by Martha Carr
“I know she’s alive. For now.” Leander’s gaze shifted from side to side with his sweeping head, but he didn’t look at the trainer.
“We’re doing the only thing we know how, Leander.” William stepped closer. “Asking for help wherever people are willing to give it. We’ll find Raven and we’ll bring her back.”
“You will find her, William Moss. I will bring her back.”
“Okay.” The dragon trainer nodded and raised his hand. “I know it’s a lot to ask right now and we haven’t had this conversation in a long time. But I have to ask today. Do you trust me, Leander?”
The dragon stopped pacing and raised his head slowly to study him. “Raven trusts you.”
“She does.”
“And you care about her.”
William exhaled a slow, heavy sigh. “More than she knows.”
Leander stepped toward him, met his gaze, and extended his head slowly on his long, muscular neck toward William’s outstretched hand. He hovered there, two inches out of reach, and snorted. Finally, the dragon nudged his palm with his snout and turned away. “Get to work, flyboy. Find my mage.”
“I will. That’s a promise.”
When he reached his dad and Professor Worley, the men had unsaddled both dragons and fitted them with makeshift leads. He noticed the saddles tossed haphazardly into the grass and pressed his lips together. If that’s the worst thing right now, we’re still doing okay.
“All right. Let’s go see the headmaster.”
“I’m happy to show you to his office.” Worley glanced at the rope leads in his hands and frowned. “But I’m not sure…”
“Hitch ʼem up to the post, man.” Ernie nodded. “They won’t go anywhere.”
“Is that right?”
“Teo and Calista are some of our best. We probably wouldn’t have to tie ʼem up at all, but that would bring a whole new wave of questions down on our heads and that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“Sure.” The professor looked warily at the dragons and nodded. “Come on, you two. You heard the man.”
“Indeed,” Teo muttered.
Calista uttered a short rumble of amusement and they both followed him to the hitching post beside the stables. He snorted in disbelief and shook his head as he tied the ropes. “The best-trained dragons are tied to a post, and the one who almost didn’t make it gets to roam around in the field.”
“Leander isn’t trained,” Teo replied. “He is a mage’s familiar.”
Worley stepped away and met the green dragon’s gaze. “And that means something even to other dragons, huh?”
Teo and Calista exchanged a glance and neither of them moved despite the yards of slack lead coiled at their feet. She inclined her head. “It means something, yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Here we are.” Worley stopped at the top of the tower staircase and knocked.
“Come in.”
The giant familiar-training professor pulled gently on the iron ring and left the door open in the staircase. He entered Headmaster Flynn’s office and stood aside while William and Ernie stepped into the room.
“Mr. Moss. And Mr. Moss.” Flynn stood behind his desk and nodded at the dragon trainers. “Please. Have a seat.”
Ernie strode briskly across the floor and William followed, gazing at the odd knickknacks on the shelves, the rotating orb of glass that spun in mid-air beside the wall, and all the books and gadgets and magical things he didn’t understand. He was still staring when he took the empty chair next to his father on the other side of the desk.
“Headmaster.”
Flynn looked at Worley and nodded. “That will be all for now, Professor Worley. Thank you.”
“Right.” The large man nodded and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
“Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice,” the headmaster began. “And so quickly.”
“Well, we do have dragons,” Ernie said with a thin smile.
“Yes, you do. And, I assume, connections with other trainers and riders who have their own dragons. Correct?”
William nodded. “Many connections. Yeah.”
“Good. I may ask you to use those connections at the end of this conversation. And I’m sorry to say I must start with grim news.”
“We know about Raven Alby,” he said quickly and leaned forward in his chair. Flynn’s eyes widened, and Ernie glanced at his son with a small frown. “Leander arrived at Moss Ranch early this morning—without her. He was scared and a little beat up, but he managed to tell me most of what happened. I think.”
“Is that so?” The headmaster nodded and his gaze seemed fixed on the surface of his desk. “He was awfully loud and barely coherent when he arrived on school grounds at sunrise.”
“Well, he’d probably had enough time for everything to sink in at that point.”
“I see. Professor Worley has had quite a difficult time getting anything more out of Leander than bits and pieces. Mr. Moss, I would very much like to hear your version of what happened last night. Secondhand, of course. But right now, it’s the best we have.”
“Sure.” William shifted in the chair and took a moment to collect his thoughts. At least he’s asking me to tell it. So far so good. “Like I said, Leander came by the ranch about an hour before sunrise. He woke everyone up, including the dragons, and I went out to see what was going on. He and Raven were staying at the Haverson Ranch outside Dresdel. Well, he was there, but she was at the inn nearby.”
Flynn took a deep breath. “Yes. Miss Alby contacted me yesterday evening and told me the same.”
“Well, the Haverson Ranch caught fire last night. And not a barn or stable fire, either. The entire ranch. The way Leander told it made it seem like the fire was started on purpose—and not in any way a human or even a mage could start it, if you know what I mean.”
“Dragon fire.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “That was my first thought too. But Leander’s convinced it wasn’t a dragon. He said he could smell it there. Some…angry creature.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. But I’m more inclined to believe him than to jump to conclusions about a dragon starting that kind of fire.”
