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TEMPESTE

AUBREY RISING BOOK 1

By Devlin Richards
Tempeste

Aubrey Rising Book 1

Devlin Richards

Copyright © 2015 by Devlin Richards

aubreyrisingseries@gmail.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other--except brief quotations in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

First publication 2015
Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

# CHAPTER 1

I have woken from nightmares every other night this week, so tonight is no exception.

My eyes fly open. I'm almost too frightened to scream, just make little gasping noises in the back of my throat. I stare into the pitch blackness, trying to orient myself. I'm in my room. It was just a dream.

I should maybe be used to this by now. I have had nightmares every night since last Friday, and even before that I had them at least a couple times a month. Already this one is fading. I can't remember what it was about, just the sense of darkness, the fear that I've never experienced anything close to in real life. It was just a dream. There's nothing to worry about.

I breathe in, breathe out, try to calm my racing heartbeat. Try to relax enough to go back to sleep. It was just a dream, just a nightmare. I close my eyes, but the darkness of my lids is frightening, and I'm afraid of the dreams returning. I shiver, even though I'm not cold.

It takes a long time for sleep to find me.

It's six-thirty on a Thursday morning.

My alarm clock goes off. I hit out with my arm, trying to press the snooze button, but I miss. My lamp and clock fall off the table and their cords tangle on the floor. By the time I've gotten out of bed and untangled them, the extra nine minutes aren't even worth it anymore.

It's unusually cold for October, the first really stormy day of the year. Rain is sheeting against the window and the trees are almost bent double. I shiver in my bare feet and pajama shorts. Autumns in New Hampshire can be pretty violent. I consider myself lucky that it's not snowing.

I'm exhausted, so I pace the bathroom floor as I brush my teeth, trying to wake myself up. A boom of thunder startles me so badly that I drop my toothbrush in the toilet. I look down at it desperately, not really sure how to proceed. In the end, I just leave it and hope it can become someone else's problem, even though there are only two other people in the house.

It seems like it could just be one of those days, the days where everything seems to go wrong no matter how hard you try to change it. But I know better. Today is going to be different. Something is going to happen today. Sometimes I get feelings like that, a feeling that today will be a good day or a bad day. I don't know if today's feeling is good or bad, but it is important. Something major will happen today. I am almost sure of it.

I pull my frizzy, dirty-blonde hair into a ponytail, stare at my green eyes, consider mascara, decide it's too much work. I examine my pale arms and wish I was tan. Then I figure it doesn't matter, it's not like there's anyone I'm trying to impress. I'm so shy and awkward I'll probably never end up with a boyfriend, and this far into the school year everyone's impressions of me are already set in stone.

I'm already running late, so I hurry down the stairs. Liz has made me breakfast. Liz is my adoptive mother as of almost five months, and probably also the best thing that's ever happened to me. Before this I had lived in five different foster homes, with varying degrees of success. I had lived all over New Hampshire, moving around every few years and never really settling anywhere. Until unexpectedly, Liz adopted me at the beginning of this summer. I have been living with her ever since then.

Liz is pretty cool for a mom, in her mid-thirties, with blonde hair only slightly sandier than mine. She is kind and patient and funny, but with a surprising core of strength. I've always wondered what made her like that, but I don't want to ask.

Lily, Liz's daughter, bounces down the stairs looking more awake than I think I ever feel. Her elementary school starts later then my high school, but she wakes up extra early just to see me. I've only known her for a summer, but I already love her the way people love real little sisters.

Lily is adopted too, but most people wouldn't know it. She doesn't look much like Liz, but she doesn't really look that different either. She's lived with Liz since she was a baby, so she's extremely well-adjusted. She's smart too, almost a genius in terms of other seven-year-olds.

"Aubrey!" she yells. "Good morning!"

"Good morning!" I say back enthusiastically. It's hard not to be enthusiastic around Lily. She acts like everything is the best thing she can imagine. She's full of so much vitality that it seems to almost leak out of her, infusing me with her energy too.

"I packed you a lunch," Liz says, holding it up.

"Thank you." Liz always seems to know what I need, and she works to make it happen for me. I love her too.

Liz has to leave earlier than me. She works as a teacher at a school for gifted children in a nearby town. Her hours aren't as long as they could be, but she does have to start very early. Lily and I wave at her out the window. A pocket of happiness inflates inside me.

But almost as soon as I walk outside, my happiness melts in the rain. I have to walk to the bus stop. I forgot to bring an umbrella, and soon I'm soaked to the skin. Water splashes into my shoes. The wind threatens to tear my hair out of its careful ponytail. I wait, shivering, for the bus. There are a few other kids at my bus stop, but they are all driven down on a morning like this. I think wistfully of my sixteenth birthday in May.

On the bus I sit by myself. It's hard for me to make friends, for several reasons. First, obviously, because I have lived practically my whole life in foster care. Every time I moved I would have to leave all my old friends behind. Eventually I just kind of gave up. But it's more than just that. I've always seemed sort of out of place with other kids my age. I have a different way of looking at life.

The bus ride is about a half-hour. I put earbuds in and listen to music, watching the world go by outside of the window. Even though rain splatters against the window and I can barely see past a few feet, I still think it's beautiful.

It's funny how different some parts of New Hampshire are from others. I've spent mostly my whole life here, but it was almost completely in the sort of small cities that are the biggest you can find in New Hampshire. Liz lives in the northern part of New Hampshire. We live in a small, spread-out town, one of those places that's just kind of sprawled out, with no pattern and no center, where each person has more yard than they know how to deal with and you can't walk to anything. It couldn't be called a city, not by any stretch of the word, but we're definitely not in the middle of nowhere either.

I'm not sure exactly why, but I absolutely love it here. The city is nice, I guess, but it's here in a small town, surrounded by trees and rivers and mountains, that I really belong. I love the way the land has been tamed just enough that it's still wild. The way I can see a deer crossing the road on the way to school, the way there's a small river that runs almost right by my house. The way the woods are full of secrets, the way the sun bleeds into the rest of the sky when it sets. I love the way the wind sometimes bites against me, the way the air always smells like either pine trees or snow.

Most of the people at my school are indifferent toward New Hampshire, or even don't like it. People say it's boring. There's not that much to do here, but there's enough. There's enough coast, enough mountains, enough cities. It's maybe a little boring, but in the end, that's how I like it. I don't think of it as boring so much as peaceful. I like knowing exactly what's supposed to happen every day. I'm not a big fan of surprises. New Hampshire has no secrets, nothing big ever happens there. And that's exactly how I like it.

Once I get to school, the first thing I do is go to homeroom. If I'm being completely honest, I don't even know what my homeroom teacher's name is. I don't particularly care either. I don't think she's ever spoken a word to me, or really anyone, for that matter. I think she teaches some very advanced math class, or possibly art history. She understands that homeroom is a waste of our time, mostly because it's a waste of her time too. She and her students peacefully coexist in silence.

The only good thing about homeroom is that Mackenna is in it. For the five weeks since school's started, and part of the summer, Mackenna Williams has been my best friend. I wouldn't count her as my only friend, but just because I'm friends with some of her friends too. She's the only one I actually, you know, like.

I walk into the classroom and sit down in my usual seat next to her. She turns to me smiling, her eyes laughing. I'm not surprised. Mackenna is one of the most optimistic people I know. She's also surprisingly realistic and clear-headed, which is an unusual combination I'm not quite sure I understand. It seems to work for her though, and it makes her interesting to be around.

Mackenna is prettier in every possible sense of the word. She's been growing her auburn hair for years, and now it reaches the middle of her back. She doesn't wear make-up, but she doesn't need to. Her skin is smooth and flawless except for a sprinkling of freckles on her nose, and her eyes are big and bright. Today she is wearing her usual combination of girly and tough, a ruffly top, a leather jacket, and combat boots. It's a style that works for her, even though she's all of five foot three.

"Hey," she says as soon as I slide into my seat. "How'd your bio test go?"

I groan. "Don't remind me." I'm being melodramatic though. I'm pretty sure, but not positive, it went fine. "How was your presentation?"

"I crushed it."

We talk until we're cut off by the announcements, and a few minutes later, the bell. Then we're both swept apart by the rush of binders, lockers, laughing, gossiping, sweat and lip gloss and tired eyes that is high school. I sigh. Here we go. Another day.

My first class is drawing. I'm not a good artist, the only reason I'm taking it is because I signed up for my classes late and it was the only thing left. It's made up mostly of juniors and seniors who need an art credit to graduate. The teacher is young and innocent and has no idea how to keep control of a class like this. I've been here for over a month and I still haven't done any drawing at all.

I actually try to do homework. I try for a long time. But it's a distracting environment. A paper airplane hits me in the head. Someone is bouncing a ball, and it skids across the table and hits my work. Fearing for its safety, I put it all away. Then I just sit as still as I can, trying not to be injured.

My next class is much better. It's math, and even though math is not my favorite, it's my only class with Mackenna. She laughs when I tell her about the paper airplane. I smile as she talks about a hot new boy in her science class. We listen together as the teacher drones on and on about graphs and square roots and parabolas.

I have first lunch. I sit with some kids in my biology class and peacefully eat my sandwich. I listen to their conversation, but I don't really understand it enough to participate. They are using so many references to pop culture and people I've never heard of that it sounds like they're talking in another language. I don't even bother trying to understand whatever story they're trying to tell. After lunch we all walk to science together.

We were going to go outside and study some real plant life, but it's still raining too hard. Instead, we have to stay inside and learn about their cells. I'm disappointed. I've always liked plants, and I'm good at taking care of them, too.

My last class is a combination of language arts and social studies. Right now we're reading a play by Shakespeare. Every day the teacher calls on a few kids to act out the section we're working on so we can understand it better. I haven't been called on yet, but today is just one of those days.

I'm almost shaking as I stand in front of the class. I'm holding the paper with my lines on it so tightly that it's crumpling. I hate, hate, talking in front of people.

I only have two lines, but my voice cracks on one, and I mess up the other one so badly that the class laughs at me. To make it worse, the other female role is played by a girl who actually acts for fun, and the difference between us makes me look worse. The class seems to take forever and by the time I'm done I feel like crying.

Liz told me last night that she could pick me up after school, but as I stand in the parking lot bracing myself against the rain, I get a text from her saying she's going to be about a half-hour late. I splash back up to the school, only to find that they've already locked the doors. I find a little sheltered alcove and sit down, waiting for Liz. I'm literally in an inch of water. I resign myself to becoming wet.

The storm clouds are blocking out most of the sun, so it almost looks like it's night. When Liz finally pulls up, she has her headlights on.

Even with the car's lights on, the heavy rain makes it hard to see. It's so cold that in some places the damp road has frozen into a thin layer of ice. I can see that Liz is worried about keeping control of the car. I don't say anything. I don't want to distract her.

The car's tires aren't gripping the road anymore. The car is slipping down a straight hill. We slide down it only slightly too fast for comfort. Liz keeps the car on the road fairly easily. Even so, all my muscles are tensed up against the seat belt. My heart pounds. I have so much nervous energy I feel like I'm going to explode. Something is going to happen. Somehow, I can feel it.

At the bottom of the hill, there's a turn. Liz manages to get control of the car enough to make it. But only about twenty yards in, lying fully across the road is a tree.

Liz slams on the brakes, but we have too much momentum. We're not stopping. A scream tears itself from my throat. My hands are out to brace myself, my eyes are closed. I don't want to see the tree. I want to picture something beautiful. But I can't. We're going to crash. I'm going to die. And there's nothing I can do.

# CHAPTER 2

The car comes to a gentle stop. I slowly open my eyes, expecting to be nose to nose with the tree, plucked from the hands of death. I was certainly plucked from death, but the tree is nowhere in sight. It's like it has disappeared into thin air.

I shake my head a little bit. It feels thick and fuzzy, like it's been packed full of cotton. I rub my eyes with my palms, but it doesn't help. The tree is still nowhere in sight.

"What just happened?" I start to ask, but Liz is already unbuckling, getting out of the car. Without making a conscious decision I follow her, and we stand next to each other, looking out at the rainswept road.

The tree literally looks like it's been knocked aside by a dinosaur. Branches and leaves litter the road. The tree has been shoved violently to the side, completely out of the road. The whole thing is in the forest now, almost pushing over other trees. As I involuntarily step forward, I see that there are burn marks on the tree's trunk and the thicker branches have gouged chunks out of the road.

Liz stares at it. Her eyes grow wider and wider, full of fear and something else I can't quite place. I've never really seen her afraid before, never seen her anything aside from perfectly calm and contained.

"What's happening?" I ask.

She turns her head toward me, as if she's in a dream. Than she seems to snap out of it, and her whole demeanor changes instantly. She is suddenly deadly calm and focused. It's more frightening than the blind fear.

"Get in the car. Now," she hisses, and I'm too stunned to disobey. I move mechanically as I get into the car, strap myself in, shut the door behind me. Liz doesn't even glance at me, she drives like she's in a trance, staring only at the road. I'm not exactly cold, but suddenly I realize I'm shivering. My head hurts now, right behind my eyes.

"What's happening?" I repeat, but she ignores me.

We pull up to the house, all dark and cold and empty. The garage door looks eerily like a huge mouth, opening wide to swallow us. Normally I love the house, all exposed wood and brick. It's a colonial house with a few extensions added on over the years, and it has tons of charm. But today, shrouded in storm clouds and rain, it creeps me out.

"Go inside," she says as we pull into the garage.

"No. Not until you tell me what's going on."

"I will. But not here. Inside." She sounds strangely broken, and I have to do what she says.

The house is silent, except for the rain beating against the window, and the sound of thunder echoing overhead. I realize it's because Lily's gone. Normally she gets home around the same time as me, maybe a little earlier. I'm distracted by the fact that she isn't here yet.

"Where's Lily?"

"At a friend's house," Liz says, not even looking at me.

I don't say anything else, just perch gingerly on the edge of the couch, and she sinks down next to me, burying her head in her hands.

"I am so sorry," she whispers.

I just look at her. Suddenly my head is pounding so hard I can't think. Liz is scaring me. I don't know what to say to her.

"I never would have wished this upon you. But I did know it was coming. I mean, I was never sure. I could have been wrong. I wish I could have been wrong. I...that would have been better. I...I think." I'm not even sure if she's talking to me anymore. It's like she's comforting herself, or convincing herself of something.

I can't contain myself anymore. I have to say something. I have to find out what's going on. "Wished what on me? What are you talking about? What's going on?"

For some reason, I'm panicking. There's something wrong here, and Liz is scaring me. I don't know what's going on. And whatever's happening, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be part of it. When Liz looks like she is about to start talking, I have to resist the urge to put my hands over my ears. I suddenly don't want to hear what she has to say. I need more...time? Warning? Comfort? I don't know. I feel like I don't know anything anymore. Like I was standing on something, and it's gone now. I'm falling, but I'm not sure why.

Liz starts out slowly, haltingly. "Some people in this world are born different. Special. I was born like this. Lily was born like this. I was pretty sure you were born like this. And I was right."

I shake my head. "What are you talking about?"

My voice is shaking, raw with fear. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand anything. Is Liz insane? Like, actually certifiable? Shouldn't I have noticed by now if she was? But then what is she talking about?

"Some people are born with powers. Special powers. One might even say...magical powers."

I just blink at her. Liz is going insane. Liz must be going insane. That is the only explanation. Because this cannot be happening. She reads the expression in my eyes.

"You think I'm crazy," she says, and the hurt in her voice is evident. "That's why I waited so long to tell you. So I would have proof. I mean, I didn't mean for this to happen, but...."

"What proof?"

"The tree!" She hesitates suddenly, her voice breaking, and when she speaks again, she sounds almost tentative. "You made that happen. You saved both of our lives."

"I did?" I find myself getting sucked in despite myself. This can't be real, it doesn't make sense. But what if it...what if it is?

I wish Mackenna was here, so she could smack me and tell me to not be so stupid. I trust Liz, and because of that I'm giving too much weight to everything she says. I need to calm down. I need to think. I need to...I don't know what I need to do.

Liz sighs. "I knew I would just have to show you."

She closes her hand quickly, then opens it up revealing a small swirling ball of light. I actually tremble as I lean closer to get a better look at it. It's milky yellow and misty- looking, and it's casting a faint white glow on the palm of Liz's hand.

"Here," she whispers, "take it."

She tilts her hand slightly and the ball rolls gently through the air and comes to rest in the center of my palm. Immediately, it changes from creamy white to grass green. I can feel that I am sustaining it, I can feel it sucking away my energy.

I cup the tiny orb in my hands, letting its light reflect onto my face. And I smile, because watching the glowing ball is making me happy. I feel like some sort of addictive drug is coursing through my veins. But then I remember that none of this is real, and my inexplicable happiness vanishes. The ball disappears.

Now I'm confused. Because Liz can't be the crazy one. Or at least she can't be the only crazy one anymore. Because how can I disregard something I have seen with my own eyes? This must be real. I've seen it, and if I don't trust anything else I trust myself. There's no other explanation.

"I'm dreaming," I whisper, because that is what must be happening. That makes sense. Sort of. But I don't want to wake up. I want to stay here in this place where I am special, this place where I am happy. All of a sudden I don't want this strange story to be a dream.

My eyes meet Liz's. I don't think she would lie to me. If this was a dream she would tell me, right? I know I'm making excuses, I know I'm not making sense. But I can't help it. I want this to be real. So I decide to pretend, to play along until something else happens. Because maybe it's the dreams, the things you want desperately to be real but can't be, that make the most difference.

"I believe you," I say, so quietly it almost doesn't exist. But it does. And for a glorious moment, I don't care about the consequences of those three small words. I am going to revel in this fantastical, wonderful dream.

I realize I'm breathing hard like I just ran a race. Somehow I know I have just changed everything. At least in my dream. This is only a dream. Only a dream.

Liz smiles. "I'm glad you believe me."

"Will you show me more magic?" I ask almost eagerly, a little scared. I'm trying to resist, but it's like trying to resist rolling down a hill. I fit into the world like I was made for it and suddenly everything feels right.

Liz considers it for a few moments. Finally, she nods. "Come outside with me."

"Outside?"

"You'll see."

As soon as I step outside, the rain soaks me. Again. And I start shivering. Again. But I actually don't mind. Today this storm feels like a storm of destiny.

Liz is also standing in the rain, but she isn't shivering. Instead she looks completely at peace. She closes her eyes, turns her face toward the sky, then suddenly extends her arms.

The rain stops in midair and remains, trembling above the ground. Some of it seems to rise upward until there's a dry circle all around us. Liz brings her arms in, and gallons of water draws itself into the middle of our circle and splashes in a silver column to the ground. Then Liz spreads the water out along the ground so it is like a mirror, reflecting the sky. As I move closer I see there are pictures in the water, remaining only seconds before fading away.

With one movement Liz throws her arms outward. The water explodes, shattering up and out in a thousand bright glowing stars. The light is so bright that for a moment the after-image is super-imposed on the back of my eyelids.

When I can see again, Liz is standing in front of me, wet with rain and breathing hard. All I can say is "Wow."

"I forgot how tired something like that can make you," she says. "There's so much you have to learn."

"I'm gonna learn how to do that?"

"Eventually."

"Really? When can I start?"

"There's a lot you need to know before you can start. Let's go back inside."

I hesitate. Just for a second, but it's there. And it's real. Because somehow deep inside myself, I know that I'm not dreaming. This actually is real. And if I go inside, if I follow her, I can't go back. I'm afraid. And for a second, I'm not sure if I can do this. It feels so right, but at the same time it feels wrong. It feels frightening. It feels dangerous.

But I go inside anyway. I follow Liz, even knowing this is real, even being afraid. I do it because of the deep feeling of...rightness, maybe? Not safety exactly, but belonging, an identity that my whole life I've been missing. But even as I open the door I'm not sure if it is the right choice.

But I do know one thing. I am not dreaming. This is absolutely real. I can try to tell myself it's not, but I know I would be lying. And whatever the consequences are, they are real too.

"There are a few rules to using magic," Liz begins. "First, all magic takes energy. If you use up too much energy in one go, you could pass out or die. You have to remember that. It's maybe the most important thing I'll ever tell you." She pauses. "What did I just say?"

And suddenly she is my mother again, she is Liz. Lecturing me at the dinner table, showing me how to drive in empty parking lots, trying to give me pointless dating advice that I'll probably never get the chance to use. "Don't use too much magic at once," I say. "You could...die."

She smiles at me proudly, like I'm a good student, a good daughter. "Right. There's no good way to know how much energy a specific task will take. It is different for everybody. As you do more magic, you will come to better understand your limits. You will also get stronger.

"People who can do magic have one area that they are particularly adept at, one area of expertise. It can be something like water, fire, or metal, or something like healing. Some people have the spirit of a certain kind of animal and they have some of the traits of that animal. The possibilities are almost endless. My power is water."

"What's my power?" I interrupt. Saying it out loud makes me almost giddy. I have a power.

"I don't know yet. There's normally a test we administer to figure out what kind of magic you have. I'll give it to you later."

"Wait, what do you mean a test you normally administer? How many times have you given the test?"

"Lots of times. More than I can count."

"I thought you said there were only a very few people with magic."

"Percentage-wise, it's a very small proportion. But in certain places, more magic people gather. This town is one of those places. There is a school for magic kids here. I'm a teacher there."

I force myself to slow down, take a deep breath. Take all this in. The fear is starting to leave, replaced by a sense of wonder. Or maybe the fear already was gone and it has been a sort of wonder this whole time. I don't know anything anymore, not even about myself. I shiver a little bit.

"Does the school have like, a name? Have I heard of it before?" I feel like a magic school should have a cool, mysterious name, something that sounds magic, that feels like it's whispering secrets every time you say it. I can't actually think of what this kind of name would be. But I'm sure Liz has one.

She flashes me an almost sheepish smile. "Actually, no. It's been here since very early America, back when it was the only school in town. It's actually just called the School."

"Oh. Um, okay." I'm almost disappointed about that, but it's soon forgotten. "What do you teach?"

"I help run the School. I'm almost like a principal, but the work is more divided so it's not exactly the same. I also teach classes on water and light energy."

"What's light energy?" I know I'm asking a question every few seconds but I can't help it. And these are just a few of the thousands of questions swirling around in my head. I'm going all out now, and there's no turning back.

"Light energy is magic in its purest form. It has been around since the beginning of time, and was created by the Queen of the Wilderness. Most magic people can use it to some extent, some more than others."

"Wait, the Queen of what? The wilderness? Who's that?"

"That's a long story, and I'll tell you soon. But first there's one more thing I have to tell you about, one more thing I feel awful for lying about." She takes a deep breath. "I have another daughter, not just Lily. She's almost exactly your age. She's an exchange student right now, visiting a magic school in California. She's coming back in about two months. Her name is Paige. She and Lily both have magic."

I gasp slightly. How did Liz hide another daughter from me? And why?

"What kind of magic?" I smile a little bit at myself. I already have a grasp of this world. I'm already using the right words.

"Paige is water, like me. And Lily has the spirit of a bird. She has wings."

I blink. "You mean that metaphorically, right?" It's a vague attempt at a joke, but I'm not really one of those people who's funny when they're stressed. My voice cracks.

"No." She rummages in her purse and pulls out a faded, crumpled photograph.

I look at it. Lily and an older girl are sitting on the lowest branch of a tree, with a lake sparkling behind them.

At first all I can see is Lily. Because Liz obviously did not mean that her wings were metaphorical. I can see them in the picture. They are white and feathery, almost as long as she is tall. Wearing a white dress, with her wavy hair down and wings extended behind her, she looks like an angel.

I look at the other girl. She is tall and slender with violet eyes, and Liz's freckles and straight, sandy hair. She's wearing an old concert T-shirt, dark jeans, and canvas sneakers. There's a purple streak in her hair. Her smile shows straight white teeth, but there's a hint of playfulness and almost mischievousness behind it.

I smile. I have an adopted sister and I didn't even know it. Then I frown. I have an adopted sister that I didn't even know about.

"Why didn't you tell me about Paige?" I say angrily. "Or Lily? Or me, for that matter? Why didn't you tell me everything as soon as you met me? Why did you lie to me for so long?"

"Aubrey, I'm sorry. I didn't want to lie to you, I never wanted to hide the truth. But how could I tell you about Paige or Lily without telling you everything? Wouldn't you have wanted to know where Paige was? And you never would have accepted that Lily was just a freak of nature."

"But why?" I'm more hurt than angry now, hurt that she wasn't honest from the beginning.

Liz closes her eyes. I can see her trying to gather her thoughts. "Well you wouldn't have believed me for one. Even now when you have so much evidence, I can see that you still barely believe me. But that wasn't the only reason. It's also, well, right now magic is dangerous. We are at war. Anyone who has magic or even knows about magic is in danger. They have to either hide or pick a side and fight."

# CHAPTER 3

I realize my heart is throbbing again. I've taken my emotions on a roller coaster ride, feeling the whole range. Panic, wonder, disbelief, anger, crippling fear....

"Even me?" I ask it with a painful anxiety that I don't even think she notices. I don't want to pick a side and fight. How could I ever be ready for something like that?

"Right now you're too young to fight. But in the future yes, even you."

She pauses a moment and lets that sink in. I feel dizzy. I think I might be hyperventilating.

"What's the war about anyway?"

"That's a long story. It's getting late, are you sure you want to hear it now?"

I glance at the clock. It's only six, not particularly late. Dinner time, if this was a normal day. But it's not. I don't know if I'll ever have a normal day, eating dinner at six, again. "What about Lily? When are you going to pick her up?"

"She's not at a friend's house, she's at the School. We have a room there, and there will be people to take care of her. She can stay there all night."

"Oh. Um, oh." I trail off. I picture an industrial building, lined with lockers and harsh fluorescent light, smelling of chemical cleaners. I can't believe Liz would let Lily stay there over night. It distracts me, and for a few seconds I can't even remember what we were talking about.

"Tell me why there's a war. I want to know the whole story," I finally say.

"I don't even know where to start."

"How about at the beginning?" I rub my hand unconsciously along the sofa, making the plush stick up and smoothing it back down. The movement relaxes me.

I realize I really am tired. It's not late, but suddenly I'm not sure if I do want to hear this story now. I remember what Liz said about magic taking energy, and I wonder if that's what's happening to me. But I can't rest yet, I can't stop now. I am going to hear this story tonight.

I let Liz start talking, her voice lulling me into a sort of rhythm. I can tell this is a story she's told many times before, her voice hovering somewhere between a historical account and a bedtime story.

"A long time ago, there was a village high in the mountains. The village was set apart by magic, and no one who didn't already know of its existence could enter."

Already, I'm distracted. What does she mean, set apart by magic? But I'm not about to interrupt the story to ask. If it was important right now, she would tell me.

"At sixteen years of age every child in the village was tested for magic. Some of them had it, some of them didn't. The children who didn't would grow up to be farmers or bakers or craftsmen. The children who did have it would become healers or warriors. Some got positions of power in the village. And the most powerful children were sent to other nearby villages to further develop their abilities. The most promising of those were sent out to be part of the Queen's guard."

"What Queen?"

"We'll get to that later. Let me finish telling about the three sisters."

"Who are the three sisters?"

"Shh! Listen to the story."

I don't say anything.

"Anyway, in this village there were three sisters. Their names were Tempeste, Zephyra, and Mercuriel. They were each one year apart in age, so they were tested for magic in consecutive years. All three were very powerful in magic. Tempeste had water magic, Zephyra had air magic, and Mercuriel was a full shifter."

"What's a shifter?" I say. I told myself I wasn't going to ask questions, but it's not really working out for me.

"It's someone who can change completely into an animal. They're very rare. We have...I mean had, two at the School. They're both dead now."

"Oh." I think my face constricts or something, because Liz gives me a look. But I don't say anything else.

"I believe Mercuriel could originally shift into a jaguar, but eventually she learned how to shift into other animals as well. I think she's the only person besides the Queen who's ever been able to do that.

"The three sisters were sent off to the nearby village to increase their magic. Within a few years, they had surpassed their teachers.

"They became some of the youngest students training for the Queen's guard. They were only about your age when they started. I believe they enjoyed it, at least at first. But over time they became bored, and started doing increasingly cruel and twisted experiments with their magic. They did...things to animals, people too, later. Non-magic people, of course.

"Their teachers discovered some of what they were doing and became frightened. They tried to have the sisters imprisoned, but they fled into the night. They tried to go back to the village where they grew up, but it was in the midst of a war and the three sisters were no longer welcome there. Alone and friendless, they left their home for the real world. They stayed at an inn for several weeks trying to find a more permanent home. But then disaster struck.

"While the sisters where staying at the inn, four men saw Mercuriel doing magic. They were frightened, and attacked her. Tempeste and Zephyra found her. But they couldn't fight the men, not without doing more magic and attracting even more attention to themselves. Eventually a few people saw what was going on and helped them and they, with the other two sisters, killed the men. But not before Mercuriel got a knife in the stomach.

"She came very close to death. They used magic to stop the injury from getting worse, but Mercuriel remained in a coma and there was nothing either of them could do to heal her.

"The two remaining sisters were devastated, and they traveled the world looking for something to cure her. As they traveled, their hatred for the people who injured their sister turned to hatred of all non-magic people. It grew into something dark and twisted, blown out of proportion and no longer completely based in fact. As they searched for Mercuriel's cure, they also hatched a plan to eliminate the non-magic race."

"Why? It was only those four men, and they were dead. What does the entire non-magic race have to do with anything?"

"I believe that they didn't want to only practice their magic in secret. They knew that it is in human nature to be afraid of what is not understood. As long as there were people who didn't have magic, the people who did would be excluded, on the fringes. And they, and anyone else who practiced magic, would be in danger from anyone who discovered magic and saw it as a threat. They knew that their sister had only been attacked because she had magic. And they knew that if they had been able to use magic in public, they would have been able to save her life.

"Anyway, after many years the sisters finally found a way to heal Mercuriel. They used some kind of potion I believe, but nobody aside from them really knows what was in it. It brought her back to life, healing her wound, but she was no longer fully human. In the process the sisters also managed to extend their own lives. They were not completely immortal, but they were as close as it is possible to come. Their lives would be the length of many lifetimes. Once the three sisters were united again, they started making a plan to kill every non-magic person in the world. They believed that only when that occurred, could people practice magic in freedom and safety.

"There was only one thing in their way, the Queen of the Wilderness. The Queen of the Wilderness is an immortal being, similar in many ways to the idea of Mother Earth. She is believed to have originally created magic in its pure form. She keeps the balance of nature, and while she is alive magic users cannot wage war on non-magic users. In fact, magic cannot affect non-magic people at all. This is called the magic barrier, and it is maintained through her life force.

"The Queen of the Wilderness is not completely invincible, but she is very difficult to kill. The sisters knew that if they were to continue with their plans, she must die."

Now Liz is telling the story like a fairy tale. It's sad, and sort of beautiful. But it still doesn't seem real. It's a pretty story that never really happened, that has no bearing on me, no bearing on my life.

"The three sisters patiently bided their time until they could kill her. They waited until she was made vulnerable by the birth of her young daughter, then they captured her." "Daughter? She had a daughter?"

"Has a daughter." Liz corrects. "We believe she's still alive. And she is the key to our success."

"She is?"

"Yes. Every few hundred years the Queen has a daughter, a Princess of the Wilderness. The Princess is more powerful than a normal human. The daughters are always born at times of great need. They help humanity in some way. After the three sisters killed the Queen...."

"Wait, they killed her? I thought you said she was immortal. And if she was all that was in the way of the three sisters destroying everyone, why isn't everyone destroyed? Oh and uh, sorry for interrupting. Again."

"It's okay. I know you must have a ton of questions. Anyway, the three sisters tried to kill the Queen, but their plan backfired. Or at least it didn't work the way they expected it too. They expected the Queen to die, and to be able to fairly easily crush any resistance and take complete control of the non-magic population. But as I said before, it didn't work out like that.

"The Queen was killed, but her daughter survived. And while her daughter lives, the Queen cannot completely disappear. Though she is no longer on this earth, her presence is still with us. She is preventing the three sisters and their army from laying a hand on the non-magic people.

"When the sisters realized this, they were furious. They could't find the Princess, so they started attacking all magic users who were not sympathetic with their cause. No one was expecting it. It...it was a massacre. We now call it the Great Purge." She pauses. "My husband was killed then."

"I'm sorry," I say awkwardly.

"Yes...." She trails off, looking into the distance, lost in memories. "So pretty soon there were clear sides, people who believed that in order for people to really use magic everyone without it had to die, and those who believed killing that many people is never right. For the past fifteen years these two sides have been fighting on and off. Both sides have been looking for the Daughter of the Wilderness, us to protect her, them to kill her. Right now the fighting is at a lull. Tempeste is in Asia somewhere we think, trying to expand her army. Zephyra is in hiding, trying to increase her magic. We have no idea where Mercuriel is or what she might be doing, but at least she isn't attacking us.

"The Queen has been gone so long that her protective magic is starting to weaken. The magic barrier is wavering. There have been short periods of time where the sisters have been able to attack non-magic people. If this war doesn't end within the next few years, if we can't find the Lost Princess, it will be over anyway."

"And we know nothing about where the Princess is?"

"No. All we know is that she would be unusually powerful, and a couple years older than you. She's probably already very good at magic, better than most people could ever hope to be. And very good at hiding."

I think about that for a little while. I'm not sure why the Daughter of the Wilderness intrigues me so much. Maybe it's just that I sympathize with her. I grew up with no parents too, so I know what she must feel like. Also, she's the one thing I think I understand in this crazy story.

And as I examine my feelings about the Princess, I discover something about myself too. I'm angry at Liz for not telling me about magic, but not really at all for dragging me into this war. I'm not exactly eager to start fighting, but somehow it feels right to me. It's a good cause. I don't want to fight, but I do want to protect people. My people. I realize I'm still associating with non-magic people.

"When can I start learning magic?"

Liz shrugs. "You can try it now if you want. You probably won't be able to do it yet."

"So what do I do? Do I have to say a spell or pray to some god or something?"

"No! We aren't pagans. We don't use spells or symbols or anything. Magic is not associated with a religion. Even so, many of us believe that God gave us our powers to help humanity."

"Are you a Christian?" I ask in surprise. I haven't seen Liz go to church once.

"I am. Or at least, I was. Maybe I could be again. But so much has happened...." She trails off, and I don't press it.

"So how do I do it?" I ask. Liz looks almost startled, like in that brief moment she had forgotten I was there. I wonder what she was thinking about.

"Yes, sorry." She pauses. "This is how I explain it to the kids just learning. Do you feel an ache in your chest right where your heart is, one that's kind of always there, but gets worse when you think about it or do certain things?"

I nod. I have always had an ache in my chest, not big enough to really attract attention. Normally it's so faint I barely notice it, but sometimes it flares up unexpectedly.

"Focus on that ache. That's the magic trying to get out."

I close my eyes and pretend that the tiny ache is like a seed, trying to grow into a plant. I imagine the plant growing, expanding upward, each leaf unfurling. I can feel my hands getting warm. I look down, excited, but as soon as I open my eyes the magic fades. I try to swallow down the disappointment bubbling in my chest.

"It's fine Aubrey. Very few people can purposefully do magic on their first try. Especially if they start as late as you."

"Am I starting really late?"

"It depends. If someone tells you that you have magic, you can usually start using it between five and seven. If you don't know about magic, it will reveal itself around thirteen. Then things like what happened with you tonight will start happening. Some people go through their whole lives like that, with a trail of unexplained circumstances behind them. That might have happened to you or Lily if we hadn't found you."

"You adopted us because we have magic?"

Liz slowly nods. "Some people like me can sense other people who have strong magic potential. That's how I found you. With Lily it was fairly obvious she had magic just by looking."

"So you adopted me just because I have magic?" I'm not really angry, but it comes across that way. Part of me wants to take it back, but I don't. I want to see how she responds.

"Not just because we thought you might have magic, but because we thought you might have strong magic. And because I like you. You're interesting. Someone I like having as a daughter." She smiles at me and I can see her love shine through.

"Sensing magic is imprecise and not always accurate. I didn't want to drag you into the war if you didn't have it, but I was willing to adopt you. Now I'm glad I did. Because the magic you did tonight, that was very powerful. I'm happy I was there for you. It's...very hard when teens start to discover their magic and they have no one to help them. I would never want you to go through that. I would never want you to feel so alone."

A wave of dizziness washes over me. Now not only do I have magic, but it's powerful. And she's talking about the war again, reminding me that I'll have to fight. Now I feel like I might be about to pass out. I lean forward, bracing my arms on my knees and my forehead on my arms. I'm overwhelmed. This is too much.

"What's going to stay the same?" I gasp, because I need something to be the same. I need something to hold onto. It's funny the way a few minutes ago I was practically laughing with wonder, and now I feel like I need to put my head between my knees so I don't faint.

"I'll be the same, Lily will be the same. You can still go to public school and everyone there will be exactly the same."

"I...I can still go to normal school?" I look up, my eyes hopeful. "I thought you said there was a magic school."

"There is. But a lot of kids go to both the School and normal school. Almost all kids start out going to normal school during the day and the School in the afternoon. Kids who want to work in the non-magic world keep going to normal school to get a college degree. At some point you might want to start going to magic school in the day too, but for now you can go to both."

I fall back against the pillow, suddenly weak. "Thank you," I whisper.

A silence hangs between us. It's not awkward or anything though, more thoughtful. I'm not panicking anymore, but my head is still swirling with questions. Too many for me to begin to ask.

"You don't have to go to school tomorrow, but you should still go to bed," Liz says after a while.

I nod. I am tired, but I don't think I'll be able to sleep. I go upstairs anyway, though, and fall into bed fully dressed. For a long time I lie on my back staring up at the ceiling. I try to shut down my mind, to not think of anything. It doesn't work. Lazy thoughts keep drifting across it, each one too smooth and fragile to cling to, like a child's bubbles.

Liz listed off all the things that would stay the same, but somehow none of those feel real. I feel like a baby bird. My egg was the only reality I ever knew, and now that has shattered, leaving me alone and confused and exposed. I'm excited, but part of me wants to go back to my shell, where there is nothing unknown, where everything is safe.

Safe. I shiver. Nothing feels safe anymore. Less than five hours ago I was shoved into a war that's been going on my whole life. A real war, a war where people have lost their lives. This is too big for me. I'm not ready.

Safe. Liz's husband wasn't safe. The Daughter of the Wilderness isn't safe. The two shifters Liz mentioned weren't safe. Liz and Lily and Paige aren't safe. I'm not safe. Nobody is safe.

I curl on my side and start to cry, hugging the blanket to my chest. I'm trying to be quiet, so the sobs catch in my throat. I stuff the my blanket into my mouth to muffle the sound of my ragged breathing, bite down on it to keep from screaming. My eyes burn from trying to hold back tears.

It doesn't even work. A shadow crosses the doorway and I know Liz is checking on me. I pretend to be asleep until she's gone, shaking with the effort of staying quiet.

Eventually I give up on trying to control my thoughts and just let them go. It takes a while, but eventually they go around in circles so much that I finally tire myself out. I fall asleep at six, around the same time I normally wake up for school. For once I'm so tired that I don't dream.

# CHAPTER 4

Most of the day I sleep. When I finally wake up it's early afternoon. Lily must be at the School, because she's not here. Liz is downstairs in the kitchen.

For a few glorious seconds I don't remember the events of last night. But only for a few seconds. Then it all comes crashing back down, smothering me like a wave.

I sigh as I walk down the stairs. Liz looks up at me.

"How are you doing?" she asks with a sympathetic smile.

I sigh again. I don't really know how I'm supposed to answer that. "I'm okay, I guess," I finally say. Maybe. Kind of. Sort of. Not.

"Well at least you got to sleep in. That's something."

"Oh yeah, my improved sleeping schedule totally outweighs the fact that people have been lying to me about a hidden power my whole life. And now I'm part of a war too."

"You can have a few down days before anything changes."

I shake my head. "I don't want that. I just kind of want to...throw myself into my new life, I guess. Does that make sense? Do you think I could start going to the magic school today?"

"I don't know. We don't even know what your magic is yet." She looks like she wants to make me happy, but doesn't really want to say yes. "And today is Challenge Day."

I blink. "It's what?"

"Challenge Day." She glances at the clock. "It's important, I really should be there, but I wanted to at least wait for you to wake up."

"And what the...what do you do during Challenge Day?"

"Well, each grade gets a challenge, like with fighting and magic. I think last year it was...." She trails off, thinking. "Oh, I remember. There were enemy forces in the woods, and each grade had to find and capture them."

"Enemy forces?"

"It's just the teachers, all dressed up." She smiles. "It's actually pretty fun for us too. And the kids love it. Look forward to it all year. It helps us measure how they're doing, how they would do in a real situation."

"I think it seems like a good day to meet them."

"You wouldn't be able to really participate."

"So? It would still be...fun." It does not sound fun. But it sounds...dramatic, like I would probably be able to hang back and be mostly ignored. "And I want to meet the other kids in my grade."

I can tell Liz wants to leave.

"I'm ready to go now," I offer. "Just let me change first."

I mean to just throw on sweats, but somehow I end up in the shower. I let the warm water relax me. Or at least I try to let the warm water relax me. It doesn't really work. I go through the familiar motions as if I am in a dream. Everything is completely familiar, but at the same time it is alien.

I get in the car and strap on my seatbelt. I have a vague twinge of anxiety that I make myself ignore. Surprisingly it's not about trying magic, but about meeting the other kids my age. These kids are my true peers, more than any other kids have ever been. I should be excited. I just desperately want to make a good impression.

"So how many kids my age are there?" I ask Liz as we turn onto the street.

"Nine..I mean seven." She answers, her voice catching just slightly. From the way she says it I can tell that there used to be nine. I wonder who the other two kids were.

"Wow, there's really only seven? Why are there so few?"

"Being born with magic is very rare. We only have about three hundred kids in the whole school. But your generation is unusually small because it was the year the Queen of the Wilderness was killed and the war began. You won't have all your classes with your age group alone, though."

"I won't?" I ask.

"No. You will have Athletics, Fighting, History and Strategy, First-aid, and Survival with them. And a few times a week you have to have a class with all other kids who have your same magic."

Whoa. That's a lot of classes. They sound like something made up, like in a book or movie. Fighting? First-aid? Classes in magic? They sound made up, but I know they're not. They're real, and they're mine. In a few days, maybe a week at most, I'll be taking those classes too.

I hope there are some kids with my magic, but I'm not really sure how we would find them since we don't even know what my magic is. I hope the kids my age like me. I hope I don't say anything stupid, I hope I don't embarrass myself, I hope they're not already all part of a pack with no place for me. I want this to be the answer to all my problems, that I haven't ever fit in anywhere because the place I fit in is here. If I don't even fit in with these kids I'll be crushed. At least I'll still have Mackenna.

"Hey Liz, do you think Mackenna could have magic?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But it is really, really rare to find two magic kids of the same age in the same school."

"But shouldn't more magic kids live in this town? Isn't that what you said last night?"

"Because their parents move here to go to the School, not just randomly."

"But maybe fate brought us together."

"Aubrey, can we please not talk about this right now? I had a late night and I'm just trying to get through today."

Her tone of voice makes me notice for the first time how tired and stressed she looks. She has dark circles under her eyes and her shoulders are tense. I've been so wrapped up in myself that I haven't even spared a thought for anyone else. Not even Liz.

"What's wrong?" I ask. "Did you not sleep at all last night?"

"It's just," she hesitates, "Paige's school was attacked last night. I found out after you went to bed. Paige is fine, but some people died. And the school was destroyed."

"Who did it?"

"That's the thing. One of the teachers called me, and he...he said it was Tempeste."

My brow crinkles. "I thought you said Tempeste was in Asia. That you hadn't been attacked in years."

She nods. "We have been at peace for several years, yes. But it seems that the time of peace is over. Tempeste is on the move. Her army is finally big enough, and nothing will stop her until she finds the Princess."

I just sit there, shocked into silence. I have no idea what to say, how to react. Even though I've never met Paige, I'm glad for Liz and Lily's sakes that she hadn't died. But other children had. A hard pit of worry settles in my stomach.

By the time we arrive at the School I'm extremely anxious. After telling me what happened, Liz remained silent and tense for the rest of the ride. But as we pull into the School I can see her visibly trying to relax.

I try to relax too, but it doesn't work at all. My heart is pounding against my rib cage like a trapped bird. The strange sense of certainty I had this morning is gone. I'm just a frightened teenage girl again. Why was I so determined to come to magic school today? I don't even know what magic I have, and why did I have to come on Challenge Day or whatever it's called? Also, I got the weirdest night's sleep ever. I'm seriously considering begging Liz to take me back home. I'm not ready for this.

I finally force myself to look up at the School. It's a strange building. Once, when I was younger, I went on a field trip to a one-room schoolhouse. That's what it reminds me the most of, all straight weathered planks and old fashioned windows. It looks like someone took a one-room schoolhouse and added onto it, but all the additions are from different time periods. There's bits of slightly less worn-looking wood, and a few different kinds of bricks. There was a second floor added, and later a third. There are some pretty modern looking supports keeping it all together. The entire thing ends up being maybe the size of my normal high school, maybe a little bigger.

"Alright, let's go." Liz sounds impatient, but I can tell from the way her voice cracks at the end and her shoulders are all tensed up that she's nervous. "I'll introduce you to the other kids, then I'll give you some time to get to know each other. You'll only have a little while before it's their turn for Challenge Day."

I nod, swallowing past the knot of nervousness in my throat. It's just seven kids. And Paige won't even be here, so it will just be six. I can handle meeting six new kids. Right?

Liz leads me down the main hallway in the School. It looks like the hallway in any school, no worse, no better. No different. It's not like I've been here before, so it's not really familiar to me. But for some reason I feel right when I'm here, like I've always belonged here and my whole life I've just been waiting for this place.

Liz turns off on another smaller hallway, then turns into a room. I hesitate at the door, suddenly afraid again. But I have to do this. I'll never forgive myself if I don't. So I take a deep breath and follow her inside.

The six kids are sitting around a circular table, pushing a piece of paper around and scribbling notes on it. I catch a quick glimpse of it. It's a series of arrows, dots, and x's. A battle plan? Maybe. Not that I've ever seen one before, except in movies, but that's a bit what it looks like.

Almost the second I step through the door all of the kids' heads snap up, analyzing every detail of my physical appearance as only a teenager can do. Their eyes seem to bore into me and I have a sudden wild instinct to run out of the room and down the hallway. I fight it.

I suck in my stomach and tense all my muscles. I somehow know that to be a part of this group I have to appear strong and fit rather than beautiful. Liz doesn't do anything, just lets them decide to accept or reject me. I'm holding my breath the whole time, resisting the need to close my eyes. I hate meeting new people. I hate trying to make good first impressions. I hate myself when I have dumb ideas like going to the magic school the day after I find out I have magic. I hate this.

Suddenly a girl stands up from the back. She walks toward me, gracefully. Somehow she manages to be strong, fit and beautiful. She is slender, an inch or two taller than me, which is kind of impressive since I'm almost five-eight. Her hair falls all the way down her back, lustrous raven-black curls. As she gets closer I see that her eyes are a startlingly pale grey.

"Hi," she says. "Welcome to the School. My name is Rowan. What's yours?"

She seems genuinely friendly. I find myself opening up to her. "I'm Aubrey," I say. I realize I'm staring at the ground and I look up to meet her eyes. They're looking at my face but not quite meeting my eyes, and they're not moving.

"You're blind", I realize and say at the same time. I clap my hand over my mouth. My cheeks flush. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that." Now I've done it, insulted the blind girl before I've said more than five words.

She smiles. "It's okay. Being blind makes me a more powerful warrior. I don't consider it an insult."

By this time the other kids have finished their assessment of me. I must have passed because a tan blonde boy rises and gets me a chair. I look over my shoulder and see Liz is gone, so I sit down.

Even though none of the children appear to be related, there are certain similarities between all of them. Their eyes are the same. Not the same color or shape, but somehow the same nonetheless. It's like they're all windows to the same kind of soul. An old soul and old, tired eyes. Too old for fifteen-year-olds. They look back at me, maybe finding the ways I am similar to them too. They all have the same ropy, corded muscles, the same hard line to their mouths.

Then to my surprise, they just go back to talking about the battle plan.

"We need to have someone sneak around the back, through the forest," says a redhead boy in canvas sneakers, as he draws an arrow on the map. "Min and Tala would have been perfect but since they're...."

Everybody around the table gives him freezing looks, and I wonder what he was going to say.

"How about 'missing in action,'" Rowan supplies.

"Since Min and Tala are...missing in action, I think Jessie is the best choice."

