Conrad Edison and the Anchored World (Overworld Arcanum Book 2) (9 page)

Chest shaking with sobs, I pressed her hand to my heart. "You will never die as long as I'm alive, Mummy. I will always keep you alive here."

Tears trickled down her cheeks. "I know, sweet boy. Finding you was the best decision I ever made."

I wiped my eyes. "Finding me?"

She looked toward the nightstand next to her bed. I saw a picture of us at a carnival. "If you are ever lonely, think of me, and I'll be there, my dear Conrad." Her body slumped, and the light faded from her eyes.

"No," I whimpered. "Please, not again."

"It's time to go, boy," said a flat emotionless voice behind me. I spun and saw Mr. Goodleigh standing in the doorway. Rage burned through the sorrow. I held up my wand and snarled, "I'll never go with you!"

The room grew brighter and brighter until I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the glare. I staggered back, expecting to feel Cora's bed behind me. Instead, there was nothing. When I blinked away the spots in my vision, I stood in a dim room, empty except for a glowing blue sphere on a pedestal.

Using the hem of my shirt, I dried my eyes and looked at the room. There were no mirrors or alcoves for anyone to hide in, but I still shouted, "Who's here? What just happened to me?"

No one answered.

It occurred to my sorrow-stricken mind that this had been some sort of test. Whoever designed it was sick in the head.

A new message appeared on the instruction sheet.
Report to Gauntlet Room IV
.

My phone functioned once again, so I used it to navigate my way. It took me further down the hallway and up a flight of stairs to a wide circular room with arched open doorways. Several students stood in the middle looking at the numbers over each door. I spotted mine and went down the tunnel.

The gauntlet room at the end stretched nearly fifty yards wide, divided into sections by stone walls. Other children were already using most of the stations, so I got in a line and waited my turn. It was evident from the candles what I was supposed to do here. When my turn came the parchment told me to ignite and blow out the candle. I quickly did so and stepped away for the next in line to take their turn.

Go to the upper examination hall.

Following my phone's instructions, I wended through the passageways and arrived at a large room lined with desks. A tall thin man with black hair, matching robe, and a dour expression handed me a scroll. I recognized him at once.
Professor Gideon Grace.

"Put your name at the top of the exam, complete it, and proceed to your next destination," he said in a bored tone. His eyes narrowed. "Haven't I seen you before?"

I'd seen him at Chicken Little, a restaurant in Queens Gate. He'd rescued a man attacked by Max's twin brothers, Rhys and Devon. I shook my head. "No, sir, I don't think so."

"Hmm." He turned and picked up another scroll for an incoming student, so I quickly made my way to a desk near the back before he remembered me.

Lily looked up from her test and smiled. I returned a half-hearted smile, nodded, and took a desk. The exam was simple enough, asking questions straight from the study guide my friends and I had used. I completed it within an hour and set it in a bin on the professor's desk. Professor Grace was busy handing out scrolls to more students, so I exited the room before he asked me again who I was.

The instruction parchment handed me the easiest task yet.
Go to the dinner hall and eat lunch.

I went there and looked for my friends, but they weren't anywhere to be found. Someone touched my shoulder. I jumped to the side and saw a merry smile on Blue's face.

"Are you done?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. The instructions told me to come eat."

"Then let's eat." She sat at an empty table and I joined her.

"Did you have to take a test?" I asked her.

Blue nodded. "I had to change into a wolf." She shrugged. "It was easy." Her eyes widened. "There were two felycan kids who changed into big cats. I never met one of those before."

"Were they nice?" I leaned back as a golem placed covered plates in front of us.

She lifted the cover and licked her lips at the sight of the juicy pork cutlet beneath. "Oh, they were a little stand-offish, but I've heard felycans are like that."

I cut into the pork with a knife and savored the first bite. "Were there other lycans?"

"Oh, yes, a lot." She gnawed on a stalk of asparagus. "Groups of kids from different packs."

