The Wand & the Sea Read online

  “How is it your fault?” Ben asked.

  “Avery’s the one who lit everything up,” Everett added. “It’s a wonder the whole wood didn’t get torched.”

  But she did feel responsible. She had bungled the Vanishment spell, bringing Prince Avery and the knight Grandor with them. And she’d put her friends in danger. “I don’t even know what happened to Jade and the others. What if they—”

  “That’s what I was talking about,” Everett broke in. “What’s that shiny thing?” He pointed at a bright orange glow at the edge of the burned-out clearing.

  “Maybe some fallen leaves?” Ben suggested.

  “Áedán,” Holly said softly. “It has to be.” She stepped through the shrubs, then slid a few feet down the hill into the valley and ran over to the far side.

  The Golden Salamander couldn’t speak to her, but he was part of her. She knew he would wait for her return. She pulled back the shrubbery, ready to scoop him up.

  But Áedán wasn’t there.

  It was just a trick of the light. A shaft of sun had broken through the clouds and shone on an old gold pendant. Holly stood still, her chest hollow. Why had she come? No one was waiting for her. Perhaps no one was even alive to wait.

  “Is it that salamander thing?” Ben stumbled down the hill behind her.

  She turned away, unable to say anything.

  “It’s something else,” said Everett. He picked up the pendant. It was hexagonal, about as big around as a pocket watch, and bright gold. The surface was engraved, divided into four quarters.

  “It’s like your key, Holly. Look.” Everett held the pendant out for all of them to see. Etched around the circle were the symbols for air, fire, water, and earth. A small purple stone joined them in the center.

  “I think this is proper gold. But it must have been here for ages.” Everett’s eyes glinted in its reflection.

  Holly took it from his hand to get a closer look. A thin stream of black smoke was seeping out of the pendant. “Is this a locket? What’s that smoky stuff?” She pressed a button on one side, but the catch wouldn’t open. The smoke drifted around her head and dissipated. A soft, dark whisper wafted by, and a melancholy chill swept through Holly. She held the locket to her ear, but she heard only the wind blowing through the scattered leaves. She handed it to Everett. “Here, you take it. I don’t like it.”

  Everett put the chain around his neck and tucked the locket into his shirt. “I think it’s cool.”

  “Whatever.” Holly began to wonder if this really was Anglielle after all, despite how familiar the blackened valley looked. It felt off somehow. Where was everyone? “I don’t know what to do. We’re miles from Almaric’s cottage, and it’ll be dark soon.”

  “Can’t you do that disappearing spell?” Ben asked.

  “The Vanishment. It’s too dangerous. I have to visualize the path exactly, and I only have a rough idea of where the cottage is.” And, she thought, she wasn’t quite ready to attempt a spell that difficult yet.

  “Hang on a tick,” said Everett. “Holly, didn’t you call that centaur bloke last time? Maybe you can do it again.”

  “Ranulf,” Holly said.

  “You don’t have a wand for nothing,” Everett said. “At least give it a go.”

  If there was one thing Holly could’ve asked for—besides dry clothes—it was that Everett would quit trying to take charge. Especially if he was going to be right all the time. She bit back the disappointment of not finding Áedán. If anyone was left in Anglielle, the wand would find them. She pulled it out of the scabbard.

  Now in its wand form, the key was more powerful. It didn’t just buzz like an angry insect; it thrummed, warming her stiff fingers. She flexed her hand around the shaft, welcoming it back. It had been more than a year since she’d held the wand. She had forged it herself, with the Wandwright’s help, out of a switch from a redwood tree. Long and straight, it fit her hand as if it had grown there. The smooth purple amethyst stone nestled in her palm; small etched carvings twined around the shaft, pictures that changed even as she looked at them.

  Right now one symbol dominated the wand. Two undulating swirls: the water.

  She closed her eyes, picturing the centaur, his chestnut flanks and wild brown curls. Ranulf, can you hear me? I’m back. I’m right where you left me.

  She felt the warmth surge inside her, shooting out through her fingertips; she knew the wand was working. It emitted no spark, but she could feel something like an invisible charge, reaching out—

  And fading away.

