The next day, Alexandra left her cell as soon as she heard the lock click open. Skipping breakfast and even her morning shower, she went straight to the lighthouse. She feared the way might be barred, or her Doomguard would stop her, but she climbed the steps unimpeded in the predawn light, with the Doomguard clanking unhurriedly behind her.
"They really should have made you things smarter," she said.
The Doomguard didn't answer.
If the armored guardians had any brains, it would make plotting among prisoners a lot more difficult, so Alexandra was suspicious of how easy it had been to plan an escape right in front of them.
It was cold at the top of the lighthouse. The sun wasn't yet even a sliver on the horizon. Alexandra stood and listened to waves lapping against the island's rocky abutments, and very far away, the occasional blast of a horn out on the water, a ship sounding its way through the fog.
Charlie, she thought.
It didn't take long before she felt an answering presence. Charlie was aware of her. Charlie was coming to her.
Don't come too near. She still wasn't sure if Charlie understood her thoughts directly, but she received strong impressions, and knew her familiar felt her own non-verbal messages. So she filled her thoughts with prohibition against landing on the island.
She only wanted the raven to fly overhead. She was filled with trepidation even at encouraging that much of an approach. She was risking Charlie's life. But if her familiar couldn't do this much, then what she had in mind for when they executed their jailbreak had no chance of working, so she had to know. She had seen gulls and other birds fly over the island, even if they never landed on it, so there didn't seem to be any magic that repelled flyers entirely.
She bit her lip, hoping there wasn't any magic around the island that could distinguish between an ordinary bird and a familiar.
She heard wings flapping, and forced herself not to look up. Not that she thought the Doomguard would react, or that anyone else was watching her. But just in case, she pretended that whatever was flying overhead was just another creature, not her beloved Charlie.
Charlie hung suspended in the breeze coming off the lake, too high to be seen through the pre-dawn mist even if Alexandra did look up, but for a moment she could feel the wind beneath Charlie's wings and the chill of the air around them both. Her familiar was so near, for a moment she felt a strong desire to raise her arm as she had so often in the past, for Charlie to descend and land —
No!
She shook her head violently. Charlie cawed mournfully and flapped away.
She brushed a tear away from her eye, only realizing after Charlie was gone that the raven had not spoken — had known not to speak — even without her consciously forbidding it.
Good Charlie, she thought. Clever bird.
Much farther away, she heard a caw.
Days passed.
Pasquale Mercurio, Cygnus Nero, and Elisabet Todd no longer sat together in the dining room or library. Mercurio told Alexandra to avoid him and their fellow conspirators until he spoke to her again. It wasn't clear whose observation they were trying to avoid, since the ever-present Doomguards kept their silence, and if the goblins paid attention to any prisoners' activities, they did a good job of hiding it.
Perhaps it was the other prisoners she was meant to be wary of. Alexandra supposed there might be rats among them, bribed with privileges by their wardens. Was Mad Haddie really mad, or was it an act? Perhaps the Gaunt Man was more calculating than she thought. Did her quiet neighbor, Oren, observe more than he let on?
Paranoia could drive her crazy, she realized. She spent the next few days in the library, or occasionally climbing the steps of the lighthouse tower. She was surprised at how few other island residents wanted to see the lake, or just get away from their fellow prisoners. Not everyone had tower privileges, but now and then she saw an older wizard and one of the gray-haired witches who spent most days rolling knucklebones in the courtyard ascending the steps. Sometimes Elisabet Todd went up there too. Once Alexandra saw her with Pasquale; another time it was Oren. This made her suspicious, but she forced herself to keep her paranoia in check.
On those days, she stayed away from the lighthouse, but she never ran into anyone else there.
She received a letter from Livia, nearly a month after she'd been sent to Eerie Island. It was brief and anodyne:
"Dear Alexandra,
Claudia and I have been doing our best to get you a proper trial and legal representation, such as it exists in the wizarding world. We've been assisted by other family members, but so far, the WJD just cites the WODAMND Act to keep you detained on Eerie Island. Don't lose hope; we have not forgotten you. Neither have your friends.
