Knights of Light (The Conjurors Series Book 2) (3 page)

“It’s
good to see you again,” Valerie said. “Is everything okay? Kanti said you
needed to see me about something.”

Azra
turned her dark eyes to Valerie’s, and they stopped walking.
Our allies on
Earth will be with you soon, and I wanted to speak with you before you returned
to the Globe. Things have changed here since you left. We had hoped after you
changed Sanguina that the attacks of the Fractus on the Globe and their
appearances on Earth would slow. But the opposite has happened.

“Sanguina’s
still attacking people, even now?”

I
don’t think it’s Sanguina
, Azra said,
and Valerie could sense her worry.
I have always thought she was a lost
soul, not capable of organizing a true attack against the Conjurors. It is
someone else, and I fear that person is getting ready to start a war.

“But
why? To return to Earth?”

Azra
nodded grimly.
There is more, Valerie. The Conjurors on the Globe are very
scared, and they need a leader. News of your power, and how you saved Sanguina,
has amazed everyone. A new vivicus has not been seen since Conjurors roamed
Earth. They expect you to guide them.

“Me?
I’m just a kid!”

You
are special, Valerie. But I do agree that this responsibility is too heavy for
your young shoulders. Gideon and I, along with several others, are committed to
developing your inner leader when you return to the Globe.

“Maybe
I should wait to come back, then,” Valerie blurted. “An extra year, and all
this will die down.”

That
only you can decide
, Azra said, but
she didn’t seem surprised. How long had Azra suspected that she was considering
staying on Earth with Thai?
Remember, you will grow increasingly weaker on
Earth. Staying too long could be fatal. But when you are ready, your magic and
your life on the Globe will be waiting for you.

And
so would her responsibilities, Valerie knew, and an invisible weight settled on
her shoulders.

After waiting a few days for Chisisi to
arrive, Henry began to unravel.

“What could be taking
him so long? Do you think the Fractus got to him?” he asked, pacing across
their campsite.

“He’s very cautious, and
he knows that they could be searching for him. I’m sure he’s safe. He’ll be
here soon,” Valerie said, but some of his jumpiness was rubbing off on her. Her
hands shook a little, and she knew that the magic between her and Henry was weakening
her.

“I want to be on the
move already.”

“To where?” Thai asked,
stepping out of his tent. He was pale and rumpled, and her heart squeezed. She
knew that staying in control of Tan was taking a toll on him. All in all, they
were in no shape to survive an encounter with the Fractus.

“How about Oakland?” she
suggested. It had been her home for the first fifteen years of her life, and
she knew the best places to hide and the cheapest places to eat. “I know this
campsite off the beaten track where we’d be hard to find.”

“We thought they’d never
find us here,” Thai reminded her.

“At least it’s away from
this place!” Henry said. “Someone could show up any minute, and look at us. We
wouldn’t last long.”

“What about Chisisi?
He’ll be here any day now,” Thai reminded him.

“Oakland’s not far. We’ll
send a message through Azra,” Henry argued.

Valerie sighed. She
didn’t want to leave the place she’d been so happy, but she didn’t think Henry
could wait another day without having a breakdown. “Okay. Let’s pack up and go.
There’s a bus stop a couple of miles away. It’ll take us all day to get to
Oakland, so we better get a move on.”

Thai nodded his
agreement, and Henry stopped obsessively chewing his thumbnail. A few hours
later, they were packed and ready to go.

“Just give me five
minutes,” Valerie said, and she walked to the cliffs that overlooked the sea so
she could take it all in, one last time. She stopped and stared out at the
endless stretch of blue-green water. After a while, Thai joined her.

“Take your time. Henry’s
going to use the disposable cell to call his dad before we go.”

The sun glinted on the
waves, and a bittersweet longing crashed over her heart. She bit hard on her
lip to keep the tears out of her eyes. Suddenly, Thai’s warm hand was in hers.

“I’ll miss this,” he
said, his eyes on her, not the view.

“Not as much as I will.”

The contact of his hand
against hers sent shivers of energy up her arm. He was staring at her as if he
was debating something in his mind. But before he decided, the crunch of shoes
against the sand made them both turn around.

“There you are! I saw
that you guys are packing. You’re going already?” Logan’s sweet voice broke the
mood, and Thai let go of Valerie’s hand.

“Yes, our vacation is
over and it’s time for us to go back to school,” Thai said, falling easily into
the lie that they had concocted for strangers.

