"That is the action you must be doing: in this case, holding your hand with your fingers up or out. Next to it is what you must be thinking as you do the magic."
"Don’t overlook that part," Polland said importantly. "Your mind is the main factor."
Adi nodded in agreement. "And the last ones, in bold, are the words you need in Alvondir."
"That’s not too complicated," Bran said, though inside he wasn’t nearly as sure of himself as he appeared. He brushed a Winx out of his face again.
"It may be different than what you did with the truck. Consciously this time," Adi said, and he could almost hear a strange eagerness in her voice, "I want you to reach deep in you, deeper than you ever have, and feel the magic. Pull it out, wrap it around your fingers."
Bran took a deep breath but did what she said, lifting his fingers together as the book had dictated. He felt inside with his mind. He thought he perceived something, a strange power. It was different from anything he had felt before, making him eager to feel the magic against his mind again, as if visiting with someone he had met once before.
"When you think you’ve got it, say the words," Adi’s voice came. Bran hardly heard her.
"
Eclectri firinge,
" he whispered. But nothing happened. He opened his eyes, and none of the Winx had moved, and some even started to drift away, as if bored by just being near him.
"Reach deeper, Bran," Adi said, not reproachful. "Close your eyes if you must. Pull the magic out like a string,
ignite
it with the words, and set it all aflame.
Think
of energy on your fingers."
Eclectri firinge,
Bran repeated in his mind, burning the words into his memory. He tried it again, pulling the power, and it slipped away. He held it stronger, tightening his will around it like a rope that was pulling at his fingers. It felt as if it were slipping from his grasp, but he wrenched it around again.
"
Eclectri firinge!
" he said with determination, and it happened. He felt it, even though his eyes were closed, even though his mind was confused, his heart was racing, and his nerves were on edge. He felt it rush out of him, to his hand, going a thousand miles per hour through his body.
He opened his eyes, and there it was, curling across like a living thing: a great, glowing blueness of energy, rushing on the tips of his fingers like lightening crackling between them.
And all of a sudden, there was a great rush in the room from all over, like a stick being slung in a circle through the wind.
Bran heard it and looked up, but before he could react, every single Winx in the room leapt upon him like a giant, glowing beast, and slammed him against the wall.
Chapter 22
The Truth
Bran’s baCK hit the wall, knocking the wind out of his lungs so hard he lost all grip on the magic. The power vanished, but the Winx crawled over his skin, chilling him as they fed off him, up his arms and his neck. They felt so cold that goose bumps rose on his flesh. Their intense glow was like a spotlight in a room of mirrors. "Adi!" he said, not sure what he had done. There wasn’t a spot of Winx on her skin, not a wisp left around her or Polland. But what frightened him more was her face, stricken with panic. "What are they doing?" he asked. Adi did not reply, but moved for the cage, setting it back again and putting something inside. Slowly, the Winx started toward it, and she closed the door behind them. "Like I said, Bran," she said in the deathly silence. "They feed off the most powerful source of magic in the room." "What in the world does that mean, then?" Bran demanded, still shaken. She looked at him. "It means that you are different," she said, setting her hand on the top of the cage. "And it also means you really are the Hambric I feared you were."
"What Hambric?" Bran asked.
Adi shook her head. "Bran, you need to sit down. I have a lot to tell you."
She draped the cloth over the cage, and Bran could see her mind was far from that room. She was thinking of terrible things, he could see it by her face. She slowly sat behind the desk but was quiet, staring off and thinking.
"Did you see the color of the Winx when they were around me?" she began. Bran hesitated at her strange question, but slowly brought himself to answer.
"Blue…"
"And the color when they came to you?"
"White," he replied. Adi looked down, and then at Polland.
"Tell him," Polland said.
"I’m lucky enough to own the Winx: most people can’t get them," Adi said. "The way we know for sure which missiv a mage is from is by the color of the Winx. Each missiv has one."
