Taken

Onyx spun snake-quick and the force lance flashed out, but it curved away from Vitus, its path distorting. From behind I felt the flare of a gate spell and I heard Luna’s shout. “Alex!”

I turned and ran. I covered the distance in seconds and I had one last fleeting glimpse of Vitus, re-formed and whole again, those ghastly empty eye sockets locked on Onyx and one hand grasping towards him. The space around Onyx was warping, trying to compress inwards, and Onyx was crouched in a snarl, the force shield flickering and trying to maintain its shape as the two magics clashed. Then I was through the door. Where I’d left Anne and Luna and Variam an oval gateway was hanging in the air, its edges flickering green to match the light around Anne’s hands. Variam was already through and within that oval I could see the natural darkness of our own world.

Luna and Anne had only been waiting for me and as they saw me they darted through the gate one after the other. I knew the gate was about to close and I put my head down and sprinted.

It was very, very close. Anne’s grip on the spell faltered when I had ten feet to go and I turned the last three steps into a running jump. I went sailing through the gate, hit Anne along the way, and felt the spell snap behind me. We both went into the table and chairs in the middle of the room and hit the floor in a crash of furniture.

The light of the gate stone had extinguished with Anne’s spell and we were left in pitch-darkness, the only sound the noises of everyone checking to make sure they were in one piece. But it was natural darkness, not the strange half-light of that other place, and while it was cold it was the fresh cold of winter. I could smell dust and spiderwebs but the air was clean.

Orange light flared, illuminating Variam’s face as he held an orb of magelight above his head. He looked battered and weary but he was still in one piece and his eyes were alert as he looked around. In the glow we could see the tiles and table and chairs of the kitchen of my farmhouse in Wales. Outside was the darkness of a winter evening, and looking around I could see Luna and Anne. We were safe.

“Okay,” Luna said, breaking the silence with a sigh. “I do not want to do that again.”

“You and me both.” I pulled myself to my feet, wincing, and gave Anne a hand up. “You okay?”

Anne looked at my hand in surprise for a second, then smiled and took it. “I’m okay.” She brushed herself off, looking around. “I guess we’re back again?”

“Is it over?” Luna asked.

“No one’s going to follow us,” I said. I’d been looking into the futures of our staying in the house and they were all blessedly quiet. “It’s over.”

“What about Vitus?” Variam asked. He’d propped himself up against the wall, his shattered arm still hanging limp.

“You are not worrying about Vitus,” I said. “You’re going to bed to let Anne work on you. And you’re staying there until you’ve had a chance to rest.”

Variam tried to look indignant. “I’m—”

“You’re going to bed,” Anne said firmly. “Right now.”

Variam seemed about to argue, then looked at Anne and changed his mind. He allowed himself to be led off grumbling. Luna watched Anne and Variam go, then shook her head. “What’s the order, oh master?”

“You can get a fire started,” I said. “This place is bloody freezing. And while you do that I’m going to try and figure out who I should tell this whole crazy story to first.”

Luna opened up the stove and sniffed at it, sneezed, then looked dubiously at the basket of firewood. I’d just taken out my phone and was deciding which number to dial when I paused. “Ah, damn.”

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked.

I looked towards where Anne and Variam had vanished. “I just remembered I never restocked the kitchen.”

chapter 14

Explaining the whole thing to the Council kept me busy for the next few days.

I was interviewed by the Keepers, then by Council reps, then by the masters in charge of the apprentice program, then by the Keepers again, then by some other guys whose names I can’t remember, then by the Keepers one more time. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, except slower and in more detail. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, by which point I was about ready to chew my own arm off, or possibly someone else’s. Luna got lucky and was let out sometime around the second day.

Anne and Variam got interviewed too, and their interviews were a lot less friendly than mine. Anne had it especially bad—it took a long time to convince the Keepers that she hadn’t fled from custody and even then they didn’t stop treating her as a suspect. I later found out that the only way Anne finally got them to accept her story was by submitting to a memory probe.