Episode 10: The Magic I Know, Chapter 2
"This is not good," rumbled Jacob Stone, his brow furrowing as he tugged at the handle of the Cillians' front door.
"Yes dear," retorted Cassandra dryly, "any other genius conclusions your genius IQ would like to come up with?"
"If I say I think there's magic involved…" Jacob caught the look his beloved was turning on him and changed tack. "I'm gonna shut up and let you do your thing."
"Last time the door disappeared on us it was just because someone had cut the connection at the Library end to use the back door for something else," Cassandra murmured, her synaesthetic sight scanning the scene for signs of such a switch. "I don't think that's what we're dealing with here, though. This feels different."
"Different how?" Jacob queried, waving his phone around at arm's length in an attempt to acquire a signal.
"Like something has been added, not taken away," mused Cassie, almost dreamily. "It's like the door is still there, but someone has closed another in front of it. Blocked it from this side."
"Can you unblock it?" Jacob turned to watch the love of his life, slipping the stubbornly signal-less cell phone into his pocket. "Cause I get the impression the door ain't the only thing being blocked round here, Cassie."
Cassandra blinked and turned to face him, her frown eloquently asking a silent question.
"Phone's dead. No signal," replied Jacob with a shake of his head. "Not here. Not up by the library or your father's study: I checked. I've been checking everywhere since I first spotted it on our way up the stairs."
"What?" Cassie frowned and fetched her own phone out of a pocket. It too was devoid of signal. "Oh, that's not good."
XXXX
Simmonds stood before her, pale, corpse-like skin almost luminescent in the glow of the candles. It had taken care and time, that ever precious commodity, to peel the freezing clothes from his torso, but the reward had been well worth the cost. Icy water dripped into a basin as the flames battled with the deathly dearth of heat lacking in the waters of the Styx. She considered the consequences of the events he had just recounted to her. Knowingly or unknowingly, her pet Adonis had taken a step of his own on the way to apotheosis. Would the impermeability of his skin affect his transformation into the great Midgard Serpent, Jormungand? Perhaps. In any form, however, it would remain impervious to sword or spell. That could only be of benefit to them.
The Librarians would try to stop them. Of course they would: that was their purpose. She knew this as completely as she knew the tale of Ragnarok itself. It was a battle. There were, and must be, two sides. She and her followers were one. The Librarians would try to form the other. They were at a deficit, however, for she had left them only the losing side to choose. She had left other things besides. A smile dragged the corner of her lip into a semblance of a smile. The old woman was dead. Perhaps things had not gone perfectly to plan there. None of them had expected such force of resistance from the girl. The girl was untrained, though, and the knowledge of centuries that had been passed down through the eldest women of the line had not been passed on to her. The line was broken. The girl may have power but she lacked the knowledge of how to wield it.
One down. Had the attack on the castle gone to plan it would have been two, and sent the two women's suitors into a pit of despair and grief that would only distract them from the task at hand. She had other plans, however. The old woman had been, by far, the most powerful of their enemies, but she was not the only powerful one. Her newest project was powerful too. She was easily dealt with. Her weakness was her emotions, and sentiment had drawn her into the little trap that had been arranged. Just moments ago, word had reached the Queen that the trap had been sprung, catching not one but two Librarians in its cage. The cowboy, her intended, no doubt. He was rarely far from her side now. Half the witches, half the Librarians, with the other half undoubtedly scrambling to find a way to rescue their fellows and the old man still reeling from the loss of his wife.
The Queen looked down into the basin. Its golden metal edges shimmered with frost. There was enough water there for the spell she had in mind. Not as much as she would have liked, but enough; and as a bonus her most successful and physically beautiful soldier now had skin that could not be harmed in any way. A shame his mind was not as beautiful and well-honed as the rest of him. There were few minds, she thought, that could compete with her own. Few, perhaps one. And she knew who that one was. She had plans for him.
XXXX
Flynn Carsen sidled up to his wife and her youngest charge. He knew it irked her to hear it, but she really did treat the Library's youngest recruit as a mother might her mischievous son. She could be tough on him, on all of them, but right now she was the exact opposite. She was listening, really, properly listening, in a way that Flynn himself could rarely manage, to the outpouring of Ezekiel's heart. The heart he tried so hard to hide from everyone. The heart he had hidden in layers of walls of nonchalance and arrogance and frivolity, hidden even from Eve and the others. One by one, with patience and understanding, she had chipped away at those walls. Jenkins had too. And one by one, those long-standing walls had faded away. At least in front of them. It seemed that Charlene had got round them too, although Flynn suspected that had been with a tactic more akin to a battering ram than patient kindness. Where Eve had taken the time to look for a key, Charlene had simply charged straight through to the heart of the matter and held the boy captive until he talked.
