The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) (20 page)

“Get off me, bird!” Mrs. Carlyle howled from the side of the carriage, and raised Oswald’s wand over her head. Oona witnessed another flash of light—this one a bolt of lightning that shot from the tip of the wand—which came within centimeters of hitting one of Deacon’s wildly flapping wings. He must have felt the closeness of it because he abruptly untangled himself from the maid’s hair and took to the sky, cawing his low raven’s cry before turning in the air and diving straight for the woman’s head. She raised the wand for a second attack, but she was too slow and was forced to duck away from the raven’s snapping beak.

The sudden movement must have unbalanced her because Oona watched as the maid tumbled over the side of the carriage and out of view. With a surprising surge of strength, Oona leapt upward and pulled herself through the open carriage window, where she was finally able to see what was happening outside.  She stood atop the carriage.

To her right, she discovered Samuligan standing in the middle of a circle of vicious wild dogs. A translucent wall of mist—Oona assumed it had been cast by the faerie servant—surrounded Samuligan, and was all that kept the dogs at bay.

The dogs glowed slightly, as if their coats had been sprinkled with golden dust, and several of them had what appeared to be a set of wicked-looking wings made of bones that grew from their shoulder blades. One of the dogs twisted around just enough for Oona to get a glimpse of its eyes, which glowed red like burning coals.

Samuligan made a motion—pushing the wall of mist away—and then attempted to leap high over the dogs. To Oona’s horror, several of the glowing hounds rose into the air, flapping their hideous bonelike wings, their jaws snapping and dripping with drool. Samuligan fell quickly back and was forced once again to conjure the wall of mist between the maniacal dogs and himself.

The line of pedestrians in front of City Hall backed up against the wall but did not disperse. It seemed they were enthralled by the extraordinary display of magic happening in the street.

“Look out!” Deacon cried.

Oona whirled around just in time to see Mrs. Carlyle raising Oswald’s wand in Oona’s direction. Oona leapt from the side of the toppled carriage to the street, just managing to avoid a burst of lightning. She hit the ground hard, sending stinging needles through her feet and legs as the lightning bolt struck one of the carriage wheels. The wheel tore free of the carriage and exploded in a fiery burst of chunks and splinters. The smell of singed wood filled the air.

Oona raised one hand over her head to shield herself from the falling debris while shoving her other hand into her pocket. A second later she was holding her father’s magnifying glass and aiming it in the direction she had last seen Mrs. Carlyle, but the maid was suddenly gone. Oona scanned the seen of the wreckage, but didn’t see her anywhere.

“Show yourself!” Oona shouted.

Deacon, who soared high overhead, called down to her: “She’s around the other side of the carriage.” He let out a sharp croak as a bolt of lightning shot toward him, nearly singeing his tail feathers and sending him flying down the street for refuge.

Oona bolted around the side of the overturned carriage, a devastating question chasing her every step: Was her uncle dead, or just unconscious? There had been no time to check properly. Her throat seemed to tighten as the image of the blood trickling down the side of his head filled her thoughts.

She came to a stop at the edge of the carriage, fearing that if she stepped around, Mrs. Carlyle would be waiting for her. Her father’s magnifying glass was no match for the accuracy of Oswald’s wand, yet despite the disadvantage, she knew that she had to bring the wicked woman down. Not just because Mrs. Carlyle was responsible for her father’s death, but because, with such incredible powers at the maid’s disposal, Oona didn’t think anyone was safe. She could only hope that her own skills as a magician would be enough to tip the scales in her favor.

And besides,
Oona thought,
I’ve got the power of Pendulum House behind me, with or without Oswald’s wand.

Oona looked to the sky and opened her mouth to call to Deacon, meaning to ask if it was safe to step around the corner, when it occurred to her that she did not need to do this. Instead, she closed her eyes and whispered:
“Connect.”

