by Laurie McKay
Caden stopped and focused on him. “You found something?”
“Maybe,” Tito said.
Downstairs, a disgruntled-looking Brynne waited for them. Her hair was pulled back like Tito’s. She wore sparkly sweat clothes, purple sneakers, and the surly expression of a career criminal. For her part, Rosa was a quiet fury.
Rosa motioned them to stand by the sofa. They stayed at attention while she put buckets, mops, lemony smelling cleaners, and rags at their feet. “I expect it spotless.” She set the full force of her gaze on Tito. “When I get back I will ask if any of my rules were broken. Understand?”
Tito looked down. The question seemed to worry him. “Yes, Rosa.”
She placed a fond hand on Tito’s shoulder and softened her voice. “The gallery closes at five. I’ll be back soon after.” She grabbed her keys and coat, and went outside to load her truck bed with welded metal sculptures.
They watched from the window as she revved the truck twice and carefully turned it onto the muddy road. Once the pickup was gone and its engine noise faded, Caden refocused on his friends. He motioned them to follow him into the kitchen. He poured three bowls of rounded, hollow grains, and handed out cut fruit. While they ate, he recounted what they knew. Sometimes connections were clearer in the morning. He hoped a clue to Jane’s whereabouts would become evident.
Brynne just wanted to hear about the door. “Tell how it exploded again,” she said, and looked quite pleased.
Tito, also, seemed to notice her happiness. “Look, Miss Destructive,” he said, “it’s not a good thing.”
Her smile grew. “My spell did more than move a bolt,” she explained. “That relieves me.”
Caden looked at her disapprovingly. From her continued pallor and tired eyes, it also seemed to have drained her more than moving a bolt would have. She blew doors from hinges and set mountains afire. She’d cursed him for life by accident. Caden wished to reach out and shake her. “You need to learn control,” he said instead. She would be no good to them comatose, and the new moon was closer and closer.
She waved him off and leaned over her grains to look at Tito. “What of the contract, Sir Tito?”
“It’s long,” Tito said with his mouth full of mush. Neither worry nor fear seemed to dampen his hunger. “It’s like reading a warranty, and there’re rules for everything. Like everything. Eating, sleeping, what clothes to wear.”
Brynne made a noise of disgust.
Tito nodded and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Caden pushed a napkin his way. Tito looked at it, ignored it, and continued. “All employees have to live within two miles of the school. No one’s allowed to leave the city limits without permission.”
The sand trap was beyond city limits—not by much—but by enough. Ms. Primrose had called the city her territory. Was that why the ice dragons didn’t enter the city? Could they sense her somehow? He swirled his spoon in his milk and grains. “How does one get permission?”
“With a formal, confidential request.”
Out the window, the mountain looked cold. “We find who left the city limits, we find who set the trap. We find who set the trap, we find Jane.”
“Yeah, easy breezy,” Tito said gloomily. “It took about fifty pages to get to that.” He reached in his sweatshirt and pulled out a crumpled white page of the contract. He’d written on the back in green pen and he read them his notes. “Also, they must follow the laws within the city, and show excellence in their discipline.”
Caden frowned. “Who decides what excellence is?”
“Ms. Tiamathia Primrose,” Tito said. He pulled out another sheet and showed where she filled in her name in red-looping letters.
“I see,” Caden said.
Brynne seemed to approve. “If she’s an Elderdragon, I’d wager she’ll honor the contract, too. If she doesn’t care that Jane was taken, it’s because whoever took Jane stayed in the bounds of his or her contract.”
“They kidnapped her,” Tito said.
“They took her outside the city limits.” She reached over and thumped the paper. “They only have to follow the laws within the city. It says so.”
“Except she’s still missing. I’m pretty sure keeping her captive is illegal in and out of the city,” Tito said.
“Then she’s being kept outside the city limits,” Caden said. “The teachers only have to obey the laws of the contract in Asheville proper.”
“It would seem so,” Brynne said, but her attention now appeared to be elsewhere. She peered for a long moment at Caden. Then she stared off into space, her expression full of wonder, as she slowly stirred her milk and grains. With a slow, careful manner, like she was tasting her words to see if she liked them, she said, “Ms. Primrose wanted to meet me?” she said. “I think perhaps I want to meet her, too.”
