Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver) (42 page)

The odd part was that I really was sorry about that. Not so much for Dan—he had a little public humiliation coming after what he put me through—as for everyone else. Eva aside, since I would have had to tell her, by going public in the way I had, I made the guys, who liked both Dan and me, choose between us. I made Khalid feel like his new family was tearing itself apart. I was shocked, but I shouldn’t have let my anger get the best of me that way. All my efforts to not act impulsively had gone down the drain, because I still didn’t have the self-control. Well, I was going to develop some if I had to die trying.

When Dan finally let go of me, after one last squeeze that felt genuine, he was doing his best to look happy. Hell, maybe he was happy. At least now he could have his position in the school hierarchy back. Knowing he could do something to help Jimmie probably also made him feel better. Hopefully not too much better, though—I wasn’t really ready to let him off the hook all that easily.

We both looked at Jimmie, who was grinning broadly. “Are you really friends again?” he asked.

“We still have some things to work out, but yes, we are.” Lucky I was such a good liar!

“Yeah, we can work out our differences,” agreed Dan. His words sounded a little hollow, but thank God Jimmie didn’t pick up on that.

“Wow, this is the happiest I have been in a long time!” He hugged Dan again, then me. “I can’t imagine anything better.” I, on the other hand, was still imagining Dan smeared with honey and tied to an anthill, so on the whole it was a good thing that Jimmie couldn’t read minds.

Well, cross one of those items off the to-do list. I half expected a brilliant white light to burst into the room and Jimmie to wave good-bye as he walked into it, so the nothing that actually happened was kind of an anticlimax. Evidently Jimmie needed to see us being friends for a little while before he was truly ready to let this world go. What Jimmie needed, Jimmie was going to get, and after the experience of feigning friendship with Dan, I could easily become a professional actor.

“We need to fix Stan this afternoon, and then I need to do something over at Awen. Dan, Jimmie, want to come with? We can pick up Dan’s sword on the way.” Dan looked a little surprised, but he played along, and Jimmie couldn’t have been happier. He sat in the back seat and chattered nonstop while Dan and I sat up front.

Nurse Florence had Dan’s sword, and I wasn’t eager to go back to school, but I couldn’t think of a better visual image for Jimmie’s benefit than me presenting Dan with his blade again. I threw a little don’t-notice-us magic around, because I didn’t want to blow whatever excuse Nurse Florence had made to Coach Morton, and with that magical help, we managed to reach her office unseen. Since she had wanted me to forgive Dan anyway, she was almost ecstatic to see us together, but she was also a little concerned that Jimmie was still trailing along behind us.

“I see Jimmie is still here,” she said—certainly a masterpiece of stating the obvious, but also a cue for me to explain to her what was going on.

“Dan and I kind of faked a quick reconciliation for his benefit, but I think he needs to see us being friends for a while before he can say good-bye.”
She nodded, and though I could tell she didn’t like the fact that the reconciliation was merely fake, she did not try to continue the conversation.

“I’d like to return Dan’s sword to him,” I said. Nurse Florence nodded, went into her storage room for a minute, and returned with his familiar blade, which I made a big point of presenting to Dan as if he were receiving it for the first time. He seemed more comfortable with it hanging once again at his side, and Jimmie looked satisfied. So far, so good—our act was working.

“Is Natalie Kim ready?” I asked.

“Shar, Gordy, and Carlos will have her at Stan’s right after practice, and I’ll come along too, just to make sure we have enough magical oomph to break the spell on Stan.”

“Good! Thanks for setting all that up. I’ll take care of Stan’s mom. I’m going to need to stay after the spell is broken to make sure I can get Stan back in charge of his body. Then I’d appreciate it if you could join me at Awen. I want to do the same for Carla.”

“You mentioned that earlier,” said Nurse Florence with evident concern. “How exactly do you plan to do it? I’m sure Alcina is not going to cooperate.”

