~Prologue~

 

The little home in Staplehurst looked run-down and depressing from the outside, despite the fact that it had only been unoccupied for a few weeks. Eric Davis and Scott Madison stood next to the back door, preparing to go inside. Eric looked about warily, half-expecting a swarm of Visionists to descend upon the house.

It wasn’t a wholly unfounded fear. According to Loyalist intelligence, Valdez was quite eager to get his hands on Scott and had been sending out scouts looking for a chance to snap up the young wizard when he wasn’t under Reid’s thumb.

Yet Scott had been adamant about coming to Staplehurst. Dr. Awan had made it a point to corner him in the corridor the previous day with another dire warning concerning his family’s fate. He hadn’t wanted to listen to her, but she grabbed his shirt collar and forced him to pay attention.

“Use the dowsing, Scott!” she had stated emphatically. “Find something Tessa loved and bring it back to Briarwood. We will dowse to find her exact whereabouts."

Initially, he had been unconvinced. After all, neither he nor Eric had found anything with the dowsing rods so many weeks ago. What were the chances that anything different would happen this go around? However, Awan had been insistent, going on and on about how Scott owed it to his family’s survival to try it and that, every day he didn’t, could be one more day that Tessa was in the hands of the enemy. Could he live with that information gnawing at him?

On that bit of advice, Scott decided that it couldn’t hurt to try. He managed to coax Eric along, on the premise that he didn’t want to be alone. The two made their way to the Staplehurst home, saying little along the way.

Eric pushed the door that led to the kitchen. It swung open soundlessly. Scott hung back, suddenly wishing he hadn’t come. If he walked inside it would be admitting that Tessa was gone and might not be returning. He was no longer sure he could face the fact. He stepped away from the door and hung back.

"What are you waiting for? Are you coming inside?" Eric asked.

"In a minute," Scott replied. "I’m just thinking about things." He didn’t look directly at Eric, however, instead focusing on the home itself.

Eric shook his head and stepped over the threshold and out of Scott’s view. Scott continued to stare at the place that he and Tessa had considered home. He noted the peeling paint on the back porch and the flower garden that had since withered up and died due to freezing temperatures and lack of maintenance. Tessa would be pissed off about that. She had worked tirelessly on that garden and managed to grow one or two pathetic-looking roses, her horticultural abilities notwithstanding.

If things were different – if she was home where she belonged – it could have been a joke between them. Scott would tease her that she couldn’t keep a cactus alive and she would give him a dirty look; eventually the two of them would fall into each other’s arms, laughing. Then perhaps they would shed their clothing and they become a tangle of arms and legs, lost in a moment of intense passion. He could almost smell her hair and feel her breath against his cheek if he concentrated hard.

Oh, Tessa…

Sure, the news that Abigail had been found, unharmed, days earlier had pleased everyone. Scott gave Mr. Davis a thousand-dollar reward for his efforts (this bit of news made the front page of the Daily Telegram) and threw a huge party had been thrown in Abigail’s honor. The entire female contingency of Briarwood Academy had cooed over Abbey and admired her little upturned nose, long fingers and wee feet. Scott’s male classmates had clapped him on the back, congratulating him on a job well done (as far as Abbey was concerned) and even whispered furtive questions in his ear regarding sex.

What they had all seemingly forgotten, much to Scott’s consternation was that his family was not complete. Tessa was still missing.

But why? Why was Abbey home, and Tessa not?

Scott took a deep breath. His wife was out there somewhere, in the clutches of the most radical wizard of the age and a man who was at the very best, mentally unstable. He had to find her. He was doing her no favors whatsoever in imagining his worst fears. Scott looked to his ring and studied it intently.

His wedding ring put forth a faint luminescence, not unlike a glow-in-the-dark toy. Occasionally, the ring would flash intensely, causing Scott’s pulse to quicken and his heart to leap into his throat, but each time, the light would subside. Scott had come to dread the pulse of the ring. Each time it flashed, his mind was flooded with hundreds of "what if" questions…ones he did not want the answer to, especially if his hands were figuratively tied as far as helping her was concerned.

What was Tessa facing? He hoped that she was thinking fondly of him, if nothing else. Scott wondered if Simon was trying to protect her from the brunt of Valdez’s wrath. After all, if what Tessa had told Scott was the gospel truth, he had a bit of a thing for her and might well be doing his best to protect her.

