Kovax gave him a look of disgust. “Magic, you idiot.”
Then he turned to face the door of the shack. The wind crashed against the side of the mountain, and he could hear it howling in the distance. He raised his right hand, formed a fist, and knocked three times on the wet wood.
The windows brightened as a light came on inside.
CHAPTER 38
T he morning after Sevarin’s trick in the attic, a pair of hands shook Milo awake.
“Wha—?” he said, blinking his sleep-crusted eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Emma’s blonde hair shone in the sunlight streaming in through the window. It fell around her shoulders, held back along the top by a blue headband. She wore a simple blue sundress with a matching ribbon that cinched around the midsection and formed a bow. She had been dressing more and more like a pretty doll since arriving in Astros. Milo wondered if this had something to do with the fact that Lily, Calista, and Sevarin were all older than her by two years. She was probably just compensating for—
“Hey!” She shook him. “Snap out of it!”
“I just woke up,” he said. “Give me a break.” He joined his hands together behind his head and relaxed against the pillow. “So, what’s up?”
“You didn’t come to breakfast.”
“I know.” He rolled toward the window and pulled up the covers. “It’s Saturday. Breakfast is optional.”
She sighed. “It’s not like you. Even back home you were always awake before everyone else.”
Milo’s voice came out muffled. He had buried his face in his pillow.
“People change,” he said.
“Uh-huh. I guess you don’t want to fly Vastanon today, then.”
“What?” He sat up. His hair was all out of place. “What are you talking about?”
Emma crossed the room, already on her way out. When she spoke it was with a light, snobby bounce.
“Guess you’ll just have to come outside and find out.”
IT WAS A BREEZY MORNING, cold but comfortable, with just the slightest hint of winter in the air.
The mountains in the distance, known as Taryn’s Teeth, ran up the middle of the continent, more like a spine than teeth. They looked brown and ancient on sunny days like today, and Milo was admiring them and yawning as Ascher led Vastanon out of the barn.
Emma dug her elbow into Milo’s side. “Here he is.”
Ascher led the radiant white creature toward the orphans, his movements gentle and unhurried.
“There, now,” he said into the levathon’s ear. “Gentle, gentle.”
“Hey, Earth to Milo.”
“Huh?”
Emma nudged him. He had to tell her to stop doing that.
Ascher was looking down at him with a hint of a smile on his broad, bearded face.
“We lost you there for a second. I was asking if anyone wanted to go first.”
He indicated the harness on the levathon’s back.
“Um…”
“You don’t have to. It’s just that everyone pointed at you when I asked.”
Milo looked back at the others. Sevarin and two younger, Humankin boys who looked up to him made a poor showing of dropping their hands and stifling laughter.
“I can’t,” Milo said. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, fingers suddenly ice-cold. “I’ve never done it before.”
“That’s the point, buddy,” Sevarin said. “Everyone here has done it except you and Blondie.”
Emma gave Sevarin a cold glance but said nothing. She crossed her arms and looked hopefully at Milo.
“Well?” she said, lifting her eyebrows and whispering fiercely. “Show them.”
Milo slid his hands deeper into his pockets. “Why not.”
Ascher beckoned for him to come forward. Milo took baby steps, feeling as if his stomach had dropped into his pants. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He had wanted to fly a levathon for months, but now that he was actually going to do it, all he could think about was getting back to the main house and sitting down for a nice, warm breakfast.
“Don’t worry about falling off,” Ascher said. “The harness has a seatbelt and shoulder straps that could keep even me in place. Not that Vastanon, here, could ever support this grandiose body in flight.”
Ascher patted his enormous belly. The orphans giggled. Milo wanted to crack a smile, but couldn’t. He felt more like vomiting.
“So what do I have to do? Do I have to control him?”
Sevarin snorted laughter. “You can try.”
