Sara C. Walker

WARNING: This excerpt contains spoilers from the previous two books.

The evening before my trial, I found myself standing outside a place I used to know. 


As the June sun sank behind Ottawa's cityscape, I stood across the street from a two-story brick house, where a pair of girls skipped rope in the driveway. 


A red maple tree stood tall over the front lawn. I wondered if the tree fort was still in the backyard. I skinned my knees on this street, Willow Lane, learning to ride a bike. The green grass was cut every Thursday night when my father got home because weekends were for drinking lemonade on the back patio, not listening to lawnmowers. The leaves of that red maple weren't as pretty as the bright sugar maple, but they were still great for raking up and jumping in. After the first wet snow fall, my father and I would roll up a snowman to stand under the leafless branches of the maple tree, while my mother made us hot chocolate and cookies.


This used to be my home. My heart.


Eight years ago, a sorcerer killed my father. Six months ago, he killed my mother. 


I wanted him dead. Instead, I did what the Magic Council wanted and imprisoned him in an orb. Then a demon and bunch of dwarves wanted him out. I thwarted the dwarves' efforts, but not the demon's. 


My friend—former friend and mentor, Paul, re-captured the sorcerer. Now the sorcerer was his responsibility. 


That was five days ago. 


Just hours after I killed someone.


Cross my heart and hope to die. I killed someone. 


It was an accident. The old spell-turner was mean and about to turn a spell on me, but I hadn't wanted him dead. Not really. I only wanted to defend myself.


The powers-that-be of the magical community, the Elders, were going to neutralize me. Take away my spell-turner powers that I only just got and barely knew how to use. If I were lucky, they wouldn't execute me. They would turn me into a powerless cat or cricket and make me a turner's familiar. 


All I wanted was a normal teenager's life. Friends. Fun. Freedom.


So I ran.


But I had no place to go. No one I could count on. 


I wished I could be a kid, skipping with my friend. 


Six months ago, I learned I was a spell-turner and that an entire magical community existed. I'd thought it was wonderful and that my mother was wrong to hide me away from it. 


But I knew now that she was right. The world of spell-turners was brutal. 


And she was right to keep me from making friends. They only ended up letting me down.


I hitched my heavy backpack up higher and tightened my grip on the pair of garbage bags that held my belongs, and I headed off to find a place to hide.


Alone.


*~*~*~*

I ended up at my high school, Sir John Sparrow David Thompson Secondary School. The pseudo-Gothic architecture perfectly suited my gloomy mood. I knew most of the building was warded by the gargoyle statues clinging to the roof. Although this was the site of the demon incident, I simply avoided that area of the school and went straight to the gym storage room, where I used the mats for a bed. 


I got one full day of peace and quiet. The morning of my second day, I heard vehicles pulling up outside, and the next thing I knew, construction crews were entering the school. I stashed my bags behind the stack of mats, grabbed my backpack, and slipped out before anyone could find me.


Not knowing where else to go, I headed for the public library.


The building at the corner of Metcalfe and Laurier had plenty of light from the tall windows. Nobody seemed to mind me spending all day reading graphic novels. 


Then my stomach began to growl.


Dinner time. 


I left the library and hurried to the grocery store.


Under the late afternoon sun, a feeling crept up my spine. Like I was being followed. I glanced over my shoulder, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. When I reached the intersection, I took some extra time to look both ways and check behind me, but again, only saw humans of the non-spell-turner variety bustling home for dinner.


Weird.


I shook off the feeling and kept going.


As I arrived at the grocery store, I caught a flash of pink hair, and my breath caught in my chest. Rhiannon? Had she found me?


My brain scrambled until I remembered Rhiannon's hair was still turquoise from her honeymoon. 


A girl with pink hair sat against the brick wall, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to fit into the shade cast by the store. She was about my age, but not familiar to me. I'd only started attending school for the first time four months ago, so we could very well have crossed paths and I just didn't know it.


If she looked up, I would have given her a friendly smile, but she stared at the sidewalk.