I have no idea how to react. I want to say something, but I don't want it to be wrong. I'm too frightened. The words seem to die in my throat. I just look around desperately and hope someone will notice me.

"Oh yeah, sorry," says the blonde boy after several minutes of awkwardly waiting. "We should probably introduce ourselves. I'm Drew, by the way. My magic is controlling metal." He gestures at the person next to him. He doesn't catch on so Drew elbows him.

"Seth," says a mischievous-looking boy with dark eyes. "I can influence people's minds."

I wince a little, not sure if he's joking or not. I think he's not. I decide to set that fact aside for later consideration. The next person is Marco, with dark curling hair and an angular face, who says he has the spirit of a frog. Then Rowan who apparently can move objects with her mind and can sense where things are around her. Jessie can control winds and is classically beautiful with pale hair and big eyes. The redhead boy in canvas sneakers is Ryan, and he can control fire.

"What magic do you have?" Rowan asks kindly.

"Um...I don't know exactly," I say. "I just found out I have magic last night."

"Last night?" asks Marco. He sounds surprised, and maybe, maybe, just the tiniest bit impressed.

"You ever made a battle plan?" asks Seth.

"No."

Everyone just stares at me. They've probably been making battle plans ever since they could read. I start to say something in my defense, but Drew speaks first.

"That's okay. You'll learn fast. They're not hard."

Ryan grabs the paper and comes over to me.

"See, these X's with the numbers next to them show where we have people and how many we have there. The black lines show where we're moving. The red circles and lines show where the opponent's forces are moving. Right now, we would be outnumbered one to three, trying to push the enemy out of the courtyard."

I look at the map. Now that I know what the symbols mean, the whole thing makes much more sense. At least, now I know what's happening. I still have absolutely no idea why.

"We should try to gather most of our forces in the main battle," says Ryan. "But I think someone should go with Jessie and sneak around from behind, and two people with longer range magic should stay back, more out of the battle."

"Since I know you're going to suggest me for that, I'm just going to volunteer myself," says Rowan.

"I volunteer to be the other person," I hear myself say. Wait, did I just say that? Was that me?

Everyone turns to stare at me again.

"You don't need to include yourself in the fighting," says Jessie at the same time that Seth says, "I didn't know you could use your magic yet."

"Of course I should be part of the battle, I'm your age. And I can't really control my magic but I can try...."

After that, something between us clicks. They accept me, even respect me, because I had offered to fight with them. They joke with me, laugh with me, talk with me. For once, I'm truly included. I belong. And I love it.

# CHAPTER 5

Once, we're done with our plan, we all walk outside into an open space in the center of the School. It's a space maybe a little bigger than a football field, grassy and clear. There are stone walls on all sides of us, reaching high enough to shield us from prying eyes.

"We can do magic back here," Rowan whispers to me. "We're pretty far off the main road, and it's not like non-magic people can see us anyway, but this is just to be on the safe side."

She pulls me backward. "You'll be here with me."

We move to the back of the courtyard, almost pressed up against the wall.

Rowan closes her eyes in concentration. The ground starts to move under me. I scream and almost fall, clutching at Rowan for support. I cover my eyes, shaking. I can't handle this. I want the ground to stay solid. I don't want to do this anymore.

Rowan grabs my arms. "Aubrey, look around."

I slowly open my eyes, fighting the fear that's pushing against my chest like a bottle of soda that's been shaken. The flat back of the courtyard has been raised into a steep hill. The back is pressed up against the wall of the School, and the front slopes steeply down into the rest of the courtyard. Rowan and I are at the top of the hill, maybe ten feet above the rest of the courtyard.

"How did that happen?" I gasp.

She winks. "Magic."

I try to put my thoughts into words. "But you just...and the ground was like...." I gesture wildly with my hands. "It was really weird," I finish.

"Yeah. I know what you mean," she says it with a straight face, but I can tell she's trying not to laugh at me. I decide I like Rowan, with her caring, unseeing eyes, and barely suppressed laughter.

"It's starting!" one of the boys, I can't remember who, yells. It's the dark haired one, Marco, I think. I'm still trying to figure out who's who when people dressed all in black start pouring in through the opening in the courtyard.

The kids move smoothly into action. Each movement is precise and graceful, flowing neatly into the one after it. They are shockingly well-trained, their magic and bodies working together perfectly.

Suddenly, I know that I want to be able to be like that too.

"Tell me what's happening," Rowan whispers. "It's moving too fast for me to sense clearly."

I clumsily describe it to her, but there are lots of things going on that I don't even understand. Eventually I just give up.

She points to a group of people in one corner of the courtyard. "Are those teachers or kids?"

"Teachers."

She raises her hand out in front of her. The air seems to ripple for a second, then the whole group is on the ground. Rowan stumbles slightly with exhaustion, and I remember that magic takes energy, and bigger magic takes more energy. I start watching everyone else for signs of tiredness too.

At first, there's nothing. Rowan continues to manipulate the teachers from her place on the hill. The blonde girl, Jessie, swirls winds around herself and sends them barreling toward people. All around me are flashes of fire and light energy, the sound of fighting, and a mixed, sweet smell I can't identify.

The kids are holding their own, more than I would have expected. But after almost half an hour, the teachers' increased fighting skills and stamina comes into play. The kids are falling back, gathering at the base of the hill. A few of them stumble, I see eyelids flicker, kids barely able to stay on their feet, barely able to do more magic. Rowan runs down the hill to join her peers, and I tentatively follow her.

A teacher shoots spheres of light energy out of his hands. I try to copy him. Again, I can feel my hands grow hot, and sparks of light dance across my fingers. But nothing else happens.

Light energy flares up around Drew and all the teachers drop to their knees, temporarily blinded. Drew collapses too. Marco tries to run to him, but he's knocked backward and off his feet as if by an invisible wall.

It all goes downhill from there. Once the blindness wears off, the teachers launch a precise and perfectly coordinated attack. Within minutes, the whole class is subdued, on its knees, with their hands tied behind their backs.

I'm still free when one of the teachers approaches me. There's nothing I can do to resist, so I just hold my hands out.

"Sorry," she whispers as she pulls them behind my back.

One of the teachers addresses Rowan.

"Surrender?"

"Yes."

Another teacher glances at his watch.

"Call it?"

"Call it."

"Five-thirty."

"Good job." Liz helps Drew to his feet. "You lasted almost forty-five minutes."

"Yes!" he says, bouncing upward. "That's eight minutes longer than last year."

I expected the kids to be unhappy about their obvious defeat, but they're not. Instead, they seem excited, not upset at all. They joke and laugh as we walk back into the School, talking about what worked and what didn't.

"How did you like that?" Rowan asks.

"It was um...interesting."

She laughs. "Well, happy Challenge Day."

Everyone slowly disperses, leaving with various parents. I notice that some parents take more than one kid, sometimes of different ages, that can't possibly be related. I look at Liz quizzically.

"A lot of them are orphans," Liz whispers to me. "Some of the parents took in more kids. Some of the older kids who don't have families stay at the School. There are tons of rooms, enough to house everyone who goes here if we ever needed to."

I watch the families take most of the kids, until there is only a handful left. Then they leave, to go up to their rooms in the School they never leave. They don't look unhappy, they're laughing and joking as they turn the corner, but there's still something sad about it. They have nobody. And it's all because of the war, because of the three stupid sisters.

Finally, it's only me, Lily, and Liz left. Lily is smiling, and I remember that she had Challenge Day today too. I ask her about it, and she talks animatedly. She seems happy that I finally know about magic, that I can now be part of her world. I'm not really paying attention to her, so it takes me a moment to realize the white things peeking out from over her shoulders are not part of her jacket, but her wings.

I interrupt her mid-sentence. "Wait, are those your wings?"

She seems excited that I asked. She extends them, twirling around to show me from all angles. "I'm so glad I can show them to you now," she gushes. "It's been so hard keeping them hidden all this time, I had to keep wearing jackets and I couldn't go swimming the whole summer, and...." She gasps suddenly. "Do you want to see me fly?"

"Yeah!" I say enthusiastically.

It happens a lot more suddenly than I would have imagined. One second she is standing next to me, and then suddenly she is running, sprinting, and then she jumps. Her wings unfurl and catch the wind, jerking her upward. She flaps them upward hard. The first few seconds of flight seem a little touch and go, and I'm almost afraid she is going to fall.

Her powerful downstroke is enough, and she uses it to launch herself farther into the air. She catches her balance, tilting her wings to steer, hovering carefully only twenty feet above my head. She lets herself go higher, effortlessly circling. I'm laughing, she looks so at home and free, silhouetted against the gray twilight sky.

She hits the ground running, stumbling, bending her knees to absorb her momentum. She straightens quickly though, grinning. Her wings are still extended, helping her to balance.

"That was amazing," I say honestly.

"Thanks." She looks like she's glowing, finally in her natural element.

Liz is smiling too, watching us interact. And I realize that I am happy. I expected to feel awful today, to feel alone and confused and depressed. But I don't. Well, I am a little confused, but not the other stuff. In fact, I feel like I've finally found a place where I can belong.

We go back to Liz's house. Liz was happy during Challenge Day because she was distracted, but now that it's over I can tell she's anxious about Paige again. I don't say much. I'm a little meditative, caught up in the events of the day, the way my life has changed overnight. I'm still not unhappy, but I am a little anxious. I can't imagine doing magic anything like what the kids at the School did.

I wonder what my magic is. I wonder if there's a way to tell. So far, everyone seems to have a magic that suits their personality. Liz is calm like water, Lily is free like a bird. I don't know the kids at the School yet as well, but Drew seems steady like a rock, Ryan fierce like fire.... I can't think of anything that would suit me like that. I've lived in so many places that I'm not even sure I have a personality, I've just been squished into whatever sort of person I need to be. I don't know how anyone will be able to find my magic.

Later, Liz asks me if I have any questions. I think she's been so worried about Paige that she's half forgotten how new this all is to me. I have so many questions I don't know where to start. So of course, I ask the one I care least about.

"What was that smell? During the Challenge, everything smelled different, but good. Did that have something to do with magic?"

Liz blinks. It wasn't the sort of question she was expecting. "Yeah. Magic does smell good. Every person has a slightly different scent. Over time you may come to recognize your own, as well as others'."

"Interesting."

The silence hangs awkwardly between us, like a wall. It's a flimsy wall, and I'm sure I could tear it down if I knew the right words. But I don't, and I can't see through it.

"Do any of the other kids my age have parents who work at the School?" Again, a pointless question. But Liz seems distracted. She doesn't notice.

"None of their parents are teachers. Most of their parents are dead." Liz had told me that once before, but not as bluntly. I wince a little bit.

"You said people live at the School, right?"

She nods. "A lot of the kids do it. Most kids at least stay over sometimes on weekends. Lily and I did frequently before we adopted you. I'm sure she would like to again, if you want to."

"Yeah, it sounds fun. Maybe not this weekend though."

"No, of course not this weekend. In two weekends, the school where Paige is should be able to send her back. Maybe we can stay over that weekend. You'll probably have to share a room with someone, though."

"Who stays at the School that I could share a room with?"

Liz thinks for a moment. "Jessie stays with another family, but Rowan sleeps at the School. I think she already has someone in her room...." She pauses trying to remember. "Oh, it was Tala. You should be able to sleep there now."

I don't really say anything after that. I had so many questions a moment ago, but now I can't seem to think of any of them. It's Friday night, and I'm not really tired, but I decide to go to bed at my normal time anyway, just out of habit. I fall asleep surprisingly quickly, but all night I have dreams that I can't remember.

# CHAPTER 6

The next morning, Liz offers to test me to find out what kind of magic I have. I say yes. I'm still tired, but I never feel well rested after a night of dreams. And I do really want to know what magic I have.

She says we don't have to go to the School, she can do the test here. I nod and we go down to the basement. She sets me up at a little desk and hands me a packet of paper. It's just a series of questions, row after row of them.

I blink at it. I was expecting something a little more hands-on then just a bunch of questions. But that's really all it is. Just a series of questions with fairly simple answers.

Except the questions aren't as simple as they first appeared. There's some that seem like they would be easy to answer, like 'If you could be any kind of animal what would you be?' I actually have to think about questions like that for quite a while. I've never thought about things like that before, never had to.

After answering all fifty of the questions, I hand the paper back to Liz. I'm a little anxious. I can't imagine Liz being able to make anything from my results. I was being as truthful as I could be, but when I read back over my answers they seem almost random. I certainly can't spot any patterns, and I don't see how Liz will be able to.

She tells me to go upstairs while she examines the test. I lie on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying as hard as I can to think of nothing. This seems to be becoming a frequent pastime of mine, even though I'm not particularly good at it. I've never been able to stop thinking of things, even when I know they're only causing me pain.

I have a sudden, sharp wish that Mackenna was here. Maybe I can become friends with some of the other kids at the School, but Mackenna will still always be my best friend. Right? We have so much in common. Or at least, we used to. I realize I haven't seen her since I found out I had magic.

I start to cry. I'm suddenly desperately afraid that we won't be able to be friends anymore. She's stayed exactly the same while I've changed completely. What if we now have nothing in common anymore? What if she's afraid of me?

Then I realize I won't be able to tell her anything. She will never know what has dragged me away from her. I'll go back to school but I'll be hiding myself. Everything I am will be hidden from her. And I don't see how it could not ruin our friendship. I don't see how we could go back.

Maybe I just have to accept that. My life has changed. I have changed. The things that were important to me before can no longer mean anything. Old pieces of my life will have to disappear, to be replaced by pieces of my new life.

Even so, I wish Mackenna was here. Being around her is calming. She would know what to say, how to make me feel better.

I remember the first time we met. It was before school even started, in the beginning of the summer. I had only lived here for a couple weeks. For some reason, I had really wanted to check out the town pool. I was kind of hoping Lily would come with me, but she made other plans. Now I know why. Anyway, I had been all by myself, not realizing that people went to the pool not to swim, but to tan and socialize with friends. I had sat down alone at a picnic table, feeling like everyone was watching me, the awkward new girl with no friends.

Mackenna had sat down across from me and started talking. At first I thought she must have mistaken me for someone else. But then she asked for my name, and we talked about summer and ice cream and our favorite movies. She was beautiful and full of life, and I felt like some of her vitality was rubbing off on me, making me special too. We talked for over an hour, and for some reason it wasn't awkward at all. Something about us clicked. She asked for my number, and for the rest of the summer we saw each other at least once a week.

I remember the sharp relief when I found out she was in my homeroom. I walked in and knew exactly where to sit, exactly what to do. We were laughing together that first day. I didn't exactly know she was my best friend yet, but she was. She showed me kindness and she was the first friend I have ever really trusted. I remember watching romantic movies with her, eating popcorn and crying over the tragic, predictable endings. Staying up late into the night talking about girls who are mean for no reason and boys we would never go out with.

"I will stay friends with Mackenna." I say it out loud to my empty room. I make the promise out loud because once you say something out loud, it becomes real. Even if there is no one there to hear you.

Liz calls me down about an hour later to discuss my results with me. She seems confused.

"Sit down." She gestures to the sofa, the same place I was sitting when I found out I had magic.

"What kind of magic do I have?" I ask. I'm not really sure what I should be expecting. What if I have some really pointless kind of magic? What if I find out this was all a mistake and I really don't have any magic at all?

"Your results were unusual."

I start to panic. I don't have magic. That must be what she means. I'm going to get kicked out of the magic school. I'm going to be alone again. All those wonderful feelings yesterday were just a fake, and I'm never going to get anything like them again.

"What were they? I still have magic, right?"

Liz nods. I can tell she doesn't understand why I'm so anxious. That makes me start to relax.

"I think that your magic is plants."

I blink. "Plants? What's that supposed to mean? I didn't even know that was a kind of magic."

"It means you can control plants. Like make them grow and stuff, I guess. But your results were kind of inconclusive." She catches sight of the expression on my face and quickly continues. "Don't worry, you definitely have magic. I'm just not positive what kind."

"I thought you said it was plants."

"I said I thought it was plants. But you could also have the spirit of a big cat. Like a jaguar or something."

"So can I turn into a jaguar?"

"No, probably not. Even if you have the spirit of an animal, being able to fully shift is still very rare. And I'm not even sure if you have that magic."

"Could I have both?" I'm hopeful suddenly. Having two magics would be cool.

"I doubt it. They're not similar enough. People generally only have one type of magic."

I wonder why my magic would come up divided. And I wonder how Liz got the results in the first place. I do like plants and I'm quite good at growing them. Well, I haven't really grown that many. Actually I haven't really grown any, except for that daisy in second grade. But I don't think any of my answers would have revealed that to Liz. I don't remember writing anything about plants at all.

I like jaguars too. They've been my favorite animal for as long as I can remember. I admire the way they are so powerful but so graceful at the same time. And I like their spots even better than the stripes of a tiger. They're the prettiest animal I can think of.

"How are we going to find out which magic I have?"

"Every three days we have classes for each different kind of magic. We don't have any classes for plants though, because there are no teachers with that power. I suppose we'll put you in a class for shifters and a class for light energy. If you have plants as your magic, we should be able to tell during your Magical Fighting classes."

I nod. It's not the best solution, and I wish I was sure what kind of magic I have now. But at least I have a way to find out for sure.

"When can I start taking classes at the School?"

"How about three days from now? On Tuesday? And you have a lot of catching up to do, so tomorrow why don't you wake up early and we can start teaching you combat skills."

"Combat skills?"

"Since you can't use magic yet and you haven't advanced enough to use weapons, it will just be like martial arts. You have to know how to defend yourself."

"Right. Martial arts. Well, it will be interesting at least. I'm probably going to suck though. Just warning you."

"I'm sure you'll be fine."

That night, I lie awake, wondering which magic is mine. I can't figure it out. Every time I'm sure it's one I'll remember something that makes me think it's the other.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream of a white jaguar in a misty forest. She's trying to tell me something, something desperately important. But I can't hear her.

Even though it was not necessarily a pleasant dream, I wake up smiling.

# CHAPTER 7

At five-fifteen the next morning, bleary and half asleep, I stumble down the stairs to start my training. Liz is already up. She's wearing yoga pants and a tank top. She throws a similar outfit at me.

"Go change," she says. "And then you can eat some yogurt and granola. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes."

I change, eat the granola, and go downstairs. I'm still dead tired and not happy to be waking up early on a Sunday. And yogurt and granola is not an acceptable breakfast. I'm used to having a bagel with cream cheese, or a muffin, or something like that. I pretend I'm unhappy about the yogurt because it's too small, but I know it's really because it's too healthy.

Liz is smiling that kind of smile that means she's going to enjoy today and I'm not. "We have the entire day, so I'm going to do a quick workout and stretch, then run you through some basic movements and forms. Start by jogging in place."

While I'm doing what feels like endless push-ups, curl-ups, and jumping jacks, Liz explains more about what she is going to teach me.

"Combat for magic users is not exactly a martial art, but that is what it is closest to. At this point, the goal is to be able to knock unconscious or otherwise incapacitate an opponent without permanently harming them. Later, though, we will teach you how to kill them. Since obviously we can use magic, we try to achieve a perfect balance between our bodies and our magic. Used properly, both can be powerful weapons. Show me how you would punch."

This is something I can actually do. One of my foster parents was really into martial arts and she had me take classes, so I was in them for a little over eight months. Of course, I was eight at the time, but I still kind of know what I'm doing.

I throw out a punch. It's not fast or hard enough to really defend myself but it's better than someone with no training could do.

"Other hand," Liz calls. I punch hard with my left hand and Liz nods slightly.

"Your punches are pretty good. You need to work on your control, though, so you won't hyperextend your elbow. And since most of your opponents will be bigger than you, you need to focus more on your speed than your strength. Your opponent will probably be stronger than you, but you may be faster. Do it again."

This goes on for most of the remainder of our time. Liz tells me to do something, I do it, and she tells me how I could do it better. I do it again. And get critiqued again.

By the time we break for lunch I'm exhausted and sore. I've been working on various blocks, kicks and punches for almost three hours now. But even though I'm tired, I feel good. I'm now more prepared to handle myself in a fight as well as make strategies and interact with the children at the School. I know my weaknesses, but I also know my strengths.

After lunch, we go back to working and keep going for almost the whole rest of the day. Not all of it is physical, a lot of it is strategy and technique. But by the time we're done, I still can barely walk up the stairs. I feel like I might fall asleep at any moment.

I come up from the basement and I'm suddenly not sure if I'm still standing. My eyes are closed. I feel a wall to my left, which means I am on my feet. Not for long. I slide down it and curl up on the floor. I'm too tired and sore to make it up to my bed. I can't take another step.

I'm still barely awake when I feel Liz pick me up and carry me to my room, and gently set me in my bed. Then I'm out like a light.

The next morning, Liz has me wake up early to keep working on fighting. I practice for an hour, then change and eat a quick breakfast. I barely make the bus.

I think about going back on my decision to continue going to my normal school. Right now, I'm much more excited to go to magic school, and I'm honestly not sure if I can do both. But something still feels like it's missing. Mackenna. I am not going to leave her behind, I am not going to lose her.

All of a sudden, I'm sure she has magic. The thought lights up my mind like a lightning strike, burning through me. I said it to Liz the day before, but I was half joking then. Now I'm not. It doesn't really make sense, I have no evidence, but I am absolutely positive I am right. Mackenna has magic. She has magic, and I won't need to leave her behind. I can take her with me. I just have to find someone to believe me.

I have to convince Liz to get her tested. I decide to try to get some proof of her magic, and ask Liz about it after school.

I daydream during my classes. I feel both completely exhausted and somehow hyperactive. It's a strange combination and it leaves me simultaneously too tired and too wired to focus. The only time I really pay attention to what's happening is when I'm with Mackenna.

Even now that I'm looking for it, I can't find anything magical about her. I grill her about the weirdest experiences of her life during lunch and come up with nothing, and by the end she's looking at me like she thinks I'm crazy. The only thing that makes me think she has magic at all is this feeling I get when I'm near her, like I'm all full of static electricity just waiting to shock someone.

Liz and Lily are both there when I get home.

"What are you guys doing here?" I ask them. "Shouldn't you be at the School?"

"We stayed here so we could see you," Liz says. "Obviously, neither of us have really gone to the School regularly since we adopted you. We have people to cover for us."

Guilt makes a hollow in my stomach. I had never even thought about all the magic school they must have missed over the past four months. "But you would have to have skipped so many days. For...me."

She smiles at me, that Liz smile, all full of love and caring. "It was worth it."

"Well...thanks. But I think you should go tonight. I know where you are now, it's not like a secret or anything. I'll be fine by myself for a couple of hours."

Lily's face lights up. Liz looks over at her, and she hides it, but not quickly enough. Liz's expression softens. "Fine. We can go to the School for a little while"

They leave soon after that. I finish my homework as quickly as I can, and then I have the rest of the night to myself.

Immediately I hole myself up in my bedroom to practice magic. I hadn't been trying to get rid of them so I could practice, the idea hadn't occurred to me until after they had gone. But now I desperately want to try it.

Liz told me earlier that it's dangerous to practice magic without any guidance, at least while I'm still new, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it. The only problem is that I have no idea where to start. I've only ever successfully done magic on impulse, I've never actually tried to do it. Well, I've certainly tried to it, but it hasn't worked. All I can do is make my hands get hot.

I remember when Liz first showed me magic, she conjured up a ball of light in her hands and gave it to me to hold. She said that it was light energy, or magic in its most basic form. No matter what my magic is, I should have at least some skill with that. I hope.

I cup my hand and close my eyes, concentrating as hard as I can. I picture myself driving down the rain-swept road with Liz, seeing the tree in front of us, knowing we couldn't stop, feeling the panic course through me. I shove my hands out, putting all my emotion into that shove.

My eyes fly open as a ball of light shoots across the room and hits the wall. It vanishes with a thud, leaving a glowing dent in the wall.

I get off my bed to go inspect the damage, but gasp as waves of dizziness roll over me. My knees give way and I crumple to the ground. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes as the room tilts around me.

I vaguely remember Liz saying we would start small in magic, because all magic take energy, but that I would get more strength over time. Apparently this is what it feels like to completely run out of energy.

I limp to my bed and fall onto it. Before I even have time to form another thought I'm asleep.

I wake up to the sound of Liz bustling around in the kitchen making dinner. She and Lily must have gotten back. I keep my eyes closed, savoring the last sweet notes of a dream I can't quite remember. Then I open my eyes and face reality.

There is still a dent in my wall. Now it has a slightly burned look to it. I don't want to tell Liz, but I know sooner or later I'm going to have to. If she ever comes into this bedroom again there's no way she won't notice it.

Even though I know it's kind of wrong, my strongest feeling isn't guilt. It's triumph. I made magic. I did this. This is mine. I tried to do something, and it worked. I made something real.

I check the clock next to my bed before getting up. I've only been asleep for about an hour, but Liz must have gotten back sometime while I was out. I stumble down the stairs.

Liz takes one look at me and says, "You've been using magic, haven't you?"

"I didn't really mean to. How could you tell?"

She smiles. "I can see it in your face. Don't worry, I'm not angry. I mean, it was still a bad choice, but one I expected. I have never met a child learning magic who could resist trying it on their own. You must be hungry. Dinner's almost ready, why don't you set the table?"

That night, I practice combat for another hour with Liz. By the time we're finished I'm so sore that I basically just fall up the stairs and into bed. My body is exhausted but my mind is fairly awake, so it takes a while for sleep to find me. When it does, it's really only a half sleep, populated with vivid dreams.

I'm running through a forest at night. A girl is racing through the trees a few paces ahead of me, and a boy is by my side, his face lost in shadow.

The girl screams something to me, there are words but I can't quite understand them. Her long brown hair flies up around her as she runs.

I trip over a root that wasn't there a second before. I stumble and think I'm going to fall, but suddenly the boy has grabbed my arm, holding me up. For a split second I look into his eyes. I don't know him, but he feels familiar to me somehow.

The images come faster now. A wolf springs toward me and I flinch, but it goes directly over my head. I'm in some sort of jail cell and a girl clutches the bars, her eyes wide with pain. A toddler plays in a circle of ashes. I'm screaming with a wild pain I can feel but don't understand.

I hear an alarm go off and I leap up in fright before I realize it's just my clock going off. Five-thirty a.m. Time to start a new day.

# CHAPTER 8

I start magic school today. Like, for real. I'm going to go to the School, and learn magic, and do it for real. I'll meet people and learn. I can't decide if I should be excited or freaking out. Maybe both.

I can't believe it's already been three days since I discovered I have magic. It feels like a lifetime ago, a different Aubrey. When I woke up on Thursday morning, I was exactly the same as I had been my entire life. But when I went to bed that night, I was somebody different, somebody new. The two sides of my life are separated as cleanly as if it had been sliced apart with a knife.

I can barely concentrate during school that day. I hope it's not always like this. If I'm always this tired, always this distracted, my grades are going to drop. I also think Mackenna has figured out something's up. She asks me what's going on, but of course I can't tell her. I hope we find out she has magic, and then I'll tell her everything.

Liz picks me up at two-forty and drives me straight to the magic school. The magic classes don't start until about fifteen minutes after the high school gets out so we have time to get over there. But as soon as we arrive, Liz will have to go teach. I have no idea where I'm going, so I hope someone will be waiting for me.

Liz explains the way the classes are arranged on the ride over. "The classes are on a three day rotation, each day with three classes an hour long. The first of the three days you will have Athletics, First-aid, and Weapons. The second day you will have Magic by Type, History and Strategy, then a free period. The third day you will have Athletics, Magical Fighting and a Survival class. You'll learn more about all your classes when you get there, I'm sure. Rowan will help you and show you around for the next week or so."

Rowan is at the door and I sigh in relief. As soon as we pull up to the School she runs to me and grabs my arm.

"Come on, we're gonna be late. We need to hurry."

We both run to the gym. By the time we get there I'm out of breath, even though it's not very far. A huge man stands in front of the class explaining how to do proper push-ups.

He gives Rowan a disappointed look. "Late for our first day of strength training." I can tell he's not really angry with her.

"Sorry. I had to bring Aubrey," she gasps.

He trains his glance on me. "Hello, Aubrey." His voice is low, like two rocks grinding together. There's a surprising warmth to it, though. "Welcome to Physical Fitness. My name is Mr. Austen. I will be teaching half of your Athletics course. Today we are beginning our first day of strength training. Sit down."

I sit, and he continues his lecture on the perfect push-up. Once he's done, he orders us all to do fifteen. I can do them, but barely. I know I've gotten stronger since Liz has been teaching me, but it's only been a few days. I absolutely refuse to give up, but my arms are shaking by the time I'm done. He notices my struggles, but thankfully doesn't single me out in front of the whole class.

Instead he says "I notice some of you had a hard time with that. I would like you all to practice them on your own until you can do them easily."

We go through a similar method with sit-ups, leg lifts, chin-ups and various weight lifting techniques. By the end I'm assigned to practice everything. I have a feeling that this is the kind of class where assignments to practice will actually be taken seriously. I promise myself that I will practice as often as I have time, and I will improve.

Rowan and I were late to Athletics so we didn't change, but everyone else did. Since we don't have to change back into normal clothes, we get to our next class a few minutes early.

My next class is First-aid. The classroom looks like a cross between a greenhouse and a doctor's office. There are various plants lining the walls, and informational posters everywhere. There are two rows of desks on either side of the room with a large space in the middle. An older woman with graying hair is watering a fluorescent flower. She looks up.

"Hello, you must be Aubrey. I am Mrs. Oliver. Take a seat." She gestures vaguely to a seat in the front of the room, and I go to sit in it. Rowan sits next to me.

There are text books on all the desks, but Rowan pulls a thicker one out of a bag she was carrying. I look at the cover and realize its braille.

"Hey, I thought your power allowed you to see things," I say.

"I can tell where things are, to an extent, but I am still blind. I can see the paper but not the words on it. I have alternate textbooks for all my classes. And I also can't see colors or details or anything."

"Oh." I'm not really sure what to say. Because she seemed to be able to get around fine, I had almost forgotten she was blind at all. I feel bad for not thinking of it earlier.

While I'm thinking, the classroom fills in around me. The desks behind Rowan and me are filled up, but the class is so small none of the desks on the other side are occupied.

Apparently we are in the middle of a unit about bleeding wounds, and today we are learning how to tie a tourniquet, along with some other stuff. For the beginning of class, the teacher puts a presentation up on the board. Everything is written on it, but she narrates anyway, probably for Rowan's benefit.

I'm not really sure how much of the lesson I understand. I got a few stitches once when I cut my hand on a piece of broken china, but aside from that I have no experience with bleeding wounds. I know absolutely nothing about them. I spend a lot of the lesson confused, struggling pointlessly to catch up.

I also don't really like wounds, especially the bleeding kind. Blood doesn't make me faint, exactly, but it stresses me out. If it were up to me, I would absolutely never do anything with bleeding wounds for my entire life. I still try to understand what she's talking about, but the whole time I'm praying that I'll never have to use it.

I don't have to make up anything for Athletics since we just started a unit, but the First-aid teacher says I at least need to make up the wounds unit for her. I will get a crash-course in bleeding wounds, as well as other First-aid basics during my free period for the next few weeks.

My next class is Weapons, the class I'm most excited for. Our whole grade travels as a group to this one. We joke and laugh, and I feel much more at home here than I ever had with any other group of people. For almost the first time in my life, I feel connected, accepted.

Luckily we're starting a new unit in Weapons too. A young man who can't be more than twenty-five is laying different sizes of ninja stars on the ground. Everyone smiles as they see them. Apparently ninja stars are something of a treat.

For the Weapons class we have to change into an outfit similar to a martial arts uniform, white pants, a simple tee. Since I don't have one, I have to borrow one of the School's. It's a bit too big, but still comfortable. I try to remember to talk to Liz about getting me my own later.

We all sit against the wall while our instructor, who everyone calls Jake, explains how to throw the ninja stars.

"We will be doing a brief unit starting with ninja stars and progressing to throwing knives. The unit will last three to four class periods."

"When you are holding a ninja star, grip one point between your thumb and index finger. To throw it you...."

He drones on for about ten minutes. The class listens surprisingly attentively for a bunch of fifteen-year-olds. By the time he's done they actually seem to know what they're doing. We line up in two lines with five ninja stars each. One person throws all their ninja stars, and once they're done the next person goes.

I am third in my line. While everyone else is going I examine what I'm supposed to be throwing at. It consists of a huge foam board taking up a whole wall, with a few paper targets on it. I practice holding my ninja stars too. The movement feels a little awkward for me, probably because I've never done anything like it before.

When it's my turn, I line up my eye with the target and the star with my eye. Ready, aim, throw. I turn away, and when I finally look I see that I've completely missed the target, and my star hasn't even stuck in the foam. I throw my other four ninja stars but with no more success. I am the only one in the class who has not even managed to get one to stick.

Angrily I grab another five ninja stars and get back in line. I am determined to land at least one on a target.

This time I focus on my grip and my stance more than my aim. Again, I close my eyes and throw the ninja star. The star has stuck in the foam but missed the target by several inches. I take a deep breath and throw the rest of them. Each one gets successively closer to the target until I'm only a few inches off of the bullseye. I smile to myself.

"Good job," Jake says. "You improved really fast."

"Thanks," I say. I can't help but grin. I'm proud of myself.

A few people finish throwing then the class ends.

"Nice," Drew says, smiling at me encouragingly.

"Yeah. Interesting technique." Seth shoves my shoulder lightly and imitates me throwing, closing my eyes, flinching, and rocking back and forth on my feet.

"I try." I actually take a bow, surprising myself with my confidence. Everyone laughs, and I manage to laugh too, even though now I'm a little embarrassed. We all say goodbye, and Rowan even gives me a quick hug.

Liz is finishing up teaching a Fighting with Magic class. The kids in it can't be older than eight. There's even fewer than are in my class, only about six. I look closer and see Lily is one of the children. She's in the air with a long stick made of light energy, while a girl with frizzy red hair and glasses tries to knock her down with what looks like some kind of metal magic. It's fascinating to watch the way they move, fluid and practiced, like dancers. Perhaps a student my age would be better, but in terms of eight year olds, I've never seen any more skilled in anything.

Apparently the fight was timed, and the time runs out with no clear winner. Liz stops the fight and Lily lands, shaking out her wings.

Their class is over too and the little kids dart past me, running through the door at the end of the hallway and out to the parking lot where their parents will be waiting. Lily waits inside with Liz, then they both come out to meet me. We walk to the car together. I'm thinking, so I don't say much.

Once we get in the car Lily is bubbling on and on about some prize she won during 'Creativity and Teamwork' which is a mandatory class for kids under ten.

By the time we get home it's about nine. I'm starting to have a panic attack about all the homework I haven't even started, which will take me a few hours at least.

I settle down at the kitchen table, pulling out textbooks and handouts and notebooks. I have an unspoken agreement with Liz that she will stay up with me until I'm done. After getting Lily ready for bed she settles down on the couch with a cup of tea. For a while she works on paperwork, but then she relaxes and simply reads until I'm done, about ten-thirty or eleven. Then we go upstairs together. It takes me ages to fall asleep because my brain is alive and buzzing with thought. I lie awake in my bed, almost trembling with barely suppressed excitement.

Strangely, the thing I'm most excited about isn't the fact that now I can do magic. It's the fact that now I have friends. Not just friend, like Mackenna, but multiple. They don't ignore me because I'm adopted, because I'm shy, because sometimes I say dumb stuff without thinking. I think it might be the first time in my life I've been part of something real, something bigger than me.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

# CHAPTER 9

The next morning I get my reward for the excessive exercising and the little sleep. I stumble out of bed and down the stairs. I physically can't wake up early today. I have to take a break from my training. Liz has thankfully made me breakfast and I eat it. I overslept my alarm so I have to hurry to get dressed and out the door.

By the time lunch rolls around I'm almost falling asleep into my sandwich.

"You okay?" Mackenna asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just had a late night."

"So did I." She hesitates. "I was dreaming that I could set stuff on fire, and then when I woke up my curtains really were on fire. I must have felt the heat in my sleep or something. It was really weird."

My over-tired brain takes a while to process this. She dreamed she was setting things on fire...her curtains were on fire.... Finally it clicks.

"Has anything else ever happened like this? Anything weird? With fire?"

"Actually, yeah. Once I was in a movie theater and I started to get really hot but no one else around me did, and I just kind of knew there was a fire in the bathroom. I told everyone to get out and told the workers there. But the funny part was there really was one. A fire, I mean."

Yeah, that is weird," I say, but I'm not really paying attention anymore. I'm thinking. Mackenna has fire magic. I'm sure of it. Now I just need to convince Liz.

Today is my Magic by Type class, and since there isn't a teacher who teaches plants, the first forty-five minutes will be spent on light energy with Liz, and the second forty-five minutes will be spent with some teacher I didn't know on changing into animal forms.

The Light Energy class is the biggest class here, but it still only includes about twenty-five people. The students range from two tiny eight-year-olds to a gang of loud kids who must be going off to college soon.

I see Seth and Marco are here too, so I go over and sit next to them.

"So you're starting with light energy?" asks Seth.

"Only half the class. The other half I'm going to learn about animal spirits."

"Oh, I'm going there too," says Marco. "I'll come with you."

After this we talk about light energy and what they can do with it, and what I can do with it, which is nothing. Liz comes in after about five minutes. She tells everyone to start working on whatever she told us to last time and she'll come around and give us tips.

Since I didn't have anything last time I just sit and watch Seth make a variety of weapons from pure magic, and Marco bind two halves of a metal pole together. Luckily Liz comes around to me first.

"Okay, I want you to work on making a ball of light all on your own. Once you can do that, you can work on holding it for longer and making it brighter."

She moves on to the next person while I struggle to make any magic at all. I try to focus on the familiar ache in my chest, magic, demanding to be released, but I can't. I close my eyes. I still can't. Focus. But I just don't know how to make the magic work.

I remember the night in my room, making the magic explode across the room. I didn't find that particularly difficult, but now, in front of everyone else, I can't seem to do anything. I look around, embarrassed and self-conscious.

All of a sudden, a sense of purpose rolls over me. The ache in my chest disappears. Accessing the magic seems almost childishly simple now. I will there to be a ball of light in my hand, and it is there, swirling and milky, flickering like a candle flame.

I will it to grow, both larger and brighter. It's now the size of a baseball, glowing with a white light as bright as a light bulb. Bigger, I will. Brighter. Suddenly, the magic is pouring out of me, flowing like a river broken through a dam, no longer in my control. The ball grows as big as a beach ball and blindingly bright. I can't make it stop, it's too big, it's too big.... I gasp and it explodes outward, shattering into a million bright stars. I fall back in my chair, spent.

For a little while I think I'm going to pass out. But I don't. It only takes about ten seconds for me to recover my breath. My eyelids flicker open and little white spots dance in front of them, the afterimage of my power. Liz is kneeling down by me, a look of concern on her face. Everyone else in the room is staring at me too.

"Aubrey, are you...okay?" Liz asks.

"Yeah, I think I'm good."

I sit up.

"We'll bring you some food. You can just rest here for a little while."

I nod and close my eyes but I can still feel everyone watching me. I rest and try to ignore them. I'm too exhausted to feel much, but if I wasn't, maybe I would feel proud. I just performed more magic than somebody just starting out should be able to do. Way more.

Liz does bring me some food, and I eat it so quickly I don't even notice what it is. I feel much better once I'm done, no longer hollow and shaky. I'll be fine.

By this point class is almost over. I missed the animal spirit part, which is slightly disappointing. But I'm strong enough to stand, so it's off to my next class.

History and Strategy is mostly just history today. The teacher, Julianna, is passionate about her subject but seems slightly clueless. She doesn't even notice that she has a new student until I approach her after class.

"Um, hi," I say.

She squints at me through little spectacles. "Hello, Jessie."

"Actually I'm not Jessie. I'm new here. My name is Aubrey."

I realize the teacher is younger than I first thought. Her hair is a wispy grayish blonde, but her face is smooth and unlined, and her eyes are clear.

"Is today your first day?"

"Yeah."

"So you don't know much about magical history, do you?" She seems impossibly excited to teach it to me. It would be almost sad on anyone else, but she's so earnest that I actually take her seriously.

"No. I don't know anything about anything, aside from a little bit that Liz has told me."

"Do you have a free period next? You could stay here."

"Um, I actually have to go to First-aid. But maybe some other time."

"Just for a little while?"

She desperately wants to teach me some history. It's probably been forever since she had a new student that was actually old enough to understand what she was saying.

"Ok, fine," I say. "I can stay here for like ten minutes. Tell me some magic history."

"Do you know how magic got started?"

"Um, yeah, Liz told me. There was this Queen person, and she like, invented it."

"Okay, well I'll start with...something else." I can almost feel her excitement. She really, really likes telling people about magic history.

She launches into a speech that is full of emotion but seems prepared. "Almost every culture around the world has a way of incorporating magic, even if they don't recognize it for what it is. For thousands of years, magic was unorganized and mysterious, but still always prevalent.

"The United States was the first country to come up with a system for teaching magic. Well, it was before it was really the United States, back when they were trying to separate from England."

"The Revolutionary War?"

She nods. "England was too big for us to win a war against on our own. The reason we won was because someone started an underground association for people to do magic. We couldn't do a lot against the English soldiers because of the magic barrier. Liz told you about that, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well we couldn't directly influence battles with normal soldiers, but we could make sure our troops had the best strategies, the most intelligence. We could influence the land around where a battle was taking place and make sure it was the best for our armies. And if they ever had someone who could do magic on their side, we could fight directly with them.

"Initially it was very secretive. Back then, magic was thought to be the devil's work. But over time, as the society helped the United States win more battles and gather more intelligence, it became more widely accepted. And started spreading.

"At first it was a system of schools mostly, training children and young adults to use their powers. But after the war was won, there were hundreds of people who now knew they had magic and had nothing to do with it. It became a system, a system that is still in place today. Our school started out during the war, and some of the original building is still intact.

"Compared to the regular population, the population of people who can use magic is incredibly small. Across the United States, there are thirty other schools, most of them no bigger than this one, and maybe another couple hundred families who aren't centered near a school."

"Wait," I interrupt, "what about the other magic adults? The ones who don't go to school anymore? And aren't part of a family? How many of them are there?"

"There aren't very many. Most everyone who has magic has a family. There just aren't enough of us otherwise. That's the only way to keep our race going."

"Oh." I say. It's kind of sad, and a little weird. I mean, I was planning on hopefully getting married and having a family when I was older, but I wouldn't want to be forced to have one. But I get it. I get that the race has to be kept going somehow.

The word race makes me think of something else. "So is all the other stuff real too? Like there's magic people, so are there also, like, unicorns?"

She shrugs, considering. "I don't know if there are unicorns. I suppose they could be real, maybe. I've never heard of anyone seeing one, though."

I stare at her. "What?" she finally says.

"I didn't think you would take me seriously."

"It's a good question. Most common myths have a core of truth. I don't know if unicorns were a great example, but there are dragons and other creatures."

"Really? How does nobody see them?"

"It's pretty easy to set a space apart by magic. If you didn't know it was there and you weren't expecting to find it, you would just pass right through to the other side. Most magical creatures live in places like that, and they don't really have any interaction with humans."

"So like what other animals are there?"

"The dragon population is the largest. There are a few trolls, a few mermaids, other things like that. But there aren't enough to have any sort of influence. There are supposedly lots of elves still, they call themselves the aldren, but no one has seen them in years."

"Wow." I sit in silence for a little while. Then I glance at the clock. "Oh, I have to go. I told Mrs. Oliver I would come to see her during my free block. But this was...interesting." I'm surprised that it's actually true. "I'll see you next class."

I walk toward the door. I turn around at the last minute, about to say something else, but Julianna isn't even looking at me anymore. She's already engrossed in her work again, lost to the mysteries of the past.

# CHAPTER 10

The next day I have another kind of Athletics with a young, flexible-looking woman named Marina. She will teach us flexibility, tumbling and agility. We go through a timed obstacle course as many times as we need in order to get ten seconds of improvement. I'm a little embarrassed because my fastest time is slower than everyone else's slowest time. At least it only takes me three tries to get the improvement, while the kids who had the fastest times first can't get the improvement in the whole hour and a half.

It's hard for me to participate in Magical Fighting because I'm not very good at magic. We're basically thrown into a ring with another person and we can use whatever magic we want to knock them out of it. I'm in with Ryan. He's going easy on me, and I manage to get a decent hit on him with a ball of light. But he still wins easily. I was kind of hoping Liz would be our teacher, but she's not, only for the younger kids. Our teacher is a burly man whose name I don't catch.

Survival is one of my favorite classes. It's basically all hands-on, which I love. Today we're learning how to make forts, and we get to work in the field behind the School. It's dark out, making it even more exciting. I'm partnered with Jessie and Seth who are both relatively experienced fort builders. I might be a little biased, but I think ours turns out the best.

The next week passes quickly. All my classes get more fun as I get better. I go to the animal part of the Magic class, but can't really figure out how to do anything. I'm still not positive what kind of magic I have, which kind of stresses me out. Even so, I'm still having fun. The Weapons instructor compliments my aim. History becomes more interesting once I know what to expect, and I actually tie with Seth for one round of magical fighting. I still don't have any proof Mackenna has magic, but I hold on tight to that because it's all I have left.

On the car ride home from the School that Thursday, Liz asks me a question. "Do you want to stay over at the School this weekend?"

"Um, sure. But weren't we waiting until Paige gets back?"

"I think it might end up being another few weeks. And I would like to stay over at the School, if it's okay with you. It's easier for me to work there."

"Yeah, it's fine with me. Where will I sleep?"

"You can sleep with Rowan, in Tala's old room."

"Who's Tala?" I ask. I've heard the name a couple times, mentioned in passing by both Liz and the other magic kids. Always with a note of sadness, with nostalgia, almost. "And won't she need her room? I don't want to take it from her."

Liz goes abruptly silent, not answering any of my questions. I don't press it, even though I'm curious. I don't want to make her any more upset.

That night, I pack a bag full of clothes and stuff to bring to the School. Liz and Lily stay at the School enough that they don't need anything, they have extras there. I pack a few things I would feel comfortable leaving there too, so I can make the School like an extra home.

After I'm done packing my bag I fall asleep quickly, but have intense, vivid dreams that I can't remember afterward.

"Why are you so tired?" Mackenna asks me at school on Friday.

"I have a lot of homework," I lie quickly. I wince. I used to never lie to Mackenna. I used to never lie, period. "I've been staying up late to finish it."

"Oh, well, do you want to hang out this weekend? We could go to that Mexican place, and that movie we wanted to see is coming out, and...."

She catches sight of the expression on my face.

"You can't hang out this weekend, can you?"

"No, sorry. I have to do something for Liz." I try to pull a face, but I think it might end up coming out strangled or something because she gives me a look.

"We haven't hung out in forever," she complains, but I can tell she's not really mad. Or suspicious, for that matter. Somehow, I have managed to completely hide my new life from her. I'm keeping both of us safe. And I absolutely hate it.

She better have magic. I can't keep this up forever. If something doesn't change soon, I am going to tell her everything. I need her by my side. I need her with me.

I need her to have magic.

"Have you not seen the third floor yet?" Rowan asks me later, after that days classes are over.

Liz has asked Rowan to share her room with me. I half expected her to say no, but she seems enthusiastic. I just asked her where her room was.

"No. That's where the rooms are, right?"

She smiles mysteriously. "You'll see what's up there soon."

We start to walk around the School. We pass a staircase, but for some reason don't take it up. I don't say anything, I'm sure Rowan knows what she's doing.

Finally, after walking halfway around the School, we find a suitable staircase. We walk up three flights of stairs and open a pair of big double doors at the end.

I walk into the hallway. On either side of me there are rows and rows of rooms, almost like in a hotel.

"There's so many," I say. I had known that beforehand, but I'm still a little bit blown away by the sheer number.

"Yeah, if we go four to a room, there's enough for the whole school to sleep up here. A lot of the School doesn't stay here, though, so it's usually one or two to a room. Boys are down there," she points down the hallway, "and girls are this way. My room is three-twenty-one."

She leads me down the hallway and opens the door to room three-twenty-one. It is a decent-sized room, the same size as a small bedroom, with two dressers and two little bedside tables. One side of the room has a perfectly made bed with a tie dye quilt, several nature posters, and a bulletin board covered in photographs. The other side of the room, which I assume is Rowan's, has a rumpled white bed cover and no posters, but I notice a killer sound system in a corner and a few braille books on the nightstand.

Rowan flops down on the bed, messing up the covers even more.

"You can sleep over there," she says. "It used to be Tala's but...." She shrugs.

