by Sarah Noffke
“One of those people who can’t do anything without a phone attached to your face,” he stated.
“How would you know about those people, Viking?” she asked, wondering if she was pushing her luck with him. They had bantered, but she sensed she could cross the line fast.
“I’ve been in the modern world, remember? When I tried to get the Presidents and world leaders to recognize us as adjudicators,” he explained. “And half of them had devices attached to their faces during our meetings as if being in the present moment would kill them.”
“Oh, hold up a second,” Sophia said, cutting him off.
Hiker growled with frustration.
“Yes, I can hear you,” she said into the phone, replying to Liv. “Yeah, the phone in the Gullington works perfectly, thanks to the upgrades you did to it.”
“And it’s also giving us all radiation,” Hiker complained loudly.
“I’m not going to tell him that,” Sophia said to Liv on the phone.
“Tell me what?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
She smiled, batting her eyelashes at him. “That you are a handsome and formidable leader.”
“That’s not what your sister said,” he argued.
“Not in so many words, but that was the gist,” Sophia said before holding up her finger to pause him from saying anything more. “Okay, yeah. That’s great news. And you can send it over to me? With a map and coordinates?”
“Map of what?” Hiker asked, his forehead wrinkling.
Sophia held up her finger again, trying to get him to shush. “Sounds great. Thanks so much for your help with this. Hiker is also super grateful for the House of Fourteen’s help.”
“I didn’t say that,” he argued, but Liv didn’t hear him because Sophia switched off the phone. “What was that all about?”
“I found the dragon eggs,” Sophia stated.
He stood suddenly, anticipation making his face bright. “They are here? Where?”
She tilted her head back and forth. “They aren’t actually here, per se.”
“What do you mean, per se?” he asked. “Are they in the Cave?”
She shook her head. “No, I should be more specific. They aren’t here at all.”
“Where are they?”
“In a hidden, underwater facility that’s guarded by lots of Thad Reinhart’s magical tech,” Sophia said in a rush. “But the good news is that Liv helped me to find the actual coordinates for the facility.”
He lowered his chin. “So Thad has the eggs?”
“Yes, but I think we can get them back,” Sophia stated. “I know where the facility is, and Liv has offered to give me a bunch of magical tech that will help in fighting Thad’s guards, which are all robots like those I encountered at the place north of here.”
“We don’t need the House of Fourteen’s help,” he argued.
“But we do,” Sophia stated. “Without Liv’s help, I wouldn’t have been able to find the location for this place. She was able to do some radar stuff, and now I know roughly where to look.”
“And how are you going to get into this underwater facility?” Hiker asked.
“Well, I’m still working that out,” Sophia stated. “The guy we got drunk to find out this information—”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Hiker said, not meaning it. “Who is this ‘we.’”
“Well, I took Ainsley to Roya Lane in disguise so that we could question this guy who moved the eggs.”
He shook his head. “You took my housekeeper to Roya Lane? You really know no bounds do you?”
Sophia narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, I let her leave the Gullington for more than to just go to the market in the town over. I’m such a rebel.”
“Sophia, Ainsley belongs here at the Gullington,” Hiker stated. “It’s her job to look after the Castle and us. She’s not used to the modern world and I’m tired of you filling her head with—”
“Potential?” Sophia interrupted. “Are you afraid if she sees the world outside of here that she’ll leave you?”
“No!” he yelled and then softened. “Well, maybe. But you have to understand, we aren’t used to all the strange things in the world like you. And you’re always filling her head with glamorous ideas. I need her here, not dreaming of…well, whatever you have her dreaming of.”
“If you took a moment to understand Ainsley, you’d see that she loves this place so much that leaving here only makes her more committed to it,” Sophia explained. “She nearly kissed the stairs of the Castle when we returned. But you’re so afraid of things changing that you don’t give her a chance to see anything.”
“You will mind your place,” he said sternly.
Sophia let out a breath, realizing she was definitely pushing it. “Yes, sir.”
“Continue about this guy you got drunk on Roya Lane,” Hiker stated.
“Well, he was the one Thad hired to transport the eggs,” Sophia explained. “He took a submarine, so I was thinking I could do that. But there is also a room in this facility that will allow portaling if someone flips a switch or something. I’m not absolutely sure. So if I need backup, then I could have Wilder portal there, and we can get the dragon eggs and then return.”
“You think that you’re going to this facility on the rescue mission, do you?” he asked, tapping his foot.
“Well, Mahkah is off on the Nathaniel mission still,” Sophia reasoned. “And you will need someone who understands magical tech, which is me. So I just figured that Wilder and I—”
“You figured wrong,” Hiker cut her off.
“What?” Sophia exclaimed. “But the others don’t know about magical tech. You send them in there without their dragons, and they will be powerless to take down the security systems. Liv coached me on the best techniques. I have devices that can take robots offline. I’m the best choice.”
“I don’t disagree,” Hiker said to her surprise.
“You don’t?” she asked, astonished.
He shook his head. “But Wilder isn’t right for the job.”
