Freyah sat back in her chair, and Eleanora stared at Gavan, openmouthed. Her hand went up to wipe away a crumb from lips parted in surprise.
“A bold move.”
“We need our children, our future. We need to educate and protect them. How many of us died because we had no warning and no shelter when . . .” Gavan paused. “Well, the past is history. Let the lad continue.”
“I found the Iron Gate. Accidentally. It's at the far end of the lake, and I thought it was just, you know, the back gate to camp.”
She beamed at him. “Smart lad. And, while coincidence is rampant, I don't think that was any accident. You were meant to find it! Still . . . that is not the problem?”
“The Gate is closed.”
“Oh, dear. My, my. That is a pretty kettle of fish.” Jason wondered for a moment if Aunt Freyah had ever talked at any length with Bailey, or vice versa. She took a napkin and pressed it exactly upon the scalp wound hidden in his sandy hair, and took the napkin away to examine it. Old and fresh blood stained the crisp white linen. She frowned at Jason. “Closed with blood?”
Gavan pursed his lips and looked nonchalantly at the ceiling. “Aye. Likely it was. The lad
is
wounded.”
“And you let him sit there, in pain?”
“It doesn't hurt so awfully. It's the camp that's important,” Jason said faintly.
Freyah stood up. She flipped the lip down on the picnic hamper and shoved it back behind her chair again. There was a faint crash inside as if someone had dropped something breakable.
“No help for it, then. If the Gate is closed, it's closed.”
Eleanora folded her hands on her lap. “None? Are you sure?”
“I am certain, and none.” She unclipped a brooch watch from her vest and looked at it. “My advice is to hurry home, and make whatever plans you can to ride it out. I'll notify the Council, but I think we'll all be nailing our windows shut.” She refastened the watch. “It will be a rough one.”
Gavan nodded. He extended one hand to Eleanora, and the other one to Jason. “My thanks, then, Aunt Freyah, for the refuge.” He lifted his cane to focus on his wolfhead crystal, and Jason noticed the teeth marks and notches in the wood.
Freyah reached for both shoulders and drew him close in a big hug. She whispered in his ear, “Only you can undo what has been done,” before letting him go. She kissed his temple lightly, and the pain and throbbing of his wound dropped away immediately. Jason blinked.
He had scarcely a moment to wonder when the door in the crystal opened and he fell through, and they landed at Lake Wannameecha Gathering Hall.
31
Wild Magick
J
ASON managed to stay on his feet. Sandwiched between Gavan who smelled faintly of chocolate and vanilla, and Eleanora who smelled of roses, the three of them alit in the courtyard of Ravenwyng. The faint coppery smell of blood still clung to him, though the wound seemed to have closed. It was his hand that hurt now. Fretting, Jason rubbed the back of his left hand.
Tomaz stood, his arm outstretched, sending a raven into flight from his fist. He turned and looked, his arm still in the air, the raven an ebony blur. Jefferson was there, watching, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. And FireAnn and Sousa came running from the mess hall across the way, her face pale with alarm and fiery red hair wild about her face. His cornet rattled from its chain on his belt.
The storm began to pelt rain, hard and heavy, on all of them. The raven circled once overhead and disappeared into the swirling clouds, with a loud cry.
“It has started,” Tomaz said heavily to Gavan.
“So I can see. We've a day or two, no more. The rain has begun moving in, and it will only worsen.” Gavan appeared to make a decision. “Tomaz, you and Jefferson, come with me. We've been outrunning wolfjackals at Iron Gate.”
Tomaz's face reflected his surprise. “You've found it? Good. We need the hope.”
“Not unless we can get the Gate open. Eleanora . . .” Gavan took her by the elbow, steadying her. Winds buffeted at her and she bounced slightly in the air away from them, unsteadily, like a ship that had lost its rudder in a heavy sea. “Send the children home.”
“All right. What will we tell the parents?”
