"Clair."

"Mmhmm." I rolled over in my bed, pulling the sheets tighter around me.

"Clair!"

Rosinka, go away.

"Clair!" Something rough grabbed my arm with the shout. I bolted up, only to have a hand clamp over my mouth.

My chest tightened. The room was pitch black. I shot my arms out in any direction, flailing them, hoping I could stop whoever was trying to kill me.

"Curly, it's me! It's Nutcracker!"

"William?"

He flinched. The pressure against my mouth let off; he had dropped his hand.

I pushed myself away from him as fast as I could. "What is your exact issue! Why did you--"

"Hush," he whispered. "Where's that piece of paper you told me about earlier?"

Slowly, I realized why he was in my room in the middle of the night. After the snowball fight, I had told him about the piece of paper I got from Mom, and he had mentioned something about seeing it.

I just didn't think he meant in the middle of the night.

"I could get it to you if I could see," I hissed. "Turn on some light!"

"You can't see?"

"And you can? I can see big, black blobs of blur. Light. Now."

He whispered something, and flames appeared in his hand. I jumped back, momentarily startled, then remembered fire didn't affect him.

"William, a little warning next time would be nice."

He held the fire closer to my face. The heat from it tickled my cheeks. "You're grumpy when you wake up, know that?"

"You would be too, if someone scared you awake."

William shrugged. "Point taken. Get the paper."

I snatched his arm up and flashed a quick smirk in his direction. "Move."

He moved, just not where I wanted him to. Instead of going to the other end of the room or even to the wall, he crawled up on my bed and flopped down.

I held in my eye roll. The floor and I had gotten very familiar with each other over the past week, so once again, I found myself sprawled out on my stomach, crawling under my bed.

"You seriously cram it under your bed?"

My fingers brushed the paper. I flicked it into my hand and pulled away from the floor. My head rammed against the boards, sending sharp pain racing through my skull.

I sucked in my breath. Will his arms crossed--his equivalent to a raised eyebrow or smirk.

"Yes," I answered. "I keep everything important under my bed. Don't you?"

He ignored me. "Read it," he said, pointing at the paper. "Otherwise we'll never know what's so important."

The page crinkled as I pulled it open. Thin spirals of ink trailed across the off-white paper from right to left, stopping and starting every few inches.

They were letters. Words.

"It's in Luschet." I pushed the paper toward William, hoping he would be able to read it.

He just shook his head. "Your mother really is set on us going to Luschon."

It didn't take a magician to hear how his voice cracked at the word "mother."

I didn't bother to tell him that Mom couldn't speak a word of Luschet, let alone write in it. Instead, I glanced at him. His face, as usual, was impossible to read. "William, are you okay?"

No answer.

Something was wrong. His face was immobile; he physically couldn't change his expression because he was made of wood, but just for a moment, I could see something flicker behind the surface.

"Will?"

The bedsprings rattled as he shot up from the mattress. He cleared his throat. "We need to get the Fiannu's cavalier."

All thoughts of what was wrong with him vanished. "Wait, what? They have a cavalier?"

So that was why he was so set on coming here.

I stared at William in disbelief. He turned his head to the side so he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Was Raoul's injury the point of coming here, or an excuse to come here?" I asked softly.

He didn't answer me.

"Okay." I moistened my lips. There was no point in dwelling on the reasons William brought us to the castle. It was in the past. There was no changing it. The only things that mattered were the cavaliers, and how we were going to get them.

"Where is the Fiannu's cavalier?"

He brought his hand up to his head like he was scratching it. "Their leaders have it."

"Leaders? As in plural?"

Will nodded. "The Fiannu's ruling system is different than most. They have one leader, who they call a 'president,' who is in charge. Then, there is a group of members who decide whether the president's actions are good or not--basically advisers. Arium, Zelgwyn, and Carrielle all have kings who can give up their crown to whoever they want once they reach a certain age. In Dulcia, when the king and queen have a child, their child is given the crown once his parents die or are unable to serve. If he is under the age of eighteen, then someone else steps in for him. Luschon is about the same, except the child is free to rule whenever."

I stared at him open-mouthed, stuck between asking how he knew that and why he cared about that.

He caught my expression and shrugged. "I've learned a thing or two about politics."

"Okay, so we get the cavalier, then go to Luschon where someone should be able to translate this." I held up the piece of paper with the scribbles.

William nodded. "If only it could be as easily done as spoken. The hard part is going to be getting the Fiannu's cavalier."

"Right." I found myself bobbing my head in agreement. "Which leader has it? If we know that, then it'll be easier to grab and go."

"Ah, yeah. About that." He brought his hand to his mouth. "Elora has the key to it. We actually have to steal the key from her, then get the cavalier."

"Awesome." I threw my arms into the air. "This'll just be a walk in the park."

William just shook his head, chuckling. "It'll be anything but that."

"Sarcasm! Anyway, what is Raoul doing while whoever gets the stone, gets the stone?"

He sighed. "Raoul is distracting Elora. And, Clair..."

I looked up. It seemed as if he only called me by my actual name when he was being deadly serious.

"Your brother can't come with us."

My heart sank. "Why?"

"He's still not fully healed." William crawled across the bed and stopped beside me. "The snowball fight this afternoon--he told me that when he came in, he was having a hard time breathing."

"Oh." My chest tightened. No matter if he was fully healed or not, I still wanted him. I didn't want to just leave him with the Fiannu, especially if he'd just help us rob them.

But wants couldn't matter.