“No,” Caden said without hesitation. Truly, he wanted to shake her. Earlier, she’d wanted to hide from the Elderdragon. Now, she wanted to chat with her. “You meet her and she’ll make you part of her youth program. You’ll annoy her and she’ll eat you. I think she’s the Blue dragon.”
“Or the Silver,” Brynne said, and ran her fingers through her long hair. “And she didn’t eat you.” She glanced at Caden’s expression and grinned. “Relax, prince, I wouldn’t do anything to get eaten.” Her smile was dazzling and mischievous. She reached into the pockets of her sweatshirt and pulled out a pink phone and a blue phone. “And, look,” she said in an obvious yet effective change of subject, “I stole your phones back.”
She said it as if it was a good thing, and maybe it was. They needed any advantage they could get. Communication was always helpful. Caden took the pink bejeweled phone. He was beginning to see the value in the devices.
Tito hesitated. He stood up and brushed crumbs from his pants. “I think you should put them back,” he said.
“What?” She, too, stood. “No, I worked hard to get them. Rosa had them locked up in a safe box.”
They bickered for a few minutes, but Caden paid them no mind. They seemed to be becoming friends. Brynne could be rash at times, but on the curses front, she’d learned her lesson, even if it was Caden who had paid the price. This new desire of hers to meet the dragon, however, made his stomach turn. He pushed away the rest of breakfast.
“All I care about is finding Jane,” Tito was saying. If Brynne could annoy him, she would certainly annoy Ms. Primrose.
“Then take the phone,” Brynne said back. “I put your name on it and everything.”
True, Sir Tito’s blue phone had sparkly blue letters. Caden recognized several of them—the Ts and the S at the beginning. No doubt, they spelled Sir Tito. Brynne held it out to him. Tito put his hands in his pockets.
Caden stood up between them. He held his phone to the early light shining in the kitchen window. The pink letters sparkled. “Would the school janitor have one of these?” he said.
Brynne looked unsure.
Tito shrugged. “Most people have some sort of phone.”
As Caden had thought. Good. “How do we contact him?”
“We need his number.” Tito hesitated. His gaze still lingered on the sparkly blue phone. “We could find it on the computer, but Rosa’s got it locked and she’ll know if we try to get into it. She’s got a sixth sense or something.” He took his hands from his pockets. “I guess I can use the phone to get his number. We might get the network outside.”
Caden placed a supportive hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We need information, we need to communicate, and the sparkly stolen phone is useful,” he said. “Take it.”
With a slight shake of the head, and hesitant hand, Tito did as Caden told him. Tito rocked on his feet and glanced toward the driveway. “If Rosa finds out we have them again—”
“She won’t,” Brynne said, and stretched up like a cat. “I made certain.”
Tito’s sharp eyes darted to her. “What does that mean?”
“It means don’t worry about it and go call the janitor,” she said a
nd walked into the living room. He and Tito followed. She plopped onto the sofa and curled into an attractive lump.
“After that, we’re doing our chores,” Tito said and fidgeted. “We’re doing what Rosa tells us.”
“I’m taking a nap,” Brynne said.
“No,” Tito said slowly. “You’re cleaning the kitchen.”
She’d closed her eyes but cracked one open in a lazy scowl. She looked haughty, a little like how Sir Horace looked when Caden tied him to a tree. “We’ll see,” she said. She sounded haughty, too, but Caden was mostly all right with it.
Tito, it seemed, wasn’t. He twisted his mouth into his lopsided frown. Caden spoke first. “Let her rest while we call,” he said. “She’s still drained.”
While she rested, Caden pulled Tito out to the porch. The sky was clear and blue, the air cold. Tito held his phone up. In a mere moment, he’d found the janitor’s contact information. He turned his phone so Caden could see. “You call. You’re the talker.”
Caden pulled his pink phone from his pocket. Quite proudly, he punched the numbers into it and hit enter. “I’ve learned to work this tech.”
