“Why don’t you just let Kaylee meet him?” Jade cut in.
“Good idea.”
Jade gave Kaylee an encouraging push and Kaylee approached the door and knocked.
“And if he asks you to volunteer for anything, don’t,” Maddox added. He shuddered. “I still have nightmares about the last time I did that. There’s a reason he’s in extra training.”
Jade swatted him.
Kaylee knocked again. Still no answer.
Well, she’d had about enough waiting around tonight. She didn’t feel like any more.
“You better have clothes on!” Kaylee said, then threw open the door and walked inside.
Chapter Seven
At least, Kaylee tried to walk inside.
Instead the door rebounded off something lying on the floor and would have bashed her in the face on the return if she hadn’t stopped it just in time.
Cursing, Kaylee shoved her full weight behind it and managed to force it open, then closed it behind her and let her eyes adjust. The room was basked in low lamp light, filtering through dangling shards of strung glass hung over the canvas bed, casting a kaleidoscope of colors on the ceiling.
Kaylee couldn’t tell whether Edwin was even in here. Finding one person in a room shouldn’t have been that difficult, but whoever this Edwin was had managed to do the impossible and pile more stuff in one area than Kaylee had thought was physically possible.
Stacks of dusty tomes teetered dangerously off kilter. Stray pieces of parchment lay like discarded bird wings in the few spaces left clear enough to step. Glass beakers were stacked inside one another alongside an assortment of strange tools Kaylee couldn’t even begin to name. On the far wall, Edwin had drawn chalk runes that looked suspiciously like the ones Brendan had used. More disturbingly was the Dungeons and Dragons poster beside it, and a giant, wall-sized crossword titled: Famous Magic Spells.
“Anyone alive in here?” Kaylee said. She began to step through the mess, placing her feet on any open spots. She stumbled, managing to brace herself on a nearby pile of papers. The entire thing came crashing down, revealing a bay window at the far side of the room.
A boy her age lounged against the window there. He was long and slender, curled forward like a crescent moon. A dusting of freckles coated his cheeks and neck, his hair a curly brown. His eyes were closed behind his glasses. He hadn’t moved at all when the pile fell.
“Seriously?” Kaylee said. She kicked a quill aside and waded her way over. “Is this room for real? Don’t you think you’re trying a little too hard to pull off the creative genius act?”
A beaker full of purple sludge lay overturned on a nearby table. Kaylee poked it. “How do you even live like this?”
Edwin didn’t move. His eyes remained shut. His hands were splayed before him on another old book. Kaylee noticed that this one also had the same-looking runes Brendan had used to attack her.
Fantastic.
Edwin sucked in a big breath, and Kaylee finally noticed what the bay window was facing. A great, sloping lawn led to a small grove of trees. Part of a pond was visible between the branches, a fountain set in the center. A lantern-lined gravel walk meandered from the pond back towards them. When Edwin breathed again the flames within each lantern drifted out of them and hovered in mid-air. Another breath and the flames switched places and settled in their new spots.
The entire thing was so beyond real that Kaylee almost convinced herself it wasn’t possible. Then she remembered she had shifted her arms into dragon scales, her best friend was some kind of ninja, and her parents weren’t putting her in an underground bunker for safekeeping after learning all this. That meant that the impossible was clearly now possible.
“Wow,” Kaylee said. “How’d you do that?”
The lanterns flickered out. Edwin sighed.
“You,” he said in a raspy voice, “make it very difficult to concentrate. Have you ever heard of concentrating? It’s where someone is quiet so they can do something important without any distractions. This includes, but is not limited, to noise, electronics, and most of all, people.”
Kaylee put her hands on her hips. “Well I just got told I’m a dragon-kin and nearly died today, so sorry if I’m not in the quiet mood.”
Edwin straightened his slender body and turned to her. He blinked. A faint flush made the freckles on his cheeks pop.
“Wait. W-who are y-you?”
“I’m apparently the new storm dragon-kin.”
Edwin blinked again. “You?”
“You’re not winning any points, Edwin.”
Edwin held up his hands. “No offense, but I didn’t expect you. Actually, I’m not quite sure what I expected.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t a compliment.”
He stood and walked to his bed, muttering something to himself. He placed the book he’d been holding atop another pile and the whole thing tilted dangerously to the side. “Would you like some water?”
“No thanks.”
Edwin shoved aside a stack of scrolls to reveal a water cooler. After gulping down two big glasses he seemed to steel his nerves. He turned to her. His eyes flickered between her and the disaster of his room, as if just realizing that she was here, right now, and it was a complete pigsty.
“If I’d known y-you were coming I would have cleaned up.”
“How? You don’t have a decade.”
He glowered. “Ha ha. I’ve had other things on my mind. I’ve been practicing nonverbal spells. They’re basic but I’m getting better. A lot easier than verbal because you don’t have to—” He paused. “Never mind.”
“Was that what you were doing with the lights?” Kaylee said.
“T-technically. That was just a basic manipulation spell. I’m supposed to be practicing them.” He looked at her. “I’m a Merlin. Someone who can use spells, charms, and such to wield magic.”
Kaylee snorted. “This Convocation comes up with the strangest names.”
