“This is going to tickle,” I said. “Lucende.”
Right on cue, Miranda giggled as my camouflage spell trickled over the top of her head, until it appeared as though I’d taken the city background and draped it over the top of her like a blanket. Giggling was absolutely allowed, for now. I personally knew the spell felt like someone breaking an egg over your head. That, and I wanted her to be as happy and carefree as she could before we got going. Things were about to get dicey.
“Stay close to me,” Colson rumbled, reaching out and taking Miranda’s hand. At least I assumed he did, though it looked like he was grabbing the side of a post box. “Stay close to all of us.”
“Where are we going?” Miranda asked for only about the six-thousandth time.
“Somewhere safe,” Asher answered for the six-thousandth and one. “But we need to be careful. There are some mean people around here.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined Miranda looking confused. I’d learned that, though she was sensitive to the less-than-stellar emotions of others, she had none of them herself. To her, the world was the best version of itself; safe, nice, with everyone having the best intentions no matter what.
With thinking like that, she really was a cursed one.
Mia checked that the rest of the street was clear, then waved us on. We’d gone with the come-so-early-there-was-no-chance-of-anyone-seeing-us approach, as Asher and I had done the morning before. But secretly, with Kasia around, I hoped it wouldn’t backfire and turn into the no-witnesses-around approach. I was running on fumes. If Asher or Colson had noticed me coming back last night, neither had said anything, but I was paying for it. It wasn’t the mental toll, with the horrific dreams of Kasia smashing her way inside the cabin and taking Miranda, but the physical. My eyelids felt like they had weights tied to them, my muscles aching sore from the cold.
In less than a half hour we were near the city center, the bustle of the day just starting. Asher and I immediately went to the bakery we’d gone through before. When I thought about it now, there was probably more than one place to enter the Supe side of Oslo, but we didn’t have time to search for it. Thankfully, the bakery was open. We hurried through to the other side, not even stopping when Miranda wanted to get a donut.
The Supe side was quiet as well, most of the stores still dark. I kept my fingers crossed, and let out a sigh of relief when Francis’ ye olde curiosities shop came into view, lights on, door propped open. We entered and were immediately swallowed by stationery and the pungent smell of erasers and exotic spice.
“You have to stay quiet,” Colson muttered to Miranda.
“Why?”
I winced as Miranda’s tiny voice cut through the quiet.
“It’s a game,” Colson said. “We’re playing hide and seek from everybody except for us. Do you think you can win?”
Miranda didn’t answer. Which I hoped meant she’d already started playing.
“Ah, my friends!”
Francis swept out of the back. I noticed his eyes brushed over us like one normally would when meeting someone new, but then continued to rove, as though looking for someone he’d expected to be there. I moved closer to Colson the fill in the space where Miranda was.
“And you brought more friends! That’s good to see.” Francis’ eyes flickered over us one last time, then curled a few gnarled fingers for us to follow him. “Right through here. My other friend will be able to help you get where you need to go.”
“Am I winning?” Miranda whispered as we trailed after Francis. Colson’s hand tightened. One of Francis’ green ears twitched.
“What was that? Did you say something?”
“We’re glad your friend could help us out,” Asher said.
“Yessss…” Francis drew out the word. “I hope they can too.”
My steps faltered as I funneled in the back room after Asher. They?
My mind was screaming at me that something was wrong, wrong, wrong, right before Asher stopped at the doorway leading to the rear of the shop—then quickly began to backpedal, bumping into me and sending all of us stumbling. Mia let out a sharp cry of alarm. I whipped around to find our way to the front door blocked by robed students. But not the same kind Asher and I had seen earlier. These were red. Students from the Denmark Academy of Magic.
“You’ll need to come with us,” Reuben said. He stood blocking our way forward. He looked surprisingly somber for a guy who had caught the ones Headmaster Wendell had no doubt been trying to get his hands on since we wrecked his place and used his portal without permission.
“Reuben, listen to me,” I said, hands out. The other students raised their hands in answer, and Reuben didn’t tell them to stop. “We’re grateful you helpe—”
I stopped myself just in time as Reuben’s eyes briefly widened. “Thank you for the Academy’s hospitality, but we just want to get home, that’s it. We’re sorry for what we did but we need to get to New York.”
“Something very precious is traveling with you,” Reuben said. “This is nothing personal between us, but if what you have is truly the Cursed One, it’s a dangerous thing that should be in the hands of the Denmark Academy.”