  Ranulf was nowhere.

  “Well?” Ben asked tentatively.

  Holly turned back to the boys, swallowing a stupid lump before it turned into tears. “I felt the wand reaching out, but it didn’t . . . it didn’t go anywhere. It’s like he’s just gone.”

  “Not gone,” said another voice. “Captured.”

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  The Coracle

  The boys looked around. “Who’s there?” Everett called.

  “Shush,” said Holly. She stood very still. She knew that voice.

  “Your Ladyship,” it said, just over her head. Curled up on the nearest tree branch was a large black cat with bright green eyes. Holly broke into a smile. She wanted to tug him down from the tree and hug him. But he would never have allowed it.

  “Jade!” Just saying the name made her feel warm. The large cat was her familiar—a being who augmented her magic and who was forever loyal to her. Jade wasn’t always the most polite, but he had never failed to help her.

  “At your service.” The cat walked down the length of the branch, then eyed the two boys.

  “You remember my brother, Ben,” Holly said.

  “I do,” the cat acknowledged. “The brave squire at the king’s tournament. And the young knight, as well.” Jade wrinkled his whiskers in Everett’s direction, as if a bad smell had just wafted by.

  “Everett’s our friend,” Holly said.

  “Of course, Lady Holly. May I say what a relief it is to find you again in the kingdom.” The cat’s voice, like his coat, was silky and well groomed, with a lilting, slightly Gaelic accent.

  Holly suddenly recalled Jade’s words. “Did you say Ranulf was captured?”

  “Imprisoned.” Jade’s eyes turned steely. “In Reynard’s dungeons.”

  Holly paled. The king was not known for mercy.

  “We cannot bide here.” The cat leaped neatly from his perch and onto the damp leaves. “I heard your wand’s call and came to direct you to safety.”

  “But what about Almaric?” The magician was old and frail. “He’s all right, isn’t he? And Bittenbender, and the others?”

  “Come quickly.”

  “Hang on,” said Everett. “Where’s it we’re going, exactly?”

  “A safe haven,” Jade said, and darted through the trees up the hill, back the way they’d come.

  Holly followed the cat, motioning to the boys behind her. She heard Ben say, “It’s okay, he’s Holly’s friend, remember?” and Everett replied, “It’s rather hard to tell who one’s friends are here, remember?”

  Holly stumbled through the forest to keep up with Jade. He slipped through the trees back to the brook, which they followed for almost ten minutes before it branched off in two directions. Jade stopped.

  “I remember this,” Holly said. “Ranulf and I followed this fork northwest. Can we cross it?”

  “Nay,” the cat said. “We voyage.”

  Ben came panting up behind them. “Did he say voyage?”

  Jade nodded at a stand of nearby rushes. Holly pulled them back and found a funny, bowl-shaped craft moored to a willow tree. The little boat was made of tightly woven branches, with a single narrow board nailed across the middle as a seat.

  Ben’s face turned an unhealthy shade of white, and Everett snorted. “Are the three of us meant to fit in a coracle?”

  The cat stepped carefully over the wet stream bank. “I came to tran
sport the Lady Adept to safety. I was unaware there would be”—he sniffed—“passengers.”

  Everett said something else in a miffed tone, but Holly wasn’t listening anymore. Just beyond the willow tree where the coracle was tied, she glimpsed something else. This time she didn’t want to announce it. Instead she walked through a stand of cattails to a leafless oak tree. At its base lay a ring of smooth river rocks, and in the center a small fire blazed. Curled up in the flames was the tiny, amber-colored Salamander. He stirred at her approach, opened his bulbous golden eyes, and leaped from his nest onto her shoulder.

  Holly jumped back, half expecting to be burned, but Áedán’s sticky feet were only pleasantly warm. “You’re here!” she said, smiling. “You’re all right.”

  The Golden Salamander nestled against her neck; he and Holly shared a contented sigh. He could not speak, nor was he a pet; he was her protector, a creature she had freed from his nest at the Wandwright’s home more than a year ago. For all of that time, Holly had felt the chill of his absence on her shoulder. But she was whole again now. His essence, born of fire, fueled the magic in her. She was a child of the fire too, like her namesake, the holly tree. Somehow she was more herself with Áedán by her side.

