Chapter 1
Methods of Escape
Bonterra City, in the Windborne Britain District
Well past midnight, Cor glided in a serpentine motion down dark, tree-lined streets. His longboard’s wheels made a rhythmic thump crossing the concrete’s seams, and he pumped his wings every five thumps to keep up his speed. As the houses, dressed up with flowers and guarded by fences, spread farther apart, he slowed and turned a corner. Ancient rowans arched overhead, making the passage feel like a cathedral. Tonight, he’d timed his entrance perfectly with the crescendo mounting in his earbuds.
With a flourish of swinging arms, he pointed left, then right. Gold magic sailed from his fingertips and filled the gaps between branches. Some shone like soap bubbles, others caught webs and left glowing lines in lacy patterns. The best trapped leaves. His magic lit their tissue from within and left the veins as dark skeletons.
At the block’s end, Cor swung a wide arc in the intersection to face his creation and halted with a stomp of his foot, Dvorák’s violin concerto racing to its crashing peak. Every tree was aglow with his stained-glass windows, the farthest fading ones enhancing the impression that this natural wonder extended forever.
The music ended. With his thumb, he clicked off his mobile phone, savoring the last notes and flickers of light until his magical forest fell dark again.
If he could get to a truly wild version of these old trees, he’d never leave.
Cor pulled a pair of leather gloves from his pockets, tugged them on and picked up the longboard. To earn an internship at a Windborne forest took being in one place long enough to build complex tree spells. These rowans contained his best shot from the summer. Not the light show. That was the icing on the cake. The underlying magic he’d sparked came from weeks of developing a defensive spell against boring insects, a project he could show wizard foresters at the Windborne Arboriculture Conference.
If he managed to get into the exclusive meeting.
He walked across the intersection, checked to verify no one else was about, then flapped his dark brown wings to rise above the high stone wall surrounding the Gruen Estate. Spruce boughs reached from the inside, giving the illusion of an open, friendly place—only an illusion. Still, the branches were useful for marking his entry point, and their shadows camouflaged his brown skin and black clothing while he hovered between them and searched the top of the wall… Red stone, red stone…
He spotted it and lowered to inches above the wall’s magical shield before he shrank his wings to nothing but pure energy and drew it in. That, and the rest of his magic, he shut into his storage cores. The estate’s security would detect a magical-aided entry—and a physical one if he wasn’t careful.
Excitement surged through him, as it always did at this point of sneaking back in. With his sister gone at art camp, he’d had to find his own fun. Some of this she would have tattled, but he missed having her to confide in about his problems with freakin’ Marty—or his plan to pretend to be an attendee at a conference of adults.
The ball of one booted foot tapped down on the red stone, and he moved the other to a flecked stone two over, both of which he’d removed the warding from. With his free hand, Cor reached up and found the ropes with carabiners knotted to the ends. He clipped one to a ring welded to the longboard and let it swing first. By the time it stilled, he’d screw-locked a second rope to the climbing harness he wore. He grasped the rope in gloved hands, folded his body into a crouch—damn, he needed to lay off the doughnuts Master Harold so willingly shared—then aimed for the trunk of an old pine set back from the wall.
The aim was what had taken practice. Hours at the climbing center of holding his elbows in and feet together, weight balanced. Any bit of him sticking beyond the two-foot slot of the exclusion tunnel he’d spelled into the barrier and he’d set off the alarm.
He sprang off the wall. In a rush of wind, the swing carried him ten, fifteen, then twenty feet and past the inner edge of the zone designed to detect people jumping the wall. The swing stayed true to the target. He kicked up his feet as stoppers against the pine’s trunk and bent his knees to absorb the impact while throwing an arm over the nearest branch.
Safely inside the barrier, he waited, listening. Only the breeze whistling through the treetops. And an exchange of hoots.
He stowed his equipment, collected his longboard and climbed down. Slate paths for visitors wound over the grounds, but he took the most direct route to the manor house through the trees.
A shadow dove at him. He dodged—and smacked his head on a branch. “Ouch!”