Eve's eye glanced in his direction and the ever watchful ex-thief turned to see what had caught her attention. They both frowned.
"What's wrong?" Eve and Ezekiel asked together.
"You've got that look," explained his wife.
"What look?" Flynn countered. "I don't have a 'look'."
Eve folded her arms and waited, as did Ezekiel.
"I just came over to ask if either of you had heard from Jacob or Cassandra," he admitted, palms raised. "They should have been back by now."
Eve's frown deepened. "I haven't. Ezekiel?"
"Nope, nothing here," he replied, fetching his phone out of a pocket and checking the display just in case.
"They were going to tell her father, a scientist, that magic is real," pointed out Eve. "It's a bit of a big deal. He might need a bit of time to take it all in, or even just to be convinced."
"His daughter can conjure up blue fireballs," threw in Ezekiel. "I don't see him needing that much convincing."
"You're right," shrugged the Guardian. "One ball of light and she'd make Einstein a believer!"
"Oh, he didn't even need that to convince him!" Jenkins muttered, walking over to join them, mirror in hand. "No, I believe we have a much larger problem than just a stubborn scientist. This is the mirror from my lab. It was enchanted by my wife many years ago, as was the larger one behind me. Unlike the larger mirror, this one was mostly used to converse with Flora in private. It can, however, connect with any suitable surface to converse with any named person, just like its larger counterpart, which I believe Judson enjoyed using in the early days of Mister Carsen's work here to keep tabs on him and, occasionally, surprise and baffle him."
"Eh, more like scare the pants off me," admitted Flynn. "He stopped doing it so much when I stopped jumping."
"What does any of this have to do with Cassandra and Stone?" Eve sighed, glaring wearily at Jenkins.
"Well, if I may demonstrate, the holder of the mirror need only speak the name of the person they wish to contact, like so." Jenkins held out the mirror at arm's length and in full view of the small gathering. "Miss Cassandra Cillian."
A grey, silvery mist swam across the face of the mirror. It jumped and stuttered like a radio being tuned. Around him Jenkins could feel three people holding their breath. With an audible pop, the mist cleared. Cassandra's titian curls did not, however, bounce into view. All that filled the small mirror from top to bottom was an inky black void. Another pop sounded and the group found themselves looking at their own backs. Flynn glanced over his shoulder at the larger mirror to see Jenkins, Eve and Ezekiel staring back at him with mixed expressions of surprise, confusion and consternation. A third pop sounded and the images in both mirrors disappeared.
"That's not good," sighed Flynn. "What do you make of it, Jenkins?"
The old knight bobbed his head. "I'd say 'not good' is putting it mildly. No matter where Miss Cillian is in this dimension, this mirror should find her. Even if she were in a Mystery House, or a pocket dimension, the mirror should still find her. The only way a mirror like this can be blocked is by a deliberate blocking spell or artefact. Like the dollhouse you found yourselves in when you encountered the House of Refuge. That item had blocks in place to prevent the ghost of Katie Bender getting in, but equally stopped you getting out. I fear that Miss Cillian and Mister Stone have found themselves in a similar situation, but this time designed to stop them getting out and help getting in."
"So how do we get them out?" Eve enquired.
"Every spell has a breaking point, right?" Ezekiel queried, looking up at his mentor. "We just need to find it."
Jenkins bobbed his head in tentative agreement. "That, I fear, Mister Jones, is easier said than done. The Library powers the back door and it cannot break through the enchantment. Fairy magic powers the mirrors and they cannot break through. Had either Mister Stone or Miss Cillian been here we might, I repeat, might, have been able to use their connection to break through. Unfortunately that is not the case. We must endeavour to identify the root cause of the enchantment – spell or artefact and which – if we are to determine its specific weakness."
"And how do we go about doing that?" Eve cut in ahead of Ezekiel, whose mouth had opened again to speak. "There can't be many possibilities, surely? How would you go about doing it, Jenkins, if you wanted to set up a block like this?"
"I have a few ideas," shrugged the caretaker, "but I am limited by a lack of knowledge. Mister Carsen, I know Miss Cillian described to you her parents' library. I would like as full a description of its contents as possible. If it happens they have an artefact that would create the desired effect, we may surmise that it is our culprit and respond accordingly. Likewise, Colonel, we need to go over the list of artefacts stolen from the Library either by da Vinci or by his co-conspirators earlier. Ezekiel, I need you and Charlene to look for any other options. I believe she is in the reading room, if you would be so good as to inform her of the situation."
