by Tesha Geddes
“Couldn’t you just get Kaida to touch them again?” Celicia asked.
“We could try. We know that Kaida played a big part in getting the tree to bloom, but we don’t know if it was just Kaida, or if it was a combination of her and the ambient magic in the store, or the soil contents, or the relative humidity. No one has been able to discover what exactly makes a Sunstar bloom. I’ll certainly invite Kaida back to try again, but I’m not banking on her being able to make the tree bloom a second time.”
❀
Kaida looked at the options in front of her and frowned. She didn’t have enough to buy the bedding set with the quilt, plus everything else she needed, but she could at least buy some sheets and a pillow. Next into her basket went a pack of pens, a small bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, a small bottle of laundry detergent, and the cheapest prepaid flip phone she could find. Even though she’d only picked up a few things, it would cost most of her paycheck. She got into line behind an elderly couple and tried hard not to look as nervous and uncomfortable as she felt.
“Good morning, beautiful,” the familiar-looking cashier said with a smile. “Were you able to find everything you needed?”
Kaida gaped in surprise. These wolf shifters were everywhere.
“Oh, hey, Linus,” Kaida said. “Yes, I did.”
“I’m glad,” Linus said, still smiling. “So, are you a student here?”
He didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t sure if that made her happy or sad.
❀
Kaida smoothed out the sheet on her bed and stepped back with a smile. The bedding was a plain, dull brown, but it was clean, new, and it really beat sleeping on a bare mattress. The pillow was soft and fluffy, and she hugged it happily. Then she picked up her new cell phone and realized she had a problem.
“Hey, Erica,” Kaida said, poking her head into her roommate’s bedroom. “Do you have some scissors I can borrow?”
“Yeah, sure,” Erica said. “Let me just find them.”
Kaida looked around the room — this might take a while. Erica’s room could only be described as organized chaos — there were boxes and piles on every available surface. While Erica searched, Kaida awkwardly hovered in the doorway, unsure of what she should be doing.
“Ah ha!” Erica exclaimed triumphantly as she unearthed her prize and handed it to Kaida.
“Thanks,” Kaida said as she took the scissors.
She tried to use the scissors to open the phone package but found the plastic to be strangely resistant to being cut.
“Is there some sort of trick to this? Kaida asked, still struggling to get the package open.
“A prayer, and a powerful magic spell,” Erica said sarcastically. “But seriously, those things are notoriously difficult to open. It’s almost like they need sharp claws or something.”
She gave Kaida a significant look that took her a long moment to understand.
“Oh! I guess I could try that,” she said hesitantly.
She wasn’t used to being allowed to shift whenever she wanted to. She walked back to her room and closed the door, locking it behind her. She took a deep breath and called up her dragon — it was easier this time than it had ever been. Her new life was doing wonders for her dragon. In her dragon form, everything towered over her. The small flip-phone was nearly as large as she was. Her tiny, sharp talons made short work of the plastic encasing the phone. After she freed the phone, she pulled out the instructions. She was about to shift back when a thought occurred to her. She didn’t have to shift back. For once in her life, she could let her dragon have some fun… albeit quiet fun in her room, but it was still more freedom than her dragon had experienced in a long time.
She tucked the phone in a corner of the room where it would be safe. She unfurled her wings and gave them an experimental flap. They lifted her easily off the floor, and she spent the next few minutes flying around her room. Once her wings tired out, she started climbing. Normally, a dragon climbing something would leave large gouges behind, but the cinderblock wall was porous enough that her tiny needle-like talons were able to find purchase without damaging the wall. Soon, she was hanging at the top of the wall, looking down at her room — it certainly looked bigger from up here. And a lot more fun. She pushed off from the wall, unfurling her wings to glide to the floor. Soon, she was running around her room, alternately climbing and gliding. She was having so much fun cavorting around that she didn’t notice her door opening. She also didn’t notice her audience until she was hanging upside-down from her bed frame.
“Kaida, girl, please tell me that’s you,” Tanya said, looking between her and her clothes on the floor.
Sophie just stared, mouth agape. Kaida scrambled onto the bed and looked down guiltily.
Erica must have heard Tanya because she hurried out of her room and ushered the other girls out, saying to Kaida, “We’ll give you a minute to get dressed.”
Kaida fought back her tears. This was what she got for letting herself relax and have fun. A few moments of carelessness and everything she had worked for was over.
Chapter 11
“I am so sorry for barging in on you like that!” Sophie exclaimed when Kaida walked out. “We thought there was an animal trapped in your room, and we wanted to get it out before it did any damage.”
“How did you get in?” Kaida asked. “I thought I locked the door.”