“You don’t have to do anything of the sort,” Ascher said. “Vastanon is well-trained for these lessons. He’s going to fly you around for a bit to get you accustomed to being in the air. If it turns out you’re made for flying—and some people aren’t; they just don’t have the stomach for it—then I’ll have one of our teachers show you how to maneuver. That’ll come much later, of course.” He held out an open hand. “Ready, Milo?”
“Beam me up, Scotty,” Milo said. Emma was the only one who laughed. The others stared at him in confusion. “Never mind. I’m ready.”
Ascher put his hands beneath Milo’s arms, lifted him, and set him on Vastanon’s back. The levathon sidestepped a bit as he got used to Milo’s weight.
“There, now,” Ascher said, putting the straps around Milo’s waist and shoulders. He cinched them with sudden, forceful movements that reminded Milo of those carnies who strap you into rides at carnivals and amusement parks. He had never liked those people, with their bad breath and acne-ridden faces and expressions of utter boredom.
He wished he’d gone to the bathroom before leaving the house.
“Everything okay?” Ascher whispered to him.
Milo gave a quick nod and stared at Vastanon’s silky white mane of hair. The levathon tossed its head from side to side and snorted.
He would never forgive Ascher for what happened next.
Without warning, the man gave the levathon a hard slap on the rump. Feeling as though he’d been shot from a cannon, Milo coursed through the cool air. He didn’t realize he was screaming until a few seconds later, when his mouth dried out. The orphans cheered him on, though he could barely hear them over the rushing air.
“Whoa-ho-ho!” he shouted into the wind.
Vastanon picked up speed, hooves clomping against the dirt. Trees rushed by in blurs. The air stung his eyes. The straps were tight against his waist and shoulders but not tight enough to keep his butt from lifting and slamming back down against the leather. He wondered if the levathon would ever lift off, or if this was some sort of joke meant to scare him into thinking he was actually going to—
Vastanon’s wings opened. The clomping of hooves stopped, and all Milo could hear as he rose through the air was the wind howling against his ears. He was free.
“Wooooooooooooooooo!”
Vastanon lifted him up, up, up toward the sky along an ever-increasing slope of pure, invisible air. With every downward push of the creature’s enormous white wings, Milo felt himself go higher, until soon the trees and the farms were no more than hard little toys on a miniature landscape that someone had painted with a fine brush.
The air was ice-cold. He gulped it down, felt it cool the inner walls of his throat and lungs. His stomach quivered and his legs hurt from gripping the harness. He tried to relax. From this elevation he could see the ocean, dark blue in the daylight, curve along the horizon. To his right, a cloud bank descended like a fluffy white elevator as Vastanon pulled him ever upward.
“To the sea!”
Vastanon turned toward the ocean. Despite his exhilaration, Milo found himself wondering if the levathon had actually understood him. He had read somewhere that levathons had been created by the gods to be ridden in battle, that sometimes a rider and his levathon formed a special bond that was almost telepathic in nature. No one really understood how it worked—only that it took a lot of time to master.
“Can you understand me?” Milo said aloud, looking down at Vastanon’s ripplin
g, flaming white hair.
Vastanon shook his head from side to side. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way the creature understood. Milo remembered something else he’d read.
A demigod’s natural mount is the levathon, and he can command it as he sees fit.
Soon Milo and Vastanon were flying northward along the coast. The sand was so white it seemed to sparkle, the ocean so big and still that it was like a sheet of deep-blue glass covering the world. He felt he could land on it if he wanted. Enormous ships sailed in the distance, straddling the horizon, looking as though they were up against a curved edge at the very end of the earth and could fall off at any moment. Being up here was like a dream from which he didn’t want to wake.
Then reality set in. He had forgotten to use the bathroom like he always did first thing in the morning. The urge to urinate was so great that he was going to have an accident if he didn’t do something about it, quick.
“Okay,” he said, leaning forward to speak in Vastanon’s ear. “If you can understand me, I really need to pee. We have to go back.”