"And you will be?" Ezekiel prodded.
"I will be working out how, as the Colonel asked, I would set up this block. I want you, with Charlene's aid, not mine," Jenkins added swiftly, "to work out how you would do it. You have a knack for looking at problems from an altogether different perspective that may prove vital in this instance."
XXXX
"What are you seeing, Cassie?" Jacob murmured softly as he followed his beloved around the rooms and corridors of her parents' house. "Is there another way out?"
"Everything is blue, like it's coated in magic," replied the redhead. "Not the same blue that I see with our magic, though. Darker, almost indigo or violet. It's as though we've stepped into a bubble that has spread out and covered everything that got in its way."
"Maybe we did," mused Jacob. "With da Vinci on their side who knows how much these guys know about magic and artefacts. Between him, your folks, and Mhairi they must have a fairly comprehensive view of things. Plus who knows who else. D'you think the colour difference is down to the type of magic they've used?"
"I don't know," hummed Cassie, scanning the stairs before starting to ascend them. "I've never seen anything like this before. Not in the Library, not in Dunvegan, not in that warehouse they were using, not here. I have a theory, though."
Jacob followed her up the stairs, step by step, ready to catch her should she stumble. "Planning on sharing before or after you test it?"
"I just want to check a couple of things first."
"Library?"
"Makes sense."
"Just promise me one thing, Cassie."
"Uh-huh?"
"If there's a door up there at the library, where those orbs disappeared, don't walk through it!"
XXXX
The burning sun shone down from a clear blue sky, warming the streets and the people who traversed them. It was the first real sunshine Simmonds had seen in what felt like years, though could not truly be more than a month, and his eyes watered at the sting of the light. He felt the warmth of the sun's rays caress his skin. There was heat there: he could feel it. Why, then, did a core of ice remain where his innards should be? The waters of the Styx had long since evaporated, his clothing now was clean, dry and soft. Far softer than the practical garments he usually wore. By rights he should look just like any other amiable Maltese citizen, or, at least, any other amiable, harmless, tourist, casually browsing the sights of the island. He had been given leave to take in a few of those sights while the postponed rites of the night before were newly prepared. They had missed their window in taking the time to drain the icy water from his previous clothes, but this was not as great a setback as it might have been. They were delayed, but only by a day. Tonight, at midnight, as today became yesterday and tomorrow became today, he and his co-conspirators would become gods. His Queen would reign supreme over all the powers of Hel, the final battle would commence, and he would become the great serpent, shaking the world to its foundations to build it up anew.
XXXX
"Jenkins?"
The old man looked up, hope flaring in his eyes plain for all to see. Ezekiel blinked, unused to so unguarded a countenance in his mentor.
"You have something?" Jenkins breathed, straightening both back and bow tie as he regained his equilibrium.
"It's just an idea."
"It's more that I have," he admitted. "Tell me."
"When you went looking for your armour, you did a spell. A spell that got you somewhere you couldn't have got to any other way," began the erstwhile thief.
"You are not using blood magic, Mister Jones," Jenkins shook his head. "Not for this. Not for anything. The risk is too great."
"I wasn't suggesting that," Ezekiel took his turn to shake his head. "I wanted to know why you did, though, and if there really wasn't any other way."
"Blood magic saps one's life force," explained the semi-immortal knight. "I have more of that than any of you, at least as far as we can be certain. Using it was less of a risk for me as it would take the magic far longer to drain my life force. At that time, I wasn't wholly against the idea of it doing so, either. As you know, there was another route: Miss Cillian and Mister Carsen used their combined strength and abilities to open a considerably safer one. Unfortunately, the lack of Miss Cillian takes that option off the table."
"But was there any other way, another option for you, without involving any of us, that you could have used?" Ezekiel persisted.
Jenkins frowned, examining the state of his excellently manicured nails. "Perhaps, had Flora been alive, she could have opened such a way. If you are thinking of using Seonaidh in such a way, however, forget it. She is all that protects Dunvegan and its relics. Her power is great, indeed, especially in one so young, but she is using it to maintain the defences of the castle. To attempt to open a way such as this she would have to drop those defences, leaving both the castle and her own self vulnerable to attack. Add to that her lack of experience and there is no guarantee that, even should she drop those defences and attempt the spell, the way would open."
Jenkins dismissed the idea further with a wave of his hand. In the silence that followed, Ezekiel's voice, though hushed, sounded out with the emphatic toll of a bell.
"I wasn't suggesting we use Seonaidh."
