The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

We were emerging from the forest and entering the plain. The rocky hill and palace rose out ahead of us, backlit by the twin moons. The serenity was as much a shock to my system as the chaos had been only minutes before. To fill the silence, I asked, “Are you going to miss this place?”

Marlow opened his eyes again and smiled faintly. “A part of me will, yes. It’s been my home for centuries now. But the point of coming here was never to stay. It was to defeat Lich so we could return to the world and resume the important work of the Order.”

His robe whispered as he walked. Something told me he could have transported us to the palace—we were in a thought realm, after all—but that he had wanted to steal a few minutes alone with me.

“How old was I when I left here?” I asked.

“Barely one. In fact, your grandfather spirited you out right before Lich sealed us from the world. This was shortly after Lich’s attack. Your mother and I had discussed what we’d do if he ever found our refuge while you were still young. We decided you would be placed in your grandparents’ care. Your grandfather was very powerful, and your grandmother, though not a full-blooded magic-user, had some veiling spells in her repertoire. With Lich’s focus largely in parallel realms, we felt you’d be safest with them.”

“Wait, my grandmother was a magic-user?” I rifled through my memories. She had never demonstrated any magical abilities—none that I could remember. But veiling spells were often subtle.

“And a wonderful cook, too,” Marlow said. “I’ll never forget her blueberry cobbler topped with homemade ice cream.”

I smiled. That had been one of my favorites, too. But I caught a note of loneliness in Marlow’s voice.

“You still miss her,” I said. “My mother.”

“Every day, Everson.”

I wanted to ask him what she was like, but the question felt strangely personal. Like I’d be prying, even though he was my father. My father. I still couldn’t get my head around the idea that this man strolling beside me was him. No longer an idea, no longer a lie, but a living, breathing presence.

“How did you meet?” I asked.

“Your grandfather introduced us on Eve’s first visit to the Refuge. She was preparing to take over his role. He asked me to give her a tour of our realm, explain what we were doing, that sort of thing. I was exhausted that day. I’d been up late the night before doing spell work and frankly wasn’t in much of a mood to play guide. But your mother had this effect on me—call it magic,” he said with a laugh, “as though our auras were in constant resonance. By the end of her visit, I felt more … alive than I had in a long time. My efforts here, which had taken on the dull weight of drudgery, assumed fresh purpose. You have to remember, we’d been working against Lich for hundreds of years and couldn’t claim much more than a stalemate. But with your mother’s arrival, the work felt brand new. She restored me.”

We’d come to the staircase leading to the palace, and now he stopped. “That went double when you arrived, Everson. A new life is a growing system of order. In your case, one that was very precious to me. In your eyes—eyes already showing the first glimmers of insight and intelligence—I beheld the true horror of what Lich could do. Or more aptly, what he could undo. All so Dhuul could feed on the dissolution and Lich could know immortality.”

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“I wanted to be there with you, Everson. Through your questions, your struggles, through the lies and distortions that followed. But know that all this time, you’ve been with me. In my thoughts, my work.”

Tears stood in Marlow’s eyes. For the first time since realizing he was my father, it felt natural to hug him. We embraced solidly, every so often clapping the other’s back. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. When at last we separated, moisture stood in my eyes as well. I blinked it back.

“So is it time to save the world?” I asked.

“We’ll need to depart for Lich’s realm shortly,” he said.

For the first time it occurred to me that I might not be included in the plans, that I would be considered too junior. But I was the one who had destroyed the Elder book. I was the one who had allowed Lich into the Refuge—twice. Besides that, I was Eve and Marlow’s son. I was a member of the Front. I was about to say as much, but my father was already nodding.

“Yes,” he said, “we’ll need you too.”

26

When Marlow and I arrived in the altar room, Arianna and the rest of the Front were already there. The model of Lich’s realm remained in the water, the pit dropping like a narrow whirlpool. The members of the Front stood around it, eyes closed. I sensed a unifying force moving among them, conjoining them.

“A guiding principle of the Order,” Marlow said to me, “is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

I thought about the old Order and its practice of keeping us segregated.

At the sound of Marlow’s voice, several members of the Front separated and made room for us. As we took our place at the pool’s edge, the strange force seemed to invite me to become a part of the magical collective. I flashed back to my nightmare of a gold-faced mage urging me to join the cluster, to become one. Everson, he’d whispered, emphasizing the son. But this wasn’t the same feeling. I wasn’t being compelled or even coaxed. I had a choice.

I looked around at the statues of the great Saints. Four men and five women, rock-solid purpose in their frames and steady gazes. Beyond the head of the pool stood the statue of Saint Michael, the line to which