Chosen (9781742844657) (48 page)

Her idea
?

‘Are you alright?'

Teresa blinked, suddenly brought back to the present by Emmanuelle's voice. The idea was insane but it was a good one and the decision had been made. She had work to do.

‘I'm fine,' Teresa agreed, brushing her hair from her eyes and taking a deep breath to steady herself. There was important, very important, work to be done. She was standing beside the now-clear table; Aubrey had moved all of the chairs to the edge of the room, and he and Emmanuelle now stood either side of her. Jadon and Samuel were making every effort to keep their dish-washing very quiet, to avoid disturbing Teresa's concentration.

‘Are you sure?' Aubrey asked, crossing his arms. ‘You know you don't have to do this if you don't feel up to it.'

He shot a subtle, dark look at Emmanuelle. Teresa hesitated. He was right, this could end badly – what sort of trouble could she get into if the other side thought she was carrying around the ring they wanted? But Emmanuelle rolled her eyes.

‘She's fine,' she insisted. ‘Teresa is strong and capable. I know that; Lord Gawain and the rest of the council knows that. She's up to it. Aren't you?'

Emmanuelle met Teresa's gaze and waited. This was the chance to show she was made of the same stuff as the rest of the council – bravery, talent, selflessness…

‘Of course I am,' Teresa said firmly. She could be scared; it didn't have to stop her from doing what needed to be done. ‘I'm ready.'

Emmanuelle removed the chunky silver ring from her thumb and placed it in the centre of the table. Teresa observed it for a few moments, committing its appearance to memory, before she took it and began to turn it over in her hands, learning its dimensions, its every curve and scratch. Its energy, too, had to be fully understood and appreciated if it was to be recreated. For a simpler illusion this much preparation would be unnecessary, but this one had to be perfect. There could be no mistake.

Minutes passed in silence. She thought of nothing but the ring,
this
ring, which could cause so much trouble. Its surface was warm with touch, but would cool if left alone. The stone set into it was dented with several scratches, and the shape engraved into it was worn, but still distinguishable. The metal of the band had a slightly swollen feel to it, undoubtedly the result of the incredible power pumped through it, and which it still held. This ring had served the White Elm for centuries, and Teresa could feel the memories, pains and joys of each long decade etched eternally into every millimetre of silver.

Eventually, the ring ceased to feel unusual in Teresa's hand. She understood it now, and it was familiar. She closed her eyes, keeping her understanding of the ring at the forefront of her mind. Her fists closed, too, and power surged through her, willed and directed. She loosened the fingers of her left hand as she felt something cold growing against her palm. Her creation was taking shape, and it needed room.

Teresa opened her eyes and her hands. In each palm, a chunky, plain silver ring lay, shining dully in the light, projecting identical auras of potency and dark power.

‘It's done,' she said, unnecessarily. The proof was evident, sitting in her outstretched hands.

‘I knew you could do it,' Emmanuelle said, smiling as she admired the two rings. Teresa tipped them both onto the tabletop, where they rolled and clinked together, eventually coming to stillness. Aubrey picked one up and held it to the light, narrowing his eyes and trying to find fault. He couldn't.

‘How do we know which one is real?' he asked.

‘It doesn't matter,' Emmanuelle said, holding the other out to Jadon and Samuel to see – they had given up on the dishes and they were leaning over the bench top, curious. Samuel took it. ‘We will keep them both as safe as if they were both genuine.'

Samuel squeezed the ring he held between his fingers, and tapped it gently against the bench top.

‘I can't believe this isn't real,' he admitted, throwing it lightly into the air and catching it. ‘All of my senses are telling me this is real, but it isn't.'

Teresa smiled, but didn't bother to tell him that the one he held
was
real. The two pieces were perfectly identical, with no way of knowing which was which, but she, the creator, would always be able to tell. The real thing was familiar, but the illusion was connected to her being by the constant, fine stream of magic it required to exist.