“It’s not a thing,” Colson growled, swelling with anger. The students took a collective step back. The air tasted charred with growing magic. I knew in seconds we were going to lose control of this situation, and any chance we had of getting Miranda to a safe place. Headmaster Wendell might have technically been on our side, but I trusted him about as much as a viper wearing a fake mustache.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mia said. “We tried to get the Cursed One but we failed. You remember the Society of the Fallen Star—”
“We know who they are,” Reuben said. “How could we forget who attacked our home?”
“That’s why we need your help,” Asher pleaded. “Help us get home. Then we can all go after them, together.”
“Let’s take them in, Rueben,” a girl on Reuben’s right snarled. Her braid whipped back and forth as she looked between each of us, clearly trying to decide which one to hex first. “No more talking. Give us the Cursed One now!”
“We don’t have her—it!” Mia said. “We never got it—”
“They’re lying!” Francis cackled. He was practically bouncing with joy. “There’s someone else with them. I can sense it. I can hear it.”
“Someone…” Reuben’s eyes narrowed on the space between Colson and me. “A simple disillusionment charm.”
He waved his hand. I felt the air shift as the effect of our camouflage spell wore off, revealing Miranda, a tiny human shape in the middle of a pack of wolves. The shop was so silent I could hear the footsteps of those passing on the sidewalk outside.
Miranda slowly looked around. It was dawning on her that everyone could, in fact, see her now. “Did I lose?”
“A child?” Francis said, long nose curling in disgust. “I thought you told me they had a being of extraordinary power!”
“What is this?” Reuben said, stunned. “Is this a trick?”
The other girl was the first to recover from her shock. “It doesn’t matter what it is! Reuben, if you won’t take them in then I will!”
“No!”
Reuben knocked her hand aside a moment before she cast a petrification hex, causing it to explode against the ceiling.
Everything else didn’t explode after that, but it sure felt like it did.
“Out the door!” Asher yelled as spells and hexes flew every direction. I quickly summoned a small stream of fire and torched the herbs and incense drying overhead, filling the air with a thick haze. I’d never been so happy to breathe in lavender, but we were far from safe. Stun spells and random jinxes careened dangerously close as the students stumbled blindly around, trying to shield themselves. Someone grabbed my ankle and I kicked at them, feeling it connect with something soft. There was a squeal of pain. The hand relinquished its grip.
“Stop! STOP!” Francis screeched. “My shop! My precious shop! You’re breaking everything!”
“You mean like this?” I yelled, toppling over a rotating stand of precious gems, scattering them across the floor. Asher continued shoving Mia back toward the entrance. Colson had scooped up Miranda and shielded her with his body as he shouldered his way through people and inanimate objects alike. Through the haze I glimpsed Reuben helping one of his fellow students up. Francis’ spindly shape was hopping around madly, tearing at what little hair he had. “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!”
“Skylar—” Asher pulled me under the cover of a table as a spell clobbered the metal bust of a unicorn beside me. “You think we can distract them a little more?”
Was nearly burning the place down not enough?
I lashed out with my foot, catching part of a student’s leg as he stumbled past, and toppling him into a stand of what looked to be plastic ice cubes. The instant the cubes touched the floor they began to sizzle, burning black holes into the ground. A couple more students yelped in shock as their robes brushed through the puddles and came away steaming.
“Don’t touch those!” Reuben bellowed. He was shuffling his way between the chaos toward us, trying to wave the thickening smoke out of his face. He glared back at Francis who was clambering after him. “Why do you have acid cubes?”
“They’re a hot commodity for seers! Don’t judge my business decisions!”
Colson had apparently given up on any sort of distraction and continued going the direct route. As in, directly barreling through the few students still blocking the entrance, casting them aside like they were exceptionally life-like plush dolls. As soon as no one else was looking, Asher helped me up and we dashed after him and Mia. I turned before we left. “Spiro!”
The physical tug in my gut intensified. The stacks of notebooks and heaps of pencils all shot up into the air. The notebooks came together to form a paper wall between us and the students, while the pencils plugged the holes between, their sharp points deterring anybody else who managed to free themselves and follow us.
Asher was staring, wide-eyed, at my wall o’ stationary. “I didn’t know school supplies could be so dangerous.”
“Only when you piss me off. Now run!”
We burst out into the street, smoke billowing after us, people staring as we made a break for it. Despite my anger at the backstabbing goblin, I seriously hoped I hadn’t burned Francis’ place down. He was sneaky and traitorous, but not somebody I actually wanted to hurt.
“They were trying to kill her!” Colson bellowed. We were all out of breath, making our way as fast as we could out of the supernatural area, bursting through the bakery and taking off down the street toward the water. “How could they do that?”
“I don’t think they were,” Asher said. He pointed to a semi-quiet turnabout we could stop to catch our breath.
