by Laurie McKay
Tito was awake and sitting up in bed. His hair was pulled back. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of braided wire with an obsidian stone—a gift from their foster sister and Brynne’s current roommate, the half elf enchantress, Jane Chan.
Tito had stacked books on his bed to make a table, and his booklet of hard-to-spell words was open atop it. He studied for some odd Ashevillian spelling contest to be held midweek. He didn’t look up. “You snuck out,” Tito said.
“I let you sleep.”
“You gotta sleep, too, and if Rosa catches you, you’ll get grounded again.”
Tito was a local, but he knew of Caden and Brynne’s plight. He had proven himself a worthy and loyal ally. Matter of point, Caden had deemed Tito worthy of training in the ways of the Elite Paladin. If Tito would dust his books and fold his clothes, Caden wouldn’t even mind sharing the room with him. “Brynne and I sought a way home,” Caden said. “We won’t give up.”
Tito looked up at that. “Did you find one?”
As Caden was standing in their bedroom and not in Razzon, he felt the answer was obvious. “No,” he said. “But we found evidence that a new villain arrived in the city.” And he’d found the dagger, but he couldn’t show that to Tito. Truth be told, he wished Brynne hadn’t seen it. It felt too private for anyone else to see but him.
“Huh,” Tito said, and sounded nowhere near as concerned as he should have been.
Caden reached across the taped line, grabbed a clean-looking shoe, and tossed it at him. “No doubt it’s someone dangerous. Put on your sparring clothes, Sir Tito. There is a new villain in our midst, and neither you nor Jane has mastered sword form five or seven.”
“Maybe that’s because we’ve been practicing with a mop.”
“Practice is practice.”
Caden sought out his after-training, after-shower clothes. Rosa had bought him several short-sleeved shirts and, for school, he picked the midnight blue one with the picture of a magnificent smoke-colored horse. He found comfort in the colors of Razzon and the image of the horse.
It seemed Tito’s opinion of the shirt differed. “Please tell me you didn’t pick that yourself.”
Of course Caden had picked it. “It matches my coat.”
“It’s got a huge-butted horse on the front.”
The magnificent steed reminded Caden of Sir Horace riding on the wind. After spending the presunrise hour galloping up the mountains, Sir Horace deserved such a tribute. “Indeed, it honors Sir Horace.”
“Dude, don’t blame your horse for that shirt.”
As Tito only wore dull colorless clothes, Caden had long ago deemed his opinion on fashion meritless. Also, since Tito looked as if he wasn’t going to move from his bed, Caden threw a second shoe at him. “Daily training is essential for a future Elite Paladin.”
“You know, you’re lucky I put up with you,” Tito said, but he set his booklet aside.
While Tito disappeared into the bathroom, Caden pulled his secret box of Ashevillian treasures from under his bed. It was filled with items he thought would be beneficial to bring back to Razzon and the Greater Realm, things his father would be able to use: a light bulb, Lysol, cleaning wipes, toothpaste, and mouthwash. He grabbed the dagger from his inside coat pocket and stuffed it inside the box. With shaky fingers, he pushed the box back under the bed.
That dagger had killed Chadwin. Now it was in Asheville. The Greater Realm Council often banished people with tokens of their crimes. Did that mean Chadwin’s killer was here? Caden felt his heart race. His chest hurt. He needed to know, and he knew exactly who to ask.
The villains sent to happy Asheville weren’t completely free. They were kept under control—and sometimes eaten—by Ms. Primrose, the local middle school vice principal. Fussy and proper, she was not the prim old lady the locals believed her to be. She was a fickle and powerful Elderdragon, one of four, and one of the eight legendary Elderkind that had founded the Greater Realm.
The nondragon Elderkind were said to have formed the lands of the Greater Realm. The first was the majestic Winterbird, protector of the Winterlands. The second was the Walking Oak, the great tree that had rooted to form the Springlands and defended the elves, gnomes, and spellcasters. Third was the great Sunsnake. Its movements were said to turn the sands of the Summerlands deserts. Last was the Bloodwolf. Its red and brown fur could still be seen in the Autumnlands’ great prairies and red-leaved forests.