Kee, came a soft but insistent hoot, and an owlet landed on a branch in front of him, ducking her head and fluttering her wings, her baby calls still croaky kee-wiks.
Cor laughed. “You brilliant beggar. No, go hunt your own food.”
Rubbing his head, he offered his leather-clad arm. When the tawny owl hopped on, he petted her crown, removing a few baby-down feathers she’d missed preening. He hadn’t fed her in weeks, but bringing her mice that had invaded the greenhouse had probably saved this youngest hatchling. Her larger, older brothers usually nabbed the prey dropped off by the parent birds. Still, she begged. She’s not a pet… That was hard to remember with all her cuteness. She was as close to a pet he’d ever had, since their family traveled so much.
“You’re a beauty, Toots.” He rubbed his knuckles over her open beak.
Squeaking, Toots walked up his arm, sat on his shoulder and nuzzled his neck. He smoothed her wings to her back, hugging her light body to his. For all of thirty seconds. She nibbled at his earring and, when he brushed her off, yanked a curl of his hair.
“Hey, bugger off.” She fluttered to the nearest branch, then hop-flew along as he walked and tried to pretend she wasn’t there.
Everyone wanted something from him tonight. Aunt Syl haranguing him about chores, the nursery saying they needed twice the inventory if he wanted them to carry his seedlings for sale and, an hour ago, Marty demanding payment for the privilege of walking the streets over near the falls. Bloody arrogant boss of his bloody neighborhood.
If the only beeches in Bonterra didn’t grow on that hillside above the river, he’d never go there. But those seedlings sold the best. Despite the ache from an energy shockball to his thigh, Cor was glad he’d refused to bend to the gang’s demands. For the first time, he was carving out a place in the wizard city he’d been born in.
When the owlet landed on him again, he grasped her around the middle and tossed her into the air. “Go hunt. That’s what you do.” With a thought, he activated his energy cores and released magic to form up his wings and arched them to deter her. As much as he liked Toots, he couldn’t let her waste her hunting time following him. She had to find her own territory. He knew little about birds, but figured the parents hunted the estate, and it wasn’t hard to spot other tawny owls in the city. His birds needed a permanent home, someplace they wouldn’t need to leave, in wilder country.
So did he. In September—three weeks from now—his parents would return from their summer’s travel for the Gruen Foundation, and their family would be off again. Autumn in the States. The winter in Costa Rica. Spring somewhere else he’d forgotten after hearing they’d have only a week between in Bonterra. He had presented several internship possibilities—all shot down. Rooting out a winning option during the conference would be his final hope before he was dragged off.
He hit a path and kept to certain slates that weren’t warded. The trees became smaller and more ornamental closer to the manor house. A few lights lit the inside, but the conservatory to the side was dark, as were the windows of the old cook’s cottage, both the main floor and his aunt’s bedroom window upstairs.
“Nice evening for a walk,” said a deep voice.
Cor stumbled. A frantic flap of wings lifted him, and at the last second, he landed on the wrong stone—
Lights flared to life, freezing him like a deer.
Beyond them, in the dark, someone sighed. “My mistake,” the man said. “Cancel the alert.”
“Got it, Master Harold,” came the guard’s voice over the radio.
The lights cut off, but their damage was done; Cor was now night blind. And caught, blast it! In his personal scoring system, he had to make it to his room across from Aunt Syl’s or the success of sneaking out and in again wasn’t credited. He blinked and raked up the curls over his head, checking they weren’t flattened or had stuck leaves to reveal his activities.
“And a nice night for riding, I suppose,” Master Harold added with an amber-lit gesture to Cor’s board.
“True,” he agreed warily. The head gardener had hired him to water in the greenhouses and garden beds. For someone so old, Harold kept terrible hours.
“Have something for you, if you have a minute.” Master Harold pivoted through the open conservatory door, casting a dim light around his large frame. His bald head glinted like richly polished chestnuts, and he wore his usual evening attire, a monklike robe that he said was most comfortable after a day of dirty work in the gardens and greenhouse. Master Harold wasn’t frowning, or even remotely angry, but his full cheeks were lifted in an annoying, knowing smile within his neat, sycamore-bark-silver beard.
