Knights of Light (The Conjurors Series Book 2) (33 page)

Sanguina nodded. “There
aren’t many of these left on the Globe. Let’s try to get it out of here
unharmed.”

Valerie carefully
wrapped it up and handed it to a surprised Sanguina.

“You trust me with this?”
Sanguina asked.

Valerie nodded without
meeting her eyes. She wasn’t sure that she’d be able to hang on to her anger
for the ex-vampyre after being rescued from that horrible box by her.

“Let’s keep searching,”
Valerie said, and they ran their hands over the walls and the sparse furniture,
looking for any cracks or buttons.

“What’s this?” Venu’s
hoarse voice interrupted their search.

Valerie spun around, and
Venu’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re not Henry. You’re that girl—Henry’s
sister!”

He leaped toward her in
one graceful jump, catching her off guard and tackling her to the floor. In the
corner of her eye, Valerie saw that Sanguina was fending off two slender, shadowy
figures. But she didn’t have a chance to give it much of a thought as Venu’s
poisoned hands reached for her throat.

Her magic surged up
inside her, and she wrapped her leg around his and flipped him on his back. A bead
of poison dropped from his finger toward her face, but she was so focused that
it seemed like it was falling in slow motion. Moving faster than she ever had
before, she rolled away from Venu and his poison fell harmlessly in her hair,
sizzling as it evaporated.

Venu grunted and flipped
onto his stomach in a move that was more frog-like than human. But Valerie’s
magic had never made her more graceful or swift. Her mental training with
Gideon allowed her to block out everything but her fight, and she directed her
full focus and fury at Venu.

Before he made it back
to his feet, she kicked him in the stomach, sending him sprawling across the
room. She followed up with a punch to his jaw, choosing to hold back some of
her power so the blow didn’t kill him. But he slumped to the ground, and she
knew it would be a long time before he recovered. For once, she didn’t have any
guilt about soundly beating her enemy. If anything, she had shown mercy by
leaving him alive after what he had done to Henry and Thai.

Sanguina’s attackers lay
at her feet. “We have to move to the next part of our plan. There’s no time
left to search.”

Valerie nodded. “Go
ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”

Sanguina didn’t question
her, and she left the throne room. Alone, Valerie forced herself to take a
breath and clear her mind. She remembered Gideon’s instructions and put all of
her emotions in a box in her mind to process later. Pathos hummed at her side,
and she drew it from its sheath.

Like a magnetic pull,
her blade drew her to a stone in the wall directly behind the throne. She
didn’t think and instead let instinct guide her. Pathos slid into a crack in
the wall like a key fitting into a lock. The stone shifted aside, and behind it
was a dark space that was filled with cobwebs.

She reached in and touched
a smooth orb. At her touch, it lit up, turning all of the cracks in the walls
of the throne room blue. Then, just as quickly, the light dimmed to a faint
glow and the stone slid closed, shutting the orb behind it. Valerie tried to
use Pathos to open it again, but it wouldn’t budge.

She smacked the wall in frustration, not daring to
take any more time searching for Darling’s hair or any other clues the throne
room might hold.

Valerie hurried to catch up to Sanguina,
her magic lending her legs a speed she had never known she possessed. She caught
a glimpse of Sanguina’s red hair, and they went to a part of the castle Valerie
had never seen. The farther they went, the more the walls around them
flickered. Doors appeared and vanished, and even more terrifyingly, when she
looked down at herself she could see that she and Sanguina flickered too.

“Hurry. If we’re caught
in a part of the castle as it disappears, we will go with it—no one knows
where,” Sanguina said with urgency. At last, she stopped and knelt on the
ground by a trapdoor. She shut her eyes in relief. “It’s still here.”

Valerie threw the
trapdoor open and Gideon, followed by his six Knights and Peach, poured in
silently.

“Any trouble?” Gideon
asked, eyeing her closely.

“None that we couldn’t
handle.”

“Maybe we’ll get out of
here without much trouble,” said one of the Knights, a redheaded man named Hoel
who was constantly biting his fingernails.

Valerie didn’t reply,
but she gave what she hoped was an encouraging nod. Hoel was a little green at
the sight of the flickering walls around him.

“Come,” Valerie said. She
knew she had Sanguina to guide her, but she didn’t need it. Instinct and memory
reminded Valerie of the route to the dungeon.

She and most of the
Knights had crossed the threshold and were already heading down the staircase
to the dungeon when a voice from the darkness made her stomach clench.

“The prodigal daughter
has returned,” Zunya said. Valerie turned and saw that he had grabbed
Sanguina’s arm. Sanguina winced and pulled her arm roughly out of his grasp.
Valerie knew from experience how intensely painful Zunya’s touch was, but
Sanguina must be somehow protected from it, like she was with Venu’s poison, or
she would be writhing on the ground.

“I was doing Reaper’s
bidding; you know that.”

“I heard you brought our
favorite little plaything with you.”