The headmaster glanced at Ernie, who stared intently at the corner of the desk without saying a word. “Beyond the fact that you are close friends with Miss Alby and have spent considerably more time with Leander than anyone else in this room, why would calling it a dragon-started fire be jumping to conclusions?”
“Because whatever creature was there took Raven.”
Ernie’s head jerked up, and he gaped at his son as if waking from a dream. “What creature?”
Oh, no. Hold on, Dad. Come on. William clenched his jaw. “Again, we don’t know. But as far as Leander could tell me, whatever it was knocked him out of the sky. Raven…fell and the monster carried her off before her dragon could get up and go after her.”
“Monster.” Ernie snorted. “You’re a grown-ass man, Will. There’s no such thing as monsters.”
Ignore it. “Right now, we don’t really have anything better to call it, do we?”
“I’m sorry, Headmaster.” Ernie shook his head with a self-conscious smile. “My boy’s spent too much time with his head in the clouds. Literally. If I’d known about any of this nonsense, I would’ve left him at the ranch and come here on my own.”
“Dad—”
“I’m serious, son.” The look he gave him held more condescension than he had seen since he was twelve. “We have a kidnapped girl and a mage-less dragon outside, and you’re wasting everybody’s time yappin’ about monsters. That wasn’t part of our conversation.”
“We talked about this.” Please, stop talking. You’re gonna blow it.
“And we’ll talk about it again when we get home. I don’t know where this crazy idea came from, Will, but you’re not helping anybody by making up stories when you should be—”
“Da
d!” William spun sideways in his chair. “You were there with me. You heard everything Leander said.”
“No, I was…” Ernie grimaced, frowned a little, then sank into his chair and looked away. “I was… This morning, I got up to…”
The young man gritted his teeth and clutched the armrests beneath his hands. Well, now it’s out. I can’t let him flail like that.
“Where was I this morning?” His father stared at nothing in particular and his lower lip trembled. “I can’t…”
“It’s okay, Dad.” He smiled and caught his father’s wrist gently. “It’s okay. We can go over it again later.”
“Sure. Sure.” Ernie patted his hand and stared blankly across the room.
“William.” Headmaster Flynn’s voice was quiet enough to make the young dragon trainer look at him. “Did Leander tell you anything else about this creature?”
If he can pretend to ignore what happened, so can I. “No. But he described the Haverson Ranch well enough, and it’s not the first time either of us have seen something…like that.”
“Like what, Mr. Moss?”
“Scorched earth. Destruction for its own sake and gouges in the ground that could have been left by a dragon too. If it happened to be four times a dragon’s natural size.”
Flynn narrowed his eyes and stroked his beard before he gave it a little tug. “Where?”
“Up north in the mountains. The sanctuary for clipped dragons.” William leaned back in his chair and held the armrests again. “Raven and I flew out there two days ago with Leander and Teo. The clipped dragons were as upset as Leander was when he came to see me this morning. We saw signs of a similar fire with huge scratches in the earth and even in part of the cliffside. Only whatever made a stop at the sanctuary tore a few dragons apart before it left.”
“Tore them apart?”
“Like at the butcher’s.”
The headmaster looked at the wall above the door to his office and licked his lips. “Anything else?”
“Leander saw something before that, too. Or only its tail, at least. There’s something out there, Headmaster, and I don’t have any idea what it is.”
“But it took Raven Alby out of the sky.” The man swallowed. “We can’t let this go.”
“We won’t.”
“I would like you to reach out to your connections among the dragon riders and trainers, Mr. Moss. We need to mobilize as many—”
“We already did.” William glanced at his father, who now leaned back in his chair with one ankle crossed over his knee, stroked his chin, and stared at the headmaster like he understood the entire conversation. “My dad and I rode out this morning after Leander left the ranch. We went to Nadine first, then a few of the other smaller towns around it with dragon ranches. Magnes Thell. Eidertown. Everyone knows and everyone’s keeping an eye out. They’re all waiting for me to tell them where she is and they’ll be ready to come with us when I do.”
“Well done, Mr. Moss. You and your father took action where action was needed. Had I known, I might have sent a few messages with you to reach out to my own contacts, but I’ll connect with them in other ways. I suppose the only thing left to do is find where this…creature is keeping Miss Alby.”
“Right. And as far as that goes, I don’t even know where to start.”
“I believe that’s where it’s most important for us to work together, Mr. Moss. Now, before we go any further, is this meeting of ours keeping you from any other important business today?”
William’s laugh was completely humorless. “Even if it was, Raven’s more important than all of it.”
“Very good. So please, if you don’t mind, tell me again what Leander told you. Perhaps we’ll find something we missed the first time.”
Behind the rear wall surrounding Fowler Academy, Bella, Murphy, and Henry huddled together in the wall’s shadow.
“Try it again,” Bella said. “But make sure you picture exactly who you’re trying to reach.”
Henry glanced at her in irritation and shook his head. “I almost passed out the last time. You want me to do it again?”