Everyone here is fine, and you don't need to worry about anyone else. Please be wise and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Livia"
It was good to know she hadn't been forgotten, but Livia's note could have been written to someone who'd been sent away to summer camp. Alexandra supposed it was better than an outpouring of emotion that would do neither of them any good, or more detailed mention of "other family members," but her first contact in weeks from the outside world left Alexandra feeling more melancholy and alone than ever, and she wondered if Anna or Julia had sent letters that hadn't made it through the Confederation's censors.
As time passed, her sisters and her friends would turn back to their lives. They had to. Alexandra would be remembered, but she would become an ever more distant problem. If they could do nothing for her, wouldn't it be better just to forget about her, a sad memory of someone they'd once known? She couldn't expect Anna or David or the Pritchards, or Claudia, Livia, and Julia, to think about her every day and spend all their time trying to free her.
If she wanted to get out of here, she was going to have to do it herself.
"Be wise and stay safe," Livia had said. Like all her sisters, Livia wanted Alexandra to stay out of trouble. Maybe she was supposed to place her hope in the Pruett name and Pruett money eventually proving powerful enough to gain her special privileges. But Alexandra was pretty sure the name she'd been born with would prove much more powerful.
Halfway through December, cold mist poured off the lake and permeated their cells and the common areas. Fires were lit at the ends of corridors, but these did little to warm the cell blocks, so everyone huddled under blankets and shivered, and when let out each day, congregated around the fireplace in the common hall or the handful of small braziers that the goblins grudgingly brought out. Alexandra saw that a few of the more privileged prisoners had braziers in their cells, and wondered whether she dared push her luck by seeking another audience with Typhon or Edna to ask for one.
The weather was turning frigid, approaching the freezing temperatures they could expect all winter, so when Pasquale Mercurio sat down next to her one morning and whispered, "The goblin boat comes tomorrow," Alexandra's excitement was mixed with dread, thinking about how cold it would be should they actually make it out onto the water. But she nodded.
The goblin packet came once a week, but if Mercurio was telling her about it now, he meant that it was time. Whatever preparations he and Cygnus and Elisabet had made, they would make their attempt the next day.
"You are ready?" Mercurio asked. Alexandra nodded again.
"If the assistance you have promised does not materialize —"
"Then we'll all be just as screwed as I'll be if you don't do your part," Alexandra retorted.
Mercurio searched her face. Then he laughed.
"Tomorrow," he whispered, "Cygnus will find you very early in the morning. Get to the boat launch with him."
"Wait, Cygnus will find me? Why doesn't he get there himself? Won't you need help against the goblins?"
"Yes, I will. So you should hurry. Cygnus needs to evade his own Doomguard before he can reach you, and he'll need your help reaching me — assuming you can escape your Doomguard?"
Alexandra frowned. "That wasn't part of the plan. I don't know how I can bring someone else with me."
"Ah." Pasquale grinned. "Well, Cygnus will be easier to bring along than you think." He lowered his voice to an even softer whisper. "Cygnus is an Animorphmagus."
Alexandra's eyes widened. "Why didn't you — never mind." Of course they wouldn't have told her that earlier. She shook her head. "I don't suppose he turns into a swan? Because it would be really helpful if he could fly."
"He also wouldn't need your help getting away, would he? Alas, no." Pasquale stood. "Be ready and do not falter." Before Alexandra could ask any more questions, he walked away.
Alexandra lay awake all night, going over her part of the plan, and the blank spots the other wizards had not seen fit to share with her.
Assuming they could board the boat, it would be up to her to secure their escape from Typhon and Edna. They had placed a remarkable amount of faith in her — but really, it was faith in her father. And she was placing a lot of faith in them, since if any of them failed, screwed up, or betrayed them, she would likely get devoured with everyone else.
Charlie, she thought, be ready.
The next morning, as all the witches lined up for their turn under the meager hot water they were apportioned for showers, they were forced aside by a goblin yelling, "Stand back! Clear the way!"