It's that name again. Tala. The mystery girl, who everyone seems to know but no one will tell me about. "What happened to Tala?" I ask Rowan, praying she'll answer me and not just shut down. "Who is she? Liz won't tell me, but everyone keeps talking about her."

"I'm sure Liz has some reason for not telling you," Rowan says quietly. "I think she should, though. You have the right to know. You are sleeping in her bed, after all."

She gets up and crosses to Tala's bulletin board. She runs her hands over them almost longingly, and I remember that even though she can see the pictures are there, she can't tell what's on them. "Does she have the class picture up there? I think she might have put one up. It would have been from a couple years ago."

"Yeah, I think this is it." I take it down. It's of all the kids our age, and I recognize almost everybody, even Paige. Based on all the people I know, it was taken a little over a year ago, when they were maybe fourteen.

"Do you see two kids standing next to each other, dark hair, and tall, so probably back row?"

I squint at the picture. It's tiny, and the kids' faces are just blurs. But I think I see the kids she's talking about, both have dark, tan skin and silky black hair. The picture is too small for me to see the details of their features.

"The girl is Tala. The boy standing next to her is her cousin, Min. They were...." She pauses, gathering her thoughts. "They were who everyone wanted to be. It was...I don't know how to explain it. We all looked up to them, they led us and encouraged us and...we all loved them. They were...they were awesome.

"They were both really good at magic, full shifters. They could turn completely into wolves. They were some of the best fighters I have ever known. And they...." I can see the emotions flitting across her face. She's struggling to put them into words, but I think I kind of understand.

"Tala was one of the nicest people I have ever met. She was so supportive, and, I don't know. She was just a good person. And somehow she wasn't boring or annoying or awkward.

"Min was...I don't know how to explain it. He was brave and smart, and he exuded this air of confidence. People looked to him as a leader, and it sort of felt like wherever he was, it would all work out, all be okay. And despite all this, he was kind and gentle and funny. I've just never met anyone like him. They were both just...good people.

"But then, I guess almost a year ago now, Min disappeared. He and a few other kids, including Tala, had been going to help another school down in Argentina. But there were a few last-minute problems, and Min ended up going down a few days earlier without any of the others. Liz was supposed to be on the flight with him, but she was delayed at security for possession of weapons or something like that. He ended up going all by himself, and everyone else was supposed to meet him.

"But that never happened. The plane Min was on had to crash land. We're pretty sure it was an ambush. It was kind of a mess, and there was a lot of media coverage, but nobody was really hurt. Except Min. He wasn't with the survivors. We never found him.

"Tala was heartbroken. As soon as she found out, she snuck out alone to find him. She was captured by one of the three sisters' armies. We sent out search party after search party but we couldn't find where she was taken. She's probably dead now."

I look at the picture in my hands, at the two children smiling in the background. They are both dead. My heart tightens. Those two children should be alive right now and they're not. It brings my life into perspective, forces me to realize the fragility of it all.

For the rest of the night, all I can think about is Min and Tala. They are haunting me, the two smiling children. I sleep in Tala's bed, look at her posters as I fall asleep. See their faces on Tala's bulletin board, all happy and smiling and alive. I cannot stop thinking about them. Even when I fall asleep, they are in my dreams.

# CHAPTER 11

We end up only staying over at the School Friday night, but I really like it. It's like camp, or a giant sleepover. And the School over the weekend is not like school over the week. It's a lot more casual. Everyone can kind of do whatever they want, and there are some extra classes and stuff too. I learn some more fighting stuff from Jake, and also a few card games from some older kids.

The next weekend, the School has to close because of a hurricane warning. I'm disappointed. Liz, Lily, and I were going to stay at the School both nights. I can tell Liz is upset too, though not for the same reasons. The weather will delay Paige getting home even more.

They cancel the magic classes on Friday even though it's not really raining when we get home. Thunder clouds run into each other and turn the sky into a pattern of wild overlapping gray. It's pretty obvious it's going to start storming, probably within hours.

Liz makes hot chocolate, and we all sit around the table. Everyone is thinking their own thoughts, but I try to break the silence.

"Wow, it's been really rainy this year," I say, thinking of the storm the night I found out I had magic. We spend a few minutes talking about the weather.

It's then that we see the first flash of lightning. The boom of thunder startles me, and I dig my fingers into the sofa. Lily jumps up, the tips of her wings extended, ready for flight.

I don't like to tell anyone, but I'm kind of afraid of thunder. Every time I hear it it takes me a second to place what the noise is. I think it's a bomb or an explosion or that the house is about to collapse on top of me. By the time the third boom of thunder sounds, my heart is pounding and my nerves are frayed.

"Will you tell a story or something?" I ask Liz tensely.

"Why?"

"I'm bored. And it's dangerous to use the TV when there's lightning." I have no idea if this is actually true, I just don't want to have to listen to the thunder anymore. I need someone to distract me.

"Okay, I guess. Do you want to hear the story of how I found Lily?"

There's another boom and I jump. "Sure," I say. Anything at this point.

"I was driving down into Boston with Paige, who was six or seven at the time. It's a long drive, and by the time we got down there we were both starving. We were walking along this street when a man called out to us. He was leaning against the wall of a building, and I could tell from just one glance that he was really sick.

"He had a little daughter with him. She was only a year old, but she already had wings. He said he could tell I had magic. He couldn't afford a doctor, and he knew he was going to die. He begged me to take his daughter, said her mother was dead, and she would have no one.

"I said yes. I didn't even think about it, not even for a second. The man seemed so desperate, and the little girl was so perfect and beautiful and obviously magical. Her father said goodbye to her, and then I just took her. It was as simple as that.

"I hadn't exactly meant to keep her forever, I had meant to find someone else to take her. But after spending a couple days with her, I knew I could never giver her up. I kept the name her father gave her, Lily, the same name as her mother. And I never looked back."

"So that was it? You just took her? And you never even looked for her father? You know that means she's not really even yours, right?"

I had forgotten Lily was still in the room. She gives me a startled, hurt look, and guilt flushes through me.

"I didn't mean that. Lily, you really are Liz's. It's just...."

"Adoption in the magic world isn't the same as it is for everyone else. We are more of a family, we have to be united because we have no one else. I can just take her because without me she would have died. And there are too many orphans, there are more orphans than there are families. We are at war, and that's how it goes during war. There are too many children for someone to manage all of them. They go where they are wanted. All of them have a place where they belong. I guess it must be hard for you to understand. It's not like the rest of the world."

"I...I'm sorry. I didn't understand. Does...does everyone at the School have a story like that?"

"Yes. In your grade, Marco's family is the only biological one, he has both parents and a sister. Jessie and Ryan were both adopted by the same family when they were very young. Drew was also adopted when he was little. Rowan and Seth didn't come to us until they were old enough to take care of themselves, so they just stay at the School. Min and Tala were right in between, so they stayed at the School sometimes and sometimes they stayed here. They were...."

She freezes mid-sentence, like she's just remembered Min and Tala are gone. Pain flits across her face so quickly I'm not positive I even really saw it. I hadn't realized they had stayed with Liz, had been like her children. That makes it sadder, somehow.

It's all sad. It's one, long, sad story of a hundred broken families, a thousand orphaned children. It's sad, but kind of beautiful too, a bunch of people who aren't even related stepping in to make sure everything turns out okay.

It's all beauty and sadness, everything. Liz takes care of the daughter of a man she doesn't even know just because she can. But a man is so desperate he can't even take care of his own daughter. I have found a place where I can belong, where I can be who I really am. But I have to leave my old self behind.

The conversation kind of dies after that. I try for another hour or so to make small talk but it doesn't really work. Eventually I just go up to bed.

Sleep is impossible with all the banging and flashing, until finally at about three a.m., when the storm slows. It's just drizzling now. The storm should completely stop in the morning. I fall asleep with the rain beating out a faint song on my closed window.

It's still damp and sort of sprinkling when I wake up, but by early afternoon some weak sun is peaking through the clouds. I decide to go for a short walk to see what sort of damage the storm has done. And I think I'll go crazy if I have to be trapped in the house all of today.

The air is bitingly cold and a damp breeze makes me shiver. Leaves and twigs litter the road, and some places are completely blocked by bigger branches. I can taste winter on the air for the first time this year, no longer the burnt taste of falling leaves. The wind carries with it the smell of wet rocks and earth.

I walk only about a quarter of a mile before stopping. There's not much to see, and I'm freezing. I've checked out the damage, and now I'm ready to go home. I'm about to turn around when something catches my eye. There's a river that runs parallel to the road, with a tree going almost all the way across it. Caught in one of the branches is...something. I can't quite make out what it is.

I cautiously approach the river. I'm afraid it's an animal or something, and I don't want to scare it. I finally see what it is and gasp. It's a boy, unconscious, tangled in the branches. He's very still, and I can't even tell if he's alive or not.

It doesn't even occur to me to go back and try to get help, or to even try to come up with a plan. I just know I need to get the boy out of the river right now. And I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I start trying to climb out on the tree trunk. If I can get close enough to him, maybe I can pull him to shore. But the movement causes the log to roll, forcing the boy's head under water. I scramble off the log before I drown him.

I walk desperately along the river, trying to think of something I can do. I can't reach him, even if I climb on the log, and the river is too cold for me to wade in. I'm about to try it anyway when another solution occurs to me.

I remember the sharp feeling of magic in my chest, the way it felt when I shoved the tree off the road. I picture the branch with the boy on it bending slowly toward me. I bring it closer and closer, ignoring the exhaustion building in my chest, my limbs, my eyes. And then the branch really is there, completely under my control. I lunge forward and grab the boy, dragging him toward me. I lay him out on the bank, feeling awkwardly for a pulse. It's surprisingly strong for someone who just almost drowned.

I try to judge how old he is. Older than I first thought. He looks like he's around my age, but he's shockingly, painfully skinny, like a poster child for a food bank. He's breathing regularly but still unconscious, and a long cut runs down his arm.

He needs medical attention. I'm not sure if I should stay with him or leave and get Liz. My question is answered when he starts shaking. There's no way I can leave him alone like this.

I pull one of his arms around my shoulders. I can mostly carry him, at least for a little while. I'm lucky he's so light.

It takes me at least fifteen minutes to get back to Liz's house. I have to keep resting, putting him down on the side of the road and taking deep, gasping breaths. I know it's stupid, but the whole time I can't stop thinking about how close I am to a boy. Almost every part of us is touching. He's burning up, carrying him is kind of like hugging a space heater.

By the time I get to the house, I'm trembling with exertion. Luckily the door isn't locked, and I shove it open with my knee. Lily stands in the doorway. "What's going on? Who's that?" She freezes suddenly, stiff with shock.

"Help me!" I gasp. "I'm going to drop him."

Lily's eyes are wide. "Mom. Mom!" she screams, her voice high and strangely desperate. "Where did you find him?" She's still frozen, and I can't read her expression.

Liz runs into the hallway, then stops dead, like she's run into a brick wall. I can't carry the boy anymore and I drop him. He slides limply to the ground. Liz lunges forward to catch him. Her eyes are filling with shocked tears.

She lifts him much more easily than I did, and brings him to the sofa. I look down at him. His skin is the color of milky coffee and his hair is shiny black. He would be very handsome if he weren't so skinny, I think. He's pretty attractive anyway, though. He looks vaguely familiar too, but in a way I can't quite place.

"Who is he? Liz, what's going on?"

She doesn't answer. She still looks almost painfully shocked. And it's not just that there is an injured boy on her sofa. She's seen worse. Until now, I kind of thought nothing could affect her like this. I know that something big is going on here, even if I'm not sure what it is.

I see that Liz is whispering one word, over and over, like a chant, or a prayer. "Min, Min, Min."

Min. The boy from the picture, the one everyone looks up to. The one who was Tala's cousin. The one who was in a plane crash. The one who's been missing for almost a year. The one who was supposed to be dead. Min.

# CHAPTER 12

All of a sudden, he shifts and moans, opening his eyes. I would have expected them to be a dark brown, but they're not. They're tawny, amber, the color of light shining through a bottle of root beer. The color of caramel. There is something a bit mesmerizing about them, and I find I can't look away.

"Who are you?" he asks, his voice tired and small.

Liz pushes me out of the way. "Min. Are you okay? What happened? Where were you?"

"Liz...." His eyes close, and for a second I think he's fainted. But he manages to open them again.

"How do you feel?" she asks him. Fear is written all over her face, the same expression she would wear if Lily or I was hurt. The expression of a parent tending to an injured child.

"I'm fine." He shifts slightly. "Except I'm really cold. I was in the river. And my arm...."

"Is it broken?"

He shakes his head. "Sprained. Or dislocated. I was hit by a car."

"You were what?" she gasps. "Did you just say you were hit by a car?" She looks...angry. I don't know if I've ever seen her angry like this. If she could find the driver of the car, I think she might kill him.

"Just a day or two ago, while I was a wolf, I was clipped by it while I was running." He doesn't look particularly concerned about this, just tired. The kind of tired I have never been, weary to the bone. Each blink is long, and I'm half surprised every time he manages to open his eyes again.

"Oh Min," Liz whispers and she's just concerned again. "What happened to you? You were gone all these months...."

"Do you want me to tell you now?"

"No, of course not. Sleep. You need to recover."

He doesn't even seem to hear her. He just starts talking. "I remember the soldiers appearing, just popping up out of their seats and attacking. The pilot was forced to land. Crash land. I think I passed out, I don't remember anything else that happened for a while.

"When I woke up, I was in the rain forest. There was no one else around me. I guess I must have ended up somewhere else, and when they found all the other survivors I wasn't with them. There wasn't even a wreckage around me. I was all alone. And I couldn't move. My head hurt. And my leg. I hurt all over.

"I think I was dying. Or something. I would try to concentrate, to move or eat, but I kept falling asleep. Everything was spinning. The light was too bright. It hurt my eyes."

"Min, you don't need to talk about this now."

"I can talk about it now. I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget again."

"Min...."

He gives her a look. "I can tell you now. I want to talk. I don't want to fall asleep again."

"Okay, keep talking. But if you need to stop, stop."

"I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember my name, or why I was in the forest. I could sort of remember the plane, being attacked. Falling. Other than that, nothing.

"I stayed like that, unable to move or think, for days. Weeks maybe. I was asleep for most of it. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was starving to death. I hadn't eaten anything since before I got on the plane. I wasn't drinking anything either. I don't know how I even stayed alive.

"After a while I started to recover. I was hungry, but I was still too injured to move. I ate any plants I could reach. Some of them made me sick, but enough were edible that I didn't die.

"I think it was a month before I recovered enough to walk. I knew I needed to do something, go somewhere. But I had hit my head and I couldn't remember.

"I just walked. I could only travel a few minutes every day at first. After a while I got stronger, but it was still slow. It took me a very, very long time to find anything. I couldn't concentrate. I was dizzy and injured, recovering too slowly. Eventually, I had to stay as a wolf just to stay conscious.

"I wandered into a little village, but the villagers started shooting at me. They were probably afraid I was going to steal their livestock or something. It's not like I would...." He seems to be fading. His train of thought is breaking, he can't keep track of what he's saying. He shakes his head as if to clear it. His gaze locks on me. "Wait, who did you say you were again?"

"Min, this is Aubrey. If you want to finish telling me your story, you're going to have to finish so you can go to sleep."

"Right. Sorry." He can't remember where he was.

"You were talking about entering the village."

"Oh yeah, I changed into a human and then passed out. The villagers cared for me and helped me. It took me a long time to recover. The villagers spoke Spanish and I couldn't understand what they were saying. They kept calling me something though, I think it translates to 'magic wolf'. That's why they helped me. They thought I was like a magic spirit or something.

"I think I must have gotten a concussion during the plane crash. I broke my leg too. That had mostly healed by the time I got to the village, but the concussion was still really bad. I don't know how to explain it. It hurt to think.

"At first it was giving me a lot of problems. I couldn't read and there was some stuff I couldn't remember. But after a few weeks in the village it started healing. I think it's completely better. It hasn't hurt in months and I remember everything."

Liz nods. "That's good. And it wasn't caused by magic, right? If there were any lasting effects, we should be able to heal you."

I start to ask what she means, but Liz shakes her head minutely at me. We need to listen to Min now. We can talk about that later.

"There were no telephones in the village, and I couldn't think of anyone's phone number other than Tay's anyway. They told me a trucker came with supplies every so often, and that I could ride back with him once he arrived. It took over a month. I learned how to speak Spanish.

"He took me as far as Virginia, and I hitchhiked the rest of the way. I called Tay's phone number over and over again. But she never answered."

I look at Liz. "Tay?" I mouth.

"Tala," she whispers back, quietly enough that Min doesn't seem to hear.

"I knew where the School was. I went there the day before yesterday, but it was night time and no one was there. I wasn't sure what to do until I realized I also knew your home address. I started to come here as a wolf but it was raining really hard. A car skidded and hit me so I couldn't walk anymore. And I was really cold. I fell into a stream because it was raining so hard I couldn't see it. I got caught in the branches of this tree, and then I must have passed out. After that...."

He's shaking. His eyes have started to roll up into his head. I can only see about two thirds of the iris. He's gasping for breath too.

"Oh Min, what happened to you? What's wrong?"

"No, it's...it's okay. I'm fine," he mumbles. His words are blurred and indistinct. He's literally deteriorating before my eyes. I'm surprised he even made it through the story. Liz's brow knits with worry. "I'll be right back. I'm going to get you some medicine." She walks toward the kitchen.

"No really, it's fine." Then he gets up and tries to follow her. Immediately, his knees buckle. I manage to catch him as he slides to the floor. I help him back to the sofa.

"Who are you again?" he asks me.

"I'm Aubrey. Liz adopted me."

"Paige?"

"No. I'm Aubrey. You haven't met me before."

"Oh." He seems relieved by this. "Good." Then he narrows his eyes. "Do you know where Tay is? I haven't seen her in a while. She must be really be worried."

I wince. I have no idea how to respond to that. And Liz is in the kitchen, so I can't get her. Not without leaving Min alone, which doesn't seem to be an option right now.

"She's...not here right now," I say slowly, carefully.

"Can you get her for me?" His coppery eyes are wide, and I want to help him. I want to bring Tala to him. I want everything to work out. But it can't, because Tala's gone.

"She's away right now," I say. I don't want to lie, but I think I'm going to have to. "She's at a different school. Like a vacation. She's just going to be there for a little while. She'll be back soon. We'll...we'll tell her you're okay." Guilt aches through me. I really hope he's so out of it that he won't remember this conversation in a few hours. And if he does remember it, I hope he's not angry with me.

I decide to try to change the subject again. "How do you feel?" I ask.

"I'm fine," he says, impatiently. But he's speaking very slowly. Each word is enunciated carefully, but wrong somehow, like I'm listening to him talk from underwater. His eyelids keep flickering and then snapping open at the last minute.

He's still conscious when Liz comes back in. His caramel eyes are wide, panicked, glassy with fever and pain. Liz passes him water and a few pills. He struggles to hold the glass but doesn't let Liz help him. As soon as it's empty, it drops from his shaking hands and onto the floor.

"Sleep now, Min. You're safe here. Sleep."

I watch him struggle to stay awake. I can see that he doesn't want to give in, doesn't want to let his body take over. He's going to keep fighting.

"Min," I say. "It's fine. You need rest. Go to sleep." He looks up at me and obediently closes his eyes, finally allowing himself to heal.

# CHAPTER 13

"This isn't good," Liz says. "His arm is injured. And I think he's wrong, I think it is broken. He has a fever, he's dehydrated, in shock...."

"Why?"

"Probably from exposure. He's spent the last week outside from the sound of it. Some of these nights have been freezing. And he was in cold water for hours. And he was hit by a car in the middle of it...."

Liz keeps watching Min carefully. She wraps his arm with bandages, gives him pills, struggles to keep him cool. He shifts a few times, but he doesn't wake. There are two high spots of fever on his cheeks, and he's trembling lightly. After a few hours, I go upstairs to bed. Liz remains by Min's side, as I know she will do all night. I'm not sure what their relationship is. Is it just teacher to student? Or more like mother and son?

I can't wait to tell the other kids about Min. They really look up to him, and for a few seconds I am excited. But I probably won't see them until Monday. I guess maybe that's for the better, because if they knew he was alive, they would want to see him immediately, and he's definitely too sick for that.

Suddenly I'm terribly afraid that he will die. My whole body rebels against that more than it's ever rebelled against anything before. I don't want him to die. He can't die. He can't. I won't let him.

I fall asleep with tears running down my face.

My worries are grounded in nothing. When I hurry downstairs the next morning, Min is sitting up, eating a bowl of oatmeal, and Liz is nowhere in sight.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

"Much better, actually. I'll probably be fine by noon, but Liz wants to keep me here the rest of the day, I think."

I notice his left arm is in a sling. "Does your arm hurt? Did you break it?"

"No, I didn't break it. I dislocated the shoulder, but it's back in place now." He blinks at me with those strange, caramel eyes. "Do you want to play a board game or something? I've been up for hours and I'm bored out of my mind."

I bring out cards, and so begins an epic card game marathon. We play our way through War, Spoons, Gin rummy, and Spit. Min wins most of them, but I win at Spoons. Min pretends that he is mad that I won at Spoons and throws the cards in the air and they land all over the room, and we both laugh like crazy. We talk, but not about anything really important. I find that Min is easy to talk to, funny and interesting.

Later that day, Liz gives Min the okay. He can move around and basically do whatever he wants, as long as it's not too strenuous. I soon discover Min likes to move. As soon as he can get up, he wants to start walking. When he has to sit down, he runs his hands absently over the sofa, taps out a rhythm on the table.

Liz asks Min a series of questions, trying to judge if he still has any concussion symptoms. He keeps protesting that his memory is fine now, and it seems to be mostly true. There are a few things he can't quite get, but Liz fills him in quickly and he has no trouble after that.

"So where's Tay? When can I see her?" Min says. He's sitting on the sofa, agitatedly rubbing the sofa. I'm relieved. He doesn't seem to remember our conversation last night.

"Min, I...I don't know how to tell you this. A lot has changed since you've been gone, and...well...." Liz hesitates, clearly torn. My heart aches for her. She looks upset.

"Well...." Min echoes, his fingers drumming to a frantic beat.

"Tala's been captured," she finally says. "We can't find where she's being held. We've looked, Min, you have to believe that. We've looked so hard. But it's been such a long time, we don't even know if she's still alive." Liz's voice breaks.

I expect him to cry or something, but he doesn't, he just sits there, immobilized, even his fingers still.

"She is alive," he says, his voice controlled, level, and icy calm. "She is alive and we will find her. I will find her. She...." He gathers himself. "She went out looking for me, right? She was all alone, looking for me, and that's how she got captured." It's not a question anymore.

Liz nods. Min is pale and trembling with some barely controlled emotion, I'm not sure what. Liz senses he's in a dangerous mood and tries to smooth things over.

"Why don't we watch another movie? I think the one we watched last night has a sequel," she soothes.

"I don't want to watch a movie! I want to find Tala. She's been locked up in some cell for months. We have to find her."

His voice is raw with pain, just listening to it makes me hurt. It catches, hitching in his chest, but he still doesn't cry. I can see how hard he's working to control himself, it's written all over his face.

Liz senses he needs some time to himself. She takes me into another room and tries to explain the bond between Tala and Min.

"It's kind of like the bond between twins," she says, "if not even stronger. Losing her is like losing a sister, a best friend and a part of himself. Not to mention she's the only tie he has to his mother."

I don't see Min for the rest of the day. I know Liz talks to him a few times, and she tells me he's doing better. I'm worried for him the same way I would be worried for a friend, even though I've only known him a day.

The next day is Monday, and I can barely wait to get to magic school. Liz has judged Min's physical and emotional state to be too fragile for him to come, but he's not a secret, so I can tell whoever I want that he's okay.

"That was a big storm," Mackenna says while we're waiting in home room.

"Yeah." I'm not really paying attention to what she's saying.

"We got a pet flying squirrel."

"Wow." I'm not even looking at her.

"I ran away from home and I've been sleeping in a graveyard for the past week."

"I'm sorry."

"Aubrey!" she yells. I look over at her. To my surprise, she almost looks like she's about to start crying. "Where are you? You haven't been listening to anything I've been saying. I'm not really living in a graveyard, but what if I was? You're supposed to say something other than sorry."

"When did you say you were living in a graveyard?"

She gives me a look. "Will you tell me what's going on?" she asks finally. "You've been...different for weeks. It's like you're not even here anymore."

"I...I can't."

"You can't what?"

"I can't tell you what's going on. There is something, I just...can't tell you what it is."

"Why?" She doesn't even look angry, just sad. I can tell she doesn't believe me, and because of that she thinks she's lost me as a friend.

"It's because.... You know what, never mind. Do you want to come over this weekend? I can tell you then." I don't care what Liz says, or what anyone else says. I am going to tell Mackenna everything. I'm pretty sure she has magic, and I don't care that no one else believes me. I made a promise to myself that first day. I would stay friends with Mackenna. I will stay friends with Mackenna. I will not break that promise. Nothing is going to come between us. I won't let it.

Our first class at the magic school is Flexibility and Agility. Before class starts, I ask Marina if I can make an announcement. She looks a little confused, I don't think she's ever been asked that before, but she agrees. After everyone is done changing, I stand in front of the class. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it to them, so I just kind of start. I stumble over my words, anxious about speaking in front of so many people.

"Um, this weekend I had a very interesting visitor. He's come from very far away and he's had a hard, long journey. He's sick right now so he can't come in to see you yet but he will soon. A lot of people thought he was dead so it may come as a bit of a surprise to see him."

I wait for everyone to figure it out but they don't. Finally, someone calls out, "Well, who is it?"

"Min," I breathe.

The effect is immediate and intense. Several people gasp and scream. Rowan gets to her feet and stands there, swaying, dazed. Jessie jumps up and hugs me.

I give them a few minutes to get the excitement out of their system. Eventually they calm down.

"Where has he been all this time? Is he injured? When will he see us?" I'm bombarded with questions. I try to answer all of them.

"After his plane crashed he was badly injured, but he's been slowly making his way back to us since then. He was clipped by a car when he was a wolf a few days ago. He has some bad bruising on his side and his arm is sprained but he's fine other than that. He can probably come in to see you tomorrow. I...I should probably give the class back to Marina now."

"Oh no. It's fine," she says, looking dazed. "Take as much time as you need."

I answer as many questions as I can during the next half an hour.

The rest of the day passes by in a happy blur. Even when Rowan destroys me during Magical Fighting. Even when we try to make a longhouse-type fort and it collapses inward on us. No matter what happens, we can't stop smiling.

We also can't concentrate. During Survival, the teacher tells us to run a mile each and come back to work when we're good and tired. That mile is the best mile of my life. We run in a pack, only as fast as our slowest person, and we whoop and scream and sing, and the moonlight shines down on us, turning us into something wild and beautiful and free. And then the moment is over, and we stand panting lightly, jostling each other like an over-eager pack of wolves.

And something has changed. Between me and them. Before, they had been my friends, the best friends I had ever had. Now, they are my family. I would live and die for them and with them. We are united.

# CHAPTER 14

Two days later Liz lets Min go back to the School. Those two days, I have to admit, are really nice. I like talking to Min. I like having him around. I like coming home to him pacing agitatedly around the house like a wolf, I like being able to make him laugh. We're becoming friends, I guess. I've never been friends with a guy, but it's fun and he's easy to talk to.

The day Liz lets him go back to the School, and he's almost painfully excited. I can see it in every coiled movement, sense it in the way he talks. His arm is still in a sling, but he's fully recovered aside from that. His fever is completely gone, and he's already started to gain back some of the weight he lost.

Liz drives me home after school so we can pick up Min. He's waiting for us, and I get the impression that he's been waiting there for a very long time. I try to imagine how bored he must be, stuck alone in the house for three days.

Soon I'm sitting in the front seat of the car, and Min is sitting in the back with Lily. I can't stop looking at him. Now that he's not too pale and he's combed his hair and stuff, he's hot. I thought he would be from the beginning, but now I'm sure of it. And he draws my eye.

"Um, what are you looking at?" he finally asks.

"Oh, sorry." I spin around, forcing myself to stare straight ahead, not paying attention to anything but the road.

I'm still very conscious of his presence behind me, though.

When we arrive at the School, I'm expecting something. I expect Min to say something, do something, anything. But he just walks in as he's probably done a million times before and goes to his class. I'm not sure how he even knows what day it is, but he goes to the right place, so I'm just following him.

We're a few minutes late for Athletics. I was hoping to just quietly slip in, but we end up making even more of a spectacle. Everyone is cheering, running up to talk to him, touch him, like he's some sort of a celebrity. I stand awkwardly to the side. I suddenly feel very...un-special.

After Min's arrival, Athletics really doesn't get back on track. Everyone is asking Min what happened to him, where he was, how he feels, and they can't keep working without answers. He's everything to them, the boy who returned to them from the dead. I watch the way they look at him, treat him as if he's both invincible and strangely fragile.

I can see that Min is slightly uncomfortable with all the attention. It's not that it makes him nervous exactly, and I can tell he wants to make his classmates happy. But the pressure, the responsibility, frightens him. It is hard to be looked up to like that. It is hard, and it is lonely.

During Magical Fighting, the goal is to stand on an increasingly violently rocking platform. It keeps going until everyone has fallen off, then we restart and try to stay on for longer. I think eventually we'll advance to fighting on it.

I fall off first, which I kind of expected. It's not long before there are only two people left. Rowan, who has a great sense of balance and seems like an obvious last person for something like this, and Min, who I didn't expect. He's still skinny, his arm is in a sling, but already he displays a surprising amount of grace and power. His balance is perfect, the way he moves with the platform seems natural.

He smiles at Rowan, and they hold onto each other to keep their balance. He helps her, they keep each other steady. I have a sudden, sharp wish that it was me on the platform instead, that we were supporting each other, smiling like that. I swallow down the bitter wave of jealousy, force myself not to look away. I try to imagine myself doing everything Rowan is doing, so next time I'll be the last one up with Min.

I'm impressed but not really surprised when Rowan falls off and Min is the last one left standing. We reset, and I am the first one out again, though I do last a bit longer than last time. As I watch Min stand on the platform again, my heart burns with a strange, sharp sort of pain.

I clearly don't get out enough. As soon as I meet a new guy, it's like my brain goes out the window. I barely even know him. I need to snap myself out of it. I wish Mackenna were here. She would laugh at me, and make me stop being stupid, and then everything would be okay.

Since I can't watch Min smile and laugh with all the other girls in the class, I force myself to think about something else. I end up thinking about Mackenna. I know Liz doesn't think she has magic, but I am absolutely convinced I'm right. This weekend. It all ends this weekend. This weekend we'll repair our relationship, this weekend it will all be okay.

We're still building forts in Survival, but it's too cold out for it to be fun. I have to keep blowing on my hands so they will stay warm, and even so my fingers are numb. We're doing a long term project, and today is just the first few steps. We have to keep dragging logs to the center of the courtyard, and after Athletics and Magical Fighting, the job tires me. By the end it doesn't even look like we've accomplished anything, and I'm slightly frustrated for no reason.

Class is over. I collect all my stuff and meet Liz and Lily at the car. Min is staying at his old room at the School. I'm a little disappointed. I enjoyed having him around. But I can understand why he would want to stay at his own room. And I will still see him every day at the School. I don't really have the right to be disappointed.

He wasn't mine to lose.

For the rest of the car ride, I sit in sulky silence. I bet Liz can guess what's wrong, she used to be a teenager and she's not an idiot, but thankfully she doesn't say anything. I'm angry while I'm finishing homework, I'm angry while I'm packing my bag for the next day, I'm angry while I'm brushing my teeth and getting into my pajamas. But finally, as I'm getting into bed, waves of exhaustion start washing over me. My last thought before I fall asleep is not of Min but of Mackenna.

The next day at school, Mackenna is absent, which worries me. I'm afraid she's started getting symptoms of magic, and is confused and alone, hiding from her father, maybe even in pain. I hope that's not what's happening for her sake, but it would be convenient for me if she discovered magic on her own.

Well, assuming she even has it. If I look at the big picture, it does seem unlikely. Two random girls from school with no history of magic both discover that they have it within a week of each other. It just doesn't seem likely. But I'm so sure.

The next day Mackenna is back at school but she won't tell me why she was absent. She seems different. She's more subdued, distant. I have to ask her questions three times before she responds to me. It's annoying, and I have a sudden rush of sympathy for her. This must be what I'm like all the time now.

I invite her over on Saturday. She does seem excited, but not really engaged. I just let her be. Hopefully she'll prove she has magic, and whatever's going on now will all be forgotten.

I decide telling her the truth will be easier than fabricating a complex lie. I don't tell Liz that this is my plan. I don't even tell Liz that I have a plan. I know she wouldn't agree with it. I don't even agree with it. But for me, that's what has to be done.

I'll just tell Mackenna that I have magic and I think she might too. I'm guessing she'll think it's a joke, but hopefully she'll go along with it, at least for a little while. And the worst that could happen is she doesn't go along with it, and I haven't lost anything.

At least that's what I tell myself. There are two worse possibilities, possibilities I'm trying my very hardest to ignore. The first one is that Mackenna thinks I'm crazy and doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Honestly, if the situation was switched, I think this is what I would do. Then I've lost my best friend and not gained anything.

The second possibility is even more concerning. There's a chance that I'm wrong. That Mackenna doesn't have magic, but she still believes me. Then she'll be dragged into this mess, and there will be no way for her to go back. She'll have to fight, or hide, or something, and there will be nothing she can do, and nothing I can do. Maybe if I tell her it's a joke she'll believe that, but if she convinces herself I'm telling the truth, there will be nothing I can do to tell her otherwise. In the end, that's really what I'm afraid of.

Liz isn't suspicious. I invited her over on Saturday, because that's what friends do, and it's really not out of the ordinary at all. But that means I have two more days to wait. Two more days, and this will go one way or the other. Two days, and we will know the truth.

Thursday and Friday I think I drive Liz crazy. I'm anxious and restless. I spend a lot of the time working out. I find myself wishing for the first time in a while that I had another hobby or something. I even try reading a couple times. I've never been a huge reader, even though I think it would have been a good escape when I was younger. Books can't usually hold my attention past the first couple of chapters.

I'm sure I'm acting even more strange to Mackenna at school, which is saying a lot. I ask her weird questions, questions that only make sense to me. I'll stare into space, half looking at her and half thinking, until she has to yell at me to get me to pay attention. She has no idea what's going on. Of course she doesn't. This is my secret, my secret to bear alone.

Until Saturday. Saturday, one way or another, this will end.

# CHAPTER 15

Saturday, finally. Of course it's five a.m., and Mackenna won't be coming over for at least six hours. She said she would come over when she woke up, which, knowing her, probably won't be until after noon.

I walk awkwardly around the house, wishing Lily or Liz was awake. Wishing Min were here. Having him around was kind of like having a brother, he was someone amazing and available who I could hang out with all the time.

For the first time, I also wish for Liz's other daughter, Paige. She's my age exactly, her birthday is only three weeks before mine. It would be like having a long lost twin. And at times like this, when I'm anxious and bored and just want to talk to someone, she would be there for me.

It seems to take forever, but finally Mackenna texts me saying she's up and on her way. I look out the window, waiting for her. I'm anxious, bouncing on the balls of my feet. I normally don't have a lot of nervous habits, but today I have everything. I'm biting my lip, tapping my fingers on the windowsill, throwing a pebble I found on the floor back and forth between my hands, absently picking pieces of fluff off my sweater.

Finally, finally, I see Mackenna's car pull up in my driveway. She's driving, but her father is in the passenger's seat. I hadn't realized she was old enough to get her permit yet. She only needs to be fifteen-and-a-half, but I won't be that old for another month. She looks nervous, and I guess it's one of the first times she's been out on the roads.

I see her turn and exchange a few words with her father, arranging a pick-up time, probably. Maybe getting some feedback on her driving. She gets out of the car, and he takes her spot at the wheel before driving away.

Mackenna doesn't have a mother. Well, I mean, she has one, obviously. Everyone does. But her mother died when Mackenna was just a baby, in a car accident I think, and Mackenna doesn't have a single memory of her to hold onto. It has always been her and her father. He's the one that drives her places, makes her food, and takes care of her when she's sick. He's always been more than enough for her. And with a father like that, maybe I wouldn't need a mom either.

Mackenna rings the doorbell even though I'm sure she can see me standing there.

"Hey," I say, opening the door.

"Hey yourself." I can hear the laugh in her voice, but it sounds fake, somehow, forced.

Liz smiles at her as I lead her through the kitchen. "Hi Mackenna. How are you doing?"

"Good, thank you." They might stay to talk a little longer, but then I am practically dragging Mackenna up the stairs.

"What's going on?" she asks, but I don't answer. I'm almost frantic, my heart beating high in my chest. This ends today, this ends now.

I pull her into my room, slam the door behind us. Then I'm sitting down, yanking her down with me. Her eyes flit around the room. I can see she's confused, almost frightened. But I don't care. Not anymore.

For one brief second, everything freezes. I am about to change everything, no matter how this goes down. I stare at Mackenna, wondering what any of this is worth, wondering if I'm about to lose her forever. Random details catch my eye, things I've never seemed to notice before. Her eyelashes are so long they touch her eyebrows, almost. She must have trimmed her hair recently, because it reaches to the bottom of her ribs, where it used to reach almost to her belly button. The sleeve of her too-big, chunky cardigan is fraying. There's a little wound, maybe a paper cut, on her finger.

Unfreeze. I take a deep breath, and look her right in the eyes. This is it. The moment we've all been waiting for.

"Look at this." My voice is breathless with anticipation. I close my hand and open it and there is a tiny ball of light energy in it. "I can do magic. See? I think you can too."

Her dark eyes meet mine. And for a second, all that's there is shock. My heart drops out of my chest. I can't breathe. I've lost her.

But to my surprise, her expression shifts. And she doesn't look afraid or confused or disbelieving. She looks vindicated.

"I knew it," she whispers. "I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew I was right. Watch." And then a tiny ball of fire flickers into life on her finger, small and wavering as a candle, but definitely there, definitely real. "I thought I was crazy. I thought I was alone. But it is real."

I blink. I had all this built-up fear and energy inside me, and it was almost tearing me apart. But now it's okay. Convincing Mackenna was ten times easier than I thought it would be. She already knows she has magic. She already believes me. I just need to tell Liz.

"How long have you known?" I ask. I'm whispering too, even though there's no one there to hear us.

"Only a week or two. I just made it happen. It was kind of on accident. I was really afraid. I...I wasn't sure if it was real."

"Have you told anyone?" I really, really hope she hasn't. Well, Liz will probably talk to her father anyway, but anyone other than that.

She shakes her head. "I thought I was going crazy, or that there was something...wrong with me. At the very least I didn't think it was something anyone else would have. I didn't think anyone would understand."

All of a sudden I feel lightheaded. "Oh my gosh. I just can't believe you have magic. I thought you did but I just...I just...." I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I lower my head to my chest, hoping to get some blood to go up there. I don't want to pass out.

"Are we the only ones?" she asks. I can hear her trying to hide the fear in her voice.

"No. Not at all. There are so many, Mackenna. Liz can do it, and Lily. There's a whole school for people like us. I've been going there every day. It's why I've been so tired. You can go there to learn magic too." Suddenly I'm grabbing her hand, pulling her to her feet. "Let's go tell Liz. Right now. And then you can start going to the magic school, maybe on Monday. It will be awesome. I'm so glad you have magic. When I first found out, I was afraid I would be too different from you. I was afraid I would lose you...."

"Wait...." Now she's not even trying to hide the fear in her voice. I remember how she feels. Once we start telling people, once we go out that door, it's real. And there's no going back.

I hesitate for a split second. And then I open the door, and together, we walk through.

"And I can do magic whenever I want? And go to your school? And learn to fight people?" Liz has explained everything to Mackenna, better than I did. She takes it in her stride, dealing with the new information far better than me. We haven't shocked her or frightened her, just proven her right, validated what she already knew. Except for the war. She didn't know about that, and I'm sure if she spends a little time thinking about it she'll be at least a little scared.

"No, of course you can't do magic whenever you want," Liz says exasperatedly. "Only at the School, when we teach you. And...."

"Wait, but what about in a real situation? Like if I was getting mugged or something?"

"At this point you would probably do more damage to yourself then a mugger."

"Yeah, because magic takes energy, right? And I can learn to use a sword too. And I can make balls of fire and stuff. I'll even be able to light campfires. And...." We have determined that Mackenna's magic is fire. Well, it was kind of obvious, but it's official now. She keeps asking what my magic is, and I'm embarrassed that I still don't know.

"Alright, I think that's enough questions for now. You can come to the School this Monday, and Aubrey will take you around to your classes."

"Okay!" she says eagerly.

"Oh, and we don't believe in keeping magic a secret from parents. We'll have to schedule a meeting with your father in the next week."

"Why don't we just do it now?" she asks. "I mean, he's coming to get me in like," she checks the clock above out oven, "ten minutes."

Liz's mouth creases into a small line. "Are you sure that you're ready for that? You can take a little more time if you need."

"No. I...I just want to get it over with. If that's okay."

Liz nods, and we wait the ten minutes for Mackenna's father in relative silence. Liz looks calm and in control, as usual, and I guess she's probably told random parents about magic a million times before. Mackenna is nervous and fidgety, her pale skin even paler that normal. I am caught somewhere in between. Nervous for Mackenna's sake, but then again, it's not my father. And anyway, Mackenna has like the nicest dad ever. I'm sure he'll take it just fine.

Finally we hear his car pull up in the driveway. Mackenna's phone buzzes with a text a few seconds later. He is probably asking her to come out. She does, but doesn't get in the car. Instead, she talks to him through the window, asking him to come inside. It takes a minute, but he gets out of the car and rings the doorbell to our house.

Liz rises to answer. She opens the door, a neat, comforting smile plastered on her face. But when she sees Mackenna's father, Mr. Williams, the smile drops quickly from her face. It's replaced by an expression of shock. One hand rises slowly up to cover her mouth.

"Liz," I say. "Liz, what is it?"

She doesn't even seem to hear me. "Michael?" she whispers.

I don't know how exactly I'm expecting Mr. Williams to react. But certainly not the way he does. One word, surprise and recognition in his voice. "Liz?"

# CHAPTER 16

As far as I know, Liz and Mr. Williams have never met. Mackenna and I have only known each other for a few months, and though we have been over to each other's house many times, we usually are dropped off, and I don't think her father and Liz have ever had a conversation. I mean, they know each other's names, probably, so the fact that they're saying them now maybe isn't that weird. It's the sharp sort of surprise in their voices, the recognition in their eyes, that really throws me off.

I look over at Mackenna. She looks just as confused as I feel. "What's going on?" I mouth. She shakes her head. She has no idea either.

"You lied," Liz says. Her voice is very quiet, but hard with rage. "You let everyone think you were dead. Where have you been?"

Mackenna sidles over to me. "Do they know each other?" she whispers in my ear. I shrug. Two minutes ago, I would have said no, but now it sure sounds like they do. And not just know of each other, but know each other on some sort of personal level, or at least, that they used to.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Williams whispers. "I wasn't trying to hurt you, or anyone else. I was trying to protect my daughter."

"Protect her from what? Us? Herself?" Liz's voice grows softer. "What happened to Aileen? What could possibly make you change your mind like that?"

"Wait, okay, back up. What's going on?" Mackenna asks. Everyone completely ignores her except me. But I have no more idea of what's happening than she does, so there's nothing I can say to her, obviously.

"What happened?" Liz asks.

"Aileen was killed. It was only a few months after Mackenna was born."

"That's my mom's name," Mackenna whispers to me, so quietly that no one else hears her.

"But why did you never tell anyone? Nobody's heard from you since the war started. Where were you all that time?"

"Here. I never left. I knew there was a school around here, of course, but I didn't know who worked there. I cut contact with everyone from my old life after Aileen's death. Mackenna didn't know about any of it. She never knew she had magic. I...I was afraid, and I was trying to protect her. I didn't want anything to do with the war. I didn't want Mackenna to get hurt. I had hoped she would never find out."

"What is going on?" I say, louder this time. Finally, Liz looks over at me.

"Mackenna's father and I used to go to school together, and we were close friends. But sixteen years ago, around the time the war started, he and his wife disappeared. Everyone thought they were dead. We never even knew they had a child."

Mackenna looks stricken. "So you knew? All this time you knew I had magic? I was so scared this past week, I thought I was dying. And it's all because you never told me anything."

"I wanted to keep you safe. I never wanted you to have to be part of a war, or any of this. I wanted you to get a normal, peaceful life. I know what it's like to live in fear, to wonder whether you'll make it to the end of each day. I know what it's like to kill, to watch people you love get killed. I don't want that for you. I would do anything to keep you from that."

"You lied to me. You told me Mom died in a car accident."

"What was I supposed to tell you? What else would you have believed?"

"It doesn't matter. Always tell the truth. No matter how much it hurts. Now...." She trails off. I thought at first she was angry, but now I can really see she's about to start crying. "I don't even know who you are anymore." Then she stands up and whirls out of the house. I hear the rumble of the car engine starting. She is driving herself home.

It's illegal for Mackenna to be driving herself, but no one stops her. Not Liz, not me, not even her father. We just watch her back cautiously down my driveway, and then turn into the street and disappear.

"I'll drive you home," Liz says after a while. "But on the way, you're going to tell me everything."

Monday morning at school, Mackenna is subdued. She says absolutely nothing about what she discovered Saturday. In fact, she barely talks at all.

"Are you okay?" I finally ask her. We both speak in whispers so we won't be overheard. But it's in between classes, so the halls are so loud I doubt anyone could listen in if they tried.

"I guess, I mean, I don't know. It's just...." she hesitates. "I feel like everyone's lied to me. About everything. About my present and my past and even my future. You've known about magic for months now, you could have told me at any time. And my entire life with my father has been a lie. He told me mom was killed in a car crash when I was just a baby. But she wasn't. She was killed in the war. Everything I thought I knew about her wasn't true. None of this is true. How can I tell what's true now?"

She breaks off. She honestly looks more confused than angry or upset. I was angry at Liz for a little while when I found out she had lied to me about magic. But that was for a couple months. This is Mackenna's entire life.

"And I love him," she continues. "I don't want to stay mad at him, he's all I have left. But he betrayed me, and...how can I ever trust anything he says anymore?"

I pause, trying to gather my thoughts. "Mackenna, I know what he did was unfair, but the only reason he did it was to protect you. And he did, for a while. And I bet he'll never do anything like this again."

"Do you really believe that? Will I be able to trust him again?"

I nod. "I believe it."

"Thank you," she whispers, but she still looks skeptical.

After that, Mackenna is a little less reserved, and she does seem genuinely excited to go to magic school. I'm excited too. I've only been going to the School for a month and a half, but already I'm experienced enough to teach her. Plus, I won't be the newest anymore.

We have Athletics first. We run a few laps to warm up, and Mackenna is a strong runner. She keeps up easily. After a quick stretch, we do an intense upper body workout By the end my arms are burning and sore.

First-aid is all review, which is lucky for Mackenna. It's pretty nice for me too. I'm still using all my free periods to make up First-aid, but there's so much I need to learn.

The next class is Weapons. We're moving into swords, but Mackenna doesn't know even the most basic martial arts. Another teacher, I don't know who, teaches her privately while we're learning how to properly sheathe, draw, and hold a sword. Since Mackenna isn't there, I partner with Min.

"Is that your friend?" he asks.

"Yeah." I had explained to him my theory about Mackenna while he was living with Liz, but by the time I had decided to act on it he had already been living at the School.

He nods. I have no idea what he's thinking. I suddenly notice all the other boys also looking at Mackenna, very aware of her presence.

Of course they would be looking at her. She's absolutely beautiful, tiny like a fairy but somehow strong too. And there's something about her, the way she smiles and cracks stupid jokes and looks at people like she actually cares what they have to say that draws people to her like a magnet. She's like a little flame, all shiny and pretty and warm.

I suddenly feel very large and very ugly next to her. I feel jealousy rising up in me and I fight it fiercely down. Mackenna is my best friend and she deserves everything that's coming to her. I just wish, just once, that a boy would look at me like that.

No. I'm not going to focus on that right now. I'm going to focus on being good at swords, and learning everything I can. Min is somehow better at swords than everyone else, and he helps me. He's a fairly patient teacher, and I improve pretty quickly too. It's nice. It's nice to be friends with him and not have to worry about anything else.

After our classes are over, Mackenna approaches Liz.

