Conjured (37 page)

I hadn’t done it.

I looked to where I knew the Magician was, though I couldn’t see him in the sudden, complete blackness.
He couldn’t have done it either
, I thought. He had no magic of his own, and he hadn’t drawn from me in days.

Emergency lights snapped on, shedding weak, stark light on the courtroom. Agents aimed their guns in every direction. I was looking directly at the Magician, so I saw the snake a second before they did. Coiling on the table in front of him,
the snake reared back and sank her fangs into his neck. His face paled, then reddened, then purpled. His neck swelled. His eyes bulged and then bled, red tears streaking his purple-veined cheeks. He toppled forward onto the desk, and the snake slid back to the floor and disappeared beneath the benches.

I felt as if the venom were seeping into me too. I couldn’t move. He was dead. Dead! The man that haunted my dreams, filled my memories … fathered me, in his own way.

A hand squeezed my shoulder. Jerking back, I turned. Aidan smiled at me, his usual dazzling smile, and he tightened his grip. The courtroom vanished.

I reappeared with him inside the agency elevator.

Topher was there, finger poised over the buttons. “Which floor?”

Unable to think, I stared at him.

“Which floor has the portal, Green Eyes?” Aidan asked.

Slowly, my brain chugged forward. I remembered that Aidan had said he couldn’t teleport somewhere he hadn’t seen. He’d been blindfolded when he’d arrived, he’d once said. They must have blindfolded him again when he went through to find the carnival. “Fifth.”

Topher pushed the button to the fifth floor.

“Victoria?” Topher asked Aidan.

Aidan vanished.

The tinny elevator music played. Side by side, Topher and I watched the numbers click up. I clutched the stuffed monkey to my chest.

A second later, Aidan reappeared, a snake wrapped around his arms. The snake slithered to the ground, and Victoria rose from the floor. “Justice has been served, and my sister is avenged,” she announced.

“Good,” Topher said. “I can’t believe the stupid sheep thought they could keep a psychopath like that alive. Even without his tools, such a man is too dangerous.”

“All’s well that end’s well,” Victoria said. “I see you succeeded too.” Victoria’s eyes swept over me, as if appraising my worth. She wasn’t speaking to me. I thought of Aidan saying I was the treasure he sought and the prize he was destined to win, and I wished I were anywhere but here—the house, the pizza parlor, the carnival. “Delightful.”

Looking at each of them, I realized I’d traded one trap for another, except instead of wanting to kill me, my new jailors wanted me to kill. I wished I could run, fly away, fade into the wallpaper …

At level five, the elevator lurched to a halt. “Ready yourselves,” Aidan said. Topher tossed sparks between his hands. Aidan gripped my arm, ready to vanish or to keep me from vanishing. Victoria dropped back into her snake form.

The elevator door opened.

Malcolm and Aunt Nicki waited for us. Side by side, they blocked the corridor. His eyes were glued on mine. Slowly, he and Aunt Nicki raised their hands as if in surrender.

“That’s right,” Aidan said. “You don’t want to fight us.”

Topher tossed a fireball from hand to hand. Flames licked his fingers, and sparks sprayed onto the floor. Smiling, he
strolled out of the elevator with Aidan. I followed behind. Victoria slithered in front of us, hissing.

“So, how about you step aside?” Topher said. “Shame if someone got hurt.”

Eyes full of compassion, Malcolm asked, “Eve? Do you want to go with them?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it. If I said no … Aidan, Topher, and Victoria were poised to hurt them, badly. But if I said yes … they wanted me as a weapon. I would face a lifetime of hurting people.

“She’s coming with us,” Aidan said.

“If she wants to go with you, then she goes with my blessing,” Malcolm said. “If not …”

Aunt Nicki grinned. “If not, things might get messy.”

“I need her.” Aidan vanished and then reappeared next to Aunt Nicki, too close to her. He put his hand on her throat.

Aunt Nicki didn’t move. Her expression didn’t change either. “It’s Eve’s choice.”

“Just tell the truth,” a voice said softly in my ear. “Yes or no?”

Zach.

I turned. He must have been waiting, tucked into the corner beside the elevator, against the wall. With Malcolm and Aunt Nicki in front of us, we hadn’t seen him. Now he was close, his face only inches away from mine. He breathed in my breath, my magic. “No,” I said. And the hallway erupted in chaos.