Cor sucked his teeth, a sound the old man had told him came across as bad as back talk and recommended he not do it. Cor couldn’t seem to break the habit. “I do,” he said quickly to try to smooth things over—Master Harold hadn’t reported him—and picked his way across the path on the correct stones.
“Still would like to know how you learned so quickly which to use,” Master Harold said.
Cor doubted the truth would be accepted—the tree roots had shown him. Harold preferred the botanical rather than the magical side of plant growth, ironically, since the Gruen Foundation focused on increasing tree energy. Instead, Cor dug a handful of beechnuts from his pocket that he’d scavenged from the leaf litter. “More to start tomorrow. Copper beech.”
Master Harold dipped his bald head approvingly before taking the main walkway through the conservatory. Cor closed the door behind them—the moisture still felt correct, so Master Harold hadn’t had it open long—and propped his board against it, then followed. The air was scented with orchids, the rich humus of the soil and something new tonight.
“Delivery?”
Master Harold cast him another glance. “After you left. The dozen juniper bonsai starts we ordered.”
“You want me to pot them up?”
“I said I had something for you, not a chore. Which reminds me.” The older man paused at the bed where Cor had been working that afternoon and pointed. “Forget something?”
No…he’d finished transplanting the orchids and put away the pots. To be certain, he stepped closer. Something twinkled green in the dark.
Leafbringer.
Cor groaned. He reached, flowing gold magic to his fingers, and the broadsword wiggled in the ground where he’d stuck it after using it to take yew cuttings and plant them. The sword rose and sailed lazily to him, not as promptly as it would for his sister, Hazel, but it came. And hilt first.
Harold handed him a rag. “Make sure the soil is out of the engraving and get it back to the armory. Tonight, so I have no questions to answer during the morning’s tours.”
At least Harold didn’t rail at him about getting permission. Leafbringer’s magic invigorated his plants the same as it did for Hazel, so why not use it? With him wiping the weapon, they left the conservatory and approached a door just inside the main house. Master Harold put a hand to it, letting his magic flow unlock it.
The old gas lamp flared as they entered, a combination of a motion detector and magic. Stirring the rich, moist scent, Master Harold waded among dropped tools, gloves and plants on every surface. Some he’d forgotten he was carrying when he returned to his office. Other pots on the broad stone windowsills he was nursing along. Harold plucked an envelope from the fronds of a fern and handed it to him.
Cor glanced at him before tucking Leafbringer under one arm. He broke the seal and lifted the flap. The cream card matched, and above the printing was—
He stuffed it back and shoved the lot at his boss. “No, thanks.” Cor strode from the office before he could snatch back the envelope, because an invitation to the Windborne Arboriculture Conference meant everything. Listening to the latest research, meeting the forest wizards and finding one who needed a worker to do anything that would get him someplace green where he could stay for a year or two. He pushed the conservatory door, before remembering the sword and backtracking down the hall.
Footsteps sounded behind him. “You didn’t even read it.”
“Can’t take a handout.” His aunt would be furious. She’d certainly tell his dad. His parents’ rules were he and his sister had to earn stuff, not be handed it because of who they were.
“It’s a job, as a volunteer gofer for the conference. You’ll be running your legs off, which certainly isn’t a handout.”
Cor stopped. A…job? “Not as an attendee?”
Master Harold barked a laugh. “That would take more pull than I’ve got. One of the coordinators asked if I had any academy students who could fill tomorrow’s last-minute vacancy. I recommended you.”
Cor turned. “Me?” The question spilled out before he had a chance to think of how bloody desperate he sounded. “I’m not in academy and likely can’t swing it next year.”
“You. The chap who won’t study for the entrance exams because he’d rather visit the ailing elms across town and ward them against infection. Who steals my catalogs and orders exotic bare root stock with his own pocket money and hides the saplings in the optimal beds. Who will have those bonsai planted before my first cup of coffee is even made.”
