Edge of Pathos (The Conjurors Series Book 4) (7 page)

“I can’t give you
any promises, Thai. I don’t know who I’ll be if we ever come out the other side
of this war. I can’t stand to lose anyone else, and that means I’ll use my
vivicus power a lot. Even if my body survives this war, my mind might be
stripped away from using my magic.”

“You don’t get it,
Valerie. Even if your mind was lost and all that’s left is your heart, you
would still be the only one I want. When this is over, if all you need is a
friend to keep you safe, I’ll be your friend. If you need an ally to help you
recreate this world, I’ll be your ally. And if the day comes that you need a
man to love you with every cell of his body, I’ll be that man for you. But for
now, while you’re not sure what you need, how about I just be here for you?”

If Thai would have
touched her then, there wasn’t a force in the universe that could have stopped
her from kissing him. But he didn’t. He smiled at her, the rare one that made
her heart speed up and her mind slow down, and then he turned and continued
walking her home.

Valerie woke up the
next morning with the sense that there was somewhere she needed to be,
somewhere important, but she couldn’t remember where it was.
The air hummed with magic in a way that seemed out of sync with
the universe.

She found her
brother in the kitchen, and his nervous energy flowed from his mind to hers.

“Do you have any
idea what’s wrong?” she asked.

Henry shook his
head. “I checked in with Chisisi, and nothing has happened on Earth that he
knows of.”

As leader of the
Fist, Valerie ought to have done that already, instead of sleeping.

“I’m lucky I have
you here to keep us on track. I could never win this war without you,” she
said.

Henry turned, but
not before she saw the anguish on his face.

“I wish you’d tell
me whatever it is you’re afraid that I’ll find out,” she said softly.

“I can’t. Not yet,”
he said.

Valerie took a step
closer to him. “You can see inside my head. So why don’t you see how deep my
loyalty to you goes? Trust me.”

Henry’s hands
trembled. “That’s just it. I
can
see inside your head. I can see how
some days your grief is a weight that you’re struggling to hold up so it
doesn’t crush you. Can’t you understand that I feel the same way? If the weight
I’m carrying gets any heavier, I’m going to fall apart.”

It took all her
self-control not to push him further, but at last, she nodded. “I’ll wait,” she
said, and Henry released a breath of relief. “Let’s go to The Horseshoe and see
if we can sniff out what’s wrong.”

Their walk was
quiet, so they heard the shouting long before they reached their destination. A
crowd had gathered around the fountain in the center of The Horseshoe. Valerie
saw Gideon and pulled him aside.

“What is it?” she
asked.

Gideon was pale,
which frightened Valerie. Her mentor wasn’t easily shaken. He gestured to the
fountain, and Valerie squinted. It had been dry for weeks because of the
drought, but now it ran with a thick black liquid that looked like oil. It was
spilling over the sides, running in dark rivulets along the ground. It left a
dark, inky stain on everything it touched.

“I do not know how
they managed this,” Gideon said, finding his voice. “The Fractus were observed
at every moment while they were in Plymouth, and I saw nothing other than
platforms transporting large boxes.”

“It must have been a
distraction. The whole time, they were doing something below,” Valerie
murmured, but she wasn’t surprised. She knew that there would be a price to pay
for their ten days of peace, and now they’d begun paying it.

“I had Knights I
trusted on the ground, hiding, but they saw nothing amiss,” Gideon said.

“Until we know what
this stuff is, let’s get people out of here,” Henry said.

Gideon nodded, and
he, Valerie, and Henry gently urged people to go home. People were reluctant to
leave the spectacle, but eventually, they returned to their daily tasks, giving
the black liquid a wide berth. Henry was kneeling by a puddle, staring at it
intently.

“I don’t know what
this is,” he said as he reached out to touch it.

Valerie snatched his
hand back. “It could work like the Fractus’s black weapons. Or be related to
that new power we saw in the Fractus from Elsinore.”

“I don’t think so,”
Henry said, but he backed away.

“The flow is being
stemmed,” Gideon said, and Valerie saw that the fountain’s output was now just
a trickle.

But the
once-beautiful work of art was stained with black, and the edges were eroded.