“She will once she is irresistibly in love with me,” I said, wincing reflexively in anticipation of Nurse Florence’s impending tsunami of disapproval. I did not have long to wait.

“Tal, that spell is dark magic. I thought you knew how risky that is, how…evil that is!”

“It would be evil if I used it to make someone fall in love with me for my own purposes.” I shuddered for a moment, thinking of what I had almost done to Eva. “Surely the purpose for which the spell is used makes some difference?”

Nurse Florence shook her head. “I know your motives are pure, Tal, but that kind of compulsion is inherently evil.”

“Right now we have Alcina restrained,” I pointed out. “This is just a different form of restraint.”

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Dan. I really didn’t want to spend time bringing him up to speed, but I couldn’t very well tell him to shut up with Jimmie standing right there.

“During the battle of Goleta Beach, I learned how to cast that super-powerful love spell Alcina uses. We know from the fact that Alcina cast the spell on Stan but somehow missed David that it can be directed at only one personality within a body, so I should be able to use it on Alcina without having it affect Carla.”

Dan chuckled. “Carla has the hots for you anyway, as I recall.”

Yeah, you bastard! It’s too bad my feelings for her were magically induced, or maybe I could actually end up with somebody to love, since you made any kind of relationship with Eva impossible for me.

“Wouldn’t making Alcina fall in love with you make her less willing to relinquish control to Carla?” asked Nurse Florence.

“You’d think, but trust me. From my days under that spell, I know. Absence from Alcina was painful, but I would have done anything she ordered. I would have moved to the other side of the universe if I thought it would make her happy. All I need to do is give the order once she is under the spell, and she will have to give up control of the body to Carla forever, no questions asked.”

“So it might work out for Carla, but what about you?” asked Nurse Florence. “Tal, think of dark magic as if it were heroin. Shooting up for some reason to save someone else…Well, OK, I can’t think of any way that could ever save someone else, but just imagine it could for the sake of argument. You shoot up to save someone else, but the fact that you are saving someone else doesn’t make it anything other than what it is: heroin. It is still addictive; it still damages your body. The reason for shooting up, even if it is noble, cannot change that.

“The same is true of dark magic. You can begin with the best motives in the world; they won’t matter in the end. The more you use it, the more you will want to use it. Oh, you will find ways to justify that use to yourself. You may not even realize what you are doing, or, if you do, you still won’t be able to stop yourself.”

“Has anyone ever attempted what I’m talking about doing?” I asked.

“No, but—”

“Then you don’t actually know whether this type of usage will have any bad effects at all.”

“I told you!” said Nurse Florence in her firmest tone. “Dark magic is inherently evil, inherently corrupting. I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself in this way. Besides, forgetting about your own soul, we need you…and we need you intact, not horribly compromised.”

“Need me for what, exactly?” I could feel anger creeping into my tone and tried to keep it out. “Ceridwen is already gone. Morgan is imprisoned and will be turned over to the faeries soon. Once Stan is healed, once Carla is healed, what do you need me for?”

Nurse Florence was about to about to answer, but Jimmie beat her to the punch. “Tal, you’re a hero. I’ve seen you in action. Doesn’t the world always need heroes?” I glanced in Jimmie’s direction and almost felt like bursting into tears.

God, Jimmie, if I had only been there right before the accident, with the power I have now! Then I could have saved you.

“Let’s ask Vanora before we make a final decision,” I said slowly. “If I am going to throw away what may be the only way to save Carla, then at least let me be sure that is the right course of action.”

“Of course we can talk to Vanora. I’ll make arrangements, and we can go over right after we finish with Stan.”

“I need to make a quick stop at home first. I need to tell my mother the truth.” Hell, might as well get another lecture about why I shouldn’t do what I needed to do.

“The leaders of Annwn aren’t going to like that,” began Nurse Florence cautiously.

“I don’t care!” I replied firmly.