“Yeah, you’re a wizard,” Tito said.
Nonsense. Caden frowned as they listened to the phone ring and ring. “If anyone is a wizard, it’s Brynne.”
“Just put it on speaker,” Tito said.
On the fifteenth ring, someone picked up. “Hello.”
The direct approach seemed best. “I must speak with the school janitor.”
For a moment, there was no answer. Then, “Caden?”
There was a familiar terseness to the voice, a recognizable smoothness to the tone. Fortune smiled. Caden knew to whom he spoke. “Ward. Greetings, ally.”
Ward said nothing.
“I need to speak with your father,” Caden said.
There was a pause. Caden waited. Ward seemed to need time to think before answering. “Why?” Ward said finally.
Caden explained about Jane Chan and about Officer Levine’s statement that the janitor had seen her things in the cafeteria Dumpster. He listed potential evildoers—Rath Dunn, the spidery secretary, the evil lunch people, the crazy science teacher, most everyone else.
“Pa’s not here,” Ward said. “He won’t want to talk to you.”
“I see,” Caden said. It was the smallest of obstacles. While Caden was not gifted with resolution like his great father, he’d watched him enough to know the power of persistence. It would be easier if Caden could see Ward’s expression, read his body language. He continued on sheer instinct. “Convince your father to speak with me. That’s all I’m asking.”
Even over the phone, Caden could tell Ward was thinking hard on it. He’d help if he thought the danger real, if he believed Caden could stop it. Perhaps Ward needed to be reminded of their school’s reality.
“You know the teachers aren’t as they seem. You know they’re dangerous,” Caden said. “If I’m wrong, the price is an awkward conversation for your father. If I’m right, the reward is a saved life.”
Caden could tell by the way Ward exhaled into the phone that he was going to agree. “I’ll ask him,” Ward said unsurprisingly. Before hanging up, he added, “but he doesn’t like you,” which was much less expected.
As Caden had never met the janitor, he felt rightly insulted. He fidgeted on his feet, crossed his arms, and kicked at a plank. “He’s never met me.”
“Bro, not everybody’s gonna like you.”
Whether true or not, that did not explain why this janitor didn’t like him. “I don’t see why not.”
“To tell you the truth,” Tito said, “I only tolerate you.”
Caden was halfway through mopping the kitchen floor when Tito skulked into the room. Dust was stuck in his hair. In his left hand he held the sparring broom. In his right, he had the dustpan. His shoulders were slumped. “Has Ward called back yet?”
“No.”
Tito took a slow look around the kitchen. “So, you’re doing Brynne’s chores?”
“I told you, she’s drained.”
“And that means what, exactly?”
Caden turned away and wiped down the counter. “It means she needs to rest.”
“Bro, I swept her off and she didn’t so much as blink.” When Caden looked, Tito was smiling, but it seemed forced.
Caden played along. “You swept her with the broom?”
Tito brought out the phone he supposedly wanted only to save Jane. “I got a picture,” he said. “It’s my new screen saver.” There on the phone was an image of Brynne, mouth open, eyes shut tightly, dustpan balanced on her head like a strange helmet.
“Show her that and she’ll kill you,” Caden said.
“Nah,” Tito said. “We’ve got a no-kill, no-curse understanding.” He pushed some buttons. “There, I sent her a copy for when she wakes up.” He glanced back toward the living room and scrunched up his nose. “She’s okay, right?”
Caden returned to the counters. “She blew up the door,” he said. “Her energy was still low from setting the mountain on fire.” With an irritated sweep of rag over Formica he added, “Low from cursing me for life. As long as she rests now, she’ll be fine.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
The countertops were beginning to shine. Caden put down the rag. Brynne might have a no-kill, no-curse understanding with Tito, but she and Caden had no such pact. Their relationship was more complex. “She’ll get worse.” He sighed. “Understand, I’ve known her since we were small. My father sometimes hired her parents. She and I would play in the Winter Castle gardens when her parents were on contract.” Caden washed his hands. “When we were six, Goram assassins broke in and attacked. They killed my guards. Her nurse, too.”
