Page 52

Bitterly, Sera realised this was what she’d forgotten.

She might have nothing to fear from Albert, but what about everybody else?

Albert knew her too well. Like he’d said, he knew exactly where to find the soft, exposed places between her prickly feathers.

He’d used her loyalty to Clemmie to trick her fifteen years ago, he’d used her love for Luke to make her hand over the essence of sunlight just weeks ago, and even then, even after that, she’d gone and broken that contract behind his back because she’d forgotten that she wasn’t the one he would hurt.

Luke had been afraid she’d put a target on her back, but it wasn’t her back at all.

It was her home, her family, everybody she loved.

She stared in horror at Nicholas, frozen in place, turned entirely to stone.

“Tick tock,” Albert said cruelly. “Ask me really nicely and I’ll release him. I don’t think he can breathe in there, you know. Stone and all.”

Sera swiped a hand at Nicholas, putting every bit of her fury and stardust into it, and the stone encasing him shattered. He started running again, like he hadn’t noticed anything had happened to him, and Luke grabbed him around the shoulders.

“No,” Luke said quietly, gripping Nicholas tightly by the arms. “Nicholas. Listen to me. Stop.”

“How can I?” Nicholas asked, bewildered. “I have to defend my home. I have to defend Sera .”

“Not this time,” Sera said softly, putting herself between Albert and Nicholas. “Go back inside. Please.”

His eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “But…”

“I need you to do this for me.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.” She looked at Luke, still holding Nicholas back, and said it again. “I love you. You know that, don’t you? I do. I love you. I love you all. It’s going to be okay.”

Luke froze. He opened his mouth—

Albert lost patience.

Sera felt the lightning snap past her, singeing a hole in her sleeve. She batted it away, just inches before it hit Luke straight in the chest, and turned furiously.

Albert struck again, and again, angry bolts of lightning blazing from his hands, and Sera could barely stop them in time, was terrified that one would slip past her.

She opened her mouth to beg him to stop, to ask him what he wanted from her, to tell him she’d do whatever it was if it meant he’d leave everybody else alone, but then, suddenly, someone lunged out of the shadows with a familiar, gleeful laugh.

“Clemmie?” Sera said in disbelief.

How long she’d been lurking in the dark like the fox she’d once been was anyone’s guess, but Clemmie tackled Albert around the middle, catching him completely off guard, knocking them both into the snow.

“Clementine,” Albert snarled, spitting snow. “Don’t be stupid. You’re one of us. You can’t choose them.”

“I am choosing them,” Clemmie snarled back. “I am. I am .”

Luke sprang before Albert could recover, pinning him down, and Clemmie started to screech the words of a spell to keep him down.

There was a silent explosion in the air, a boom that rattled Sera’s teeth, and Luke and Clemmie were both flung back. Albert stood, seething, knocking snow off his clothes, lightning crackling so violently in his eyes that you couldn’t see anything else.

Roo-Roo zoomed down the garden with a merry “Bok!” and cannoned into Albert’s legs. Looking down, Albert, who could have easily ignored the little rooster skeleton, kicked spitefully at it instead.

Roo-Roo flew through the air and crashed into the stone slabs of the patio. Jasmine covered her mouth, stifling a cry.

“Oh!” Matilda cried. “Of all the unforgivable things!”

And Clemmie, who must have pounced on and chased and dismantled Roo-Roo a hundred times, seemed to feel the same way. Her face contorting with outrage, she clambered unsteadily to her feet, tottered across the space between her and Albert, pulled back her fist, and punched him in the nose.

Albert let out a roar.

Slashing her hand through the air again, Sera put a shield between Albert and Clemmie, too powerful for either of them to break through. Jasmine, meanwhile, scooped Roo-Roo’s pieces up and tenderly put him back together.

“ Enough. ” Sera’s voice trembled.

There was a terrible ache in her heart, a fierce and dreadful understanding that no matter what happened, no matter how tonight ended, Albert would always be a threat to everything she loved.

It had been na?ve of them, all of them, to think she could keep him in check .

Look what he’d done already. No, there was only one way out of this, and it broke her heart.

Everything she had ever done had brought her here, to this moment, to this choice, and it broke her heart, but it was also right .

Aloud, she said, “There’s a way for you and me to put an end to this right now.”

Albert cocked his head with interest. “Are you suggesting a duel?”

“Oh, good,” said Nicholas. “A duel’s more my speed.”

“I don’t think this would be that sort of duel, dear,” Matilda said, patting his hand.

Keeping her eyes squarely on Albert, Sera said, “Yes. A duel. Just like we used to, only this time, of course, it’s not for practice. Winner takes all.”

“Define all ,” Albert said.

“Pride, for one thing,” said Sera. “We get to find out once and for all which of us is more powerful. Oh, I know, I know, you think it’s you because I’m a girl and I have no family of note, blah blah blah, but still.

You don’t know . This way, you’ll know. Also,” she went on, thinking quickly, “I think it’s become clear there’s only room for one of us at the Guild, so the winner gets to stay.

The loser leaves the country for good and never, ever bothers the winner again. ”

“What?” Matilda exclaimed from the top of the garden. “You can’t leave the country!”

“Oi! What makes you think she’ll lose?” Nicholas demanded, instantly offended on Sera’s behalf.

“Hush, both of you,” Jasmine said anxiously.

Clemmie, for once, had nothing to say.

