I sent out my feelers until I felt the cool rush of water—and then without even looking, I drew it to me. There was a cracking noise, but I couldn’t afford to take my attention away from the constant barrage of fire to see where the source of my salvation was coming from.
Stars danced in my peripheral vision as I persisted in blowing out each fireball with my air magic…
And then, he let loose with the grand finale.
It had to be.
A wall of fire six feet high blasted toward me.
The air was sucked from my lungs. I stumbled backward, all the while reaching for the water I sensed. As the trickle of water flowed toward me, it grew to a stream, floating into the air to my aid. I threw my arms out.
Come on! All the water! Come to me!
Oh. My. Mage.
My eyes widened as a freaking river soared through the air. Like watching a dam burst, I stood frozen as the water gushed over the high mage and crashed into the wall of fire with an angry hiss.
As soon as the wall of flame was gone, the remaining water crashed into me. I fell hard, and the water followed, tumbling over me. But the force of the wave waned, and the river became a creek before I could sit up in the hugest mud puddle I’d ever seen.
Giggling, I climbed to my feet, but my laughter dried up as I faced the angry snarl of the high mage.
“You ruined my house!” he yelled while smoke curled up in white and gray tendrils around his head as he pointed to the castle.
I followed his gaze to the nearest wall, the flaming marble stone now cracked, with water gushing from a broken pipe within.
“Uh … sorry?” I shrugged then proceeded to wring out the singed and shredded hem of Rey’s ruined shirt. After running my hands over the rest of my tattered clothes, I finally gave up. Between the dirt, tornado, and fire, they were ruined.
Facing the mage, I asked, “Did I pass?”
He blinked and then shook his head.
“No?” I drew in a sharp breath.
“You passed,” he muttered. “Now … get out of here.”
I shot out of there like an arrow and booked it across the quad. As soon as I spotted Reyna, I raised my hands in victory.
“Four down and one to go! Woohoo,” I told her as she held out a bottle of water. “No thanks,” I added, waving away the drink. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve had plenty of H2O.”
But I swallowed my snickers as I examined my friend. She looked off. Sad or, at least, serious … and her eyes glistened with emotion.
“What’s wrong?” I skidded to a stop as my heart leapt into my throat.
She swallowed hard, and wiping at her eyes, she shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Reyna, don’t do that.” I closed the distance until I stood toe-to-toe with her. “You can tell me. Is it my grandfather?” My elation turned to dread with the thought. “Is he okay?”
Why else would she be upset?
Reyna sighed. “It’s just … I feel all of his pain. As his shield, I take everything.”
Oh. Oh. I thought of all the times she must’ve shouldered his burden, and my respect for her grew. “Is he in pain now?”
She just nodded. “I’m not sure how much time we have left.”
I frowned. We. Oh. My. Mage. “Wait … Reyna, when he dies, you won’t … you won’t die too, right?”
She cleared her throat and straightened. “Being your grandfather’s shield has been my life’s greatest honor. Don’t you dare pity me. Now, let’s go. He’s waiting.”
Holy crap. She didn’t answer me. Did that mean yes? She … she was going to die too?
I couldn’t even … I had no way to process that right now. I could only hope she was wrong.
I walked behind her with a lot less pep in my step. My mind spun with questions. Did Kaja and the other Harvest girls know? Was there any way I could possibly save Rey?
We crossed into my grandfather’s courtyard, where he was waiting, seated at a bistro table just off the main walkway.
Now that I had been to all of the castles or, at least, their courtyards, I could see that this one was the nicest and by far the biggest. Bruno and Max lay near the gardens, lazily keeping guard, and the late-afternoon sun lit the grounds, revealing a rolling, green, manicured lawn stretching out for acres behind the castle. Along the walkways, pink and white rosebushes alternated to make a beautiful hedge, and I spotted a trickling stream that appeared to feed into a pond out back.
“When you can bring back the dead, you get the nicest house,” Gramps said with a wink. He then patted the seat next to him. “Come sit with me.”
I took the offered seat. Reyna strode past us and into the house.
He studied me, taking in my dirty clothes, scraped arms, and most likely hot mess hair.
He beamed with pride. “You passed all four. Good girl. Now, for the final test—that of spirit—you will go into the in-between.”
Cocking my head to the side, I repeated, “The ‘in-between’?”
“It’s a fancy way of saying spirit walking. Your body and spirit remain here—in this realm, but they’ll be separate. I’ll give you a task to perform, and you’ll report back to me to prove you went in spirit form.”
My eyes widened. “You want my soul to leave my body and go somewhere here, on High Mage Island, and then come back to your garden?”
He nodded. “I want you to go to the library. You’ll need to go look at the book in the very far left corner of shelf 2-B. Come back, and tell me the title.”
My mouth popped open. “Okay … but … how? Are you going with me?”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t. But, I know you can do this, Nai. It’s much easier than traveling to the spirit realm or the Realm of the Dead. This is just a quick spirit walk.”
Hah! A quick walk out of my body. No big deal.
“Okay. How do I do it?”
“Remember when we saved Honor? Just like that—only instead of visualizing a person, you’ll think of the library here on campus. Then, once you have the image of where you want to go—you go there.”
Sure. Easy-peasy. I’d barely had a two-minute tour of the campus. But, at least, it was the library … the one place I’d been to the most. I’d been in awe when I first arrived. Gramps was being nice.
I thought of its beautiful architecture and closed my eyes. In my mind, I visualized the large rotunda with the fountain where the golden female mage stood in the midst of the shimmery blue magic. As soon as the image appeared in my mind, I focused on it until it seemed solid. Then, I stepped toward it.
One minute, I was sitting in the garden with my grandfather; the next, I stood at the base of the fountain in the library’s round atrium, the chortle of water a balm to my frayed nerves. Lifting my chin, I let my gaze skim over the golden statue of the female mage, past where she held the dancing blue flames, up to the high arches of dark wood framing the numerous panels of intricately stained glass.
The dying sunlight illuminated the designs, and my jaw hit the ground.
These weren’t just pretty patterns…
I turned right then left—to the image of where the story of our Mother Mage began.
Here, on the library windows of High Mage Island, was our history. From the creation of the magical lands to a happy couple holding an alpha heir. The last of the day’s sunlight streamed through the vivid colors, casting a rainbow across the white stone pillars and walls.