The goblin was not particularly intimidating, but he was accompanied by two Doomguards. The Doomguards assigned to each prisoner stood next to them along the wall, witch and Doomguard alternating up and down the cold stone corridor on either side, so two more Doomguards marching down the center were barely able to fit between the files. Their fellow automatons did not move as those accompanying the goblin maneuvered between them without so much as a scrape of metal on metal. The witches, however, had to press themselves flat against the cold stone walls; some inhaled for fear of being struck in passing.
Soon whispers ran up and down the ranks: Elisabet Todd had died in the night.
No one expressed sorrow. The notorious mistress of potions had had no friends, as far as Alexandra could tell, and some of the other witches actually cackled. But in a small and unchanging place like Eerie Island, any news was big news, and if nothing else, a change in the tedium of their routine. Speculation was rife.
"She poisoned herself," said a witch whose face and arms were a mass of red scars and burns.
"There's justice, then — she'll be meeting all the others she poisoned soon enough," commented a grim old dame with weathered skin and fading gray hair.
Alexandra almost skipped showering, but feared drawing attention to herself. The other witches, who had been just as stand-offish toward the youngest inmate as everyone else, even in these all-female gatherings, tended to watch her and whisper behind her back, and Alexandra thought if she suddenly ran back to her cell, there would be talk. Maybe they would think she was upset by Elisabet's death, but if there were snitches among them, who knew who might whisper a word that would get to the ears of their jailers before she was ready?
She wolfed down breakfast, then headed outside. Her heart was beating so fast, she barely noticed the chill of the air. Now where was Cygnus Nero?
Something came scurrying across the courtyard, a dark shape that she would have missed in the shadows if she hadn't been looking for an animal of some sort. It ran directly toward her. With a nervous glance at her Doomguard, which didn't react, she stooped and held out her arms, and then bit back a yelp as a very large rodent leaped into her arms. A very large, spiny rodent.
"Holy crap!" she exclaimed. "You're a porcupine?"
The Doomguard still didn't move. The porcupine's quills were flattened against its body, but it bit into Alexandra's arm and made a high-pitched squealing sound.
"Ouch! I'm going!" Alexandra moved quickly to the base of the tower, followed by her Doomguard.
She climbed the steps of the tower, hoping today wouldn't be the day she encountered someone else enjoying the view from the top of the lighthouse. When she got to the top, she was alone as usual — except for her Doomguard, and the transformed porcupine in her arms.
"You're heavy, and spiky," she complained. The creature also didn't smell very good. She wondered if that was its natural smell, or the result of Cygnus not bathing much in human form. He bared his teeth at her and chittered angrily.
She alternated her gaze between the dark horizon and the small bobbing glow that was a lantern hung on the goblin boat down below. The porcupine squirmed in her arms.
"Stop it! I have a plan!" she said.
Slowly, she climbed up onto the parapet, watching the Doomguard as she did so. It didn't move, but Cygnus starting squealing, and she winced as the porcupine ejected quills into her arm. "Knock it off!" she said, as she stepped to the edge of the stone cornice. Her Doomguard stepped closer to maintain the same distance to her, but otherwise did nothing. There was no railing to prevent anyone from jumping. Evidently neither the wardens nor the Doomguards were concerned about suicide attempts.
The breeze carried the sound of wings. Alexandra closed her eyes to steady herself and focus. Cygnus continued squirming, and she hissed. "Hold still, dummy."
A raven cawed.
"Not you, Charlie," Alexandra whispered. She held out her hand. "Now."
The next few moments would determine just how mad her plan was, and then she'd find out how mad the others' plan was.
The Doomguard didn't move, even when Charlie appeared out of the mist, directly overhead. But when the wand fell from the raven's talons and Alexandra snatched it out of the air, the Doomguard lunged forward with frightening speed. Its sword practically flew into its gauntlet.
"Fly, Charlie!" Alexandra yelled, and she leaped, clutching Cygnus to her chest in her other arm. The porcupine's scream was almost human.
