Knights of Light (The Conjurors Series Book 2) (35 page)

A dangerous glitter
filled Sanguina’s eyes. “I am a member of this Guild, too, and these are my
guests. They’ll leave when they’re ready.”

“It’s okay,” Valerie said, drawing Sanguina away. “Let’s
save the fight for tomorrow.”

Valerie returned to her
room wishing she could crawl into bed and sleep. But she knew she had to some
work to do first.

She picked the easy task
first. She let her mind drift to Earth, searching for Chisisi the old-fashioned
way, since she didn’t have a crystal to transport her to his side. She checked
the usual spots, like his office and home, but everything was quiet and covered
in a thin layer of dust. She tried the Great Pyramid and the underwater launch
site she had Henry had traveled through earlier in the year.

Finally, she found him
in in Egypt, next to Zaki’s grave. He was alone, staring at the stone marker
with an intense expression on his face. Her heart throbbed in her chest, a
painful reminder of yet another friend she had lost this year.

Chisisi smiled.

“I’m sorry, I
interrupted you. We can talk another time,” Valerie said quickly.

He shook his head. “I am
glad you found me. I have much to tell you. But first, tell me your news.”

She quickly filled him
in on everything that had happened on the Globe, and his eyes were troubled.

“It may be that the
Fractus have already found a way to Earth. There have been rumors, and I will travel
tomorrow to confirm them,” Chisisi said, and Valerie’s stomach ached with
trepidation.

Somehow, Valerie already
knew what Chisisi would discover. “If that’s true, it’s more important than
ever that I stop the Excision. We’ll have to send Conjurors to Earth to track
those Fractus and bring them back to the Globe.” she said.

“I know you can convince
them, young one,” Chisisi said fondly, his expression warm before the lines of
grief returned to his eyes.

“You said you had
something to tell me, too,” Valerie reminded him.

For the first time that
she could remember, Chisisi wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You know that Zaki and I
belong to Earth’s Guardians, protecting the barrier between Earth and the
Globe, and helping those with too much magic to travel across the universe.”

“I knew you belonged to
some kind of group, but I didn’t know it was the Guardians,” Valerie said,
surprised.

He nodded. “They have
chosen me to lead in Zaki’s place. The decision was made final today.”

A small smile, her first
in a long time, crossed her face. “They couldn’t have chosen better.”

Chisisi’s eyes were
troubled. “I am not the man that my brother was.”

“Zaki was your brother?
I never knew,” Valerie said, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest. Tears
escaped before she could stop them. She knew loss, but she couldn’t imagine how
she’d function if Henry died.

“I was happy being at
his side, and never wished for the responsibilities of leadership. But it seems
I cannot escape them,” Chisisi said.

“I understand. I keep
hoping someone will come along who knows what they’re doing and relieve me of
this terrible burden,” Valerie said.

“You are wise to already
know that leadership is a burden. Many times the young mistake it for glamor
and power. But, like you, I crave neither,” Chisisi said grimly.

“If it helps, I’m glad
that we’ll be fighting the Fractus together.”

He nodded, and some of
the tension seemed to leave his face. “It is an honor to fight this battle with
you. I can think of no better leader for us all than you.”

Valerie blushed at his words, but forced herself not
to contradict them.

Back on the Globe,
Valerie allowed herself to grieve for Zaki and absorb the magnitude of Chisisi’s
loss. But she couldn’t put off her next task forever.

She pulled Thai’s charm
out of her pocket and gazed at his flickering image inside. She wondered if it
would be the last time she used it. Maybe even the last time she ever saw him.
The thought didn’t contain bitterness any more—just a universe of sadness. She braced
herself and shut her eyes.

When she opened them,
she was next to Thai in a beautiful library with shelves of books that went
from the floor to the ceiling, row upon row. A book was in front of him, but he
wasn’t reading. He had his head in his hands and he was disheveled, like hadn’t
slept since she had seen him last.

“Thank God,” he
whispered when he saw her.

“I’m sorry. I should
have come sooner,” Valerie said. Whatever was currently between them, he had
saved her from oblivion in the Black Castle.

Thai shook his head. “It’s
okay. You don’t owe me anything anymore.”

She bit her cheek to
keep the lump in her throat from rising at his words. “We’re still friends, right?”

A helpless look passed fleetingly
over Thai’s face, and then he retreated behind the mask of coldness that had
become familiar to her. “Of course, we’re buddies.”