So the old man had noticed.
Master Harold held out the envelope.
He shouldn’t, but…a job Aunt Syl would agree to. He took it and pulled out the card, lighting his own fingers this time. He scanned where and when to report, attire to wear and duties. “Field trips?”
“Likely you’ll just have to fill in for what the sick gal was supposed to cover.” His boss shrugged.
Cor pretended to read it over again, but his mind rolled with the possibilities. He’d already researched the speakers, their home enclave tree species, their pet research projects. He’d have to prioritize who he’d most like to ask about internships. If only I don’t blow it.
“I might not get to those bonsai.”
“I will. Do me the honor of being on time and sticking to the duties they assign, not disappearing like you are wont to do. If I might suggest…”
Cor stuffed the card and envelope in his jacket pocket. “What?” He brushed a hand over the black leather. “I should color my clothes into something pretty?”
“Leave your leather armor at home for once.”
“You’ve been listening to Aunt Syl. I don’t wear it to put people off.” But it did. People looked at him, a black guy in black, and zipped their gazes away in disdain, rejecting him before even finding out anything about him. Cor glanced at his hand, the warm red-brown of sessile oak leaves in autumn compared to the sleeve’s true black. At least the jacket let him fade into the background when alone in a crowd, because when he was beside his dad, he was never overlooked.
“First impressions matter. Your docent uniform will be suitable. Consider toning down the jewelry. And try to smile. Like you’re happy to be there.”
No one needed to know if he was happy or not. Now that he had a legitimate way in, he simply had to say enough without being a show-off or bloody sappy. Too much was riding on his chance to get a real internship to mess it up by blurting how keen he was about trees.
* * *
Chapter 2
It’s All About the Control
Boulder, Colorado
“You gonna wait for Mr. Magic?”
The calculus text fell from Fern’s hand. The commotion following the school dismissal bell drowned out its thud at the bottom of her locker, but not her friend Amanda’s laugh. No! There was no way Amanda knew. Fern wanted to jump in after the book.
“Don’t try and kid me, Fern Fields.” Amanda leaned closer to Fern’s locker. “I see the way your eyes light up when he comes into advanced biology. Beri Moors has you under his spell.” She stretched his name into a howl of Mooooors that echoed within the metal locker.
Fern steeled herself against the tingle rising in her arms. Please, not now. Not when she’d convinced Mom her control of her magic could be trusted, even with her human friends, at their human school, Boulder High. If so much as a green spark slipped out, Amanda would see it in the shadowed locker.
“Cute, cute, cute. Tall, tall, tall. Need I say more? Go for him, girl!”
Fern sagged in relief. Amanda didn’t know. Nothing had slipped out, words or magic, thank the Golden—oops! Fern picked up her text, shoved it into her pack, slammed the door, spun her lock and swung her long hair out of the way to shoulder the pack.
“Ha! I knew it. You’re blushing.” Amanda—whose creamy cheeks never reddened—grinned and punched Fern’s now tingle-free arm. “Tell him quick, ’cause he’s only here for the school year, and senior year is gonna fly for us.”
Fern leaned against her locker, not meeting Amanda’s grin and not fanning her neck. Her olive skin would hide the worst of it. She’d shared a lot with Amanda over the years. But not that after seventeen years of living like a human she now had magic. Or that she used a portal to visit her gran on a hidden island thousands of miles away in the Irish Sea. Or that she was now in charge of Gran’s magical Meadows habitat. But Beri was a harder secret to keep.
One she didn’t want to keep.
Smiling, she turned her head, knowing Amanda was watching. “I might talk to him.”
The short brunette squealed. “Yes! Then when you go to Scotland to visit him, I’ll visit you and find my own hunky Scot. But no redheads for me. We’ll make mine tall, dark and handsome.”
“Ireland,” Fern said as she scanned the throng of students jostling their way toward freedom.
“What?”
