Page 44 of Sons of Sorrow
A flurry of pink raced in a stream toward the Wispwater pillar, Evander’s butterflies. He snapped his fingers, turning them orange — and explosive. Every collision dislodged another chunk of ice.
Dr. Fang adjusted her glasses and sneered. “This isn’t going as fast as I’d like.” Her lips formed the words of an incantation. I held my breath. I knew I was supposed to focus on the fight, but Euclidea Fang, presently the most powerful summoner in the Wispwood, was about to bring forth her eidolons.
The air above us rippled as a portal opened, an eidolon answering her call. A dragon undulated out of the tear in reality, its long, snake-like body unfurling like a banner. It opened its mouth, its roar echoing up to the very highest floors of the academy. It breathed again, and this time its voice came as a plume of fire.
“Get it together, Locke!” Dr. Fang shouted. “Pick your jaw up from the floor and help.”
My lips quivered as I stammered something in the affirmative, reaching for my medallion, forcing a dose of arcane essence into the Heart of the Flame. The cry of a bird of prey resounded in the courtyard as the phoenix answered, diving into the fray, beating its great wings alongside the dragon. The phoenix opened its beak, joining its fire with the others.
Steam rose from the rapidly melting pillar. Sylvain held his arm out, the leaves he’d summoned forming into the shape of an enormous four-petaled flower, spinning so quickly that it warded the steam away from our very vulnerable skin and flesh. It was a giant fan. Nice.
This thing in the Wispwell clearly drew its power from the water. Evaporating so much of it meant that the academy would need to come together to replenish the Wispwater, but better that than allowing this enraged, unnamed entity to go tearing through the castle.
I was lucky that she’d only struck me with blunt force. If she’d focused the water into needle-thin streams instead, launched them at my body with enough pressure to puncture and flay skin — gods, I shuddered to think.
Dr. Fang thrust her hand in the air and clenched her fist. “Hold.”
We halted our assault at once, the flames dying out, butterflies and crescent moons fading into nothing. Dr. Fang had spotted something that the rest of us hadn’t in all the chaos. The pillar of ice had completely melted, much of the water from the surface of the Wispwell heated and boiled until nothing was left.
But the woman was still there, except that her body was no longer shaped from water. She wavered unsteadily, close to the edge of the well, her head lowered as if on the verge of passing out. Black, wet waves of hair spilled down her front, obscuring her face. Yet something about her seemed so familiar.
The woman toppled forward. I broke into a run, even as voices called for me to stop, to be wary. I thrust my hands out, catching her in my arms. Her skin was clammy and cold, but she was breathing. Unconscious, possibly asleep.
I braced her by the waist and back, lowering the both of us to the floor. Her head lolled backward, hair falling away to expose her features. But even with her eyes closed, I knew her face.
Sharp tears clotted my throat. I knew her. I always knew her. The word forced itself out of my lips, a greeting, a question, a name.
“Mom?”
19
I satat the great oak table, the smoothened stump of something that was once ancient and powerful, cleaved through its immense trunk by something even more ancient and powerful. I stared at the many, many rings, never knowing it was possible for a tree to grow this old, this majestic.
But even in the presence of something so sacred, a relic of untold centuries, I couldn’t temper my anger. My nails curled against the wood, not that I could ever damage the great table. It was steeped in too much magic to ever be marked by the defiance of a spurned son, a rebellious schoolboy. That was how I felt. That was all I was.
“How long have you known?” I asked. The words echoed around the chamber, this small, hidden place the headmasters used for their clandestine meetings, their most important work. A room where they could keep their secrets. I clenched my teeth. “How long have you known? About me, about my mother?”
The headmasters sat like statues in the eerie glow of the moss-green gemstones embedded around the chamber, each pulsing with magical, ghostly light. Belladonna Praxis was the stoniest of all, severe and unmoving. Headmaster Shivers, as always, remained a mystery, a swirl of nothing in a hooded robe. Light glinted off Dr. Euclidea Fang’s glasses, hiding her eyes behind a film of reflective green.
Cornelius Butterworth’s mustachios trembled as he heaved a great sigh. I never imagined I would see him so somber. “You may not believe us, Lochlann, but we know only as little as you do. Marina Wilde, asleep in the well? To think that your dear mother was with us all this time.”
I raked my fingers through my hair in frustration. “And all this time, none of you — the greatest mages for miles around — not a single one of you detected a hint of life sleeping in the bottom of the Wispwell?”
“Ah,” Headmaster Shivers rasped. “The Wispwell. Its very essence is life. In the darkness, how does one find a candle blazing next to a bonfire?”
“Indeed,” said Belladonna. “There are many things about the Wispwood and the Wispwell that we have yet to fully comprehend, but Headmaster Shivers is correct.”
They could understand Shivers too, then. Even Dr. Fang, who nodded in agreement.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You’re saying that the Wispwell has regenerative magics? Then why did we need all the Tears of the Ocean to throw into it?”
“For empowerment,” Cornelius said, folding his hands on the table. “It is entirely likely that your father slipped your mother into the Wispwell, hoping that its magic would take effect on her body, eliminate disease. It appears that his gambit has worked.”
“Then how come she didn’t drown?” I demanded.
“Lochlann,” Dr. Fang said. “Control your temper.”
“Ask yourself, then,” Headmaster Shivers said. “Why didn’t you drown in the Oriel of Water?”
