Royal Institute of Magic: The Shadowseeker (Book 2) (17 page)

“I looked that up,” Charlie said. “A mission, led by the Institute several centuries ago, hunted down the forrecks one by one with crystal dragons, which appear to be the only dragons capable of taking them down. It was slow and bloody, but by the 20th century, the forreck and the crystal dragon had basically killed each other off. Crystal dragons are now officially extinct and nobody has seen a forreck in the last two centuries.”

“Wow,” Ben said. “Well at least we know that, should we find a forreck, it could well be the one guarding the boots.”

Charlie began tapping the book and pursed his lips. “There is one thing we haven't considered. If your parents were here, Ben, then they probably would have read these books and most likely also stumbled upon the bit about Lornor Taren. What if they have already visited him?”

Ben had the same exact thought. “As you said, we don't know if my parents were here, and even if they did find and visit Lornor Taren, we don't know what happened. We need to find out.”

“Do we?”

Charlie spoke the question softly, staring thoughtfully into the lush carpet.

Ben was taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?”

When Charlie looked up, his excitement had been replaced by a mellow, almost sombre expression.

“Ben, your parents are hot on the heels of Elizabeth's Boots, a task we know is critical to stopping Suktar. I'm concerned that if we go searching for them, we might get in their way.”

Ben was so shocked it held his rising anger in check. “How would we get in their way?”

Charlie kept his voice soft, aware that Ben was slowly building up steam. “Your parents are highly skilled Spellswords. What could we do to help them? They'd probably just end up babysitting us.”

Ben flew off his seat and pointed a finger at Charlie, but no words came forth. He turned and stepped away, his mind swirling with anger and disbelief. He walked over and leant on the table, trying to collect his thoughts. Natalie was talking, but it was just noise, and he barely registered it. The initial shock had subsided, and the resulting anger eventually gave way to genuine confusion.

Ben turned back to Charlie. “Two years my parents have been gone. Most of that time I was led to believe they were dead. You were with me when we found out they weren't. That's why we came to the Institute in the first place, to find out what happened to them.”

“A lot has changed since then,” Charlie said, keeping his voice soft.

Ben slammed a fist into his palm. “Nothing has changed,” he said, his voice rising. “Nothing is more important than finding my parents.”

“Nothing?” Charlie's patience was starting to fray and he gripped his seat, his voice gaining some steel. “What about your parents single-handedly trying to stop a dark elf king from taking over the world?”

“Nothing!” Ben shouted, stabbing a finger towards Charlie. He stepped forwards. Charlie sprang from his chair to meet him.

“That's enough!”

Natalie's voice reverberated round the room with such force it made Ben's ears ring. In one purposeful stride she had placed herself between Charlie and Ben. Her green eyes were blazing and there was an intensity about her that cut through Ben's anger.

“Ben, you are thinking with your heart. Charlie, you are thinking with your head. It's not surprising you've come to different conclusions. It's certainly not worth fighting over. There is no right answer. Now both of you, calm down.”

Ben felt like he had been splashed with icy water. He ran a hand through his hair. The red mist began to clear and that part of his mind responsible for analytical thought clicked back into gear.

“Look, I know it might not make complete sense,” Ben said, with a resigned shrug. “But you only get one set of parents. I'd like to see mine again.”

Charlie smiled. “As Natalie said, sometimes it's better thinking with the heart, not the head. I'm just kind of rubbish at that.”

“Good!” Natalie said, clapping her hands together. “Now, can the two of you kiss and make up? I want to get out of here.”

Ben's hopes of visiting SpellWorks Inc. anytime soon were dashed the very next day.

“Two weeks?” Ben asked. “We can't get in any sooner?”

They were talking quietly in the corner of the common room, sipping on tea and hot chocolate to wake themselves up.

“One does not simply walk into SpellWorks,” Natalie said, with a little smile. “I know someone who works there, but that's how long he thinks it will take before he can get us in. It took me all weekend just to convince him to help us.”

“And we can't just wing it ourselves?”

“Not if we value our lives,” Natalie said.

Charlie cleared his throat. “Two weeks it is, then.”

