by D J DuMont
“All in a day’s work,” she whispered under her breath.
“What’s that?” asked an unfamiliar voice.
Willow looked up, startled, to see a tanned, handsome face that she recognized from her algebra class last year. The boy had dark hair that was mussed up in an adorably chaotic way, and his deep green eyes actually reminded her of dragon eyes. Willow squinted as she tried to remember his name.
“Mark?” she asked.
He grinned at her. “Close enough. I’m Marcus. You’re Willow, right?”
Willow nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed that he had remembered her name when she’d forgotten his. Marcus seemed not to care, though, and plopped down on the overstuffed couch next to her.
“You were muttering under your breath,” he said with a grin. “You shouldn’t do that, or people will think you’re crazy. And then they’ll start accusing you of being the crazy one who shot the president.”
Willow gasped. “Don’t say that! And I’m not crazy. I’m just thinking about…everything I still have to get done before school starts tomorrow.”
Marcus only grinned. “Hey, calm down. I’m just messing with you. You know I’m a little bit right, though. These newscasters will point a finger at anyone. Can you believe some of the theories they’ve come up with? They’re out of control.”
“Yeah, you have a point there. I even heard them say that the President faked his death so that he could get out of finishing his term.”
Marcus’ eyes widened. “You see? Crazy ideas. Why wouldn’t the man just resign?”
“Exactly.” Willow was slowly starting to feel more at ease with Marcus. At first, she’d thought he was going to press her for her exact theory on what had happened to the President, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was come up with some sort of story that seemed plausible. But Marcus quickly moved on from discussing the assassination to every teenage boy’s favorite subject: food.
“Anyway, I came over here to tell you that a bunch of us are gonna order pizza. You want in on that?”
As if on cue, Willow’s stomach growled, and she laughed. “Yeah, I guess I should get in on that.” Willow hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and hadn’t realized it until just now. She felt slightly disappointed, though, that Marcus had been coming over just to get pizza orders. Some small part of her had been excited to think that a boy as handsome as him had come over just to talk to her.
I should have known better, Willow thought after Marcus took her order for pepperoni and mushroom and walked off. Boys had never shown much interest in her. And why would they? Willow wasn’t exactly fashionable. She wore plain, boring clothes, and always had her hair up in a boring, plain ponytail. She didn’t wear makeup very often, and although she wasn’t exactly ugly, she didn’t stand out from the crowd. Not like Sylvie and Alexis. Both of them were gorgeous, and Willow watched now as the eyes of every boy in the room seemed to follow her two friends. The two of them were playing paddleball, laughing and oblivious to the attention they were receiving. Willow felt a pang of jealousy, then immediately felt guilty. Sylvie and Alexis had never made Willow feel like she was less than them in any way. She should be happy for them instead of envying them.
Still, Willow felt a lingering sadness settling over her. When the pizza arrived, she grabbed a slice and went to sit by herself on the couch again. The news was playing the same old loop over and over. There was nothing new to see, and so Willow let her eyes wander back to Sylvie and Alexis, who had turned their original game of paddleball into a tournament of sorts, and were in an all out battle for the final victory. They hadn’t paused to go get pizza, but they were surrounded by a crowd of fellow students who were cheering for them in between bites of pizza. Willow couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her friends. Their smiles always made her day. It was going to be a fun year, and, really, Willow shouldn’t care if no one noticed her. The less people who noticed her, the easier it was to hide her magical side.
Taking another bite of her pizza, Willow sunk deeper into her chair. No, she should be glad that all eyes in the room were on Sylvie and Alexis. But as Willow glanced to the left side of the room, her heart suddenly started beating faster in her chest.
There were two eyes in the room that weren’t on Sylvie and Alexis.
Those two eyes belonged to Marcus, and they were fixed directly on her. He smiled at her, and Willow blushed. Then she quickly looked down at her hands.
She knew better than to let herself think that someone like Marcus was interested in her. He was tall, outgoing, and handsome. And she…well, she was just Willow. Besides, even if he was interested in her, she couldn’t date him. She had too much on her plate already, without adding a boyfriend from whom she had to hide her magical side. That would never work out.
As a cheer went up from the paddleball table, Willow decided that now would be a very good time to head back to her dorm room and unpack. She grabbed another slice of pizza on her way out, and quickened her step. She was determined to get out of here and focus on getting ready for the school year ahead. It wasn’t going to be an easy one.
Still, she couldn’t resist one last glance backward to see whether Marcus was still watching her.
He was.
Get it together, Willow, she told herself. But even when she bit her lip, she couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across her face at the memory of Marcus watching her.
Chapter Eight
The next week passed by in a blur. Willow struggled with the usual first-week-of-school issues, like getting down her schedule or catching up on the social scene. She didn’t have much homework, but she was smart enough to know it was coming. Last year, the teachers had gone easy on them for the first week or two, then buried them in assignments for the rest of the semester. This was the calm before the storm, and Willow was enjoying it while she could.