Either that or he was trying to take advantage of her.

Scott shuddered at the thought of Tessa fighting against Simon, her eyes wide with fright, her fingers reaching out to scratch, trying to defend herself against a man who was much heavier than she was and probably physically stronger too. He tried not to envision Tessa’s body pinned roughly against a wall somewhere, her wrists bound and held above her head, tears streaming from eyes screwed tightly closed. He tried not to picture her mouth slack as she struggled to catch a breath as her captor repeatedly forced himself into her. He tried not to hear her groans of pain and the vision of her head turning to him, and her eyes suddenly opening, her lips forming the silent words, "Help me."

She’s been there for a long time, Scott thought sadly. Does she resent me? Does she wonder where I am and why I haven’t tried to come for her? Does she focus on my face when they wrestle her skirts aside and force her legs apart? Is she cursing my name when she cowers in dark corners, aching and bleeding…?

"STOP!" he yelled aloud, placing his hands over his ears. The visions were enough to make him want to throw up. He could feel the burning of bile in his throat and swallowed. He couldn’t think as he was. He would find her and rescue her. He was to be her protector and he refused to think about her rotting away in some godforsaken compound.

Whatever they’ve done to you…whatever he’s done to you, I will stand by you. I will comfort you, no matter what. Because I love you. I always will love you. You and no other.

"Scott?" Eric asked, poking his head out the back door. "Did you just shout something?"

"I didn’t say anything," Scott said sheepishly.

Eric shot him a look that clearly said, ‘yeah, right,’ but Scott didn’t expound on his answer Instead, he merely stepped to the door and walked into the kitchen. He didn’t want to tell Eric what he had been thinking, because he didn’t think he would fully understand where he was coming from. After all, nobody was holding Mallory against her will. Eric couldn’t possibly know what to say to make him feel better about his situation, and Scott was afraid that if he voiced his thoughts aloud he’d burst into tears. Then things would get even more uncomfortable.

“So we need something that’ll produce a strong aura?” Scott asked in an effort to fill the conversational void. He knew the answer of course, but Eric would probably feel like he was contributing if he could field the answer. Sure enough, his friend rose to the challenge:

"Dr. Awan said that the key to finding Tessa would be to dowse for her, just like we dowsed for things back at the beginning of term. We need to find something—an article of her clothing, a hairbrush, anything that Tessa loved or used a lot and carries her aura to take back to Briarwood." Eric ran a hand through his mop of sandy blond hair and looked around the room. "You know her better than me, obviously. What did she like? What could we use?"

Scott stopped to think. An article of Abbey’s clothing? No, it should be something of hers. Clothing? No. The item would need to be something special, but what?

“Wait,” he cried suddenly, “I have an idea!” With a lighter heart, he raced up the stairs, calling to Eric to accompany him.

“Here it is!” Scott exclaimed. He pulled Tessa’s suitcase out from under the bed. It was heavy. “If there’s anything in this house that’ll be a dowsing success, it would be in here. She had wanted to bring a photo of herself and her parents to the hospital with her. It’s the only picture of them she has; she values it over just about everything.”

Scott unzipped the suitcase, his mouth dry as if filled with sawdust. He lifted the cover and peered inside. He could hear his heartbeat, could almost feel the rush of adrenaline in his veins as he nervously surveyed the contents.

“Woah, she packs like my mother,” Eric commented. "How many pairs of underwear does a person need for a few days in the hospital?" he asked as he reached for a pair. Scott slapped his arm away.

“Get out of there, pervert!”

“Just trying to help you sort through,” Eric said with a blush.

"Sorry," Scott said. "I’ve got a lot on my mind."

As he perused the contents of the bag, his first thought was that Tessa had been lax in unpacking her hospital suitcase when she had come home from the hospital. Of course, the whole situation surrounding the baby’s birth had been somewhat strenuous, in hindsight for reasons far beyond medical complications. He pulled out a pair of slippers, a hairbrush, and Tessa’s robe. He brought the soft fabric to his nose. He could smell her on the clothes, faintly. The scent of her strawberry shampoo lingered along the collar.

"You’re calling me a pervert?" Eric asked.