  Suddenly remembering the others, she stepped back to the coracle. “Look, Jade! I found him! Almaric was right.”

  “Áedán has slept these many months waiting for your return,” the cat told her.

  Ben’s eyes lit up at the sight of the geckolike creature. “I told you he’d be okay.” He raised a single finger but then pulled it back. “Is he . . . slimy?”

  “No, you can pet him. Carefully.”

  Holly was impressed with how gently Ben ran his tentative finger over Áedán’s head.

  “Look,” Everett broke in, sounding peevish, “if we’re going to voyage, we’d best get on with it.”

  “We must make haste,” Jade agreed, and leaped into the stern of the coracle.

  “I don’t guess anyone’s got a life jacket?” said Ben.

  Everett and Holly just stared at him.

  The coracle dipped and nearly capsized as Everett stepped into it. He sat in the middle to balance the boat. Ben joined him, his face turning a greenish color as if he were already seasick. Ignoring this, Holly followed him, then pulled the craft to the bank and untied it.

  As soon as the boat was free, it shot away from the shore. At first Holly thought the white-tipped current was driving it, but then she realized they were rushing upstream.

  “Holly, slow it down!” Ben cried.

  “You will not need to navigate,” said Jade. Glancing back, Holly saw the cat was balanced perfectly, his whiskers blown back against his cheeks. “The coracle is a very old one of Almaric’s, given to him by one of the Water Elementals.”

  “Holly, face the front!” Ben snapped.

  For several minutes no one said anything, as everyone’s attention was fixed on keeping their seats. Like a tube pulled from a motorboat, the coracle bounced along the surface of the water, rattling its passengers’ shoulders and landing them painfully on their backsides. It whipped from side to side, lurching around boulders and tree roots. Holly’s stomach roiled, and she could tell Ben was close to getting sick. Everett sat up straight, like a ship’s mast, though his face was tight.

  Holly concentrated on the trees as they flitted by on the shoreline. The wood looked much as she remembered, though the air was damp and cold. Through the treetops she glimpsed a low cloud cover. Golden-leafed beech trees glowed in the autumn light, and flocks of migrating birds took flight as they sped by. A hawk screeched overhead and Holly took a deep, chilly breath. She could not deny that she was wet through, that her hair was matted with mud, her feet freezing, her backpack a wreck. But the air—the feel of Anglielle, a world suffused with something that was also inside her—held a rightness she couldn’t explain to Ben or Everett. She didn’t think of her mother or father, or her comfortable bed or the little village of Hawkesbury: Here in this cold, misty misery, in her coracle sailing to a place no one could tell, she was home. And she was happy.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  The Sea Hag

  Everett knew that a coracle was meant to drift along a quiet stream or pond, helped along by a paddle, carrying one passenger and perhaps a fishing pole. The way Holly’s cat friend was doing things they might’ve been in a speedboat. Everett’s fingers ached from gripping the pine seat as the craft churned through the white water, threatening at every moment to hurl them all into the rushing stream, which had swollen into a narrow river.

  He wasn’t used to cats who spoke, whatever strange things he’d seen in this kingdom (and he had seen plenty). The last time they were in Anglielle, he and Ben had spent most of their time in the king’s castle with a group of unfriendly knights. Everett had met one little fairy, a fire Elemental, but she hadn’t been very nice in the end either. Holly, on the other hand, had met centaurs and talking cats and strange ladies who fashioned magic wands out of thin air, and what’s more, everyone had considered Holly a hero—the last of the Adepts, which were a race of sorcerers. But Everett had been taken for a criminal. His own hold on magic had been all too brief, thanks to the fire Elemental.

  He’d spent the last thirteen months getting past all that. He tried to come up with ways to help these Exiles that Holly talked about, the ones the king was so keen on hunting. Everett had once thought that perhaps they ought to be hunted, because the prince Avery had said so, and he seemed like such a regular bloke. But he had betrayed them, standing by as one of his knights tried to skewer the three of them. So while Everett told himself he wanted to be on the right side this time, he also thought that putting Avery in his place would be a pretty sweet side benefit.