“Tell them . . . tell them . . .” Gavan looked around the grounds. Evergreens had begun to creak and bend, their branches brushing the ground. The lake itself rippled in high, icy waves as the light wires overhead danced furiously in the wind. “Tell them the camp is old and the electric system went out in the rainstorm. It will take several weeks to make repairs and update the camp, and by then summer will be over.”
She said softly, “If this storm hits us as hard as I think it's going to, we'll lose Ravenwyng.”
“Then it won't be a lie, will it?”
“No. It won't.” She leaned on FireAnn. “Let's make the camp announcement. I'll have to talk to them, make sure that . . . that they understand.” The two women helped each other cross the courtyard, the screaming wind pulling and tearing at them. Eleanora gave up her levitation, dropping to the ground as if it could anchor her.
Gavan dropped his hand on Jason's shoulder. “Thank you, lad, for all you've done.” He leaned over, looking into Jason's face. “You're a Magicker, lad. Never let that go. No matter what happens here, I'll be back for you someday. Understand that?”
“You will?”
“It's a promise,” Rainwater said. “You are one of us. If not me, then Tomaz, or Eleanora, or whoever can come, will come.”
Jason felt a tightness in his chest. He nodded.
Gavan straightened. He shook his wolfhead cane at Sousa and Hightower. “Drive them out, as soon as everyone is ready. Take their crystals, mark them . . . make sure they've had the Draft.”
“Gavan!” It was one thing to leave, another to have to drink the Draft.
He dropped his hand on Jason's shoulder again. “It's all we can do, lad, for now. The promise is not broken, only dimmed. Have faith in me, for now!” He turned on his heel, beckoning to Tomaz and Jefferson and in a blink, was gone.
He looked at Sousa. The Magicker looked back with gentle dark eyes. “It wasn't meant,” he said, “to end this way.”
Jason nodded. That barely helped. To have come so far and lose it all hurt.
Sousa added, “Better go pack.” Before he stopped speaking, Eleanora made the same announcement over the loudspeakers. Jason headed to his cabin. The cabin across from Starwind stood, its shutters closed, and the screen door battened shut. He stared at it a moment, thinking of both Henry and Jonnard, before going inside. He did pack. He set aside his backpack, leaving some critical things until last. Trent came in.
They looked at one another. Trent went silently to his side and began to pack, thunking his things into his bag as though punching his fist into a mitt.
Finally, Jason said, “I have a plan.”
Trent looked up. “You think you can fix this?”
“I don't know. What I do know is that I don't want to drink that stuff and go home. I don't want to lose this summer. I don't want to lose my friends. I don't want to lose anything that's happened.”
“They're not just taking us home . . . they're taking everything away?” Trent's expression changed. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay and fight. Or shield. But I intend to stay.” Trent considered him for a long moment. Then he went to the small closet in the cabin that held their few cleaning supplies. He brought out the broom and his knife, and sat down.
“What are you doing?”
“You'll see.” The bright red Swiss army knife flew as if it had wings. In moments, Trent had whittled off the broom head and instead had a wicked, wooden point on it. Then he reached into his duffel and brought out his painted silk banner. He fastened it to the other end of the broomstick. The white silk background brought out the vivid black raven, its wings outspread, and the gold paint used for the lightning bolt it carried glittered with flecks of mica. “This is a lance. And I'm ready.”
“That's awesome.”
Trent rested it on its point, and leaned back to look at it. “It is, isn't it?” His face stretched in a grin. “I don't intend to go easy.”
They marched out of the cabin, down to the Hall, where Bailey and Ting had already climbed into a bus, and looked out at them with worried faces. Bailey hung out the window.
“Jason, you're hurt!”
He touched his scalp with gentle fingers and winced. “Yeah.”
“Aren't you coming?” Ting watched both of them.
He shook his head. “Come out, I want to talk to you.” They climbed past the hustle and bustle of campers loading their things on the bus.
Bailey held her packrat in her hand. As she stepped down, she smoothed her thumb over the little creature's silky head. “I don't know whether to keep her or leave her. I think if I left her . . . she might . . . well . . . something awful might . . .”