“Buddies…” Valerie said,
and then swallowed and decided to change the subject before she made an idiot
of herself by crying in front of him. “I’m here because tomorrow at sundown the
Excision might be completed. There’s still a chance that I can stop it, but if
I’m wrong, you’ll never have the chance to come to the Globe.”

“I know. Midnight
visited me, and I’ve talked with Chisisi. He arranged everything in case Tan or
I wanted to go. But we’re not coming. We’re staying on Earth for good,” Thai
said, not making eye contact with her.

Valerie thought she was
ready to hear those words, but as soon as they left his mouth, she realized
that she wasn’t. It was like someone had sucked all the air from her lungs, and
she made a strangled little gasping sound that would have been embarrassing if
she wasn’t too far gone to care.

“Are you sure?” she
asked.

“Yes,” he said, and his
tone had never been more distant. “You might as well know everything. Maybe it
will help you get past all this faster.”

She nodded, unable to
speak.

“I’m close with my
family, and if I come to the Globe after the Excision, I’ll never even get to
see them again. And even if somehow I could still visit, I’d have to give up
all my dreams. I’ve wanted to go to an American college as long as I can
remember. Tan and I can be happy here. And there’s one other thing.”

“Logan,” Valerie said,
her voice dull.

Thai turned away from
her, stuffing books and papers into his backpack. “Yeah. I don’t want to hurt
you, but by some crazy coincidence she goes to this college, too. It’s like
fate. We belong together. She’s older than you and we completely get each other
and—”

“I understand,” she
said, interrupting him. And she did. But she couldn’t bear to hear another word
about all of the reasons why Logan was a better choice for him. Beautiful,
smart, probably sweet and fascinating as well. Not a needy little nobody who
was, at best, a kid sister to Thai.

“I’m not saying it
right,” he said, and there was desperation in his eyes.

“No, it’s okay. I’m sad
for me, but happy for you. You deserve the world and I hope you get it.
Goodbye, Thai. I love you.”

Valerie didn’t wait for him to reply before returning
to the Globe. She couldn’t bear to hear him say he loved her too, as a friend,
or to say nothing at all. It was better like this, to imagine that maybe the
coldness would have melted from his voice and he would have said one kind thing
that she could have held in her heart forever. Holding on to the possibility of
those words would have to be enough.

The next morning, urgent knocking on the
front door awakened Valerie. She hurried to open it and found an agitated
Dulcea, whose hair was a messy riot of curls.

“What’s wrong?” Valerie
asked, her adrenaline spiking immediately.

Dulcea launched into her
story without hesitation. “After you left, one of the apprentices who is an
imaginary friend to a very rich little boy on Earth approached me. Her name is
Amy, and I mentored her a couple of years ago. She was terrified. The boy’s
family was trapped inside of their house by an intruder.”

“That’s terrible. I hope
they’re all okay,” Henry said, joining them at the door and rubbing his eyes.

“That wasn’t the worst
part. This boy’s father is a senator, and they had guards and an extremely
fancy security system. But everything was disabled at once. All of the
electricity was drained from every single system in the house, including the
alarms. The guards were all killed and had blackened holes in their chests, as
if they had been electrocuted.”

“That sounds like the
Fractus we fought,” Henry said. “But it couldn’t be.”

Valerie’s gut twisted. “They
already had a way to return to Earth, with whatever magic they took from
Darling.”

“I know it’s suspicious,
but these bad guys could have used regular human weapons. Let’s not jump to
conclusions,” Henry said.

“It was one man,” Dulcea
said. “Tell me how one man could take out eleven guards and disable every
electronic device in a one mile radius in minutes without using magic.”

Henry shook his head,
her eyes filling with terror. “The attacker…did he kill the family, too?”

Dulcea shook her head. “No,
they were released. But we have no idea what the senator gave the Fractus to
save the lives of his family.”

“It’s all happening so
fast,” Valerie said, her head in her hands.

“Faster than you can
imagine,” Dulcea said. “Two other apprentices had similar stories. All
imaginary friends to kids with powerful parents.”

“What does Rastelli say?
Does he have any ideas about what can be done?” Valerie asked.

Dulcea’s face darkened. Valerie
had never seen her truly enraged before. “That’s the worst part. Amy went
straight to Rastelli along with the other apprentices whose friends had been
attacked. And he told them to say nothing to anyone. That it was all a
misunderstanding, not the Fractus at all. But that didn’t seem right to Amy,
which is why she came to me.”

“What could make him say
such a thing?” Henry asked, horrified.

“There’s only one reason
that I can think of. He must be the spy,” Dulcea said. “Maybe he’s Reaper
himself.”