She had hoped to cast her Falling Charm before jumping, but the Doomguard's sword nearly went through her neck. She could feel the air stir with the hiss of its passing. Then she was plummeting from the top of the lighthouse, and by the time she invoked the charm, the ground had almost risen to meet her. She landed with a thud, face-first on top of Cygnus, who squealed again. A moment later Alexandra cried out in pain as she realized that the porcupine's quills were embedded in her flesh from her chest to her belly.
The ground beneath her shook with the impact of a loud metallic BANG! Raising her head, Alexandra realized with horror that the Doomguard had jumped from the top of the lighthouse after her. It rose from a squat, unharmed.
She dropped Cygnus, who ran away from the Doomguard and made useless chittering noises. She shouted "Barak!" and whipped her wand at the suit. The yew wand sparked, burning her hand, then grudgingly unleashed its power. Lightning crackled and arced into the suit of armor, but the Doomguard only paused a moment as electricity flickered over it. Then it raised its sword overhead for a cleaving blow to her skull.
"Petrificus Totalus!" she said.
With a horrible grinding sound, the armor stopped moving.
"Yes!" Alexandra exclaimed, and then it began moving again.
"Crap!" She threw herself to the ground as its sword slashed in an arc where her neck had been. The quills stabbed her painfully, but she pointed the yew wand and said, "Expelliarmus!"
The sword jerked in the Doomguard's mailed fist. Its arm shuddered, as if someone inside the suit of armor were suffering from muscle spasms. But the sword did not leave its grasp.
Alexandra tried to cast a Deadweight Charm on the Doomguard, then jumped to her feet. The Doomguard kept coming after her. She cast another Deadweight Charm, then turned and ran. Cygnus scurried ahead of her.
Between the lighthouse and the boat dock was a hard gravel path along the outer wall of the keep. Running was painful, with the porcupine quills stuck in her flesh bouncing up and down with each step, but she was just barely keeping ahead of the Doomguard. It would be her death if she stopped to cast one more spell and failed.
The portcullis in the small gate to the boat dock was raised, and Alexandra charged through it. A few paces past it, the gravel ended and became a damp stone walkway only a few feet above the water line. Ahead, she saw another Doomguard and — Cygnus?
She almost stumbled to a halt, but her Doomguard was still right on her heels. Cygnus yelled at her. Beyond him, she saw a casket and four goblins goggling at the girl and the porcupine chased by a Doomguard.
She turned and threw everything she had into a spell she had only cast before on unmoving things. "Mobiliarmor!"
The Doomguard staggered and teetered on the edge of the walkway. Alexandra cursed. The yew wand still didn't acknowledge her as its mistress, and what should have been a shove was merely a nudge.
"Feordupois!" she said.
The Deadweight Charm, like all her other spells, was weaker than it should have been, but it was enough — the Doomguard toppled into the water and sank with barely a splash.
"She's got a wand!" shouted one of the goblins.
"How did you get a wand?" asked Cygnus.
"Never mind!" Alexandra turned on the goblins, holding her wand out. Cygnus's Doomguard stayed where it was, ready to strike Cygnus but ignoring Alexandra.
If she were more confident in her wand, Alexandra would have tried casting Incarcerous Charms on all of the goblins, but she doubted her ability to cast such a difficult spell four times before they began fighting back. So instead she said, "Make another sound, and I'll boil your brains inside your skulls and expel your entrails and turn you into fishfood."
The goblins opened their mouths, then closed them.
"Well?" she said, out of the corner of her mouth. "What's the deal with Elisabet? And where's Pasquale?"
"Elisabet is… sleeping," Cygnus said. Then his face rippled and flowed like wax. In a moment, Cygnus's beard disappeared, he became smaller, his dark skin lightened, and Pasquale Mercurio turned to face the Doomguard. It didn't move.
"Dear me," he said, "you seem to have lost your prisoner."
Alexandra's eyes darted between the wizard and the goblins. Her arm with the outstretched wand was beginning to tremble a little, and she almost shook visibly when Charlie landed on her shoulder.