Zach pointed at the snake Victoria, and she flew backward
into the elevator and hit the back wall. She collapsed onto the floor. Topher hurled the fireball, and Malcolm lunged and rolled. It slammed into the door behind him, and the carpet ignited. Drawing his gun as he jumped to his feet, Malcolm squeezed the trigger. A needle embedded in Topher’s neck. He clutched at it, took a step forward, and then slumped to the floor. Aidan vanished and then reappeared behind me, hands on my shoulders, as Zach pressed his lips against mine again.

I felt Aidan’s hands harden.

The hallway fell silent.

Slowly, I turned. Aidan’s face was porcelain, and his body was cloth. I lifted his porcelain hands from my shoulders, and he crumpled to the ground.

Grabbing a fire extinguisher from the wall, Aunt Nicki sprayed the flames with white foam. The fire died, and the foam soaked into the carpet.

“Is he …,” I began.

“I don’t know,” Zach said.

Both Malcolm and Aunt Nicki approached. They stood over the doll Aidan, tranquilizer guns aimed at him. “Turn him back, and we’ll see,” Aunt Nicki said.

Zach took another breath from my lips, and Aidan’s porcelain face and hands softened. His cloth skin smoothed into human skin. His chest shuddered, and he began to breathe.

Malcolm shot him with a tranquilizer dart.

“Bet that felt good,” Aunt Nicki said to Malcolm.

“Reasonably satisfying,” Malcolm agreed. The two of them
dragged Topher and Aidan into the elevator with the still-unconscious snake Victoria. Aunt Nicki stabbed the close button and then stepped back out into the corridor. The doors slid shut.

I realized I was still clutching the stuffed monkey.

“You’ll need to be quick,” Aunt Nicki said to me. “And random. Don’t go places you’ve been before. Stay away from anything familiar.”

I gawked at her.

Her mouth quirked. “That’s the Eve I know and love. Always quick with the thank-you. Don’t overflow with emotions. I don’t want to get weepy.”

“I don’t understand.” Were they truly going to let me go? Even Aunt Nicki? Sure, she’d said it was my choice, but their job … the agency … the trial … Lou …

She rolled her eyes. “At least you’re consistent.”

Malcolm holstered the tranquilizer gun and wrapped me in a bear hug. I leaned against his chest, letting his arms fold around me. “Be careful.”

My eyes felt hot, and it was hard to swallow. “I’ll … miss you.”

“Me too,” he said softly, barely loud enough for me to hear, and then he released me and shoved me toward Zach. “Kiss the boy and go.”

I turned to Zach. “How did—”

“I told them the truth.” Zach took my hand and brought it to his lips. His eyes were bright. “You’re real. Turns out, though, they’d already decided that. The two of them have been planning this since the trial began.”

“Yeah, this is all very nice, but you need to leave now.” Aunt Nicki made shooing motions with her hands. “Kiss the boy and knock us out.”

“What?” I asked.

“Make it look like we tried to stop you,” Aunt Nicki said. “I’m not going down for you if I don’t have to. You’re Malcolm’s case, not mine. And he deserves a better fate than the agency’s censure. If you care about either of us, then kick our asses. We’ll take care of explaining Aidan, Victoria, and Topher.”

I kissed Zach, and then he flicked his hand. Both of them flew backward across the hall. Aunt Nicki hit the door, and then slumped onto the floor. I didn’t know if she was feigning unconsciousness or if she truly was. Malcolm grunted but stood.

“Try again,” I told Zach.

Zach caused vines to burst out of the wall and wrap around him.

We kissed again. And then we ran through the wall. Guards were on the other side. We changed our shape. Two times, three times, as we plunged through the second and third doors. Wolves. Birds. Mice. And then dragonflies. We flew into the ventilation system, careened through the air-conditioning ducts, and then shot into the silver room.

Inside the room, we changed into ourselves.

Hand in hand, we walked through the silver walls.

And I am, for the first time, free.

There isn’t a carnival tent, but the audience comes anyway. Zach and I had written in the sky with wisps of clouds, inviting them, and we’d used fireflies at night to guide them. And so they come, whispering and laughing, through the forest, trampling the ferns and ducking under branches, to see the magicians.

