Knights of Light (The Conjurors Series Book 2) (9 page)

Before she finished her
thought, Darling appeared on Emin’s bed and jumped in her lap. She sighed in
relief.

“Thank you, Darling,”
she said, and he gurgled a sweet little sound of joy as she hugged him.

Darling hopped from her
lap into Emin’s, and Emin started to tickle him. His high-pitched giggle
reminded her of a baby’s first laughter. As the two played, she saw Emin’s
color return, and the pain that creased his forehead disappeared, without him
even realizing it.

Chern and Nightingale
were both watching closely, however, and noticed the change. They glanced at
each other.

“What a relief,” Chern
said, and reached out his hand to pet Darling’s golden fur. In the process, his
ring got caught on a strand of his fur and pulled it out.

Darling yelped in pain
and leaped into Valerie’s arms. “S-sorry,” Chern stuttered.

But Darling gave him an
injured look and vanished as quickly as he’d come.

“Feeling better, Emin?”
Valerie asked.

“Oh boy, yeah! I better
get home,” he said.

“Do you need me to take
you somewhere?” she asked.

“I’ll discharge him to
his parents,” Nightingale said, ushering her and Cyrus out the door. She had
the impression that they were being dismissed.

“Bye, kids!” Chern added
in an overly cheery, condescending tone. “Run along home now before it gets
dark. These parts have never been safe!”

They went their separate
ways, and once they were out of earshot, Valerie and Cyrus giggled at Chern’s
paranoia.

“Something about that guy
annoys the heck out of me,” Cyrus said.

“He helped Emin, so he
isn’t completely self-absorbed,” Valerie countered.

Before Cyrus could reply, she suddenly was pulled from
herself into Henry’s mind. On the Globe she wasn’t weakened by the connection,
so she could completely concentrate on what she was experiencing through him.

Henry’s heart was
pounding. He was standing at the doorway to Kanti’s room—Valerie recognized it
by the black walls that contrasted with a princess-y, four-poster bed. Lying on
top of the covers was a shape that looked like a person sleeping inside of a
white sleeping bag. Leaning over her was a woman with long hair streaked with
silver.

Valerie’s heart sped up
as she realized who it was—Ani, Kanti’s aunt. She had betrayed her and Kanti to
Zunya when they had been in Elsinore. Whatever she was doing with Kanti, it
couldn’t be good. Valerie sent images of what had happened to Henry, and his
hands clenched.

He tapped Ani on the
shoulder. She turned, smiling sweetly. “You MUST be Kanti’s boyfriend. I hear
you’re with her ALL the time. A little bit like a STALKER, if you ask me. And I
told my sister and her husband so. You won’t be staying LONG.”

She nodded to a
broad-shouldered bodyguard who appeared at the door. He pulled Henry roughly by
the arm and hauled him to the lawn in front of Kanti’s family’s magnificent ice
castle.

Henry’s blinding fear
returned, but she was proud of him as he fought to drive it back. Ani could be
doing anything in the room with Kanti, and it was up to him to stop her. He
stared up, squinting at her window, which was three floors above ground level.
Without hesitating, he began to climb.

Valerie’s palms began to
sweat for her brother, but she knew he needed her encouragement right now
rather than her doubt, so she braced herself and helped him find secure hand
and footholds. A few times, the slippery walls of the castle almost cost him
his footing, but he had an uncanny ability to find a crevice to cling to.

After several tense
minutes, he reached Kanti’s windowsill. Night had fallen, and her room was
dimly lit by a glowing orb in the corner. Ani was still by her bedside, and she
pulled out a long, sharp object from her purse. Henry leaped through the window
with a strength she wouldn’t have given him credit for and tackled her to the
ground.

“Don’t you touch her!”
he screamed.

She shoved him backward,
and he stumbled into the bed and cracked his head on the floor.

“Who’s to stop me? YOU?”
Ani quickly raised the hand holding the pointy object to bring down on Kanti,
and a powerful emotion crashed through Henry’s mind, a kind of protective rage.

“Yes, me,” he said, more
to himself than to Ani.

With the force of his
thought, he shoved her arm away from Kanti and pushed her out the door, which
slammed shut and locked. Then Henry dropped to the floor and released his hold
on Valerie’s mind.

