AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The little witch already had her staff up. One of the little indentations that I’d mistaken for hollows in the wood was glowing with a pale blue light, like a flashlight. Which I didn’t understand the point of, since we could already see—
Nothing, compared to when she brought it down on the floor, hard. And a pulse came out of the bottom, like a wave heading to the beach. Or maybe like a stone thrown into a pond, because this one was moving outward in all directions, highlighting mop marks on the floor, dust in the corners, cracks here and there in the grout between tiles. Like a black light at a crime scene, it showed everything hidden.
Including the feet of a bunch of men arrayed along the walls.
“I hate when I’m right,” Evelyn muttered, and then shoved me at the door. “Go!”
I hit the floor instead as the paneling bulged outward in the shape of bodies, dozens of them. And then melted away entirely as the spell ran up their legs, stripping off the camouflage as it went. War mages, and not ours, I realized, as they peeled off the walls and started slinging spells that sparked off the shield Jasmine had thrown up, barely in time.
But one had gotten through, a split second before the shield snapped closed, strobing the room in poisonous green. It missed, thanks to a curse I hadn’t even seen Evelyn hurl, which hit the thrower at almost the same moment he moved. But it took out the transom and most of the front door with it, showering us with glass.
And finally sent wards screaming through the house.
“Well, the kids are up,” Beatrice said as Evelyn turned on me.
“Damn it, are you deaf?” she demanded.
“If I leave, and the adepts show up, you die,” I said, fumbling with the dead war mage’s coat. And trying not to breathe because it was covered in flaky white dust that flew up everywhere as I pushed and pulled and broke him to pieces trying to get it off. But I had to have it. The coats were spelled to resist assaults, and I was about to get assaulted unless I was way luckier than usual.
“You heard Zara,” Evelyn said. “They’re probably already gone!”
It took me a second to realize she meant the witch I’d been calling Jasmine. “And if they’re not? You may be good—”
“We’re better than good.”
“But you can’t fight someone who can manipulate time!”
She started to answer, but the shield shattered as a dozen spells hit it all at once. And then Beatrice brought up her staff again. A different hollow glowed this time, a dark, bloody red. And all the lights around the room suddenly shattered, showering the floor with sparks and sending flames running up the walls.
“Nice parlor trick, old woman,” a mage said, grabbing her.
The staff came down again.
And lines of flame tore out of every light, carving a pentagram of fire in the air and spearing half a dozen mages through with flame.
“Glad you liked it,” she told him as the man collapsed at her feet.
But while it cleared our general area, it didn’t do much else. Because mages were running at us from all sides now, rushing into the room from where I guess they’d been hiding, not knowing where we’d come in. But they knew it now, and we had to—
Hit the floor again.
Zara muttered something low and vicious, and the witches jerked me down beside them just as the windows all blew out. The curtains billowed inward and then broke off to fly across the room, and what felt and sounded a lot like a hurricane roared through the house. Mirrors shattered, the chandelier whipped about like a crazed thing, statues toppled over. And half a dozen mages who hadn’t gotten shields up in time went flying. But others just hunkered down, shield bubbles dotting the room, waiting it out.
Because yeah.
I didn’t think she was going to be able to keep that up for long, either.
“If they planted the bombs, they’re not here,” Evelyn yelled, to be heard over the roar of the storm. “This was likely a trap. The old man was right—they’re after you!”
“You were right, too,” I panted, still struggling to free the coat. “They’re willing to kill a few dozen children to get to me.”
Evelyn swore. “I can’t protect you and help the girls, and they can’t take this many on their own!”
“Then don’t protect me,” I said as the wind died and the coat came free with a sickening crunch, bot
h at the same moment.
Shields popped everywhere as mages surged back to their feet. We were about to get overrun, and the witches couldn’t cast and shield at the same time, and letting a bunch of mages get to point-blank range wasn’t smart. Of course, neither was this, I thought, grabbing them and shifting all four of us to where Rhea was flattened against the stairs, halfway up, the thin bubble of her shield rippling in the still-strong winds.