The moment we stopped I immediately checked we weren’t being followed. Then I sucked in gulping breaths of air, willing my heart to stop thumping so loudly in my chest. “I know Reuben wouldn’t do that, but I have no idea what Headmaster Wendell told him. Wendell might not even know what the Cursed One does. He just wants to destroy it to make sure the Society can’t get their hands on it.”
“Destroy me?” Miranda said. She wiped her watering eyes with one small hand. “That’s not very nice.”
That was an understatement. Colson’s face was still red, either from the fumes or anger. But as mad as I was too, I couldn’t completely blame the students. They were just following orders. And seeing them actually gave me an idea.
“I’ll be right back.”
I returned to the street. Nobody immediately accosted me, which was a nice surprise. Maybe we’d lost our pursuers in the haze, or they thought we were still wandering around the Supe part of Oslo.
I took a moment to reorient myself before telling the others to follow me.
“Where are we going?” Mia said.
“Train station,” I said.
Her expression soured. “The train…wait, you’re not thinking of going…”
“You think heading back to the Academy is really the best idea right now?” Asher said, catching on.
“It makes sense,” Colson grunted, to my surprise. Even Asher looked at him in shock.
“It does?”
“The Denmark Academy has the only reliable Farcast portal we can use,” I said.
“Assuming Wendell conjured another one,” Asher said.
“Which he probably did and that’s how the Academy students got here overnight,” I said.
“Or they took the train…”
I brushed aside his logic. I had to believe Wendell’s Farcast portal was up again. We were short on places to go, and literally getting worn out running. At this rate, if the Academy didn’t catch us, the Society would. “Assume Wendell conjured another one. If they sent the students out to get us, that means either Wendell’s going to follow close behind, or he’s too busy to come himself.”
Mia pondered this. “Leaving the portal unguarded.”
“Maybe even the Academy,” Asher said. “Perhaps enough for us to get in. We’ve already technically come in as guests. If the magic charms see us as students it may let us through without setting off any alarms.”
The more we spoke, the more I realized it was a long shot. All of it. But as the station came into view, I also knew it was one of the only shots we had. “Hurry. We’ve got a train to catch.”
Obviously we didn’t pay for our ticket. Why, when frantically rushing onto a car at the last moment and avoiding the conductor was so much easier?
“This isn’t one of your best ideas,” Mia grumbled.
I shifted so her face wasn’t pressed up against the tiny bathroom’s mirror. The conductor had just started ticketing this car, so we only had to wait another ten minutes until the coast was clear. “Just imagine how hard it must be for Colson, Asher, and Miranda.”
Mia’s face went white. “I hope he doesn’t crush her!”
I just hoped the bathroom didn’t explode.
When we were both sure the coast was clear we snuck toward the last car, where Asher, Miranda, and a pretty disgruntled Colson had taken one of the many empty seats.
“He kept elbowing me,” Colson said, thumbing to Asher.
“My apologies for needing to breathe,” Asher said.
Miranda only giggled.
The ride to Copenhagen was nearly six hours long. I didn’t sleep a wink the entire time.
The train trundled on, the landscape hardly changing on the left side: rolling white, dotted with sparse tufts of dead grass and small towns with wavy lines of smoke rising from chimneys; an expanse of blue on the right, a green lump of land beyond it that slowly turned to black as the sun leaked from yellow to peach to orange to nothing.
Once, we passed a well-lit station and for a moment thought I could see the Prince’s face reflected into my own. I squeezed my eyes shut hard enough until I saw only stars. When I opened them again he was gone. Kasia’s voice still rang loud in my head. She had a curse just like mine. Part of me had kind of known that, hadn’t I? I mean, she possessed a kind of magic none of us had ever seen. She was the one who’d put the Prince inside me in the first place. But learning it for certain hadn’t made knowing any better. I didn’t want her to have it. I didn’t want her to have any more of a connection to me, any reason to feel sorry for her. Whatever darkness she’d created was of her own doing.
Except whatever your mother did to her.
Shut up, I told the voice. It was true, I didn’t know why Kasia hated my mom so much, but there was no excuse for what she was doing now, I was sure of it. Even if my mom had somehow been involved with her years ago, that was no reason to take it out on so many innocents. Kasia was just another person who used a slight injustice against them to justify evil acts they already wanted to perform.
We rounded another bend. A halo’s glow of light—what I assumed was Copenhagen—lit up the horizon. I heard a gasp in the seat in front of me. Miranda was gazing at it, eyes wide, face practically smashed against the window as though she could push her way through and become one with the outside world.
“I thought you were asleep,” I said. “Like him.” I pointed to Colson in the seat beside her, shifted almost completely to the left so as to not crush Miranda if he moved.
