Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) (31 page)

They had fetch
ed
him.

When the circle of
spellspinners
surrounding him
broke apart and vanished, Lance
stood there alone. He
staggered and fell, emitting a sound somewhere between a groan and a hiss. It’s not fun to be forcibly
skatched
.

I stared at him in shock. He was wearing that gorgeous bad-boy suit he’d worn to the Homecoming dance—or what was left of it. The tie was gone. The jacket was open. He was covered in dust. One of the trouser legs had a jagged rip across the calf. His hair was matted, his face was grimy.

I almost fell over, myself, as the realization slammed into me:
Lance was their
prisoner, too!

I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t understand why they would spellbind Lance. Me, I understood. From their perspective, it was necessary—to hold me while they deliberated and decided what to do. But Lance?
They had no reason to bind Lance.

Did they?

A possible reason occurred to me. I nearly gasped aloud as it hit home.

What if
t
hey knew he would help me if he could
?

They would bind
him, to
make sure he couldn’t.

I felt my world shifting to make room for this new reality: Lance Donovan, risking everything in an attempt to save me. I’d been so sure that Lance would never lift a finger to help anybody unless it served him somehow, that I had a hard time believing the truth
staring me in the face.

My
mind flashed back to those
last few secon
ds in Cherry Glen,
when I reached
for Lance
. I had heard him thinking,
I can’t let them do this to you.

Others had heard him, too. T
hey’d had
access to each other’s thoughts and feelings while they joined forces to make that binding spell. Even I, the target of the sp
ell, had been able to sense the seven distinct personalities bearing down on me
. They must have heard him loud and clear.

And just as Amber had warned him it would, siding with me had painted a great big
bull’s eye
on his back.

So many emotions r
aced through me, I could hardly think straight
. It didn’t make sense to feel relief, because I was in just as bad a spot as I had been before. My life could end tonight. Or I might leave this place
still
a prisoner
, facing the rest of my days locked in
Spellhaven
, powerless.
But I did feel relief. My heart soared with it.
Because I was not alone.

If I died tonight, Lance would avenge me. If I were imprisoned, he would not rest until he set me free. I knew it in my very bones.

But I suppose the others knew it too. Not good.

He
go
t
slowly
to his feet,
shoulders hunched,
jaw set in a grim line. He looked
as if
he’d like to take a piece out of whoever brought him here.
His head was slightly lowered, like a
moose
ready to charge…or an animal in pain.

“Lance Donovan,” said the old man. “Do you know why you are here?”

“No,” he said shortly, glaring at the Council. “Hell no.”

I saw a few grins, quickly smothered,
among
the crowd. Lance’s defiance was better received than mine had been. But then, they all knew him. He was one of them. No wonder he got more sympathy.

“You are hereby given a chance to speak, should you choose to do so.”

He looked wary. I didn’t blame him. He was thinking they would use his words to trap him, and I agreed; the risk was high. He straightened and looked at each Council member, one at a time, studying them. Then he looked around, past the fire, at the other
spellspinners
—his kinsmen. His friends.

And I understood, watching his gaze travel slowly from face to face and picking up just the bare edges of what he was feeling, that none of them were really his friends. Not the way I understood friendship. And none of them were family—not the way I understood family.

And having spent some time in my world, Lance now thought of family and friendship the way I did. He knew what the
spellspinners
were missing
…what they had abandoned, to keep their powers intact and protect their race. And he, like I, wo
ndered if it were worth it.

He, like I, hoped to find a third way. To have it all.

And he, like I, had just spent ten days in a tube cell for this heresy.

Which had not cured him of his apostasy, needless to say. In fact—predictably—it had pushed him closer to my way of thinking.
So imprisoning Lance had not been a smart move.

Rune rose again. “If you feel inclined to defend Zara, Lance, now would be a good time.”

Lance’s gaze sharpened as he looked at Rune. “This is nuts,” he said. He looked around the group again. “
What are you punishing her for? Existing?
”

I heard Rune thinking,
That’s about the size of it.
But he sat down without saying it aloud, and I’m not sure if anyone other than Lance and me heard him.

And then, finally, Lance looked at me.

The sight of what my tube cell
had done to me—even though my condition was
probably about
the same as his—shocked him. I felt his anger rise as he took in my dust-grimed dress, tangled hair and streaked face.
Plus, he immediately picked up that I’d been badly frightened. That sent his anger higher. I saw his eyes pulse with green fire. Once. Just once. Then he regained control.

Let me in,
his mind whispered to mine.

I’d been blocking
so many,
so hard, for so long, I hadn’t realized I was blocking Lance as well.

I saw no poin
t in keeping that up. Not here. N
ot now. I let him in.

