The Timeless One

by James Riley

  Fort let out an explosive breath in relief. “Yes!” he shouted, then lowered his voice as Xenea raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” he repeated more quietly. “She fixed him a bit, that’s all. I’m sure that’s all you smell, magic-wise.” And definitely not the transformed dragon down the hall.

  Xenea shrugged. “My queen didn’t specify, only that two of you had made individual bargains with her. Come, let us tour your domicile.”

  Fort frowned and stopped her before she continued on down the hall. “What do you mean, two of us made bargains? Are you talking about the deal for Excalibur?” That hadn’t seemed like an “individual” bargain, since he, Rachel, and Jia had all been involved.

  She opened her mouth to say something, then paused, sniffing at the air. “And now I smell some sort of animal, only… unnatural. What is happening in here?”

  Fort’s panic returned with a vengeance. “Just my cat!” he said quickly, trying to pull her back to the kitchen. “Nothing important. She doesn’t like strangers. Hates them. Will probably attack you, claw you up.”

  A loud meow came from his bedroom, followed by scratching on the door, and he winced. Ember must have heard him and was ready to be fed. But he couldn’t let Xenea see her, no matter what. As the faerie girl looked down the hall, Fort readied his teleportation spell. He could send Ember to the cave beneath the old Oppenheimer School for a few minutes at least, but he’d definitely be caught doing magic, considering Xenea seemed to be able to smell it.

  But what else could he do?

  The scratching grew louder, and Xenea seemed to pale a bit. “Claws, you say?” she said, turning away from the sound. “Well, she doesn’t smell like the dragon you had with you, back at the door to Avalon, so I don’t know that there’s any need to check her out.”

  Again, Fort almost fainted in relief. “You’re totally right!” he said, turning her gently the rest of the way from his room. “She’s no dragon, just a cat, an evil cat who will scratch you and probably give you diseases.”

  “Diseases?” Xenea said, looking even more sick.

  “All kinds,” Fort said. “There’s even one named after cat scratches. Cat-scratch fever. It makes you explode in a huge pile of pus. Just horrible.”

  Xenea nodded, swallowing hard. “I never knew there were such dangerous animals in this world. And that you would keep them as pets!”

  “Well, they’re cute,” Fort said. “But speaking of diseases, you should probably wash your hands before dinner. Wouldn’t want you to eat any germs. Those are little animals too small for you to even see, by the way, and they’re covering you at all times while you’re here.”

  She dry heaved. “The queen said nothing about tiny animals! This assignment gets worse every minute.” She gave Fort an appreciative look. “Where can I wash my hands free of these animals?”

  With Xenea safely in the bathroom, Fort closed the door behind her and ran to his bedroom, where the scratching was getting louder. He worried that if he left Ember alone for even another minute or two, she might decide to just set fire to the door, which would sort of attract Xenea’s attention no matter how afraid she was of the cat.

  In between scratches, Fort slipped into his dark bedroom and quickly shut the door behind him before Ember could sneak out. He flipped the light switch and looked around, only to find an empty room.

  “Ember?” he said, taking a tentative step in.

  Out of nowhere, a blur of black fur and needle-sharp claws came flying at him, and he shrieked in surprise. Ember slammed into his chest and knocked him to the floor, then began licking his face with a tongue like sandpaper.

  “Pare pala,” she said in between licks. “Volai hrana!”

  He slowly looked up at her in surprise. When he’d left this morning, she’d been the size of a kitten.

  Now a full-grown cat stood on his chest.

  - NINE -

  FORT IMMEDIATELY LIFTED EMBER OFF, cringing at the cuts she’d left in his skin from her claws, then stood back up. “How did you get so big?” he whispered, staring at her in disbelief. “You were, like, the size of my hand when Jia turned you into a kitten yesterday!”

  She just stared at him, looking irritated. “Volai. Hrana.” She tapped one of her empty bowls, sending it skidding to his feet.

  “You’re hungry, I get it, but please don’t attack me again,” he said, and quickly grabbed her bowl as she threaded in and out of his legs, constantly threatening to trip him. As soon as he opened a new can of cat food and filled her bowl, though, she turned her attention to that, and he was able to slip back out, closing the door softly behind him.

