Forest of Illusions (The Broken Prism) (18 page)

“Okay, so
why
are you here?” Hayden massaged his temples, trying to allay a headache.

“You’re leaving to go to the Forest, aren’t you?” Oliver asked as though it was obvious. “Well, I’m going with you.”

Hayden threw his hands into the air and said, “Did I accidentally post a sign in the Pentagon announcing my intentions or something?! Why does everyone know I plan on going to the Forest?”

It was Zane who answered. “Uh, you’re not really the kind to sit around whil
e bad things are happening. It was kind of easy to guess what you were planning, for anyone who’s known you for more than five minutes.”

“And why would I take you of all people with me?” Hayden
ignored his friend and addressed Oliver.

“Because I want to know what happened to my mother, and unless you’re an absolute idiot, you’ll remember that I’m much better at magic than you and your friends, so you need my help.”

Little though Hayden wanted to admit it, having someone as well-trained as Oliver would be an asset to him right now…

“I thought your mom didn’t want you to fight,” Zane broke the silence. “You’re the lord of the Trout House now, aren’t you?”

A muscle twitched in Oliver’s jaw as he said, “I don’t recall reading any such announcement. Besides, Lorn will still be here to carry on the Trout name if something happens to me.”

“You’re risking the survival
of your house on
Lorn?
” Zane grimaced.

“As
Frost is risking the extinction of his house by entering a war zone,” Oliver shrugged. “Time is wasting, and you have yet to convince me you have the firepower to make this anything but a suicide mission.”

Hayden frowned and removed the key that Master
Laurren gave him from his pocket. “This opens a cache of mastery-level magical weaponry that Laurren had stashed away. All the Masters have one, and he gave me his key before he left in case of emergencies.”

For a moment the others stared at him in stunned silence, and then Zane said, “Why do all the weird teachers like you?”

“You have to ask?” Oliver grumbled, before changing the subject. “You know how to access this cache, I assume?”

Hayden nodded.

“Alright, then here’s what we’ll do. I’ll break the locks on the door and get you out of here—”

“Why can’t I just pass through the door with Zane’s magic or translocate with you?” Hayden interrupted Oliver mid-sentence.

“Because, idiot, you’re wearing Binders. Magic won’t work for you until we can get them off of you, which means we need to break open the door the old-fashioned way.”

“The
Fias are patrolling the hallways,” Tess pointed out. “That won’t give us a lot of time once they see the door’s been opened.”

Hayden frowned. “We split up. You guys go pack whatever you need while I get the weapons. We’ll meet behind the obstacle courses in the front lawns in twenty minutes. If you get caught, you stay behind.”

The others nodded grimly in agreement.

“Make sure you pack enough weapons for the rest of us,” Oliver grumbled, while Tess used a scripture to conjure a cloth backpack for Hayden.

“I will,” he assured them, turning to look at everyone one last time. It seemed crazy and impossible, what they were about to attempt, but things were moving too quickly to give appropriate thought to it. If they didn’t act now they might lose their chance.

Zane and Tess melted through the doorway and got a head start on them. Oliver waited in silence with Hayden for a minute or two before disappearing to the other side of the door. Hayden heard the loud noise of locks being smashed and ripped with magic, and then the door creaked open.

“Hurry,” Oliver snapped. “That was loud enough to wake half the castle.”

Hayden didn’t waste breath answering and instead followed him out of the room, keeping an eye out as they dashed towards the Pentagon before splitting up. He could already hear the sound of the
Fias approaching from several different directions. Oliver went through the east door and Hayden raced towards the back entrance, ducking into an empty classroom just in time to watch a Fia race past.

When he judged it safe again, he padded down the hallway and out the rear door of the castle, crossing over the smooth black stone where Conjury was taught just as he saw lights flickering on inside of the castle and heard an upswing in the noise from inside.

They know I’m gone.

He forced the doors to the Abnormal Magic cellar open and ran down the stairs as fast as he could in the dark, panting as he threw open the door to
Laurren’s office and lit a lamp. He stuck the key into the concealed lock and felt the floor shift to reveal the contents of the magical cache, breathing a sigh of relief to find it still intact. He opened his bag and began shoving things into it as fast as possible: prisms of every color, powders and elixirs he barely knew the purpose of, writing vellum for scriptures, charms, and conjury chalk. He even threw some infused bandages in, forcing the bag closed when it was at capacity and pulling it onto his back. He shoved the key back into his pocket and sealed the floor, looking around the room for anything else he might need before extinguishing the lamp. The small Absorber caught his eye just as he was preparing to depart, still swirling with color like an oil slick.

My magic is in that. If the
Fias took this to the mages in Kargath, it would be able to tell them things about my magic…

On a whim he grabbed the Absorber with one hand and hurried out of the room, taking the stairs up in twos and threes until he emerged onto the back lawns. He took about four steps to the right, intending to wrap around the east side of the castle until he got to the front lawns, when someone grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip.

Hayden whirled around and looked into Fia Valay’s eyes.

“You’re not going anywhere, Frost,” the
Fia assured him. “Now come back inside if you know what’s good for you.”

“Let go of me!” Hayden tried to shove him away, but the
Fia held on tightly and called out to his colleagues. One of them looked out of a second story window and shouted to the others, and Hayden knew he only had a minute before they outnumbered him.

He twisted and struggled, but
Valay continued to hold on, dragging him into the castle so that they were standing in the Prisms area, where Asher kept his office and classroom.