“You did,” Tanya said quickly. “I had Sophie use a lock-picking spell on the door. We know you don’t have a lot of stuff, and we didn’t want any of it getting destroyed. We thought someone might have snuck a wild animal into your room as a prank.”
Kaida grimaced –– she hadn’t realized she’d been making so much noise.
“So… you’re a dragon,” Sophie said slowly. “How did you manage to shrink so small?”
Erica coughed and glared at her while Tanya elbowed her in the side.
“What?!” Sophie asked indignantly.
“It’s fine,” Kaida said quietly. “What you saw… that’s as big as I get.”
“Witches’ cauldrons!” Sophie exclaimed. “You’ve got to be the most adorable dragon in history!”
Kaida stared at her –– that was definitely not the reaction she had expected.
“I’m fairly certain calling a dragon ‘adorable’ is an insult,” Tanya said.
“I’ve been called much worse,” Kaida said, tugging on her braid nervously. “But please, don’t tell anyone what I am. If the other dragons find out I’m here, I won’t be safe. Please”––she shook her head in distress and looked pleadingly at the girls––“I worked so hard to escape. I can’t go back.”
“Girl, your secret is safe with us,” Tanya said firmly, and Sophie nodded emphatically in agreement. “And we won’t break into your room anymore… even if it sounds like a wild animal is trapped in there.”
Kaida looked up, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing. “You… you really don’t mind if I spend time in my dragon form?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Sophie said with a shrug. “Shifters all need to spend time in both their forms. Yours is small enough that shifting indoors won’t break anything.”
“Spend as much time in your dragon form as you want, wherever you want,” Erica said. “You don’t have to confine yourself to your room. Just don’t jump out from anywhere and scare us –– I tend to shift when I get startled. Scared boars and furniture do not mix well.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kaida said, too stunned to fully process what she was hearing. Her dragon was stunned too but she also brimmed with cautious excitement.
“So, did you get your phone package opened before you used your room as a playground?” Erica asked, casually changing the subject.
“Y–yes, I did,” Kaida said, “but I haven’t read the instructions yet, so I’m not sure how it works.”
“Go get it and we can show you and put our numbers in,” Erica said.
Kaida grinned and dashed to her
room to get her phone.
That night, she curled up on her pillow as a dragon and slept with her head tucked under her wings, her brand new phone next to her.
❀
Kaida woke to the late morning sun streaming through her window. She blinked sleepily, slightly disoriented –– she wasn’t used to waking up as a dragon. She yawned and stretched. She glanced at the clock on her phone and nearly fell over in surprise –– she’d never slept this late before! A spike of fear lanced through her before she remembered she wasn’t at Maribeth’s anymore and she could get up whenever she wanted.
She heard the shower turn on. Five more minutes, she said to herself as she curled back up. This was a very comfortable pillow, and the sunshine felt divine. She purred quietly, more content than she could remember ever being.
❀
Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Kaida growled as she uncurled and opened her eyes. She stretched and turned the alarm off with a press of a small claw. She yawned groggily before the significance of the alarm set in. She shot out of bed, transforming before her feet hit the ground.
Classes started today.
She dashed to the bathroom and hurried through her shower. She put on the green dress Tanya had given her, and the sandals as well. She brushed her hair out and loosely braided it, just to keep it out of the way.
As she walked to her first class, she couldn’t tell if she was shaking from nerves, or excitement, or both. She stepped into the classroom and nearly bolted out again. This wasn’t the normal-sized classroom she was used to –– this was practically an auditorium. There had to be at least two hundred chairs. She desperately hoped this wasn’t a reflection on the size of the class. Shaking even harder now, she picked a chair near one of the many exits. Her heart sank further and further as students continued to trickle in, filling the large classroom. She took a deep, calming breath, reminding herself that math classes usually weren’t interactive, so she wasn’t likely to be called on to do anything in front of the class. All she had to do was sit here, pay attention, and take notes.
“Blasted early morning to all of you,” the grumpy-looking professor said from the front of the class.
Kaida couldn’t help but stare as a soft chuckle swept through the class. Was their professor wearing pajamas? She glanced around nervously and realized their professor wasn’t the only one still dressed for bed.
“Despite common sense saying otherwise, the university decided that 7 a.m. was a good time for this class,” the professor said, still looking grumpy. “Yes, I will be teaching in my pajamas. First thing we need to get out of the way is the syllabus.”
❀
“How was your first day of class?” Mathis asked her that afternoon.
She’d been to three of her classes already, and while the first one was the largest, the others were by no means small.
Kaida thought for a moment and replied, “Boring and terrifying all at the same time… if that makes any sense.”
Mathis chuckled. “For introverts like us, being around a lot of strangers is terrifying, even if the subject matter is boring. Don’t worry, soon those classes will just be boring. Now, are you ready to learn how to bind a magical book?”