“I can’t! There’s…so…much…to see!”
I looked out with her into the darkness. There wasn’t now. But then again, I kept forgetting Miranda had spent her entire life with the same décor. Even nothing must have felt like the biggest something ever.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” I agreed. “But you really should get some sleep. We’ll probably be at the Academy in a bit and we’ll need you feeling good so you can help us out.”
Miranda’s shoulders slowly drooped, like a balloon being deflated. “You’re going to have to…fight to get in?”
“Maybe. But hopefully not. We don’t want to. See, technically we’d be fighting our friends.”
Miranda unstuck herself from the window to look up at me. Her eyes were watery. My stomach knotted.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry!”
I leaned over the seat and tried to wipe away the tears but only succeeded in smearing them across the side of her face. “Uh, crap—I mean crud—uh…here.”
I offered her the end of one of the ridiculously long sleeves of her dress. Miranda took it and, with a big sniffle, wiped her nose and eyes in one go.
Mission accomplished. I was going to be an awesome mother someday.
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me,” Miranda said in a soft voice. “So many already have. You did when you saved me. And…and I know they’re bad, but the people who were following you, they were hurt too. Is it my fault?”
“No!” I nearly shouted. Colson grunted and rolled a little. I leaned farther over the seat, dropping to a whisper. “None of this is your fault, Miranda.”
“But when people see me they’re surprised.” She wrung her hands. “Or frightened.”
“They’re just scared of something they heard about. Some stupid legend. But it’s not your fault. Miranda.” I tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at me. “What’d I say?”
Miranda’s eyes grew wider. “Earlier, when you and Mia were coming out of the bathroom? Because Colson said I wasn’t supposed to repeat that—”
“No, not that. Forget about that. What’d I just say?”
“It’s not my fault.”
“What?”
“It’s not my fault!”
“Darn right it’s not. You’re being punished for something that happened a long time ago, something you didn’t do. And Miranda.” Her eyes weren’t filled with tears when she stared up at me this time. “Don’t worry about us. We’re protecting you because we want to. We’ll get you home. Understand?”
“Uh-huh.” She sniffled again, but a smile was breaking through the dark clouds of her melancholy.
“That a girl,” I said. “Now stop worrying and get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we’re there.”
Miranda settled into her seat with a contented hum. “Skylar?” she said after a moment.
“Hm…?” I said, still riding the high of my awesome mothering skills.
“Do you…have a snack?”
I had no idea how we were going to do this.
I looked at the imposing front of the Denmark Academy of Magic. We’d been lucky so far. Like I’d guessed, the outer alarm charms had recognized us from earlier and stayed silent. Unless someone from inside the Academy’s dim interior was seriously looking, or they were sending patrols out, there was no way they’d spot us shrouded in the shadowed grove of nearby trees.
“I say we just walk in,” Asher said.
“Normally I’d say that’s suicide,” Mia mused. She squinted across the Tivoli Gardens. The roller coaster was dim in the pestering rain. “But…maybe not.”
“Only one way to find out,” Colson said. He held Miranda closer in her usual perch in his arms and crept out into the open, surprisingly quiet for a guy his size.
I guess we were going in.
My senses were on high alert as we picked our way through the gardens. I sought any hum of magic that might be a precursor to an attack, but like before my magical detector was a bit scrambled. Even still, my eyes didn’t pick up any unusual movement. We’d headed here right after coming off the train, trying to make the most of the seemingly continuous bad weather and cloak of darkness.
The rest of Tivoli Gardens fell away as we approached the front of the Academy. As one, all of us paused, glanced at one another, then nodded. It was now or never. If our luck could hold out just a bit longer, we’d be in the clear.
We dashed across the lawn on light feet, up the steps to the columned entrance. The Academy doors were just ahead of us. Once inside we could—
“Did you really think it’d be that easy?”
I froze as Wendell stepped out from behind the nearest column, a few students flanking either side of him.
Asher and I put ourselves between them and the others, but I didn’t go for my weapon. No reason to give them more of an excuse to attack. “We kind of did, yeah.”
“Did you not think that if you managed to evade Reuben, I wouldn’t anticipate exactly where you would go? I’m not foolish enough to leave my Academy unguarded, even from those who are supposedly on our side.” He reached out a pale, nail-sharpened hand. “The child. Now.”
Reuben must have sent him word about what Miranda was. That was one element of surprise we’d lost. “And then what?” I said. “You think you can keep her safe?”
“Safe? No. She is precious to our cause. She will be kept safe enough, but we will unlock her power. What good is such immense strength if it does nothing but sits idly by? She will help us get rid of the scourge that is the Society.”
