Guardians of the Boundary (The Conjurors Series Book 3) (3 page)

“Wait!” she said, pointing to
his room.

He slowly crept up to the door
and gently pushed it open a little wider. When they peeked through the crack,
Valerie saw the back of a familiar blonde head. Logan, Thai’s girlfriend, was
typing rapidly on his computer.

The sight of the girl who got to
be close to Thai when she couldn’t nauseated Valerie. She turned to go without
another word, but Thai’s reaction surprised her.

He opened the door wider. “What
the hell are you doing?” he asked, crossing the room in three swift strides.

Logan jumped out of his chair like
she’d been bitten. “I thought I’d check my email. I was stopping by to say hi.”

“How did you get in?” Thai asked,
stepping toward her and slamming his laptop closed.

Logan dropped the sweetness from
her voice and her face flushed an ugly red. “Be civil. No one talks to me like
that.”

Valerie sucked in a breath, and
Logan’s eyes flicked to her.

“I see your pathetic little
puppy ex-girlfriend can’t take a hint,” Logan added.

The comment stung, but Valerie
held her tongue.

“I told you to stay away from
me,” Thai said, and he was clenching his fists. “After what you did, I never
want to see you.”

Valerie shamelessly stared, her
mouth open. She shouldn’t be here, and she definitely shouldn’t be enjoying the
fact that Thai and Logan didn’t work out. But before she could gather her
dignity and give them the space to fight in private, Logan did the last thing
Valerie expected.

Her shoulders hunched, froglike,
and she struck Thai in the face with her open palm. Valerie thought she saw the
ooze of poison, like Venu’s, before Logan jumped out of the window and bounded
away.

Panic blinded Valerie before the
calm that always followed in emergencies took over, and she was able to think.
“Call 911 before the poison incapacitates you. Hurry!”

Thai shook his head and sat
down, opening his desk drawer. He pulled out a syringe full of yellow fluid and
immediately shot it into his thigh. Valerie yelped in surprise.

Thai raised an eyebrow at her
and then collapsed on his bed. “I guess I should have mentioned that the person
who attacked me the other night was Logan. I’ve kept the antidote for Venu’s
poison with me ever since. Chisisi thinks she was targeting us from the first
time we met her.”

“You called the attacker a ‘he’.
Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Valerie asked.

Thai sagged on his bed. “We
don’t tell each other a lot of things.”

“We used to,” Valerie whispered.

Before her eyes, Thai’s face
became a blank mask, and when he spoke, his voice was devoid of emotion. “To be
clear, this doesn’t change how I feel about you. Logan and I may be over, but
so are we.”

A tickle at the back of Valerie’s
throat warned her that she might cry. Whatever she’d thought had been between
them was in her imagination. The Thai she’d loved could never have said
something so cruel. But she wouldn’t let him see how much he had hurt her ever
again.

“I’m already moving on. I wanted
to reassure you about Tan, for old time’s sake. But I need to get back to the
Globe to get ready for my date,” Valerie shot back, even though she and Cyrus
hadn’t picked a day yet.

She enjoyed the
pained dismay on Thai’s face before she let her mind return to her bedroom. She
curled into a ball on her bed and forced her tears to stay unshed. For once,
she’d had the last word, but wounding Thai didn’t heal her shattered heart.

Over the next few days, Valerie
was forced to relive the awful end of her conversation with Thai over and over,
along with all of her worst memories, as Gideon continued to drill her mind
with the prepotent crystal to make it stronger.

One morning, she noticed that
they had an audience. Kellen was at the window, watching her be forced to her
knees with a smug smile on his face. He wasn’t much bigger than her hand, with
delicate wings that belied the steel of his personality. It would be comical
how much she feared the presence of such a little person if it weren’t for the
fact that she’d witnessed the power of his magic firsthand. Gideon followed her
gaze, and his faced turned as hard as marble.

“Kellen has lost his way. He no
longer embodies the Knights’ ideals of power, courage, and mercy.”

“He’s Fractus,” Valerie said.
She didn’t have concrete proof, but her instincts told her that was true.

Gideon’s eyes were troubled.
“You may be right, but he remains our Guild’s Grand Master, and the Knights
will follow his lead.”

Kellen had disappeared from the
window, but he reappeared a few moments later at Gideon’s side.

“You should have more honor than
to show your face here, after attacking me and my Knights,” Kellen said to
Gideon. “If it were up to me, you and your little protégé would both be
expelled.”