"Hey Liz, do you think you could drive me home? My Dad and I are kind of in a fight, and, well...he doesn't know I'm here."

"He doesn't know you're here?" Liz looks aghast. "Where does he think you are?"

Mackenna has the decency to look ashamed.

"He thinks I'm at a friend's house doing homework."

"He does? We need to get you home right now!" She practically drags Mackenna to the car and we're driving away before I even have the chance to say goodbye to anybody.

The drive home is mostly silent. Liz's lips are pursed and I can tell she's disappointed that Mackenna lied to her father. It goes against what she believes, and I can tell she doesn't even really want to help her out. But she knows the emotions between them are still raw, and she doesn't want Mackenna to be hurt either. She doesn't say anything.

Mackenna's eyes are red and puffy the next morning. I can tell she's been crying.

"Are you okay?" I ask during homeroom. "Did you and your dad have a fight last night?"

"I don't want to talk about it. He's just so...." She searches for a word, then just slams her fist on her desk for emphasis. "It would be easier to get mad if he wasn't so nice. But everything he did was to protect me, and even now, all he's doing is protecting me! I just don't know what to do."

I honestly have no idea what she should do, so I just say, "Do whatever feels right." I kind of feel bad. I know I should have better advice, but I've never been in a situation like this. And there's not really a right answer, at least not that I can think of.

Liz drives Mackenna and I both to magic school. She doesn't talk to Mackenna at all about her father. Maybe she hopes if she doesn't look at the problem directly, it will go away. It's a nice idea, but I've found in my experience it doesn't work very well.

# CHAPTER 17

The next week goes by basically like that. Mackenna doesn't talk to her father, and Liz pretends the whole problem doesn't exist so she doesn't feel so bad for helping Mackenna get to the School. Mackenna is worse than me at doing magic, but better than me at making friends. But now that I'm not so worried about her, I can get closer to Min again.

I have been able to sort of grow plants for the past few weeks, so I haven't been going to the shifting class anymore. But on Thursday, about a week after Mackenna finds out she has magic, everything changes.

I'm in Athletics, and it's the Flexibility and Agility day. It's a fun day. We're playing a game. One person is it, and everyone else is running around in the gym, which is set up like an elaborate obstacle course. After each person is tagged, they become it too until there is only one person left. That person is the winner.

I imagine playing this game in gym only a few months ago. I would have been awful. Now, if I played it with other normal children, I would almost certainly win. But compared to the other children at the magic school, I am still below average. I can hold my own though, and I'm good enough that I find myself enjoying it.

In one corner there's a cargo net that stretches all the way up to the ceiling. I instantly gravitate toward that. I'm good at climbing, and it seems like it would be easy to avoid people on.

My method works fairly well for the first game, and I am one of the last ones tagged. I try it again for the second game, but this time I am not so lucky. Min is it, and he targets the people he thinks will be easiest to catch first. Which would be me.

I was hovering around the middle of the cargo net, but as soon as he starts climbing, I go higher. But there's not much more for me to go, and soon I'm at the top. I'm shockingly high above the gym floor. The net sways with each movement Min makes.

I try to maneuver around him, but it doesn't really work. One of my hands slips off the rope.

"Min!" I scream.

He keeps climbing toward me, but now I can see he's trying to help me. "Hold on! I'm coming."

"I can't. Stop moving!" He does, but it doesn't help. My other hand falls. I scream as the floor seems to fly up toward me. I twist, struggling to grab the rope, but it's going by too fast.

And then all of a sudden, I'm not falling anymore. There's a ripping pain in my fingers. I can't understand what's happened. My hand isn't around the rope. I look at my fingers and gasp, almost dizzy from the fall.

And then Min is there, grabbing my wrist, helping me get a better grip on the rope. I'm still staring at my fingers in shock.

"Aubrey, what is it? You're okay now, right?" He looks at my hands too.

And he freezes, because sprouting out of my fingers, where my fingernails should be, are tiny claws like on a cat. They were what caught me when I fell. People with plant magic don't have claws. They are the claws of a jaguar, my other possible magic type.

I climb cautiously down the net. It's not until I get to the bottom that I realize my claws are gone now. I tense my fingers, trying to get them back, but I can't.

"Aubrey!" Liz cries. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I just slipped. I'm fine now."

I walk numbly to the bench and sit down. I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to talk about what just happened. Because I had finally stopped being confused. I understood who I was and where I belonged. But now I don't. I can't have both kinds of magic, right? But at the same time, how could I not?

I talk to Liz about it that night and she's as confused as I am. I can't make my claws come out again, and I'm not sure she even really believes me. But she does put me back into the animal classes for Magic by Type, and I start those the next day.

Min takes Magic By Type classes with me, even though he can shift completely and doesn't really need them. Because of this, he has made it his personal mission to teach me how to shift. It's been a week since I discovered how to use my claws, and it's not going well.

"Picture yourself as the animal you want to become. Feel the way you would if you were that animal," he says to me.

"I don't know what it would feel like to be a jaguar, I've never been one!" I burst out angrily. We've been at this for over half an hour. I haven't made any progress.

"Just picture yourself muscular, powerful, all your senses sharp and alert. Feel the cool tile beneath the pads of your feet. Your eyesight has changed, everything is shades of gray, but the slightest movement stands out. Your hearing and sense of smell have increased."

I picture this as best I can. When I open my eyes, I'm on my hands and knees, my claws extended. My teeth are bared, but they are sharp and pointy, not my normal teeth at all. Min is trying not to laugh at me.

My claws retract back into my fingers, my sharp feline teeth disappear too. I stand up and glare at Min.

"Your eyes changed color for a minute," he informs me. "And you got teeth."

"Yes, I got that part."

"I think you've almost got it."

I snort.

"No, really. Most people can't get this far into their animal this fast. Often it takes years of training. I think your hair even turned leopard print for a little while there." He smiles at me.

"Really?"

"No. But I made you feel better for a minute, didn't I?"

"You are a jerk," I laugh and punch his arm lightly. "Let me watch you do it one more time."

After another hour of this we have still accomplished next to nothing. Min says he'll try again next week, but I don't have much hope.

Mackenna comes out of her fire class bubbling with excitement.

"Aubrey, look, I can make a ball of fire now! It's really big and Liz says most people so new can't get it this stable. Ryan can make his change color, so mine will be able to do that too. Look!"

She closes her eyes, opens and closes her fingers a few times, until finally a ball of fire appears. She concentrates hard, and it grows until it's a bit bigger than a tennis ball. It feels very hot to me, but Mackenna isn't burned, even though the ball is in direct contact with her skin.

"That's awesome." I try to be a good friend, even though her success right after my failure makes me jealous. It is a pretty impressive ball, I guess.

History and Strategy is actually interesting. Julianna has a speaker come in who was a spy at the start of the war. One of his arms is damaged and useless. It was injured when he attacked a group of the three sisters' soldiers. He talks about his experience in the war, and how much harder life is with only one good arm. One thing he says really stays with me though, "If I knew what was going to happen before I attacked that camp, I would still do it. A hundred times I would do it. No price is too great a price to pay for peace. Peace is sacrifice."

I'm still thinking about this when Mackenna and I go together to the extra First-aid. I don't even notice when Mrs. Oliver says something to me, until I realize she's staring pointedly at me, waiting for an answer.

"Um, what?" I say.

"Last week was your last make-up class. You're free to go."

"I...what?"

"You know everything you need to know for Beginner's First Aid," she says impatiently. "You're free to go. I need to continue to work with Mackenna."

"Oh, um, yeah." I get up and walk out of the room. As soon as I get to the hallway I pause. I have never had a free-period. I really don't know what to do. My first thought is to go find Rowan or Min, but I don't know where they might be. Then something else occurs to me. I find myself walking down to the History and Strategy room instead.

The speaker is just packing up. He doesn't hear me come in.

"Um, hello?" I clear my throat loudly. "I have a free-period now and I was wondering if I could talk to you for a little while."

"Yeah, sure, I guess." He looks surprised, but pleased. "What do you want to talk about?"

I'm not really sure. What do I want to talk about? Why did I come here? But then I know. There is one thing that I need to know. "When you said that no price was too great a price for peace, did you mean it?"

He looks at me strangely, like he's trying to measure how serious I am. He must see the answer in my face. I am completely serious. "Of course I meant it," he says. "If someone told me that the war would end if I gave my life, I would do it gladly. If someone told me there was even the tiniest chance that if I gave my life the war would end, I would still do it."

"Aren't you afraid of anything?"

He pauses, actually thinking about my question. "I am afraid for the Lost Princess. I am afraid that she is dead or dying. I am afraid she will not be as powerful as we all hope she is. But most of all, I am afraid she will not want to, or will not be brave enough, to help us."

"Do you really think that will happen?"

"I don't know. I hope not. But she is only a few years older than you. How can we ask an eighteen-year-old to sacrifice everything for something like this? Would you?"

I think about it. Would I give up my life for anything? I have lived so little, missed so much. I would not just be sacrificing my present, but my entire future. I have to be honest with myself. I shake my head no.

"I would give up an arm or something like you did. But I don't think I am strong enough to give up my life for anything."

He purses his lips. I can tell he's disappointed in my answer. But I feel better for being honest.

"I need to go now," he says.

I let him walk out without saying anything. What I told him was absolutely true. But I can't help feeling like it was the wrong answer too. And I have a feeling that if this war continues, my answer will need to change.

# CHAPTER 18

I go up to my room, which I'm not technically sure you're supposed to do during free periods. I haven't gone up to the room Liz opened for Mackenna and I yet, but I have the key. I go to the room I share with Rowan and grab the few belongings I'm keeping there. I feel bad for leaving Rowan again, but I feel worse for messing up Tala's stuff and it is kind of creepy to be sleeping in a dead girl's bed. Anyway, my new room is next to my old one so Rowan can visit any time she wants.

I'm only moving one room down, but it takes the entire rest of the period. I've just barely finished when the clock reads eight-thirty. I meet Mackenna outside the First-aid room, then go down to where Liz is finishing her last class.

"Hey Liz, do you think you could drive me home again today?" she asks. She doesn't really need to. She has been driving Mackenna home every day for almost two weeks. I have no idea how her father hasn't noticed.

"Does your dad know where you are?" Liz already knows the answer. But her expression is different. And I suddenly realize that this is it. Liz is done helping Mackenna lie to her father. This is going to end. For two weeks, two emotions have been warring inside Liz, her pity for Mackenna and her determination to do the right thing. The second one has finally won out.

"No," she finally says. "I'll wait with you while you call your dad and ask him to pick you up."

Mackenna looks like she's about to say something, but she stops. She swallows hard. Her face is pale and set as she dials her father's number.

"Hello?" she says. There's a pause, then, "Um no, actually that's not where I am. I'm at the School." Another pause. "No, not that school, Dad. The magic school."

There's an explosion of yelling at the other end of the phone. Liz and I can hear it from where we stand, at least ten feet away. Mackenna's face is a mixture of hurt, anger and confusion. She gingerly sets down the phone. Her eyes are wide and scared, but dry, and there's a determined set to her lip.

"He's coming here. To pick me up. And to talk to you."

It seems like only a few minutes before his car is pulling into the parking lot. Lily and I wait apart from Liz and Mackenna, who are both staring fixedly at the door. Mackenna's father comes in, and even in the dim light I am shocked by how much he looks like her.

"Hey, Dad," she says nervously.

"Mackenna, I'm not mad that you came to the magic school," he says. I can hear the forced calm in his voice. It's more frightening, somehow, than anger. "I can understand how you would be curious. But you lied to me, and that is not okay."

Mackenna stands stock still for a moment. Then her emotions crash through her defenses like a flood of water breaking through a dam.

"You lied to me too!" she screams. "You never told me any of this. You never told me about the war or my magic. You didn't tell me how Mom died. You never even showed me a picture of her! You were afraid to do anything that would shake your perfect little reality. Well, you're a coward! And I hate you!" She lunges forward, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and for a second I think she is going to hit him. Her whole body tenses. But she backs away, trembling, breathing hard like she just ran a mile.

He just stands stock still, watching her. He doesn't back away. I suddenly realize he's not angry anymore. He's hurting.

"You're right," he whispers. While Mackenna's voice becomes louder in her pain, his becomes softer. "I never should have lied to you. I was trying to minimize, maybe even eliminate the hurt you're feeling now, not increase it. I was trying to protect you from the life I'd escaped. I thought maybe, maybe you could avoid the constant heartbreak, watching the people you love die, over and over. I'm sorry. All I can say is I'm sorry."

For a second, Mackenna is frozen, as still as if someone had captured her in stone. She's still breathing fast and hard, and I can't read her expression. I'm sure that she's going to stay like that. She is not going to go to him. He is not forgiven. Then suddenly she is flying forward, I think to hit him but no, they're hugging. She burrows into him.

"I missed you," she whispers.

He doesn't say anything, just pulls her closer.

"I love you."

I gasp with relief. That was easier than I expected. Their relationship might not be completely healed, and I doubt it will ever be the same, but now they have something. They love each other, and that is enough.

Mackenna drives home with her father. Liz has a satisfied smile on her face. To her, that is the absolute perfect solution, everyone ends up happy, and the parents and children are close again. I'm glad for Mackenna and for her father. He was trying to do the right thing and I can understand where they are coming from.

I'm getting much better at doing my homework in the small periods of time I have during school, so when I get home I basically have free time until I go to bed. I'm not sure what to do with myself, so I end up just practicing fighting. I know it's dumb, but I've just realized that outside of school I have no hobbies. I'm not really sure what else to do with myself.

I wish someone had filmed me when I first started, because I'm sure the change is incredible. This is the first time I've ever focused instead of on what I need to do, on how much I've already improved. The hours of working, the endless sore, tired days, are definitely paying off. I am fluid, graceful, powerful. Dangerous. In the two-and-a-half months I have been going to magic school I have become a force to be reckoned with.

That night, my dreams are fractured and violent. Scenes flash before my eyes, so fast I almost don't have time to register each one. A woman approaches me with a shining whip of ice. I turn in desperate circles in a circular room, while screams echo around me. I can see nothing but darkness, and my body is exploding with pain. Mackenna is surrounded by an inferno of fire. Min lies in the snow, completely still. My own body, broken and pale, each vein inky black. I wake up biting back a scream, not rested at all.

I manage to get back into a shallow sleep for another hour or two. I still dream a little bit, but not so vivid or violent. My room feels hot and uncomfortable, and I toss and turn, falling in and out of sleep.

And then someone is shaking me.

I sit bolt upright, my body reacting before my mind does. "What is it?" I gasp. "What's going on?"

"Don't worry, Aubrey. It's just me." My eyes manage to focus, and I see that it is Liz standing by my bed. I relax.

"What time is it?"

"Five-thirty."

Liz, weirdly, is already dressed, her sandy hair pulled neatly back. Why she's up this early on a Saturday, I have no idea. I shake my head at her, almost too tired to form words. She just beams at me.

"What's going on?" I finally say.

"I just got the call. Paige is coming home today. She's on a flight right now. She's being picked up at the airport, and she'll be at the School by six-thirty. We're going to go meet her there."

# CHAPTER 19

When Liz, Lily and I finally get to the School, Paige is already there. She's standing in the center of a group of our classmates, a few other kids, and the teachers. She's wearing an oversized t-shirt, and that, combined with a slender build, makes her look so skinny that she almost appears fragile. Her arm is in a sling, which only adds to this image. I notice her hair is longer than when the picture I saw of her was taken, and a pink streak frames her face.

As soon as Liz sees Paige, she swoops in on her, enveloping her in a hug.

"It's okay, Mom, I'm fine," Paige says, but she's smiling.

"I missed you so much," Liz cries, almost smothering Paige. "And I heard about the attack, and you were injured, and I wasn't with you, and oh...." Liz has just noticed a small scratch on Paige's cheek. "What's this? Are you okay? What happened?"

"It's fine, Mom. They already took the stitches out and they said it's healing great. It looks like twenty times better than it did when I first got it. In a few more weeks you'll probably barely be able to see it at all."

"You had to get stitches? Was it a sword?"

"Yeah, Mom. I'll tell everyone what happened later."

"How about now?"

Paige gives Liz one of those looks, then we all go into another room and sit down. Liz sits next to Paige.

"What happened? Tell us everything," another teacher prompts.

"At first it was pretty fun there," she begins. I remember that Paige is doing a program similar to a foreign exchange, where she goes to another magic school and learns there for a few months. "It was a lot like ours," she continues, "but there was a Magical Creatures class. It was pretty cool, I think we should get one." She looks pointedly at Liz.

"We'll think about it," Liz says in her appeasing mom voice.

"I made some friends too. I have some of their addresses, so maybe I can write them. It was totally fun, at least at first.

"Anyway, we weren't expecting an attack. We all were at dinner and then this teacher runs in, stumbling and bleeding and she's screaming 'Attack!'. Her eyes were glassy. I remember that being the last thing I noticed before the battle started. She died, I found that out later.

"At first it was just the army, a bunch of men and women wearing black. That school's fighting age was fifteen, so anyone who was fifteen started fighting them. Well, except me, because I haven't passed my test. But they had swords and magic, and we didn't have anything.

"Some of the older kids were trying to bring the younger kids somewhere safe. I was helping them. It was hard, though, because the air was full of dust. At first we thought someone had set off a bomb, but it was poison. It made everyone dizzy and sick-feeling. If you inhaled it for more than a couple minutes, you would pass out. The enemy had some sort of rock that they had to hold onto that was protecting them. I got hold of a rock, that's why I was okay. Me and a couple other people shared it.

"We got maybe half of the younger kids into this closet so they would be safe. Me and these other two older kids were hiding in there with them, watching out for them. We all kept sharing the rock, so we wouldn't get sick from the poison. And we tried to keep the little kids from looking out at the battle. We were afraid they would get scarred for life or something.

"Anyway, half the little kids were still out there. We kept trying to think of a way that we could get to them and keep them safe, but we couldn't. And the soldiers weren't hurting the little kids, just trying to keep them all together. Even Tempeste was hesitant to touch them. She captured the principal after a while of hard fighting. She asked him if he knew where the Lost Princess was, and he said no. I think she used some sort of mind thing on him to see if he was telling the truth. He was, and she ordered her army to retreat. She left him with a threat though, that if he found information and didn't give it to her she would attack again."

"And that's it?" Liz asks. "They just left?"

"Yeah. I don't think they're trying to kill off everybody, you know? I think they just want to find the Princess. That's their goal. They don't want to destroy the magic race, they're trying to save us. It's just...a weird way of doing it.

"Anyway, the school was decimated. There were a handful of casualties and some prisoners too. It took forever to just find everybody, let alone put the school back together. There were tons of people injured. Some of the stuff was really bad. That's the sort of thing you don't ever recover from...."

Paige crosses her arm over her chest involuntarily, protecting herself from the memories. Liz reaches over and hugs her.

I shiver.

Later that night, Paige's first night back, she comes into my room. We're not at the School, we're at my house. This is the first time we've been alone together, the first time we've even really spoken. She looks around everywhere but me, then sits down on my bed.

"Hello," she says.

"Hi."

We stare at each other awkwardly for a few moments. Her eyes are pretty, I realize, violet almost, a few shades darker than Liz's. Her face looks a lot like Liz's too, and they both have the same sandy hair. Her nose is different, though. It must look like Liz's dead husband.

"Um, you're Aubrey, right?" She looks a little weirded out. I hadn't really thought about it, but it must be impossibly strange to come back after a few months away and have another person who you've never met living in your home.

I nod. "Yeah." I don't say anything else. She probably thinks I'm being rude, but I'm not. I honestly have no idea what to say. I've never been very good at meeting new people.

"So...I heard you guys found Min?"

I nod again, not understanding that she wants me to expand on the story.

"How did that happen?"

"I actually found him."

"You did!" She jumps on the comment, way more excited than she needs to be. I follow her lead.

"Yeah," I smile. "Do you remember that big storm, maybe almost a month ago?" I realize as soon as I say this that of course she would have been in California then. But I don't stop. "The morning after, I went outside, just to see how much damage there was, you know? The river was really high, and when I walked by it there was a boy in it."

"And it was Min?"

"Yeah. I had know idea who he was. I carried him home."

"All by yourself?"

"Well I wasn't exactly carrying him. I was sort of more just supporting him. He was a little bit awake. When Liz saw him she sort of started freaking out, but I had no idea why. He was really sick. I was scared he was going to die." I'm whispering now. We're almost sharing a moment, both engaged in the same thing. She leans closer to me.

"But he's okay now, right? I haven't seen him yet." There's real worry in her voice.

"Yeah. He's fine. He's been fine for a while now. Were you friends with him before?"

She shrugs. "Yeah. I was probably closer with Tala, but we were definitely friends. We dated a few times, but it never really went anywhere. We were both too young. It was really sad when he was gone, though. It was sad just because it was a death, but there was something else too. It was almost like...he seems too good to die."

"I know what you mean." We are both silent for a little while, thinking about the strange, indefinable goodness of Min. I do know exactly what she's talking about.

"Do you know his real name?" she whispers conspiratorially to me.

"It's not Min?"

She shakes her head. "It's Mingan, but don't tell him I told you. He hates it for some reason."

"Mingan." I say the name to myself. I like the way it sounds in my mouth. "Why doesn't he like it?"

"I don't know. Sometimes people just don't like their names that much. Paige is my middle name, my first name is Christine. I don't really hate it, I just never liked it that much. Nobody's called me that in...years probably. Nobody ever calls me that."

"I think they're both pretty."

"Thanks."

Our conversation isn't forced anymore. We're just talking together, like friends, like adopted sisters who just met and only found out about each others existence a couple months ago. We have Min in common, but he's not the only thing. We have school, friends, magic, Liz and Lily. We're both the same age, both girls. We're not super similar, but we're not really much different. We talk long into the night, and when she leaves I'm actually sad to say goodbye. But I don't need to be. We're sisters now, and we never really need to say goodbye.

# CHAPTER 20

A few days later I fall asleep in Biology. Like actually head on the desk, completely asleep. I sit in the back too, alone, so it takes like ten minutes for anyone to even notice. A girl who I barely know has to shake me awake.

I'm almost dreaming when I feel her hands on my shoulders. Instantly I sit bolt upright, clenching my hands into fists. Adrenaline is already coursing through me. I almost hit her, before realizing who she is and where I am.

It's kind of sad, that my nerves are so on edge I almost hit the random girl from Biology. But it is a testament to how much I've already changed. Once I would have maybe jumped, but now it's only seconds before I'm primed and ready for action.

It's also a testament to how tired I am. I've barely gotten any sleep in the past few weeks, and what sleep I have gotten has been filled with those strange vivid dreams. I've been so busy I can't actually remember the last time I've actually sat down to do something I wanted to do. Between managing both schools, a war, all my homework, and a very small social life, I am spent.

Paige is in the car when Liz picks Mackenna and me up for magic school. We talk and laugh on the way over, and it's nice.

We get there a little early. Classes don't start for another five minutes. The three of us wander through the hallways together, slowly making our way to our first class.

All of a sudden I stumble. My head feels weird, like it's been packed full of cotton. I feel like I have a very high fever, except I'm not hot or cold and I know I'm not sick. Everything looks warped suddenly, strange and frightening. I almost stumble, and Mackenna and Paige turn to look at me.

I look up, suddenly panicked. What's going on? What's wrong with me? Am I getting sick? Or is it something worse?

My heart freezes in my chest. The whole side of the school has been blown away. There is a huge smoking hole, like it's been bombed. I can see the courtyard through it. The sky is so sunny. It's strange that it could be so beautiful when everything in my world has just shattered.

I back against the far wall, leaning on it to support my shaking legs. "What...what happened?" I gasp.

Mackenna and Paige look concerned. "What are you talking about?" Mackenna says.

I point at the bombed out wall, suddenly too frightened to even speak. I'm trembling so badly that I'm afraid I'm going to fall down.

"The School...." I whisper.

And then I see that there is something huge and golden in the courtyard, a monster. It turns one huge eye toward me, and I can see its teeth as long as my forearm, its sharp slender claws.

I don't scream. I just stand there, leaning against the wall, staring at the hole and the monster in the courtyard. Why is no one else panicking? Why am I the only one who's so frightened?

Marco and his sister walk by without looking at the monster once, even though they're barely feet from it. But then I see that Marco's sister isn't Marco's sister, she's a skeleton, and her skin is stretched tight over her face and I can see the bones in her jaw and nose and neck....

I'm almost choking with fear, trying to cry out but not able to. My breath seems to be catching in my throat, I'm hyperventilating. I gasp harshly, leaning more heavily on the wall.

"Aubrey, what's going on?" Mackenna cries. "What's wrong?"

I point with a shaking finger after Marco's sister. Then I gesture wildly at the golden monster. I need Mackenna to understand, but my brain doesn't seem to be working. I can't form words. I...I....

"Min!" Mackenna calls out. "Come here! Something's wrong with Aubrey."

He walks toward me, and his face is gentle, concerned. But then I see that his entire right side is covered in blood, dripping in it, almost. It spreads across his shirt like a red flower blooming, a thousand times speeded up.

And then I do start screaming. I scream until my throat is raw and tears are streaming from my eyes. Min reaches out to me, trying to help me, probably, but all I can see is the redness on his side, smeared across his face and arm. My heart seems to speed up, too fast, impossibly fast. And then, with a little gasp, I collapse. Everything goes dark.

I'm in a school, but it's not my school. Everything is familiar but different. The hallways are different, the classrooms have unfamiliar places, but the atmosphere is familiar. There are students learning in all the classrooms, and I can smell the magic, almost feel it running through my veins.

I'm walking down the hallways all alone. Class is in session. I know I'm supposed to be somewhere, but I can't remember where. Why am I here again? This place is not my school, it is not familiar to me....

Class ends. Students pour out of their classrooms and into the hallway. I don't recognize any of them. None of them talk to me, or even look at me. I am a stranger here, invisible.

I listen to snatches of conversation as the students swirl around me. It's a strange mix of the normal and the supernatural, as I'm sure every magic school is. People talk about weapons and fighting, wars and magic and classes. But around all that stuff these are just a bunch of normal kids, talking about new music and their friends and their grades and an upcoming dance.

All of a sudden there's a scream. It's not me. It comes from behind me, and I whip around at the same time as a hundred other students.

"What's going on?" one of them asks.

Her friend shakes her head. "I have no idea."

But then soldiers are pouring into the room. There seems to be a thousand of them, dressed all in black, with swords strapped to their hips and knives tucked into their boots. For a second all the students crowding the hallway are frozen. They seem to take a collective breath, like one deep sigh.

And then everything is movement. Students are backing against the wall or scrambling for weapons depending on their age. The soldiers are surging forward. There are a few teachers, a few older students, but not nearly enough.

There is a burst of fighting. It could last an hour, or it could have been only a second or two. I get the impression that everything is moving in slow motion. I see a soldier take a teacher to the ground, two students who are probably almost eighteen gang up on the same soldier, but he still manages to overwhelm them. I see a little girl who can't be more than fourteen vomit after stabbing a soldier in the stomach. I see blood, motion, swords and magic. I've never been part of a battle before. I am completely overwhelmed.

Everything freezes. A woman walks through the open door. I can't see the details of her face, but somehow I know this is Tempeste. This is one of the people who started the war. It's her fault that Liz's husband is dead, and same with Mackenna's mother. For some reason, the only thing I notice about her is how...small she seems.

"Who is in charge here?" she calls out in a high, clear voice. I'm suddenly reminded of those old alien movies, 'take me to your leader'. I have to fight the wild urge to laugh.

Probably as she expected, nobody answers her. But it doesn't matter. They are outnumbered, and if this is the answer she wants, she will find a way to get it.

The battle resumes. I remember what Paige said, that they attacked the school and kept fighting until they captured the principal. She demanded to know anything they know about the Lost Princess. Then she left, leaving terrible destruction in her wake. Tempeste has the power. There's nothing this school can do.

A soldier comes toward me. I'm not sure why. Up until this point, I have been completely ignored, and I've begun to suspect that I'm actually invisible. But he has his sword out, raised toward me.

I completely panic. I've never been in a real situation, where my life is actually at stake. I've trained for this, I can fight. But all that training goes out the window. I raise my hands uselessly, my heart thumping and my breath rasping in my throat. I'm frozen, stiff with fear. I can't move, I can't run or right, I can't even scream.

He comes right up to me, so we're only inches apart. Then he stabs straight through me.

There's no pain. I don't feel anything. I'm not numb though, it just...doesn't hurt. I look down. The sword all the way up to the hilt is in my stomach. But there's no blood. I move to the right and the sword stays still. I step completely to the side, until the sword is no longer in my stomach. I'm fine. There's no wound. I guess I really am invisible, and nothing can hurt me either.

My blood goes cold. I look back at the soldier, suddenly realizing if he wasn't stabbing at me, he must have been stabbing someone else. The soldier is already gone, but there's a boy lying on the ground just behind where I was a second ago. He is seventeen or eighteen, brown hair, tall. He is the one with a sword wound in his stomach. I want to help him, but it's already too late. His eyes are open and glassy. He's dead.

For a second I can't do anything. All I can think is, it should have been me. And then I'm stumbling back, but now everywhere I look there are dead bodies and blood, and the smell of it overwhelms even the smell of magic until it's choking me....

"I think she's waking up." A voice says above me. I recognize it as Min's.

"What happened to her?" Mackenna asks.

I groan. I feel stiff and achy all over, like I fell asleep on a hard floor. I shift a little bit and there's a sharp pain in the back of my head. I open my eyes, but the light seems too bright. I immediately close them again.

"Aubrey," Mackenna says, and I feel her hands on my shoulders. "Open your eyes."

I do. The light still hurts, but Mackenna is above me and her shadow blocks out some of it. There are other people around me too, Min and Paige and a few others.

"What happened?" I ask. I honestly have no idea.

"You fainted," Paige tells me. I groan again as everything rushes back to me.

"How long was I out?" I'm guessing it must have been at least fifteen minutes or so, maybe longer.

"It was less than a minute. You fell over, and I think you hit your head. We started kind of freaking out because we weren't sure what had happened, and then you woke up."

"Really?" I say. This surprises me. My dream definitely lasted longer than a minute. "You know what? I think I need to talk to Liz. Right now."

I start to get to my feet, almost crying out as the pounding in my head increases. That must be where I hit my head when I passed out. I sort of stumble, but then Paige, Min, and Mackenna are reaching down to help me.

"Why don't you rest here for a little while?" Mackenna says worriedly.

I shake my head. "No. I want to see her now."

I'm glad classes have started and the hallways are mostly empty. It would be awkward for everyone to see me like this, half-supported by my friends, barely able to stay on my feet. We hurry to the room where Liz is, and Paige calls softly to her from the hallway.

She comes out quickly. "What happened?" she asks when she sees me leaning on Mackenna and closing my eyes against the pain in my head.

"She passed out," Paige informs her.

"She what?" Liz gasps. "Aubrey, are you okay? What happened?"

I start talking very fast. "I think I might be going crazy. I was walking down the hallway when I started, like...hallucinating or something. And then I fell over. They said it was only like thirty seconds, but it felt like at least twenty minutes. And I had a really weird dream. I was at a school that was being attacked." I look at her, waiting for her response. I'm not really sure what I'm expecting.

"That must have been really scary, but I don't think you're going crazy. It was just a dream. But you should probably go down to the nurse's office," she says.

"Yeah." I don't know why, but I was expecting her to say something else, something more. I'm suddenly oddly disoriented. I feel fractured somehow. Part of me is here, in the present, and part of me is still back in the school, watching the students fight and die. I shiver. "I'm going to...go to class."

"Wait," Liz says. "How do you feel now? Are you going to be okay? Are you sure you don't need to lie down?"

"No. I think I'm fine. I just...never mind."

I leave to go to class, but for the whole rest of the day I'm distracted. I can't help feeling that there's something more here, something desperately important that I'm missing. I just have no idea what it is.

I pray that I'll figure it out before it's too late.

# CHAPTER 21

The next day is another Saturday, and I was hoping to be able to sleep in. But someone calls Liz very early in the morning. It's not the ringing of the phone that wakes me up, or her shocked, whispered response. I don't wake up until she drops it.

All I hear is a loud sort of clattering sound as the phone drops onto the wood floor. Liz swears. I have never heard her swear before, so I go downstairs to see what's going on. Liz is leaning against the counter, holding the phone gingerly in her hand. She's pale, a little stunned looking. My heart constricts in my chest.

"What happened?" I ask.

Liz starts to answer, but then looks over at Lily, who is innocently watching TV in the next room. If she doesn't want Lily to hear, it must be bad. She drags me out of the kitchen and half-way down the basement stairs before she's willing to talk to me.

"Another school has been attacked," she whispers. "It happened just last night. They resisted more than Paige's school did. Over a quarter of the people there were killed. We haven't heard anything else from them."

She trails off. There's more, and she doesn't need to say it. We're both thinking it.

Another school was attacked. And I saw it coming.

This attack is almost exactly the same as the last one, aside from the number of deaths. Tempeste attacks the school when they least expect it, captures and threatens someone in a position of power, and then just leaves, with the same threat as last time. If the school finds out where the Princess is and doesn't tell her, she will attack again.

I learn more details about the attack as the day goes on. It happens exactly as it did in my dream. Except that I had the dream early afternoon and the school was attacked around eight.

I saw it coming. There's no denying it. It seems almost painfully obvious now. I fell asleep and saw the future. I saw the school being attacked almost six hours before it happened.

It's not even unheard of. It's called perceiving. It's about as rare as shifting, maybe a little more. But it's not like I'm the only person who's ever seen the future. It sort of gives me more credibility. Being a perceiver is a real thing, and I am one. I am a perceiver.

I should be happy. Being a perceiver is a good thing. It means I have the chance to make a difference, to see events before they happen and stop them. I am special, I am set apart. Then why do I feel like I am going to start crying?

I could have saved them. I saw the attack before it had even started to happen. I could have told someone. If I had known it was real I could have made someone listen to me. I could have saved all those people. I could have stopped all this. It's my fault.

Liz is in constant communication with the other schools, and trying to deal with my new found power in between. I mostly just sit at the counter, listening to one end of the phone conversation and answering questions about my vision in between. Liz says that perceiving isn't exact but it can still be valuable. I probably won't have visions very often, but when I do I should always tell her.

I can tell from the phone conversation that Liz and the other teachers are trying to decide what to do. They all know that they need to find the Lost Princess to protect her. And although no one says it, it's implied that her powers will be required to defeat Tempeste. And whatever we do has to be fast, because we don't want any more schools to be attacked. There aren't enough magic people that we can afford that.

I think it's weird that there's no talk of the schools trying to help each other. I understand why, but it's still sad. There's simply not enough people. We are not soldiers, we are teachers, parents, students. Tempeste's army has no life outside the military, but we are not like that. Anyone who could fight probably has a family they can't leave behind, or isn't even old enough to vote. If we assemble an army, it will be an army of parents and children.

So we don't. We don't offer to help the other schools, because there's no help we can give. We don't try to assemble an army, because there's no army to assemble. We are a group of civilians fighting a war against trained soldiers. How can we possibly win?

As soon as we find out about the other school, a group of teachers from our school goes out looking for the girl in the last place the Queen of the Wilderness was seen. We may not be able to fight, but we can try to find the Princess. If we can find her, and if she is truly as strong as we hope she is, maybe we will not need to sacrifice any more schools because we cannot defend them. Maybe then we will have a chance at winning.

We have no idea if Tempeste's army is spying on us. They seem so much more threatening, now that there is a pattern to their attacks. If they are following us closely, they're sure to see the group of teachers go out and stop them. We all wait with bated breath, desperate for their safe return. Honestly, most people don't even care if they find the Princess, they just want them to come home.

The teachers search several different places as quickly as they can, but it's not enough. The Princess could be anywhere in the entire country, anywhere in the world even. So though I can see she hates to do it, Liz sends out a group of eager eighteen-year-olds to look for her in another part of the country.

Though neither group finds anything, we all breathe a sigh of relief when they return safe and sound. It seems to give Liz confidence, and she sends out another group soon after. Soon she's sending out small groups of five to ten people over the age of sixteen, and other schools start doing the same. And though none of the groups have turned up anything, none have been attacked either. I can see that she hates to do it. But she is desperate.

These missions, as they come to be called, are soon what everyone is talking about. Everyone who has passed their test wants more than anything to be selected for one. And most everyone is. Soon Liz has up to five different groups gone at once, to any place that has ever had any association with the Queen. They're looking for any sign of the Lost Princess. People who have seen or heard of her, places with strong magic, even just sites where unusual things have been going on. But there is no sign of her. It is as if she has vanished off the face of the earth.

We send out spies too. That's even more dangerous, but we need any edge on them that we can get. Some skirt around the borders of Tempeste's camp, counting numbers and understanding the organization, and some try to infiltrate it. None of the spies are from our school, but I'm still worried for them.

The spies are managing to tell us more or less how the the army is set up. It's spread out in many, many groups of only about five hundred each. Nobody knows which group Tempeste is in. Somehow they are able to coordinate their attacks perfectly, though we have no idea how. And the number is much larger than we imagined, many more soldiers than we can possibly hope to match, even if we have the older children fighting.

We also confirm their plans. They're going to move through the United States, attacking every magic school. We won't know when, and we won't see it coming. This makes my blood run cold with fear. Every school in the U.S. includes our school.

I picture the vision of the school being attacked, but instead of those students, I see my friends. Running, frightened, fighting, dying. I'm not actually perceiving, just freaking myself out. I don't want that to happen. I wish there was something I could do, but there's not, and I don't think I would be brave enough anyway.

The day after we find out the school was attacked, Ryan and Jessie aren't in school. When I ask Liz where they are, she doesn't answer. Rowan tells me that their adopted mother's sister taught at that school and was injured during the fighting. They are out there now, helping take care of her and rebuild the rest of the school. Nobody knows when they will be back. I feel sharply guilty again. It was my fault the school was attacked. If their aunt dies, that will be my fault too.

A few weeks go by. I don't have any more visions, and I'm glad. If I can't see the future, then I can't be blamed for not changing it. Christmas comes and goes. I don't really even realize until Christmas Eve, and by that point it's too late to get presents for anyone anyway. I spend the day with Mackenna and Min, singing Christmas songs and watching those old animated holiday movies.

I think I'm addicted to caffeine. I'm too tired to even stay awake for the entire school day without it, let alone go to magic school too. I start drinking coffee in the mornings. I didn't realize it, but almost every magic kid who goes to both schools does. It's the only way. It's not like we have time to get more sleep.

Everyone is happy when it starts really snowing. Tempeste's army probably won't attack during the winter, so we have at least a month or two without having to worry about it. New Hampshire roads are awful though, so we have to cancel magic school a few times. Those are the only days I get the right amount of sleep.

Liz keeps sending out missions. They keep returning unharmed, but empty-handed. The Daughter of the Wilderness, is gone, vanished without a trace, without a trail to follow. We have a couple of months to find her. We're doing everything we can.

It's not enough.

# CHAPTER 22

One day during History and Strategy, Liz asks to speak to me, Rowan, Min, Marco, Seth and Drew in the hallway. Since Ryan and Jessie aren't back yet, class comes to a stand still. Once we've left, the only people left are Mackenna and Paige.

It turns out it's going to be kind of a longer talk, and she wants us to go into her office. I expect to get in trouble, and the whole way there I keep trying to think of anything I've done wrong. I can't think of anything. I like to follow rules, even the little seemingly unimportant ones. Getting in trouble is one of my biggest fears, and as we walk down the hallway my heart starts pounding. But it turns out that's not why we're here at all.

"You know we're desperate," Liz begins. "All will be lost if we can't find the Daughter of the Wilderness. The army will find her if we don't. We have to increase our efforts." She pauses suddenly, like she's choking on the words she's trying to say. "I am sending you six on a mission."

The room explodes with action.

"We haven't passed our tests yet," Min cries.

"Where are we going?" Rowan asks.

I want to ask something too, but I'm too stunned. We're going on a mission? But we're not even sixteen. Well, some of us are. But I'm not, and I know I'm not the only one. We're...we're not old enough. We're not experienced enough. We're not ready. We can't do this.

"Yes, Min," Liz says. "I know you haven't passed your test. That's why I picked you six. I'm confident you will all pass your test, and you all have skills specifically suited for the mission. And to answer your question Rowan, you will be going to Costa Rica."

I haven't been to Costa Rica and I don't know much about it, but the name sounds wonderful. It brings to mind warmth, lush green palm trees, white sands, cool water, steamy rain forests, monkeys, butterflies...I smile.

"We believe the Queen of the Wilderness spent some time there. The Princess could be taking refuge there. The mission shouldn't be too dangerous, you will just spend a week and a half there, looking for any signs of the Daughter of the Wilderness."

"How are we going to get there?" Min interrupts.

"You'll fly into San Jose, then you'll have to rent a car."

Min's eyes widen infinitesimally but he doesn't say anything. Is he excited or...afraid? I can't tell, because almost immediately his eyes go back to normal and he doesn't mention the transportation again.

"You will be having special lessons with me for the rest of your free periods," Liz continues. "You will be leaving in a little over a month." I hear her mutter something under her breath. It sounds a lot like, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

I can't believe she's doing it either. We're actually going on a mission. It could actually help, we could actually make a difference. How did I qualify for this? There are people like Rowan, like Min going. I just started going to the magic school a few months ago. Why is this me? Why am I here?

And suddenly, I'm afraid. If Liz is picking me, us, for this, then she must be very, very desperate. If she is making a mission of only barely qualified people, then we are in worse trouble than I realized.

Our next class is actually a free period, so we just stay with Liz in her office. We can tell she's anxious about sending out a mission of under-age kids. She practically drowns us in knowledge about Costa Rica's geography, history and wildlife. My head is spinning with new information as I follow Liz out to the car.

Paige and Lily are waiting by the car, and Paige's silence is stony. Liz pretends not to notice. The oppressive silence continues for most of the car ride, until finally Paige breaks it.

"So I heard you're setting up a mission of kids in our grade," she says as an attempt at forced casualness.

"Yes," Liz answers stiffly.

"Who was included?"

"Seth, Drew, Marco, Min, Rowan and, uh, Aubrey," she gestures vaguely at me.

"Wonderful," Paige responds. She almost sounds sincere, but her inflections are the same as Liz's. Someone who knows either of them very well could pick out the heavily veiled sarcasm.

As soon as we get home, Paige stalks up the stairs and to her bedroom. Now, her anger is tangible.

"Wait Paige, come back down here," Liz begs. She sounds genuinely hurt.

Paige comes down, looking absolutely furious.

"What's wrong, Paige?" Liz asks. Her voice is falsely innocent, as if she can't figure it out for herself.

"Costa Rica is surrounded by ocean on two sides, isn't it? I think it would be good to have someone whose specialty is water." She blinks hard and her voice catches like she might start crying. "Why wasn't I included in the mission?" A second ago she was almost yelling, but now her voice is quiet and small, like that of a small child.

Liz comes toward her, her arms comforting, outstretched. But Paige backs away, her eyes hard.

"I'm strong enough. I have been doing magic since I was six, that's longer even than Min. Way longer than Aubrey." She turns to me and I back away, not wanting to be drawn into the argument.

"Paige, I chose you to go to the school in California."

"That shouldn't change anything! I proved I could hold my own in battle then. That should make me more likely to be chosen, not less!"

"You were attacked in California. You were injured, you could have been killed. You could have died!"

"But I didn't. I protected myself. I can go on a mission. I know I can. Why are you being so selfish? You're not doing what's right for me, you're doing what you want."

"Paige, I'm sorry, but I can't let you go. If you died I would never forgive myself. You've already been attacked once this year, I'm not even going to risk it happening again. And I missed you. You've been gone so long and you've only been back for a month...."

"That's not fair!" she yells.

"Paige, I love you." Liz's voice is quieter than Paige's, but somehow more full of emotion. "That's why I'm doing this. We've been apart for too long. I need you with me."

"Is this like what Mackenna's father did? Hiding magic from her because he thought it would help her?" I flinch at her words. I didn't even know Paige had heard about that. "Because it's not helping. You don't know what's right for me." She pauses suddenly, panting. "You think you know what's best for me, but you don't. You're wrong."

"No," Liz whispers. Paige doesn't say another word, just turns on her heel and stalks up to her bedroom.

We hear the door slam. Liz's eyes meet mine. For a second her eyes are still hardened from the fight, but then they seem to melt, and she sinks into a chair.

"Maybe I am being selfish," she whispers, and puts her head in her hands.

There's a lot of extra work for the six kids going on the mission, but it's fun work, like the preparation for a giant trip. We learn about Costa Rican history, things to look for when we're searching for the Lost Princess. I bought a book about Costa Rican wildlife, and I have been reading it almost every day. I want to know as much as I can about everything.

For some reason, the fact that Liz believes we can make a difference inspires me to actually try. I'm afraid, but I want to help. I want this to work. I want to find the Lost Princess.

Paige still is barely talking to Liz. She is civil but curt, and most of the things she says are loaded with sarcasm. I can tell Liz feels bad about hurting her but I know nothing will make her change her mind. I feel awful for Paige, though, because everyone knows she's right. She's certainly skillful enough to go on a mission and she has been here long enough that she kind of deserves to go.

Everything takes a turn for the worse one day in History and Strategy, only about two weeks before we are set to leave. We are doing a worksheet when the classroom door flies open with a bang. Liz, a tall man, and a hysterical woman I have never seen before are standing behind it. Marco half rises from his seat, his face gray. As soon as he does I can see the family resemblance. These must be his parents.

"Marco!" the woman screams. She starts to run into the classroom.

"Gabriela," Liz says calmingly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Let's stay out in the hallway. We'll bring Marco out here with us, okay. We mustn't alarm the other children."

The woman gives us a small nod, her eyes wide and tearful, her chest heaving. Marco crosses the room, his eyes on his mother. I notice his hands shaking ever so slightly at his sides. Once he's in the hallway, the door closes and we can't hear anything going on outside.

Julianna must be just as confused as we are, because the class breaks into an eruption of whispers that she makes no attempt to control. I exchange a wary glance with Mackenna.

"Something awful must have happened," Rowan says to no one in particular. "Why else would Marco's mother act like that?"

As Marco goes out to the car, the entire class gathers around the window. He is walking as if in a dream. He's not going in a straight line, and his knees look like they're about to buckle. He stumbles suddenly, and his face is white. He looks like he's actually about to pass out. He almost falls into the car, and then he's gone. We're left wondering what just happened. But I have a bad feeling in my chest.

There's an assembly in our free period for every age, and I'm only half-surprised to see the walls are draped in black. Liz is at a podium at one end, her expression somber. I look around. Everyone seems as confused as we are, except for a group of older girls crying in a corner.

"We have suffered a terrible loss," Liz says, immediately getting everyone's attention. "Isabella, sister to Marco, peer to all of you, is dead. She was eighteen years old. Her body was found only a few hours ago."

Liz continues her speech, but I'm not listening to a word of it. There's a ringing in my ears. Isabella, dead? That can't be right, there must be some mistake. I saw her only a few days ago, laughing, with her arm around Marco. I have passed her in the hallways, and she was alive then. I mean, I barely knew her, but still. How could she be dead now? How could a life just end like that?

A wave of sympathy for Marco washes over me. He just lost his sister. I imagine the crushing pain of losing Paige or Lily, and I realize tears are streaming down my face. Mackenna is looking at me with concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it was just so...unexpected. I don't know what to think now."

"I feel awful for Marco."

All I can do is nod.

That night I just fall onto my bed and don't move. I feel drained, too numb to fall asleep, too exhausted to move. I have no idea how long I lie there like that, just that it's a long time. Liz stays downstairs, and I instinctively know she will stay there all night. She personally accepts the responsibility of all her students' safety, and whenever something happens to one of them, she takes it as her fault.

Eventually I curl up on my side and fall into a fitful sleep. I have to drag myself out of bed to go to normal school the next morning. Mackenna and I are both so mournful that one of our teachers actually asks us if anyone died.

"You have no idea," is my only response.

# CHAPTER 23

That afternoon at the School it feels like half the students are gone, though it's really just because everyone is so subdued. Isabella's closest friends really are absent. The few that are here walk through the School in a daze, their eyes red rimmed, their faces pale.

We're still working on balance and agility in Athletics, and it's nice to lose myself in the exertion. Everyone's distracted in Magical Fighting. I hit Min in the head with a branch instead of disarming him like I was trying to, and Mackenna accidentally ignites Drew's eyebrows with a misplaced fireball.

I skip Survival, because Liz calls an emergency meeting of the remaining mission kids. I hadn't thought about it, but of course Marco wouldn't want to or be able to go to Costa Rica only a week and a half after his sister's death. Liz isn't sure if she should add in someone new or stick with us five. She wants our opinion on it.