Polland drew the book out again, pointing to the circles on the insignia. "Purple for Netora, green for Archon," his fingers moved to the left side, "blue for Illian, and red for Comsar."
He touched the black one at the top. "All joined to the black, the one for Drimra."
His last sentence had a serious, jagged sound to it—something he was saying without words. Bran studied the circle, and noticed with a start that there wasn’t a white marking anywhere on it.
"Then what about white?" Bran asked, a tinge of fear in his voice for what they would say. Adi glanced at Polland.
"Tell him," Polland whispered.
Bran could sense there was a tension in the air, and it only drove his alarm deeper. What were they trying to say that was so hard to get out?
"To be honest with you," Adi said, "you’re the only living mage to have Winx go white."
He was silent.
The only one?
There was more to it; he could see it in her eyes.
"What does that mean?" he asked. Adi took a deep breath.
"I believe it’s time I told you the truth about your mother, your past…and the Farfield Curse."
The last part of her words caused him to sit up straighter, though thankfully she had turned to her computer and did not notice.
The Farfield Curse
…Adi knew about his mother? Immediately, Bran felt uneasy. He had heard those words before, from Astara. A bad feeling crept over him.
"Have you ever heard of it?" Adi asked.
"No, never," Bran lied, speaking before he even thought about it.
"That’s good," Polland said in a low voice. "Everything’s still kept quiet."
"What is it?" Bran asked quickly.
"Farfield is a big city up north, not too far from here," Adi said. "It’s wonderful, filled with skyscrapers. There’s a museum with records and displays for hundreds of landmarks in the history of mages. It’s just an ordinary city, to most people."
She turned to her computer. "But years ago, something was happening in Farfield that was nothing but evil." She typed a few things in, bringing up a record. She had to type multiple passwords.
"Inside that city," she went on, "was a secret group of mages:
dark
mages. These people were far opposite of me or any of the others under the Mages Council, and they had terrible, hidden plans behind everyone’s backs. It was all secret, and no one knows about it all, even today."
"How do you know, then?" Bran asked. Astara had said the same thing to him—about how secret the Curse had been—and suddenly Adi knew of it as well.
"My work, here," she stammered. "And because of my involvement in the SSOD and the Mages Underground. What I mean to say, Bran, is that what I tell you now is a secret. If anyone ever finds out, no matter if it’s another mage, I might even be expelled by the Council."
Bran nodded slowly. "But why is it so secret?"
"Because it’s so terrible," she replied. "In that city, there was a group of dark mages, led by a man named Baslyn, a very powerful Drimra who had been leading them in secret for years. The dark mage cult was illegal, and still is, in every civilized city and country there is."
Adi looked down before going on. "Baslyn’s group created something so evil, it was the duty of the Council to destroy it. So terrible, if word got out, the world might rise up against us, go into chaos, and try to kill every mage across the world to save themselves from the danger."
Bran felt his heartbeat quickening at her words.
"We came very close," Adi said. "If we had missed them, it would have been a disaster. And I’m sorry…but I don’t even feel safe telling you the details. You’ll just have to trust me."
There was a long silence between them all. Adi looked back at
her computer and turned the screen so he could see the picture
as it loaded.
"This," she said, "is a picture of Baslyn."
He moved to see better, and the moment the image appeared, something leapt within him.
It was the man from his dream.
Bran recognized the face in an instant…the same he had seen in his dream that night, the same man looking up from the bed in the white room. It sent a jolt through his skin, and he felt the blood drain away from his face.
"T-then what does all this have to do with me?" he asked slowly, trying to hide his fear. There was something going on, and he didn’t like it. Something that involved him with this strange man. Both Adi and Polland were quiet. The silence bore upon Bran, and he looked from the screen, and saw that they both had dire looks on their faces.
"Also in Farfield was a woman," Polland said. "She was what we can only call a magic phenomenon."
"Meaning," Adi said, "her powers and witts highly surpassed those of every other mage, so much that it went unnoticed by everyone and she was able to hide it."
