WarMage- Unrestrained

by Martha Carr

  Professor Bixby regarded them through her thick glasses and smiled pertly. “Now. Allow me to demonstrate how this works.” She lifted her quill into the air and set it on the blank parchment paper. Then, with one finger on the corner of the parchment paper, she recited the spell—without having to read it, of course. “Fateo ortus.”

  No one could see the ink lines scrolling across the parchment paper on her desk, but when it was finished, the professor lifted it and turned it for the class to see. Thin, intricate lines stretched across the page in a surprisingly lifelike drawing of a goose.

  “We already know where a feather quill comes from,” Rory muttered. “What’s the point?”

  “Ah-ah.” Bixby raised a finger with one hand and wiggled the parchment paper with the other. “This is only the first half, my dears. Observe.” She cleared her throat, tapped the drawing of the goose, and almost shouted, “Anima narratis.”

  The parchment paper suspended between her fingers jerked once, then twice, and the goose drawing peeled itself away completely. Black lines materialized into a thick black bill and feathers in white, brown, and gray. The bird’s webbed feet were the last to emerge, and the drawing-sized goose uttered a startled honk before it flapped its wings madly and took flight across the room. It landed on Murphy’s desk with a solid thud. The girl leaned back quickly against her chair and raised both hands, and Fritz hissed beside her feet.

  “Excellent.” Bixby clapped in excitement and nodded as she scanned her students’ faces. “You will draw the lineage from whatever item you choose. It can be anything in the room or anything on your person. This is to practice for a much more important version for our next class, which will have significantly more meaning for all of you. Begin.”

  A flurry of excited voices rose from the class, which startled the miniature goose that had tried to make a nest for itself on Murphy’s desk. The girl uttered a little shriek as Fritz leapt into her lap, swatted at the magicked creature, and hissed in fury. The goose honked and hissed in response, and its wings buffeted the air, Fritz, and Murphy with merciless outrage until it took off again toward Bixby’s desk instead.

  Raven leaned forward to meet Murphy’s gaze. Her friend’s hair was untidy, puffed out all over her head, and some fell over her eyes. “Are you okay, Murphy?”

  “Yeah. I only…ew.” Her friend sputtered and removed a miniature tail feather from her mouth, then flicked it away with a grimace. “Goose feathers.”

  “Hey, check it out,” Mike called. “Murphy’s making down comforters for everyone!”

  A round of laughter rose at that, and the girl wrinkled her nose with a disgusted frown. As soon as she met Raven’s gaze, they both laughed.

  “This is still a classroom,” Bixby called and clapped sharply again. “And you are all still here to learn. Get to learning.”

  A little reluctantly, everyone turned to their desks and parchment papers, ready to attempt the spell for themselves. Raven’s eyes lit up when she realized which inanimate object she wanted to try reanimating—or at least find the origins of. She drew a textbook from her satchel and flipped through the pages to locate the tiny scrap of burned parchment paper she’d taken from her grandfather’s dead fire at their house.

  There’s a chance, right? I might as well take it.

  She studied the red seal with the crossed weapons and the tower in the background, set it on the parchment paper, and muttered the first half of the spell.

  The spell itself worked perfectly and lines of ink etched themselves across the blank surface in only a few seconds. The resulting image, however, wasn’t the letter Connor Alby had burned in their hearth before his unexplained flight from both the Alby Ranch and Brighton. Instead, a full tree stretched across the parchment paper from the longest, lowest-reaching root to the highest branch.

  Raven sighed and her shoulders sagged a little. “Of course. The source, not the last form it took.”

  “Raven, did you get it?” Murphy asked and tapped her parchment paper before she muttered, “Fateo ortus.” The ink she’d dripped onto it spread into the thick, dark lines of a pile of charcoal beside a drawing of potatoes. “Awesome. My prize is coal and zero flavor.”

  “Yeah, I got it.” She pressed her lips together and stared at the drawing of a tree. “I kind of expected something else, but I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Anima naratis,” Henry muttered. A loud, rumble issued from the back of the class. The drawing of what looked like rocks on his parchment paper emerged from the ink, but the pile of rocks continued to grow on his desk. Loose chunks spilled onto the floor and into his lap. He pointed at them and whispered harshly, “Stop. Stop.”