Luke, staggering up from the snow where he’d been thrown, a nasty cut above one eyebrow, stared at her, hard, his jaw working like he was fighting the urge to protest.

Albert looked thoughtful. “Who goes first?”

“First one to cast gets to start.” Sera had spent a lot of time trying to forget the duels of her childhood, but even so, she was fairly sure she was remembering the rules right.

Not that the rules really mattered. All that really mattered was getting Albert to agree.

“Recovery time?” Albert asked.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Victory terms?”

“If the other one’s thirty seconds of recovery ends without a counterspell,” said Sera, “or the other one yields.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Albert asked. “You’ve never won a single duel against me.”

“I haven’t won one yet ,” said Sera.

He narrowed his eyes. “Fine. I accept.”

A large ring of snow around them burst into white flames that burned, harmlessly, at knee height, keeping everyone else out and keeping them in the duelling ground until it was over.

Luke glared at Sera from over the flames.

He knew she was up to something, something that would probably cost her, and he was furious with her for doing it.

The beauty of a magical duel was that neither opponent could break the terms of the duel while it was going on, but the downside of a magical duel was that once it was over, there was nothing to stop either of them from breaking their word about leaving the country and leaving the other one alone.

Sera knew that. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake Clemmie had.

She wasn’t going to trust Albert Grey to keep his promises.

She knew that whatever the outcome of the duel, Albert had absolutely no intention of going anywhere.

(To be fair, she had absolutely no intention of leaving her home either, so she couldn’t exactly get too self-righteous about that part.)

She didn’t care about what happened after the duel ended. She just needed the actual duel .

She needed him to not be able to stop her when she cast the only spell that mattered.

The wind, rippling through her hair, died. The snow settled. The world went quiet.

Albert struck first.

A mottled snake slithered across the snow, hissing, and lunged so fast Sera barely had time to blink. She gasped in pain, her ankle buckled, and she dropped to her hands and knees.

Heal it, heal it , she thought frantically, clamping a hand over the puncture wound, from which dark, poisonous veins and terrible pain began to spread. With one hand, she healed, and with the other, she dissolved the snake into smoke.

Twenty-seven seconds. She’d need to be faster.

It was her turn. She whirled snow into Albert’s eyes, and he recoiled, clawing at his eyes as the snow burned, but he recovered quickly. His next spell was a Minotaur conjured out of smoke that charged at her, horns first, but she dodged it, transformed it, and set a murder of crows on him.

He scattered them into a rain of black feathers and flung a vicious lightning bolt at her. It struck her in the shoulder, scorching her jumper and piercing her skin, and she yanked it out and, once again, rushed to heal herself.

This time, though, she didn’t have to worry about a snake. This time, she could look at Luke, across the flames, and she could use a silent, secret spell.

I need an incantation.

He jerked back, startled, at the sound of her voice in his head.

I’m sorry. I should have asked permission first, but there wasn’t time.

His brow knitted, asking a silent question. Which incantation? Which spell?

She told him.

His eyes widened. He shook his head.

Twenty-two seconds. Twenty-three. Her shoulder had almost healed.

I only saw the spell once. I can’t remember the incantation. She staggered to her feet. Luke, please. You know this is the only way.

Twenty-five seconds. Twenty-six.

Luke’s mouth moved silently, shaping the syllables of the words she needed.

And then, at the end, four more words:

I love you too.

She smiled.

Twenty-nine seconds.

She opened her mouth and cast her spell.

A spell she’d seen in a book one time. A spell for stealing magic with a vicious sting in its tail.

Take what isn’t yours and you shall pay with what is.

The spell struck fast and fierce, sending first Albert and then Sera to their knees.

“Don’t you dare ,” Albert snarled. “You can’t. You can’t .”

He lunged, as if he would strangle her into silence, but an invisible wall stopped him before he could touch her. It was her turn, after all. Bound by the circle of white flames and tied to the terms of the duel until it was over, Albert could do absolutely nothing.

“What’s she doing?” Jasmine cried. “What’s happening? Sera! Are you hurt? Sera!”

“She’s taking away his magic,” Luke said quietly. “All of it. And it’s going to cost her all of hers.”

“Make…her…STOP!” Albert roared.

It hurt, everywhere , but Sera didn’t stop. This was the only way to stop Albert for good. This was the only way to protect these people she loved so much.

If this was the last magic she would ever cast, at least it would mean something. At least it would be extraordinary.

Snow swirled around her, carrying a hint of Nivea cream and woodsmoke and hot, buttery scones straight out of the oven. It was a reminder of who she was. Firebird. Phoenix. Witch. And terribly, agonisingly, magnificently human .

She was the gargoyle of this castle, the caretaker of this inn where light reached even the darkest corners.

Every choice she had made since she’d cast the resurrection spell had been about bringing magic back into her life.

She had looked for magic for fifteen years, had blamed every bad thing that had happened to her on the loss of magic, and now here she stood, having found the thing she’d fought so long and hard for, and she was trading it away.

Or was she? Magic for family. Magic for home. Wasn’t she really just trading one kind of magic for another?

Sera waited for those glorious, valiant stars to answer her one last time. They gathered and gathered, coming to her from every fragment of her bones, brushing warmth against her skin, whispering a farewell as her magic, all of it, surged to her fingers and into this last and greatest of spells.

The last of the stars bled out of Sera’s fingers.

And Albert Grey’s terrible, destructive lightning went out for good.