The instant she shut her eyes, she no longer saw through her own eyes but through those of Deacon. He was soaring back in her direction, high above the line of pedestrians on the sidewalk. From this vantage point she could see everything.

At first she was only confused, because Mrs. Carlyle was not where Oona expected her to be. But a second later, when Deacon’s eyes focused in on the woman, Oona’s heart hammered hard in her chest. The maid had snuck all the way around the carriage and was coming up behind Oona.

Oona’s eyes flew open and she whirled around just as several pedestrians cried out warnings. Oona thought she heard Deacon’s own warning from above as she raised her magnifying glass like a shield. In that same instant, Mrs. Carlyle leapt from around the side of the carriage, wand aimed at Oona.

A sizzling bolt of white light shot from the end of the wand and collided with Oona’s magnifying glass. The glass seemed to expand and glow white-hot all at the same time. And then it exploded in her hand. She stumbled back, blinded by the enormous flash. She only just managed to stay on her feet, but her hand was now empty, the magnifying glass gone, blown into a million fragments all over the street.

Oona blinked frantically and cringed, expecting a second attack at any moment to finish her off now that she was defenseless. But when her eyes finally cleared, she saw that it was no longer Mrs. Carlyle standing before her but an enormous creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. In its thick, muscle-knotted hands it brandished a hammer that looked as if it might weigh twice Oona’s body weight.

Oona’s breath caught in her throat.

It’s a minotaur
, she thought, remembering the illustration she had seen in
Mortenstine’s Monstrous Conspectus
. More than the illustration, however, she remembered telling Mrs. Carlyle about how she, Oona, had once read the
Monstrous Conspectus
before bed, and then suffered a terrifying dream about the minotaur . . . only there was something off about this beast who stood before her now. It was different than the one she had dreamed about all those years ago, Oona felt sure of it.

Or perhaps it was not that there was something different about the creature, but that there was something that had changed in Oona. It did not take long for her to figure it out.

It’s an illusion
, she thought, remembering her recent visit to the Faerie Royal Court.
It looks real, but it’s not.

The knowledge, however, did not stop her screaming as the monstrous beast suddenly raised its enormous war hammer above its head and ran at her. But the scream transformed as it exited her mouth, the tone pulling in and refining itself into one continuous note of sublime harmony with each of Oona’s senses. The note carried out long, and powerful, and eerily beautiful. Her tone rattled the nearby windows and caused the hammer to explode in the minotaur’s hand, just as her magnifying glass had exploded in hers.

And just like that, the illusion was broken. Oona blinked her eyes clear, only to find herself once again staring into the face of the woman she had so naively befriended. The minotaur was gone, and Mrs. Carlyle’s face pulled into a mask of rage.

“Think you’re clever, eh?” the maid taunted.

“I know I am,” Oona said, and the words came out sounding more confident than she felt.

The maid looked pityingly at her. “Too clever for your own good, that is. Just like your father. He was another one who couldn’t leave well enough alone. I guess it runs in the family. But I suppose I can put an end to that right now.”

The maid once again leveled Oswald’s wand, and Oona stepped back against the toppled carriage. Something poked her in the leg . . . something in her pocket.

“I trusted you,” Oona said.

Again the maid displayed that look of pity. “Bad idea.”

Oona inched her hand into her pocket. “You wouldn’t dare kill me in front of all of these people.”

Now Mrs. Carlyle just looked amused. “Oh, really? You think just because
you
can break a powerful illusion that these nonmagical people can as well? No, they will see whatever I wish for them to see: a sunny day where nothing extraordinary happened on the street at all. They’ll forget everything they saw here today, and we’ll all live happily ever after. Well, except for you . . . and your uncle. Now that I have this,” she pinched the carbuncle between the fingers of her free hand, “who’s going to challenge me? Certainly not you and your uncle. I’m going to make sure of that.”

Oona raised an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting about someone.”

The maid’s mouth pulled into a tight disbelieving line. “And who is that?”

