by Lia London
Local, state, and even a few national figures were charged with everything from fraud and embezzlement to assault and attempted homicide. Desegregation advocacy groups demanded purging of the police department, school board, city council and whole local NMI chapter. Personnel changes in each of those bodies flipped faster than a kid with a remote control and 400 channels on his TV.
Of course, Jed was promoted within the police department to Chief of Police, and that same night he proposed to mom, who accepted. The wedding will be after graduation.
As horrible as the whole trial was, it brought the community together. Kids are always prone to fight for justice once they see it, and the students in all the schools had seen enough violence that they couldn’t ignore it any longer. The youth led the adults into conversations across cultural lines. The Mages figured out that being friends with Nomers wasn’t a death sentence to their power—especially after Amity’s Time Magic became public. If I could have transferred that much power, and yet be a stronger Mage than ever before, obviously, the risk of love was worth it.
And of course, as the Mages figured that out, the number of Nomers dwindled. More and more people manifested magic in some way with every passing day. The NMI’s original mission statement to help the education of Mages became something that truly stood for national values because there were so many of us.
So here we all gathered, almost a hundred and fifty of us, at Miss Flinckey’s family farm. A feast filled the front lawn on folding tables, and everyone roamed the flower gardens and rows of fruit trees. Games would begin in about a half an hour, but for now, Amity and I walked hand-in-hand. Well, we flew low. As we passed the vegetable garden, she pointed to the left.
“Is that what I think it is?”
I smiled, realizing the time had come. “Chicken coop.”
She hovered with her hands on her hips. “Okay, explain it to me. It’s more than an idiom, but fairies aren’t real…Are they?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, it goes back to an old Mage prank. Kids would Flash Jump into a chicken coop, steal or smash eggs, and then Flash Jump back out. Because no one ever saw them, it was blamed on invisible fairies.”
Amity eyed me skeptically. “Okaaay…Then why did that show up on an entrance exam?”
“It has to do with how to protect against Flash Jumping thieves. It’s kind of a code for knowing what to do to catch the ‘fairy’ Mage.”
“Uh-huh.” She said it like she thought I was crazy. “So, if I decided to Flash Jump in there and raid the eggs—”
“There may or may not be a trap in place.”
Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Then let’s do it!”
“What?”
She grabbed me and Flash Jumped, almost yanking my arm out of its socket. A second later, we stood frozen, staring up. I could tell she’d messed with Time again because above us, two buckets of something hovered in mid-topple. I looked down to see the trip-wire, tall enough for the chickens to go under, but just right for catching dogs or pranksters. Amity reached up casually and grabbed one of the buckets. Inside it was some sticky, murky liquid.
“Ew?”
I plucked the other bucket down and found it full of chicken feathers. Amity grinned. “Ah, I get it,” she said putting her bucket back on its perch. “You come in here to steal, and you leave looking like a chicken yourself.”
“I guess.” I shrugged and started to place the bucket back above the door on the beam, but before I did, she punched it out of my hands and feathers went flying.
And Time slowed again. The feathers wafted down around us at a fraction of the right speed, and we stood in a swirl of white, like a life-sized snow globe. Laughing lightly with delight, Amity wrapped her arms up around my neck and pulled me into the most delicious kiss of my life. And it lasted for a long, long time.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
About the Whole Collaborative Fiction Thing
Chapter One: The First Day of Desegregation
Chapter Two: My New Lab Partner
Chapter Three: Where Magic Comes From
Chapter Four: Punkers and Protesters
Chapter Five: What I Saw at Binney’s
Chapter Six: Miss Flinckey
Chapter Seven: The Library
Chapter Eight: I Wake Up
Chapter Nine: The Party
Chapter Ten: I’m a Celebrity
Chapter Eleven: I’m Arrested… Sort of
Chapter Twelve: The Real Detective Sheldon
Chapter Thirteen: Real Estate Deals
Chapter Fourteen: Parallel Parking Guy
Chapter Fifteen: Amity Acts Crazy
Chapter Sixteen: A Prank or a Threat?
Chapter Seventeen: The Bleachers
Chapter Eighteen: Accused Again
Chapter Nineteen: The Assembly
Chapter Twenty: The NMI Lot
Chapter Twenty-One: New Opportunities
Chapter Twenty-Two: Picking the Team
Chapter Twenty-Three: Clorenzo
Chapter Twenty-Four: Unity Team
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Gel Ball Game
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Morning Visitor
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Hospital Interviews
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Trick-or-Treating
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Sting
Epilogue: The Beginning