Gideon and Valerie had fought
Kellen and several of his Knights to free Sanguina so that she could lead them
to the Black Castle a few weeks ago. Valerie remembered the rage in Kellen’s
eyes when he had been overpowered, and had known that he wouldn’t drop the
matter, even after they had rescued Darling.

“Then I am grateful it was not
up to you, and that the round table of Knights convened and decided otherwise,”
Gideon responded calmly.

“They stripped you of your
title! Your word carries no more weight here than the lowest novice,” Kellen
said, his voice high and angry.

It was the first Valerie had
heard of Gideon’s punishment, and the guilt that followed was like a kick to
her stomach. He had been second in command of the Knights after Kellen before
they had rescued Sanguina, and now his life’s work had been snatched away.

“Why’d I get off so easily?”
Valerie asked.

“As your mentor, I abused your
trust,” Gideon said, giving her a warning look. “You are an apprentice,
following the orders of your superior.”

Kellen’s wings beat even more
rapidly as his gaze narrowed on Valerie. “Your actions haven’t been excused.
You’re being watched. There’s also the matter of your sword.”

Kellen’s gaze landed greedily on
Pathos, which rested at Valerie’s side. “I came out here to tell you that you
must forfeit your weapon until I deem it time to return it to you.”

“No,” Valerie’s voice was cold,
and she backed up a step.

“It isn’t a request,” Kellen
said, and the air around him sparkled.

Gideon stepped between them.
“Under whose authority?”

“The round table agrees with me.
She is too immature to wield such a powerful weapon. Maybe someday, but not
today.”

“Then I quit,” Valerie said,
gripping Pathos’s hilt so tightly that she was sure it was wearing grooves into
her palm.

“Excellent choice. But you must
still forfeit your weapon,” Kellen said, and glitter burst around him in a mini
explosion.

Pathos levitated out of
Valerie’s sheath, but she grabbed her hilt and jammed it back in. She tried to
swat the little fairy out of her way, but she missed.

Three Knights raced out of the Guild
and tackled Gideon. Gideon was a match for his opponents, but barely. Punches
were thrown so quickly Valerie couldn’t follow the fight.

Before she could step in to
help, she breathed in some of Kellen’s glitter dust, and her limbs were like
lead.

“Hand it over,” the fairy
commanded.

Kellen’s mind touched hers,
trying to control her. Frantically, she reached for her locus. But Pathos no
longer seemed like such a reliable constant for her. Hadn’t it been taken from
her before?

Her brief distraction cost her. Her
mind was lost in the whirlwind of Kellen’s magic. Inside, she was screaming at
herself, running away with Pathos firmly in her grip. But on the outside, she
calmly kneeled before Kellen and drew Pathos from its sheath. The malignant smile
on his face made her sick.

“Strong of body, weak of mind.
Why Reaper ever cared to keep you alive instead of killing you when he had the
chance I’ll never understand,” Kellen said. Then he turned to his Knights, who
were kicking an unconscious Gideon. “Enough. He’s learned his lesson. But don’t
be afraid to repeat it if he comes back.”

Kellen and his thugs left, but
Valerie still couldn’t free her mind from Kellen’s control. It was several
agonizing minutes before Gideon’s eyes opened and he struggled to his feet.

His face was set, but not angry.
He knelt in front of Valerie. “Fairy dust is a powerful magic. Even many Master
Conjurors are helpless against it. Though he cannot break my mind, he is able
to render me unconscious with it. Do not be ashamed that you could not fight
his hold.”

Whether the dust had worn off or
Gideon’s words had unlocked her mind, Kellen’s magic loosened, and she was in
control of herself again. Together, they left the Guild. Her sheath was too
light at her side without Pathos’s reassuring weight.

“I don’t think I’d stand a
chance against Reaper without Pathos,” Valerie admitted.

Gideon considered her words
gravely. “Pathos in the wrong hands would be only a well-crafted piece of metal.
In your hands it comes alive.”

Gideon spoke the
words as if they were an absolute truth, and even Valerie found herself
trusting them. She’d lost her locus, but she hadn’t lost herself.

Valerie’s first instinct was to
be alone after parting with Gideon at the Healers’ Guild so that he could have
his injuries treated. But the surreal distance that had separated her from her
life for weeks had started to fade during her training with Gideon as she
confronted her grief about Midnight’s loss. It was being replaced by the
burning worry that time was passing, and the problem of the Fractus was only
getting worse.