“Do you want to help Raven or not?”
“That’s a stupid question. Jeez, maybe you should be a mage trainer once you graduate.”
“You haven’t watched Alessandra with war-mage training, have you? Trust me, she makes me look like a teddy bear.”
With a snort, he glanced at Maxwell, who sat perfectly still in the grass beside Fritz. “Okay. One more time.”
“You got it.” Murphy gave him a reassuring smile.
“Yeah, sure. If I can keep from falling over.” The young wizard pushed onto his knees and took a deep breath. He raised both hands and muttered, “Loquimi magus.”
His hands shook and he gritted his teeth as the shimmering circle of light appeared in the air before him.
A second circle materialized in front of Bella, and when his face focused from blurry to crystal-clear, she grinned. “That’s it, Derks.”
Her voice echoed once from her own mouth and again from within Henry’s magical window through his Full Appearance spell. He grunted and fell back to sit in the grass and hang his head between his bent knees. The action cut off the spell abruptly. “This is insane.”
“But you did it.” Murphy patted his shoulder. “That was really good.”
“It actually was.” Bella smirked. “It only took you, what? Seven tries to get an image that clear.”
“I have a feeling that’s too many times,” he muttered.
“I heard most mages can’t cast an image for weeks when they practice the Full Appearance.”
He raised his head to look at Bella with a cocked eyebrow. “I feel like I’ve done this for weeks.”
“Yeah, it’s supposed to be draining too. But when you guys can use this, we’ll be able to talk to Raven. Together.” She leaned toward them and smiled. “We can talk to each other if we have to. No matter where we are.”
“And this is the only time we’re doing this on the school grounds,” Murphy added.
“We already went through that, Murphy.” The other girl waved her off. “You have to learn it in person. But I think you guys are getting it.”
“Okay, Henry.” Murphy nudged him gently. “Do the thing, then.”
“The thing.” With a sigh, he lowered his hands to the grass and cupped them. “Come on, Maxwell. Time for the thing.”
The toad leapt twice and landed in his mage’s hands. Henry lifted him to his lips and muttered, “Sana vulnera.” He kissed Maxwell’s bumpy back and closed his eyes.
A warm wave of tingling magic spread from his lips, through his head, and into his core until his fingers and toes were tingling.
“Good work, buddy.” He set his familiar down again and opened his eyes. “Still not a hundred-percent, but it works.”
“You’ll get better at that too.” Bella nodded. “It only takes practice.”
“You know what I don’t get? How come the only helpful hint I get from an actual professor is to give the toad a good lick? And then you come along with this actual spell that does more for Maxwell’s healing abilities than anything I’ve learned in the first year of school.”
“I read it in another spellbook I’ve been studying.” She shrugged. “And I happened to remember it.”
He shook his finger at her with a little smirk. “You’ve been holding out on me, Chase.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Hey, fine.”
Bella eyed him until she gave in to a tiny laugh. “Okay, Murphy. You’re up again.”
The girl folded her arms. “If you get to call me Murphy, he gets to call you Chase.”
“What?” Bella shook her head and scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. I—”
“No, Murphy has a point. If we’re all in, we’re all in. Chase.” Henry grinned.
“Whatever. Do the spell.” She gestured toward Murphy, settled in the grass again, and folded her arms. The girls exchanged a knowing g
lance, and she couldn’t help a little smile.
“All right. Here we go.” Murphy shook her hands out and focused on the task at hand.
Unaware of the students hiding behind the wall to practice restricted and highly advanced magic, Professor Worley made his way through the stone archway and onto the field again. “Horses? No problem. Birds, reptiles. Hell, give me a pissed-off raccoon or the biggest alligator in the pond. I could handle a hippo. But dragons? Three. They want me to keep an eye on three dragons. There’s a reason dragon training is its own—”
He stopped when he caught sight of the dragons spending the afternoon on the school grounds.
Teo and Calista had walked out onto the field as far as their leads would allow them to, which was much farther than he was comfortable with in the first place. The ropes drooped slightly from their necks, not quite stretched taught. Both dragons faced east, their heads raised toward something only a dragon could see. Between them lay Leander, curled in his usual tight ball and breathing calmly. The red male’s eyes were closed but at this point, Worley knew better.
“Would you look at that.” He scratched the side of his head and chuckled. “The dragon who won’t listen to anyone but Raven Alby merely needed a few dragons to calm him. Sure. Why didn’t I think of that?”
He shook his head and sighed. “He has a long few days ahead of him. We all do. It had better be long enough.”
A screech echoed from overhead. Teo and Calista looked up briefly before they returned to their posts. The professor gazed at Gresh wheeling above him and nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
With his head down and his focus on other things, the bearded man trudged across the grass toward the forest surrounding Fowler Academy and disappeared quickly into the trees.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Erigo.” Raven’s eyes widened as she watched the large stone elevating at her command toward the top of the pile. “Easy. Careful…”
Her hand shook a little as she levitated it to the very top. When she was sure it wouldn’t go anywhere, she released her spell gently and held her breath. The stone remained perfectly still, and she pumped her fist.