Logan pouted a little. “Can’t
you stay a little longer? My parents want to meet you—both of you—and thank you
for saving my life.”

“Sorry, but we’ve got a
plane to catch,” he said with a shake of his head.

Logan stuck out her
bottom lip in an exaggerated pout, and Valerie suspected she hadn’t been denied
what she wanted very often. She turned her big blue eyes to Valerie.

“How about you, Vanessa?
Let’s grab some dinner so I can thank you properly.”

“Actually, her name is
Valerie,” Thai interrupted, his friendly smile gone. Logan blushed.

“Oops, sorry, Valerie.”

“No worries. Your offer
is really nice, but like Thai said, we have to go. Maybe someday—”

“Yes! Here, take my
number,” Logan interrupted, giving her a slip of paper with a sidelong look to
Thai. “Promise you’ll stay in touch.”

“Um…”

“Promise!”

“Of course, sure,” she
said. Logan hugged her, and then turned to Thai.

“You have to promise,
too.”

“Okay. Nice to meet you,
Logan. Stay safe,” he replied, and she gave him a tight hug that lasted longer
than Valerie liked.

Logan sauntered off, and
Valerie turned to Thai and said, “Beautiful blonde girl tripping all over
herself for you—just another day in the life of Thai.”

He stared at her with a
sudden intensity. “I’m not interested in Logan.”

“Guys? You ready?”
Henry’s voice called from the campsite.

She tore her eyes away from Thai’s and took a step
toward her brother. “We’re ready. Let’s get a move on.”

It took four hours,
three buses, two trains, and a long hike to get to the Anthony Chabot Regional
Park in Oakland. By the time their tents were set up, they all collapsed into
deep sleep.

The next day, as Valerie
showered, she decided to take the opportunity to visit her old hospital. She’d
never be this close again, and she had promised her friends there that she’d
visit if she could.

“That’s nuts!” Henry
said over breakfast when he heard her plan. “Zunya found you there before;
he’ll expect you to go back.”

“Hey guys, what’d we
miss?” Cyrus said, popping into view with Kanti.

“Valerie wants to visit
her old hospital,” Tan said, braiding grass and sounding bored.

“She’ll get caught!”
Henry shouted.

“It’d be something fun
to do. We’re just rotting here, waiting for some guy to rescue us,” Tan said.
He was clearly itching for a little adventure, which made Valerie grin. It was
nice when Tan reminded her of Thai and not the bad seed.

“We could scout ahead,”
Cyrus offered.

“And stay on guard the
whole time,” Kanti added. “You guys are gonna go stir crazy if you don’t have a
little contact with the outside world.”

Henry frowned, but he
nodded slowly.

“There are some people I
promised I’d visit if I could,” Valerie said to her brother. He must have
sensed the depth of her longing, because his face softened.

“Okay, okay. But we’ve got to be smart about this.”

A few hours later, the
group was standing in front of the hospital. Being “smart” turned out to be
donning some cheap disguises that Valerie doubted would stop Zunya from
recognizing them, but if it gave Henry a measure of peace, then she wasn’t
going to argue.

“Why don’t you guys check
around outside?” she suggested, peeking at the group from over the rim of her
oversized sunglasses. “It’ll be weird if we all try to sign in for visiting
hours. Besides, I’m less likely to stand out on my own.”

Cyrus started organizing
everyone into groups, and Valerie stepped through the automatic doors into the
hospital. The odor of antiseptic and floor wax brought back memories. Most
people probably cringed at the smell, but for her, it was a reminder of holidays
skidding down the halls in her socks and hours spent reading to the littlest of
the kids in her ward—the best times of her life until she had discovered magic.

When she walked out the
elevator doors on her old floor, the eyes of the woman at the nurses’ station
widened at the sight of her. “Little Valerie Diaz! You’re back and you look
wonderful, sweetheart. How have you been?”

“Hi, Darla,” she
replied, unexpectedly shy. “I missed you all so much; I couldn’t stay away.”

“And we’re glad you
didn’t! Dr. Freeman will be so glad to see you!”

“Who else is here?
Jeremiah? Ming?”

Darla lowered her eyes,
and Valerie braced herself for bad news—it wouldn’t be the first time that
something had happened to one of the kids she loved.

“Jeremiah is doing
great, in complete remission. He’s been home for weeks. But Ming…”

Valerie’s eyes filled
with tears. Ming was only seven years old, and had the sweetest and most
trusting person she had ever known.

