The wizard’s reaction would determine whether I could come out of hiding. Was he smart enough to be suspicious or was he only angry?
Mage Zephyr cursed. “Do you think I’ve time to spend on fools who can’t keep from touching my doorknob?”
Bless his cantankerous soul. He was a firm believer in the incompetence of those around him. I slipped from my hiding place at the corner and hurried toward the wizard’s door.
With a flourish, Mage Zephyr swooshed his wand at the snake. The creature slithered to its original position and reverted to metal, head raised, ready to strike again.
The wizard grumbled a few more things and gestured for the injured man to limp into his room. Before shutting his door, Mage Zephyr turned to the second guard. “I trust you can manage by yourself and won’t do anything foolish until I’ve healed your companion.” He slammed the door without waiting for an answer.
By that time, I was inside.
Mage Zephyr’s chambers weren’t much different from the other wizards’ rooms. The fireplace’s purple glow lit the room. A large canopy bed stood in one corner of the room. A cluttered desk squatted in the other. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books, bottles, boxes, and all manners of oddities.
I pressed my back against the door and waited. Mage Zephyr tromped to a shelf and rifled through bottles. “Best guards in the kingdom, my eye.”
The injured man slumped on the floor not far from me, holding his thigh and gritting his teeth. He pulled off his boot. “My leg is swelling. Hurry.”
The wizard plucked a stout blue bottle from the shelf and shuffled, unhurried, to the guard. “Open your mouth.”
The guard did. The wizard poured a bit on the guard’s tongue. “Now I need to put some on the wound.” Mage Zephyr gestured to the man’s leg. “Do I need to instruct you in everything? Move your breeches, man, or you’ll die of your own incompetence.”
The guard undid his belt and lowered his breeches. Zephyr drizzled a few drops on the two red puncture marks. “There. You’ll be right as rain before you can pull your boot back on.”
That wouldn’t do. I needed him out of commission. I hit the man with a stunning spell. He slumped over and sprawled on the ground beside his boot. Perhaps I was too hasty. If he’d pulled his breeches up first, the view would have been less offensive.
The wizard’s jaw dropped, and he hurriedly checked the blue bottle to make certain it was the right potion. I whispered the words of the stunning spell and with a flick of my wand, hit Zephyr. His head snapped back and his eyes shut. The bottle tumbled onto the floor.
I darted forward and grabbed hold of his robe, trying to prevent him from loudly smacking into the floor. He was heavier than he looked and clattered a bit on his way down. Hopefully, nothing that worried the guard outside. For all he knew, the antidote involved things that made thuds and took twenty minutes to perform.
One thing I was certain of, the guard wouldn’t come in without knocking. Not with the snake outside. Still, the faster Icould do this, the better. I dropped the invisibility enchantment so it wouldn’t take any of my energy and set to work changing Zephyr into a tree.
His trunk was thick and bloated with spindly branches and undernourished leaves. Really, I was quite convinced the tree’s form reflected the personality of the human. I was glad Ronan had told me I had lovely flowers.
I began chiseling Zephyr’s mark off. Next, I would have to face Ronan.
Would the same sort of diversion with the guards work at the king’s chambers—a guard injured so that Ronan needed to take the man inside his room?
Probably not. Ronan was smarter than Zephyr. And besides, if one of the guards needed help, Ronan would send someone to fetch Zephyr. I would either have to sneak into Queen Marita’s chambers and use the secret tunnel there or wait outside the king’s door until morning when Ronan finished his shift. He’d be tired then and more prone to make a mistake.
Once Zephyr’s mark was gone, I put my hands over his wound to speed its healing. I’d just returned him to his human form when the door burst open.
No knock, no shout of a guard, no warning. The door swung wildly on its hinges, and Ronan stood framed in the hall lights, wand outstretched.
Ronan.
And there I was, a dark figure leaning over the wizard as though I’d murdered him and the guard, both.
Ronan spoke the words for a killing curse, the one that called down fire. He was done with the incantation before fully seeing me. I knew because when the flames swooshed into the room, illuminating it, I saw the instant his eyes widened in recognition.
Fortunately, I was not so easy to destroy. With a swipe of my wand, I directed the bolts into the chimney. They crashedthere with such force that bits of stones crumbled and fell to the ground.
I leapt to my feet. The room darkened again. Zephyr’s remaining guard pushed passed Ronan, drawing his sword. “Intruder!” he yelled and lunged at me.
From the end of my wand, I called forth a burst of wind and knocked the guard into Ronan. Both stumbled out of my way, leaving a small area of freedom in the doorway.
The next moment I was the wolf, dashing past the two. As soon as I reached the hallway, I added the invisibility enchantment. The sounds of more guards hurrying toward us echoed in the hall.
Ronan must have hit me with a disclosing spell. As I sprinted to the stairs, the six soldiers rushing up the hall were quite able to see me, or at least see the wolf. A disclosing spell stripped away invisibility but reversing a transformation was more complicated. A wizard needed to be closer and had to keep me in one place for several seconds to perform it.