Young Writers Society

Her eyes still staring at nothing, she gestured for Rudi to come closer. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but can you put some kind of protection on Simon? I know someone’s following him, but I don’t know the intentions or anything, so we should try to be safe.”

As she continued explaining her theories, Rudi switched to his magic sight. Pink smothered everything in the room, but Simon’s bright red magic was still visible. Rudi sent a piece of his own magic to cover his mentor in a giant, green dome, big enough to also protect anyone nearby.

“Were you listening to a thing I just said?”

“Not really.”

Vinnia crossed her arms. “Do have any ability to multitask? It seems that every time I ask you something, you’re wondering about something else. And yes, I know you just put protections over Simon.”

Though he was about to ask how she knew, Rudi found himself being shushed by his friend.

“Listen. If you can, I want you to figure out who’s trailing Simon. We have to figure out if it’s like what happened to Prince Lukas, or just… whatever it is. Oh, and if you can catch Axel during a break, we should tell him too.”

Glancing back at Simon, who was at the moment surrounded by a posse of taffeta-adorned girls, Rudi scratched his head. How could he find one person in this mess of magic?

“Relax,” Vinnia said, putting a hand on Rudi’s shoulder and smiling, “I’ll help too, you know.”

With that, the two young pages dove back into the kaleidoscope of attendees. They watched Simon like he might vanish into thin air at any second, and scurried from lady knight to lady knight to hide behind their voluminous skirts.

It was sunset by the time Rudi and Vinnia remembered their dance cards. As the violins struck the last chord of a jaunty country dance, Vinnia turned to Rudi, a panicked look on her face.

“Aren’t we supposed to dance at some point?” she asked, eyes focused on something over Rudi’s shoulder. “We’re on each other’s cards, right? Maybe we ought to take care of that before something really happens to Simon.”

“Next song then?” Rudi said, suddenly feeling queasy. He glanced at the green dome that covered Simon. It was hard to really tell with all the pink everywhere, but something didn’t look right about his spell. Since its creation, the dome had grown in size by a few feet in diameter, and it seemed to have a slight, apple-colored tint in a few places.

The next dance, as it turned out, was a waltz, one of those slow, weird dances that required actual attention, and not just careless flying from one partner to the next. As Rudi struggled to keep from stepping on Vinnia’s feet—he had to lead, of course—the turning and tumbling of his stomach only intensified. With every glance at Simon, the dome seemed bigger, and sicklier, like soap bubble blown much too large.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, her toes nimbly avoiding Rudi’s.

Rudi’s gut lurched, and he let go of Vinnia’s waist to cover his mouth. He could almost taste the bile.

“You are clearly not okay. Look, if the spell is too much for you-“ she cut herself off, eyes widening. “Oh my! Rudi, what happened to your magic?”

Tears pricked at Rudi’s eyes, and he was about to lift his hand off his mouth to answer when Vinnia narrowed her eyes. “Switch to your magic sight,” she commanded.

Rudi did as she ordered, watching as his dome slowly grew greyer and greyer in color.

“Now look,” she said, “is there someone in the ballroom with grey magic?”

There was. It was an average-looking, grey silhouette that was almost depleted of magic, and it stood just five feet from Simon, right inside the magic dome. Rudi nodded.

“Good,” Vinnia said, “now look with your regular vision.”

Rudi did, the magic-on-black of his magic sight returning to the fabric-on-white of the ballroom with dizzying effects. He blinked a few times, staring at the blank spot where the grey man had been. There was no one there.

“Why didn’t you just say he wasn’t really there?” Rudi asked, turning to Vinnia.

She raised an eyebrow in indignation. “Don’t you remember? I have bad vision. Now let’s out of this dancing before someone trips over us.”

If Rudi recalled correctly, she’d only said she was far-sighted, but he refrained from bringing up the subject. Still clutching his stomach, he followed Vinnia off the dance floor, trying to avoid the dancers that she dodged so gracefully.

After several ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s, Rudi emerged from the dancing behind Vinnia. Hands on her hips, she spun to face Simon and his group.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, “Or still not so great?”

As he tried to shake his head, Vinnia gasped. She stumbled backwards, one hand tugging on Rudi’s sleeves.

“Rudi,” she spluttered, “Rudi, you’ve got to get rid of your protection.” Her breathing went from quiet to rasping, and her chest heaved each time she inhaled. “You’ve got to get rid of it! It doesn’t matter how, just get rid of the dome now!”

“Huh? I don’t understand, Vinnia, what’s-“

“Just destroy the dome!” she pleaded, “The grey man is using it; you’ve got to get rid of it now!”

Feeling sicker every moment, Rudi tried to figure out how to tear down his dome without hurting anyone. If he popped it, the magic would only splatter over everyone, possible becoming some kind of uncontrollable attack in the process. He could dissolve it like he did with Vinnia’s wings, but he didn’t have the concentration right now.

“Rudi,” she whispered frantically, “hurry up!”

Suddenly, Rudi couldn’t see the ballroom anymore. His head spun as though he’d been knocked over the head by one of Axel’s larger textbooks. He keeled over, and his knees hit the tile floor with a thud.

“Rudi! Rudi!” Vinnia was practically screaming now. “I know it hurts, but you have to do it! Just pop the dome! I’m telling you, as long as you don’t want anyone to get hurt, no one will! Just do it! Please!”

Clammy hands settled on Rudi’s shoulders, and the scratchy ruffle of taffeta drowned Rudi’s ears. He squinted through his magic sight, looking at the green-grey dome that nearly covered half the ballroom now. A giant pin of deep, forest-green magic materialized out of nothing, its sharp end just a few feet away from dome. As Rudi inched it closer, he could vaguely hear Vinnia’s crying, and the confused muttering of people nearby.

And then, the moment before Rudi pricked the bubble, it collapsed inwards. In surreal slow motion, the green-grey dome shrank to a ball that he could only sense, not see. A slow second passed where the only thing Rudi could hear was the thumping of his heart.

Suddenly, magic flew outwards. It expanded so rapidly, so strongly, that Rudi could just barely raise protection over Vinnia and himself. The lines of magic that crisscrossed the clothes of so many pages and squires vaporized into millions of specks. There was silence, then laughter. And then someone screamed.

Rudi switched back to his regular sight, glad that he was on the ground, and not standing as so many other pages were. Unlike them, his breeches still hung at his waist, kept there by his seated position. It was comical, really, but this wasn’t the time, especially when a young woman lay sprawled on the floor next to Simon and his sisters. Her eyes were frozen open in shock, and red seeped into the teal bodice of her dress. Whatever magic she had was already gone, leaving a blank, black spot inside Vinnia’s pink haze.

A small girl in green collapsed over the lady, bawling. Her brown curls draped over the matching ones of the dead woman.

“Zaelda!” she sobbed, “Zaelda, wake up!”

A somber look on his face, Simon kneeled next to the two. He wrapped his arms around the younger one, whispering something to her as his own tears began to fall. Collectively, everyone in the ballroom stepped away from the body, watching as members of the royal family gathered around her.

Silence enveloped the ballroom, and finally, as the king and queen kneeled over their oldest daughter, the reality of what happened struck Rudi. This was his fault. If he hadn’t fueled that distraction with his own ‘protection’, would anyone have still died? Princess Zaelda had died of a stab-wound, not something Rudi could prevent with his magic. But the laughter, the seams of all the pages’ clothes ripping apart, that was still his doing.

Another member of the royal family was dead, and it was all Rudi’s fault.