by Laurie McKay
Caden felt his mouth hang wide. His heart pounded in his chest. His seventh-born brother, Jasan, gifted in speed and favorite son of Razzon, stood before the unseen and gaping hunger of the now principal.
How had Jasan gotten to Asheville? Had he come to rescue Caden? “Jasan?” Caden tried to say, but his voice was weak and died on his tongue.
It took great will not to run to Jasan and latch his arms around his older brother.
Caden couldn’t yet match any of his brothers in hand-to-hand and Jasan was the fastest. If Caden surprised him, he’d throw Caden across the room before their identities were established. Caden would crash into Ms. Primrose’s cheap treasures. She’d eat him. Jasan would attack her, then she’d eat Jasan as well. Such was why composure in adversity was a necessary skill.
Caden brought his mouth back to its non-wide-open, normal state and aligned his posture. His thoughts whirled but he spoke louder and clearer. “Jasan.”
Jasan spun so fast that he was facing Caden before Caden had finished the first syllable of his name. Then Caden better saw his brother’s unkempt state. Jasan’s clothes were tattered, burned in places. His eyes looked tired. His mouth was fixed in a tight line. He was often in a sour mood, though, so the unhappy expression was familiar.
Jasan seemed equally stunned, and his surly expression faltered. “Caden?”
Caden had been stranded long enough for the Ashevillian seasons to shift from winter to spring. Jasan looked shocked. He reached to Caden and gently touched his arm as if surprised Caden was real and alive. Unlike Jasan’s frown, this tenderness did worry Caden. Jasan didn’t do such things. He was honorable and brave, but he wasn’t friendly.
The gentleness didn’t last. Jasan was gifted in speed and quick in all ways—quick in movement, quick in mind, and quick to anger. He seemed to coil up. He squeezed Caden’s arm tighter. It was with his voice that he lashed out. “Where have you been?” he yelled.
Caden had been in the hallway.
Before he could explain that and all it meant, Caden felt creeping cold. Jasan spun back to face the front of the room. Ms. Primrose’s arms shimmered with blue scales. Caden felt as if the sharpest teeth were near Jasan’s throat.
“Indoor voices, please,” Ms. Primrose said. Then she looked at Jasan and licked her lips.
As she seemed versed in the royal tongue, Caden spoke in it, and not the long drawl of the local English. “Please don’t eat my brother.”
Ms. Primrose turned to Caden. To him, she spoke English. “I’m hungry, dear.” She’d said things like that to him before, but she seemed more intense than usual. Her stomach rumbled, and her beads and baubles clanked on their shelves. “He’s so tempting.”
It was obvious Jasan didn’t understand English. It was possible, however, that he understood Ms. Primrose’s growling stomach. He looked to Caden to translate.
Caden, of course, understood both English and Royal Razzon. As well as Spanish, Japanese, Gnomish, and all other languages of note. He returned to English. Ms. Primrose liked him to answer in whatever language she spoke to him. “He’s a skilled Elite Paladin,” he said as calmly as he could muster. “He’s Razzon’s champion.”
“Dear, you’re always thinking everyone’s a threat.” She didn’t seem to understand. She continued. “First Mr. Rathis, and now this pretty and tasty-looking one.”
Jasan wouldn’t have been pleased with that particular description, and her mention of Mr. Rathis—Rath Dunn to those who knew his true history—frustrated Caden. Rath Dunn wasn’t to be trusted or underestimated. Why didn’t Ms. Primrose see that? “Rath Dunn is a threat. He moves against you. He wants your perfume for a spell. If you’re hungry, eat him. He—”
Jasan interrupted. “Speak so I can understand.” He sounded as if he expected Caden to obey.
Caden’s worry intensified. As he spoke Rath Dunn’s name, he realized Jasan was doubly in danger. Ms. Primrose might eat him. But Rath Dunn, the villainous math teacher, wanted the blood of a seventh son and Jasan was Caden’s seventh-born brother. No doubt that ingredient, like all those Rath Dunn was collecting, was for the darkest of ritual magic. Rath Dunn was the worst of villains, the scourge of the Greater Realm. He was the tyrant of the math room. Perhaps he had brought Jasan here to make him bleed.