We quickly agree to add in someone new, the only question is who it should be. My first thought is of Paige, but I know Liz will never agree. Jessie or Ryan would both be good choices, but they're still not back. I still feel like there's one other person in the class, someone I'm missing, but I can't think of who it is.

"I nominate Mackenna," Rowan says suddenly.

Oh yeah, Mackenna. My immediate thought is no, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Sort of. She's getting pretty good at magic. But she's only been doing it a few weeks. I'm improving unusually fast, but she's improving quickly too. And though she can't fight as well as the rest of us yet, her magic is inherently destructive and good for combat, better than almost anyone else's. She's also tough and resilient.

"I think that would be good," Min says next, which surprises me slightly. I had thought they were only classmates and mutual friends through me, but I guess they have been developing a bond of their own these past few weeks. And I guess these are my two best friends in the world.

"Does she have enough experience?" Seth asks. That's the biggest question. In the end, does Mackenna have enough experience to be an effective member of the group? It would be easier for her to get included if I wasn't going. Two newbies is a bit much for one trip. But then again, if I wasn't here Mackenna wouldn't be here either.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think she should come either," Drew says. "What if this is the time something goes wrong and we are attacked on a mission? What if she's hurt or even killed? It's unfair of us to put her in that dangerous of a situation."

Everyone looks at me and I realize I'm the only one who hasn't spoken yet. I start to say the answer off the tip of my tongue, yes, of course, but what if Drew is right? Is a mission too dangerous for Mackenna? The decision rests in my hands, and I realize it's one of the first major decisions I've made in my life. And I don't know how to decide.

In the end I think what would Mackenna do, and that is what decides it. I say yes, but more confidently, almost totally sure I've made the right decision. She would have wanted this. Mackenna will be included in the mission.

Liz smiles. She likes it when we successfully work out problems on our own.

"I'll tell her," she says. "You can go back to class for now."

Liz calls Mackenna out as soon as we get to Survival. We're partnering up, trying to start a fire without matches today. Rowan takes Paige, who is left partnerless by Mackenna's absence, so I partner with Min.

I've partnered with Min a few times before, and he seems to be good at most everything. Building fires proves to be no exception. He instructs me on what wood to collect then he expertly lays it. It takes him only a few moments to coax a blaze out of the wood, even though I think some of it is damp and rotten. He doesn't even have to cheat, which I strongly suspect Mackenna of doing.

It's January, and though the courtyard is sheltered from snow, it's still freezing cold. I lean closer to the fire and Min does the same.

I want to start a conversation but I'm shy, unsure of what to say. Finally I blurt out, "I like fires."

He laughs at me a little bit, but not in a mean way. "I like them too. Would you like me to show you how to start them?"

I nod and he blows out our small blaze. We collect more wood and he coaches me through laying it. By the end of class I can make a fire too, the first one I have ever made.

As soon as I get out of Survival Mackenna runs at me.

"Aubrey! Aubrey! I can go to Costa Rica now. I can come with you guys. Isn't it exciting? How did that happen? It's because of Marco I guess, which is kind of sad, but still." She's yelling, practically glowing with happiness. "I can't wait!"

"That's awesome." I smile.

She talks animatedly about it while we walk down the hallway, gesturing with her hands the whole time. She leaves to go home with her dad with a cheerful "Goodbye."

Paige is mad at Liz again, and this time I really can't blame her. In most ways, every way really, she was a better choice than Mackenna for the mission. So this time, when she storms up to her bedroom, I follow her.

I realize with a sudden jolt that I've never actually been in Paige's bedroom. We've always met in my bedroom, or Lily's, or downstairs. I've never thought about it before.

Paige's bedroom is the same size as mine, but there's more furniture, so it feels smaller. The wall is plastered with posters, with hints of cheerful blue in between. It's surprisingly neat and clean, better than both my room at the house and at the School. There's a flourishing aquarium in the corner. I wonder if her water power helps make the fish healthier.

Paige is lying spread eagle on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, which is plastered with glow-in-the-dark stars. I sit down on the edge of the bed, but she doesn't even look at me.

"She's just trying to protect you, you know."

"I don't need to be protected. I'm sixteen. I have gone to the School since I was six. Rowan, Seth and Drew are the only other people who've been going that long, and they're all included. Min, I can understand, and even you, though you've been going here since the beginning of the yea. But Mackenna, she's known she has magic since what, November? That's three weeks. Now don't get me wrong, I love Mackenna. But she's not ready for something like this. And I am. I could do this. Mackenna needs Liz's protection more than me."

I don't know what to say. I love Mackenna too, but Paige is right. She is much more qualified than Mackenna, much more qualified than me. But there's nothing I can do or say that could possibly get Paige on the mission. Liz's concern for her is too strong. She won't risk her getting hurt.

"You're right," I finally say. "Liz should have included you on the mission. She even could have kept Mackenna, there have been seven person missions before. It's not fair and I'm sorry."

Paige visibly relaxes. "Thank you." She smiles and closes her eyes. I take that as a cue to leave.

I go back to my room and fall asleep quickly. And then I dream.

The forest is dark, but the edge of the sky is pink and I know dawn can't be far away. The air feels strange, thick and warm. It's muggy almost, like summertime or the deep south.

I can see the silhouettes of the trees and hear the jostling of thousands of bodies. But I can't feel the bite of the cold air, the forest floor below me, my back pressed up against the rough tree. There's a female soldier next to me, and when I brush against her shoulder I can't feel that either. I'm guessing she can't see or feel me, because she doesn't look over at me.

I wave my hand in her face curiously. She doesn't react. It's only then that I realize I must be dreaming, maybe even perceiving. And these are Tempeste's soldiers.

All of a sudden I'm gliding through the forest. Trees and stuff get in my way but I just go right through them. I'm floating, sort of, not really in control of where I'm going. There's a strange sense of movement, though, and it's almost vertigo-inducing.

All of a sudden I stop. I'm in a little clearing. There are two people, a young woman and an older man. The man is wearing a soldier's uniform. Something about him looks hardened, like he could do anything you asked of him. Attack without regret, kill without remorse.

The woman can't be more than ten years older than me. She's beautiful, her hair is long and black like Rowan's, her eyes are piercingly blue. She's tall but not too tall, and I realize if she were standing she would probably be almost exactly my height. This is Tempeste.

"Are you ready?" the man asks.

"I...I don't know," she says hesitatingly.

Is she...indecisive? I always thought of Tempeste as powerful, strong, and very sure of herself. But this is a Tempeste almost nobody gets to see, a Tempeste she keeps hidden.

"You have to decide," the man says. "It's almost light. The school will be waking up soon."

So they're attacking a school. I guess that's not surprising. They must be looking for the Lost Princess, and they're willing to go through anything to get to her. I shiver.

"How can this be right?" she says suddenly, turning toward him. Her voice is high, and her eyes are wild, desperate. "This isn't what we wanted. This is never what we wanted. It...it wasn't supposed to be like this."

"I thought you wanted to find the Daughter of the Wilderness."

"No. I don't care about her. She was never the original goal. I want her dead so the war can be over. I just want to be able to practice magic in peace. I don't want to have to hide my magic from everybody. But I never wanted to fight. I never wanted to start a war."

"So are you going to stop?"

I suddenly get the impression that this is a conversation they've had before. He knows the answer, he's just asking her so she can prove it to herself.

"No. This is what I believe in. I want everyone to be able to practice magic without worrying. Even all the people who are fighting me. In the end, they'll...they'll be glad. I have to do this. I'm the only one who can." She stands, and all her doubt is gone. Or hidden. "I'm ready. Let's go." She sweeps out of the clearing and the older man follows her.

I don't hear anything for a while, aside from the rustling of the wind and the faint sound of the soldiers talking. But then, in one smooth motion, the forest seems to come alive. The soldiers are mobilizing. Without any conscious decision I am behind them, watching them as they get ever closer to the school.

When it finally comes into sight, a pang goes through me. It doesn't look exactly like my school, it's a bit smaller and more modern looking. But it is similar enough. There are people in there, sleeping and dreaming, or maybe pacing and awake. Hungry, or worried, or relaxed, or excited. People who call that school home.

Then the soldiers are running forward. There's a flash of swords, and then a different flash, the flash of fire. They're burning the school.

I hear a scream. Another, this one higher pitched. The soldiers are in the burning school. Killing people, probably. On the slim chance that the Princess is here.

There's another scream. This one is very close. It's mine. I'm screaming, screaming for the dying people, for the Lost Princess who probably isn't even there.

And then I wake up.

# CHAPTER 24

I scream out loud, into the darkness. My heart is thundering against my chest like a wild thing. I'm so frightened I feel like I'm going to pass out, or maybe just start crying.

"Liz!" I call out. "Liz, where are you?"

She comes running in, her face a mask of fear. "Aubrey, are you okay? What happened?"

"I think I was perceiving again," I say.

"Tell me what happened."

I do. She looks frightened still, but calmer now that she knows what's going on. She goes downstairs, hopefully to call other schools and maybe prevent the attack.

I'm left alone, in the dark of my bedroom. I should be scared, or since I'm not maybe I should try to sleep. But I'm still kind of in shock. And not for the reason I would think.

Tempeste was always sort of a vague menace, some evil person, busy controlling her army, attacking schools, and killing people. She was a monster, a hater, someone to be destroyed with no further thought. It never occurred to me that she might have doubts. It never occurred to me that her immortality would leave her frozen in her mid-twenties, not all that much older than me. It never occurred to me that she was honestly trying to do the right thing.

I keep hearing her say, "I never wanted to start a war," over and over again in my head. She never wanted to start a war. She never wanted to fight or be part of something so much bigger than her. She just wants peace. And in that way, she is like me. We are not as different as I thought.

I used to think this was black and white. Tempeste's army killed Mackenna's mother, Liz's husband, Marco's sister. They're evil. They deserve to die. But now, all of a sudden, I get that that's not really how it is. It's a million different shades of gray, a thousand degrees of right and wrong.

She's killing people, attacking innocents, so she can't be right, right? But so are we. We have killed innocents, we have attacked and burned and slaughtered. So how do we know we're any more right than they are? And if there's no right answer, then why are we bothering to fight at all?

I don't sleep any more that night. I just lie awake, pondering impossible questions and wondering if anything I thought I knew is really true at all.

Mackenna's not in any of the classes the next day. I know she'll be with teachers, learning about Costa Rica. She has to try to catch up on all the meetings she missed. It would be Liz teaching her, but she's still busy trying to figure out what's going on with the other school.

Nobody specifically tells any of the kids about the attack, but by the time lunch rolls around, everyone knows. It's all people can talk about. Luckily it somehow didn't leak out that I perceived it happening. Most people seem to think that it was our spies that told us it was going to happen. I'm relieved. I don't like being the center of attention.

"The school was attacked," Liz says later that night, after I've gotten home from magic school.

I feel like my stomach drops out, even though news travels fast, and I already know about it. "It was?"

She smiles at me. "Don't worry. We warned them in time. They got the youngest children out and they were ready. There were a lot fewer deaths this time."

I don't know if I should be relieved or not. I kind of am, I guess. I helped save some lives, and that's good. But some people still died. It didn't work all the way.

I have to do better next time.

As we get closer to the mission I get more excited. I know it's not technically a vacation, but I can't help feeling like it's one. We'll be traveling around and working for a lot of it, but there will also be time to just have fun, and some of the hotels are actually pretty nice.

The day before the trip I stay at the School all day, getting ready. We sleep at the School. Our flight is at nine, but it's out of Boston, which is an hour and a half away. We have to wake up at four. It's early enough on it's own, but for some reason by three I am up and ready to go.

I am one of the first people up, so I go down to the kitchen to grab breakfast, hoping against hope that I'll be able to find some food there this early. Liz has left out muffins for us. Min is already at the table eating his muffin. I'm surprised, since we don't have to leave for an hour.

"Couldn't sleep?" I ask.

"No," he says. "Too excited, I guess."

"I'm still exhausted."

He hands me a steaming cup of coffee. I thank him and drink it, then go back to brush my teeth and get dressed. I go sit in Liz's office, where we agreed to meet, while I wait for them.

I look through my guide book about Costa Rican wildlife while rolling a ball of light energy up and down my arm. I pop the ball into the air with my elbow and Min catches it. I start. He can move so quickly and silently, it's scary. I hadn't even realized he was behind me.

He looks over my shoulder, reading off the page.

"It says 'Jaguars are rare in Costa Rica, but they can be seen on occasion.' Are you hoping to see one?"

"Well, yeah. I have the spirit of one. Can't the Queen of the Wilderness turn into a jaguar?"

He nods. "I hope to we see one too. Maybe it will give some clues to where she is, somehow."

"We aren't really going to find anything, are we?"

He smiles. "Probably not. None of the other missions have. But one of them is going to find something. And it could be us. The Princess can't hide forever."

I sort of like the idea of having a peaceful vacation better. I'm actually a little afraid of finding anything real. None of us are qualified to deal with it. I would honestly rather have a mission that is uneventful than really helpful. If anything really does happen, we're sure to mess it up.

On the car ride to the airport everyone is silent, in an exhausted stupor. Except me. I'm hyped up on both caffeine and nerves, chatting constantly about nothing.

"Wow, someone's awake," Rowan comments drily after about ten minutes of this.

"I had coffee."

"Don't you have coffee every day?"

"It was an espresso," Min says. "There was a lot of caffeine."

Rowan raises her eyebrows at this. I turn around to glare at Min. He shrugs, which is lost on Rowan. She guesses our silent communication and rolls her eyes. We fall back into silence.

It seems like ages before we get to the airport. Liz walks with us to the place where the bus will pick us up, then leaves. All the magic kids seem pretty used to traveling alone though, so I'm not anxious.

We take the bus into the airport and drop our bags off. The airport staff is all super nice to us. I've only ever flown on an airplane a couple of times, and I like it. I'm excited. This is fun.

We're done doing all the mandatory things, and we're at our gate. It took us an hour to get ready, an hour and a half to get to the airport, and two hours to get through it. It's eight o'clock. We're hungry again.

We'd been up five hours we're kind of more hungry for lunch, but none of those places are open. We find a cute little breakfast cafe where you can actually sit down and are served food, so we decide to go with that.

We order eight plates of different flavored pancakes. We'll share the two extra. The wait staff looks at us strangely when they take our order. What can I say, magic burns a lot of calories.

I wasn't really paying attention to what I got, so I'm a little surprised but not disappointed they're coconut. They're good for airport food, light and fluffy and warm.

Everyone is eating and talking happily. Or almost everyone. Since we arrived at the airport I notice Min has been silent. Now he's picking at his pancakes, staring moodily into space. He cuts a piece of pancake with his fork but then doesn't eat it.

"Min, what's wrong?" I ask quietly so the others won't hear.

"Nothing," he mumbles listlessly.

He looks so dejected that I let it drop. For now.

After we're done eating we go sit at our gate. A few people give us strange looks. I guess we are a group of unchaperoned teenagers. Maybe they're worried we'll be destructive.

Min's still barely talking, only answering direct questions. He's extremely pale, so I'm worried there might be something legitimately wrong with him. Maybe he's sick. But why wouldn't he say something? He pushes his hair back from his forehead and I notice his hands are shaking slightly.

That puts me over the edge. Something is definitely wrong with him, and for some reason he's not telling us. I grab his wrist and drag him ahead.

"Look at those sweatshirts," I gush, looking at some sort of Boston sweatshirt in the window of the airport gift shop. "I want to buy one. Come with me."

He doesn't look happy but at least he doesn't resist. I drag him off into some unused hallway out of view of the others. Then I turn him around and force him to look at me. I'm half expecting his skin to be hot with fever, but it's cool to the touch.

"What's wrong with you?" I hiss. "And don't say nothing. I know you well enough to know that you're not acting normal."

I wait. He looks down at his shoes then up at the ceiling.

"Well?" I say impatiently.

Finally, he mutters something so quiet I can't hear it.

"What?"

"I'm afraid of planes," he says a little louder.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise and have to force myself not to laugh. Then his tawny eyes meet mine, and they're not laughing. "Wait you're serious? You're afraid of planes? For your whole life?"

"No." He's glaring at me angrily and looks like he might start crying so I lay off of him. This is real. He's not kidding or exaggerating or anything. He is actually frightened.

"I used to love planes. Definitely my favorite way to travel. I didn't even know I couldn't handle them until today. It must be because of what happened the last time I was on one."

I remember how he was ambushed and it crashed. How he was stuck in the rainforest for months, how he almost died. I can't believe I forgot. Sympathy rushes over me. I want to reach out and hug him, but I don't think he would like that. Hopefully he can look into my eyes and see how sorry I am.

"I think all of our seats are separate, otherwise I would sit next to you. Do you think if you listened to music with headphones in and closed your eyes it wouldn't be as bad?"

"Maybe," he says dubiously.

"Can you think of anything else?" I ask.

"No, I'm fine, really. It'll be fine. Let's just...go back."

I nod but I'm still worried for him. It's eating me up inside and I can't think about anything else as we board the plane.

Min's eyes are wide and panicked as the flight attendant tells us we can board. As we get even closer to the plane Min groans. He's even paler than before, if that's possible, and it looks strange on his coppery skin, ashy almost. Beads of sweat stand out on his forehead. His chest is rising and falling too rapidly. He's hyperventilating.

"I can't do this alone, Aubrey. Don't leave me. Don't leave me!" he cries suddenly, his fingers digging into my shoulder.

His seat is 16C, mine is 14A. We won't even be close enough to communicate once the plane takes off. I see 16B already has its occupant, a young man with a computer.

"My seat is 14A, but my friend is sitting here. Would you be willing to switch with me?"

He doesn't seem to hear me, so I repeat the question. He's focused on whatever he's doing on the computer, but this time he nods and moves forward to my seat. I slide into the seat next to Min.

"You'll be fine," I whisper.

"Yeah," he says, but he doesn't sound like he believes it.

# CHAPTER 25

When we start taxiing, Min goes white.

"Min," I whisper. "Take my hand and squeeze it as hard as you can." I feel like a parent talking to a kid getting their first shot, but Min looks so scared, I think he might throw up. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

The plane zooms down the runway and Min grabs my hand tightly. By the time the wheels leave the ground, he's holding it so hard I'm worried he might break some of the finer bones in my fingers. I bite my lip, forcing myself not to say anything. Finally, as the plane starts to gain altitude he loosens his grasp, and by the time we reach our cruising altitude he lets go. I pull my hand out of his and massage my stiff fingers.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "Did I hurt you?"

"It's fine. Do you think you're okay now?"

He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. "Yeah, I think I'm good. Let's talk though. I need to be distracted."

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask.

"Oh, I don't know, anything will work. What was your life like before you found out you had magic?"

"You already know. I was bounced around from foster home to foster home, and school to school. It was stressful and I never really had a life. What else is there to know?"

"Who was your best friend? What were your hopes, your dreams, your fears? I'm trying to understand you, if you would just let me in." His voice is a little hoarse, and I can tell he's still kind of freaked. If talking about my life will make him feel better, than I will do it.

"I don't know if I really had a best friend until I met Mackenna. I didn't really have any hopes either, except to someday be adopted." I hadn't really realized how pathetic my life was until just now, so I try to make it sound more interesting. "When I was little I wanted to live on a farm, but I don't know if that really counts. I wanted to be normal, I guess, and not be so set apart from everyone else. I wanted to meet someone, and have a family, and a job. I wanted to wake up each day and know what would happen and where I would go and what I would do. A lot of people want to be special, but that wasn't me. I wanted to be normal more than anything else. I guess that will probably never happen now."

Min thinks for a little while, then asks a few questions about what I just told him. Then he smiles.

"Thank you," he says. "Now you ask me a question."

"Oh...um, what's your favorite color?" I blurt out.

"That's not a very good question. But it's green."

"Like grass?"

"No. More like a cucumber or watermelon, I guess. Kind of darker," he says. "Alright, that was an easy one so you get one more chance."

"Is this like a game?"

"Yeah. It's the help-Min-not-freak-out-on-the-plane game." He cracks a smile at me, and I can't help but smile back.

"I don't really know anything about your childhood, except that you were really close to Tala, so can you just tell me about it, or is that too broad?"

His face darkens, but so briefly I think I might have imagined it. "Okay, in the beginning there was a brother and a sister. One was my mother, the other Tay's father. They looked like they could have been twins, which is why I look so similar to Tay.

"They went to a very small magic school. But when they became adults, they both left it and decided to turn their backs on magic, kind of like with Mackenna's father. There must have been some reason, but they never told anyone. At least they never told me." He says it with the slightest hint of bitterness. "Time passed, they had children and lived normal lives. They both married normal people who had never heard of magic. The war started, but they didn't hear about it until almost five years later. The news came abruptly that their parents had been killed during the war. They went off to fight, to avenge them, I guess, but they were both killed. I was five. I had never heard of magic.

"Tay and I learned how to turn into wolves in the woods. We didn't even realize it wasn't normal. We thought everyone could turn into something, that everyone had powers and you just weren't supposed to talk about them. What else were we supposed to think?"

"Okay, keep going."

"My father more or less ignored me once my mother died. He was tired all the time, depressed, I think. He didn't really take care of me. I ran away twice. The first time I got scared and came home. I was only eight then, that was too young. The second time I was with Tala.

"We were better prepared, but it didn't work. I was injured, and she had to take me to the hospital. I would have died otherwise, I think. But someone, a nurse or something, guessed what had happened, what was different about us. She helped us escape for real, and we went to the school after that. I've visited my father many times since then, but he wasn't really a good provider. I think we're both relieved with the new situation."

"What happened that made you go to the hospital? The second time you ran away?" I ask.

"I don't remember," he says, and his voice is surprisingly hard and cold. It doesn't invite questions.

A flight attendant comes around and offers us a beverage. I get a lemon-lime soda but don't drink any of it, just chew the ice cubes. They don't give us pretzels or peanuts or anything, which is a little disappointing, even though I know I shouldn't be hungry again yet. But still, I think airplanes should always serve food.

"Okay, my turn," he says after a couple of awkward minutes of silence. "Do you like having plants or jaguar better?"

"What sort of question is that?" I say. "How am I supposed to choose? I love them both."

"Okay, I guess I can understand that." He pauses. "Now you ask a question."

"Okay, um, why do you never turn into a wolf?"

I've actually been curious about this for a while. Min is a full shifter, but I've only seen him become a wolf a few times during our shifting classes. Even during magical fighting, when shifting could be a huge advantage, he stays human.

He weighs his answer before responding. "It's because when I'm a wolf I'm less human," he says after a while. "I don't make the same choices I would normally. I would never do something...dangerous, like attack someone, but I'm still afraid. I'm afraid of losing myself."

"Oh," I say. I don't really get it. If he knows he's not going to attack anyone, then what's the problem? But I don't say anything. "How strong are you at light energy?" I realize as soon as I say it that it's not my turn to ask the questions. But he just laughs and answers anyway.

"Pretty strong. Stronger than a normal person, I guess. And I have this other power too."

"What is it?"

"I can sense how injured someone is. I don't exactly know how to explain it. If I touch someone, I can tell where they're injured, and how badly. How long they have to live. It's not a very common power, I don't even think there's a name for it. Not a very useful one either." He pulls a face, and I smile at him.

"What are you most afraid of?" he asks me. His questions are a little better than mine, I think.

"Um, dying, I guess. Or other people dying, like my friends." I trail off. "Or, failing people. I'm afraid people will expect things of me that I won't be able to do." I don't think I've ever told anyone that last one. Normally, talking about my biggest fears is kind of a joke, since none of them are really that different from anyone else's. But something about being with Min inspires me to tell the truth.

"What's your biggest fear?" I ask back. "Other than flying, I mean."

He smiles at me a little, and for a second I'm not sure if he's going to answer seriously. "I'm afraid that Tay is really dead," he says after a moment. "I know she probably is, honestly, but maybe she's not. That's what I keep holding on to. If I found out she is, and there really is nothing she can do about it, that she's gone forever, well...I guess that's my biggest fear."

Min and I keep going back and forth like this, asking and answering, delving deeper into each other's lives. I actually enjoy it. Normally I hate opening up to people like this, but Min is surprisingly easy to talk to. I find myself telling him things I've never told anyone, not even Mackenna.

The flight lands in Miami for a few hours. The layover is boring, but brief. We're not hungry enough for lunch, so we just sit at our gate, doing quiet things by ourselves.

This time when we board the plane, Min is fine. Well, he's still nervous, but he's not as panicked as he was last time. I don't sit next to him, and he doesn't ask me to. During the flight though, I wish I had. Talking with him was...comforting? Relaxing? Revealing? I don't know, but I find myself craving more time alone with him.

During this flight, my exhaustion finally catches up with me and I have to fall asleep. But as usual I have vivid waking dreams beforehand. Most of them are jaguars, in forests, in trees, talking to me. Slowly the jaguar dreams turn to dreams about Min. I'm a little embarrassed about those ones. But then the genre changes. He's injured, bleeding from an injury I can't see, bleeding and bleeding. I can do nothing as his heart slows, stops. I barely manage to stifle a scream as I wake up, and it takes me almost the whole rest of the flight to calm myself.

A panicked thought occurs to me. What if all these dreams, brought on by fear and stress and exhaustion, the dreams I've carried with me my whole life, aren't really dreams? What if I'm perceiving as I sleep, and the dreams are visions? What if all the terrifying things I see are real? Liz told me perceivers can see things that are going to happen in the very near future, or things that are very far away. So my whole life I could have been seeing things before they happen, but by the time it happens it's been so long that I've forgotten. That's a scary thought, and I try not to think it. But it doesn't really work.

At least dreams like this, where Min is bleeding and dying, aren't necessarily going to happen soon. I have time. I can find a way to change the visions, to stop them. I have to.

I wish I wasn't sitting by myself. I need someone to talk to. I'm too frightened to be by myself. I don't sleep again.

# CHAPTER 26

The first thing I notice about Costa Rica is the heat, sticky and oppressive. The second is the color. Everything is a rich, dark green. Min's favorite.

The air feels like I'm swimming through it. It's almost painfully humid, I can't seem to take a deep breath. The air presses in on my skin, hot, heavy, and thick. I reach up unconsciously to touch my hair and find that it's formed a halo of frizz around my head. Mackenna's hair is even worse, if that's possible, and even Rowan's looks like she just stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

The air smells sweet somehow, very fresh and very wild. I'm already getting used to the suffocating humidity. I'll have to find some way to deal with my awful puffy hair, but other than that I like this place. I like the bigness of it, the beauty so complete it's almost picturesque.

"We need to pick up our rental car," Drew says. "Let's take a taxi over there."

"How are we going to drive it?" I ask. I know some of us are sixteen, but we don't exactly have time for Drivers Ed. Liz must know this though, since she picked us specifically.

"I can drive," Rowan says.

"So can I," Min adds.

"I don't think a fifteen-year-old blind girl driving is gonna fly well with anyone who pulls us over," Mackenna says. "Min, you should drive."

I smile. I'm proud of Mackenna for taking charge and making decisions. Maybe she was a good addition to this group after all.

We take a short taxi ride and then walk into the rental car place. The person behind the desk gives us a look. If she asks for his license, we're going to get caught. And didn't you need to be an adult to rent a car anyway? But then Seth steps forward. I remember his power is mind influencing, or something like that.

"We would like to rent a car," he says calmly.

"Aren't you a little young?"

"Oh no, we're much older than we look," he says soothingly. "You don't need to see our licenses to believe us."

She blinks. "Of course not, why would I need to see your license? Your car will be ready in about ten minutes."

Seth walks past us with a proud little smirk on his face. I'm impressed. I've never seen him use his power on such a large scale like that. I didn't even know he could. And even though the power is extremely useful, it makes me a little worried that he would be able to influence even my mind so easily.

We wait mostly in silence for the car. It's been a long day, and any boost the caffeine might have given me is worn off. When the car arrives, Min takes the front, I call shotgun, and everyone else piles in the back.

We drive past scenery so beautiful it almost takes my breath away. It looks like something out of a movie, except even better. Everything is shiny green, palm trees and thick emerald forests. In one place they've planted a wall of corn. Seth tells me that they have to plant it, because on the other side is a valley so stunning it distracts drivers from the road. If I was the Daughter of the Wilderness, this is where I would live.

Mackenna, who can fall asleep anywhere, is asleep almost instantly. Her face is pressed up against the glass of the window. I consider taking a picture of her like that for my own entertainment, but then decide it's not worth getting her angry. Seth and Drew fall asleep to, so soon it's just me, Rowan, and Min.

I feel bad for Rowan because I know the car drives too fast for her to pick up any of the scenery outside the car. She stares out the window at the beautiful rainforest that she can't even see. She's lost in a blur of darkness, a blur of nothingness. Eventually she too drifts into sleep.

Min and I haven't said anything yet. I'm not sure if it's just because we're exhausted, or if it's because we're thinking about each other differently after the flight. I watch him as he drives, his coppery eyes focused on the road, his tense hands, the way his bangs fall almost into his eyes. My heart beat involuntarily speeds up. Blood rushes to my face.

"Embarrassed, are we?" says Min, taking his eyes off the road for a second. His lips twitch upward into a smile.

"N-no" I stammer. I'm not sure what else to say. If I wasn't embarrassed before, now I definitely am.

He laughs a little and we lapse into silence. I force myself to look out the window instead of at him. It's another hour before we get to our hotel, but I don't glance at him once. Actually, that's a lie. I glance at him several times, but never for very long.

It's about five by the time we get to our hotel. All we've really had since breakfast is airplane food, so we're all starving. The hotel doesn't have a restaurant though, so once we've checked in we basically clear out the snack machine and take our spoils up to the girls' room.

We have two rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. Each room has two beds and a pull-out sofa. We dump the chips, candy, and soda on the sofa and sit on the bed. We turn on the TV which, not surprisingly, is all in Spanish. We have a good time though, just pretending to understand.

The next morning we all have to get down to business. Liz told us two ways to go about finding the Daughter of the Wilderness. One is talking to locals about unusual activity, and the other is going on nature walks and stuff like that and looking for unusual activity ourselves. Naturally, we decide on the second option.

We sign up for an unguided tour through the rainforest and see...nothing. No jaguars, no signs of jaguars, no signs of anything else. It's still pretty cool though, and worth the money. It's distracting enough that I don't feel guilty about finding absolutely nothing about the Lost Princess.

The nature walk still takes a long time, though, and by the time we're done it's late afternoon. We go back to the hotel. Apparently, Liz was thinking of us when she booked this hotel, because there's a series of natural hot springs in the back. I have no idea how she managed to afford it, but she must have gotten a good deal or something. It's a nice surprise for us. We go down to check it out. There are three big pools in front, and a bunch of smaller pools behind them.

The water feels amazing. I relax into the warmth, floating on my back. It's just the right temperature, hot enough that it warms me all the way to my core. Mackenna, who's always happiest in the heat, seems especially at peace. I look over at her and see little wisps of steam curling off her skin.

I realize that even though I'm on a potentially dangerous mission with the future of the world at stake, I'm possibly the most relaxed I've ever been. Time loses its meaning as the sky slowly fades to darkness.

Min, who is not really big on relaxing, starts to get restless and leaves to go for a walk. I debate going with him but decide not to. I'm not the restless one, I'm perfectly happy just floating here in the pool.

Seth does a little more mind influencing and gets a hotel attendant to bring us smoothies. We sit on the steps of the pool and sip them. They taste like mangoes and bananas and ice.

A different attendant comes over to us. "Is the other kid with you?" he says in halting English.

"No," I say dismissively. We're all here, so how could one of us be attracting this guy's attention? Well, except Min, who's still not back from his walk. That's who he must mean.

I mutter some not very nice words under my breath. "Is he about this tall? Brown eyes? Black hair?"

The attendant nods vigorously. "Yes, yes."

"Why?"

"He is outside, calling for you."

"I'm sorry. I'll go deal with him." I heave myself out of the pool. The other kids start to follow me.

"No, it's fine. Stay here," I say.

The man leads me over to where I can see Min, and then leaves. Min is grabbing onto the bars of the gate leading into the hotel grounds, screaming.

"Hello? Can anyone help me? I need someone to get my friends for me. There are five of them, they're in the side pool, I think. Hello?"

He rattles the gate. Anger surges through me. Why couldn't he get us himself? Now he's made a scene and embarrassed all of us and I had to leave my comfortable spot in the pool.

I stalk up to him. "What's wrong with you?" I hiss. "Why couldn't you get us yourself? What is your problem?" I slam the flat of my hand on one of the bars.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "While I was walking I overheard some people talking about capturing the six children, the ones at the Royal Hotel. I couldn't see them, but I think they were working with Tempeste. I don't know how they found out we were here, they must have tracked us or something somehow. One of them set up some sort of sensor, so if one of us went in or out of the front gate they would know. And they're monitoring room two-oh-six. They don't want us to find the Lost Princess. And if they can, they're going to kill us."

# CHAPTER 27

I gasp, fear whipping through me. This shouldn't be happening. The mission wasn't really supposed to be a mission, it was supposed to be like a vacation. We weren't really supposed to be attacked. We are not prepared to deal with something like this. We're not good enough. We're not strong enough. We're not ready.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," I say to Min. "I'll go get the others. We'll have to find a way to get out of the property without going through the main gate."

I get the rest of our mission and bring them to Min. Apparently he's already scouted the perimeter of the fence and found a place where we should be able to climb from one tree to another without touching the fence. He starts to take us there. Everyone else follows him, but I start to go the other direction.

"Aubrey, where are you going?"

I turn to face him. "I'm going to get our stuff from the room. We need our passports at least, and it would be good to have some clothes and weapons." I turn and keep walking before anyone can even try to stop me.

I head purposefully toward the hotel entrance. I don't even realize Mackenna is walking next to me until I'm halfway there.

"We have a plan, right?" she whispers.

She startles me, and I whip around to face her.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be back with the others."

"You need help. You can't do everything alone," she says. "What if you're ambushed inside? There's no way you'd ever be able to fight off five people all by yourself."

I am about to make a cutting remark when the truth hits me. She's right. I can't fight off five people by myself. I've never even been in a real battle. I probably can't even fight off one person by myself. If I am ambushed I will almost certainly be killed or captured. The others will wait by the fence until they are captured too. Unless I'm with Mackenna. Then we stand a chance. Maybe.

"Do you have a plan?" she asks again.

"Run into our room and grab our stuff."

"What if we there are already people waiting there?"

"Um, I guess we're gonna have to fight them off. We need our passports and stuff."

She nods, her face grim and set. I try to look calm and collected. Maybe if I pretend not to be afraid, I really won't be afraid anymore. Maybe I'll be able to focus on something aside from the panic drilling its way through me, making my heart pound and my breath come in gasps.

We try to walk casually through the front lobby. We don't want to get cornered in the elevator, so we take a deep breath and sprint up the stairs as fast as we can. We hide at the top, peering out carefully. We don't see anyone, so we leap out and run a few steps. A maid walks past and we dart into the shadows. I inch along until our room is the next one.

I can feel Mackenna's harsh breathing behind me. The heat, which I had almost gotten used to, is now almost painfully oppressive again. I can't seem to breath right, it's like the space available in my lungs has been cut in half.

I realize suddenly that Mackenna and I never changed. We're both still in our bathing suits, towels wrapped around our waists, dripping wet. I picture us, pressed up against the wall like in some cheesy spy movie, looking like we just came from a day at the beach. I fight the almost hysterical urge to laugh. Now is not the time.

I open the door. I duck down as a ball of fire whistles over my head. Mackenna grabs it before it can hit anything. She throws it back in the general direction it came from.

Three men are waiting for us inside the room. All tall, wearing black. I almost scream, but don't. Mackenna kicks one in the stomach, then blasts him with fire. I'm frozen.

And then all of a sudden I'm not anymore. I'm fighting. Everything is heat, everything is closeness and movement and pain. All I am is instinct. I duck when my body tells me to, or hit out. I'm practically trembling with adrenaline. I feel my fist connect with flesh. I feel points of pain on my body, places where I've been hit. I don't think about them. There are no distractions now. Everything is deadly focus.

There's a plant behind one of them which I send whipping toward him like a discus. It knocks into the back of his head, hard. He topples forward. The last one punches out and bruises my arm before Mackenna hits him on the head with a lamp. Then all three are on the ground, and, as suddenly as it began, it's over.

My first battle. I can still feel the adrenaline pounding through me with each beat of my heart. I really am shaking now, hard. I feel like I might need to sit down. I'm still trying to process what happened.

Mackenna looks the same. Her skin is a pale, sallow-looking green. Her hands are vibrating too, and her chest is going up and down faster than it should be. I think she's hyperventilating.

"Are they...dead?" she asks, looking like she might be sick.

I reach down and gingerly touch one of them. He's warm. That's a good sign, right? I feel for a pulse. There is one, beating strong and hard against my fingertips. I feel the pulse of each of the other ones too, just in case we accidentally killed one.

"They're fine," I tell her.

"Maybe we should...tie them up or something."

We do. I pull their hands together, making bracelets of rope from vines around each of their wrists and tying them around the legs of the bed. It shouldn't be that hard to escape, but we're not trying to kill them.

Kill them. What if we had killed them? What if just now Mackenna or I had ended a life? The idea is...inconceivable. I can't imagine a single situation where I would ever kill someone. I know I'm part of a war, but I still don't think I could. A life is precious, and ending one is all too irreversible.

Still, it's nice to know that I can hold my own in battle. I've been training to fight for four months now. But you never know how you'll really do when you're faced with a real situation. You have no idea if you'll try to run, or if you'll panic, or if all your training will fly out the window. The only way to know if you can fight is if you really do it.

Once we've recovered sufficiently, we run around the room, shoving our most important stuff into suitcases. Mackenna and I can only carry one suitcase apiece so we have to leave a lot of it behind. Then we sprint through the hotel and outside until we meet Min again. We're looking over our shoulders the whole time, terrified of being attacked again.

"Pass me the stuff," Min says when we get back down to the gate. "There's a tree over there that you can use to climb over the fence."

Once everyone is outside the hotel and we've explained what happened, we start making plans. We're not sure if it's safe to check into another hotel, but we think not. We decide to sleep in the car.

Min drives for about an hour before he decides we're safe. It takes almost that long for the adrenaline to fully wear off. I'm left feeling frightened, empty, and almost shaky with exhaustion.

Sleeping with six other people in one car is not fun. We all have to sleep sitting up except for Mackenna, who's small enough to sleep lying down in the trunk. By the time morning comes, we're all sore and our nerves have been stretched thin.

"I want breakfast," someone complains.

"I don't know if we're going to be able to do that," Rowan says. She sounds worried, the way Liz would be if we were in a situation like this.

Mackenna moans. "Can't we sleep for longer?"

I peel myself off the window. My neck and back are stiff, and I'm still tired. A faint headache pulses behind my eyes.

"This sucks," Drew says.

Min is still asleep in the driver's seat. I shove him against the window to wake him up. He looks confused for a few seconds, then sits up, blinking his tawny eyes.

"This sucks," he mumbles, and everyone laughs.

Since nobody seems to be progressing past complaints, I take charge. "Let's come up with a plan."

I don't actually have a plan, so I'm hoping someone else will come up with one, but no one does. "Um, we could call Liz and see if she can get us home early?" I finally suggest.

"The cellphone's not working!" Seth shouts, shaking it.

"Can it not get service, or is it out of battery?"

"Um, neither," he says sheepishly. "I kind of stepped on it."

I put my head in my hands.

Lucky for me, Min takes control, and he's much better at this kind of thing than I am. Together he and Rowan make a plan to use a phone from a restaurant or gas station to call the School.

Last night we drove randomly, so now we basically just have to pick a direction and drive until we hit civilization. I think we must have picked the wrong direction, because it takes us a really long time to get anywhere. We're driving for almost an hour before we see anything. And then it's just some small Costa Rican town.

Mackenna, Rowan, and I decide to try to get a phone since we are less threatening than a group of teenage boys, and all three of us know at least a little Spanish. We go into a small rest stop and Rowan starts talking to the woman behind the counter. I get a little lost but I think I can understand the basic idea.

"How did you get lost?" the lady asks in Spanish.

"We were walking around alone and we forgot the way back to our house."

The lady doesn't look like she buys it, but she says, "Yes, of course you can use my phone."

She follows us into the back and watches us as we pick up the phone. She obviously doesn't trust us. I have no idea how we're going to be able to talk to Liz without giving too much away.

"My mother only speaks English," Rowan says to the woman. That's the perfect excuse. Now we can talk to Liz freely without the lady questioning us.

We know that the School is in a different time zone, but we can't remember how to figure out the difference. We decide to call Liz's home phone instead of the School.

The phone rings several times before it's picked up. It's not Liz, but a little girl who answers.

"Hello?" she says.

"Lily?" Rowan asks.

"Who is this?"

"It's Rowan, Lily. Can I talk to Liz please?"

"Oh hi, Rowan. Why are you calling? Is something wrong? Is it warm down there? Have you found the Daughter of the Wilderness yet?"

"Sorry Lily, I don't have time to talk. I need to speak to Liz. Can you get her for me?"

"Sure." I hear a muffled "Liz!" and the sound of footsteps.

"Hello? Rowan? Are you okay?"

The Spanish lady taps on Rowan's shoulder, trying to get her attention. Her ayes are wide with an emotion I can't quite place. Rowan grimaces and passes the phone to Mackenna.

"No. Well, yes. I guess, kind off, I don't know. This is Mackenna now, by the way. We're being followed by Tempeste's soldiers. They were planning to ambush us in our hotel room, and Aubrey and I were attacked and we need to come back, I don't think we can last another week, and...."

"It's okay. Calm down. Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt?"

"No, no one's hurt right now, but we will be if you can't get us out of here soon. They're tracking us. We don't know how they found us, but they're coming for us, I bet...."

"I'll get you out of there absolutely as soon as I can. But it will be at least two days. What phone are you using?"

"It's a phone in some store. We won't be able to use this one again, and we might not be able to contact you at all."

"Mackenna?" This is Rowan now, sounding worried. "Something's going on outside. I don't know what it is, but I think we need to go out there."

There's a scream.

"Oh God," Rowan mutters. "Something's wrong with the boys."

# CHAPTER 28

We all sprint out of the store, Mackenna still holding the phone. Three people are advancing from each end of the narrow street. One of them keeps trying to set things on fire. The normal people on the street don't seem to realize anything is wrong. They keep nodding to the attackers and smiling in a friendly way. The magic barrier must be up, which is a relief. "We're being attacked, I have to go," Mackenna says.

"Wait, what?" Liz yells. "What's going on? Listen, Mackenna, in two days I will meet you at the airport and find a way to get you back up to New Hampshire and keep you safe. Do you hear me?"

Then one of the men runs at us and Mackenna drops the phone. I hear Liz's desperate voice screaming out of it for a few seconds, then it abruptly it goes dead.

The man with fire magic throws a ball of flame at me, which I barely dodge. The hair on one of my arms burns to ash. He throws another ball of fire. All of a sudden the air ripples, and then the trash can behind him ignites. A few people scream. They can see everything that's happening now. The barrier has fallen. And we have no way of knowing how long it will be before it goes back up.

The soldiers attacking us realize this at the exact same second we do. One of them whips around and grabs a teenage girl, pinning her against a wall. Min runs at him and drags him backward. They both fall to the ground, hard. Before anyone else has time to react, the man is up, pulling a knife on the girl.

"No!" Rowan yells, and throws up her arms. Immediately the six of us and our enemies are encased in a thick, glowing dome. The people outside are safe, but we are trapped. And maintaining the shield is taking all of Rowan's energy.

I throw myself at one of the men. I give him two powerful spinning back kicks before I receive a hard punch above my right eyebrow. I manage to hit him with a blind elbow, but then I have to bend over to keep from passing out. Stars dance before my eyes. I struggle to suck in a breath.

I look up and see him leaning over me with a sword. I gasp and try to conjure up some magic. My mind is frustratingly blank. But then suddenly the man is taken out with a fire ball. Mackenna appears in his place. She helps me up.

"Thanks."

The man Mackenna hit with fire is already struggling to his feet. With a flick of my wrist I tie him up using some giant plants. With another flick, I trip another man and tie him up too. This is a conscious decision. They need to be stopped, but I don't want to kill them. I won't.

I look around at the battle. Rowan is almost unconscious. Her magical force field is already starting to flicker. Min is in wolf form, fighting the fiery man side by side with Seth. Most of the men have some serious burns, but now Mackenna looks too tired to do any more magic. Drew has drawn pieces of scrap metal around him so he looks like a transformer or something. He's fighting two men all by himself. I run over to help him.

I'm too late. One of the men must have the spirit of a bear or something. All of a sudden he has sharp claws that slice through Drew's metal and down to his chest. He cries out, falls to the ground. The pieces of metal scatter around him.

Anger and fear mix painfully in my chest. With a snarl I launch myself at the man. My claws snap out. We roll around on the ground, fighting furiously. I come out on top and leap off, pushing balls of light energy at the other man. Mackenna is still fighting her soldier, but Min and Seth have won their battle. Min is sitting on the chest of the fiery man. I attack the soldier Mackenna was fighting, and push him to the ground. I tie all the men up with vines, extending my consciousness into the plants and moving them into whatever shape I want them.

I'm panting with exertion. I'm shaking a little bit, but not as badly as last time. It's only my second battle, and already it's so much easier than last time.

The force field around us is gone, but Rowan is already sitting up. Everyone but Rowan runs to Drew's side. He is pale but conscious, his eyes wide with fear and pain. Four parallel scratches run along his chest, bleeding profusely.

Min touches one scratch gently. "We need to get him bandages. If we can get the bleeding to stop he should be fine. If the claws weren't poisonous or anything. And if they don't get infected."

"I feel like someone should take their shirt off," Mackenna says. We all turn around to stare at her. "I mean," she blushes, "to make bandages."

"We need to clean the wound first."

Drew's face has gone from pale to grayish, and he's shivering. His eyes are white strips.

"With what?"

I look around for some water. I didn't notice before, but we are surrounded by a ring of curious onlookers. They look shocked, scared. I have no idea how much of what just happened they could or couldn't see, with the magic barrier flickering in and out like that. I can tell they can see Drew now, though.

"Um, I think that kid needs to see a doctor." I assume this person is a tourist, because he's not speaking Spanish and he has a camera hung around his neck.

"He can't see a doctor, they would have no idea how to treat a magical wound," Min mutters.

"I know," I whisper back. I raise my voice. "Does anyone have some water? And could someone maybe call the police? These guys attacked us, they need to be locked up."

Most of the crowd speaks Spanish, but enough people speak English, and they translate for the rest of them. Someone passes me a bottle of water, and Mackenna pours it over Drew.

"We need to get out of here," says Min, his face tense with worry. "We can't do healing magic in front of all these people. Not if the barrier's down."

Drew's blood is spreading out along the pavement. His breathing is fast and shallow. His eyes flit restlessly under his lids.

Seth and Min lift him up, but they're tired too, and he almost slips from their grasp. I grab his shoulders to steady him and feel him tremble lightly beneath me. Mackenna helps to support Rowan, and we make our way back to the car.

Min is the only one of us with any healing magic at all, so Seth has to drive. He pushes the gas down too hard and almost hits a lamppost. He has to swerve to avoid it, and everyone is shoved against the wall of the car.

The scratches on Drew's chest stand out in the dim light of the van. Min's hands shake as he runs them over the wound.

"I'm not very good at healing magic, so I'm not promising this will do anything."

He closes his eyes and his hand starts to glow. He runs it over the deep scratches. I'm hoping the skin will just start to knit back together, but it doesn't. The wound appears to age maybe a few hours, the bleeding slows. But now Min is almost as exhausted as Rowan.

"That's...that's as much as I can do. The injury was caused by magic."

"What does that mean?"

He looks at me. "If an injury was caused by magic, not even the best healing magic will do any good. But if it's caused by something physical, sometimes it can be completely healed."

Drew's breathing is easier now, and he's maybe not quite so pale. We can all breathe easier too. The injury may have been caused by magic, but Min seems to have done enough. I almost start crying with relief. For a few minutes there, I was really afraid he was going to die.

Rowan and Min are too exhausted to do anything, and Seth is driving, so that leaves Mackenna and I to bandage up Drew as best we can. This is slightly unfortunate, because Mackenna and I have been taking first-aid classes for the shortest time. And I'm not a good healer. I get extremely nervous when people's lives are under my care, I just don't have a good memory for this sort of thing at all. And I know I need to get over this, but blood kind of grosses me out.

