“Not always,” the dragon said, his voice booming deep in his chest. “But it is best not to search for the hidden powers. They are that way for a reason, and many are unpleasant to deal with. You see the brightest, and that is best for you, I think.”
“I'll take that as a positive, then.” Trent hugged himself a moment, and the momentary hesitation caused by the dragon's words fled his expression, replaced by exuberance. “Man, that was great!”
“Good. You can stay up here all day and talk about it, but me . . . I think I'm going back down where it's warm, even if I have to work for it!”
Trent grinned at him. He found the trail they'd hiked up and disappeared over the edge. Jason ducked out from under dragon wing to follow, but found himself stopped by one obsidian claw.
“Watch him,” the dragon said. “He sees too much and knows too little.”
Jason bit his lip, then nodded. “Okay. I'll remember that.”
The dragon inclined his head. “And next time, bring warmer clothing.” He laughed, his hot breath washing over Jason, as he drew his foot back, freeing the Gatekeeper.
“You'd better believe it!” Jason threw one arm about the dragon's snout, hugging him, and then he hurried to catch up with Trent.
If there was still a hot breakfast waiting down below, he wanted to be sure he got his share.
13
Button, Button
B
AILEY PLUCKED Lacey out of her pocket, rubbing her thumb over the sleepy rodent's head. If Lacey could have snored, she would have, as the pack rat's eyelids reluctantly fluttered open. “Time to work,” she crooned softly. Lacey nicked her tufted tail, catlike, as if answering and then gave a half chirp.
“Must be hard on her,” Ting offered, leaning over to pet the small creature herself. “She's nocturnal by nature, but we keep her up all day.”
“Don't fool yourself! She does a lot of sleeping in my pocket.” Bailey flashed a grin. “Besides, keeping her awake during the day means
we
sleep better at night. She does a lot of rattling around otherwise.”
Ting wrinkled her nose. That was too true. Because the pack rat was more than a pet, Bailey kept her close, but the tiny rodent's nighttime habits of rambling, searching, nesting, bug hunting and so forth made sleeping really difficult for others. She gave Lacey one last head rub between Bailey's fingers and said, “Put her to work, then! I need my sleep.” She leaned over and picked up a small basket of glowing crystals, each one imbued with energy that Gavan Rainwater and others had flooded into it, each one able to do a variety of small enchantments. Some of them she could read easily if she tried, others were too intricate and powerful for her to decipher. Ting would like nothing better than to sit down and sort through the tiny gems, pondering each of them and its inner mysteries, but she knew that would be frowned upon. If the elder Magickers had wanted her to know, they'd have told her. Still . . . she ran her fingers through the basket's contents, letting the crystals rain through her slender touch. She trailed after Bailey as they climbed into the inner workings of the unfinished academy wing.
Their footsteps echoed in the hollow rooms of the building. Bailey knelt down, placing Lacey on the floor. She held her hand out to Ting, who gave her a crystal. “White ones in the ceiling ducts,” she repeated, although they'd been doing this for days.
“Right.” Bailey handed the small crystal to the pack rat who took it eagerly with a chitter and promptly stuffed it in a cheek pouch, then sat and cleaned her whiskers as if she hadn't a hidden treasure on her. She fed her several more before sitting cross-legged on the floor, closing her eyes, and reaching for Lacey's thoughts.
Whiskers. Dirty and dusty, must groom. Lacey sat, combing her paw through her long, silky whiskers with pride. Beautiful whiskers, and useful, too! Bailey gave the creature's thoughts in her head a little nudge. Treasures must be placed on rafters and in ventilation ducts, in nooks and crannies all over and then
left
there, unnested. Lacey flipped her tail in irritation at such unpack ratlike behavior. Gathered, yes, and put away for safety!
Bailey nudged her thoughts again. “No cookies,” she muttered aloud and Ting muffled a giggle at that. Bailey opened one eye to stare at Ting. “She's being stubborn.”
“Imagine that.” Ting hid her grin behind one slender hand.
