Precious

Chapter 12

"What happened?" I demand, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.

"Barnabas—the wizard—he—" The woman shakes so hard, she can't complete the sentence.

"The wizard is here," the butler says. "How did he get through the wards? I don't understand."

I fist my hands in my skirt. "Which way did he go?"

The maid points in the direction of the stairs. This is my one chance to reason with him. To convince him to take me and leave my family alone. I fly up the stairs the same way I took them down—two at a time. Muffled shouts come from the far end of the palace. The wing where my parents' chambers are.

And where mine was when I was a child.

I launch myself in that direction. They insisted Delia and I live in the opposite wing once we were both old enough to walk. I never considered why, but now I understand. The wizard had been invited into their home when he was protecting them from the Belladomans. He knew their habits, and the layout of the palace.

He'd know exactly where his promised prize was supposed to sleep.

Another scream.

Mama.

My parents' chambers lie just ahead, the door to their sitting room swung wide open. All the candles are lit and the glow reaches into the hall, along with their voices.

"Where is my payment?" an unfamiliar man's voice growls. "She is mine—you must give her to me."

The voice slices through me on a cold blade, rending my heart in two and stealing my breath.

"We will give you anything you could possibly want. Money, jewels," Papa says. His voice trembles. "I would even give you the throne and my kingdom instead."

Their moment of hope hangs in the air like a tangible force. The low voice laughs harshly.

"I have named my price, and the deal is binding. You must concede."

I tiptoe closer, heart thundering in my chest. Through the doorway, I see Mama sink to her knees, pleading with the silver-haired man I saw enter the gates less than an hour earlier.

"Please. Please don't take our daughter. Anything but her."

I'm so stunned, I can't move. Never in my life have I seen Mama beg. She's always been the kind, constant backbone of our family. Seeing her grovel like this—for me—shatters my already sundered heart to pieces.

"If you do not hand her over I will tear this place apart brick by brick until I find her."

"I do not know how you managed to get past the wards," Papa says, "but please take our gold and jewels and leave in peace. Have mercy, and spare our daughter."

The wizard laughs. "The wards did not affect me because I did not enter the city with the intent to harm. I came only to collect. I have spent years learning to focus on that one thing so thoroughly that the wards have a hard time detecting what lies beneath. Besides, the more magic with ill intent the wards have to hold off at once, the weaker they get. I am sure you noticed that even the forest has turned on your kingdom. And now that I am inside the walls, the wards cannot stop me. Anything that gets in my way is collateral damage. I have no need for mercy."

"Have you no heart?" Mama pleads. "I know you were not always so cold. Please, spare her."

The floor quakes under my feet and I brace myself on the doorframe. "You squashed any semblance of warm feelings from my heart, my dear Aria. You made the wrong choice. And now you will pay for it." The chill in the wizard's voice turns my innards to ice.

I step through the doorway into my parents' sitting room. The shock on their faces at my sudden appearance gives them away. A crafty grin spreads over the wizard's face. Now that I'm inside the room and closer to him, I see what I could not before.

Angry, magic heat rolls of the wizard in waves. The floor beneath his feet smokes. A faint crackling sparks from his hands every few seconds, like a barely contained lightning storm.

"Rosabel?" he says.

I nod. "I'll go with you. Just promise you'll leave them alone." I clasp my hands behind my back so that he won't see them quivering.

"No!" Mama cries.

"Please, Rose, don't do this. Run, hide, while you still can," Papa says.

I smile sadly. "There's nowhere to hide. Nowhere is safe from him. Not forever."

"You are a bright one. But what makes you think I will leave your parents alone? Am I not owed interest on my uncollected debt for all these years?"

"Then I won't go willingly."

He steps forward and the air around him sizzles. His silver hair rises from the static charge, lending him a crazed appearance.

"That matters not to me. Besides, you stole something from me too. Who do you think the Bane you found in the volcano belonged to?" He narrows his eyes. "I was furious at first when all that magic was released from my Bane. Though I admit, you did provide an excellent distraction and the perfect way to weaken my wards around the city."

"It was yours?" Shock drains all the color from my face.

"Of course it was. They"—he points to my parents—"denied me what I needed to take the magic from the realm in one spell, so I've had to improvise. Wizard's Banes drain magic, not just wizards. I turned it on the realm itself, and it's been slowly draining magic for years. It was almost full, too, until you stupidly released it."

Horror makes my knees feel like fragile flower stems in a hurricane.

"Please," Mama begs, "please take our jewels and leave."

Mustering all the bravery I have, I step between them. "No, take me. Let them be."

"I will consider it," the man says. I brace myself when he reaches for me, but Mama throws herself at him.

He shoves her off with a bright light and bang, sending her tumbling to the floor and knocking over a vase of our best blush roses in the process. She lies very still, her back to me amid the falling petals. Her blue silk skirts spread out on the marble floor like flowing water, and sparks of magic flicker over her. Blood pools from where she hit her head on the corner of the table.

The world stands still. Everything is blue and red and her golden hair. I barely register Papa reaching for me and or the second blast that sends him flailing.

Mama is dead. An awful certainty takes hold of my insides, making me numb.

Then cold hands grab my arms. Shockingly cold, given the amount of heat those hands burned at my parents. The cooling touch creeps over my skin like thousands of tiny insects, prickling and numbing, and cracking my skin in places. Rivulets of blood trickle down my arms, but I cannot feel a thing. I cannot struggle. I cannot scream. I can only stare at the face of the silver-haired man as his hands wind around my neck and squeeze.

One long, black flash of cold, then oblivion.