The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves) (11 page)

Its eyes widened. “I . . . know those names. You’re the rebels who attempted to trick the goddess! The rebels who put thoughts of traitors in her radiant and glorious mind!” The head cleared its throat and took on a very smug expression. “You are all hereby arrested in the name of Valoria, goddess of earth and water. Oh, this is wonderful! How well I will be rewarded when she learns I have apprehended you all.”

“So far delusional thinking seems to be the main side effect of your resurrection spell, Maddox,” Barnabas said with a nod. “Interesting.”

“Resurrection spell?” Alcander repeated. “What in the goddess’s blessed realm are you talking about?”

“Do you remember what happened to you?” Maddox asked, though he was barely able to focus on anything the head was saying because—
it had worked!

The head was
awake
. It was
talking
. It might be delusional, but it definitely wasn’t dead.

Alcander frowned. “What do you mean, boy?”

Maddox grimaced. “I mean . . . um, how do you, ah, feel right now?”

“Why, I feel just fine. Certainly, I’ll admit to being a bit rattled—I’ve just had a rather horrid nightmare. But those are quite normal for me, I’m afraid, due to my large and active brain. I’m always creating stories, you see. After all, I’m a scribe—the goddess’s
personal
scribe.”

“Yes, we know,” Barnabas said, his arms crossed over his chest. “Tell me: What was your nightmare about?”

Alcander scowled at him. “You’re rather rude for someone who’s just been arrested for treason! But I suppose we do need something to talk about during our journey back to the palace. In this terrible
dream, Her Radiance had been fooled into thinking I was planning to betray her.” He paused and glanced at Camilla. “I assured her I would never, ever do such a thing, but she didn’t believe me. Before I knew it, the guards had their filthy hands on me and were hauling me out to be executed in front of a most bloodthirsty crowd.”

Alcander fell silent.

“Oh my, that does sound like a horribly frightening nightmare,” Barnabas said, clearly taunting the poor scribe. “What happened next?”

“Well . . .” Alcander frowned deeply. “Next, one of the guards took me to the execution block. There was a man who wore a black hood and carried an ax—the executioner. And then they forced me down to the block . . . and the executioner stood over me . . . and then he . . . and then he chopped my head off!”

Barnabas nodded. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but . . . that wasn’t a dream.”

Alcander just looked back at Barnabas, blinking with confusion. He looked next to Camilla, and then his gaze finally fell on Maddox, who returned his befuddled expression with a squeamish one.

“It’s true,” Maddox told him. “I’m sorry.”

“The executioner chopped off my head,” Alcander said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Bah!” Alcander scoffed. “What absolute nonsense!”

Alcander began to laugh, on and on until tears began to stream from his squinting eyes. Then he looked down.

And he started to scream again.

“Oh!” he cried, eyes to the sky. He was still crying, but not out of laughter anymore. “Oh, radiant goddess—I am dead. I’m dead! It wasn’t a nightmare—this is real! How could you
do
this? To
me
? Your most loyal and trusted and obedient servant?”

“Because she’s evil,” Barnabas said bluntly. “And guess what? You’re going to help us destroy her. She did suspect you of being a traitor. Said she saw it in a vision. Ha! What a laugh. Eva was the only immortal who was capable of having visions of the future. Valoria can do nothing more than sleep and hope for dreams.”

Alcander blinked rapidly, his anxious whimpering slowing to a stop. “Wh-what did you say? That I’m going to . . . help you?”

“You know her,” Maddox said. “You know her weaknesses.”

“I don’t know anything about her. You think what she tells me is the truth? Like your father just said, the woman is full of lies. There’s no way to tell what is real and what is not. Oh, I hate her. I hate her so much I could kill her with the force of my anger!”

“Now that’s a much more helpful way to talk,” Camilla said, nodding.

“No, it’s not,” Barnabas replied sourly. “He just admitted he knows nothing that can help us. This was a waste of Maddox’s magic. Let’s throw the head into the fire and be done with it.”