“I didn’t make it up. It’s like Tamer. The name goes way back and was more relevant back then. Merlins were often royal advisors who traveled around solving problems that required magic. It was a prestigious job. We do it for similar reasons now.”
“Sure. Great,” Kaylee said. “Any other members of your little club I should know about? We’ve got dragons and wizards. Might as well throw in leprechauns and Sasquatch. We’re halfway there as it is.”
Edwin cocked his head, as though he couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. “You seem a little anxious.”
“Good deduction, Sherlock.”
“I could create a calming charm for you, if you want. It’d be super easy—”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Kaylee said quickly. Not that she didn’t trust him (she didn’t, not at all), but if the guy who was in remedial magic training was offering to make her a magical item, she’d pass.
“Maybe some tea, then,” Edwin went on. He raised a hand and began to mutter something under his breath. From the far corner of the room a pile of clothes sifted aside as a tea kettle lifted up and began to drift their direction. Kaylee watched as it dipped and fluttered in the air, like an injured bird. Edwin’s face was screwed up in concentration. Every now and then he’d stutter one of the words and the kettle would dip again. Finally, he must have butchered a word too badly because the tea kettle flopped to the ground halfway to them.
Edwin glanced at her. “No tea, then.” He cleared his throat. “S-so, you’re a storm dragon-kin…”
He approached a huge chart plastered to his other wall. On closer inspection, Kaylee could see it was full of detailed descriptions of spells, designated by color and difficultly. There were some drawings of dragons with lines running between them and the different levels of magic. “I’m going to guess you have elemental magic of electricity and probably…temperature manipulation?”
“And storms,” Kaylee said. “I can summon storms.”
Edwin’s eyes
grew wide. “Nice,” he said. “Okay, let’s add storms. No wonder my dad wanted you to have extra training. Someone with uncontrollable power like that could be a huge danger.”
“That’s what the Slayer seemed to think,” Kaylee said.
“Slayer?”
“This guy I was going on a…this guy I met turned out to be something called a Slayer.”
Edwin shrugged as if this didn’t surprise him at all. “The history of the Dragon-kin and Slayers originates at around the same time and they’ve been in constant conflict since then. Slayers are a group splintered off from the order of St. George. They started hunting dragons back when dragons used to walk the Earth as, you know, actual dragons.”
“If dragons were doing that then I can kind of see why they were being hunted.”
“I guess. It got pretty bad for a while. So the dragons used their magic to shift to human form and live among us. Some married into human society.”
“Wait,” Kaylee said, wrinkling her nose, “you mean dragons and humans, they…”
“The dragons were in human form, Kaylee.”
“But still…”
Edwin cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, how do you think you got your powers?”
“I didn’t really think about it.”
“It’s clear you haven’t thought about a lot of this.”
“Hey, this is all new to me! The least you could do is—are you listening to me?”
Edwin had turned back to the chart on the wall and was running his finger down one of the lines from the top, completely ignoring her. Kaylee briefly wondered how long it’d take for someone to find Edwin’s body if she strangled him to death right here.
“Once Slayers realized the dragon-kin were spreading through society they went underground as a shadow organization,” Edwin said. “They’ve been quietly hunting the dragon-kin ever since.”
“So this training Alastair wants me to do is to ensure I actually make it to college without getting a knife in my back?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I doubt you’ll ever be in that much trouble. The Slayers and Dragon-kin aren’t as prevalent as they once were. I bet the one you ran into will be the last.”
“Except he tried to kill me. Twice.”
Edwin’s finger paused on the chart. “Twice? He came back?”
“Uh, yeah. Why do you think Jade had to step in?”
“Your Tamer had to step in? Was the Slayer alone the second time?”
“Thankfully, yes.”
Edwin tapped his chin. “That doesn’t make sense. Slayers are usually a lot smarter than that when closing in on a dragon-kin, no matter what elemental type. They usually can’t tell how powerful a dragon-kin is without engaging it so they call in reinforcements to make sure the job gets done successfully. But since this one tried so hard to kill you without any backup means there was a reason. A big reason. Probably because of your unique power.”
“Hooray…” Kaylee grumbled.
“But I wonder…” Edwin went on. He brushed past Kaylee and began digging through a pile of junk near his bed. Talismans, beakers, and scrolls went flying as he excavated towards the bottom.
“Edwin, can you just tell me what I do now?” Kaylee said. “Alastair says I’m supposed to be training with you…”
“Quiet!” Edwin said. “I need to focus. I think I might be onto something here.”
Kaylee bristled. A surge of anger rippled through her. The bay windows suddenly snapped open and a sharp wind tore through the room, scattering papers and toppling piles of books. Kaylee had no idea how she’d managed to do it, but the effect was exactly what she’d wanted.
“If you aren’t going to answer my questions then I’ll figure it out by myself,” Kaylee seethed. “Thanks for nothing.”
Then, storming past a gawking Edwin, she yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind her.
Chapter Eight
The next few days passed about as uneventfully as possible, considering Kaylee had now been integrated into an ancient order of dragon-kin, apparently had powers that were stronger than anything they’d ever seen, and her best friend was now acting as her bodyguard.
