by Martha Carr
Henry caught sight of Bella Chase with her crafty firedrake perched on her shoulder. Cupping Maxwell tightly in both hands, he shouldered his way through the other students. Most of them only partially listened to Professor Worley’s opening statement. Most of their attention was on speculating about the dragon pen and Raven Alby’s familiar allegedly living in it.
“Hey, Chase.” Henry sidled up beside her and held Maxwell out to the side a little and away from the firedrake. “Where’s Raven?”
She gave him an unamused grimace. “I’m not her babysitter. And it’s not my fault if you can’t keep track of your friends.”
He snorted. “That would be a good point if you weren’t the last person to see her.”
“We parted ways before History of Magic was even over, okay? Wherever she went, it’s none of my business.”
“Well, she’s not here.” He scowled at her and they both looked at Professor Worley as he began to talk again. “I’m sorry for not trusting you explicitly or anything. I heard her say something about a promise.”
“It’s none of your business, Mr. Derks. Stop asking me.” Bella folded her arms and stared intently at their familiar-training professor.
“Okay. But if someone finds Raven Alby tied up in a closet or…I dunno, cursed into nonstop puking for two days, you’d better believe I’ll be the first person to point the finger.” He leaned toward her as far as he dared and nodded. “I mean at you, by the way.”
Slowly, she turned her and her gaze settled on Maxwell’s head where it was visible between his mage’s fingers. “You might want to reconsider how easy it is to be threatening when you’re holding a toad.”
“Oh, yeah? Maxwell can be threatening.” Henry shrugged and stepped away from her. “You haven’t seen everything he can do.”
She shook her head and stared at their professor again. “And I’m perfectly okay with that.”
“Yeah, I bet you are. Whatever.” Swallowing, Henry put a few more students between them and turned again, looking for Raven.
“And as you can see,” Worley continued, “we’re not only out here to enjoy the unseasonably enjoyable weather. We’re out here because one of your fellow students had a few kinks in her schedule to work out before she was able to bring her familiar to Fowler Academy with her. If you ask me, the whole group of you should count yourselves lucky for not having had to jump through the same kind of hoops, as it were.”
“Yeah, we get it,” Thomas Sinclair shouted. “You’re talking about Raven Alby.”
“Your powers of observation are truly inspiring, Mr. Sinclair.” Professor Worley clasped his hands together and shook them a little in Thomas’ general direction.
“So where’s the dragon?” Erin Barnaby asked.
“Hmm. That is the question of the hour, isn’t it?” The man stared at his students and grinned through the wild tangles of his dark beard.
The field beside the stables went completely quiet as everyone waited for their professor to speak. When he didn’t, a few confused whispers traveled through the class.
From the other side of the new pen came a loud snort and a muffled laugh.
“Woah!”
The students closest to the end of the pen backed away a little, bumped into those behind them, and tried not to look nervous. The red dragon’s scaly snout was the first thing around the corner of the pen, followed by his long neck and two massive paws as he moved slowly out into the field.
“Did it break out of its pen?”
“Where’s Raven?”
“It ate her! I bet it ate her.”
“Professor? Should we still be here right now?”
Worley chuckled but said nothing as Leander moved slowly toward the gathered class, his wings tucked against his back but not entirely as far down as they would go.
Henry pushed his way through the other students and stood to the side. Grinning, he shook his head. “What are you doing, Alby?”
Leander increased speed a little. One of the girls closest to Professor Worley uttered a small shriek and leapt back. When the dragon accelerated to a slightly unnerving pace, both wings snapped out to either side with a burst of wind and a whoosh that startled them all. Raven Alby stood on his bare back, one foot set squarely in front of the other and her arms spread wide.
Henry gave a loud whoop and almost tossed Maxwell into the air. “Now that’s what I call an entrance. Way to kill it with the crowd, Alby!”
Professor Worley burst out laughing again and threw his head back as his whole body shook. It took the other students a few more seconds to realize what they were seeing before the class exploded with shouts and cheers. Some of the other students hadn’t managed to find their voices again or darted each other nervous glances.
Leander moved even faster out into the field and almost trotted in a wide circle with his wings at their full span. He snorted, lowered himself to the ground, and folded his wings again as Raven leapt off his back and landed on her feet with a thud.
Henry ran toward them, laughing with real delight. “Hey, nice trick, Alby! You couldn’t help being a giant showoff, huh? Woah!” He stopped when Leander’s yellow eyes fixed on his face. Then, he gulped and took a few steps back. “I’m gonna stay over here. Yep.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” Raven laughed and turned to wink at her dragon. “I literally couldn’t help myself with that one. Was it too much?”
“Oh, yeah. Exactly the right amount of too much.” Her friend nodded vigorously, his eyes wide. “Aren’t you supposed to have a saddle on him?”
“Only for flying and maybe not even then. I don’t know. We’ll work on it.”
“Thank you for that unexpectedly entertaining performance, Miss Alby.” Professor Worley clapped a few times and stepped briskly through the uncertain students toward Raven and her dragon. “And Leander, of course.” He stopped beside Henry and clapped a huge hand on the boy’s shoulder. Henry grunted and staggered sideways as Worley regarded the dragon with a broad grin. “I see you decided to play along after all. Well done.”