Vastanon changed course, putting the ocean behind them. They sailed toward the mountains. The levathon banked to the left again and now the mountains were on their right. Milo could see the ranch, tiny and red in the distance, surrounded by forest, as he and Vastanon shot toward it.
“Faster, faster!”
Vastanon’s wings beat faster until they were almost there. The levathon tilted its wings forward, bringing him and Milo into a downward glide toward the forest. Milo thought they would miss the ranch entirely until he realized that Vastanon was simply flying in a wide curve. The ranch and the trees became life-sized again as Vastanon glided a few feet over the grass.
The levathon landed with a loud clomping of hooves. Milo could smell grass and trees. Ascher and the orphans were tiny figures in the distance. They grew as Vastanon sprinted toward them.
They came to a trot alongside Ascher. Milo’s face burned from the sudden loss of wind. Everything was quiet now. His mouth and his eyes were dry. He reached up to his scalp and felt that his hair was spiky and tangled. He must look ridiculous with his face bright red and his hair all over the place.
Ascher approached, arms raised, to free Milo from the harness. When the last strap came undone, he lifted Milo and set him down on the ground. Walking felt like a new thing and Milo stumbled around for a bit before regaining his balance.
He glanced over at the orphans and noticed something strange. They were looking at him—staring at him, actually—but not at his face.
“Uh oh,” Milo said, following their gazes.
Sevarin fell to his knees in the grip of a powerful spell of laughter. He was laughing so hard he barely made a sound. Some of the orphans were snickering, though they didn’t seem nearly as amused as Sevarin.
Emma was looking at Milo’s legs, completely stunned.
An enormous wet spot had darkened Milo’s brown linen pants, which explained why he no longer needed to use the bathroom.
Ascher came up behind him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It happens to everyone their first time.”
Sevarin lay on his back on the grass, clutching his stomach and howling with laughter.
“Ah ha ha ha ha! He pissed himself! I’ll never forget this! Never!”
A feeling of giddy elation shivered up Milo’s chest and soon overwhelmed him. Thank the gods Lily wasn’t here to see this. He doubled over his knees, almost choking on his own laughter.
“I peed myself!” he shouted, clutching his heaving belly. “Ha ha ha ha ha!”
The other orphans joined in and soon everyone was cheering.
CHAPTER 39
T HUNK!
The stone left Milo’s hand and smacked into a tree a dozen feet away. He’d been throwing them for an hour now, trying as hard as he could to recreate the feeling of launching that fireball. He had been in Astros for three weeks and still hadn’t learned a single spell, not even a simple one, like making light glow from his palm. There was something missing—something he wasn’t getting from his books.
He reached down to the pile of stones on the grass and picked one off the top. Closing one eye, he got into the proper stance and let go, imagining it was a sizzling fireball. It hit the tree with an even louder thunk than before. He threw the rest of the stones—thunk thunk thunk—one after the other, until he was out of breath and pink in the face.
“Milo?”
A girl’s voice, and not Emma’s. A tremor of embarrassment ran down his back. He didn’t like it when people snuck up on him. He turned, half-expecting to see a whole group of orphans frowning at him and wondering why he’d been trying to stone the poor tree to death.
“Hi, Lily.”
She stood watching him through an expression of worry. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said and shrugged. “I was just practicing.”
“Oh. For a moment I thought you were letting out a little steam. If that’s the case, I can leave you alone.”
“Not necessary. I’m fine.”
Lily’s shoulders sank a little in relief. Just then, a cool breeze scented with moss blew through the forest and rustled the fine strands of her hair. Spots of sunlight ran across her body as she walked beneath the canopy of leaves toward him. Her eyes matched the green of the grass, and her lips were so red against it all, like fresh strawberries. Milo’s heart raced. He was so dizzy, he thought he might fall.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
He could smell the pond in the distance, and hear birds twittering in the trees. His senses had been magnified—and it felt great.
