Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss (24 page)

But I look around and see that the other magicians Bloom’s holding hostage are teachers and salesmen, artists and doctors. Grandmothers and little brothers. I see faces numb with shock and eyes wet with grief. They’re leaning on each other, propping one another up. Sure, some of them have enough power to levitate a little or read your palm, but they’re not soldiers. Not
killers
.

And their chains won’t budge.

Then, in the row behind me, a sweet whistling sound reaches through the devastation like arms cradling me—it’s pure, so comforting, so
familiar
. I turn around.

“Dad?”

The whistling stops, and my father blinks at me through swollen eyelids.

“Dad! Are you okay?” Before he can even respond, I lunge toward him to give him a hug. I’m jerked back by the shackles, but it doesn’t matter. If my dad’s here, we can figure this out together.

“They took Wisty,” I report breathlessly. “I don’t know who did it, but she’s gone, and my powers are suppressed by the chains, and…” I swallow and collect myself. I shouldn’t make Dad feel worse. He doesn’t look well. “It’s just really good to see you, Dad,” I tell him anyway. “Where’s Mom?” I look around us. “Did you guys get separated—”

“Your face,” my dad interrupts in a sad, bewildered voice. I’d forgotten—my nose must be a mess of bruises and dried blood. As Dad reaches a hand toward me, he lurches to the right, and I hold his forearm to steady him. He looks a lot worse than before, I realize. The sunburn has turned to oozing blisters, and he seems a lot older. So thin and so frail. He hasn’t shaven, and his stubble is coming in patches of white.

“Dad, what’s going on? Are you sick?”

He smiles, cracking the scabs on his lips. For a second, that smile, shocking as it is, reassures me. Then he looks up at the shifting clouds and says, as casual as anything, “Nice day for a war, isn’t it?”

Okay, I’m no longer reassured.

That isn’t something my dad would ever say. I blink at him and look closer. His eyes are unfocused and his breathing sounds ragged.
He’s delirious.

“What did they do to you?” I murmur.

“Oh, look,” Dad says brightly as he nods over my shoulder. “Here they come!”

Dizzy with dread, I turn and see a mass of black dots in the distance, spilling out of the forest and swarming over the few rolling hills that separate us.

The Wizard King is almost here.

Chapter 74

Wisty

“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” I shriek as I feel the ground shift under my feet.

The goons are hauling me—and the cage I’ve been in all morning—out of the vehicle, and I inhale sharply as I squint through the sudden flood of light.

The vast Mountain army fans out across the snowy hills as far as the eye can see, its white banners whipping in the wind. Leopards prowl along the front lines, and behind them are foot soldiers and horsemen and archers—thousands and thousands and thousands of them.

I resist the temptation to retch at the sight.

My cage sways as they carry me across the field between the two armies—if you can even call them that. Anyone can see Bloom’s “army” is a cruel joke compared to the masses we’re facing.

This isn’t going to be a war.
It’s going to be a massacre.

My stomach drops and my mouth goes dry at the hopelessness of the situation. But what finally breaks my heart is this:

Heath
is sitting on top of a horse, right in the middle of our enemies.

He winks, and I scowl. The last thing I want to see before I die is Heath’s traitorous face, but the spikes around my head won’t even let me turn away.

“Wisty!” My brother’s hoarse voice rings out, shaking my attention from Heath. Despite the fact that I can’t see him, relief floods through me.
He’s alive.

“Whit!” I yell back. “Where are you?” I grip the bars and strain against my binds.

“With the magicians. With Dad. We thought you were…” He breaks off, trying to hide his emotion, but then I hear him call out with new resolve. “I’m going to get us out of this, Wisty, I swear!”

The war hasn’t started yet, but at the mention of my name, objects start to fly at my cage—rocks and sticks and clumps of grass. The worst part is I don’t know which side they’re coming from. Which people hate me more?

“Stop it!” Whit is screaming.

“I’m okay! It’s going to be okay,” I reassure him, but my eyes are welling with tears.