Until this moment, Caden had believed Jasan a realm away and safe from Rath Dunn’s reach. Now Jasan stood just down the hall from the villain who wanted his blood, and in front of an ancient and hungry dragon. Maybe it was Caden who needed to save Jasan.
And there was still the rigging dagger.
Someone had buried it under the magnolia tree blossoms that had reminded Caden of Razzonian snow. His stomach churned. Why was Jasan here?
Ms. Primrose, of course, was unperturbed. She kept to her English and spoke unhurriedly, as if she relished her words. “I’m not eating my best teacher. Not unless he breaks his contract, and he’s far too clever for that. And, pish, I’m not giving him my perfume. It’s too precious.” She sat back in her chair. “But you, dear,” she said and pointed at Caden, “amuse me at times, and you’ve been working hard on your reading. That pleases me, and you know I reward those who please me.”
Once, she’d rewarded him by giving him a copy of an employee contract that he couldn’t read. Maybe this time the reward would be worth more. If it was about Jasan, it would be.
Caden tried to ignore Jasan’s scorched uniform and intense glare, and held Ms. Primrose’s gaze. His heart raced. “You’re rewarding me?” he forced out.
“That’s why I called you.” She leaned forward. “If you can give me one good reason I shouldn’t eat your brother,” she said with a little tut, “I won’t. Not right away, anyway.” Her cheek twitched like it was a decision that was difficult for her. “It’s in my nature to give my meals a chance to live before I eat. I always do. I always follow my rules.”
She was acting strangely. Caden wondered when—and who—her last meal had been. It was like her control had cracks, like it could shatter at any moment. He didn’t doubt she’d eat Jasan if Caden was unable to provide a reason. With the way she was looking at Jasan, she might eat him regardless.
When Caden had first arrived, Ms. Primrose had mentioned losing her physical education teacher. Well, if he were to be precise, she’d mentioned devouring her physical education teacher. To Caden’s knowledge that position remained unfilled. “You need a physical education teacher,” he said. “Jasan’s talents in athleticism are unmatched.”
She seemed to consider. “As principal, I get final say in who is hired and who sates my appetite.” The room was as cold as the Winterland Ice Falls. Ms. Primrose looked at Jasan, then Caden, and licked her lips again. Was she thinking of eating Caden, too?
“If you’re hungry, eat one of your villains,” Caden said. Better a villain than Jasan and Caden. “They plot against you, Ms. Primrose.”
“It’s in their natures, dear.” There was sincere-sounding fondness in her next words. “Bless their conniving little hearts.”
Ms. Primrose’s affection for villain keeping was foolish, but there was no convincing her of that. She believed herself beyond their schemes. There was one thing, however, that she seemed to value even more than her evil teachers.
“I thought the school was your true treasure,” Caden said.
Ms. Primrose narrowed her ice-blue eyes, and Caden saw Jasan’s fingers twitch at his side. “Do you have a point, dear?”
Caden did have a point. In his mind, he conjured images of Razzon, of the deep snows and the majestic beauty of the Winter Castle. He felt honor for his homeland. Searching, he found a small spark of the same for Asheville. “I have pride in my home and in your school.”
The room warmed a bit. “Is that so?”
The secret to charming Ms. Primrose was sincerity. He nurtured the spark. “It is,” he said, “and it’s a quality too many of your villains lack.”
A glint of amusement returned to her hungry eyes. “Perhaps you
think I should collect heroes instead?”
She shouldn’t collect people at all. He doubted she’d ever be convinced of that. But Caden couldn’t lose Jasan like he’d lost his sixth-born brother, Chadwin. The rigging dagger flashed in his mind. He pushed thoughts of it aside. Right now, he needed to save Jasan. And better Jasan be kept than be dead. “Let Jasan teach,” Caden said.
“I’ll consider,” she said. It didn’t sound like she was happy about the idea.
Jasan’s quick gaze darted back and forth between them. His right hand was tight around Caden’s arm, his left hand hung loosely at his side, his concentration appeared intent. Caden moved closer to him. He needed to keep Jasan from attacking, and he needed to convince Ms. Primrose that Jasan was teacher material.
“Jasan is better than any villain you could collect,” he said. “He could be your first hero.”
Ms. Primrose glanced at Jasan like he was a tasty bit of meat. “Heroes aren’t sent here, dear.”