She opened her eyes and
saw that Cyrus was gripping her hands tightly. “Are you okay?”

“We have to get a message
to Dulcea. Now,” she said. “What’s the fastest way?”

“I have an idea—it’s
worked a few times before. What do you want to say?”

“Tell her that Henry is
trapped in Kanti’s room, and Ani was trying to hurt her—maybe even kill her.
She has to go protect them both and convince Kanti’s parents about what
happened.”

Cyrus raised his finger
and began tracing words in the air. Like a magnet, light from the stars was
drawn to the lines he created. A short note hung in the air, each letter
entirely composed of light. Then he shut his eyes and threw his hand up in the
air, and the words flashed out of sight.

“How long will it take
to get there?”

“Speed of light fast
enough for you?” he asked.

“That was amazing,” she
said. Sometimes she forgot how creative and powerful a Conjuror Cyrus was. He
had the ability to control light, and this wasn’t the first time that it had
saved a life.

“Aw, shucks,” he said,
making her smile.

But her face quickly
hardened. “First Jet, now Kanti. If the Fractus want a fight, they couldn’t
have picked a better way to start one.”

Back at the dorm, they were able to talk
to Dulcea and Henry through the magic mirror and discover that Kanti was safe.
Ani had escaped by using her glamour disguise to hide as an old man named Iago,
a trick that she had been using for years.

“But Kanti’s parents are
still sending us away. Even though Henry saved Kanti’s life!” Dulcea said
indignantly, her blonde curls a rumpled mess from being dragged out of bed.

“They don’t completely
trust our story, so they’re keeping everyone away from her,” Henry explained. “At
least she’s safe. I can tell that her parents really are trying to do what’s
best.”

Dulcea sniffed, still
irked.

“Does this mean you’re
coming home?” Valerie asked.

“Yes, we’ll be back tomorrow,”
he said. She was surprised by how happy she was that he was coming back. They
hadn’t known each other long, but being apart from her twin was like having a
weight on her heart.

They said goodbye, and
she and Cyrus went back to their rooms for the night. Once she was ready for
bed, she touched the crystal that connected her with Thai.

He was waiting for her,
since this was the time of day they usually met. “How’d it go with Midnight?”

Valerie shook her head. “I’m
not sure. Midnight is convinced that Sanguina is trying to change her ways. But
I bumped into her and—”

“What! Did she attack
you?”

“Relax, she didn’t do
anything. She wanted to tell me something, but we were interrupted.”

“Don’t even think about going
after her by yourself. Way too dangerous.”

She repressed a smile.
Thai’s protective streak was a mile wide, but rather than finding it
overbearing, she loved that someone was watching out for her.

“No need to convince me.
Being around that woman gives me the chills.”

“So you think she’s the
spy, then?”

“I’m not sure. I have a
lifetime of associating her with torment, and now that I know what she did to
Henry, I positively can’t stand her. It’s hard to separate that from who she is
now.”

“What does your gut tell
you?”

She sighed. “That as much
as I wish she were the spy, she isn’t. Or maybe she’s involved with the
Fractus, but she’s not the real threat.”

“Time to move on to your
next suspect, then. Who are you going to take on next?”

She thought for a little
while. “I do already know another one of Chrome’s suspects. He’s the
groundskeeper, Oberon. He helped heal me after I fought with Sanguina once.”

“Then he can’t be all
bad.”

“Maybe. There’s
something off about him, though.”

“Maybe you should leave
this to Azra. It sounds too risky.”

“Azra’s not here right
now. And one thing I know for sure is that finding this person is urgent.
Something’s going to happen.”

He shook his head, resigned. “I don’t know why I keep
thinking that you’ll walk away from danger when all you ever do is run toward
it. Make sure you talk to him somewhere public in case he goes nuts on you.”

The next day Cyrus and
Valerie left the dorm with less of an appetite for adventure than they had the
day before. They dragged their feet, and she was hoping that maybe they
wouldn’t be able to find Oberon. There was something wrong about confronting a
man who had helped her.

But he was immediately
visible polishing a statue of a warrior in front of the Weapons Guild. He was
blind, but he worked methodically, and unless someone saw his cloudy eyes, they
would never guess that he couldn’t see.

