Page 53 of Return of the Nutcracker Prince

Chapter 16

MageGingerbreadheldhershield, but the mice just kept coming.

“There’s no end to them!”Exhausted, Clara’s energy wavered.

“Take over the shield!”

She flung her shield out in front of them as Zelda drew back and started bombarding the invaders.Maintaining one spell was not as strenuous as the multiple missiles she’d been hurling.Still, she needed to maintain her focus or the enemy’s attacks would land.

Their backs to the outer wall, Clara saw two hooded, stooped figures move through the pandemonium of Süssland and Tierland soldiers.One shuffled towards them, the other faced Galiena and Alaric.

“Mages!”Zelda fired on them, but her missiles did nothing.The mages flung nets of black rope, one at her and the head mage, and one at the Sugar Plum Fairy.Clara spread her shield thin, too thin, perhaps, to cover their heads, but it was no use.The second the net touched her magic, it absorbed it, and fell on them anyway, rendering their magic moot.

“Where did they get this dark magic?”uttered Mage Gingerbread.“It’s in therope.”

The net sucked the very life out of Clara, her magic that had once filled and swirled within her silent, unmoving.She was normal, a human once more, just like in the Realm of Waking, with no power.Her jaw hung open as she gasped for breath.How had she ever thought she could go back tothis?

Quiet reigned over the battlefield.The mouse soldiers must have been waiting for their mages to arrive.Someone pulled the net off her legs, then rough hands grabbed her wrists and held them behind her back.No!Grunting, she tried to fight them, but their hands held fast as more magic-dampening rope chafed her wrists and bound her hands behind her.

“Get up, mage,” sneered a voice.

More hands lifted under her arms and set her on her feet.Her nails dug into her palms as she fought to school her expression and keep her hands from trembling.She clenched her jaw as she glared at the mouse soldiers lifting her and Zelda to their feet, startling when she saw the mouse mage.

Cloudy, unseeing eyes gazed out from beneath the white hood.Scraggly gray fur covered his (her?) mouse head topped with ragged ears.The swishing tail behind them ended in a blunt cut, instead of the tapered tail mice usually had.Looking over at the second and third mage that joined them, they had the same disabilities.

“To the dungeons with you!”That creepy voice belonged to the mouse mage!

The mages shoved at her and Zelda, herding them into the palace.Galiena and Alaric marched beside them.

Clara’s gaze darted around, taking in their surroundings.She was with the two most powerful mages in the land, and they were being pushed into their own castle.Surely, they could get away from someblind mice.

They weren’t even touching them.Silently, she slipped behind a pillar.The mage whirled on her and glared at her with his white, dead-eyed gaze.“You can’t escape, little Caster.”She remained motionless.He cocked his head at her, looking at her but not quite facing her somehow.“Iseeyou,” he hissed.

“Let’s move!”Another mage snapped.Her legs began to move without her consent.

“Feisty,” said the third.“The compulsion spell will do the trick.”

Compulsion spell?No wonder.

Galiena and Zelda hadn’t resisted.They must have already been under one or anticipated the possibility.

Clara gave in and let them lead her down the stairs at the back of the castle into the dungeons.She hadn’t even known the palacehada dungeon!It didn’t seem to be built of the same gingerbread as the rest of the building.Instead, the walls appeared lined with iron.Silent soldiers pressed them into a cell, then cut them free.She rubbed at her aching wrists and waited for the magic to return.

The door slammed shut and the four of them were alone.Galiena and Alaric took one bunk along the wall, and Zelda faced them from the other.Clara stayed standing.Still, her powers lay dormant.

“The ropes are gone.Why can’t I feel my magic?”

The Sugar Plum Fairy sighed.“We lined the dungeons with spells to dampen it.My predecessors designed them in the event a mage went rogue.That’s why the Seers didn’t follow us in here.”

“The Seers?”

Zelda nodded.“The dark mages that made the Mouse King the demon he is today.”

The chilly dampness of the cell crept into her bones.Klaus wasn’t with them.A pain made even more apparent when Alaric tucked his wife under his arm.

“Now what?”she asked them.

“Now we wait and see what he wants.The magic of this land will never recognize him, and he knows it.So he’ll keep us alive.”How could the Sugar Plum Fairy sound so defeated?

---