  “Did I hear your cat speaking to you?” Xenea said from directly behind him, making Fort leap in the air in surprise. “I hadn’t realized you had animals capable of human speech.”

  Fort just stared at her for a second, hoping his heart rate would slow down enough to keep him from having a heart attack. “Yes, they do,” he said. “All our cats speak. You’re thinking of dogs. They’re the ones who don’t know words.”

  “Hmm,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Are you sure—”

  “Oh, completely sure,” Fort said, pushing her down the hall. “I’ll prove it. Let me show you something we call the internet, where cats are always speaking through the magic of these things known as memes.”

  A half hour later, when the pizza arrived, Fort ended up having to yank Xenea off his aunt’s laptop. “It is full of nonsense and hate, yet I cannot stop looking at it!” she said to him, reaching back toward the laptop in desperation. “Please, for my sake, don’t curse me with such magic again!”

  “We’re all cursed with the internet, and we have to learn to live with it,” he told her, walking her into the kitchen, thrilled that he’d made her forget completely about Ember. “It’s part of being human.”

  His aunt and father carried two pizzas in from the front door and set them down on the table. Cora opened the first and showed it to Xenea. “Cheese, as ordered.”

  Xenea’s eyes widened as she stared at the pizza. “The mold smells strangely appetizing.”

  “Oh, it’s great, as molds go,” Fort told her, grabbing a piece of pepperoni from the other box and taking a bite.

  Xenea gave him a disgusted look, but she mimicked how he held the pizza in his hands and took a tentative bite, as Fort’s father and aunt each grabbed a piece, and his aunt poured some sodas for them. As Xenea tasted the pizza, her entire face lit up, and she excitedly took another bite, then began talking with her mouth full, completely incomprehensibly.

  Fort just frowned at her. “What did you say? Swallow first.”

  She did, then took another bite before speaking. “I said it’s fantastic. What sort of wizardry is this?”

  His aunt laughed, while his father smiled gently, watching the faerie girl closely. “Just the magic of Italy,” his dad said. “Brought right to our door. Speaking of, I can hear an accent in your voice, Xenea. It sounds British. What brings you here to the U.S.?”

  “I’ve come to find something, and learn what I can in the meantime,” she said, taking another huge bite, almost finished with her first piece. She looked at Cora expectantly. “May I have more? I can pay, if you’d like. I would offer you—”

  “Have all you want!” Fort shouted, pushing the box at her. “No need to offer anything, trust me!”

  Xenea nodded happily and pulled half of the remaining pieces onto her plate. “You have my thanks!” she said to them all.

  “Of course,” his father said. “But back to why you’re here. You said to find something, and learn about us? I thought schools in England were pretty good.”

  She shrugged as she stuffed more pizza in her face. “I don’t know that any human schools are that good,” she said. “Mostly I’m here to find—”

  “The differences between America and the United Kingdom,” Fort said quickly. “It’s like an exchange-student thing. To bring our countries closer.”

  “Did you have any family in
London?” his aunt asked, sending a chill through Fort. He quickly took a bite of his own pizza. “I hope they’re okay if you did.”

  “No, my family was all exiled over a thousand years ago,” Xenea said, making Fort almost choke on his pizza. “That’s why I’m learning about you, since they’re thinking of returning.”

  Of course, Xenea’s glamour covered for her, and Fort’s aunt just nodded. “That’s fascinating. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking? Was it a political matter?”

  “Humans didn’t like us stealing their children,” Xenea answered, and this time, Fort did choke. He quickly stood up, his face turning red from lack of oxygen, and pointed at his throat.

  “Fort!” his father shouted, and jumped up from his seat. But Xenea was faster. She slapped Fort hard on the back, and he felt a strange energy pass through him. Whatever it was immediately cleared his throat, and he could breathe again. He thankfully took in a huge breath, then dropped back into his seat, feeling faint.

  “Sorry,” he said, his voice sounding a bit raspy. “Took too big a bite.”