"Why don’t you see if there’s anything in Abbey’s room that we could use to dowse for Tessa?" Scott said finally, wanting to be rid of Eric so that he could wallow in sadness alone for a moment or two. His friend seemed to get the hint and stood up.

"I hope we’re not here long. This place gives me the creeps," Eric said as he left the room. Scott sighed in relief. Eric, for all his attempts at comforting gestures and words, did not understand how he was feeling. Nobody seemed to.

Scott sighed and placed Tessa’s dressing gown on the floor to his immediate right. When he did so, he saw the photograph of Tessa and her parents. He took it from the bag and placed it in the pocket of his coat. As he started to close the lid of the suitcase, something caught his eye. In one of the hidden recesses of Tessa’s suitcase, caught in a small zippered compartment, was the corner of an envelope.

With interest, Scott tugged at the zipper and reached for the contents of the pouch. It was a letter, one written on heavy, no doubt expensive paper. The ivory stationary carried an old-fashioned red wax seal that had once held it together but was now broken in two, indicating that someone had read the letter. Folding the corners together so that the two sections of the seal came together, Scott scrutinized the emblem. The seal bore the image of three stars and a half moon. Embossed in the center was an ornamented letter “S”.

In that split second, he knew.

Tessa had run off with Simon Spellman.

For a second, he stared, pole axed, at the letter in his hand. Simon Spellman had sent a love letter to Tessa. It appeared as if Simon had delivered the letter to Tessa while she was in the hospital.

Don’t read this.. You don’t want to read it.

I have to.

If you do, everything you ever knew or thought to be the truth about Tessa could turn out to be a lie.

I have to know. I need to know if she loves him.

She’s told you she loves you and has proven it both physically and emotionally. Why can’t you trust her?

I-I don’t know, Scott thought.

Is it because so few others do?

"I DON’T KNOW!"

Despite his better judgment, Scott turned the letter over in his hand and studied the precise handwriting. His breath hitched in his throat as he scanned the contents:

 

 

 

 

   My Dearest Tessa,

 

   I’ve written this letter to you so many times. I can’t seem to find the right words to tell you what is in my heart. I know that I am most certainly going to pay the ultimate price for writing this letter to you, either by your husband’s hand, or by my Valdez’s, but darling I must. Your name is the first word upon my lips in the morning and your face, the last vision before I sleep...

 

No, Scott thought, this isn’t happening. Tessa couldn’t have known...she couldn’t have kept this hidden all this time...

 

Please know that your kindness towards me these past months has changed me as an individual completely and that I can, if nothing else, take some solace in the knowledge that perhaps my soul will not be damned for all eternity.

 

I must tell you that, for what it’s worth, Scott doesn’t live up to the ideal either. He’s immature, only a child, and you deserve better. I told you this on that fateful Valentine’s night, when I was able to show you, in one shining moment, how much you mean to me and how much I love you, and always will love you. Even as I put my pen to paper, it is my most fervent desire that I could prove myself worthy of your love...

 

Where in the hell does he get off saying something like that about me? He’s one to talk, Scott thought. He read on:

 

Rest assured that, if I am struck down, you’re name would be the one upon my lips as I exit this life. Getting to know you on the level I have has brought me immeasurable joy.

 

My dear woman, my life today is what it is because of you; for that I cannot thank you enough.

 

Getting to know her on the level he did? What level was that? Talking with her? Folding laundry together?

Fucking her in my bed?

 

With a love that will echo through the ages, I remain, your devoted friend,

   

 Simon

 

Scott sagged against the base of his bed. His arms and legs felt prickly, as if they had fallen asleep on him. His stomach felt like it contained stones.

It was all there, he reasoned, in the letter he held in his hand. The stiff stationary was rough against his fingertips, the neatly scripted, passionate words of love fervent on the page.

Scott allowed the letter to flutter to the floor. He closed his eyes and rested his head against a bedpost. For a long moment, he sat there, motionless. He didn’t notice when Eric peeked into the room from the open doorway. At first, he seemed oblivious to his friend’s sadness.

“I found this pair of earrings in the bathroom that look like they could be good for dowsing. She’s going to kick your ass though, if we lose them. I don’t know whether they’ll be enough. Dr. Awan was rather adamant about finding something that would carry a strong aura and—Scott! What’s the matter with you?” Eric asked, suddenly noticing that his friend was sitting on the floor with his head against the bed.