I flowed into the grocery store with the other shoppers, enjoying the escape from the hot sun into the cool air conditioning. I pulled out my wallet and checked how much money I had. When Ethelwulf took Gran away so I could catch the sorcerer, he'd left me with a pile of twenties since I was on my own for a while. I still had a few left, but I needed to make it last. I didn't know how long I would be on my own this time.


I grabbed a basket and started hunting for bargains. Mostly shelf-stable items went into the basket, but then I spotted these fresh hamburgers in plastic wrap that only had to be microwaved. The cafeteria at the school had a microwave. I also bought a couple of apples and a small carton of milk. I didn't have access to a fridge, so I would have to drink the milk tonight.


I paid for my items and tried to estimate how long my cash would keep me fed. The answer was 1.5 days. Yikes.


The girl was still outside when I exited the store. She was gazing longingly at the grocery-laden bags being carried away by the other shoppers who all refused to look at her.


I didn't have much. She had nothing. I understood hunger pains. At least I could buy food again tomorrow. I went over to her.


"Do you like hamburgers?" I said, holding out the wrapped burger. "I'm not hungry."


"Liar. Everyone is hungry."


I held up my bag of crackers and canned sardines. "I'll just have these. I don't like hamburgers anyway. I only got it 'cause it's cheap."


"Really? I don't think I've ever met anyone that doesn't like hamburgers."


A few days ago, as I was recovering from the demon incident, I'd woken up starving and very sleepily stumbled out of bed to my kitchen, where I sat down and ate all of Paul's cheeseburger.

My mouth watered at the memory.


Of course I liked hamburgers. But this girl needed to eat, too.


"Too greasy. They don't sit well in my stomach."


"If you're sure…" She still seemed reluctant, and I couldn't blame her. I would be cautious about taking food from a stranger, too. But she just saw me come out of the store and knew I couldn't possibly have tampered with it or anything.


"Totally sure," I said firmly. "You would be doing me a favour if you take the milk, too. It was included free with the burger, but I'm lactose intolerant."


"Deal."


As the sun went behind the taller buildings and a slightly cooler breeze ruffled the few trees on the street. It was still a couple hours before full darkness settled in.


"You're a good person," she said. 


An image of the old spell-turner dead on the ground of the Sanctuary came to mind. The way Paul looked at me—and worse, when he wouldn't look at me. 


Tears blurred my vision. I shook my head, unable to speak with emotion clogging my throat. 


She was wrong about me. I knew that for sure. I also knew that if I stuck around, something terrible might happen to her, like it seemed to happen to everyone who knew me.

I ran. 


*~ *~*~*


Footsteps shuffled behind me. It was early evening and the sun didn't set until almost nine, so it wasn't unusual for people to be out for a walk, especially now after the heat of the day was starting to cool off. Still, I couldn't be too careful. Only about a week ago I was followed by dwarves.


I glanced over my shoulder before crossing the street. 


A woman walking a bulldog. A teen in a black sweatshirt with the hood up. A cat scrambled up a tree, chasing a squirrel.


The woman chatted with her dog, who was apparently named Muffy. At the next corner, I glanced back again. The woman and dog had fallen behind, but Hoodie was still there. 


Time to venture away from my destination. I stepped inside a convenience store and strolled along the shelves. I didn't have much in the way of spells. I could manage a spray of water, a flash of fire, and I could summon, which was the magic world's equivalent of a cell phone. I had a cell phone, but I'd chosen to leave it behind when I made my escape from my apartment.


Blood turners were ultra rare, but also problematic. I pulled spells from my own blood, but the magic could go wild sometimes, and if I happened to pull a spell from someone else's blood, they would die. I required specialized training, which seemed to be put off more often than not, as Paul was sent on missions for the Magic Council and then went on his honeymoon. 


I finally knew what type of turner I was, but no one would teach me spells. The only other blood turner that I knew of didn't want to teach me because he didn't want me to follow in his footsteps. 


And yet, that was exactly what happened. 