The one highlight was she’d gotten to dump cross country altogether. Jade told her that between her new dragon-kin training and school she wouldn’t have time for anything else. School work wasn’t much better. Teachers were now assigning homework in full force, and Kaylee was finding it difficult to keep up with all the extra work she now had to do. On top of that, Jade had brought over a stack of required reading for dragon-kin that Alastair had loaned her. They were thick volumes that smelled of water stains and were crinkled with age, full of charts showing the flow of magic through a person’s body, the elemental magics and what each one did, and diagrams of different dragon-kin shifting abilities.
“This is just some light intro reading,” Jade had said cheerfully, plopping the books down. The table had groaned under the weight. Kaylee resisted the urge to burst out sobbing.
But after a week she’d settled into the exhausting new routine, and now they were on their way to her first lesson with her mentor. The second the final bell had rung Jade had taken her a new way home, down a road Kaylee had never been before. Jade practically skipped ahead, keeping her face tilted to the sunlight, as if trying to soak in the last rays before Fall truly fell upon them. She seemed less tense than she had since the night at Alastair’s.
“I thought it wasn’t safe for me to be out without supervision,” Kaylee said. “Shouldn’t there be helicopters or a motorcade behind us?”
“Excuse me, I’m here,” Jade said, pretending to be hurt.
“I meant besides you.”
“I did totally kick that guy’s butt the other day. And it’s a little up in the air about supervision. The Scarsdale Convocation is on high alert, so from now on you should be safe here. But until they know for sure the Slayers are gone then they want me with you.”
She gave her an apologetic look. “Guess you’re stuck with me. Sorry.”
They turned down another street. The houses were now more spaced apart, the backyards growing larger every block. A little farther on the sidewalk turned to a worn gravel trail. Flat farmland, only undulating slightly in the distance and broken by clumps of trees, spread out on either side of them.
“The Convocation spoke to some of the other dragon clans in the area and none of them had any sightings of Slayers,” Jade said. “They’ve even checked the school Brendan went to. He hasn’t come back since he attacked you. I guess we just got unlucky. He might have been a rogue Slayer, or he’s going back to report to a larger group. If that’s the case then we’ll be ready for them.”
“There are other dragon clans?” Kaylee said.
“Lots,” Jade said. She held up some fingers and began ticking them off. “The other high school has a few dragon-kin, but they’re in the Northern Scarsdale Convocation, which is technically under our Convocation’s jurisdiction. The next biggest around here are the Dragons of York—That’s in New York City, of course—and most major metropolitan areas have at least a small Convocation each. I think the closest one to us is in Queensbury, North Carolina. That Convocation hasn’t had a Slayer problem yet, but I’ve heard some crazy stuff going on around there.”
“And do all these other dragon-kin have a Tamer with them at all times?”
Jade faced Kaylee, hands on her hips. “Listen, Kaylee, I know this sucks. Really, I do. But I’m not sorry I get to make sure you’re safe.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you—”
“I know it’s not,” Jade cut in. “And I’m sorry about this extra work and all the extra security. But yes, the others do have Tamers. Trust me, this won’t last forever, and honestly as long as you stay near Scarsdale I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine. I think Alastair’s just freaking out because you’re a storm dragon and all that and we haven’t seen one in a while. Once he gets over it then this will all calm down.” She snorted. “At least your parent
s are still letting you outside. You should have seen how crazy protective my parents were when I started training to be a Tamer. If they could have put me on a leash, they would have.”
Jade suddenly took a sharp left that cut through a clump of grass. The trail crossed through more fields before coming out in a shallow meadow. The lingering view of Scarsdale they’d been able to see up until now abruptly vanished.
Kaylee’s steps faltered when she spied the house they were walking towards. “Wait, is that seriously where I’m training?”
“Don’t let the looks fool you,” Jade said, passing her and continuing down to the house. “The local Merlins put a bunch of charms around this place so you can practice your magic without getting spied on. It looks like that so anybody who does happen to pass by won’t go wandering through it.”
Kaylee could see why. She certainly didn’t want to go wandering through it.
It might have once been a plantation house or a Victorian mansion or maybe a set prop for a low budget horror flick. The front half was crooked, as if a strong wind was constantly buffeting it. The boards were dark gray and full of holes. Withered vines crawled up and into the open sides and wrapped themselves tightly around the entire place, like a boa constrictor finishing off its prey.
Maddox was waiting for them in the backyard, along with Edwin, nose stuck in a book, lounged beneath the thick willow tree nearby. Another man was there also, dressed in jeans, sunglasses, and a bulky hoodie despite the lingering heat of the day. When he saw Kaylee and Jade, he slipped into the tall grass and began to walk a long circuit around the entire place.
“Just another little precaution,” Jade said lightly. Kaylee sighed.
The rest of the backyard was composed of an assortment of items Kaylee had seen once at a CrossFit gym, back when her dad had tried it for all of one time. Steel chains and a giant tractor tire; speed ladders and kettlebells; even a couple two-handed mallets. Kaylee’s hands itched to grab one of those and smack something around.
Dragon's Awakening (Heir of Dragons: Book 1) Page 6