Scott opened his eyes and turned his pale face towards his friend. "I know where she is," he said in a hoarse whisper. "At least, I know who she’s with," he clarified.

Eric’s eyes widened. "Where?"

"She’s run off with Spellman. She doesn’t love me anymore."

Eric scratched his head and dropped to his knees. "No, dude. That’s not right. She wouldn’t ever leave you. That’s crazy."

"Not as crazy as you’d think," Scott said in a dead voice. He handed the letter to a surprised Eric, who lifted it close to his face to read it.

Scott’s voice was eerily calm as he reached forward and refastened the clasps on the suitcase. "I guess it’s always been Spellman. She’s been dreaming of him for God knows how long, has refused to tell me anything about the dreams until only recently, and she didn’t exactly tell me everything.”

Eric continued to read the letter, his lips moving as he silently took in the information. “This is bad. There has to be an explanation, though. I know we had this whole funny joke about how Simon Spellman was incredibly erotic, but—”

“IT WAS NEVER A FUNNY JOKE,” Scott shouted, “ESPECIALLY NOW THAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN TRUE!”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all true,” Scott said limply. “It answers one big question: why did she bother coming back here? They must have planned it that way, that she’d lay low for a couple of days and when she thought the coast was clear, she’d meet him here. The Guard just surprised them, is all.” His eyes darkened. “It was all so simple for them. They could Dreamfast together! She could communicate with him every day without my knowledge, if she wished to.”

“That’s ludicrous! That doesn’t explain why Spellman attacked that Guardsman and stole her clothes!”

"I don’t know what to make of that either," Scott admitted, "but maybe they knew that the Guardsmen were onto them."

Eric shook his head. "I know that I didn’t initially think that you marrying Tessa was a great idea, but I could see her love for you in her eyes. She belonged to you body and soul. I think that you’re misreading this whole thing."

“And if you found this letter in Mallory’s bag?” Scott asked, snatching the letter back.

"Well, I’d wonder why she was taken with Simon all of a sudden," Eric began, smiling.

"Will you quit it with the stupid jokes?" Scott spat. His friend’s expression darkened.

"I’m sorry. Just trying to play Devil’s advocate here, but fair enough. I guess I’d want some answers, too."

"It also explains the wards," Scott said, mentally winding his brain around what was happening. "Reid could never figure out why those protective barriers fell the night Abigail was kidnapped. Forester said that the Scarlet Guard conducted an investigation of this house and the area around it to check for magical residue from recently cast spells. There wasn’t a trace of magical interference from the outside! Someone demolished the magical wards around the house from the inside. The inside, Eric!" His eyes welled with tears of humiliation and betrayal. “Abigail couldn’t have done it. I didn’t do it. That leaves one person: Tessa.”

“She could have been under some sort of magical influence,” Eric pointed out. “I can’t for the life of me imagine that she’d do this willingly. Not after everything that you two have been through.”

“God, she was an incredible actress, wasn’t she?” Scott stood up and crossed the room, his footsteps heavy against the floor. “All that blubbering and bawling over a daughter that she didn’t even care for...and she’s probably laughing over all of this while she’s letting that fuck Spellman take her from behind!” Scott paused in his tirade and faced the wall, away from Eric. His wedding portrait hung on the wall before him, looking beautiful in its ornamented black frame, painstakingly repaired by the Edward McMurray Who Was Not. Tessa was smiling as she faced Scott, her eyes half-closed in anticipation of his kiss. Scott’s left hand rested on her expanding stomach. The remembrance of the day, for better and for worse, sent Scott into an even deeper anger.

"Don’t say that," Eric said. “You’re not thinking clearly about this. If that was the case, she’d probably—”

But his words fell on deaf ears, for the boy that had been his best friend since age nine suddenly reached forward, snatched the portrait from the wall and hurled it through the bedroom window. A shower of glass shards littered the floor.

“She fucked me over, damn it! She’s fucked me over, and I’m going to make her pay! I swear it, I’m going to see that she—”

Scott didn’t finish his sentence. While Eric placed an arm around his shoulders and tried to comfort him, he sobbed without sound, his body shaking violently and his tears of hurt and anger streaming down his cheeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~1~

Tessa in the Tower

 

 

“Well, Edward, it’s been days and Scott still hasn’t come for me,” Tessa Madison said in a conversational tone of voice. She looked across the room at her quiet cellmate, who said nothing.

