by Martha Carr
“Why?” Her companion snorted, shifted her weight to one leg, and thrust her hip out. “Do you have a secret school project or something?”
“Well…more like extra training. With Professor Worley.”
Another slightly awkward silence passed between them, and Bella’s frown returned. “For what?”
“Familiar training.” She nodded toward Leander, who still hadn’t moved an inch. “Specifically for dragons, I guess, seeing as Leander and I don’t have much to do during the regular classes. He offered, and we decided it couldn’t hurt.” And it’s not like I get invitations to dinner at someone else’s house all the time.
The girl tried to smile again, but her confused frown ruined it. “When did this start?”
“Right after school started again after the spring break.”
With wide eyes, Bella leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You’ve been training with Professor Worley for two weeks?”
“Yeah. Not every day. And not at the end of the week when we don’t have classes.”
“That’s… I mean…” She scoffed and stepped away from her. “Why are you the only one who was asked about familiar training? Wesley and I have as strong a connection as you and Leander!”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t he ask me?”
Raven pressed her lips together and looked at Leander again. It seems I’m still on my own for this one, huh? She shook her head and sighed. “Honestly, I think it’s because dragons are so different than everyone else’s familiars.”
Bella scoffed again and turned to face Leander too. “Dragons aren’t that different.”
Slowly, she turned her head to regard the other mage with a raised eyebrow.
The girl didn’t even have to look at her fellow war mage in training to know exactly how she was looking at her. “Okay, there are a few exceptions.”
Both girls snorted, and Raven brushed a few loose red hairs away from her face. “Only a few. Namely that he can already be farther away from me than any one of the other students’ familiars and that he talks. Oh, yeah, and he’s bigger than three horses put together. But you’re right. Very minor differences.”
“I can also think for myself and hear every single word you two are babbling at each other,” the dragon added. He opened one yellow eye halfway and rumbled softly.
Bella bit the inside of her cheek. “Okay. Maybe those differences are enough to warrant extra training.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Raven pressed her lips together through another tiny smile.
“Still, it would’ve been nice for him to at least ask if I wanted to get in on this. Wesley and I are already way more advanced in his classes anyway.”
“I wonder if he never asked because you’ve been holding back.”
“I’ve been what?”
“Because you didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, remember?”
The girls stared at each other before Bella closed her eyes and scrunched her face. “I did say that.”
“You totally did.”
“Well, then.” Bella dropped her knapsack onto the grass and folded her arms. “I’ll wait for you, I guess. As soon as you’re done with Worley and have put Leander up, we’ll leave together.”
Raven chuckled. “Are you sure you won’t be bored out of your mind watching someone else train with their familiar?”
“Please.” The girl dragged her knapsack across the grass, tossed it against the wall of the stables again, and sat beside it with her back against the wood. “Watching you and Leander is never boring. Don’t pretend like you don’t already know that.”
“Thanks.” She grinned at the other young mage and when Bella rolled her eyes again, she turned to her red-scaled dragon. “Did you hear that, Leander? Bella Chase complimented us on our foolproof ability to entertain.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my hearing, little girl.”
“Of course not.” She turned to watch Professor Worley walking swiftly across the field. His curly black hair and wild black beard fluttered in the slight breeze and bounced with every heavy step. “I guess it’s time to show them what we’ve worked on, huh?”
Leander pushed to his feet, stretched his wings, and exhaled a heavy sigh. “Will there be a stage?”
“A what?”
“This feels like performing, not learning.”
Bella uttered a sharp laugh and quickly ended it when Raven looked at her. “What? Much of it does look like a performance.”
“So this is the day, huh?” Raven shook her head and smirked at her dragon. “When Bella and my familiar start to team up against me?”
“When she’s right, she’s right.” Another rumble of amusement escaped his throat and his head swung from side to side. “And she agrees with me, which most definitely makes her right.”
She laughed and threw her hands up in the air. “I guess that’s settled. If you’d like me to ask Worley for a stage, I’m sure he can put something together for us.”
Leander’s tail whispered across the grass as he dragged it to one side, raised it, and thumped it onto the ground again.
“I’ll take that as a no.” The young mage stepped toward her familiar and pointed at him in a mock warning. “You like showing off too so don’t pretend it’s all on me.”
For a few seconds, the great red dragon held her gaze with his glowing eyes. Then, his head lurched forward and his jaw opened and snapped shut again with an echoing clack an inch away from her finger. Bella gasped and jumped a little at the sound, her eyes wide.
Raven didn’t budge.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She grinned and nudged his head away playfully. The other girl released a long sigh and forced herself to not look so freaked out. When Raven saw the concern on the other girl’s face, she tried hard not to laugh. “We’re only messing around, Bella. He’d never actually bite me.”
“I know…” She shrugged where she sat and let Wesley climb into her lap. “The sound startled me, that’s all.”
Leander responded with a small rumble and stepped toward his mage, towering high over her. “Never say never, little girl.”
