No one said anything. The truth was we didn’t know. But again, I had to believe nothing my mother made could hurtme.
“I’ll be fine,” Ilied.
He let my arm go while I walked over to a small sapling. A sissoo tree. The tree was newly planted and only about four feet high. I hated to experiment anything on it, but if I harmed it I promised to plant two more new trees tomorrow. Just as Isaac taught me. I had no staff to point, so I wasn’t exactly sure where the magic would come out of until I felt my hands heat up ever soslightly.
“That’s it,” Isaac’s deep soothing voice came over my shoulder. “Just ground your feet with Mother Earth, and let your fire magic flow out ofyou.”
I knew we were in a time crunch, so without ceremony I held up my hands to thetree.
Come on, Mom, help me out,I prayed to the necklace, as if it somehow held a part of her. With a deep breath I concentrated on my warming palms and … pushed. There was no other way to explain it, I just squeezed the magic out of my palms and a stream of purple fire engulfed the tree, consuming it entirely. I shook my hands and it stopped, I stumbledbackward.
In all the weeks of training with my staff I could barely get a concentrated beam of magic, and now it was like a hose of fire had doused the little tree and beyond. Danny rushed forward with a magical spell to quench thefire.
Isaac looked at me with a grin. “Ardan is going to die a fiery death,” hedeclared.
I smirked.Yes …yes hewas.
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Chapter 3
The drivefrom Arizona back to Isaac’s land in Northern California took twice as long because Eva had to keep throwing up shield spells to counteract The Eye searching for us. We took a zigzag route to throw them off, and then, finally, pulled up through the tall redwoods and onto the land. The craziest moment of the trip came when Eva received a call from Lynn, saying that late last night her necklace had lit up and seemed to be working again! We speculated that my fire magic was feeding through my mother’s necklace and into theirs. Geoff and Casey’s necklaces were working again too, and that was the best news I’d heard inweeks.
“Have we heard from Dee?” I asked, while we drove among the large redwood trees that dotted the perimeter of Isaac’s land. The new female alpha Keegan had hired had been holding down the fort in our absence. On any normal occasion, that would be a big deal, but with Lynn’s new baby, who I’d learned she named Lily after my mom, it was even more of achallenge.
Eva nodded. “She texted to say all was well. The protections I put over Lily’s room seem to beholding.”
Lily was an adorable orange and cream dragon when she shifted, but since shifting brought the druids, it was less adorable and more … terrifying. Thank God Eva was able to spell a small space that let her freely shift withoutdetection.
“So, Lily can’t leave the room?” I asked. That sounded okay for now; she was just an infant who slept and pooped all day. But as she started to crawl and needed space, that could become a seriousproblem.
Eva frowned. “No, she can’t. The only reason my concealment spells are working is because she’s so small. Her shift doesn’t output that much of a magical trace, but as she grows...” She let the sentence hang open and we all read it, loud and clear. “And I only have so much of the magical ingredients needed for the spell. When we runout…”
Doom and gloom was basically what she wassaying.
Logan maneuvered the SUV into the empty space behind the two huge buses we now owned. I missed the bright yellow school bus. It was now a washed-out tan, pretending to be from an old folkshome.
I’d missed everyone, even Sophie if I was being honest. The car door opened and we all piled out, sore from the long drive. I still wore my mother’s necklace, but I hadn’t tried any more magic since burning the tree down. Something gave me the feeling Isaac and I were going to be doing a lot of training in the nearfuture.
“Sloane!” Nadine shrieked. I tore away from the car and ran towards that voice. But I skidded to a halt when I saw her standing there, holding hands with Gear.Holdinghands!
What the hell? I’d been gone like two days. A slow grin crept across my face. Nadine knew exactly what she was doing when she left the pack. She was getting herman.
She looked at their interlocked hands and blushed before dropping his hand and coming to wrap her arms aroundme.
“We were all so worried,” she breathed. As her arms tightened around me, I caught sight of the fresh bear head tattoo on her bicep and I was reminded of Ruben, our sweet bear shifter who fell protectingme.
“Ruben,” I said, with tears in my eyes while she pulledaway.
“Is dining in heaven with Cooper,” Roxy said, from behindme.
I froze. I wasn’t prepared to see her. I didn’t even know what to say. Spinning around, I quickly wiped my tears. “I’m so, so,sor—”
She held up a hand. “We weren’t raised like you, to think death is a weak and sad thing. Dying to protect a skyborn is the greatest glory you can have. My family is very proud. He will be missed but we are proud of him.” Her face was a mixture of exactly that, longing and pride. I wasn’t going to take that fromher.
“Okay,” I said, but I still felt like I was waiting for the big brute to walk around the corner. Death was weird. It took a while to sinkin.
“Okay.” She nodded and gave me a sidehug.