Under Min and Rowan's instruction, we bandage Drew with a few old T-shirts, trying to stop the bleeding. This is difficult, made more difficult by the fact that Seth keeps swerving to avoid hitting things.

"Can you drive a little straighter?" I yell at him for the third time. "You're probably re-injuring Drew." Seth has just driven the car onto the curb.

"I'm going to drive now," Min says firmly. Even though he's exhausted, the whole thing goes smoother once they've switched.

Min drives for hours. No one bothers to ask where he's taking us. I don't even think he knows. Finally, we drive onto an unpaved parking lot, completely empty and surrounded by rainforest.

"We'll stop here tonight," he says wearily. "I think we're pretty close to San Jose, which is where the airport is. I don't think people normally come back here, so we should be able to wait here for a few days."

We're all super tired, but we know at least two people have to keep watch, one for enemies, and one for Drew. Seth and I take the first watch.

As the sun goes down, I lean over Drew, watching for any changes in his breathing or heartbeat. After a little while, Mackenna whispers, "Aubrey, I can't fall asleep."

"Keep trying. You need rest."

"I didn't use as much magic as Rowan or Min. I'm recovered now."

"Okay, why can't you sleep?" I ask.

"How did they find us?" she whispers. "Last night and again today. Do they know why we're here, or was it just a lucky guess? Is there a traitor? And are they down here doing the same thing we are? And what if they succeed? What if they find the Princess first?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. I don't think anyone would betray us, but...."

"We need to be careful."

We sit in silence for a few minutes until her breathing grows heavy and I know she's asleep. At first, my thoughts are buzzing too. Is someone in the School a traitor? Is someone in the car a traitor? How can we protect ourselves? How can we find the Daughter of the Wilderness before they do? But after a while, my thoughts shut off and watching Drew takes on a meditative quality. I'm so out of it that I almost don't notice when Drew's breathing changes, becoming faster and more ragged. I do notice when his eyes open, though.

"Drew! You're awake. How do you feel?" I whisper.

"Awful," he mutters and I notice his eyes are glassy, and his cheeks are flushed with fever.

"I'm sorry, I wish we could give you painkillers or something, but I don't know if it would help anyway."

"That's...fine. What happened anyway?"

"The man scratched you. You have four deep cuts on your chest now. Do they hurt?"

He nods, then lightly touches one and winces. He shivers violently.

"I'm freezing."

I touch his forehead. He's burning with fever.

Suddenly his eyes fix on something behind me, but there's nothing there. His eyes are wide with pain. He whimpers. And then starts convulsing.

"Min. Min!" I scream. "Seth! Mackenna! Rowan! Please, anyone."

Rowan stirs. Her sightless eyes blink sleepily at me.

"What's the matter?" she mumbles, rubbing her eyes.

"There's something wrong with Drew." I start shaking Min. "Wake up!"

Like Rowan, Min is sleepy when he wakes up. I grab his shoulders and shake him a few times. His eyes close, then open, and finally focus on me.

Min awkwardly pulls himself into the trunk with me and Drew. He examines the situation, his head cocked sideways like an inquisitive puppy.

"We need medicine. Painkillers and fever reducers. Maybe even antibiotics. Or he won't make it. But I don't know if he's stable enough that we can move him, even in the car. Especially with Seth driving, no offense."

"I'll go get the medicine," I volunteer before I even know what I'm doing. "Isn't there a town nearby?"

"You can't go alone," Rowan says. "It's too dangerous, you'll be killed."

"I'll go with her," Min and Mackenna say at almost the same time. I hadn't even realized Mackenna was awake.

"All three of you should go. Seth and I can watch Drew. But hurry," she says. "We don't have much time."

# CHAPTER 29

Min starts pawing through the back until we all have several knives of various sizes. He passes them to Mackenna and me, and I hold them gingerly.

I'm not really sure where to put my knives. In movies, people have leg sheathes and belt holders and knives in their boots. I don't have any of those, so I put one in my pocket and one in my backpack, which seems a little unsophisticated. But it will work, I guess. It's not like I really know how to fight with one anyway.

The three of us get out of the car. I send one desperate look back at Rowan before remembering she can't see it. I hope Drew's okay. And I suddenly don't want to do this anymore. The woods are dark, and I'm afraid.

Min takes out a flashlight and shines the beam at the rainforest surrounding the parking lot. There's a narrow path between us and the main road, with trees on all sides. There's a hooting sound next to me, startlingly shrill in the silence. I jump and whip around, but there's nothing there. My heart pounds so fast it's almost painful.

There's a sudden sharp pain in my thigh. I jump, then realize my claws have involuntarily slid out and are digging into my own leg. Instead of pulling my claws back in, I lift them away from my leg and leave them at the ready.

We hear rustling. Min changes into a wolf and snarls at whatever's in there. The rustling stops, but Min remains a wolf. Mackenna takes the flashlight and uses some of her own energy to make it glow even brighter. The beam illuminates some of the shadows, but the ones that are left get even deeper.

There's more movement farther away, from an animal that sounds bigger. Min sniffs the air and whines. Then he changes back into human.

"There's something big out there. It doesn't smell like a normal animal. I think Tempeste must have sent it after us."

Mackenna makes a ball of fire in one hand and holds a knife in the other. My sharp cat teeth slide out, like vampire teeth in my too-small mouth. Min grabs his knives, but I know if it really comes down to a fight, he will use mostly teeth and claws. We wait on the path for a few moments, tense and still.

"Since we're not being attacked, I think we should keep walking," Mackenna says finally.

We start walking again, as quietly as we can. Before long, we're on the main road. It's silent, except for the crunch of our feet on the gravel and the sounds of a hundred insects and other tiny animals rustling in the trees. We can see the lights of a small town in the distance.

Suddenly we hear the noise in the woods again. Coming closer. Fast. My breath jumps into my throat. I have time to take a half-step backward.

A huge black shape bursts out of the forest and slams into me. We both go down. I scratch and try to get my knife out. But the animal's strength is far superior to mine. Soon my back is pressed into the asphalt with the creature on top of me.

The animal's slavering jaws snap only inches from my face. It's too heavy. My lungs don't have the room to expand. I gasp weakly.

Min runs into the animal from the side, bowling it over and knocking it off me. Mackenna grabs me and pulls me out of the way.

A faint glow appears far down the road. Even from this distance, I can tell it's headlights. Getting closer every second.

"Min, get out of the road!" I scream. Immediately, he leaps off the creature and darts to the side. The animal follows him, snapping at him furiously. Once they're off the road, Min snarls and engages it again. The car thunders past, just missing them.

I try to look at the animal in the erratic glow of the flashlight. I catch a glimpse of a bulldog-like face, muscles tensing under close cropped fur, claws glinting in the moonlight. And an impression of size, at least fifty pounds more than Min, taller and broader and much more muscular.

Is it a real animal? A natural animal? I remember Julianna talking about familiar animals from myths. Dragons, elves, all sorts of things. Is this one of those? Or is it something created by Tempeste, designed to track us down?

Suddenly, Min tumbles away, whimpering. The fur on his shoulder is turning red with blood.

Mackenna takes up the fight, trying to lob balls of fire at it in the darkness. I kneel next to Min, who has changed back to human.

"Is your shoulder okay?" I ask.

"Yeah. I think it's not as bad as it looks." He pulls up his shirt sleeve, revealing a circle of puncture wounds, seeping blood. He pulls his shirt back down, wincing.

"You should lie down or something," I say.

"No really, I'm fine." He gets shakily to his feet.

Mackenna has lost the dog in the forest. "Where is it, where is it?" she cries.

"There." I don't now exactly how I know, but I am positive.

Mackenna sends a ball of fire winging toward the spot in the darkness I've pointed out. There's a howl and the animal leaps out. I jump onto its back, holding on with my claws.

The dog flips over, pressing me into the ground. The hard gravel digs into my back. For the second time that night, I can't breathe. But this time nobody is coming to my rescue.

I'm going to pass out. I'm getting tunnel vision. The world seems to be spinning around me. The ground feels like it's vibrating. Wait, the ground really is vibrating. There's a car coming, I can see its headlights through my dimming vision.

The car comes closer, it doesn't see us, why doesn't it see us? My heart flutters in my chest, I haven't gotten a breath in over a minute. The car is too fast, too close.

"Get off her!" Mackenna screams from the side. She shoves the dog off and yanks me out from under the wheels of the car. We tumble off the side of the road and down a small slope. The dog starts to follow, but Min lunges at it, pushing it back into the road. Min leaps off just in time. The car collides with the creature with a sickening crunch.

We hear the car door open, a few words that I'm guessing are Spanish swears, then the car is speeding away. We all take a deep breath and hike back up the slope, Min clutching his shoulder.

"What was that?" Mackenna gasps, her voice shaking a little bit.

"Hellhound," Min says weakly. "I think."

We don't say anything else. We're all too stunned and exhausted, too sick with worry and pain.

The town we saw earlier is not even a mile away, and it takes us maybe fifteen minutes to get there. We pass a small all-night drugstore and hurry inside.

"Can I help you?" the young woman behind the counter asks. She's giving us a weird look. I look over at Mackenna and Min and realize why. We look like we just battled a giant man-eating dog. After battling six other people this morning. After sleeping in a car for two nights.

"Um, yes," Min says, leaning against the counter. To someone who doesn't know him, it looks like a casual position. But I know he's only leaning because he's too weak to stand on his own. Mackenna and I exchange a worried glance.

"Can we have ibuprofen?" he asks. "And bandages?"

"What happened to you?" she asks, looking concerned. I have a sudden flash of relief that she speaks English.

"Uh, nothing?" Mackenna says. It sounds like a question. The woman's eyes dart toward the phone. She's thinking about calling the police on us.

"Is one of you injured? Did you get in a fight?"

"Our mom sent us to get more supplies for her first-aid kit," Min lies smoothly. "We tried to take a short cut, but we got lost."

It's not the best lie, but it's well executed. Especially considering the fact that if his shirt wasn't red to begin with, she'd be calling the hospital. Just the effort of talking is exhausting him. He's swaying where he stands.

"Can we please just get the stuff we asked for? We've already taken way longer than we should have, our mom is going to be worrying."

She gives us everything we asked for, though she looks like it's going against her better judgement.

"Do you have any...antibiotics?" Min gasps.

"Sorry, kid, you need a prescription for those." Then she seems to take pity on us. "Here, you can take this antibiotic cream, on me. It's very strong."

"Thank you," I say, steering Min out the door. He flinches when I touch his shoulder.

We walk back to the car as quickly as I can. Min doesn't complain once, so I don't either, even though my chest is burning and my back is a mess of scrapes. My heart twists with pity for him, though. He looks exhausted and in pain.

Soon we're back in the small parking lot. Min leans heavily against the car, gasping. I open the door and he stumbles inside.

"What's wrong with him?" Rowan cries.

"He injured his shoulder. There was a fight, I'll explain later." I go to help Drew, but Mackenna is already on it. She's forcing pills down his throat, rewrapping his chest in ace bandages instead of old shirts. I try to swallow down my relief that I'm not the one having to deal with his wounds.

Min's puncture wounds are red, swollen, and tender. I look away. I hate seeing people injured like this, I hate being in a car with so much blood.

"Hey Mackenna, can we have some bandages?" Rowan asks. Mackenna throws her half a roll. She winds it tightly around Min's shoulder. He's swallowed a few ibuprofen, and color is returning to his face.

"I'm really tired," he says. Almost immediately, his eyes close and he slips sideways.

"Um, was that good or bad?" I ask.

"I don't know." I feel like Rowan and Min should be the ones who know everything, they've been going to magic school for so long. But they're just sixteen too. This isn't fair. It's not fair that there are a bunch of sixteen year olds treating their injured friends in a car when they're not even good at first-aid. It's not fair that we have this much responsibility, and that there's no choice because someone has to do it, and there's simply not enough people.

I check the clock at the front of the car. I am surprised by the fact that it's only ten-thirty. I expected it to be one or two in the morning. But it doesn't really make a difference. I'm still exhausted. I know I should be offering to keep watch. But I can't. I find a little space of trunk that's not taken up by other people and fall instantly asleep.

# CHAPTER 30

Seth tries to wake me up to take the next watch. I can't even wake up enough to tell him that I'm too tired. I think Mackenna does it instead.

Everyone but the two injured boys is awake when I finally do get up in the morning. Min looks much better, almost normal, and Drew looks...no worse.

Mackenna and Seth have gone into the little town to get food. Rowan is keeping watch. I start watching Min and Drew. It's only for a little while though, because Min wakes up a few minutes later. I was intently watching Drew when I hear a voice behind me.

"Good morning, Aubrey."

I whip around. His tawny eyes are bright and alert. He sounds fine, his voice isn't lined with pain. A faint smile plays around his lips.

"Min, you're awake! How do you feel?"

"Hungry," he says promptly. I can't help but smile. Boys have such one-track minds.

"We don't have any food yet. Mackenna and Seth are getting some. I think they'll be back soon."

He looks a little sad. "Are there some peanuts under the front seat? That we put there after the airplane ride?"

"There were no peanuts on the plane, remember?"

"What about our emergency granola bars?"

"I think those have already been eaten."

His face falls. I have to use all my self-control not to laugh at him.

"Can you move your arm?" I ask.

He moves it a little bit. It's still swollen, but the angry red has faded. It's healing well, and there's no sign of infection. I determine that he's fine and go back to watching Drew.

There's a knock from outside the car. I tense, ready for attack, but it's just Mackenna and Seth, returning with breakfast. We all gather in the trunk and back seats.

"Did you bring a donut?" Min asks hopefully.

"I didn't know we were supposed to bring donuts," Mackenna says worriedly.

I say, "You weren't, he's just being annoying."

Min says, "Did you bring a muffin?" at exactly the same time.

"Yeah, we brought pastries," Seth answers, passing them out. Min's is gone before I've taken more than a few bites. I take pity on him and give him the rest of mine too. I'm not hungry at all, I actually feel a little sick.

"We met this old lady at the grocery store," Mackenna says. There's some strong emotion that I can't quite place in her voice. She looks almost frantic, her eyes are wide and frightened. "We couldn't talk to her very well because we don't speak much Spanish, but she was super perceptive of magic. She caught on to us right away. She was trying to tell us something about the Daughter of the Wilderness. I think she was saying that the Princess is in Costa Rica right now."

I blink. This wasn't supposed to happen. The Daughter of the Wilderness wasn't actually supposed to be in Costa Rica. We're just sixteen. We have no way of dealing with this. The old lady must have been wrong.

But it does make sense, at least a little bit. It would explain why Tempeste's soldiers attacked us, why they are here in the first place. Why they're going to so much trouble to stop us.

But even if it is true, it's still not something we can deal with. We're not strong enough to find her, especially not with Drew injured. Especially not with Tempeste's soldiers targeting us. This is too big.

"We need to find her," Min says almost immediately. "We need to go back and talk to the woman again. This is great. Now the mission won't be a waste."

"No!" I say. "Not with you and Drew injured. We need to stay here and hide until Liz comes. Then we can tell her what we found out and she can handle it."

"I agree with Aubrey," Mackenna says. "This is too dangerous. It will be going directly against the strength of Tempeste. The Princess isn't going to just leave. A group of teachers can come back and find her. Unless they never get the information because we're all dead."

Min continues to protest. "This could be our chance to change everything. If we do this, we could win the war. This is probably the most important thing we'll ever do. Don't you get it? This is our duty. It's our duty to do everything we can. We have to do this."

"Drew will die!" I almost scream. "He needs actual medical care. Not emergency first-aid from a bunch of teenagers, but actual help from someone who actually knows what they're doing. This is important, but not important enough to risk our lives."

I'm not sure why, but I really don't like the idea of us trying to find the Daughter of the Wilderness. It feels wrong. It's not that I don't believe in the cause, because I do. I just don't think we should try to find her. If we do, I'm sure something terrible is going to happen.

All of a sudden, a wave of dizziness washes over me. I slump against the side of the car. Pictures flash in front of my eyes. At first they're blurry, indistinct. I can't even tell what they are. But soon they arrange themselves.

I'm with Rowan, Mackenna and Seth. We're running through the forest. I know we're trying to find the Princess, even though we can't see her and don't even know where she is. Something, or someone, is chasing us. I hear a scream and run faster, but somehow I know there's no way I can escape.

Then the vision changes. I'm not exactly in this one, I'm hovering above it, watching everything. Below me, there is a body. It's the Daughter of the Wilderness, I can tell. She's dead and bleeding. I can't see her face, only her golden hair. Min is kneeling next to her, looking shell-shocked, stunned.

I open my eyes, blinking. The light in the car all of a sudden seems too bright. I'm exhausted, I've been awake for less than an hour but I already feel like I could curl up and go back to sleep again. Everyone in the car is staring at me, looking concerned.

"We can't go after the Daughter of the Wilderness. Tempeste's soldiers are tailing us, hoping that we'll lead them to the Princess. If we go after her, they'll follow us and kill her. It will be the end of everything."

Nobody argues. They can't. We would risk our own lives, maybe, but there's no way we can risk hers. Discussion over. We'll stay here until we can get back to New Hampshire.

Since there's nothing else we can do about the Lost Princess, the day is super boring. We're reduced to throwing coconuts up in the air for Mackenna to incinerate. Seth and Mackenna were a little distracted at the grocery store, so they didn't really think through their purchases. All we have for lunch is frozen pizza, which Mackenna tries to heat up with fire and ends up burning.

The only good thing about the day is Drew. He wakes up around one in the afternoon. His fever is down. His cuts are healing. He's only a little paler than normal. He's still too weak to move, but he's definitely getting better.

The next morning, we wake up extra early to get to the airport in San Jose. We leave earlier than we need to, in case something happens and we need more time. We aren't exactly sure how to get Drew through the airport. He can barely stand, let alone walk that far.

I look over at him. He's talking animatedly, gesturing with his hands as he tells Mackenna a story. He can tell that he's scared us, and now he's trying to reassure us that he's alright. But underneath the mask of health and well-being, I can see how weak he is. His eyes are glassy.

Min's arm still hurts him, so Rowan is driving. If we are pulled over, I think Seth will be able to keep us from getting arrested. I know it's necessary, but I do feel bad about manipulating people and lying.

Mackenna keeps asking questions none of us can answer. "Liz said she would meet us today, but she never said where. We'll just have to try and find her. And what about food? We don't have enough money to buy anything else. And how are we going to get through security? And how are we going to get Drew through the airport? Maybe we could put him in a wheelchair...."

"Could you please shut up for a minute?" Seth finally asks.

Mackenna falls silent in the middle of a sentence. I don't blame Seth, we're all really tense. We know that our enemy will likely be watching the airport, waiting to ambush us. None of us has a plan.

We get to the airport and start unloading bags. What started out as eight bags is now three. Mackenna and I didn't get everything out of our hotel rooms, and more of our clothes were destroyed during the battle and to bandage Drew. All the clothes we have left are dirty and ripped, and Mackenna has to wear Min's sweatshirt to hide a burn mark in her shirt.

Drew manages to stand. He walks stiffly, painfully, but at least he is moving. I don't know for how long though.

Liz said she would bring us tickets, so we have to wait for her. We stand around awkwardly, too worried to talk. I realize we have unconsciously drifted into back to back formation with our luggage in the middle. People are staring at us. I consider deliberately moving, but I would feel too exposed.

Min nudges me gently to get my attention. I look where he's subtly pointing and see a figure wearing a hat and trench coat. We move to a new position to see if the person continues to follow us. We shift slightly so we can all watch the person's approach. I'm tense as a coiled spring, ready for any kind of action.

The person does keep heading in our direction. We're being followed. And there's nothing we can do.

# CHAPTER 31

Suddenly Rowan gives a little yell and runs forward. She hugs the person, which is the last thing any of us expect her to do.

"Liz!" she screams, pulling the hat off, revealing a familiar head of sandy blonde hair. I almost gasp with relief. I'm practically shaking. It's a good thing we have Rowan. She must have been able to identify her with her magic.

"Nice defensive formation." She smiles, tugging her hat back on.

"You came. We were so scared and we didn't know what to do. And Drew was hurt, and...."

"Drew was hurt?" Her eyes are dark and alert. She looks intently at him.

"I'm fine now," he says. Nobody believes him though, because he stumbles and would have fallen if Seth wasn't there supporting him.

Liz leads us to a private maintenance hallway. I can see the normal airport life at both ends, but the hallway itself is completely empty.

"What's with the trench coat?" Min asks.

"It's a pretty good disguise. And it was cold in New Hampshire." She laughs, then becomes all business once again. "I hate to say it, but we need to split up. They know how many of us there are. We can split up into three groups and move through the airport as quickly as possible. Once we get on the plane we should be fine. Leave your bags here, they'll never get through security."

Seth and Rowan leave the shelter of the hallway first, Liz and Drew go a few minutes later. Mackenna, Min and I wait as long as possible before leaving. We move through the airport, quickly, not stopping for any reason. Even when the smell of fresh baked pizza wafts over us. Even when we have the option of buying souvenir T-shirts to cover our ripped ones. Even when Mackenna has to pee so badly she's practically hopping up and down.

Just before we board the plane, I notice Min trembling next to me. He's pale, sort of sick-looking. His eyes dart around wildly.

"Are you okay?" ask him. "Is your arm hurting you?"

"No, no it's not that," he says, staring straight ahead.

Then I remember. It's the plane. With everything else, I'd completely forgotten that he was scared of them. But there's nothing we can do now. We have to get on the plane in less than a minute.

I tentatively grab his hand, half expecting him to pull away. He doesn't, instead he gives my hand a grateful squeeze. It makes me glow with happiness. The hand-holding means something totally different to me than it does to him. He thinks I'm just trying to be a good friend, but to me it means...well, I'm not really sure, but something, I think.

We load onto the plane. I'm in the aisle seat, across from Liz, with Min and Drew next to me. Drew is asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. Min seems better during takeoff, his knuckles are white as he grips the arm rest and his eyes are squeezed shut, but other than that he seems fine. At least about the plane.

He keeps rubbing his arm like it hurts him. I notice his hand is trembling. He bites his lip hard, and it's so chapped that a bead of blood appears. He leans back and closes his eyes. When I look over at him again, he's asleep. I'm startled again by how young he looks while sleeping. He is like a child, for a few moments his worry is gone.

Liz asks me what happened when we were alone in Costa Rica. I tell her everything. I do feel a little guilty for not finding out anything about the Daughter of the Wilderness. I'm sure it was the right choice, but it feels like the wrong choice too. Liz doesn't seem to mind, though. Or at least if she does, she doesn't show me.

She seems worried by the dog, hellhound, especially. She isn't sure whether it's real or engineered by Tempeste, but either way it must be working with her. She wouldn't send something like that just to get rid of a bunch of kids. It must have been in Costa Rica specifically to get rid of the Daughter of the Wilderness. But how did they know she was there? It's...worrying, to say the least.

The flight is long, and after I'm done talking to Liz I get bored. I play hangman with Mackenna, the only other person awake. I eat some airplane peanuts, which are too small but better than nothing. After a while I kind of zone out, and eventually I fall asleep.

On the car ride to the School, Liz apologizes to us for putting us in danger like that. She says she never in a million years imagined Tempeste would find out where we were and attack us. She says if any of us were killed she would never have forgiven herself. I think she says more too, but I fall asleep again and don't wake up until we get to the School.

Drew gets stiffly to his feet. He stumbles, and Liz catches him. She hurries him inside, leads him to the nurse's office. He lies down on the bed, closing his eyes in exhaustion.

"Amity!" Liz calls. "Amity, where are you?"

A woman hurries out of her office. She's older than Liz by at least ten years, maybe almost fifty. She has a nice, comforting-looking face. A few strands of light hair escape from her bun. I immediately decide to like her, mostly because she looks friendly and is going to help Drew.

She pulls Drew's shirt off. I wince. Compared to the clean sheets, Drew's bandages look dirty and poorly wrapped. They're all crooked, and streaks of dirt and blood keep them from being white.

"Who did these bandages?" Amity asks.

"We did," Rowan answers. Amity raises her eyebrows but decides not to say anything. Even with everything else going on, I still have it in me to flush with embarrassment.

"Min, have you tried to use healing magic on it yet?"

"I-I tried, but the injury was caused by magic. I did as much as I could."

Amity's eyebrows knit together in concentration. It's the first time I've ever seen her heal someone, and it works much better than Min's did, and faster too. One second her hands are glowing, brushing over his wounds, and the next second she's lifting them off. Once she's done, the wounds look much better and some of his color has already returned. He's not back to normal, though. The injuries were caused by magic, and it's impossible to heal those ones completely.

All of a sudden, someone rushes into the room. I look up and see it's Mackenna's father. He runs toward her, sweeps her into a hug.

"I was so worried about you," he whispers. "Liz told me when you called, you were so brave.... What happened? Did you get hurt? Did you find anything? How did the soldiers find you?"

I realize he has Mackenna's habit of asking a bunch of questions in a row without waiting for any answers. She looks up into his relieved face, and their identical eyes meet. A pang goes through me. Mackenna inherited that habit from him the same way she inherited his eyes. Even if he wasn't standing next to her, I could tell they were related. There is no one like that for me. No one who is clearly my parent, whose traits are the same as my own. I have no connections like that. It makes me feel suddenly very alone.

"I'm fine, Dad," Mackenna says. "Really." She smiles. "It was fun."

I don't really remember what happens after that. I think Amity might heal Min's arm. I eat dinner in a haze, before stumbling up the stairs to the room I share with Mackenna. I barely have time to change into my pajamas before I fall instantly and deeply asleep.

# CHAPTER 32

The next day is Wednesday, but Mackenna and I both stay home from normal school. I wonder vaguely how many school days I've missed all together. A few days for finding out I had magic, a few days for finding Min, a few days for Mackenna, over a week for Costa Rica, and a few other random days. All together, I've missed over a month of school. And I haven't been sick once.

When I finally do go back to normal school a day later, people keep asking me why I was absent for seven school days. I end up just saying I was sick, because it's too much work to explain that I went to Costa Rica looking for a lost magical princess and was attacked by an army led by an immortal woman who will be here in the next few months and will do her best to torture or kill me and everyone else I care about.

I know it's not their fault, but people at the normal school can just be so annoying. I know they don't get the fact that we're training to fight for our lives, and that's why I'm so tired I can't seem to carry on a conversation. I know they don't get that we have powers beyond what they can imagine, and that's why I'm so stressed out all the time. And I know that when they ask me questions, they're just trying to understand, to make a connection, a relationship. They're trying to be nice, and I'm taking it completely the wrong way. And it makes me feel bad. But I can't change it.

I'm fighting and dying and giving everything for these people, and they don't know it. They don't care.

I know it's immature, but I want appreciation. Recognition. Anything other than these questions, the nothing questions.

My typical day goes like this. I wake up at five-thirty if I can muster enough self-control not to hit the snooze button. If I'm up by five-thirty, I have time for a quick workout before taking a shower. I usually run through some basic stretches and then some fighting moves. Sometimes I do a little magic too, but that's just indulging myself.

In the shower, I'm fighting a constant battle with sleep. I'm exhausted all the time now, and usually it's all I can do to keep from nodding off. Sometimes I'll snap my eyes open to find myself leaning against the wall, with water that has long gone cold pouring over me, and only a few minutes to get ready before the bus comes.

I don't have time to eat breakfast in the house anymore, but magic expends too much energy for me to ever skip a meal. Usually I grab a granola bar or something and eat it while I'm waiting for the bus.

Every moment of normal school is used. I don't have time to do all my homework after I get home from magic school. Every free moment in between classes and assignments, during lunch or even during lectures when I'm in the back, is spent doing homework, or desperately reviewing concepts I know I won't have time to study.

Mackenna is the same way. During homeroom, we always used to talk and laugh together, but now we're both frantically doing homework. At least we have each other, and we both know we have a reason.

Then I go around to all my classes. Try to finish as much homework as I can, try not to fall asleep. I'm decent at school, but it's not like I've ever been one of the really smart kids. I have to work hard to keep my grades up, and now I just don't have the time. Maybe when the war is over, maybe when everything goes back to normal, as much as it ever will. Maybe then it will be like it was before.

Mackenna and I meet after school. Liz picks us up most of the time, or sometimes Mackenna's father. They drive us to the School. Once upon a time, I probably would be taking Driver's Ed by now. Once upon a time, Mackenna, who's almost sixteen, would have been about to get her license. But now none of that seems to matter. So we get rides, because we have more important things to be doing, and we simply don't have the time.

The magic school classes are more interesting for me then the classes at normal school, but they're not really any less work. Well, they're less homework I guess. But a lot of them are physically difficult, and I try to pay more attention, because the stakes are higher. I could sacrifice a little of my GPA in order to keep myself or any of my friends from maybe getting killed.

Classes are over by eight. Unless it's a weekend night, I almost always go back to Liz's house. Mackenna usually goes back to her father's house too. Min and a lot of the other kids stay at the School every night. It's kind of sad. They stay at the School because they have nowhere else to go.

Even with doing homework at school, I usually have about an hour before I go to bed. So I'm usually done with everything by about ten-thirty or eleven. At that point I fall into bed, exhausted. I don't have energy for anything else. I fall asleep quickly, but have weird dreams all night, some of them maybe visions. And then I wake up and do the whole thing over again.

Meanwhile, the magic school is going great. We've been working on swords for a while now, and I'm actually getting pretty good. Min somehow already knew how to use a sword, and he helps me and Mackenna get better. Sometimes he comes over to Liz's house to help me, I think just so he has somewhere to go.

All of our classes are geared toward our tests, which we will take at the end of March. There's tons of pressure to pass it. If you do, you're kind of like an adult, you're technically allowed to fight and do other interesting stuff. Costa Rica was an exception to a normally strictly-followed rule, that once you pass your test, you can go on missions, even important ones. I've heard that if you don't pass it, you'll be held back. It feels like college exams or something, even though we're only fifteen and it's not even the end of the school year.

It's starting to be spring. This is frightening. We realized that Tempeste would wait to attack until after the winter, when she attacked the other school in my vision. So we've still been dreading the time the snow finally melts since the frost first started. Spring is coming, and the attacks will start again, and then someday it will be our school, someday we will be attacked.

I try not to think about this too much. If I did, I would probably drive myself crazy.

Mackenna will always be my best friend, but over the next few weeks I start getting closer to Min too. Sometimes I partner up with him during activities, I sit next to him a lot of times at meals. I feel like I already know him well, even though we only met a few months ago. It's not the same kind of relationship I have with Mackenna exactly, but that doesn't mean it's not real. It helps that Liz thinks of him kind of like a son, so he's over at our house all the time.

I've never had a guy friend before. Actually, before I was adopted by Liz, I didn't really talk to a lot of guys at all. It's different from having a girl friend, sort of. I feel like I can almost tell him anything, and we could do anything together. He's very straightforward, he never dances around what he's trying to say, and I never have to guess what he really means. He's not afraid to mess up or look bad in front of me. And when I'm with him I'm not afraid to tell my stupidest jokes or ask for help or take third helpings of dinner.

We sort of work well together, too. We think the same kinds of things are funny, and we laugh together. He's always coming up with things for us to do, and I'm always up for them. Pancakes for dinner, playing in the hose, teaching Lily how to play frisbee. He's like a brother.

But all of a sudden, one day when he's helping me practice fighting, I realize I've done the stupid thing nobody who's lucky enough to have a best guy friend is supposed to do. The thing that changes everything, the thing you can never go back from. I realize that I'm falling in love with him.

Okay, so maybe it's stupid that I haven't realized it before now. I mean, I'm aware of my own feelings, and I've seen enough movies that I should be able to place that giddy-strange-light feeling. But for some reason it hits me just now, hits me with enough force that I almost fall over.

He's showing me something that I can't even concentrate on. I'm sure he's beautiful while he's doing it, he's always beautiful. He's so attractive, with his light caramel eyes and wavy black hair. But that's not why I can't seem to pay attention to anything he tells me.

It's the way he smiles at me. The way his touch is light and precise and comforting. The way I'll say something that's not even funny, but he'll laugh and his laugh is like the sun. The way he's determined and patient at the same time. The way he's strong and yet somehow vulnerable, the way he's always so silent on his feet, the way he's kind to Lily, the way he's always hungry, the way he's smart, the way he's funny, the way he says my name....

"Aubrey," he says, and I think it's not the first time he's tried to get my attention.

"Wait, what?"

"Are you going to do what I just showed you?"

I feel a little dizzy. He's looking at me. At me.

I snap my self out of it. Of course he's looking at me. We've probably looked at each other every day for the past few weeks, and it's nothing unusual and it doesn't mean anything. He's helping me fight better, so I can improve faster. That's all that's happening. That's it.

Now he's still looking at me, and he's so patient, even when I'm not even paying attention to whatever it is he's showing me. I love the way he's helpful, even when I can't seem to do it right. I love the way he....

"I think you're going to have to show me that one more time," I say, a little more forcefully than I mean to. He nods, looking a little confused, and shows me the same series of kicks and punches that he was trying to show me before. I copy them, not perfectly, but close enough. He moves on, not suspicious at all.

I try to shake myself out of it. It doesn't work.

It's funny the way falling in love works. Sometimes I guess there's love at first sight, or first touch, or first time you're alone together, or whatever. Or sometimes it's just all of a sudden, like what happened to me. One day you wake up and have a close friend and then a few hours later you have a crush. There's not really a reason it happens, not really a trigger. It's just something that happens, sort of gradually and sort of all of at once, like the day you stop playing with toys, or start making a best friend.

That night I'm in my room at Liz's house. It's late, tomorrow is Monday and I should be asleep by now. But I can't. I'm crying a little, sniffling and damp. My heart is sore.

All afternoon I was smiling, giddy, because love feels nice. It's like cupcakes and rainbows and snow days and beaches and flying. It's smooth and shiny, beautiful from a distance, but fragile too. I hadn't realized it was like a bubble, and it would pop if I reached out to touch it. I hadn't realized that love was that precarious, hearts that breakable.

It's not Min's fault. It's not anything he did, at least not anything he realized he was doing. It's what he didn't do, what he didn't say. He did exactly what he has done every day he has come over to Liz's house. He helped pick up our training supplies, said goodbye, and left. Nothing more, nothing less.

And that's where the problem comes in. I'm sure my feelings are written all over my face, if he were looking for them. And since I'm looking, and they're not there, it must mean he doesn't have them. Unrequited love. I love him, and he just thinks of me as a very close friend. And there's nothing I can do about it.

Last night Min wasn't hurting me at all, and tonight it feels like he's tearing my insides all to shreds. I put my arms around my stomach, trying to hold my heart in. Love doesn't feel very nice anymore. It feels painful and tiring and sad. I don't even know what I want.

There are two things I do know for certain. The first one is that I am not letting this change our friendship. That wouldn't be fair to either of us, and it wouldn't be worth it. What we have now is something too, and it's real and powerful, even if it's not exactly what I want. We are friends, and I'm not going to let anything change that.

The second thing I know is that if I want us to stay the same, if I don't want to damage our friendship, then Min can never, ever know.

# CHAPTER 33

It's kind of lucky I don't have a lot of time to think, to reflect, or daydream the next few weeks. Min is hurting me, but the hurt feels distant, numb somehow. It is blocked out by the fear of the test, which is only a week away now.

The most stressful part of the test is that no one knows anything about it. We have no idea what format it will take, and we know only loosely what will be on it. I want to study everything I've ever learned, and the whole week before the test I barely sleep at all.

The night before the test, I stay over at the School. The test will start early and take the whole next day. I wonder if part of the test is to see how we perform when we're tired.

We all line up, nervously fidgeting. We aren't in any sort of order, but no one wants to be first. Finally, Min volunteers. He looks very calm and collected, but I can tell he's really tense.

There are two testing rooms, so the second person is called too. Jessie and Ryan are back, they got back when we were in Costa Rica, and Ryan goes into the other room. Neither of them comes out, but after half an hour two more people are called, Drew and Seth. I'm the next person in line, Mackenna and I will take the test at the same time.

Finally, they call me in. I have no idea what to expect. But it's only half an hour, so it can't be that bad, right?

I'm surprised to see a virtually empty testing room. The only things in it are two chairs. An old lady who I've never seen before sits in one. I wonder why she's here. And suddenly, I wonder what her magic is.

"Drink this," she says to me. Her voice is completely monotone.

I eye the glass in her hand suspiciously. "Why?"

"It's part of the test." I can tell her patience is wearing thin. She's already tested two people, and she has many more to go. I reach out for the glass, which is filled with a thick, pink liquid. But before I can take the glass, she grabs my wrist.

"Once you enter the simulation you will have three hours. Escape. You won't remember this once you begin."

I'm confused, and I can't seem to process what she just said. Did she say simulation? What is that? What's going on? Is this the test?

But I yank my wrist away and drain the glass in one swallow. It tastes sweet and bitter and it makes my mouth feel freezy. Why would she tell me something I won't even remember in a few minutes? What's going on?

Almost immediately, I start to feel dizzy. I get tunnel vision. I stumble forward, into the chair, then collapse into darkness.

I blink my eyes open. I'm in a jail cell, pressed up against the cold stone walls. I'm a little lightheaded. I touch my temple and my fingers come away bloody.

I stagger upward, leaning against the wall for support. I must have been knocked out and brought here, because I don't

remember anything at all. I blink. I actually can't remember anything, even when I'm trying. I struggle to find my last memory. I'm still too sick and dizzy.

The door to my cell slams open. Two men wearing spotless white uniforms barge in, looking strangely out of place in the dirty dungeon. I scramble away from them, into the farthest corner of the room. They're whispering to each other, something about torture and me, I think.

"Come here, girl. It will be so much easier if you cooperate," one of the men says. And then he's coming toward me, and I'm panicking, and trying to escape.

I hit him weakly. He grunts, even though I'm dizzy and the punch wasn't nearly as strong as it could be. Then, with one motion, he smashes into my head with the hilt of his dagger. My forehead burns with pain and I see stars.

I resist as much as I can, which is basically just not walking as they drag me between them. We go down a long hallway and finally turn into another room, larger than my cell. There's something that looks like a silver operating table in the center. The walls are lined with a cruel looking assortment of instruments and vials.

The two men throw me down on the table and snap a wide restraining belt around my waist. I try to fight, but they bring my arms around underneath me and strap them down. I can't figure out what's going on. I mean, I understand that they're going to torture me, but why? Why am I even here? What's going on?

The men put on rubber gloves and masks. They line up an array of tools, knives, needles, and various potions. One of the men takes a slender needle and examines it.

"What are you going to do, poke me with a needle?" I sneer. It's hard to act brave when my heart is hammering like it's going to burst out of my chest.

He doesn't answer, simply dips the needle in one of the vials. He touches my neck with it, and then I'm in too much pain even to scream.

I must be dying. Red hot pain rips through my body, tearing my breath from my lungs. Soundless sobs wrack me. Tears stream down my cheeks. Stars explode across my vision. I'm going to die, I'm going to die.

And then it's over. For a second my lungs don't work. My chest convulses until they finally expand, sucking in the much needed air. I just lie there, gasping, unable to move or open my eyes.

"You did it for too long!" someone above me shouts. "How can she tell us anything if she's dead?" Okay, that's a piece of information. They're trying to get me to tell them something. But what? I don't know anything, and that's the truth.

Someone shoves someone else and a fight breaks out. I know I need to escape while they're distracted, but I'm not sure how. There's no way I can do magic, I'm still too weak. My legs aren't tied, but I have a belt around my waist so I don't think that helps me.

My eyes dart around the room for anything I can use. I have only seconds before they resume my torture. I can't take that again. I need a knife. I scan the room and see one on the tray with all the other instruments on it.

I crane my neck and grab the hilt between my teeth. Now I have to drop it and catch it with my hands. I have one chance. If I miss this, it's all over.

I do catch it though, with the just the tips of my fingers. I start sawing at the bands on my opposite wrist until it breaks. Then I pass the knife to that hand and cut the binds on my other wrist. I manage to untie the strap around my waist. I leap off the table, but my knees buckle and I stagger forward. I lean against the wall for support.

The men run toward me. I stand up straight, looking for plants or something to use against them. There's nothing, so I use some of my own energy to make a ball of light. It only buys me a few seconds, but that is enough. I sprint out of the room.

I have no idea where I'm going, so I take off full speed in a random direction. The prison, or wherever it is I am, is set up like a maze. I don't have time to think, every time I hit a turn, I go right. I pass rows and rows of cells identical to mine in identical stone hallways. My breath is coming out in short gasps, and my head pounds with each step. But I can't stop, I have to keep going.

I turn down another hallway and skid to a stop. A guard is unconscious and tied up in front of me, blood trickling down his temple. There's a high window open behind him. I'm not sure if I can reach it, but I think it's big enough for me to fit through. Either someone is trying to help me escape, or it's a trap.

There's no way for me to be sure and I like the first option better, so I leap for the window. My hands graze the edge but I slide back down. I can hear soldiers closing in behind me.

I jump again, and this time I manage to scramble onto the edge, where I balance precariously. It's a two-story drop to the grass below. But the guards are already at the end of the hallway. I take a deep breath and let myself fall. The night rushes by me for a second, the ground is coming up so fast....

Pain lances up my leg. I lie on the ground for a minute, my teeth clenched in agony. I'm pretty sure it's just sprained, not broken, which is good because three men materialize out of the shadows and attack me.

I stand slowly, testing my leg. It will take my weight. For now.

I hit one of the guards in the neck and he falls to the ground. Another one throws a hard punch at me. I block it, sort of, so it collides with my chest instead of my face. I kick out at his knee. It doesn't break, but pain flashes across his face and he falls to the ground. I lean against the wall, dizzy from pain.

"Look out!" someone behind me screams. I duck, there's a flash of silver and a thud. Two people are on the ground, the third man and a slender figure wearing all black. The smaller person staggers upward, walks uncertainly in the other direction.

I run after her, my injured leg screaming with every step. She collapses in the gap between two buildings and I kneel at her side.

A dark mask is covering her face, everything but her eyes. But her eyes are enough, I would recognize them anywhere. Big and brown and achingly familiar. Mackenna. A chunk of auburn hair escaping from under the mask confirms it.

"Mackenna, what are you doing here? Are you okay? What's going on?"

Her breathing is fast and shallow. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I tried to help you."

And it's then that I see the wound slicing across her stomach, the wetness spreading across her dark shirt.

"You'll be fine. No, don't worry." I press my hands into the wound, blood soaks through my fingers. It's too much. Too much blood, too pale, breathing too shallow, heartbeat too slow. She will not be fine.

"I tried so hard. I tried to rescue you. You have to escape."

Mackenna's blood coats my hands, black in the moonlight. I have Mackenna's blood on my hands. A sob catches in my throat, threatening to choke me.

She breathes out and doesn't breathe in again. Her eyes are open, reflecting nothing. They are dead eyes. A tear drop lands on my cheek. They are pouring down my face like rain. I feel numb. Or maybe not numb, so much as empty. Hollow. The only real things in this entire world are me and the body beside me. I don't know how long I lie there, crying silently, bent with grief.

I hear a faint noise behind me. I whirl upward. While I was leaning over Mackenna, at least ten guards have gathered at the narrow entrance. I'm cornered.

My eyes flash. I want to kill them. They killed Mackenna. All my grief turns to rage. I run at them, gasping with some unknown emotion too strong for me to contain.

I could kill them. I could. I am angry enough, I am strong enough. But I don't. There's been enough death here. I don't need to make more. Killing them won't solve anything. It won't bring Mackenna back.

Now my rage turns to strength and I scale the near-vertical wall, escaping the guards below me. I only pause once, to look at Mackenna's body for the last time. I whisper a quiet goodbye, feeling like a giant hand is squeezing around my chest.

Once I'm on the first roof I scramble and jump to several more until I'm on a completely different part of the building. I doubt the guards will find me up here, so I let myself relax slightly as I think of a plan. I'm still crying.

A scream rings out over the still land. They are probably torturing some other poor kid in my place. He screams again. He can't be older then ten, judging from his voice. I make a decision.

I'm not at all conflicted. In fact, everything seems almost crystal clear, like I was looking through a foggy window that has just been wiped off. I have to save that kid, and any other kid I can find in here. For myself, and for Mackenna.

I climb off the roof. The closest barred window is high, and I'm not sure how to get up there. I end up jumping, and grab the bars, pulling myself so I can look in. No one there. I go one window over and this time there's a ragged boy and girl, just a few years younger than me.

The boy catches sight of my face in the window. He starts to say something but I motion him off with my hand. "Stay quiet," I whisper. "I'm going to get you out of here."

I drop lightly to the ground, wincing when I land on my sprained ankle. I'm trembling with adrenaline. I use the grass to pull the bars off the windows. The kids scramble out immediately. Stupid. If this was a trap they'd be dead now. Lucky for them it's not.

We crouch in the shadows. Hidden, at least for now. The two kids can't stop smiling. I am all serious. This has been too easy so far. Something is going to happen. I look around, tense as a rubber band, but I don't see anyone.

"See those trees over there? Our goal is to make it to the trees. No matter what happens, keep running. Don't look back. Do you understand?"

They nod. I silently count to three.

We sprint for the trees. There's a shout behind us, we've been spotted. There's no way I can outrun the well-trained prison guards, especially not with two malnourished kids and an injured leg. We're only about halfway to the trees when the soldiers catch up with us.

"Run. Run!" I scream. The kids sprint for the forest. I breathe a sigh of relief when they make it to the trees, hiding themselves in the shadows.

I make the grass taller, entangling the soldiers' legs, forcing them to stop. I throw some balls of light energy and back off, trying to make it to the forest. One of the men throws a knife.

I don't see it coming. And for a split second I don't feel the pain, just the warmth of the blood spreading across my chest. And then it's burning, and cold like ice. I stare down at it. Everything seems frozen. I'm not breathing.

This cannot be happening. It can't end like this, alone in the darkness and fear. This cannot be real. There cannot actually be a knife sticking out of me right now, tearing my insides up, making my blood leak out of me. I start to cry a little, suddenly, in agony and fear.

I pull the knife out of my chest. Blood gushes from the wound, soaking my hand, the ground, leaving nothing but pain. I drop to my knees. My last conscious thought is that Mackenna died for nothing.

# CHAPTER 34

I open my eyes. I feel like I just had a nightmare. My heart is pounding and I'm covered in sweat. I can't seem to draw in a proper breath. For a second the last thing I can remember is drinking the pink stuff, but slowly the simulation comes back to me, like remembering a dream. I start shaking.

"Was that...the test?" I ask. My voice trembles. I'm not sure if I'm more afraid or exhausted.

"Yes."

"Did I pass?"

"Your results were...unusual." The woman looks preoccupied. "I'll have to talk to your teachers. If you go through that door, you'll find everyone who's already taken the test. You can wait with them for a few hours until everyone's done with the testing."

I stand, but stumble and almost fall. My legs feel weak. I have a piercing headache and my whole body feels like it's been run over by a truck. I wince as I walk unsteadily to the door.

I'm in a room I've never been in before, with a few couches and chairs and a low table piled with food. Min, Seth, Drew, and Ryan are sitting around the food. I stumble onto a couch, next to Min.

"How did it go?" Drew asks.

"I don't know," I mumble.

"Do you want anything to eat?"

I shake my head. I lay back against the arm of the couch and close my eyes. I feel like something is stabbing into my head. Stabbing. I remember the feeling of being stabbed, the feeling of the knife in my stomach, of my life flowing out of me and onto the ground. I can almost feel the ghost of the blade, a coldness stuck inside me that I can't seem to get rid of.

"Did you get injured?" Min asks. "We all did, and we can still feel them too."

"I...." I pause for a second, pain trapping the words in my throat. "I think I died."

He blinks. "You what?"

"I think I died. At the end of the simulation. I think one of them killed me."

"Were you in the prison?" he asks. "Did they torture you?"

I nod.

"Did you escape?"

"Yeah. I went back. For more people. I just didn't want anyone else to be trapped there. I freed two children."

Nobody is sure exactly what to make of that. Min and Drew think it's a pass for sure, while Seth and Ryan think I might have to repeat the grade. Apparently my scores are not just unusual, but unique. None of them died. They escaped the prison, ran into the woods, and waited there until the time ran out.

All four of them figured out it was a test. They didn't remember the conversation, but they all tried to think back to their last memories and remembered going in to take the test. Ryan cheated anyways. Isabella, Marco's older sister, told him what the test was like, and he told Ryan.

I still feel kind of sick. It must be an after-effect of dying, even though it wasn't really real. Opening my eyes makes me dizzy, and the light seems to spin over head.

Min is talking, saying how my simulation must have ended early or something like that. I'm not listening. My eyes are closed, and I'm trying to find a comfortable position. Eventually I curl up on my side.