  “That was careless of you,” Xenea said as she shoved half a slice of pizza into her mouth.

  All in all, this was going about as badly as Fort could have imagined. If not for Xenea’s glamour, both his dad and aunt would be completely losing it right now over basically everything she said. Not to mention that Ember was going to be finishing her food soon, which would probably lead to more scratching at the door, if not worse. But what could he do? With Sierra not answering him, Fort had no way of finding Damian, and therefore getting rid of Xenea.

  With one last attempt, he sent his mind out, shouting as loudly as he could: SIERRA! I need your—

  “Whoa!” shouted a voice from the other side of the kitchen, surprising Fort to the point he almost fell off his chair. He looked up behind his aunt to find a glowing yellow image of Sierra, shimmering with the light of Mind magic. “There’s no need to yell! Sorry I was out of touch today, but I had some things going on. Anyway, I was on my way here to tell you that Jia and Rachel both have decided to go find Merlin tonight, that this can’t wait, and frankly, I agree with them. So are you ready or…”

  She paused, her eyes turning to the faerie girl sitting at Fort’s side, slowly pushing another slice of pizza into her face.

  “Um,” Sierra said, tilting her head with a curious look. “Who’s the girl?”

  - TEN -

  NO,” SIERRA SAID, PACING AROUND his room as Fort sat on his bed, Ember on his lap. “You are not handing Damian over to that girl. You said yourself the faerie queen might hurt him!” She paused. “Plus, she’s creepy. She kept sniffing in my direction, and I wasn’t even there!”

  “She can smell magic,” Fort said, shaking his head as he petted Ember, the cat purring loudly. “And Damian can take care of himself! That was pretty obvious when he tried to kill me, Rachel, and Jia. Or did you need to see my memories of what he did again?”

  She sighed. “You don’t know how hard this has all been on him. He just found out he wasn’t human, and then you were all accusing him of destroying London. Which he only did under that William kid’s control, by the way.”

  “No one was controlling him when he attacked us,” Fort growled, and Ember hissed at Sierra’s image in unity. He petted her even more for that, thinking what a wonderful little dragon she was. “How do you know he won’t want to go, anyway? There are other dragons there. He’d probably enjoy meeting them!” He looked down at his cat, and then covered her ears. “And if he goes, and comes back, maybe he can take… other little ones too. Make sure they’re safe.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous,” Sierra repeated. “Besides, he’d never go. He’s obsessed with finding the book of Time magic, and the Spirit book, wherever that one went.”

  Fort’s eyes widened, and he sat up so suddenly that Ember leaped from his lap. “Wait, you’ve talked to him? I thought you didn’t know where he was.”

  Sierra blushed, even in the yellow light of her Mind magic. “Yes, I know where he is. But I didn’t want to tell you because I know how you three feel about him. And he’s just as upset with all of you.” She winced. “I wish I’d been there. None of you know how to have a conversation. Instead you just leap in and throw magic at each other. Not the most mature.”

  “He tried to kill us!” Fort hissed, keeping his voice down in spite of himself. The last thing he needed was his dad or aunt hearing him, not after he’d told them he wasn’t feeling well so was going to bed early. Not to mention that that he hated lying to his father in the first place and would much rather have been spending time with his dad than arguing with Sierra.

  In her defense, Sierra had tried to fix everything by using her Mind magic on Xenea, to make her decide to return home to the faerie queen and say she couldn’t find the dragon. But whatever magical defense Xenea had, it was far more powerful than Sierra was used to, so the suggestion hadn’t worked.

  And then things had gotten worse after dinner, when Xenea had declared she found the apartment satisfactory and planned on living there throughout her stay, mostly so she could use the internet. Fort had told her that wasn’t possible, and Xenea had threatened to go to the queen and say he wasn’t cooperating, until Sierra had tried her Mind magic again, to convince the faerie that the apartment smelled too much like humans to stay in.