Never had an Elderdragon uttered a more ridiculous statement. Truth be told, Caden hadn’t met any other Elderdragons, but he was still certain. Caden was a future Elite Paladin and Jasan already a hero many times over. Ms. Primrose was obviously wrong. But neither the Elderdragon nor the old lady in her seemed to appreciate it when he told her of her failings. Few creatures did.
Ms. Primrose peered at him, then flapped her hand at the door. “You’ve said your piece. You can return to class.” When he didn’t move, she added, “I’m going to eat you both if you don’t run along.” Then she arched a brow, perhaps amused, definitely hungry, and rubbed her stomach. When Caden still didn’t leave, she shook her head and pushed the button under her desk. “Mr. Creedly,” she said, and Caden knew he was done pleasing her at that point. “Escort Caden out.”
A moment later, Mr. Creedly slunk into the office. He wrapped his long, cold fingers around Caden’s right wrist. “Come with me, young one.”
Caden’s skin felt like it was being pricked by a hundred tiny teeth. He tried to catch Jasan’s gaze. He needed to warn him to be respectful and unappetizing, but Jasan was now watching Mr. Creedly like he knew exactly what he was and was calculating the easiest way to dispatch him while removing Caden from his grasp. It seemed Caden was moments from being tugged between the two of them.
Foolish they all were, however, to forget the dragon in the room. Suddenly, Caden felt dwarfed by the small old woman behind the desk. Caden, Jasan, and Mr. Creedly looked at her. The pansies on her dress seemed stark, like flowers on rock; the skin on her arms shimmered blue as if made of scales.
There was no time to explain to Jasan the danger of Ms. Primrose and her fickle nature, or that the math teacher down the hall was Rath Dunn, the great enemy of their people. If Caden stayed in the room, Ms. Primrose would lose her fragile temper.
The best way to appeal to Jasan was with emotion. Caden feared for him. If Caden showed Jasan that fear, Jasan might believe the situation was dire. He pulled away from both Mr. Creedly and Jasan and spoke in the royal tongue. “I’ll survive my classes.”
Jasan reached for Caden like he wanted to keep him close. There was no time for that now. Caden couldn’t stand to lose another brother.
“Agree to teach the Ashevillian physical education class. Sign her contract.” Caden lowered his voice. “Do whatever it takes. Please. Just don’t get eaten.”
As Caden trudged back down the hall to class, a noise louder than a herd of stampeding thunder cattle roared down the hall. He almost jumped out of his boots. The booming came from the front of the building. Then there was a second loud boom. The hall tiles fractured and a crack traveled from floor to wall, then up between two sets of lockers.
The school’s alarm bells began to wail, and the pale pink-gray doors vibrated. The emergency lights turned on and off, on and off. Green gas began to seep up from the crack. Caden smelled something foul, like the fruits of a Razzonian fartenbush.
In the Greater Realm, inhaling green gases was often deadly, and the green gasses that didn’t melt people turned them into giant frogs. Neither was a good fate.
He turned back toward Ms. Primrose’s office, but that end of the hall had become shadowed in blue. Over the alarms, he heard a low, hungry growl. Every instinct Caden possessed screamed that that direction was not the escape he needed.
Then he realized Jasan was still there.
Caden felt a rush of air at his back as the green, choking gas surrounded him. There was no time. He needed to be free of the gas, and he couldn’t help Jasan if he was dead or froggy.
He used his coat sleeve to cover his mouth and nose, turned, and dashed toward the main exit. The enchanted wool would protect him from the gas. At least, he was mostly certain it would. It was best he run fast, though, and keep his head above the densest parts of it.
Near the front entrance, the gas was thin and diffused. He heard sirens blaring outside. The heavy double doors were open, the day bright beyond them. A short man in a firefighter’s uniform saw Caden running, grabbed his arm, and dragged him outside.
As Caden felt spring grass slick under his boots, he turned back. The school looked like a gray castle. The mountain behind it was brown and green, the sky a piercing blue. With green gas billowing from the broken science-classroom window, it seemed no mere middle school. It truly did look like a prison where monstrous villains were kept.
Was Jasan still inside? Was he all right?
“What did you do?” Brynne said.
