Dragon's Curse (Heir of Dragons: Book 2) Read online

  Baba stomped her feet down and see-sawed to standing. She placed her hands on Kaylee’s shoulders. Her breath reeked of scotch. “Listen close, girl, ‘cause I ain’t gonna say it again: you did good with me. Not great. Nothing to write home about. Your shifting still needs work and your elemental magic needs tempering, but considering how terrible you were when you arrived, you suck less than you did then.”

  “Thanks, Baba,” Kaylee said, knowing that was as close to a compliment as she was ever going to get from the old woman. But she cared, Kaylee knew that. Baba hadn’t confessed to it, but she’d been the one to pull Kaylee from the wreckage of the barn before it collapsed on her. Not letting her die had to count as some kind of affection.

  Baba pounded Kaylee’s shoulders once more. “I said my piece. Don’t get used to it.”

  “Who?” Kaylee said, not sure if she wanted to ask, “Who’s going to train me now?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Alastair said. “I’m the only fully-trained Convocation dragon-kin in the Scarsdale area and, unfortunately, I don’t have the time. I also don’t think I would be much help. You don’t just need a trained dragon-kin, you need one with at least some similar elemental magic to yours.”

  “But how many other storm dragon-kin are there?” Kaylee said. “Unless you’re talking about—”

  She clamped her mouth shut before the rest of her thought could flutter free. Baba didn’t appear to notice Kaylee had been about to mention the only other storm dragon-kin they both knew: Baba’s former best friend, who had holed herself up alone somewhere after accidentally killing innocent bystanders with her uncontrolled elemental magic. If the subject of breaking into Baba’s secret room was touchy, the isolation of her best friend was even worse.

  “We’ve put out a call for candidates so don’t get your knickers in a bunch, Alastair,” Baba said. “The elemental magic component won’t be that big a deal either. She’s a storm dragon-kin. Who wouldn’t want the chance to train her? Maybe we’re looking at a light elemental dragon-kin, maybe that dark dragon-kin I’ve heard about in Manhattan.”

  “Absolutely not him—”

  “Heck, even a wind dragon-kin would do. Best would probably be electric, but there aren’t many of those in the Convocation, are there?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm…” Baba’s mouth squeezed to a thin line. “You don’t know of a single one?”

  “Not in the Convocation, so no,” Alastair said sharply.

  Baba’s lips stayed thin. “Very well. Though you should know it’s her skin you’re putting on the line by leaving her untrained, not your own. Kaylee,” Baba waved a hand, “scram. ‘Stair and I have business to discuss.”

  “And Kaylee,” Alastair said when she reached the door. “We’re sorry. Truly.”

  Kaylee nodded, not because she agreed, but because they couldn’t be as sorry as she was.

  Chapter Four

  You told Edwin already?” Jade said. “How’d he take it?”

  Kaylee stuffed whatever she didn’t need for her first classes into her locker. The movement was haphazard. Jerky. Her head wasn’t in it, not after talking with Edwin for almost two hours yesterday, and seeing the hurt look on his face when she’d told him they wouldn’t be training together anymore.

  “He…didn’t take it well,” Kaylee admitted.

  That was an understatement. He’d been furious. But not at her.

  “I know you’re a dragon-kin, and yeah, you’ve had some problems,” Edwin had admitted. “But this won’t help. We can figure it out together. We’re partners, yeah?”

  Kaylee tried to forget how her stomach had fluttered when he’d said that.

  “He’s talking to Alastair about it,” Kaylee said. “I told him not to. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it’s not going to help anything.”

  Jade closed her own locker and leaned against it, observing the mixed mass of students as they streamed by towards their first classes.

  “Honestly, and I know you’re going hate me for saying this, but I agree with Alastair.”

  “That I shouldn’t train with Edwin?” Kaylee said hotly. Jade shook her head.

  “That you need a better teacher.” She smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from Edwin.”

  Kaylee’s face flamed. “What does that—?”

  “Kaylee, I don’t think you realize how strange your situation is. Not only did you discover your dragon-kin powers way later than usual, but you’ve never even had a properly trained dragon-kin teach you. You know how uncommon that is? In a normal Convocation there’re at least two or three older dragon-kin who help teach the young ones.”