“I think the Fractus
want to make sure that if they can’t get back inside, then neither can we,”
Valerie said.

“Of course,” Gideon agreed.
“Why didn’t I see it before? But I still cannot fathom how it was achieved.”

“This is only the
first horrible thing we know of that the Fractus accomplished over the past ten
days,” Henry said.

Valerie’s gut
twisted at his words. “I want soldiers tasked with finding a way into Plymouth
so we can see what the Fractus are up to down there.”

“I’ll put a team on
it,” Gideon said.

Every
one of her instincts screamed that something dark was going on under her feet.
This was only the first shot across the bow. Something worse was coming.

Valerie spent the
day with Dulcea at The Society of Imaginary Friends going through tactics to
attract new recruits to the Fist. On her way out, she saw Cyrus leaving the
Weapons Guild.

She opened her mouth
to speak, to apologize somehow for the pain she’d caused him.

“Don’t. Even talking
about it could kill me right now.”

“Do you want me to
go?” Valerie asked, her voice small.

“Yes, but what I
want doesn’t matter right now. We have too much to discuss in terms of next
steps for the weapons we use against the Fractus who have the ability to cast
darkness.”

Valerie nodded, a
little ashamed at how relieved she was that she didn’t have to face Cyrus’s
pain right now. He led her into the Weapons Guild to the little lab where he worked
on his weapons of light. It was abandoned except for Leo.

“Welcome, Valerie,”
Leo said, looking up from the dusty volume he was reading. “Cyrus has come up
with a new way of working with light that I’ve never heard of before, even from
ancient masters of the craft.”

“The other
lightweavers and I have a new technique for magically embedding light into the
weapons made by the People of the Woods,” Cyrus explained, standing a little
straighter from Leo’s words. “I want to test the theory with Pathos.”

“Of course,” Valerie
said, removing her sword from its sheath and handing it to Cyrus.

He laid it on one of
the black tables. Pathos glowed already, because Cyrus had imbued it with light
again after her encounter with the Fractus from Elsinore when she visited
Reaper’s camp.

Cyrus turned a crank
on the wall, and the entire ceiling of the little lab opened up to the sky, and
sunlight poured in. Valerie’s jaw dropped, and Cyrus gave her a little grin
that was an echo of his usually mischievous smile.

“How did you manage
a major architectural overhaul in here on top of everything else?” Valerie
asked.

“That was my doing,”
Leo said. “A friend in the Architecture Guild owed me favor. It took him
several afternoons.”

“That’s all?”

“Magic, Val,
remember?” Cyrus said, and it was like they were best friends again.

But when she smiled,
his own vanished, and he turned to her sword.

Concentrating, light
collected around Cyrus, and he glowed brightly. His fingers worked the light,
and it knit together in ever-brighter strands. Then he touched Pathos, and the
strange light pattern became embedded in her sword. There was a bright flash,
and Cyrus stepped back, sweating.

Pathos lifted off
the table, spinning, the blade flashing so brightly that Valerie had to squint.

“Is that supposed to
happen?” she asked.

“I didn’t do that,”
he said, out of breath.

Pathos spun faster
and faster, and then abruptly stilled. Valerie started to reach for it when it
slammed into the table. The blade sliced through and embedded up to the hilt.
At Pathos’s touch, the entire table glowed.

Leo and Cyrus nodded
in satisfaction.

“Better than we
hoped,” Leo said.

“What happened?”
Valerie asked.

“Leo treated the
table with some of the magic from one of the Fractus’s black weapons. Our light
weapons didn’t go out when they were near it, but they did dim. Pathos didn’t
only resist the power of the magic, it completely reversed it.”

“So it transformed
the dark magic into light?” Valerie asked.

Cyrus nodded.

“I never dreamed
that would be possible,” she said.

“It should work
against the Fractus’s old weapons,” Cyrus said. “That’s no guarantee it will be
immune to whatever these new powers are.”

“But it’s a start.”

“It’s a major blow
to the Fractus, my boy,” Leo said gently.

“But the amount of
power I drew…it will take months to create the number of weapons we need with
this light treatment,” Cyrus said.