Always, she snuck up on him. One day, he’d surprise her. She looked him up and down with a concerned frown. Her long hair blew in the breeze. Her ivory blouse was the slightest bit wrinkled. She shifted her gaze from him to the green gas flowing from the science-classroom window. “No signs you’re turning into a frog, prince,” she said. “Good. You were unbearable as a frog that last time.” Then she scrunched up her face and sniffed. She leaned closer, did it again, and flinched. “But you smelled better.”
Caden smelled nothing but prince-like and pleasant. He scanned the crowd for signs of Jasan or Ms. Primrose. “That’s the gas,” he said.
She scrunched up her nose. “It’s you who walked through it.” She stepped back. “Don’t get that smell on me.”
The firefighter looked between them and frowned. “Are you two all right?”
“I’m fine,” Brynne said, and smiled. “He’s as he always is, difficult and troublesome.”
Caden was neither difficult nor troublesome. He was charming and easy. He told the firefighter so but the firefighter looked skeptical.
No matter. Caden didn’t have time to convince peasants of his likable nature. He needed to find Jasan. Where was he? Caden took in a deep breath.
Something did smell bad. Brynne sent him a pointed look. He was about to reiterate that it was the gas, not him, and they needed to find Jasan, but before he could, a familiar voice said, “Caden, Brynne, are you all right?”
Officer Levine, the police officer who had imprisoned them in foster care, walked toward them. He was short and stout with bushy brows. Like Rosa, he didn’t see the truth of the middle school, its villainous teachers, and its Elderdragon administration. To him, it was just a middle school.
“You look pale, son.” Officer Levine said. “And you smell like a sewer.”
“It’s gas,” Caden said.
“Yeah, that happens to me sometimes, too.”
Caden didn’t respond. He leaned around Officer Levine. Likely, Jasan was outside. Jasan was smart enough and fast enough to avoid noxious, green, frog-causing hazes. Maybe he was near the building’s corner? There was a firefighter there, but no one else.
Officer Levine leaned down and blocked Caden’s view. “Son, we should get you checked out. Did you inhale any of the gas?”
With a sigh, Caden motioned to himself. “I’m obviously not a frog,” he said. That didn’t seem to alleviate Officer Levine’s worry. Caden demonstrated his sleeve-to-mouth strategy for defeating the haze. Putting his hand b
ack down, he said, “My magical coat protected me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Officer Levine pointed to a group of sequestered students and paramedics. “Go sit over there with the other kids who were exposed to the gas and wait for a paramedic. Rosa’s coming. We’re closing the school until the gas is purged.”
Reluctantly, Caden joined the group of other smelly kids. Brynne sat atop a small, nearby brick wall and watched while a paramedic poked Caden’s royal person and checked his vital signs. While the paramedic took his pulse, Caden scanned the area.
Tito and Jane stood in a huddle of students. Mrs. Belle, the science teacher, was hunched over near another student group. Her clothes were more wrinkled than usual. She tapped her bloodred fingernails against her hip. She was ashen. As she should be—it was from her science-classroom window that the green gas billowed. And there was the matter of Ms. Primrose seeming hungrier and less in control than usual.
Mr. Bellows, the tall, skeletal-looking English teacher, stood near the lawn’s edge. He had the distinctive look of a necromancer—one that animated and controlled the dead. Ms. Jackson, the beautiful young-looking lunch witch and dark magic master, stood on his right. She cackled. The grass by their feet looked dead. More dead plants.
Near them stood Rath Dunn. He was dressed in a rich crimson-colored shirt and tie, and burgundy pants. His bald head shone in the sun. His left eye was dark and crinkled with laugh lines; the right was pale blue and split by the deep scar that reached from that eye to his mouth. When he saw Caden, Rath Dunn grinned like a wolf and waved at him. Caden caught the glint of red metal under his sleeve.
It was magical item number forty-three, the blood dagger. It was the evil token with which Rath Dunn had been banished. Any wound by the dagger would reopen in its presence and would never be fully healed. It was supposed to be useless in the Land of Shadow.
That uselessness was yet another thing the Greater Realm Council had wrong. Rath Dunn had slashed Caden’s upper arm with the dagger. Although it was a small wound, Caden could attest that the blood dagger still worked. He spontaneously began to bleed whenever he was too near it.