Brightly (Flicker #2) (40 page)

The spell base had three levels: three circles nested one inside another, the levels connected at various points by straight lines. With the lines in place, the base looked something like a circular maze made entirely of dead ends. Energy would flow along the curves and lines. They had to be placed correctly, or the flow would be uneven, compromising the spell.

When she’d created her guides, Lee unpacked a clear plastic bag of salt. She sprinkled a thin line of salt along each ring. Then she drew her knife. The weight of it in her hand was familiar. With the point of the blade, she traced over her guides. Each stroke was slow but sure. She wouldn’t rush. It was worth taking her time.

Once the circle was complete, Lee paced a slow circuit around it, pausing every few steps to sweep the earth smooth and trace a symbol. At last, Lee retrieved the shard Davis had so carefully chipped off the Maiden’s crystal. It was tiny, the size of a fingernail, but even now, it winked with soft lilac light. Gingerly, she placed the shard in the center of the circle, then turned and nodded to Filo and Henry.

She went to join Clementine and Nasser by the trees while the other boys loped toward the circle. By the time they reached it, their knives were drawn. When Filo swept the blade across each of his palms, he didn’t flinch. When Henry did the same, his face tightened.

Filo and Henry knelt on opposite sides of the diagram and pressed their hands to the outermost circle. Blue light rose beneath Filo’s hands, spreading left and right along the line of the circle, like luminous water filling a moat. On the other side, Henry’s deep green magic did the same.

When the two energies met, the circle flared so brightly that Lee’s eyes watered. Chills washed over her arms as a wave of magic rolled out from the circle, hissing and whispering over the grass. Every curve and line of the spell base shone with blue-green light. Lee could feel the pressure building in the air, could feel the way the energy moved: a continuous flow, like the motion of the sea. In the center, she could still see the shard’s light.

Minutes passed, slow and tense. Lee could tell that this was hard work for Filo. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down, but he continued to feed his magic to the circle, and the circle devoured it hungrily, shining brighter and brighter.

Channeling his energy like this was easier for Henry, who was used to using magic near the sea, but Lee noticed how tense he was getting. His internal stores of magic were smaller than Filo’s. He was expending less effort, but it drained more energy out of him.

Lee turned to ask Nasser how much longer he thought this part of the spell would take, but before she could speak, a massive figure crashed into the clearing behind them.

The troll was roughly human-shaped, though it held itself like an animal, hunched forward slightly. It stood at least ten feet tall, all wiry muscle and mottled green skin, rendered even stranger by the pulsing, blue-green light. Black horns curled back from its forehead and its arms hung almost to its knees, ending in clawed fingers. The troll’s face jutted outward into a long snout.

Letting out a tremendous roar, the troll swung one arm toward the three of them. Clementine ducked and Nasser shoved Lee out of the way, hard enough that she fell. The troll’s arm arced through the space she’d just occupied and clipped Nasser, sending him sprawling.

With all three of them on the ground, the troll turned to the shining circle. Its lips pulled back around long, apelike fangs as it stepped toward Filo and Henry, who were still forcing magic into the circle. Lee willed them to work faster.

In a moment, Clementine was on her feet. She dove between the troll and the circle, orange fire writhing around her arms, its light dancing in her hair. She threw her arms up as the troll swiped at her, but the fire didn’t scorch its skin. It just batted her aside with one arm. Lee remembered that Henry said it was a water troll. What could fire do to such a creature?

Lee shot forward without thinking, stumbling over the grass and seizing the handle of the knife that hung at her belt. The troll didn’t even glance at her as she ran toward it, but it took notice when she plunged the knife into its calf.

As the troll staggered sideways, she heard a sizzling noise. It was a moment before she realized the sound was coming from the troll’s flesh, where the knife was still embedded to the hilt. The blade was iron. The troll swung toward her and leaned forward, bellowing so loudly that she fell onto her back.

With a single thunderous crack that Lee felt through her whole body, the circle erupted into a ring of fire. The flames leaped ten feet high, burning with all the hues of sapphires and emeralds, so bright that white starbursts danced in front of Lee’s eyes, so hot that she could feel the breath of the flames against her skin.

All around, Lee felt the rush of wind and magic, strong enough to make the branches sway. The air crackled with energy, like the charge before a lightning storm. The fire roared like a dragon and the troll bellowed.

The ground was rumbling, and when Lee pushed herself upright, she saw that Filo stood by the burning ring, looking toward her. Blue and green lights swept over him like sheets of rain.

“We need to go!” His voice was nearly swallowed by the endless roaring. “It won’t hold for long! We need to go
now!
”

With another howl, the troll ripped the knife from its leg and pitched the blade across the clearing. It swung one massive fist down; Lee barely rolled out of its way. She jumped to her feet and whirled toward the fire.

The blaze was so bright that it blinded her. She stumbled forward, her eyes watering so badly that she could barely see. She felt like she was standing in a furnace wind. When she looked over her shoulder, she recognized the blurred shapes of Henry and Clementine, darting around the troll’s swinging arms and stomping leg as they sprinted toward the fire.

Nasser was beside her suddenly, grabbing her hand tightly. The power of his Sight made the firelight so intense that, for a moment, all she saw was whiteness. When her vision returned, Henry and Filo were gone.

She turned her head, looking for Clementine, and saw that the other girl was sprawled on the grass, kicking at the hand of the troll that grasped at her leg. Instinctively, she turned—but before she could take a step toward Clementine, Nasser shoved her face-first into the wall of fire.

