Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back

CHAPTER 2 PICKING BATTLES

e were the first to arrive at the cliff where we’d arranged to meet the others. It overlooked a massive span of Neverland’s forest, the ocean a thick line of gray in the distance. Dawn was breaking, but my resolve was getting stronger.

As my three friends and I anxiously waited for the rest of our group, I pulled up the display on my Hole Tracker—the magic watch given to me by a White Rabbit named Harry. It was designed to display and lead the way to oncoming wormholes. Wormholes were dimensional tears that created portals from one enchanted realm to the next. The Hole Tracker projected a glowing, holographic map of Neverland. I spotted the desired wormhole, marked by a small, silver swirl of light. This was the way out of Neverland we’d been planning on taking today. It would open in two and a half hours.

Here’s to an early start to the day.

Daniel emerged from the trees with Arthur and Peter right behind him. It was surprising to me how much the latter two looked alike. Arthur was in his mid thirties, extremely ripped, and had a much sharper jawline. But he had the same blond hair, thick brows, and blue eyes as Peter, and similar facial expressions too.

“Where are the fairies?” SJ asked when they reached us. “We need their fairy dust to fly.”

“They’re still defending the kids and the camp,” Peter said. “You’ll need another way to get out of here.”

“I’ve got one,” I said. I knelt, placed my hand on the ground, and concentrated. In response, the edge of the cliff we were standing on broke free and floated upward. Most of my friends wobbled a tad, but everyone recovered their balance swiftly.

“Are we making a run straight at the wormhole?” Jason asked.

“I don’t think this means of transportation will get us very far,” I responded. “We just need to get away from here. We’ll worry about reaching the wormhole once we’re clear of the camp.”

“Hopefully once those guys realize you’re gone, they’ll stop attacking,” Peter said, flying away from the levitating rock.

“Wait, kid, you’re not coming with us?” Arthur asked.

“The Lost Boys and Girls and fairies are my friends. I have to defend them.”

Guilt and worry overpowered me. Those kids and fairies, as well as Dorothy and Peter, were my friends too. “We’ll stay then. Help you finish what we started,” I said. My magic glowed brighter as I began to lower us down.

“No. You can’t save everyone, Crisa,” Peter said. “That’s not your responsibility. You have a bigger mission. You need to pick your battles.”

“He’s right,” Blue said. “We need to beat Alex and Arian to Excalibur. The wormhole to Camelot opens in a couple of hours and we can’t miss it.”

Every part of my instinct told me to stay and fight. It was completely opposite my nature to leave anyone behind. At the same time, our plan to leave was the best way to get the antagonists to abandon their assault on the camp.

“Fine,” I said begrudgingly.

I started to move our chunk of terrain again, but Arthur suddenly jumped off. He landed on the cliff and rolled to his feet. He may have been a full-grown adult, but the former king of Camelot had all the athleticism of a young hero in his prime.

“What are you doing?” Jason asked.

“What the kid said.” Arthur pulled a sword from a sheath on his back and gestured to Peter, his dusty blond hair catching the light of the sun appearing on the horizon. “Picking my battles. This place has been my home for seven years. I am not abandoning Peter or any of those children either. I’ll be fine. You five go.”

“How can you tell us to leave when you’re going to stay? The antagonists are looking for you,” I argued. “If they capture you, they’re going to force you to complete the pledge of The Pentecostal Oath with Alex, which will put him one step closer to being able to claim Excalibur. You staying here completely defeats the purpose of us—”

“Crisa,” Arthur interrupted. “No more arguing. I can stop these antagonists—with or without Excalibur. You have no idea what I’m capable of. And right now, you need to get a lead on them. If they see me, they won’t leave, and that will buy you a head start to Camelot.”

“But—”

“Crisa, do as I say. Go.”

I didn’t usually follow orders. One, I didn’t like them. And two … well, actually it was just the one reason. But Arthur projected more authority than anyone I’d ever known. Between that and the trust and respect I had for him, I nodded.

Arthur pointed his sword toward the swell of forest below. “Get to Camelot’s citadel. In the castle, you’ll find the Boar’s Mouth statue. The rest is up to you.”

