I went back to the house and went about getting my stuff ready for school the next day. Everyone else was either doing the same or watching TV, trying to chill out before school started up again. Sam was back over with Starla. I was jealous that he was the only one of us who didn’t have to worry about getting ready for school, but then, he’d definitely done his time.
As I went about making sure I had everything I wanted to take for lunch the next day, I couldn’t help but go back over Nuthatch’s warning in my head. He had followed me back to the house and then gone upstairs to an area at the end of the hallway we’d sort of designated his space, even though it wasn’t even a room. I realized I needed more guest rooms and considered just magic-ing a few on, but I wanted to do it right. Besides, if Starla ended up not keeping the baby, or if Sam ended up tossing her out on he
The sound of the school bell ringing was comforting in a way I couldn’t have ever thought it would be before, when we had to go to school. Now that we hadn’t been able to for a while, it was a reminder to me that it really is a privilege to be able to go to school and learn every day and not have to work or do something else less fun.A few new students joined us, a couple of guys and a girl, but as far as I could tell, none of them were mages. They seemed to be just regular human children, which was kind of cool because there weren’t a whole lot of them at our school. They were definitely better than the last new student we had show up, that was for certain.On my way to first period, I passed Mr. Short, the principal, in the hallway. He was whistling a happy song, a big smile on his face. That was my first clue that Fionna hadn’t come
Mage Jaye was waiting for me at the door when I got home from school. I was shocked to see her there. I was hoping she’d be busy doing something else--like gathering frog legs and puppy dog tails for her spells or something. But no… she was sitting on the front porch swing, waiting.I was slow to get out of the truck because of it. I just sat there. “Are you waiting for Ben to open the door for you?” Raven asked from the back seat.“Something like that.” I said.“Only if I can run off the witch on the porch before I open the door,” Ben replied. I looked at him, wide eyed. I’d never heard him call a mage a witch before, but in this case, it was the nicer of the -itch words he could’ve chosen. “It’ll be all right,” he to
For the rest of the week, I was torn between trying to concentrate on school and listening to Mage Jaye make her preparations at night. She was very focused on all of the things that needed to be done and spent a great deal of time on the phone talking to her staff members back in Europe. I didn’t have a lot of time to get involved in it because I had homework during the week, but I knew that weekend, I’d be up to my eyeballs in helping Mage Jaye figure out a way to move an entire school from one continent to another.Saturday morning, way earlier than I wanted to get up, I heard a sharp wrap on the bedroom door. Ben was awake already, which wasn’t surprising because he hardly sleeps compared to me, but I knew the summons wasn’t for him. I caught his eyes, and he shrugged. “Do you want me to get it? Tell her to go away for a few hours?”
“The new School for Mages?” I repeated, thinking that Mage Jaye had lost her mind this time for sure. “Mage Jaye, with all due respect, there’s simply not enough room right here for an entire school.” I was thinking about a building the size of the one that was in Paris right now, and there was no way a building even the size of just the school building itself, without even considering the other buildings, like the dorms, was going to fit in this clearing. The thought of Mage Jaye removing trees from my forest to make room for a building that didn’t even need to be here made me sick to my stomach. She’d clearly already decided that this was happening, and I had no idea how I could convince her otherwise.“It will fit,” she said, without even turning to look at me. I could see the side of her face and recognized that look of wonder she was wearing that s
Concentrating on school was nearly impossible when I knew that as soon as I got home I was going to be expected to construct a huge new school building on the land behind my house. I was so afraid I was going to mess it up, and Mage Jaye was going to have a fit, assuming I’d done it on purpose. I was so distracted by my own thoughts of disappointing the head mage, I didn’t even hear what started the argument between Brice and Melanie during art class, one that Tony was desperately trying to end before Ms. Flynn came over, but by the time I realized something was going on, the teacher was already there.“What in the world is going on?” Ms. Flynn said in a harsh whisper. “This is an art room. People are trying to create!”“Sorry, Ms. Flynn,” Melanie said. “I didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”