"Alexandra!" cried the raven.
"You are awesome, Charlie," Alexandra said.
"We haven't much time," Pasquale said. "Even if no one has noticed the commotion yet, my Doomguard will be discovered any moment. No, don't attack this one — it won't react to you as long as you don't do anything to it. Help me get Elisabet on the boat." He gestured at the casket.
Alexandra eyed the casket, and the goblins, then cast a Levitation Charm on the casket. It rose into the air with a wobble, and with some help from Pasquale, it floated onto the dinghy, past the four goblins.
Alexandra pointed her wand at them. "You four — into the water. Now."
They shivered, looked over their shoulders at the black lake water, and back at her.
"It's cold!" one protested.
"We'll drown!" said another.
Alexandra gripped her wand more tightly. "Do you remember me?"
She recognized two of the goblins. In the dim light from their lantern, their leathery green faces turned a paler shade of avocado — they remembered her.
"You threw me into the water," she said. "Then you left me in the bottom of the boat, with wet clothes in freezing temperatures, and nothing to warm me, for hours. It was the coldest I've ever been in my life, and I've been really, really cold. I felt like I was going to freeze to death, and you did it just because you could, you miserable little creeps." Her voice rose in fury. "Now jump, or die, and hope I don't cast a Deadweight Charm on you!"
With strangled sounds, the goblins jumped into the water, making much bigger splashes than the Doomguard had. They continued splashing around, wailing and moaning. One screamed that he couldn't swim.
Alexandra told herself she didn't care. Then she walked to the side of the wharf and kicked one of the crates the goblins had been unloading. It only budged a little. She kicked it again, and it tumbled into the water and bobbed there. The goblins paddled desperately toward it.
She turned to Pasquale. "What now?"
The porcupine at her feet made a high-pitched squealing sound.
"Can you do something about the other Doomguard?" Pasquale asked, gesturing at the suit of armor. It still stood motionless where it had been since he stopped looking like Cygnus Nero. "Take care — it will turn on you when you use magic on it."
"You switched places," Alexandra said. "Cygnus's Doomguard was following you around. So once it no longer recognizes you as its prisoner, it just stands there?"
"As I told you, they really aren't very smart," Pasquale said. "But we could really use Cygnus in his proper form."
At her feet, the porcupine squealed urgently.
The Doomguard had its back to the water. Alexandra steeled her will, trying to force the yew wand to cooperate, and said, "Mobiliarmor!"
This time, with no forward momentum to resist her spell, the Doomguard scooted backward off the pier, and sank beneath the surface of the water before it could even raise its arms.
The porcupine stood on its hind legs. Its body stretched and its quills flattened against its body, and in no more time than it had taken Pasquale to transform from Cygnus's shape, the porcupine became Cygnus.
"That was quite a heartstopping escape," Cygnus said. "You could have warned me you were going to jump from the top of the tower."
"You could have warned me I was going to be carrying a porcupine," Alexandra said. The small quills embedded in her arms and torso were beginning to hurt a lot, but she hadn't had time to do anything about them. She pulled at a couple of them, and winced as they ripped free with a trickle of blood.
"I hope you have something even more spectacular up your sleeve," Pasquale said, looking over her shoulder.
Alexandra turned, and swallowed hard as an immense shadow descended toward them from the island keep. With great black wings spread wide and claws outstretched, Typhon fell upon them with a roar.
Alexandra held her wand aloft, pointed straight above her head rather than at the fearsome sphinx, and she closed her eyes.
"Where is our aid?" demanded Pasquale. "Where is the Dark Convention?"
"Where is your father?" asked Cygnus.
"They aren't coming," Alexandra said. "There's just me."
Before they could digest this, she felt for the crack running beneath Eerie Island, and pried at it.
The island shook. Water sloshed against the dock and the stones rising out of the waves.
Typhon did not land on Alexandra or either of the wizards. His four massive paws settled with a thump on the near end of the dock, blocking the way back to land, and his eyes glowed with unearthly fire.