Just as she had the year before, Willow attended classes in the morning for her normal school subjects, like geometry, literature, and government. In the afternoon, she slipped over to the Dragon Heart Academy side of campus along with Locke, Cara, and Sylvie. There, they studied their magical subjects. The second year included an advanced version of subjects the students had already studied last year, including Alchemy, Potions, and Divination. Willow had never been good at Alchemy, and her skills in Potions and Divinations were hit or miss.
She hoped she’d do better at the subjects that were new for year two: Earth Magic, Medical Magic, and Dragon Care and Communication. Dragon Care and Communication would probably be the easiest subject for Willow to master. She tended to do well in subjects involving dragons, and, while the textbook for Dragon Care had been boring so far, at least it was easy for her to understand. Medical Magic involved healing spells, just as Locke had said it would. From the first day of class, it became apparent that Locke had already read the entire Medical Magic textbook, and had mastered most of the spells. Willow didn’t understand how he’d managed that. He had always been an overachiever, but he must have spent every spare second of his summer studying.
What was he trying to prove? That he should have been given the Golden Dragon Heart Award instead of Willow? Willow wasn’t going to argue with him about that. She thought he had probably deserved it more than she did, even though she had to admit that it did feel good to beat him at something. She hadn’t had many opportunities to wipe the entitled smirk off of Locke’s face, but winning the Golden Dragon Heart Award had been one of them.
As for Earth Magic, Willow could hardly get through a paragraph of the textbook without feeling like her head was spinning. Earth Magic involved controlling the very fabric of the earth itself. It allowed a wizard to cause or stop earthquakes, bring about tsunamis, or cause volcanoes to erupt. This year, the class would be mostly theoretical, teaching the background of Earth Magic and attempting to give the young students a basic understanding of how it worked. Then, in years three and four, the students would slowly start to learn actual Earth Magic spells. It
was one of the most powerful forms of magic, but also the most dangerous. It didn’t take a genius to see that an earthquake spell gone wrong could result in a lot of damage.
The best part about year two at the Dragon Heart Academy of Magic, though, was that the physical education requirement would now be satisfied by dragon flying. Last year, the students had all been required to take broomstick basketball, which, while fun, was nowhere near as exciting as zooming through the air on a dragon. Because the second year of dragon flying would have the students actually flying and doing tricky maneuvers right from the start, it counted as the physical education requirement now. From the small amount of dragon flying Willow had done, she could attest that it was definitely a workout. It took a lot of strength and agility to hold on to a dragon while that dragon dove through the air at top speed.
But despite its difficulty, dragon flying was the subject where Willow truly excelled. She struggled with the more academic magical subjects, but something about riding on a dragon’s back came naturally for her. Perhaps it was in her blood. Her father had been known for his dragon flying skills as well. Willow had never seen him flying, but she’d heard stories about how breathtaking it was to watch her father and Clove slice through the air. Willow closed her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine what that must have looked like.
“Willow!”
At the sound of her name, Willow snapped her eyes open and sat up straight. She’d been so lost in her daydreams that she’d forgotten where she was—the middle of Medical Magic class. Anajli was staring down at her with a stern glare, and Willow wished she could shrink down into the floor. Locke snickered, but Willow ignored him. She could already feel her cheeks heating up with embarrassment, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the humiliation in her eyes.
“Am I boring you, Willow?” Anjali asked.
Meekly, Willow shook her head no.
“Good. Then I’d advise you to pay attention. The Consuo spell may not sound all that exciting, but it could save your life someday, or the life of one of your fellow Agents. It allows you to magically stitch up a wound.”
Willow nodded and looked down at her textbook, trying to figure out where on the page Anajli was teaching from. Anjali started to pace at the front of the room, and abruptly continued on with her lecture on the Consuo spell. But even though Willow appeared more focused, she couldn’t think about Medical Magic. No matter how hard she tried, all she could think about was how strange everything had been at Dragon Heart Academy since she got back.
Sam acted gruffer than ever, and wouldn’t let the students near the dragons except during the official dragon flying class. Even then, he acted like it pained him to let anyone near the beasts. And Anjali, who last year had been as warm and as friendly of a teacher as anyone could have asked for, had barely spoken two words to any of the students, if you didn’t count her lectures.
The whole atmosphere here had changed. Most of the Dragon Heart Agents who had come here the day the President was assassinated had returned to D.C., but a few remained behind to act as additional security. They never spoke to any of the students, but whenever they were close Willow felt like she was being watched like a hawk.
Willow hated always feeling like a suspect whenever she was on the Dragon Heart side of campus. Last year, this place had felt so safe and comforting. Now, Willow found herself hurrying to head back to the Birch Point side of campus as soon as classes were over.
It seemed the President’s assassination had made all of the adult Dragon Heart Agents suspicious of everyone. An uncomfortable chill hung in the air, despite the warmth of late summer. The newscasts were still running coverage of the assassination twenty-four-seven, but they had nothing new to report. The more days that passed, the more worried Anjali and the other Dragon Heart Agents looked. Willow got the feeling that they didn’t have any new information either—and that they were greatly bothered by this. As long as no one knew how security had been breached, there was no good way to start working toward preventing another security breach.