Ben swallowed his disappointment. For the first time, they were hot on the trail of his parents, and possibly Elizabeth's Boots. He stared at his cup of tea disconsolately.

But if he thought the two-week waiting time would pass slowly, he was very wrong, as he found out the following morning at muster.

“A word, please, Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Hornberger,” Dagmar said, as they were filing out with the rest of the apprentices.

Dagmar, Ben noticed, was not looking her usual imperious self. She had small bags under her eyes and they were slightly red. Even her hair, which was normally pulled back in a perfect ponytail, had a few strands out of place.

Even more astonishing than her looks was the nod of approval Dagmar gave them. “Congratulations on managing to stick to your targets. You are now on day thirty of your apprenticeship. As you know, the first grade of the apprenticeship can only last a maximum of fifty days, and the earlier you complete it, the better it reflects on you. Factoring in your current progress, I have scheduled in your first grade exam for day forty-four.”

Ben and Charlie exchanged looks of alarm that Dagmar either didn't see or didn't care for.

“That gives you two weeks to finish your studies and revise, in preparation,” Dagmar said. “Needless to say, failure to pass means expulsion from the apprenticeship program.”

Ben and Charlie hurried over to the kitchens to begin their chores – washing dishes today; both wore worried frowns.

“I wish someone had given us more warning about this exam,” Charlie said, grabbing a brush and scrubbing absently at a plate. “I don't feel like I'm ready. Do you think Dagmar will let us reschedule? Technically we could push it back five days and still be within the fifty-day requirement.”

“No,” Ben said firmly. “You heard what she said, the longer we take, the worse it reflects on us. We'll be ready on day forty-four.”

Thoughts of SpellWorks, Elizabeth's Boots, and even his parents took a back seat for a while as Ben and Charlie spent every waking minute, barring their morning chores, trying to complete the checklists for each department. Their argument was mostly forgotten, though there was a lingering disappointment Ben couldn't quite shake off. He had been so certain he and Charlie thought alike when it came to his parents, but he had been wrong.

Progress in their studies accelerated. Charlie had breezed through the Diplomacy and Scholar checklists, and had the Warden and Trade departments under control, but he was lagging behind in Spellsword.

“I swear, these pellets are broken,” Charlie said.

He and Ben were in the small practice room by themselves during lunch break. Whereas Ben had passed all five difficulty levels several weeks ago, Charlie was stuck on the last level.

“Here, give me that,” Ben said. He threw the pellet almost nonchalantly at the target board, where it just missed the bull’s-eye and exploded in a puff of flame.

“Oh, stop showing off,” Charlie said, irritably, grabbing another pellet from the shelf.

“Willpower,” Ben said, ignoring Charlie's jab. “Just believe it will explode. The trick is to make the decision with absolutely no doubts or reservations. It's a confidence thing.”

“Not my strong suit,” Charlie said.

“Not true. It's all in your head. You're better up there” – Ben tapped his temple – “than I am. Just raise your expectations.”

Charlie nodded. He spent a good minute eyeing up the target board and juggling the pellet in his hand. Finally he nodded, eyes narrowing. Gritting his teeth, he launched the pellet with a grunt. It hit the edge of the target board and glowed red, before bouncing onto the floor.

“Did you see that!” Charlie said, pumping his fists. “It almost ignited.”

“Progress,” Ben said, grinning. “Let's do it again.”

Ben had his own difficulties, and they happened to be in Charlie's strongest departments. Attention to detail was vital in the Department of Scholars, and Diplomacy required patience – two of Ben's weak areas.

“Okay, we're ready,” Charlie said. “Give it your best shot.”

They were in a small cubicle, along with Marie, one of the Diplomacy instructors, who was armed with a spellshooter.

“Let's hope you do better than last time,” Marie said. “Okay, I'm firing a random diplomatic incident.”

She pointed her spellshooter to the floor, and fired. A tall, gangly troll materialised before them, wearing an ill-fitting suit that looked so out of place Ben had a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Keep your manners in,” Charlie said.