“Please let me finish. I was about to say that you probably need to tell her, given her psychic nature. I can make a good case that she will figure out what is happening eventually, whether you tell her or not. I’ll square things with Gwynn and the others as soon as I get the chance.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling enormous relief. “Oh, one other thing. Is that ice sword of Morgan’s prepared?”

“Enchanted to be invisible when sheathed and to appear like fencing equipment if drawn in public, just like all the others. Why? Do you have an idea of who you would like to see wield it?”

“Not permanently, but I’d like Jimmie to carry it today.” Jimmie’s face lit up. I expected to get a fight on that issue too, but Nurse Florence took one look at Jimmie and apparently decided his having the sword could do no real harm. She got it out of her storage room, sparkling with the tiny ice chips that fell from it; placed it in an extra scabbard; and handed it to him. I in turn handed it to Jimmie and helped him get the scabbard to hang properly. He looked like it was Christmas, which it very nearly was.

“Has he been solid the whole time you have been gone with him?” asked Nurse Florence worriedly.

“I think so. Jimmie?”

“Yeah. It doesn’t seem to take me much effort anymore.”

Nurse Florence nodded, and I expected her to start sending me mental messages of doom, but if she was worried about Jimmie’s continuing solidity, she kept her concerns to herself this time.

Despite the complexity of our plans, the rest of the afternoon proceeded almost without a hitch. I say almost because Natalie Kim was too smart to be fooled by “You can break the spell because you are a good friend of his.” I had the feeling Stan was going to have some explaining to do, along the lines of “Why haven’t you ever asked me out? Why are you dating all those cheerleaders?” and other similar questions. Nonetheless, Natalie was more than willing to help with Stan’s cure.

His father wasn’t home from work yet, and it was an easy matter to put his ever-hovering mother to sleep so that we could get the job done. Between true love’s kiss and all the magical amplification we could throw into it, that spell never stood a chance, and Stan was restored to us. It was actually much harder to restore the connections between Stan and David.

“Stan,” I said near the end of the process, “I’ve already told David this, but be careful. I’m only just barely able to make viable connections between you and David. If you think of your personalities as if they are physical objects, it is as if the edges are wearing out. I’m sure I could fix that too, with time, but in the short term I don’t think I could put you together again after another incident. I told David that no matter what happens to you, even if you are enchanted again, he is not to take over. You get that too, right?”

Stan smiled weakly. “Yes, Mother.”

I laughed heartily over that. “Dude, I’m nothing like your mother!”

“If she had the power you do, she couldn’t put any more into my healing than you have,” he said softly.

In just a few more minutes, Stan was good to go…which is exactly what he wanted to do. Well, he wasn’t going to need to do any heavy lifting on this trip, so I said sure. Aside from the usual crew (Stan, Dan, Gordy, Shar, Carlos, and, of course, Nurse Florence), we had Jimmie, whose presence everyone else adjusted to with remarkable speed, and Khalid, this time invited.

I had already said something to Shar, but I wanted to apologize to Khalid personally for upsetting him after the battle. Thank God little kids are so resilient! He had already forgiven me before I said anything and was all smiles again, happy to be going on a new adventure with me and his other new pals.

I sent everyone else ahead to Awen, so I could talk to my mom without them all waiting outside the house; at this point that might be psychic overload for her, and I wasn’t sure how long the conversation would take. I was risking giving Nurse Florence the time to convince Vanora to turn down my plan for dealing with Alcina, but Vanora was pretty stubborn. She was either going to agree with me or not. A few minutes alone with Nurse Florence weren’t all that likely to change the outcome.

I had picked a good day, because Dad was working late, so Mom would be alone in the house. I let myself in and found her quickly, not making dinner, as I might have expected, but sitting on the sofa in the living room, crying softly.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked, already knowing. She didn’t seem able to answer at first, so I took her in my arms and just let her cry. Eventually she calmed down enough to talk to me.