Valerie and the Knights
tried to melt into the shadows, and she hoped that somehow Zunya hadn’t seen
them.

“Come, and I’ll show
you,” Sanguina said, trying to lead him to the isolation chamber.

Zunya raised an eyebrow.
“I should probably do something about the intruders you’ve helped slip past our
gates first.”

Without any further
warning, he reached out and tackled the nearest Knight, Galahad, to the ground.
Galahad briefly screamed at the contact, and then went silent. The rest of the
Knights drew their weapons to rush Zunya, and the hall blazed with light. Zunya
shaded his eyes, and Valerie saw that behind him were fifteen men—boys, really.

Their eyes were completely
white, and she could see black stitches across their necks, like they had been
clumsily opened and sewn back together. With a sickening twist in her stomach,
she realized that they were familiar—it was Jack’s former troop of boys who
robbed people of their magic.

“Don’t kill them!” Valerie
shouted to the Knights.

“You!” Zunya shouted.

Valerie drew Pathos,
since she had already blown her cover. “You and me. That’s the fight you really
want, isn’t it?”

Her words were too late.
The boys were armed with pathetic weapons like pickaxes and knives, but one
opened his mouth and a hollow sound came from him. Valerie’s magic slipped
away. Zunya had somehow turned the boys into weaker versions of himself, so
they didn’t need a cone to rob Conjurors of their powers.

She frantically reached
out with her mind for Henry, to see if he and the other two Empaths could do
anything to confuse Zunya and his gang. But she could sense nothing and fear
swept through her. Even when he had blocked her from his mind, she had taken it
for granted that she could sense her brother’s presence.

She didn’t have time to
analyze the possibilities. Gideon was pushing her aside, down the stairwell
that led toward the dungeons.

“His power won’t have
the same effect on me, Alex, or Gawain,” he said hurriedly. “We have all
renounced our magic, so there is less for him to take.”

“I won’t leave you,” Valerie
said resolutely. She quickly disarmed one of the boys who approached her,
flicking his axe to the ground and elbowing him in the head. He collapsed, and knelt
by his crumpled body, fighting a bone-deep guilt. The boys needed to be
rescued, not hurt.

“We can handle this.
Take the rest and get Darling and Oberon. That’s our top priority, by your own
orders.” Gideon then rushed at Zunya, and Valerie had the satisfaction of
seeing a flicker of surprise as Zunya raised his own weapon—a gleaming machete.
He had relied on robbing Conjurors of their magic and strength so often that
she hoped he was rusty when it came to real hand-to-hand combat. The light of
Valerie’s and her comrades’ weapons was clearly weakening him enough to make
him vulnerable to an attack from a Master Knight.

Gideon’s sword flashed,
and Zunya squinted against the brightness of the blade. Gideon missed his enemy
by a hair’s breadth, and his sword nicked the wall, setting off a shower of
sparks.

As much as it seemed
like a betrayal to leave Gideon now, he was clearly better equipped to fight
Zunya than she was. If, as the leader, Valerie couldn’t follow her own plan, it
would dissolve into chaos.

Alex and Gawain let out
battle cries as Valerie and the rest of the group raced down the stairs toward
the dungeon in a blaze of light. They weren’t even halfway down when Valerie
crashed into an invisible wall and fell to the ground, hitting her head on the
stone step.

“Peach!” she yelled. “Invisible
guys!”

A hand pulled her up by
her hair, and Valerie lashed out blindly. Her magic hadn’t been completely
taken by Zunya, but it seemed buried inside of her, not giving her the
advantage that it usually did. She was never more thankful than at that moment
that she had trained without her magic, because she used her logic to judge the
distance that her attacker’s face was from where he held her and lashed out
with a swift uppercut to his jaw. Something crunched, and he dropped her with a
howl of pain.

Immediately, a beautiful
song filled the air. Valerie, Sanguina, and the other three Knights all
flattened themselves against the walls and stuffed earplugs in their ears. It
wasn’t fancy, but it did the trick. They were immune to Peach’s hypnotizing
song, under which the princess wove the urge to be perfectly still and bathe in
the sound.

Peach’s fists were
clenched at her sides, and Valerie knew that she must be absolutely terrified.
This horrible castle was about as far as you could get from the ice palace
where she had grown up in luxury. But she sang on, and gave Valerie a nod to
let her know that the men were under her spell.

“Now!” Valerie yelled,
and she, Sanguina, and the three Knights who were with her began lashing out.

Valerie shut her eyes
and sheathed Pathos, not wanting to inadvertently kill one of her enemies. As
she and the Knights erupted into motion, it seemed to break Peach’s spell. But
the advantage was theirs. Sanguina was at the base of the stairs, so the
Fractus were surrounded.

Valerie summoned her
remaining magic and let it guide her arms and legs. She heard a crunch like
breaking glass and a scream as she kicked in a knee of one of her attackers. Beside
her, she saw that Hoel and the other two Knights, Lyonesse and Olwain, had also
sheathed their weapons and were fighting hand-to-hand. All three had fighting
powers, like she did, and she was glad that, in the heat of the moment, they
were still following her plan to not let anyone die on this mission if it were
possible—even their enemies.

