Page 77 of Flowerheart

Yarrow for love. For healing. For courage.

As I stared at the flower, the smell of smoke began to curl around me. I frowned, turning backwards, and indeed a great white cloud was blooming up from the plush rug. But I couldn’t see any flames—only the shadow of a figure, a woman, slowly coming into focus. Madam Ben Ammar stepped through the fog, holding a charm of some sort—leaves and string wrapped around what appeared to be my hairbrush. Just like the charm I’d used to find my mother, it too vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Clara?”

I raced around the desk towards her, gaping. “Madam? How have you come here? And—and have you seen Xavier? Do you know if he’s alive?”

She reached out, her hands cradling mine. After two weeks, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to hold a person’s hand and not fear hurting them. But my magic was still out there, harming someone else.

“He’s alive,” she said. “Though he’s not well. He came to us ranting and raving, saying that he has your magic....” She looked down at our hands and narrowed her eyes. “Was this a condition of your vow?”

I couldn’t answer; couldn’t think. My mind was racing, providing me with images of his body contorted and maimed by my own magic. I resisted the maelstrom of my own worries—I needed facts, not my imagination. “What do you mean, he’s not well?”

“Clara,” she said, her voice firm but heavy with grief. She met my gaze. “Did you give your magic to him?”

“Yes.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “It was the vow, but please, I—I fear my power may kill him—”

“So do we.” She held up a finger. “When this is over, you’ll have to explain yourself to the Council. Trading magic away, and to someone considered a criminal, no less... it is not behavior the Council approves of—”

“I don’t care,” I whispered. “Please, please, just let me see him!”

Madam Ben Ammar nodded, waving me towards the library door. She closed it and placed her hand upon the curved handle. Before she started the enchantment, she glanced over her shoulder at me. “I need you to prepare yourself. His condition is... disturbing.”

I’d seen my father spit up flowers. I’d seen the hysterical, uncontrollable laughter, the dancing, the delirium caused by Euphoria. Magic could be a wild, cruel beast. But I would face anything if it meant saving his life.

Madam Ben Ammar pressed her forehead to the door and whispered to it. Her arm trembled and her voice grew involume, echoing through the room and through my mind. The acrid scent of smoke snaked through the air, and somewhere far away, I could hear magicians murmuring to one another.

The door swung open, and a hallway unfurled before us, pale as the moon and never-ending. Madam Ben Ammar stepped through, and I followed close behind. The sconces along the walls were made of thin black stone, the candlelight filtering through almost gray. I shivered.

Gradually, the flat, marble walls curved, like a stream directing us onward. My heart thrummed faster with every step.

The faint smell of smoke gave way to a suffocating floral scent: roses and freesias and freshly cut herbs. My eyes watered. I gripped Madam Ben Ammar’s sleeve as she guided me through the corridor.

A loud cry echoed through the hall, deep and pained like a wounded animal. I stopped where I stood, my stomach plummeting.

The cry came again. It was my name.

“Clara!”

My heart pounded against my breastbone.Xavier.

Leaving Madam Ben Ammar behind me, I raced down the hall towards the horrible noise. The corridor opened into a large, rectangular chamber.

The courtroom had soaring, white ceilings like a castle might, crowned with a massive black chandelier bearing orbsof golden light. Gold mosaics lined the walls, showing magicians of centuries past performing wonders and laying hands on the ill and the desperate.

On three sides of the room were rows of chairs, enough to fit the whole queendom’s worth of Councilmembers. And in the center of the room stood at least twenty magicians. With a sickening lurch of my stomach, I realized that Master O’Brian and the silver-haired wizard from my previous Council meeting were among them all, their bodies acting as a wall around something I could not see.

Around Xavier.

As I darted forwards, a wizard with long, pale blond hair caught sight of me and held out a hand. At once, I was stopped in place, falling to my knees. I let out a cry of surprise as I hit the hard marble and found myself unable to move.

In the center of the circle of magicians was the back of a tall chair. It wobbled back and forth. “No,” growled a voice, twisted and pained and hauntingly familiar, “No, Clara, Clara, Clara!”

“Please let me pass,” I begged the wizard, pushing as hard as I could against the spell that had glued my hands to the marble. The more effort I put into it, the more the magic seared against my palms. “It’s me he wants. I’m Clara Lucas.”

The blond wizard raised his eyebrows and then pulled back his hand, as if he were tugging on a string. As I scrambled to my feet, Madam Ben Ammar called from behind me,“Keep watch over her. Don’t let it lay a hand on her, do you understand?”

The wizard’s heels clicked as he crossed the marble floor, helping me get my balance once more. “My apologies, Miss Lucas.”

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