Willow's Secret Mission

by D J DuMont

  She wasn’t convinced. Quite the opposite, in fact. In her mind, everything she’d just read had proven that her father was still alive, and that Stein was still using him. How was it possible for the top Dragon Heart Agents to be so blind to this? It’s like they had purposefully turned a blind eye to what Stein was doing.

  And what did the note about “ancient magic capture plus projection” mean? Why did that ring a bell in the back of Willow’s mind?

  Suddenly, the words Locke had spoken to her at the beginning of the school year came back. He hadn’t said anything about magic capture, but he had mentioned projection. Did that mean that the blue light he’d been using was indeed from the same sort of magic spell as the one Stein had been using?

  Willow knew that non-wizards could not use magic. Any Dragon Heart Agent knew this, which was why everyone was having such a hard time understanding how Stein and his crew of Dark Sparks were using magic. Unless one of them happened to have the Dragon Heart gene and had managed to be exposed to the virus—two things that were both highly unlikely—they shouldn’t be able to use magic. Some people had suggested that a Dragon Heart Agent was leaking information to them, but the idea seemed absurd. Dragon Heart Agents underwent rigorous testing and background checks to make sure they were the type of person who would act loyal. There were also severe penalties for using your magic for anything other than the protection of the Dragon Heart Agency and the government officials it assigned you to protect. Every Dragon Heart Agent knew that your life was over if you betrayed the Agency.

  Perhaps Willow was resistant to the idea that a former Dragon Heart Agent was working for the Dark Sparks because her father was the only missing Dragon Heart Agent, making him the most likely suspect. But Willow knew her father. She knew he would die before using his magic for evil. So what was going on? How was Stein managing to obtain what appeared to be magic guns?

  Willow put her head in her hands and tried to slow her spinning mind. She had so many questions, and so few answers. But she felt like reviewing her father’s case file had been the right thing to do. The file had made her realize that she needed to take things into her own hands if her father was going to be found. She also needed to figure out how magic capture and storage worked, and she knew exactly who could help her with that question: Locke Nash.

  Willow did not relish the idea of talking to Locke, but she had no choice. He knew things she needed to know, and her father was more important to her than her dislike of Locke.

  She just hoped that Locke would be willing to talk.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Getting Locke alone proved to be much more difficult than Willow had thought it would be. The whole next day at school, she tried to follow him in hopes that she could catch him in a moment where no one else was around. But he was always surrounded by someone. Willow had never noticed it before, but many of the girls at Birch Point Academy seemed obsessed with Locke. As the day wore on, she quickly realized that she was far from the only girl stalking him. Half of the girls in her Birch Point class seemed to be trailing after Locke at any given moment.

  If only they knew how obnoxious he is! Willow thought. But the girls seemed oblivious to everything except Locke’s good looks. Willow soon gave up hope of trying to get Locke by himself until it was the afternoon, and time for classes on the Dragon Heart Campus. At least there, there would only be Sylvie and Cara to contend with. But Sylvie and Cara seemed to stick just as closely to Locke as the girls on the Birch Point side had. Willow didn’t want to ask questions with them around. Even though she knew that Locke would probably tell them everything anyway, she didn’t want them chiming in with their opinions when she was trying to talk.

  As the day came to an end and Locke headed back to the Birch Point Campus with Sylvie and Cara by his side, Willow felt completely defeated and alone. She couldn’t believe that Sylvie was still spending so much time with Locke and Cara. Had she been completely wrong about Sylvie from the beginning, or had Sylvie really changed that much in the span of a few short months? Willow longed for the good old days when she and Sylvie would walk together, whispering about how absurd Locke and Cara were. Now, the three of them were probably whispering about Willow.

  Willow purposefully dropped back and let her fellow Dragon Heart Students walk far ahead of her. She was embarrassed to look like she was following behind them like some sort of lost little puppy, so she tried to look like she could care less about where they went or what they were doing.

  She was concentrating so hard on looking casual that she didn’t notice Marcus and Alexis coming down the path toward her, and almost ran into them.

  “Hey, stranger,” Marcus said. His voice was light and happy, and when Willow looked up at him she was surprised to find that his eyes were sparkling. He looked like he was actually happy to see her, despite the fact that things had been strained between them lately.

  “Hey, Marcus. Hi, Alexis,” Willow said sheepishly.

  “Where have you been, girl?” Marcus asked, reaching over with his right hand to give her upper arm a gentle squeeze. That’s when Willow noticed that his left hand was interlaced with Alexis’ hand. An unexpected pang of jealousy filled her. Were he and Alexis dating?

  Willow had no right to be upset if they were. In fact, she should be happy for her friends if they had found happiness with each other. It’s not like she could realistically expect to date Marcus, anyway. Her life was too mixed up in magic to try to bring a non-wizard into it on such a serious level.

  “I’ve been…studying,” Willow answered. “I didn’t do such a great job of keeping up with assignments at the beginning of the semester, so I’m being really careful to stay on top of things now.”

  Marcus gave her a skeptical look. “You sure you’re studying and not just avoiding? I haven’t seen you in at least a week, unless you count staring at the back of your head in our literature class as ‘seeing you.’”

