A Life Less Ordinary by Christopher Nuttall

keeping my head low, and reached the table. Ignoring the glass scattered on the floor, I reached out for the first statue and picked it up. I almost dropped it on the floor as a bolt of green light shot out over my head, but somehow I managed to carry it back towards the corner. I muttered what reassurance I could to the statue – just in case the girl could hear me – and went back for the next statue. The two fighters were still going at it, curses and spells flying everywhere. I kept my head down as I recovered the next statue and then the one after that, trying to keep them out of the fight. I turned, about to head back to the table, when a curse blasted it into a hail of sawdust. The statues went flying everywhere.
    The shock somehow unlocked some of the magic in me. I reached out, using powers I hadn’t known I had, to snatch the statues out of the air and bring them over to me. One of them landed hard, shaking the floor, but it had survived intact. I was tempted to try to restore them, yet I knew better than to bring them out into a battlefield. Mr Pygmalion and Master Revels were still fighting and there was no sign of a winner, not yet. I erected wards over the statues to protect them and stood up. I knew some spells and I could help Master Revels. I threw a curse at Mr Pygmalion, but his wards deflected it back towards me. I ducked sharply as bits of broken stonework cascaded down onto the statues.
    Mr Pygmalion paused for a moment and threw a second spell at me. This one struck me directly, burning through my wards and reaching into my mind. I stumbled forward, my head a jumble of thoughts and feelings that seemed to contradict themselves, as if I wanted to attack my master in the back. You’ve been hexed, you fool , a voice said in the back of my mind. Do something about it ! My hand was lining up to toss a spell when I finally fought off the compulsion and relaxed. Mr Pygmalion couldn’t catch me that easily.
    He looked astonished as I stood up and threw a second curse and then a third, trying hard to break through his defences. With two of us to fight, his position was weakening; if he turned his attention to me for longer than a second, Master Revels would break through his wards and get him. If he kept his attention focused on Master Revels, one of my curses – weaker though they might be – would break through and hurt him. It wasn’t a good position to be in and he clearly recognised it. Using a word that sounded like broken glass, he disintegrated the floor below his feet and plunged down into the next level. Before we could follow him, he was running past a whole array of adult statues. I found myself hoping that they were not magical as Master Revels lowered us down and gave chase.
    It was a nightmare. The statues were coming alive and lashing out at us, stone hands reaching out to crush our skulls. Master Revels blasted each of the living statues – I hoped that that meant that they were not living humans – as we passed, wrecking statues that had cost the building millions of pounds. Mr Pygmalion was still ahead of us, but unless I missed my guess we had blocked him from reaching the exit. I realised, almost too late, that as an artist he would probably know about the backrooms used by the staff, including the emergency exits. I ran forward and blocked his escape, gasping in pain as one of his curses sank red-hot needles into my body. The pain was excruciating, yet somehow I managed to stay aware. I couldn’t afford to collapse now.
    Mr Pygmalion stopped, pressing his back to the wall. I could feel powerful magic shimmering through the air, but I couldn’t understand what he was doing until I felt the building itself began to shake. His power seemed focused around stone and the entire building was made from stone! Master Revels stepped forward, holding up his cane. There seemed to be no way to prevent him from bringing the entire building down on us.
    “It’s over,” he said, quietly. Mr