Leander turned his head away from the man and the students who stepped hesitantly after their professor. “I had hoped a few more people would run.”
Raven rolled her eyes and shook her head at Worley. “That is also another joke.”
“Oh, I know.” The professor turned and gestured extravagantly. “This is where we’ll train with your familiars today. I want everyone to spread out. Give yourselves enough space to spin in a circle with your arms outstretched. Feel free to take as much as you need. There’s a fair amount of it out here and very few walls.” He laughed again and stepped away from Leander and Raven. “Give Miss Alby and her familiar their space too. I’ll wait.”
The students scattered slowly across the field as they talked to each other and no longer bothered to whisper their amazement at seeing a dragon at Fowler Academy.
Raven returned to Leander’s side and folded her arms. “You have to admit that was great.”
“I’ll settle for how much you enjoyed yourself. You did seem comfortable standing on me.”
She smirked. “Of course I was comfortable. I trust you. It’s not like you were gonna try to buck me off or start flying around.”
“No. But I considered it.” He turned his huge head to fix her with one eye. “So have you.”
“Flying without a saddle? Yeah.” She grinned at him and nudged his snout aside playfully when he snorted in her face. “Maybe we’ll practice with that too if you’re up for it.”
“It’s an excellent idea.”
“You know, I had a feeling you’d say that.”
Professor Worley made them practice giving their familiars non-verbal commands, exactly as Raven had been required to do with Leander during their impromptu familiar test in the barn almost two weeks before. A number of students had connected with their familiars enough to be mostly successful, but the hard part seemed to be getting their familiars to obey a complicated command all the
way to the end.
Raven and Leander didn’t have that problem. When she’d stood beside Professor Worley and thought about Leander leaping into the air for a quick lap around the stables, that was exactly what he did.
Worley leaned toward her and muttered, “I take it he’s not usually prone to circling large buildings for fun.”
Wrinkling her nose, Raven cast her professor a sidelong glance. “Not really, no.”
“You two are demonstrating your connection exactly as I thought you would. You should be very proud, Miss Alby.”
“Oh, I am. I’m always proud of that dragon.”
The man hummed and inclined his head toward her, although he still watched the agile beast covered in fiery-red scales gliding across the grass toward them. “That’s obvious. But I was talking about you. Don’t let him take all the credit, huh? You’re in this together.” With a nod at Leander who landed a few yards away, the professor moved to the next student who was ready to show him what he could do with his raccoon familiar.
She watched the giant man walk off in bemusement. I didn’t expect that.
Leander stepped beside her and nudged the back of her shoulder with his snout. “I take it that was exactly what we were supposed to do.”
She turned toward him and grinned. “It was. You did a great job.”
“Compliments tend to fall a little flat when they’re given for something so easy, little girl.” A few short hisses burst between his lips. “This is magic school?”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. You wouldn’t find it so funny if you had to sit behind a desk and start casting spells with various professors breathing down your neck. Out of all of them, I’d say Worley’s the most…laid back.”
“He’s not afraid of me, either. I appreciate it.”
“Me too.”
They watched the other students and their familiars for the rest of the class. Henry and Maxwell passed with flying colors judging by the way he pumped his fist in the air with a loud, “Yes!” and scooped his toad off the grass before he actually kissed his familiar.
Murphy didn’t seem to have any trouble with Fritz, either, at least until Tessa’s butterfly familiar became a little too curious and moved too close. At that point, the barn cat abandoned Murphy’s instructions in lieu of swatting at it. Tessa shrieked and tried to chase Fritz away, while Murphy tried to defend her cat by blaming it on the butterfly.
Familiars darted in every direction, either at their mage’s command or completely against them. Leander rumbled softly and his tail teased the grass behind them as it curled around his hind legs. “We made a spectacle of ourselves, Raven. Still, it was much better than this.”
She burst out laughing and covered her mouth when Julia, on the other side of her, jumped in surprise. Her wombat raced away from her and she hurried after the animal with a frustrated groan.
“We’re much better now, yeah.” She tried to keep a straight face when she added, “But I remember this one dragon who constantly crashed into a wall instead of flying over it. Too many times to count, I think.”
“And I remember a mage in training who didn’t know the difference between ordering a dragon to do something and asking if he wanted to in the first place.”
“Touché.”
A golden streak darted through the sky above them, followed by a piercing little shriek. They both looked at Bella’s firedrake, who spiraled in a wide circle above them.
Raven scanned the students scattered across the field and finally found Bella. The girl stood with her arms folded and her weight shifted onto one hip. She glared at Raven and Leander but said nothing.
“She’s been watching us for a while,” Leander said.
“You noticed, huh?”
“Yes. She was watching you when I circled the stables.”
Narrowing her eyes, she drew her gaze away from the girl and looked at Wesley, who still wheeled above them. “I honestly can’t decide what she wants, Leander. This morning, she was actually…well, I wouldn’t say nice but bearable. She didn’t insult me or try to rub my nose in anything. And just like that, she goes back to giving me the death stare.”
