“Take me to the scene,” Nuthatch said as we walked through the woods. I raised an eyebrow at him but continued in the direction of what had once been Verina’s home. I didn’t want to go back there at all, particularly not right now, not so soon, but he didn’t seem to be asking me whether or not I wanted to take him. So I kept walking.
He had eyed my staff for a long moment when I’d first entered the woods where he was waiting for me in the back of the house, but he hadn’t said anything. I noticed he didn’t carry one, and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. Grandma didn’t most of the time either, but since the forest had gifted me this staff, I tended to think it was because she wanted me to use it. If Nuthatch thought otherwise, I supposed he’d tell me.
We walked between trees and over the leaf-cov
“When you close your eyes and envision the forest, what do you see?’ Nuthatch asked me as we stood in the clearing. I wasn’t expecting that sort of a question before we began our training, but I supposed it was a legitimate inquiry.“What do I see?” I repeated, tapping my chin as I thought about it. “Well, it depends. Most of the time, I see a river of color flowing all around me. Other times, I see the animals that I can hear or the flowers that I can smell. Sometimes, I see the people who are connected to me through the forest.”He was shaking his head. Apparently, this is not what he wanted to hear. “All of those are images anyone would see through meditation. When you think about the forest herself, the entity behind the power that courses through you, what do you see, specifically?”
I couldn’t bring myself to do it. When I’d created the unicorn, just a few minutes prior, I figured I would simply turn her back into whatever she’d been before--energy, magic forest dust. But when she looked at me with her wide, dark eyes, I knew she had to stay. Granted, I might need to magic away her horn depending upon what Nuthatch found out from the council, but as I walked back toward the house, the unicorn came with me.“You need a name,” I said to her as she walked alongside me. “What’s a good name for a unicorn?” I didn’t want it to sound like something a little girl would name a pretend unicorn--Moonbeam or Starlight or anything like that. She’s not a My Little Pony, after all, but she needed a magical name.Nuthatch was already in the house when I arrived. The back door opened. I hoped it w
Mage Nuthatch was in his room on the phone when I walked into the house, so I decided to wait for him in the living room. I had no idea what he was doing, who he was talking to, or why, but there was little I could do until he decided to come out and talk to me. I hoped that I hadn’t broken some other rule I was unaware of when I created my unicorn friend. There really needed to be a handbook of some sort for new mages. I was sitting there, thinking about the sorts of information that should be recorded in such a book when Melanie walked in, an odd look on her face, something between a smile and a timid questioning stare.“Hi, Mel,” I said, looking at her with an arched eyebrow. “Everything okay?”“I think so,” she said, walking slowly as she crossed the room and sat down in a chair near where I was perched on the end o
That night, lying in bed, staring into Ben’s eyes, I had a lot to think about. Mage Jaye had gotten back to Nuthatch and told him she was willing to wait for my break if that made me feel better, but she’d prefer it if I came right away.I knew that going right away wasn’t an option, even though Sam had tried to talk me into it. I was just too much of a good girl for that, too much of a good student, someone who never liked to miss class unless I was deathly ill. So… skipping school to go to Paris seemed ridiculous to me, even if it was the head of all mages requesting my presence. She was sort of like my new boss as a new mage, but I couldn’t quite fathom that at the moment. I still felt like I was first and foremost a student, which meant the principal at the school was my main boss. And my parents of course, even if they weren’t here. I’d talked to them earlier
Ben took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling. I pulled the blanket up over us. A chill had gone through my entire body at the admission of what he had just said, that he had died the night Verina had died. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was about to tell me, and I was listening as intently as I’ve ever listened to anything before.“That night, when Verina had already hit Brice with that blow, I knew I had to do something, or she was going to kill him, and I wasn’t prepared to watch that happen. I know he’s never been my best friend, but he was beginning to mean something to you.”I wanted to interrupt and remind him that he means a hell of a lot more to me than Brice does, or anyone else, for that matter, but I didn’t say anything. The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt him and make him stop talking
The next few weeks of school went by fairly quickly considering how nervous I was about going to Europe. Nuthatch had left the next morning, after he had cleared it with Mage Jaye that I would be traveling as soon as Thanksgiving break began. They told me I could bring one member of my pack with me. It wasn’t a difficult choice, even though I knew everyone wanted to come. I assured them all that they’d get to come soon enough if I didn’t screw this up. When the secretary for the council called to ask me who needed passports, I told her myself and Ben, and she had them expedited quickly. We got them within a few days. I didn’t ask whether or not it was magic or just the ability to cut through the red tape, but considering neither of us had to go fill out any paperwork or even sit for the pictures, I was pretty sure there was magic involved.Ms. Fairchild, the secretary,
We took Sam’s truck to the airport the next day. It was a long drive. I tried to sleep in the truck, but it was hard. My mind just wouldn’t stop thinking about the council and what might happen when we got to Paris. Sam was stoically quiet, as I expected him to be. I knew he wished he was going with me, not because Paris is such a romantic city and he still has feelings for me but because he wanted to protect me. I don’t know if he felt like Ben couldn’t handle it or if he just wanted to be there, too, in case things went south, but he made it clear by his quietness that he was wishing he was going along.When we reached the airport, he wanted to come in with us, but I told him he didn’t need to go to all of the trouble. It’s not a large airport, compared to some, but it was big enough that he’d have to go find parking and then come back, and there wa
The flight to Chicago was relatively short compared to the next flight we would catch, but I couldn’t let go of the feeling that there was something going on with that flight attendant with the dark curly hair. Every time she walked by, she looked at me and gave me a knowing smile. I hated it. I wanted to demand that she just tell me who she was and what she was up to.Ben did his best to keep me calm, but that is easier said than done. I wasn’t easily calmed in the state I was in. I spent the entire flight with my fingernails digging into the armrests.At one point, I swore the plane took a steep angle and began to decline. My eyes were the size of platters as I asked Ben, “What’s going on? What was that?”“What’s what?” Ben asked. He had a magazine in front of him, but he wasn’t reading it, not with me acting so weird. “We’re just changing altitudes. Everything is fine.”I noticed t