  “I have—had—Baba.”

  “Which was great, for a time. Now she’s not.”

  The bell for their first class rang. Jade pushed off her locker and the two of them headed for Government.

  “Besides, I thought you and Baba didn’t get along all that well,” Jade said.

  “We don’t. I mean we do. It’s a mutual-dislike-but-grudging-tolerance sort of thing.”

  “Ah,” Jade said, nodding sagely. “the most stable of all relationships.”

  Most of the other students had filtered away to class, save for the lingering few who darted in and out of the attendance office. All the major hallways in school led to a large four-way intersection. The attendance office was on the right, band hall to the left, straight ahead were the gyms, and at the other end, the outer quad, bisecting the school into two separate halves.

  Dani stood in front of one of the bulletin boards in the center of the crossroads. She brushed her hands to straighten her jeans and sweater. They were both slightly stained at the fringes, as if she’d splattered mud on them running here.

  “Dani!” Jade said.

  The other girl turned, and Kaylee was briefly taken aback.

  Dani was by far one of the nicest people Kaylee knew, and one of the prettiest. She had golden hair that shimmered almost as brightly as her attitude, and was involved in more clubs than Kaylee had friends. She was the kind of person who was so cheery it almost bordered on disgusting, but thankfully never quite reached that point.

  But now…when she smiled at them it didn’t quite reach her eyes. There were strained lines on the edges of her cheeks. Her cheeks were a bit sunken, as if she hadn’t eaten well in a little while.

  “Hey, guys! Running a little late, too?”

  “Voluntarily,” Jade said. “Mr. Tuttle won’t dock us if we’re a minute late.”

  “Hit some trouble?” Kaylee said, nodding at the mud on her sweater.

  “Did I—oh.” Dani fingered the splattered hem. “No, I—just a little misstep in the parking lot. No biggie!” She laughed, this one sounding unusually hollow. “Anyway, I heard what happened, Kaylee,” Dani added seriously. “The training, I mean.”

  “You heard too?” Kaylee groaned inwardly. Did everyone know what was going on with her life?

  “Maddox told me,” Dani said in an apologetic tone. “I know you’ll find a great teacher. And that doesn’t mean you can’t still hang out with Edwin. Maybe outside of training.”

  Dani gave her a wink, but the move seemed like a great effort, like she hadn’t done it in quite a while.

  “I’ll see you guys around,” she said. Then she disappeared down the hall, leaving Kaylee with unanswered questions cartwheeling in her head.

  Kaylee managed to survive the first half of the day with minimal suffering. It was so close to Thanksgiving break now that most teachers (with the exception of Chemistry, of course) had pretty much given up trying to teach anything, but instead handed out busy work. Kaylee was totally fine with that. Having the horror of busy work was nothing compared to what she’d been dealing with last year at this time: the rise of the Dragon Moon and what the Slayers had been trying to do with it; mainly, steal all the dragon-kin’s elemental magic. Permanently.

  Yeah, she’d take the busy work.

  They met up with Maddox at lunch. They we
re able to get a few seats down from Maddox’s lunch buddies from the lacrosse team, but not right with them, which Kaylee was silently grateful for. The lunch room was an almost unbearable din of noise, and at least half of it seemed to stem from that part of the table.

  “Word to the wise, if you can avoid taking AP Calculus, do it,” Maddox said, putting his tray down next to them harder than necessary. Flecks of mashed potato spewed onto Jade’s sandwich. “Seriously, I think my brain is officially mush.”

  “You’re in AP Calc?” Kaylee said.

  Maddox gave her a shining grin. “Not just a pretty face, huh?”

  Jade finished brushing off the rest of Maddox’s collateral damage. “Just because he’s in AP Calc doesn’t mean he’s passing it,”

  “Which is why we’re studying again Sunday night, right?” Maddox said. “I’ve got another test right after break I want to get a jump on—”

  “Kaylee, you want to join?” Jade interrupted.

  “What?”

