The Red Scrolls of Magic

Magnus moved toward the doorway behind them, from where they had entered, but it was too late. There was the sound of rolling metal and another gate crashed down before he could reach it. Magnus grasped the gate and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. They were trapped.

Shinyun tried the first gate again. Magnus crossed the room and joined her. It was no use; it was far too heavy. He stepped back and mustered his magic, meaning to shatter the iron gate to dust. His hand glowed dark blue, and a streak of energy left his fingertips, but it died before it reached the gate.

He felt unexpectedly weak, as if he had just performed a huge spell instead of something very standard. He blinked away the dimness in his vision.

“Something wrong?” Shinyun asked.

Magnus waved his hand carelessly. “Nothing at all.”

Shinyun grabbed a large rock from the ground and began to hammer at the rustiest parts of the gate. Magnus retreated to the center of the room.

“What are you doing?” Shinyun asked.

A green funnel rose up around him, whipping his coat and making his hair stand sideways. He called up every drop of magic he could to help the funnel gain steam, right up to the point that the spell began to fracture. With a final cry, Magnus channeled everything he had into this howling tornado and focused it on the doorway from which they had entered. The iron screeched and groaned, and then the gate tore free of the stone and flew down the hallway. It disappeared into the darkness before clanging into stone off in the distance.

Magnus fell to one knee, gasping. There was something very wrong with his magic.

“How could you do that?” Shinyun asked softly. “How did you get to be so strong? Surely now you have no power left.”

Magnus forced himself to stand and began to stagger toward the blasted-open exit.

“I’m leaving.”

Just as he was about to pass Shinyun, she threw an arm out and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. “I don’t think so.”

Magnus studied her still face in the shadowed light. His heartbeat rang in his own ears, signaling danger far too late.

“I see that my beautiful trusting nature has been imposed on,” he said. “Again.”

Shinyun spun, using Magnus’s own weight as momentum to throw him, sending him tumbling halfway across the room. He tried to get back on his feet but was thrown back by a kick to the chest. He fell again, slamming into the remaining gate. Then he heard the sound of metal on metal and the grind of the portcullis lifting upward, and he felt several pairs of strong hands closing on his arms. He was almost unable to see.

I was exposed to a potion that made me lose control of my shape-shifting abilities, Tessa had told him. Magnus should have remembered.

“You put poison in my drink at the Aqua Morte,” he said, struggling to form the words. “You distracted me with a sob story. Was it all a lie?”

Shinyun knelt down beside him on the wet stone. He could only make out the outlines of her face, like a mask hanging in the dark.

“No,” she whispered. “I had to make you feel sorry enough for me. I had to tell you the truth. That’s one more thing I can never forgive you for.”

MAGNUS WASN’T THAT SURPRISED TO wake up in prison.

A trickle from the ceiling had found its way to his forehead, bouncing drops off it every few seconds, which reminded him of how the Silent Brothers used to discipline him to get him to stop talking during his studies.

Some of the water dribbled into his mouth and he spat it out. He hoped it was only water. Whatever it was tasted foul. He blinked, trying to acclimate to his surroundings. He was enclosed by a curved windowless wall with an iron gate leading out to more darkness, and a hole on the far side that was either an old escape route or a latrine. Judging by the smell in the air, Magnus thought maybe it had been both.

“It’s official,” he declared to no one in particular. “This is the worst vacation ever.”

He looked up. There wasn’t much moonlight, but what there was created a faint glow through a circular grate. This place looked like the bottom of a cistern, maybe, or a well, not that it made any difference. A hole, a cell, the bottom of a well. It was still prison. His hands were chained to the wall over his head, and he was sitting on a bed of hay that looked like it had already passed through the horse. The floor beneath him was cut stone, so he was probably still on the grounds of the villa somewhere. Magnus swallowed. His face and neck hurt. A lot. He could really use a drink.

He hoped Alec truly was stuck at the Rome Institute. That he hadn’t gone where Shinyun had told him to go, which, he now realized, was clearly not this place. At the Institute, Alec would be safe.

A silhouette appeared on the other side of the gate. Metal clanged and a hinge squealed as the gate swung open.

“Don’t worry,” said Shinyun. “The poison won’t kill you.”

“?‘Because I will,’?” intoned Magnus. Shinyun blinked at him. “That was where you were going with that, wasn’t it?” he asked. He closed his eyes. He had the worst headache.

“I measured the poison very carefully,” said Shinyun. “Just enough to put you out and obliterate your magic. I want you on your feet when you fulfill your ever so glorious destiny.”

That didn’t sound good. When Magnus opened his eyes, she was standing in front of him. She was dressed all in snowy white, with silver embroidery at her collar and cuffs.