  “Are you having a little trouble, Mr. Derks?” Professor Bixby waddled down the center aisle of the classroom, her eyes huge behind the glasses. “Oh. Ha. I believe your pebble was sourced from a rock quarry in Ingeval.”

  “It won’t stop!” he shouted and scooted his chair back to stand. The pile of rocks in his lap skittered onto the floor while the students seated around him either watched with amusement or ignored him to focus on their spells.

  “Satis animo.” Bixby tapped his parchment paper and the rumbling mountain of stones ceased their endless flow from his desk. “Stones can be difficult to discern, Mr. Derks. I daresay you did a fine job with this one, despite the mess. Please pick that up.”

  With a little groan, he dropped to his knees and made another sloppy pile of rocks the size of his hand.

  “Oh, Miss Murphy.” Bixby stopped at the girl’s desk and studied her parchment paper with a little frown. The woman’s head rose only to Murphy’s shoulder, and she had to look down at the professor to meet her gaze. “It’s ingenious, really—trying to trace the lineage of ink. Carry on.”

  Murphy blinked in surprise and a grin bloomed on her face before she focused on the second half of her spell.

  Raven tapped the edge of her parchment paper and whispered, “Anima narratis.” The tree drawn there by her spell lifted itself slowly and tiny branches and even tinier leaves rustled as the treetop peeled away in a fully formed miniature. Everything but the roots lifted away but remained tethered to the parchment paper by the tips of those roots that still clung to the page.

  “Ah, Miss Alby. Well done.” Bixby clapped in approval and nodded.

  “It didn’t come all the way, though.” She slid the parchment paper from one side to the other on her desk, which made the miniature tree’s branches sway again.

  “The roots have nowhere to go.” Professor Bixby uttered a high-pitched giggle and shook her head. “If you’d like to try again, you might add a speck of dirt to the spell. I imagine the entire tree would then be fully rooted and able to rise completely. But this is very well done. Yes, yes. What object did you use?”

  Raven pressed her finger over the edge of her grandfather’s burned letter and completely covered the seal before she slid it across her desk and into her lap. “It was another piece of parchment paper.”

  “Very well done. Yes.”

  A sticky, suctioning squish issued from the other side of the room, followed by a round of surprised disgust from the group of students at the surrounding desks.

  “What the heck is that?”

  “Dude, what did you put on that parchment paper? Snot?”

  “I can’t…ugh!”

  Bixby toddled off toward the commotion and burst out laughing. “Mr. Jeder! Do tell me what in the world you chose for this.”

  “Um…leftover bread from breakfast.” Mike grimaced at his parchment paper. “And Patsy tried to eat it, I think.”

  “Ah. You’ll have to try again before the end of class. Hop to it.”

  “Way to stink up the whole room, Mike,” someone else called.

  “I didn’t know he’d slobbered over it, okay?”

  Raven passed her hand over the surreally lifelike tree that stood on her desk, the leaves soft and green beneath her fingers. She glanced toward Bella Chase’s desk, where Profes
sor Bixby had also stopped to inspect the other girl’s spell. A lilac bush bursting with purple flowers covered most of the surface.

  “Beautiful, Miss Chase. Quite extraordinary. I’ll give you the same tip I gave Miss Alby. Adding soil to the spell would have enabled the roots to fully emerge. But very well done.”

  The girl waited for the professor to return to the front of the classroom before she turned to look at Raven’s tree. One thin eyebrow raised, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment before she turned away to sniff at the blooming lilacs.

  Was that condescension or approval?

  Murphy raised her hands from her desk, which was covered now in a pile of coal, a mound of dirt, and a handful of thick brown potatoes. “I’m gonna have black all over me for days.” She laughed and leaned toward Raven. “Bella didn’t think of the dirt either, huh? Do you want some of mine?”

  She laughed. “Where’d your dirt come from?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a coal mine?”

