Love Croakies Sam Cheever (red queen ebook txt) 📖

The man standing a dozen feet away from me laughed joyfully, his black eyes alight with happiness. “In the flesh.”

That he was, I realized with a start. All six and a half feet of him.

Professor Osvald had regained his body.

Well, I’ll be a trail of slug snot.

19

Thar She Be

I was so surprised it took me a beat to realize there was an enormous black castle behind Osvald. The circular peaks of Dacara’s ugly castle rose high into the gray sky, disappearing into the low clouds that were a regular feature of the place.

The previous time we’d been there, Archie had speculated that the stormy aspect of the sky above the castle was caused by residual energy from Dacara’s magic.

A daunting thought. It would take some serious magic to create storms in that large an area around the magic-user.

Someone groaned behind me. I turned to find Sebille wrenching herself off the ground. “How could I have been hit by a train in The Enchanted Forest?” she asked, holding her head. “There are no trains here, right?”

“The Hagwarts Express?” I asked, earning myself a glare from the sprite.

Archie appeared at my shoulder, his face filled with awe. “Osvald, you’re whole.”

The professor’s grin spread across his homely face, Making him look almost not hideous. “It’s a miracle.”

“Yes, it certainly is,” agreed Narina, joining Archie and me.

Osvald placed his palms together in front of his face, pressing the tips of his fingers against his mouth. His black eyes glittered with tears.

I blinked. I’d never seen the man as anything but angry.

“Bless you, Wind Sorceress. You’ve returned my life to me.”

Narina looked uncomfortable under his declaration. “Uh…”

Eddie wrapped an arm around his…our…mom’s shoulders. “You saved us all, Mums.” He kissed her temple.

I looked on, feeling like an outsider again.

“I hate to break up the celebration,” Sebille said. “But I suggest we get into the castle before those things decide to attack.” She pointed toward the sky and the gray, tattered forms riding the air currents high above our heads.

Wraiths.

I glanced quickly around and realized we’d landed on the back side of the castle. At least, I assumed it was the back side since there was no sign of the cliff face we’d had to climb to get to the castle the first time.

That was probably why the wraiths hadn’t immediately attacked. I doubted most visitors came over the mountain to the castle. Most would come from the forest side.

But as I watched the terrifying dark forms dip and circle above us like large, ugly black birds, I realized their movements were becoming more frenzied.

Had some of them dropped lower in the sky?

“We need to go,” Archie said. “Now!”

We started to run, just as a strident scream tore the sky above us.

I shot past Osvald, who was paging quickly through an enormous red-leather book with a golden lock engraved in the dust cover.

He walked quickly rather than running, fingers flicking through the pages in a way that reminded me of the Book of Pages. The screams in the dark sky had multiplied. They also sounded closer. Without looking up, I knew the wraiths were descending on us. And coming fast.

A gust of wind spun the leaves on the nearby trees and sent the branches to waving.

The screams of the wraiths turned more shrill.

I looked up in time to see them rolling away from us in the sky, some of them slamming into the rocky face of the mountain behind the castle.

I panicked, remembering how the wraiths consumed any magic used against them and became stronger from it.

I opened my mouth to warn Narina, but she’d turned and was running toward the castle again. The wraiths regathered, some of them slower to rise, and I realized they hadn’t consumed her magic.

Maybe earth energies didn’t affect them the same way. Wind magic was one of the four core elementals: Air, fire, water, and earth. That made sense.

We headed for the nearest door. Eddie reached it first and tried the knob.

It wouldn’t open.

“It’s warded,” my brother told us, running his open palm over the lock to assess its components. “Blast! All four magical elements were used.” He looked over our small group. “We don’t have the energy needed.”

A wraith screamed and dove from the sky, its horrible claws raking the air near Narina. I shoved her sideways and punched the thing as hard as I could in the area covered by its hood. As soon as my skin touched the shroud-like cloth, ice flared over it, burning and digging beneath my skin to freeze my bones.

Narina whipped a hand out and blew the wraith back. It hit the ground several yards away and rolled, tattered shroud whipping in the residual drafts.

Another wraith dove toward Sebille. She popped out, turning into her sprite form and evading the raking claws with a quick burst of movement.

Eddie’s hand came up and a blob of something flared from his fingertips. It was an unruly mass of energy that absorbed whatever it touched and kept on rolling. The chaotic energy caught the attacking wraith and two more that were dropping down from the sky in a giant splotch of roiling shapes and colors. As it carried them away, the magic fractured the wraiths into a Picasso-like mix that left them screaming silently from mouths that were in the wrong place and trying to claw free with limbs that faced the wrong direction. It was nightmare-inducing.

And it couldn’t have happened to more deserving creatures.

I watched in delight as the bubble captured more and more wraiths and then frowned as it interned a huge tree, decomposing it immediately into the fractured shapes inside the bubble. “Will that thing just keep going?” I asked him, starting to worry. I didn’t want helpless people and animals to get caught up in the magic. Though that two-headed snake was on its own.

“No.” He responded.

I relaxed.

“It’ll eventually blow up,” he said.

Oh. Gulp.

“Step aside,” Osvald told Eddie, flicking his long fingers in