I hear Mackenna come in, and I feel a wave of relief. Subconsciously, I hadn't fully believed she was alive until now, even though I knew her death was only a part of my test. Just something to see how I respond to grief. I've never felt grief like that, and it was worse than I imagined.

I'm excited enough to see her that I even open my eyes. She is there, looking fine and healthy and not dead at all. But when I blink, I see her injured again, dying. I hope I'm not permanently scarred by the test or anything. They wouldn't do something like that to me, right?

"Did you guys all have someone die in yours?" Mackenna asks. She shudders, which relieves me a little. At least I wasn't the only one who went through that. "That scared me so much. It was awful."

"You died in mine," I tell her. Min, seeing I'm up and at least somewhat responsive, passes me a cup of hot chocolate. I don't expect myself to drink it, but I take a few sips and it's gone almost before I can think about it. After that, I feel good enough to sit up and participate in the conversation.

One by one, the rest of the children trickle out. They are all hungry and exhausted, but none of them died during the simulation.

Later Liz comes in and announces we have the rest of this day and all of the next to do whatever we want, while the teachers discuss our scores. It's about seven at night, but Drew's mom offers to take us all out to dinner. I've never met her before, but she seems nice. Especially after she offers to pay for all our food too.

I sit next to Paige at the Italian restaurant we go to. We start out talking about which kind of weapons are the best to use in large groups, but before long my spaghetti is blurring and I know I'm about to fall asleep. Liz offers to drive me home, and I don't remember much after that.

The next morning I don't wake up until after eleven. I go downstairs. Someone dropped Paige off later that night, and she and Lily have been waiting for me.

"Liz is already at the School discussing our scores," Paige says. "Mackenna's dad offered to pick us up and take us there, but not until Mackenna's awake."

I have never heard of Mackenna voluntarily waking up before noon. If he is really going to let her sleep in, we could be here until one or two.

I can tell Paige is stressed about her results. "Let's not do anything related to magic. Let's just play games or something," she says. I can hear the anxiety in her voice.

We end up playing poker and gamble with candy, but we're not done by the time Mackenna's father arrives. Lily is surprisingly good though, and I think she would have won if we had gone on. She makes surprisingly risky gambles, but they always seem to pay off. I'm surprised she even understands the rules.

Mackenna, Paige, and I sit in a nervous silence in the car. Now that we are going to the School, we can no longer push our fears about the tests to the back of our minds. Either way, this ends now. Either I will have passed, or I failed. Nothing I can do now. Nothing I can do.

It doesn't really work. Thoughts keep frantically scrambling around in my head, and I can't seem to get them to stop. I'm especially worried because there is a distinct possibility that I will fail. Then what will happen to me? I won't be able to fight, but will it also jeopardize my future job opportunities? What if I have to repeat the grade and can't move up with my friends? By the time I get to the School I'm almost painfully anxious.

At the School, all the kids are handling their nerves in different ways. Ryan and Seth are running laps, Drew and Jessie are resting, and Min and Rowan are talking and playing games. I join Min and Rowan, and Paige and Mackenna join the running group, trying to lose their worries in exertion.

Even though it's a day off for us, there's regular classes for everyone else, and before long a class of older kids needs to use the track. We're not really sure what to do with ourselves after this. Most of us just start milling around in a pack, doing nothing in particular. Since we're all staying overnight at the School, eventually we just break off into rooms and go to bed.

The next morning we all wake up early for teenagers, even though scores won't be announced until after lunch. We end up watching a movie no one can concentrate on. Someone manages to get whipped cream from the kitchen, and we eat it straight from the can for breakfast.

After lunch, everyone else leaves the cafeteria and Liz goes to the front to talk about how we were graded. It's actually pretty informative, since none of us knew anything about the grading process before.

I learn that we will be graded out of fifteen hundred points. We will be scored on things like creativity, intelligence, fighting ability, speed, pain tolerance, and quick thinking. Good choices make our score go up, poor choices make our score go down. Each grading decision is completely unique, based on a countless number of factors. Anything above eight hundred is passing. One thousand two hundred is good, one thousand three hundred amazing. A perfect score is unattainable.

"So now, for the moment you've all been waiting for, your scores," says Liz. She has the papers folded in her hand, she starts to call us up, one by one, but we can't open it yet. Not until everyone has theirs. When I go up to get mine, my knees are shaking so hard I can barely walk. I take my paper and sit back down as if in a dream. I don't hear the next words Liz says, but everyone starts opening their papers so I guess it must be time. I open it and slowly look down.

One thousand three hundred and thirty.

Liz is saying something else now. "We actually have a special mention today. To sacrifice yourself for a friend is one of the greatest acts of courage and selflessness you can do. To sacrifice yourself for a stranger is even more incredible. A round of applause for Aubrey!"

I am smiling. I passed. And not just barely, but I did really well, amazing even. And as everyone claps for me I feel the tightness in my throat that comes before you cry. A pleasant shiver runs up and down my spine. If I could freeze this moment and live here forever, I think I would. I did it. And I belong right exactly here.

Next we receive the full breakdown of our scores. It's so complicated I could never hope to understand it. Hundreds of things I didn't even think about have made up my final score. I try to pay attention to the things that really lowered my score. I got a lot of points off for the number of injuries I sustained, but I earned back most of them for my pain tolerance. I got lots of points off for dying. But I got the most points off for fleeing the guards after Mackenna's death, instead of turning and fighting.

This surprises me. Mercy should be considered a strength, not a weakness. I wasn't afraid to fight the guards. The teachers probably thought I was.

I did not have the highest score in the class. Min, Paige, and Rowan all scored higher than me. But they didn't get a cheer because they didn't sacrifice themselves for anyone else. Ha ha.

Everyone passed. And tonight, in a few hours, there will be a party. A party to celebrate the fact that we passed. That we did it. We are adults now. We are a real part of the magic community.

I shiver all of a sudden. We are really part of the war now. And we will be expected to fight.

# CHAPTER 35

I'm in my room at the School, getting ready for the party. It's not super fancy, but I think I am supposed to wear a dress. I only own one dress, and it's in my room at Liz's. I'm going to have to borrow a dress of Mackenna's.

Mackenna is a few inches shorter than me, so a dress that comes almost to her knees reaches only mid-thigh on me. I have to hold my breath to do the zipper in the back. It's pink and white and a little flowy, something far more girly than I would normally wear. I look at myself in the mirror. I actually look good, at least in my opinion. Except my hair, which is curly and tangled and basically no better than normal.

"Can I do your hair?" Mackenna asks. She actually sounds excited. I have no idea why she would consider doing my hair a cause for excitement.

She seems to know what she's doing though. She runs a comb through it, slowly enough not to disrupt the curls. Then she winds it loosely up into the middle of my head. A few curls escape before she can pin it. She leaves them out. I can feel them brush the back of my neck.

I reach up, feeling the hairstyle. Mackenna is still putting pins in. Our hands brush. I'm reminded of my simulation, of holding her hand as she died. I'm not quite sure I'm over that yet. I had a nightmare about it last night.

Mackenna holds up a mirror. My hair is beautiful, the style is loose and easy. It actually suits my face, makes me look more attractive, somehow. It's slightly too fancy for the dress, but in a good way. I wish Mackenna would do it for me every day.

Mackenna puts on a dress too. It's simple and blue, but she wears fun tights and boots underneath so she still looks like Mackenna. Her hair already looks good, of course, so she doesn't have to do anything to it.

The party is in the gym. Everybody who has ever passed their test is allowed to come, because if it was just the fifteen-year-olds it would be a pretty boring party. It can last as late as people want to stay. To the best of my understanding, it's a lot like a school dance.

We only make it to the first floor before we have to stop. There's crying coming from a classroom. I can hear at least two voices from inside. The door is slightly ajar, so I peak through the crack, trying to see who they are.

The person crying is Liz. She leaning over a desk, her face buried in her arms. I can hear her deep, ragged breathing. The other person is too far off to the side for me to see, but the voice sounds like Amity, the school nurse.

I move forward, meaning to go comfort her, but Mackenna pulls me back.

"Wait," she whispers. "Listen."

I pause, putting my ear up to the crack. The two teachers are talking.

"They're so close," Liz gasps. "How could they get so close without us noticing?"

"I don't know."

"I just...I don't know how to protect them. I want everyone to stay safe."

I try to figure out what they're talking about, to place the conversation. I realize they're talking about Tempeste's army. It wasn't supposed to arrive in New Hampshire for at least three months, or at least that's what they were guessing. They must be already here. They could attack us at any time. My chest aches.

"We can send out spies," Amity says. "We can try to find out when they're going to attack. We can be prepared. We can fight."

"We can't fight."

"Why not? The oldest students are ready, they want to. And what other choice do we have?"

"A mass evacuation." Liz sounds desperate, frightened. And Liz is normally so calm, so fearless. Her fear scares me even more than...than anything.

"You know that's not possible. Too many children rely on the School as their home. There's nowhere for them to go."

"We have to do something. We can't just let them attack us."

"We can fight. We can find out the time they are going to attack and mount a defense."

"But how can we find out when they'll attack?"

"We have to send out spies." Amity sounds frightened but determined.

"But who can we spare? They'll be gone for at least a day or two, and they could be captured, they could be injured, they could be killed...."

"You're right. There's no one we can send right now. We can't risk it. We need to wait for a better time."

"But that could be too late. They could attack us any time, and we could be totally unprepared."

"What do you want me to say? There's nothing else we can do."

"I just wish we knew when...."

"Let's go to my office and keep talking there. I don't like discussing this in an empty classroom."

I realize what that means only a second before it's too late. I duck into the classroom next to this one, which, thankfully, is also empty. In another second, Mackenna is next to me, our scared eyes are meeting, and we're leaning against the wall, listening to Liz and Amity walk by.

We don't say anything. There's nothing we can say, nothing we can do. We can't even say anything to comfort Liz, not without letting them know we were eavesdropping.

"I wish there was some way we could help them," Mackenna says, a little desperately.

"So do I. But there's nothing we can do. Let's just...I don't know, go to the party like we were planning to. Maybe we can think of something."

"Okay. But I don't like it. I just wish there was some way we could help." She still looks reluctant, but what else are we supposed to do? We can't just stay in this empty classroom forever, and it would look weird if we returned to our rooms. Already some of the people at the party are probably wondering where we are.

I walk back down the hallway, still wearing my party dress. My beautiful hairstyle sways, but it doesn't fall apart. My fancy shoes feel like they are breaking my feet, so I pick them up and go barefoot. I'll put them back on when I get to the party.

I'm so wrapped up in all the things I just heard that I'm not really looking where I'm going. I crash into something warm and solid and alive. I flinch and reel backward, stumbling. I realize the thing I ran into was Min. He catches my shoulders, steadying me. He holds me lightly away from him.

"Aubrey, what's the matter?"

"I don't know. Liz needs help, and I feel bad, but there's nothing we can do. It really sucks. I just want everything to be okay for her."

"What does she need help with?"

I tell him everything I heard. He looks worried, a little confused.

"So you think...what? That we should travel to Tempeste's camp, spy on them, and try to figure out when they plan to attack our school?"

"Wait, what? Did I say anything like that? No! We shouldn't do anything. We should let people who actually know what they're doing handle it. They need to wait for someone who actually knows how to be a spy, not just some random teenagers."

"I know how to be a spy," he says darkly. Something in his voice makes me absolutely believe him.

"When have you ever spied before in your life?"

"More than you would expect. Tay and I used to spy sometimes."

"But you were so young...."

"We were still good. We were a good team, and we had the perfect disguise. It wasn't like they let us go anywhere really dangerous. And we were never hurt...badly. I think we can do this."

"No. Still no. No way. We are so not prepared for this. There's nothing we would be able to do."

"I agree with Min," Mackenna says, all of a sudden. "He says he knows how to be a spy, and I believe him. And I want to do something. I want to help. If he goes, I'm going with him."

I think of Liz. She does need help, but not help from us. Help from someone real, who actually knows what they're doing. Not us. Not us.

And then another thought I had been shoving down surfaces, despite my best effort. Part of me doesn't want to because part of me wants to go to the party, because part of me knows that magical things happen at parties. Magical things involving crushes and dancing and first kisses and Min. I don't want to give that up. Not even when the fate of everything is at stake.

I wince at how selfish I'm being. Min would never want a girlfriend as selfish as me. And even if we go on this spying mission, I'll still get to spend the evening with him.

"Okay," I say. "Let's do it."

Both of them look startled at my abrupt change of opinion. But they're not going to argue against me, not when I'm agreeing with what they've been saying the whole time.

Mackenna has a look on her face that makes me think she might have guessed the reasoning behind my sudden change. I quickly try to think of something else to say, before she fully figures it out or tries to bring it up in front of him.

"Um, how are we gonna get there?" I ask.

"I can drive," Min says. I nod. He drove in Costa Rica.

"I have a learner's permit," Mackenna says at the same time.

"You do?" Learning to drive, something I had always considered an important rite of passage, had been completely forgotten. I realize I technically could have gotten my permit several months ago. I guess I have seen her drive a few times, but I didn't realize it was official or anything.

"Yeah, I got it a few days ago."

"Have you had any lessons yet?"

She looks a little put out. "No. But I will."

"How about I drive?" Min says. We both nod.

I know that when Liz is at the School she leaves her car unlocked and the keys on the seat, but I feel bad about taking advantage of this. I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole thing. I try to tell myself that taking Liz's car is like lying to a friend in order to plan a really awesome surprise birthday party. That Liz will be happier with the information we find.

I find that instead of being frightened with what we're about to do, I'm exhilarated. It's like our version of what other kids would do at a party, going out, making a little trouble, no real harm done. I try not to think about how dangerous this is, how much higher the stakes are. And to my surprise, it works.

I think there must be something wrong with me. Normally I wouldn't even consider doing something like this. Maybe it's because I'm changing. Or maybe it's because right now, I'm not afraid. This is fun, this is exciting, this is not scary. I'm okay, as long as I'm with Min.

I walk to Liz's car. I feel guilty even though I know she won't miss it until at least tomorrow.

Min takes the driver's seat and I call shotgun before Mackenna can protest. Min backs up smoothly as I glance anxiously around. I'm afraid we'll be spotted. This was a stupid idea.

But as we get on the road, it changes. We roll the windows down and breathe in the cool night air and suddenly it seems like a wonderful idea again.

"Where did you learn to drive?" I ask Min after several minutes of watching him. I had seen him drive in Costa Rica before, but I was a little distracted then. Now, I can see that he's a competent driver, like someone with a lot of practice.

"Tay taught me."

"When? Were you...old enough?"

"She was six months older than me. She could drive,she even took lessons. She showed me everything she learned, even though I wasn't old enough yet. Technically, I am old enough to drive now."

"When was your birthday?"

"January. We didn't really celebrate it."

"My birthday's in May."

"My birthday's in two weeks," Mackenna says from the back. "I'll be sixteen."

"Happy early birthday," I say. Min turns on the radio, and we sing off-key as we drive along the empty nighttime roads.

I realize I'm still wearing my ridiculous dress. Luckily, Liz keeps an extra pair of sneakers in the back that fit me. I laugh at my new outfit, and everyone laughs with me. We laugh not despite the fact that we're going into danger, but because of it. We laugh because we are happy.

Min drives along back roads, winding slowly until he arrives in a parking lot. The entire thing takes maybe four-and-a-half hours. It seems like a long time when we're driving it, but it is surprisingly close. Too close. I can't believe Tempeste is actually this near us.

"We'll have to walk to Tempeste's camp from here," he says. "It should only be a few miles."

He is afraid. I can hear it in his voice.

# CHAPTER 36

For the first time, I start to feel afraid too. The exhilaration of the wild car ride is gone, replaced by fear. I know that this is only a tiny fraction of the army, that Tempeste won't really be here, that they won't be expecting three teens to sneak into their camp for information. They will have guards, I'm sure. But we should be able to avoid them, and if we can't, we should be able to kill them. I start to run, and that calms me.

I expected the forest to feel ghostly at night, but it is beautiful, comfortably cool and bathed in moonlight. I run side by side with Mackenna, Min just in front of me. We run swiftly, easily, making no noise. I lose myself in the speed, in the pounding of my heart, in my short, silent breathing.

I look up at the moon. It looks like a smile, a crescent hanging low in the sky. It makes me smile too, and I grin up at the moon as I run.

After a while we stop, panting.

I realize we have no plan. We have no way to actually find the information we're looking for. We don't know who would have it, how we can possibly get access to it.

"We're almost to the camp," Min whispers, amazing me with how well he can keep his bearings in the dark forest. "Stay here."

"No," I say, louder than I mean to. "We should all go together."

"It will be safer for me if you stay around around the border and disarm anyone who sees me or looks like they're going to raise an alarm. Trust me. I think I can do this."

"But you said...."

"Aubrey, he's right," Mackenna interrupts. "It will be safer if we stay here."

"But...."

"Don't you want this to have the best chance of success?"

"Yes."

"Then we'll stay here."

He starts to turn away, and then all of a sudden he pauses. "Wait. Here." He hands me a knife. I'm not really sure what to do with it, but I'm still glad to have it because I didn't bring any weapons. I put it in the pocket of my dress.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Min whispers, and then he's a wolf, running so fast and silently through the forest that he's no more than a silver blur.

He's been gone less than a minute when a shout goes up. Mackenna drags us into a half crouch, so we're partially camouflaged by the under-brush.

"Hide us," she hisses, and I obediently use magic to pull the branches closer around us, completely hiding us from view. My heart pounds in my throat. Why did I drag us into this? We're going to be captured. We're going to be killed. We're going to be dragged out of our hiding place and tortured like I was in my simulation.

But we're not going to be captured. Mackenna and I are perfectly hidden in the forest, and we will not be found. Min is the one risking his life out there.

"We need to help him," I whisper, getting to my feet.

Mackenna nods. We move slowly, cautiously through the forest, alert for any sound of pursuit. I don't hear anything, no Min, no enemy. It's disconcerting. A trickle of fear runs down my spine. I stop, revolving slowly on the spot, trying to find someone, anyone.

A hand grabs me from behind. It's not Mackenna or Min. I panic, bucking and writhing in fear. I throw myself backward. Before I have time to react, I'm in a chokehold. It's tighter than anything I've ever practiced with. In only seconds black spots dance before my eyes.

I slump forward. I'm not quite unconscious, but pretty close. I remember what Jake has drilled into my head over and over again. Breathe, think, react.

I shove my chin under his arm. I can breathe now.

He goes off balance. We fall backward together, me on top of him. I whip around trying to straddle him. He kicks me off, and he's so strong that I tumble backward.

I actually hit a tree. It hurts like crazy, but somehow it gets my feet under me. I'm standing, and my opponent is still lying down. I'm so shocked that I actually have an advantage that I don't do anything.

The man gets to his feet and my advantage is gone. He shoves me against a tree. I kick him. He bends over and headbutts me in the stomach. My breath disappears. I can feel my muscles contracting, but my lungs can't seem to expand. I gasp.

Then all of a sudden they fill with air, and I slam down on the man. He falls, and I quickly tie him up with plants.

Mackenna looks like she just went through a similar fight. Her hair is messed up, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. She's breathing so hard that she can barely talk.

"Mine...got away. He's going to get Min. Aubrey, we have to go! We have to find Min."

I start running in the general direction Min took off. I don't have a plan. I don't know what to expect. So I shouldn't really be surprised if we meet a patrol. But I am.

The first man leaps out in front of me. I barely stifle a scream. Luckily, Mackenna's thinking faster than I am. She hits him with a fire ball and he falls to the ground. I remember to quickly tie him up.

Since I know that the patrols travel in groups of two, the second man definitely shouldn't surprise me. But again, he does. Before I can react, I'm pinned against a tree, a hand closed around my throat.

I can actually feel my windpipe collapsing. Panic courses through me. I kick and push out, but it only makes the hand against my throat press harder. I'm lightheaded. My vision is swimming in and out of focus. I take little half breaths, trying to stay conscious. It's not enough. My eyes slip closed.

"Knife!" Mackenna screams. I have no idea what she's talking about. The only knife I can think of is the one Min gave me. The one tucked inside the pocket of my dress.

I fumble around in my pocket. My hand closes around the hilt. I can't think, I'm about to pass out. Without making a conscious decision, I whip the knife out and stab forward.

I don't remember the knife entering the man's body. I remember the release of pressure from my throat. I remember sliding down the tree trunk, feeling the rough bark below my back. I remember feeling warmth on my hands, warmth I didn't realize was blood.

Air rushes through my body and all of a sudden I can think and see. I look down. The man is lying spread-eagle, clutching the knife protruding from his ribs.

No. I didn't want this. This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

I kneel down next to the man. No, not a man, he's really only a boy. Maybe a few years older than me. His face still hasn't lost its softness.

His eyes are wide, like a cornered, wounded animal. His breathing is too fast, too shallow. In the moonlight his face looks washed out, like a flat white picture. His blood looks black.

I press my hands into the wound, trying to make the bleeding stop. It doesn't. It doesn't.

"I'm dying," he says, and his voice is like a whisper, a breath of wind. There, then gone.

I kneel next to him, put a hand on his shoulder, meet his young, shocked eyes. I pull the knife out. He's dying anyway, it won't make a difference. But it makes me feel better. Sort of.

I take off my jacket and gently set it over him. I shiver without it, but I wouldn't dare take it back.

His chest goes up and down. But only slightly. I watch it because I can't stand to look at his face anymore, at his young, wounded-animal eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

But I don't know if he hears. Because now, his chest has stopped going up and down. It's perfectly still. Still as death.

And finally, finally, I look at his still face, his open eyes. They are the exact same color as Min's. Caramel. Ever so carefully, I slip them closed.

I realize I'm crying. I'm not sure why. Maybe because being so close to death is upsetting. But even as I think that, I know it's not true.

This boy had his whole life ahead of him. We were on different sides of a conflict, but so what? We're both people. He made a wrong choice. But so have I. I have made so many wrong choices. I didn't have to die for them. We're the same. And I killed him.

Guilt washes over me, crushing me to the ground. I gasp from the force of it. I have never ended a life before. And now I have. I chose. It was him or me. And I chose me. But how can I be the judge of something like that?

I hear something crashing through the forest off to my left. I hope Mackenna's next to me, because I can't fight right now. I can't deal with anything else.

For a second all I see is a grey streak. Then the blur resolves itself into a wolf, ghostly in the moonlight. And then he's Min again.

Normally it makes me happy just to be around him. But not now. His face, his voice, not even his touch can make my pain go away. As he approaches me I barely look up.

When he sees what's happened, sees what I've done, he freezes. "Aubrey...." He reaches out to me, and so does Mackenna, but I'm sure I can see disgust in their eyes. And suddenly, I can't stay here. I have to get away, away from the smell of blood, the disgusted, pitying look in their eyes. I need air. I need to see the smiling moon.

I get up and run, not looking back, not stopping. I don't look down but I'm sure-footed, I don't stumble. Branches rake across my face and arms. My jacket is still laid over the young man, and I am numb with cold.

My breath is coming in gasps when I finally explode into a clearing. My feet stop, and I drop to my knees, folding myself in half. Tears blur my vision, and pain rips itself through my middle, tearing itself out of my throat.

I turn my eyes skyward, desperate for the indifferent stars, the smiling moon. But I've turned myself around, the moon has moved in the sky. A trail of stars makes a tear. And the moon is a frown.

Tears are still streaking down my cheeks. I rub them with my palms, but it only seems to make them wetter. I look down at my palms. They're absolutely covered in the boy's blood. His blood is on my hands.

I furiously rub them on anything I can find, tree trunks, leaves, bushes, my clothes. But the blood is sticky, and soon my hands are a mess of pine needles and dirt.

I accidentally scrape my hand across a rock. A cut opens in my palm, and my blood mixes with his. I have to choke back a scream.

I bend over, rocking myself back and forth. Every time I blink, his dead face dances before my eyes. And I killed him.

Suddenly, Min is next to me. I look at him, hyperventilating slightly, sobs catching harshly in my throat. I hold my hands out to him, showing him the mixed blood, already drying black. It's crusted into the thin lines in my palm. And I want to wash away every last trace of it. But at the same time I know that no amount of washing will ever get it off.

"Aubrey." Min puts his hands on my shoulders. "Look at me. Look at me. It's okay. It's...it's fine. Do you understand?"

I nod mutely, twining my bloody hands in my lap.

"Are you ready to go back to the car?"

I shake my head.

"Alright. Do you just want to wait here?"

I shake my head again.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to bury him." My voice is tiny, inconsequential. Overlooked. Raw with guilt and pain. Tired.

Min hesitates. He's torn. Both wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible, and wanting to keep me sane. I push him a little farther. I need to do this.

"Please," I whisper, and he cracks.

"We'll do it with magic," he finally says, and I nod.

We go back, even though each step takes a huge force of will and seems to last an eternity. Mackenna is still waiting there, looking shell-shocked and numb. There's no emotion in her eyes. There's nothing in her eyes, only emptiness.

I feel down into the ground with magic, feeling the decomposing leaves, the tree roots, the numerous tiny animals. I make a hole, slowly widening it, being as careful as I can. I look down at my work.

It takes all three of us to lift the body into the grave. He's still covered in my jacket. I don't want it back.

I cover up the boy until there is no sign he was ever there at all. I want to say something, but I'm not sure what. Every time I start to talk I get choked up. I realize I don't even know the boy's name.

Eventually, I just put a plain wooden cross on the grave, a small, inadequate token to mark the loss of a life. I look down dry-eyed at the grave. I whisper simple, meaningless words, the kinds of words I would use to comfort a young child. The words are not for the boy, but for myself. Telling myself it will be okay. Even when I know it won't be.

I can't stop staring at the patch of bare earth that marks the first person I've killed. And I am afraid. Because though this is the first life I've taken, somehow I know it will not be the last.

Mackenna leads me away from the grave. The three of us stumble through the woods, fighting exhaustion and grief and guilt. I am numb now too. I am emotionless, a hollow girl, like some horrible dream.

It seems to take both an eternity and no time at all to get back to the car. I collapse into it, and Min starts to drive without saying anything.

I look down at the beautiful dress I borrowed from Mackenna. It is ruined now, torn and dirty. Splattered with blood. The blood of my first kill.

I start crying again. The car goes around a turn, and my stomach rolls. My face drains of color, and I am suddenly very afraid I am going to vomit.

"Aubrey, are you okay?" Min asks me. I shake my head and he pulls over. I get out of the car just in case, but I hold my breath and manage not to throw up. I'm still afraid I might though, and every time I close my eyes I see the dead man's face.

I lie back against the seat, pretend none of this is happening. It doesn't work. This is real. I'm very present all of a sudden, aware of every sensation, every thought and feeling.

"I did find out the information," Min says. "They plan to attack the School six weeks from tomorrow."

I don't say anything. I hope that this knowledge helps save some lives. But even if it does, I'm not sure if it's worth it. I took a life. I destroyed a life, and in the process I destroyed part of myself.

# CHAPTER 37

By the time we get back to the School, it's dawn. Liz is waiting for us, looking both angry and desperately worried.

"Where were you?" she screams. "You can't just leave like that without telling anyone where you're going. You could have died, you took the car...."

I take a few steps forward and then collapse, still crying. She catches me, looking shocked at first, then concerned.

"Aubrey, is this your blood? Are you injured?"

I shake my head no. "It's not my blood."

"Whose is it then?"

I'm choked up, I can't respond. I can't respond. The world spins. I'm going to pass out, I'm going to throw up. I'm going to die.

Min whispers something to Liz, whispers the truth of my shame. And it is a mark of how much she loves me that she doesn't say even one more word of scolding. She wraps me in a hug, brings me up to my bedroom. Mackenna trails along behind us like a ghost, silent.

I lie on my bed, frightened and curled up, not daring to close my eyes.

"I need to go talk to Min," Liz says after a very long while of silence. "Mackenna will stay here with you."

"No. You have to stay too."

She sighs and pulls up a chair. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asks.

I shake my head. Liz stays there. Mackenna's breathing has evened out, and I know she is asleep. But Liz is still here. And I know if I needed her to, that she would stay here with me forever.

After a while I close my eyes so she can leave. Even when she thinks I'm asleep, she waits with me for a long time. Then she quietly gets up and tiptoes out. I even out my breathing, keeping my eyes closed tight.

But I don't sleep.

The next week is long and tiring. I go to classes and talk and pretend everything is fine. And really, everything is better. During the day, it's almost fine. Not quite. But almost.

But at night, it's not okay. It's not fine. I wake up frequently from dreams of zombies and death and blood. Sweating and panting. Unable to catch my breath. My heart pounding. The face of the person I killed seems to be permanently burned onto my retinas.

During the day, we prepare for battle. We've passed our test and we need to be prepared to fight. But during the battle, the kids my age will be doing first-aid. Dealing with all the injuries. Learning all this extra first-aid is work, and it is distracting. It feels like there will never, ever, be enough time. During the day, I am almost normal.

I start to dread the night. My heart pounds when the lights go off, when people start heading up to bed. I am afraid. The darkness scares me. I am afraid of being alone with nothing but my thoughts and the terrible, always-present guilt.

In a normal situation, I would see a therapist. Well, technically in a normal situation I would be arrested. But with the threat of a war hanging over us, nobody has time for a little fifteen-year-old girl going mad because she killed someone. A person like her. Like me.

So each night, I am afraid. Each night, I am haunted. Each night a piece of my soul slips away. And during the day, I struggle to build it back up, make it so I'll be okay the next night. So I still have enough soul to go around, so I don't completely disappear. I try not to sleep, because maybe that way I'll stay intact, keep myself from flying apart at the seams. Maybe that way my soul can stay together. Maybe someday I can be okay again.

One night, a week after that terrible night, I can't fall asleep. It's almost a relief, but not really. The only real relief would be a dreamless sleep. And the only reason I can't fall asleep is because my head feels like it's being split open.

Every time I close my eyes, blossoms of pain explode behind them. I can't even think it hurts so badly. I press my knuckles into my eyes, trying to relieve some of the pressure. Finally, I can't stand it anymore. I walk down to the School kitchen to get a glass of water and maybe some medicine. There's a huge storm outside, I can hear the rolls of thunder and see the flash of lightning through the window.

There's a bang at the door. Immediately, my headache disappears. I flatten myself against the wall and grab a knife from a drawer. There's another bang. It sounds like someone is knocking, but more violently. Maybe they're trying to break down the door.

Moving stealthily so I can't be seen from the window, I approach the door. I'm going to try to open it, see who's outside, then close it as fast as I can. Then I notice that the door has a peep hole, which I have never noticed before. I peer out of it.

Just outside the door is a black-haired girl who looks no older than me. She is painfully pale and swaying, soaked with rain.

I open the door and she collapses inside it. I grab her, screaming wildly for anyone, but no one comes. I let the girl slide to the floor. Her deep brown eyes are wide open and glassy. Against her pale skin, the shadows under them are dark as bruises.

"Liz!" I scream. "Liz!"

A door farther down the hallway opens. I'm pretty sure it's Liz's room, and I gasp with relief. But it's not Liz who comes out. It's Lily, wearing a white night gown, with her crumpled wings trailing behind her.

"Lily! Can you get Liz for me? Do you know where she is?"

"Mommy's in there. But she's sleeping."

"Can you wake her up and tell her to come out here?"

"Who's that?"

I look down at the girl. "I have no idea. Will you just get her?"

She turns around and runs back to the room she originally came out of. She returns a moment later, dragging a tired-looking Liz by the hand.

"What happened? Who's that?"

"I don't know. She was knocking at the door, trying to come in. I think she's hurt."

Liz lifts the girl up in her strong arms, and brings her into one of the empty rooms lining the hallway. Liz is being as gentle as she can, but she's also trying to go fast. The girl gasps when Liz lays her down on the bed, her eyes roll up so all I can see is white.

Liz pulls off the girl's jacket. "Lily, go get Amity. Now!" Lily sprints off in the direction of the nurse's office, unfurling her wings to go faster.

Underneath the coat, the girl is wearing a tank top that is cut away to reveal an ugly wound, starting just below her ribs. It's almost three inches long and deep. The skin around the edges is blistery red, and blood and pus oozes from it. Just the sight of it triggers my gag reflex.

The girl's breathing comes fast and shallow. Her eyes flicker restlessly under her lids.

Suddenly, her breath catches in her throat and she starts to convulse. Her head jerks forward, her back arches against the bed. Almost without thinking, I reach forward to take her pulse. Her heart flutters like that of a dying bird. Her breathing catches again, staying trapped in her throat. She takes one more gasping, shuddering, aching breath.

And then her breathing stops altogether.

# CHAPTER 38

"Oh my God." Liz compresses her chest but nothing happens. I run to the hallway. Lily is hopping with agitation as she leads a half-asleep Amity by the arm.

"Hurry!" I cry desperately. I glance back into the room. The girl is seizing violently. She goes still briefly, then starts trembling all over.

Finally, Amity and Lily arrive at the door.

"Can you heal her?" Liz asks.

"I don't know." Her face is tense and I can't read her expression. I don't see any hope in it though. Her eyebrows are narrowed in concentration.

Amity places her hand over the girl's wound. They start to shake, both to the same rhythm. Amity's eyes close and she grows pale. Her hand glows gold and heat flows out of it.

Suddenly, Amity gasps and lifts her hand off the girl. The wound is gone. All that is left is a pale pink scar.

"That's the best I can do," she gasps. "I think it was from a knife. I healed the actual wound, but I think it was poisoned. There's nothing I can do against that."

Min walks in, blinking from the light, his hair tousled from sleeping. Everyone turns around to stare at him.

"What are you doing here?" Liz asks.

He gestures vaguely at me, stifling a yawn. "I heard Aubrey screaming. I thought something might be happening."

"You know you're not supposed to be out of bed this late. And what made you think it was any of your business?" She sounds only very slightly angry, and I can tell she's trying not to smile. Typical Min.

"Just curious." He tries not to yawn again. "So, what's going on?"

Liz turns back to the girl. She is all business again. Any trace of a smile is gone. She looks her over, probably checking for signs of poison. I don't really know what she would be looking for, but since the girl doesn't look any better I suspect something is still wrong with her. She is still dying.

Almost without thinking, I take a step forward. Then another. Something is drawing me to the girl, something I can't resist any better than I can understand. Somehow, my hand ends up on her shoulder, and everything else goes dark.

I'm suspended somewhere in the darkness. I can move, but I can't see myself. I can't really even think. There's nothing around me, at least nothing I can understand, nothing I can place. Except the body.

The girl's body lies in front of me. But it's not really her, not exactly. It's just her outline, filled with patches of swirling darkness.

I trail my fingers over the blackness and it sticks to my fingers as if they are magnetic. I drag my fingers over all her limbs, trying to gather the darkness into one central place. Finally, when it's all centered in her chest, I reach under it. With one smooth motion, I pull it out. As soon as my hand leaves her chest, I'm thrown backward. Liz grabs my shoulders to steady me.

The world is normal again, but I'm exhausted and panting. Colors seem to spin around me.

The blackness is still clutched in my hand, but now it looks more like a liquid. The inky darkness seeps through my fingers, falling softly toward the floor like carbon-colored feathers. They make burn marks everywhere they land, before vanishing in wisps of smoke.

Did I just pull the poison out of the girl? I think there's a word for someone who can do that. I'm a...thorn. Thorn. That's something we've learned about in First-aid, I know it's some sort of healing power. I can't really remember anything about it, but I think being able to pull poison out of someone is rare. And dangerous. But I did it. I have a new power.

Liz shoves me down into a chair. The effort of...whatever it was exactly that I just did has drained me, so I close my eyes and sink back into the chair. Liz grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me.

"Aubrey, focus. What just happened? Did you get the poison out of her? You didn't bring it into yourself, did you?"

I shake my head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm just a little tired after discovering I have one of the most rare and valuable magical powers in the world. Do you want to check on her or something? I think I need a nap."

Liz nods and gets gracefully to her feet. She checks the girl, but she doesn't need to. She's clearly better. Her coloring is almost normal, and her breathing is deep and even.

Min checks her with his special power just to be sure. "She should wake up within an hour," he announces, and I can't help but smile. "She's still suffering from shock and exhaustion, but she'll make a full recovery." Then he looks over at me. "Um, what just happened?"

"I...I just pulled the poison out of her."

He stares at me for a couple seconds. Then he blinks. "Cool."

"Um, thanks."

After that, the five of us watch the girl until she wakes up. She comes awake in stages. First she rolls over and mumbles something in her sleep. Then she sits up, stretches, and yawns, all without opening her eyes. Her hand brushes the wood headboard and she winces. A look of confusion crosses her face. She blinks her eyes open.

"Where am I?" She puts a hand to her side. "What happened? How long have I been asleep?"

Liz answers her. "We found you injured on our doorstep. You were healed by our healer, Amity. You've actually been here less than an hour."

"Where am I?"

"You're in the New Hampshire school."

She sighs in relief. "I made it."

"Where did you come from?" Min asks. "Why are you here, anyway?" It comes across as an accusation, even though I don't think he means it that way. A look of hurt flashes across the girl's face. I nudge him with my elbow to try to get him to shut up.

The girl takes a deep breath. "My name is Storm, and I come from Tempeste's army."

The room explodes. Everyone is talking. The girl's eyes are wide and overwhelmed. Nobody is paying any attention to her, but she looks like she might start crying. I kneel next to her.

"Is that true?" I whisper.

She nods.

"Are you here to spy on us?" I know it's kind of a dumb question, and if she was she wouldn't give us a straight answer. But we did just save her life, so she owes us something.

"No. I betrayed my entire family for you. You have to trust me."

Her eyes are a deep, chocolate brown. They look so earnest, so desperate to be believed. There's something else in them too, something I can't quite place. Almost innocence. But it's not that exactly. This girl's innocence was taken a long time ago.

I find that I do believe her. I wouldn't say I trust her exactly, not yet, but I think she's telling the truth. She came here to help us.

"Shut up," I say to the room at large. "Look at her. Do you really think if she came here to spy on us she'd have told us where she was from? Just listen to her, at least. Please."

Storm starts talking fast, like she's afraid we'll stop her and throw her out in the rain any moment. I can tell she's not really sure what to tell us, how to make us believe her. So she starts at the beginning.

"My father was a captain in Tempeste's army. He had six children altogether, all with different...we all had different mothers. We never knew them. We were raised by our grandmother, and when we were older, by Father himself.

"Father didn't care about us at all. We looked out for each other, no one else would. I was the second oldest, only a few years younger than Blaze."

Her voice cracks so badly she has to stop. Her face is twisted with anguish. I have a bad feeling that Blaze will not survive this story.

"We looked out for the others, me and him. We were the only ones watching out for them. Making sure they got enough to eat and everything. It wasn't easy. We went very hungry.

"In Tempeste's army, your magic defines who you are. It is your name, your rank, everything. Without it you are nothing. Without it you are dead.

"I was strong in magic even from a young age. I started being trained to fight when I was seven. Blaze fought them every step of my training. He said it was too dangerous for someone that young. He was right. If I had ever been put in actual combat, I would have died."

I wince. That's us. If she had been put in combat, we're the ones who would have killed her. And it's true too. This is war, and it's not pretty. It's not noble or inspiring. We're on different sides, but in the end we're both the same. And in the end, we're both just as bad.

"But I was lucky. It was discovered that I also had skill in making poisons. That is what I would do for the rest of my life. And I hated it. Hated the long hours, the stifling kitchens, the smell of the ingredients we used. I snuck away as often as I could, even though I knew I would be punished for it if I was caught.

"I soon found out I wasn't the only one sneaking away. Blaze would spend long stretches in the forest. No one noticed but me. I never asked him about it, but after a while he told me anyway. He was meeting a girl.

"This in and of itself would not be a problem, except she was one of you. She went to a magic school, spent her time learning combat magic to fight us. But he didn't care. It wasn't like he was trying to commit treason or betray Tempeste or anything. He was just in love with her, plain and simple.

"They met every day and just talked, about anything and everything. And he loved her, and she loved him. It was beautiful. He was going to run away with her, I think. That's why he told me about her. But he never did.

"They were found out. I don't know how. I never told anyone. One of the soldiers must have noticed when he left his post to visit her. They followed him, and captured both him and the girl."

Her breath catches, and it's a minute before she can go on. "They tied them to a post in the middle of camp for days. Apparently they were a big problem, something no one quite knew how to deal with. It eventually got all the way up to Tempeste, and she said she wanted to make an example out of them.

"She poisoned them, and left them tied there to die. It killed them slowly, over several hours. That's what it was made to do. I was the one who made it.

"I killed them. The only thing that got me up in the morning was my four little siblings. I took care of them because they needed me and they had no one else. But I knew I couldn't stay there.

"I planned and waited until I could escape. It took me almost a month to get all the supplies. But I had to do it. And it was worth it. It's what Blaze would have wanted, I'm sure of it. He believed that we weren't so different, that we could work together. I believe that too.

"It took me ages to gather up enough materials to escape. I had to take just tiny bits of food, scraps of clothing, not enough that anyone would notice. I told one other person, an older woman who worked with me on the poisons. It was because of her that I could sneak out and follow Blaze. She helped me prepare, and she said she would take care of my brothers and sisters once I was gone.

"Finally, I had my chance. In the dead of night, we slipped out. She came with me to the border to watch my back. It all went smoothly until we were spotted by a patrol. They didn't recognize us, but even if they had, they would have attacked us anyway. By that point we were already deserters, traitors. That was how I was wounded with the knife. The other woman was killed.

"For a few days I don't remember much. I was running, and stumbling, falling. I remember pain and blood. I was afraid that they would find me. I remember that I threw up once. I was very thirsty after that. I didn't have anything to eat.

"After a while, the knife wound didn't hurt. At first, I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized. The knife was poisoned, another poison that I myself had designed. It was made for torture, to slowly kill. It was made to threaten. We had an antidote for it, and we would withhold it without the information we were seeking. It was designed to work in cycles, with periods of lucidity. A person screaming on the ground couldn't tell us anything.

"I knew that while I felt okay, I would need to move fast. I had three weeks to live, one week of extreme pain and two weeks of relative safety. I had gotten turned around in the forest after wandering around injured, and my map was damaged. I made my best guess on the direction of the School and walked there as fast as I dared.

"I was forced to stop as soon as I felt the cycle of pain coming on, and I stayed in the same place for two days. I kept going like that, resting and moving when I could. When I finally arrived here, my last aware period was ending. I had less than twenty-four hours to live.

"You know the rest. I woke up here, exactly where I was trying to go. Healed."

"This can't be where you were trying to get," Liz says. "I thought you were trying to get to the School where Blaze's girlfriend was from?"

She nods. "I'm at the School in New Hampshire, right?"

Liz looks confused. "But then...."

Suddenly, Min gasps. "Oh my God. Isabella. Marco's sister. It was her, wasn't it?"

Storm nods. "That was her name."

A rush of fresh pain for Marco rips through me. He never even knew what had happened. Now he will, but that doesn't make it any better. I think it might make it worse, actually. She didn't have to die. She was just in love.

Storm falls back against the pillow, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow. I notice again how pale she is.

"Are you okay?" Liz asks. "Does the poison have any side effects?"

She shakes her head. "I'm just tired. The poison should be gone." She opens her eyes. "How did you heal the poison anyway? Did you have the antidote? Did you have some other sort of cure? I doubt any of you are thorns."

Liz bites her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Actually I think we might have just discovered someone with that talent. This is Aubrey." She pulls me to the front. "She's the one who saved your life."

Storm's eyes widen almost imperceptibly as they rake over my face. She gasps.

"You look just like her."

# CHAPTER 39

"Who?" I ask.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a faded, ripped photograph in black and white. It shows a young woman with elegant features and long blonde hair. She's wearing old-fashioned clothing, with a homemade log cabin behind her.

"She was the last Princess. She lived alone and had no children. A few people knew her. Most of the people who had actually met her are dead, but we found two people who knew her when they were very young children, and are now very old. A lot of our information on the Lost Princess comes from them."

"What do you know about her?"

Storm starts to list off qualities, counting them off on her fingers. "Powers could vary, but likely one of the elements. She would be able to control plants. She would probably be a healer, a thorn, or a perceiver. She would have the spirit of some big cat. She would have the same features as the last Princess, presumably. She would be about fifteen."

Everyone turns around to look at me. I pretend I don't understand the implications of their stares. This can't be happening. I can't deal with this. Not now, not ever. I'm trying to hide my emotions. But I'm starting to feel like I'm drowning.

"Is there anything you can tell us about the army's strategy?" Min asks. I can tell he's trying to change the subject, for my sake. I flash him a grateful smile.

"There is no strategy. They will be here in three weeks. They will use as much force as they can. They will attack hard and long. You will have to get at least double the people you have now if you want them to retreat. You will suffer losses. I would suggest you leave the School. Nothing else can save you."

"Wait," Min says. "Three weeks? I thought we had five. What happened to the other two?"

"Where did you hear five? They will be here in three weeks. You have to be ready."

I reel backward. Three weeks? How can we ever be ready in that little time? And they're so close, too. I had thought the group Min, Mackenna and I had spied on was only a small section, but what if the entire army is only that far away from us? And I can't even begin to think about the woman in the photograph who looks just like me....

"I think I need to sit down," I say, my voice wavering only a little bit.

Liz had been standing in shock, but my words jolt her back to life. "Right. Right. You both need sleep. You're probably exhausted. In fact, we should really all be asleep. I will stay here with Storm. Everyone else can go back to their rooms."

"You don't need to stay here," Storm protests.

"No really, it's no trouble."

I know that part of her is actually just worried for Storm. It's in her natural instincts to want to protect her children, which includes but is not limited to everyone at the School. But she's also not stupid. I believe Storm's story and I think she does too, but she's not going to leave one of the enemy's children alone. It will take a while for Storm to earn our trust. She will have relative freedom, but we will not let her alone.

Lily mumbles something from the corner. I hadn't even realized she was still here. She's literally falling asleep where she stands. Min smiles at her and lifts her up. "I'll take her to bed," he says to Liz. He's always had a soft spot for Lily.

I stumble blearily after him. Mackenna is still asleep in our shared room. She didn't wake up at all while I was gone. I fall into bed, and I'm asleep before I have time to form another thought.

The next morning, I get to sleep in. I'm not sick or anything, though, so I still have to go to school. Well, I've already missed most of normal school, but at least I still have to go to magic school. Which is pretty convenient, because I'm already there.

Halfway through my classes, an older boy comes in. I have no idea who he is.

"Um, excuse me, but Liz wants to see Aubrey in her office for a little while." He looks around, clearly not sure which girl is Aubrey. I stand up and he looks at me.

"Um, you know the way, right?"

"Yes."

I walk past him. He's looking at me with a strange expression, a mixture of pity and awe. I self-consciously smooth down my shirt. He's staring so openly that it's a little weird. I try to ignore him.

Liz is sitting at her desk, scribbling frantically on a piece of paper.

"Thank you for coming." She hands me a glass of water. "Please sit down."

I do, and she hands me the sheet of paper. I read over it. My eyes narrow. There's a dull ache of fear in my chest, although I'm not exactly sure why.

I can see instantly where this is going. It's a list, all the things we know about the Daughter of the Wilderness, compounded with the things Storm said last night. I'm supposed to check all the things that apply to me. I raise the pencil. It shakes in my hand. I think I might be about to start crying.

I don't want to check them. I don't want to prove this to myself. But I do check off all of them that apply to me. Which is all of them.

I hand the completed paper back to her. She doesn't even look at my results, just crosses her hands in her lap and stares me in the eye.

"As you can probably guess, you're the only one in the building who got that test," she says.

I just nod. My heart feels like it's rising slowly up in my chest. Now it's beating fast and hard in my throat. My hand on the glass is shaking. I don't want this to go where I know it's going. I don't want to hear anything else. I don't want this to be happening. I'm just Aubrey. I'm not special, I'm not a Princess, none of this can be happening.

"I already knew what this test would show. I wanted you to prove it to yourself. Aubrey, we have found you. You are the answer. The Daughter of the Wilderness, the Lost Princess. It was always you."

# CHAPTER 40

"No." I stand impulsively, and the glass drops from my hand. The crashing punctuates my words. "No. This is not me. My mother wasn't some Queen. I'm not a princess. I'm not different, I'm not here to save the world." My voice is rising, I'm almost yelling now. "You can't put that on me! I'm only fifteen. I'm probably not even a thorn. Last night, it was...was nothing. I can't do that again. I'm nothing, I'm no one." I scream the last sentence. "And I want it to stay that way!"