At lunch, Brice didn’t sit with us. He sat with Starla. I thought it was weird that he was running to the person Melanie was accusing him of having an affair with, but that was just the sort of thing Brice wouldn’t let bother him. If Melanie wanted to say he was sleeping with Starla, he would tell her where to shove it and then do what he wanted.I didn’t get a chance to talk to Ben about it at lunch because Melanie was there, so I’d have to wait until after school to talk to him. During seventh period, drama class, I did get a chance to ask Brice if he was okay. All he said was yes and then sat with someone else. So… I had no idea if he was mad at me, too, or just didn’t want to talk about it. I couldn't blame him if he didn’t want to talk about it, but I was hoping he wasn’t mad at me. I was still thinking the whole thing had to be a misunderstanding. If t
I woke up some time later, when it was dark outside, lying in my own bed with Ben sitting next to me, a worried expression on his face. My head was throbbing, and I was dizzy. I had to shut my eyes again after only having just opened them, or else, I was afraid I might throw up, and since my stomach was rumbling from hunger, I had the idea there wasn’t much in there to toss out.“How are you?” Ben asked me, moving slightly closer so that he could reach my hand. “Are you okay?”“Tired,” I mumbled. “And… dizzy. How is the school?”“You passed out, Harlow, and you’re worried about the school?” he asked, a tone of disbelief in his voice.I wanted to shrug but couldn’t. “I’m not s
“What do you mean he’s gone?” I asked, sitting up so abruptly, the world went spinning again. Ben put his hands on my shoulders, trying to calm me, but I was beyond alarmed at this point. “He couldn’t have gone too far.”“I don’t know how far away he went, but he’s not answering any of our attempts at getting in touch with him, either through his phone or the mind-link. It’s clear, he wants to be left alone, at least for now.”This was Ben’s way of telling me not to even think about going out to look for Brice. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t think I could. I wasn’t strong enough to transform myself into a bird or anything and go out flying around looking for him. I slumped back against the headrest in defeat. “This sucks,” I whispered.
There’s a comfy chair right next to the fireplace in the main living area of Brookstone. It has become my favorite place to sit. I can sit there for hours and do absolutely nothing but stare out the window at the beautiful forest and sparkling lake. It’s amazing to me to think how far I’ve come in just a year and a few months. I don’t just sit around and do nothing, though. I haven’t had to use my magic to fight off any other mages or shifters since we destroyed Grimly Grouse and his evil minions, but I do use my magic sometimes for other things, like producing presents for my friends or making mythical creatures to entertain us. Brookstone is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Part of that is the fact that we modernized it and redecorated a lot of the rooms. We wanted all of the modern conveniences we were used to, but we didn’t ruin the amb
My plan had been pretty simple. I’d bust into Brookstone, make the other mages and any shifters that were there think that the house was on fire, and I’d run them out to where my pack mates were waiting to take them down.I had no idea one of my pack members had her own idea of what should happen then. I guess I should have. It isn’t as if she hasn’t shocked me enough times in the past for me to expect Fionna to do something… unexpected.The mages in Grimley’s pack came streaming out of the house. Most of them went out the front door because I’d started the alleged fire in the kitchen, which was in the back of the house, on the east side. Fionna, being the tricky mage that she is, had opened a portal right on the other side of the front door so that every single one of the mages who ran out that exit sprinted right int
I didn’t bother to get a ride back to Brookstone the next day. It was clear that no one wanted to drive out there anyway, and it wasn’t as if it was a necessity. We had other ways of getting there, after all.I volunteered to change my wolves into birds so they could fly with us, but all of them passed on that. They said they weren’t used to flying and were afraid they’d fall out of the sky or something. Like I’d let that happen. I’d rolled my eyes, but since most of the area around where we’d stayed the night before was woodsy and rural, we decided it would be okay for them to walk out into the woods and shift there. The rest of us would fly over.My wolves weren’t going to be entering the property until after I knew the situation in the house. Once I knew whether we were on the defensive or the offensive, I woul
