Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (6 page)

Let’s up the stakes.

Hayden mentally commanded the clone to use one of its prisms. The clone obeyed, drawing its clear prism rapidly and casting at Asher, who tensed but made no move to draw his own weapon. It was immediately apparent why, as the spell went straight through him with no visible effect.

“Clever, but impossible.” Asher gave him an approving nod. “The clone is nothing more than a shadow of magic—solid as it may appear. Nothing about it—including its weapons—are real, so its magic is useless.”

“It was worth a try,” Hayden shrugged.

“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t thought of it,” his mentor confirmed.

After a thoughtful pause, Hayden asked, “Would it work if I handed it one of my actual prisms?”

Asher tilted his head and considered the question seriously for a moment before answering.

“It shouldn’t. Copies have no magic of their own, they are simply a reflection of your own power. But still, best to be sure. Go ahead and try it.”

Hayden handed the copy of himself what was left of his clear prism and had it cast Light, mostly because it was the most innocuous array he could think of off the top of his head—in case the magic actually worked.

But no, Asher had been correct. Even through a real instrument, the clone’s magic was worthless.

“Too bad,” Hayden frowned, reclaiming his prism and dismissing the clone. It vanished from existence between one blink and the next. “It would have been nice to make a few clones of myself, arm them to the teeth, and send them to fight my father on my behalf.”

“Indeed,” Asher exhaled heavily. “Still, you would have to be controlling all of them independently and at the same time, or most of them would just stand around uselessly, so it’s not terribly practical at any rate.”

“Guess not.”

“Even being able to conjure one copy of yourself—or anything else—can be quite handy though, especially when trying to confuse the enemy,” Asher put in bracingly. “It might buy the real you time to escape, if nothing else.”

“That’s true,” Hayden allowed, frowning as the Prism Master wiped the chalkboard clean and began sketching a new alignment in different colors of chalk.

“Okay, onto the next one…”

By the time Hayden was freed from the Prism Master’s clutches—the man insisted that things like ‘eating dinner’ were minutia that could be ignored for the sake of higher learning—it was nearly curfew. His roommates were still awake, studying for their finals tomorrow, but though Hayden hadn’t even begun preparing for his exams, he was too tired to care.

“Did you just get free from Master Asher?” Zane asked in alarm, while Hayden threw himself heavily on top of his sheets, fully-clothed and covered in chalk dust.

“Yes. I think he just taught me every alignment in the known universe, though he swears there are thousands more out there. My brain might explode soon.”

“Did you learn anything useful?” Conner set aside the stack of notes he’d been rereading with a tired yawn.

“Oh sure, plenty of it was useful. I just hope I can remember it all come tomorrow; we went through it way faster than I’m used to. He’s also started teaching me how to translocate myself with prisms.”

“Really?” his roommates exclaimed in unison. “Nice! Is it hard?”

Hayden rubbed his eyes and kicked off his shoes, letting them fall heavily to the floor.

“It’s awful,” he groaned. “The Masters make it look easy, but that’s only because their Mastery Charms take most of the magical load for them. Trying to translocate without one involves a lot of different alignments being cast in the exact right order—without too much time between them—or you just end up sending one of your legs to a stinking bog.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” Tamon asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Can you not smell the stink on my sodden left pant leg?” Hayden grumbled.

“I just assumed you were trying a new cologne,” Zane laughed. “I was going to advise against it before you met up with Tess again, or she might leave you for someone with basic olfactory senses.”

Hayden rolled his eyes, though from his position on the top bunk none of his roommates could see it.

“I was at it for almost an hour and I didn’t successfully send myself anywhere even once—even with the wards around Mizzenwald that are supposed to make it easier. The closest I got was ripping my leg off, and after I stopped screaming long enough to see that I wasn’t bleeding to death, Asher went to get it for me.”

“Well, translocations are super-advanced magic,” Conner pointed out fairly. “I’d be surprised if you mastered it in an hour, even as powerful as you are.”

“Yeah, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Tamon added. “It just takes time.”

“Time is the one thing I don’t have, according to all of my teachers. They keep looking at me like they expect me to drop dead at any moment, even while they’re giving me all this bolstering advice.”

No one really knew what to say to that closing line, and an awkward silence filled the room. Hayden didn’t mind because he was asleep within minutes; not even his smelly pant leg could keep him awake.

By some miracle, he was able to focus on his first two exams well enough to do himself justice, even with the constant threat of his evil father materializing into the classroom and killing him looming over his head. After two hours of disgorging every scrap of knowledge he had ever learned about Healing, he was more than ready for a lunch break.

Zane was complaining loudly about his Conjury exam when Hayden took his seat at their usual table.

“—can’t believe I misread that crosshatch on question twelve! I thought it was an ink smear—I tried explaining to Reede afterwards, as soon as I’d realized my mistake, but he just laughed and told me to go to lunch.”

“I doubt you’re going to fail Conjury just because of one mistaken crosshatch,” Conner said with a raised eyebrow at this gross overreaction.

“I know I’m not going to fail the class—but it could be the difference between qualifying for the mastery level and having to repeat the level-five. I’m still hoping to get one of his apprentice positions too, which means I have to beat out about twenty other people, and every mistake counts against me!” Zane snapped, looking slightly unhinged. Hayden made a mental note of how his friend looked when he was feeling particularly off-kilter, for future reference.

“Research isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Hayden offered in consolation. “Sure, it’ll be cool to actually discover something, but Asher and I have spent all year on one project and it still isn’t done. Mostly I just spend hours every day banging my head against the wall, in between doing whatever menial chores Asher is too important to do himself.”

