Every moment here gave me a dozen new questions.
Focus!I snapped to myself.
I stepped to the next shelf and discovered it started with 8000 BC, so at least I knew which direction to go. I raced past the shelves until I got to this century. Each year had a new book. Gramps said to put my name under my mom’s, but my mom wouldn’t have written her name in this year’s book … because she’d died…
Frick.
The year I was born.
I ran back to year 1999 and opened the book. I flipped through pages marked air, fire, water… There! I found spirit.
Master Mage: Geoff Drudner
Heir:
It was blank.
Blank?
The muffled sound of voices carried to me, and I crept to the end of the row to see Kian and his son marching back inside.
“What a fool,” Kian snapped, his eyes narrowing.
I raced back and grabbed the books marked 1998 and 2000 and then bolted down a few rows in hopes of avoiding the mages. I just needed to sign… Crap! I needed a pen.
“Do you think she’s here?” Kian’s son asked.
My heart thundered against my ribs as they stepped past the reception desk, coming deeper into the records hall.
Kian slapped the young male mage upside the head. “Of course she is,” he growled. “Now, let’s find her.”
They each ducked into rows closer to this century, and I ran for the reception desk, sliding around it just as Kian popped back out of the row I’d been in.
“Where is that child! I know she’s here,” he snapped.
My hands shook as I cracked the spine of the 1998 book. Was this the last year my mother had spent training? Maybe she didn’t put her name in the 1999 book because she was preggers with me. Is that what stopped the legacy of heirs? I didn’t know how this worked, but Gramps had said to write my nameundermy mom’s. I found the spirit page once again, and my gaze snapped to the names.
Master Mage of Spirit: Geoff Drudner
Heir: Elia Drudner
Initiation: completed August 2, 1998
YES!
Spinning, I spied the pen on top of the desk and grabbed it.
“Weird how heartburn and a heart attack have such similar symptoms,” Reyna said as she stepped into the room.
“Where is she!” Kain hissed as he ran down another aisle.
I tuned them out and, with a shaky hand, scrolled my name in cursive font.
Nai Crescent, and then, on a whim, added a hyphen,Drudner.
As soon as I lifted my pen from the page, light flared from the paper, and the heat of it blasted me in the face. I closed my eyes to keep from going blind as magic poured over me.
“No!” Kian screamed, and the panic in his voice made me grin.
