancy gown. And after all the shenanigans we got into on our last adventure, I thought it would be best to wear something custom-made to be durable.

With another quick hop-and-evade maneuver, I avoided a carriage as Alex and I jaywalked across the traffic-laden street. The glass buildings glittered as we passed. I grinned widely. I loved the hullabaloo of the citadel. I relished the noise and the crowds and the feeling of life that pulsed from every nook and cranny like my own powers pulsed through my system when I got them raring.

To reach the stadium that hosted our kingdom’s Twenty-Three Skidd matches we went by one of the citadel’s more upscale districts. There were designer boutiques, salons, and trendy cafes where local hipsters sipped beverages from crystal goblets, listened to local bands, and ate gluten-free beignets. The citadel’s most prestigious theater boasted advertisements for a sold-out performance of Midveil’s favorite musicians, the Viomin String Quartet. An imported carriage dealership promoted 20 percent off its first-year leases.

A slew of buildings made up the restaurant borough that came next and beyond that was the business district, which was the busiest part of the citadel.

The buildings here were taller, sharper, and inherently grandiose. I stared up at the largest of them—Midveil Plaza. Every level of the building was solid glass, allowing people on the streets to see straight into every office and conference room from the ground floor to the top. Marble columns lined the entryway like giants; a powder blue Midveil flag draped between the lead pair.

The sight of the flag made my memory flash back to that dream I kept having about the burning building, the one where I dug through wreckage to find my kingdom’s flag. I thought about the debris that rained down, the fire. Then I remembered the last fire I’d been trapped in. Like a leak in a dam, a spill of anxiety suddenly rushed in. For a moment the noise and crowds of the citadel felt overwhelming, suffocating. Then I pushed away the panic that the memory of Parker and the magic hunters caused.

The hunters were in the past, I reminded myself. That was there and I was here. As for the nightmare, tons of buildings in Midveil displayed flags and the majority of our structures—from these grand towers to the poorest shops at the edge of the citadel—were made of glass and metal. I had no way of knowing where this vision would come to fruition. Which in turn meant that it was useless to obsess over it until my dreams provided me with more clues.

I forced myself back to the present as Alex and I approached Midveil’s Twenty-Three Skidd stadium. The structure was twice as big as the one at Lord Channing’s. Banners and posters for the Midveil Patriots adorned the outer walls of the arena alongside Midveil flags. Tailgating tents in powder blue and silver for our team and forest green and yellow for the Tunderly Giants were set up all over the massive outdoor plaza leading up to the main entrance.

The smell of burgers, pickles, and grilled onions wafted under my nose while the sounds of laughter and merchandise sellers filled my ears. Children carrying tiny flags rode on the shoulders of adults. Men with strong abdominals and flabby bellies alike had gone shirtless in order to paint their favorite team players’ colors and numbers on their skin. A line snaked up to an area where fans could get autographs from Gruffaw the Lion, Midveil’s team mascot.

It was total madness and I utterly adored it, just like I adored Alex for knowing how much it meant to me to be here.