Dragon's Eye
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skill to transform. Very few wizards were able
to take on other forms, but the ability to become
a dragon was almost unheard of, and so the man
had become a bit infamous as a result.
Not that Lance was privy to his
motivations, of course, but his opinions on the
matter ran a certain course. He didn’t believe
most of Snigget’s actions were designed to be
evil, necessarily, but selfish in the extreme.
Selfish, and somewhat careless as well.
Today, however, the dragon flew by
without even glancing in the direction of the
Museum. Lance, whose wand was clenched
tightly in his hand in anticipation of a good
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battle, was almost disappointed as the figure
continued on its way.
“Well then, that’s not it either,” he said
with a sigh. “But something’s got me wound up
awfully tight. Perhaps I’ll have a shower and call
it a night.”
)0(
Situated on the floor of the dorm in a
small huddle beside the largest sofa laid three
young witches on a huge pile of blankets with
their heads close together, deep in conversation
about the Law of Three and the upcoming
meeting.
“It’s a tragedy, if you ask me,” Felicity
complained. “We finally have made a decent
stride towards healing the rift between the Magi
and the Mundanes, but some ancient wise guy
thinks he needs to ruin the whole thing.”
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“Not just him,” said Alice Nance with a
sigh. “You forget, he’s also got the backing of
his handsome curator.”
“Lancelot Jones,” Jane scoffed. “He’s
well enough to look at, but he sure is full of
himself. I heard he’s got enough blunt to back
up his words, though. And I do suppose most of
the time the causes he takes up are just enough,
but this time? Well, everyone is entitled to be
stupid every once in a while.”
Alice tittered. “I’ll bet you’d never say
something like that to his face, sister! I hear in
person he can be quite intimidating. He’s
extremely powerful, so I’m told, and that power
just rolls right off of him. I think I should be
quaking in my shoes if I ever encountered him
toe to toe.”
“He’s nothing more than a fellow
wizard, you know,” scoffed Felicity. “And by all
accounts, though he is quite powerful, he isn’t at
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all conceited as you’ve supposed. At least, that’s
how the story I heard was told.”
“Yes?” scoffed Jane. “But have you ever
met him?”
“Well no, of course I haven’t,” she
replied. “You know that Aunt Beatrix and I are
usually elsewhere occupied whenever I’m not at
the Academie. I don’t see when I’d have ever
had the time.”
“No, I suppose having Mundane
adventures and staving off dragons might be
much more time consuming than taking the time
to socialize.”
“Yes, to be sure,” Felicity sighed. “Only
now that she’s having her latest adventure
without me, I’m going to be in quite a fix once
we’ve finished out this year of school.”
“I heard that your old house is
completely unlivable, Felicity is that true?”
asked Alice, her voice oozing with sympathy.
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“Yes, that errant spell is much too
dangerous for any witch or wizard to approach,”
Felicity said, nodding. “I suppose I’ll just have
to find other accommodations for a century or
so. Such a bother, really. All of my things are
still trapped in there.”
“I’ll bet if they’d allow you home, you
could figure out how to dispel that mess in short
order,” Jane said confidently. “Which is
precisely the reason I’ve waited to speak with
you again until we were alone.”
“What do you mean?” Felicity asked
warily.
“I’ve got a brilliant way to make our
protest over repealing the law heard,” she
explained.
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Dragon’s Eye
FOUR
“Are you completely insane?” Felicity
gasped as she stared at Jane. The three girls all
moved into a seated position at the same time,
leaning together and squeezing each other’s
hands.
“Please, Felicity? It’s a brilliant plan!”
“We can’t just break into the Magical
Museum. That building is by far the most
important one standing after the Magehold
itself. Have you got any idea what sorts of wards
that place must have on it? I don’t think even I
could figure out how to get past all of them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you can,”
said Alice encouragingly. “You’ll get in all
right, and you’ll be able to get into Dervish’s
office without any issues, too.”