She’d purposely avoided checking
in with Dulcea about the attacks of the Fractus on Earth, but it was time to
pay her a visit. Valerie headed to the beautiful, playful building that housed
the Society of Imaginary Friends.

She pushed against the enormous
front doors, but they wouldn’t budge. Instead they glowed red, like she was
some kind of intruder. A short while later, Dulcea appeared, a little out of
breath.

“I didn’t know you were coming.
Sorry, these doors used to be open to everyone. But Rastelli wants all guests
escorted when they’re inside the Guild now,” Dulcea explained.

Kanti ran up to them, her face
relieved when she saw Valerie. “I saw Valerie’s picture appear on the intruder
alert. I came here to rescue her before she got doused in goo.”

“What are you talking about?”
Valerie asked.

“Unless someone shows up to
escort them within five minutes of their arrival, unexpected visitors are
sprayed with cannons of nasty-smelling goo. Obviously, it makes them leave… and
seek a shower,” Dulcea explained. “Another one of Rastelli’s ideas.”

“He’s so different now,” Kanti
said. “Something in him has gone missing, like his love of making people
happy.”

“Let’s talk in private,” Dulcea
said, pulling them into a little room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a long
table.

“I came to see if you had any
more news about what the Fractus are up to on Earth,” Valerie explained. “Have any
imaginary friends seen anything weird lately?”

Kanti and Dulcea exchanged a
glance, and then Kanti spoke up. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you after
everything you’ve been through, but things are going from bad to worse. There
are multiple incidents every day of Fractus appearing around the world. In
person, not as projections.”

“What are they doing?” Valerie
asked, afraid of the answer.

“Stuff that seems random.
They’ve stolen some technology, interrogated a bunch of people, and in a few
cases, they’ve kidnapped people who are important, like a senator and the Prime
Minister of Japan,” Dulcea explained.

“There’s no pattern to it,”
Kanti continued. “The people they target are usually rich and powerful, but
other than that, we don’t see the connection.”

“Maybe they’re searching for
something,” Valerie said, remembering how Logan was examining the contents of Thai’s
computer.

“The people the Fractus are
harassing don’t even know the Globe exists,” Dulcea said, bewildered.

“Whatever they’re after, they
have to be stopped,” Kanti said. “Aside from everything else, there are a lot
of terrified kids out there.”

“Wait—are you saying that the
people who are being targeted by the Fractus all have children with imaginary
friends?” Valerie asked.

“Those are the ones we hear
about. Other humans could be targeted, but we have no way of knowing,” Dulcea
explained.

Valerie sat down on the table,
chewing her lip. “A few instances every day of kids with imaginary friends
witnessing Fractus attacks. That can’t be an accident. It’s not like every
child on Earth has an imaginary friend.”

Kanti was nodding slowly. “Val’s
right. And these children of kids with powerful parents—who assigned them an
imaginary friend in the first place?”

Dulcea sat down with a thud.
“It’s decided by the Masters of our Guild. Of course, lots of children are
calling out for companionship, but we can’t answer every request.”

“What if the Masters are giving
priority to the requests of certain kids with rich or powerful parents?”
Valerie asked.

“But why?” Dulcea asked.

“It’s possible that the Masters
of this Guild are using the imaginary friends on the Globe as a spy network to
learn things from powerful humans,” Kanti suggested.

Dulcea’s face was pale. “Maybe not
all of the Masters of this Guild. Just one.”

“Rastelli,” Valerie said.

A fist banged angrily against
the door, and it burst open. As if saying his name had summoned him, Rastelli
barreled into the room.

“I’ve been looking all over for
this intruder,” he said, glaring at Valerie. Rastelli’s orange hair was always
messy, but today, it stood up in odd clumps, as if he’d been tearing at it with
his hands.

“She’s my guest,” Dulcea said
sharply.

“She’s not allowed in this Guild!”
Rastelli barked. “She attacked her own Guild’s Grand Master! She ought to be in
jail!”

Rastelli grabbed Valerie by her
arm and began propelling her down the hall. She yanked herself out of his
grasp.

“I’ll leave on my own,” Valerie
said, and her magic surged, ready if she needed to fight him off.

Rastelli blinked as if he was
coming out of a daze, not sure where he was. His tone changed from angry to
dreamy. “Yes, yes of course.”

He patted her on the head and
left.

Before Valerie could make sense
of the abrupt change, Kanti hissed, “Let’s get out of here.”