The Schism (The Broken Prism Book 4) Read online

  Zane and Tess made faces at that.

  “I hope they figure it out soon,” Tess frowned. “I hate thinking of monsters popping up all over the grounds while we’re walking around.” She glanced at castle as though trying to see through it to the other side where the opening was.

  “Let’s stop talking about it for a bit—I just want to enjoy some free time without worrying about whether I’ll be sucked into a fight to the death anytime soon,” Hayden grimaced.

  Zane pointed at Bonk, who had gotten sidetracked by a squirrel (a recurring problem of his) and had been hit with some magic of Cinder’s that caused him to burst into blue and purple flames. Bonk was flying around like a weird little comet trying to extinguish himself.

  “You’d better hope that there are no squirrels around if you’re ever attacked by horrible schism-monsters,” Zane joked, “or Bonk will totally leave you to die.”

  A few people nearby laughed as Bonk finally defeated the flames, only to tumble to the ground to finish eating his squirrel, turning his back to Cinder again and presenting the same target.

  Hayden could only sigh and agree.

  11

  Memories of a Friend

  It took weeks for the Masters to find a way to seal the opening of the schism, and by the summer holiday it had broken open once again. The Masters looked to be on the edge of exhaustion from all of the added effort of killing whatever monsters came through from the other side, and they had gotten desperate enough to start pairing themselves with mastery-level students to watch the aperture so that they could get more downtime in between. Hayden had found himself paired with almost all of the Masters at some point, and four times he had to help battle the creatures that crossed over.

  The Council of Mages was visiting weekly now, with different members trying to help shore up the magic around the opening with little success. Hayden saw Magdalene Trout a few times and had to remember not to greet her with too much warmth, lest her colleagues deduce that she was the one helping him over the winter.

  He felt so bad for his teachers that he offered to stay at school over the summer break to help out, but Asher waved him down and told him to enjoy his time off and visit his estate. Since Hayden had been hoping to do just that, he reluctantly left the Masters to their work and went to stay with Zane’s family for the first few weeks of the summer holiday.

  The visit to the Frost estate was planned for the last week before fall term, and it became a much larger endeavor than Hayden had initially imagined. He originally invited Zane and Tess with him to see the place, but Tess’s dad wouldn’t let her go unless he was invited to chaperone. Asher offered to transport them all if he could tag along, saying he wanted to check the place for any magic that the Council may have missed and see if the house looked the same as he remembered it. Then Fia Valay wanted to meet him there to take a physical inventory of some of his assets, which Hayden reluctantly agreed to, not wanting to be drawn into accounting ledgers during his time off. Weirdest of all, Oliver Trout wrote to him at Zane’s house to ask if he could come along as well, citing the need to familiarize himself with the other Great Houses as part of his training to someday take over as head of the Trout family.

  It felt really odd to see such a diverse group of people during the summer holiday, a sentiment that Zane echoed when Master Asher arrived on his doorstep wearing casual slacks and a t-shirt, looking even younger than usual. Florette ran to answer the door while Hayden and her brother were still in the living room, and by the time they arrived she was saying, “You’re really a teacher at Mizzenwald?”

  Asher nodded cheerfully, looking a little more rested than the last time Hayden had seen him, which gave him some hope that maybe they had gotten the schism closed again.

  “I teach Prisms,” he pointed to the circlet on his head, which was already equipped with a violet-tinted crystal prism that was currently pointed straight up at the sky.

  “Hayden told us about you,” she rattled off breathlessly, “but he didn’t say you were cute.”

  Zane looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die from embarrassment on his sister’s behalf, but Asher merely laughed and said, “Well that’s reassuring—I would feel more awkward if he had.”

  Zane shoved his sister unceremoniously out of the way and said, “Go back in the house, Flory.” She stuck her tongue out at him and stomped away dramatically. “Sorry about her,” he added to Master Asher, still obviously flustered.

  “What for? She seems like a nice young lady,” he shrugged. “Great taste in men. Are you two ready to go?”

  “Um, yes, but I told Tess we’d pick her up…and her dad wants to go too because he’s still a little iffy about me…” Hayden said awkwardly.

  The Master snorted in amusement.

  “I had no idea I’d be shuttling people all around Junir today.” He extended his hand for Hayden and Zane to take hold. “We’d better get moving then. Where does she live?”

  Hayden considered apologizing for volunteering the man’s services without asking first, but Asher didn’t really seem upset about it so he let the matter drop and told him where to find Tess. The Prism Master activated his Mastery Charm with his free hand, and between one blink and the next they changed locations.

  “It always feels weird to me that I can’t feel myself moving.” Zane blinked a few times to orient himself. “It’s a lot different than coming in and out of the challenge arenas—there you have time to get used to the change because everything seems like it’s melting and fading.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Hayden before now that Zane probably hadn’t traveled a lot by proper translocation before, since he had so much experience with it. Now that he thought about it, he supposed that the only occasions that Zane would be transported by another mage were when they were sending students home for the summer and winter holidays.