“Nothing’s the matter,” he said, giving her a drunken smile. “I’m glad you came by.”
There was something strange in the air. The colors of the forest were brilliant, even those in the shade. The countryside was drenched in sunlight so bright it hurt his eyes, and the ranch house sat on its sloping hill like a fat king on an earthen throne.
And Lily! She wore a woven, multicolored skirt and a sleeveless yellow top that showed off the many temporary tattoos she’d drawn all over her arms. The designs were intricate and exotic. Her skin was the color of caramel and appeared to have a golden tint in contrast to the bright yellow of her shirt. She wore a matching yellow headband that held back long sweeps of hair.
“Milo, I have to be honest about something.”
“Go ahead.” He felt as if he’d just drunk a gallon of Bara-cola.
“I cast a truth spell on you.”
“Roger that,” he said, smacking his lips. He wanted to eat something—ice cream, maybe, or a chocolate cookie with frosting all over it. “That explains why everything—feels so different.”
“Different?” She crossed her arms. “How?”
He held up his hands, fingers splayed all the way apart. He couldn’t believe how interesting they were—the tendons, bones, and skin. They were like two incredible machines attached to his arms.
“Everything,” he said. “It feels so good.”
Lily brought her hand up to her mouth but couldn’t hide her laughter. A high-pitched giggle came out of her.
“What’s so funny?” Milo said, rubbing his hands against his cheeks. They felt smooth and perfect. “Does this mean I can only tell the truth?”
“Hopefully. Assuming the spell actually worked.”
“And what if I don’t feel comfortable telling you the truth?”
She snapped two fingers together. “I could make it stop.”
“Just like that?” Milo gaped at her in wonder.
“Just like that.”
“I’m jealous.” He looked back at the tree he’d been pelting with rocks. “I wish I could cast spells.”
“Milo,” she said, and the seriousness in her voice made him whip his head back to face her. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
He wanted to smile. It was as if he’d been waiting years to finally spill the
beans on everything he felt. And nothing could stop him.
“I think you’re beautiful,” he said. “And you’re almost sixteen, which is kind of cool. And you’re so—so...”
“Okay, okay.” She held out a hand to slow him down. “But do you like me?”
“Sure I like you. I like studying with you. I like how much you know about magic. And—and…”
She took another step toward him. He could have reached out and touched her shoulder if he had been so inclined. But all he wanted to do was continue telling her how great she was. It seemed natural for a total dork like him to want to shower a girl as pretty as Lily with compliments.
“Milo,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”
He paused, but only for a second. “Well—yeah.”
A rustling sound came from above. Milo looked up and saw something black and small jump from one tree limb to another. The creature leaped down, and as it fell, a violent burst made the branches tremble and forced Milo back a step.
The creature had been a black cat, but he only saw the cat for a split second before it phased. Calista landed on her feet behind Lily with barely a sound, long strands of hair still dancing around her face from the wind released by her transformation.
Milo wasn’t sure how she kept her clothes on during and after phasing—he remembered her mentioning a spell of some sort back in the bathhouse—but somehow, she did it, and now here she was, in white sandals, pink shorts and a white, sleeveless top, as if she’d been in human form all along. Her eyes were a dangerous shade of orange, and her tail swung behind her legs. Her pale, heart-shaped face, normally very pretty, was now a scowling mask of rage directed at Milo.
“See?” Lily said, turning to face Calista. “I told you he liked me.”
Calista looked ready to spit on Milo. “You just cost me five sorols, you nerd!”
“Hey,” Lily said. “Just because he’s a Savant doesn’t mean he’s a nerd. Not all of us are.”
“Well, he is.”
“Come on, Calista. Be nice.”
Calista crossed her arms and glared at Milo. She was as beautiful and exotic as Lily, but in a fiery, colorful way that made him think of a wild animal. Milo hated to admit it, but the girl frightened him.
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