“She envies you, Raven.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why. She’s as skilled with her magic as I am with mine. Maybe even a little better with a few spells. I don’t know what her deal is.”
“Envy. That’s the deal.”
Laughing, she turned toward the red dragon and peered at him. His long shadow fell over her and blocked the sun. “You sound sure about that. But you can’t feel Bella Chase’s emotions.”
“No.” He snorted and turned his head to look at the girl. “I can smell them.”
“Huh.”
Bella blinked and unfolded her arms when she noticed Leander looking at her as well. Her firedrake darted in front of the red dragon and his mage and uttered another shriek before he vanished again as a flash of gold in the sunlight.
“Thanks for clearing that up.” Raven patted Leander’s scaly shoulder and nodded. “I’m still not sure what to do with—”
Another piercing shriek cut her statement short. Bella’s familiar darted toward Raven, who stepped out of the way before the firedrake pulled up at the last second.
“Now what’s she trying to do?” Meeting Bella’s gaze, she spread her arms in a wordless question. The girl simply stared at her.
Only a few feet above Leander’s head, Wesley shrieked again and released a quick stream of fire. Raven ducked, although it wouldn’t have hit her anyway. The firedrake had obviously aimed for Leander’s head and the small stream of flames found its target. Leander snorted as the flames brushed across the scaled ridges above his eyes, and his wings twitched along his back.
“Hey, that’s not cool. Are you okay?”
“It’s like being struck by a human infant’s hand. Honestly, it’s not painful.” He lowered his head toward her, although his yellow eyes were trained on Bella’s firedrake where it fluttered over their heads. “I don’t think he likes me.”
She scoffed. “He can not like you all he wants. Bella needs to call him off. And we both know she can.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Despite the nervous flutter rising in her belly at how deadly he made those words sound, she laughed. “Don’t hurt him, Leander.”
“I don’t intend to.” The dragon’s head moved a few centimeters from one side to the other as he watched the shrieking, fire-breathing Wesley.
Raven glared at Bella and shook her head. “Don’t do anything stupid, Bella.” She can’t hear me, but still.
Wesley shrieked again and dove toward Leander, darted around the dragon’s massive head, and batted at the red-scaled face. The firedrake opened his mouth, which glowed a bright red as he prepared to unleash more flames. With incredible speed, Leander’s head lurched forward on his long neck like a striking snake. He snapped his jaws together and the many razor-sharp teeth clacked ominously less than an inch from Wesley’s open mouth. The firedrake hiccupped and emitted a puff of smoke when the fire in his throat went out completely. He shrieked and flapped unsteadily in front of the massive snout.
The red dragon spewed a thick cloud of hot, acrid smoke at Bella’s familiar. It hurled the terrified creature into a sequence of airborne somersaults, and he fought to gain control of his wings before he thumped against Professor Worley’s back and from there, into the grass with a thud.
“What’s this?” The man turned, coughed, and waved the smoke out of his face.
Wesley screeched again, darted away from the professor’s boots, and launched himself to streak back to Bella.
“Is everything okay over there?” the professor called and gestured toward Raven and Leander.
With a wide grin, she gave the man two thumbs-up. “All good.”
Beside her, Leander’s lips parted to reveal almost all his teeth in a dragon’s grin that was much less reassuring.
With a snort of laughter, he turned to look at Bella and her familiar—who
didn’t offer anything other than another screech—while the girl glowered.
“She knows better than that,” Raven muttered. “Telling me to mind my own familiar.”
A rumble rose from Leander’s throat and he lowered his scaly lips around his teeth again. “Does her face often turn that shade of red?”
“No, this is a first. Does it still smell like envy?”
The red dragon snorted. “With undertones of rage.”
She nodded and folded her arms. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
On the day of Fowler Academy’s spring gala, there were no classes. Raven half-expected Bella to appear at her dorm room and demand another look at Connor Alby’s old journals. Fortunately, the girl apparently had better things to do that morning.
Raven took a few rolls from the steaming pile on the banquet table as she moved through the common room. She ate them as she ran across the school’s center courtyard, under the archway, and out into the field. Leander greeted her from his pen with a snort and a puff of steam in the chilly morning air.
“I know.” She wolfed the last roll and unlocked the gate with her access rune. “I’m a little later today than I have been since we moved in. I hope you weren’t too worried.”
When she jerked the heavy metal gate open and stepped into the pen, he lay curled in a tight ball on the cool grass. He raised his head, turned it toward her, and set it down again. “I don’t worry in my sleep.”
She laughed. “You slept in too, huh?”
“We were both up late last night, as I remember it.”
“Because someone kept wanting to test the riding without a saddle trick.”
“That was you, little girl.”
“Hey, don’t try to tell me now that you didn’t have as much fun as I did. We’re getting better at it. You’ll be flying with a mage and without a saddle in no time.” With a dismissive wave, she checked his trough, which was still half full from the night before. “Were you too tired to eat before you fell asleep?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Frowning, she walked slowly to her dragon and studied him with a concerned expression. “Do you feel like something’s wrong again?”
