Backyard Dragons

by Lee French

  Backyard Dragons

  Spirit Knights #2

  by Lee French

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not be what it is without Tom’s help. He took a pile of crap and punched it in the face, just like Claire would. I also must thank Josh, Rex, David, and Bob for their continued efforts at morale and attitude improvement. Tricia has proven an invaluable ally against the forces of madness.

  The usual suspects have also all been their usual incredible selves: Connie, Gwen, Anastasia, Mom, Dad, my sprouts, and Jeff.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 1

  Claire

  Claire’s well-worn combat boots carried her over fall leaves blanketing the damp ground of rural Vancouver, Washington, as she jogged in Justin’s wake. She liked this part of her training. Concentrating on his movements through the woods to avoid tripping over gnarled roots and mossy deadfall kept her thoughts focused on her feet and nothing else.

  She had a lot on her mind. Between having dealt with her father’s ghost, worrying about other Spirit Knights who’d rejected her for her gender, and starting over at yet another high school, she’d spent half of the past month wishing she could crawl into a hole. But for the other half, she couldn’t help feeling happy about her new family. Her adoptive parents, Justin and Marie, treated her like a younger sister, and their two little girls, Missy and Lisa, adored her.

  Justin threw a balled-up sock over his shoulder for the sixth time during this jog. This one bumped Claire in the face. No longer really surprised by the random interruptions, she tried and failed to catch it without slowing. With a sigh, she stopped and backed up to scoop it off the ground. Justin’s tall, muscular form kept barreling through the trees, though, leaving her behind.

  “Keep up, Claire,” Justin called to her.

  She harrumphed and let him go, leaning against a tree to catch her breath. “I’ll catch up in a minute!” She heard his retreating footfalls slow and guessed he’d decided to come back for her and deliver a motivational speech. The ability to run long distances, so he’d pointed out a million times already, could save her life. With that to look forward to, she took deep breaths and hoped to recover enough to get moving before he could open his mouth.

  As she caught a flash of his emerald green cloak, something hit her in the lower back with an ear-splitting crack. Her vision flared white. Every nerve in her body screamed in shock. Up suddenly felt like down, then sideways, then inside out. The heart-shaped locket under her shirt burned, searing her flesh.

  “Claire? Wake up, Claire.”

  She blinked until her sight resolved into a dark figure leaning over her, the overcast sky and skeletal trees framing him. “What happened?” The longer she stared, the more detail the silhouette gained, until she recognized Justin’s worried face.

  “You fell over.” He pressed a bare hand to her forehead, his sword-fighting callouses scraping her skin. “Maybe we went a little too hard today.”

  She accepted his help sitting up, having no idea how all that happened without her now feeling even a tiny ache. “I don’t know. I was just standing there, and I thought a bolt of lightning hit me.”

  “Really?” Justin raised an eyebrow and glanced around the trees. “Because that’s exactly how I felt when I ran across Tariel. But I don’t see a horse, motorcycle, or car anywhere around here, so I don’t know what your sprite might be.”

  Claire’s stomach fluttered at the thought of finally getting her soul-bonded companion. Justin’s horse gave him so much more than transportation—she served as his best, most capable, smartest friend. Though Claire had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her own sprite over the past few weeks, doubt had lately crept in.

  Peering all around, she spotted a sliver of something shiny buried in the leaves and pointed to it. “What’s that?”

  Justin left her side. He crouched next to the silver lump and brushed away leaves. After a long pause, he said, “It’s a dragon.”

  “There are dragons?” Enchanted by the idea, Claire crawled eagerly to him. Instead of a fearsome beast of legend, she found a tiny, squirrel-sized creature lying unconscious on the ground. Sleek and smooth, he had no scales. Aside from a crest of horns flaring out from his head, he seemed harmless. Those tiny teeth and claws wouldn’t cause much damage.

  “Sure,” Justin said, “but I thought they were bigger.” He stared for a few moments, then shrugged. “He’s your partner, so it’s up to you to take care of him.”

  “That means he won’t hurt me, right? I mean, if I startle him, he’s not going to bite my finger off. Right?”

  Justin chuckled. “Yeah. He won’t hurt you. I doubt such a tiny creature could actually do much anyway.”

  Mad joy surged through Claire. No one could accuse her of being a fake Spirit Knight anymore. No matter what form her sprite had taken, she had one. She scooped him up with both hands and brushed his limp body against her cheek. “He’s soft and warm.”

  “Let’s get him home.” Justin stood and offered her a hand up.

  Claire rolled the dragon into the palm of one hand and wrapped her fingers around him. “What do I even do to take care of him?”

  “He’ll tell you when he wakes up.” Justin helped Claire to her feet and walked with her. “Until then, do whatever seems right.”

  “Do you think Rondy might know what to do?”

  “Maybe.” Justin stopped her before they’d gone more than a few steps. “It’s a little concerning he’s not awake yet. With the bond between you already forged, he should heal as fast as you do.”

