STONEHENGE FADED INTO VIEW ALL around him as Fort found himself back in the present, Damian still frozen in midair. The others were staring at Ellora in surprise, so she must have just shared that this wasn’t her doing.
That meant he had time to get them to Cyrus’s cottage.
Or he could ensure that London wouldn’t be destroyed, once and for all.
“Ellora, can you unfreeze Damian?” Fort asked, walking back to where Damian had knocked the book of Spirit magic out of his hands.
“Um, what?” Rachel shouted. “Did the faerie queen take your brain in exchange for something? You want to release him?”
“I can, yes,” Ellora said. “And I agree, you should use Spirit magic on him.”
Fort nodded as Rachel ran over, shaking her head violently. “Whoa, no way, New Kid. We said we’d use it to stop the war. Damian’s not going anywhere. We don’t need to use it on him!”
“Cyrus did this,” Fort said, nodding at Damian as picked the book up. “And he just told me it was only temporary. He can’t keep him frozen forever.”
“Then Ellora can!” Rachel shouted. “Or all those other kids. They can let the dome go now, because we did what we set out to do: We stopped Damian!”
“Unless we take him out of time altogether, there’s no way to know for sure he won’t get free,” Ellora told her. “Damian is too powerful. Our spells don’t seem to work on him as well. It could be that dragons have some sort of natural resistance.”
“Don’t D and D me at a time like this!” Rachel shouted, but Fort barely heard her. Ellora saying they’d have to take Damian out of time brought to mind exactly why he needed to do this.
Damian had to be stopped. So did the coming war. If not, then his own father would have to be sent out of time as well. And there was no way he could let that happen.
“Same as before, keep an eye on me,” Fort told Rachel and Jia. “I’m just going to change his mind about wanting the books, that’s all.”
“And if that’s not the first spell?” Rachel shouted. “What then? What will you do to him?”
“Whatever it takes!” Jia shouted, moving to Fort’s side to face her. “Rachel, we can’t take a chance on London. If it starts a world war, so many people will be hurt, or killed! Including my …” She trailed off as she rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You saw what happened to Chicago, Ray. Just like I saw Hong Kong. I can’t let that happen, not if I can stop it. And we can, using this.” She pointed at the book.
“We could do a lot more with it too,” Ellora said quietly. “Change world leaders’ minds, make them help the poor and feed the hungry.”
Rachel whirled on her. “Not now, Ellora!” She turned back to Jia and Fort. “I get it, I really do. I’m all for changing the world and saving everyone. But you two don’t understand how evil that power is! And I don’t want you to find out. I don’t want anyone to find out!”
“That’s why you have my permission to take me down if I use it wrong,” Fort said. “We need to do this, Rachel. If we’re going to save my dad, and Jia’s parents, we need to!”
She groaned loudly, rubbing her forehead, then finally nodded. “I really will take you down, Fort,” she said quietly, her hands glowing red. “So be careful, okay?”
“I will,” he said, relieved that she had finally come around, while still feeling just as nervous as she was about the whole thing. Just because he didn’t have a choice didn’t mean he had to like it.
He opened the book past the poem, to the first page. For a moment, he was worried that the first spell wouldn’t be what he needed, just like Rachel had said. That had happened with the book of Summoning magic, and while Teleport had turned out to be incredibly useful, at the time, all he’d wanted was a dimensional portal spell. What if the first Spirit magic spell was about making someone’s bad day better, or—
Create Devotion in a Living Creature, he read. Be warned—this spell will ensure loyal obedience to any command of the spellcaster but has been shown to affect the temperament of the spellcaster the more it’s used. Spirit magic as a whole is intricately tied to the force of magic itself, and given what was hidden there, the user should be taking the utmost care whenever attempting any Spirit spells—
The book went on, but Fort didn’t care as he felt an odd sort of energy fill him. Summoning magic had felt kind of itchy, and Healing magic made him cold, but this wasn’t anything like those two: It almost made him feel … powerful.
The spell words, “gen ly’la,” appeared in his head, and some part of him wanted desperately to shout them out to the world, to turn them on the nearest person and see what happened. That made him even more nervous, but somehow, the warmth of the magic comforted him, told him everything would be okay.
And besides, he did have a perfect target for the magic.
Fort looked up at Damian in the sky and quietly whispered the words, grinning in spite of himself. Orange light surrounded the dragon boy, then slowly faded, leaving Damian still frozen.
“Close the book, Fort,” Rachel said to him, a spell at the ready. “You got your one spell. Close it.”
He nodded, though part of him was annoyed. Nothing had gone wrong, and the magic had been so comforting. Why did she care so much? She had no idea what it was like to have the power he did now.
He could even use it on her, ask her to relax a bit, and then he could learn more spells. Why not? It was obviously nothing bad.
“Fort?” Rachel said. “Did you hear what I said? You haven’t closed the book yet.”
He rolled his eyes but closed the book. He had asked her to watch over him, so he’d have to do what she said, for now at least. And then when everyone realized there was nothing bad about Spirit magic, he could dive into the rest and learn it all.
“Did it work?” Jia asked as he closed the book.
“Only one way to find out,” Fort said. “Ellora, will you release him?”
Rachel turned to face Damian now as Ellora unfroze the boy. Immediately Damian’s momentum kicked back in, sending him straight at them, an attack at the ready. He landed just in front of Fort, glowing with multiple types of magic.
“Stand down, Dragon Boy!” Rachel shouted. “Drop the magic or I’ll make you wish you’d never left your cave!”
Damian sneered, then slowly looked up. His eyes locked on Fort, and the sneer immediately faded, along with his prepared spells.
“Forsythe!” he said, almost as if in surprise. “I didn’t mean … I’m so sorry that it looked like … I apologize! I never meant to attack you. I would never!”
Fort just stared back joyfully, enjoying how this was going way more than he’d even hoped.
“You should probably call me sir,” Fort said. “Or, you know, Your Majesty.”
“Anything you want, Your Majesty, sir!” Damian said, bowing low. “Is there any way I can possibly help you? I can’t believe I was even considering taking your book of magic from you. I have to make up for that, please ! Anything you need, I’m your servant, sir, Your Majesty, sir!”
“Fort, stop this, now,” Rachel hissed, and he looked over to find a nauseous look on her face. “You don’t need to humiliate him.”
“He was going to do far worse to us!” Fort shouted back. “I think he could stand a little humiliation.”
“I was going to do worse, and I do deserve all the punishment for it,” Damian said, his face contorting wretchedly. “Please, tell me what I can do to make up for it. I’ll do anything!”
“Fort, seriously, get this over with quickly,” Jia said, not looking much better than Rachel.
Fort sighed loudly, not understanding why they were so against a little payback. The magic had just felt so good, and now he had Damian groveling in front of him. Why was that so bad? Maybe he should show them what the magic felt like, just so they could see it wasn’t as bad as they thought.
And then Damian looked up at him with true despair in his eyes, and a small, quiet part of Fort felt true revulsion. What was he doing? Humiliating Damian just for kicks, all without the other boy having any sort of control? This wasn’t who he was. This was sick!
“Don’t … don’t try to steal the book of Spirit magic from me, okay?” he said, not even able to look at Damian now, even as part of him couldn’t believe he was letting Damian off the hook. “Just … just go back to the Carmarthen Academy and turn yourself over to William.”
Damian nodded, his sneer coming back a bit. “He was the one who tried to keep me from getting the book of Spirit magic.” For a moment, he looked tentatively excited. “Shall I interrogate him for you, sir, Your Majesty? Stick him under the earth for a few months or teleport him to the Arctic until he tells us everything he knows?”
“No!” Fort shouted, even more of him now terrified of his own power over the other boy. “Do none of those things. In fact, he’s in charge.” He glanced over at Ellora. “William will know what to do, right?”
She nodded. “He should be able to see the future and figure out what has to be done to keep … what we saw from ever happening.”