As soon as I knocked
down the gate in my mind
, k
nowledge
poured into
me. No w
ords were necessary.
The first thing I saw was that
Lance
was
now
an even bigger rebel than I
was. They had taken his power stone by force and held him
prisoner
, which had—naturally—turned him against them.
That had been
their first mistake.

And
tonight
they’d
finally
let him near enough to help me escape.
That would be mistake number two.

Now I heard words coming from him, loud and clear:
Remember that ace we have up our sleeve?

He meant
wholesoul
. He just wasn’t going to form the word
.
I remember,
I shot back.

We’re
gonna
play it.

I sensed a flutter of disquiet among the Council and knew that some of them, at least, had heard this exchange. But they didn’t know what it meant. And we were going to throw down that ace before they figured it out.

We’d been weakened. We’d been bound. But we were still Lance and Zara…the most powerful
spellsp
inners
born to this generation.

And together, we’d be stronger
yet. Stronger
than the Council dreamed.

Our eyes locked. W
e summoned Power. It answered faintly, but it answered. I felt strength and joy singing through my body and
knew my eyes were sparkling with violet light
. Without a word, I walked past the fire toward Lance. Dimly I heard exclamations from the
spellspinners
across from us, and a commotion of some sort among the Council. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I was with Lance now. I was whole.
I could have walked right through the fire if I’d ha
d to; nothing could touch me
.

A faint smile curved his lips. His eyes were lit
, glowing green as foxfire
. He was gorgeous and powerful. And dangerous—but
not to me. Tonight, Lance
was
a weapon in my hand, and together we would vanquish my enemies.

I reached his side. I took his hand
. Instantly, our power doubled.

We turned to face our kinsmen with our connection humming through us at high voltage. Purple and green light—pale, but discernible in the near-dark where we stood—writhed and crackled along our skin.

We
must have looked formidable, even
in our weakened state.
We were only a shadow of what we normally would be, but we were still much stronger than they had bargained for.
The Council appeared completely
gobsmacked
, and the mixture of surprise and confusion gripping the rest of the throng
was—I admit—highly satisfying to behold
.

I was all prepared to make a speech, but Lance felt my intention and scotched it.
I knew what he knew, now, so I agreed with him—reluctantly. There was no time.
I’d love to tell them all what I thought, set
them straight on a few points. B
ut yeah. Not tonight.
We had to get out, and get out fast.
We’d surprised them, but they’d regroup soon. And in our present condition, we were no match for them.

I had no plan, naturally. I
hadn’t expected any of this. Plus,
I didn’t know
Spellhaven
the way Lance did. But Lance had evidently given this scenario some thought.
Go with me,
he told me. I knew he meant for me to go with him mentally as well as physically. It was hard to let go. I was out of practice. But I took a deep breath, let go, and slid my mind deeply into his.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s rather like plugging a cord into a socket. The cord is still the cord and the socket’s still the socket, but they’re made to fit each othe
r. And once the pieces connect, juice flows
.

Moving as one, we melted into the forest behind us. Lance grabbed the power
buzzing along our skin and used it to create a glamour.

This was something he’d never taught me to do, so it was instructive to see it happening from the inside out, as it were. It seamlessly transferred the knowledge into my brain. Now I knew how to create a glamour.

He saw this, and almost laughed. But it didn’t slow him down. What he—or we, I wasn’t sure—had just done would cloak us from the
spellspinners
while we
ran, but we still needed to run
.

Away from the campfire, the woods were
pitch
dark
and our eyes were still dazzled from the light
.
W
e pelted right off the edge of a sharp little hill, stumbling and sliding in the scree.

We could hear shouts behind us. Some of the
spellspinners
wanted to get organized before trying to search; others thought there was no time to lose.
It was impossible to tell how many had already taken off after us. We heard a
voice
: “Go in pairs!”—
and
then
we heard them coming.
A
t least one of the pairs had guessed our direction correctly.

No time to stop. We stumbled forward, hands clasped to keep our power strong
, tripping on something every third or fourth step.
My heart was hammering like a rabbit’s. Glamour or no, they’d hear us crashing through the woods.
Sure enough, someone shouted, “This way!” And more feet came running.

We had to hide.

Redwood forests are full of gigantic trees with
hollowed-out bases. That’s because mature redwoods can
survive forest fires and go right on growing, but the fires leave
holes behind, some as big as rooms.
Quick
as
thought, Lance ducked into one of these
and froze
—and of course I was with him, ducking and freezing as he did, lending what power I could to strengthen the glamour so we became one with the tree.
They would
n’t be able to see us or smell us; they’d
have to get close enough to hear our breathing before they’d know we were there.
But we were breathing pretty hard. At least I was.

It was strange inside the hollowed-out tree. Sounds were muffled, and the scent of the old, charred wood made me afraid I was going to sneeze.