I was about to direct our piece of cliff to take us away, but then I split my magic focus like I’d been practicing and directed additional power into a few nearby trees. My forehead crinkled from the strain. Telepathic magic took a lot of my strength, but I was able to do it.

Four trees glowed and sprung to life. Using their roots like feet, they took off into the forest to defend the camp.

Arthur gave me a look.

“What? I’m not allowed to pick more than one battle?” I said.

The king smiled and shook his head in a way that reminded me of how my mother reacted when I was being stubborn. “You can’t help it, can you?”

“Nope.” I turned to SJ. “Quick. Give them a Mark Two.”

My friend swung the backpack off her shoulders and dug out one of our spare Mark Two magic compact mirrors. These nifty communication devices ran on the same kind of magic that Beauty & The Beast’s famous magic mirror did. They allowed you to contact anyone by speaking their name into the small looking glass within each compact.

We’d found a stall pre-selling them when we were in the Emerald City so each of my friends had bought one, and we’d purchased a couple of extras just in case. We had already gifted a Mark Two to Dorothy. This was a good use of the other.

“Just say one of our names and it will connect you to us,” SJ said, tossing Peter the Mark Two. “If it buzzes, answer.” Peter nodded.

I took a final look at our two new friends. “I’ll bring Excalibur back to you,” I said to Arthur. “I promise.”

With that, I knelt down to touch the stone and released a fresh charge of magic with my commands. Like a falling star we sped from the cliff ’s edge. The promise I’d made to Arthur glowed inside of me with as much ardency as my magic aura around the slice of terrain we rode away like a magic carpet.

I didn’t know for certain that I was the Knight of the prophecy, but I believed it in the same way as when you’re little and you believe everything in life will be okay. It was a feeling rooted in optimism and heart.

I had to keep this promise to Arthur. Although I felt like his role in this immediate story was done and it might be some time before we all saw each other again, I knew his character’s impact on our journey would resonate in the hard days to come. We were about to enter the world he left behind. We were headed for Camelot.

I realized our magical ride was speeding up. I was losing control as my emotions flared. My friends and I crouched to keep from being thrown off. When we neared the tops of trees at the bottom of the canyon, I focused as best I could and ordered the slice of terrain to slow down. We needed to land; the strain of controlling this big chunk of earth was pulling at me and I didn’t think I could keep going. Using telepathic magic on those trees had drained me a bit, and I still felt somewhat woozy from getting shocked by Mauvrey’s electric gloves.

I spotted an opening in the trees. It barely seemed wide enough for us to land, but it did the job. Following a bit of turbulence, we hit the ground roughly. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

My hands stopped glowing and I wavered, feeling a little faint. It’d been a couple of days since I’d used my magic. Although my Pure Magic was powerful, I could only expel so much at once. If I pushed myself too hard, one of two things would happen: I’d run out of power and wouldn’t be able to use it for twenty-four hours (Magic Exhaustion) or I’d use more than I could handle and would die (Magic Burn Out).

Ah, Pure Magic. Your caveats know no bounds.

We dismounted our rocky ride and took a moment to compose ourselves in the silent enclosure of dawn-drenched trees. My friends were also adjusting to solid ground, so they didn’t notice how wobbly I was. Well, except for Daniel.

“You tapped out?” Daniel asked.

I glanced at him, startled. Then my eyes darted to my hands. They were trembling. I held up my right hand and focused. Golden light sparked off my fingertips.

“No,” I answered. “Just tired.”

I extinguished the glow. The magic needed time to rest. I huffed. It was sad how something that made me so incredibly powerful also made me so ridiculously vulnerable. Pure Magic came with so many rules, and Liza kept adding to the list:

• Don’t power magic with emotion; the results might be stronger, but you could lose control.

• Don’t use too much magic too often; you could exhaust yourself beyond repair.

• Don’t reverse your abilities and take life away from things; it’s a bad road to go down.