It was difficult to get rooms with enough beds for all of us, but my wolves decided they could always shift into their wolf forms and sleep on the floor, and since most of them didn’t sleep much anyway, we went with that. I was definitely going to be sleeping that night, though. I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open to discuss the plan for the next day. Fighting mages is hard work--apparently.“So what is our plan for tomorrow?” Kaylee asked. We were gathered in the room she and I were sharing, all of us sitting on the beds, the floor, and the small sitting area. “I take it we’re going right back there since you wanted to stay so close, Harlow.”“Yeah, we need to go right back over there and take care of things once and for all,” I said. “We just need a plan that will get rid of Grimly Grouse as s
With the ground shaking beneath our feet, the mages lifted themselves up into the air. I pulled up my wolves, too, but that didn’t help save my house. The thought of Grimly Grouse destroying my family home was enough to make me want to set his hair on fire.The ground was cracking beneath us now, some of them were at least a foot across. The idea of one of my people dropping inside of one of them was enough to make me want to fly everyone out of there and back to our rental right away.“Kaylee,” I shouted, wanting to try to fix the problem beneath us and keep my wolves out of danger. “Can you take over for me?”“You mean… float them?” she asked. “All of them?”“We can all help,” Liam said from the o
Looking around at my mages, I tried to determine who I needed to help and who was okay on their own. Liam was taking on a large male mage with a nose ring and the appearance of horns coming out of his bald head. I assumed those were placed there by magic, and he didn’t really have horns growing out of his head, but it was difficult to know for sure. “Give it up, Harlow!” I heard Grimly shout from far behind the line of advance. “I have more reserves. You cannot win.” It was difficult for me to keep my eye on this brute that was about to knock Liam out and respond to the maniac in the back. I decided to ignore Grouse and concentrate on Liam’s predicament. I was fairly far away from the fight, and there were other engagements going on between me and Liam, but I couldn’t let that stop me. The devil guy with the horn
The mages from Brookstone were slowly walking toward us, their long cloaks in a rainbow of colors not even moving from the wind they made, their steps were so even and slow. I stared at them for a long moment, trying to determine what the best thing to do was. A quick estimate told me that there were probably about thirty of them, which meant my team was outnumbered about five to one as mages went. The wolves would be able to help a little, but not much. They were mostly there to fight off any wolves that came our way, and Grimly Grouse had stopped using those, pulling out the big guns instead.We really only had two choices. We could stand there and fight and probably get annihilated because we were outnumbered so badly, or we could run away, regroup, and figure out when and how we should come back. I was really starting to lean toward Plan B, but when I looked at the faces of my packmates, I could tell t
I took advantage of the fearful flicker I’d seen in Grimley Grouse’s eyes and hit him with a bolt of power before he had much time to expect it. He got his hands up, but it wasn’t enough to completely deflect it. I ended up hitting him hard enough to knock him backward almost to the edge of the stream. The other mages around him took a few seconds to stare in shock before they remembered they had powers and could possibly do something to help him.They weren’t going to be able to help him, though. My mages were all ready, so before any of the red cloaked mages could hit me with their powers, mine had their hands up, shooting rays of light to counteract the ones directed at me. I watched the magic around me bend and shift, redirecting back the way it was coming. A few of the red mages were knocked off balance, but none of them went flying the way that Grouse did, probably because mos
I heard the first sounds of battle coming from my left, to the southwest of the house, but I couldn’t tell who it was that was caught up first by the wolves coming from Brookstone. I thought that Raven and Tony had been the furthest to the south, but I wasn’t certain. I decided I should fly over there and have a look. Of course, by the time I got over there, there was a good chance the rest of my wolves would be under attack as well since we’d seen the wolves shooting through the forest at an incredible rate spread out in a line. As I landed, I heard the sounds of battle echoing across the forest as Grimly Grouse’s wolves collided with mine. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I changed back into my mage form as soon as my feet touched the ground and immediately fired a