Prologue~Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch. 5~Ch. 6~Ch. 7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~Ch. 11~Ch. 12~Ch. 13~
Ch. 14~Ch. 15~Ch. 16~Ch. 17~Ch. 18~Ch. 19~Ch. 20Ch. 21~Ch. 22~Ch. 23~Ch. 24~~Ch. 25~Ch. 26~
Ch. 27~Ch. 28~Ch. 29~Ch. 30~Ch. 31~Ch. 32~
Jessica was beginning to have very mixed feelings about this whole being stuck in another dimension business.
“So just how big a deal is it, what happened at the Well?” she asked Alexandre. “I mean, should I brace myself for a mob bursting in at any second to drag me off to be burned at the stake?”
“Why ever would they do that?”
She took comfort in the fact that he looked genuinely puzzled by her question. “Isn’t that usually what superstitious peasants do to witches?”
He shook his head at her. “Nay. While they may fear those of power, they would never cause unwarranted injury. You have harmed no one, and you are under the prince’s protection.”
“Well that’s a relief.” She settled back down in the bed, ready to doze off again, when a sudden thought struck her. “How much do you know about magic?”
“Very little,” he admitted. “Though I was tutored alongside the princes, magic was forbidden to us.”
“Damn. Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to figure it out on my own.”
“Figure what out?”
“How to get past those monsters surrounding the castle to talk to the wizard inside.” The more she thought about it, the more it became plain to her that to get rid of the army of illusions, she needed to go right to the source. And then once she helped Ewan get his castle back, she could concentrate on getting home.
“Are you mad? If you place one foot on that battlefield you will be torn apart. Countless others have tried and failed.”
“Ah, but were the others as powerful as I am? Jessica O’Connell, wizard extraordinaire.” For some reason she found this extremely funny, and started to giggle.
Alexandre frowned at her. “His Highness will never allow you to put yourself at risk like that.”
“Then we just won’t tell him what we’re doing,” she said with a yawn. “I think tomorrow you, me, and Gareth should pay another visit to the battlefield.”
Alexandre didn’t try to talk her out of her scheme; he could see her mind was made up. But he sent up a silent prayer to gods he no longer believed in that Ewan would never find out about it.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
In the morning, while she still had a few minutes to herself, Jessica pulled out the milk-white pendant. “Howard? Are you there?”
“I’m here, Jessica. How are you feeling?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” she assured him. “Alexandre makes one hell of a hangover cure.”
“I felt that power surge all the way down our link,” he told her. “I’ve never felt anything like it. I’d give my right arm to be where you are now.”
“Trust me, I wish you were here too, Howard. This magic stuff is starting to scare the crap out of me.”
“You’re going to have to be very careful, Jess. Do you have any idea how much power you have stored up inside you right now?”
“What?” She sat up a little straighter where she was sitting on the bed.
“That’s what those wells are used for, replenishing a mage’s power. Right now you’ve got enough power inside you to light up a small city.”
“Holy Saint Christopher! How do I get it out again?”
“The only way is through spell casting.”
“Oh, jeez. That doesn’t sound good at all. You saw what I did when I tried to create a fire, and that was before the power surge.”
“Don’t worry, Jess. We’ll figure something out. Now that the link between us is stronger I’m able to draw more information from your world.”
“Don’t call it that!” she said crossly. “This isn’t my world, this is just the world I’m stuck in, temporarily.”
“Sorry, Jess.”
“Listen Howard, you said before that the reason Ewan’s army takes a beating any time they go near the battlefield is because they think the monsters are real, right?”
“That right.”
“So it would follow that if a person thought otherwise, that the monsters were just illusions, they’d be able to just walk right through them, right?”
“In theory, yes . . .”
“Good, that’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Jessica . . . what are you up to now?”
“Nothing dangerous. I’m just going to walk through that battlefield and right up to the castle.”
“And then what? You can’t hypnotize all those people into believing the monsters are illusions.”
“Of course not, but I can talk to the wizard who’s creating them and find out what it’ll take for him to pack it up.”
“Sounds a little risky to me.”
“Nonsense. It’s a brilliant plan.”
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