  “Trust me, if you get a mage who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’ll definitely feel the movement,” Asher assured him with a grimace at some private memory. Hayden, recalling how things had gone wrong during their final challenge arena in his first year, could remember the lurching sensation and the urge to vomit all too well.

  Tess and her father lived in the country near a large wooded area that was probably excellent for hunting, and the likely source for all of their firewood during winter. The house itself was quite small, probably no more than a few rooms, but despite the faded paint on the outside, it looked like it had been kept up very well. They knocked on the door, and it was Tess who answered.

  “Hi Hayden, Zane…Master Asher,” she greeted them each in turn, while the large, imposing figure of her father appeared behind her. “Good timing, we just finished getting ready.”

  Hayden returned her greeting and offered a more formal, slightly wary one to her father. The man seemed to be in a good mood today, because he grunted acknowledgement and didn’t look like he was fantasizing about Hayden’s head on a pike for a change.

  Everyone turned to Master Asher, who said, “What are you all looking at me for? Zane’s the one with the chalk.”

  Zane looked astonished.

  “Sir?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I didn’t know I’d be moving so many people today—the more you translocate, the more difficult it is, you see,” he explained to Tess’s father. “I would have brought more prisms with me if I had known to plan ahead.”

  “You have three of them on you,” Tess’s father pointed out, looking like he was rapidly losing confidence in their plan.

  “Yes, but given that we’re heading to the place that my former best friend used as a base of operations for his reign of terror, it seems prudent to save my weapons in case I need to disable magic or kill anything,” he answered easily.

  A very heavy pause followed his words, eventually broken by Zane who asked, “So what exactly do you want me to do? I’m not qualified to translocate anyone yet with conjury chalk…”

  “No, but I am,” Asher assured him. “You
’ll just be much better at drawing the configuration than I am—I don’t have the ability to draw with perfect symmetry.”

  Zane drew a piece of bright blue chalk and said, “It’s the only mastery-level stick I have right now, and I only got it because Reede has started teaching the level-five class about advanced displacement.”

  Hayden had no idea what advanced displacement was, but Asher seemed to understand well enough because he simply nodded and said, “That should work. Give me a four-foot circle, triple-braided, three-four-two-and zero, inscribed in a mirrored rhombus with a perimeter containment circle.”

  He rattled it off so fast that Hayden barely understood the words that came out of his mouth, let alone what they meant, but it must have made perfect sense to Zane because he started drawing in the grass immediately. Hayden gained a newfound respect for his friend as he watched the configuration take shape in less than a minute, perfectly symmetrical without any visible effort on Zane’s part. Hayden vaguely noted that the list of numbers Asher had rattled off must have referred to the number of crosshatches on each side, because the bottom of the interior circle had three of them, the left side had four, the top had two and the right side had none.

  “How did you know which side to put each crosshatch on?” he asked his friend with interest. Tess’s father was giving Zane an appreciative look that annoyed Hayden, who hadn’t really had a chance to impress the man yet with magic.

  “You always start with the bottom and move clockwise when giving someone orientation,” he explained, tucking the remnant of chalk back into his belt. “Does that look right?” he asked Master Asher.

  “I think so, but it’s been a while since I’ve had to travel this way before, so who can say?”

  Not at all relieved, Hayden asked, “What happens if it’s not the right configuration?”

  Asher gave him a wry smile and said, “We’ll either end up in the wrong place or die a horrible death. Come on now, everyone inside.”

  The others laughed as though they thought the Master was joking, but Hayden knew the man well enough to understand that he was probably being dead serious right now, despite his cheery disposition. He decided not to cure the others of their ignorance, and tried not to look worried as they stepped into the centermost circle and Asher grabbed his Mastery Charm again.

  Hayden closed his eyes, on the assumption that it would be better to die a horrible death as long as he couldn’t see it coming, but when the others began admiring the estate he opened his eyes in relief. Asher was grinning at him, obviously aware of his nerves, and with a quick wink he led the way up the cobblestone carriage path towards the front gates.

  “Wow, are you sure we’re at the right house?” Zane elbowed Hayden as they walked, tilting his head back to take in the entire view. “This place is enormous.”

  “Since Oliver and Fia Valay are waiting at the gates, I’d say so,” Hayden grinned, approaching their other guests at a stroll. The Fia had been planning to ride out in a carriage, which was probably parked in the garage right now—the gates were already open, his guests were simply standing outside of them out of politeness—and Oliver had obviously learned to translocate himself sometime during the last year because Hayden couldn’t see a horse.

  The others allowed Hayden to pass through the gates first as the owner of the property. Drawing on his learning from his time at the Trout estate, he turned to his guests and said, “Welcome to my home,” gesturing with one arm to invite them in. Oliver looked like he was suppressing a smirk.

  Hayden was glad to see that the groundskeepers Valay had hired were being put to good use, because the lawns were neatly mown and the shrubs were all manicured. It even looked like the stone fountains had been scrubbed since he’d last seen the place, and the sounds of trickling water followed them as they approached the main doors to the house.

  “Your lawn is bigger than half of my hometown,” Zane observed with interest. “Also, compliments to the yard crew.”