Oh, she’d said that out loud without thinking. “He lives in Ireland now.”
“So you have talked to him,” Amanda said as she hopped in place. “See him?”
She had little hope of spotting anyone before Fern did. Being six feet tall helped in some situations.
Amanda tugged her arm. “Talk to him before you get on the bus. You’ve got five minutes alone. Then during the ride up the canyon, you can fall into him on the curves, maybe even grip his hand and keep holding it.”
Fern snorted. “Yeah, right.” But the fact was, she was waiting for Beri. They usually touched base in the corridor after school, just to make sure Beri had everything clear or that nothing unusual had happened that they needed to call Mom about.
“What’s the matter with getting cuddly with him?” Amanda asked. “I know you’ve never had a boyfriend, but you get used to that warm, fuzzy feel fast.”
Ha! Fern could tell her plenty about warm magic. Not. “I’ll think about it. My mom, you know.” She rolled her eyes for effect.
“There he is,” Amanda hissed, stopping short of pointing at the broad-shouldered, green-eyed, freckled redhead who towered above the other students. “I mean, look at him. Perfect for you. Tall.”
“Hey, Mand? Could you give me some space with this? Like you say, it’s my first shot at liking a guy who’s…” Perfect. She couldn’t blurt that. Not yet. “Tall.”
Amanda sobered. “Maybe your only chance to date a guy you can look up to,” she said in complete seriousness. “Glad to see you’ve pulled your nose out of the flowers and are going to do something about your social life. Call me later, okay?”
“I will.”
Amanda dissolved into the crowd as Beri plowed through it, catching her eye and tilting his head in the opposite direction of the buses. Then he headed that way, with a glance back and an insistent frown.
What was going on? She shoved off her locker, elbowing her own broad-shouldered body between packs as she rounded corners a couple of yards behind him. At a back exit crowded with jocks, Beri held the door open for her.
He smiled, and she melted. Warm. Fuzzy. Everything Amanda had said. But she didn’t put out her hand, and neither did he as they headed toward the playing fields. They couldn’t risk touching until absolutely no one would see.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Merlin called. One of the rips is expanding. I must get back as soon as possible to lend my mag—aid,” he said firmly.
Crap. He’d caught himself, but Dad’s “call” had thrown Beri off. Merlin—her newly found dad, not the Arthurian wizard—had raised Beri after his parents died, and so they “called” each other using magical thought-speaking that came naturally for anyone who had grown up in a wizard family. But not her.
“During class? That must have been fun,” she muttered.
Beri blew out a breath. “Had me looking around to check if he’d come into the room. The lass behind me thought I was making eyes at her, so then I had to deal with both conversations at the same time. I’m still nae sure what I said to her.”
Great. Fern would give Dad the bell schedule and instructions to call only during class changes. And she’d accelerate their plans to let people know she and Beri were together. The idea to wait until she had more control of her magic had gotten old fast. “He should have had Mom text me,” she said. “What’s happened with your gap year, the rumspringa break?”
Beri shrugged one shoulder. “The agreement was it’d start once the worst rip was repaired—this one. Or as of my birthday.”
August thirty-first. In a couple of weeks, Beri would turn eighteen, and the crazy demands would stop. He could just be a student, and they’d have more time together.
“Merlin wants you to attend as well, for your training. They will pick us up along Boulder Creek, that path through the woods we discussed.”
Fern groaned. Yeah, they’d discussed it, but never picked an exact place. That’s where students sneaked off to smoke. “It would’ve been safer to meet right next to the building.”
With their long-legged strides, they were on the path in minutes. Her parents weren’t there. Avoiding the lingering cigarette odor, they walked to the street, turned around and walked back. The smokers and students walking home had cleared out, and Beri lightly touched her elbow.
It wasn’t a random bump and when he looked questioningly at her, she nodded. He slid his hand down and laced his fingers with hers.