The shop clerk kept giving me dirty looks. "You buying or not?"


The boxes of ginger cookies were tempting. I had some money on me, but I needed to make it last. I pulled out a hoodie from my backpack, pulled it on, flipped the hood up, and exited.


Back on the sidewalk, I scanned for Hoodie but saw no sign of them. I resumed my route toward the high school, keeping on alert, but if I was followed, I didn't notice.


I used my enchanted key, let myself into the school and then into the gym storage room.


The stack of folding gym mats made for a decent bed, as I'd discovered for the past two nights, but I couldn't live in the high school forever. For starters, the gymnasium's storage room stank worse than Merlin's sweaty armpits.


For reasons I couldn't explain, I pulled out the garbage bags stuffed with my belongings and removed the photo album. As I flipped through pages of smiling photos of me with my parents, I regretted bringing the album along on this journey. I'd thought having it would bring me some comfort. It only brought me stress. What was I to do with it? Walking down the streets with a photo album and a pair of stuffed garbage bags only attracted attention. Keeping them here risked having them thrown out by the construction crew. 


Frustrated with myself and my stupid, impulsive decisions, I rolled over on the gym mats and stared at the ceiling. It was pretty ironic that I now lived in a school after all these years of my mother homeschooling me. I didn't want to think about what she would say to me if she saw me now.


But I couldn't go home, either. My so-called friends, Paul and Rhiannon, were all to happy to keep me prisoner in my own apartment, siding with their duty to the Magic Council over our friendship. They didn't believe my side of the story. They wanted proof. Some friends.


I couldn't turn to any of my new friends, either. Savion would only report me to the Council, and I couldn't blame him for that. After all, I'd helped the Council capture his father. Savion knew now of the horrors his father had committed, but I wouldn't blame him at all for holding a grudge. 


Then there was Phoenix.


In the middle of the night, the ring he gave me began to glow. I kept the ring on the chain around my neck, alongside the locket with my parents' photos and the key to my mother's shop that he enchanted to open any door. He had an identical ring. He said the ring was charmed with a summoning spell, allowing us to keep in contact, whether I had powers or not.


I ignored his summoning spell, biting the inside of my cheek as the message he left played out loud until the ring stopped glowing.


"Mel. It's me…I hope you're getting my messages, and you're ignoring me because you're mad at me, and not because something bad has happened. I…" He sighed. "Can you please let me know you're okay?"


Phoenix was a hunter. Part of an elite group of metal turners who protected the world from rogue fire turners. 


Though I wanted to trust him, his was a family business. One that he couldn't get out of. He might not want me arrested, but if his family was ordered to capture me, they would. He was duty-bound.


Even if he wasn't duty-bound, even if by some miracle he could be free of his family, there was no way he would want to hang around with someone wanted for murder. I would only be a disappointment. I was terrible at being a turner. An embarrassment to the entire spell-turner community. Why would he want to be seen with me?


I was better off alone.  


*~ *~ *~*


After another night of uneasy rest, I showered in the locker room and got dressed. During my first day here, I spotted a drop ceiling in the music room. I was thinking that might work as a hiding place for my stuff. I found a ladder in the hallway, grabbed it and set it up in the corner of the music room, above the locked cupboard where the woodwind instruments were stored.


A few minutes later, I sorted a few essentials into my backpack and took off my necklace. I wanted to keep the locket with me, but Ethelwulf had previously enchanted it to temporarily grant me powers of the Magic Council. Phoenix had enchanted both the key and the ring. I worried they might be able to track me through these items. 


I removed the locket and ring from the chain and held them in my hand. I wished to keep them with me. I wished I could believe they couldn't be used against me. Blinking back tears, I shoved them into a garbage bag.


The key I kept. For now. I was going to need it.


One by one, I carried the garbage bags up the ladder and stashed them in the ceiling, tying them to the beams.


I replaced the tile, put the ladder back where I found it, and, hitching my backpack on my shoulders, slipped off school property just as the first car pulled into the parking lot.


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