Quest Maker (3 page)

True—Tito's necklace was a far finer gift than a chain of paper clips. If Caden took it, he'd have two magic items: his coat—the very symbol of his father and his people—and
the paper clips. None of his brothers had two.

Still, what use did he have for paper clips? “What do they do?” he said.

“They hold things together.”

Suddenly, he wasn't sure he wanted a second magic item. No doubt his brothers would find amusement in magic paper clips. They always found their amusement at his expense. “Perhaps you should give them to someone else,” he said.

“I made them for you,” Jane said. “I want you to take them.”

With a furrowed brow, he took them. It seemed rude not to do so. “Thank you,” he said. He took a deep breath. “But you must stop enchanting. The boy who enchanted my coat died at seventeen turns.”

“I know more about enchanting than you.”

“Then you know you should stop.”

“Brynne and I are working on something. Don't worry, we have a plan,” she said, and smiled, but she didn't elaborate and she didn't look like she was going to stop.

He said the only thing that he thought might make her reconsider. “If Tito and Rosa lose you again, they'll not recover. At the very least, tell Tito what you're doing.”

Her expression clouded. Her smile flattened. She looked down at her lap. In a quiet, firm voice she said, “I'm going to enchant a stapler next.”

C
aden needed to discuss a villain with a dragon. And he had to take a reading quiz. Neither of these were trials he ever expected to face. He must be brave and keep his wits.

He stood on the school's lawn. The breeze felt soft, and the air smelled of dirt, grass, and, oddly, rotting plants. In the blue sky, the moon was a white slip. The waning moon was yet another of his problems.

Four months ago, Brynne had cursed him with compliance. For three days each cycle—when the moon was half-full—he was forced to do as he was told. This Sunday, it would recur. He turned and scowled at her.

She wore an ivory-colored, high-collared blouse and faded jeans. Her clothes appeared pressed and her hair fell neatly past her shoulders. No doubt she'd magicked her
appearance. It was beyond a foolish thing to do. She was already worn out from the magic she'd used in the Biltmore gardens. His annoyance grew. Any magic she used now should be used to find a way to uncurse him.

Like Brynne could read his thoughts, she said, “You know it was an accident.”

“It was partly an accident. You said you'd fix it, sorceress.”

Jane placed her hand on his arm. “She's working on it. Every night.”

Brynne arched her brow. “Well,” she said, “when I feel like it.”

That deserved no reply. Caden walked toward the school's entrance.

The school was built right into the side of the mountain; the stone walls were carved into the granite and surrounded by green trees and vines. Around the perimeter of the building, however, the azalea bushes looked withered and dead. Workers in green jackets ripped them from the soil and replaced them with yellow rosebushes. Only three weeks ago, the same workers had pulled out dried box hedges and planted the now-dead azaleas in their place.

They piled the dead bushes beside the walkway. The blackened stems looked liked they oozed death thistle sap. Caden wasn't yet an expert on Ashevillian gardening, but wasn't this the spring? Weren't plants supposed to be growing? It seemed strange that they kept dying. He stopped and frowned.

Jane stopped beside him. She said nothing, but Caden suspected the dead plants bothered her as well. Elves were known to be close to nature.

“C'mon,” Tito said, and yanked Caden toward the heavy double doors. “I don't want to be late.” Inside, the tiles were gritty with dirt and the occasional grass blade tracked in by careless Ashevillian students. The walls echoed with laughter and the clanging of lockers. The warning bell rang.

Caden's gift of speech allowed him to speak any language, but it didn't translate to the written word. While Brynne, Tito, and Jane had English, Caden had his literacy class. He split from the others, but paused when he reached the classroom door.

All he could think about was the rigging dagger—the dagger that had killed his sixth-born brother, Chadwin.

If Caden hurried down the long hall, he could speak to Ms. Primrose before the final bell rang. Any tardiness after that could be excused. Caden could use his gift of speech to persuade her. And she'd once told him to practice his charms if he wanted to get better. He darted to the long hall that led deeper into the mountain and toward Ms. Primrose's office.

By the busy classrooms, light filled the school. There were sounds of teachers lecturing, students asking questions, and books slamming closed. The long hall, though, was dim, lit only by the buzz of fluorescent light. It was lined with lockers, but never had Caden seen a student at
one of these. No one came this way unless they were summoned to the vice principal's office.