Our stage is the base of an oak tree. Fireflies collect around the stage, defining the edges. The audience sits beyond it on moss and roots and rocks. They wait, and from behind the tree, I can hear the buzz of their anticipation. Zach squeezes my hand.

“Ready?” he says.

“Ready.” I kiss him. For a moment, I don’t hear the audience or the wind in the branches or the chirp of the cicadas. His arms are warm around my waist, and he tastes like the strawberries we shared for dinner, fresh from a field on another world.

Hand in hand, we walk around the tree. Our audience is small: twenty or so, but word will spread. Tomorrow, more will come, and then more the next night. We’ll leave before word of us can spread too far.

I begin with a deck of cards. I shuffle them fast from hand to hand. The cards arc through the air, landing neatly in my palm. I have practiced this, and I have some skill at it, which both surprises and pleases me. I toss the cards in the air as high as I can toward the branches, one card after another in rapid succession.

Zach steps in front of me as if to catch the cards—and the cards transform into paper birds and fly up, up into the tree branches. The audience gasps and then claps.

We change positions, and I give him my breath again. He then kneels, and I step onto his cupped palms. He tosses me, and I fly up too, higher than he could have thrown me. I pluck half the bird-cards from the tree and plummet down. He catches me, breathes in my magic, and tosses me again, still higher. I capture the other half of the cards, and then I land in his arms again.

Standing, I spread the cards in my hands and fan them before the audience, to show that they are ordinary cards, and then I toss them in the air again, one after another, rapid-fire.

This time the cards dance in the air, weaving an intricate pattern. As they dance above the stage, dozens of flowers poke through the earth in the midst of the audience. The stems stretch, leaves unfurl, and buds blossom until the audience is awash in flowers.

Zach picks a bloom and tosses it in the air. He gestures for the audience to do the same. Eagerly, the kids yank the flowers out of the ground and throw them into the air. The men and women are more hesitant, but then they begin tossing flowers as well. The flowers join the aerial dance, twisting and twirling with the cards until they are all paired, each card with its own flower.

One more kiss, and the flowers melt into the cards, becoming part of the design. The cards tumble from the sky, each with a painted flower on it that wasn’t there before. The children in the audience leap up and catch the cards.

As the audience whispers, laughs, and trades flower cards, I bring out a cup full of water, and I throw it at the audience. The water arcs toward them but never lands. Suspended, each drop sparkles like a star. Zach shapes the water into horses that ride through the surf, a castle that rises out of foam, dragons that breathe water instead of fire.

After drawing the water back to the cup, Zach then transforms me into a dragon, a cat with wings, and a pink rabbit. He repeats this with volunteers from the audience, changing each for a few precious seconds into whatever they choose.

When we end the show, the audience leaps to their feet and claps. Some of the adults have tears in their eyes. The children are jabbering and chattering excitedly to each other. They leave full of beauty, magic, and wonder.

We melt into the oak tree, joining the wood, until the audience is gone.

Afterward, we walk out of the tree.

There is a pile in the center of the stage—blankets, clothes, tinder to light a fire, fresh-baked bread, some oranges that look like clementines. We asked for nothing, but they left it anyway.

The first time this happened, I had wanted to return it all.

“I don’t want to take,” I’d said. “I’m not
him
. I want to give without taking.”

“Maybe they feel the same way,” Zach had said. And my objections had died.

We scoop up our gifts and retreat farther into the woods, far enough that we won’t be easy to find. We light a fire and lay beneath the blankets, along with the now-ragged stuffed monkey, as we eat the bread and the clementines. I have never tasted sweeter, and I can say that with glorious certainty.

“Are you happy?” I ask Zach.

“Yes,” he says without hesitation.

“Are you lying?”

“Never,” he says. I ask him this every night; every night, he answers the same. “Are you happy?” he asks me.

I think about it, turn the question over in my mind, compare what I feel to my memories. We are building new memories every day and with every world we see. The good memories are beginning to outweigh the bad memories. “Yes.”

“Are you lying?” he asks.

“Usually,” I say, “but never to you.”

Around us, the trees darken to shadows, and the sky deepens to azure then blue-black. Stars poke through the sky. I’m not tempted to count them. I’m content to lie beside Zach.

“I’d like a home someday,” Zach says suddenly. This isn’t what we usually say.