Despite the underlying current of worry, school marched on. By Friday night of the second week, Willow was feeling the effects of her busy schedule. Even though there hadn’t been much in the way of homework yet, her head felt like it was going to burst with all the new information she’d tried to cram into it. Sylvie felt the same way, and collapsed in exhaustion on her bed as soon as they made it back to their dorm room after their Friday afternoon magic classes. Willow was about to collapse on her bed as well, when Alexis suddenly burst into the room.
“It’s Friday!” Alexis squealed as she pranced across the small dorm.
Willow raised tired eyes and tried to smile at her friend, but all she could do was think about how nice it must be to have so much energy.
Alexis seemed oblivious to her friends’ exhaustion. The exuberant girl went to the window and opened it, sticking her head out into the balmy air and breathing deeply.
“Ugh, I wish summer would last forever. You know, they’re already saying we’ve been lucky. It’s not usually this warm this late in the year. Do you guys want to go into the city and get some ice-cream?”
Alexis turned around to look at them with expectant eyes, but her smile froze on her face as she seemed to realize for the first time that Sylvie and Willow both looked like they hadn’t slept in a week.
“Are you guys okay?”
Willow groaned. “Just exhausted. School’s been rough.”
“Oh, right. You guys have extra subjects.”
Last year, if Alexis had said something like this, Willow would have felt alarmed. She had constantly worried that Alexis was going to find out about the Dragon Heart Academy. But this year, Willow didn’t care. Alexis knew that Sylvie and Willow took extra classes and were involved in something unusual, to put it mildly. There was no sense in trying to hide it.
Sylvie sat up and looked out the open window wistfully. “I actually wish I could go get ice-cream. I’m tired, but it’s such a lovely day. And doing something for fun instead of for school sounds so nice.”
Alexis frowned at Sylvie. “So then, why don’t you come with me? We can go to that ice-cream parlor in Birch Point where we used to go all the time last spring. I haven’t been since I got back to Maine.”
“We can’t,” Sylvie said flatly. “We can’t leave campus.”
Alexis looked confused, and Sylvie suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth. Willow wanted to roll her eyes. She knew Sylvie had spoken without realizing that the prohibition against leaving campus only applied to the Dragon Heart students.
“The leaders of our, uh, extracurricular activities have forbidden us to leave campus for the time being. For safety reasons,” Willow explained.
Alexis looked disappointed, and a little hurt. Even though she always acted upbeat about Willow and Sylvie keeping their secret life from her, she couldn’t completely hide the way it bruised her feelings a bit that she wasn’t part of it. Willow wished more than anything that she could explain everything to Alexis, but doing so would likely earn her an expulsion from the Dragon Heart Academy. Dragon Heart leadership took leaks of magic information very seriously.
True to form, though, Alexis brightened up almost immediately, and put a positive spin on things. “Well, we could go get an ice-cream at the school cafeteria, at least?”
Sylvie sighed dramatically and sat up. “I feel like I could sleep for a year. But I guess I can find the energy to go get an ice-cream first.”
“Willow?” Alexis asked.
Willow shook her head no. She hated to disappoint her friend, especially when Alexis had so generously agreed to go to the school cafeteria for their sakes. It was no secret that the ice-cream in town was loads better than the ice-cream at school. But since Sylvie was going with Alexis, that meant Willow could have some alone time if she didn’t go too. And she desperately needed some alone time.
Even though only two weeks of school had passed, Willow was feel
ing the strain of falling behind in her magical education classes. Everyone told her that she showed great promise as a wizard, but she wasn’t seeing it. Well, everyone but Locke told her that. Locke told her she might as well give up now, and Willow was starting to wonder if he was right.
She wished her father was here to help her. He had disappeared before Willow was old enough to be told about the existence of magic and dragons, so she never had the chance to talk to him about it. She felt the weight of his loss heavily today, and she thought a solo walk on campus grounds might clear her head.
Begging off of the ice-cream trip, she waited until Alexis and Sylvie had been gone for a good ten minutes, and then laced up her tennis shoes. She slipped out of the dorm and walked quickly across campus toward the spot where the forest met with the buildings. There was a path here that wound through the woods. It was often used for nature walks by the science classes, but Willow was pretty sure it would be empty right now. She could go for a nice, long walk through the woods on a safe path, and stay on campus grounds in the process. That should keep the Dragon Heart Agents reasonably happy.
Willow glanced around to make sure no one was nearby when she slipped into the woods. She didn’t want company, and she was afraid that if someone saw her going for what looked like a leisurely walk in the woods, they would want to come after her. Students at Birch Point were friendly—almost too friendly at times. It could be hard to go for a walk in solitude.
Willow didn’t see anyone nearby. There were a few stone buildings that served as classrooms, and a small grove of white birch trees, but no sign of humans. With a relieved sigh, Willow turned to head into the forest.
She didn’t notice the pair of shimmering green eyes watching her from behind the shadow of the birch trees. And she certainly didn’t notice as the owner of those shimmering green eyes silently followed her down the path.