The rings were compared and then swapped hands. Emmanuelle turned to Jadon and Samuel, and the three of them began to search their ring for the distinguishing markings Emmanuelle recalled. Teresa folded her arms, pleased with her work, and sidled closer to Aubrey to view the illusion she had created. Nobody would ever guess that it wasn't real, at least not until she lost it and it began to fade away, as all wishes, ideas and fabrications do when there's no one around to believe in them.

‘Which one
is
real?' Aubrey asked, rolling the illusion between his fingers. His senses believed that it took up space – so it did. Teresa smiled.

‘I'll let you guess,' she said, teasing, feeling light and carefree. The stresses of the past few days seemed to have lifted from her shoulders in light of her latest achievement.

‘It really is incredible work,' Aubrey confirmed, as though he'd known what she was thinking.

‘I wasn't sure I could do it,' Teresa admitted, though Aubrey must have known this already. ‘I kept thinking what a crazy idea it was. I couldn't understand what I'd been thinking, to tell Renatus that I was capable of that kind of magic. But apparently I am.'

She felt herself smiling, but Aubrey's face took on a dark look at the mention of the Dark Keeper.

‘Do you trust him?' he asked, keeping his voice soft so that Emmanuelle wouldn't hear. Teresa shrugged, her eyes on her creation. How to answer a question like that? Yes; but no.

Yes, because it seemed clear that Renatus loved Lord Gawain as much as the old Seer loved the Dark Keeper. He showed it very differently but the feeling was there. He served the council. He'd never yet stepped out of line or done anything wrong.

No, because, in short, he scared her. He had a life story that could be adapted into a horror film. He didn't seem particularly nice and nobody else liked him.

‘I have to,' she said finally, in response to Aubrey's challenging question. ‘We all have to.'

Aubrey went back to looking at the illusion he held and said nothing for a few moments. Teresa blinked, feeling a strange energetic twitch somewhere in her vicinity. She looked around, bemused, but couldn't pick anything amiss.

‘I honestly believe that this is real,' Aubrey said, handing the illusion ring back to Teresa, obviously not distracted by what Teresa thought she'd felt. He looked over at the others. ‘I would swear that it is, but they think theirs is just as real. You've done a great job.'

‘Thanks,' Teresa said softly, turning her creation over in her hands as she felt another tiny flicker of misplaced energy. Was her illusion fading already? She cast her senses over it, searching it for flaw. There was none, and when she felt a third flick, right at the edge of her consciousness, she knew it was unconnected to her illusion.

The twitches became more frequent, so faint that she mightn't have noticed, except that she was sensitive to her own spells. Something was happening to something of hers, though what, she had no clue. She had never felt this before – it reminded her of that irritating sensation when a fly creeps across a bare shoulder, but disappears before it can be swatted away, only to return.

‘Can you feel that?' she asked of the others. Aubrey's gaze was blank when she met it, and Jadon and Samuel only glanced at each other, confused, wondering what they were meant to be able to feel. The twitches became twangs – what was breaking?

‘What do you feel, Teresa?' Emmanuelle asked, a tiny frown forming. Teresa could only shrug, unable to communicate the weird energetic itch she sensed.

‘I don't know…like a twitch, somewhere near. It's something connected to me,' she added, feeling stupid. She couldn't explain, and it was probably something really simple. She looked down at her hands, sliding the illusion ring onto her fingers. It was loose on every one – she had thinner fingers than Emmanuelle did.

‘Do you have wards up here?' Emmanuelle glanced between Teresa and Samuel.

‘Of course; I cast them around the house when I was initiated,' said Teresa. ‘Lord Gawain said-'

‘Are they still up?' Emmanuelle interrupted. Teresa blinked – she'd put several nets up last year and not thought of them since – and took a moment to spread her magical senses through the rooms of her small home, across her vegetable garden outside, out onto the street…

The net was gone, cut to pieces. One strand remained, holding up one flimsy cloaking ward like a tent, guarding her entire property. The other layers had been carefully cut away – one by one, twitching like severed elastic.

Teresa didn't know what to say. She stared at Emmanuelle, frozen in confusion and indecision.

‘But…where have they gone?' she asked after a long, tense moment. Nobody said or did anything for a second.

Then everything happened at once.