“Her powers don’t work that way,” Colson protested. “Miranda—”
Wendell’s face twisted in anger. “You named her? She is some kind of pet to you?”
“She’s a person!” Mia said. “She’s not a thing and she’s not someone you can use like a tool!”
I could tell this conversation was going south fast. I gripped Valkyrie’s hilt as the other students went for their own weapons. I glared at Wendell, body tightening. If this whole thing fell apart we’d be hard pressed to take him down.
“Please let us go through,” I said through gritted teeth.
Wendell stepped closer. “Impossible. I will take the girl now—”
Colson lifted his hammer, ready to swing. Wendell let out a low hiss. I prepared myself to cast a spell.
“Stop!”
“Miranda!”
Colson lunged for her as she dropped out of his arms and dashed between us. Her terrified face swept back and forth between the two groups. “P-please! Please don’t fight. You’re supposed to be friends, aren’t you? You’re supposed to be fighting the bad people out there.”
“Child, there is so little you understand,” Wendell said, almost gently. “The bad people are strong. But you…” He extended his offered hand, fingers uncurling toward her, “you could help us defeat them.”
“Miranda, don’t,” Colson pleaded. “Come back over here.”
Miranda stared at Wendell’s hand. “But…but what if I can help, Colson?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. That isn’t your job.”
“I disagree,” Wendell said. “I’d say it is the only thing it—she—should be worried about. A being created to bring strength to whoever unlocks her power? Put into the wrong hands, that is a recipe for destruction. Child, come here.” Wendell’s eyes flashed. Miranda flinched. I could tell she was trying not to shrink away from him. “We can grant you protection. And you in turn can help compensate for the potential evil you might have unleashed.”
Miranda’s throat bobbed up and down. Her wide eyes found me. I shook my head. “Remember what I said. It’s not your fault. You don’t have to make up anything to anyone.”
Miranda slowly nodded. “I just want everyone to stop fighting. We should try to figure out a way to help. Together!”
“So naïve,” Wendell said. “But what should I have expected?”
He lashed out, his hand wrapping around Miranda’s arm. Without thinking I charged at him, focused on nothing else but pulling his slimy grip off of her, Colson lunging like an enraged rhino in my wake.
I didn’t see the Farcast portal until it was too late.
It should have been impossible. The charms and protections around the Denmark Academy were supposed to be strong enough to prevent that sort of entry. But maybe they’d been weakened during the first attack. Maybe the Society had found a way around their defenses.
Regardless, I wasn’t prepared for the attack.
“Sectspra!” a voice hissed from the other side of the portal.
Tiny cuts opened up on my skin. Blood streamed down my forehead. The sudden fiery pain caused me to stumble. As I slammed against the ground I heard screams as the others were hit with similar spells. Miranda looked down at me, her mouth open in a silent scream.
“Run!” I gasped.
She didn’t. She broke free from Wendell’s grasp as he shielded his students and crouched beside me, trying to help me up. That dumb, sweet, innocent, stupid kid.
“Miranda,” I gritted out, managing to push myself to my knees. “I said—”
My entire body involuntarily froze as a shadow leapt from the portal. A fist collided with my jaw and I collapsed backward, ears ringing, world tilting. Now Miranda did scream, and somehow that was more painful than any of my wounds.
“Greubal’s got the girl! Back through we go! Come on, girlie, back through we—stop it! Stop fighting Greubal!”
Greubal’s petrification on me lessened. I could move again. My head still throbbed like a cymbal-holding monkey was doing a jig inside, but I could fight.
I swung Valkyrie around, barely aiming. Greubal gave a yelp as I nearly split open his side. In his other hand he gripped Miranda’s arm. Her tear-stained face pleaded for me to help her.
“Greubal!” I yelled. “Give her back—”
“Sectspra!”
I leapt over Greubal’s spell this time, but he already had what he’d needed and was dragging her toward the still-open Farcast portal. If they got through, there was no telling where they’d end up. There was no way we’d get Miranda back. Not in time.
Not alive.
“Tentro!” I roared. Greubel briefly stiffened as my holding spell immobilized him, but his own magic broke free of it almost immediately. He lunged through the portal.
“No!”
“Skylar!”
Colson’s strong hand lifted me up as he hurled himself forward. His other hand reached out and latched onto Greubal’s ankle. I heard Greubal shriek in fury, trying desperately to shake Colson off, but Colson wouldn’t relinquish his grip, his furious eyes locked on Miranda. “We’re coming, Miranda!” he cried. “We’re coming—”
Then all four of us fell through the portal and were sucked into darkness.