Valerie’s gut said that
wasn’t the case, though she didn’t have any concrete reasons why. The person
who murdered Jet had been cut from a different cloth than Rastelli.

“It doesn’t matter. We
have to get to Midnight. It’s too late for the Excision now. Magic and evil
have already invaded Earth. If we shut down the connection now, the humans will
be defenseless against the Fractus who are already there,” Valerie said,
already pulling on her jeans.

“What can I do to help?”
Dulcea asked.

“Recruit as many Conjurors from the Society of
Imaginary Friends as you can, but only people you can really trust. It’s up to
you to make sure Rastelli doesn’t slip away before we can question him,”
Valerie said. “Henry, get Kanti and Cy and meet me at the Justice Guild.”

Valerie sprinted down
the streets of Silva and across The Horseshoe. She was heading toward the
Justice Guild, forming her case for the Council in her mind. There was no way
they could refuse her now.

She was so deep in
thought, she didn’t realize that her feet had taken her to the Guardians of the
Boundary Guild instead. But for some reason, she didn’t immediately change her
course. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something she was
missing, and whatever it was wouldn’t be found inside the Justice building.

She wrenched open the
doors to the Guardians’ Guild. It was silent inside. Where was everyone? There
should be a few people around, especially given what an important ritual was
supposed to happen that day.

Valerie walked up the
staircase to Midnight’s office, and she saw a blue glow shining in the cracks
of the door. The hum of magic hit her in the chest like a hundred-pound weight,
and with it came a terrible dread. That was when she heard the scream, a scream
that burned a neural pathway in her mind that she didn’t think she’d ever be
able to erase.

It was no time to knock.
Valerie didn’t know where it came from, but a pulse of magic flared in her, a
flame compared to the usual fire of her power, but it was enough to let her to
kick the door down.

She couldn’t make sense
of the sight before her eyes. Midnight was suspended in the air, her head
thrown back in agony. The only thing that told Valerie it was Midnight was her
shock of purple hair, because her face was almost unrecognizable. She was
missing an eye and her nose, and before Valerie’s eyes, she saw her hand
dissolving, finger by finger, as Midnight screamed.

“Tell him and it will be
over,” Oleander said. She was standing beneath her, and every time Midnight
screamed, a little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She was enjoying
the show.

Valerie tackled Oleander
to the ground, propelled by pure fury. Even without her magic, she was more
than a match for the blonde Guardian. Valerie straddled her chest and hit her
in the face with all of her strength. Oleander groaned and weakly tried to
wriggle away. She got one hand loose and raked Valerie’s face with her
fingernails.

“That’s enough. You’re
not animals,” Reaper’s voice cut through Valerie’s mind like a blade. She
reached for Pathos and remembered that she hadn’t strapped it on before she had
rushed out of her room.

He stepped out of a
shadowy corner and waved his hand. Instantly, an invisible force pushed Valerie
and Oleander to opposite sides of the room, pinned against the wall.

He stepped into the
light, and for the first time, Valerie saw his face. Chern examined her. “N-n-not
who you were expecting?” he asked, in an exaggerated imitation of himself.

Valerie knew she should
be shocked, but the realization that Chern was Reaper and the spy made perfect
sense. The only jolt was that she hadn’t seen it sooner—his over-the-top clumsy
antics, the way he wormed his way into so many important moments, and the
creepy vibe she always got when he was around.

She should have known
when Darling went missing—after all, hadn’t Chern taken a strand of Darling’s fur
when he had cured Emin? He must have been testing it then. Her stomach dropped
with guilt as she realized that she had been the one to call for Darling’s help
that day. She’d led him into the lion’s den.

“She’s speechless. How
refreshing,” Oleander said.

Chern glared at her, and
she shut her mouth. Then he turned to Valerie. “I didn’t want you to find out
this way, but I always intended to tell you the truth. I think we can be
powerful allies.”

Valerie did something
she had never thought she would do in her life. She spat at Chern. It didn’t
touch him, but his lip curled in disgust.

“Sometimes, I forget you
were raised on the streets. You’ll need to overcome those trashy habits if you
want to work with me,” he said coldly.

“That will never happen,”
Valerie replied. She struggled against whatever force he was using to pin her
to the wall, her eyes glued to Midnight, who was breathing shallowly. “I could
never torture and kill good people for whatever selfish reasons you have.”

“That’s what you think?
That I have some vendetta, perhaps? Or I am mad with power to rule the world,
maybe. But you couldn’t be more wrong. You and I are alike—we want to help
people and make Earth the best, safest place it can be. The only difference is
that I am willing to do what it takes to make that a reality. You, on the other
hand, try to save every life at the expense of the greater purpose.”