I considered my next question and hoped it wasn't impolite. "What exactly do they teach to lycans? You already know how to change, right? Is there more to it?"

Blue swallowed and nodded. "Sure. Most lycans are born that way, but older ones can turn people into one of us. There's also the possibility that some of us can learn to be free-changers."

"Free changers? You mean like different animal forms?"

"Yep." She jabbed a fork into the meat and bit off a chunk. "One of the professors here can do that."

I considered the possibilities. "Can he look like other humans?"

Blue stopped chewing for a moment. "I suppose so." She shrugged. "But why would you want to do that when you could shift into a bird?"

I'd change my face so my parents couldn't find me.
"I still don't understand where all the extra mass goes when someone shape shifts. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, so where does it go?"

That drew a long silence and confused look from her.

"I'm sorry, I think that was something from my father's knowledge." It wasn't. I'd studied science nearly as much as magic.

"Magic doesn't always make sense," Blue finally said. "You just have to accept that it's not science and deal with it."

I smiled. "Sure."

"You're really smart, though," Blue said with a smile. "And you're strong." She touched my arm. "I'll bet there aren't any other kids who could beat a whole gang of vampires like you did."

Not many other kids carry around parts of their evil parents' souls either.
"I'm not really that strong."

"I wish the lycan kids were as nice as you." She sighed and stabbed her fork in the asparagus. "Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever find a place to fit in."

"You fit in just fine with us," I assured her.

She put her head on my shoulder, unaware a piece of asparagus was stuck in her teeth. "Do you really mean that?"

My face grew warm. "Y-yes."

"Ahem!"

I looked up and saw Ambria standing across the table from us, arms akimbo. "I see you started lunch without me, Conrad."

"But you weren't here," I said. "I didn't know how long you'd be."

"Did you even wait a moment before sitting down?" She dropped into the chair to my left. "It doesn't matter. I suppose you have a new best friend now."

"You sound cranky," Blue said to her. "I think you're just hungry." She took a slice of bread. "Would you like me to put some jam on this for you?"

Ambria leaned forward and looked past me at Blue. "While you and the other shifters frolicked around, I was put through a distressing psychological test and a written exam."

"Um, I'm done eating," I said and pushed my chair back from the table, desperate to get out of there.

Ambria grabbed left hand. "Conrad, stay. I could use some company during lunch."

Blue stood and clasped my right hand. "Would you like to take a walk? It's lovely outside."

I froze and stared at the instruction sheet on the table, praying it would give me new instructions. When it didn't, I decided to change the subject entirely. "Have you seen Max?"

Ambria frowned. "Yes, I saw him enter the examination hall when I was leaving. He said he had to wait in a long line for the gauntlet room."

"Me too," I said, praying the girls didn't feel the sweat breaking out on the palms of my hands.

She frowned. "That awful Baxter boy came in behind him and started throwing insults at him, but Professor Grace didn't say a thing about it."

"Gideon Grace hates Max's family," I said. "He told me so."

"How about that walk?" Blue asked, squeezing my hand.

I struggled for something more to say, when I noticed the instruction paper finally changed.

Report to the Underground.

Repressing a cheer, I freed my hands and reached for the sheet. "Well, it looks like I have another test to take."

"The Underground?" Ambria's forehead wrinkled. "I don't recall reading about that."

"I can help you find it," Blue said.

"No, that's all right." I held up my phone. "This should take me there."

"Wish I had a phone," Ambria said. "I've had to use the paper maps."

"If only you had a good sense of smell," Blue told her.

Ambria smiled sweetly. "It's certainly strong enough to know when someone stinks."

I sidestepped from between them and made a hasty retreat into the hallway. My phone guided me up a winding staircase, which seemed the wrong direction for a place named Underground, but long ago someone had taken great pleasure in designing the university with misdirection in mind. It suddenly occurred to me that I was no longer going up, but descending, even though I hadn't detected a change in the staircase. I turned around and backtracked until I felt gravity shift ever so slightly.