“I miss him, you know. Of course you would know...wait, no you wouldn’t. You never did make it to our home in Staplehurst, did you?” Tessa shook her head and clucked her tongue. “More’s the pity. I suspect that Scott and I would have a much smoother life right now had it been you in our house and not Simon Spellman disguised as you.”

As Tessa uttered this pronouncement, Edward’s right arm fell completely away from his body and landed with a mushy thump against the stone floor. Tessa merely blinked as the hundreds of insects that had been resting on the discolored flesh scattered for a second or two, then returned to the dead body to nibble on the dead man’s guts.

“Y-yeah, so there goes some of you again,” Tessa said weakly. An incident very similar had taken place the day before, to Edward’s big toe. It had caused Tessa to lose what small amount of lunch she had managed to ingest. Several body parts later, however, she had become used to the occurrence.

Attempting to engage in witty, informative banter with corpses had never been something she’d been inclined to try, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Desperate for human interaction and lonesome enough to talk to anyone, alive or dead, she had taken to conversing with Edward McMurray’s corpse.

And Edward, for all his lost limbs and propensity to stink, was rather a good listener.

For what felt like the hundredth time in as many minutes, Tessa wondered why Scott hadn’t come for her. By now, he must know that I’m gone. I’m sure my “escape” from the Scarlet Guard has been on the front cover of every newspaper in the country!

Tessa was stiff, sore and thirsty. She pulled herself into a sitting position and rubbed a kink in her neck with a grimy hand. She coughed as she drew Scott’s coat around her shoulders. It was a wonder that she wasn’t ill. The Tower was so cold that she could see her breath before her in small, cloudy puffs.

The Tower was chilly at best during the day and nearly freezing at night. Tessa was exhausted from shivering. Scott’s heavy coat had provided adequate protection against the frigidity at first, but prolonged exposure to the cold was beginning to take its toll.

She had lost track of time, despite her best efforts. She had made rudimentary attempts to mark the passage of time by making scratches against the stone walls with a shard of broken glass she had retrieved from the smashed lamp. If her calculations were correct, she had been in the Tower eight and a half days.

Screaming and yelling for help had proven useless, and Tessa had ceased trying after the first day. It had become obvious that nobody was going to help her. The realization that she might have to spend a long time in the room made her shudder. She wished that she had had the presence of mind to bring her wand with her when she had gone back to Staplehurst, although she felt confident that Valdez had enchanted the cell doors to resist any magical spells. Warming charms she had attempted using rudimentary sleight of hand magic had proven useless.

Occasionally Visionists would bring her food and water but they wore masks and none of them spoke to her, preventing her from possibly recognizing their identities. They shoved plates of cold, tasteless food across the floor to her customary spot in the corner farthest away from the door. It was never enough to satiate her, and she had resorted to licking the mossy walls to quench her thirst.

Tessa found it odd that Simon hadn’t made an appearance in the Tower. She had expected that he would show up at every possible opportunity and belittle her mercilessly. Much to her surprise, this hadn’t happened.

As much as she abhorred admitting it, she almost wanted Simon to come up to the Tower and razz her, if for no other reason than to give her some semblance of normalcy. She recognized that he was a potential key to saving her daughter’s life. She had tried to Dreamfast with him a couple of times since the night of her incarceration, desperate to hear of Abigail’s well-being but nothing had come of it. Simon had placed a mental barrier around himself that Tessa couldn’t penetrate.

She knew that her behavior toward him more than warranted the silent treatment from him. She had been nothing short of bitchy with him. Simon could have ignored Abigail, or starved and abused her, but he had watched over her and cared for her as if she was his own daughter. For his efforts, she had punched him.

"He had it coming," Tessa muttered aloud. “He thinks he’s so great, what with his Dreamfasting ability and all. Someone has to put him in his place.” Since learning that she and Simon shared the gift of infiltrating people’s dreams while they slept, she had been especially careful about her sleeping schedule. Lately, however, she had searched him out in hopes of finding Abigail.

Why do you feel that that someone should be you? The way his face and eyes have looked recently, don’t you suspect that someone already has? Tessa couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d looked terrible the last time she had Dreamfasted with him; he had several bruises on his face and appeared to have lost weight.