"I WILL DEVOUR YOU ALL!" he roared.
"Not if you want to leave this place," Alexandra said, opening her eyes. She was astride a current flowing from a world away, and her breath felt like sparks. There was too much light in her eyes. Her voice crackled.
"Oh, Merlin's drawers," said Pasquale.
Typhon rose above her on his hind legs, his forepaws poised to strike, but they didn't move. A black shadow against the dark stone walls behind him, his eyes were red windows into a furnace. "Can you do that, little girl?" he asked. "Can you break wards placed by mightier wizards than you, in the time of your great-great-great-great-grandfather? Wards that even such as we cannot break?"
"Yes," Alexandra said.
The crack in the world became a rift, and the sea glowed with green and white fire.
The goblins, who'd been crying to Typhon for help, abruptly fell silent.
The ground shook again, and eerie Saint Elmo's fire lit up the entire prison, outlining the enormous sphinx and revealing Edna as well, who had slithered up the gravel path and was now coiled as if to propel herself forward while her own eyes glowed green and wild. She turned her head this way and that, taking in the sight. She held her arms out as if not sure whether to grab something or protect herself, though she was, as always, naked to the waist, and still unbothered by the cold.
"Stars Above," whispered Cygnus.
Alexandra said:
"I fear not the Lands Below,
I fear not the Lands Beyond,
I fear not the Most Deathly Power,
I fear not the Stars Above,
I fear not you."
She pointed her finger, rather than her wand, at Typhon, and said, "Begone." And she opened the World Away
Spirals and eddies and chords of light and sound, smells and colors that did not exist on Earth, all cascaded out of the rift, engulfing Typhon and Edna and washing over Alexandra as well.
"Do you think to banish us?" Typhon said. "Once free of this place, we can move between worlds. We can find our way back."
"I'm sure you can," Alexandra said. "But I freed you. You were held prisoner here just like I was — by the Confederation. You can do what you want now."
Typhon didn't move. "I could still eat you."
"You could," Alexandra said.
Typhon's face split into a terrible smile. Rows of teeth reflected red and yellow and green and blue light against the background of his dark mouth, making them look like jagged triangles of glass swirling in an oil slick.
He roared, and leaped into the crack between worlds. A moment later, Edna hurled herself after him, her long snake's body uncoiling and writhing behind her. In the moment in which they passed between worlds, the light shone around and through them and outlined enormous, fearsome silhouettes, as if their physical forms had merely been shadows of their true selves. The things they had been, the shapes they really wore, were vaster than could ever have fit into the stone dungeon of Eerie Island, and Alexandra marveled that they had ever been confined there in the first place.
She trembled as the crack in the world continued lighting up the lake and the small, dark island, and then, summoning an effort she wasn't sure she was capable of it, she closed it again. After the spectacle of a moment before, the sudden silence and darkness was shocking, and Alexandra nearly collapsed on the spot.
"Alexandra," said Charlie.
She rose from where she'd almost doubled over, not quite placing her hands on her knees, and turned to face Pasquale Mercurio and Cygnus Nero. Her hair blew wildly even though the wind had died down, and her wand still shed sparks that spun off into the water or bounced and glowed against the damp wood at her feet.
"Stars Above," Cygnus said. "What have you set free?"
Cygnus and Pasquale wasted several minutes getting the sail freed from the mast. Then Cygnus took the rudder, and with a great deal of bumping against the wharf before they cleared it, they headed out onto the lake.
It was obvious none of them had sailed before. Alexandra sat on the stern with Charlie on her shoulder, watching the two wizards while they struggled to keep the boat aimed west. The wind wasn't strong, but with the sun breaking over the horizon, Alexandra could see black clouds coming their direction.
Behind them, Eerie Island lay quiet and dark. Alexandra wondered if the other inmates had noticed that their wardens were gone. How long would it take for whoever was in charge back in the Confederation to realize that the prison was now unsupervised? The Doomguards would continue serving their purpose, but would other prisoners take advantage of their lack of direction?