Bailey shut her eyes again. Tomaz wouldn't approve of this way to work with the beast, but she found it easier. When Lacey moved, she dashed and hopped around so quickly, that Bailey got motion-sick trying to look through two pairs of eyes. This way, she could concentrate on the pack rat's movements without feeling like she was going to hurl doing it. That, of course, made her less in charge but more in tune with the animal. Sometimes she wondered if Tomaz Crowfeather knew what he asked of her, but then remembered him with all his crows and ravens about him, and knew he knew exactly what he was trying to teach and ask of her. He could brush thoughts with almost any animal, if he tried. She wondered if her Talent would someday be as great as his. She shivered at the thought. There were many animals she had no desire to share with! Starting with wolfjackals and working her way down to cockroaches!
Lacey dashed off with a squeak. The thought of cockroaches had pushed her into action. As much as they made Bailey shudder, they made Lacey hungry. Crunchy and good to eat. Not as good as cookies (what was?), but almost. This building had a disturbing lack of such good things to nibble on, although crickets could be found now and then. It was not the season for crickets as evenings got cold, but they would be back in the spring. Lacey scrambled up beams and dove nose first into the heating ducts. She found a good niche for the crystal in her cheek, took it out and placed it. Sniffing for insect goodies and not finding them, she dashed deeper and deeper into the ducts, placing crystals whenever Bailey poked at her to do so, until her cheek pouches had emptied. Luckily, she found a lazy, sleepy cricket and munched it down before scrambling out of the ducts and returning to Bailey's outstretched hand.
Bailey had just pinched off a piece of oatmeal cookie, more health food than cookie, but the pack rat didn't care. Bailey opened her eyes as the whiskery face nuzzled all her fingers thoroughly, mopping up every possible bit of crumb.
Ting ran her hand through the basket again. Not many crystals remained for placement. “I could do this,” she said, voicing her thoughts aloud.
“All of them?”
“Well, not all, but most! And I can tell that Gavan has enchanted some of these a couple of times, as if he didn't get them strong enough the first time.”
“Why?”
Ting shrugged. “No idea. Unless he's just doing too much. Which is why I said, I could do this. We can help, you know, more than they let us.”
Bailey looked about. “We have been helping! We've built almost this entire academy.” She stood, dusting her fingers off on her breeches. “I want to know where the secret passages are.”
“Secret passages?”
“Sure! Don't you think they're in here? I'm willing to bet they are. For escaping and hiding.”
“They built them when we weren't looking?”
“Something like that.” Bailey made a soft fist and tapped experimentally on a wall, listening. She moved a few paces down and tapped again.
Ting watched her for long moments, then said, “Well, far be it from me to suggest that if I had a creature who could wiggle inside almost any passageway to look . . .”
Bailey shot her a glance. “Use Lacey?”
Ting shrugged.
“She knows the inner ways well enough, but she's not smart enough to know if it's a regular passage or a secret one, you know?”
“But you are.”
“Of course! Now, give me some more crystals and let's move a room over.”
Ting picked up her basket with a soft laugh, and shadowed Bailey to the next lecture hall.
Bailey waited for Lacey to fill her cheek pouches with a few crystals, then put her down and directed her scampering off. She sat down cross-legged again, shoulder to shoulder with Ting, feeling her senses reel again as Lacey ran across flooring, ducked into an opening, and then scaled the inner walls to the ventilation passageways. A darkness covered her eyesight for a moment, then cleared as Lacey's own acute sight adjusted, although it was the sense of smell which enveloped her. The wood had keen smells to it, and the nails another, and the bracketing and fixtures another. She could see how animals saw the world in a kaleidoscope of patterns that humans did not. It used to muddle her terribly when she first felt Lacey's thoughts, but now she knew how to both embrace and filter it. Of course, there was a part of her that vigorously rejected the idea of hunting down crunchy crickets, or rolling along colorful balls of lint if found for a wonderful pocket of nesting material in a corner, or any number of things that flitted through the pack rat's small mind.