If she was going to get out of her current situation alive, she was going to have to try to get along with Simon, whether she liked it or not. An image of him standing before her, smiling an insipid little smile and winking cheekily rose to her mind. If she could convince him to help her, would he expect payment? What type of payment?

Another image assailed her mind; she saw herself lying on a bed, her eyes squeezed closed, her back arched and her fingers clawing at bloodstained sheets. Simon was on top of her, pinning her arms down so that she couldn’t struggle against him, his eyes feral with want. She was completely naked; he was naked from the waist down. She saw her legs trembling as her dream-self prepared for his violation, and she fought back the urge to scream.

Scott, please come for me.

***

As Simon slowly shuffled to the altar where Valdez stood, peering intensely into the amber Orb, he felt exhausted, both emotionally and physically. The last nine days had been some of the worst in his life. It had taken every ounce of self-control, every shred of dignity not to run up to the Tower, throw open the door, take Tessa into his arms and comfort her when he had heard her screams.

He tried to placate himself with the knowledge that her current situation was her own damned fault. After all, he had offered her better accommodations and she refused them.

Despite the truth in the statement, he still felt guilty for placing her there. He should have forced her to share chambers with him! Orders were orders, however. He couldn’t afford to anger his boss. The repercussions of that would be terrible, not only for him but also for her.

Her…

Elizabeth Spellman was the only other woman in Simon’s life. Once a pillar of strength and paragon of kindness, she now lay chained to a bed in the dreaded D wing of St. Stephens, along with others who had sustained the most serious of conditions, both magical and not. Mrs. Spellman’s quarters rested beyond the normal hospital wings, where the incurably insane spent their days clutching at dolls and rocking back and forth, while harried, overworked hospital employees attempted to feed bowls of tasteless gruel.

Few people visited the D Wing voluntarily. The ward lay behind an adamantine door impervious to magic. The staff thought that a door that repelled magic would protect those contained within the ward, but they failed to recognize that, while the door itself warded off magic, any wizard could still cast spells in the individual rooms. This had proven to be a double-edged sword on more than one occasion. The drab wing smelled of urine and unwashed bodies. The olive green paint on the walls peeled, the light bulbs were dim at best and nothing in the decor indicated cheeriness.

Occasionally Simon visited his mother, disguised, of course, to be on the safe side. He always kept his visits brief. Sometimes he simply held her hand and spoke to her in gentle tones. Other times he would help her into a sitting position and lovingly comb her matted hair while she stared straight ahead and drooled. Always he would kiss her forehead, embrace her withering body and tell her that he loved her; that he was sorry for what he had done. “It’s all my fault, mom. If only I h-had b-been stronger... If only I h-had been more c-clever...”

STOP IT! YOU’RE GOING TO DRIVE YOURSELF INSANE AND THAT DOES HER NO GOOD!

“Spellman?” Valdez’s cutting voice mercifully jarred Simon from his torturous thoughts. His head snapped up and he looked into his boss’s calculating eyes.

“Boss?”

“What do you want?” asked Valdez as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve stood before me now for five minutes with a daft expression on your face. Not that that’s a stretch for you, of course.” Around him, members of the Coalition snickered.

Simon straightened up and put what he hoped was a convincing expression on his face. “Permission s-sir, to remove Tessa from the Tower and p-place her in my personal chambers,” he implored.

“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” asked Valdez, a twisted smile spreading across his waxy, red face.

“She’s been up there f-for over nine d-days and there is s-still no word from Madison. I could break her. She could be of use to us.”

Valdez pondered the idea, then smiled enigmatically and nodded. “If you can break her, she could be more useful than just a prisoner, and it wouldn’t hurt to have an intelligent person around here….”

Simon ignored Valdez’s insult. “Look at it this way: Scott’ll p-probably think that she’s b-being tortured, quite p-probably at my hands. You saw what he was like in that c-clearing all those months ago, right? He wanted to beat me to death! Do you think he’s going to let her remain here for long, if he thinks that I’m going to attack her?”

