Page 100

Jareth and Nala were on their feet again, closing in on the mysterious black Knight from opposite sides. He lifted his hands and blasted them with energy pulses so powerful, it catapulted them clear out of the Oval.

“This isn’t right,” I muttered, even as the crowd cheered in appreciation of the black Knight’s explosive magic.

Ainsley, Eris, Orion, and Altair rushed into the Oval, hitting the black Knight with magic from every direction. But their spells and potions bounced right off his armor; they didn’t even slow him down. He thrust his arms over his head, and the other Knights were all thrown into the air. They swirled around wildly, bouncing off one another like ice cubes in a blender.

And when the black Knight released his hold on them, they slammed into the enormous Scoreboard, sending it plummeting to the ground, crashing toward the human audience. And now people weren’t cheering anymore. They were screaming. And fleeing.

The Scoreboard stopped before it hit the crowd, suspended in the air. Kato was standing below it, muttering under his breath. His hands made smooth circles, easing the enormous panel to the ground.

Everyone was panicking. Wild, driven into a frightened frenzy, they rushed to get away from the black Knight, not caring how many people they trampled in the process. Bodies fell under the stampede, crushed by the crowd.

I swung my legs over the fence and dashed across the Oval. I sprinted for a few seconds, toward where I’d spotted my mother. She was helping a few people to their feet, people who’d been trampled by their own neighbors.

“Come on, Mom. We’ll do it together,” I said as I hopped over the fence and joined her.

Together, we pulled a fallen speaker off a man’s leg. Once freed, he limped off in a frantic half-run, without so much as a thank-you.

“Are you all right?”

I turned at the deep, echoing sound of Kato’s voice. He was standing over me as I struggled—unsuccessfully—to lift a toppled flag pole off a man.

“I’m fine.” I heaved with all the strength I had, but the pole didn’t budge. “Which is more than I can say for these people.”

Kato squatted down and lifted the pole like it weighed nothing. The guy muttered a quick thanks to him before hobbling away.

I rose to face Kato. “What happened? Who is that black Knight?”

He turned to look across the Oval, where the six mentors were battling it out against the black Knight. “That is no Knight,” Kato said darkly.

Knights don’t wear black.The memory of the invisible stranger’s words echoed inside my head.

“Then what is he?” I asked.

Kato shook his head. “I have no idea.”

The six Knights kept coming at the armored fiend, unrelenting, undeterred, even when their magic hardly made a dent in that thick black armor. It was one thing to be confident and brave when you were more powerful than anyone. It was much harder when you suddenly weren’t. These Knights were the most valiant people I’d ever met.

“I had to make sure you’re all right.” Kato’s WAND morphed into a sword. “But now I have to help them.”

He charged across the Oval, trailing a tail of flames behind him. The fire grew longer, higher every time his boot hit the ground. It was a firestorm now.

Kato thrust his sword forward, and the flames swirled into a fiery lance as large as a flagpole. It slammed into the black Knight so hard that it flung him out of the Oval, past the park, and into the road. There was a metallicding!when he hit the triangular roundabout sign nailed to a power-line pole—and then acrack!as the pole split in half. The pole remnants hit the road with acrash!, taking a streetlamp and layers of tangled power cables along with them.

The Knights were already running after the fiend.

“We have to hit him with something harder,” Orion said as they sprinted past me.

I ran into line beside them.

“Muchharder,” Ainsley added.

“There are a ton of enchanted objects back in our dressing rooms.” Jareth grabbed the split wooden post off the ground and threw it at the armored fiend as he moved to stand up. Jareth frowned when the fiend flicked it away like it was a tiny fruit fly. “Some of those enchanted objects are packed with pretty potent magic.”

“I’ll go and get them,” Altair said.

I caught his arm. “No, I’ll go.”

Kato stepped in my way. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”