“Right,” Ben said, swallowing his humour. He looked up at the troll and placed his fist across his chest. The troll immediately went red with fury and leapt at Ben with a deep-throated roar. The hologram disappeared just as it was about to crash into Ben.

“You raised the wrong fist in greeting,” Charlie said. “Do that to a hill troll and you are just insulting them.”

“Hill troll? I thought that was a mountain troll?”

“Mountain trolls have darker skin and are stockier,” Charlie said. “Come on, back to the library. I want to show you a proper comparison. A mistake like that will kill you.”

Ben cursed, kicked an imaginary rock and followed Charlie out the room, back to the library. And so it went, day after day, as they inched towards the finishing line.

Though they didn't get to see much of Natalie, she assured them everything was going to plan with her inside contact at SpellWorks Inc. But her research on Charlotte Rowe's family line was slightly less productive.

“I've run into some difficulties,” Natalie said.

She had joined them in the library where they were researching the most efficient way of catching pixies that might have escaped the Unseen Kingdoms. Charlie's head was lost in a book, and Ben was sitting down, leaning against one of the shelves, taking a well-earned break.

“How far have you got?” Ben asked.

“I managed to follow Charlotte Rowe's family line down to the early 20th century, but then all records vanish. I have a feeling the Rowe family may have felt it safer to cut their ties with the Institute.”

“Well, given what's happening to my parents, they're probably right.”

Natalie nodded. “The only thing of interest I found was that Charlotte had a peculiar birthmark on her right shoulder shaped like a bird that seems to have passed down the generations. It could provide evidence of their heritage, if we ever found someone.”

“That could be useful,” Ben said.

Charlie slapped the book shut. “Okay, I've found it. Let's hope for our sake that we never have to track down an escaped pixie.”

Ben's laughter was cut short by a familiar voice.

“What are you all doing here?”

Dagmar popped up so suddenly they all jumped. Ben's surprise turned to alarm the moment he looked up at Dagmar's face. She looked haggard, as if she hadn't slept in several days.

Ben found his voice first. “It's lunch break, Ms. Borovich. We were just doing some extra research for our studies.”

Dagmar blinked, and for a moment she looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. “What? Very well, run along,” she said. Her eyes had already drifted past them and were looking intently into the library. They watched her disappear into the maze.

“What the hell is going on with her?” Charlie asked.

“I don't know, but I'm half tempted to follow her and see if we can find out. Is she spying on us or something?”

Ever since they had discovered the Guardian's common room, they had started seeing more and more of Dagmar, popping up in unexpected places. She never said anything of consequence, and behaved as though the meetings were purely incidental, but more than once Ben caught her giving them prolonged stares from the corner of his eye.

“Who knows?” Charlie said. “But we don't have time to worry about that right now. There are only five more days until the exam and I'm starting to freak out. Can we go over the trading laws for the Unseen Kingdoms again? I'm not one hundred percent confident about them.”

As the day of the exam approached, even Ben started getting butterflies in his stomach. There was so much to learn, and even though they had now finished their checklists, they spent every waking moment revising, spurred on by the knowledge that failure to pass the exam meant expulsion from the Institute. To make matters worse, Joshua and his friends were taking every opportunity to taunt Ben and Charlie about the upcoming exam.

“Oh, god, here they are again,” Charlie said. “Let's go somewhere else.”

He was already half-standing, but Ben pulled him back down again.

“No,” he said firmly. “I'm still drinking my tea and I want to finish my apple pastry.”

They were in the corner of the common room, books spread out on a stool in between their chairs.

Joshua was wearing a typically fashionable open black shirt, skinny jeans and black leather shoes. His blond-highlighted hair was subtly spiked, and his blue eyes resembled a hawk's spotting its first meal of the day.

“Well, well,” Joshua said. “If it isn't our two desperate apprentices. How much time left? Five days? Six?”

“Three,” Ben said, knowing full-well Joshua was aware when the exam was; there was a chart posted in one of the rooms.

“Just three?” Joshua said. “I assume you've gone through all the practical steps again?”

“No,” Charlie said, looking up with an expression of alarm. “Do you think we should have?”