Kaida nodded eagerly. Mathis had been going to teach her on Friday, but after the bank fiasco, he had said she wasn’t in the right emotional state to pour magic into a book. As Kaida assembled her bookbinding supplies, Mathis explained that magic had to be infused into the very creation of the book. Every stitch, every fiber, every movement had to be coated with magic. While she learned how to keep a steady stream of magic flowing into her work, she’d use normal material. Once she had mastered that technique, Mathis would let her use the high-quality materials typically used to make magical books.
All magical beings, even shifters, had magic they could put into a magical book. All magicals had a magical core, even if those cores functioned differently across species. All that was required to make a magical book was to draw a thread of power out of their magical core and feed it into the materials. This process was called “imbuing” and was different from spell-casting. Spell-casting involved taking threads of magic and weaving them into a specific shape to achieve a specific purpose. Once the power that went into a spell ran out, the spell would break. Imbuing, on the other hand, poured raw magic into something without a specific purpose. While all spells eventually broke, imbued items would continue to passively absorb ambient magic, and take on their own unique attributes. Magical books tended to gain intelligence. Imbued weapons could gain any kind of offensive or passive characteristics from flames to never needing to be sharpened.
Imbuing was a difficult process –– more so than spell-casting and was only taught by masters to their apprentices. It was also carefully regulated, and all imbued items were requried to be registered. Newly imbued items tended to take on characteristics of their maker until growing into their own unique flavor.
“I knew one magical bookbinder,” Mathis began with a chuckle, “who could only be described as the south end of a north-bound donkey. I always knew when I was handling one of his books –– they were the most uncooperative, stuck-up books you could imagine. There was another bookbinder who was so forgetful, his books would forget half their contents.” Mathis paused before adding, “He didn’t last long.”
Kaida found it frustratingly difficult to hold onto her magic, let alone keep a steady amount flowing into her work. She’d only folded a few pages when her magic slipped from her grasp for the tenth time. She ground her teeth and reached for her magic again, but Mathis stopped her.
“Are you having trouble holding onto your magic, or letting it flow out?” he asked.
“Holding onto it,” Kaida said.
Mathis sighed. “I was afraid of that. You weren’t allowed to practice using your powers much, were you?”
Kaida looked down and shook her head.
“You’re not the one who needs to be ashamed of that,” Mathis said. “The ones who abused you before should be. You should only be ashamed if you allow yourself to stay this way. You need to practice –– learn how to reach for your powers and hold onto them.” He looked around the workshop and said, “I know you’re a dragon shifter, so practicing shifting in here wouldn’t be the best idea.”
Kaida was thunderstruck. How had he figured out what she was? Of course, he hadn’t figured out everything.
Mathis must have guessed what she was thinking because he waved his hand dismissively and said, “Only dragons breathe out magic. Admittedly, I’ve never heard of a breath weapon being purification, but”––he looked around at the books––“I certainly prefer it to fire. Go find somewhere quiet you can practice for the rest of your shift –– I’ll take care of making sure you get clocked out. Just make sure you’re only practicing holding your magic –– don’t try to imbue anything unless I’m present.”
There was only one place Kaida felt marginally comfortable practicing her magic.
“Hey K,” Sophie said from where she sat, sorting vials of potion ingredients at the coffee table. “You’re back early. Everything okay?”
“Um, yeah, I just need to practice shifting,” Kaida said. “I’m not good at holding onto my magic, and I need to be in order to move on.”
“I see,” Sophie said. “So, you’re going to practice partial shifts?”
“A partial shift? Is that even possible?”
“Of course.” Sophie nodded. “One of my best friends is a bear shifter. Whenever she got cold, she’d just grow her fur coat. She never had to carry a regular winter coat –– I was always a little jealous of that.”
“How would a partial shift help me hold onto my magic?” Kaida asked.
“I don’t know if it works the same for you as it does for bears, but what my friend told me was that when you shift, you draw up your magic and then let it go once the shift is complete,” Sophie explained. “As both of your forms are equally you, you don’t need magic to hold either form, just to go
between. When you do a partial shift, you’re holding your body in an unnatural state, so you have to keep holding your magic. If you let the magic go, your body will revert back to whichever side is the easiest.”
It made sense, but Kaida was ashamed that a non-shifter had to teach her something that, as a shifter, she should have known… something she should have been taught. Then Mathis’s words came back to her –– “You’re not the one who needs to be ashamed of that.”
“I’m sorry if I got that wrong,” Sophie said, misjudging the look on Kaida’s face.
Kaida sighed. “It’s nothing you said,” she replied. “I’m starting to realize how much I should have been taught that I wasn’t. I might have gotten in on a scholarship, but I feel like I’m starting so far behind everyone. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to catch up.”