And suddenly, he was gone.
He didn’t step away, didn’t fall. There was no smoke, no sound, no flash of light. Nigel simply disappeared.
She gasped. How could they forget the first rule of relic hunting??? Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed!
"Nigel!" she called, taking a tentative step forward, her hand out in front of her as a sort of shield. "Nigel? Where are you?"
His head popped out of nothingness, and a moment later he stepped back into view. "I’m right here. Where did you think I’d gone? And where on earth did you find a rabbit suit? Oh-!"
He stared at her as he grew enormous before her astonished eyes.
Only it wasn’t that Nigel grew, she realized. Dumbfounded, she raised her hands, but in place of fingers and palms, she now had paws. A downy white coat sprouted from her skin. Her leather vest, hiking boots, and fitted breeches shrunk to fit her new form. She shrieked in distress, while a wide-eyed Nigel knelt next to her, reaching out to collect her into his arms.
He stood, scratching her ears, holding her against his chest, his mouth open but no words coming out. And as suddenly as she changed before, she changed back to the full sized, fully human Sydney Fox.
Nigel’s knees, unprepared for the transformation, promptly buckled beneath him, sending them both sprawling to the unforgiving stone floor.
Sydney blinked, frozen in place. "What just happened?" she asked, drawing a sharp breath.
"I can’t breathe…" was Nigel’s strangled reply.
After rolling aside to remove her elbow from his Adam’s apple, Sydney repeated, "What just happened?" She sat back on the granite floor, her back against a stone outcropping, while her wheezing assistant scooted in next to her.
"I think we must be getting close to Merlin’s journal," Nigel rasped, rubbing his abused throat.
"You think?" she asked, wary eyes searching their surroundings for any signs of new and potentially dangerous surprises.
"Either that, or we’ve walked in on the Mad Hatter’s tea party."
Sydney shivered. "Watch out for the Red Queen. I hear she’s a killer hostess."
The entire back wall of the room was now lined with shelves, heavy hand-hewn wood dividers that weren’t there before. On the shelves marched a seemingly unlimited collection of vials and bottles, boxes and jars. Most were opaque, and the few transparent examples displayed things Sydney figured were better left hidden.
"We were watching for physical traps. I never thought to watch for magical ones," she remarked, uneasy. How did one watch for magical traps, anyway? If there really was such a thing as magic, by definition it defied physical law. "They must be illusions, but the illusions might hide real traps, too."
"They’re magic, but I don’t think they’re illusions," Nigel replied thoughtfully, reaching out to pluck a bunch of fresh grapes from thin air. "This magic isn’t sleight of hand, Sydney. It’s as real as any physics class you’ve ever attended. If I were to conjure up a dragon, its fire would singe the hair on your head and burn up your clothing. It’s not a parlor trick here. It’s an art, a talent honed over a thousand lifetimes. It’s as real as the sun rising in the east, and much closer to home."
Sydney gaped at the fruit in his fingers. She could smell the juice that trickled down his arm. When he popped one of the pale gold spheres into her mouth, her taste buds registered the slightly tart, sweet nectar and her tongue rolled around the texture of the pulp and skin. She spit the firm center seed into her hand and watched it sprout before her eyes. If she was astonished before, now she was frightened.
Pushing to her feet, she backed slowly away from the young man she thought she knew. "Where’s Nigel?" she asked fearfully. "What have you done to him?"
Go to Part Twenty-One.