None of it mattered right now. What mattered was getting away. Surely someone would be pursuing them soon.
"So what's the plan?" Alexandra asked, as she pulled quills out of her arm and tossed them in the water. "And what about Elisabet?"
"My plan is to get to the mainland," said Pasquale. "I can disappear easily enough."
Cygnus glared at Alexandra. "So your allies in the Dark Convention will not be helping us?"
Alexandra shrugged. "I never promised they would. My job was to keep Typhon and Edna from eating us."
"I cannot mingle with Muggles like you and Pasquale," Cygnus said.
"Maybe you can hide in the woods and find a fine porcupine bride," Pasquale said. Cygnus did not look amused.
"You haven't answered my question about Elisabet," Alexandra said.
"Ah, yes. The poison she took only gave her the appearance of death. She should be waking up soon. Or so she claimed." Pasquale shrugged. "We could always pitch her casket over the side — I'm sure she'll float to shore eventually."
Alexandra wasn't sure if he was joking. Clearly there was not a great deal of camaraderie in this little band. Their association was an alliance of convenience, fated to end as soon as they no longer needed each other.
Which might be sooner for some of us than others, she thought. Cygnus glowered at her, irritable and resentful, which she thought was pretty ungrateful considering she was the one pulling his quills out of her flesh.
A scraping sound came from within the wooden casket. Charlie fluttered off Alexandra's shoulder and landed on it, then cawed loudly. Alexandra noted with satisfaction that Cygnus backed nervously away from the raven.
There was a thump, then a series of thumps. Charlie remained on the casket, and said, "Wicked! Wicked!"
"Indeed," said Pasquale, who was fumbling with the sail again. "Merlin's beard, girl, why don't you use your wand to conjure us some wind?"
"She's only a child," Cygnus said. "A student. She probably doesn't command such advanced magic."
"You wouldn't have gotten this far without me," Alexandra said. "Who got us away from the Doomguards? Who got us away from Typhon and Edna?"
"You lied to us about your connections," Cygnus said.
"Actually, I didn't," Alexandra said. "You believed what you wanted to believe."
A hard rap emanated from beneath Charlie's feet. The raven cawed and flew back to Alexandra's shoulder.
Alexandra gestured. "Maybe you should open that."
Sullenly, Cygnus pried at the lid of the casket, and it popped open. Elisabet Todd lay there, blinking and taking deep breaths. She looked exactly like a vampire, Alexandra thought. Except sunlight was falling on her and she wasn't catching fire. Actually, Alexandra didn't think vampires really caught fire if exposed to sunlight. But she was pretty sure they didn't like it. Elisabet, however, seemed just fine.
No one moved to help her, so she placed two gaunt hands on either side of her casket and slowly lifted herself to a sitting position. She looked around. Her normally cruel expression was washed out by groggy surprise.
"We made it, I take it," she said. "Either that or this is a tedious and bitter afterlife."
"We made it," Pasquale said. "But now we have the problem of getting to shore." In fact, their boat seemed to be drifting in a circle.
Alexandra sighed. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."
Her first attempt at a wind charm nearly threw Cygnus overboard. This didn't improve his attitude. The yew wand seemed particularly uncooperative when it came to commanding wind, and after several minutes of conjuring, Alexandra succeeded in almost blowing the boat onto its side, then carrying them forward with a roar at a good few knots for several minutes, before Pasquale bellowed, "We're going the wrong way!"
Elisabet said, "Since you didn't think to enslave the goblins to our purpose, I suppose we will have to do this the hard way." She gestured at the two heavy oars lying on either side of the boat. "And by we, I mean you two."
Pasquale and Cygnus glowered at her. "What do you mean, we two?"
"I am too weak to be any help, and you can't think this skinny girl is going to row better than two big, strong men?" Elisabet smiled and batted her eyelashes. Her mocking coquetry was about as charming as a spider's. But she was right, and the two wizards realized it. With groans, they picked up the oars, set them in their hooks, and began rowing.