“She’s not going to make
it, sweetie. She’s only got a few weeks.” Darla came out from behind the desk
and folded her into a hug.

Valerie choked back her
tears. “Is it okay if I see her?”

“Absolutely. I know she’d
love that.”

Valerie quietly pushed
open the door of Ming’s room and saw her limp little body beneath a thin
hospital sheet. She was hooked up to several machines, and she had never seemed
so tiny as she did then. Her mother was sleeping in a cot at her bedside, and
Valerie saw the dark circles beneath her eyes, like bruises.

How could life be so
cruel, to create a mother who loved her daughter so much only to take her away?
It used to hurt to see other children with their parents, wishing that she, too,
had someone to care for her. But seeing Ming’s mother’s obvious suffering, she was
suddenly glad that her parents never had to see her when she was at her worst,
kept alive by machines and too weak to walk.

“Valerie?” Ming croaked,
opening her eyes. “You came back just like you promised.”

“Of course I did. I
missed you too much not to visit.”

Ming’s mother jerked
awake at the sound of their voices. Her tense face relaxed a little when she
saw Valerie.

“How kind of you to
come, dear,” she said. “Dr. Freeman told us you were traveling the world, and
to come all the way back—it means so much.”

“Well, I simply couldn’t
stay away,” Valerie said. “I missed my best bud.”

Ming’s mother’s eyes were
a little teary, and she quickly stood up and headed toward the door, probably
so her daughter wouldn’t see her distress, Valerie guessed. “I’ll leave you two
to chat for a few minutes.”

After her mother was
gone, Ming turned to Valerie with wide eyes. “I was worried you wouldn’t make
it before…”

Valerie squeezed her
hand. “I’m sorry. I wish I had come sooner.” She knew better than to lie to
Ming and pretend it would all be okay. A friend had once told her that
pretending to believe she was going to survive for her family’s sake was the
hardest part of dying.

“Luckily, Mr. Hopsalot
kept me company,” Ming said, pulling Valerie’s old rabbit out from under the
sheet.

“You kept him safe for
me!” she gave her old toy a hug, and then pretended he was whispering in her
ear. “Ming is secretly a princess? You’re sure, Mr. Hopsalot? Who told you?”

Ming was giggling at her
silly banter when Dr. Freeman came through the door. He stopped short when he
saw Valerie.

“I should have known
when I heard Ming laughing for the first time in days that you must be here. Are
you visiting, or checking in?” he asked.

“Just a visit,” she said
quickly, without meeting his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I must say, I’m very
glad to see you. I’ve had a few wakeful nights worrying about you since you
left.”

Valerie was surprised.
He was always so gruff and matter-of-fact—she was never sure if she was
anything more than an unusual medical case to him. But as she watched him
gently evaluate Ming, she could see how much he cared for them all. How did he
keep his heart from breaking when he lost a patient like Ming?

“Come by my office when
you’re done here, Valerie. I’d like to examine you before you go.”

“Okay,” she said, considering
whether it would be wrong to sneak out. As much as she missed her friends at
the hospital, there was no way that she wanted to stay there longer than she
had to.

After he left, Ming held
out her hand to Valerie. “Will you stay with me till I sleep? Tell me a story.”

“Absolutely,” she said,
and she crawled into bed beside her. With Ming’s little head resting against
her shoulder, Valerie wove a tale of a beautiful princess battling a fierce
dragon. She stopped when Ming’s gentle breathing told her that she was asleep.

Only then did Valerie
let herself cry. Her tears ran fast down her cheeks, dripping into Ming’s hair.
What was the point of having the power of giving life if she couldn’t save Ming
with it? Even if she died using her magic on Earth, she had to try. She
concentrated, remembering the pulse of energy that had passed through her when
she saved Sanguina. Nothing. It was as if her magic was dammed up against a
wall that she couldn’t break through.

She hammered and
hammered against it, trying to find some tiny crack. Nothing. She began to sob.
This couldn’t be happening. She had saved a woman who had tortured her brother,
but she couldn’t help Ming, who brought nothing but sweetness into the lives of
those she touched.

Desperately, she stopped
reaching into herself for her magic and reached out to the universe. She knew
now how much magic and possibility existed. Couldn’t some of it be used to save
her friend?

Beneath her fingers,
Valerie felt soft fur. At first, she thought it was Mr. Hopsalot, but when she
looked down, she saw that she was stroking the golden fur of Darling, the
little creature she had rescued on the Globe.

She gasped with surprise
and gave him a hug. “How are you here, buddy?”