Valerie saw now that
Cyrus drooped, and his usual glow was almost gone. How much of himself and his
magic had he poured into her sword?

“But with the help
of the other lightweavers, couldn’t you manage it sooner?” Valerie asked.

“They won’t be able
to draw enough power. I think that my powers changed after you saved me, Val.
They were a little above average before, but now, they are untouchable,” Cyrus
said, but without pride.

“Chern’s words are
true,” a deep voice rang through the room, vaguely familiar.

Valerie yanked
Pathos from the table and held it at the ready.

“Will you let her
kill us, Cyrus?” a woman’s voice spoke now.

“Mom?” Cyrus asked.

Cyrus’s parents
stepped from the shadows.

“Chern said that you
were using magic to create weapons to kill his people, but we didn’t believe
him,” Mr. Burns said.

“You don’t
understand,” Cyrus said, his voice flat.

“Cyrus, sweetheart,
you are so much better than this,” his mother said, her voice shaking.

“Enough. You’re
coming home with us,” Mr. Burns said.

“Do you really think
you can convince me to abandon everything I believe in and the people I love?”
Cyrus asked. “Leave. I can’t stand to see you right now. You’re cowards, hiding
behind your values. Can’t you see that what’s right is protecting innocent
people?”

“If you really
believe that, then you’ll come with us,” Mrs. Burns said.

“Chern says that if
you come home with us, he will spare our people from this war,” Mr. Burns said.
“He will bend space so that no one will ever find Messina again, and we will be
free of the taint of magic forever.”

“He also promised
that your father will be the one to lead our people through this time of
chaos,” Mrs. Burns added.

“You and Cara will
come with us. The time for your foolish rebellion has come to an end. I won’t
let you ruin what I’ve worked for,” Mr. Burns said.

“You’re no better
than Reaper, grasping for power behind the false idea that you know what’s best
for everyone,” Cyrus said. “Get out of here.”

“Now listen here,”
Mr. Burns began.

“Get out!” Cyrus
yelled, and both of his parents drew back in shock.

“If we leave, you’ll
never see us again,” Mr. Burns said.

Cyrus’s mother gave
her husband a sharp frown, but before she could contradict him, Cyrus spoke.

“I should be so
lucky. Leave, and never come back,” he said, his voice colder than Valerie had
ever heard it.

Cyrus’s mother
paled. Valerie saw her eyes fill with tears before Mr. Burns yanked her away.

“Cy, no,” Valerie
whispered. “They’re your parents. You only get one set.”

“You
don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, either,” Cyrus said, and he left the
room, slamming the door behind him.

Valerie’s headache
had been mounting all day, and she stumbled home in a fog of pain. But the
closer she got, the more it lifted. She guessed the reason when Clarabelle
cantered up to her, exuding the promise of peace and love.

Since Azra and
Clarabelle had moved into the forest near her house, Valerie had noticed green
returning to the woods, and her little garden was positively lush.

“Were you waiting
long, little one?” she asked.

Clarabelle was
excited, Valerie could sense when the unicorn touched her mind. Something
wonderful was about to happen.

I don’t know what’s going
on with her, either.
Azra stepped out of Valerie’s house, smiling at the sight of her
foal rolling around in the grass.

“Someone’s coming?”
Valerie asked, trying to interpret the barrage of sweet notes pinging her mind
from Clarabelle’s.

Indeed. Someone
amazing.

The air in Valerie’s
garden shimmered, and two figures appeared, transported from Earth. She
recognized the taller person immediately.

“Dr. Freeman! Is
everything okay?” Valerie asked.

Gideon heard her
shout and came outside. It was only the third time Dr. Freeman had come to the
Globe. He’d said that it was overwhelming to be in a land full of so much
magic. He preferred Valerie to visit him.

“Quite excellent,
actually,” Dr. Freeman said. “Wouldn’t you say so, Ming?”

Valerie turned her
gaze to the girl standing at Dr. Freeman’s side, and her eyes widened. This
wasn’t the sickly child she remembered from the hospital, or even the thin,
pale girl recovering from a long illness. In the months since Darling had cured
her of cancer, Ming had flourished. Her short hair shone, and her eyes sparkled
with health.