“Tessa Madison will be tremendously difficult to break. She’s a stubborn witch, and strong psychologically. I also saw the way you looked at her when you brought her here. You lust after her, Spellman; I can smell it on you. Can you assure me total control over her? Love makes men soft and you’ve gone about as soft as a man can go.” Valdez paused and glared at Simon. “If not for your Dreamfasting ability…”

Simon rubbed his hands together, warming to his topic. “Every day she remains here is one more day I could remove every shred of dignity that she has. Scott’s not going to put up with that.”

Valdez steepled his fingers beneath his chin, blinked slowly, and then straightened up. “Fine, Simon. Go to the Tower and escort Tessa to your chambers. See that she doesn’t escape. Should she find her way out of the compound, I’ll see to it that you pay dearly.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“You had best not. Remember, it’s not just your life that hangs in the balance.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

 

 

  

 

~2~

The Open and Shut Case of Corinna Mason

 

 

Dr. Reid had just taken a sip of his evening tea when there was a knock at his chamber door.

“Come on in,” he said in a loud voice.

The door opened. Camille Violette stood on the other side, a tired expression on her face. “A moment of your time, Franklin?” she asked. “It’s regarding Scott. Unless you’re busy, of course, I can always come back later.”

Reid smiled. “I’m never too busy to spend a moment talking with you, Camille,” he said with a wink. “Do come in.” He picked up his wand and levitated a comfortable chair that resided in one corner to a space in front of his desk. Violette sat down.

“Can I get you some tea?” he asked her, brandishing his wand and conjuring a steaming teapot and cup in mid-air.

“Yes, thank you. Just a hint of lemon, please.”

The teapot tilted and poured its contents into the waiting teacup. A lemon slice appeared from nowhere and hovered precariously over the cup before squeezing itself into the tea. Reid saw to it that the teacup slowly made its way to Violette, who took it with a smile. She blew on the liquid to cool it and then took a sip.

“Wonderful taste, as always. Why I couldn’t be gifted with some magical abilities, I’ll never know. Bad genetics, I suppose.” She placed the cup on a coaster and regarded her boss with renewed seriousness. “I suppose you’re already aware of Scott’s discovery this afternoon?”

Dr. Reid sighed. “Alas, I am. I can’t say that I am fully shocked, in some ways. All the signs pointed to it, and don’t give me that look,” he admonished, waggling a finger at Violette, who looked ready to speak a derogatory remark about her colleague. “I know what you think of Marziya Awan!”

“Well, in all honesty, who would have thought she would have gotten it right?” sighed Violette. “To tell you the truth, I wish she had been far off the mark on this on this one.”

“The thing that strikes me as odd about the whole situation is that she’s not gloating about this, not one iota,” Reid admitted. “She thrives on being right about these things and now that she’s nailed it on the head, she’s retreated to her quarters and refuses to talk to anyone about it.”

“Is there any way that Marziya could have been incorrect?” asked Violette. “I took the time to go through Tessa’s student records here at school and the academy she ended up graduating from. She was clever, yes, but not a shrew.” She blew on her tea to cool it, then took a large swallow. “Except for some minor teenaged-rebellion sorts of scuffles, she wasn’t a troublemaker, either. I can’t imagine that, even if she were in love with Simon Spellman, she’d willingly abandon her own child. She comes from good parentage. I just can’t see Tessa up and leaving like this. She’s lost too much against the Coalition to suddenly join it now!”

“Everything fits, unfortunately,” Reid said with a sigh. “Trust me, I remember Marziya’s exact words to me: ‘Betrayal is the watchword. There is disloyalty on the horizon. It will lead to a great sadness.’ Face it, Camille, Tessa Madison betrayed us all.” He changed the subject slightly. “How is Scott faring?”

“As well as can be expected,” answered Violette. “He’s not saying a whole lot to anyone about the situation. He spends most of his free time moping in his room or with his closest friends. It’s my understanding that Coach Gordon offered him back his spot as head quarterback. Louis LeBlanc, the current quarterback, begged him to take it. Scott would have none of it, which really is a shame because LeBlanc is to football what oil is to water.”

“Scott’s a grown man with a grown man’s burden,” Reid said, biting into an oatmeal cookie. “He is putting his childish things aside and trying to embrace the man he needs to be to take care of that little girl. I daresay football is the last thing on his mind right now.”