My energy is gone. I sink into a chair. I can feel tears that I am determined to hold in pooling at the back of my throat. "I just want to stay regular Aubrey," I finally whimper.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and I can see that she really is. If she could, she would take this from me. But she cannot deny what both of us can so clearly see. I am the Princess, and there's nothing I can do, and I can't believe we didn't realize it before, and how could this be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening.

"I would never want anyone to have to go through this," she says. "Especially not you."

"My mother is dead." It's a statement, not a question. I have always held onto the small hope that there was some mistake, that my mother is coming back for me. I have to let that go now. But there's a hard, barren comfort in the truth.

"While you are alive, your mother can never truly die."

That's comforting too. Sort of. I wish there was a way to make her alive again. Like really alive, solid and present and motherly. I wish she was here now. I wish none of this was happening.

I reach out and give Liz a hug. She looks a little surprised, but pleased. She hugs me back, and we remain like that for a few seconds. For that time, I am at peace.

"Do you want to tell everyone else at the School?"

"Yes. We can't keep something like this from them. But not yet. Give me one day. Tomorrow night, you can tell them.

She nods. "Do you want to go to lunch?"

That actually makes me laugh. It just seems so ironic that people are still eating lunch. My entire world has just been changed forever, overthrown, shattered into a hundred thousand pieces that can never be put back together into anything even resembling what it was before. And no one else has any idea. They are still doing something as normal, as simple, as eating lunch.

"Yes," I say again. "I do want to go to lunch."

Nobody has started eating yet. Most of the kids my age are clustered in a group around Storm. Now, in the daylight, she looks startlingly small, like a child, almost fragile. Her large downturned eyes make her look like a young animal, a deer or something.

I feel suddenly very important next to her. I'm responsible for her protection, the protection of everyone else in the School. In the world. A wave of shock washes over me, rooting me in place. If I die, they will all die. I hold their lives in my hands.

I'm standing in the middle of the cafeteria, not moving. I'm staring glassy-eyed at nothing, swaying slightly. Mackenna walks over to me and drags me to a table.

"What's wrong with you?" she hisses in my ear.

"Nothing. I mean, something big. I mean, I'll talk to you and Min after lunch."

I force myself to put my new discovery out of my mind. It doesn't really work. Lunch today is hamburgers. I'm the Daughter of the Wilderness. I like hamburgers. I'm the Lost Princess. I've always liked hamburger day. And I'm starving. I think I'm dying.

Storm looks confused. "Aren't we going to test it for poison?" she asks me cautiously.

"Um, no I wasn't planning on it, why?"

"Well, what if it's poisoned? Wouldn't you want to know, so you don't eat it?"

"We're in a school. The food is made right here. There's no way for it to get poisoned."

"What is that anyway?"

"That would be a hamburger."

"What's the brown stuff inside?"

"That's meat."

She thinks about this for a little while. "What sort of meat comes shaped like a circle?"

I laugh. It's a real laugh, and it releases some of the tension building up in my chest. "Just try it, it's good."

She takes a tentative bite, then another. Her face lights up. "This is delicious," she says, her mouth full.

I wish I could stay here, but Mackenna keeps bothering me about whatever I have to tell her. Finally, I give up. I can't hide forever. I have to face this. I have to accept this.

I can't do this.

"Alright fine. Get Min. We have to find an empty classroom though. I don't want to be overheard. And I...." My voice breaks sharply. I almost start crying, and then I almost fall over. I'm a little overwhelmed, and I actually feel like I might pass out.

No. I have to keep it together, I have to be strong. I've got this. It'll be okay.

It won't be okay.

We find an empty room. I can't seem to get a deep breath. Min and Mackenna are both staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to tell them. I start to say it, but my voice cracks. My big reveal is nothing more than a whisper. They can't even hear it.

I don't know if I'm strong enough to say it again. But I have to be. Min and Mackenna are my best friends in the whole world. They deserve to know.

"I know who the Daughter of the Wilderness is," I say, all in a rush. "It's me."

"You're joking!" Mackenna gasps.

I shake my head.

"Are you okay? Are you worried? Are you depressed? Do you feel different? Are you in danger?"

Meanwhile, Min is saying, "This changes everything. We need to modify our battle strategy, we need to change the way we spread information, and we need to start planting false trails. And you need to be more careful. You should disguise yourself, maybe stop using magic, and you need to...."

I don't hear anything else he says. I'm suddenly really dizzy. I feel like I might be about to pass out. My eyes close for a second and I think my knees buckle, because suddenly I'm in Min's arms, staring up into his face. I'm too drained to even feel excited.

"Oh my gosh, I think she's going into shock," Mackenna says.

"No, I'm fine," I say. I try to stand, but my legs buckle again. He scoops me up and carries me out of the classroom. Mackenna runs to find Liz. Min brings me all the way up to my bedroom. For some reason everything feels so much worse now, like the emotions of the past day are crushing me.

Min moves to leave but I stop him.

"Wait!" I cry, and my voice sounds small and weak even to me. "Stay with me."

He comes back and stands beside me. I need him there. I can't be alone. I can't explain what I feel like to him, or even to myself. It's like all my responsibility is rising up to drown me.

Liz comes in. "Drink this." She hands me a cup of warm liquid. I take a big sip. It's good, but has an almost sickly sweet aftertaste. I have barely even swallowed before I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

# CHAPTER 41

I'm seated behind the curtain of the stage in the assembly room. Rows and rows of people are all looking at Liz expectantly. Waiting for her to start talking. About me. I'm what this meeting is about.

I'm only a little bit afraid. It's risky, telling everyone who I am. The information could be leaked. Someone here, watching me now, could be a traitor. I could literally be putting my life in their hands. But I have to do this. It's not my secret to keep.

I'm lost in my thoughts. I don't hear the beginning part of the speech. But all of a sudden she's calling my name, and, as if in a dream, I stand and walk out.

There's a cheering sound, like roaring in my ears. I don't have to say anything. All I have to do is stand there while everyone in the building screams my name. The cheers unlock something in me, they just have so much feeling behind them. I realize I have given them hope, the most precious gift anyone can give.

The fact that I have the power to make them happy exhausts me. I think Liz starts talking about our battle strategy, but I'm not listening anymore. I start to sink into a vision, the cheers around me turn to screams, the clash of swords. I pull myself out of it. I don't want a vision right now. I don't want to be burdened with knowing the future too.

Instead I just stand there, shaking. My new power, the power to protect people, thrums through me. It is the power of my inheritance. The power of my blood.

For the next few weeks everything goes into hyperdrive. The younger kids are learning survival, anyone older than fourteen is learning first-aid, and the oldest kids, eighteen and over are learning battle skills. They will actually be fighting in the coming battle. Even with them, we're still gravely outnumbered.

We wish there was a way to protect everyone. A place for everyone to go. It doesn't seem possible that we should know exactly when Tempeste's army is going to attack and yet still not be able to get the children to safety.

But we can't. For so many of these people, there is simply no where else for them to go. The School is their home, the only home they have. We have to stand and fight, because without this place we have nothing.

I'd like to think that no one is treating me differently now that they know I'm the Daughter of the Wilderness, but that would be a lie. A random older boy held the door open for me. A little kid made me a card. A teacher gave me a pan of cookies. Everyone's apologizing for everything, even if it's not their fault. People are treating me like I'm made of fragile glass, like I'm about to fall apart. It's a little annoying. Or it would be, if it wasn't true. I spend every day feeling like I'm a moment away from being shattered into a million pieces.

Our classes are almost painfully serious. If anyone talks or makes jokes, they get death stares from students and teachers alike. All of our classes have been cut except First-Aid, and we spend almost all our time doing it. It's boring, but I force myself to focus. This could end up being life or death.

I've stopped going to normal school too. Every day is spent with almost tangible intensity, so I fall asleep exhausted every night. I feel like I'm falling all day, all the time. I have nothing, I have everything, I'm falling, I'm falling, I'm falling.

The only good thing is the magic. Since I've discovered I'm the Princess, it's like I can finally realize my full potential. My power in magic increases exponentially. I'm more powerful than I ever dreamed of being, more powerful than a lot of the teachers even.

But because of that, I wish we could actually fight in the battle. Most of the class agrees with me. I can understand why we can't, but I think we should be allowed. We passed our test. We're more than capable. We should at least be able to choose.

But if I'm really being honest with myself, I don't know if I would even want to fight. I'm divided. Part of me wants to show off my new powers, to demonstrate the strength I know I have. But at the same time I don't want to. It's not that I'm afraid, exactly. But I don't like killing people. And honestly, I don't want to die either. My life means too much. It's not something I can risk.

Halfway through our eighth First-Aid class, it really hits me how important this is. The teachers will be fighting. We will be running the hospital, doing first-aid all on our own. We have to learn this. By the end of class, my hands are shaking, but I know all the symptoms of shock by heart.

The next day, we learn how to make healing potions. I'm partnered with Storm, which is lucky. She's amazing at making them. I'm hopeless. She had to leave early, and I burned a hole in my desk.

Since almost every student is staying at the School, tons of people are squished into each room. Technically it's supposed to be big enough for all of us, but in actuality that doesn't really work. Rowan, Storm, Paige, and Jessie are all squished into my room, which is fairly small for just two people. We try to pretend it's like a giant sleepover, but I know it's starting to wear on all of our nerves.

Fear hangs over everything. I can feel it in the back of my mind, a dark presence that never seems to leave. I'm afraid for my friends, and for the future, and for myself. I have so much to be afraid for.

On the last day, the day Tempeste's army is supposed to attack, everyone gathers in the cafeteria. We're sitting, staring at nothing, bent under the weight of constant fear. And I have a sudden keen sense of how unfair it all is. Some kids might complain about being in normal school today, but I would give anything for that. I would give anything to be somewhere where my biggest worry would be something I wouldn't even remember in a week. Instead, in a few hours I could be fighting for my life. In a few hours I could be dead.

A few kids are playing cards in the corner. They're the only people talking. Their laughter is too loud for the tense silence, but it doesn't sound forced. I don't know them, but I want to play too. I stand, walk over to them, and sit down.

I don't know them, but of course they know me. They freeze as soon as I join them. The heat of self-consciousness flows through me. I clear my throat.

"Can I play too?"

They teach me their card game, and before long I'm laughing right along with them. I don't even know their names. And there is something beautiful about that. There's a kind of joy that can only be born from shared pain.

Later in the day Liz makes a speech. She has many talents, but motivational speaking is not one of them. She's threatening to put me to sleep. I'm sitting next to Min, and I fantasize about resting my head on his shoulder.

The teachers decide to keep us in the cafeteria all night. They section us into groups based on age and gender, then turn the lights out. They will stay awake all night, keeping watch.

"Pillow fight!" someone screams. A few kids half-heartedly throw pillows at their friends, but then we lapse back into nervous silence.

That night I don't sleep a wink.

Everyone expects to wake up dead, but we don't. We just go back to exactly what we were doing yesterday. The youngest kids huddle in a tight group, their fearful eyes round as moons, jumping at the slightest noise.

The older kids actually seem to be enjoying the atmosphere of fear. They sneak up behind each other and take advantage of their frightened friends. At least they're not being cruel to the little kids.

It goes on like that for the next two days. I'm almost starting to relax. Until the fire alarm goes off. We have no idea if it's real or not. Is it a trap, a mistake, or did one of the teachers pull it to signify a real fire? There's no way to know, nothing we can do. We have to exit the building, even though it goes against our instincts.

We all file outside. I have a sharp feeling that something is wrong. Mackenna has a weird look on her face. She keeps looking behind her. Ryan is the same way, and they talk together, muttering under their breath so no one else can hear.

"What's up?" I finally ask.

"Nothing. It's just...." She hesitates, looking behind her again. "There's no fire. We shouldn't all be out here. It's dangerous and...something's wrong."

"How sure are you that there's no fire?"

"Positive. If there was a blaze within a half mile of me I would be able to tell. And anyway, Ryan feels it too."

"You should tell someone."

Mackenna nods and starts pushing through the crowds of people. Finally she locates Marina and manages to talk to her. But the teachers can't do anything until all the children are assembled and accounted for. Once everyone is in lines Liz comes over to us, looking harried.

"You four, come here." She gestures to Rowan, Storm, Mackenna and me. "We need to search the School. This could be a giant trap."

"Why us?"

She blinks like she hadn't expected the question, hadn't thought about the answer. "Um, because you're here, I guess. And I know you can do it."

Liz makes me walk at the back, behind everyone else. At first I'm not sure why. Then I realize it's because she thinks I'll be safer in the back. I feel slightly guilty but also secretly relieved.

We walk toward the doors and Mackenna moves to open them. Rowan starts to say something, scream something to us, but it's too late. Mackenna opens the door and the world explodes.

The explosion throws me backward. I'm falling. Falling with the bricks and walls and fire. I hit the ground but I'm still falling, then slowing, sinking, floating. The orange fire fades to blackness.

# CHAPTER 42

Mackenna is shaking me.

"Wake up, wake up." My eyes snap open. I scramble backward a few steps. My chest convulses and for a second I think I'm going to throw up. My insides are raw and burning from all the smoke I just inhaled. It makes my throat ache sharply and my mouth taste like ashes.

"I'm not dead."

"No. I protected everyone from the fire, but I couldn't keep you from falling. I think Rowan's arm is hurt and I can't find Storm yet."

I stand shakily and start digging through the rubble. Liz and Mackenna both start doing the same thing. I pull a chunk away and reveal Storm's face. Her eyes are closed, but I can see her faint breathing. She sits up and starts coughing. She seems fine, except for a few scrapes and bruises.

I help her up, and the five of us struggle to find a way out of the destruction. All of our hair is covered in ash and powder. Our skin is a pale, bleached-looking white. The blood from our many cuts trickles down our arms, cutting through the dust.

Rowan is holding her arm awkwardly, her eyes wide with pain. We need to get her to Amity.

The teachers are struggling to understand what has happened, trying to keep control of the children, find us among destroyed walls. A few children cheer weakly when we emerge. People rush forward, helping us, holding up Rowan. Her arm is soon in a temporary splint, but Amity doesn't have time to heal it.

I don't understand. Everything is disjointed, fractured. I remember walking into the School, then nothing. Then...what? The explosion? How did we get from walking into the School to lying broken on the ground? I turn back to the School and gasp.

There is a huge hole blown in the side of the School. The edges are jagged, smoking still. The hallways are covered in rubble. I can see straight into one of the classrooms. One desk stands in the middle of the room, completely undamaged. I almost start laughing. This can't be happening.

There's a flurry of movement. I don't understand what's going on anymore. I can see Liz dragging up water from the ground. Another teacher. The silver flash of a sword. And a man, tall and muscular, wearing inky black armor. He's fighting Liz. I can barely see what's happening. All of a sudden he's twisting her arm upward behind her. She whimpers, and several of the younger kids scream.

Everything explodes into chaos. Soldiers start pouring out of the woods. They're catching us by surprise. The fire alarm was a trap, of course. Now everyone, even the youngest children, are outside, surrounded by enemies. There is no refuge in the partially destroyed school. We haven't even started but we're already losing.

Rowan leads a group of children toward the woods. She's trying to protect them using the same sort of shield she used in Costa Rica. They are panicking, running. She's struggling, but I can't help her.

A heavily muscled man runs toward them. I start to yell out a warning, but Mackenna is faster. She raises her hand and burns him. Immediately she stumbles against me. I hold her steady. That brief effort has tired her. We are too weak for this, all of us. We don't have enough energy.

Several people from both sides attack simultaneously. Flurries of fighting break out everywhere. I see the flash of magic and the glint of weapons.

The only weapon I have on me is a knife, as well as my magic and fighting skills. It's not enough. The soldiers have swords. I can barely even use a sword.

The battle ends up looking something like a martial arts movie. People are punching and ducking and rolling. It's not good enough, not when they're more armed than we are. I run forward, use a flash of magic to immobilize someone. Grab his sword.

A huge man comes toward me, swinging his sword like a club. He shoves the sword at my side and I block it easily. Tempeste's army is supposed to be powerful, but this almost isn't as bad as I expected. If all Tempeste's soldiers are like this one, maybe we stand a chance at beating them. Maybe.

Suddenly he straightens up as if he's had a rod stuck down his back. All his muscles tense. Now his blows are powerful and precise. I barely manage to block the first one. I have to disengage, back up.

He comes after me, timing his blows perfectly. He sweeps his blade sideways and I duck, but not fast enough. His sword opens a long shallow scratch along my forehead. Blood drips into my eyes. The man raises his sword to do an overhead strike, and I block it clumsily. Then I smash the hilt of my sword into his temple, half accidentally. He crumples to the ground and I run off. I know he's not dead, and I don't even think he's unconscious, but I don't look back to check.

I take down two more before my sword starts to feel impossibly heavy in my hand. My arms ache with each block. Finally, it drops heavily to the ground. I think I'm dead until I have the insight to kick the soldier in the kneecap. It gives me enough time to get away, but I can't recover the sword.

I can hear someone coming up behind me. With my sword gone, I'll have to use magic. I'm afraid of giving myself away, afraid of tiring myself. And I know that if I use magic, he will use magic too.

I start to whirl around to face him when a dark shape come hurtling toward me. I duck instinctively and it sails over my head. I make out fur, paws, a bushy tail. The wolf lands on the chest of the man, knocking him backward.

The wolf throws back his head and howls triumphantly. Then he whips around to face me. I keep focusing on Min's caramel eyes as he changes back to human. Their color stays exactly the same.

"You lost your sword," he says, taking the one from the man. "Here, take this one."

I'm afraid that one of us will die, that I'll never see him again. A rush of heat flows through me. There are so many things I want to say, but I'm just not sure how. I run my eyes along him, trying to memorize every detail. I want a picture of him to hold on to.

"Good luck," I say, even though it feels painfully inadequate.

"Um...you too." He reaches out and pats my shoulder awkwardly. The touch that means nothing to him means everything to me. It's like caffeine or something, sharpening everything, focusing me.

I'm fully prepared to stay like that forever, and I think he would too. But then the moment is over. The battle is still raging around us. We have to keep going, keep fighting, push on. We separate, and I don't even know if we'll ever see each other again.

Paige is lying on the ground, clearly injured. I kneel by her side. Her eyelids flutter and she raises her head weakly.

A soldier sees us and starts coming toward me. He whips his sword at my shoulder and I can't raise my sword in time. I manage to block the blow with magic, but the flat of the blade hits my my arm, the impact jarring painfully. Another injury to add to my growing list.

I shove him back with magic, then send him flying into the air. I smile, pleased with my power. Then I turn my attention back to Paige.

She's white-faced and panting. There's a long cut above her knee, which is bleeding freely. I hate blood, but I force myself not to freeze up. I haven't spent the past three weeks learning about first-aid for nothing.

I know I should clean out the wound, but I don't have any water and blood loss seems to be the more pressing problem anyway. I look around for some sort of cloth. The only thing I can find is the hem of my shirt.

I start trying to rip it. Movies make it look easy, but it's not. The fabric doesn't seem to want to tear. It takes me at least five minutes to rip a rough strip off my T-shirt. It leaves my shirt too short, another reality they never seem to show in movies.

While I'm doing this I have to shove away several more soldiers with magic. I know if I keep using magic like this I will tire myself out, or worse, reveal myself to be Princess of the Wilderness. But I can't help it. I have to help Paige.

I wish I could use healing magic, even just a little like Min. Paige is weak from blood loss. I struggle to drag her into the woods. Mackenna sees me and helps me. We lay Paige down only a little ways in. We try to hide her enough so she will not be found. I'm worried about leaving her alone while she's unconscious, but neither of us can be spared.

Mackenna and I fight together for a while, her using fire. I even pull out my claws a few times. I'm too exhausted to do much else. And now the world almost seems to be spinning. Blurring through the haze of sweat and tears and blood. I can't seem to take in a proper breath.

I don't think I can do much more. The ground is littered with bodies, some injured, some dead. We're so badly outnumbered, it won't be long before the dead bodies far exceed the hurt ones. We need to find a way to win this. We need to find a way to end this.

I keep picturing Min's face, forcing myself to keep going. I hold on tight to it. Everything is a blaze of pain and exhaustion, injuries, death. I am nothing. I am numb, a machine, going through the motions of the battle because I'm too tired to feel anymore.

I tell myself that if I stay alive today, Min will choose me. That somehow this battle will be the deciding factor in his eyes. That this will make me seem attractive or brave or powerful or whatever it is that I'm still missing. I imagine him holding me the way he does in my dreams. And I keep going. But I can't do this forever.

Finally I can feel the end coming. The man in front of me is huge, gripping his sword effortlessly. I'm shaking so badly I can barely even hold my sword. I can barely even stand.

I block his first swing, but I can't block the second one. I'm picturing Min, praying for strength, but no amount of determination will lift my sword for me, not after I'm spent like this. The sword drops limply from my hands, and I slide to the ground on my knees. I look up, but I have no energy left. Not even to brace myself for a death blow. All I can do is close my eyes.

I see a flash of white light through my closed lids. I open them impulsively, and where the man was now there is Storm, her hair standing up from electricity, scorch marks on her hands.

"Come with me," she whispers, wrenching me up. "I need to talk to you."

She drags me a little ways away from the battle. It's not like we can really escape it, but we have peace at least for a few minutes. I bend over, panting as I try to catch my breath.

"This isn't normal," she says to me.

I bite back a sarcastic response. Maybe this isn't normal for her, but it's starting to be normal for me. But she obviously does have something she wants to tell me. And she did just save my life.

"They're being controlled," she says.

"What do you mean?"

"Tempeste can control us. All of us. Giving us instructions to coordinate our attacks. Bolstering our fighting skills with her own. She makes us stronger, makes us organized. Makes us impossible to defeat."

"You mean with her mind?"

She nods. "Yeah, sort of. I don't really know how to explain it. It's like what Seth does, only better. All three of them can do it."

I want to scream or something. This isn't fair. Now what are we supposed to do? How can we defeat a skilled, perfectly coordinated army when we're so...insignificant?

Then the other thing she said hits me. "Wait did you say 'us'? As in you? Is she controlling you too?"

"No. She's not controlling me. She could, though. She thinks I'm dead. But if she didn't, if she knew...." She takes a deep breath. This is what she's afraid of, I realize. Not of dying or being defeated, but of being controlled by Tempeste.

"I can hear her instructions." She smiles slightly. "And I'm getting her fighting skills too. She doesn't even realize." Lines crease her face. "But it's hard. It takes too much effort for me to resist her commands. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. I'm like a time bomb. That's really what I wanted to tell you. You have to watch out for me."

"Will it ever stop? Is there a way to end it?"

She shakes her head. "She can control them indefinitely. Control me indefinitely. There's no way to stop her."

The pain in her voice is evident. It hurts me. I want to help her, but I have no idea how.

"There must be something. Something to break the connection. Then maybe we could win the battle too."

"You could kill her." She says it with a bitter laugh in her voice. She knows as well as I do that none of us have any chance at killing Tempeste.

But what if I could? I could change the tide of the battle, without Tempeste to guide them the army would be lost. I could save Storm. And who's to say that I can't kill her? I'm the Princess of the Wilderness. I have untapped powers. Maybe I could kill her. And as soon as I think that, I know I have to try.

"Can you tell where Tempeste is?"

"Yes, she's in the forest that way but...."

"I'm going to kill Tempeste," I say, my voice coming out more forcefully than I really feel. "I'm going to kill her. And then you won't have to be afraid anymore."

# CHAPTER 43

My plan has two simple steps. Find Tempeste, kill Tempeste. Except it won't be that simple.

I enter the woods near the place that Storm pointed to. I'm guessing she will be somewhere hidden, but close enough that she can watch the battle unfold. But I can't think of a place like that. And time is running out.

I have an idea, but I'm not sure if it will work. When I control plants, I can feel them, like they're a part of me. So I should be able to feel other things too, right? Even if I'm not controlling them. And then, if I could feel them, I could figure out where they are. I've never done it before, but it makes sense. Kind of.

I crouch down and put my fingers on the ground. Close my eyes. I imagine my mind flowing outward, enveloping everything. In the darkness, points of light flare up like tiny flames. The consciousnesses of everything around me, plants, animals. The mass of people fighting, glowing too bright for me to focus on. And another consciousness, also bright but more concentrated, like a shining star. Tempeste.

As I expected she is not far, but well hidden in a little depression in the ground. I stand, wrenching myself out of the shadow world. I stumble, my energy dropping alarmingly. I should have known that would happen. It always takes more energy the first time I use a new kind of magic.

I give myself to a count of thirty to recover. Than I walk confidently in Tempeste's direction. Time for part two of my plan.

I tell myself I'm fearless, invincible. Maybe Tempeste will be afraid of me. More likely, I'm just keeping myself from running and screaming. I have no chance at this. And in the back of my mind, the part I'm forcing myself not to listen to, I know that I am sacrificing myself for a hopeless cause.

I try to breathe deeply and run through my fighting skills as I enter the clearing. Tempeste is sitting on the ground, her eyes flickering under her closed lids. I know that right now she is influencing the fighting of everyone under her command.

I remember her from my vision, where I saw her plan to attack the school. I remember the way she looked so much more...normal than I expected. But even that didn't really prepare me for seeing her in real life. This is the person who started the war, who killed my mother. But she's so slender, like Storm. No taller than I am. How could she do all those terrible things? How could anybody?

As if she senses my presence, her eyes fly open. They are startlingly blue. For a split second, she appears shocked and slightly confused. But within heartbeats she has mastered herself. A cruel smile plays around her lips.

"What have we here? Come to challenge me? Hoping to kill me or yourself? You realize you have no chance, don't you?"

"I'm not afraid of you." I know it's a weak response, as well as a lie. But I want her to believe it. And maybe, if I say it strongly enough, it will be true.

"You have no honor, but you are brave. I admire that. I will not enjoy killing you. But I must."

I remember the vision again and realize she's telling the truth. She actually doesn't want to kill me. But she thinks she has to, the same way I think I have to kill her.

I muster up as much courage as I can, try to make my voice clear and strong. "You won't kill me. And I have more bravery and honor then you can imagine. I am Aubrey." I pause dramatically, waiting for her to react. Then I realize I forgot the most important part. "And, um, I'm the Daughter of the Wilderness."

I instinctively take a step backward, which is lucky. Almost faster than my eye can follow, she's on her feet, lunging toward me. I stumble back, barely dodging a glowing orb of water that she throws at me. Now there's a mad light in her eyes. The frightening control she showed earlier is gone.

A pulse of energy throws me backward. I hit my head against a tree and for a second I see stars. Tempeste is screaming with rage, spitting out furious words I don't even know the meaning of. I scramble to my feet and take off running. All thoughts of my plan are gone. Now I'm just trying to protect myself.

"Going so soon?" she says with a high, cold laugh. She encases my calves in sheaths of ice. She walks toward me, excruciatingly slow.

I'm terrified now. My heart pounds against my ribcage, and my breathing is shallow and fast. I pull against the ice with everything I have. All I am is the animal instinct to escape, to run from the fear and pain. Sweat beads on my forehead, and a few tears pool in my eyes. I sag into the icy bindings. I'm hyperventilating so fast that my hands are blue and shaking.

I catch myself. I have to stay strong. I can't sink into fear like this. I can't let it overwhelm me.

I shove out with magic, as hard as I can. The force of the magic shatters the ice and pushes Tempeste backward. As soon as I regain my balance I'm running again. I can see the faintest glimpses of the battle through the trees and I sprint as fast as I can, stumbling over rocks, branches scraping my bare face and arms.

I run out into the field. The battle is raging around me. I plan to keep going, but Tempeste hits the back of my legs with something and I drop to my knees. I stand up and half turn when I feel her encasing my legs again. Tempeste is advancing toward me with a long knife in one hand, and an icy whip in the other.

I do the only thing I can think if to stop her. I cause the grass at her feet to grow, entangling her legs. Now she is trapped as effectively as I am.

Her eyes widen in surprise. She gasps slightly, then she extends her hands and starts pushing against the vines with magic.

This is my first experience with a power battle. Her magic is going up directly against mine. It's just a matter of who is stronger, who can hold out for longer. I know that she has more energy than I do. But I won't give up. I will never let Tempeste escape.

It's the hardest thing I have ever done. After less than a minute, I'm shaking so badly that my sword drops from my hand, landing point upward in the dirt. I start hyperventilating again. Sweat and blood pours into my eyes. I'm vibrating now, and I'm suddenly afraid that I'm about to fly apart, shatter into a million pieces.

Every nerve in my body is screaming in pain. Black dots dance at the edges of my vision. I sway and almost pass out, but I manage to keep holding Tempeste in place.

The blackness turns to red and swims in front of my eyes. My heart is beating unevenly and it hurts to breathe. One of my knees buckles, but the ice holds me up. The red turns to a shimmery blackness again that pulses to the rhythm of my heart. But I keep holding Tempeste. I will not let her go.

My eyelids close. I don't have the strength to keep them open. If Tempeste doesn't give in soon I will pass out, or kill myself trying to win this.

Suddenly, a bright light flashes through my lids. Someone is supporting me, holding my weight in her arms and bolstering me with her strength. My eyelids flutter open and I see that it is Liz.

Somehow, she has taken over my battle. She is using light energy to keep my plants in place. She is using her own strength to keep Tempeste contained. There is hard determination written all over her face.

"End it, Tempeste. You cannot win this."

Tempeste's features are frozen in a snarling mask. Her eyes bulge. For a few seconds, I'm worried she won't release the magic, that it will continue taking my life force until I have nothing left to give. But she does let the magic go. The bindings stay on her legs.

I sag into Liz's grip. She holds me until I can stand on my own. Without Tempeste pushing against me, it doesn't take much energy to maintain control. I think I can do this for a while yet.

Screams break out across the field. A man is using fire to try to get to the youngest children. Mackenna is trying to combat it, but so far not very successfully. Liz looks at me, judging my strength.

"Go. I'm fine. I can keep holding her."

I can tell she doesn't want to leave me, but she has to. The children are in danger.

I look at Tempeste. Malice burns in her eyes. She extends her arm and forms a whip out of water again. I make up a whip of thick, long grass to combat it.

I've never used a whip before. It's not very easy. The length of grass seems awkward. I can't seem to control it properly. But Tempeste can use it, so I have to be able to. I can't let her escape. I can't let her win.

She swings hers at me and I barely manage to block it. She does three more blows in quick succession, aiming at my knees, chest, and head. I block the first two and duck under the third. Barely. Tempeste's combat skills are far better than mine. I can't land any hits, and it's only a matter of time before one of hers connects. And it only takes one.

Everything is happening in flashes. I'm watching Mackenna and Liz struggle to fight the fire. I barely manage to block one of Tempeste's blows. I'm watching Min fight several men at once in a fearsome display of grace and power, changing fluidly back and forth between human and wolf. I try to wrap my whip around Tempeste's knees, but she blocks it. Rowan and Drew gang up on one man while Storm grapples with another.

A bow string snaps. The sound stands out amid the clash of of swords and hiss of fire. Who is using a bow? I haven't seen a single bow this whole time. I look around for the archer, but see something else instead. An arrow. The slim arrow is on a direct course to hit Min. And he doesn't see it.

"Min!" I scream. The sound is raw and wild, tearing itself out of my throat. I turn to look at him, my heart thudding.

And two things happen at once. Min hears my scream and turns, the arrow missing him by mere inches. And Tempeste's whip collides with my side.

It takes almost a full three seconds for the pain to kick in. Tempeste allows the barriers around my legs to dissolve. I just stand there, swaying. Trying to understand what happened. Wondering why my legs won't work. Why I can't breathe. For almost three seconds.

Then the pain starts, driving me into the ground like a stake. It washes over me in black waves, collapsing me in on myself. I curl up on my side, trying to think, concentrate, plan, or at least stay conscious. I can feel three separate places where the pain is radiating from, where I know my ribs have been shattered, and maybe worse.

I lie with my eyes closed, struggling to master the pain. It's like a snake within me, refusing to be tamed, and striking hardest when I least expect it. It takes me many deep, slow breaths before I get to the point where I can open my eyes.

The battle is in disarray. Tempeste is ignoring me, casually controlling soldiers with flicks of her wrist. Most of them are making an open circle around Tempeste and me, effectively trapping me with her. Min and Mackenna are fighting to break through, to get to me, but they keep getting pushed back. Mackenna is blasting fire, her hair whipping around her face. I see that she is crying. She must think I'm dead. That makes me sad. I don't want to make her sad.

It takes me several minutes to work all this out because my thoughts are going so slow. I can't figure out what to do. All I know is that I don't want Mackenna to be sad, so I try to move to show her I'm alive. I twist slightly and it hurts so much I'm afraid I'll pass out.

I try to move again, but much more slowly this time. I don't twist my ribs. Instead, I lift myself up on my hands and lower myself where I want to go.

Min sees me struggling to push myself up and gasps. He exchanges a look with Mackenna and they begin fighting with renewed vigor.

I lower myself just a bit too hard and the world spins around me. I'm worried I'll throw up or something if I continue to move, so I go back to staying still. That's easier.

I pass out for a few minutes anyway, though, and when I come to, the battle is going worse than before. Maybe, if we somehow kill Tempeste, we could still win, but I don't see how that could happen. She has separated all of our fighters into small groups, and surrounded them until they are badly outnumbered. She still has a large section protecting us. And I can't move. I think I'm going to die.

I see Mackenna. She is alone, surrounded by a group of at least ten soldiers. They are not making any move to kill her, so I assume they must be trying to capture at least some of us.

Mackenna is using a spear of pure light energy to try to fight her way out. The spear gives me an idea.

I have no strength to make a weapon of my own, but I might be able to sustain Mackenna's, for a few seconds at least. Tempeste's back is turned and she thinks I'm unconscious or dead. A few seconds with a weapon could be all I need.

I have to contact Mackenna somehow. The problem puzzles me for a while. I barely have the energy to breathe, let alone talk. I try vainly to signal her by moving my arms. Every few seconds the movements triggers spasms of pain. It probably looks like I'm having a seizure, there's no way for her to understand what I mean. I try to yell out to her too, but it doesn't work. It hurts too much and my voice is barely a whisper.

Finally I scream out with my mind in desperation. I remember extending my consciousness to find Tempeste, and it's like that, but this time I am projecting it forward, shouting into Mackenna. Directing my whole self toward her, everything I am. I don't really expect it to work. I have never heard of anyone doing something like that. But Mackenna looks over at me.

The spear. The spear. I try to focus all my thoughts on it, forcing them at her. She looks briefly at the spear in her hands, then back at me. She appears confused.

The spear. I need the spear. Throw it. I don't know how much she understands, but it's enough. She lifts up the spear, and throws it as hard as she can in my direction.

My right hand is currently trapped beneath my body, so I reach out and pick it up with my left. Mackenna was behind Tempeste, and her back is to me now. She doesn't notice I have the spear. I start to crawl forward. I clutch my right hand around my chest, irrationally afraid that if I don't, I will fall apart.

Each movement sends shivers of pain along my side. But I am beyond the pain. Above it. I reach Tempeste and half lift myself up. Take a deep breath.

She hears me and starts to turn, starting to say something. Too late. I stab the spear through her as hard as I can.

# CHAPTER 44

I scream. The pain is so intense I can't breathe. It seeps into everything, blocking everything out. It goes hot and cold, fiery then numb. I see stars, then a murky redness. And then everything explodes.

My arm must be on fire. I writhe on the ground. Screaming. The pain moves with me, wrapping itself around me, dragging me to new heights of agony. Blinding tears pour down my face. I'm a desperate animal trapped in my own body. Trapped by the pain. Waiting for it to end.

My hand feels like it's glued to the spear. It's glowing so brightly, energy is ripping up and down and into me. My teeth are chattering. I feel like I might fall apart. I feel like I might be dying.

All Tempeste's energy is transferring to me. It's too much. I can't handle any more. With a burst of strength, I wrench the spear out of her body, and it dissolves in my hand. I fall backward with Tempeste on top of me.

Fire is licking up and down my arm. Agony radiates from my broken ribs. Tempeste is on top of me, choking me, pressing me into the ground. I can't breathe. I think I'm dying.

I shove Tempeste off me. The small act of twisting, of moving my arm, almost makes me black out. Tempeste's body is half off me. My upper body is free, but my legs are still pinned.

I don't remember pulling my legs up underneath my body, standing up. The sky whirls around me. The ground seems to be moving under me. But it might be my imagination. Or something.

Min is running toward me. Or maybe he's staying still. Or maybe that's not even Min, it's someone else all together. Anyway, the person is a long way off, and they don't seem to be getting closer quickly.

I take one halting, stumbling step forward. The person, I think it is Min, still doesn't seem any closer. I take another step. Those two steps are the longest of my life. Each one seems to take a thousand heart beats, melting together into one.

I finish my second step and just stand still, swaying slightly. My knees buckle and I collapse forward. But suddenly Min really is there, and he catches me against him. One of his hands presses on my ribs. Pain washes over me, covering my whole body, drowning me. And then I'm lost to the swirling blackness.

I'm walking through a dreamscape, full of dark, twisted things I can't quite make out. It's barren, empty, and cold.

I would think that it's my soul walking through my dreamscape, but honestly I'm not sure it's even that. It's just all my energy and excruciating pain. The pain eclipses everything else until that is all I am. I am a girl of pain. And when I am only pain, it's really like I am nothing. I'm nothing right now, and I'm not sure if that's enough.

I walk for a long time without anything happening. I keep stumbling, and I want to lie down more than anything, but I keep going. There's something here I need to see, I can feel it. And I think if I stop, I'll die.

Eventually, pictures start to appear on either side of me, like TV screens hanging in mid-air. A brief scene flashes across each one as I walk by.

I see a woman who looks like a brown-eyed version of Tempeste. She is standing in a library. All of a sudden, a ball of energy like a comet flies into her. She stumbles backward. For a few seconds her face is frozen in shock, then she starts to laugh and cry at the same time.

The next vision makes even less sense. All I can see is a shapeless black form. The same comet of energy runs into it. It starts to grow bigger, more defined.

Suddenly, in the distance, something catches my eye. I start to run forward, but then I see it's just another one of the visions. But this one I can't tear myself away from.

Min is leaning over something. He looks worried, and all I want to do is comfort him. I reach out, trying desperately to touch him, but nothing about the vision is solid. It doesn't even ripple. I watch him for a long time. I watch as Mackenna enters the room and stands beside him. I watch as Liz tells him something and he waves her away. I watch until I can tell what he's looking at. It's me, lying still and pale in a bed. My heart almost skips a beat. I look dead.

Min puts a hand on my shoulder. I can feel it even in my dream. Then something weird happens. Energy starts to flow into me, making my skin glow. The pain starts to ebb. I feel like I've just received an electric shock, but in a good way.

Then all of a sudden, darkness surges up around me. I collapse but never hit the ground. I'm not unconscious exactly, but floating, suspended in blackness. I think it's just for a few seconds, but really I have no idea.

Light explodes around me, flooding my vision. The landscape opens up below me. Spires of red rock reach into the blue sky like a forest. One towers above the others, rising thousands of feet. I'm flying. Or floating. Wind pushes against me. I'm no more than a leaf, or a feather. I go where the wind takes me.

I half fall, half glide downward, toward the tallest tower of rock. My vision goes on fast-forward, skipping a few times and speeding up. I blink once and I'm at the rock, hovering over a thick ledge.

On the ledge below me, I can see something. Or more accurately, someone. It's a girl, maybe a year or two older than me. Her long blonde hair is tumbling loose from her ponytail, and she's just a little too skinny.

As I get closer, I can see that she's hurt. She's crumpled on the cliff like a rag doll, broken and still. I can only see one of her bare arms, but it's twisted too far behind her and covered in bruises and scrapes. The back of her T-shirt is shredded, and a huge patch of skin on her back has been damaged. She must have been injured somewhere else too, because blood is pooling around her.

The girl is dying. I don't know who she is, but all of a sudden, I really don't want her to die. The pull to save her is irrational, unexplainable. One of the strongest things I've ever felt. I want to save the girl more than anything. But how can I do that when I can't even save myself?

Even as I start pouring my energy into her, I know it's a bad decision. By helping her, I am condemning myself. I don't have energy to spare. My legs go weak, and I know that if I were standing I would have just fallen.

Suddenly, energy starts pouring into me. It has Min and Mackenna written all over it. It makes my chest ache. I feel like they're really with me. I wish I could see them again. But I can't. I push their energy into the girl too.

I can literally see vitality returning to her. She stirs faintly. She half sits up, and her arm moves into the correct place. It wasn't broken, just dislocated. Her color is already better. She takes her first deep breath, then turns toward me.

I gasp. The girl is absolutely the last person I expected to see. I don't understand who she is, how she could be here. Because the girl I just saved could be my identical twin. Except for her eyes. Her eyes are piercing blue, full of understanding, looking right at me. I want to say something, but before I can I'm whipped downward and into darkness again.

I really do pass out this time, and when I wake up I'm in my dreamscape again. But this time my surroundings are blurred, like I'm viewing them from underwater. I stand and almost fall into a chasm that has opened up before me. I try to backpedal, but it's like running the wrong way on a treadmill. The chasm is sucking me forward. And I'm just too weak to resist.

The ground underneath me crumbles, and I grab the edge at the last second. I'm dangling by nothing but my fingertips.

Within seconds, my arms are shaking. I'm too weak to pull myself over, too weak to even hold myself up. I can't help but look down. Below me is blackness. And suddenly a rush of certainty flows over me. Certainty that this is real. If I fall, I really will die. This isn't a dream, just a different version of reality.

I don't even have enough energy to stay conscious. I can feel that I'm about to pass out. The energy from Min and Mackenna is gone. I have a core of energy, but it is quickly being eroded. My eyelids flicker. A wave of pain washes over me, making my left arm slip off the ledge.

Suddenly energy flows into me. It's not Min or Mackenna. It's completely unfamiliar, almost an alien feeling. The energy reminds me of an ocean, unimaginably vast and old, constantly moving. It's wild and a little frightening, but there is something fiercely beautiful about it too.

The energy overwhelms my own. It lifts me up, pushes me out of the chasm, helps me out of death's way. I lie, panting, on the dark grass of my dreamscape. Then the strange energy flows out of me, leaving me with nothing. I sleep for a long time.

# CHAPTER 45

I wake up in degrees. My first sensation is touch. I can feel pain, but it is manageable. I can hold it tight in my heart. It will not destroy me.

I can feel a thin mattress below me, and scratchy sheets on top. I'm cold. Someone is tipping broth down my throat. It's hot. Almost burning me. Too watery.

The next thing to return is hearing. At first all I can hear is voices, no words. There are at least two people above me. I think they are trying to be quiet. It makes it harder to tell.

Someone bursts into the room. I can hear a door opening and slamming shut. Running footsteps. This voice is easy. It's clearly Min.

"Aubrey, can you hear me? Did it work?" A pause, then, "She's dead, isn't she? It killed her."

I hear a tired, exasperated voice. Liz, I think. "No. She's not dead. Be quiet. She just needs sleep.'

"Oh sorry," he says in a rather loud whisper. "I'll go tell everyone else."

"When do you think she'll wake up?" I think this is Paige's voice.

"Soon. But she's been through a lot. It will take time for her to recover completely. She is very, very lucky."

"What about her arm?"

"I don't know. I just...don't know."

Liz resumes pouring the soup down my throat. I am content to let her. I have no desire to move. I don't even know if I could. And I don't want them to know I'm awake. I'm not ready to deal with life again quite yet.

Liz finishes the soup and starts giving me something else. It is the consistency of toothpaste and tastes bitter and pungent, like herbs. The taste is so unexpected that I cough and gag. My eyes instinctively fly open.

"Aubrey!" Liz gasps. She grins. "Welcome back!"

Paige runs out of the room and calls for Mackenna. She comes in, looking confused. Then they catch sight of me, awake. Mackenna screams and runs over to hug me.

I reach up to hug her back but I can't move my arm at all. I must have slept on it wrong.

The effort of sitting up leaves me weak and dizzy. I fall back on the bed, my eyelids fluttering, struggling not to pass out. Finally I recover and manage to fully open my eyes.

"Aubrey, how do you feel?"

"I've been better." My sarcasm earns a few relieved chuckles. I look up at Liz and see that she has tears pouring down her face. Mackenna looks like she's about to start crying too.

"You've been unconscious for six days. You were dying. Your fever was so high, and we couldn't bring it down for days. You were barely breathing. We all thought you were never going to wake up. That you were going to die. How do you really feel?" Concern is written on her face. I begin to talk, but break off and start coughing. The movement makes my ribs ache. But that doesn't matter. I have to give voice to my real problem, my real fear. I don't want to. Once I say it out loud it is defined, I can't go back.

I can't go back either way.

"I can't move my arm," I whisper. Because I know I didn't really just sleep on it wrong. This is something bigger, something worse.

"I'm so, so, sorry, Aubrey." Her voice hurts. It's tired and beaten down and injured. "We were afraid this might happen. When Tempeste died, she pushed too much energy into you. It literally destroyed the nerves in your arm. I don't know if it can be reversed or not." She sees the look on my face. "But we'll try. We'll try everything. We'll never give up on this. And...that's not the only thing that happened."

She hands me a mirror, and it seems apparent that I should look in it. I gasp. My eyes, my beautiful green eyes, have been turned to sky blue. The same color as Tempeste's.

"No," I whimper. "My eyes."

For some reason, this feels like the last straw. Tempeste almost killed me, she scared all my friends, she took away the use of my arm, and now she's gone and changed my eye color. A wave of fury rushes over me, and I know it's unreasonable. But I'm suddenly glad she's dead, so she can't bother any other innocent kids anymore.

Liz leaves to give me a minute alone with Min and Mackenna. And to get me more medicine. And to tell everyone else that I'm alive.

Min and Mackenna still look a little surprised, as though they're sure my breathing and heartbeat is their imagination. Mackenna can't stop smiling.

"I'm so glad you're okay, I thought you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead, they'll be so happy you're okay, they stayed awake the entire night...."

"Wait, what?" I interrupt. "Why did they stay awake the entire night?"

"They were keeping vigil for you. Here, I took a picture. I knew you were going to live, and I thought you might want to see." She fumbles in her pocket and hands me a small, rectangular photograph.

At first I can't see any details, just a dark room with hundreds of points of light. Slowly, the room comes into focus. It looks like almost the whole school is gathered in the cafeteria, looking toward my room. Every person in the room is awake, and all of them are holding a candle. People in beds, in chairs, sick people, well people, children and adults. All awake for me. I feel tears gathering in my eyes.

"I want to go see them," I say.

"What, right now?" Min says. He looks concerned. "You're too weak. You can see them later, when you're more recovered."

"No. I have to go now." I can't explain why to Min, I just really need to. They stayed up for me. And some of them are injured, dead even. Because of me. I guess that's why I need to see them now. They've risked and lost their lives for me. And so far, I have done nothing to deserve it.

I swing my legs over the bed and immediately collapse. Or at least I would have collapsed if Min hadn't caught me. He holds me, supporting me as the world spins over my head.

He seems impressed with my determination. I put my arm around his shoulder, he puts his arm around my waist, and we carefully make our way to the door.

I open it and just stand in the doorway for a minute. The makeshift hospital is bustling with activity. Then a few people catch sight of me, then more, then everything comes to a standstill.

"Aubrey!" someone screams, and then Rowan is running at me with her arm in a sling, and Lily follows her, and then Drew and Marco and Seth, and then everyone else. Everyone wants a piece of me, a touch or a hug or a few encouraging words. I move through the room, stopping and talking to everybody, with Min and Mackenna by my side the entire time.

When I have finally gone through the whole room I stop, exhausted. I feel sick and dizzy, but there's another feeling, a good feeling. These people fought for me. They care about me. It makes me feel special, I guess. But I'm still not sure I deserve it. I'm not sure what I could ever do to deserve it.

"I don't deserve any of this," I whisper to Min.

"Is that what you're worried about? Of course you deserve it. You have earned it just by existing. You give them hope, Aubrey, and that's something they could never have without you."

I'm still not quite sure I get it, but I can't argue. I just lean my head back against Min, and he holds me. I can give them hope. And that is something, even if it can't be enough. I know I can do more than that.

I make a silent promise to myself, one that I vow I will never break. I will protect these people, these people who will fight and die for who they hope I am. I will protect them, and I will live up to their expectations. I will give them hope. I will be their savior.

Even if I have to die.

#

Devlin began writing the Aubrey Rising series when she was 13 years old, and finished it just after she turned 15. She is currently 17 years old and is working on her seventh novel. Devlin enjoys writing, karate, and spending time with her friends. She lives in New Hampshire with her parents, brother and dog Cocoa Puff.

October 2015