Trent stroked his hand down Lacey's back. Her tufted tail twitched in happiness. “She's not a wild animal anymore, Bailey. You might as well take her. Like a . . . a hamster or something.”
She smiled at Trent. “That's what I was thinking!”
“I only hope her mother does not mind,” Ting said. “I don't want her at my house.” She eyed the pack rat a little suspiciously.
“Can you believe it?” Bailey added excitedly. “We live across the bay from each other. It's not such a horribly long drive. We can visit.”
“If you remember,” said Jason quietly.
“Why would we forget?”
He just watched her face.
The two girls looked at him. “Oh, no.” Bailey frowned. “They wouldn't do that to us. We've got our crystals.”
“They're taking them back.”
Ting gasped at Jason.
“Not because they want to. But they're not prepared to send us home this way, and it'll save a lot of questions.”
Ting flung her arms about Bailey's neck, almost catapulting Lacey into the air. “I don't want to forget!”
“Forget, or stay and stand.”
“We can't do that!”
Trent nodded at her. “Oh, yes, we can.” He leaned on his lance. “Jason has a plan.”
Biting her lip, Ting said, “They'll secure all the cottages and cabins.”
“We meet,” Jason said firmly, “at Dead Man's Cabin. Immediately. Get your bag and leave.”
The two girls nodded as they scrambled back onto the bus. Jason and Trent watched for a moment. They turned around and ran into Rich and Stefan, who'd obviously heard every word they'd exchanged.
Stefan rubbed at his stub nose. “That junk you said true? No crystal and the drink and stuff.”
“Yup.”
He moved his stocky body from side to side. “What happens to me then?”
“I don't know.”
“I,” said Rich edgily, “am probably allergic to that berry junk in the Draft.”
“I can't go back like this,” Stefan said. “I'll keep changing, probably. They'll put me in a circus or something. They haven't shown me enough to control it.” He'd gone pale.
Jason hefted his backpack over his shoulder. “Then you heard the rest . . . Dead Man's Cabin. And I'll show you what we can do. They need us, but they don't want to ask us.” Jason saw Sousa approaching, backed up, and ducked around the back of the bus, Trent at his heels.
Lightning split the sky. In an eerie flash of green and silver, Gavan and Tomaz and Jefferson came down from the sky with a boom of thunder, their hair standing on end, crystals flashing in their hands. For a moment the three stood in a blaze of shimmering color, then everything stilled.
Gavan said to the others, “The Dark Hand is closing. If I had any doubt, Tomaz, that they unleashed this, I've no doubt now.”
Tomaz nodded slowly.
“Retreat?”
“We can't until everyone is safely out. We'll make a stand here, and we will let them know that this battle has just begun. Iron Gate is reflecting the manna back, and they'll feed on it if we let them. I don't intend to let them.” The trio went around the corner, and Jason and Trent skittered off, out of sight.
Halfway to Dead Man's Cabin, they ran into Danno trudging up the path, his haversack on his back. He looked at them. “Where are you two going?” The wind nearly tore the words away before he could be heard.
“We're not leaving.” Trent waved his lance and banner defiantly.
“Man, don't be stupid. We've gotta go. This is like a hurricane coming down on us.” He stared from one to the other. “You're serious?”
“I can show you how to make the crystal shield, you and two or three others. If even a handful of us stay to help like that . . . we can shield the other Magickers while they strike. There's going to be a fight, Danno. Mano a mano, I think. We can help even if we're not trained. If we go, to protect us, they're going to take our crystals and make us drink.”
“Like Henry.”
“That's right.”
Danno shook his head vigorously. “No way am I going out like that! I'd rather be dragged out. Poor Squibb didn't know me. Didn't know anyone but Jon.” He shuddered. He fell in behind them. They made their way through the groves and underbrush to the cabin. Already abandoned, its door had not been lashed shut against the storm. They ducked inside.
“Go look for the girls,” Jason told Danno. As the other went out, he took Trent by the elbow. “Okay. Now, once we get everyone set up as shields, then you and I are going to find the Gate. We're going to get it open.”