Sophia deflated. “No, please don’t say it…”
“Look,” Hiker began, “You and Evan may not always get along, but Coral is aligned with the water element. She’s the only dragon we have that can swim great distances underwater. Actually, her ability makes it so that when connected to her, Evan can breathe underwater. He’s the natural choice for a mission of this sort.”
Sophia wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. “Okay, so then he’s the one who gets in there then?”
“Yes, and once in there, you’ll get him to this portal room and then you can join him,” Hiker ordered.
“So, you’re really going to allow me to go, even though I’m not done with my training?”
He considered her for a moment. “I still want you progressing, but yes. You’re the right man for the job…person.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, excitement in her voice. “I’ll get the dragon eggs and return them to the Gullington.”
“Just don’t get yourself killed in the process,” Hiker said. “A few dragon eggs aren’t more valuable than an actual rider and dragon.”
She smiled at him. “I think you sort of just said you value me.”
“You hear what you want,” he said with a grunt, dismissing her from his office.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The shimmering moonlight reflected off the two dragons waiting on the Expanse. Lunis’ eyes shone red as he watched Sophia and Evan approach from the Castle.
The moon, as his element, made his eyes flash red when it was full. It also would make Lunis stronger, faster, and enhanced in almost every possible way. It was lucky then that tonight was when they’d go to the Institute. Unlucky was that Lunis couldn’t enter the facility. Still, he would be stationed close in case Sophia needed anything. And his connection to her in her mind was a comfort that she knew kept her sane when losing her mind was a total possibility.
Coral
stood majestically next to Lunis, slightly larger than him. He was still growing, and it was highly suspected that one day, he would be much bigger than her—much bigger than any dragon in history.
Dragons didn’t grow consistently. They might stop growing for several years and then go through an unexpected growth spurt, doubling in size in a few short days. Mahkah had explained that it was unknown what would spark a dragon’s growth and therefore anticipating it was unwise. Instead, Sophia simply expected to see Lunis the same every day until one day, he was different. There was something in that sentiment that she thought worked for the people in her life. So often, people don’t allow those around them to change, worried about how their evolution would affect them. And that stagnation inevitably resulted in corruption. She tucked away that idea so she could focus on the approaching mission.
Handing over two earpieces to Evan, she gave him a sturdy expression. “This is how we will stay in communication. Put those in your ears.”
“What are these? Walkie-Talkies of sorts?” he asked.
“Yes, the modern version of them,” she explained. “They are waterproof, and I should be able to hear everything that you do from at least ten miles away.”
“Groovy,” he said, putting the magical tech into his ears.
Sophia shook her head. “’Groovy’ is out.”
“Out?” he asked. “I thought that was a hip word?”
“Yeah, like a few decades ago,” she explained.
“Okay, well, what are the kids saying these days then?” he asked.
Sophia wanted to laugh. As irritating as Evan was, at his core, he was a good person, and it shone in his green eyes. But he also appeared quite immature, even though he was over a hundred years old. What her sister had told her was true: girls matured faster than boys.
“They say things like, ‘Man, that’s h-e double toothpicks i-s-h,’” Sophia lied, realizing she still had her own immature streak as she messed with Evan. She reasoned that he deserved it.
“Why would they say that?” he asked, skepticism written on his face. “Why not just say, ‘Man, that’s hellish’?”
She shook her head. “It’s cooler to spell it out.”
He puffed out his chest. “Well, I’m the model for cool.”
“Then you’ll want to say what’s hip,” she reasoned.
“Or what’s h-e double toothpicks i-s-h,” he fired back.
“Exactly,” Sophia said, pulling up her phone and looking at the schematics that Liv had sent her for the facility. “According to my sources—”
“Your sister,” he interrupted.
“A Warrior for the House of Fourteen and assistant to Father Time,” Sophia corrected.
“Who happens to be your big sister,” he said.
“Your mom goes to college,” she fired back, at a loss for a better comeback and just having watched the movie the night before with Ainsley. Now the housekeeper was wearing a Vote for Pedro t-shirt compliments of the Castle, and Hiker was wearing an irritated expression in response.
He didn’t get the reference and said he absolutely didn’t want to. No one was surprised when the Castle replaced all his traditional Viking clothes with retro suits and t-shirts like what Napoleon Dynamite would wear. The joke was apparently on all them, though, because the leader of the Dragon Elite refused to wear any of those clothes and came down to the dining hall topless, with his bed sheet tied around his waist. Ainsley immediately went and changed back into her plain brown dress and began fervently begging the Castle to give Hiker back his old clothes.
“One swift breeze, S. Beaufont, and my eyes will be burned forever,” Ainsley had said when Sophia tried to cover her laughter.
“I’m sure the Castle can’t keep his clothes for long,” Sophia argued.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Ainsley stated. “And all my efforts to make him clothes are worthless. They disappear as soon as I take my eyes off them.”
“Well, then our rigid leader might just have to adapt,” Sophia reasoned.
“That will happen when he allows Mama Jamba to give him an afro to match his graphic t-shirt collection.”