“You said the two of you were close to a breakthrough on your project though,” Tess pointed out mildly, watching idly as Bonk snuck a cherry off of her plate and devoured it in one bite—stem and all.

“Well, that’s true…” Hayden allowed, before adding, “I doubt we’re going to get the chance to finish it up anytime soon though, what with current events.”

Tess frowned thoughtfully and opened her mouth to say something consoling, when the doors of the dining hall opened rather abruptly and loudly, startling everyone.

Hayden felt his stomach lurch at the sight of the three Council members who had just entered the dining hall, wearing the gold-and-black uniforms that signaled they were on official business. Hayden was only mildly relieved when he saw that Calahan wasn’t among them.

Most of the Masters didn’t look surprised by the sudden visit, and Hayden looked around wildly for some sign of what he was supposed to do, but for some reason no one would meet his eye—not even Asher, who was on the opposite side of the room, eating with a group of third-years. The three Council members were rapidly scanning the room, obviously searching for something. Their goal became apparent when one of them spotted Hayden and nudged his colleagues.

“Hayden Frost,” the man called out to him from the threshold as the three of them moved closer. Hayden stood up without knowing what exactly he intended to do. “I have a warrant for your detainment, co-signed by the Chief Mage and the High Mayor. You are to come with us immediately to the Crystal Tower, where you will be formally charged in the case of the Dark Prisms’s reappearance.”

Most of the room fell silent when the Councilman started speaking, and still none of the Masters would meet Hayden’s eye. Bonk had taken flight sometime in the last minute and was hovering in front of Hayden, flapping his wings gently to keep himself aloft. At first Hayden thought that his familiar was trying to act as a shield for him, but then—for the second time in his life—he heard Master Asher’s voice magically amplified inside of his head.

Tell them to take a hike and grab hold of Bonk!

The Prism Master still wasn’t looking at him, but Hayden could see the man glancing through a mastery-level blue prism almost lazily, compounding it with a violet one that he was holding in front of him on the pretext of examining it for dust.

There wasn’t time to question Asher’s instructions; the Councilmen were closing in on him fast.

Drawing himself up to full height, Hayden called out, “I have better things to do than play Calahan’s stupid games. If he decides to get his head out of his butt and start hunting my father, then we’ll talk.” Then, not knowing what it would accomplish, he grabbed hold of Bonk.

Between one blink and the next, Hayden found himself in the formal dining hall of the Trout estate. Magdalene Trout and Master Kilgore, of all people, were there to greet him. Oliver’s familiar, Slasher, was perched on the floor nearby, standing inside of a small conjury circle that had been drawn in chalk right on the plush carpet.

“What just happened?” Hayden blurted out dumbly, caught off-guard by the abrupt translocation.

“I see you are still fond of questioning the obvious,” Mrs. Trout said in her typical curt manner. “You translocated away from Mizzenwald before my colleagues could bring you to the Crystal Tower to stand trial.”

Hayden released Bonk, who was beginning to squirm in his grasp, and said, “But I don’t know how to do translocation magic yet—not even inside Mizzenwald with the wards helping me.” He frowned. “And I wasn’t even looking through a prism or trying to think through the spell.”

The Master of Elixirs chuckled and said, “We performed the magic for you. Magdalene told us when the Council got formal permission to move against you, so we were able to plan your extraction. Speaking of which, I must return to the school before I am missed.”

Without explaining anything else to Hayden, Master Kilgore clasped his Mastery Charm and vanished from the Trout estate.

“I thought it was almost impossible to translocate someone from a different location without their assistance,” Hayden continued questioning Mrs. Trout, for lack of anyone else to pester. “Or else my father could just vanish people at will and bring them to him from all over the world, without ever having to leave the house.”

“It is extremely difficult, which is why we channeled the magic through Slasher and Bonk.” She gestured to the familiars, who were now perched on opposite sides of a grand fireplace mantel like gargoyles. “Magical creatures of one family can form a sympathetic link between them with long-term proximity—”

“Yeah, I know about that,” Hayden interrupted her. “It’s why I knew Cinder was in trouble during my third year in the Forest of Illusions—because he and Bonk were close and Bonk started feeling his pain.”

Thinking of Cinder was uncomfortable, given that they were probably now officially enemies.

“That link also enables us to channel some of the more difficult magic through them—especially as they’re dragons, the most powerful of familiars,” Magdalene continued, not looking upset by the interruption. “We weren’t sure that Slasher and Bonk were close enough acquaintances for it to work, but it seems we got lucky.”

Hayden frowned thoughtfully, his mind still racing to catch up with this new development.

“So why didn’t the Masters warn me to run if they knew the Council was coming after me?” he asked after a minute of silence.

“They would have been dragged into this whole mess as well. The last thing we need are more people on trial at the Crystal Tower, and Calahan is unstable enough right now to press the issue.”

“I thought the Masters were
already
in the middle of things, since they stopped those three mages from abducting me as soon as I came back through the schism.”

Mrs. Trout shook her head.

“They were well within their rights to protect you at that time, as no formal charges had been laid against you, nor did Calahan have a Writ of Extraction. Now he does, so the situation has changed, and the Masters can’t be seen helping you evade the Council.”

Well, that explains why everyone was conveniently avoiding my eye when those three goons barged in to haul me to a jail cell.

He looked around at his surroundings again to convince himself that they were really there. At the beginning of the year he had wondered if he would ever see this place again; he never thought he’d be enjoying the hospitality of his former nemeses again so soon.

“Why am I here, of all places?”