  “For studying Sunday. Don’t you have Speech to work on or something?”

  The way Jade asked made Kaylee feel like this was about more than studying. It was a question to ease the guilt of Jade and Maddox spending time together without Kaylee. That wasn’t anything new. The two had been training together in the Convocation for years.

  But this wasn’t training. This was them, together, in a non-Convocation setting. Apparently they’d been doing it for a little while, too. The somewhat-secrecy combined with the setting somehow made it all the more personal, and the way Jade’s eyes kept flickering guiltily to her sandwich told Kaylee she felt bad Kaylee had even found out about it.

  “Thanks, but you guys go ahead,” Kaylee said. “Maybe I’ll catch up on…maybe I’ll…Edwin and I can do something.”

  Jade’s eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea! There’s that new horror movie at the theatre you said you wanted to see. Maybe you two could go.”

  “Jade…”

  “Maybe he’d even ask you—”

  “Jade. Not helping.”

  Maddox looked between them both, his expression that of bewildered confusion.

  “You guys just slipped into a different language there for a sec.”

  “Maddox,” a guy from down the table yelled. “You gonna join us or what?”

  Maddox waved him off with a grin. “That reminds me, practice is going longer today ‘cause of how close the season’s getting. I’ll have to meet you guys at Baba’s later than normal.”

  “Not me,” Kaylee said quietly.

  Maddox paused with a large scoop of peas halfway to his mouth. “Ah. Right. Crap. Sorry.”

  “Way to go,” Jade said, in a slightly chastising voice.

  “You have any idea who’ll be taking over for the Baba?” Maddox asked trying to salvage the conversation. “I’m sure you’re not sorry to see the lessons with her end, am I right?”

  “Kind of,” Kaylee said. “And I have no idea who it’ll be. According to Alastair, training me would be a ‘great honor’, so I might get every glory-seeking whack job dragon-kin for five-hundred miles.”

  “Maybe you’ll get that guy from the Saginaw Convocation Edwin was telling us about, Jade,” Maddox said, elbowing her. “Remember?”

  “The earth dragon-kin they named the Trainee Torturer?” Jade said.

  “Let’s…talk about something else,” Kaylee said. Her stomach was starting to hurt just thinking about it.

  “Sorry,” Maddox said. He stood with his tray. “Just joking around. I’m sure whomever you get will be awesome.”

  He nodded at them and joined the guys down the table. Kaylee ignored a wink from the nearest one (Bleached hair? Seriously?) and searched for something else to distract her from the thought of not going to training today.

  Dani was two tables away with her usual group of friends from the girls’ soccer team. She laughed loudly at a joke one of them had just cracked. This Dani seemed fine. Worlds apart from the one they’d met earlier.

  “Did Dani seem off to you this morning?” Kaylee said.

  Jade swiveled to where Kaylee was looking. “Off how?”

  “Just not herself.”

  “Probably had a bad morning. Even bottomless rays of sunshine have cloudy days.”

  They did, Kaylee agreed. But this had seemed more than that to her. But maybe she was reading too much into it. As if she didn’t have enough problems of her own, she now had to try to find them in other people.

  “She’s been hanging around the Convocation more often, which is good,” Jade said. “My instructor thinks she might have a future working behind the scenes for them.

  “Huh…” Kaylee said.

  “Hey, don’t worry about your new instructor,” Jade said, misinterpreting Kaylee’s silence. “I’m sure you won’t get the Trainee Torturer.”

  “And if I do?”

  Jade flashed her a playful grin. “Then it was nice knowing you.”

  By the time the final bell rang Kaylee was almost glad she didn’t have lessons with Baba to go to. Her mind was a thousand different places except for school, and the last thing she wanted to do was try to rein them all in by focusing.

  Kaylee said goodbye to Jade at her locker before her friend left for her own training. There was a painful pull in her chest as she watched her walk down the hall. She and Jade had never not walked home together, even when they’d had a big argument. Now, Jade didn’t even have to be around her all the time. The Scarsdale charms and Convocation reports would be enough to keep Kaylee safe until the Slayers showed up again. And now…Kaylee didn’t have a reason to go to Baba’s anymore. Sure, she could go, but Baba had made it clear she was done training her. And standing around there would be awkward. She could go to see Edwin, but…

  Kaylee slammed her locker shut. She had lingered after the last bell and most of the other students had dispersed outside to freeze for their respective sports or trickled to band or after-school clubs. Kaylee briefly wondered which one Dani was going to, if at all.