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“We’ve already taken care of that part, at
any rate,” Jane reassured her. “Edmund
Minkin’s father took him to the Museum earlier
this afternoon after he begged to have the visit
as his birthday gift. While they were there, he
managed to lift the keys to Dervish’s office just
as I asked him to.”
“Are you sure they’re the right keys?”
Felicity asked worriedly. “I’d hate to try them
out and discover we’d made a grave mistake.”
“Oh yes, they’re definitely the right
ones,” Alice told her. “He made sure of it.”
“Okay, so we have keys,” she conceded.
“Assuming that we actually manage to get inside
the Museum and make it to the office door itself,
what exactly are we using them for?”
“Don’t you see?” Jane sighed in
exasperation. “Dervish and those with his
mindset believe they can use other beings in any
way they please. Perhaps if we do as we wish
with the Director’s things, he will understand
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how it feels when someone else intrudes upon
his rights in such a way.”
“That’s all well and good, but I don’t see
why knowing how it feels when your rights get
violated is supposed to make him let the Law of
Three stand,” Felicity grumbled. “You’ve got to
get across that the law will be beneficial to the
Magi, not just make him feel like he’s been a
naughty boy and ought to treat others with
respect.”
“Hey, what do you expect me to do
here?” Jane complained. “I can’t exactly work
miracles. If you can think of something to
improve on the plan, then by all means, please
do.”
“I’m sorry, y
ou’re quite right,” said
Felicity, sighing wearily. She nodded her
agreement. “But if it’s going to happen at all, it
will have to be done quite soon,” she said.
“Dervish is sure to realize his keys have gone
missing, if he doesn’t know already.”
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“Yes, I quite agree,” said Alice with a
huge smile lighting up her face. “Let’s go right
now, shall we? I’ve been itching to get under
way, you know. This is going to be so exciting!”
“Alice, we’re not going there for the
excitement,” Jane insisted as she crossed her
arms over her chest and gave her foot a few
impatient taps on the cold stone floor. “This is
important. Do try to remember that.”
Alice frowned. “Well yes, there is that,
of course, but still.”
“Jane is right, Alice,” Felicity scolded
her friend. “If you’re not going to take this
mission seriously, then perhaps you shouldn’t
even go.”
“No, please, I’ll be good,” she pleaded.
“You mustn’t leave me sitting here all alone. If
they discovered me, you know I’m abysmally
terrible about holding my tongue. I’m sure
they’d extract the entire story from me in short
order.”
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“She makes a good point,” Jane
grumbled. “Come on, then, sister, we’ll just have
to bring you along.”
The three girls walked down the long,
dark hallway, not daring to speed up the process
by using their wands lest someone see the lights.
Once they had passed outside the gates of the
huge keep in which they were schooled, they
mutually lifted their wands high and flew away
with a quickness.
“Here we are,” Felicity said in a whisper
as the trio landed just outside the back of the
Museum, where there was very little light to
reveal their presence. “Now remember, on the
outside this place may look a bit like a Greek
tragedy, but inside not only is it much larger, but
it also houses many secrets we do not know. We
go straight for Dervish’s office, and we’ll figure
out what to do there once we’re actually inside.”
“Agreed,” said the twins in unison, then
giggled because they’d done so yet again.
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“Entranza,” whispered Felicity as they
neared the door, and it opened for them with
little more effort on her part. “Hmm, that was
easy,” she observed. “Much, much too easy.
Keep your eyes open.”
“Don’t be silly,” Alice scoffed. “Dervish
McTavert won’t be here at this late hour. Don’t
you know the old wizard resides high atop a
craggy mountain somewhere in Scottish
Mundania?”
Felicity chuckled at this. “You believe
everything you hear, Alice. How can Dervish
live in Scotland and still be here every day? He
cannot possibly wish to spend hours upon hours
traveling each way.”
“He’s an ancient wizard, and surely
knows all kinds of things we know nothing
about,” Alice insisted. “Maybe the man knows
how to travel instantaneously.”
Felicity wore a smirk as she led the two
other girls straight down the hallway to where a
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door marked ‘office’ was prominently on
display. She slid the key into the lock and it
clicked open.
