“Best him at his own game.”

“Best him at his own game?” she repeated. “But I don’t even know what I’m doing. And he’s apparently the grandfather of the elements.”

“You can summon all the elements,” he said.

“And? So can you.”

“Remember what I said about mages with the ability to summon every element.”

“That they’re all first tier mages.”

“Precisely.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she settled for nothing.

“You’re a first tier elemental,” he told her. “A very strong first tier elemental.”

“I figured as much after I blew those vampires to bits last night.”

“I have never seen anything like that.”

She winked at him. “That’s because you dozed through that part of the fight.”

“Sera.”

“Sorry, I’ll be good now,” she promised, folding her hands together in front of her.

“You can do this,” he told her. “Weather Wizard can summon all the elements, but so can you. You can counter him. Remember how we practiced stringing spells together?”

“Vaguely. Kai, my head is mush.” She raised her hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure I can fight him with magic.”

“You have fought me with magic many times before.”

“Yes, but…well, I still have so little control over it.”

“You did fine last night against the vampires,” he reminded her.

“That was a matter of life or death.” Though, come to think of it, so was this. “When the vampires swarmed you, I panicked. And you helped me in that fight too.”

“I’m here now.” He took her hand, giving it a squeeze.

“I’m afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid to use my magic. Afraid to let my guard down.”

“Just use a little magic. You don’t have to blast every bit of magic you have. And there’s no need to make your opponent explode. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.”

“My gauge is broken. My magic is basically on or off.”

“I know you can do it,” he said, squeezing her hand again.

A mage stepped out of the pit, his steps wobbling as he passed through the door into the hallway. His clothes looked even more trashed than Sera’s had yesterday. He limped down the hall toward the locker rooms, trailing crimson drops.

The guard waved Sera forward. Kai gave her a stiff—presumably comforting—nod as she turned to face her fate.

She entered the pit, looking up. The stands were packed full, the audience jumping and shouting in excitement. She could see them. She just couldn’t hear them through the magic barrier. A wall of thick, solid ice magic, it was thick enough to block out all sound, yet transparent enough for the audience to see everything that went on in the pit. Blackbrooke must have been expecting powerful magic to fly in this match. Sera tried not to feel too daunted by that. Fear would only make it easier for him to crack her mind.

She walked across the sandy ground, her footsteps echoing against the magic barrier. Her opponent, Weather Wizard, was at the other end of the pit, standing posed like a Greek hero of old. A cluster of teenage girls sat in the stands close by, giggling and fanning themselves with every ripple of his golden mane in the magically-charged wind. Oh, boy.

Despite his pretty boy appearance, Weather Wizard was dangerous. She could feel it in the magic that crackled in the pit, the magic of a first-tier elemental mage with an appetite for destruction and the power to sate it. But he wasn’t even the biggest threat in there.

Twin lines of fairies stood along two facing sides of the pit, a web of their magic linking them together, allowing them to work as one. As Sera neared her opponent, the fairies began to chant. Their magic flared up, curling around her. Suddenly, between one blink and the next, the fighting pit was gone. Instead, Sera was standing in a field, high up on a mountain.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Weather Wizard

LONG, FROST-CRUSTED grass glistened in the pink-orange light of the setting sun. A frigid breeze whistled across the grass and bit at Sera’s cheeks, pecking her fingertips with frozen kisses. She couldn’t see the fairies anymore. She could, however, see Weather Wizard—and he was smirking at her.

“Lost lamb, lost lamb, run along home,” he taunted in a sing-song voice. He was hoarding crazy like it was going out of style.

Sera sighed. Couldn’t she—just for once—fight someone who still had all his marbles?

Behind Weather Wacko, funnels of twirling snow flurries spun like icy cyclones. Coils of magical blue-white light glowed against his skin, the living tattoos slithering across his arms. His magic tasted like dry ice and felt like brain freeze.

His pale eyes still locked on Sera, his aura still emanating insanity, he slid his tongue along his lower lip. The ground rumbled beneath Sera’s boots. She jumped aside just in time to avoid being impaled on the frozen stalagmite that burst from the grass. She hopped again, narrowly missing the second stalagmite. Then a third. A fourth. One after the other, they erupted. Sera broke into a run.

“You cannot run,” her opponent laughed. “Magic is the answer. The only answer.”

Blackbrooke had fed him that line. Hell, Mr. Sadistic had probably—no, make that definitely—told them all to do whatever it took to force her to use magic. Fine, then. If they wanted magic, she’d give them magic. She danced around an ice cone and ran at Weather Wizard. If she could just get a hold of him, she’d slam a bolt of lightning straight through his heart. If it had woken Kai from near death, it could take down this mage. And it wouldn’t even require much magic. Win-win.