That single word produced even more panicked whispers in the crowd. Indira had never heard the term before, but she guessed the Stained were worse than the kingswolves? Her stomach turned. She had a feeling that would be the big bad guy waiting for them at the end of the tutorial. Just wonderful.
“We’ll turn this town upside down,” the kingswolf threatened. “It would be better for all of you if whoever you’re hiding is found. Give them up and it’ll be painless. But if you hide them?” He grinned again. “Well, I’ll leave punishment to the Stained.”
Another slash of magic. Indira watched the wolf form return. The creature let out an unearthly howl. Indira shivered as other howls answered in the distant hills. She didn’t know what they were saying, but clearly other kingswolves had been waiting for word from this one. She wondered how long it would take for them to return with the document Minerva had mentioned.
The kingswolf lowered onto all fours, sprinted toward the nearest gate, and vanished from sight. Indira felt a little chill run down her spine. She glanced to the right and found Ledge Woods watching her. His suspicion was obvious. He thought she was connected to all of this.
Which, technically, she was.
A second glance showed Gadget sitting off to the side, fiddling with her mechanical bees. The girl didn’t even look like she was paying attention. Indira made a mental note to talk to her about staying focused on the story as the rest of the gathering turned into a panicked mob. Complaints from some. Concerns from others. Indira watched Minerva do her best to quiet them.
“Calm down,” she said. “I dealt with kingswolves nearly every day in the capital. They’re all talk. Especially the wilder ones. A wolf like that will never get a rite of passage based on one forest fire outside our town limits. That’s not how things work.”
Some of the voices fell silent. Others grew louder and angrier.
“But what if they do come back?”
“If someone is sheltering a Drago, we deserve to know.”
“Get them out!”
Minerva patiently held up her hand until the cries fell silent. “This is what they want! Kingswolves spread fear. He doesn’t actually believe there’s Drago blood in a village like this one.”
“ ‘A village like this one,’ ” someone echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Minerva looked impatient as the crowd grew loud again. One voice rose above the rest, and this time it wasn’t Indira’s pretend mother. A heavyset man strode forward. His apron was covered in splashes of dried blood. Indira’s eyes widened. Every single feature was an older but mirrored image of Ledge Woods.
“You’re not really from here,” the man said loudly. “Didn’t grow up here. I thought it was a mistake when we elected you. Maybe you meant well today, but the truth is, most of us don’t have anything to hide. We’re not harboring Drago fugitives. The kingswolf would have performed the standard sweep and moved on. But now? After the stunt you pulled? The kingswolves will come back in force.”
Indira heard the word Stained in the whispers all around her. She felt the same tide of anger listening to Mr. Woods that she had felt earlier with Ledge. The apple apparently hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Minerva looked as annoyed as Indira felt.
“I’m asking you to trust me,” she answered, loud enough for all to hear. “We can respect the king without being taken advantage of by his henchmen. That’s why this town elected me, Mr. Woods. I promised to protect and serve by using all the knowledge I learned in the capital. I know you think I’m a stranger, but my parents lived here. It was home for me once.”
“Once,” Mr. Woods echoed. “You all can do what you want, but I’m not going to just sit back and wait for them to rip our town apart with their searches. If there’s even a whiff of smoke in the air, I’m turning in the person responsible. All of you better watch your backs.”
With a final look, he stalked off. Indira watched Ledge follow. Minerva was trying to regain momentum, answering questions with calm statements. Indira didn’t hear any of it, though. There was a slight tug at her elbow. She turned and found Phoenix standing awkwardly close to her. A spark of heat flared in the air between them. Indira was briefly excited and afraid and nervous that he was about to kiss her. Instead, he whispered under his breath.
“We need to talk. Now.”
As the rest of the townspeople dispersed, Indira followed Phoenix and Squalls through back alleys, out one of the smaller town gates, and toward a farm set on a distant hill. She wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but the arrows of the tutor device were all pointing in his direction.
The phrase THE CALL TO ADVENTURE continued to glow in her vision. She found herself tracing back through the scene with the kingswolf. The next step in their journey had clicked into place during his speech. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that their quest would be connected to the kingswolf, and to the threat he had made to return and search the town.
Indira found herself smiling. She’d been picturing some kind of study hall where they learned new vocabulary words. This tutorial was way more fun than that.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Just follow me,” Phoenix answered.
Squalls spoke in a low voice. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Phineas.”
Indira almost rolled her eyes at the fake name.
“You said we need help,” Phoenix answered. “She’s the one I trust the most.”
Indira started blushing before realization struck. Allen wasn’t nervously complaining about all the ways he might potentially die. This wasn’t normal conversation at all. The two of them were reading lines from a script! She hadn’t even realized they’d moved into a new scene in the scenario. Her own tutor device was floating directions into her vision. She squinted at the line she was being given.
“Uhh…Shouldn’t we get back to school?”
“I need your help,” Phoenix replied. “It’s important.”