Chapter Twenty-One:

Lee was devoured by white-hot flames. She was weightless, careening through an ocean of blue and green fire, the heat so intense that it stopped registering as pain and simply
was
. She thought she was screaming, but the sound was lost in the roaring of the flames. Each breath seared her lungs, filling her with fire.

And then, abruptly, she slammed into a cold, hard surface with enough force that all the breath was knocked from her lungs. With difficulty, she struggled to her knees and raised her head. It was a moment before she realized that she was not burned.

A column of fire blazed behind her. Its roaring was like a secret language, a tongue spoken only by old gods of fire, and its heat was like burning hands stroking her skin. All else was darkness. Lee’s vision swam. Her half-healed bruises pulsed painfully.

Shakily, she crawled far enough away from the fire that the waves of heat didn’t feel like they would blister her skin.

Something shot from the column of fire: a dark shape that landed hard, skidding a few feet along the ground. A heartbeat later, the flames extinguished themselves with a sound like a gasp, taking all the heat with them.

“Where is everyone?” Lee whispered, afraid to raise her voice in the strange silence. The ground was cold and damp. She could hear dripping, trickling sounds.

“Over here,” Nasser answered, from somewhere nearby. He was the one who’d just come through. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you?”

“I think so.”

Lee struggled to pull off her backpack. She groped through its contents until she finally found her flashlight. She fed some of her magic into it and turned, sweeping the green-white beam through the darkness. They were in a small grotto, she saw, all damp, black stone. Rivulets of water ran down the walls, gleaming in the light. A single tunnel reached into the darkness beyond.

Nasser pulled out a flashlight and his silver light joined hers. A few feet away, Henry climbed to his feet, looking dizzy. Filo was still sitting on the stone floor. His hands were shaking. His palms were smeared with blood and ash.

Filo stood carefully, then staggered a few feet away and vomited. Lee lowered her flashlight, wincing. The sound of him being sick echoed off the stone walls. When he seemed to be finished, she went to him and took him by the arm. “Are you okay?”

He nodded as he lowered himself onto a nearby rock, though he looked pallid. Even his eyes were dull. “I used too much magic,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing. “That’s all. I’ll be fine.”

“Clem?” Henry called softly. “Hey, Clem!”

There was no answer.

Henry turned in a slow circle, his green eyes scanning the gloom. Lee froze. With her head spinning from the impact and all her bruises lighting up with pain, she’d forgotten. She’d thought everyone was here.

“Oh, no,” she whispered, covering her mouth with one hand. “No, no, no.”

“What?” Henry spun toward her.

“Right before I came through,” Lee said, “I saw her, just for a second. She fell. I couldn’t get to her. Nasser pushed me through, and then…”

Nasser paled. “I didn’t see her,” he said, horrified. “I thought she was already through. I thought I was the last one.”

“What are you saying?” Henry demanded, his voice rising.

“She didn’t—” Nasser grimaced. “She didn’t make it through in time. The passage collapsed. She’s on the other side.”

“That can’t be.” Henry looked like he was going to be sick. “She was right behind me!”

“She must’ve tripped,” Lee said. “Oh, my God. Henry, I’m so sorry.”

He jerked away from her when she reached for him. His hands were shaking, with rage or fear, she didn’t know. “There’s a
troll
on the other side,” he said fiercely. “She’s alone with that thing! What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“We can’t do anything,” Filo said, not unkindly. He was still sitting on the rock. “Not now. We can’t open the passage again yet. I’m completely burned out and so are you. Nasser and Lee don’t have enough energy between them to do it. For the time being, we’re stuck here.”

“I’ve never left her,” Henry whispered, his voice so thin and quiet that Lee almost didn’t hear him. “Never. And now she’s out there—”

“You can put a sword to her throat and she won’t even flinch,” Filo said firmly. “You can throw her into Deception Pass and she’ll swim right back to shore. You said your mother ran that troll off by herself. In that case, I’m not worried about Clementine.”

Those weren’t the words Lee would’ve chosen, but that was as close to comforting as Filo ever got. Oddly enough, Henry nodded and drew himself up a little straighter. He still looked pained, but there was a strange gratitude in his expression, like that was what he’d needed to hear.

Gesturing with his flashlight, Nasser said, “There’s only one tunnel. We should at least take a look. I don’t want to stay in one spot for too long.”

Nodding, Lee turned and offered Filo her hand. He declined, standing shakily. She hoped he wouldn’t fall over. The four of them edged into the tunnel, their footsteps echoing and the flashlight beams bouncing off the damp stone.

Lee had to step more carefully as the tunnel sloped upward, steeper and steeper. Once, she thought she felt a breeze. As they walked farther, light glimmered up ahead.

They emerged in a stand of trees, washed-out and pale in the light. The trees reminded her of mangroves, with their twisted, spreading braches, except for the fruit that hung from them: white and glowing faintly. Looking down, Lee saw that she stood on fern-covered ground. As she stared, she began to feel dizzy.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” she whispered. “I duplicated the diagram exactly. The spell base was perfect. It should’ve worked.”

“What are you talking about?” Filo asked.

“We’re not in a cave!” she cried, gesturing toward the trees. “We’re in the wrong place!”

Shaking his head, Filo took her by the shoulder and turned her. “Look.”

They were standing on a high hilltop. Below them sprawled a forest, brilliant and green. A river divided the forest, winding around the large rock formations that soared above the trees and disappeared into the distance. Dark, craggy stone walls ringed the forest, rising to form a dome above the trees. Light poured through a wide opening at the top of the dome, hundreds of feet above. This forest grew inside a massive cavern.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“Exactly,” Filo said. “We’re right where we’re meant to be.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: