'Me, me, me!'
"Ooooh!!!" I squealed and squatted to the ground, throwing my arms around the malamute.
"Nana, Nana, Nana!" the malamute sang in the song of his people.
"Max, Max, Max!" I responded with a big loud kiss to his forehead.
"Stop howling so loud Max! You're embarrassing us." a voice called out.
It was Corwin.
"But he's got a gorgeous singing voice!" I protested.
Several passersby turned to look at me and the malamute with grins of mirth and appreciation.
"A howling singing voice is still a howl." Corwin insisted.
I laughed. "He's not howling. He's calling my name." I looked up into the grinning faces of the twins.
"That doesn't sound like your name. It just sounds like he's wailing at the wind." Connor burst out laughing.
I patted Max's head and stood up. "What are you guys doing here? Aren't we supposed to be meeting up at six this evening at the Chapel Fountain."
Connor nodded. "We got word that father had returned from his business trip, so we ditched everything and went back to the house to meet up with him."
"Is everything ok?"
"Well, as okay as it possibly can at this time," Connor responded.
"We were talking with him about the Jaynami Monteceto situation when mother ported in and said you were out here in front of the MagiKat by yourself." Connor lightly yanked on my hair.
"So?"
"So we were told to come out here and keep you company." He grinned.
"I was just with her only a few minutes ago. How did you guys get here so fast?"
Corwin tapped my forehead. "We ported. She told us to keep you out of trouble."
"She said she and your father and sister were leaving tonight…"
Corwin and Connor looked at each other.
"They just now left with Lauren." Corwin rubbed his chin. "But it's not a huge deal. They've gone on vacations with our little sister before. It's only for a short while."
The rubbing of the chin thing was something that the Osiris guys did when they were thinking about something important. I knew that this was one of those important things.
"Do you—do you want to go with them?"
"We can't." Connor shook his head. "We have to take care of this anomalous situation with you and Simon and Uncle Blackstone."
Corwin nodded. "That Demons book seems to be the answer to all this craziness and if we abandon it at this stage, heavens know what will happen to Topaz."
"Your mother asked me if I wanted to leave with your family. I said no, but if you want to go with them, we could have all gone together…"
Corwin sighed. "And leave Simon? Leave Uncle Blackstone? Leave the Academy? Leave the Demons book riddle unsolved?"
"So you and Connor are staying behind with Max?" I absentmindedly rubbed Max's head.
'More, more, more' Max panted.
For a moment, Corwin seemed choked but then he cleared his throat. "Our parents have to take Lauren to a safer place. Mother did not want to leave us but Father was insistent."
"Lauren is very young and needs to be protected, but he's right. We can't abandon ship at the first sign of trouble." Connor looked away into the distance.
"Me and Corwin, we're trained warriors, Nana. We have to protect our homeland. Who's going to defend the Academy? Who's going to defend Topaz?"
I sighed. "I've been all over the campus today and I saw all the professors in battle gear and waiting. They are very spooked right now."
He shook his head. "They are in battle gear? They've never fought a day in their lives but they are on standby waiting for the word to begin fighting? Do they even know what to do?"
I smiled grimly. "At the very least, they're First Class mages. And besides, they don't have any choice. They told me they'd gotten the reserve duty notice from Professor Jonesbarry."
"Wait, Jonesbarry sent the notices out?" Corwin threw me a sharp glance.
"Yes. I was with Professor Jonesbarry earlier and he told me he sent the notices out because he could not get the Dean to respond and he couldn't get consensus from any of the other mages."
"That makes sense now that I think about it." Corwin scratched his head. "If Blackstone thought we were in a state of High Alert, why would he ask us to come for dinner?"
I shrugged. "It wasn't his idea to switch from Low Alert to High Alert. It was Jonesbarry. As far as he's concerned, we're still on Low Alert, which means dinner's still on."
I bit my lip. "I think Dean Blackstone was trying to avoid panic. Going from Low Alert all the way to High Alert just brings us that much closer to an actual all out fight."
Connor nodded. "I agree with that. It seems as if Blackstone's attempt at a delayed tactic and not poking the hornet's nest only bought us enough time to get everyone ready and in place."
"No doubt," Corwin whistled. "We were at the front lines earlier this morning talking to Borlik Jaynami. His warriors have been on High Alert ever since Monday even before the votes had been counted."
"But isn't that just House Jaynami's modus operandi?" I asked.
Connor's eyes were steely blue. "We only had two fighting forces in Topaz, House Jaynami and House Monteceto."
Corwin clenched his teeth. "Except the bastard Paulson Monteceto and the entire House Monteceto defected to the side of the enemy the night House Imara fell."
I gasped.
I remembered Paulson Monteceto's barely veiled hostility towards me at the Council of Mages meeting, but I had simply chalked it down to a general dissent for Magus Asada. I did not think it extended to the entire Council of Mages.
"You have to be on guard, Nana. House Monteceto is now fighting alongside the Mage Elites, which means anyone wearing the gold vestments or shoulder insignias is the enemy. We are their targets now." Corwin warned.
I swallowed. "House Imara fell so easily…"
Connor touched my shoulder. "It's not House Imara's fault. As Healers, you were the most vulnerable of all the Houses. House Imara had no warriors."
I shut my eyes. "We weren't supposed to need any warriors. We were supposed to be the backup support for the warriors."
"Of course, the Mage Elites knew House Imara would be the most vulnerable. They were taken over in a hostile situation several weeks ago, before anyone could even make a move. Your parents didn't even know it had happened until it was too late."