“Hi, Oberon!” Cyrus
called. Oberon turned toward their voices, and his face thunderous. Cyrus took
an unconscious step back.

“Leave me in peace,” he
said in a low voice.

“I’m sorry, finding you
was my idea,” Valerie said. Oberon froze.

“Who are you? Your
voice…”

“Valerie. You and Azra
helped me awhile back after I was hurt. I came to thank you.”

He shook his head a
little, as if he was clearing cobwebs from his mind. “That is not entirely
true, is it? There is another reason you came to see me.”

Her heart beat a little
faster. Maybe she wasn’t the only one with a sixth sense for people’s intentions.
“We also wanted to see if you’d heard anything suspicious around here.”

“Word on the street is
that there might be a spy trying to find out secrets from the Guild Masters,”
Cyrus said glibly. She was suddenly very glad he was with her. Oberon’s
intensity was intimidating. “We thought, since you’re always around, people
might not notice if you were listening.”

“That’s not the whole
truth either, is it?” Oberon replied, but then he sighed. “You are not the
first to suspect that it is me who is spying for the Fractus. It isn’t.”

She instinctively
trusted his words, but she wasn’t sure why.

But Cyrus continued to
press him. “If we’re putting it all on the table, then I wonder why you’d still
oppose the Fractus, even though your reason for leaving them is dead.”

Oberon drew himself up
to his full height, and the air grew heavy around them, like the instant before
rain pours down. She could even hear a distant rumble of thunder. “Enough.
Leave me. I owe you nothing.”

His hands were shaking,
and the wind around them began to blow hard, pulling her long hair into the
breeze. Valerie remembered that Oberon wasn’t supposed to touch his magic for one
hundred years as a punishment for working with the Fractus, but she knew how
difficult it was not to tap into power when her emotions ran high. She’d rather
not see what happened if Oberon consciously or unconsciously decided to seize
his magic.

“Sorry, man,” Cyrus
said, and she thought Oberon would incinerate him with a bolt of lightning
right there on the steps of the Weapons Guild. She could sense that there was
an instability in Oberon, and she could imagine the whole city crumbling if he
didn’t regain control of himself.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry. We won’t bother you again,”
Valerie said, and she and Cyrus turned and ran.

When Valerie arrived at
her guild later for her daily training, she was still shaky. But if she wanted
a distraction, she couldn’t have come to a better place. The guild was in an
uproar. There were over one hundred Knights on the lawn, and everyone was
talking excitedly. She found the red-haired boy in her class, Juniper, who
actually turned out to be nice after they got to know each other.

“What’s going on?” she
asked him.

“Kellen’s missing, and
we’re sure it’s the Fractus. He was supposed to be Azra’s escort on her trip,
but someone grabbed him between our guild and her office. Again, no magic
trail. Chrome’s going nuts.”

“I thought Azra had
already left Arden,” she murmured, but she was distracted by the sight of
Chrome pacing at the edge of the crowd. Even from a distance, she could see the
tension rolling off of him in waves.

“Attention, everyone,”
Gideon’s commanding voice cut through the chatter. “Chrome will be organizing
the effort to interview witnesses and follow any leads. Report to your mentor
for assignments.”

Everyone resumed
bustling, but with more purpose now. She stood, unsure who her mentor was. Did
recruits have mentors? Gideon approached her, and she asked him.

For the first time ever,
he stumbled on his words. “I will be your mentor. That is, well, if you’ll have
me.”

“I’d love that,” she
said. Despite the chaos that her life had been in since her return to the
Globe, her ties to the people she loved were stronger than ever.

Beside her, Juniper’s
eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t mentor anyone anymore,” he said.

“I do now,” Gideon
replied simply. Then he pulled her aside and spoke quietly. “Chrome and I have
agreed that it is time to seek help in a new direction. You and I are going to
the Roaming City to seek a prophecy.”

“Your need is certainly
great enough,” Valerie agreed. The Oracles only allowed their city to be found
by those who truly required and deserved guidance. “But why bring me?” she
asked.

“You are one of the most
powerful Conjurors on the Globe, and I have requested your presence. That is
reason enough. Now pack quickly. I will meet you at the Lake of Knowledge,” he
said, naming the lake in the forest outside of Silva.