  “Huh.”

  At the end of class, Bixby clapped again and peered at them from the platform behind her desk. “Now, before you all rush out of here like someone conjured fire under your backsides, listen up. You have an assignment to complete before our final class of the week. The day before the Spring Gala, we’ll go over something a little different. I want each of you to find a personal item of your own to bring to class—something with meaning and magical significance. If you don’t have anything you care about enough, get something from your parents or grandparents. The older, the better. Understood? Yes? Excellent. Goodbye.”

  The students rose from their seats in a hurry. Raven brushed her hand over the tree again and smiled. Something with meaning and magical significance, huh? It’s a good thing I have a lot to choose from.

  Murphy joined her as they headed out of the class and through the dark stone halls. “Do you have any idea what you’ll bring next time?”

  Raven tapped her fingers on her satchel and shrugged. “Not yet. I’m thinking about it, though. You?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe my mom’s robes from when she graduated Fowler?” The girl wrinkled her nose. “As long as Bixby says the spell won’t ruin them.”

  Reflexively, her fingers went to her mother’s pin on her jacket. “I hope she wouldn’t make us bring in something meaningful only to destroy it. That’s a little harsh.”

  “Do you know what’s harsh?” Henry limped a little as he joined them and stumbled with a false laugh when Thomas punched him in the shoulder and hurried away. “Getting your lap pelted by a never-ending supply of rocks. I think I have bruises in places I don’t even wanna think about.”

  The girls chuckled and Raven asked, “What did you use?”

  “Some pebbles. Literally, that’s it. You know, a boy’s best projectile friend.” He whipped his slingshot out of his pocket, pulled the sling back, and aimed over the heads in the hallway before Professor Gilliam glared sharply at him in passing. “Whoops.” The slingshot disappeared into his pocket again.

  “What are you bringing for the next class, Derks?”

  “Hmm.” He tapped his fingers on his lips and barked out a laugh. “Hey, Norman’s hair would be a fun experiment. You know, to see where the gene pool got so shallow with him.”

  Raven snorted. “You’ll end up making a golem of your brother.”

  “Uh…” Henry shivered and shook his head. “That is a good point. No one needs two Normans running around. One’s already enough. I guess my parents didn’t figure that out until they had me.”

  “Yep. There can only be one Henry Derks. No doubt about it.” Raven bumped him with her shoulder.

  “The one and only! Hey, do you think doing that spell with my hair would help me study for exams? I mean, a golem can study, right?”

  Murphy leaned forward, her arms wrapped around her book, and stared at him with wide eyes. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t think any of our professors are gonna be all that forgiving of a miniature Derks golem seated with you at your desk and scratching away at the exams you didn’t study for.”

  “But it’s a nice image, huh? Hey, Bennett! Hold on. I gotta hear this story about…” Henry darted through the crowd of students making their way to their next classes.

  The two girls shook their heads. “I hope he doesn’t try it,” Murphy muttered.

  “He probably won’t. I don’t think he’d know what to do with himself if he…you know. Conjured himself. It’s an interesting thought, though.” I wonder what else that lineage spell works on. Or if there’s a way to change it to bring the rest of Grandpa’s letter back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the end of classes, after waving goodbye to Henry and Murphy as they started their walk toward Brighton’s town center, Raven hurried to Leander’s pen. She pushed herself to move faster and felt less exhausted now with a dragon to look forward to.

  When she reached his pen, Leander didn’t wait for her to open the gate. “I’m hungry.”

  She chuckled. “It looks like someone has their appetite back, huh? I’ll be right back.”

  Rounding the long side of the stables, she hurried inside and retrieved another burlap sack of dragon feed and heaved it over her shoulder. There were only three more stacked in the pile, and she turned to search the rest of the feed supplies. Either the school brings in new shipments, or Leander and I are gonna have to make a food run to Moss Ranch.

  The thought made her laugh, and she was still grinning when she stepped out of the stables and headed toward the pen.

  “Hey, Raven.”

