The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📕

“You are the dishonorable ones,” said Clovis. The arrogant young prince was back. “You, and my father, and all of you. I condemn you all.”

“And yet I prevail.” Oswald’s form was flickering now, unstable like the shadows around him. “And I shall prevail forever.”

A green shimmer began to lighten the darkness. Oswald laughed. “I’m very sorry, Your Highness,” he said. “But your magic is weak here. Just as you are weak.”

“You will not hurt my friends. I won’t let you.”

The glimmering grew in strength, throwing a livid light. Pip, battling a growing horror, suddenly felt a gleam of hope. Clovis had pulled them out of Oswald’s clutches before. Maybe he would do it again . . .

But then Oswald snapped his fingers, and the green glimmer vanished as suddenly as a candle being snuffed. Clovis stumbled forward and cried out. Pip instinctively reached out and pulled him up with his free hand, putting his arm around Clovis’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Clovis. “He’s very strong.”

“Never mind,” said Pip. “At least you tried.”

“But not enough.”

“Friends can only do their best.”

IT SEEMED MUCH DARKER THAN BEFORE, AS IF THE shadows had thickened. The only light, a lifeless bluish illumination, came from Oswald. He was now in his Specter form and towered over them, the edges of the rippling cold flame drifting toward their faces.

“Enough,” he said. “You try my patience.” He lifted his skeletal arms.

Pip’s breast swelled with anger and grief. It wasn’t fair; he wasn’t ready to die. And he knew, deep inside, that what would happen to the prince and princess would be much worse than death.

He let go of Georgette and Clovis and lunged at Oswald, his fists flying, and hailed him with punches. He didn’t really expect that it would have any effect. He just didn’t want to be killed without some kind of resistance. But Oswald, who hadn’t expected any such attack, fell backward onto the ground.

Pip had time to kick Oswald once more in his bony ribs. He could feel Georgette and Clovis behind him, coming up to join in. And then unseen hands closed about his throat again, squeezing tighter and tighter until he couldn’t breathe and a red mist rose in front of his eyes. Georgette shouted his name as he fell over, and the thought crossed his mind that this was the last thing he would ever hear.

“No!” It was Clovis.

Pip wasn’t quite certain what happened next. It felt as if the whole world tilted and turned over. There was a brilliant flash of green lightning, which struck Oswald full in the face. For an instant it lit up the eye sockets in his skull. Looking into them, Pip felt dizzy, as if he were teetering over a cliff; there was no end to the depths inside them.

The pressure lifted from his throat and he rolled over, gasping. Georgette grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet.

Clovis stood in front of them, his arms upraised. He looked very tiny before the Specter, whose form was shifting, swelling into a boiling cloud the color of blood. Pip watched, his heart in his mouth, as the cloud expanded, pluming up before them until, with a terrifying rapidity, it had covered the entire sky. In the center, just above their heads, the red dark-ened until it was as dark as the void in the Specter’s eyes.

Out of that center, a whirling funnel of cloud began to descend, twisting and bending like an evil whiplash, and struck out viciously at Clovis.

Clovis staggered, but he was still standing. “I don’t care if you destroy me,” he said. His voice was very clear. He didn’t sound angry, just determined. “But you’re not going to hurt my friends.”

The cloud laughed. It was the worst sound Pip had ever heard. It seemed to come from everywhere at once: inside his head and outside his head. The whole sky was laughing at them.

“You think you have the power to defeat me?”

“No,” said Clovis. “But I’m going to try anyway.”

Pip’s heart suddenly lifted. The little prince’s defiance made him feel reckless. He had nothing to lose.

“Me too,” he said, and stepped up next to Clovis.

Georgette drew in a sharp breath and put her arm around Clovis’s shoulder. “You’ll have to kill us all,” she said. “And then there won’t be any Specter babies for your foul kingdom.”

To Pip’s surprise, that seemed to give Oswald pause. The cloud boiled ominously without doing anything. Perhaps Oswald was trying to figure out how to defeat Clovis without actually destroying him or Georgette.

Georgette staggered and fell against Pip, who automatically clutched her and held her upright. Between them, where Clovis had been, there was now an empty space. Clovis had vanished.

“Clovis!” Pip spun around wildly on his heel. “Clovis, where are you?”

There was no answer. The strange, shadowy buildings that lined the street stared back at him with their blank windows. They were glowing dimly now, each brick and stone faintly outlined in silvery blue against the boiling sky. He thought the stone was rippling, like the walls in Clovis’s royal bedroom in the Rupture.

Everything was absolutely silent. That was the most frightening thing of all.

“It was too much for him,” Georgette whispered, taking Pip’s hand again. He could feel her trembling. “He’s only a little boy.”

“It’s too much for me, too,” Pip said heavily. The rage and defiance that had briefly filled him was ebbing away.

Despite everything, he had thought that Clovis might pull something out of the hat. He had thought that maybe they could outface the Specter. He should have known better. His whole life had taught him to expect the worst.

“I can’t blame him if he ran away,” he said. He felt his eyes prickle hot with tears of hopelessness.

The sky was growing redder and redder, like a giant pit of embers. Pip was sure that Oswald was brewing some terrible new spell. He was absolutely sure that he was going to die. And he was