It took most of her concentration to keep Lacey moving and placing the crystals where the diagrams she and Ting studied indicated they should be. One, two, three crystals from Lacey's cheek pouches, laid in a mitred crevice or put atop a beam, from which the rodent jumped and swung about like an acrobat.
Then Lacey took out the last crystal. A stray bit of light hit it from a crack through the joints, and the gem piece dazzled in her paw. Bailey felt the flash of emotion in the beast. Pretty!
And Lacey was off, dashing away through the vents and along the beams, crystal in her mouth and hoarding in her thoughts. Nudging her back to her job lost its possibility. The rodent flung herself into headlong flight and disobedience.
Bailey leaped to her feet. “She's off!” she cried to Ting.
“What?”
“She's stolen the crystal. I've lost her completely.” Bailey pulled Ting to her feet. “You go that way. I'll go this!” And she dashed off as well. Ting picked up her basket before running in the other direction, not a clue in her head as how to find one tiny pack rat in one huge, rambling, unfinished building.
Bailey ran till she was out of breath, upstairs and down, and skidded to a halt, her heart thumping in her chest. This was ridiculous! And most of the panting and excitement she felt came from Lacey, through the barest of connections, as the little furball tried to run and hide.
“Poor thing,” Bailey muttered to herself. “She knows she's been bad, but she can't help it!” She stood for a moment. If she were a pack rat, where would she go?
Button, button, who's got the button?
Bailey turned in a slow circle. She could almost hear Lacey panting. She'd run in the same direction, however wildly it seemed she'd been going.
She had to be somewhere about, and close. Maybe . . . Bailey slid her palm along the wall in front of her, looking for a crack or unfastened panel. Somewhere about here . . .
The wall clicked.
Bailey blinked as it suddenly swung open into darkness in front of her, and at the same time, something swung into the back of her, knocking her through!
She went headlong into nothingness, and the wall solidly thudded into place behind her.
“I think,” said Bailey quietly, standing very still, “I found that secret passage.”
And worse, as she strained her magickal senses, it was blacked out, warded, against any kind of magic whatsoever.
She was trapped, with no way for anyone to hear her!
14
Chutes and Ladders
B
AILEY DISAPPEARED from Ting's thoughts as abruptly as a door slamming shut. She skidded to a halt in a corridor, putting her hand to the wall, and listening. She wondered for a moment if it was her, if she'd suddenly gone deaf or something, because everything about her seemed to stop as well. Then she realized. No Bailey. No best friend of her life. Even when Bailey wasn't cheerfully chattering about something, she put out this vibration, this lively electricity that let Ting know she was awake and about somewhere. Now a void stretched across Ting's life. She hadn't felt anything like it since . . . well, since the last time Bailey had disappeared! Then, new to crystals and focusing, Bailey had projected herself inside her amethyst and it had taken days and days for them to find her, because she'd managed to toggle time itself, as well. Leave it to Bailey to get lost in a way no one else could!
And then there was now. Ting rubbed her arms which suddenly danced with goose bumps. “Bailey?” she called softly, even though they had run in opposite directions. In the new empty corridor, even her quiet call echoed a little.
If not Bailey, then, what about Lacey?
She hadn't the Talent Bailey had, for sure, but she knew Lacey almost as well! Ting wrapped slender fingers about the crystal cage on her bracelet and sent her thoughts casting about for the stubborn, fleeing little furball. She felt nothing at first and concentrated harder. Something feathered against her thoughts before rushing off. Lacey! Ting went after that brushing presence before losing it entirely.
Whatever rabbit hole Bailey had fallen down, Lacey hadn't. That much, she knew.
Ting sighed. What should she do now? Get Gavan? Hope that Bailey would get unlost any moment? She leaned against the wall, trying to think. How serious could this be? Did she just lose track of Bailey or was Bailey really and truly
lost
somewhere and somewhen again? And . . . could it have anything to do with Jonnard?
This last worry sent cold chills through her, making the goose bumps dance even harder, and Ting shivered all through her slender form. She had better find Gavan, and now. Grasping her crystal to find her direction within the walls of the academy, she set her focus on the headmaster, and let her crystal lead the way.