“Cut it out.” Raven nudged him again and shot the girl a reassuring smile as she muttered, “You’re not helping.”
The dragon indulged in a few short bursts of hissing laughter before Worley finally reached them beside the stables.
“Sorry I’m late.” The man wiped his forehead with the back of a huge hand and huffed a heavy breath. “Alessandra mentioned she’d taught you and Miss Chase the Full Appearance today, and I…well…” He chuckled and tugged on his wiry black beard. “It was more than a mention, honestly. She wouldn’t stop talking about it.”
Raven wrinkled her nose. “She was complaining, wasn’t she?”
“What? Oh, no. Quite the opposite, actually. I’ve never heard the woman talk so much about anything.”
Bella perked up. “We actually impressed her!”
Her interjection surprised him and he turned toward her, entirely confused until he saw her seated on the ground. “Miss Chase. Have you been there the whole time?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.” He scratched the side of his face through his thick beard and grinned. “I may be a tad more distracted today than I thought.”
“Well don’t let me distract you.” With a tiny smile, Bella gestured toward Raven and Leander. “You have training to do.”
The professor glanced from one young mage to the other and his beard fluttered across his chest with every turn of his head. “I suppose that saves me the time of explaining why we’re out here, Miss Alby.”
“You didn’t tell me it was supposed to be a secret.”
“No, I suppose I didn’t.” The man scratched his head in thought, glanced at the clear blue sky, and shrugged. “I didn’t expect to have an audience.”
The group fell silent, punctuated by a snort from Leander and the muted rip of grass being torn from the earth when he pawed at the grou
nd slowly.
“Well, then. Let’s get to work.” Worley clapped and strode resolutely toward the center of the field.
Raven darted Bella a curious glance, and the other girl shrugged. That’s right. Bella Chase’s passive-aggressive charm. She’s gonna wheedle her way into private familiar training too after this.
Chapter Seven
“And what about now?” Professor Worley asked.
Raven couldn’t see a thing with the man’s blindfold on, but Leander’s image came through with perfect clarity. Raven paused for barely a second before she pointed up, to her right, and slightly behind her.
He looked at the red dragon who soared effortlessly exactly where his student pointed. “All right, Miss Alby. That’s four for four. How much have you two practiced the last few days?”
“Enough.” She shrugged and a tiny smile snuck through her attempts to play it off like no big deal. “We’re quick studies.”
The man chuckled. “I’ll say.”
Wesley took to the sky and darted toward Leander. He uttered soft, bursting screeches as he fluttered above the red dragon’s head.
“Okay.” Worley squinted at the blindfold around Raven’s eyes and folded his arms. “Now, I want you to let Leander choose where he goes. He must make it somewhere very specific. The next time he sends you an image, you tell me where that is.”
“Sure.” She hardly had to think about it. He already has something in mind. I can feel it. She stood utterly motionless on the field, breathed deeply through her nose, and listened to the birds calling to each other in the woods behind her. When she raised her chin, she smiled at the warmth of the afternoon sunshine on her face. At least it’s getting warmer now.
The professor gave her three minutes before he cleared his throat. “All right. Where is he now?”
Leander’s image popped into her mind with considerably more ease than the others had and she grinned. “Turn around.”
“Turn around?” He frowned but did as she said and spun swiftly in the grass. A shout of surprise escaped him when he came face to face with Leander’s massive red head and razor-sharp teeth bared in a dragon’s grin. He staggered backward, and she ripped the blindfold from her eyes in time to see him stumble toward her. She leapt aside as he regained his bearings and fought to recover from the scare. “Of all the—”
Leander hissed in laughter and lifted his head slowly. Raven covered her mouth to hide her laughter when the man stared at her with wide eyes. Bella chuckled from where she watched them training, and he snorted. “That was—”
A piercing screech ripped through the air and they all looked up to see Gresh wheeling high above them.
One of his familiars checking in on him. She pressed her lips together. I guess we really did scare him badly.
Worley lifted his hand in a two-fingered salute at his hawk familiar and Gresh stopped wheeling to soar over the forest behind them. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a shock like that.”
“It was all Leander’s idea,” she assured him. “I swear.”
“Uh-huh.”
Another image from her dragon flashed through the young mage’s mind—a large, regal-looking doe standing at the edge of the forest, her lean body exposed as she peered at the field from behind a small thicket of bushes. The image was gone as quickly as it had appeared and she turned around to look at the place her dragon had shown her. The deer was gone.
“Professor?”
“Yes, Miss Alby?” Worley cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders before he gave Leander an exasperated glance.
“Is one of your familiars a deer, by any chance?”
The giant, black-haired man turned quickly to face her. “A deer?”
“She was right there in the trees.” She pointed and raised her eyebrows. Because that’s exactly what it looked like.
He studied the forest for a few seconds and sighed. “Did Leander send you that image?”
“Yep.”
The man licked his lips, studied the forest again, and gave Raven a knowing smile. “You two are much further along than I thought.”
She shrugged and smiled in response, waiting for an answer.