  Claire pulled out her locket and pressed it against the dragon’s small body. Though she hated having the pendant in plain view, she thought it might help to put her sprite together with the vessel holding the power that kept her alive. As a toddler, she’d been attacked by a corrupted spirit. Her father had forged the locket in the magical domain of the Spirit Knights to save her. In her mind, it made sense the dragon might have bonded more to the locket than to her.

  When nothing happened, Justin tugged on her arm. “How about we take him home and make sure he’s clean? If he hasn’t woken up by then, we’ll take him to the Palace and find Rondy.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Claire kept pace with Justin, her head spinning. She couldn’t wait to show Djembe she finally had a sprite. Because only men had ever been Spirit Knights, he’d accused her of witchcraft and almost convinced a bunch of other Knights to execute her. She still didn’t understand why he’d said and done those things. Maybe once he saw the sprite, he’d finally accept her and explain.

  They stepped out of the woods and into the clearing Justin used for chopping wood and training. A wide circ
le of bare dirt surrounded an old stump with a shelter for firewood to one side and two tidy gravel paths. One led to the right, where a large farmhouse perched at the end of a driveway. They hurried down the left path, past an already-harvested vegetable garden, to the front door of a green cottage with dingy white trim. A few defiant orange flowers still bloomed among the brown, shriveled plants despite the previous night’s frost.

  Justin held the screen door open for Claire. They left their muddy boots behind in the entry and moved into the warmth of the small house. Drew sat at the kitchen table, doing his homework. He’d been Claire’s friend almost the entire six years she’d spent in foster care and now lived with Marie’s parents in the farmhouse on the other side of the property. Despite Grandma and Grandpa fostering him, they had busy lives, and he spent most of his time here in the cottage.

  Marie—tall, blonde, and perfect—stood at the stove making dinner. Missy and Lisa played with dolls and stuffed animals on the other side of the aging leather couch separating the tiny kitchen from the living room.

  Before anyone could comment about the mud on Claire’s purple tights, green skirt, and faded blue sweater, she hurried to the bathroom. She ran the water in the sink until it turned warm, then swished the dragon through the stream to clean smears of mud off his skin.

  The dragon stirred with a tiny, birdlike trill. Claire turned off the water and gently wrapped him in a washcloth. He blinked several times and finally locked his gaze onto her with two smooth silver eyes that matched his skin.

  “Where?” he asked. His high, chirpy voice reminded Claire of cartoon animals summoned by singing princesses.

  “You’re safe at the Brady farm.”

  He rubbed his tiny cheek against her thumb. “Who?”

  “I’m Claire. A Spirit Knight. You’re kind of accidentally my sprite. What’s your name?”

  “Enion.”

  “Onion?”

  “No.” He smiled, showing sharp teeth too tiny to be fearsome. “Ehn-yun.”

  “Nice to meet you, Enion. Are you hurt?”

  “No. Tired. Fly too long.”

  Though she hadn’t lived with Justin’s family for long, this conversation reminded Claire of talking to Missy, the three-year-old. “Why were you flying for so long?”

  “Escaped.” Enion wriggled out of the washcloth and climbed onto her hand, where he stretched his wings. “Calling broke magic.”

  “Escaped? Wait. We need Justin’s help.” She hurried out of the bathroom.

  Chapter 2

  Justin

  With Claire gone, Justin tried to gauge his wife’s mood. She worked at the kitchen counter, giving him a good view of her back. With her hair up in a folded ponytail, he let his eyes rove over the line of her neck and decided she didn’t seem tense or irritated. Leaving her to her thoughts seemed best. “How’s the homework coming, Drew?” he asked the boy sitting at the kitchen table.

  The red-headed, freckle-faced seventeen-year-old pushed his black-framed glasses up his nose and scribbled in his notebook. “Almost done.” Textbooks for physics, AP English, AP History, and French sat stacked beside him. His calculus textbook lay open to a page of exercises.

  “Glad to hear it.” Having scraped through high school by the skin of his teeth six years ago, Justin had no help or advice to offer for any of those subjects. He thumped the skinny boy on the back, taking care not to hurt him, and crossed the room to set the table for dinner.

  “Anne finally committed for Thanksgiving,” Marie said. “Can you go to the store and get a bottle of that Merlot she likes? While you’re there, we also need milk and butter.”

  Whatever happened with Claire’s new dragon, Justin felt confident it would need his attention tonight. “I’ll go tomorrow while the kids are at school.”

  “Don’t forget you’re watching Missy tomorrow because my job is starting up again.”

  “Right. I remember.” Justin breathed a sigh of relief. With Missy outgrowing something almost every other week and Lisa eating like a bottomless pit lately, their budget had gotten tight. Marie’s Christmas job would tide them over until he could get back to handling odd jobs in the spring. He could even afford to get Tariel her favorite chocolate bar, a treat she demanded as payment every time he rode her to the store.

  Claire raced into the room, the dragon cradled in her hands. “He woke up! He says he escaped something, so he needs help.”