Upon closer inspection, I saw the stairs ended at a gap. I got down on my knees and peered over the edge to see the bottom of the stairs. Harris Ashmore walked into view and I swayed with disorientation. He was walking upside down on the bottom of the stairs!

He saw my face and his mouth dropped open. "Where's the rest of your body?"

At this point, I didn't know which way was up. "I'm under the stairs I think."

Harris stopped at the gap and we looked up—or down?—at each other for a moment. He took another step forward and his body swept around to my side so we were both beneath the stairs.

"That was unexpected," he said.

"This place is so confusing." I stood up. "Are you headed to the Underground as well?"

He nodded and showed me a paper map with a moving black dot and an arrow. "Well, now I know I had to go up to go down."

"Or left to go right," I added with a smile. "A mischievous person built this place."

He started down the stairs. "Someday, I'll be Arcanus Primus, and I plan to have the university rebuilt so it's not so confusing."

I walked beside him. "That might make it boring."

Harris raised an eyebrow. "Order is not boring."

"Yes, but you need chaos sometimes to make you think differently," I said. "Otherwise, everything remains the same and you don't try new things."

"All chaos ever brought me was death and destruction," Harris said. "The Overlord was the master of chaos. When I come into power, I'll make rules so nothing like that happens again."

Rules hadn't kept my father from destroying the Overworld government, but I kept quiet about it. Harris didn't seem like the sort who listened to other people's ideas when they differed from his own.

Harris looked at me and smiled. "If you're loyal to me, I'll make sure you're part of the new order, Conrad." He punched me in the shoulder. "We'll eradicate evil in our time."

I stumbled sideways, caught off guard by the "friendly" punch. "That would be spectacular," I told him.

The staircase ended in a stone corridor with a red brick path that once again challenged my sense of direction by corkscrewing up the wall and to the ceiling where it straightened. Harris came to a halt, but I kept on following the path, eager to find the test so I could leave his company. Despite my expectation of falling off the wall, the press of gravity never left my shoulders, keeping me firmly attached to the brick path. I reached the ceiling and turned to look at Harris who watched me with a strange expression.

"Are you coming?" I asked.

His face a bit pale, Harris stepped forward. "I don't like this one bit," he said. "I don't even know where the ground is anymore."

I shrugged. "Someone recently told me that magic doesn't have to make scientific sense, you just have to deal with it."

He took tentative steps forward. When he reached the curve up the wall, his foot slipped off it. He tried to walk up the wall again, but it didn't work.

"I don't understand." He said. "I can't do it."

"Why don't you walk underneath me and I'll pull you up?" I said.

Harris walked beneath me and held up his hand, but our fingers were a few feet apart.

"We'll have to jump at the same time," I told him.

He nodded. "One, two, three."

We jumped. Our hands met and we held on tight. Instead of me pulling him to my floor, we hung in midair, suspended.

"It's not working," Harris said in a strained voice.

My fingers slipped. "I can't hold on anymore."

"Me either." He lost his grip and we dropped back to our respective floors.

Movement caught my peripheral vision. I looked down the corridor toward the stairs and recoiled at what I saw. Snakes, snakes, everywhere—so many it appeared the floor itself crawled. A cobra reared up and spread its hood, answering my next question—were the snakes poisonous? Clearly, yes.

Harris cried out and backed down the corridor, but the susurrus of slithering reptiles emanated from corridor beyond. Snakes in front, snakes behind.

He was trapped.

Chapter 8

I ran back down the path to him. As before, gravity shifted and held me to the path until I was on his ground.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Harris ran up the wall and slid back down over and over again like a hamster in a wheel. "Where did all these snakes come from?"

I thought back to our earlier conversation about order versus chaos. "Do you believe more in science or magic?"

He looked up at me. "My mother was a scientist and my father was an Arcane. I believe in both."

"Yes, but which did you feel more comfortable with?" I calculated the snakes would be here in less than a minute and desperately thought of a way to help him up the wall.

Harris's eyes narrowed. "What are you getting at?"