  Willow shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to another. “I’m just trying to be a good student.”

  It wasn’t a lie. She was trying to be a good student. That’s why she was avoiding all the non-wizard students. The less she was around them, the less likely she was to accidentally set off some magic spell in front of them. And Willow was sure that Headmaster Damon would appreciate it if they could make it through the rest of the school year without any more earthquakes.

  “You are a good student, Willow,” Alexis said. Her tone of voice was so gentle that it made Willow tear up a bit. Last year, Alexis had been one of her best friends. This year, everything had gone wrong. Willow missed Sylvie, but she hadn’t realized until that moment how much she missed Alexis, too. Still, what could she do? No matter how understanding Alexis tried to be, too many secrets stood between them—secrets that Willow would never be able to tell.

  Before Willow could respond to Alexis, Marcus was speaking up again. “Yeah, you’re a good student. You’ve already studied a ton this week, I’m sure. So why don’t you come to the cafeteria and get an early dinner with us?”

  Willow thought back to the last time she’d been in the cafeteria with Marcus and Alexis, and felt a pang of sadness. She did miss spending time with them, and she had to eat, after all. Besides, Locke was long gone now. Her hopes of finding him alone today were dwindling more with every second.

  “Alright. I’ll come. But only for a little bit.”

  The smile Alexis gave Willow made her wonder if she had imagined it when she thought that Alexis was not being warm toward her. Right now, Alexis seemed like nothing in the world could have made her happier than to eat dinner with Willow. Feeling somewhat confused, but happier than she had in quite some time, Willow followed Marcus and Alexis to the cafeteria, where they all loaded up their plates with fresh chicken fingers, fries, and corn.

  “God, I love chicken finger night,” Alexis said, holding up a greasy chicken finger dipped in honey mustard sauce. “So ridiculously unhealthy, but so good.”

&nbs
p; Willow laughed, feeling giddy about the fact that she was sitting here and enjoying dinner with friends. She felt almost…normal. That feeling gave her the little jolt of boldness she needed to ask Marcus and Alexis about the fact that they’d been holding hands almost this whole time.

  “So, what’s up with you two? Are you a couple now or what?”

  Alexis blushed and looked down at her plate, but Marcus beamed.

  “Yeah,” he said, reaching over to playfully poke Alexis. “We’re a couple. I think I’m a pretty lucky guy.”

  Willow once again felt a small pang of jealousy, but she pushed it away. After all, it was true that she had done her best to avoid Marcus lately. She shouldn’t be surprised that he’d started dating someone else. She did her best to put a smile on her face, and to show them that she was happy for them.

  “So, who started it?” Willow asked, picking up a French fry and grinning at her friends.

  “Alexis!” Marcus said, at the exact same time that Alexis said, “Marcus.”

  Willow laughed. “Looks like you guys are already disagreeing like an old married couple.”

  “Only about this,” Marcus said. “Besides, I’m right and she knows it but won’t admit it.”

  Alexis finally looked up and rolled her eyes. “You held my hand first.”

  “But you were going on and on about how romantic the stars were. If that wasn’t a hint, I don’t know what is.”

  “I was just commenting on how nice they looked! And then there was that blue shooting star. You have to admit that it was pretty impressive.”

  “I guess. It mostly looked strange to me.”

  Willow’s ears perked up at the mention of a blue star. She’d never heard of a blue shooting star. Was it possible that they’d seen the blue light from the Dark Sparks’ attempt to break though the magic shield? Willow looked at them with wide eyes, her heart pounding. “Wait, you guys saw a blue star?”

  “Yeah. I think it was a shooting star,” Marcus said. “Or some sort of weird comet, maybe. It was this blue light that kept streaking across the sky.”

  “I think a comet might be more accurate than a star,” Alexis said. “Don’t comet trails last for a while? And shooting stars burn up in a matter of seconds?”

  “I think so, yeah,” Marcus replied, scrunching his face up in thought. “And it appeared several nights in a row. But it’s not static. It flashes. Doesn’t that sound more like a shooting star than a comet?”

  Marcus and Alexis kept debating what the blue light had been for several more minutes before they seemed to realize that Willow was staring at them, openmouthed.

  “Oh, come on,” Marcus said, his voice immediately taking on a teasing tone. “It’s not that weird to see a couple arguing, is it? Isn’t that what everyone does? Act all lovey-dovey until you agree to date, and then start arguing.”

  “Uh…” Willow couldn’t laugh at Marcus’ joke. She was too taken aback by the fact that Marcus and Alexis appeared to be describing the blue light that had been used to attack the magic shields. How had they seen that? Usually, Anjali kept up shields around here that prevented anything magical from being seen by non-wizards. That’s how the Dragon Heart Campus could exist in such close proximity to Birch Point Academy. Any Birch Point Students who happened to wander through the section of the woods where the Dragon Heart Campus was located would only see an empty clearing. But, somehow, it seemed that Marcus and Alexis had seen Stein Viker’s blue light. Was that light not magic, after all? Or was it somehow different from the type of magic the Dragon Heart Agents used?