“Wait!” Alcander exclaimed. “Wait just a moment now. Let’s not be hasty, good sir! Did I say I don’t know
anything
? I know plenty. I worked closely—intimately—with the goddess for a very long time. I was her closest friend and confidant. Clearly, you have sought me out with”—he looked at Maddox this time, a shadow of fear sliding behind his eyes—“your rather impressive necromancy. Yes, the goddess told me about you and what you could do. What she wanted you for.”

“And what’s that?” Maddox asked, his throat tight.

“To use you as a weapon, of course.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but all the same, the thought of it made Maddox’s stomach churn.

“She can’t have him,” Barnabas growled. He grabbed Alcander by his hair and picked him up. “We’re done here.”

“No! Please! I want to live!”

Barnabas scoffed. “Don’t misunderstand your current situation. You’re not
alive
. You’re a severed head that can talk.”

“You’re wrong! I
am
alive. I
feel
alive! I am clearly a bit . . .
lacking
at the moment.” He paused, and then his eyes filled up with tears once again. “Oh, goddess, why?” he wailed. “My body! I miss my body! But I do know where it would have been buried.”

Barnabas glared at him. “And tell me: How does that help us?”

“When I prove useful to you—when I’ve earned redemption in your eyes by helping, as you’ve requested, put an end to Valoria—the boy will use his magic to reunite me with my body.”

“But I—” Maddox began to protest.

Barnabas put up his hand. “Is that so?” he said. “All right then. Give me a piece of information that we would find useful, and perhaps we can negotiate the terms of your continued existence.”

“Very well,” Alcander said nervously. His eyes moved rapidly from side to side as if he were scanning the interior of his mind. “Yes, I have it! Rebels are famous for being secretive, of course. But you can always count on a certain type of rebel who is willing to give up information for coin. There are traitors on
both
sides.”

Barnabas kept glaring, his brow furrowed more deeply now. “Go on.”

“I know that your goal is to locate the heiress to the throne. Valoria has known about this plan for longer than you might think. When she first got word about it, she began seeking information about Princess Cassia. And she found her.”

“I don’t believe you,” Barnabas snarled.

“It’s true!”

“Tell me more.”

“Agree to the deal and I will.”

Barnabas held the head over the fire. “Tell. Me. More,” he repeated.

Alcander shrieked. “Fine. Fine! Three years ago, the family that took in Princess Cassia was killed, but the princess escaped. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. But I know where she is!”

Barnabas pulled him away from the flames, but only a few inches. “Where?”

“I will personally lead you there.”

Barnabas grimaced and went to shove him back over the fire again, but Maddox caught his arm.

“No,” Maddox said. “Don’t hurt him anymore. He’s suffered enough.”

“Seems we disagree on that.”

“He says he’ll help us find Princess Cassia. His word is good enough for me.”

“Is it? Well, consider me far less trusting than you.” He went silent for a moment. “Still, if what he says is true . . .”

“It is!” Alcander insisted.

“What do you want me to do, Barnabas?” Camilla asked.

Barnabas cast a look at the witch, his brow drawn in thought. “I’m going to need you and Sienna to keep close to the palace while we’re gone and stay alert to any information the rebels can use.”

Camilla nodded gravely. “Of course.”

Barnabas looked back to Alcander, his fist still gripping him by the hair. “You have one week to prove your usefulness to us. One week—or you go into the fire and stay there. For good this time. Agreed?”

Alcander’s frightened face flooded with relief. “Agreed.”

BECCA

S
he dreamed she had golden feathers.

And sharp talons that gripped the lowest branch of a tree.

Her eyesight was incredible—she easily spotted a mouse-like creature slipping through the grass no fewer than twenty feet away and a little black beetle crawling up the trunk of a neighboring tree.

Curious to learn more about what it was like to be a bird, she tried to move her wings, but they didn’t work. She huffed and strained with effort, but nothing she did could make them budge. She was stuck on the tree branch. All she could do was observe.

She craned her flexible neck toward the water, and her heart leaped at what she saw: a young man kneeling next to a river.

Maddox.