Sophia was still giggling about the experience as she and Evan made their way to the dragons. “Anyway, as I was saying,” she continued, reading the map on her phone, “I was able to get rough plans for the facility we’re entering. It apparently used to belong to a group called the Lucidites, who had some pretty advanced technology.”
“But Thad Reinhart came in and annihilated them before taking over their headquarters,” Evan cut in.
Sophia shook her head. “No, no one knows what happened to them or really much about them in general.”
“They sound like the Dragon Elite,” Evan offered.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Maybe they are laying low and practicing their archery techniques for a few centuries, waiting to be needed again,” Sophia mused. “Anyway, as I was saying, it appears Thad Reinhart moved into their space. It just goes to show that he’s pretty much everywhere, and not much is closed off to him. He had the facility north of here, the one on Catalina Island that Mahkah is investigating, and this one, which is bizarrely underwater.”
“Which is where we come in,” Evan said proudly, fondly petting Coral when they were near enough to the dragons.
Sophia nodded to Lunis before returning her attention to the map. “According to Griff, there is a dry dock for submarines to enter the Institute. And according to what we were able to dig up, that should be on the upper level of the building. You’ll need to enter through there and then remain in contact. I’ll be able to help you navigate from there until you find this GAD-C room.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Evan said. “You know, we might save ourselves the time and just have me grab the eggs while I’m down there. That’s probably a better use of my efforts than finding this portal room so you can join me.”
Sophia lowered her chin, giving him a stern look. She’d expected Evan to say something like this. “Look, you might think you can waltz in there and find the eggs on your own, but you don’t know what you’re up against.”
“And you do?” he questioned.
The dragon’s heads rose up as they watched the two riders square off to each other.
“What do you do if you encounter a guardian robot?” Sophia questioned.
Evan patted the axe on his hip. “I turn it into scrap metal.”
“Yeah, not if it sears you with its laser eyes,” Sophia countered.
Evan laughed. “You watch too many fi-sci movies.”
“Sci-fi movies,” she corrected. “And no, I don’t. I watch just enough of them. Anyway, fighting magical tech with brute force is a surefire way to get yourself killed. Magic should be fought with magic. And in many cases, technology needs to be fought with itself.”
“I get it, pink princess,” Evan said, rolling his eyes and looking bored by the conversation. “I wasn’t born yesterday, though.”
“No, you were born one-hundred and twenty-five years ago before the dawn of technology,” Sophia argued. “Do you know how to spot surveillance cameras, laser beam security systems, or how to bypass computerized locks?”
“I don’t even know what half that stuff is,” Evan admitted.
“Well, I do,” Sophia said proudly. “And more importantly, I know how to disable magical tech on the fly.” She pulled a key card out of her pocket and pressed it into his chest. “Use this to unlock the main door in the dry dock. The GAD-C room should be right off there. Get in there and tell me what you see so I can portal in and save your ass before the robots show up and give you another haircut.”
A sly smile lit up Evan’s face. “You know what, for a young lady, you’re all right.”
“You know what? For a human, you’re barely passable,” she fired back.
Evan shook his head as he went to get on his dragon. “Yeah, whatever, Princess. We’re going to have fun together, and I think it scares you.”
Sophia easily climbe
d onto Lunis. “I’m afraid you’re going to get me killed, and that is what scares me.”
Chapter Thirty
Both dragons took off in unison, springing into the night’s air filled with radiant moonlight. The rush of cold through Sophia’s hair immediately spiked her adrenaline, making her feel alive.
Lunis moved the way he always did, an incredible force of muscles and power, effortlessly coasting over the winds and gliding through the sky. On that night, there was something different about him. His strength was dynamic, his movements sharper, his connection to Sophia somehow deeper.
Maybe in another century or two, the dragon and rider would understand better how the moon affected him. However, they were still new to themselves and each other, learning about this connection to the moon.
Beside them, Coral and Evan flew, both camouflaged by the night due to their dark appearances. The Gullington receded into the background as the dragons made quick progress over the hills of Scotland.
“Portaling in ten,” Sophia said, knowing Evan could hear her over the comm. Otherwise, it would have been impossible over the beating of wings and rush of air.
“I’m ready, Pink Princess,” he fired back.
Sophia ignored the unpleasant nickname and projected a portal several hundred yards in front of the dragon. It opened, expanding wide enough for both riders and dragons just as they passed through it, arriving over the south Pacific.
The air was warmer in their new location, and the moon hadn’t risen over the ocean waters yet. The sun was making its final descent, soon to be replaced by the white orb in the sky. Something shifted in Lunis, and Sophia only just sensed it before she spotted the small abandoned island where they would land.
“I’ll be down there,” Sophia said to Evan over the comm, pointing to the island mostly full of vegetation and birds.
“And I’ll be down there,” he replied, pointing to the sparkling water in the distance.
“You know the directions,” she said. “Stay in communication once you get there.”
“Copy that, Pink Princess,” he fired back, kneeling down low on Coral as she dove for the water.