While holding the mental image of the spell, Angelique released her hold on her magic.
It slammed through her with an icy eagerness that made her gasp and stagger a step.
Her magic ignored her reaction and surged through the spell she’d pictured, tracing out symbols that glowed so bright, they seemed to burn the air.
Angelique took just enough time to double check the structure of the spell (the last thing she needed to do was have it explode on her because she had made it wrong), gave it a jolt of power to send it off, racing through the woods, then cut off contact with her magic.
The entire process took approximately ten seconds. Mentally picturing the spell had taken an additional minute or two, but it was still a vast improvement in time!
At least I have continued to improve in all of this. A frantic, desperate sort of improvement, but I won’t complain.
Angelique spread her fingers wide, pleasantly stretching them, then turned around and trudged back in the direction of the cottage.
I can safely start the walk back. My tracking spells never find anything anyway.
Her satchel thumped her hip as she marched through the trees, only vaguely noting her connection with the tracking spell as it chugged across Mullberg.
She was nearly back to the cottage when she felt the spell abruptly speed up, as if it was honing in on a target. She paused mid-step—her arm wrapped around a tree trunk as she wobbled precariously.
What is it doing? It can’t possibly have found—
The tracking spell collided with something. Only, instead of being snuffed out—as it had every previous time Angelique had attempted a tracking spell—it connected.
Cold flooded Angelique’s body. Not the sharp chill of her magic, but a numb, unfeeling cold that coated the back of her throat and wrapped her lungs in a blistering embrace that made it impossible to breathe.
Angelique slumped to her knees, her muscles cramping up and turning immoveable. The sounds of the forest—the puff of the breeze and the chirping songbirds—faded, and her vision blurred, until all she saw was a rusted red color.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t blink. And then she felt power—dark and immense—unfurl.
“Angelique, cut the spell off!” Evariste’s voice was so loud, it made her ears ring. “Dismantle it—now!”
Mentally, Angelique plucked at a chain of the spell. It sagged and caved in on itself.
But as the last sparkle of magic sliced off, the spell fulfilled its purpose:
Glitzern Palace. Juwel. Mullberg.
The knowledge filled Angelique’s mind as the foreign power lost the last of its hold on her. She could finally breathe again with a gasping shudder.
Angelique dug her fingers into the slushy turf, indifferent to the grime and dirt that crusted her fingernails.
“He’s in Glitzern Palace.” It hurt to speak, so her voice came out in little more than a rough whisper. “Evariste is in Glitzern Palace.”
Evariste existed in a sea of pain. The little relief he’d been granted during the mirror’s battle seemed ages ago, but it had given him the moment he needed to bolster himself and survive just a little longer.
He squeezed his eyes shut and laid flat on the ground, the muscles in his body twitching from the pain.
At least I’m not screaming this time. Yet.
A cold sweat beaded at Evariste’s brow, but a dangerous sort of numbness was starting to sink into his extremities. He would have welcomed it—except it didn’t do much to deaden the pain caused by the mirror scraping at his soul.
Abruptly, something bright pierced the rusted haze of the mirror.
Evariste experimentally peeled an eyebrow open, just in time to see the mirror’s surface clear. Outside, silver loops of light chugged across Faina’s room, aimed directly at the mirror.
Is that…magic?
He squinted in the magic’s bright light—trying to get a look at its framework. It felt like it had been years since he’d seen a spell formulated by a Veneno Conclave mage. Seeing the familiar, untwisted symbols of magic was almost a physical relief in itself.
Evariste had just enough time to blink before the spell fearlessly smashed into the mirror. Though the spell looked light and fluffy, the magic behind it was powerful. It was bright, sharp, and overwhelming.
It would have blown Evariste flat if he wasn’t already sitting down. As it was, it rattled the mirror—which snarled in anger.
Evariste, however, laughed.
He recognized that magic, the expertly built strands. Even as it pushed against the mirror’s surface, struggling to breech it, he could feel the electrifying sensation of its power.
Angelique.
After all this time, she hasn’t stopped trying to find me. She hasn’t given up.
Evariste scrambled to his feet, everything around him shuddering as the mirror started to respond to the invasive spell.
“So fearless…so naïve.” The mirror breathed as its awful magic cut into Angelique’s.
The tracking spell resisted—flaring brighter and releasing an explosion of power that would have brought castle staff scurrying to the room if Queen Faina hadn’t chased them away ages ago.
Inside, the mirror shook—not from Angelique’s magic (it still hadn’t been able to breech the surface), but from the mirror’s rage.
It sent a flood of magic out, rippling around the tracking spell and wrapping its power around it.
Evariste staggered over to the mirror’s surface, pressing his palms against it as he watched the ensuing battle.
Angelique’s magic, strong and pure, continued to press against the mirror with single-minded purpose.
The mirror—with its endless power—twined around the spell, following the line of the magic symbols that connect the spellwork to Angelique.
“No!” Evariste yelled.
He thought he’d experienced the worst pain there was since entering the mirror, but witnessing Angelique’s magic squirm under its power was far worse.
He felt the mirror gnaw at her connection with the spell, find her, and then wrap its choking, sickening magic around her.
He couldn’t see her, but as the mirror sank its claws into her magic, he could feel her. Her heart stuttered and her breath caught as she fought for her very life while her magic relentlessly pushed into the mirror.
“Such power…who is this little mage?”
“Angelique, cut the spell off!” Evariste shouted, a new kind of agony rippling through him. “Dismantle it—now!”
He felt it when she plucked at it, disintegrating the piece that kept the spell anchored to her.
The spell started to collapse. But unexpectedly—and against all odds—Angelique’s magic shimmered and pierced the mirror’s surface, slicing through it like a sword.
It brushed against Evariste, sinking into the skin of his right palm—cool and sharp—before the spell fizzled and died out.
The mirror trembled with rage, shaking so horribly, Evariste fell to his knees.
He gritted his teeth and braced himself for the inescapable agony that awaited him.
His hope—reignited after seeing Angelique’s magic—must have been making him feel things…because he could have sworn he felt the cool, zingy sensation of Angelique’s magic move from his palm where it had touched him up his arm, as if it could burrow its way to his soul.