The last strand of magic protecting Teresa and Samuel's little cottage snapped and was gone. Emmanuelle had her wand in her hand and cast some kind of ward on the ring in Jadon's palm, and it was suddenly energetically invisible, just as if it had become like any other ring. Teresa became aware of something wrong outside the door – masses of nothingness, impenetrable by air, dust particles and miniature insects – and realised what it must be just as she saw Emmanuelle's spell.

They were people, energetically cloaked, conspicuous only by their apparent lack of substance. There were people outside who had pulled the house's wards down. This was, and could only be, an attack.

Emmanuelle and Teresa acted at the same time in the instant before the door smashed open. Teresa flung her hand out towards the kitchenette, willing her magic to shield the people in it. Her wards were not the flashiest, so an illusion was born – a picture of an empty kitchen, dishes for two strewn across the bench, silent, the energy dull and unmoving, the auras of the three occupants impossible to detect. Emmanuelle cast her powerful wards through Teresa's magic, building two opalescent walls between Teresa and the door.

The door was opened with such force that chips of wood were splintered away from the lock. The door itself swung inward and hit the wall with a bang, bouncing back into the sides of the men who streamed through the door, armed with wands and knives.

There were nine of them, Teresa became aware vaguely through her panic; too many for her to take on. Aubrey drew his wand and stepped in front of her, his mouth set in a determined line. Teresa's heart clenched – she had not acted fast enough or effectively enough. Her illusion had not stretched far enough to envelop him, too.

The men hit the first ward with force, like running into a glass door. Two fell, stunned. The third, a tall, black man with a wide, white grin, slashed with his wand, and the wall was gone.

Aubrey pointed his wand at the intruders and a small globe of bluish light shot from its tip. It cut straight through the second ward (Emmanuelle had thought to use proper defensive combat wards, which worked much like two-way mirrors) and struck the temple of one of the men struggling to his feet. The man's eyes rolled back, and he slipped back to the floor, unconscious. His fellows behind him hesitated when they saw Aubrey turn his wand on the next man in line, but the heavy-set, black man stepped forward, his grin still in place.

‘You can't win, boy,' he said, as though amused. His accent was American, although Teresa couldn't guess the locality.

‘Stand down,' Aubrey commanded. ‘This is private property, and we are councillors for the White Elm-'

‘I know who you are,' the man said, looking around while Teresa silently assessed him from his aura. He was a Crafter; powerful, but not complete, somehow. ‘Frankly, I think you're a poor replacement for someone like me. I just want to know where you've hidden Emmanuelle.'

Teresa resisted the urge to glance into the kitchenette.

‘She's not here,' Aubrey said coldly, and the intruder scoffed. Without warning, he shot a stream of flame from his wand. Teresa's instincts had her hand up straight away and casting a ward, but to her dismay her quick reflex meant nothing – no sooner had her thin sheet of magic blocked the flame than it shattered like eggshell. It was Emmanuelle's ward that repelled the dangerous magic, ricocheting the flame into the kitchen and blasting a cupboard door clean off.

Teresa turned to look, glad for the excuse to check on the three she had hidden. Clearly, the intruders could not sense through her illusion. At first, neither could she, but a change in focus and her eyes were able to pick out three people ducking to avoid the cupboard door as it fell. Emmanuelle was standing very still, recognising the need to stay hidden until the right moment. Jadon had a hand clamped across Samuel's mouth; upon meeting his girlfriend's eyes, Samuel made a sudden movement as though to go to her, but Jadon pulled him back. There was nothing Samuel could do, after all. It was better he stayed safe. In that same instant, Jadon sought Teresa's gaze. She felt their minds click together just as she turned back to face the trespassers.

It's okay
, Jadon's reassuring voice sounded in her head.
Em and I have him; just worry about yourself and Aubrey. We'll jump in soon, we'll take them all on together
.

‘See that ward?' the American asked, nodding at the silvery wall protecting Teresa and Aubrey. The kitchen light glinted dully off his bald head. ‘Did you think I wouldn't recognise her work? It's Emmanuelle's – where is she?'