“Stay out here,” she warned her friends.
“I’ll go in first, and make sure this isn’t some
kind of a trap.”
Felicity stepped inside and began to look
around as the twins peered in to watch. Seeing
ink wells and documents scattered on top of a
rather large, mahogany desk, she smirked again
as she had an amusing thought.
“I know just what we will do. I will turn
everything on this desk into confetti, and charm
it to explode with our message and float
throughout the room until Dervish figures out
how to stop it again.”
Alice chortled with delight. “What an
excellent idea! I told you this was going to be
fun!”
Felicity began flicking her wand here
and there, and everything her spells touched
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turned to tiny, shredded bits of paper which
scattered all across the floor. The other two girls
giggled as they stood watching from the door.
They heard the creak of a door opening.
“Oh no! Someone is coming!” Jane
gasped. “Felicity, make the charm already and
get out of there!”
“Oh my, it’s not just someone, you
know. It has got to be Lancelot Jones himself,”
Alice gasped in a most lovelorn manner. “He’s
such a handsome wizard, I almost want him to
catch me!”
“You two get out of here, and I’ll follow
right after I finish,” said Felicity urgently as she
waved her wand in tight circles, working her
charm. “This will only take me a few more
seconds.”
The two girls ran down the hall and out
the open door, and their wands lit up as they took
to the sky. The two lights made a mad dash for
the woods nearby as quick as a wink.
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“I hope she gets out of there all right,”
Alice said worriedly when the two of them did
not see Felicity following behind. “What do you
suppose Master Jones will do if he finds her?”
“I don’t even want to think on it,” said
Jane. “But we cannot hang about here all night
either way. We must return to our dorm and act
as if nothing has happened. You must not speak
of this to anyone, no matter what. Understood?”
“Yes, of course,” Alice agreed. The two
girls lit up their wands and went quickly back to
the school.
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FIVE
Inside the Museum, Felicity finished
making the charm with just another few strokes
of her wand. But when she moved to exit the
office she found Lancelot Jones standing right in
the middle of the hallway.
“Dammit,” she muttered softly, since the
man was blocking her escape. He had been
glaring toward the open door, but when he heard
her softly spoken expletive he immediately
rounded on her instead.
Felicity had never seen the man up close
before, though she had often heard of his
exploits. Her heart began to hammer in her chest
as the famous wizard’s ire was turned upon her.
Perhaps there was something to the
notions Alice had been voicing after all. Her first
coherent thought was that from where she was
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ragon’s Eye
standing,
the
wizard
did
indeed
look
intimidating and powerful. But despite that very
real fact, it wasn’t his power, but his
extraordinary good looks, that held her
spellbound.
His long, golden hair fell forward with
unruly waves into a pair of fiery green eyes. His
sensuous mouth turned down into a menacing
frown that still managed to do crazy things to her
insides. His tall, muscular frame, well exposed
due to the absence of most of his clothes, seemed
to be made just to entice the sensibilities of the
fairer sex.
Of course, she had very little time to
reflect upon these facts at the moment. Because
reality just had to intrude, reminding her that she
was currently at the end of the wand of a
powerful, pissed off wizard.
“Here, what’s this?” he demanded hotly
as he stepped towards Felicity.
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Gasping with fright, Felicity did the first
thing that popped into her head, aiming her wand
straight at his as she shouted, “Grunious!”
Lancelot’s eyes widened in surprise
when his wand suddenly burst free of his hand
and hopped away. In another moment the thing
began to ribbit. It became a huge toad and
managed to jump three or four times toward the
open door.
“What the—?”
Lancelot looked even more annoyed at
this turn of events, torn between preventing his
wand from escaping, or preventing her. He
surged forward to grab Felicity by the wrist and
then dragged her along with him as he caught his
wand by the leg. The two of them tumbled to the
floor, and Felicity attempted to scrabble up his
chest to get away.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Lancelot told her,
and twisted around so that his body covered