Liam and Lune disappeared into the cave. Frustration welled up inside me as I was powerless to do anything but watch.
“Lord Bal...” One of House Renard’s elite knights addressed me. The look in his eyes alone told me to get ahold of myself—I could tell because these knights instructed me and Liam in martial arts. “Someone, return to the monastery and bring Master Theo here.”
One of the most swift-footed knights broke into a run and disappeared.
I turned to Lord Reineke and bowed. “Please let us know where the other entrance is.”
After looking me over, he answered, “Very well.”
“Then we’ll set off as soon as Master Theo gets here.”
My words caused the fox to grin.
We waited for a while until Theo and Dr. Guillotin arrived. They must’ve rushed to get here, as they were covered in sweat and breathing heavily.
“Where’s Lady Lune?!” Theo, who usually struggled to make eye contact with anyone, now looked right into my eyes.
“She’s inside this cave. It’s sealed so that only members of House Renard can enter. But Liam said there’s a second entrance here somewhere, and he wants you to open it up for us.”
“Ahhh! For Lady Lune to have gone into such a dangerous place!” Dr. Guillotin cried, distraught. “I need to go and get her!” He pulled out a small bottle and drank its contents.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A special analeptic.”
“A what?”
“It’s a type of recovery medicine that lets you push yourself a little bit harder than usual,” Dr. Guillotin explained with an evasive smile.
Theo drank it as well. “Let’s hurry!”
Lord Reineke nodded. “Follow me.”
The two men looked startled to have heard him speak.
We followed the spirit as he nimbly climbed up a rocky hill. Traversing through the forest was his specialty, making it a struggle to catch up even for the well-trained knights.
“You’re only soft on Lune, Lord Reineke,” I mumbled under my breath, causing the fox to smirk.
It was times like this that Lord Reineke could be scary. He always seemed to dote on Lune, yet he’d desert her at the most crucial moments.
“Liam and Lune are fine, right?” I asked, suddenly feeling a sense of dread.
The spirit gave me a serious look. “I don’t know. That’s up to Liam.”
“What?! If it’s so dangerous, why did you let Lune go?!”
“If she cannot pass this trial, then it will show the extent of who she is. It’ll mean she didn’t have what it takes to continue contracting me, the Great Lord Reineke.”
His nonchalant answer horrified me.
“That’s just cruel...”
“Don’t look at me like that. I believe that Lune will safely guide Liam back,” he said with a grin. “But are you really in a position to be chitchatting?”
Lord Reineke’s mischievous giggle made me snap back to reality. The knights all paled too. The tension in the air was rising.
“Guide us! Hurry! We need to help them somehow!” I urged.
The spirit continued leading the way without sparing the rest of us another glance.
“Here,” he said eventually, stopping in front of an unnaturally round meadow.
There were no trees here, and stranger yet, no sign of any animals or even insects. The meadow must’ve been some kind of forgery.
“It’s so green, but there’s no life,” I murmured.
Lord Reineke smirked, then pulled out one of his own silver whiskers and blew it toward the meadow. When it got close, it disappeared in a flash of light.
“There’s a barrier,” Theo said. He rummaged around in his bag and pulled out a Y-shaped stick. “I’ll use my dowsing rod.”
“What’s that?”
“I can check whether anything dangerous is buried around here using this hazel tree branch,” he explained.
Theo held one end of the branch in each hand, keeping his arms pressed close to his sides and holding the branch level with his solar plexus. The other end of the stick began moving up and down slightly and glowing gold.
“It’s...a light magic circle?! I didn’t know they existed in such remote places,” Theo despaired, biting his lip.
“Alas, we can’t break a circle made with light magic,” Dr. Guillotin said with a frown.
“Right. The only way to disable it would be to use the same kind of light magic...or that magic,” Theo said, upholding the taboo of dark magic. “Let’s try to physically destroy the perimeter around the meadow without touching the magic circle. I can’t think of any other way for us to proceed.”
Dr. Guillotin and the knights nodded.
“I wish I could just use light magic,” I muttered.
Lord Reineke’s tail wagged when he heard me.
Theo used his dowsing rod to point out which areas needed to be destroyed, then used earth magic to crack the ground in those places. The knights who could wield magic helped as well, while the rest dug out holes. I joined in, using my sword to dig up the earth where Theo indicated, but I didn’t like this idea at all.
Dr. Guillotin drank more of his special medicine. He paused, took a deep breath, and downed a different medicine.
“Please give me some too,” Theo requested.
Dr. Guillotin shrugged, passing him a bottle. “Are you sure? This will amplify your magic by using your life force. You can’t use magic again until you naturally recover.”
“I know. But even you are willing to take it,” Theo pointed out with a smile. The doctor could only shrug again.
“What is that?” I asked.
Theo awkwardly averted his eyes, but Dr. Guillotin looked right at me as he replied.
“It’s a forbidden drug that amplifies magic. If the royals were to find out that we used this, we’d be charged with all sorts of crimes.”
“Yikes...”
“In fact, if they found out that I made this, I’d be put to death. House Renard and the monastery might get blamed too,” Dr. Guillotin said. He laughed, but his eyes seemed deadly serious.
All the knights quickly looked away and pretended they hadn’t heard anything.
“Now, let’s hurry!” the doctor said, returning us to the task at hand.
Theo and Dr. Guillotin used all the magic they could muster to cut through the magic circle. But I didn’t have magic nor strength. I did my best to help with digging, but I felt useless.
“If only I could use magic...or contract a spirit...”
I recklessly thrust my sword into the ground. It hit a large boulder, causing sparks to fly off.
“Looks like that rock is sustaining the magic circle. We’ll need to break it to open the entrance,” Theo observed. He knelt down and started drawing a magic circle on the rock. When he was done, he pressed his hands against it, took a deep breath, and filled it with his magic. “O earth spirit, lend me your power. Crush this rock and disrupt the magic circle.”
A green fog enveloped the boulder, building pressure around it. The more it tightened, the more Theo’s face scrunched up with pain. With ragged breaths, he released the last of his magic, and the green fog abruptly disappeared.