Squalls made a frustrated noise. Instead of heading to the farmhouse, Phoenix directed them toward a barn on the far end of the property. Indira had that nervous and excited feeling pulsing in her chest. She felt like she was about to discover something really cool.
Phoenix paused in front of a pair of padlocked doors. Indira was surprised to see there were combination locks on them. He whirled through the numbers as if he’d gone in and out of this barn a thousand times. “It’s in here,” he said. “Come on.”
The doors groaned open. Phoenix tugged a hanging switch and the overhead lamps fluttered on, filling the room with gentle light. The barn wasn’t what she’d been expecting. There were no bales of hay, no wooden stalls, no animals. In fact, the whole room was empty. And walls that had appeared wooden from the outside were actually constructed of a shining, metallic material.
“What is this?” she asked. “Why do the walls look so weird?”
Phoenix didn’t answer. He crossed to the center of the room before turning to face her.
“I need to show you something.”
He held out his right hand. A snap of his fingers summoned fire. It was always so beautiful, the way the flames tossed back and forth in his open palm. Indira frowned.
“Fire,” she said, a little confused. “I know. You’ve always had fire.”
“It’s more than just fire.”
Phoenix’s fingers flexed wide. Indira almost cried out as the flames raced across his entire body in a bright flash. A burst of heat filled the room and forced her to look away. Her heart was hammering in panic until she squinted into the light. The flames were…growing.
“Phoenix?”
Taller and wider. Phoenix’s outline in the flames blurred. There was a snatch of powerful magic—like a clap of thunder—and the fire extinguished. Indira’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It wasn’t possib
le. A creature stood at the center of the room that was a little larger than a tractor. Phoenix was gone. In his place, there stood a dragon.
An actual dragon.
Indira was certain, too, that it was Phoenix looking down at her. Even in another form, there was no mistaking that look on his face. The look he often gave her with that one eyebrow raised in question, though now that eyebrow was replaced by scales the color of burnished clay. He looked like he was grinning too, except his teeth had transformed into rows of fangs.
It was impossible for Indira to stay focused on their pretend scene.
“Are you serious? This is awesome.”
Her tutor subtracted fifty points from her score for breaking character, but she didn’t care. This was one of the coolest things she’d ever seen. Phoenix made a snorting noise she knew was laughter. Smoke curled out of both nostrils as Indira rushed forward, curiously inspecting him. He extended a scaled arm and showed off charcoal talons. She admired the lovely color of each scale as light chased across his armored body.
“You’re a dragon,” she said, running her hand along his forearm. “This is the coolest!”
Squalls looked a little nervous. “Er. Remember the scenario, Indira. We’re still in the scene…and this is really dangerous. Didn’t you hear the speech that kingswolf just gave? Phoenix caused that fire. He’s clearly one of the Drago they’re hunting. His father and mother hid him in this town when he was born, but his powers have grown. If the kingswolves return, they’re going to trace all of this back to him.”
Phoenix let out a sharp rumble that Indira thought must have been a growl. She didn’t like the idea of anyone trying to hunt her friend.
“But you’re huge. And you can breathe fire, right?”
She watched as he leaned back on his haunches, arching his neck. Snout raised to the ceiling, he blew a few fiery sparks into the air. Indira grinned.
“See? You can just fight them off!”
But Squalls quickly rained on that parade. She could tell he was squinting at the information provided by his tutor device. “It’s…not that simple. Dragons are powerful, but there’s a reason the Howling King was able to defeat them: the Spain!”
Phoenix snorted loudly. Indira saw Squalls frowning.
“Pretty sure you mean the Stained,” she whispered.
Squalls nodded. “Right. Yeah. The Stained. A group of…elite soldiers that are loyal to the throne. It was their dark magic that defeated the dragons in the first place….”
He was still squinting. Indira waited, wondering if he had more to read, but after a long and awkward pause he looked back at her. “Pretty sure that’s all I have to read.”
Indira eyed the highlighted step of the Hero’s Journey.
“So this is the Call to Adventure,” she said, thinking out loud. “It all makes sense now. The kingswolves are coming back, and when they do, they’ll find Phoenix. So we have to leave if we’re going to keep him—and the town—safe.”
And that was the beginning of their adventure. Indira was smiling as her tutor device whirled to life again. She hadn’t bothered to read the next step in the Hero’s Journey. As the highlight rotated, scrolling down, she read: REFUSAL OF THE CALL.
Directions appeared at the center of her screen. She tapped the paragraph and the text went bold:
As the mayor’s daughter—and someone known for following the rules—you’re going to reject their offer to go on the adventure. Good luck!
Indira sighed as the text vanished. She didn’t want to reject their offer. The adventure sounded awesome, but she supposed this was the whole point of the practice tutorial? She needed to get some training on concepts she wasn’t as familiar with….
“Indira?” Squalls interrupted her thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
She shook herself. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry! What’d you say?”
