by D J DuMont
“Magical projection?” she asked.
Locke looked at her like she was the dumbest person alive, and then burst out laughing. “Oh, right. I forgot that you don’t know anything about magic.”
Willow bristled, but merely crossed her own arms and waited for Locke to continue. He waved his hands dramatically in the direction of the cardboard boxes.
“Magical projection is a branch of magic that allows you to temporarily store your magical power in another object. Depending on the type of magical power, and your level of skill, you can store power for up to two days outside your own body.”
Despite her determination not to act impressed by anything Locke did, Willow looked at Sylvie with wide eyes. She’d had no idea such a thing was even possible.
“It’s true,” Sylvie said slowly. “I read some stories in one of the History of Magic textbooks about that sort of thing. Our modern wizards believe that in ancient times wizards would infuse magical power into ordinary looking objects. These objects would essentially become weapons that looked harmless and therefore could take enemies by complete surprise.”
Locke raised an eyebrow in Sylvie’s direction. “Well, well, well. I’m impressed. For someone from a non-wizard family, you seem to have done your homework.”
Sylvie blushed at Locke’s praise, which irritated Willow. Willow glared at her friend, and Sylvie quickly recovered her composure.
“But, anyway,” Sylvie stammered out. “That’s a really advanced magical skill. It’s supposed to be something we learn in our final year of magical education.”
Locke sneered again. “You can be content with all of the beginner subjects on the schedule for this year if you want. I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything else from someone with no magical background. But I’m going to work on more advanced stuff. My dad said that magical projection will be one of the most sought after skills in Dragon Heart Agents within the next few years.”
Willow frowned and looked up at the ceiling. “So you were trying to project magic into the cardboard boxes? Looks like you missed by a lot. You still have some work to do to master the skill.”
Locke laughed. “Yeah, well. It isn’t easy. Only the best of the best can handle casting this type of spell and not being completely knocked over by its power. But I’m getting better, slowly but surely. I’ll get it down soon enough.”
“Does Anjali know you’re up here doing this?” Sylvie asked.
“No, but I’m not under any obligation to tell her. It’s not like I’m doing something wrong.”
Willow couldn’t exactly argue with that. As far as she knew, there weren’t any rules against studying magical subjects on your own time. Still, something about this whole scenario bothered her. She couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that filled her when she thought about how similar the blue light from Locke’s ring had been to the blue light coming from Stein’s gun today. She shuddered, and suddenly wanted to get far away from Locke. She knew she was being illogical. There were all sorts of magical powers that looked similar to each other, or even similar to non-magical phenomenon. Light from a Flamma attack spell, for example, looked uncannily like a normal laser beam, even though it was actually a magical attack.
But something didn’t sit right with her, and she felt a wave of nausea come over her as she remembered the attack earlier today. She hadn’t told Sylvie about it yet. She hadn’t wanted to spoil her reunion with her friend by bringing up such a painful incident. But now, she felt like she had to tell Sylvie. And she definitely didn’t want to do that in front of Locke.
“Come on,” she said, pulling on her friend’s hand and giving Locke one last, disapproving look. “Let’s get out of here and leave Locke to his games.”
“They’re not games,” Locke called after them as they walked down the hallway.
“No, they’re not,” Willow muttered. “And that’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Six
After leaving Locke behind, Willow told Sylvie everything about the sudden rush out of the airport earlier that day, and the attack by Stein. When she finished, Sylvie stared at her with her mouth hanging wide open.
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that you saw Stein today? Actually saw him? How did you not tell me until now?”
Willow shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time alone.”
“Still. We’ve had some time. And I would have thought that would be the first thing you’d tell me.”
“It’s kind of hard to talk about. It still feels a little bit like a bad dream.”
Sylvie made a “hmph” sound but said nothing else. The two girls were walking along the forest path that went back toward the dragon stables. Willow wanted to see Cayenne again, and Sylvie wanted to see her dragon, Saffron.
Despite their earlier insistence that they needed to chaperone Willow on her walk through the forest, there were no Dragon Heart Agents in sight right now. The path was eerily quiet, and nothing stirred in the trees. Sylvie didn’t seem to notice, and even started humming at one point. Willow wondered how anyone could hum at a time like this, but didn’t try to stop her friend. The sound was soothing, and, after the day Willow had had, she could use some soothing. Sylvie always seemed to look on the bright side of things, and to not let difficult circumstances bring her down. Willow envied that about her friend. As hard as Willow tried to stay positive, sometimes the weight of the world on her shoulders just felt too heavy.
As the forest path opened up and led into the large meadow where the dragon stables stood, Willow still didn’t see any of the Dragon Heart Agents. Where was everyone? She didn’t think they would have left Birch Point so soon, but none of them were here. Willow didn’t see their dragons, either, but she figured the Agents’ dragons must be resting in the stables. All of the dragons who normally lived at Birch Point were outside in the meadow, so there would have been plenty of room inside the stables for the extra dragons.