  The river narrowed again to a stream, and the coracle slowed. The trees grew closer here, nearly touching over the surface of the water. They were deep in the wilds of the wood now. Everett could see no discernible paths, only the tiny trails worn by chipmunks and badgers. But this was where the coracle stopped moving altogether, and at a few words from Jade, Holly let the boat drift to shore and lashed it to a tree.

  It was noticeably darker outside than when they’d set out. Everett’s watch was no use, for it still read ten in the morning. His stomach lurched as he stumbled onto the bank. “ ’Scuse me,” Ben said, and shoved by him. He was promptly sick at the foot of a birch tree.

  Everett’s head ached, but at least his stomach was returning to normal. He pulled the backpacks out of the boat and handed them around, then followed Holly, who followed the black cat, up the bank and through a stand of birch and oak. Yellow leaves drifted all around them.

  “We’re close, aren’t we, Jade?” Holly sounded excited. Everett couldn’t imagine anything much existing this deep in the forest, but in another few minutes they had rounded a bend and gone over another hill to find themselves in a quite civilized clearing. At the edge of it, two enormous trees grew very close together, or perhaps they were one tree with two trunks; and in between them was a low, arched wooden door that looked as if it had sprouted out of the ground.

  “Almaric!” Holly cried. She ran ahead and around the giant tree to a small side window. “Almaric, it’s me, Holly!”

  The door opened, and Ben nudged up next to Everett. Neither of them had met the old magician before, and they weren’t quite sure what to expect.

  An old, plump woman was certainly not it.

  She looked more like a fat brown mushroom than a person, almost as wide as she was tall, which wasn’t very. Her blobby nose stretched across plump cheeks, and her bulbous gray eyes were set wide apart on a chinless face. She wore a formless, gray-green robe, the color of which matched her hair, hanging in a lanky, slimy mass around her shoulders. The smell wafting from her was like bad fish or rotten eggs. Or both.

  “Almaric!” Holly called again.

  “I wouldn’t put much store by doin’ that, dearie,” said the old woman in a burbly croak. Sh
e waddled into the glade and craned her nearly invisible neck toward the window.

  Holly turned to her. “I . . . Where’s Almaric? Who are you?”

  The woman poked one of her stubby fingers into her ear. Having extracted a small slug, she held out her hand. “Nerys. Sea hag. Howdy do?”

  When Holly didn’t respond, Everett nudged Ben and stepped forward. “Hallo,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “I’m Everett and this is Ben. That’s—”

  “The Lady Holly,” Jade cut in, glaring at Everett. “The Adept.”

  “Ooo-hoo! That’s right, he said you’d be comin’ soon! Nerys. Sea hag,” she repeated, and showed off a very few jagged teeth.

  “Yes, sorry, nice to, uh . . . meet you.” Holly looked as if she was trying not to breathe too close to the sea hag. “But where’s Almaric? Doesn’t he live here?”

  “No, not so much, as I’d say.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Why, ’cause he’s dead, that’s wot.”

  The color drained from Holly’s muddy face. She glanced at Jade, whose eyes grew round, and the two of them dashed into the cottage.

  The old woman ignored them and grinned at Everett. “You lads fancy a glass o’ kelp wine?”

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  The Dead Magician

  Holly and Jade glanced wildly around the cottage’s front room. The stone fireplace was cold, and the kettle hanging there hadn’t been filled in an age. Even the chintz-covered furniture was dusty.

  “The bedroom,” Holly said, and dashed to the back of the cottage.

  There, on a bed shaped like a crescent moon to fit the round walls, lay the magician, his white hair and beard as bushy as Holly remembered. His bare feet poked out of the linen robe edged with embroidered leaves. The blue eyes were closed, the wrinkled hands folded on his chest.

  “Oh, Jade . . .” Holly’s eyes brimmed with tears as she approached the bed. “How did this happen? Was it that woman?” A hollow coldness filled her chest. Ranulf was gone, Almaric was . . . she could hardly even think the word. . . .