It was not a memory Caden liked to relive—the white snow shrubs splattered with blood, Caden’s guard, Luna, pushing him and Brynne into the labyrinth as a poisoned arrow stuck through her breastplate, three Elite Paladins and Brynne’s nurse all dead.
“Brynne screamed. They flew away from us and smashed against the garden wall,” Caden said. “They didn’t get back up.”
“Like ever?”
Caden nodded. “Telekinesis magic. It’s a rare spell for someone only six turns.” He dried his hands and turned to Tito. “After, her eyes rolled back and her body convulsed. By the time the guards got to us, she’d stopped shaking, but she didn’t wake up for a long time.”
“And you think that will happen again if she gets worn out?” Tito said.
Tito was a friend to him and to Brynne. One day, she might need Tito’s help. Caden lowered his voice. “It’s happened already. Powerful magic pulled us here, toward the spell’s caster, but Brynne deflected us. She collapsed right after. I fear she may again be drained and not telling us.”
“That’s stupid,” Tito said.
Caden disagreed. “In the Greater Realm, it is unwise to show weakness.”
“If Brynne’s having secret seizures or passing out, she needs to tell Rosa.”
“That’s not our decision,” Caden said. “That’s hers.”
As the day progressed, Tito seemed to be having a harder and harder time keeping still. He kept looking to the sky and watching the sun pass the time like it made his heart hurt. He kept asking Caden to check his phone.
Rosa returned at exactly half past five when the sun was low and the mountains cast long shadows. She inspected the bathrooms, the kitchen, the living area, then set her keys on the table and her coat over a chair. “Everything looks good.”
“We’ve cleaned as instructed,” Caden said.
Rosa raised an eyebrow and looked from him to Brynne and Tito. “No rules broken?”
Tito looked down. His hand twitched near the pocket that contained his sparkly blue phone. For a moment, Caden feared Tito would tell their secrets, but he stayed quiet.
Rosa watched Tito rock on his feet and Brynne fidget. “Go run the mountain before it gets dark. You can burn off some of that restless ene
rgy.”
Tito nodded. Brynne scrunched her nose. Caden clapped happily. Running would help them think. If Ward didn’t call back soon, they’d need to track him to his home. Rosa checked that they had on warm enough clothing and guided them outside. “Twenty minutes up, twenty down,” she said. “Stay together.” From the porch, she watched with her feet planted a short distance apart, her arms crossed, and her expression hard.
Near the beginning of the trees, Caden saw the unmistakable hoofprints of Sir Horace. He’d visited in the night. The prints were at the bottom of the hill and led back toward town. As long as Sir Horace continued to stay within the city limits, he’d be safe. He was back at his horse prison eating apples by now. No doubt, he’d return to Caden come nightfall. Caden made a mental note to leave him treats and instruct him to keep to town. Then he sprinted up the mountain.
The rush of the race made his blood pump and his muscles burn. Above him, the sky was the deep blue of thick ice. The ground was crunchy under his boots, a combination of melting ice and wet earth. The air smelled of cedars. With each breath, his lungs stung from the cold.
He stopped halfway up near the orange tape that marked the edge of Rosa’s property and the city limits. He sat on a fallen log and waited for Tito and Brynne. They arrived minutes later. From their leisurely pace and unwinded look, they’d not run as fast as they could have run.
“Elite Paladins must always push themselves, Sir Tito.”
“Look,” Tito said and collapsed on the log beside him. “I practiced with that stupid broom last night,” he said, “and I did some of your weird exercises this afternoon. That’ll have to be good enough.”
Brynne sat cross-legged on Caden’s other side. “I’m going to teach him magic,” she said. “It’s more fun.”
“Tito is on the path to being a—” Caden didn’t get the chance to finish. With no warning, his pocket began to buzz. He pulled his phone from it, tossed the phone to the crunchy ground, and jumped away. The phone quaked—shaking and bumping like it was a dying crater wasp.
Tito and Brynne just watched. The phone continued to buzz. If there were any animals Caden truly disliked, they were wasps. Always, they stung him. “What new mischief is this?”