It felt so right that she sighed. Then she immediately looked around. Still no sign of her parents. Beri pulled her off the path—okaaay, they prooobably had a few minutes—and around a tree trunk. They bumped together, and she wanted to put her arms around him, but the tingling had started, and it was all she could do to hold her magic in its storage core. Still, Beri bent his head to hers, so Fern began closing her eyes—and caught a movement behind him. As she swung to look, her chin smashed into Beri’s ear.
“Youch,” he snapped.
And she spat, “Mom!” because it was Mom coming around the tree, wearing her ragged work jeans, her brown hair braided and falling past her hips. Her petite mother might be only five feet tall, but she certainly hadn’t been on the path seconds ago. “Uh, hi,” Fern stammered.
In answer, Mom tilted her head and narrowed a disapproving look at their clasped hands.
“What—crap.” Something green trickled over her finger. It could be candy, gum, anything—but it wasn’t. Fern balled her hand, sucking in her magic. It withdrew into her cores, and the tingling stopped, just as her dad poked his head around the tree, too.
“Brilliant,” he said cheerily. “No one about. Let’s go.” He gestured them closer with a short, reddish-brown glass rod fastened on a leather loop that he wore around his neck. The peregrinator for magical travel could pass for a new-age pendant. If Mom ever let him go into Boulder, he’d blend right in—long black hair and beard, leather trousers and a homespun shirt, the collar cream against olive skin a little darker than Fern’s.
“Dad could have warned you they were here,” she muttered to Beri and pulled him with her, not letting go of his hand despite Mom’s frown. No point now.
Dad put his hand on her shoulder so both she and Beri connected to his magic, and Mom clasped his arm. The glass peregrinator in Dad’s hand glowed. Magic flushed from it into a globe around them, and the pereport started. Leaves and branches, then buildings, buses and cars whirled outside their protective barrier—they could see out as Dad directed the teleport, but no one could see them.
As they lifted above the Flatirons of Boulder, Fern closed her eyes to block the blur of mountains and canyons—the ups and downs of Colorado’s Front Range were way too high for her stomach. In a minute, the scent of pine replaced the city, and a soft branch brushed her cheek. She opened her eyes in a grove of ponderosa pines that hid them from the neighbors’ prying eyes.
Giving a huff, Mom hurried off, along a zigzag of lichen-covered granite. The path led from the trees at the back of their property to the modern log cabin she and her mom had lived in since Fern was three years old.
“What?” Fern asked as they descended the slope. “She can’t be that mad I had one little slip. Is it because she caught Beri and me together? Or because of having to pick us up by…” Magic? They didn’t say certain words outside the closed doors of their cabin. “She knew you might need to someday.”
“’Twas the parade of elders coming through her house,” Dad said. “Looking for Beri.”
“Through the…” Portal? No way. The magical passageway that only Fern had been able to operate for the past year was now reconfigured to open with a spark of magic when Beri came over from his home on the Isle of Giuthas for school. Dad had set that up for just them…or so she’d thought. It must work with any spark of magic.
Beri grimaced, but Merlin raised a hand. “Not your fault. Problems along that rip escalated today. Once they started, the council discovered its breach is tied to the Pines. They need you to…help because of your work with those trees.”
While Beri and Merlin discussed that help, Fern rushed ahead and caught up with her mom past their cabin.
“Sorry about the elders breaking your rules.”
Mom didn’t stop walking. “Merlin will handle it. You say naught, just do what your father suggests for tonight. Otherwise, keep your magic contained.” She glanced at Fern’s hand. “I shall put on a quash when you return.”
A quash was the equivalent of a magical grounding. Fern bent to her mother’s ear. “It was one spark,” she hissed. “It would have been nothing if you hadn’t snuck up on us. You can’t quash me, not if I’m going to the conference in Bonterra tomorrow.”
“We shall discuss it when you return Sunday,” Mom replied. “I need to get back to work.”
Fern stopped, while Mom crossed the wooden footbridge over the creek that split their property. She disappeared into the garage art studio on the other side, where she was flameworking glass for a large order. Fern knew not to push it, and now she had a reprieve to come up with another excuse.