Inside my cage, handcuffs chafe my wrists, chains weight my feet, and there are sharp points inches from my body in all directions. To top it off, my magic is still all screwy.
Nothing is remotely okay.

A splintered piece of wood lands in my metal cage. I kick at it angrily, but then I realize what it is: a broken drumstick, just like the one my mom gave me when I first discovered my power. A sort of wand.

Mom?
I look through the bars at the terrified and devastated faces below, and know she’s among them. The citizens may have turned on me, but
these
are still my people. The tired and the broken. The unlucky and the abused. My family.

“
Lead
,” my mom’s voice echoes in my head. It could be my imagination, but I swear, the drumstick
twitches
.

I swallow. Pearce isn’t anywhere in sight, and despite the binds, I can still feel a hint of my own magic in me, strong, just below the surface.

Maybe… just maybe…?

My eyes bore into the scrap of wood. I feel another power wrapping tighter around mine, trying to choke it off, and the chains singe my skin. I grit my teeth and focus so hard my head feels like it might explode, and somehow, the drumstick starts to rise. Up and out of my cage, higher and higher, until I’m sure everyone can see it.

“Listen to me!” I shout as the men parade me in front of the ranks. “I know it seems like there’s no hope for this fight….”

Like it’s all over.

My voice wavers for a moment as I think of Heath fighting for the other side. Nervous eyes in the crowd are looking toward me now, though, looking for hope, and I push my own pain down into the pit of my stomach.

“But… think of all you’ve been through!” I remind them. “The New Order sanctions! The bombs and the prisons! The ghetto!”

The tip of the drumstick starts to smoke as my magic pushes through the unseen barrier a bit more, and a tiny flame flickers to life. That strange other power working against me now flexes inside my guts, trying to extinguish the faint flicker, and I wince from the pain—but still, my fire glows. It gives me the strength to continue.

“What makes you special is not just your magic! You may not be trained soldiers, but if you’re here right now, it’s because you’re a
survivor
!”

The City people are silent now, focusing on my drumstick vigil, hovering above them.

“We’ve all lit a candle for someone we love,” I continue, sweating from the continuous effort. “Well, I’ve lit this one for you, my fellow citizens! We’ll survive this, because we’re fighting for our homes and our families! We’ll attack the Mountain soldiers with everything we’ve got!”

And with the light in their eyes, I see hope reflected, and anything seems possible. It’s just for a second, though, and then the moment’s gone.

It’s not just because thousands of people are calling for our blood, either.

It’s because across the narrow field—even behind the thick fur wraps and full helmets—we can see the Mountain soldiers’ faces.

I can see the stony gray eyes from one small figure staring coldly at me from under dark fringe. And though that look says I’m less than nothing, and the young warrior with those eyes wouldn’t hesitate to swing a gleaming axe at my throat, I realize I can never fight against these soldiers, or ask my people to.

I let the smoking piece of drumstick
thunk
to the ground.

Because those eyes belong to Pearl Marie Neederman.

The Wizard King’s army is led by the City’s own kidnapped kids.

Chapter 75

Whit

CALM. JUST STAY CALM
, I keep telling myself. But when the Wizard King’s black horse stalks past me and my dad, past Heath and Izbella, and stops in front of the metal cage where my sister is penned like bait… the idea of
calm
stops making sense.

“Is this for me?” the Wizard King asks, staring down at Wisty.

With his face striped in war paint, his head crowned in a circle of curving teeth, and his shoulders draped in layers of spotted fur, the King looks more like a monster than a man. I clench my fists and try to breathe.

“The witch is yours if you turn around now and return to the Mountain,” Bloom answers through the megaphone from his place at the back of the crowd.

My heart throbs inside my chest like a bird slamming into a window. “Don’t you
touch
her!” I yell.

The King’s milky-pale eyes flash threateningly. Those colorless orbs make a thousand men tremble, and could make another thousand die.

I should be up there, protecting my sister, but instead I breathe out through my nose, holding in the scream. I try to channel the intense energy into magic that could fight and release these chains, but…

Nothing. I’m
powerless
.

