After a while, she opened her eyes to a fuzzy spread of green cloth—her skirt. She raised her head a little and looked at her hand, which slowly swam into focus. There was a scratch but no blood. She sighed in relief. She’d feared that her ears had bled and that she’d find bits of brain on her palm.
But the grass around her was brown. Strange, the moor atop the cliff had recently turned a boisterous green with the arrival of spring. Her gaze followed the expanse of withered grass and—
The flagpole had disappeared. Where it once stood, black smoke rose from an equally black pit.
She struggled to her feet, stuck her wand back into her pocket, and tottered toward the crater, feeling as if her legs were made of mush. The smoke made her eyes water. Grass, dry as tinder, crunched beneath the soles of her boots.
The crater was ten feet wide and as deep as she was tall; the flagpole lay drunkenly across the top. This was mad. When the lightning struck, its electrical charge should have safely dissipated into the ground.
Then she spied the cauldron, sitting upright at the very bottom of the crater, filled with the most beautiful elixir she’d ever seen, like distilled starlight.
A laugh tore from her throat. For once, Fortune had smiled upon her. The wedding illumination would be perfect. Her performance would be perfect—oh, she was going to perform, all right. And Mrs. Oakbluff just might forgive Master Haywood for the prank he’d pulled on her, telling her—ha!—that there would be no silver light elixir for her daughter’s wedding.
A whoosh overhead made her look up. A winged beast, something of a cross between a dragon and a horse, shot past her. It had come from the north, flying with astonishing speed toward the coast. But as she watched, its wings flapped vertically to reduce its forward momentum.
Then it swung around to face her.
The prince could not believe his eyes.
He had vaulted quite close to where the lightning had actually struck, but Marble had flown by too fast for him to get a good look at the mage atop the blackened cliff. But now that he had turned Marble around . . .
The long dark hair, half of it standing up from electrical shock, the ruffled white blouse, the green skirt. There was no mistaking it: the elemental mage who had brought down lightning was a girl.
A girl.
Archer Fairfax could not be a girl. What in the blazes was he to do with a girl?
The next moment the girl was no longer alone. A man in a black robe materialized and sprinted toward her.
Iolanthe stared at the winged beast. It was iridescent blue, with sharp, barely branched antlers on its equine head and a spiked, crimson-tipped tail.
A Barbary Coast peryton.
They were very fashionable in the cities, but not in the hinterlands. What was one doing here, immediately after she’d summoned a bolt of lightning?
“What have you done?”
Master Haywood! His black schoolmaster’s robe billowed behind him as he raced toward her.
“I repaired the light elixir,” she said. “And you don’t need to worry about the crater, I’ll take care of it—and put the flagpole back where it belongs.”
She commanded earth, too, if not quite as well as she commanded fire and water—and lightning.
“My goodness, what happened here?” Mrs. Greenfield, a villager, also appeared. “Are you all right, Miss Iolanthe? You look a fright.”
Master Haywood drew his wand, yanked Iolanthe behind him, and pointed the wand at Mrs. Greenfield.
“Obliviscere!” he shouted. “Obliviscere! Obliviscere!”
Obliviscere was the most powerful spell of forgetfulness—and illegal for mages without a medical license to use. Mrs. Greenfield would lose six months, if not a year, of memories.
“What are you doing?” Iolanthe cried.
Mrs. Greenfield dropped to her knees and vomited. Iolanthe started toward her. Master Haywood caught Iolanthe’s sleeve. “You come with me.”
“But Mrs.—”
He had a death grip on her arm. “You come with me this moment if you want to live!”
“What?”
They both startled at the sound of wings beating above—the peryton. It carried a rider. She squinted for a better look. But the next moment, she was looking at her own front door.
Master Haywood shoved her inside. She stumbled.
Mrs. Needles poked her head into the vestibule. “Master Haywood, Miss Seabourne—”
“Get out!” Master Haywood bellowed. “Leave this instant.”
“I beg your—”
Master Haywood pushed Mrs. Needles out of the house and slammed the door shut. He dragged Iolanthe into the parlor and pointed his wand at the ceiling. The tip of the wand shook.
She swallowed. “Tell me what is going on!”
A satchel fell from nowhere into his arms. “I already told you. Atlantis is coming after you.”
From the open windows came the sound of the peryton’s wing beats. The hairs on the back of Iolanthe’s neck stood up.
“What should I do?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her hand clenched about her wand.