“Too true,” Violette agreed. “He told me he doesn’t want to look for her Tessa any longer, however, and this is a grave concern. Tessa knows too much about the Loyalists and the Scarlet Guard, which could be of great use to the Visionary Coalition. Not to mention that I don’t think Scott can just turn his feelings for Tessa on and off like a faucet.”

“I know, Camille, I know. It’s just a matter of time before there’s an all-out war between the Coalition and the Loyalists.” He took another bite of his cookie and looked out the window to the football field below. The stadium was completely empty and dark. “I had rather hoped that Scott’s life would be peaceful, given everything he’s gone through in the last...well, since he was six, but I suppose, though, given what’s going on, there’s no choice.” Reid stood up and turned to the bookcase behind his desk. He scoped the shelves for a few seconds before settling on a book entitled, Spells for the Effective Guardsman. He pulled it from the shelves and dropped it on his desk, where it landed with a large thump.

“You’re not serious,” Violette said, her eyes widening.

“I’ve never been more serious,” Reid said, opening the book. Where pages should have been was a hollowed out space, and in the space rested a wand – not dusty from years of neglect, but polished and new-looking. He picked it up and it quivered with magic.

“This was Marshall Madison’s wand. It belongs to Scott now. It is time to train him in the art of magical defense.”

Violette paled. “But Scott hasn’t shown any real aptitude for magic since the night he brought down Valdez when he was six! He passed the sophomore magical aptitude test, but only by three points! His talent lies on the football field, not in defensive magical spells!”

“Shhh, stop!” Dr. Reid’s voice steeled as he stared hard at his friend and co-worker. “I know that, as do you, but the Loyalists look to Scott as a hero! He’s their proverbial poster-child! Do you know what it would do to the Movement if people found out how he really defeated Raphael Valdez all those years ago?”

Violette stared at her hands. “It might not be as bad a thing as you think— if people knew...if they understood what happened that night. That’s something I can’t grasp about the Loyalists! They say they stand for solidarity between the magicals and the non-magicals, but when they have a case such as Scott, where it can be proven once and for all that magic isn’t everything...”

Reid cut her off. “I know that, and so do you! The witches wouldn’t be around without the non-magicals, but not everyone subscribes that that! Even some of most loyal of Loyalists believe that there’s inferiority amongst those who don’t practice magic, even though you’ll never see them outright discriminate against them. For those Loyalists, life’s great until they have to make a choice between what they believe and what people are going to think about them. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is...” Dr. Reid trailed off, then nodded his head. “Someday, everyone will regard each other as equals. Until then.... Scott is Marshall and Amber’s son. There’s magic in him,” he insisted. “Roger can train him.”

“Roger’ll have none of it. He’s lost so much in the name of the Loyalist Movement! He’s tried to go on with his life, but you know he’s not having a lot of luck; he won’t want the reminder of what happened. This is going to open a lot of old wounds for him. Who knows what could happen? The pressure could be too much, what with the loss of Marshall, Amber and his unborn niece.”

“Not to mention Corinna, I know.” The room grew quiet; Reid clasped his hands together and frowned. Twenty years after the fact and still, the events of April 24, 1984 burned painfully in his mind:

Corinna Mason had been Roger Blake’s girlfriend and, along with him, a trainee for the Scarlet Guard. Gifted magically in the areas of camouflage, surveillance and medicine, she was first in her class academically, with Roger positioned number two in the Scarlet Guard Class of 1984. With the probability of marriage on the horizon and more than a dozen job offers despite still being an undergrad, Corinna had everything going for her.

The final training session of the year for the cadets had taken place during a rainy and cold weekend at Fort Echelon, more than one hundred miles away from their home base in Covington. Tired and smelly from a grueling forty-hour simulated magical battle in which they had been given only sporadic rest breaks, the bus carrying she and the rest of the trainees had pulled into Covington in the early evening hours of April 24. She gave her boyfriend a hug and kiss, then got into her car, presumably heading for home.

While driving away from the session, Corinna had lost control of her car. It hit a guardrail, did a three-sixty and plummeted more than fifty feet into the Cerro Gordo River. While considered at first that she had simply fallen asleep at the wheel, exhausted from her exercise, civilian investigators determined that someone had tampered with the car’s breaks. Further study by members of the Department of Magical Defense led to the discovery of magical residue inside the vehicle that had caused the car’s locks to malfunction, giving Corinna no chance to escape the vehicle....

 

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