A Hidden Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,74
not what she wanted,” Moira said softly, following his gaze. “Give her time. Yesterday helped, but she has some steps to travel yet.”
“She’s wasting a prodigious talent.”
“No, my dear. She’s learning to live with it. Some of us move to acceptance more slowly than others.”
He glanced at her sharply. Aunt Moira was fond of making her point in roundabout ways. She had never entirely approved of his isolated life. “Some things are not meant to be accepted.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really now. And would that be a tolerable answer from Elorie?”
That was entirely different. He’d lost a brother because his magic wasn’t strong enough. Elorie was denying the full potential of her magic.
He felt the black mood creeping in. It really was time to leave this place and go home.
A small hand slid into his. Aervyn. The black mood backed off, just a little. “I wrote a spell. Will you come watch while I set it off? Ginia says I need supervision.”
Since Aervyn hadn’t been able to string together three lines of functional code so far, Marcus doubted supervision was required. But for some reason, it wasn’t in him to resist the tugs of the small boy who looked so much like Evan.
He sat down and glanced briefly at Aervyn’s code. Well, hallelujah. Five lines of a login spell, with only one small glitch in line four. The child might actually get into Realm this time. “Go ahead, set it off.”
Aervyn focused and clicked on his mouse. Then everything went black.
Marcus felt a strange sucking sensation and a moment of dizziness. “Who goes there?” said an oddly familiar voice. He opened his eyes and saw the head guard of his Realm mountain keep, still wearing his bunny slippers. Those had been unusually resistant to any and all reversing spells.
“What manner of infiltrator are you?”
Marcus realized he was lying on his back contemplating bunny-slipper spells while an armed man pointed a sword at his neck.
What in the heavens was he doing inside Realm? And evidently not in costume.
The guard suddenly toppled over and curled up, snoring. “We can do real magic here,” Ginia said, dusting off her hands. “At least I can. I hit him with a sleep spell. So, how come we’re in Realm?” She seemed very unconcerned.
“I don’t think we’re the only ones,” Marcus said. “Aervyn activated a login spell right before I got dumped here.”
Ginia’s eyes opened wide. “Aervyn got spellcode to work?”
Marcus frowned. “It appears that way. And I guess this is what you get when someone with his level of power manages to pull off five decent lines of code.” Although clearly that glitch in line four had been rather more serious than he’d realized.
“So, where is he?” Ginia looked around, a lot more worry on her face.
Marcus opened his mouth to yell for Aervyn, and then closed it again, realizing that was a waste of air. If real magics had come with them, then he and the witchling were both mindreaders. He cast out with his mind. Aervyn. Where are you?
The reply was strong and happy. I’m in a castle with a princess. She’s feeding me bread and honey. Am I asleep?
Don’t think so, my boy. I think you pulled us all into the game.
Wow, are we like superheroes now? Awesome!
Hardly awesome, Marcus thought. But the first step was to gather the troops. Can you port to where I am? Ask the princess if you can have the bread to bring.
Moments later, Aervyn thunked into place beside him, carrying a good-sized bag with several loaves of bread and a pot of honey. Clearly the princess was generous.
“Are we gonna rescue the princess?” Aervyn asked, his mouth still full of bread.
“Ha,” Ginia said. “I’ve met her. She doesn’t need to be rescued.”
The princess in question was one of Marcus’s stealth warrior creations. She had strong magic, excellent fighting skills, and a blessed lack of the almost universal female need to talk all the time. His perfect woman. If she’d caused Warrior Girl some consternation, all the better.
Aervyn swallowed the last of his food. “Should we go help Sophie? She’s fighting pretty good, but there are two more big guys coming.”
Marcus spun around in disgust. This was why amateurs shouldn’t be spellcoding. “Which way?”
They all ran down the trail after Aervyn. Sophie wasn’t far away, but one of the fighters attacking her had laid down a silencing spell, presumably so no one would come running to her aid.
Marcus took a fraction of a second to appreciate