Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,92

an offensive way,” Tala admitted, “if you don’t count Carly Rae Jepsen.”

Zoe looked confused. “You…don’t like her?”

“What? No! I absolutely do! It’s just that I use her songs to, um…it’s not important. That is, it’s that I don’t have much experience, so I could use all the help you can give me.”

“Cool.” Zoe flexed her wrist, and the whip made slow, circular loops in the air. “How about this. I’m going to spell your name in the air. Your goal is to use your curse to stop me before I can finish. Sound fair?”

“All right.” Tala lifted her sticks up, watching the whip rise and fall. Without warning, the tail lashed through, leaving a thin line made of some immobile static electricity before her. Tala reached out with her agimat, but Zoe’s whip had already retreated out of her grasp.

“You have to be faster than this,” the other girl warned, attacking again and leaving a bright parallel stroke this time, forming a T in the air.

Tala tried to block her at every turn, but Zoe was too fast. Pretty soon, the words TA marked the empty space between them, missing only two more letters for the blitzsegner to claim the win.

She was doing it all wrong. Watching the whip wasn’t working, because by the time she thought to react, it was already too late. She focused on Zoe’s hands instead.

She waited out the next flicks spelling the L before she finally spotted Zoe’s tell; the girl flicked her hand just a centimeter higher than normal, and the whip struck through, adding another line. “Two more and it’s done,” the other girl warned.

“I know,” Tala muttered, still waiting. This time, when Zoe’s hand shifted one last time, Tala flung the curse at her. The tail end of the whip actually sparked like it had caught on something solid as the curse batted it away, leaving her name unfinished.

“Oh, well done!” Zoe exclaimed with a grin. “Now we’re talking.”

“I don’t understand.” Tala’s arm tingled, and she felt tired, like she’d just scaled a twenty-foot wall. “Magic doesn’t work around me even when I don’t concentrate, so why was it so difficult for me to stop yours?”

Zoe let the whip spiral around her like a gymnastics ribbon. “Because segen takes a little more conscious effort to undo, even for someone with an agimat. It’s all the difference between a sword cutting through air and one cutting through wood. Segen is basically a concentration of magic packed in solid form, so the density of its spell is mainly what you have to fight through.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when a peculiar howl echoed through the woods. The firebird hissed, the light around it disappearing abruptly.

Ken was on his feet, swearing quietly under his breath. Loki snatched up their staff and scanned the woods quickly, trying to peer farther into the gloom. A tawny fox came trotting up to them; an instant later West had taken its place, his fur cloak wrapped around him and ears twitching. “There are ice wolves out there,” he chattered.

“What?” Tala asked.

“Ice wolves.” Zoe coiled her whip, her blue eyes intent. “Lots of ice wolves.”

“They’re moving too quickly and making too much noise to be setting up an ambush,” Loki said quietly. “I don’t think they know we’re here.”

“I want you to stay inside the tent with His Majesty,” Zoe told Tala. “It’s camouflaged with enough leaves that they may not notice. Don’t make any sound, and don’t come out until we tell you to. Ken, move the horses closer to the trees.”

“The ice wolves will sniff them out either way,” the boy argued.

“Leave that to me.”

Loki and West immediately began shoveling dirt onto the campfire remains to stamp out the smoke.

“What are you going to do?” Alex whispered. The prince was half out of his tent, jaw tense. “Are we going to fight?”

“Even better,” Zoe said. “We’re going to hide. And if that doesn’t work, then we fight. If anything happens, I want you both to take the firebird, get on your horses, and keep riding east toward Lyonesse, as fast as you can.”

“We’re not leaving you behind!” Tala protested.

“We don’t have much choice. And as bad as it sounds, we’re a lot more expendable than either of you are.” Zoe flashed them a small, terse smile. “Don’t worry. Let us handle this.”

The inside of the tent smelled faintly of fresh grass and clean soil. Alex tugged her as far away from the tent’s opening as