by Tesha Geddes
To my wonderful husband, Nathan, and to my two boys who are my whole world.
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Chapter 1
Kaida stared at the room, hardly believing what she saw. The room was empty except for a bed frame with a bare mattress, a desk built into the wall, and an old chair. Shelves in the closet took the place of a dresser. She felt strangely untethered, as if she was floating. A quick glance at her feet reassured her they were firmly planted on the ground. It took her a minute to name the feeling. Freedom. She was free. The room wasn't much to look at, but it was hers — for the next few months anyway. She'd worked hard to get here — there had been many times she'd feared she wouldn't make it here or even make it out of her hometown. But here she was, at Maiorwan Magical University in Whispering Pines, one of Maiorwan’s best colleges for magicals.
Kaida carefully placed her only bag on the bed and unpacked her few belongings. Three shirts, two pairs of pants, and some underclothes went on the shelves along with the few toiletries she had. She supposed she could put the toiletries in the bathroom, but she didn't want to risk one of the other girls stealing them. She didn't want to think poorly of roommates she hadn't met yet, but as she had no means to replace any of the items until she got her first paycheck, it was best to play it safe. Speaking of paychecks, she needed to find a job. She recalled the RA mentioning job listings being posted at the student center.
A quick check in the mirror showed her silvery lavender hair completely tucked under the tattered orange beanie she always wore. Her hair had always been a sore point for Maribeth, her grandmother, because "dragons don't have purple hair". Kaida snorted, her jewel-bright violet eyes flecked with gold were fine, but her hair wasn't. Maribeth couldn't stand the thought of someone knowing her granddaughter wasn't one hundred percent dragon, so she tried to hide or change anything about Kaida that wasn't "dragon enough" which was pretty much everything. Though, she also tried to hide the fact that Kaida was her granddaughter. Kaida's fingers itched to rip the beanie off in a final act of defiance, but she stopped herself. She might love her hair, but she wasn't sure how people around here would react to it. Perhaps someday she wouldn't feel the need to hide, but for now, she didn't want to take the risk of standing out.
A few minutes later, she stood in front of the job board, fighting down a rising tide of panic. Surely there had to be a job here that she could do. Most of the listings were for customer service positions. It wasn't that she was too proud to work in customer service; she had great respect for anyone in that position. The problem was that she froze every time she had to talk to a stranger — her heart would beat fast, her palms would get sweaty, and words would come out in a jumbled mess. She could make it through a few occasional interactions, but to be expected to do that for hours every day… that would send her to an early grave.
Hmm... maybe something outside, working with plants? She scanned the listings for groundskeeper positions. The university had a few positions open, so she read the requirements. Able to lift and carry fifty pounds? She glanced down at her scrawny arms with a frown. Maybe? Has a valid driver's license. Soggy fireballs. That was a hard no. Maribeth had refused to teach her how to drive, supposedly because she didn't want to risk Kaida wrecking her car, but Kaida always thought it was to prevent her from running away... not that it worked in the end. She sighed, she'd love to learn how to drive, but that would require finding a teacher and paying for lessons with money she didn't have.
In the end, she took down the information for a few jobs she thought she could handle, even if she wasn't sure she was qualified. Now, to find a computer. While all of the job listings had phone numbers listed, they all required her to email her resumé first. This suited her fine, as she didn't have a phone anyway. Thankfully she could use one of the library computers to email her resumé, as sparse as it was. The only jobs Maribeth had allowed her to take involved watching rowdy dragonets. As much as she hated coming home with singed clothing and smelling like smoke, she was grateful for the babysitting jobs.
Maribeth usually took all of her babysitting money, but over the years, Kaida had managed to squirrel away a bit of money here and there. It was this money that purchased her bus ticket to freedom. A few of the job listings she'd picked were babysitter positions, which she wasn't too keen to return to. One was for a dishwasher at a local restaurant, and another was for an assistant librarian.
Kaida hurried over to the library, which was thankfully still open. During the fall and spring semesters, the library was open 24/7, but during the summer and winter break, the library was only open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and closed on the weekends. Fall semester wouldn't start for another week, so the library was still operating on reduced hours.
As she was logging off the computer, she heard a loud crash and even louder cursing. She frowned — unless university libraries were an entirely different beast than high school ones, those were not normal library noises. While she generally tried to avoid people if they were on a cursing streak, she knew her conscience wouldn't let her rest until she at least made sure no one was injured.
She headed in the direction of the sound, surprised to not see anyone else doing the same. Then again, she thought as her stomach rumbled, it was dinnertime, and they were between semesters, so maybe there wasn't anyone else here. It didn't take her long to find the source of the noise as the cursing and occasional thumping sound never ceased. What she saw left her utterly bewildered.