Worley’s eyes crinkled at the corners when his smile widened and he nodded at Leander and put his hands on his hips. “Now I know where you and Leander stand and how much more you’ve strengthened your bond. I’d say you’ve about mastered unspoken commands and receiving messages from him.”
“He’s been very good at sending them for a while.” He’s not gonna tell me about that deer. Not with Bella sitting right there.
“I think that’s all we need to cover for today. Good work.” He nodded at the dragon, who lowered his head a few inches in reply. “You two enjoy the end of your week. I’ll meet you out here again in a few days.”
The familiar-training professor turned to return across the field toward Fowler Academy’s main buildings. Bella jumped up from where she sat against the stables and hurried after him. “Professor Worley.”
The man paused and turned toward her with a small smile, his eyebrows raised.
“When can Wesley and I be a part of this extra training?”
He looked at her in surprise which quickly ended in a rueful chuckle. “I honestly didn’t think you’d be interested in this, Miss Chase.”
“We’re definitely interested.” She glanced at Wesley wheeling above them. “And we can handle much more than what you teach us in class, too.”
The man nodded and leaned toward her a little. “You do realize that I brought this additional training to Miss Alby’s attention because—”
“Because she has a dragon familiar. I know.” Brushing aside the thought with a dismissive wave, Bella tossed her head back and gazed intently into her professor’s dark eyes. “She told me all that. But I’m ready. Wesley’s ready too. We can already do everything you’re teaching in class. I want to know more. Faster.”
Worley responded with another soft chuckle and pressed his lips together. “I know you’re eager. That’s a good thing. But to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure additional training outside of class would benefit you and Wesley as much as you think it will.”
“What?” She leaned away from him and folded her arms. “Why not? We haven’t even shown you everything we can do yet.”
“You’ll have your moment for that, Miss Chase. In time.”
“Can’t that time be now?”
The professor took another deep breath and this time, when he smiled, it looked more like he was trying not to grimace instead. “You’ll have to put in a request with Headmaster Flynn before I can give you any real answer. Enjoy your days off, Miss Chase.”
Without giving her another chance to argue further, Worley turned quickly and strode across the grass. His loose linen clothes whipped about his ankles and his shoulders as he approached the stone archway.
Bella watched him, her mouth open in surprise around the rebuttal she hadn’t been allowed to make. After a moment, she exhaled a disgruntled breath and turned. “Unbelievable.”
“What did he say?” Raven stood on the other side of the stables beside Leander, patting his broad shoulder.
“That I won’t get anything out of extra training, basically. And to put in a request with Headmaster Flynn.” The girl rolled her eyes and practically stormed toward the other mage and her dragon. “Why’s he so hesitant about it? We’re already training to be war mages together. It’s not like you have a secret ability I don’t.”
Only a dragon. She shrugged. “I don’t know. It couldn’t hurt to talk to Flynn about it, though, right?”
“Except you didn’t have to put in a request.”
“No. But Worley did. I don’t think Flynn would tell you no.” Raven blew a few loose hairs away from her face. “It’s not like they don’t know what you’re capable of.”
“Oh, they know.” Bella folded her arms and shook her head as she glanced in exasperation across the field and the edge of the forest s
urrounding the school grounds. “I’ll keep asking and eventually, they’ll give in.”
She choked back a laugh. “That’s definitely one way to go about it. Or maybe Worley’s having a weird day.”
“That’s not an excuse.” The girl stormed past her to snatch her knapsack from against the stable wall.
“Maybe not. But he did seem a little more…avoidant than usual. Especially when I asked him about that deer.”
“What deer?”
Raven shook her head. “Never mind.”
As she slung her knapsack over her shoulder again, Bella stared at her with wide eyes and raised brows. “So, are you coming with me or not?”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, let me get Leander settled.” She gave the other girl a reassuring smile and turned before her classmate could say anything else. I hope she chills out a little before we sit down for dinner with her family. She nudged Leander’s shoulder and nodded toward his pen. “Shall we?”
The dragon’s yellow gaze moved slowly toward Bella but he lowered his head and headed to his enclosure.
Raven stared after him for a few seconds. The last thing I need is my dragon being pissed at me too. She hurried to catch up with him and pulled the slightly ajar gate open wide enough for him to slip into his spacious pen. Then, she turned and called to Bella, “Just a sec, okay?”
The girl shrugged like she thought she was asking permission. “Whatever.”
She entered the pen behind her dragon and closed the gate most of the way behind her. Leander turned in a few tight circles before he settled in his usual position of either sleeping or waiting for her. She moved quickly toward him and lowered her voice. “Is everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Well, you… I don’t know. You headed in here without saying anything and I’m getting kind of a weird vibe, so…”
Leander snorted and focused on the small crack between the gate and the pen wall. “It’s not because of you.”
“What’s not?”
“The vibe.”
Raven glanced over her shoulder at the gate, stepped closer to her dragon, and stroked the side of his scaly muzzle. “That’s good to know. Do you wanna tell me what’s going on?”