He was shirtless, wearing nothing but wet trousers as he washed his beige canvas tunic in the water. His feet were bare; a pair of leather boots sat on the shore nearby. Maddox might only have been a year older than Becca, but he certainly didn’t seem like a boy. He looked taller than she remembered, with broader shoulders and lean, defined muscles.

Perhaps he’d always been this way, but she hadn’t totally
noticed until now, which was the first time she’d allowed herself to sit back and simply gawk at him. Well, the first time she took her time with it, anyway.

He scrubbed the worn material and then held the sodden garment up to inspect it.

“A bit better,” he said, and Becca learned that her sense of hearing was also much improved.

“Hard to get blood stains out, isn’t it?” It was Barnabas, emerging from the forest where Becca had previously spotted the small rodent.

Maddox sent him a glare. “Yes, it certainly is,” he said coldly.

“What? You’re cross with me? I was trying to feed you.”

“By tossing a dead warlog at me without warning?”

Barnabas scoffed. “Oh, please. It’s not as if I asked you to bring it back to life so I could kill it again. I was only excited to provide you with something other than berries and leaves to eat.” Barnabas paused, absently scratching his dark beard while Maddox still stared at him coolly. “The meat’s almost cooked. I promise it tastes almost exactly like rabbit. Come back to the camp when you’re done washing up. I’m tired of listening to Alcander and his incessant chattering all by myself. That scribe loves to talk.”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Maddox said, his tone no less cool than the expression on his face. He wrung out his shirt as Barnabas departed, then flapped it in the air to shake off the excess water. “Berries and leaves,” he muttered to himself. “I’m more than capable of finding something better than that out here. I’m not completely helpless.”

Maddox had turned to face Becca, who found herself mesmerized by the increasingly dreamy view of the shirtless boy before her. It took her a moment to raise her gaze up to his face, but when
she did she was just as glad. When dry, his black hair tended to be a bit shaggy, and he wore it pushed forward so it hid part of his face. Now, his damp hair was pushed back, and Becca took a moment to appreciate the warmth of his deep brown eyes, the pale scattering of freckles on his nose, and his lips . . .

Maddox Corso had very nice lips.

Suddenly, as if somehow sensing he was being watched, Maddox turned his head and looked up, locking his gaze right on Becca, whose branch was only four feet above him. Her heart jumped in her chest as Maddox cocked his head to the side.

“Greetings, pretty hawk,” he said. “You know, you remind me of a hawk I saw the other day. Your eyes are the same deep shade of blue . . .” He frowned and shook his head. “But that’s impossible.”

Maddox, it’s me! Can you see me?

He ran his hand through his dark wet hair, still frowning up at her for a long moment more. “It’s impossible,” he said, almost sadly. “It couldn’t be you.”

Look closer. See me. I’m here!

His frown deepened. He took another step closer to her. “Becca?”

Her heart leaped into her throat.
Yes! It’s me!

He said nothing for a long, breathless moment, then he put his head down and shook it. “Clearly, I’ve gone insane. Talking to blue-eyed birds. Farewell, pretty hawk.”

She tried to speak, to squawk, to flap her wings—but she was frozen. She couldn’t do anything but watch as Maddox tore his gaze from hers, gathered up his belongings from the riverbank, and disappeared into the forest.

Disappointment wrenched through every inch of her. To be so close to him yet not be able to communicate—it broke her heart.

A rustling in some bushes below caught her attention, and she
turned her hawk-eyed stare in that direction. The next moment, a girl emerged. She had long, dark blond hair and wore a dirty blue dress. She stepped closer to the river and kept her careful stare on the path Maddox had taken into the woods.

In her left hand was a dagger.

Panic gripped Becca. Once again she tried to flap her wings, to get to Maddox in time to warn him about the girl, but she couldn’t get anything to budge. She was stuck there, forced to watch helplessly as the girl with the dagger disappeared down Maddox’s path.

Finally, what felt like hours later, the hawk spread its wings and took off into the air, flying across the river and away from Maddox. Becca lurched awake to see Crys standing above her, shaking her.

“Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty,” her sister said in a voice decidedly devoid of cheer. “The alleged answer to all of our magical woes has finally arrived.”