Page 32 of The Mage and His Stolen Prince
Yet, there had been one evil mage in history who had slipped past the spell, and even caused havoc without being detected. If The Good Wizardcould discover the evil mage’s methods, perhaps he could find his way through the barrier.
The Good Wizard shook his sleeves out and straightened his pointy hat. Then he roughly combed his fingers through his beard and his hair, tidying it as well as he could. He didn’t have time to conjure a fantastical means of travel, so the least he could do was not appear unkempt.
Then he set off to meet a Great and Terrible Evil.
Chapter Eleven: Wilde
Back at the Beginning
The Lord of Grimnight’s Evil Lair
Pinned to the Floor
Delilah waited less than five seconds for me to answer. When I didn’t—because I was still struggling to breathe—she asked all the questions she should have started with. “Where are we? What did you do? Is this part of an evil plan?”
I teleported to the other side of the room.
Instead of moving away from her, she came with me. We were standing up now, but she still held onto my wrists. Because she’d been holding them above my head, I was now the one holding her up. She kicked the air twice before her weight pulled us back down and we crashed against the floor a second time. At least this time I’d landed on top.
“Let me go,” I ordered. Her hands were tiny butstrong. No matter how I twisted and turned, she followed with me.
“Make me,” she growled, an inhuman rumble filling her throat.
I finally wrenched my wrist out from between the weak point where her thumb met her fist. She closed her now empty fist and punched me in the stomach. I choked on a breath and glared at her as my eyes watered.
“Where. Is. My. Collar.” She ground her fist into my stomach with every word.
“I don’t know!”
“Liar.” She stopped grinding and started feeling me up, her hands sneaking under my blouse, as if I’d hidden the damn thing in my non-existent cleavage.
“Enough.”
Time stopped.
I carefully extracted my hand from her grip and pushed myself to my feet.
Time restarted.
The world shifted sideways, sliding out from under me. I caught myself on something solid, wrapping my fingers around it until the world righted itself again. When I finally looked at what I’d grabbed, my stomach jolted in shock. My fingers had closed around the arm of the destroyed throne.
“Wilde?” Delilah’s voice was soft, tentative.
I wrenched my hand away so fast that a sharp twig cut me. A thin line of blood welled up on my palm. I closed it tightly to keep any of it from spilling onto the throne. It’d already taken enough from me; it didn’t deserve any more.
“I don’t know where your collar is,” I told Delilah, focusing on her rather than the throne. “It was lost in the chaos.”
“Then make me a new one.” She sat cross-legged on the floor, as if she wouldn’t move until I granted her request.
I opened my mouth to tell her I couldn’t, then closed it. Rick was an untrained amateur. Surely if he could make a collar that gave her silly little ears and a fluffy tail, so could I. But I wouldn’t do it for free. “Let’s make a deal.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m listening.”
“You’re about to go on a quest,” I said carefully, not sure what she remembered. “I need to join you.”
She groaned and flopped onto her back. Her brown hair spread around her in a fluffy halo. “We alreadywenton a quest. Why do we have to doanotherone? It’s not fair.”
“You remember the first quest?”
