Captain Reese ignored her and pointed to the House. “Go—”
“Fine! We did it.” Adept Tellier exploded. “We built the statue for the library to be hollow so we could start a fire in it, unseen, and use it to engulf the gardens. We created the ice on the bridge and caused the fireworks malfunction. We did it!”
The Tellier wizards—either fried by fire or by lightning depending on whether Juggernaut or April had gotten them—stopped trying to stand, and meekly sat on the lawn as if hoping the House would suck them back inside.
“I knew it—they wanted to hurt us all along!” A human shouted.
“No—no!” The Adept chopped his hand down, refuting the sentence. “Never! We didn’t seek to injure any humans! We just wanted to reestablish our reputation.” He still reeked of desperation, but at least he was smart enough to minimize the damage with humans—the more he upset them, the harder the Curia Cloisters would come down on him.
The Adept turned to Captain Reese and spoke through gritted teeth. “After our previous…encounters with House Medeis, our reputation and power as a Wizard House has been terrible. All we were seeking was to use the humans to reestablish a positive reputation. We made sure no one was hurt!”
“There was almost a stampede at the fireworks,” Sarge flatly said. “And cars crashed because of the ice. You were lucky: the damage could have been huge.”
Captain Reese shook her head at Sarge, then loudly announced. “Wizards of House Tellier. You are under arrest and charged with the crime of using magic to harm humans. We will be taking the Adepts, Heir, and all wizards present into custody, and calling in emergency troops to watch the House. You will stand before the Regional Committee of Magic—tonight—to answer for your crimes.”
The Adept cursed under his breath and a couple of the Tellier wizards groaned, but they seemed to accept the charge shockingly well considering how frantic they’d been moments ago.
The House didn’t beat us up when it logically should have given that we are a threat to its wizards. And most obviously, Adept Tellier doesn’t want us going inside. What is going on? Is the House rejecting them, and they don’t want other wizards to know?
I watched as Adept Tellier held his arms out in front of him, and waited until Tetiana secured a pair of cuffs on him before putting my dagger away.
Binx and Brody stepped onto the lawn, each of them taking a set of cuffs from Medium-Sized Robert before peeling the burnt wizards off the lawn and slapping cuffs on them.
In less than five minutes, we had the Adepts, Gideon, and the other top wizards of the House cuffed and stashed in our cars.
The humans that had been watching on the sidewalk were now gossiping with other nonmagical neighbors as they watched the spectacle.
“That resolved a lot easier than I thought it would,” Brody announced as he slammed a car door shut. “I thought we’d have to fight to get them charged with anything, but they practically put a bow on themselves.”
“Yes,” I said, still not satisfied.
“I thought it was plenty hard,” Juggernaut grumbled. “We just lucked out that House Tellier didn’t do more—it could have.”
“Yes,” Sarge agreed as he glanced back at the magical House. “It seems it isn’t on good terms with its current Adepts.”
“Thankfully!” Captain Reese cheerfully said. “Let’s move out! Keep an eye out for any potential attackers en route. Just in case!”
“Yes, Captain!”
“You got it, Captain!”
As the team shouted out their responses, my cellphone buzzed in my pocket.
I checked my messages as I approached the car I’d been assigned to. April had driven, and it was just the two of us for the drive home—probably because Sarge didn’t want to risk the Telliers complaining about House Medeis’s vendetta against them.
Sunshine had gotten back to my text.
Sunshine
The only thing I can think of that includes 29 days is the cycle of the moon. A full cycle is technically every 29.5 days. No idea why that would matter to Orrin. Fae magic isn’t dependent on the moon cycle.
Are there any kinds of magic that are?
Before I could even open the passenger door, Sunshine responded.
Sunshine
There are elf artifacts and weapons that survived until today that have powers that would wax and wane in power in 29.5 days to model the moon cycle, so it’s assumed some elves used magics that operated similarly.
You mean they are most powerful on a full moon or something?