Valerie met his eyes and
let her rage strengthen her purpose. “You think there is ever anything that can
justify what you’re doing to Midnight? Or what you did to Jet and Darling? Or
the people on Earth that you’ve killed already? I’ve heard about the Fractus’s
attacks on innocent people.”

If Chern was surprised,
he quickly hid it. “Every death, every bit of pain, serves a greater purpose.
We have to save the humans from themselves. Left to their own devices, they
will never find a way to stop killing each other. Given enough time, they might
even blow up their own planet, which is our rightful home, too. Stripping Earth
of its magic has kept it in the dark ages. Humans need our guidance and rules
so that they can progress past violence and live in peace.”

“Let me guess…they’d
also be serving you.”

“No!” Chern said, taking
a step forward, his fists clenched with frustration. “This isn’t about my ego.
This is about creating a better world. Yes, humans must be controlled, but they
will also be taken care of. Would you let a toddler run the world? We must be
their parents and guide them to the right path.”

“From what I’ve seen of
Conjurors and the Fractus, they’re no better than humans in any way except, of
course, when it comes to wielding magic. I’ve seen you bring about just as much
death and destruction as any dictator on Earth.”

“We will have to tear the
world down in order to rebuild. The humans will not comply willingly at first,
but eventually, they will thank me—us. If you knew history the way I do, you
would see all of the times when magic could have prevented slaughter and
destruction. We robbed Earth by leaving it. And we robbed ourselves. It is our
home, and we will never be whole as long as we are away from it,” Chern said.
Then he whispered, “I will never be whole.”

Valerie slowly shook her
head. His fervor was written all over his face—next to his madness. He was
blind to his own evil, and she would never convince him he was wrong. She’d
have to appeal to what he thought was his better nature if she was going to get
Midnight out of there alive. “If you’re truly trying to do what’s right, then
prove it. Let me go, and release Midnight to my care. This torture doesn’t
serve your purpose.”

“Of course it does!” he
shouted, righteous indignation making his eyes blaze. “I do not torture her for
my pleasure. She has information that she refuses to give me. Once she tells me
what I need to know, I will let her die.”

“No,” Valerie breathed,
her heart beating faster.

Chern shook his head,
disappointed in her. “I know she is your friend. But you must see, she has too
much power to live. She is the only one who can put up a barrier between Earth
and the Globe for good, and that can never happen. If she wasn’t so selfish,
she would have killed herself already to prevent the Excision. It’s what I
would have done in her place.”

“If you let her go…I’ll
come with you,” Valerie said. The thought of returning to the Black Castle made
her want to choke, but she couldn’t let another life slip through her fingers.

“You’ll come with me
anyway, if you know what’s good for you. Maybe you don’t agree with my methods,
but I am inevitable. I have allies in every country, every Guild, and even
every continent on Earth. No matter what happens today, whether or not Midnight
tells me what I need to know, the dominoes I have spent centuries putting in
place are starting to fall.”

“Please, as a show of
good faith,” she said, hating that she was begging this horrible man.

“Valerie, no,” Midnight
choked out. “Don’t degrade yourself for this filth. Carry on where Aurora and I
failed, and find a way to end the Fractus at last.”

“Maybe you should tell
them what they want to know. Please, you can’t die,” Valerie said, hating how
childish her voice sounded.

“I love you, child.
Henry, too,” Midnight said. Then her voice hardened. “But I never make deals
with murderers.”

Chern ground his teeth
and turned to Midnight. “Enough. I’ll find what I want without your help.”

He waved his hand, and
Midnight dissolved before Valerie’s eyes, turning to dust.

Valerie couldn’t stop
the scream that left her, no matter how gratifying it must have been for Chern
and Oleander to hear. She turned her eyes back to Chern.

“I will never help you.
Today you have made sure that I will spend every last breath trying to defeat
you,” she said, and her eyes were bone dry, as if the horror of what she’d seen
had evaporated her tears.

“Are you so sure?” Chern
had a smug tilt to his head, like he was pulling out his ace card. “What if I
could tell you who your parents are?”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Valerie
said. “You underestimate how much I value my soul if you think I’d sell it so cheaply.”

For the first time,
Chern looked unsure. “You’ve always yearned for a family—I’ve watched you and
Henry your entire lives. I can give you the knowledge you’ve always wanted. And
your father lives.” He spoke his last sentence triumphantly.