“Let…go!” Hayden swung the Absorber at
Valay’s head, and the Fia released him and ducked automatically, which was really lucky given what happened next.

The Absorber missed
Valay and slammed into the wall, where it exploded on impact. Magic erupted from the shattered glass in all directions, deafening and blinding them for a horrible moment, destroying an entire section of wall and blasting Hayden off of his feet.

Before
Valay had time to recover from the blast, Hayden scrambled back to his feet, made sure his limbs were still attached, and took off running around the exterior of the castle with his ears still ringing, sprinting towards the front lawns and relying on the cover of darkness to shelter him as he passed the main courtyard.

He heard noises and looked back just in time to see Master Sark staring straight at him. Panicking, Hayden ducked behind a large plastic tube that was set out for
the familiars to play in, as two more Fias hurried around the corner and confronted the Master of Powders.

“
Kirius, did you see him? Anders said he ran this way.”

Hayden closed his eyes and waited to be ratted out, because Sark hated him more than anyone and would probably love to see him expelled and arrested. To his never-ending surprise, Master Sark took a calculated breath and said, “He hasn’t come this way. He’s probably hiding near the stables until the area is clear.”

The three of them walked off without a backward glance, and Hayden continued as quietly as possible to the other side of the obstacle courses, where the others were waiting for him, still dwelling on the fact that Sark had definitely seen him and was letting him get away deliberately. Did he know that Oliver and the others were going with him, or did he just want Hayden gone? It was impossible to guess right now.

“Took you long eno
ugh,” Oliver greeted him sourly when he arrived at their meeting spot.

“It sounded like something exploded,” Tess looked him over as though checking for signs of injury. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I accidentally blew up Asher’s office with an Absorber while trying to get away from Valay,” he explained, motioning the others to follow him down the hill as the grass sloped away from the castle. “Didn’t anyone bring their familiars?” he asked as they crossed the boundaries of the school, the weather instantly becoming hotter and more humid.

“There wasn’t a lot of time to get them,” Zane grumbled.

“I looked for Mittens but couldn’t find him,” Tess said softly, sounding worried.

“Slasher was gone as well,” Oliver frowned. “It would be useful to have one of them to guide us through the Forest, but I
suppose they know how dangerous a place it is for them right now and aren’t eager to go.”

“That’s a bummer, but I suppose there’s no going back to search for them.” Hayden sighed. “Come on, let’s keep going—put some distance between them and us while it’s still dark out.”

They stopped running only when they reached a shaded alcove of trees surrounding a small pond a couple hours later. Sweaty and exhausted, Hayden sat down behind a large rock and leaned his back against it, splashing some water onto his face.

“Uh, did anyone think to bring food or water for us while we’re traveling?” Zane asked tentatively, embarrassed by this gross oversight.

They all shook their heads mutely, and Oliver rolled his eyes.

“Great, we’ll
be dead before we even leave Junir.”

“Hey, genius, I don’t see you carrying any supplies we can use,” Zane snarled.

“I’ve got chalk and scriptures,” Hayden said wearily, eager to put a stop to the bickering tonight. “If one of you can conjure some bottles then we can fill them in the pond.”

“And hope we don’t all die of dysentery
from untested water,” Oliver grumbled quietly.

Hayden opened his bag and began doling out weapons, and even Oliver was less surly with his belt full of mastery-level powders, prisms, and wands. He used one of the wands to tap Hayden’s Binders, and the
y crumbled and fell away. Hayden felt the familiar rush of magic return to him, and breathed a sigh of relief as Zane used his chalk to conjure some canteens and fill them.

“I feel guilty using such high-level chalk…like Master Reede is going to pop up from behind a bush and expel me for using materials I’m not cleared for,” he admitted, and Hayden chuckled at the thought.

“Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “Besides,” he added more grimly, “they have to be alive to expel us, so we’re probably safe.”

Oliver frowned and said, “You think they’re all dead?”

“I don’t see how they can be alive, if Cinder has been overpowered in his magical stronghold and he’s a bazillion times stronger than them.” Hayden shrugged.

“Then why are we going to check it out again?” Zane asked.

“Because I have to know for sure. If there are any of them still alive, even if it’s just Cinder, I have to do my best to get them out of there before it’s too late. Cinder and Bonk might be the only family I really have left, and I can’t leave them to suffer.”

It sounded lame as he said it, but the others simply nodded, and Oliver said, “Get some sleep. We’ll need to be up early to make sure we stay ahead of the search parties.”

Hayden didn’t need to be told twice, slumping against the uncomfortable rock and drifting into an uneasy sleep.

12

Amvale

The first thing Hayden noticed upon waking was that Bonk was perched on his shoulder, nibbling idly at some vegetation that was overhead.

“Bonk?” He rubbed sleep from his eyes and winced as he massaged his sore back and neck. “How did you get here?”

Now that he looked more closely, all of their familiars had arrived sometime during the early morning hours. Felix was curled up around Zane’s head like a furry hat, Mittens was pacing back and forth as though keeping a lookout, and Slasher was standing imperiously on top of Hayden’s rock, watching over Oliver while he slept.

The others woke at the sound of his voice, mumbling complaints about their discomfort as they sat up and drank some water from their canteens. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, but Hayden knew it was time for them to get going.

“Mittens!” Tess exclaimed brightly, and the cat leapt into her arms and allowed itself to be hugged. “They must have gotten together and followed us when we left.”

“How did they find us all the way out here?” Zane eyed Felix appreciatively.