The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) by Shawn Thomas Odyssey Page B

hand, but the instant she did so the ball shot across the pond toward Samuligan’s outstretched hand.
    Her reaction came quick as lightning. Wand raised, she called: “Hovarium!”
    A streak of purple light shot from the end of the wand, striking the ball as it raced through the air. The metal sphere stopped just out of Samuligan’s reach and then slowly reversed its direction, returning to Oona.
    “ Morium! ” Samuligan cried in a low, guttural voice. The ball stopped and then once again moved toward the faerie’s coaxing arms. His hands moved in a “come here” gesture, as if assuring the ball that he was its master.
    With her own spell still connected to the sphere, she could sense the might of the faerie’s magic, and she had a feeling that he wasn’t even giving it his all. He was playing with her. But according to her intuition, she and Pendulum House had far more magic as well.
    “ Morium ,” she called, increasing her own spell’s power just as Samuligan had done, and the ball once more began to return to her.
    “ Morium! ” Samuligan cried again, and the ball switched directions.
    “ Morium ,” she called back.
    And so it became a tug-of-war, with the ball being pulled first one direction, and then another, each time the opposing forces increasing until Oona’s mind began to feel like soup. Her arm began to ache, her grip on the wand increasing, and it soon felt as if she were slipping away, the magic taking her over completely.
    The enchantment intensified to a fevered pitch, charging the air above the water, where thin bolts of white and purple lightning arced off the ball, striking the surface of the pond. A smell of sulfur infused the air, hitting Oona’s nose on an electrically charged breeze, and still she held on, determined to save the World of Humans from the diabolical faerie.
    That’s when she saw Samuligan waver on the far side of the water. He staggered forward and dropped to one knee. Oona took in a sharp breath and immediately released her spell, alarmed that she might have injured the faerie.
    The ball simply hovered over the center of the pond.
    “Samuligan, are you all right?” Oona shouted.
    Samuligan glanced up from his kneeling position . . . and grinned. Oona groaned at her own stupidity as the faerie snapped his fingers and the ball shot like a bullet toward his open hand.
                  He wasn’t hurt , she realized. He was just pretending because he knew I would be concerned for him.
    It was a clever and dirty trick, and a clever trick demanded an even cleverer bit of retribution .
    Again, it was as if she didn’t need to think about what to do. The magic guided her—the house’s seemingly infinite wisdom—and with a motion much like the flicking of a whip, Oona shot her mind out the tip of the wand and sent it into the ball.
    “Akvis!”
    Suddenly, she was the ball. Her body may have been standing on the far side of the pond, but presently she was flying through the air toward Samuligan’s outstretched hand. It was the most extraordinary and bizarre magic she had ever experienced. For one panicky moment she had a fear that she might not be able to get back . . . that she would be stuck inside of this metal ball forever, but the thought passed as quickly as it had come. There was no time to do anything but think: Up!
    And up she went, heading straight for the sky and beyond. She had a feeling that if she did not change directions she would eventually strike the moon.
    To me , she thought, which was a strange thought to have because presently she was the ball. What was even stranger was that she heard her own voice shout “To me!” from below, and had she still been connected to her body, she might have shaken her head at the confusion it caused.
    Regardless, she began to plummet in the direction of her body’s outspread hand. As she fell, another voice seemed to fill her up.
    “Come to me,” it said in a lulling, sly tone. Oona knew that voice.