Page 12 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

Owein winced as his thoughts spun. Why was the sky sobig? Why was the trail all torn up? Why did his chest hurt? He was confused ... and confusion meant he’d used chaocracy. He swore internally. What was he doing again?

A cacophony of barks drew his attention as three terriers sped past him. His mind unknotted as their names squirmed through the cobwebs stuffing his mind: Fallon, Ash, Aster. They charged a man in black, spittle flying from their lips.

The man in black was Silas Hogwood. It didn’t look like him, but somehow, it was.

Coming to himself, Owein ran after them, whistling to call them back—Silas would kill them! Aster and Ash listened, but Fallon chomped onto Silas’s right arm and jerked him to the side, throwing him off balance. Owein threw out another spell before Silas could hurt her, animating the man’s cloak; he couldn’t tell ithowto move, only that it should, and blessedly, it cooperated with him. The cloak ceased billowing in the wind and wrapped around Silas, tying him up. Breaking Fallon’s grip on his forearm.

Focus, focus, focus,Owein told himself, fighting off another wave of confusion.

The cloak tore itself into a dozen pieces that fluttered away on the gale. Silas possessed a breaking spell, also in the family of chaocracy.

Owein shot out another hit of random subterfuge, but the magic went wide, as though it couldn’t detect the target at all.

Luck.

Hulda had given him a full breakdown of what magic Silas innately possessed and what he had stolen shortly after the incident in Marshfield, though Owein couldn’t remember all of it—

Letting out a wild cry, Silas shot his hand toward a nearby tree. Its trunk cracked, sending it toppling toward Owein.

“Fallon, move!” Owein shouted, then slung out a discordant-movement spell, which seized the trunk and made it dance away.

Roaring like a madman, Silas charged him and raised both hands. Confusion made Owein’s reaction time too slow; the kinetic spell rammed into him like a train. This time it lifted him off the ground, sending him back andup, flying feet over head through gray sky. He had to think, he had tomove—

He landed on an invisible shield twenty feet above the ground. Mind his own again, he looked through the unseen barrier to Merritt, standing just off the porch, skin pale, shoulders tight.

“It’s Silas!” Owein shouted.

Merritt’s body seemed to go limp around his skeleton.

Silas jerked his head to the right, then the left, muttering something to himself. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shot out another kinetic spell, this time toward Merritt, who ducked back on the porch as the spell ripped off its railing. Heart thudding too fast, Owein felt for the edges of the shield, but he was too high to jump. He tested his animation spell and let out a stiff breath of relief when it took hold of the shield and moved it downward.

A gunshot cleaved the building storm. It missed, but it drew both Owein’s and Silas’s attention to the second-story window where Hulda had a rifle to her shoulder. Silas stiffly lifted a hand to strike back, but not before a second bullet—this time from Merritt’s revolver—sang out from the porch and struck him in the shoulder.

Silas staggered backward as Merritt stepped out and fired again, the bullet grazing Silas’s arm. Not enough. Silas shoved Merritt back with a weak kinetic spell, then balled his hand into a fist. The revolver in Merritt’s hands condensed into a twisted metal knot.

Then, with a touch of his hand, Silas healed himself, his head again ticcing to the side, as though something had burrowed into his ear.

Owein cursed and ran forward, ready to tackle the man and beat him with his fists, when Silas’s eyes shifted to the right. He grinned. “Children, have we?”

Owein stopped cold and turned.No.

Mabol stood there, outside the house. Peeking out from behind the chicken coop.

“I’ll”—Silas choked on his words, expression wild—“rip them apart, too.”

Merritt charged toward the wizard, howling, while Owein changed course and dashed for Mabol.

Silas shot out a kinetic spell, which Merritt blocked with wardship. Unnatural thunder boomed as the spells collided. Owein ran around the chicken coop and snatched Mabol into his arms. Dropped to the ground when a loud splintering like shattering glass roared across the island.

He looked back; Silas had broken the wardship spell. Advancing on wooden legs, Silas sent out another kinetic blast. Merritt threw up a second wardship spell, then a third. Owein lifted his hand to help but paused. No. He’d forget what he was doing if he helped now. He had to protect Mabol first.

Cursing the fickleness of magic, he jumped up and heaved a now-sobbing Mabol from the ground. A gunshot cracked the air; Hulda was still firing. She didn’t know Mabol had gotten out.

Owein slammed his shoulder into the back door. Set the child down in the open doorway and grabbed her shoulders. “Look at me. Mabol!”

Her teary blue eyes shot up.

“I’ll come back for you, okay? I promise. But you need to hide.” A small spell opened up the kitchen floorboards, revealing the unfinished cellar Owein had once trapped Merritt in when he still occupied Whimbrel House. When his magic had been limitless and withoutconsequence. “It’s going to be dark, but I’ll come back for you. Be quiet. Can you be quiet?”

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