  But even that little of a suggestion had been hard for Sierra, almost sending her to her knees with the effort. And it still hadn’t completely clicked until Fort handed over his aunt’s laptop and told Xenea she could use the internet as much as she wanted if she stayed somewhere else. Thankfully, that had done it, though the faerie girl had promised to see Fort bright and early for school the next day, at which point Xenea had finally left, though she hadn’t gone far—she had picked a spot in the park across the street to stay, close enough to see any dragons that might show up, but hopefully far enough away not to notice if Fort teleported out.

  “You know, I was there,” Sierra said, her words pulling him out of his memory. “You don’t need to start remembering it for my sake.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we don’t have time to argue about Damian. You need to teleport Jia and Rachel to that cottage where you met Merlin. They don’t have a lot of time, and I promised I’d make you take them tonight.”

  He glared at her, hating that they disagreed about this, but not able to understand why she couldn’t see how bad a guy Damian was. She’d witnessed everything that Damian had done and yet still wouldn’t give an inch on him. “Fine,” he said, picking Ember up in his arms. “But only because I want to ask Merlin about Avalon, and see if there’s a way to sneak this little fire-breather to the dragons there.”

  Sierra sighed and reached out to pet Ember, only to yank her hand away as the cat-dragon hissed at her again.

  Fort quickly grabbed the two presents he’d made for Jia and Rachel after Xenea had left, then opened a portal for himself, and a portal for each of the others, to the spot where they’d first met Merlin in the UK.

  The forest clearing was dark, lit only by the moon through the dense trees and the three green teleportation portals Fort had just made. Sierra came with him in Mind magic form, which Fort now realized was probably because she was with Damian and didn’t want Fort to know where the older dragon was. Great. That was probably why she hadn’t answered him earlier in the day too, when he’d really needed her.

  “I can hear what you’re thinking, you know,” she whispered from his side.

  He blushed again. Usually it wasn’t a problem, but now that they had something between them…

  Most of the clearing was covered by the wreckage of Merlin’s cottage, with wood and ash spread out like it’d exploded. Fort hadn’t seen the actual destruction of the cottage, as he’d been visiting a potential future at the time with Cyrus, but that there wasn’t more left from Damian’s attack said a lot about the dragon’s power.

  Before he could get a closer look, though, Rachel and Jia bot
h stepped through their respective portals. He waved at them, then winced as Ember climbed up his chest to his shoulder and turned to face the two new arrivals, hissing.

  “You sure you want to bring her along?” Rachel asked. “And is it my imagination, or did she get bigger overnight?”

  “You’re not imagining it,” Fort said, cringing in pain as Ember dug her nails into him. “And that’s why she’s here. I took enough of a risk leaving her at home today, and you should see what she did to my bedroom door with her claws. But I think I might have somewhere to send her where she’ll be safe.”

  Sierra quickly caught the other two up on Xenea and her mission, while Fort remembered something the faerie girl had said. “You know, she mentioned that I wasn’t the only one who made a bargain with the faerie queen. I assumed she meant our deal for Excalibur, but maybe not. Did either of you ask for anything?”

  Rachel shook her head. Jia paused, then looked away. “She probably did just mean the sword,” Jia said.

  “Only you would end up with a faerie girl following you home, trying to steal your baby dragon, New Kid,” Rachel said, staring at Ember. “But you’re right. Getting her to the Avalon dragons might be our best bet. And Merlin would know if there was another way there.”

  “Assuming he’s still around,” Fort said, nodding at the destroyed cottage. “But before we start here, I wanted to give you both something.” He held up two neon strips of plastic, one green and one red. “There’s one for each of you.”

  Rachel raised an eyebrow, while Jia took the green strip and slapped it against her wrist. As it hit her, the strip curled over, making a sort of bracelet. “A slap bracelet?” she said. “Um, okay?”

  “I put a bunch of teleportation spells in each of them,” Fort said, and immediately Rachel grabbed hers, much more excited now. “They should be able to get you around if I can’t.”

  “Ooh!” Rachel shouted, and slapped the bracelet on her own wrist, then punched out with her hand. Instantly a green portal opened into what looked like a dark movie theater. “Oh, yeah. I’m going to enjoy this.”