Adi looked down. "Her power was of a missiv never known to any mage besides in that of legends—
all the missivs together.
"
"The power of
Dormaysan,
" Polland said. "Scourged, by her own magic."
"Scourged?" Bran said. "Why would it be bad to be in all the missivs at once?"
Adi shook her head again. "It is not as it appears, Bran."
She went silent. Bran looked from her to Polland.
"All the missivs," Polland said lowly, "but the only magics she could use…were those for
evil:
the powerful, evil magic she needed to create the Farfield Curse."
Bran was frozen, unable to speak, unable to move as their words sank in and he realized exactly what they were saying— and who the woman was of which they spoke. Bran wanted to deny it, wanted to say something to tell her that she was wrong, it wasn’t true…but hearing it from Astara, and seeing the grave of his mother: it was slowly becoming so that he could not deny what he struggled so hard not to believe.
"Somehow, she gave up her ability for good, and replaced it with evil," Polland went on.
"We came very close to missing them," Adi said. "But, we got an anonymous tip, and the police rounded up the group, though some of them got away. The police locked Baslyn’s body into a secured morgue, but days later, his body was stolen, though he was dead. Thus the plot of the Farfield Curse was over, locked away, and marked confidential."
Bran could hardly hear what she was saying. Each sound felt like a sting on his face.
"We never found the woman," Adi said slowly. "No one knew…she had a son."
"It was me," Bran said, and though his voice was a whisper, it caused them to shift.
"How did you know?" Adi pressed.
But Bran was not listening.
"Emry Hambric…" he said aloud, unable to control what he was saying as everything came together, and he realized exactly what they were saying. He shook his head weakly. "Why tell me
this now?" he said, leaning forward on his hand, unable to sort through feelings of anger and betrayal and fear within him. "Why ruin everything that I have?"
Adi looked to be torn to pieces before him, seeing how it hurt him so much.
"Because…" she started, but then took a breath. "Because you
had
to know. Because every power, every ability your mother had in her being…has been passed on to you, Bran."
It hit him like an icy wind as he heard her.
"No," he said, trying to deny it.
"The Winx showed the truth," Adi said with sadness. "The powers of all the missivs lie inside you: but, even though your mother was a Dormaysan,
you
are free."
Bran looked up at her, his eyes becoming glassy.
"Free?" he whispered.
"Yes," she said softly. "Your mother was a slave to dark magic, but you are free from the bondage—to use any magic from any missiv, with powers no mage has ever possessed." She stopped. "Free to follow the ways of good…or the ways of evil."
The words echoed in his head, haunting him, pounding through him like a gong in his ears.
No…it was too much.
He heard the rumble of thunder outside.
"Bran…please." Adi sounded concerned.
No…he had to get away.
His mind screamed within him, driving him mad with her words. The thunder crashed outside, and he leapt out of his chair.
Adi and Polland shot up, staring at him fearfully. Lightning flashed over his face, his eyes wide. He stumbled, tripping over the chair to get away from them.
"Bran!" Adi said, but he dashed for the door. He ran out, his hands shaking and his mind a blur.
He had to get away.
She was close behind on the stairs, but he was already dashing into the pouring rain. Adi called after him again, but he ignored her. He didn’t care.
She can keep her magic, her secrets.
He felt as if everything he had ever imagined of his mother was a lie. He grabbed his bike from her car; tears sprang into his eyes, no matter how much he tried to hold them back.
"Wait!" Adi pleaded, running after him, but he didn’t look back.
Rain beat against his face, and he could hardly see his own hands in front of him. Lightning lit up the sky, and deafening thunder nearly threw him off his bike as he swerved across the street. He was soaking wet, unable to tell the difference between the rain and the tears that streamed down his face.
He wiped his eyes with his hand and felt sick and dizzy, but the bike kept moving, and he kept pedaling on into the dark, until he couldn’t hear Adi anymore, and her voice was just an echo in his mind.