The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

“We have a plan,” Mack said softly. “We carry it out.”

He walked on legs gone wobbly to the railing that looked down over the Champ de Mars. They were too high up for people down below to hear, but the kids had prepared for that.

“Tine ovol ebway!” Mack said in a loud, sure voice. In Vargran it meant, “Loud voice us.” It was the best they could do with the clumsy ancient tongue. They could only hope the meaning was clear, or clear enough.

No worries, as Jarrah liked to say: once he had spoken the words, his voice was suddenly as loud as if he were talking through a bullhorn.

“People,” he bellowed. “People down below. Cameras on!”

There were perhaps a hundred people down below on the concrete and a few spreading out onto the grass, and they all looked. And those who had cameras turned them on.

“People of Earth!” he cried. “We are here to warn you of a terrible danger. The Pale Queen rises after three thousand years of captivity to enslave the human race!”

Suddenly Sylvie was translating his words into French, her voice only slightly less loud. Not that the French people below didn’t understand the English—of course they did—but, being French, they would be insulted that someone was bellowing at them in English from their greatest national landmark.

“Liberté, egalité, fraternité!” Sylvie cried. “En danger!”

“We know you won’t want to believe us,” Mack cried. “We know you will need proof that magical and awful things are happening. So. We have arranged undeniable proof that nothing is like it was anymore.”

In French Sylvie warned everyone to get back from the base of the tower. Absolutely no one obeyed.

“Let us hold hands,” Xiao said, “and focus our power as one.”

She took Mack’s right hand. Dietmar took his left. Charlie beside Xiao, Jarrah with Dietmar, Sylvie and Rodrigo last.

“On one,” Stefan said, conducting as agreed. “Three … two …”

Before he could say, “One!” the sky turned suddenly dark. A swirling cloud, almost a tornado, came down like a finger of doom.

“Is that us doing that?” Charlie yelled. “Because if it is, we should stop!”

“That’s not our doing,” Xiao said darkly. “I sense a great evil approaching.”

“Then you should also sense me getting out of here,” Charlie said. But he didn’t move. He stayed. They all stayed and held hands.

The tornado touched down amid the crowd below, scattering hats and coats and handbags and cameras. People were knocked down like bowling pins. Dirt and debris flew.

Then, through the storm walked two figures. The wind did not touch them. The debris sailed harmlessly past them. An old, old man in green, waving a sword, scaring people away.

And beside him, a boy in ludicrous pirate gear, brandishing a curved blade.

Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout. And the traitor, Valin.

And from the sky, descending from the tornado’s funnel, as if she were careening down a slide, came Risky.

She landed on the railing, stood there effortlessly, wearing a shimmery green dress that brought out the amazing green color of her eyes. Her red hair was a tornado all its own.

“Mack, Mack, Mack. I thought you understood: fun and games are over, Mack.”

“Don’t let her distract us!” Dietmar cried.

“Oh, shut up, Dirtmore,” Risky said, and her right hand stretched as if it were putty. Stretched into a tentacle that reached for Dietmar’s throat.

Stefan leaped, grabbed the tentacle, and was tossed aside with such force Mack feared he must have been killed.

“Together!” Mack cried. “NOW!”

And the ancient spell, the tongue of power, the words of magic were chanted in shrill, frightened, but absolutely unshakably determined voices.