“Saffron!” Sylvie called out. Saffron turned her giant, golden head and let out a happy squeak. Willow smiled at the sound. She loved how excited dragons became when they saw their partners. The way they acted sometimes made Willow feel like they were nothing but overgrown puppies. Overgrown puppies who could breathe fire, acid, and ice, but still. No one could say they didn’t have a loveable side.
The other dragons looked up at the girls when Saffron squeaked, and Cayenne came bounding over to see Willow. Cayenne happily nuzzled at Willow’s chest, and Willow laughed as she patted the beast’s giant, spiked head.
“Looking for coconuts, eh? Sorry, girl. I don’t have any today. But I’ll try to swipe some from Sam soon.”
Cayenne let out a long sigh, and Willow laughed. Strangely, dragons loved coconuts. Willow had been surprised to learn this when she first met the dragons—tropical fruit didn’t seem like the sort of thing that fierce dragons would be into. But the dragons would gobble down the fruit like candy, crunching whole coconuts in their mouths, shell and all, and squeaking with delight as they ate them.
Another dragon muzzle pushed against Willow’s arm, and she looked over to see that Clove had walked up to her.
“Clove!” Willow threw her arms around the dragon’s giant neck, and held him tightly. He must have been behind another one of the dragons when she first came into the meadow, because she hadn’t seen him until now. But the sight of him did her heart good. He had been her father’s dragon, and seeing him always made her feel closer to her father. Not only that, but last year Willow had learned that dragons could sense when their partner was still alive. Anjali and the newer Dragon Heart leadership didn’t believe that dragons could really do that. They said beliefs like that were only old myths. But Willow knew in her heart that it wasn’t just a myth. Clove could sense her father, and he had assured her, in his dragon way, that her father was alive. That assurance had kept Willow going many times when she felt like giving up.
Cayenne abruptly let out an annoyed whine, and tried to edge Clove out of the wa
y. Willow laughed and turned to give Cayenne another hug. “You really are the jealous type, aren’t you?”
Cayenne snorted indignantly, but anyone who knew Cayenne at all knew that the dragon had a huge jealous streak. She didn’t like to share Willow with anyone, not even Clove. Cayenne would tolerate Clove for a few minutes, and then insist on being back in the spotlight. Willow patted Cayenne’s back and ran her hand soothingly across her scales.
“It’s been a long summer without you, you rascal.” Willow hadn’t wanted to leave Birch Point for the summer. She’d wanted to stay here, close to the dragons, while she worked on tracking down her missing father. But Dragon Heart Leadership had determined that it would look too suspicious if she didn’t go home to her mother. They didn’t want to take any chances on Willow’s mother finding out that magic existed, and so, Willow was forced to leave her dragon behind for the summer. Now, though, she was back with Cayenne, and all was right with the world. Well, as right as it could be on a day when the President had been assassinated and Stein Viker had attacked her.
“Willow Ember! What are you doing here?”
Willow groaned at the sound of Sam’s yell, which cut rudely into her moment of happiness with Cayenne. So much for everything being right with the world. Sam did not sound happy, and he was not the kind of person you wanted to deal with when he wasn’t happy. Sam was one of those people who was really nice—until he wasn’t. Willow took a deep breath and turned to face him.
“I told you I would take care of the dragons,” Sam bellowed as he stormed toward them. His face had turned red with rage.
Willow felt rage starting to heat up her own face. Why was Sam always trying to keep them from the dragons? Willow might still be a student, but Cayenne was her partner. Sam had no right to keep them apart. “There’re no rules against coming to see my dragon,” Willow said, crossing her arms and giving Sam a defiant look. Sam’s face only grew redder.
“I’m in charge of the dragons here, and I’m saying that you need to leave them alone today,” Sam shouted. He got right in Willow’s face as he did, and she couldn’t help but flinch.
“Willow, come on,” Sylvie said from somewhere behind her. “We’ve said hello to our dragons, now let’s get out of here. It’s not worth a fight.”
Willow glared at Sam without acknowledging Sylvie’s comment. “You can’t just randomly tell us not to come see our dragons.”
Sam’s face was purple by this point. “Oh, yes I can. I’m the master dragon trainer around here, and that means I have the final say when it comes to students’ dragons. You all aren’t supposed to be wandering around anyway. It’s better to lie low, since no one knows what the heck is going on with the Dark Sparks right now.”
“We were told not to leave campus. No one said anything about lying low.”
Sam let out an exasperated sigh. “You can run around like idiots if you want. That’s your choice. I’m just telling you: if you value your safety, I’d recommend not prancing around like this place is completely safe. Until we figure out how the Dark Sparks got past the President’s security detail, we have no way of knowing that the same thing won’t happen here. Don’t make yourself an easy target.”
Willow wanted to tell Sam that he was overreacting. She also wanted to tell him that she could take care of herself just fine. After all, she’d manage to run off Stein Viker earlier today. Not that she’d want to have to try that again. She had a feeling that her success with the Invado spell had probably been pure luck. Still, she’d survived. That was saying something.
But before Willow could say anything else, Sylvie was pulling on her arm.
“Come on, Willow. Let it go. It’s not worth arguing over.”