The powerful Elderdragons, on the other hand, were fickle. Two of them—the Gold Elderdragon and the Silver Elderdragon—were charmed by man’s intellect and curiosity. They taught strategy, medicine, and helpful magic to people. The Blue Elderdragon and the Red Elderdragon, however, were angered by man’s greed and disrespect. They punished the lands with disease, war, and dark magic. Magic of hate, jealousy, and anger glowed in sickly reds and cool blues like their scales. And it was these dark magics that spawned the normal dragons that Caden quested to slay.
Caden knew Ms. Primrose was either the vicious Blue Elderdragon or the less vicious Silver, but he didn’t know which. Still, he was certain of one thing: if the villain who buried the dagger was here, she would know who it was. Caden just needed to go to school, ask her, and not get gobbled up in the process.
As he dragged the sparring mop from the kitchen closet, he considered what he should say. Maybe he’d start with something flattering about her button collection? It was important to be truthful and respectful when talking to beings of great power and old people. Ms. Primrose was both.
Brynne wasn’t waiting on the porch for practice when he walked outside, but Jane was. She wore pink shorts and a cream-colored top. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was braided. Part elf, part enchantress, she was a girl belonging to both Asheville and the Greater Realm, and, always, she was disarmingly calm.
Her calm hid a deeper storm, though. And she took training seriously. Her strikes with the training mop had deadly intent. Her concentration was complete. Perhaps it was because she’d so recently suffered at the hands of the local villains.
When Caden and Brynne were first stranded, Jane had been missing. While searching for her, they’d discovered mysteriously labeled vials that the lunch witches and Rath Dunn—Caden’s great enemy and math teacher—sought to fill with ingredients for dark magic. Three were empty: the first, “Essence of Dragon,” referred to Ms. Primrose’s perfume; the second, “Magical Locks,” Caden suspected was connected to Brynne somehow; and the third, “Blood of Son,” referred to the seventh-born son of a king.
The fourth vial, however, “Tear of Elf,” was full. Caden now knew it was Jane’s tears that had filled it, and he hated to think how they’d been caused. Whatever horrors Rath Dunn and the lunch witches had inflicted on her, it was clear she had rage in her that wanted to get out.
Caden pointed the mop to the green and white speckled hillside. “First we sprint the mountain. Then drills.”
They ran. They practiced staff formation two and sword formation seven. Caden found it hard to concentrate and Tito knocked the mop twice from his hand with a large twig they were using for the second sword. After a while, however, Tito’s schoolbooks called to him.
“I really need to study before school,” he said.
Getting Tito to do what Caden wanted required a two-part strategy. One, persistence was essential. Two, it was important to agree to his strange study habits. “So be it,” Caden said.
“Oh, it be, bro,” Tito said.
After Tito left, Caden and Jane ran the mountain once more, then took a break on a log midslope. A tree beside them bore an orange ribbon, a symbol that indicated the city limits. Caden suspected it also indicated the border of Ms. Primrose’s territory. He really needed to talk to her.
“I want to tell you something,” Jane said. Her gaze drifted toward the misty morning path. “And I don’t want you to tell Tito.” She reached in her pocket as if she grasped on to something, and turned back to him. “I want you to promise.”
A promise was binding; a promise must be kept. Jane seemed honorable enough, but Tito was Caden’s close friend. The idea of keeping information from him felt wrong. He hesitated.
“I’ll consider that a yes,” she said.
“It’s not.”
She nodded as if he’d said the opposite and pulled out a chain of silvery paper clips. Caden had limited knowledge of paper clips. In the Greater Realm, tomes, deeds, and documents were bound in sun griffin hair and inspected by the spellcasters’ librarian. For unimpressive and uninteresting Ashevillian paper clips, however, these seemed especially fine.
Jane held them out. “I enchanted them,” she said.
Caden took them. As he held them, their magical nature became more obvious. He felt a soft hum of power in the metal. The chain glittered in the light.