“We need your help.” He gestured toward Phoenix. “It won’t be easy to get Phoenix—I mean, Phineas—out of town. We’ll need your mother’s motorized carriage. I’ve got food and supplies. There will be kingswolves in the area, keeping an eye on the town. We’ll have to make it look like a market delivery. I think we can get to the foothills before dawn if we leave soon….”
Indira took a deep breath and fell back into character.
She backpedaled. “Look…this…I’m sorry.”
Squalls blinked. “You’re sorry?”
“I can’t do this! I can’t go with you!” She was trying to channel the rules-following daughter of a mayor. “I won’t tell anyone about him. I promise. But there’s no way I can go with you. The foothills? Do you know how far away that is? I can’t just leave my mom behind….”
Squalls was supposed to be convincing her otherwise, but for a moment he looked ready to agree with her instead. She guessed there was less chance of him dying if he just stayed put in town. Phoenix looked disappointed by the exchange. Indira was wondering how long the hero was supposed to refuse the call to adventure when a little buzz sounded.
All three of them fell silent.
The buzzing sharpened. Indira thought it almost sounded like drilling. She looked around the room until her eyes located the source of the noise. A little hole was forming in the exterior wall of the barn. Indira asked, “What on earth is that?”
Squalls turned to Phoenix. “How fast can you transform back?”
It was too late. A silver head poked through. Little claws dug rapidly, carving a wider entry, and the metallic insect plunged into the air. The wings spread. Indira finally recognized it.
“That’s Gadget’s bee!”
The device hovered in the air above them. Squalls darted toward the barn’s entrance. He was outside in less than a breath. She’d never seen him move so confidently. Indira’s eyes followed the bee’s buzzing progress. Phoenix crouched in perfect stillness at the center of the room. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to transform back or just trying to not be noticed by the hovering insect.
“Hey! Come on! Let go of me!”
Gadget’s voice. The barn door swung open and Gadget stumbled roughly inside. Squalls followed her nervously into the room. “I found her outside. Spying on us.”
“Spying?” Gadget shot back. “I was just trying to track my bee! I wasn’t trying to—” And then she finally saw Phoenix. “Is that a dragon? Where did you get a dragon?”
Squalls closed the barn door. “It’s not a dragon. It’s Phineas.”
Gadget frowned. “Who?”
“Phoenix,” Indira answered. “He’s a dragon. Kind of awesome, right?”
The girl fell silent as her eyes unfocused. It was clear Gadget was reading her own instructions for their current scene. The others waited patiently for her attention to return.
“Is anyone else struggling with these scenes?” she asked. “I’m at like minus two thousand….”
Squalls sighed. “Focus!”
Gadget shook herself. “Right, yeah, sorry! But if he’s a dragon, we’ll get in a lot of trouble!”
“Your bee,” Squalls said, stifling an unexpected yawn. “Does it record what it sees?”
“No,” she answered. “There aren’t any visuals. The bee focuses on auditory and olfactory recordings—scents and sounds, mostly.”
He shook his head. “Great. So it will pick up the conversation we just had using the word dragon over and over? That kind of evidence can get us in trouble. We have to destroy them.”
“Wait!” Gadget held out her hands. “That’s not how it works. The information feeds back to a storage device at the workshop. Destroying the bee won’t do anything.”
Indira stood there, waiting for Squalls to answer, when she realized he had fallen asleep. His chin nodded down toward his chest. As she watched and waited, a little snore sounded. Gadget’s jaw dropped. “Really? I’ve been accused of being bori
ng and overly technical before, but I’ve never had someone actually fall asleep on me in the middle of a conversation….”
Before Indira could say anything, another sound caught her attention. She whipped around. The walls had given a telltale groan. There. Right where the bee had carved a path through the barn was a hole. And in that hole there was a face.
A very familiar face.
Ledge Woods.
Indira shot toward the barn door. Gadget shouted something. Phoenix’s great dragon body unfolded with movement, too. She ignored them both, throwing off the locks and pulling the heavy barn doors open. She was too late, though. Ledge Woods was sprinting down the hill, already halfway to town. Gadget shouldered into the entrance beside her to watch.
“He saw Phoenix,” Indira whispered.
“And all of us with him,” Gadget added. “He’ll think we’re in on the conspiracy.”
Indira’s vision blurred slightly as the Hero’s Journey rotated to the next step. Her eyes focused on the new phrase. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen, but she knew it was the one thing that might save them from the trouble Ledge was about to stir up in town.
Just two glowing words that hinted at something powerful: SUPERNATURAL AID.
An argument broke out.
Indira suggested returning to town and getting help from her mother. It was their word against Ledge’s word, after all. Gadget pointed out that Ledge had likely heard what she’d said about the recording being stored in the workshop. If he got down there before them, he could make sure that they never reached the device to erase the evidence. Phoenix had transformed back into his normal form. He suggested running, but it was clear that they wouldn’t get far on foot. Not with kingswolves roaming the countryside.
Escaping Ordinary Page 7
