Sarah Durst - Conjured

“Is that what you see?” the Storyteller asks .

He shakes his head and smiles. “I see beauty, wonder, and magic. I see the best of us. She is the ‘something beautiful’ we made together.”

The Storyteller smiles too, showing her crooked, stained teeth. “She could be. I’ll sew her a new dress, silk maybe. And I will give her glass eyes. Marbles or sea glass. I think perhaps they’ll be green. She’d look pretty with green eyes.”

The threads have snapped. I open my mouth. It widens freely. Carefully, I curve my lips, threads dangling, into a smile. “Thank you,” I say .

I went calmly with Malcolm when he came to claim me. I brought the monkey with me.

Malcolm led me back to the courtroom, which was again filled with the same people. Zach, though, wasn’t there, I noticed immediately, nor was Aunt Nicki. But Aidan, Victoria, and Topher were. And of course the Magician.

Malcolm led me to a table across the aisle from the Magician. He squeezed my shoulder. And then he left the courtroom. Gone, just like that. He left me alone. I never thought he would do that, and I suddenly felt fear squeeze my insides, my human stomach and lungs. I wanted to call out after him, but I didn’t. Half the eyes in the courtroom were on the Magician; the other half were on me.

And suddenly I realized I’d lied to myself. I wasn’t ready to die.

The judge banged his gavel. He listed the crimes—illegal use of magic across worlds, false identification, performing with an illegal license, and myriad other infractions. Then he paused and said, “Murder in the first degree.” And he began to list the names.

The list went on and on.

With each name, I remembered a face or a moment—all the talking that I had done had jogged loose the pictures in my head. I closed my eyes and let the images come, all the photos that I had identified in the tablet and Lou had then pinned to the bulletin board, all the boxes that had hung in the wagon, all the magic that swirled inside me.

The judge continued, and, caught in the memory of faces, I didn’t hear his words.

But I heard the intake of breath, the sudden stillness that spread over the courtroom, as the jury leader spoke the verdict. “We find the defendant guilty as charged.”

As one, the audience exhaled.

Guilty as charged.

The words echoed around the chamber.

I was led by a bailiff to a side room and instructed to wait. The court was in recess. I sat on a bench in a dull gray room and didn’t move, didn’t speak, and didn’t think. When it was time for sentencing, the bailiff led me back to the courtroom. Everyone had reassembled. I felt the Magician’s eyes on me. I didn’t look at him. Instead, I looked again for Zach. I didn’t see him or Malcolm or Aunt Nicki or Topher …

In the crowded courtroom, I felt alone.

The judge banged his gavel. “Sentencing is as follows: life imprisonment with no possibility of parole, this location with no possibility of extradition.”

The courtroom erupted in shouting. I heard shouts for the Magician’s death, loud anger. Several jumped to their feet. The bailiffs rushed forward.

The judge banged his gavel harder. All around the courtroom, the bailiffs pushed people back into their seats. Slowly, the courtroom stilled.

“His belongings will be destroyed, including the doll known as Eve, who was created through his deeds. All records from this case will be sealed to prevent these crimes from ever being repeated. This court is adjourned.”

The gavel banged again.

And the words sank in.

The Magician would be imprisoned.

I would be destroyed.

As the courtroom erupted again in shouting, I wanted to fly away as fast as I could … or transform into a knot in the wood and hide … or change into a beetle and scurry away. I’d only have one chance—

Electricity shot in an upward lightning strike toward the fluorescent lights. It hit three, and they exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. All the other lights flickered off, and people screamed.

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.