There were only one hundred and twenty-eight known magic items in the Greater Realm. Caden’s coat was number one hundred and twelve. His brothers envied him for owning it. Enchanted items were rare and valuable even among princes.
In Asheville, Jane had created two more. Item one hundred and twenty-nine, the Half Elf’s Necklace of Protection, which hung always around Tito’s neck, and now, item one hundred and thirty, the Magical Chain of Paper Clips that dangled from Caden’s fingers.
The ability to put magic into an inanimate object, Jane’s enchantment magic, was different from the other magics. To permanently power an item, she had to put part of her life force into it. It shortened her lifespan. It took a burst of emotion and a droplet of blood. Enchanters died young for a reason.
He frowned and handed them back to her. “You will die if you keep enchanting things. You must control yourself.”
“I’ll die eventually anyway. We all will.”
“You’ll die much sooner if you don’t stop.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
But there was no maybe about it.
Jane rebraided her hair and seemed at ease.
This, to Caden, was the most puzzling thing about Jane. Historically, enchanters—although rare—had reputations for being emotional. It supposedly took great feeling to put a piece of one’s soul in an item, yet Jane was the calmest person Caden had ever met. When she’d been rescued, she’d kept her wits. When she’d found out the surviving lunch witch, Ms. Jackson, had killed her mother, she’d become quiet. Caden again wondered what would happen when that calm broke.
“I worry for you,” he said.
“It’s only a small enchantment,” she said with another shrug. The chain of paper clips hung from her fingers like a talisman. She held it out again with a small smile. “It’s for you. You saved me from the lunch witches.”
“Tito and Brynne did more than me,” Caden said. “They slew the ice dragons.” Even as he said it, he felt annoyed. It should’ve been him.
Jane smiled. “I already gave Tito my necklace.”
True—Tito’s necklace was a far finer gift than a chain of paper clips. If Caden took it, he’d have two magic items: his coat—the very symbol of his father and his people—and the paper clips. None of his brothers had two.
Still, what use did he have for paper clips? “What do they do?” he said.
“They hold things together.”
Suddenly, he wasn’t sure he wanted a second magic item. No doubt his brothers would find amusement in magic paper clips. They always found their amusement at his expense. “Perhaps you should give them to someone else,” he said.
“I made them for you,” Jane said. “I want you to take them.”
With a furrowed brow, he took them. It seemed rude not to do so. “Thank you,” he said. He took a deep breath. “But you must stop enchanting. The boy who enchanted my coat died at seventeen turns.”
“I know more about enchanting than you.”
“Then you know you should stop.”
“Brynne and I are working on something. Don’t worry, we have a plan,” she said, and smiled, but she didn’t elaborate and she didn’t look like she was going to stop.
He said the only thing that he thought might make her reconsider. “If Tito and Rosa lose you again, they’ll not recover. At the very least, tell Tito what you’re doing.”
Her expression clouded. Her smile flattened. She looked down at her lap. In a quiet, firm voice she said, “I’m going to enchant a stapler next.”
Caden needed to discuss a villain with a dragon. And he had to take a reading quiz. Neither of these were trials he ever expected to face. He must be brave and keep his wits.
He stood on the school’s lawn. The breeze felt soft, and the air smelled of dirt, grass, and, oddly, rotting plants. In the blue sky, the moon was a white slip. The waning moon was yet another of his problems.
Four months ago, Brynne had cursed him with compliance. For three days each cycle—when the moon was half-full—he was forced to do as he was told. This Sunday, it would recur. He turned and scowled at her.
She wore an ivory-colored, high-collared blouse and faded jeans. Her clothes appeared pressed and her hair fell neatly past her shoulders. No doubt she’d magicked her appearance. It was beyond a foolish thing to do. She was already worn out from the magic she’d used in the Biltmore gardens. His annoyance grew. Any magic she used now should be used to find a way to uncurse him.
Like Brynne could read his thoughts, she said, “You know it was an accident.”
“It was partly an accident. You said you’d fix it, sorceress.”
Jane placed her hand on his arm. “She’s working on it. Every night.”
Brynne arched her brow. “Well,” she said, “when I feel like it.”