That last rule was the newest one. Originally Liza had stated that I couldn’t reverse my abilities and take life. Out of curiosity I’d tried on an enchanted piece of wood and been successful. When I told Liza, she divulged that the reason she hadn’t wanted me to do this wasn’t because I couldn’t do it, but because it increased my risk for turning dark.

When carriers of Pure Magic Disease used their powers to inflict mortal harm, the dark and corrosive nature of Pure Magic took a greater hold on them. The more power utilized this way, the stronger that hold became. It was crossing a line—a Malice Line, as it was called. And whenever you crossed it, the control you had over your Pure Magic was weakened, giving your Pure Magic a chance to control you instead.

Although I hadn’t meant to inflict harm when I’d deactivated that piece of wood, I had crossed the Malice Line. I had the power to give life, after all. And by definition, reversing that power meant that I would be taking life away. Which, to quote Liza, was “one of the darkest actions a person can take, and a form of power that no one should have.”

Taking life from that piece of wood alone wasn’t going to make me wicked. But if I continued to cross the Malice Line, my already-low odds of avoiding the awful fate of Pure Magic Disease would decrease even more.

In a way, I was glad to know this. I hadn’t put much thought into the philosophical and moral perspective when I’d taken life from that piece of wood, but I needed to be aware of the implications of using my powers just like I needed to be aware of everything I could do. I mean, I hadn’t known that I could take life until a few days ago. That was important information. What if I could extend my abilities to other situations too, but in good ways like …

My eyes fell upon Jason.

That’s when a brilliant, amazing idea sparked inside me.

Mauvrey’s words about my life energy allowing me to overcome Poppies swirled in my head. Where exactly did my powers end? Could I use my magic on myself? Could I use it on other people? Like Jason?

My idea solidified like a sword forged in magma and left to cool. The notion was the perfect combination of beautiful and absurdly farfetched. I’d had a vision that my friend was going to die, but if I could become more powerful—powerful enough to extend my abilities to not only give life to inanimate things, but also restore life to people—then maybe I could save him!

“Knight,” Daniel asked, completely unaware of my revelation. “What’s our status? When is the next wormhole?”

“I, uh, I checked at the cliff,” I said. “The next wormhole opens at 8:30 a.m., about two and a half hours from now.”

“Let’s get moving then,” Jason said, jumping off the rock and onto solid ground.

I stared at him, still focused on my idea. I wanted to tell him but thought better of it. For one, we weren’t alone and the rest of our friends didn’t know about his imminent death. And two, until I could be certain that I could restore life, I shouldn’t say anything that might get his hopes up. It would be wrong and it would be cruel.

“SJ, can you get out the Neverland map?” Jason asked.

SJ reached into her potions sack. The small thing didn’t just hold her portable ammo. There was an enchantment on the bag that worked like a small wormhole, allowing her to retrieve anything if she knew its exact location and could fit it through the bag’s opening. For example, hidden in our room back at school she had prepared an innumerable number of portable potions, which she was drawing from as we went along. Also hidden in our room were the maps of the Wonderlands we’d constructed before leaving Book.

Our realm may have been a Wonderland (one of fourteen magical realms in existence), but it didn’t exactly sell maps of the other thirteen realms at the mall. So, since my Hole Tracker only displayed vague, general maps, my friends and I had done crazy intense research prior to leaving Book to create our own maps of the Wonderlands that we knew about.

SJ reached inside her potions sack and pulled out a rolled-up parchment. She handed it to Jason, who studied the map closely.

“Based on the size of Neverland,” he said, “it should take us an hour and a half to get to the wormhole. But with the amount of trouble we get into, an extra hour of cushioning won’t last long.”

He was right. I checked the time on my Hole Tracker. It was just past six o’clock and every minute counted. My eyes lingered for a second on the other two accessories I wore beside my Hole Tracker: SJ’s potion-laced SRB (Soap on a Rope-like-Bracelet, which we all wore to keep ourselves magically clean) and a special gold wristband that Alex and I used to share. I didn’t know why I still wore it. Maybe because it reminded me of the goodness he used to have.

I shook my head as I followed Jason’s lead back into the woods.