She hurried home,
turning Gideon’s words over in her mind with disbelief and a little worry that
he was expecting too much of her. Her thoughts were interrupted when she bumped
into Henry on the steps of the dorm.

“What is it?” Henry
asked breathlessly, already sensing from her mind that something important was
going down.

“I’m going to the
Roaming City for a prophecy. I have to leave right away,” she explained.

“I’m coming with you,”
he said, and she nodded. His need for a prophecy to help Kanti was also great.
Maybe it would even help them find the city more easily.

They packed their
belongings in the callbox in her room, and walked to the lake. Gideon was
already waiting for her, and he nodded when he saw Henry.

“I need a prophecy of my
own,” Henry said. “Please, let me come with you.”

“I will let Valerie make
the call,” Gideon replied. She nodded quickly in surprise. She was always
uncomfortable making decisions, but this one was easy.

“How are we getting
there? Another roller coaster?” Henry asked, wincing. She had to hide a grin.

“Um, actually, I’ll help
with that,” Chern said, walking out of the trees. He turned to Gideon. “You’re
quite sure that there won’t be any danger?”

Gideon shook his head. “The
Roaming City is secure. But if something unexpected happens, I will guard your
life with my own.”

There was no mockery in
Gideon’s eyes, and Valerie could see that he meant every word.

Chern waved his hand and
the air shimmered. A hole in the air appeared, and through it she could see the
desert of Ephesus, with its rolling waves of sand. Gideon stepped through, and
Valerie and Henry went through together. Chern came last, and the window back
to Arden snapped shut abruptly behind him.

“I hope it won’t take
long to find the city,” Chern said anxiously, chewing his fingernails. “We
could run out of water. Wait! Who brought the water?”

“Relax, Chern, you could
make another portal back to Arden if we get desperate, right?” Valerie said
soothingly.

“Ah, yes, of course.
What was I thinking?” he said absently.

But even without a
portal, they didn’t need to worry. The city of Ephesus found them quickly,
proving that their need was very great. White pillars surrounding a pool of
water appeared in the distance, and as they walked closer, she could see the
brown huts where the Oracles lived. They bustled through the streets, wearing
robes of different colors that signified how experienced they were at
prophesizing.

She remembered the last
time she was here, when she had witnessed a man named Leo joining the
Illyrians, an immortal race that lived beneath the oceans of the Globe. The
entrance to Illyria was in Ephesus, and she’d had the chance to meet Leo before
he vanished into the still waters of the pool at the outskirts of the city. She
hoped that he was happy with his new life.

Their approach was
spotted, and a familiar Oracle fluttered over to them on her dark wings.

“Sibyl!” Valerie said,
recognizing the Oracle she had befriended when she came for her prophecy.

Sibyl briefly rubbed her
cheek against Valerie’s as a greeting. Her heart squeezed painfully as she
remembered their parting after the funeral of Pythia, the original Oracle and
Sibyl’s mother. She saw Sibyl quickly wipe away a tear as well, but then she
brightened.

“I knew you would be
back. And this must be your brother. News travels quickly,” Sibyl explained,
seeing the twin expressions of surprise on Henry’s and Valerie’s faces.

“We have come for help,”
Gideon said, gently guiding them back to their purpose.

“On the rising darkness,”
Sibyl said. “We have been seeing a change in many of our prophecies.”

At a distance, Valerie
saw another Oracle hurrying toward them. She squinted. “Is that Putrefus?”

“Yes. I must speak
quickly. There has been a split among the Oracles. Conflicting prophecies are
being delivered to the Conjurors who have visited us since you left.”

“What does that mean?”
Chern said sharply.

Sibyl noticed him for
the first time and eyed him suspiciously, but continued. “It means that there
is a fork in time. Two paths are possible now. One set of prophecies guides us
toward peace, another toward war. It is up to us to choose wisely.”

“Has this ever happened
before?” Gideon probed.

“I see you’ve already
told them,” Putrefus snarled, reaching the group. He was panting a little. “There
has been a split in the prophecies, it is true. But I think there is a simple
answer. Some of the Oracles are making their predictions up.”