That deserved no reply. Caden walked toward the school’s entrance.
The school was built right into the side of the mountain; the stone walls were carved into the granite and surrounded by green trees and vines. Around the perimeter of the building, however, the azalea bushes looked withered and dead. Workers in green jackets ripped them from the soil and replaced them with yellow rosebushes. Only three weeks ago, the same workers had pulled out dried box hedges and planted the now-dead azaleas in their place.
They piled the dead bushes beside the walkway. The blackened stems looked liked they oozed death thistle sap. Caden wasn’t yet an expert on Ashevillian gardening, but wasn’t this the spring? Weren’t plants supposed to be growing? It seemed strange that they kept dying. He stopped and frowned.
Jane stopped beside him. She said nothing, but Caden suspected the dead plants bothered her as well. Elves were known to be close to nature.
“C’mon,” Tito said, and yanked Caden toward the heavy double doors. “I don’t want to be late.” Inside, the tiles were gritty with dirt and the occasional grass blade tracked in by careless Ashevillian students. The walls echoed with laughter and the clanging of lockers. The warning bell rang.
Caden’s gift of speech allowed him to speak any language, but it didn’t translate to the written word. While Brynne, Tito, and Jane had English, Caden had his literacy class. He split from the others, but paused when he reached the classroom door.
All he could think about was the rigging dagger—the dagger that had killed his sixth-born brother, Chadwin.
If Caden hurried down the long hall, he could speak to Ms. Primrose before the final bell rang. Any tardiness after that could be excused. Caden could use his gift of speech to persuade her. And she’d once told him to practice his charms if he wanted to get better. He darted to the long hall that led deeper into the mountain and toward Ms. Primrose’s office.
By the busy classrooms, light filled the school. There were sounds of teachers lecturing, students asking questions, and books slamming closed. The long hall, though, was dim, lit only by the buzz of fluorescent light. It was lined with lockers, but never had Caden seen a student at one of these. No one came this way unless they were summoned to the vice principal’s office.
At the hall’s end, Ms. Primrose’s assistant, Mr. Creedly, sat behind a mahogany desk. His palms were flat on the des
ktop, his elbows upturned. He’d slicked back his dark hair. He was spindly and odd, and not for the first time, Caden felt like Mr. Creedly’s true, villainous form was bent and crammed inside his human flesh.
“You’re here already?” Mr. Creedly cocked his head. “You were just summoned.”
Now Caden was confused. “She wanted to see me?”
Mr. Creedly untangled his long limbs and pointed to the large oak door behind him. “Yesss, go in, young one,” he said with a sneer. “They await you.”
Caden knew Ms. Primrose was inside. He hadn’t known she had called for him, nor did he know why, and he didn’t know who else was with her. That might make it difficult to ask about the dagger.
He stood for a moment, unsure, and brushed off his jeans. In the face of the unknown a prince was cautious, a prince was neat. That was what his father and brothers had taught him.
“She’s the principal today,” Mr. Creedly said.
Caden raised a brow. He’d never heard her go by that title before, and he didn’t know what it meant that she was doing so today. He took a deep breath and walked through the heavy door.
Ms. Primrose’s office was spotless. Her treasured, cheap-looking beads looked polished, and she had them displayed on shelves. She’d added some square buttons to her button bowl. Her bowl of rocks had been rearranged in an order Caden was certain only she understood. A window overlooked the mountainside, and the room glittered in the light.
Ms. Primrose sat sword straight behind her carved desk. She wore a pink pansy-patterned suit. Her distinct, rose-scented perfume filled the office, and her gray hair was in a tightly centered bun. She was speaking in the royal tongue of Razzon, the tongue of Caden’s family, and his ears ached at the familiar flow of words.
But it was the second person in the room who took Caden’s breath away. Even from behind, Caden recognized the tall figure. His hair was mussed and golden blond. He wore the padded gray practice uniform of the Elite Paladin, though the fabric had turned the rusty color of blood and grime. The royal Winterbird—always embroidered in gleaming gold and silver threads—was a mere dark shadow on his uniform’s shoulder.