Hoel was thrown against
a wall, and Valerie leaped through the air and tackled his invisible attacker. They
tumbled down the stairs, past Sanguina, whose back was against a wall as her
blade flashed.

Valerie landed on top of
the man, and she was about to deliver a stunning blow when he groaned. “Please
stop! It’s me, Blake.”

Her mind spun. She
remembered him—he had followed her through the Where-o-Well to Elsinore and
begged to be released.

“It was a mistake to
have let you go,” Valerie said grimly, and raised her hand again.

“I didn’t know it was
you and your friends. I swear! I’ll help you.”

She didn’t know what to
think, but couldn’t take the risk of trusting him now, with so much at stake. “If
that’s true, make your way to Arden when all this is over and we’ll try to help
you.”

Then Valerie head-butted
him, and Blake spoke no more.

The rest of the team was
racing down the stairs. Olwain had Hoel slung over his shoulder, and Lyonesse
and Sanguina were steps behind him.

“Where’s Peach?” Valerie
asked, and was met with blank stares.

She saw a flash of
blonde hair and ran back up the stairs, tripping on an unconscious invisible
attacker on the way. Peach was gripping her weapon, a jeweled knife, with a
trembling hand, her eyes wild.

“It’s okay,” Valerie
said softly.

“No it isn’t. One of
them attacked me, and I lashed out, and I think I killed him. I didn’t mean to.”

There was blood on
Peach’s blade. “His blood isn’t on your hands,” she said. It was an appalling
fact that they were all fighting for their lives, and some would die. From now
on, blood would be on her hands. The thought made her sick. She couldn’t think
about that now, or she would crumble.

Instead Valerie grabbed
Peach’s hand, and they went down to the dungeon. The Knights were chopping at
the locks on the cells, but they wouldn’t give.

“Try Pathos,” Sanguina
said. “The locks are spelled, and brute force will do nothing to break them.”

Valerie drew her blade
and sliced cleanly through the first lock, which offered little resistance. She
briefly stared at her blade. She was only beginning to understand its power.

“I’m Valerie, and with
me are Knights. We’re all here to help you escape.” she shouted to the
prisoners in the dungeon, and her voice echoed off the stone walls.

“Are you another dream?”
someone called.

“No,” Valerie said. “Whatever
has happened to you, it’s almost over now.”

She quickly broke the
locks of all of the cells, of which there were more than twenty. She glanced in
each one quickly to see that the inhabitant wasn’t Darling or Oberon, and moved
on, telling each person to follow the Knights to safety. She noticed that there
were several prisoners who were People of the Woods, and she hoped that all of
Elden’s people who had been kidnapped were now free.

Finally, in the corner
cell, she saw a shivering little creature. She didn’t recognize Darling at
first because all of his beautiful, golden hair had been shorn off.

“No,” Valerie murmured,
and in a flash, he was in her warm arms. He whimpered and snuggled close to
her. There was a little peach fuzz growing back, but she doubted that he had
any of his powers. They had hoped he might be able to heal anyone who was hurt
on the mission, but he was in no shape to do anything of the sort.

Valerie tucked him
inside her shirt, and he clung to her and burrowed close.

“You’re safe now. We’re
going to get you out of here and no one will ever hurt you again.” She
swallowed a lump in her throat. It was strange to be saying the words to
Darling that she had always yearned to hear herself when she was a child.

His little body was
warming from its contact with hers. She made her way back to the stairwell,
checking each cell to make sure no prisoners had been left behind. But everyone
was leaving, the stronger helping the weak along.

There wasn’t a trace of
Oberon in the dungeons, and when she asked the other prisoners if they had seen
him, she only received blank stares. That left only two possibilities. One was
that he had miraculously escaped. The other she refused to contemplate in the
middle of a battle.

Valerie quickly passed
everyone so that she would reach the top of the stairs first, her heart
thrumming fast in her chest in terror at what she would find. A face popped in
front of her, and she bit back a scream. It was Alex, one of Gideon’s Knights.

“It’s safe. We took down
nine of the boys and the rest fled. Zunya ran with them, deeper into the
castle.”

“Should we follow?”
Gawain said, and his eyes glittered eagerly in a way Valerie didn’t entirely
like.

“No. This is a search
and rescue mission. There aren’t enough of us to take on everyone who’s
guarding this castle. Where’s Gideon?” Valerie asked.

“Here,” Gideon said, his
voice weak. He was cradling Galahad in his arms. “He’s gone. Past saving,” he
added, obviously for her benefit. Even a vivicus couldn’t bring back the dead.

Before Valerie could
choke it back, a sound of pain escaped her. But everyone was looking at her.
More would die if she didn’t hold herself together, she knew. The guilt could
eat her alive later.

“Let’s get out of here,”
Valerie said.