At the hall's end, Ms. Primrose's assistant, Mr. Creedly, sat behind a mahogany desk. His palms were flat on the desktop, his elbows upturned. He'd slicked back his dark hair. He was spindly and odd, and not for the first time, Caden felt like Mr. Creedly's true, villainous form was bent and crammed inside his human flesh.

“You're here already?” Mr. Creedly cocked his head. “You were just summoned.”

Now Caden was confused. “She wanted to see me?”

Mr. Creedly untangled his long limbs and pointed to the large oak door behind him. “Yesss, go in, young one,” he said with a sneer. “They await you.”

Caden knew Ms. Primrose was inside. He hadn't known she had called for him, nor did he know why, and he didn't know who else was with her. That might make it difficult to ask about the dagger.

He stood for a moment, unsure, and brushed off his jeans. In the face of the unknown a prince was cautious, a prince was neat. That was what his father and brothers had taught him.

“She's the principal today,” Mr. Creedly said.

Caden raised a brow. He'd never heard her go by that title before, and he didn't know what it meant that she was doing so today. He took a deep breath and walked through the heavy door.

Ms. Primrose's office was spotless. Her treasured,
cheap-looking beads looked polished, and she had them displayed on shelves. She'd added some square buttons to her button bowl. Her bowl of rocks had been rearranged in an order Caden was certain only she understood. A window overlooked the mountainside, and the room glittered in the light.

Ms. Primrose sat sword straight behind her carved desk. She wore a pink pansy-patterned suit. Her distinct, rose-scented perfume filled the office, and her gray hair was in a tightly centered bun. She was speaking in the royal tongue of Razzon, the tongue of Caden's family, and his ears ached at the familiar flow of words.

But it was the second person in the room who took Caden's breath away. Even from behind, Caden recognized the tall figure. His hair was mussed and golden blond. He wore the padded gray practice uniform of the Elite Paladin, though the fabric had turned the rusty color of blood and grime. The royal Winterbird—always embroidered in gleaming gold and silver threads—was a mere dark shadow on his uniform's shoulder.

Caden felt his mouth hang wide. His heart pounded in his chest. His seventh-born brother, Jasan, gifted in speed and favorite son of Razzon, stood before the unseen and gaping hunger of the now principal.

How had Jasan gotten to Asheville? Had he come to rescue Caden? “Jasan?” Caden tried to say, but his voice was weak and died on his tongue.

It took great will not to run to Jasan and latch his arms
around his older brother.

Caden couldn't yet match any of his brothers in hand-to-hand and Jasan was the fastest. If Caden surprised him, he'd throw Caden across the room before their identities were established. Caden would crash into Ms. Primrose's cheap treasures. She'd eat him. Jasan would attack her, then she'd eat Jasan as well. Such was why composure in adversity was a necessary skill.

Caden brought his mouth back to its non-wide-open, normal state and aligned his posture. His thoughts whirled but he spoke louder and clearer. “Jasan.”

Jasan spun so fast that he was facing Caden before Caden had finished the first syllable of his name. Then Caden better saw his brother's unkempt state. Jasan's clothes were tattered, burned in places. His eyes looked tired. His mouth was fixed in a tight line. He was often in a sour mood, though, so the unhappy expression was familiar.

Jasan seemed equally stunned, and his surly expression faltered. “Caden?”

Caden had been stranded long enough for the Ashevillian seasons to shift from winter to spring. Jasan looked shocked. He reached to Caden and gently touched his arm as if surprised Caden was real and alive. Unlike Jasan's frown, this tenderness did worry Caden. Jasan didn't do such things. He was honorable and brave, but he wasn't friendly.

The gentleness didn't last. Jasan was gifted in speed
and quick in all ways—quick in movement, quick in mind, and quick to anger. He seemed to coil up. He squeezed Caden's arm tighter. It was with his voice that he lashed out. “Where have you been?” he yelled.

Caden had been in the hallway.

Before he could explain that and all it meant, Caden felt creeping cold. Jasan spun back to face the front of the room. Ms. Primrose's arms shimmered with blue scales. Caden felt as if the sharpest teeth were near Jasan's throat.

“Indoor voices, please,” Ms. Primrose said. Then she looked at Jasan and licked her lips.

As she seemed versed in the royal tongue, Caden spoke in it, and not the long drawl of the local English. “Please don't eat my brother.”