Willow frowned. She thought it was worth arguing over, but she didn’t want to argue alone. So she shrugged and turned to walk away from Sam.
“Whatever. I need to go start unpacking, anyway. See you later, Cayenne.”
Cayenne let out a soft whine, and so did Clove. Sylvie gave Saffron one last pat on the head, and then followed Willow. The two of them walked in silence back to the main Dragon Heart building. Once they were there, they went into the same conference room they had been in earlier, raised their magic rings toward the back wall, and said, “draco corde” in unison.
At the sound of the password, the wall suddenly began to move, revealing a secret tunnel behind it. The secret tunnel would lead them into Anjali’s office on the “normal” Birch Point side of campus. Willow still didn’t want to leave behind the magical, dragon side of school, but she knew it was time. Classes started tomorrow morning, and she still needed to unpack and organize her books.
Sylvie had already been here a week, and had had time to take care of those pesky little details. Originally, Willow had planned to arrive at school a week before classes as well. But the search for her father had consumed her so much that she hadn’t wanted to leave her internship with the C.I.A. until the last possible moment.
There was one bright spot in heading over to the ordinary side of campus. Willow’s roommate from last year would be there. Alexis Walton was not a wizard, and didn’t know that magic existed. But she had been a good friend to Willow, and had been careful not to ask too many pushy questions about where Sylvie and Alexis disappeared to every afternoon. Willow was thankful for that. It wasn’t easy to come up with an excuse that didn’t give away the fact that she was taking classes in magical education. Alexis had even looked the other way when Cayenne had flown in to save Willow during a blizzard one stormy night. What more could you ask for in a friend than someone who didn’t insist on an explanation for your weird absences and fantastical pets?
Despite the stress of the day, Willow smiled. She was looking forward to seeing Alexis. This year, Sylvie, Alexis and Willow would all be rooming together in a three person dorm room. Willow was already looking forward to the fun times ahead of them.
But when Willow and Sylvie entered their dorm room, Alexis wasn’t there. Instead, there was a note taped to the full-length mirror that read: Hey Sylvie and Willow! I went to the new rec center! Come check it out when you get in. It’s really fun! Can’t wait to see you – xoxo! Alexis had decorated the sheet of paper with colorful hand-drawn hearts, and Willow laughed. It was a nice visual representation of Alexis’ colorful and thoughtful personality.
“Do you want to go?” Sylvie asked as she peered over Willow’s shoulder to look at the note. “I know you need to unpack, but it would be fun to check it out for just a few minutes, don’t you think?”
Willow glanced at her suitcase and duffel bag, which had been delivered to her dorm room at some point in the last few hours. She did need to unpack, but she didn’t feel like it. Checking out the new rec center sounded like a whole lot more fun. And besides, didn’t she deserve a break after the day she’d had? Just a small break, and then she’d come back and at least unpack the bare minimum to get her through the day tomorrow.
“Ok,” Willow said with a grin. “Let’s go. But just for a few minutes.”
Sylvie grinned, and grabbed Willow’s hand to pull her along. “This is gonna be fun! The three musketeers, together again!”
Willow laughed. It was a little strange that Alexis was one of their closest friends when she had no idea that magic existed. But sometimes, unlikely friendships turned out to be the best ones.
And Willow had a feeling deep down that her unlikely friendships would be more important than ever this year.
Chapter Seven
The “few minutes” Willow planned to spend in the rec room turned into a few hours. Willow knew she should be responsible and go get ready for her classes the next day, but she couldn’t help herself. She was having so much fun being with Alexis again. She was even enjoying being around the other Birch Point students. Instead of feeling constrained by the fact that none of these people knew that magic existed, Willow felt strangely free. Since she couldn’t talk about magic, she wasn’t tempted to talk about the Dark Sparks, or to tr
y to figure out how they had managed to get to the President. Willow hadn’t expected to be relieved at the lack of magical talk, but she was. Sylvie must have been, too. Her friend was laughing and playing a dancing game on one of the new video game systems the school had purchased for the rec center.
The center was new, and Alexis hadn’t been kidding when she said it was nice. There were several televisions and video game consoles, books, board games, a paddleball table, and oversized bean bag chairs. A fridge and kitchen area meant that people could bring food and have parties. There was high speed wifi available, and even a karaoke machine, although no one was using it at the moment.
Of course, it was impossible to completely escape the subject of the President’s assassination. It weighed heavily on everyone’s mind, and one of the television sets was turned to a national news station, where news anchors went over and over the possible ways that this could have happened. There were long discussions of who might be responsible, but no official announcements had been made regarding any suspects.
Willow knew it was unlikely that any official announcements would be made. The government couldn’t exactly tell the entire country that a group of villains was trying to steal magic and had probably figured out a way to get past the magical defenses of a group of security agents that rode on dragons. And so, the news outlets made their own guesses on what had happened—all of them completely wrong.
Willow herself felt like what had happened earlier today had been a dream. It seemed unreal that just this morning she had been standing in the middle of a busy airport when she’d heard that the President was dead. It seemed even more unreal that she had then been whisked away by Dragon Heart Agents and faced down Stein Viker.