  “Willow, what’s wrong?” Alexis must have noticed the troubled expression on Willow’s face. Willow tried to shrug it off and look casual, but it was too late.

  Alexis narrowed her eyes at her. “That light is…special, isn’t it?”

  “Alexis!” Willow said, looking over at Marcus in alarm. “You know I can’t talk about this.”

  “Can’t talk about what?” Marcus asked.

  “Nothing!” both girls said in unison.

  Marcus’ face darkened slightly, and Willow knew he was likely upset about the fact that he once again was on the outside of whatever secret information Willow had. To tell the truth, Alexis was mostly on the outside, too. She might know there was something “special” about the blue light, and she knew that dragons existed. But she didn’t know about magic, and she didn’t know that the light was being caused by some strange attack from a man who wanted to steal a virus that turned certain people into wizards. Yes, Alexis was definitely on the outside.

  Willow felt a familiar pang of guilt as she looked into the faces of her friends. She wished that she could tell them everything. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them. She knew they would keep a secret if she asked them to. But the penalty for divulging the secrets of the Dragon Heart Academy of Magic would almost certainly be expulsion and a memory wipe.

  Those weren’t punishments Willow was willing to suffer, so she only looked up at her friends sadly and gave them a sheepish shrug. They both let out frustrated sighs.

  “Let me guess,” Marcus said, his voice taking on a dramatic tone. “You’d tell us but you’d have to kill us.”

  Willow shrugged again. “Something like that. It’s…”

  “Complicated,” Alexis finished for her.

  Willow had to laugh. All of last year, she had explained everything to Alexis by telling her that it was “complicated.” It had become almost a joke between them.

  But the fact that Stein was attacking in a way that the Birch Point students were capable of seeing was no joke. With every new piece of information Willow learned, she was becoming more and more worried about the safety of the school. She decided in that moment that it was important for her to learn as much as possible about what Alexis had seen—even if Alexis became more suspicious than she already was.

  “Alexis, you guys said the light was there for a long time. How long? Do you remember?”

  Alexis looked at Marcus, then back at Willow. “Um…it’s hard to say. It would appear in short bursts, sort of like the flash of a shooting star. But like Marcus said, it also kept coming back. It was there for hours at a time, and more than one night in a row.”

  “How many nights?” Willow asked.

  Alexis shrugged and looked over at Marcus. Marcus shrugged back at her.

  “It’s hard to say,” Marcus finally replied. “Alexis and I have gone out several nights in a row. Sometimes the light is there several nights in a row. And other times it disappears for just as long. But it always seems to come back.”

  Willow felt like her heart was pounding in her ears. With every new piece of information Alexis gave her, she grew more certain that the blue light was from Stein.

  And she grew more certain that she had to talk to Locke. If it meant involving Sylvie and Cara, then so be it. Willow couldn’t hold back any longer. Their campus was under attack, and for some reason the adult Dragon Heart Agents either hadn’t realized it or weren’t taking it seriously.

  It was time for Willow to take things into her own hands, but she was going to need help.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Locke looked up with an expression of pure disdain on his face as Willow approached his table in the rec center.

  “Come to start another earthquake?” he asked.

  “Locke! Keep your voice down,” Cara hissed at him. She looked around nervously, as though Anjali might jump out of the woodwork to scold them at any moment. “There are a lot of people around.”

  “Yes, there are,” Willow said. “And I need to talk to you.”

  “So talk.” Locke leaned back in his chair and gave her a menacing look that said the last thing he wanted to do right now was talk to Willow Ember. Sylvie looked down at her hands, refusing to meet Willow’s eyes.

  “I can’t talk here. It has to be somewhere private, where no one from Birch Point can hear.”

  Locke rolled his eyes. “Whatever you have to say to me you can say
here. It can’t be all that big of a secret.”

  Willow wanted to scream in frustration. If he refused to leave the rec center, her only option would be to wait until tomorrow when she could talk to him on the Dragon Heart Campus. There, she would only have to worry about staying out of Anjali’s and Sam’s paths.

  But she didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. It sounded like Stein was attacking the shield nearly every night. Every night that passed was another chance for him to break through. Willow didn’t know exactly what he planned to do when he finally broke through, but she knew it wouldn’t be good. And it would probably result in a loss of life.

  Willow closed her eyes for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. Why did everything have to be so hard? Why couldn’t it all just work out for once? And then, Willow was struck by an idea. Locke’s favorite thing to do was brag about how much more he knew of magic than anyone else. If Willow could make him feel important, and give him a chance to show off his knowledge, then maybe he would take the bait.

  Smiling as sweetly as she could manage, Willow sat down at the table across from Locke, between Cara and Sylvie. Sylvie kept looking down at her hands, and Willow saw Cara’s eyes widen with disbelief, as though it was nearly unthinkable that Willow would dare to sit at their table. As for Locke, he just sneered.

  “No one invited you to our table, Willow.”

  Willow bit back all of the angry retorts she wanted to make. This wasn’t just about her pride. This was about the safety of all of the Birch Point students, and about the future of the Dragon Heart Agency. Forcing herself to keep the smile pasted onto her face, Willow took a deep breath and made Locke an offer she hoped he couldn’t refuse.