She'd heard people say they wrestled with their schoolwork before, but she'd never seen someone do it quite so literally. A young woman was flailing around, trying to control a book that was doing its best to escape her grasp. Beside her lay an overturned metal cart and several books scattered across the floor. This must have been the source of the crash. Kanda returned her attention to the young woman who was still struggling with what could only be a magical book. As she understood it, magical books could absorb particles of magic in the air, and if left steeped in the magic long enough, they could even develop personalities. But Kaida had never seen this for herself as she'd never been allowed near a magic book before.
The book successfully slipped out of the young woman's grasp and launched itself across the room. Unfortunately, the book's trajectory landed it squarely in Kaida’s face. She got the distinct impression that it was angry. It reminded her of when one of the dragonets she used to watch spilled his spicy milk on his favorite shirt and had an epic meltdown. Having no experience with cranky magic books, Kaida fell back on her dragonet taming skills.
"There, there, it's okay," she crooned as she stroked the spine of the book. "Take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong."
The book flopped open angrily, showing her its pages stained with some sort of red substance. Kaida carefully
sniffed the pages. Ketchup. Some neanderthal had spilled ketchup on what appeared to be a very old magic book. A glance at the other young woman showed she was occupied righting the fallen cart and gathering the scattered books… no ketchup in sight.
"I can see why you’re upset," Kaida said calmly. "Let's see what we can do about that stain."
She took a deep breath and exhaled a silvery mist over the book. Unlike every other dragon she knew, her breath weapon wasn't a weapon at all... unless you considered the ability to purify something to be a weapon. She didn't. She thought purification was more useful than breathing fire, or poison, or ice, or lightning... or any other breath weapon she'd heard of. Unfortunately, dragons didn't consider usefulness when deciding if something was appropriately dragonish or not. It took a bit of concentration to ensure she didn't accidentally purify the ink right off the page. When she was done, the pages were clean and legible, and the book had calmed down — it was still miffed at having ketchup spilled on it, but it wasn't a little ball of rage anymore.
"How did you do that?” the young woman asked. "You got it to calm right down."
"Oh, I... uh... " Kaida stammered.
"When I picked it up from the book return and took the immobility spell off it, I didn't think it'd go ballistic like that," the young woman plowed on, not waiting for an answer. "I mean, some books take to being bound better than others, but I've never had one go crazy like that.” The young woman shook her head at the book in Kaida’s arms, then thrust her hand out in a gesture of greeting. “I’m Addilynn by the way, but most people call me Addi."
"Kaida," Kaida said as she shook Addi's hand.
"Well, thanks for the help, but I should put the book away," Addi said as she reached for the book.
The book trembled in Kaida's hands — it didn't want to go back yet.
"Um, actually, would I be able to check it out?" Kaida asked quietly.
"Sure!" Addi exclaimed. "I just need to check the book back into the system before I can let you check it out. Will you need to check out an immobility charm while you're at it?"
"You can check out immobility charms?" Kaida asked in alarm, her mind listing all the ways something like that could be abused.
In her hand, the book sent her angry feelings about the last time it was immobilized.
"Yes," Addi said, and heaved a dramatic sigh, "as great as they are, books that can flop around and flip pages on a whim don't make good study companions. But don't worry, the charms are pretty weak — they won't work on anything larger than a small house cat."
"Great," Kaida said, trying to sound relieved as her heart stuttered in fear. "But I think I'll be okay without one."
"Suit yourself," Addi said with a shrug. "Just follow me to the circulation desk. Do you have your student ID?"
"Yeah," Kaida said as she hurried to keep up with the taller girl's long strides.
A few minutes later, Kaida walked out of the library with the first magic book she'd ever touched tucked under her arm. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with it — only a few species of magicals could cast spells. Despite being incredibly powerful, dragons couldn't cast spells, but maybe whatever else she was could. She wasn't sure. She knew she wasn’t one hundred percent dragon, but she hadn’t yet figured out what else she was. She'd learned from an early age not to ask.
Her stomach rumbled as she passed the student cafeteria, reminding her it was dinnertime. She stifled a groan — the cafeteria didn't open until tomorrow afternoon, and she'd spent the last of her money on breakfast that morning. Distraction being the second-best solution to an empty stomach, she returned to her room and sat down with the magic book and began to read.