"I didn't know until Monday night." I let out a harsh breath.
"By the time the Council of Mages had convened to vote, they had already put in place one of their people to take the House Imara vote. The hostile takeover was the only reason why we even knew that there was a war situation happening." Connor shook his head.
"Yeah. One moment, everything was normal—the next moment, your father and mother had been replaced as Head of House Imara." Corwin pursed his lips.
"There is one bit of good news though," Connor patted my shoulder. "Most of the healers are not warriors, and given that kind of takeover, they pretty much all defected back over to our side."
"Really?"
Corwin nodded grimly. "Even though we couldn't save House Imara, your father's Healers are now wearing the black insignias of House Blackstone."
"Yes. You're the only Imara not wearing black. In fact, you're actually wearing the Overlord bodysuit." Connor pushed my hair off my shoulder. "Where's your shoulder insignia? Aren't you supposed to be a General or something?"
I wrinkled my nose and whispered in a conspiratorial tone. "This is not my uniform. I stole it from some Sergeant First Class Overlord. Professor Morton saw the low-level insignia and ripped it off my shoulder."
"What an ass." He snarled.
"So now you're what…a new recruit?"
I laughed. "Even new recruits have a Private insignia on their shoulder." I looked down at my shoulder. "I'm a nothing."
"You're not a Nothing," Corwin scowled. "You're an Everything."
I looked at both of them and for a second we said nothing. Then the three of us burst out laughing.
In their attempts to cheer me up, they said things that, while made little sense, did in fact lift my spirits.
"By the way," I held up a finger. "I have a couple of things I'm supposed to give you."
I reached into my bag. "Here are a couple of surfboards from Professor Farley. He said they were for the two of you. I don't know which one is for which of you but I'm sure you can duke it out."
The twins glanced at each other. Without a word, they reached out for the tiny wedges I held in the palm of my hand.
"Wow, Farley trusts us this much?" Connor breathed.
"Looks like it. Now I'm kinda nervous." Corwin agreed.
In a split second, the boards disappeared into their magiked storage space.
"You're not going to use them?"
"These are priceless ancient treasures Nana," Corwin cleared his throat. "They're not to be used. They are to be protected and saved for future generations to cherish."
"Wow, I didn't know they were that amazing. Oh." I pulled out the rings that Tangerine Osiris had given me.
"These are also for you. Your mother told me to give them to you when I met up with you."
The twins glanced at the tiny gold rings in my hand. Their deep blue eyes began dancing.
"Nana…these rings are tiny." Connor picked one up and stuck it on the tip of his pinky. It slid half-way down his fingernail and would go no farther. "I don't think these are for us."
"Well…they are from your mother so you have to take them. Maybe you could wear them around your neck on a chain or something."
Connor slid the tiny ring onto my ring finger. "We don't have a chain right now. How about you just hang onto them for us until we can figure out what to do with them."
Corwin grinned and slid the other ring onto my other ring finger. "You just keep these safe for us, okay? Don't lose it or Mom will kill us."
I stood there like a bump on a log, not knowing what to do. On each of my ring fingers were two small gold bands from Tangerine Osiris, and from the look of them, they were ancient Osiris heirlooms.
"Guys…what if something happens and I lose them? What do I do?"
They laughed and gave each other high-fives.
"We can put a magik spell on them so they won't come off your finger," Corwin touched the ring on my hand, "but then it would be hard for you if you need to clean the rings."
Connor rubbed the top of my head. "Don't worry Nana. They're just simple keepsakes. If you lose them, we'll make new ones and she will never know the difference."
"Really?"
"Yes." Corwin's eyes twinkled merrily.
***
We had three hours to kill till dinner time with Blackstone, so at my urging, we took off with Max to the shooting range and spent three hours shooting at flying targets with paint pellets.
Of course, the mannequin-shaped flying targets were also shooting back at us, so it was doubly difficult.
Max was on the ground with me and I was surprised that he took my mental directions quite well. He avoided the color pellets easily as he ran around chasing after the mannequins.
I had the advantage in that the moving targets could only access me from above and at ground level. Since I was already on the ground, I was safe from anything shooting at me from below.
The twins had to avoid attacks from above and below them.
Since they could levitate, they took over the airways and somersaulted back and forth between boulders and moving disc shields to avoid the pellet sprays that would come at them without warning from all directions.
Then they would launch into the air simultaneously, grab each other's hands and swing outward with their legs kicking at the flying targets.
Meanwhile, I stayed on the ground covering for them as best as I could from the moving targets that were on the ground shooting up at them.
I found myself running from tree to tree to avoid direct exposure to the flying targets. Max would draw their attention by suddenly lunging at them.
While he had their attention, I would shoot at the target and neutralize them by hitting their various bullseyes painted in various locations meant to mimic the critical areas of the human body.
Neutralizing the ground mannequins was not that difficult. The flying ones were a bit more tricky.
From my vantage point below, all I had to do was aim at the moving targets and pull the trigger. The trick was I had to perfectly time my shots so that I could hit the targets without shooting at the twins.
Since I was a conservative player and the twins were daredevil aerial stuntmen, by the end of three hours, I had only been hit with five pellets but the guys were covered in a multitude of paint colors.
Max was also covered in paint. As smart as he was, when he realized that the paint pellets didn't hurt at all, he began charging at all of them without even bothering to avoid the paint hits.
We laughed at the end of the game and walked through the cleansing chamber where the paint color were lifted off our clothing and his fur without any fuss.
It was 6 pm.
Time to meet up with Blackstone.