Ms. Primrose turned to Caden. To him, she spoke English. “I'm hungry, dear.” She'd said things like that to him before, but she seemed more intense than usual. Her stomach rumbled, and her beads and baubles clanked on their shelves. “He's so tempting.”

It was obvious Jasan didn't understand English. It was possible, however, that he understood Ms. Primrose's growling stomach. He looked to Caden to translate.

Caden, of course, understood both English and Royal Razzon. As well as Spanish, Japanese, Gnomish, and all other languages of note. He returned to English. Ms. Primrose liked him to answer in whatever language she spoke to him. “He's a skilled Elite Paladin,” he said as
calmly as he could muster. “He's Razzon's champion.”

“Dear, you're always thinking everyone's a threat.” She didn't seem to understand. She continued. “First Mr. Rathis, and now this pretty and tasty-looking one.”

Jasan wouldn't have been pleased with that particular description, and her mention of Mr. Rathis—Rath Dunn to those who knew his true history—frustrated Caden. Rath Dunn wasn't to be trusted or underestimated. Why didn't Ms. Primrose see that? “Rath Dunn is a threat. He moves against you. He wants your perfume for a spell. If you're hungry, eat him. He—”

Jasan interrupted. “Speak so I can understand.” He sounded as if he expected Caden to obey.

Caden's worry intensified. As he spoke Rath Dunn's name, he realized Jasan was doubly in danger. Ms. Primrose might eat him. But Rath Dunn, the villainous math teacher, wanted the blood of a seventh son and Jasan was Caden's seventh-born brother. No doubt that ingredient, like all those Rath Dunn was collecting, was for the darkest of ritual magic. Rath Dunn was the worst of villains, the scourge of the Greater Realm. He was the tyrant of the math room. Perhaps he had brought Jasan here to make him bleed.

Until this moment, Caden had believed Jasan a realm away and safe from Rath Dunn's reach. Now Jasan stood just down the hall from the villain who wanted his blood, and in front of an ancient and hungry dragon. Maybe it
was Caden who needed to save Jasan.

And there was still the rigging dagger.

Someone had buried it under the magnolia tree blossoms that had reminded Caden of Razzonian snow. His stomach churned. Why was Jasan here?

Ms. Primrose, of course, was unperturbed. She kept to her English and spoke unhurriedly, as if she relished her words. “I'm not eating my best teacher. Not unless he breaks his contract, and he's far too clever for that. And, pish, I'm not giving him my perfume. It's too precious.” She sat back in her chair. “But you, dear,” she said and pointed at Caden, “amuse me at times, and you've been working hard on your reading. That pleases me, and you know I reward those who please me.”

Once, she'd rewarded him by giving him a copy of an employee contract that he couldn't read. Maybe this time the reward would be worth more. If it was about Jasan, it would be.

Caden tried to ignore Jasan's scorched uniform and intense glare, and held Ms. Primrose's gaze. His heart raced. “You're rewarding me?” he forced out.

“That's why I called you.” She leaned forward. “If you can give me one good reason I shouldn't eat your brother,” she said with a little tut, “I won't. Not right away, anyway.” Her cheek twitched like it was a decision that was difficult for her. “It's in my nature to give my meals a chance to live before I eat. I always do. I always follow my rules.”

She was acting strangely. Caden wondered when—and
who—her last meal had been. It was like her control had cracks, like it could shatter at any moment. He didn't doubt she'd eat Jasan if Caden was unable to provide a reason. With the way she was looking at Jasan, she might eat him regardless.

When Caden had first arrived, Ms. Primrose had mentioned losing her physical education teacher. Well, if he were to be precise, she'd mentioned devouring her physical education teacher. To Caden's knowledge that position remained unfilled. “You need a physical education teacher,” he said. “Jasan's talents in athleticism are unmatched.”

She seemed to consider. “As principal, I get final say in who is hired and who sates my appetite.” The room was as cold as the Winterland Ice Falls. Ms. Primrose looked at Jasan, then Caden, and licked her lips again. Was she thinking of eating Caden, too?

“If you're hungry, eat one of your villains,” Caden said. Better a villain than Jasan and Caden. “They plot against you, Ms. Primrose.”

“It's in their natures, dear.” There was sincere-sounding fondness in her next words. “Bless their conniving little hearts.”