Will caught on to my worry. "It's okay. They won't hurt him if he's caught."

I could almost hear "when he's caught" instead of "if."

I forced the lump in my throat down. "Alright. What do we do?"

*****

I stood at the end of the hallway, face pressed into the grooves on the wall. So far, William's plan had worked.

Raoul and Elora's voices mingled together like smooth velvet. It was like a low bass note that hit every few seconds.

I suppressed a yawn. It felt as if he'd been talking to her forever. Through the wall, I heard Elora's small laugh.

That was okay. Making her laugh was good.  He needed to get the key, whatever it was, from her somehow.

My eyelids dropped down like sandbags. I snatched them back open. If I fall asleep, I'll never hear the end of it.

A creak of the floorboards made my heart fly to my lips. William stood at the edge of the steps, frozen in time, his head tilted to the left a little and mouth open slightly more than usual.

I pressed my finger to my lips and mouthed "shut up." Like it would make any difference. I just wanted to relieve my boredom by aggravating him.

Before William came back with his response, a chair screeched backward against the floor.

"Well, I should go. Clair needs to be getting up soon. She said she was going to practice magic today."

Lamest excuse ever, Raoul.

"That's our cue," I mouthed to Will. He nodded and disappeared behind a table. I pressed myself against the wall.

The door opened. Raoul didn't do as much as glance my direction until it closed.

"Good news, bad news," he groaned. "Good news is: I know what the key is."

I immediately scanned his hands for an object that looked like it would fit into a lock.

"Bad new is: Elora is the key."

"What?" I almost started to laugh. Elora was most certainly not pocket-sized or shaped like something that could unlock doors.

Raoul nodded. "The cavalier is protected by enough magic that it scans her or something. Once it sees that it's her," he waggled his fingers. "open for everyone."

William worked his way out from behind the table. "We need Elora, then. I know where the cavalier is kept, we just need her to get us there."

Both boys turned to me.

My skin crawled from the attention. "What do you think I can do? I'm not a Fiannu."

"Use magic!" they hissed in unison. Raoul's fingers wrapped around my arm. He pulled me to the door. "Go!"

In a split second, I was standing inside Elora's room. She sat in front of a silver vanity, combing through her long hair. Her hand froze about her head once her eyes met mine.

"Clair? What are you doing here?"

I heard the hurt in her voice before I muttered the spell.

There was something else, though. Almost like she was expecting it.

I flicked my fingers so they pointed at her. "Pagose."

She froze. A small grin played at her lips. "This is what I get for saying 'no.'"

I shrugged. "Sorry. We need the cavalier, then we need to leave."

As I turned my back, she asked, "You know I can just call for help, right? I could scream and get their attention."

"If you start to, I know how to make you quiet. Now, akoluitur."

She started to hover in the air, then trailed behind, bobbing up and down every few feet.

"Do you even know where the cavalier is?"

"Will--" I paused. She might not have known William's real name. "Nutcracker does," I said.

She puffed air from her mouth. "And does he know what must be done to get it?"

I opened the door, praying that she wouldn't scream. "He said we just needed you."

Elora was silent. Something nagged at my chest. It couldn't be as simple as grabbing the stone and running, could it? For something that was protected by the people who saw it made, it didn't seem like they put much care into its security.

Raoul jumped when he saw Elora hovering through the door. "You got her!"

I didn't feel his excitement. "Don't sound so surprised. I cheated. She wasn't ready."

Will ignored us and started to jog down the hall. He waved his hands. "Come on! We don't have much more time!"

Raoul and I fell in step behind him, Elora flying around at my side.

"What do you mean, 'much more time?' I thought we could get this thing whenever we wanted to."

He skid to a stop and faced the icy wall. His hands covered every inch of the smooth surface, only stopping when he brought them to a darker color of ice.

He pointed his hand to Elora, then to the dark spot on the ice. "This is the scanner. The snowflake needs to be in line with it."

I pushed her over. "Sorry in advance if you scrape the wall. I'm not the best steerer.

She mouthed something that looked like an "oh boy," then nodded. It turns out, it wasn't as difficult as I expected. The scanner was at her cheek height, so all I had to do was place her on the floor.

A deafening crack came from the ice-wall. It split into five different parts, all long and narrow. The ice-rectangles moved away from the wall and hovered like they were magnetized, leaving a black space large enough for a person to fit through.

William stared for a moment, then halfway stepped in. His body partially disappeared. "I'll be back in a minute. Wait here."

Then he was gone.

Wait here?

Ahem, annoying little girl whom I am stuck inside the mind of?

I winced. It figured that the first time Rosinka decided to pop up was in the middle of us stealing from magical people who could wipe the floor with us.

What?

She laughed. Your prisoner has taken matters into her own hands.

My eyes widened. I jumped to the side, just in time for a blast of cold to skim my hand. I turned just enough to see Elora powering up another snow attack. Raoul was stuck at her side, his feet pinned to the ground by a long, frozen chain.

I waved my hands. A wall of ice appeared between us.

How is she free? That spell shouldn't have worn off by now!

Elora answered my unspoken question. "Your magic--normal magic-- works differently on us, Clair. We can manipulate it however we want."

Something hard hit my makeshift shield. Spider-like cracks formed in the ice, darting all the way up to the top. 

One more hit and that's gone.

I gulped. There was only one way out the fight.

I followed William.

_______________________________________

*wants chapter longer*

*looks at word count*

*looks at time*

Okay, okay... It's a good stopping point.