  Tess was staring all around in silence as they walked inside, and since her expression was neutral it was hard to tell what she thought of the place. Hayden hoped she liked it, because someday he could potentially be asking her to live here with him…

  He pushed that thought aside, turning to Master Asher instead, who was looking around the foyer as though seeing something else entirely. Hayden suspected he was seeing all the things that weren’t there—the portraits that used to line the walls, other objects that were probably in the room, the way things were when the Frost house was in its hey-day.

  “Someone’s been in to dust since I last came here,” Hayden broke the silence at last, stepping further into the foyer and looking off into the two hallways that extended from either side, glancing up the staircase in front of him to see if anything drew his eye.

  “I’ve put the house under basic maintenance, per your instructions,” Fia Valay explained, looking around with an appraiser’s eye, like he was mentally assessing the value of every square inch of the place. “Right now that includes structural maintenance and repairs, basic cleaning, and upkeep of the grounds. When you choose to stay here—perhaps during the upcoming winter—it would be necessary to add a full-time staff.”

  Hayden nodded silently, though the thought of a dozen or so people being brought on site just to cater to one person’s needs seemed absolutely ridiculous. Maybe he’d invite Zane’s entire family to spend the winter with him just to make the place seem fuller—after all, he owed them for giving him a place to stay and food to eat for the last four years.

  “So, give us the grand tour!” Zane said excitedly. “Or are we just going to stand out here all day and admire the bare spots on the wall?”

  Embarrassed, Hayden said, “I can show you what I remember, but it’s not like I’m really familiar with the place, so…”

  “I’ll be the tour guide then,” Master Asher interjected, face still unusually solemn. “I spent the better part of my teenage years here, so unless Aleric added an entire new wing during his dark days, I suspect nothing much has changed.”

  And with that they were off. They turned down the western hallway and walked along the wide corridor along the thick, white carpet banner. Hayden was surprised by how quiet and polite Oliver was being, but supposed he really was trying to step up into his mother’s shoes someday and simply considered this a part of his educational checklist. Asher gestured to the walls, which, unlike the foyer, still contained most of their hangings.

  “This hallway connects to the main part of the house, and since most guests have to pass through it at some point, it’s where most of the Frosts’ accolades are displayed. You see, there’s a writ of merit to your grandfather for donating much needed medicines to Osglen after a nasty hurricane twenty years ago,” he pointed to a long scroll on the wall that had been inked and stamped with a lot of fancy insignias. “That next one is to Herewald Frost for becoming the youngest ever Chief Mage on the Council.”

  “What’s that awesome-looking crown for?” Zane pointed to a crown that looked like it was made entirely of diamond. The light streaming in from the grounds scattered colored bands all around it, like an oddly-shaped prism. It was rimmed in thin bands of onyx and had a colored ‘M’ etched into the center of it above the forehead. Hayden could tell it must be very important to be so prominently displayed on a pedestal at the end of the hallway, just before the next room.

  “That’s the extremely-rare, highly-coveted Crown of Mastery,” Asher explained, admiring it briefly. “It was given to Hayden’s great aunt for demonstrating total mastery of all five of the major arcana—quite a feat,” he continued. “There are probably only a handful of these on the entire continent.”

  Fia Valay stopped to examine it more fully, taking care not to give offense by touching it, while the rest of them continued on to the next room. Hayden remembered the formal dining room from his last visit, with the table large enough to seat forty and the three chandeliers dangling high above. Even Tess rais
ed her eyebrows in amazement at how large the room was.

  “Tell me the family didn’t eat dinner here every night by themselves,” her father said incredulously, like he couldn’t imagine such wanton extravagance.

  “This was only really used for parties or business meetings. Normally the family ate in the secondary dining room, which can only comfortably seat ten,” Asher explained. “One time Aleric and I thought to play a joke on his father, and we moved this monstrosity of a table onto the roof, along with all the chairs. It took a considerable amount of time and magic to pull off, and we thought we were terribly clever, until his father came home with a large delegation including most of his business partners from around the Nine Lands—apparently they were supposed to close a major business deal that night and we had no idea.” Asher grimaced at the memory. “The whole lot of them walked into this empty room, and I swear the old man didn’t even blink at the sight of all the furniture gone. He asked us where everything was, and then calmly announced that they would be dining on the roof that night to enjoy the spectacular view and nice weather—thank the heavens it wasn’t raining that night. He nearly flayed us alive later—privately, of course—but he did get his deal to go through, and for a short time afterwards rooftop dining became trendy among the elite families.”

  They shared a moment of stunned silence as their imaginations ran with that. Asher walked a few more paces and then gave the carpet a sad smile.

  “About here is where I accidentally vomited on the carpet after sampling his Aleric’s father’s whiskey…” he frowned. “You can still tell that they cut that patch out and replaced it. Aleric took the blame for it, and the next time I saw him, half his face was swollen and black-and-blue. He would never say that his father had beaten him for it, but I always knew the truth.” He paused for a heavy moment. “He was a good friend.”

  Even Tess’s father looked uncomfortable now, which was saying something, as he hated the Dark Prism more than most for robbing him of his wife.