From what she could tell, this was a beginner's spellbook, with simple spells such as levitating small objects, changing the color of inanimate objects (living things were a lot harder), and casting a simple glamour. Kaida smiled to herself — the spells looked simple enough so perhaps she'd try one. Worst case scenario, nothing would happen; best case, something would and she'd discover she could cast spells.
Deciding on a simple color change, she picked out one of her shirts. It was a faded red and patched more times than she cared to think about. Maybe she could make it look a bit nicer... and blue. She carefully re-read the instructions in the spellbook, committing them to memory. She reached inside for a tendril of magic and tried to shape it the way the book instructed. Her magic writhed and tried to slip away, but she grasped it firmly. Once she was satisfied she had shaped it properly, she flung the magic at the shirt. All she succeeded in doing was waving her arms around ridiculously.
She knew she had some healing magic, but that was hardly casting a spell — it wasn’t even impressive magic. As a rule, dragons didn’t have healing magic, or the ability to cast spells — their magic was more the burn-your-house-down and grind-your-bones-into-dust kind. She sat back down on her chair and sighed as her stomach grumbled. So much for a sufficient distraction. She stood and headed for the door — maybe a walk would help.
Chapter 2
Addi watched Kaida go with curiosity — it was unusual to see someone have such an immediate affinity for the care of magical books. She'd been there a year and still struggled to sense what the books wanted. She'd thought being a mage would give her a leg up with the magic books. After all, magic books were just filled with spells for spell casters, right? How wrong she'd been. Not only did magic books not give a hoot what kind of magical a person was, or if they even were magical, they also weren't all spellbooks. Most were history books, some were potions books, and a few were even fiction books. There was as great a variety of magic books as there were mundane. The biggest difference between magic and non-magic books was that the magic books were imbued with magic as they were made.
Once she was finished reshelving the books, Addi headed to the staff offices in the back to clock out.
"Hi Addi," her boss, Stacy, greeted her from her desk where she was busy with paperwork. "How was your shift today?"
"Quiet," Addi replied. "Well, at least up until the end when a magic book went ballistic."
"What happened?" Stacy asked sharply — the chaos an angry magic book could cause was legendary, and frequently meant extra paperwork for her.
"I have no idea what set it off," Addi said dramatically, "but things were looking pretty grim when out of nowhere my savior appeared and calmed it right down."
"So, nothing was damaged, and no one was hurt?" Stacy clarified.
"Correct," Addi said. "Though, if it hadn’t been for Kaida, that wouldn’t be the case."
"Wait," Stacy said, pausing. "Did you say Kaida?"
"Yeah, you know her?" Addi asked.
Stacy pulled something up on her laptop and turned it to Addi — it was a resumé with Kaida’s picture attached.
"Is this her?" Stacy asked.
"Yeah!" Addi exclaimed. "Oooh! Purple hair! Looks good on her."
"You didn’t notice her hair color when she was rescuing you?"
"Nah, she was wearing a ratty old beanie that covered all her hair," Addi explained. "Honestly, I thought she was some homeless person when I first saw her, but then she showed me her student ID."
"What made you think she was homeless?" Stacy asked cautiously.
"For one, her shoes were falling apart, and her shirt was patched.”
"Hmmm," Stacy began, "do you think she’d be able to pull off that trick of calming down magic books again?"
"I’m not sure, but probably," Addi replied with a shrug. "It was like she understood what it was upset about and how to help it. She checked it out right after and didn’t even check out an immobility charm. Why? Are you going to hire her?"
"I’m going to interview her. From there, we’ll see," Stacy said firmly.
Addi didn’t press more, she knew from experience that was all Stacy was going to say, and it was a fair answer. That was one of the things Addi loved about Stacy — she wasn’t talkative or overly friendly, but she was alw
ays fair.
❀
After Addi left, Stacy sat down at her desk and reread the resumé on her screen. It was a thoroughly unimpressive resumé. Her only job experience was babysitting, but there were no references to go along with that claim. Normally babysitters had several references, and those references could make up for a lack of job experience. Usually, a resumé like this would go straight in the bin, but if what Addi said was accurate, this girl’s gift with magic books would be a boon to the library that housed the country’s largest collection of magic books. Besides, what kind of librarian judges a book by its cover? She’d give the girl an interview at least, but first, there was someone else she needed to talk to.
She shut her laptop with a click and slipped out of the office. She walked to the side stairwell, but instead of going up, she waved her ID badge in front of the wall where the stairs terminated on the ground floor. A doorway and a flight of stairs appeared in front of her. She hurried down the stairs. Magic permeated the air, and along with it came the feeling of being watched.
“Mathis!” she called out when she reached the office at the back. “Where are you?”