“Good enough,” Fort said. “That’s the plan, then, Damian. You listen to William, and do whatever he tells you. Got it?”
Damian looked disappointed for the briefest of moments, before nodding. “I will, Your Sir Majesty!” he said, enthusiastic once more. “Anything to make up for my awful behavior earlier. Are you sure there’s nothing else I could do too? Destroy your enemies, or fly you around the world?”
Fort had to swallow the bile in his throat. How hadn’t he seen this right away? What was wrong with him that he’d enjoyed this, even for a second? It wasn’t about humiliating Damian … the dragon boy had no choice in the matter. It was like kicking him over and over when he was already unconscious. Just brutal, and cruel.
“No, just what I said,” Fort said. “Please … just go. And I’m sorry, Damian. Really. I am.”
Damian looked at him in shock. “You have nothing to apologize for, ever, Your Majesty, sir! But I will go, if that makes you happy.” He gave Fort a long, deep bow, then disappeared in a blink of green light.
Fort turned to the others, feeling just as sick about it all as they looked. “You were right,” he told Rachel, not even wanting to hold the book anymore. “That was not okay. Any of it. I felt it in my head, pushing me to learn more, and to … to use it on more people.”
Rachel’s eyes widened, but she nodded and let out a huge breath. “The fact that you told us that actually makes me feel better. I’d be more worried if you were hiding it and planning on using it when we stopped watching you. I’m just glad you were able to fight off the magic.”
For a moment, there was silence, and Fort tried to forget how easily the magic had almost taken him over. It’d been so easy to listen. Did he really want to hurt Damian that badly? Sure, the dragon was a jerk, but humiliating him, or worse, using the magic on Rachel, just because she was telling him to stop? He’d asked her to watch him for that exact reason!
“So, wait,” Jia said, interrupting Fort’s guilting session. “Did we just stop London being destroyed? Does that mean the war won’t happen now?”
They all turned to Ellora, who frowned, her eyes going black. “It’s so hard to tell, since the book of Spirit magic is involved,” she said. Her eyes went back to normal as she gave them a miserable look. “But I’m still seeing a war in the future. That means if London doesn’t set it off, something else does.”
“No!” Jia screamed, while Ellora’s words felt like a punch in Fort’s gut. All of that and they still hadn’t stopped the war? Everything they’d promised to the faerie queen, having to face down Damian, and all of it was for nothing? Even the dome above them would be useless, causing panic but nothing more.
“I told you this might happen,” Ellora said, staring at the ground. “This is why we needed the book, just in case!”
“There has to be another way,” Rachel hissed, her eyes on Jia as she paced away, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she muttered to herself, something about this not being the deal. “Come on, Ellora: You can see what’s coming, so tell us how to fix it!”
Ellora pointed at the book in Fort’s hands. “There is no other way. It’s either Spirit magic to make sure the world’s leaders never want to go to war, or …” She trailed off, staring at Fort sadly.
Or she’d have to remove Fort’s father from time completely.
“Then it’s the book,” he whispered, his chest hurting like something was squeezing his heart tightly. “I used it once; I can do it again.”
Even as he said it, disgust filled him at what he’d felt while casting Spirit magic. It’d been so tempting to keep going, to make Damian do whatever he wanted, or start in on his friends without even having a reason to. Would he be able to resist a second time?
And why was it so tempting to open it again right now?
It wasn’t like he had a choice, anyway. He’d have to use it, because the only other option was sending his father away. And he couldn’t do that, not even for a year, let alone forever.
Still, he hated how a part of him rejoiced that he’d get to feel the power again.
“We can’t do whatever we’re going to do out here,” Rachel said finally, turning to Fort. “We’ll need to go somewhere safe. Just in case things … get out of hand.”
He nodded, trying not to think about how warm and comforting the Spirit magic had felt. “Cyrus did want us to come to him when we got the book,” he said.
The others all looked at him in confusion. “Where is he, anyway?” Rachel asked.
“Oh, just some magical cottage in the woods with a weird old man that he keeps yelling at,” Fort told her. “So nothing really new for today. Let’s go.”