“Samuligan the Fay,” Oona said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, I think those hellhounds I summoned will take good care of him,” the maid said confidently.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Oona said.

“Neither would I,” said Samuligan.

The maid turned abruptly in the direction of the voice, only to discover the faerie servant standing right behind her, his wild grin lighting up his face like a bad dream. Behind him, the hellhounds were all conveniently distracted by a giant leg of lamb that the faerie had conjured and set them fighting over. As the maid had been talking, Oona had watched Samuligan approach on feet as quiet as a breeze.

Mrs. Carlyle let out a shriek of surprise as Samuligan grabbed her hand, but before he could pry the wand from her grasp, the maid managed one last spell. It shot like a bullet straight at Oona. Had she not chosen that precise moment to pull the feather from her pocket, it would surely have struck her straight in the chest. But the spell collided with the feather of crow, which seemed to absorb the full impact of the fiery bolt of magic like a sponge. The black feather began to glow, turning first orange, and then red, and finally completely white.

Oona held on with all of her strength, and yet at the same time it seemed that she could not have let go if she had tried. For several long seconds, the connection between Oswald’s wand and the feather would not break, as if the feather were drawing every last bit of magic from the wand into itself. Oona could see Samuligan trying to wrestle the wand from the maid’s grip, but Oona had a feeling that in that moment Mrs. Carlyle, like Oona herself, was helpless to hold the terrible link between wand and feather.

And when at last the spell broke, it came with a tremendous cracking sound, like the sound of an entire forest of trees being snapped in half all at the same time. Oona stumbled back against the carriage, and Mrs. Carlyle suddenly ceased her struggle with Samuligan. The maid peered at the broken object in her hand. Only half of the wand remained in her grip. The other half lay upon the ground like a broken pencil.

“You . . . you destroyed it,” Mrs. Carlyle said, her voice filled with astonishment.

Oona was quite shocked as well, and no sooner had the maid spoken than the two halves of the wand began to disintegrate before their eyes, leaving Mrs. Carlyle with nothing but a handful of dust.

Samuligan took advantage of the distraction and deftly took hold of the gem hanging around Mrs. Carlyle’s neck. He yanked. The fine gold chain snapped as the faerie stepped away, holding the precious object in his tightly closed fist and leaving the maid powerless.

Mrs. Carlyle realized too late what was happening and screamed. “No! You give that back!”

“I think not,” said a familiar voice, and Oona spun around. Her uncle’s head stuck out of the open window of the toppled carriage.

“Uncle, you’re all right!” Oona said, and a sense of relief flooded her so forcefully she felt her knees wobble beneath her. She placed a hand upon the carriage for support.

The Wizard touched the side of his head, which was tacky with blood. “Well, alive, anyway.”

Oona looked down at the feather in her hand, and then turned to Mrs. Carlyle. “So, it was all a lie, wasn’t it? You were never a true friend. All you cared about was finding the book of spells. You knew from the moment Uncle Alexander hired you last month that you were planning on stealing the carbuncle . . . and you knew that the Pendulum House library was the only place to find the spell you needed.”

For a long moment, Mrs. Carlyle looked as if she were going to deny Oona’s allegation, but then she shrugged and said: “The truth is, Mr. Carlyle and I have not needed to steal anything for a very long time . . . three years, in fact . . . but eventually money got tight, so we came up with the plan to steal the carbuncle and find the spell that would give us faerielike powers.”

“And with those powers, you could become unstoppable thieves,” Oona said. She felt a tugging sensation in her gut, as if someone had tied her insides into knots. A terrible realization came to her, and when she spoke, the tremble in her voice nearly choked her up completely. “You said you have not needed to steal anything for three years. That’s because . . . because when you murdered my father, Red Martin paid you enough money to last you for three years.”

Mrs. Carlyle’s face screwed up into a harsh scowl. “Longer, actually . . . but my stupid husband gambled more than half of the money away.” And then the maid’s eyes widened at Oona as she realized what she had just admitted.