  The sack of feed almost fell over her shoulder when she spun toward the greeting. “Oh. Hi, Daniel.”

  “I thought I might find you out here.”

  “You did, huh?” With a smirk, she repositioned the dragon feed and continued toward Leander’s pen. “What makes you think that?”

  “Well…” He gave a nervous, breathy laugh and fell into step beside her. “I mean, everyone knows your dragon’s out here. I thought…if I had a dragon on the grounds, I’d be here all the time. Are you not?”

  She thumped the sack onto the grass outside the gate and turned to him with her hands on her hips. “I am. I was messing with you.”

  “Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool.”

  Cool. Here we go again.

  He smiled and ran a hand through his hair but did nothing more than simply stare at her.

  Raven smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I assume you came out here to find me for a reason, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Totally. I wanted to ask you again about—”

  A loud bang rose from the closest pen wall, followed by a snort. Daniel jumped a little, and she pressed her lips together. A second-year with no vocabulary and a seriously hungry dragon. That’s a great combo.

  “Woah.” He glanced at the pen with wide eyes. “He’s really in there, isn’t he?”

  “Yep. He merely keeps a low profile.” She glanced at the pen walls but didn’t see a hint of the red dragon peeking up over the top. “Literally.”

  “Cool. That’s so cool.”

  He grinned at the enclosure and nodded repeatedly, and she decided she couldn’t wait any longer. “What did you want to ask me? I’m about to feed that hungry dragon, so…” She shrugged. “It’s probably a good idea not to keep him waiting.”

  “Yeah. Right. Yeah.” Daniel smiled at her again and stepped closer. She kept her hand on the top of the feed sack but stepped smoothly behind it to protect her personal space. “So you haven’t given me an answer yet.” He grinned and lowered his chin toward her.

  Okay, he admittedly has cute dimples. He’s not much of a conversationalist, though. “About what?’

  “The dance, Raven. You said you’d think about going with me as my date. I came to see if you made your mind up yet.”

  “Oh…” She glanced at the pen where Leander uttered another snort and scraped his talons throu
gh the earth. “I don’t know, Daniel—”

  “If you keep putting me off, though, I’m gonna keep asking.” He shrugged and chuckled at himself, apparently finding that witty.

  Leander’s tail thumped against the wall.

  He’s gonna break out of there if I keep him waiting. She eyed the gate warily. “Sure, Daniel. That’s fine.”

  “That I keep asking, or that you’ll be my date?”

  “I’ll go to the dance with you.” She lugged the feed sack toward the gate and listened intently for signs of her dragon’s growing impatience. “That works. No problem.”

  “Cool.” He ran another hand through his hair.

  Fighting to not roll her eyes, Raven laughed instead. “Yeah. Okay, so, I have to feed my dragon. This is a Raven-Alby-only zone right now, and I don’t think Leander’s in the mood to meet new friends—”

  A harsh, thick flap of beating wings came from the other side of the wall, followed by the translucent red tips of Leander’s outstretched wings rising above the pen walls.

  “Woah. Yeah…” Daniel stared at the ridged wingtips and the leathery membranes that glowed blood-red in the sunlight. “Hey, I heard all kinds of stuff this morning about what happened last night.”

  Oh, come on. She banged an aggravated fist against the pen gate, which was swiftly returned by a thump of the dragon’s tail. “I wouldn’t believe everything you hear, Daniel. Many people say weird things about everything.”

  “Did your dragon really fight off three vagreti panthers to save all the other animals in the stables? ʼCause that would be the coolest—”

  “I didn’t fight or save anything, you walking bag of hormones,” Leander growled and his voicing echoed with a tinny ring within his enclosure. “Go away.”

  Raven bit her lower lip so hard in her effort to not laugh that she was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood.

  “Woah!” Daniel laughed and glanced from Raven to the pen and back again. “That’s—”

  “Cool. Yeah, I know. I gotta do this, so I’ll see you later. At the dance if not somewhere else, okay? Bye.” She shoved the feed sack a little closer to the gate and raised her forearm toward the latch. The orange lights glowed in tandem before the gate opened.