  Does she seem…off?

  Kaylee was so lost in thought she didn’t notice the brief shadow falling over her, or react in time when a shoulder clipped hers. Her backpack hit the ground, the contents spilling like a broken bubble gum machine.

  “Ouch! Sorry.”

  She stooped to pick up her stuff. She noticed the boots—ragged, chipped, with pieces of leather treatment peeling off them—stayed in place.

  “Thanks for the help,” Kaylee muttered.

  She scooped up the last of her things and stood.

  A girl stared back, not even pretending to act concerned. At first Kaylee thought a female version of Damian from the Slag Heap had transferred to their school. The girl wore rumpled jeans and a frayed jacket with the sleeves cut off, matching the fingerless gloves on her hands. Half her head was shaved, the other long and brushed back over her shoulder. The girl smirked and crossed her arms, revealing tiny tattoos of symbols Kaylee couldn’t read on the knuckle of each finger. Piercings dotted her eyebrows, lips, and nose.

  “Thanks for apologizing,” Kaylee said. “The death metal band doesn’t play until four.”

  The girl smirked wider. “So you’re it, huh? Got some spine in you. I like that.”

  An uncomfortable drop settled in Kaylee’s stomach. “I’m it? What does that mean?”

  The girl brushed past her. “Later.”

  “Hold on!” Kaylee scrambled to zip up her backpack before chasing after the girl around the corner.

  The hallway was empty.

  Kaylee blinked. She must have taken a wrong turn. Maybe she’d gone right instead of left. Maybe she was hiding.

  Kaylee opened the nearest door. A storage closet. Empty. Beside it was a classroom. Also empty.

  “Excuse me?” A girl poked her head out of a nearby room. “Can you stop slamming doors, please?”

  “Sorry—did you? Was there another girl passing by here just now?”

  The girl shook her head. “
If she was as loud as you we would have heard her.”

  Touché, Kaylee thought.

  Then she saw the fox. The door to the outside quad running between the two halves of the school was propped open, letting in waves of chilly air. The fox sat in the doorway, staring at her.

  It was made entirely of electricity, that much Kaylee could tell. Its body roiled with a continuous current, from the tops of its ears to the tips of its nine tails.

  For some reason, this stuck out to Kaylee most. Maybe because she was now part of a world where people could cast spells and she could summon thunderstorms that the idea of a fox made of electricity wasn’t so surprising as much as what kind of fox it was.

  If it was possible for a bundle of electricity, the fox regarded her with a mix of curiosity and boredom, before turning and zipping away outside. Kaylee wasted no time in following it, out through the quad, around the rear of the school between the science wing and the athletic field, over towards the woods on the western edge of the school where fewer people were.

  It dawned on her that this was exactly what someone trying to hurt her would do, but already she was slowing. The fox had reached the very edge of the student parking lot, mostly separate and exclusive from the rest. This part was where the seniors paid a hundred bucks to paint their own personalized spaces. A few cars still remained. And a man.

  Kaylee ground to a halt, her body tilted halfway towards the man in case he…did something. She wasn’t sure what.

  From the hundred yards or so between them Kaylee could tell he was big. He was draped in a thick leather jacket and jeans, and a helmet and sunglasses that obscured most of his face. He was casually leaning on an idling motorcycle.

  The fox scurried up to him. The man flicked his hand and the fox dissipated, the electricity flowing up his arm and away.

  The two of them stared at one another for a full minute. Despite the sunglasses and distance, Kaylee knew—knew—the guy was smirking at her.

  “What do you want?” Kaylee said loudly. She immediately felt stupid. Maybe he was a parent picking up a kid. On a motorcycle. Dressed like a gang member. Far away from the pick-up zone. With a magic nine-tailed fox avatar.