  Justin nodded, unsurprised. He gave the tiny dragon a critical once-over and saw the weary droop of its head and shoulders. For now, questions needed to be kept to a minimum. “Where did you escape from?” Though he’d never understand the dragon speaking like Claire could, he knew all sprites had enough intelligence to be questioned directly.

  Claire listened to the dragon chirping and squawking, the sounds reminding Justin of a bird. “Enion says he’s part of a family of dragons, and there’s a witch who’s done a magic thing to bind them. He got called to be my sprite, which broke the binding, and wound up here. He’s not sure where here is compared to there, just that his home and family are south.”

  “Here’s hoping it’s in Portland and not farther away.” Justin scratched his cheek, considering his options. “Is your family in danger of being harmed within the next day or two?”

  The dragon frowned and nodded slowly.

  “Okay.” Justin avoided glancing at his wife, knowing she wouldn’t like what he had to say next. “We’ll have to find this witch and convince her to let the dragons go, one way or another.” He raised a finger when Claire nodded eagerly. “But we’re not doing that until you’re armed. I’m not taking you into another potentially dangerous situation without a weapon. Not having a sword nearly got you killed. Let’s not do that again.”

  Claire nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I like this plan.”

  “Let’s not waste time then. We’ll decide on the next step when we get back. Claire, I still don’t want you wandering around the Palace by yourself yet, so cross over and wait for me to knock on your door.”

  “Got it. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Justin.” Marie sighed as she set a bowl full of salad on the table. “Can’t this wait until after dinner?”

  Justin’s belly rumbled, but worse things had happened to him than going hungry for one night. “I don’t think so, no. Claire, grab a bite before you go. I’ll have something when we get back.” He pecked his wife on the cheek and scooted out the door to avoid disappointed frowns, pouting daughters, and guilt over both.

  In the mudroom, he pulled the laces of his boots as fast as possible, but not fast enough to evade Lisa. His five-year-old daughter rushed into the chilly room and flung her arms around his neck, a slice of bread in one hand.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “I’m sorry, Pumpkin. This is important.” He wrapped an arm around her, wishing he could be in two places at once. “Can you help Mommy take care of Missy for me? You know how much she hates taking baths.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” Lisa squeezed his neck and pulled away enough to hand him the bread. A thin layer of butter covered it. “I won’t splash her or anything.”

  “Good girl.” He tousled her blonde curls and kissed her forehead. “Give Mommy a hug and kiss for me.”

  Lisa kissed his cheek and dashed back inside. Justin hopped to his feet and stuffed the bread into his mouth as he jogged through the front door and into the woods. At times like this, he wished he could have a regular job with a regular paycheck and a regular life. At eighteen, all this running around and saving the world stuff had been exciting and made him feel important. Now, at twenty-four, he wondered how other Knights managed to balance everything.

  The smell of damp earth and pine soothed him, as it always did. Running helped more. With every step, his worries and annoyances fell away, jarred loose by the thump of his boots on damp earth. He followed the narrow path to his sycamore tree.

  The tattered yellow ribbon he’d tied up years ago still c
lung to the branch of the tree he preferred to use as his doorway into the Palace. Once, it had taken him several minutes to focus his will enough to force this tree to let him through to that other place. Now, he touched the bark, took a second to focus, and pushed through the tree.

  With a flash of white, he stepped from the woods behind his home to his personal room in the Palace. Four stone walls held a bed, shelves, a change of clothes, and a few other odds and ends. Today, he sped out the door, intent on keeping Claire from having to wait long. He jogged down the stone corridor of the fifth floor to the wide spiral stair at one end and rushed down one floor, passing a few other Knights on the way and nodding to them in acknowledgment. They returned the gesture.

  He hurried to Claire’s room on the fourth floor, number 462. Right before she’d made the transition from Knight-potential to Knight, Justin’s mentor, Kurt, had occupied this room. The elder Knight’s death had paved the way for Claire’s entry. Justin had to see it that way, or he’d hate her for forcing his favorite curmudgeon out. Soon, he needed to find the time to go check on Kurt’s Phasm. Training Claire had kept him too busy.

  Justin brushed his fingers across the worn brown leather of the couch that made up her door. It looked exactly like the one in his own living room because she’d first crossed into the Palace through it and now used a couch to reach this place in the same way he used a sycamore.

  Kurt had sat on that couch a fair number of times. The Palace had a wretched sense of humor. Justin tapped on the crushed green stones that made up the numbers at his chest height and heard solid thumping as the door translated his gesture into knocking.

  Claire answered immediately, and he escorted her to the spiral stair. She hadn’t explored much, on his request. After the spectacle that almost led to her execution the first time she arrived, she hadn’t argued with him.

  As they walked down the steps, Justin braced for the reactions of other Knights. A pair walking up the stairs nodded to him and ignored Claire. When they reached the main floor, another Knight passed them and smiled in greeting. They stepped out into the main thoroughfare between the various locations outside the dormitory without meeting anyone else.