“My Kingdom is getting crowded with witches,” the King says. I glance at Izbella, but her expression doesn’t change. “How about we just accept your full surrender?”

“Why should we surrender?” Bloom challenges. He sounds a little too confident, even for him. “To live as slaves?”

The King grins, and his rotting teeth make his painted mask seem even more horrible. “Because if you don’t, you’ll all die within the hour, butchered where you stand.”

An anxious murmur ripples through the crowd. The people around me huddle closer, bracing for the attack, and I inch in front of my dad, trying to shield him.

Bloom is the only one who doesn’t seem rankled. “We know your secret,” he says smugly. “We’ve closed all the portals, and therefore the source of your magic is gone. You’re becoming weaker every moment!”

The King bursts into maniacal laughter. “Is
that
what you think? That my power comes from some other dimension? From the sky? Through holes in the ground?” Bloom looks around uncomfortably. “You of all people should know, Mr. Bloom: power comes from people.”

The Wizard King turns his horse and walks it back across the narrow strip of meadow in front of our front lines, his eyes cutting through the crowd.

“People of the City, listen to me. You can die today… or surrender and live happy lives in a beautiful Kingdom under a benevolent ruler!”

I can’t keep quiet any longer. Fighting the Wizard King’s child army is a horrible thought, but surrendering is even worse.

“He’s lying!” I shout to the City’s army, pointing across the field. “Look at the children—
your
children! He’s turned them into killers. Into soldiers and slaves!”

“Slavery doesn’t mean misery,” a boy soldier around ten says cheerfully. “Everyone has a role.”

“Each pair of hands makes us stronger!” a young girl adds, raising her club up over her head.

“The Mountain is the shiniest place in the world,” an earnest girl’s voice swears from the very front row, and my heart aches as I recognize it as Pearl Neederman’s. She had always loved sparkly things.

“It has a dark underworld,” I call to her. “Their armor hides festering cuts and terrible burns! The King is a monster!”

“No.” It’s Bloom’s voice, echoing through the megaphone. He’s surrounded by the Inner Circle members, a small mass of bodies elbowing its way forward through our rows. “The Wizard King tells the truth!”

I’m speechless.
What is Bloom doing?

When they reach the front, the King scowls down on the group from atop his dark horse, and the Councilmen fall to their knees.

“The Inner Circle, acting in the best interests of all citizens, has chosen to accept these generous terms. We surrender our City to the Mountain.” It’s Bloom’s voice, but it’s not. It’s too…
humble
. The condescension is gone, and the arrogance. He’s not even clearing his throat.

This doesn’t make any sense.

It’s stunning enough to see Bloom bowing in complete deference. It’s maddening enough to see the Wizard King salivate at the anticipation of his quick and easy victory. But it’s completely enraging to then see Bloom do the unthinkable: he offers up
The Book of Truths
. Our sacred book. Our one guide toward our ultimate future.

And Bloom is supposed to protect it!

Some of the volunteer soldiers behind me start to shout, “Hail to the King!”

These are the same idiots who were insulting Wisty and me earlier. “What about hating magic?” I gape at them. “What about magicians being baby-stealing demons?”

But then the
magicians
start to surrender. My stomach plummets as I hear my very own father’s voice ring out through the crowd: “The Wizard King saves!”

No. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. A spineless surrender? The magicians in chains? We were supposed to lead our people to freedom!

“What’s going on?” Wisty screams as the rows of people start to push past her cage to merge with the Mountain army.

“I don’t know!” I dig my heels into the mud, but they’re shoving me from behind, and I’m dragged forward by my chains. “The whole world’s gone crazy!”

I stare at the kid soldiers’ dead eyes, and look around me with a growing realization.
Not crazy. Brainwashed.

The King’s face paint, the leopard fur, the crown of teeth. It’s all for show. To attract attention.

To his eyes. Those terrifying eyes.

It’s more than brainwashing.
He’s controlling their thoughts.

“Don’t look at the King!” I start yelling, but no one’s listening to me. It’s too late.