“Fern!” Dad called from the cabin’s door.
Together, they entered the portal—a doughnut-shaped opening of spinning magic—and emerged in Gran’s bathroom on the isle. Dad didn’t loiter in the empty cottage, but picked up a lantern and headed outside. The moment he left, Fern threw her arms around Beri’s neck. He encircled her waist, and for a precious thirty seconds, they hugged with a full flush of magic.
“Give it your best,” he whispered in her ear. They pulled back the magic, easier once they had mixed it for a moment, and followed Dad. Exchanging energy with Beri was the one thing her magic did well, without any effort.
Night had already fallen. Beri unfurled his wings and lifted off, disappearing into the dark.
“’Twill be good for you to lend your magic to the repair efforts.” Dad pointed to the ground. “Reconnect your magic to your habitat and fill your cores to take as much energy as you can.”
Fern shoved her fingers into a flower bed beside the cottage and pulled her Meadows’ energy into her magical channels.
Dad paced as he waited. “I should warn you, people may be testy tonight. Many have complained that your return to your studies has slowed the flow of your habitat’s energy to the common pool we use for hiding the isle. I’ve assured them your commitment remains strong, but it doesn’t help that Beri spends half his hours abroad before he’s officially on his break.”
Beri chose that. I’m only responsible for my parts of this. Still, that hurt. The isle was seven hours ahead of Colorado, which meant after getting home on the bus, she either had to do her Meadows work in the dark, or not at all. Lately, it’d been not at all. Channels full, she straightened. “Would it help if I pulled some every day and…whatever, bottled it to pass along?”
Dad shook his head, but with a smile. “Maintaining your production requires an actual interaction with the habitat. Plant your seeds, harvest something, work with wildlife—” He snapped his fingers. “The beehives!” His excitement flickered rust-brown magic around the glass peregrinator in his other hand. “Before you leave in the morning, we can check the hives for mites. With tens of thousands of bees in each hive, a magical touch will connect to millions—”
“Dad?” She hated to bring this up, but opening beehives still made her nervous, despite how reassuring Dad tried to be about the protection of the bee suits. “You don’t want me magically touching bees. Ihaven’t exactly proven myself with anything besides plants.”
He stroked his beard. “Anything will do. You could light the smoker and fan the smoke while I remove the frames—”
“I had hoped to seed eight new wildflower patches before fall. Don’t we have a rip repair to get to?” She clasped his arm.
With a grunt of exasperation, Dad flushed the glass rod with his magic, and Fern closed her eyes for the pereport. “Still, the bee chores need doing,” he resumed, and she knew they’d arrived. “It’s getting late in the season, and they are a Meadows responsibility. We can’t put these things off because of your school hours.”
Fern said a noncommittal, “Huh,” and looked around—as much as she could. The dark silhouettes of trees surrounded them, so they were in the Forest habitat. Dad handed her the glowing lantern and guided her to a spot between two trunks. Bending, he lifted his hand between them as if raising a shade, because handling magic was like that for him. It’d have taken her much longer to find this broken boundary, let alone get inside.
This was nice, arriving with her dad. In the two weeks since they’d met, he’d taught her a magic lesson every day. She hadn’t gotten much better at working her magic on things besides plants, but she’d finally started to know the father who’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
Dad stepped through the opening in the barrier, then gripped her elbow to help her follow him inside. “Mind your step.”
The ground on this side trembled, and a hundred feet off, a golden patch of light shone like a forest fire. As they pushed through the underbrush toward the light, its color shifted to orange, then blue. Shadowed figures moved, backlit like the tree trunks. A pop sounded. The people froze in place. Strands of color spun upward like the ribbons the dance squad waved at the football games, but these kept going up and up, escaping among the branches.
Those ribbons were pure magic. Lots of magic.
Magic needed to hide the island.
***
Guardian of the Pines released April 26, 2019.
Buy the ebook from me directly. Or available with paperback and Large Print edition through online retailers.
Amazon | Nook | Apple | Kobo | Universal Book Link | Ingram Spark